A Tale of Two Families: Il Finale

Part One

Part Two

   The torrential downpour made it hard to see the fleeing tail lights in front of him. It couldn’t be far past midnight and the lack of visibility on the old country roads that zigged through upstate New York didn’t help the matter. The two cars weaved in and out of each others paths like two dragonflies in an alluring dance of death. Every small movement on the wheel of his Buick Series 40 made sending a .45 caliber round through the back of Paolo’s windshield just out of reach. Sammy knew that no matter what, It all ended tonight.

  Two months had passed since Sonny was laid to rest, but the fire that fueled Sammy’s rage burned brighter than ever. It felt as if every lead he followed in the search for Paolo left him tired, angry, and shit out of luck. Trying to find a particular middle-aged Italian man in the tri-state area was the equivalent of finding a particular puzzle piece in an arrangement of four million pieces. Paolo’s description just happened to match almost every other middle aged, Italian, male immigrant that had passed through Ellis island in the last 20 years. Sitting in his safehouse day in and day out, with only the companionship of a whiskey bottle was starting to wear on Sammy’s psyche. Was HE to blame for not bringing justice to Sonny’s killer sooner?

  The phone hadn’t rang in days, so the sudden jolt coursing through Sammy’s veins when it finally did was enough to sink his heart into his stomach.

“Fuck.” he murmured knocking last nights whiskey bottle off of the nightstand.

“Hello, Mr. Santoro?” said a petite voice from the other end of the line.

“Yes?”

“You have a call waiting, would you like to take it?”

“Yeah, patch them through.” 

  Waiting for the audible ‘click’ of the switchboard confirming the transfer of the call only let Sammy’s mind spin faster than he cared to admit. Who in the world could this be? It was at that exact moment an audible, gut wrenching hurl forced its way out from the deep recession of Sammy’s stomach.

“Christ Soul, you gonna’ survive there chief?” It was Tony, one of Sammy’s close friends that would watch a couple rackets for him while he was out of town.

“What do you want Tony?”

“Just thought you would want to know that a little songbird called, said they didn’t want to call the hotel with hot gossip.”

“Well, you gonna’ tell me what they said or just tickle my balls with it, huh?”

“The guy said your friend was migrating to Canada soon. Said he was holed up in some ol’ warehouse about twenty minutes north of Albany.”

“When are they moving?”

“Tonight Sammy…” the tone of the conversation suddenly shifted to a more solemn nature.

“Aye’ Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t do anything stupid, alright?” and with that, the line suddenly fell silent.

  Thankfully Sammy had made it  out of the apartment enough to ‘acquire’ some gear for the job. Having spent a short period of his younger years in the tail end of the great war, he was confident with ‘heavy machinery’ after spending ample time behind the trigger of a Maxim Machine Gun. 

“One Browning Automatic Rifle, check. 760 rounds of .30-06… check.” 

  He said methodically as he carefully placed all of the items in the trunk of his buick. Fortunately, the alley where Sammy stashed the buick had the same amount of foot traffic as the graveyard behind St. John's church, none. If anyone caught a glimpse of this kind of firepower out in the open, he would have some serious explaining to do. It was almost time. He had to call Tony back and try to pry the address of the warehouse out of him, but the imbecile had the IQ of a cannoli. Thankfully with a little bit of memory jogging he was able to give Sammy a more accurate location. The warehouse was about twenty minutes north of Albany on the edge of some hole-in-the-wall town in bum-fuck-Egypt. Even further north of that, was a service tunnel that would be perfect to lay and wait for Paolo to make his move, and that time was rapidly approaching. 

  Parking the car horizontally, a few feet off the road, Sammy was a solid thirty yards past the exit of the service tunnel. Exiting the vehicle, he loaded his rifle and performed a press check to confirm it was ready to fire. Extending the bipod, he laid the hunk of metal across the hood of the buick and flipped the selector switch to the slower rate of automatic fire. Small, controlled bursts, would help him make sure his rounds found their targets in the cab of the transport truck. What felt like an eternity had passed, but in reality it couldn’t have been much longer than fifteen minutes passed before an audible V8 engine could be heard rumbling through the tunnel.

“Stay calm, Sammy.” he tried to tell himself.

  Only seconds later a sliver of moonlight could be seen refracting off of the windshield of a transport truck coming straight towards Sammy’s position. Confirming it was the same transport truck he had seen outside the warehouse earlier when doing some early scouting. Sammy pulled the trigger and was ready for whatever happened next.

Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank! …. He paused for a second.

Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank!

  Two series of small controlled bursts barked from the end of the rifle. At three hundred and sixty rounds per minute, the .30-06 ripped and shredded through the cab of the truck. In the low light, Sammy could see small sparks, as well as glass ‘snowflakes’ drifting to the left and right of the cab. The truck never once tried to change its path or slow down. This was good, it meant that most likely the driver had met a quick end not even knowing what had happened. But now, the truck was barreling down the road at a forty-five degree angle, straight for a three foot drainage ditch. At somewhere close to fifty miles per hour, the truck roared to a halt after flipping what appeared to have been four or maybe five times. Smoke rose from the engine as Sammy studied the wreck. Suddenly, a round whizzed over his head, there was another car.

