Darkfall

resident expert on narcotics trafficking in the city. No one knew more about the subject, the involvement of the Carramazzas, the way the Carramazza organization had subverted so many vice squad detectives and city politicians; no one knew more than Gregory; no one. He published those articles- ”
    “I read them. Good work. Four pieces, I believe.”
    “Yes. He intended to do more, at least half a dozen more articles. There was talk of a Pulitzer, just based on what he’d written so far. Already, he had dug up enough evidence to interest the police and to generate three indictments by the grand jury. He had the sources, you see: insiders in the police and in the Carramazza family, insiders who trusted him. He was convinced he could bring down Dominick Carramazza himself before it was all over. Poor, noble, foolish, brave little Gregory. He thought it was his duty to fight evil wherever he found it. The crusading reporter. He thought he could make a difference, all by himself. He didn’t understand that the only way to deal with the powers of darkness is to make peace with them, accommodate yourself to them, as I have done. One night last March, he and his wife, Ona, were on their way to dinner…”
    “The car bomb,” Jack said.
    “They were both blown to bits. Ona was pregnant. It would have been their first child. So I owe Gennaro Carramazza for three lives-Gregory, Ona, and the baby.”
    “The case was never solved,” Jack reminded him. “There was no proof that Carramazza was behind it.”
    “He was.”
    “You can’t be sure.”
    “Yes, I can. I have my sources, too. Better even than Gregory’s. I have the eyes and ears of the Underworld working for me.” He laughed. He had a musical, appealing laugh that Jack found unsettling. A madman should have a madman’s laugh, not the warm chuckle of a favorite uncle. “The Underworld Lieutenant. But I don’t mean the criminal underworld, the miserable cosa nostra with its Sicilian pride and empty code of honor. The Underworld of which I speak is a place much deeper than that which the mafia inhabits, deeper and darker. I have the eyes and ears of the ancient ones, the reports of demons and dark angels, the testimony of those entities who see all and know all.”
    Madness, Jack thought. The man belongs in an institution.
    But in addition to the madness, there was something else in Lavelle’s voice that nudged and poked the cop’s instincts in Jack. When Lavelle spoke of the supernatural, he did so with genuine awe and conviction; however, when he spoke of his brother, his voice became oily with phony sentiment and unconvincing grief. Jack sensed that revenge was not Lavelle’s primary motivation and that, in fact, he might even have hated his straight-arrow brother, might even be glad (or at least relieved) that he was dead.
    “Your brother wouldn’t approve of this revenge you’re taking,” Jack said.
    “Perhaps he would. You didn’t know him.”
    “But I know enough about him to say with some confidence that he wasn’t at all like you. He was a decent man. He wouldn’t want all this slaughter. He would be repelled by it.”
    Lavelle said nothing, but there was somehow a pouting quality to his silence, a smoldering anger.
    Jack said, “He wouldn’t approve of the murder of anyone’s grandchildren, revenge unto the third generation. He wasn’t sick, like you. He wasn’t crazy.”
    “It doesn’t matter whether he would approve,” Lavelle said impatiently.
    “I suspect that’s because it isn’t really revenge that motivates you. Not deep down.”
    Again, Lavelle was silent.
    Pushing, probing for the truth, Jack said, “So if your brother wouldn’t approve of murder being done in his name, then why are you-”
    “I’m not exterminating these vermin in my brother’s name,” Lavelle said sharply, furiously. “I’m doing it in my own name. Mine and no one else’s. That must be understood. I never claimed otherwise. These deaths accrue to my credit, not to my brother’s.”
    “Credit? Since when is murder a credit, a character reference, a matter of pride? That’s insane.”
    “It isn’t insane,” Lavelle said heatedly. The madness boiled up in him. “It is the reasoning of the ancient ones, the gods of Pétr o and Congo . No one can take the life of a Bocor ‘s brother and go unpunished. The murder of my brother is an insult to me. It diminishes me. It mocks me. I cannot tolerate that. I will not! My power as a Bocor