Chapter 15 - THE LAST RECORDING
Two years after the night in the closet, Marcus visited Vincent’s condo overlooking Lake Michigan.
No guards waited downstairs.
No men checked his car.
Vincent had downsized so aggressively that Marcus joked he now lived like an accountant.
They ate pasta from a neighborhood restaurant.
After dinner, Vincent brought out a small evidence-return box.
Inside was Luca’s cassette.
The case was over.
The government no longer needed the original.
Marcus touched it with one finger.
“I thought you were keeping that.”
“I kept too much.”
Marcus looked at him.
“There’s something else on it.”
Vincent nodded.
The forensic lab had recovered a few seconds beyond what the first playback revealed. The tape had seemed finished because Luca stopped speaking to Tony.
Then, after a long stretch of room noise, Luca apparently picked up the recorder again.
Vincent had never listened to that part without Marcus.
He placed the cassette into an old player.
Static.
A chair.
Then Luca’s voice.
“Vince, if this gets to you, I probably screwed up.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
Luca continued.
“I know you think you can fix everything from inside. Maybe you can. I don’t know anymore.”
Static swallowed several words.
Then:
“Marcus shouldn’t grow up thinking this is what being a Torino means.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
Marcus stared at the machine.
“I want him to have choices.”
Another burst of static.
“If I get out, I’m taking him somewhere boring.”
Luca laughed softly.
“Somewhere people complain about property taxes and Little League instead of who owes who.”
Marcus covered his mouth.
Vincent looked toward the lake.
Then Luca’s final audible sentence came through.
“And if I don’t get out, don’t turn him into me.”
The tape clicked.
Stopped.
Neither man spoke for a long time.
Finally Marcus said:
“You did.”
Vincent looked at him.
“What?”
“You turned me into all of you.”
The words hurt because they were partly true.
Vincent nodded.
“I know.”
Marcus picked up the brass key he still carried on his keychain.
Then he set it on the table beside Luca’s cassette.
“I got offered a job in Denver.”
Vincent tried not to react too quickly.
“What kind?”
“Warehouse automation. Legitimate.”
“Boring?”
“Painfully.”
Vincent smiled.
Marcus did not.
Not yet.
“I’m thinking about going.”
Vincent wanted to tell him to stay.
Wanted to say family belonged close.
Wanted to repair twenty-two years by keeping the last piece of Luca within driving distance.
Instead, he remembered the tape.
“I think your father would’ve liked Denver.”
Marcus laughed through wet eyes.
“He hated snow.”
“So do you.”
“Exactly.”
They sat there until the lake outside turned black.
When Marcus finally stood to leave, the brass key remained on the table.
Vincent picked it up.
“Forgot something.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
The old key opened nothing.
That was the point.
Marcus walked toward the elevator.
Vincent watched the doors close without asking when he would come back.
May you like
For the first time in either of their lives, neither man knew what being family required next.
And neither tried to force the answer.
