What Happens in the Penthouse...Chapter 2/Part A
Title: What Happens in the Penthouse...
Chapter 2/Part A-The Second and Third
Words:3270/73,138
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s Halloween night and Spinelli is planning to spend a romantic evening with Maxie at a costume party when he stumbles across a dead body in the penthouse. His plans are indefinitely shelved as he and Jason deal with their unexpected visitor. The night involves a series of bizarre and increasingly nerve wracking events while they try to evade nosy neighbors and solve the mystery.
Chapter 1/Part A Chapter 1/Part B
Spinelli gazed in amazement at what lay nestled within the hat box Maxie had left for him earlier that evening. Reverently, he lifted out the chocolate brown fedora and placing it on his head turned to study his reflection in the closet mirror. It was perfect, identical to the one he envisioned wearing whenever he fantasized about being a film noir detective out to save damsels in distress while simultaneously searching for paint covered golden birds… If he had sometimes thought, in moments of self doubt or even self pity, that his relationship with Maximista was one-sided, and that she didn’t understand or think about him one-tenth as much as he did her; well, this was proof that wasn’t so. Indeed, for her to have winnowed her way into his subconscious in this manner, meant that she did indeed understand what it meant to be all things Jackal.
After the distressing events of the evening, he had thought it impossible to recover the joie de vivre with which he had first anticipated his date with Maxie. Now the simple act of opening a hat box put him right back into a delightful, anticipatory frame of mind.
Spinelli quickly unzipped the garment bag to discover what treasures it contained, “Aha!” he exclaimed looking excitedly at the enclosed vintage suit. It was a double breasted pinstriped suit of the same color as the fedora with a black triangle of silk peeking out of the breast pocket. Wrapped around the suit in a lover’s embrace was a vintage raincoat that looked as though Humphrey Bogart himself had inhabited it only yesterday. Finishing off the ensemble was a white shirt, a set of suspenders and a dark brown and white striped wide tie.
Spinelli frowned, “Everything is here but…” He dashed back over to the hat box and burrowed into the tissue paper, “There they are!”
He pulled the leather beauties out of their nest of paper and sighed in admiration. The wingtip shoes were made of the finest calfskin leather and were polished to a warm glowing coffee tone. Maximista had indeed seen into the soul of the Jackal and he was eternally grateful.
Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw that there was no time to waste if he were to be timely in his rendezvous with Maximista. He hastily stripped out of his everyday wardrobe of jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped into the welcoming embrace of another era. He stopped and gazed at his visage in the mirror and was awestruck. Spinelli didn’t recognize himself. His hair was slicked back, he was wearing the high waisted pants complete with suspenders, and his feet were encased in those miraculous vintage shoes. He actually looked like the handsome young hero of some black and white 1940’s film noir movie. With a rare show of narcissism Spinelli preened before his reflection. He could hardly wait to see the expression on Maximista’s face when he showed up looking so dashing and suave.
He suddenly realized that the shirt he was wearing was as authentic as the rest of the outfit, and as such, had no buttons on the cuffs. Fortunately, this was a SNAFU (he snickered to himself at the appropriate use of period slang) which would be easy to rectify. When he graduated from high school his Grandmother had presented him with a pair of cufflinks as a graduation gift. They were gold and onyx and had a stylized S engraved on the surface. At the time, Spinelli had thanked her politely all the while inwardly wishing that she had given him a more conventional check that he could have expended on perpetually needed cyber accoutrements. He had no expectation of ever utilizing the outdated fashion accessories. Yet, since he had been residing in Port Charles, he found himself time and again opening the little box and inserting the cufflinks in one dress shirt or another. He had long since both mentally apologized to and verbally thanked his Grandmother for her foresight in knowing what her grandson might need to be presentable in certain realms of society.
