Rumrunner

Chapter Nine: Reality

"We are gathered on this day to celebrate the union between this man and this woman," a somberly dressed clergyman droned. Gisella was smiling and dressed in a frothy sea of white lace, and Icepick looked the most relaxed Argus had ever seen him, despite being dressed to the nines for the first time in Argus's memory.

Argus's hands were shaking slightly in his lap, and his date Mabel, a pretty dark-haired girl dressed in green, kept glancing at him. He had known this was coming for as long as he had known Gisella, but the knowledge did not make it any easier to handle. Gisella was getting married, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He distracted himself by concentrating on the stained glass depiction of a crucifixion that dominated the front of the church, and reminded himself that Gisella was a Muggle and therefore beneath his notice. His mother wouldn't allow filth like that to enter her house. He was horrified, then, to realize that he'd felt the sting of guilt at thinking such things.

"Do you, Gisella Francesca Torrio take this man, to have and to hold, through sickness and in health, 'til death do you part?" asked the priest.

Argus imagined that Gisella's eyes slid to him before she murmured, "I do."

"And do you, Oscar J. Norris, take this woman, to have and to hold, through sickness and in health, 'til death do you part?" asked the priest.

"I do," said Icepick gruffly.

When the priest asked for objections, Argus chose to forever hold his peace, along with everyone else that filled the pews. As the priest pronounced them man and wife, Icepick lifted Gisella's veil with more gentleness than a man that big should be able to muster and kissed her.

"Weddings are so beautiful," whispered Mabel as Icepick and Gisella together walked up the aisle.

Argus gave a noncommittal grunt. Gisella was glowing, and she hadn't so much as glanced his way. He hadn't expected her to pay him any mind today of all days, but he had still wanted to be pleasantly surprised if she did. Which she hadn't. He was never going to get to touch her again, and she didn't even bother to give him one last moment of her attention to tide him over, or to tell him good-bye.

Mabel was warm at his side, and he allowed her to wrap her arm around his. Her hair was more coarse and thicker than Gisella's, her eyes duller and her soft, demure voice grated at his nerves, but he did not push her away.

At the gathering following the wedding, there was music and dancing. Drinks were flowing with no one acknowledging the legality issues, and Gisella was fawned over by everyone. Argus stayed in the back of the room with Guilio's other associates.

He was somewhat surprised to see Moltisanti mingling with the other partygoers, drink in hand. As though noticing Argus's attention, he turned and headed in his direction.

"Interesting to see a foreigner like you here," Moltisanti commented idly to Argus, looking at him suspiciously. "Just how close are you to the Torrios?"

"Antony!"

Moltisanti turned as a buxom bleach blonde stalked towards them. She was scowling, and said, "Antony, what the hell do you think you're doing here?"

"I'm-"

She interrupted him. "After the way you treated my sister, you have the audacity to show up here?"

Argus decided that this was a good time to step to the other side of room to see if anything of interest was happening there. He slipped away without attracting undue attention. There was dancing and laughter filling the room, and he found himself standing at the edge of a group of unfamiliar Muggles, mostly ignoring their conversation as he watched Gisella laugh and be beautiful with her friends and new husband, when their conversation captured his attention.

"He disowned his son last year."

Argus didn't know that Muggles would have cause to disown their offspring. Being Muggle should put them all on the same level, after all. Money was the only thing that really separated them, because they were the bottom of the barrel. There were no concepts like Mudbloods and half-bloods to divide them. "Why?" he asked.

"He... preferred the company of men," said Giulio tactfully.

"If you can call them men," interjected a large, curly-haired man.

"Disgrace to their family," offered another man, sloshing his drink around. There were nods of agreement throughout the group.

Argus felt vaguely uncomfortable. He had heard variations of the last two statements before, in his mother's home. Never directly to his face, but behind closed doors the words had been uttered. In a strange way, he realized the unknown son's pains even though his mother hadn't disowned him, exactly.

Though, he now realized that he hadn't heard from her since her goodbye as he left for America on the wild goose chase that had lead him to his current lifestyle. No owls, nothing. Not even a note for his twentieth birthday. His mother had been the one to insist on him trying to find that damned, imaginary specialist.

