In His Hands, page 11
He pulled Isabelle up roughly and pointed toward the door. The stern look on his face was impossible for the girl not to understand. She was shaking terribly as she meekly turned and followed the hallway back down to her bedroom. Quimby followed closely and shut the door once Isabelle had entered.
Isabelle walked to her bed and laid herself down. Did Quimby know what the globe was all about? There had been times, especially in those first days after her ability to communicate was lost, that her father had taken her to his room and tried desperately to communicate with her. He had taken out the globe once and showed it to Isabelle who simply stared at it. Isabelle felt that her father was trying to see if he could get any type of reaction from her. The times he had showed her the globe, it had glowed meekly, not as vibrantly or brilliantly as it had the night she made her wish to communicate with animals or even just now when she had been so close to wishing for her father’s health. But above all he let his child know in no uncertain terms that she was never to go near the orb, never play with it or handle it. There were some emotions in the thoughts and actions of the ones she loved that carried so much weight to them that it was even able to pierce that impenetrable shell around her consciousness.
On one occasion after her father had dismissed her, she thought she overheard him whimpering in his room. She went and peeked through the keyhole. He was seated in his chair staring at the globe. This was before her incapacitated mother had passed away. The ball’s intensity rose and subsided, the light spiraling around the room in a dizzying whirl. The look on her father’s face was the most puzzling thing of all. It appeared as if he was wrestling with some great question in his mind. He would turn away from the orb and then back, stare at it attentively and then draw his eye away. Finally he shouted “No” and quickly returned the globe to its sack and back into its box.
When he finished he put his hands to his face and began crying.
Isabelle went back to her room, frightened and bewildered. Whatever power the orb had, whatever its allure, she realized its use was dangerous for all involved. She had herself as proof of that. What she did understand was that her father was wrestling with some great desire he wanted met, some wish he wanted satisfied. But he was too afraid, too haunted by what the cost of that fulfillment might be.
Isabelle could only wonder now exactly what Quimby knew. Her father, she knew, trusted the man unequivocally. She could only assume that he understood the globe’s possibilities.
However, there was nothing she could do about that now. She laid her head down, closed her eyes and prayed.
Quimby returned to Demetri’s room and closed the door. The crystal was barely glowing at all now, no doubt due to the man’s stern discipline and self-control. He returned the globe to the bag and its box and placed it back up on the shelf in the closet. Then he turned and went to the door. As he opened it, he turned and stared back toward the closet. For a moment that strict self-control and emotional mastery that separated a good servant from a great one faltered a bit. For a moment Quimby allowed his mind to drift from servitude to egotism. In that short time, he saw the faint glow from inside the closet swell just slightly at the base of the door.
Quickly he regained his composure and left the room making sure to lock the door securely behind him.
Chapter 10
11:45 pm, October 8, 1984
Vince Passetti pulled up at the curb and peered into the café looking through the rain-splattered glass for the man he was to pick up. The café was well-lit, a storefront-type restaurant on Chicago’s west side that held several tables and a smattering of customers. In the doorway, standing underneath the awning, a darkly clad figure with a fedora bent low across his face raised his head. The man stood with his hands buried deep in his pockets and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Recognizing his ride, the man flicked his cigarette down to the ground and moved across the pavement toward the passenger’s side door.
A chill ran through Vince as he caught a passing glimpse of the cadaverous face. Mizetti had warned him about the man’s features, but he found himself apprehensive at the thought of riding deep into the night and embarking upon burglary with such a menacing figure.
