Chapter Twenty: Part One
Squinting in the morning sunshine, Kate made out Rick’s name on the caller ID. ‘Hello handsome, we were just talking about you.’
‘Good morning Kate, I am downstairs. I assume none of you have been outside this morning?’
‘No. Why? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing dire, Kate. I will come up. Please stay in the apartment and keep the door locked until I get there? Would you wake the girls too, please?’
‘We’re all at the table. What’s wrong?’
‘Ten minutes, Kate. Please keep the door locked until I’m there.’ Kate looked at her friends and told them the content of the brief conversation before checking that their door was as locked as it could be. They could see nothing obvious from their windows.
They jumped a little when he knocked on the door. ‘It’s Rick,’ his familiar voice said. Dee and Kate opened the door and started to hit him with questions; then they saw the heavy red lettering. The amigas followed Rick into the hallway to see graffiti painted in large red letters spelling out ‘cunt’ and ‘slut’ all over their wall and door.
‘Silvio!’ Kate declared, immediately recognising the peculiar way Silvio formed his “t”.
‘There’s more out front as well. A clean-up crew is already en route. Kate, we need to bring Natalie in on this.’
Somewhat in shock, Kate just nodded to him, looking at her friends in bewilderment. Carrie was shaken and Dee was angry. The foul epithets were repeated everywhere.
An elderly neighbour came out when she heard their voices and stared at the writing, dumfounded. Carrie went to her, knowing that of the three of them, she was the closest to calm.
‘Is that man dealing with this?’ the neighbour asked Carrie as soon as she was close enough to speak to quietly.
Surprised, it took Carrie a moment to adjust to her neighbour’s unexpected question. ‘Yes, Deidre, he is taking care of it right now.’
‘Does he know who did it, Carrie?’
‘Yes, Kate’s ex.’
‘The Prick?’ Carrie nodded. Her neighbour took Carrie by the shoulder and turned her, whispering, ‘Look past him, up the hall. Tell me what you see.’
Carrie swore under her breath. For a moment, like something you only catch out of the corner of your eye, she saw a different figure superimposed over and around Rick. Her skin tingled and prickled as she recognised in that dark apparition the personification of every good reason why human beings had learned to fear the dark.
The shadow faded when Rick noticed them and looked up, nodding and smiling reassuringly to them.
‘You saw it too, didn’t you Carrie?’
‘What did you see, Deidre?’
‘Same black thing as you did, I reckon. Do you trust that man standing there, Carrie? Both of them?’
Carrie gave the question a long moment of thought, still seeing the amorphous shadowy shape in her memory. She could think of nothing to make her falter in her trust of Rick. ‘Completely, Deidre. Absolutely. All of us.’
‘In that case, I shall sleep well again tonight. Take care, dear,’ she said, waving to the girls and smiling in farewell as she closed her door.
Carrie stood there for a moment, staring at her neighbour’s now closed door and puzzled by Deidre’s simple acceptance of what was happening. Walking back, she could almost see the dark apparition still pulsing around Rick until he closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Joining her friends, she heard him say, ‘… Nat, thank you, you are right, of course… would you email me a copy of your paper please? … Brilliant. Thank you from all of us, Nat. I will, Bye.’
Looking at a text message, Rick said to the girls, ‘A crew will be here soon. Nat and Nita send love and hugs. Shall we go inside?’
With fresh cups of coffee, the four sat at the table. Rick started. ‘Did you see the story in yesterday’s business section?’ The girls nodded, and Dee told him that they had only opened the paper and read it yesterday evening themselves. He said, ‘You know Nat profiled Silvio in a paper she recently published?’ More nods. ‘She is emailing it to us now. The reporter thought he was doing the right thing in bringing Silvio up like that. He probably got the story from hostile chatter in the crowd.
‘Nat says his type of sociopathy has an unusual self-gratifying narcissistic overlay. She believes he will take that story as a direct insult and challenge. Actually, it’s Kate’s public success that he will take as a personal insult. His profile suggests that after lashing out so directly like this, he is likely to become violent if this goes on unresolved for more than another few days. I don’t want to sound all alpha and macho here, but for all our sakes, would you all be willing to please let us deal with this?’
Without hesitation, the amigas gave him their wholehearted affirmation.
‘Schivello has dropped off the grid for the moment, but we are looking. Nat expects that since we can’t find him, he’s already likely to be directly observing the apartment from a distance. He is also potentially escalating into a rage, which is why we need the graffiti gone quickly, so there is less for him to focus on. After the social columns made us the subject de jour following Dom’s party last weekend, yesterday’s article was probably just too much for him to stand, especially if he saw the follow up piece in the business section today. There was a very nice half page piece on how wonderful Kate is at engineering; they listed some of her projects and even talked to some old clients and professors.’ Rick smiled at Kate proudly for a moment before he asked, ‘What functions do you have today?’
‘Just the mayor’s for this afternoon and evening instead of tomorrow night. It’s at his apartment. He has security.’
‘Please forgive my bluntness. One needs to understand the scope of a threat to respond appropriately, and his security people don’t have the right training. Schivello’s pathology is, at best, only a few points shy of clinical psychopathy. In his current state of mind, he has quite probably crossed that line already. If he comes at us, it’s a two in three likelihood that he will present in an extended disassociated rage. If he does, there is a very high probability that he will come armed. He is unlikely to represent a normal or predictable security situation that the mayor’s guys can respond to appropriately, even after we warn them.’ Rick pressed a speed dial on his phone and his call was answered right away. Rick said, ‘Hi Dom. Here with three, all unmarked. Nat has the profile and pictures… mayor’s place. We need to be there with response in place.’ The line went dead.
‘Rick?’ Kate said.
‘Once you guys get to the gig today, please don’t leave the front door without Dom, or at least letting him know you are heading out, but preferably not at all, okay? You all come back here tonight to keep the routine looking normal from the outside. Tomorrow’s gigs?’
Dee answered, ‘Only one. Senator McMillan’s, in the government building.’
‘That’s good news. Those guys can adapt well enough. I will make a call shortly. Can I get someone to email Juanita a list of your gigs for the next week, please? Thank you all for not resisting my intrusion into this situation.’
Kate said, ‘Are you kidding? We wouldn’t be anywhere this calm if you weren’t sitting there right now making everything feel very safe and under control.’
‘That goes double for us,’ Carrie said, grabbing Dee’s arm. ‘Go Rambo on The Prick’s arse and I’ll bake you a cake.’ Their laughter discharged the nervous energy that had been building.
Carrie was almost sure she could sense Rick’s shadow already sniffing the air, hunting. She knew they had nothing to fear from him. Carrie grunted to herself in satisfaction after she’d thought about it. Rick loves Kate like we do. If Silvio is stupid enough to come at her, well, so bad for him. Thinking about it a little longer, Carrie said, ‘Rick, The Prick hasn’t got a clue what he is walking into, but don’t underestimate him.’
‘Never have, never will. We always assume and plan for the enemy having superior firepower, tactics and numbers. Ladies, this is a temporary inconvenience and nothing more. Soon it will be a distant memory and we will all live happily ever after.’
Kate was learning a lot about her man as she watched his calm command of the situation and himself. She also felt almost inappropriately naughty when she became a little warm and aroused as she watched him in action. Rick’s phone buzzed with a message. He was already standing and had asked them, ‘May I?’ a few seconds before the knock on the door.
‘No need to ask, Rick. Please,’ Dee said, sweeping her arm towards the door.