The Vulture's Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

do it is now. Make him understand I will not tolerate a move against me. Not now. Not ever.”
    “Step on him?” Collins said. He sounded as stunned as he looked. He had been by Scanlon’s side long enough to know that Scanlon was not opposed to bending the law to suit his needs. But this was something else. “How do you propose to do that? Forget that he’s a college kid. Remember who his uncle is. You do damage to that kid, and you think a man like Marelli is going to let it slide? You want to touch his family? Whatever you’re thinking of doing, I suggest you think again.”
    “Oh, relax,” Scanlon said. “I didn’t say I was going to have the kid tossed into the Hudson, though the thought is tempting. There are a lot of ways to scare somebody off. This kid’s led a prime beef life up till now, protected and shielded by his uncle. He’s never had to go into the gutter, bump heads with guys like me. I’d like to know what he does if something like that were to happen. We’re just roughhousing here. Nothing more to it than that.”
    “How rough?”
    “Schoolyard stuff,” Scanlon said. “Just enough to screw with his tough-guy act. Then we’ll know the kind of guy we’re up against.”

EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK, AUGUST 15, 2002
    3:15 P.M.
    Uncle Carlo sat across from Jimmy, the two of them alone in the library, a large chessboard between them.
    “So what do you think, kiddo?” Uncle Carlo asked. “You figure your cousin is up for this?”
    Jimmy shrugged, then shook his head.
    “Yeah, me neither,” Uncle Carlo said. “He’s smart, but is he his father’s boy?”
    Jimmy wrote a short note and dropped it on top of the board. Carlo picked it up and read it. “Not even as kids,” he said. “My brother and me were as opposite as opposites could be. He always looked for the good in people, even the ones who treated him like shit—and there were plenty of those in our neighborhood. Me? I didn’t see much good in anybody.”
    Jimmy pointed to his heart and then at his father.
    “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved him,” Carlo said. “But I looked out for him—without him knowing about it, mind you. That was a shit storm I didn’t need, you know what I mean?”
    Carlo waited as Jimmy scrawled another note. He enjoyed the time spent with his son, helping him fill the void he felt over both the loss of his wife and the often unbearable weight of watching Jimmy deal with his disease and destiny with class and determination.
    Carlo reached for the note and read it. He paused before he answered. “I can’t, Jimmy,” he finally said. “I wish I could. Believe me, there is nothing I would have wanted more than to pass what I built on to you. But it can never be, and thinking about it will only add to your pain. If Vincent fails, then I need to look in another direction. Maybe Angela, in Naples? Maybe someone else in the family? I don’t know.”
    Uncle Carlo glared at Jimmy when he saw tears sliding down the sides of his face, but then forced himself to look away. He stood, leaned down, kissed Jimmy on the head.“You’re my prince, Jimmy. But you’re not a Don.”
    Carlo walked toward the bar and poured himself a glass of Fernet Branca. He took a long sip and then walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the lush garden and the waves of the ocean below. “I would have given anything to have my own son replace me as Don,” he said, his voice low. “That card just didn’t happen to be in our deck. We can cry over it all we want, but that’s not going to change a damn thing. Vincent will be your Don and you will accept him as such.”
    Carlo turned away from the window and walked toward Jimmy. He looked down at his son, drink gripped in his right hand. “You
will
accept him as such, correct?”
    Jimmy stared up at his father and didn’t move.
    “I need to know it,” Carlo said. “I need to know you will back my choice.”
    Jimmy closed his eyes and nodded.
    Carlo