Amends

Part 1


Lightning flashed as the gun’s barrel blazed.  The bellowing demon called Thunder roared long and loud, drowning out the staccato beat of the gun’s constant firing.  Shiny golden shells rained down around my hands, mingling with the tears from the sky that plummeted down and drenched me to my bones.  In the light and the roar of the storm, the gunfight went on in silence, in muted light, subtle and irrelevant to the greater state of things.  My hands shook with the bucking of the gun, but I held it tight and the bullets went right where I wanted them to go.  
The first took a burst in the belly, dropped his gun and fell to the flooded concrete in a slow, fluid motion, like molten iron flowing into a mold.  Two tiny flashes followed, dwarfed by the light flashing overhead.  One crouched behind the car, both hands ‘round his gun, firing steadily.  The other stood out in the open, grinning like a maniac, gun spitting out again and again.  Right out in the open, no cover at all, the fool had a death wish.  Just like me.  I felt the shot like a heavy fist in my gut, stumbled back, but I did not fall.  I swerved the gun, and a half-dozen red roses sprouted out of his chest.  He fell, the crazy grin frozen on his face.  I kept the gun moving.  I wasn’t smiling.  
Another shot, tore right through my arm, throwing shredded bits of flesh in the air like fluff from a feather pillow.  I swear, I couldn’t feel it.  I moved the gun, and then the glass was exploding in a line along the back windshield of the rain soaked car, the bright flash above reflected in the shattering mirror.  Inch by inch the bullets burst through the window to the end, and then into the gunman’s face.  He dropped like a stone.  The lightning faded with the muzzles flash, the fire and thunder quieted, but the rain still fell.  
Suddenly I fell to my knees, the gun slipping from my hands to clatter along the heaving deck.  All around me, the sea rose and fell.  My hands went to my stomach, came back sticky and red.  I shuddered, the pain reaching me at last.  I struggled so hard to keep my footing.  I wouldn’t just lie down and die.  Not while he was still alive.  The bell on the ferry’s cabin rang, one minute to land.  Behind me now, someone was screaming, the ferryman.  Me and the three men who’d been sent to make sure I never reached the other side were the only passengers.  I’d met them on the deck face to face, real cool-like, and now I was dying on a damned ship in the middle of a storm with my destiny only a minute away.  
Grunting, I stood and stumbled to the rail.  Blood rushed to the deck and mixed with rain, and I couldn’t tell the difference.  The ship quaked and I slid on the slick steel, nearly flung over the rail.  I grabbed on and held on tight.  My leg buckled, but I wouldn’t let it fall.  It would not end like this.  Behind me, buzzing like an annoying fly, the ferryman was shouting into a radio, oh my god, he killed them all, hurry bring the cops.  Ahead, the black line of the shore stood a lifetime away, my mission out of reach.  I couldn’t see it, not in this storm, but I saw it in my minds eye, straight down that rode, the old gated mansion where the two of them awaited me.  Just a few more minutes.  And then I heard a scuffling on the wet deck behind me.  I mentally berated myself, idiot, moron.  Of course they’d have the ferryman.  I turned and there he was, dragging along on the deck a big metal pole, some random piece of equipment.  He swung it towards my head, and I could see it clearly.  All I had to do was duck the blow, draw my knife and punch it into his chest.  But that didn’t happen.  Perhaps my leg buckled at the wrong moment, or maybe I was just tired, the sleepless nights finally catching up to me.  The metal caught me high in the head, I felt bone crack, bit my lip, and I swear it hurt more than the bullets.  I stumbled back he rushed in, grabbed me and shoved me further back.  I fell, over the rail, slipping into the black cold water and seeing only the radiance of the lightning, the shining beams of rain falling from a dark sky, and heard only the roar of thunder and the low rumble of the waves.  

Cold, so cold.  Suffused in darkness, body numb with the bitter cold, I floated on the waves.  I drifted in and out of dreams, and in and out of life it seemed.  I heard whispers, then screams, angry or afraid, begging for mercy or shouting for vengeance.  I saw a hundred gray faces floating before me in the water, and I felt my phantom finger pull that familiar trigger.  A hundred bullets, a hundred deaths.  I’d like to say I remembered all of their faces.  I saw a hundred fingers pointed at me, eyes glaring with hate.  I smirked.  They demanded vengeance.  I laughed.  I had no time for the dead.  
My dreams drifted into memories.  I saw two faces-a man and a woman, she much younger than I, he the same as I but much smaller, with a childish grin on his face.  Routinely, I mirrored that grin, as I had every time we’d accomplished something together in the past, since that first day when we were seventeen and we’d joined the Ligelli Family together.  My smile changed to a furious glare, painful memories thrusting to the forefront.  “You betrayed me!”  I shouted, fury lucid in my voice.  “How dare you!  We were friends!  We were like brothers!”  He kept smiling, unfazed, the darkness between us a million miles.  And in my hand, a gun, finger on the trigger, itching to pull.  No, I had to strain just to hold it back.  “I got you to where you are!  How can you throw that away!”  He smiled, then closed his eyes.  He made no excuses.  “No!”  I shouted.  “Damn you that’s not good enough!  You cant get out of this by keeping quiet!  You’ve never been quiet in your whole life, so answer me now.  Why!  Tell me why!”  He laughed.  I fired, but the bullet just melted into the darkness, fading away.  He faded as well, that grin still on his face.  Miguel, my oldest friend, now my truest foe.
