Burn this City by Aleksandr Voinov
3
Salvatore Rausa didn’t think of himself as much of a hunter. He didn’t enjoy crawling through the underbrush or getting eaten alive by mosquitos. But a few hunting trips with Enzo and occasional, but utterly brutal, paintball weekends with some of the other boys, had prepared him as much as possible for this kind of stalking.
Still, did Barsanti have to make it quite so easy?
Sal was tempted to strike now. The bodyguard had left an hour ago and now Barsanti stood alone outside the house in shirt and trousers, door open behind him. What if Barsanti only planned to spend the night here—maybe with a woman?—and left in the morning? They’d miss out on the chance to do it.
That Barsanti had left his usual haunts was already lucky. Separating him from that bastard Andrea Lo Cascio had started to seem nearly impossible, and snatching Barsanti in the city would attract far too much attention. Plus, it would warn the head of the Lo Cascio clan that something was afoot.
Sal might have ignored the Lo Cascio consigliere if the man hadn’t approached him at the wedding last week. Not considerate enough to allow a man to get seriously drunk in peace, Barsanti had dared to walk straight up to him and play at goddamned politics. If not for the alcohol, Sal might have strangled him then and there; he wasn’t going to meet Andrea Lo Cascio for any reason other than to finish him off with a bullet between his motherfucking eyes.
He almost hadn’t recognized Barsanti; he’d been a lean, jackal-faced capo when he’d shown up on Sal’s radar, what, something like fifteen years ago? Now he filled out his frame very differently, though he still looked like he could run a marathon and then climb a sheer rock face without ropes or support.
Over the years, Sal had been aware of him but hadn’t paid him much mind, and certainly hadn’t followed his career—the families in Port Francis only dealt with each other when absolutely necessary. Even Barsanti’s optimistic attempts to get everybody talking after the War hadn’t changed that fundamental truth.
But Barsanti’s ill-considered approach at the reception had given Sal an idea. Enzo hadn’t been impressed.
“What, boss, you’re going to change the plan now?”
“Yes. If it means less blood …”
“Big fucking ‘if’.”
Yeah, well, if crawling around between trees and undergrowth meant he’d end up with even one or two fewer wounded or dead soldiers, then, fuck it, this little “hunt” would be worth it.
Considering Barsanti intended to spend the night in this designer fishbowl, he had the feeling they’d get lucky.
Next to him, Enzo shifted his weight and lowered the binoculars. “I’m starting to see your point.”
Sal cast a glance at his capo. “Right?”
“He seems like a reasonable guy,” Enzo said.
Sal scoffed. “And you get that from what? A nice suit and a terrible grasp on security?”
“No. Books.” Enzo vaguely gestured toward the house. “They look read too.”
Well, those. They weren’t the kind of books rich people bought, like old-school leather-bound encyclopedias or books whose jacket colors matched the interior. There were two high bookshelves in that house and the contents were a mix of paperbacks and hardcovers that seemed well-used and organized in a system that wasn’t by color or size.
Finally, Barsanti seemed to shake himself out of his reverie. Going back inside, and switched on some lamps positioned on small tables and on low shelves. That formal white shirt helped them track him by reflecting even the dimmed light.
“Let’s get the cameras up.”
They continued to monitor Barsanti’s movements in the house as they worked their way around the perimeter, hiding cameras that looked through every window and glass pane—from the bathroom to the office upstairs to the master bedroom and the formal dining room. They couldn’t achieve a hundred percent coverage, but at least they’d always have a very good guess in which room Barsanti was and where he was moving, which was everything they’d need for their purposes.
Everything connected straight out of the box, all the cameras were happy to chat with their mobile phones and their laptop.
“I fucking love plug and play,” Sal muttered when they were back in his Ford F-150 truck they’d parked halfway down a logging road. Enzo grinned at him, balancing the slim laptop on his knees while swiping through the different cameras.