The bitch had just sent him away so that he would no longer be an embarrassment, he realized, but it was accompanied by no sorrow. His home was here now, amongst the magic-less and the mundane. He knew that better things existed in the world that this bleak existence, but this was all that he had. The Muggle life was the only thing that was open to him anymore.

He was considered grabbing another drink when a slightly familiar shrill giggle and apology made him look up. Mabel was pushing her way through the crowds of people towards him.

"Come on, I'm sp-sp-splifficated," giggled Mabel, breaking through the crowd of men blithely. "Take me home."

Argus bid his friends a farewell and walked Mabel outside. She clung to his arm, tripping occasionally in her heeled shoes. He helped her climb into the car, watching as her fringed skirt rode up indecently high on her thighs. Muggle women had no shame. No respectable witch would make a spectacle of herself like Mabel was. He prepared himself for a tiresome drive home. His heart was heavy with the thought that Gisella was no longer available for him to somehow take away from Icepick. The man was no longer just a fiancé, but a husband. He didn't have a chance in the world. All he wanted to do was return home, to his real home in the real world, not to his colorless apartment in the empty Muggle world.

"Turn left," Mabel said, smiling up at him prettily. Her hand had found its way onto his thigh only minutes after leaving the reception.

"You live out here?" he said doubtfully. They had, at Mabel's direction, been driving further away from the city proper. Wilderness pressed closer to them now, trees outlined in black filling the sky where buildings and lampposts had been.

"What do you think?" Mabel's voice was low and playful, and he glanced at her to see a catlike smile creep across her features.

"That I don't really care," he said honestly, smiling as her hand crept higher.

"Turn here," she said, and Argus obediently turned onto a narrow, overgrown dirt road. Bushes and saplings whipped against the sides of his car, occasionally scratching the paint with a grating sound. Finally, the road opened into a small meadow. Argus eased the car to one side and cut the engine and lights.

The car was immediately submerged in darkness. The woodlands made the night more oppressive than it ever managed in town, and Argus found the darkness a comfort. The silence that settled in the car, however, was stifling. He glanced back over at Mabel. It was the broad's bloody idea to come out here, why wasn't she doing anything?

Mabel's silhouette moved closer, and Argus found a pair of soft lips on his own. The kissing, which he found to be quite an enjoyable pastime, continued for a while until Mabel broke away. She peered over her seat into the back one and said, "There's a lot more room back there."

Argus couldn't get into the backseat fast enough.

The Muggle in the backseat was spread out wantonly and giggling slightly as her buckled shoes slid across the leather, unable to grip as she tugged him closer. Small hands tugged at the buttons on his trousers, and he suddenly felt unrestricted and free. Emboldened, he slid his hands up silk stockings to pale plump flesh, and slid her short dress up as she raised her hips.

From that point things went quickly, and as her heat scorched around him he imagined that the closed eyes below him were startling blue under their lids, and that the flyaway hair was darker than the night had already made it. He wasn't sure if the name on the tip of his tongue actually slipped out - the girl gave no indication of him having said anything- but it struggled to be free in the night air.

He slumped against warm pliant flesh, breathing heavily. After a few minutes, Mabel pushed at him, and he drew away from her, leaving her warmth only to be embraced by the cold night air wafting in through the car's open windows.

"Where do you really live?" Argus asked shortly after arranging himself and the girl into a vestige of propriety.

She told him, and he dropped her off without another word.

* * * * *

Ronnie held the key to the whole operation.

Argus thought that everything would be so much simpler if what they needed was a real key, but he knew now that things were never so simple. Ronnie knew the ins and outs of his most lucrative business, and Guilio wanted them to find out everything they could about it. Aldo's vision would be fulfilled.

Ronnie himself was chained to the wall, slumped slightly down. His feet rested on the dirty tile floor, and he no longer resembled the well-coiffed man Argus had briefly met a few months before. His brown hair was plastered to his forehead with a mixture of sweat and a thin sheen of blood.

"Just let me go!" Ronnie hissed, peering up while keeping his chin down. "I'm a businessman. I need to be running my shop."

Treetop was standing in the corner as far away from Ronnie as possible. "We want to know some things."

Ronnie struggled against his chains a bit, and said, "I don't know anything. I stay away from that shit."

"We're interested in the kind of shit you do know," said Treetop. "Because we know some shit about you."

"There's nothing t-to know about me," Ronnie said weakly. "If you let me go I won't say anything about this. It will be forgotten."