Vince Passetti had been a sneak thief his whole life and had also worked with Mizetti’s gang on other jobs which ran from shaking down store owners, leaning on late debt payers, and rousting local thugs who tried to move in on his boss’s territory. Competition always had to be kept at bay where drug markets, gambling games and prostitution rings existed. But Vince’s attributes were not really on the muscle end of things. Although he had to bloody-up some goon occasionally, it really was not his cup of tea. He was a second-story man. That’s where his talents lay. Actually roughing-up some loser and drawing blood made his skin crawl. He really didn’t care for that end of the business. Some other things could make his skin crawl too and Haskim’s ghoulish presence was one of them. It didn’t ease his apprehension any that his instructions, should he succeed in his endeavor, were to deceive the stranger and not follow through on the supposed arrangements the man would be expecting.
The stench of cigarettes greeted Vince as the man seated himself in the passenger seat. For the first time he saw the man’s features clearly in the dim glow of the streetlights. Vince found himself leaning back as if unconsciously trying to place more distance between him and that scarred mug.
“Hello, I’m Andre Haskim.” Haskim held out his gnarled hand and Vince hesitated for a moment before shaking it.
“Yeah ... I’m ... Vince Passetti.”
“Vince eh ... That’s good. You’ve been briefed then I take it? On tonight I mean?”
Haskim had seen the hesitancy in Vince’s eyes, one he had seen before many times and he did not wish to be bothered with it.
“Yeah I ... I was told the deal. Sure,” Vince replied
Haskim’s look altered, but it took Vince a moment to understand that the crinkled lines and irregular fissures on his face actually were meant to be a smile. Haskim held his grin for a moment before turning and securing his seat belt. Vince thought it a bit ironic that a man so marred would be concerned enough to belt himself in.
Haskim sat back in his seat and faced forward making an odd noise that Vince took as a clearing of his throat. It took a moment for Vince to gather his wits and realize he needed to drive the car now. He placed the vehicle in gear and pulled away from the curb.
“I was told you are very reliable, Mr Vince.”
“Yeah reliable, that’s me.”
“I was told you are very accomplished in the ... shall we say ... art of burglary.”
Vince grunted. “Huh ... I’ve never been accused of being an artist. Done a few jobs in my time though.”
“Good,” Haskim replied. “So ... I know I am not dealing with an amateur.”
“Do I look like an amateur to you?” Vince asked sarcastically.
“No ... no. You appear to me to look like a thief.”
Vince didn’t like the way that came out.
Isabelle had been unable to sleep because of worry. Even after Quimby had sent her back to her room, she felt restless. She was still worried about Whisper and decided to sneak out and visit him in the barn.
Quietly, so as not to let Quimby hear, she made her way out the back door and went to the barn. Whisper heard her coming and his agitated state relaxed a bit. He simply would not stop stepping back and forth in his stall however. Isabelle spoke to him softly and patted his neck. The horse was still panicked and Isabelle had only limited success in breaking through that terror. Whisper could not reason out his injury.
Eventually Isabelle’s presence calmed Whisper down. In his own way, the horse began to cry to Isabelle. There was no future, no past for Whisper, only the pain he felt and the confusion of his bandages. Whisper had not drunk or eaten much since the accident, but Isabelle convinced him now to drink some.
Maybe when the vet came the next day he would be able to provide Whisper with some type of sedative to ease his suffering.
In the meantime, Isabelle yearned for her late night ride. She made her way to Prado’s stall and began saddling him up. Immediately he displayed his annoyance. He was crabby and tired and Isabelle understood that he was not interested in going for a jaunt, but the girl simply ignored his stammering and wagging of his head and tightened the straps below his girth.
She guided the horse out of the barn, mounted him and led him down the path toward the end of the property.
The night had begun to mist and the flicker of the windshield wiper kept time as Vince drove out onto the expressway to the west. As they drove through the night, Haskim made small talk with the driver. Vince sensed a subdued elation emanating from the man, a kind of bustling excitement almost the way a kid would react on his way to an amusement park. His actions indicated that he was certainly looking forward to something.
