Five survive, p.28
Five Survive, page 28
“With a light?” Oliver asked, eyes narrowing. “That’s how you were communicating with the snipers?”
“Sniper,” Arthur said. “There’s just two of us.”
One sniper. One gun. One red dot. And one liar. This whole time. Red stared at him but he looked like a different person now.
“And, yes,” Arthur continued, “with the light. A code we made. Morse code if more detail was needed.”
“You told him to kill Don and Joyce?” Simon said, a shadow crossing his eyes as he studied his friend. Who he thought was his friend.
Red couldn’t move. She was too close to Arthur and she wanted to be away from him, on that side of the RV, with Oliver and the others, but she couldn’t move.
“No, no,” Arthur said desperately, voice snagging at the edges. “I told him you’d passed them a note asking to call the police. I thought he’d shoot out their tires and their tank so they were stuck here too. I never thought…I didn’t think he’d kill them. He wasn’t supposed to do that!”
“Did you tell him to shoot Maddy?” Red said, and she couldn’t look at him.
“No!” His voice was frantic now. “I told him it wasn’t you, Red. I told him to take a warning shot. I thought he’d shoot in front of her, scare her back into the RV. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt. I’m sorry, Maddy.” He looked at her, voice breaking in half. “I tried to stop you from leaving, because I didn’t trust him after what he did to Don and Joyce. I tried, Red, I did. But Oliver forced her out and I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want this to happen, any of it. He wasn’t supposed to shoot her!” he said, and his eyes glazed again, muscles twitching by his mouth.
Maddy whimpered as Reyna pushed harder against the wound, watching the scene unfold in front of her.
“And who is he?” Oliver asked, eyes flicking out the side of the RV, in the direction of the sniper. “Actually, forget that. Who are you?”
Arthur sucked a mouthful of air through gritted teeth, eyes darting side to side as he thought through his answer. Red knew that, because she knew his face, the shift in his eyes when he was thinking hard, the curve of his mouth when he laughed. That look he saved just for her. But he wasn’t real. And neither were any of those small and not-so-small moments between them. She looked at the check mark on her own hand, and there wasn’t a small firework anymore, just a shiver, clawing its way up the back of her neck. Who was he? Was his name even Arthur? Had this been planned from the start, when he first made friends with Simon and then the rest of them? What did he want from them?
“My name is Arthur,” he said, pausing, eyes flicking to Red, latching on. “Arthur Gotti.”
Simon gasped and Oliver’s mouth fell open. Red’s heart kicked up, throwing itself around her chest. She doubled back and doubled over, arms wrapping around her ribs to keep her heart from falling out the gaps.
“You’re Frank Gotti’s son?” Oliver asked, but it wasn’t a question, not really. Because of course he was. “So, this is about Red? She’s the witness in the trial against your dad and you’re here to kill her?”
Arthur shook his head. “No, it’s—”
“Why didn’t you just shoot her outside her house, if you knew who she was?” Oliver demanded. “Why drag the rest of us into it?”
Arthur ignored him, head twisting on his neck, body following, as he turned to Red. “I tried to keep you safe,” his voice croaked. “I’ve been trying this whole time. I told them I could get it from you, if I became your friend, if I integrated into your life. No need for anyone to get hurt. But you wouldn’t, Red. You still haven’t after everything that’s happened tonight. Anytime I got close to anything real, you would shut down and change the subject. Every time, Red. And then it got too close to the trial and my father said we had to force it. I don’t understand why you won’t say who it is. That’s all we need. It never needed to come to this, I didn’t want it to come to this.” His eyes widened, pleading with her, one hand buried in the folds of his shirt. “Why won’t you say, I don’t understand? I told them I didn’t think you’d give it up under torture, if we threatened just you, or even your dad. But Maddy’s here, the person you care about most in the world. Your friends. She’s bleeding out over there and you still won’t give it up. I don’t understand, Red! Why? Why?”
