AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Their children?” suggested Gibson.
“Could be. But my experience is that the stuff you see in the mob movies about family loyalty is mostly horseshit. The young bulls probably were thrilled to see their fathers go down. Now they were the capos and they all had their own problems rebuilding the family empires. I don’t see them going out on a limb avenging anybody. Too much trouble and risk.”
“Now, that’s very interesting and it does make sense. So the question becomes, who did benefit from Harry going down all these years later?” asked Gibson.
“Was Geraldine with him when he got deep-sixed?”
“No. Harry walked away from WITSEC about two decades ago. His wife disappeared shortly thereafter, but we don’t know if they hooked up later by plan, or whether she disappeared on her own, or—”
“—or whether someone popped her,” Collin interjected. “Which I think is more likely. I always had the distinct feeling Harry hated his wife. And she didn’t make it easy to love her. I had limited interaction with Geraldine, but back then she was always drunk and/or doped up.”
“I understand that Langhorne might have made off with a mountain of mob money.”
“That was definitely a rumor.”
“You didn’t run that down?” asked Gibson.
“Wasn’t my job. My job was to nail and then turn Harry to get the big boys, which I did.”
“The place where he was killed? He paid five mill in cash for it.”
Collin whistled. “So the rumor just went to fact. Hedidtake the cash.”
“I’m thinking there’s a lot more than five mill lying around after all this time.”
“Any idea where it could be?”
“No, but I think people are looking for it,” replied Gibson.
Like Clarisse.
“And what happened to the kids?” Collin asked.
“As soon as Francine hit eighteen they both voluntarily left WITSEC.”
“They were only little kids when I knew them, but they were an odd pair even then.”
“One of the WITSEC marshals told me that Doug was totally hamstrung by his father, never allowed to play any sports, and he sat in the garage lifting weights and brooding.”
“And the girl?” said Collin.
“Had her own run-ins with her father. Maybe even more bitter and lasting. The marshal said that Doug basically took orders from his sister.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“What do you mean it makes sense?” said Gibson.
“As I mentioned, even back then they were an odd pair. I didn’t get to really know them all that well. They were kids and my business was with Harry. Now, I’m no shrink, but my opinion is that whole household was royally screwed up. Harry was the king and taskmaster, and he relished that role. Geraldine drank and popped pills, and when it came to Harry she had a spine like jelly. The kids were silent and staring and maybe thinking shit I don’t even want to contemplate. You ever see that flickChildren of the Corn? It’s based on a Stephen King story.”
“No.”
“Hell, it probably came out before you were born. Anyway, it was this perverted religious cult of kids from the cornfields who murdered all the adults to ensure a good harvest. Bloody and sadistic as hell, at least by the standards back then. But the kids in that movie? The ringleaders Malachai and Isaac? Well, let’s just say Francine and Dougie would’ve fit right in. Hell, she’d be ruling the roost, handing out death sentences, and Dougie would be her enforcer. And I got that impression when they were little kids!”
“So a formidable pair, then?” said Gibson.
“Let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to run into them now in a well-lighted shopping center with a million people around. And, shit, I worked undercover for five years in the human garbage dumps ofTrenton. I was with the Newark police force, you understand, but they recruited me for an undercover post in Trenton because I wasn’t known in the area as a cop. Now, some people are just born evil and some people are made evil by a shitty life. I’ve seen both types. And my opinion is Francine and Dougie aren’t one or the other, they’re both.”
“So maybe Geraldine didn’t vanish voluntarily.”
