Fear Her Wrath II: Crucible of Glass

Chapter 7

What with Marbrose City being literally run by the mafia, you would think the Fen's Little Sicily would be one of the nicer parts of town. But for all their talk of family and omerta and Sicilian solidarity, mafiosi are bandits. They plunder their own blood just as readily as anyone else, so if anything, Little Sicily was one of the more dilapidated parts of the Fen—held together more by the stubbornness of its residents than mortar and concrete.

In daylight, its sidewalks were crowded with peddlers and fruit stalls and people coming and going from little family-run restaurants, bakeries, and grocers. It had its charms—if you could see past the squalor—and its affordable Italian cuisine drew in gourmets even from across the river. Vanzetti's—the best Italian food in the Fen, in my expert opinion—had resisted mob coercion for three generations, proudly proclaiming on its menus that there was no "mafia tax" on the pasta or clams. A few other businesses resisted in more subtle ways, like not painting over the "Fear Her Wrath" graffiti that could now be found all over the Fen. These were outliers, though. Every night, the mafia soldiers of Carmine Aurelio's regime descended on Little Sicily to collect their cut of the day's profits, and nearly everyone paid up.

Luca Fangio—a 63-year-old bachelor living in the penthouse of an old brownstone on Luna Street—was one of the exceptions.

Fangio was an anarchist in his youth—at least, he was detained multiple times by the FBI on suspicion of seditious activity, even if he was never convicted. At some point he must have decided he liked making bombs more than conspiracy and revolution, because he sold his services to the Montagnese family during their 1982 war with the Chicago Outfit and they'd kept him on the payroll ever since—calling him in whenever a prosecutor or minor local politician started to get ideas about upholding the law or representing the public interest. To all appearances, he enjoyed similar status to a costumed freak: the soldiers and associates of the Aurelio regime left him alone, and he waited for a problem to pop up that fell into his particular area of expertise.

If there was one part of all this that didn't make sense, it was why someone who seened to have good relations with the Montagnese family would risk his life sending bombs to mafia fronts. By all appearances, Fangio had grown out of the political radicalism of his youth, but I figured maybe old habits die hard.

The fire escape of 237A Luna Street led directly to Fangio's penthouse apartment. It was hardly luxurious—just modest suite of rooms that opened onto a small garden terrace. I guess he liked to grow herbs and tomatoes when he wasn't blowing people to bits, because the planter boxes and trellises were bursting with green and showed every sign of being carefully tended. I wasn't sure what I expected to find—a guy who sent out exploding packages could easily have his house rigged to blow—but I saw nothing out of the ordinary as I crept across the terrace. Just plants and garden furniture. You would never have guessed the guy who lived here was an explosives expert.

As I drew nearer, I noticed that the French doors were slightly ajar, and I could see where the lock had been forced. As quietly as possible, I unfolded my electro-staff and turned on my voice distorter.

"Ellie," I whispered. "Somebody's already been here."

I held my breath, trying to pick up any noises coming from the inside of the apartment. There was silence. Steeling myself for an ambush, I gripped my staff in one hand and a few pellets of knockout gas in the other, then threw my full weight against the door.

I had not expected what I saw on the other side. For about a minute, I stared in uncomprehending silence.

"Did you find Fangio?" came Ellie's voice in my ear.

"Yep."

"Ooh, lemme guess: He's dead"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Very dead."