He went to his dresser and found the little navy box. He opened it with a fond smile and proceeded to insert the first cufflink. As he reached for the second it dropped from his fingers and rolled under the bed. With a grunt, he laid face down on the floor and reached under the bed for the errant piece of jewelry. He felt around blindly and then his hand made contact with something that was definitely not a cold, square piece of metal. As the sensations that were being communicated by his fingertips began to be analyzed by his brain, he opened his eyes and turned his head so that he could see what he was touching.
“Oh, no, not again!” he whimpered as he looked into the blind, staring eyes of another dead man.
Jason was downstairs waiting impatiently for Spinelli to finish getting ready. Once he saw the kid off on his date; he had business to transact tonight. He was looking forward to explaining to Andrei Karpov how inadvisable it was to trespass into the private world of Jason Morgan and his protégé. After tonight’s confrontation, it was likely there would be no more incipient Russian mob within the boundaries of Port Charles.
Jason was in the process of getting his gun down from its storage shelf when he heard Spinelli calling in out in a shrill voice tinged with hysteria, “Stone Cold! You need to get up to the Jackal’s room instantaneously!”
Grabbing his gun and sliding the safety off, Jason bounded up the stairs to Spinelli’s room. He burst through the door, his gun held in his right hand with his left bracing it; he swept the room from side to side and even checked behind the bedroom door. Puzzled, he let the firearm drop to his side, there was no one else in the room besides himself and Spinelli. He looked at his roommate and immediately was worried. Spinelli was standing across from his bed with his back to the wall. Hhe was as pale as Jason had ever seen him and he was shaking like a leaf.
“Spinelli,” Jason said to him, trying to keep his voice calm and even. “What’s the matter, what happened?”
In response, Spinelli tried futilely to back up further into the wall and then just slid down it and collapsed into a formless heap on the floor. The only parts of him that still showed emotion were his bright green eyes that glittered like emeralds as they stared unblinkingly at the bed.
“A…another o..one, Jas.sson,” he stuttered pointing with a shaking finger at the bed.
Jason knelt down by the bed and putting his head down looked underneath it. “Oh, shit!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the carpet.
This was the first time Spinelli could ever remember seeing his mentor react like this to any situation, including ones that were much more dangerous and life threatening. The shock of it actually stopped his own threatened slide into a full blown panic attack.
Jason stayed crouched by the bed for several moments while he struggled to restore his self control. He didn’t want to scare Spinelli anymore than he already was and he needed a clear head to deal with the situation. Still, the feelings of violation and anger were proving difficult to repress. Whoever had invaded his home and exposed his young friend to not one but two corpses in a single night was going to feel the unburnished wrath of Jason Morgan.
When he finally stopped shaking with rage and felt he had achieved a fair approximation of his usual demeanor, he got up and walked over to where Spinelli sat huddled in the corner. He knelt down next to him and tipped his chin up so that they were making eye contact with one another.
“Look at me,” he said softly. Spinelli complied, though he looked dazed and not quite connected with the here and now. “I need you to hear me,” Jason said in a slightly louder and firmer tone in an effort to counteract his friend’s disassociation. “I’m here and you’re safe and nothing is going to hurt you, I won’t let it. Do you believe me?”
Something sparked deep in Spinelli’s eyes as he looked into Jason’s face. Everyone thought of Jason as cold and distant and that his amazing icy blue eyes were the dead outer manifestation of his lack of a soul. Spinelli had always been firmly convinced that the opposite was true. He thought that he used those eyes to block anyone attempting to view the damaged humanity within. He consistently projected an unfeeling stoicism in order to protect an emotional vulnerability which he tried to keep so deeply buried that even Jason himself denied its existence. At this moment, Spinelli knew that his theory was correct. All he saw as he looked into Jason’s eyes were concern, pain and love.
He instinctively knew that Jason would die before he would let Spinelli be hurt; and because of his absolute faith in him, it was the easiest thing in the world to simply say, “Yes.”
