Joseph made a “well there you have it” gesture with his hand. Thomas just continued to pin him with his stare, however, and Joseph added bitterly, “Let me guess. My loving eldest son decided in the end that his ol’ dad was guilty. What . . . was he going to devote a whole chapter to me in his book? ‘My Dad, the Crime Boss?’”
“I don’t know, Joseph.” The old man’s chin shot up at Thomas’s usage of his given name. “Is that what you were worried would happen?”
An unhealthy-looking pink flush stained his father’s gray cheeks. Thomas realized with a distant sense of amazement that now that he’d crossed the line, he was starting to see his adoptive father in a shockingly clear focus. The vision was slowly, inexorably turning his world upside-down.
“Rick gave me a tape of his interviews with his informant several days before he died. I refused to listen to it,” Thomas rasped.
“You always were loyal. More like my own flesh and blood than my own son.” Joseph’s voice sounded proud and sure, but Thomas saw how his hands shook.
“Rick was ten times the man I am. Ten times,” Thomas enunciated slowly.
“He was weak and ungrateful—”
“He was your son.”
Joseph didn’t flinch when Thomas stood abruptly and reached for the wooden box sitting on his father’s desk. Ricky and he had known what was inside that box since Thomas was fifteen years old. The two of them had been bored one Saturday afternoon and Rick had dared his brother to smoke one of their father’s strong, pungent cigars. They’d snuck into Joseph’s office—forbidden territory.
That was when they’d found the gun.
Thomas removed the Glock automatic, quickly checked to see that it was loaded and then slammed it down on the desk between them. His breathing came raggedly now.
“But after Rick and Abel were incinerated in that boat accident , I decided . . . why not? Give the tape a listen. It’s what Rick wanted, wasn’t it? Do you know what that man told Rick on those tapes, Joseph?”
Joseph’s nostrils flared but he didn’t reply.
“He told Rick that you had given the order for dozens of murders over the years. You,” Thomas repeated, half in fury and half in incredulity. “The same man who coached our Little League team, who invited half the city to our house on Christmas Eve, and made the biggest donations to the children’s hospital every year. You.”
Thomas leaned down over the desk until his face was less than two feet away from Joseph’s and spoke in a low, gravelly voice.
“The informant told Rick that two of the people you had murdered were my parents because my father had noticed some inconsistencies in your books, Joseph. What do you say to that?”
For a stretched moment in which Thomas thought his fury was going to erupt through the top of his head, Joseph said nothing. Finally Joseph nodded at the Glock that lay between them.
“If you believe that I had James Nicasio killed, what are you just standing there for? Why don’t you shoot me, Thomas? Why don’t you shoot your old man?” he asked roughly.
“Maybe I just wanted to see if you’d pick up that gun and kill me in cold blood just like you did your son and grandson,” Thomas hissed. “But no . . . that’s not your style is it, Dad? You wouldn’t just blast a son’s brain out in your own house, would you? No, it’s much more your style to have one of your hoods cut my brake lines, or maybe arrange for another explosion? A gas leak, maybe. Yeah, that sounds more up your alley, doesn’t it?”
Joseph’s taut leer struck him as obscene.
“At least I taught you something after all these years. But not enough, apparently,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have known, in the end, that blood was thicker than water. You’re just like him. You’re just like your father. He was so indignant at the idea of someone making a little extra money on the side. ‘Not on my truck; not on my runs.’ That’s what James Nicasio said when he came to me with his great discoveries about the jacked up invoices all those years ago. As if that stupid dago even owned that truck; as if he had the right to say what would happen in my company. You’re just like both of them—your nosy father and your self-righteous, holier-than-thou brother.” He shoved the gun toward Thomas. “Go on. Prove me wrong. Neither of them would have had the guts to pick up that gun and shoot me.”
Fury blinded him. Thomas wasn’t aware of having picked up the weapon, but he suddenly trained it on Joseph’s face. Hatred raced through his veins like a poison, the strength of it amplified exponentially by the presence of a lifetime of love and respect.
“You’re admitting it? You had them killed? My parents . . . Ricky?”
Joseph gave him a disdainful glance. “I won’t deny it. I might have done so for a son, but I see I don’t have one anymore.”
His finger twitched on the trigger, but something stilled it. He lowered the weapon.
“You’re right,” he rasped. “I am like my father. I’m not such an animal that I’d shoot a pitiful, helpless old man.”
Joseph rose from his desk, incensed.
“You worthless piece of shit,” he raged, spittle shooting from his mouth. “I should have left you to the orphanage. I should have left you on the streets with the trash, where you belonged.”
“I should have been so fucking lucky!” Thomas roared. “Instead I was lured into the house of a monster . . . played at his feet, ate his cursed food.”
Asked for his love . . . been so proud when I mistakenly believed it was given . . .