Technology was amazing when it was this intuitive. They could focus on learning the layout of the house and how to follow Barsanti’s movements inside. No need to sit in the man’s garden with binoculars all night, hoping for some revelation that might or might not come.
They watched more or less in silence, interrupted only when they broke out the thermos with coffee and unwrapped the meatball subs Enzo had conjured up in Sal’s kitchen a few hours earlier.
Sitting side by side in the truck, Sal realized again how lucky he was to have a capo like Enzo. He could be both vicious and playful, but he definitely made too much of his Sicilian roots and recently had become obsessed with Ancestry.com. The site had convinced him he was descended from medieval Norman crusaders, which allegedly explained the blond hair and grey eyes running in his family.
“What’re you thinking?” Enzo licked his fingers and crunched up the aluminum foil into a tight little ball.
“That I appreciate how you’re up for this kind of shit.”
Enzo pulled his lips back from his canines in that wolfish grin of his. “Ever tell you how I got that restraining order as a teenager?”
“Girl told you to get lost?”
“Her parents thought I was no good. I’d sit out there in my cousin’s car and watch her house all week for a chance to talk to her.”
“Can’t blame the parents.”
“Really can’t,” Enzo agreed good-naturedly.
After a while, Sal asked: “So, how did it end?”
“Told you. Restraining order.”
“And you fell in line?” Sal raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Turns out, I’m not into women who don’t know what they want.” Enzo said it lightly, but the statement hung between them in a way that made Sal refocus on Barsanti wandering his house like a ghost. The man was restless; he’d sit down, reach for a book, then put it back again to choose a different one, run a hand through his hair while pulling at it, and then put that book down too.
After a while of wandering in and out of the kitchen and around the furniture in the living room, Barsanti eventually walked into the master bedroom, where he stripped out of his clothes.
“Enzo.” Sal nodded toward the screen.
“Anything interesting happening?”
“Depends.”
“Letting his hair down finally.” Barsanti stripped to his socks, boxers and undershirt, first putting the clothes away before he put on dark running shorts, one of those compression T-shirts, and finally running shoes. “Reckon he’ll run outside?”
“I imagine he’ll be using the gym at this hour. There’s no light along the road.”
That turned out to be true. Barsanti switched on the light in the gym. He chose the treadmill, and after a light trot, sped up to a full-throttle run that had Sal mildly impressed. Gaze empty, Barsanti ran his heart out for a solid forty minutes, then gradually slowed down, face still blank but now glistening with sweat, chest pumping hard. He didn’t have much patience for the cooldown; once he’d slowed to a light jog, he brought the treadmill to an abrupt stop and stepped off.
He pulled off his top, which hung, soaking wet, from his grip, and tossed it into a basket in a corner, then proceeded to do some stretches.
Enzo glanced meaningfully at Sal. “What are you thinking?”
“He’s ripped, but he’s still the consigliere of my enemy.” Sal narrowed his eyes. “You?”
Enzo drew back slightly. “Just saying, good to know in advance that he’s fit. Think he’s a fighter?”
“That’s why I brought you. In case he is.” Sal watched Barsanti stretch his quads. The restless, driven man they’d been observing for the past few hours didn’t fit the tentative, friendly dealmaker he’d so briefly encountered at the Prizzi wedding. He also didn’t fit Sal’s memory of the quietly focused capo Barsanti had been about fifteen years ago. Neither of those had looked as if they were being chased by demons.
Guilt? Bad news he needed to shake off? Or the tension of waiting for a major plot to fall into place?
Of course, a few hours of observation wouldn’t give him the key to the man’s secrets. He’d hoped to catch Barsanti in the act with the wrong woman or scheming with the wrong people, something to get a bead on why he’d isolated himself here. Men like that didn’t leave the city just for an uninterrupted treadmill workout.
Barsanti finished up and left the gym, already pulling at his waistband. By the time they’d switched cameras to the bathroom, he was completely naked.
He’s ripped, but he’s still the consigliere of my enemy,Sal repeated to himself.