Jason let out his pent up breath in a relieved sigh and reached over and ruffled Spinelli’s carefully pomaded hair. “Hey! The Jackal is out to impress the ladies, well, at least one certain lady tonight.” Spinelli said indignantly trying to smooth the errant hair back into place. Then he paused and looked up sadly at Jason, “The Jackal won’t be seeing his Maximista anytime soon, will he Stone Cold?” he asked wistfully.
Jason wished more than anything that he could give Spinelli the answer he deserved, but instead, he said regretfully, “I’m afraid not partner, we have to resolve whatever is happening here. Until then, I need you to stick close. I need your help and also I want you where I can keep an eye on you. We have no idea who is doing this or why and I am not risking anything happening to you.”
Biting his lower lip and nodding his head in resignation, Spinelli tried to keep his voice from quivering as he said, “the Jackal is at your disposal as always, Stone Cold.”
“Thank you.” Jason stood up and reached his hand down to pull Spinelli to his feet. “Now, let’s move your bed and take a look at our newest visitor.”
Together they pulled the bed away from the wall and moved it off to the side. The man revealed was as different from the original corpse as it was possible for two people to be. Where the first was large, muscular, middle aged and eastern European looking; this man was slight, skinny, young and appeared to be of Italian descent. He was wearing a mustard colored t-shirt over brown pants and broken down tennis shoes. His face was sallow complected and adorned with a wispy moustache, oily uncut hair, and two protruding front teeth. There was no mystery as to how he had died. The haft of a knife protruded from his chest and his hands had clenched around it in his death throes. His eyes were open and staring, the yellow sclera indicating an untreated liver condition.
Jason and Spinelli stared down silently at the dead man. This time Jason felt a twinge of recognition, he was sure he had seen him somewhere before. He was a scrawny, rat-faced…”I’ve got it!” he said aloud, “He’s one of Zacchara’s bottom feeders. He’s called the mouse, the rat… Yes, he’s Louie the Rat. He mostly runs errands for the bookies, puts whatever he earns into his veins.”
The truth of what Jason said was clearly delineated in the scarred and scabbed over tracks on the inside of the dead man’s arms. Such a history most likely explained the liver damage as well.
Jason gave a sigh of frustration and rubbed his eyes. “It makes even less sense now. I could just barely see someone from the Karpov organization trying to make trouble for me by dropping off some soldier that had died or been killed and trying to make a profit from a loss by compromising me. Yet, it just doesn’t work though if there are bodies from two opposing organizations. Who does that?” This last was said through gritted teeth as he once again had to work to keep his temper in hand. He never wanted another surrealistic night like this again.
Meanwhile, Spinelli hadn’t moved or said anything. He just continued to stare down at Louie who stared right back up at him. There was a small rust colored pool on the carpet, it wasn’t enough blood for the killing to have occurred in situ but it was enough to make him dizzy and nauseous. ‘How am I ever going to take a shower again or sleep in this bed?’ Spinelli thought to himself, depressed and scared. He felt as old as the hills and he had no wisdom or advice to offer his mentor. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty and it appeared obvious that he wasn’t going to be celebrating Maximista’s birthday with her.
Then the same anger which had been burning in Jason since he viewed the first corpse in Spinelli’s bathroom started to flare up inside him. It had am intrinsically different quality to it though. He was indeed furious with the men who would dare come in and challenge Stone Cold, he who ruled the mob universe; the Jackal in him dearly wanted to avenge his Master’s reputation. On the other hand, Damian Spinelli was shocked and appalled by the cavalier handling of these two dead men, at the indignities that they had suffered from and had no recourse to amend. He was going to do everything in his power to help Jason find who had done this and make sure they suffered. They might have been criminals, killers even-though he very much doubted Louie was. Yet, they were still human beings and they did not merit such treatment, especially when they were entirely defenseless to prevent it.
As all these jumbled thoughts chased each other through his befuddled mind, he suddenly realized something that both he and Jason had overlooked earlier. He knew that it would be unforgivably remiss of them if they continued to do so. He had to say something; even though he was loathe to interrupt Stone Cold’s thought processes.