Then I looked on her, long blonde hair flowing in the air, liquid brown eyes so deep and wide, crimson lips in a twisted smile.  I tried, desperately, to feel hate for her, but my heart betrayed me just as she did.  Undesired, love and longing filled me at the sight of her.  Love, and a deep anguish for the old times that no longer existed.  “Why?”  Was all I could ask her, my voice choked and deep.  She did not answer, except to quit her smile.  Verona, once my love, now, if not quite a foe, certainly no friend.  
They’re faces faded to blurs in my eyes, I felt my mind begin to wander.  Once again, the cold came, so cold, filling my lungs with water sharp as knives, and soon blackness was all I could see…

When I next opened my eyes the first sight they saw was a damned crow.  Standing right over my head, peering down into my eyes with it’s carrion stare.  Probably wondering if I would taste good when I died.  Stubbornly, feeling my body ache with sharp pain as I even thought about moving, I leaned my face towards it.  It cawed in alarm, and hopped back-just a few inches.  Damn birds, no respect.  
“Boo!”  I muttered as loudly as I could, barring my teeth at it.  It cawed again, decided I didn’t look tasty, and took off.  I collapsed, dropping my head the few inches I’d managed to raise it with a sigh of relief.  Overhead, dark concrete blocked out the sky, the underside of a bridge.  It was adorned with bright green paint which read Never Knows Best.   I spat, tasting copper.  What the hell kind of graffiti did these kid’s bother with these days?  It made me feel old.
“So, your finally waking up I see.”  A deep, slightly slurred voice said in a conversational tone.  I turned my head.  An older man sat there, in his late forties probably.  Hmph, only ten or fifteen years older than me, I probably shouldn’t be calling that old.  But he looked old.  His hair was gray and greasy, dirty as hell, and his face was lined and wrinkled, his cheeks sallow and his eyes red.  He was wearing a tattered brown jacket, a huge one, and torn jeans.  Bum clothes.  Well, I was under a bridge after all.  A bottle in a brown bag was beside his hands.  
“Yeah, you’re a freakin’ genius.”  I responded.  I had no use for pointless talk like that, it always got on my nerves.  People always jabber on like idiots, trying to fill the silence with any moronic thing that pops into their heads, like anyone actually cares to hear it.  People talk too damn much.  “Who are you old man?  And where am I?  This don’t feel much like heaven.  And if it’s hell, then people have been exaggerating.”
“Hah.  You’re a tough one.  You’ve got a bullet in you and your still talking like that.”  The old guy stood up, slowly, his joints creaking, and came over to kneel by me.  I was lying on a filthy mattress, with a thin blanket wrapped around me.  It was heavily stained, but the biggest stain was the unmistakable color of recently shed blood.  He leaned over me, a big warm smile on his face.  It looked very natural on him, like he was often smiling.  Round glasses, grey with grime, hung off his face.  It irritated me again.  What did a bum have to smile about?  I knew what it was like to live poor, that’s why I’d joined the Ligelli Family in the first place.  
“My name is Rommel Lukaveuqe.  I live here, which should clue you in to what kind of life I live.  We’re under a bridge in the abandoned Carnival Pier.  You washed up on the beach over there last night.”  He pointed to a desolate beach, filled with debris.  The sand gray and soggy, a light rain pouring down.  “I took care of your wounds as well as I could.  I used to help out the doctors at a refugee camp, so I happen to know a thing or two.  You definitely need medical attention, but the bullet came out easily and your bandaged tight, so you’ll be okay for now.”  
“Carnival Pier…”  I whispered.  “On Freeman Island?”  
“Yeah…just a few blocks from downtown.”
“…holy shit.  I must have broken a few mirrors.”  My luck couldn’t have been any worse.  I was smack dab in the middle of the Mercutio family’s territory, which made me a walking target.  See, we Ligelli’s didn’t get along with the Mercutio tell well these days, mostly on account of how I kinda popped a cap in their bosses godson about two weeks ago.  Of course, now the Ligelli’s were out gunning for me too.  Hell, I must have crossed a black cat too.  “Hey, why didn’t you get help?”  I asked.
“Around here, we tend to kinda assume people are having trouble with the law automatically.  Save’s us the trouble of asking them.  Would you like me to call someone?”
“No, you did me right.  If you had called the police, I’d be dead right now.  I owe you.”
“Dead?”  He exclaimed in surprise.  “Ah, so your in trouble with more than the police.  Is it the mafia?”  
