The Most Dangerous Dame

Mobster events tend to attract attention. Doesn’t matter if it’s a wedding, some extravagant dinner party, or in this case, a funeral. A kingpin doesn’t get to the top without rubbing elbows with a lotta folks on the way up. Most might hate him, but they know when to pay their respects. Moe Flacco had been around for quite a while without getting buried or caged, a rarity for a man of his profession. So when the funeral services opened for his daughter, the church was packed to bursting with professional mourners. It was a who’s who of anyone with power and influence in New Haven

There was Moe, of course. The family patriarch was dressed to the nines in a tailored black on black pinstriped suit. Despite his glad rags he still had the look of a hammerhead shark, with his predatory glower and bruiser’s profile. Beside him was Marta Flacco, his stately but stern-looking wife whose grief was only visible by her red-rimmed eyes. The rest of her face was a porcelain mask. The remainder of the front rows were packed with the Flacco family and in-laws, a clan to itself. I watched them closely, checking out whose grief looked sincere and taking note of those with particularly dry eyes. With mob murders the suspects were endless, but I tended to start close to home before widening my net.

I knew some of them by sight. Ben ‘the Bear’ Mastrogiovanni was Moe’s nephew and one of his premier brunos. His bulky frame hulked over everyone else in the room.

No-Nose Nate was a close cousin of Moe Flacco and a top Capo in the organization. He lost his schnozzle in a deal gone sour years ago. The mug that shot him lost his brains, so it all evened out. Nate wore a prosthetic nose and even had it plated in gold to commemorate the event.

Nate’s sister Electra sat beside him. She was a slim, pretty little dish with baby-doll eyes and a razor-trimmed bob dyed the color of fire. The hair color contrasted with her dark fashion scheme. She went by a more notorious handle: the Black Widow — earned from the three dead men who dared to actually marry her. She was one of Flacco’s chief enforcers, with a vicious streak on par with another lady assassin known as the Red-Eyed Killer. Of course the important difference was that Electra was still among the living. The Red-Eyed Killer wasn’t, on account of getting on my bad side.

I spotted Scars lurking like a shadow in the corner of the church behind the casket. He and I had a bit of history since he was employed with Flacco via a favor bartered between us. Scars ran a tight crew that did pretty much whatever Flacco needed them to, which meant anything from guarding a joint to rubbing out a rival. He was a gaunt, humorless man who looked like he needed a hefty sandwich more than anything, but his skeletal appearance was deceiving. He got the nickname from the scars he left on other people, not the other way around.

There were plenty of other wise guys in attendance as well. Just about every major family head was present, from somber Madame Goryacheva of the Russians to Kane Jackson, a sharp dressed cat who took up the blacktop district vacated by the recently deceased Tommy Tsunami. The sheer number of crime figures in the wings were enough to cripple the economy if the feds decided to pull a fast one and raid the place.

Ironically, a lot of the brass was present as well. While the Commissioner wouldn’t deem to attend, the newly appointed Captain Kennedy sat inconspicuously in the rear. Probably to take note of the off-duty officers in attendance, all of whom were on Flacco’s payroll. But not everyone there had ties to the Mob, at least not obvious ones. Mayor Beck was on hand along with several high-ranking politicians, corporate moguls, and New Haven celebrities like Fats the Jazz man.

I tried to concentrate, but my attention drifted to the one thing that mattered: the gold-trimmed polished mahogany casket. More specifically, the body that lay inside of it. I kept to the rear of the church, not bothering to make a spectacle by approaching the immortalized remains of Sophia ‘Scarlett’ Flacco. I couldn’t stomach the sight, anyway. No matter how well the coroner did his job, it was still just a stiff lying there. Just a husk that used to be someone I held tightly, feeling her breath stir the tiny hairs on my skin.

I couldn’t pretend I was in love with Scarlett. But I couldn’t deny she was special, either. Every dame I know is special: full of fire and magic that can pull a man into her cosmos and leave the scent of her soul in his skin long after life steps in to push them apart.

That was something no coroner could duplicate. Scarlett was gone the moment the staccato of her heels faded from my hearing. All I could do was stand in the rear of an oversized church, a shadow in the light of ornamental stained glass windows that streamed kaleidoscopic patterns across the casket of a dame that deserved so much better.