He reached over and tugged at the sleeve of Jason’s leather jacket, “The Jackal has determined that there is something of great pertinence that you and I must attend to immediately.”
Jason looked over at his roommate, noting his strained expression and overly bright eyes. He fervently wished that Spinelli could have been anywhere but here tonight. Still, he was relieved to see that he seemed calm and even had an idea about doing something. Jason himself only had visions of another trip to the quarry dancing in his feverish brain.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We should search the penthouse,” Spinelli said simply. “It is quite likely that Louie was here the entire time we were dealing with the Slavic unknown. There may be others as well.”
Jason gaped at him in disbelief, “Others!”
Spinelli had seen what was obvious. It had never even crossed his mind, but Spinelli was entirely right; where there was one there actually had been two, which meant there could be three or… His mind simply refused to complete that thought.
The unforeseen possibility that there might be more dead bodies scattered around the penthouse, was enough of a shock to pull Jason out of his angry reverie and galvanize him into action. “You are absolutely right,” he told Spinelli. “We need to sweep the penthouse and make sure there aren’t anymore…surprises,” he finished rather lamely. “I’ll look up here and you go downstairs, call me if you see anything, and I mean anything out of the ordinary.”
Spinelli was happy to have the downstairs duty since he had found each of the corpses and they had both been upstairs. Odds were that the people leaving these bodies would have put the other ones close by as well. He walked down the stairs, pondering Stone Cold’s “anything” speech. ‘What hadn’t been out of the ordinary tonight?’ he thought miserably to himself.
Still, dead bodies or no, if he couldn’t even see his Maximista in her full glory as a fashion up and comer this evening; he darn well was getting himself an orange soda as a very paltry consolation prize. Thus, it would only be after replenishing his spirits with the sweet Nectar of the Gods that he would embark upon his search for all things necrophilic. Just as he was opening the refrigerator door and retrieving a bottle of the liquid ambrosia, his cell phone rang, startling him. It seemed as though his world had constricted to only include him, Jason, the penthouse and assorted corpses which served to make any reminder of the outer environs somewhat disquieting.
He flipped open the phone pleased to see it was Maximista calling. His bliss was short lived as soon as he got an earful of the invective directed his way by his fair lady. “Spinelli!” her aggravated voice rang in his ears, “do you or do you not possess a watch? Do you know what time it is? Do you have any idea of how humiliating it is to be stood up at the social event of the season? If you didn’t want to come, you should have just said so! I am sure that Federico would have been happy to escort me. After all the effort I put into picking out our costumes, I am so furious with you!” There was finally a break in the rapid staccato of justly deserved vilifying speech, but it didn’t make Spinelli any happier.
He could hear the background sounds of people chattering and what seemed to be a big band playing. Yet, overlaying it all was something which broke his heart, Maxie was crying, sniffling actually. He knew that both the anger and tears were in response to her perception of the Jackal as a callous cad. He was being viewed as someone who had abandoned her on the one occasion she most required his presence and support.
Sighing, he tried to find something to say that would explain his absence while not revealing the actual cause of it. “It engenders untold pain within the Jackal to have not managed to be there with promptitude to celebrate this evening with his most esteemed Maximista. She must know that only the direst of circumstances would have prevented my arrival by this time. It is most unfortunate, but Stone Cold and I…”
“Jason!” she sobbed angrily, “I should have known that it would have something to do with him! When I get my hands on him…”
Spinelli had ceased to listen because he had noticed that the pantry door was ajar, and he suddenly remembered his brief to search the downstairs. With hesitation dogging each step, he walked towards the slightly open door. His cell phone was dangling from his hand and Maxie’s ongoing diatribe acted as a tinny counterpart to his suddenly pounding heartbeat.
Tentatively, he reached out for the door handle and slowly pulled it open. Mops, brooms, and, oh yes, one more body all came crashing out towards him. This time he managed to sidestep the embrace of yet another dead intruder by twisting dexterously to the side.