“Yeah…”  Slowly, very carefully, I sat up.  He helped me, making sure not to touch my wounds.  “But you’ve got it wrong.  They’re the ones who are in trouble.  Because anyone who crosses me ends up dead, no matter who they are.  I’ve never let anyone get away with messing with me before, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna start now.  Hey, where’s my gun?”  
“Uh…”  For some reason, he seemed a little taken aback by my vow of revenge.  People can be such wimp’s sometimes.  “I didn’t find any gun’s on you.  Oh…”  He scrambled back, rummaged around a little then came back.  “I did find this though.”  He held out my combat knife.  I took it, the familiar weight in my hand felt good.  But I let out a long sigh…it wasn’t going to do me much good against a gun.  I’d have to get one fast.
“Um…sir, what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”  He said.  
“Sure.  It’s Treno Voltraine.  Of the Ligelli family.”  
“Should you be telling people that?”  He asked.  I laughed.
“Ha.  No one gives a damn what a bum like you knows.  Sorry to let you in on that.”  
“No, of course your right.”  He sighed heavily, and all of the sudden I felt sorry for him.  Well, when I’d taken back control of the Family, I could pay him back a hundred fold.  He had saved my life after all, and generosity has always been one of my good points, in my humble opinion.  
“You haven’t been out here for very long have you?”  I asked.  
“No.  Just three month’s.  Although I was living out of my car for a few month’s before that.”  
“How…why are you living like this?  You don’t seem like a druggie.  I can see the bottle there, but your plenty sober now.”  
“Oh this?”  He gave the bottle a shake.  “I used most of it on you, last night.  A drink is just about the only comfort I can get out here, but it’s not the reason I’m here.  In fact, I just started drinking two month’s ago.  I’m here because…well I was just too gullible I guess.”  He settled into a more comfortable position, and got a faraway look in his eyes.  I focused on his voice, his story-it helped to ignore the pain a little.  Despite my casual talk, I knew the truth-I was in bad shape.  The shot in the arm was just a side scratch, nothing life threatening, but the belly wound…I would need a doctor, or I would be in a grave soon enough.  But vengeance came first.
“I’m originally from Czechoslovakia.  I moved here about a year ago.  I met a man back in the old country, a real slick business man.  He had made money in America, and had come back saying how easy it was.  He said I had a good head for business, and said I could do the same thing.  He said he’d show me the ropes, that we’d be partner’s and we’d split the profit.  He told me the whole plan in detail, and really impressed me and the other guys.  At the time, I looked forward to living rich in America.”  
“Ha.  He suckered you didn’t he.”  Perhaps it was because of my lifestyle, but I could see right away this guy was the perfect fall-man for an operation.  You could pull one over on him easy, and he would be powerless to do anything about it.  
“Yeah, he did.  It was all because of my stupidity.  I thought I could trust him, because I wanted to trust him.  I wanted to believe the good life was in my reach.”  He shook his head at the memories.  “First he smuggled us into the country-me and the other guys he’d fooled.  We set up a small business, had an office in an empty building.  We worked our fingers to the bone for that man.  We slept only as much as we had to, and we spent every waking minute giving it our all.  We had little to show for it, but we were in good spirits, every one of us, because we believed it would all work out in the end.  If you work hard, you will be repaid for your efforts-that’s what we thought-”
Fool.  Naïve fool.  I made a fortune off of guys like you, sweating and working themselves into a wreck to support the guys at the top who made thousands with a few words and a lightly veiled threat.  People will always take advantage of you, and hard work doesn’t mean you’ll be repaid.  If you really want to make, if you really want to live the life, you’ve got to be ruthless.  Merciless.  Protect yourself, your interests, and your friends and your Family, and to hell with everyone else.  At least, that’s what I thought back then.  
I can still see Miguel, standing beside me in that cemetery fourteen years ago, making that same speech.  And then he’d turn and smile that arrogant smirk of his, that smirk that always made you feel like he was invincible, and if you stuck with him then you were invincible too.  And then he’d said, we can do it Treno.  The Ligelli’s are looking for more manpower, he said.  They own this side of the river, and they have all the power and wealth we could ever want.  All we have to do is dazzle them, and we’ll have it all, that‘s what he said.  
And then I said, where do I sign up?  And off we went…
“-but it seems that was just what he wanted us to think.  One day, he didn’t show up at the office.  We didn’t know what to do, so we started looking through the files and records.  And soon we realized that every trace of his existence had been erased.  He had disappeared completely, along with all our profits.  And then we heard the sirens.  We ran, but many were caught.  We were in this country illegally, managing an illegal business, and the man who’d set us up had disappeared.  I managed to avoid the cop’s, but now…well, I only had a hundred dollars or so, and no place to live.  We’d been sleeping at the office.  So I did my best to find work, but since I have no records and I’m wanted by the police, it proved pretty difficult.  And so, here I am.”