Vince tried to make sense of it. Mizetti had told him what it was the man was after, a crystal globe of some sort, supposedly as big as a cantaloupe. He had no interest in money, jewels, artwork or anything else of any consequence that a normal thief would concentrate on in busting into a well-to-do home in the far suburbs. What was confusing was Mizetti’s response to it. From what he could gather, Haskim was paying Mizetti a hunk of change for providing him a reliable thief to do the job right. Haskim had insisted that he be allowed to come along to ensure that he received the goods. That was odd. You were paying big dough to have the job done, but there was always the chance of being caught. Why put yourself in harms way? Mizetti had told him that the globe was a sentimental item. That had to be bullshit. There were a lot of reasons why a person would want to commit burglary, but for an item of sentimental value?
Vince’s mind wavered as Haskim went on about the design styles of today’s cars. He remarked how he longed for the days when you could tell whether a car was a Buick, Chevy or Cadillac immediately. Not like now when all the cars held the same boxy, undistinguished lines.
Vince grunted in response and thought some more. From what he gathered from Mizetti, he was being paid more to circumvent the supposed plan and bring the globe back to Mizetti instead of giving it to Haskim. He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish that deception. Mizetti had left that up to him. He didn’t seem to care how Vince executed that objective. Vince had killed a man once and it had brought him a great deal of distress. The man had been a drug dealer who just wouldn’t pay what he owed. Vince and another man had paid a visit to the man for the expressed purpose of trying to reason with him. They had approached the man in a parking lot and Vince immediately recognized the wide-eyed, drug-induced stare in the man’s eyes but never expected him to pull out a gun and start blasting. Vince’s cohort was shot in the chest before Vince brought the man down with his pistol.
Vince escaped the scene and did not necessarily blame himself for taking the chump out because he had little choice. However, the whole thing had left an uneasy feeling in his mind. He did not want to repeat that experience especially with such a cadaverous looking subject. If he did get his hands on the globe, his plan was simply to pull his gun, make the man get out of his car and drive off.
That would be easy enough to pull off, Vince reasoned.
What he didn’t know was that Haskim was taking no chances on securing his prize. He had a gun too and he had analyzed the possibility of a double-cross carefully. Mizetti had seemed especially curious about the item Haskim was after, perhaps a bit too curious. He might just want to inspect the prize before allowing Haskim to have it. Of course, Haskim could not let that occur. The danger was far too great.
Haskim found Vince to be unusually edgy as he made small talk. Of course, not everyone could relax in Haskim’s presence because of his deformity. Both the nature of their quest and Haskim’s looks certainly could make anyone a bit nervous, but if Vince was truly a professional, he had most likely been in many untoward situations in the past. Haskim didn’t know quite how to read the situation. Perhaps his uneasiness was unnecessary, but one could never be too careful.
Haskim relayed to Vince where he thought he might find the globe. Haskim had been to Demetri’s house many times and had enough conversations through the years with him to know that he did not have a safe, but that he kept many of his valuables in the corner of his closet up on the shelf. He suspected that it had probably been stored there on that ominous night when Demetri had first introduced Haskim to the secret. He was hoping that Demetri had not changed his ways or his method of securing things since then.
Haskim had followed his instinct on digging up Sophie’s grave. At the time, he hadn’t known that the globe would be there. He had risked it because of something Demetri had once said to him when he visited him at the hospital during his recovery period. Haskim knew the possibility had been remote, but he would dig all the way to China if it meant getting his hands on that glass.
Now that that possibility had been eliminated, Haskim relied on the fact that by nature Demetri had a certain naïveté and was set in his ways. He felt that as long as Demetri’s security measures through the years had not met with any breach, he just might be fool enough to assume they never would. It was very possible that the globe was not in Demetri’s closet and that perhaps the man had actually hidden it somewhere where Haskim could never get to it. Haskim did not want to think about that possibility though because he could not face the idea of never getting his hands on it.
However, if indeed their burglary attempt failed tonight and he was left empty-handed, he knew what his next step would be, where Demetri’s weakness laid. And he would not hesitate a moment in pursuing that option.