Chapter2/Part B
Chapter 2/Part A-The Second and Third
Words:3270/73,138
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s Halloween night and Spinelli is planning to spend a romantic evening with Maxie at a costume party when he stumbles across a dead body in the penthouse. His plans are indefinitely shelved as he and Jason deal with their unexpected visitor. The night involves a series of bizarre and increasingly nerve wracking events while they try to evade nosy neighbors and solve the mystery.
Chapter 1/Part A Chapter 1/Part B
Spinelli gazed in amazement at what lay nestled within the hat box Maxie had left for him earlier that evening. Reverently, he lifted out the chocolate brown fedora and placing it on his head turned to study his reflection in the closet mirror. It was perfect, identical to the one he envisioned wearing whenever he fantasized about being a film noir detective out to save damsels in distress while simultaneously searching for paint covered golden birds… If he had sometimes thought, in moments of self doubt or even self pity, that his relationship with Maximista was one-sided, and that she didn’t understand or think about him one-tenth as much as he did her; well, this was proof that wasn’t so. Indeed, for her to have winnowed her way into his subconscious in this manner, meant that she did indeed understand what it meant to be all things Jackal.
After the distressing events of the evening, he had thought it impossible to recover the joie de vivre with which he had first anticipated his date with Maxie. Now the simple act of opening a hat box put him right back into a delightful, anticipatory frame of mind.
Spinelli quickly unzipped the garment bag to discover what treasures it contained, “Aha!” he exclaimed looking excitedly at the enclosed vintage suit. It was a double breasted pinstriped suit of the same color as the fedora with a black triangle of silk peeking out of the breast pocket. Wrapped around the suit in a lover’s embrace was a vintage raincoat that looked as though Humphrey Bogart himself had inhabited it only yesterday. Finishing off the ensemble was a white shirt, a set of suspenders and a dark brown and white striped wide tie.
Spinelli frowned, “Everything is here but…” He dashed back over to the hat box and burrowed into the tissue paper, “There they are!”
He pulled the leather beauties out of their nest of paper and sighed in admiration. The wingtip shoes were made of the finest calfskin leather and were polished to a warm glowing coffee tone. Maximista had indeed seen into the soul of the Jackal and he was eternally grateful.
Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw that there was no time to waste if he were to be timely in his rendezvous with Maximista. He hastily stripped out of his everyday wardrobe of jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped into the welcoming embrace of another era. He stopped and gazed at his visage in the mirror and was awestruck. Spinelli didn’t recognize himself. His hair was slicked back, he was wearing the high waisted pants complete with suspenders, and his feet were encased in those miraculous vintage shoes. He actually looked like the handsome young hero of some black and white 1940’s film noir movie. With a rare show of narcissism Spinelli preened before his reflection. He could hardly wait to see the expression on Maximista’s face when he showed up looking so dashing and suave.
He suddenly realized that the shirt he was wearing was as authentic as the rest of the outfit, and as such, had no buttons on the cuffs. Fortunately, this was a SNAFU (he snickered to himself at the appropriate use of period slang) which would be easy to rectify. When he graduated from high school his Grandmother had presented him with a pair of cufflinks as a graduation gift. They were gold and onyx and had a stylized S engraved on the surface. At the time, Spinelli had thanked her politely all the while inwardly wishing that she had given him a more conventional check that he could have expended on perpetually needed cyber accoutrements. He had no expectation of ever utilizing the outdated fashion accessories. Yet, since he had been residing in Port Charles, he found himself time and again opening the little box and inserting the cufflinks in one dress shirt or another. He had long since both mentally apologized to and verbally thanked his Grandmother for her foresight in knowing what her grandson might need to be presentable in certain realms of society.
He went to his dresser and found the little navy box. He opened it with a fond smile and proceeded to insert the first cufflink. As he reached for the second it dropped from his fingers and rolled under the bed. With a grunt, he laid face down on the floor and reached under the bed for the errant piece of jewelry. He felt around blindly and then his hand made contact with something that was definitely not a cold, square piece of metal. As the sensations that were being communicated by his fingertips began to be analyzed by his brain, he opened his eyes and turned his head so that he could see what he was touching.