“What’s he talking about, Red?” Maddy’s voice was strained, staccato, breathing out through the pain. Her skin waxy and white.
“I—” Red began, but Oliver spoke across her.
“Give what up?” he asked. “She’s the witness for the prosecution against your dad, what else do you need?”
“No, she’s not,” Arthur said, low and steady over the tremor in his throat. “She’s not because my father did not kill Joseph Mannino. He wasn’t there that day, on the waterfront. And neither was Red.”
Red blinked, pressed her eyes closed for a moment. No, she wasn’t there. She hadn’t seen Frank Gotti, hadn’t heard a gun. She’d never even been in that park, but she’d walked it so many times since, memorizing every detail, in case it was needed in her testimony.
“What’s he saying?” Simon asked, looking to Red.
“Red wasn’t there,” Arthur said. “But someone is paying her to say that she was, to set my dad up for a murder he didn’t commit. That’s right, isn’t it?” he asked, and how was his voice still gentle, his eyes still kind? “Someone paid you to do it, to swear under oath that you saw my dad there, to put him away.”
Red blinked again, her eyes spilling over, tears hot from the shame, sliding down her cheeks. Yes, that was it. The plan. No one was ever supposed to find out. No one. Red needed that money: pay off their debts, get her dad some real help, have the heating on this winter, maybe even think about college someday. But the money was long gone, the plan over the moment she’d told them she was the witness. Those were the rules.
“It’s true?!” Oliver asked, studying Red’s face, disgusted by her tears. “That’s a crime, Red. That’s perjury. What the fuck were you thinking? You can’t be that desperate for money!”
“I—” she began.
“Who is it, Red?” Arthur said, and still his voice was soft where Oliver’s was jagged and thorny. “Just tell me and it’s over. Who is paying you to be the witness? Give me the name.”
“I…” Red drew off, eyes flicking to Oliver, following the smears of blood to Maddy, then Reyna and Simon. All watching her, backing her into a corner. She’d been about to do it before. She was going to say it on the walkie-talkie before she found that interference. Why did it feel so much harder now with them all looking at her, now that she knew for sure this was what it was all about? Red didn’t know if she could. Guilty if she did, guilty if she didn’t. A betrayal either way.
“Red?” The calm in Arthur’s voice shattered, his jaw tight and tense. “Why won’t you tell me? Who is it? Is it one of Mannino’s guys? Is it the Russians? Is it one of the New York families because of Atlantic City? Is it Tommy D’Amico? Who is it?”
His voice echoed around the silence of the RV, real silence, now that the static was dead, buried somewhere in the undone puzzle of the broken walkie-talkie at her feet. Her throat was tightening, an invisible hand around it, pressing in from all sides.
Red checked Oliver’s eyes, and the danger that lurked there beneath the black, teeth bared and waiting. He didn’t have the knife in his hands now, at least. And Maddy, Red looked to her, pale and quivering, biting down on her shaking lip, eyes focusing and unfocusing as she stared back. This couldn’t hurt any more than that gaping hole in her leg, could it? Blood everywhere, marking them all.
“Red?” Arthur shouted, voice clawing and desperate.
Red took a breath.
“It’s Catherine Lavoy.”
Oliver blinked at her, twin looks of shock in his and Maddy’s eyes.
“What?” he barked, stepping toward Red. “What did you say?”
“It was your mom,” Red said, looking straight at Oliver. “She’s the one who asked me to do it, who set everything up.”
Oliver straightened, and Red waited for the explosion, for the landmine to trip in his eyes, taking them all with him. She didn’t expect what actually happened next. Oliver snorted, his face creasing as that wicked smile stretched through his skin, curling down at the edges. He laughed, the sound eerie and wrong in the too-quiet RV.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, slapping himself on the chest. “Our mom is not a criminal.”
But she was, if he put it like that, and so was Red. Weren’t they all, in some way? Had Oliver forgotten that they all knew his secret now? That he’d killed someone four months ago. How could what she and Catherine did be worse than that?