"Do you think we fucking care if you talk?" Argus said. His favorite hammer was sitting on the table.

"We know about Rose."

"What about her?" Ronnie was guarded.

"We know how she died, cocksucker, and we know what you did to her. You're a sick fuck, you know that?"

Ronnie looked warily at them, as if trying to gauge the severity of their reactions. It was obvious that Treetop had taken special offense to the rape. Argus knew Treetop had a sister of his own that he treated like a china doll, so it was unsurprising that he would react so violently towards the thought that someone else would betray their sister's trust and do something completely horrible.

Argus, on the other hand, wasn't as obvious with his disgust. Ronnie chose to try to appeal to Argus. "What I did wasn't all that bad."

Argus raised his eyebrow. Treetop was cracking his knuckles. Ronnie was wild-eyed as he continued. "It's been done throughout history. Pharaohs and Caesars didn't think that it was evil to lay with their sisters, so why should I?"

Argus said nothing.

"It was all her fault. She would walk around the hall wearing thin little nightgowns that hid nothing. With a sweet little twat like that how can a man resist?"

Treetop growled. Argus had always been aware of Treetop's massive size, but for the most part the man was rather docile. His size afforded him a confidence that made him one of the kindest of the gangsters Argus knew, but he was still undeniably intimidating without trying. Now that Treetop was angry, he was utterly menacing and definitely not someone to be fucked with.

Treetop picked up Argus's hammer, the one with the smooth wandlike handle and blood dried into the crease between the head and handle. Argus watched as Treetop swung the hammer in a graceful arc and slammed it into Ronnie's groin.

Ronnie screamed, puked and strained against his restraint. A string of vomit was smeared down his chin and inarticulate moans emitted from his throat.

Treetop calmly laid the hammer back on the table. "Women are to be respected, asshole," he said.

When Ronnie seemed lucid again, Argus said to him, "We're interested in your bootlegging operation."

"What does that have to do with Rosey? She's dead you know. You're getting fucking crazy over a dead girl."

"A dead girl you put in the ground," Treetop said.

"I wasn't responsible for her death. I didn't put a bullet in her brain," Ronnie argued.

"Doesn't matter. She died because of what you did to her," Argus said. The smell of vomit was cloying, and Argus did not look forward to having to step closer to it. Hell, he'd probably be stepping in it before this was over. "And the girl really doesn't matter. We want to know about the bootlegging."

"What bootlegging? I don't know anything about any fucking bootlegging," Ronnie choked out.

Argus took the hammer from Treetop. He shifted it in his hand, adjusting his grip with practiced slowness. Ronnie's fearful eyes never left the hammer, and Argus leaned forward deliberately.

"Tell us about the bootlegging."

Ronnie shook his head.

"Tell us," he said again, raising the hammer, handle smooth in his hand.

"Fine, fine," said Ronnie quickly, with a shudder. "It's based out of Canada... I deal with a man named Beauchamp. I send men to make pick-ups every two weeks, from my rumrunners that cross the lake."

Treetop was thoughtful. "You have any special codes you use with Beauchamp?"

Ronnie nodded, and began to describe how he dealt with his connection. After the initial break of his silence, Ronnie began to answer questions more and more easily, especially after Argus placed the hammer out of sight and no more violence was shown to the chained man.

Finally, the information petered out, and Argus exchanged quick glances with Treetop. There was nothing more that Ronnie could do other than the final bit of paperwork necessary to make his business belong to Giulio.

Argus unshackled the man, watching hope blossom in the condemned man's countenance. They lead him out of the abattoir discretely at gunpoint, putting him in the passenger seat of Treetop's car and driving the darkened streets of the city to Giulio's home. An unfamiliar car sat at the curb outside, and Treetop motioned to hide the weapons as they entered the house.

Giulio greeted them, and introduced them briefly to a dour, old lawyer that held a meticulously worded deed to Ronnie's establishment out for inspection.

The hope had disappeared from Ronnie. He signed away his livelihood with no fuss, as what little fight he still had was quelled by the presence of arms.

Argus remained at Giulio's house as Treetop lead Ronnie away to a death sentence imposed by a self-appointed judge and jury.

He had to help plan the new break from their old methods and into the opening of their own business in illegal booze. Ronnie's business had been adequate, but Giulio had bigger plans.