“Oh, no, not again!” he whimpered as he looked into the blind, staring eyes of another dead man.
Jason was downstairs waiting impatiently for Spinelli to finish getting ready. Once he saw the kid off on his date; he had business to transact tonight. He was looking forward to explaining to Andrei Karpov how inadvisable it was to trespass into the private world of Jason Morgan and his protégé. After tonight’s confrontation, it was likely there would be no more incipient Russian mob within the boundaries of Port Charles.
Jason was in the process of getting his gun down from its storage shelf when he heard Spinelli calling in out in a shrill voice tinged with hysteria, “Stone Cold! You need to get up to the Jackal’s room instantaneously!”
Grabbing his gun and sliding the safety off, Jason bounded up the stairs to Spinelli’s room. He burst through the door, his gun held in his right hand with his left bracing it; he swept the room from side to side and even checked behind the bedroom door. Puzzled, he let the firearm drop to his side, there was no one else in the room besides himself and Spinelli. He looked at his roommate and immediately was worried. Spinelli was standing across from his bed with his back to the wall. Hhe was as pale as Jason had ever seen him and he was shaking like a leaf.
“Spinelli,” Jason said to him, trying to keep his voice calm and even. “What’s the matter, what happened?”
In response, Spinelli tried futilely to back up further into the wall and then just slid down it and collapsed into a formless heap on the floor. The only parts of him that still showed emotion were his bright green eyes that glittered like emeralds as they stared unblinkingly at the bed.
“A…another o..one, Jas.sson,” he stuttered pointing with a shaking finger at the bed.
Jason knelt down by the bed and putting his head down looked underneath it. “Oh, shit!” he yelled, pounding his fist on the carpet.
This was the first time Spinelli could ever remember seeing his mentor react like this to any situation, including ones that were much more dangerous and life threatening. The shock of it actually stopped his own threatened slide into a full blown panic attack.
Jason stayed crouched by the bed for several moments while he struggled to restore his self control. He didn’t want to scare Spinelli anymore than he already was and he needed a clear head to deal with the situation. Still, the feelings of violation and anger were proving difficult to repress. Whoever had invaded his home and exposed his young friend to not one but two corpses in a single night was going to feel the unburnished wrath of Jason Morgan.
When he finally stopped shaking with rage and felt he had achieved a fair approximation of his usual demeanor, he got up and walked over to where Spinelli sat huddled in the corner. He knelt down next to him and tipped his chin up so that they were making eye contact with one another.
“Look at me,” he said softly. Spinelli complied, though he looked dazed and not quite connected with the here and now. “I need you to hear me,” Jason said in a slightly louder and firmer tone in an effort to counteract his friend’s disassociation. “I’m here and you’re safe and nothing is going to hurt you, I won’t let it. Do you believe me?”
Something sparked deep in Spinelli’s eyes as he looked into Jason’s face. Everyone thought of Jason as cold and distant and that his amazing icy blue eyes were the dead outer manifestation of his lack of a soul. Spinelli had always been firmly convinced that the opposite was true. He thought that he used those eyes to block anyone attempting to view the damaged humanity within. He consistently projected an unfeeling stoicism in order to protect an emotional vulnerability which he tried to keep so deeply buried that even Jason himself denied its existence. At this moment, Spinelli knew that his theory was correct. All he saw as he looked into Jason’s eyes were concern, pain and love.
He instinctively knew that Jason would die before he would let Spinelli be hurt; and because of his absolute faith in him, it was the easiest thing in the world to simply say, “Yes.”