“She came to me last August, the day after Joseph Mannino was killed, and she asked me to say I’d been there, that I saw Frank Gotti leaving the scene.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Oliver laughed again, swinging his head. But Red wasn’t smiling. And then came the switch, tripping in his eyes. “Stop fucking lying, Red!” He pointed his finger through her chest, leaving a crater behind. “Stop lying. She wouldn’t do that!”
“It’s the truth,” Red said, picking her eyes up off the floor. “It’s the truth, Maddy.”
Maddy didn’t say anything, wincing as Reyna shifted, the towel growing bloody beneath her fingers.
“Shut up, Red!”
“Let her talk!” Arthur shouted back, rolling his shoulders as he stared Oliver down. “Catherine Lavoy,” he said, turning to Red. “And she works in the DA’s office? She’s the one leading the prosecution against my dad?” His eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Yes,” Red said.
“No,” Oliver argued over her. “Don’t listen to her. She’s a liar. I think by now we all know you’re a fucking liar!”
“Keep going, Red,” Arthur prompted.
“No, you shut up!” Oliver charged forward, pushing Red back against the kitchen counter, the tips of his fingers digging into her arms.
“Oliver, stop!” Maddy screamed, the sound frailer than before. “Let her speak. Please.”
Oliver thought about it for a moment, searching Red’s eyes, nails digging in deeper, then he let her go, drew back.
Red ran her hands down her arms, placing her fingers in the indentations left by Oliver, too big for her.
“You okay?” Arthur asked her.
“You don’t care,” she replied.
He looked hurt by that, a flicker by his mouth.
“Go on, then,” Oliver said, head hanging off his neck. “Let’s hear the rest of your bullshit story, then.”
Red coughed, and she didn’t know where to look. Reyna was safe. Simon was safe. “Catherine told me that Frank Gotti was a terrible man. That he killed or ordered the killings of a lot of people. She said she was sure he did shoot Joseph Mannino, but they didn’t have enough evidence to prove it in a court of law. That’s why they needed an eyewitness.”
“And what was in it for you?” Simon asked. He looked drained, wrung out, but there wasn’t a war zone in his eyes like everyone else’s, so Red focused on him.
“She said she would pay me for the risk,” Red said, sniffing. “After the trial, if they got a conviction, she was going to pay me twenty thousand dollars.”
Simon whistled.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Oliver spat. “Mom doesn’t have twenty thousand dollars lying around.”
But they did. The Lavoys did have that. And more. Catherine had promised her. Said she could give it to Red, in cash.
“It wasn’t just that, though,” Red carried on, switching to Reyna, who wasn’t looking, she was staring down at the towel, at the color of Maddy’s skin. “I needed that money, yes, like you’ve all been saying, you know I need money.”
Simon shuffled awkwardly.
“But it was something else too. Joseph Mannino was shot twice in the back of the head. That’s how they executed people, Catherine told me.” She glanced over at Arthur. How his family executed people. Now it made sense why he didn’t want to join the family business. Not flipping houses, but bodies, drugs. He’d tried to tell her the truth, in small ways. She paused, readying herself for the punch to her gut. “That’s how my mom was killed too, five years ago. Two shots to the back of her head while she was on her knees. She was executed. At an abandoned power station on the waterfront in South Philly, pretty close to where Joseph Mannino was killed. The police never found out who killed my mom, the case is unsolved. But Catherine…your mom,” she said, eyes finding Maddy, “your mom told me that, though they could never prove it, it was likely someone from that family, someone in the Mafia, who killed her. It was their style. And my mom was investigating the family, looking into their network of crimes, right around the time she died, so that makes sense. Maybe she found out something and they killed her for it.”
And if it was Frank Gotti’s fault that her mom died, then it couldn’t be Red’s fault. Except it still was, wasn’t it? There was enough doubt left for Red to fill in with her own guilt. They’d never be able to prove who it was, that was what Catherine said, and she knew about these things. But Red needed the money, and she needed somebody else to blame, and there Catherine was, giving her both. Everything she needed, to fix herself, fix everything. But now the plan was gone, dead, it only worked if no one knew.
