Chapter 5 - THE DRAINAGE PIPE
The service tunnel smelled of damp earth, rust, and decades of stagnant water.
Norah crawled on her hands and knees through the dark, thirty-inch concrete pipe, her canvas duffel bag dragged behind her by its strap. The knees of her flannel pants were instantly soaked in freezing mud, but the adrenaline surging through her veins burned away any sensation of cold.
Behind her, muffled by inches of concrete and dirt, the sound of gunfire continued—short, disciplined bursts from Arthur’s pistol, answered by the heavy, rhythmic pounding of automatic weapons.
She reached a junction where the pipe widened slightly, allowing her to stand in a stooped posture. Water poured from a drainage grate somewhere above her head, splashing icy rain onto her face.
Norah stopped, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
She looked back down the pitch-black tunnel.
Arthur was still back there. He was one man standing against Sal Varone, Don Vitucci’s crew, and a house full of compromised security guards. He had stayed behind to buy her two hundred yards of space.
He’s a murderer, a small, rational voice inside her mind argued. He admitted to killing his best friend twenty-four hours ago. He’s a mob boss. This is his world, his violent end. You have fifty thousand dollars waiting for you in Detroit. Keep moving.
She took two steps toward the exit of the pipe, where she could see the cold grey glow of the storm outside.
Then she remembered his face from three in the morning.
She remembered the way his hands had trembled when he held her shirt. She remembered his voice breaking: I just need someone who doesn’t want me dead.
He wasn't fighting for his empire down there. He was fighting because he had given up on his life a long time ago, and holding that doorway was the only meaningful thing he had left to do.
“Damn it,” Norah sobbed through her teeth.
She turned around in the narrow pipe.
She didn't crawl forward toward safety. She turned back toward the basement.
Norah pulled her father’s heavy iron fireplace poker—which she had crammed into the side strap of her duffel bag—and gripped the rusted handle tight.
She scrambled back through the mud, reaching the rusty steel hatch that led into her room.
She pressed her ear against the cold metal.
The heavy gunfire had stopped.
Inside her room, she could hear rough voices, heavy boots kicking over smashed furniture, and the sound of someone gasping for air.
“He’s hit in the leg,” Sal’s smooth, icy voice carried through the metal. “Pick him up.”
“Where’s the girl?” another voice asked—Jimmy Luca’s voice. But it sounded different—flat, dead, compromised. Jimmy had turned too.
“She went through the boiler hatch,” Sal said dismissively. “Don't worry about her. The woods are surrounded by Vitucci’s boys. She won't make it to the road. Right now, we have to clear the house before the state police notice the noise.”
Norah cracked the steel hatch open a single millimeter.
Her tiny room was completely ruined. The drywall was peppered with bullet holes, her mattress shredded, her cheap thrift-store rug soaked in blood and plaster dust.
Arthur was on his knees near the doorway, held upright by two heavy-set men in tactical gear. His navy suit jacket was gone, his white shirt torn and stained with fresh blood from a gunshot wound through his right shoulder. His head hung low, dark hair dripping with sweat.
Sal stood in front of him, holding a nickel-plated revolver.
“It didn't have to be like this, Arthur,” Sal said, taking a slow puff from a cigar. “Your father knew when to share the pie. You got greedy. You wanted to clean up the docks, clean up the unions, make everything legitimate. You forgot what built this family.”
Arthur slowly lifted his head. His eyes were bruised, blood running down his cheek from a cut on his hairline, but he spat a mouthful of blood onto Sal’s polished shoe.
“Fuck you, Sal,” Arthur rasped.
Sal sighed, shaking his head. He raised the nickel-plated revolver, pointing the barrel directly between Arthur’s eyes.
“Goodbye, boss.”
Norah didn't think. There was no calculation, no survival arithmetic left in her mind.
She threw the rusty steel hatch open with all her weight, sending the metal door slamming into the back of the guard holding Arthur’s left arm. The heavy steel edge struck the man squarely behind the ear with a sickening crack. He collapsed instantly onto the floor.
Before the second guard or Sal could react, Norah scrambled out of the hatch, swinging her father’s heavy iron fireplace poker with both hands like a baseball bat.
The solid iron hook struck the second guard across the side of his knee. The joint shattered with a loud pop, and he screamed, falling sideways into the overturned desk.
“What the—!” Sal spun around, raising his revolver toward Norah.
Arthur didn't miss the fraction of a second.
Despite the bullet wound in his shoulder, Arthur threw his entire broad body forward, tackling Sal around the waist. Both men crashed violently onto the floor, the revolver flying from Sal’s grip and skidding across the linoleum, coming to rest right at Norah’s feet.
Norah dropped the fireplace poker and fell to her knees, grabbing the cold nickel-plated gun with both hands.
She leveled the barrel directly at Sal’s chest.
“Don't move!” she screamed, her voice tearing her throat, her entire body shaking violently. “Don't you dare move!”
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Sal froze on the floor, Arthur pinning his arms from above. Sal looked up at the quiet maid from the third floor—her face covered in mud, soot, and blood, her eyes blazing with absolute, unhinged fury.
For the first time in thirty years, Sal Varone looked terrified.