Jason let out his pent up breath in a relieved sigh and reached over and ruffled Spinelli’s carefully pomaded hair. “Hey! The Jackal is out to impress the ladies, well, at least one certain lady tonight.” Spinelli said indignantly trying to smooth the errant hair back into place. Then he paused and looked up sadly at Jason, “The Jackal won’t be seeing his Maximista anytime soon, will he Stone Cold?” he asked wistfully.
Jason wished more than anything that he could give Spinelli the answer he deserved, but instead, he said regretfully, “I’m afraid not partner, we have to resolve whatever is happening here. Until then, I need you to stick close. I need your help and also I want you where I can keep an eye on you. We have no idea who is doing this or why and I am not risking anything happening to you.”
Biting his lower lip and nodding his head in resignation, Spinelli tried to keep his voice from quivering as he said, “the Jackal is at your disposal as always, Stone Cold.”
“Thank you.” Jason stood up and reached his hand down to pull Spinelli to his feet. “Now, let’s move your bed and take a look at our newest visitor.”
Together they pulled the bed away from the wall and moved it off to the side. The man revealed was as different from the original corpse as it was possible for two people to be. Where the first was large, muscular, middle aged and eastern European looking; this man was slight, skinny, young and appeared to be of Italian descent. He was wearing a mustard colored t-shirt over brown pants and broken down tennis shoes. His face was sallow complected and adorned with a wispy moustache, oily uncut hair, and two protruding front teeth. There was no mystery as to how he had died. The haft of a knife protruded from his chest and his hands had clenched around it in his death throes. His eyes were open and staring, the yellow sclera indicating an untreated liver condition.
Jason and Spinelli stared down silently at the dead man. This time Jason felt a twinge of recognition, he was sure he had seen him somewhere before. He was a scrawny, rat-faced…”I’ve got it!” he said aloud, “He’s one of Zacchara’s bottom feeders. He’s called the mouse, the rat… Yes, he’s Louie the Rat. He mostly runs errands for the bookies, puts whatever he earns into his veins.”
The truth of what Jason said was clearly delineated in the scarred and scabbed over tracks on the inside of the dead man’s arms. Such a history most likely explained the liver damage as well.
Jason gave a sigh of frustration and rubbed his eyes. “It makes even less sense now. I could just barely see someone from the Karpov organization trying to make trouble for me by dropping off some soldier that had died or been killed and trying to make a profit from a loss by compromising me. Yet, it just doesn’t work though if there are bodies from two opposing organizations. Who does that?” This last was said through gritted teeth as he once again had to work to keep his temper in hand. He never wanted another surrealistic night like this again.
Meanwhile, Spinelli hadn’t moved or said anything. He just continued to stare down at Louie who stared right back up at him. There was a small rust colored pool on the carpet, it wasn’t enough blood for the killing to have occurred in situ but it was enough to make him dizzy and nauseous. ‘How am I ever going to take a shower again or sleep in this bed?’ Spinelli thought to himself, depressed and scared. He felt as old as the hills and he had no wisdom or advice to offer his mentor. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty and it appeared obvious that he wasn’t going to be celebrating Maximista’s birthday with her.
Then the same anger which had been burning in Jason since he viewed the first corpse in Spinelli’s bathroom started to flare up inside him. It had am intrinsically different quality to it though. He was indeed furious with the men who would dare come in and challenge Stone Cold, he who ruled the mob universe; the Jackal in him dearly wanted to avenge his Master’s reputation. On the other hand, Damian Spinelli was shocked and appalled by the cavalier handling of these two dead men, at the indignities that they had suffered from and had no recourse to amend. He was going to do everything in his power to help Jason find who had done this and make sure they suffered. They might have been criminals, killers even-though he very much doubted Louie was. Yet, they were still human beings and they did not merit such treatment, especially when they were entirely defenseless to prevent it.
As all these jumbled thoughts chased each other through his befuddled mind, he suddenly realized something that both he and Jason had overlooked earlier. He knew that it would be unforgivably remiss of them if they continued to do so. He had to say something; even though he was loathe to interrupt Stone Cold’s thought processes.