Maddy winced, gritting her teeth, a high gurgling in her throat.
Arthur shook his head, eyes crinkled with confusion.
“What?” Red asked him.
He sighed. “My dad would never kill a cop. He’s smarter than that. It was one of John D’Amico’s rules: never kill police. It kept the heat off them. Your mom was captain of a police district.” Arthur stared at her. “No one would have touched her.”
“B-but,” Red stuttered. No, don’t take it away from her, she needed it. “Mrs. Lavoy said—”
“She works in the DA’s office, right?” Arthur said, face scrunching even farther, chewing on some silent thought.
“She’s assistant district attorney,” Oliver said, cricking his neck. “Soon to be district attorney, and she’d never do any of the things Red is saying. My mother is not a criminal. Red is lying, do not believe her. That’s not the name you’re after. It wasn’t my mom. And what would even be in it for her, huh? Red? What does she get out of using you to set up Frank Gotti?”
Oliver’s eyes were aflame, burning into hers. She wasn’t lying, she wasn’t.
“Well,” Simon stepped in. “You said it yourself earlier, Oliver, didn’t you? You said it’s a historic case, and that if she gets the guilty conviction she’s pretty much guaranteed to be voted in as DA.” He shrugged. “She wants to be DA, right? That’s what she would get out of it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Oliver rounded on him now, enough fire in his eyes to share around.
But Red was watching Arthur instead, a shadow crossing his face as he looked down, thinking, thinking, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“What?” she asked him, and he jolted back into the room, staring around at the corners of the RV as though it were finally shrinking around them, a countdown to crushing them all.
“It’s…” He drew off, swallowed, started again. “My family has a contact in the DA’s office. Has for years, maybe even ten years now. No one ever knew who it was, though, they always contacted us anonymously, encrypted messaging on a burner phone. Used to talk only to John D’Amico, but then when he started to get sick, they would contact my dad and Uncle Joe—Joseph Mannino, I mean.”
Oliver stared at him, horrified. “There’s a leak in the DA’s office?” he asked. “Working with organized crime?”
Arthur nodded. “For years. That’s how we would find out the identity of witnesses in cases against the family, or the locations of members who had flipped and were cooperating with the police. Information about trials and other criminal cases against our competitors. They would get charges dismissed sometimes. Shipments of seized guns or drugs for evidence that we could then intercept. All of that came from this person inside the DA’s office. We paid them for their information, into an offshore account, but we never knew who it was. Until…” Arthur glanced at Red, an awkward shift in his shoulders, a glint in his eyes. “That’s how we got your identity, Red. Just two days after the charges were filed against my dad, when we learned there was an eyewitness, even though there couldn’t be, because my dad didn’t kill Uncle Joe. My dad told my brother to message this contact, to ask who you were.”
“And?” Red and Oliver said at the same time, and she didn’t like that. No, they weren’t on the same side. The RV was split again, but Red didn’t know where she belonged anymore. With Oliver, who had thrown her out of the RV to her death, who had held a knife to her throat, who forced Maddy into his plan and now she was dying over there? Or Arthur, who had been lying to her from the moment they met last September? Because he’d needed to meet her, for his own plan. Of course he’d shown interest in her, laughed at her jokes, offered her rides home, charmed her with kind words and kinder eyes, she’d been his mark. What an idiot she was to think there was anything else there. He was here to get information from her and kill her, that was it. And yet Red found herself standing closer to him, edging away from Oliver, because the danger was in Oliver’s eyes, no one else’s.
“And,” Arthur answered, looking at Red, not Oliver. He had obviously chosen his side. “They told us they needed a day or two to get us the information. And when it came, in early September, it didn’t come the normal way, through their burner phone. My father received an email with Red’s name and social security and her home address. And the email address that sent it belonged to a Mo Frazer, who works in the DA’s office.”