More than ripped, actually. Barsanti was on the wrong side of forty, though arguably on the right side of fifty, but no middle-aged paunch had taken hold. His chest was well-defined, the fur on his front either sparse or trimmed, and his short salt-and-pepper hair that had been so well-groomed was now raked back and plastered to his skull with sweat, making him look less businesslike. At the wedding, he could have been a car salesman—though for an expensive European brand—a bit too polished, too eager to please. But this man was a man who had dropped all that as he stepped into the walk-in shower and started the water, head bent forward under the spray, his whole body pumped up after that run, veins popping on his arms.
Hot steam soon obfuscated their view, though the hint of muscle, legs, shoulder, flank, ass in the condensing steam was strangely hypnotic. And, fuck, he took his time—after the way he’d punished himself on the treadmill, he clearly felt he deserved half an hour under the hot water.
Sal only lingered that long in a shower when he wasn’t alone in there. “Motherfucker,” he muttered.
Enzo lowered the thermos as he coughed. “What?”
“Just.” Sal made a circling motion with his hand, weirdly annoyed at Barsanti’s self-indulgence. “Fuck this guy. We should just walk up to his door, put a gun in his face, and bag him. We’re wasting our time here.”
Enzo gave him that “Now you’re speaking my language” look, but hesitated. “We might get more intel if we wait until tomorrow.”
There. Barsanti left the shower, dripping and glistening, crossed the bathroom as he was, and grabbed a towel from the rack. He wiped his face first, dried his hands, and then scrubbed it over his head. One swipe mostly straightened out his hair—it was too short to get untidy. As he began to dry himself with a second, larger towel, it was easy to see his skin was flushed from the hot water and the exercise.
Sal shook himself. “All right.” He’d chosen Enzo as his capo because he always came through when it counted. He never evaporated when the work got ugly. Some guys, once they’d been made, basked in their newfound status and slacked in their efforts. Of course, they never made it higher up the greasy pole, unlike Enzo who threw himself into the work with a certain type of glee that Sal found appealing.
Enzo took nothing too seriously—not killing, nor dying, not his pride. He didn’t love the politics of the business enough to aspire to boss or underboss, because that would remove him from the thick of the action. But he’d also always lived by that classic Cosa Nostra chestnut: never hold down a legitimate job. And with his anarchist heart and wicked smarts, he’d never have to.
Wearing nothing but a towel, Barsanti walked around the house to dim some lights and switch off others. A last drink in the kitchen—looked like a protein shake—then back into the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb through his hair. He discarded the towel and padded naked into the bedroom, where he slipped under the covers, propped up against the low headboard, and switched on a large flat TV mounted on the wall opposite. The lamp on the nightstand offered no more than a glimmer, but that and the changeable glow from the TV allowed Sal to make out the lines of his legs under the covers, his naked chest, and his sharp features, which remained impassive.
Without his smile and smooth words, Barsanti seemed oddly diminished, all eyes, processing whatever he saw on the screen without judging it, and periodically tapping around on his phone. Aside for Enzo next to him in the truck, who sipped coffee and kept an eye on the night forest around them, the consigliere was the sole focus of Sal’s attention, but he didn’t yield any of his secrets.
What was abundantly clear now had already been pretty clear before tonight—Jack Barsanti was a smart man, polished, thoughtful, but also disciplined and fit. More dragon than the pit viper Andrea Lo Cascio. Tonight was likely a waste of time. Still, Barsanti remained the most promising target to start with. A mere capo didn’t have enough intel. The only way to solve the Lo Cascio problem was to use the same approach as any gardener when dealing with ivy—you had to scrape off and dig up every last piece and burn every scrap or it would come back with a vengeance. Andrea Lo Cascio hadn’t appointed a new underboss or acting boss after taking over from his father. Sal had watched while the previous holder of that position had been chopped into pieces, dropped into a plastic barrel, and deposited into the foundation of a luxury development going up in the city roundabout that time. That meant there were two men at the top of the Lo Cascio: Andrea himself and Jack Barsanti.
