Page 90 of Matteo
My arms faltered just a little, and finally, I lowered the gun. “You knew our parents?”
Jacob’s face took on a solemn look before he turned away and walked over to his bar. “Drink gentleman?”
Carmine still hadn’t lowered his gun. “Bourbon?”
Jacob chuckled, looking at me. “Just like your father.”
His words felt like a paper cut slashing all over my body, biting and eating away at my flesh. We were nothing like our piece of shit father.
“Carmine put the gun down,” I murmured still waiting.
My brother let out a sigh, “This is not turning out to be as fun as I’d hoped.”
Jacob finished making his drink and handed one off to Carmine.
He then settled back into his seat and slowly Carmine and I moved around the dog who was slightly snoring so that we could see him better. “I’m surprised,” he said after taking a sip. “That it took so long.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Carmine rolled his eyes. “It’s not every day you have to comb through twenty to thirty-year-old documents and such.”
Jacob nodded and sipped again but I just wanted to get on with it. This wasn’t a fucking social call.
“Tell us how you knew them?”
Jacob’s eyes moved to my face and I wondered what he was thinking. Slowly, he lifted a finger and pointed at the left side of his face, the part covered in thick raised scars. “Your father…he did this to me, you know. He and I were great friends but like every great story, there’s a woman. Yes, I knew your parents, Mason. I knew them better than anyone.”
“Do you know where my mother is?”
He shook his head. “No, but I always had my doubts about her death. Five years ago, I heard chatter she could be alive, that she’d faked her death.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose wondering if I could have stumbled into another dead end. “Is there anything useful that you might know that might help us locate my mother?”
“Both your parents were strategic. If you wanted to lure Augustus or Alaska out into the open you’d have to first give them something they wanted.” He finished off his drink.
“Any idea what that might be?” Carmine followed suit with his drink and walked it over to the bar, sitting it down. Jacob’s dog got up and went over to sniff Carmine who calmly reached down and scratched behind the dog's ears.
He’s such a dog person,I thought.
Turning my gaze back to the deputy director, I watched as he reached for a cigar, and lit it up, sweet smoke curling into the air. “Hard to say,” Jacob mused, a smirk formed on his face. “But if you can figure it out, you boys will have her on you like flies on shit.”
For a minute, Jacob’s words hung in the air and then Carmine broke the spell. “You said our father…he did that to your face?”
The older man took a long drag on the cigar and expelled the smoke slowly before answering. “Obviously the woman in the equation was your mother. Things were beginning to crumble with her and Auggie, the son of bitch was never right for her but he married her because he knew what she could do for him. Anyway, they had a particularly nasty fight one night and she called me up… ”
He paused and pulled on his cigar, with me and Carmine hanging on his every word. “Asked me to meet her somewhere, and I did like a fool. But Auggie was relentless, he followed her. Stalked her like prayer. Our meeting was innocent by the way but your father was a jealous son of a bitch. We were sitting inside my car at a lake when he walked up to the driver's side of my car and knocked on the window. Alaska begged me not to roll the window down. To dry off…should’ve listened. He tossed gas into my face and flicked a cigarette in…I’m lucky.”
A chill worked its way down my spine but I wasn’t surprised. My father was a fucking monster but of course, I’d always know that.
“Anyway, I woke up in the hospital days later…never saw Auggie or your mother again.”
“You didn’t think to go after him?” I asked.
“Me, go after your father? We both know I’m lucky to be fucking alive,” Jacob snuffed out his cigar. “And I think I’ve answered enough of your questions boys. I’ll be needing you to get the hell out of my house before I call the cops and have you both arrested.”
Glancing over at my bother, I nodded to him feeling unsatisfied as hell. The information had been good but it hadn’t scratched that itch beneath the surface, only irritated it.
“We appreciate your time, Mr. Lance,” I said trying to keep my tone in check.
“I mean you ain’t really tell us shit we could use,” Carmine shrugged. “The bourbon was good though.”