He reached over and tugged at the sleeve of Jason’s leather jacket, “The Jackal has determined that there is something of great pertinence that you and I must attend to immediately.”
Jason looked over at his roommate, noting his strained expression and overly bright eyes. He fervently wished that Spinelli could have been anywhere but here tonight. Still, he was relieved to see that he seemed calm and even had an idea about doing something. Jason himself only had visions of another trip to the quarry dancing in his feverish brain.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We should search the penthouse,” Spinelli said simply. “It is quite likely that Louie was here the entire time we were dealing with the Slavic unknown. There may be others as well.”
Jason gaped at him in disbelief, “Others!”
Spinelli had seen what was obvious. It had never even crossed his mind, but Spinelli was entirely right; where there was one there actually had been two, which meant there could be three or… His mind simply refused to complete that thought.
The unforeseen possibility that there might be more dead bodies scattered around the penthouse, was enough of a shock to pull Jason out of his angry reverie and galvanize him into action. “You are absolutely right,” he told Spinelli. “We need to sweep the penthouse and make sure there aren’t anymore…surprises,” he finished rather lamely. “I’ll look up here and you go downstairs, call me if you see anything, and I mean anything out of the ordinary.”
Spinelli was happy to have the downstairs duty since he had found each of the corpses and they had both been upstairs. Odds were that the people leaving these bodies would have put the other ones close by as well. He walked down the stairs, pondering Stone Cold’s “anything” speech. ‘What hadn’t been out of the ordinary tonight?’ he thought miserably to himself.
Still, dead bodies or no, if he couldn’t even see his Maximista in her full glory as a fashion up and comer this evening; he darn well was getting himself an orange soda as a very paltry consolation prize. Thus, it would only be after replenishing his spirits with the sweet Nectar of the Gods that he would embark upon his search for all things necrophilic. Just as he was opening the refrigerator door and retrieving a bottle of the liquid ambrosia, his cell phone rang, startling him. It seemed as though his world had constricted to only include him, Jason, the penthouse and assorted corpses which served to make any reminder of the outer environs somewhat disquieting.
He flipped open the phone pleased to see it was Maximista calling. His bliss was short lived as soon as he got an earful of the invective directed his way by his fair lady. “Spinelli!” her aggravated voice rang in his ears, “do you or do you not possess a watch? Do you know what time it is? Do you have any idea of how humiliating it is to be stood up at the social event of the season? If you didn’t want to come, you should have just said so! I am sure that Federico would have been happy to escort me. After all the effort I put into picking out our costumes, I am so furious with you!” There was finally a break in the rapid staccato of justly deserved vilifying speech, but it didn’t make Spinelli any happier.
He could hear the background sounds of people chattering and what seemed to be a big band playing. Yet, overlaying it all was something which broke his heart, Maxie was crying, sniffling actually. He knew that both the anger and tears were in response to her perception of the Jackal as a callous cad. He was being viewed as someone who had abandoned her on the one occasion she most required his presence and support.
Sighing, he tried to find something to say that would explain his absence while not revealing the actual cause of it. “It engenders untold pain within the Jackal to have not managed to be there with promptitude to celebrate this evening with his most esteemed Maximista. She must know that only the direst of circumstances would have prevented my arrival by this time. It is most unfortunate, but Stone Cold and I…”
“Jason!” she sobbed angrily, “I should have known that it would have something to do with him! When I get my hands on him…”
Spinelli had ceased to listen because he had noticed that the pantry door was ajar, and he suddenly remembered his brief to search the downstairs. With hesitation dogging each step, he walked towards the slightly open door. His cell phone was dangling from his hand and Maxie’s ongoing diatribe acted as a tinny counterpart to his suddenly pounding heartbeat.
Tentatively, he reached out for the door handle and slowly pulled it open. Mops, brooms, and, oh yes, one more body all came crashing out towards him. This time he managed to sidestep the embrace of yet another dead intruder by twisting dexterously to the side.
Chapter2/Part B