On the screen, Barsanti ran a hand down his chest, then further to slide beneath the covers. He shifted his weight and pulled one knee up. Sal watched as Barsanti began toying with his cock, in no particular rush, but also with no teasing, no finesse. He jerked off in the same businesslike way he’d gone about everything so far; there was no true urgency. If anything, Sal thought, he most likely touched himself out of boredom or to help himself fall asleep. When he pushed the covers further down, Sal found himself fascinated by Barsanti’s good-sized, thick cock, and his strong hand around it.
Enzo cleared his throat and reached for the door handle. “I’ll have a look around. Back in a bit.”
“Not going to watch the show?” Sal nodded to the screen.
Several emotions flicked across Enzo’s face, surprise, suspicion, embarrassment, but he settled on pure openness, and Sal was glad for it. “First, I gotta piss; second, I want to stay clear-headed. Okay?”
There was no harshness in his voice, and he’d have stayed if Sal had asked him to. Enzo was probably worried about where this might lead otherwise, and Sal agreed with him, though neither of them was a sixteen-year-old with raging hormones. “Sure. Go piss.”
Enzo opened the door, and surprisingly chilly night air rushed in to replace their companionable warmth.
Sal focused on the screen again, watched Barsanti’s artless movements. As his arousal increased, Barsanti’s face changed. He gritted his teeth so hard Sal could see the tension in his jaw muscles, and when he got to the edge, he closed his eyes, and pushed his head back against the wall, stretching out his throat as his motions became punishing. He remained like that for several long moments, then reached for something outside the bed, wiped over his chest with it and then cleaned his hands. Finally, he slid down deeper into the covers, switched off the TV first, and then the lamp.
Darkness. Peace.
Laptop on his knees, Sal sat alone and enjoyed the frisson of arousal tightening his balls. A strange thing to get from an enemy, and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, but his body didn’t particularly care who Barsanti was, or what blood-drenched history had maneuvered them both to this exact time and space. As far as his body was concerned, things were very black and white. Mostly black.
He near-closed the laptop, put it down on the seat and pushed the door open. Enzo had walked a few steps down the unpaved road into the forest, and was looking up into the sky, where the cloud cover had broken open enough to reveal stars here and there. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder when Sal approached, but remained standing where he was until Sal stopped by his side.
“So?”
“He’s done. Just a quick one before sleep.”
Enzo glanced at him sideways. “You sound bored.”
“Meh. Straight guy rubbing one out. Not exactly thrilling stuff.” Sal pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and peered into the forest, listening, but he only heard a faint rustling of leaves. No movement, no snapping twigs, though the thought alone made Sal want to turn around and get back to the fake safety of the car. He knew better than most people that no place was ever truly safe. Cars certainly weren’t.
The forests around Port Francis were surprisingly deep and wild, as the occasional over-confident camper found out the hard way, and Sal was too much of a city kid to ever feel really comfortable more than a few steps away from a road. He’d gone out into the wild often enough to know that he could easily get lost, which was why he usually went with more experienced hunters. And while he might enjoy the comradery, he was also more than happy to sleep in his own bed, and have a fridge stocked with food he didn’t have to stalk first.
Enzo, by contrast, was at ease living off the land. Apparently, Enzo’s father had been a passionate hunter and his family had been poor enough that the only meat that landed on the table had to be dragged out of the forest. Enzo had told him that he’d shot and killed “Bambi’s Mom” when he was just nine years old, and he hadn’t been much older when he’d learned how to skin and butcher.
“I figure there’s nothing more tonight. We should go home.”
Enzo stood there, clearly thinking, then half turned to Sal. “Want me to come to your place?”
Sal’s first thought was that it would save them time tomorrow when they returned early to their stake-out, but then he saw the tension around Enzo’s eyes. “Nah. Come by at seven. Make sure you get some rest—long day tomorrow.”
The tension softened, so Sal reached out and placed an arm around Enzo’s shoulders and pulled him against his side before letting him go. “Come on. You drive.”