For Christmas my eccentric uncle gave me Edgar Allan Poe’s Complete Tales & Poems. If I’m caught, he should share the blame.
By New Year’s Eve my plan to kidnap Joey Fortunato was fully conceived. Crashing his costume party was easier than expected.
I appeared as the Grim Reaper sans scythe, wearing a black monk’s robe and a skull mask. Everyone evaded me as I drifted through the house.
I followed stragglers to the Rec room in the basement where I heard him. That raucous laugh had mocked me every day at school. A mobster’s son, he was at the bar dressed as Scarface Capone.
He turned and stumbled toward me, sloshing beer.
“My face’s scarier than yours,” he declared.
I merely nodded.
“I fear you not . . . Mr. Death.”
I smiled though he could not see it. Joey was drunk and reckless, therefore all mine.
“Capone’s vault,” I said in a deep raspy voice. “Want to see it?”
“Wha--? Where?”
I turned and glided slowly toward the stairs. I knew he’d follow. He did.
***
I stayed in character as I led him back the way I’d come. Again, everyone deliberately ignored me, and because he was in my wake, him, too.
Outside he briefly sobered, until I pulled a flask from out of my cowl.
“Drink.” I ordered, my voice a deep growl. “It’s from Capone’s private stock . . . in the vault.”
He grinned and gulped it down. Minutes later he passed out in my car. I drove cautiously out of town toward my uncle’s country estate. Joey didn’t stir.
I opened the gates and drove up the long driveway to the distant garage beneath the carriage house. My uncle’s Victorian was dark because he and my aunt were at another New Year’s celebration.
I had no problem carrying Joey fireman’s style down some steps of a root cellar at the rear of the house. The cavern was dimly lit by a single hanging bulb. I lugged Joey toward a brick door, laid him down, and pulled a chain.
Slowly the foot-thick door opened, revealing a wine cellar unused, according to my uncle, since Prohibition. Inside were stacks of untapped kegs and honey combs filled with wine bottles.
I dragged Joey toward a keg and waited patiently till he awoke.
“Where are . . . we?”
“Capone’s vault, like I promised.”
Joey gazed stupidly at the booze. “Th--that’s all bootleg?”
“Likely,” I said in my normal voice.
He spun on his haunches to stare at me. “Who--?”
I tore off my mask.
“Monty?”
“Yep. In the flesh.”
Understanding glinted in his dark eyes. He lurched to his feet.
“This ain’t Capone’s. What ya tryin‘ to pull, asshole?”
“A kidnapping.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“No, here’s the ransom note.” I waved what I’d written.
He leaped toward me, staggered. fell.
I stepped back and pushed the heavy door shut.
For several minutes I listened to his muffled screams.
***
School’s been great this semester. I destroyed the note, and Joey Fortunato’s still missing.