The drizzle had stopped, but the low lying clouds darkened the countryside as Vince pulled down the road toward the estate. They had entered an area where the homes were scattered haphazardly with property sites sometimes measuring several acres. They pulled onto the acreage from the back by accessing a side road that led between the estates. Off to the right along a row of tall trees, the outline of the Demetri’s home sat in stillness. Further to the left a large barn stood off amongst a scattering of trees.
Vince dimmed the lights and eyeballed their situation. They were about two hundred yards from the house swallowed in the shadows of the trees around them. The property was not gated. It would just be a matter of walking up to the back of the house.
“I’m gonna hide the car back behind those trees and I’ll walk up,” Vince muttered. His persona seemed to intensify now that the game was afoot. A shallow ditch forced Vince to ease the vehicle slowly down the embankment and back up. He positioned the car so that it was hidden behind the trees but at an angle that would provide for a quick getaway if one was needed.
Vince reached in the back seat and grabbed hold of a black cap which covered the top of his head. He was now dressed totally in black with only his face exposed.
“You know what you’re looking for right?” Haskim asked.
“Yeah a globe, crystal globe. Mizetti told me.”
“It may be in a black sack inside a wooden box. I don’t care about any other items. If you want to take something for yourself, fine. But bring me back the globe.”
As they had gotten closer to the grounds, Haskim’s mood had turned bullying and dictatorial. The intensity of the job and the nearness to his prize had sharpened his ambition, but Vince was not used to being talked at like a dog.
“Remember go for the globe first,” Haskim directed. “If you want anything else, that’s after. Do you understand?” Haskim grabbed Vince’s arm as he began to exit the car. “The globe comes first.” His tone was downright heavy-handed now.
Vince had enough. “Listen you freak. I’ll do the job the way I see fit. It ain’t you risking your ass on this deal. I take my orders from Mizetti and this job follows through the way he says it follows through. You got that?”
Haskim backed away into his seat. “Sure ... sure Vince. I understand.”
Vince got out, leaned down and grabbed the crowbar he had behind his seat and gently closed the door without letting it slam. Haskim watched him move off toward the property.
Alarm rose in Andre Haskim. He didn’t like the way Vince had said that business about following through the way Mizetti had told him.
Was there some altered plan going on here? Would Vince not turn over the globe if he got his hands on it? Maybe Mizetti’s curiosity had gotten the best of him. Maybe he wanted to see first hand what this mysterious item was all about that Haskim was willing to pay so much for. Had he made a mistake in involving Mizetti?
He already knew that he did not have the amount of money he had promised Mizetti for the job. But he wasn’t worried about that. If he got his hands on the globe, money would no longer be a problem, ever.
Haskim pulled out his gun and checked it once again. He stuffed it back in his pocket and waited nervously.
His mind was going a mile a minute. If that globe came out of that house, there was no way it was going anywhere without Haskim. Haskim clutched the gun again and practiced pulling it out swiftly and pointed it at the driver’s window. If he needed to make a move on Vince, he wanted to practice getting the drop on him.
No way that globe was going anywhere without him.
Vince approached the back of the house by crossing an area beside the large barn. The grounds were quiet and still. Only a dim light from the kitchen area shone inside the house. The late hour made it impossible for Vince to be sure whether anyone was at home or not.
Vince reached the back door and checked it. Surprisingly it was unlocked. Quietly he opened it and stepped inside.
The furnace hushed air out from a vent near the entrance breaking the stillness. A nightlight burned above the stove casting the kitchen in a dim yellow light. Vince waited and listened to hear if his arrival had disturbed anyone. Through the far door that led into the dining room, the sound of a swaying pendulum ticking inside the case of a standing grandfather clock measured the night into seconds. The burglar moved quietly through the kitchen until he was able to gain sight of the winding staircase that led up to the second floor. Again he waited until he was sure he had not aroused anyone.