“Son of a...!” he yelled while scrambling to point the rifle to his six.

Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank! Clank!

  They all missed. Sammy quickly threw down the rifle, jumped in the car, and took off after the assailant. Sammy feared he was going to run out of road soon as he had been tailing the vehicle for the last sixty miles directly into a nasty storm moving south from the northern frontier. Finally, a curve in the road threw the car into a nasty twirl across the highway. This was his chance to move in. Slowing to a manageable speed, Sammy rammed his Buick into the driver door of the sedan. He reached for his 1911 and emptied his magazine into the driver side windows of the car. He kicked open his door, dropped to the dirt beside him and reloaded his weapon. At that exact moment, someone opened the passenger side door and unleashed an entire drum magazine from what sounded like a Thompson submachine gun. Sammy had no other option but to curl into the fetal position and pray he made it out alive.

“Show yourself, shit stain!” cried the shooter.

“You first!” 

  Sammy slammed the grip of his pistol into the side of the car to his rear. Immediately shifting his weight, he lunged forward into the open with his gun up ready to fire. His distraction worked as a quick burst of rounds thrashed the rear end of the car. Just as he leveled his gun to fire, the burst from the Thompson had walked its way back towards Sammy. He fired his pistol four times center mass at the barely visible blob in front of him. Dropping back to the ground, a searing white hot pain arced down his shoulder. Guessing by the situation at hand, he must have taken a round from the burst. A few moments passed before he snapped out of the mild shock the pain was causing. But, why hadn’t the shooter come to finish the job? Reaching back with his left hand he pulled a piece of metal off the chassis of the car, quickly tossing it out in the open trying to draw out the gunman's fire once more. Nothing, nothing at all, happened. Was the shooter reloading? Better yet, was he dead? Sammy couldn’t be sure of either based on the rain still coming down and covering up a lot of the softer sounds close by. Trying his hardest not to wretch in pain, he flipped over onto his wounded shoulder to get a better look under the cars that were still joined at the hip.

  Laying next to the sedan, a figure could be seen crawling slowly away from the scene of the crash. Sammy quickly pulled himself up to one knee and slowly began to push himself into a better position. Approaching the corner, Sammy could see that the figure was still slowly wiggling itself farther and farther away. With a second wind of energy, Sammy stood up and jogged up to the person, flipping them over nuzzling the barrel of his 1911 deep into the mans lower mandible.

“Where the hell is Pao-...” 

  Sammy could see even through the thick, wet, darkness that surrounded him that the man in front of him was the man who haunted his dreams for the last two months. It was the same man that took the life of his cousin Sonny. It was Paolo, and Sammy finally had him in his grasp.

“It’s nice to finally meet you Paolo.” Sammy said, lifting the man's head off the pavement by his collar, and firmly driving the barrel deeper into his neck.

“Who.. who the hell are you?” 

“You may not recognize my face but it sure as hell will be the last one you ever see.”

“Listen Pal, I- ... arrghhhhh!” he screamed in pain as Sammy drove his fingers knuckle deep into one of the bullet wounds in Paolo’s torso.

“No speaking, you are the one who is going to listen.”

“I spent the last two months of my life thinking of every way imaginable to end your life. And now, it's time to finally have my way and I am just wanting this all to be over.”

“I am sure we can work something out!” the man said pleading for his life.

“Did Sonny have the chance to work out a deal?”

“Who the fuck is Sonn-” 

Blat! Blat! Blat! Blat! Blat! Blat! Blat!

“Asshole.”  Sammy said, wiping the blood  from his eyes..

  It was almost as if Sonny was having a chuckle at the demise of his killer. The rain stopped, and the clouds broke revealing a beautiful night sky above. For the last two months Sammy was stuck in a world of anger, dread, and despair. But finally, with blood trickling down his back, a searing pain in his shoulder, and the stench of death permeating his nostrils Sammy finally felt peace. It was an odd feeling, PEACE. Sammy had always been told that revenge was a fruitless endeavor.

"Well I guess they were wrong.” he said to himself before slowly walking back towards town.

Finally, it was all over.

Prologue:

The room kept spinning over-head, with each twirl sending him closer to the bucket beside his bed. The wrenching in his stomach told him whatever came next was going to be involuntary. Rolling out of bed he struggled...

"Left.. right... left... right."

When was the last time he had to pace his steps? He couldn't remember but it definitely wasn't often. Splashing water on his face, he looked up into the mirror and what stared back at him not man, but monster. Flesh dripped from his face like bacon grease warming up in a pan. Maggots weaved in and out of pockets receding deep into the crevices of his eye sockets. Reaching up to touch his face, it felt cold to the touch and the smell of decaying flesh filled his nostrils. In a panic he slammed his fist through the mirror slicing open his arm.

"Fuck!..."

Reaching back for the cabinet to bandage his arm he was met with the reflection of a man. It was Sonny. Crumbling to the floor, he could hear the cries of Sonny begging for help but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get to him.

Was he the reason Sonny was dead? If he would of never walked this path in life would his hands be free from the blood..

Reaching for another bottle of whiskey, Sammy closed his eyes and hoped for sleep soon.