Chapter 5 - Unearthing the Cellar
The basement beneath the Long Island estate was vast, split into three distinct eras of construction. The front section was modern, housing the industrial HVAC units, the electrical breakers, and the wine cellar. The middle section dated back to the 1920s, with arched brick walls and concrete floors. The deepest section was a forgotten coal bunker that had been sealed off during the fifties.
I descended the main basement stairs from the kitchen, the heavy iron key to the security doors clutched in my left hand, my SIG Sauer P226 held low in my right.
The air grew cooler, smelling of earth, old wine, and the faint, unmistakable trail of clove smoke.
“Pauly,” I called out. My voice echoed flatly against the brick arches.
No answer. Just the steady drip, drip, drip of a condensation pipe near the furnace.
I moved past the tall racks of Cabernet and Pinot Noir, checking every aisle. The floor here was smooth poured concrete. Near the back storage room, where we kept the extra lawn furniture and holiday decorations, a heavy wooden door stood slightly ajar.
I kicked it wide open.
Pauly was kneeling in front of a small wall safe hidden behind a stack of folded Persian rugs. He had an olive-drab duffel bag stuffed with gold bars and thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
He spun around, his own snub-nosed .38 revolver rising toward my chest.
I didn't give him the chance to level it.
I stepped inside his guard, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it downward until the bone popped with a sound like a dry twig snapping. Pauly let out a wet, raspy scream, dropping the .38 onto the concrete. I drove my knee hard into his sternum, pinning him against the wall safe, and pressed the hot barrel of my SIG directly into the soft skin beneath his jaw.
“Dominic!” he gasped, his dark eyes bulging with terror, saliva spraying from his lips. “Dom, listen to me! It was a mistake! The shooter wasn't supposed to fire! It was supposed to be a robbery—just a threat to scare her off the books!”
“You watched my children,” I said, my voice terrifyingly calm even to my own ears. “You let three little girls sit in the back of a blood-soaked car while their mother died.”
“I didn't know they were in the car!” he wept, the raspy smoker’s voice breaking into pathetic whimpers. “I swear to God, Dom! The windows were tinted! I thought she was alone!”
“Where is the shooter?”
“He’s gone! He left for Miami that afternoon! I gave him fifty grand—!”
“What’s his name, Pauly?”
“Jimmy! Jimmy Vane from the Third Avenue crew! He’s at the marina in Fort Lauderdale!”
I stared into my uncle’s face—the face that shared my father’s nose, my father’s jaw, the blood that ran through my own veins. The man who had sat at my Thanksgiving table, who had patted my daughters on the head, who had cried at Isabelle’s wake and kissed my cheek while telling me we would find whoever did this.
“You’re going to do something for me, Pauly,” I whispered, dragging him by his collar toward the iron door of the old coal bunker.
“Dom, please! Don't lock me in here! Dom!”
I shoved him through the heavy iron frame into the pitch-black stone room. He crashed onto the dirt floor, screaming and clutching his broken wrist.
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“I’m not killing you today, Pauly,” I said, holding the heavy iron door wide enough for him to see my face one last time. “You’re going to sit in the dark until I bring Jimmy Vane back from Miami. And then I’m going to let you listen to what happens to him before I finish with you.”
I slammed the iron door shut and turned the heavy brass wheel lock until the deadbolts clicked into place.
