Humphrey nodded. “Great things, indeed,” he said.
~Epilogue~
20 years later...
“Pitch...I can’t feel my legs...”
“Yeah, I hear a shattered pelvis will cause that.”
“You’re a dead man, you know that.”
“Aw...am I to join that long list of yours? The one that goes all the way back to Stone...to Giselle?”
Beneath the glow of sweat and undoubted terror, Humphrey Tesano paled. His rich complexion became an even more ghastly white. His eyes darted nervously around his penthouse living room and what had become of it. Overturned chairs, once a pristine white were now stained by grotesque smears of blood, mucus and feces. All his. He shuddered at the realization.
“Y-you won’t get away with it. G-Gabe, Gabe’s on his way, we’re meeting-”
“See...maybe if you’d said the cops were on their way, that might’ve gotten me to leave earlier. Would’ve at least saved you the humiliation of shittin’ your pants-”
“You filthy nig-!” Renewed pain seized again, cutting the word in half.
Pitch laughed. “Can’t even use your favorite slur. My work here is done.”
Humphrey slumped against the base of an armchair, eyes squeezed shut in agony. Jobs would be lost over this, he vowed. The desk staff had allowed Pitch access to his private floor without bothering to ask for ID. Humphrey had gone to the door of his Central Park penthouse expecting to greet his favorite brother. He got Pitch’s ham-sized fist to the nose for his trouble.
Pitch strolled the massacred living room, wiping his bloodied hands on one of the linen napkins that accompanied the fruit and cheese trays. Humphrey had them sent up courtesy of the in-house room service amenity his building offered to its residents.
“It might not be a bad idea to chat with Grek, come to think of it. Or have you spilled it all to him? Maybe he’s so far gone, he doesn’t give a damn anymore.”
“You know nothing-”
“I know there was something very interesting about Stone’s crime scene.”
Humphrey’s eyes flared.
Pitch noticed the reaction and laughed. “My guess is Pop had them bury it. Couldn’t bring himself to fully accept you were a piece of shit psychotic who murdered his own brother.”
“That’s a lie-!”
“All because Stone discovered you were wrapped up in some fishy business deals? Was it really worth killing him for?”
“Go on then, tell it,” Humphrey grimaced over the pain as he gritted out the order. “I’ll enjoy seeing everyone laugh in your face.”
“That won’t do anything, but hurt the people I love.”
“Because you have nothing on me.”
“I have a police report. I’d say that’s something.”
Foreboding captured Humphrey’s expression then. He looked somehow shrunken against the bottom of the chair.
“Rome’s not the only one with friends on the force, you see?”
Pitch referred to his uncle. Mitchell Claymore, after numerous tries and failures; attributed only to his race, had made his way onto the New York police force and eventually to the rank of detective.
“Turns out,” Pitch said, “there was no GSR on Stone’s hands. That’s gun-shot residue, if you didn’t know. In layman’s terms, that means he never fired that gun he supposedly shot himself with. That’s about as far as the investigation got before it was closed. Who killed him, Hump? You? Vale? Grek? You were all in the building that night. Back then, I would’ve never suspected Grek capable...back then. Now though...now, the rest of us barely recognize him. You killed him as sure as you killed Stone.”
“I never-”
“Save it. I breathe a word of this and it could bring on all kinds of speculation, but at the end of the day, that's all it is, right? Speculation. Stone’s casket is buried somewhere in Italy. I won’t disturb him now, not for the likes of you. Though I can’t say I’m fully against mentioning this to Rome.”
Again, Pitch’s vibrant laughter thrummed through the room when he saw that Humphrey seemed to wilt into the chair. “That reaction is priceless!”
“R-Ro is nobody. A-a th-thug.”
“Mmm...thug is right. A crazy one. Now more than ever. It’d only take one word to snap that leash he’s barely tied to. It’d take next to nothing to sell him on shredding your cowardly ass. He’d come after you with everything he’s got. He’d risk all he has to put you down and that’s something I can’t let him do.”
“Big of you.”
“I think so. Guess that means I’ll have to handle it. Save the kid from himself, you know?”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Well let’s see if this clarifies,” Pitch moved with surprising swiftness for a man his size. Unmindful of the hands he’d just cleansed, he crossed the room to Humphrey and punished his battered face with another sadistic blow. That one landing to the side of Humphrey’s broken nose. Pitch combined the shot with a kick from one of the black, rubber-soled work boots adorning his feet.
The shot met Humphrey square in the abdomen. His resulting howl was absorbed into the state of the art soundproofing. He tried to curl into himself which aggravated the bruised pelvic bone.
“Grek!” Humphrey gasped. “Grek h-he’s on his w-way and he’ll-”
