The Theater of Emerald Tears

Chapter Five

Jimmy Caravello took his hat off as he entered his house. Blood attracts predators. It does something to the primitive part of the brain. Distantly, Jimmy understood that. More importantly, he embraced it, the Italian rage that had driven civilization from Caesar through to the modern world that thought it didn\'t need that cunning rage anymore. He hung his fedora on the polished brass hat stand and pushed open the door to the library.

Sunny. His mind refused to visualize Sunny bleeding on his chair, to process that the dark stains on the leather were from Sunny\'s body. The sex between them had been so gentle before Jimmy had left. That filled his mind instead, one of Sunny\'s legs over his back, Sunny\'s body opening with the trembling with virgin newness. All the light in the world had been in Sunny\'s eyes, in the smile and the amateur kisses. Jimmy\'s eyes stung and he blinked, surprised to find his eyes watering.

\"Boss,\" Marky said from the door step. \"We found out who that car belongs to. You want I should get some boys over there to see what\'s what?\"

\"Yes,\" Jimmy said, only half distracted from his thoughts, wanting to keep his back to his man. \"But don\'t tip them off.\"

\"Sure boss. You want that I should have the accounting offices,\" Marky paused, \"cleaned?\"

\"Yes,\" Jimmy said. That was standard, normal. His father had lost an accountant once. Losing accountants was messy. \"No. Wait. Don\'t. Don\'t touch Sunny\'s things.\"

\"But Boss….\"

\"No.\" Jimmy turned and took Marky to task, dark brown eyes exerting more control than most men could have with a gun to someone\'s head. \"Sunny will be home.\"

\"Uh, right Boss,\" Marky said, scratching the side of his head. \"Any thing else you want me to do?\"

\"I want tommy guns. New ones. Get me a dozen.\" The tiger in Jimmy smiled. It wasn\'t only about Sunny. There was also the challenge to his family\'s control of the c but but touching Sunny had been a lethal mistake. \"Tell the Doctor I\'ll have someone for him to play with soon.\"

\"You want we should get him out of the sanitarium, or wait for a bit?\"

\"Wait. It\'ll just be a short vacation for him, but you can let him know.\" Jimmy ran a hand through black hair and let go of Seattle a little. Seattle was a dream, but Sunny was real. \"Find him for me, Marky.\"

\"Who? The accountant?\" Marky wasn\'t sure what was going on with his boss. Something was a little queer.

\"Yes, the accountant.\" Jimmy crossed to the chair where Sunny had bled.

A new voice asked, \"You really bothered by a little blood? Or is it the chair?\"

Jimmy looked up, dark eyes dry and predatory cold. \"Smyth.\"

The FBI agent let himself into Jimmy\'s violated library, hands in his pants pockets like a guilty high school boy. Blond hair, blue eyes made Ronald Smyth look like a high school body. Jimmy had considered him attractive at one time, until he\'d realized how very manipulative and disloyal the blond was. Jimmy sat down in his chair, back covering the bullet hole in the center of Sunny\'s blood. \"What did you bring me, Smyth. What do you want?\"

\"The man who has your,\" Smyth said the next word with decided innuendo, \"Accountant is Silver Danveer. A Dutchman who wants to set up legitimate trade, but thinks he\'ll do better if he has the market before Prohibition is ended.\"

\"It ain\'t never going to end,\" Jimmy said, taking what Smyth told him in, \"The good clean politicians are making their money too, off rum running, you know.\"

The next ten minutes were some of the most movie-like of Jimmy\'s life. Sunny had talked about how life was like a movie, and here was this man, sitting on the other side of his desk telling him about another man who thought he could muscle a bit of Jimmy\'s family business. Cops that were bought turned out to be only rented, and this Danveer\'s money had covered a huge abscess in the Caravello family holdings. Some joke of fate made it Sunny that actually lanced the boil, as Smyth had realized the mistake he\'d made when Danveer had been alone with Sunny.

\"So you realize I didn\'t know you were gonna get personal with your bean counter. If I\'d known, I never would have id\'ed him for Danveer.\"


\"So why are you telling me this now?\" Jimmy asked. \"You realize I am going to kill you?\"

Smyth had the good sense to look repentant, but the nerve to tilt his head, blink slowly with his perfect lips parted. \"I can replace what you\'ve lost.\"

Jimmy pressed fingers to his forehead. Nothing looked worse on a straight man than a woman\'s last play. What Jimmy really wanted was to know what he had that Danveer didn\'t. \"You ever had a moment where everything just suddenly makes sense? A guy can get just about anything in this city for two bits and ain\'t none of it worth a damn. You sold out your partners and the man you betrayed me to. You\'re filth. And home, we would\'ve put a shit like you through a meat grinder and sent the sausage back to your family.\"

People who are already pale should not get nauseous. \"You\'re nothing but a two bit cock sucking gangster,\" Smyth stood, eyeing the door out of the corner of his eye. \"You can\'t fucking touch me. My partner knows I\'m here.\"

\"The difference between the family and your amateur boys club is that we know what we\'re doing. You, him, and that pencil pushing pansy can all be disappeared and no one would say shit to me about it. You deal in so much shit, you forget who you\'re talking to.\"

\"I\'m talking to a petty crime boss who thinks money\'s gonna buy him clean. You can\'t touch me and you are gonna pay mr thr the information I\'ve given you, you ungrateful fag.\"

Jimmy looked the guy over. The day before killing this chimp wouldn\'t have touched him. The innocent love he\'d seen in Sunny\'s eyes though, that had baptized Jimmy\'s soul in a feeling of joy, kindness, acceptance that he\'d never felt before. Killing this man wasn\'t worth losing that naive love. In Sunny\'s eyes he was a prince, some kinda Japanese warlord and he\'d let New York sink into the sea before losing that.

He stood, crossed to the safe. \"Do you believe in God, Smyth?\" Jimmy held a thousand dollars, bank wrapped even.

\"What has that got to do with anything ?\"

He held the money out, way more than the usual price. Jimmy took thee man\'s hand, catching his little finger, bending, twisting, yanking, and cartilage and bone separated like a wing off a chicken. Smyth howled clutched his money, his ruined little finger. \"Whore\'s son!\"

\"Leave my mother out of it,\" Jimmy snarled, holding a fistful of Smyth\'s shirt. \"You better pray I get Sunny back, or you\'re going to wish I was playing with your fingers, traitor.\"