Why Does the Caged Bird Sing? (Nevermore and Xana)

[Xanaphia]

I ain’t never crossed a man who didn’t deserve it.​

The lounge of the Gilded Cage Hotel and Casino was packed this evening, as it was most evenings. Men in sharp suits and women in elegant dresses, the seats were filled with bodies, and their hands with filled with drinks. Cigarette smoke made up the hazy atmosphere, obscuring things beyond the low lighting. Conversations were scattered and light, as everyone awaited the start of the show.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to stage, the Gilded Cage’s own Mercedes Morello!”

The spot light opened, focusing its brilliance on the young woman. Light clapping and a few scattered wolf whistles could be heard as the band started up. The jazz singer positively glowed in her tight, floor length silver dress, with soft chestnut curls cascading down her shoulders. Warm brown eyes lit up with her smile, as rich and earthy as her voice, as scarlet lips opens to let out the long, low note. “Ooooooohhhhh.” Slender fingers slide down the microphone stand, and then back up as she moved up the scale, following the rhythm set by the piano player.

For over an hour, Mercedes’ songs enraptured her audience, like the sirens of myth. Her voice was smooth and dark, the kind of voice to lure numerous young men to their deaths. Not that she had ever killed a man, or even raised her fist to one, but more than a few had come up with a broken heart, alongside broken bones, at the hands of her husband’s men. Some at her husband’s hands himself, mob boss Vinnie Morello. He owned the joint, and half the city’s liquors connections. Vegas had been good the couple, even under the sweltering heat of August.

Her set ended, and conversation returned to the lounge. Men drank, women laughed, and Vinnie enticed the police commissioner with a hefty briefcase filled with a thousand reasons to look the other way. Mercedes sipped at her own gin and juice backstage, soothing her throat after the show she put on.

“You came in a bar early on Me and My Gin,” she teased Tom, the trumpet player, poking him in the chest. The musician merely smirked at her claim, his teeth starkly white against his dark skin.

“So you listenin’ for me then, Miss Mercedes?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

“I just figure ain’t no one listenin’ to me, when they could be listenin’ to you.” Mercedes and Tom laughed in harmony, until Mercedes reached for her drink. In the span of of a blink, Vinnie had appeared.

“You talking to my girl?” Vinnie barked, getting in Tom’s space.

“Naw, sir. Nuthin’ like that.”

“Stop it Vinnie. It don’t mean nothing. Just talking ‘bout the music.” She grabbed her husband’s arm, urging him away from Tom. Vinnie’s eyes filled with barely contained rage as he half turned to look at her, tugging his from her grasp.

“You ain’t gonna like it, if I see you talking to my wife again. Understood?” Vinnie’s words barely held on to the semblance of control.

“Understood, Mr. Morello.”

“Come on, Mercedes. You need to be getting to bed. Rest your pipes, and such,” Vince insisted, bruising fingers digging into her arms as he longed her along.

 

[The Nevermore Bird]

There was a time, maybe a couple of years ago now, when the name 'Nino Marchesi' could have been heard in the Gilded Cage. Not up in the front of the house, of course, where Vinnie's beloved girl sang her songs and customers put out hard-earned dollars that would end up in the coffers of the mob. No. Instead Nino's name was reserved for the back rooms and only a select few lips. Vinnie would light up a nice, fat cigar and take a few puffs on it while letting the smoke drift around under the lights of that dark back office. Then he'd tap out the ashes and mention a 'problem' he's been having to this Consigliere across the desk from him. Say, for instance, some nobody mick was running illegal booze into the city for some clubs in Vinnie's territory and hurting his monthly take. He'd say how it sure would be a fine thing if a kindhearted citizen did something about all that illegal booze getting out onto the streets unchecked. And then that Consigliere go into the back to the payphone by the employee restroom and call one of the Capos beneath him and share word about this problem.

It was a very hands-off beginning to a painful series of events.

A truck would wind up on its side out in the desert. It'd catch light. And there would be a long trail of blood in the sand leading to some blubbering kid in a suit he sure as hell didn't pay for himself, laying face down in the sand, and with a pair of bullet holes drilled into his back that the coroner would get paid not to notice. A Capo would get a phone call, the Consigliere would get called by the Capo, and then the next day Nino would find an envelope almost too thick for his mail slot pushed through his dingy old apartment door. Except maybe that wasn't a 'nobody' dead on the side of the road. Maybe that was a boy by the name of Sean Donaghue - the youngest son of 'Big Ox' Donaghue, the head of the Irish mob that had been trying to strike a deal in the booze trade with Vinnie's gang. Suddenly word gets out that it was an Italian-looking man who killed his son. Maybe one who got paid. Then a year's worth of deals and negotiations are in jeopardy of going down the drain with all the blood from the gang war that is sure to break out if something isn't done to alleviate the pressure.

Another phone call is made. And suddenly Nino's name is mentioned again. And his address. And the bar her prefers to stop at to top himself off when he's not called out on a job.

Then a bunch of surly-looking Irish boys come driving by that same bar one evening and fill the whole place with lead. Then without checking the bodies they start throwing gas and matches through the window.

Nino scowled as he massaged his shoulder on reflex. The one that still had shards of a bullet lodged in the bone. Old phantom pains were bad enough that he nearly chomped through the filter of his cigarette while glaring daggers at the city lights growing closer on the dark evening horizon. Las Vegas was drawing closer. He hadn't been back in the last few years as he'd ran across the country to try and escape Vinnie's boys and the Irish all the same. Tried to heal up and recover. And of course tried to plan all the vile things he'd do if he got the man who put him up to die alone.

Nino start pressing all the harder on the gas pedal. Cold green eyes squinted at visions nobody else could have seen in the dark ahead of him.

The speed drove up and Nino drove closer. He was coming back.

 

[Xanaphia]

Vinnie didn’t speak the entire ride home, just drank and glared, oozing with rage just under the surface. On one hand, Mercedes appreciated that he didn’t intend to publically humiliate her, but on the other, she feared for what he might do, whatever he was waiting for the privacy of closed door to inflict upon her. He reeked of whiskey. It seeped from his pores, mingling with his perspiration and indignation. Maybe he’d drink himself into a stupor, and pass out. Still, Mercedes’ heart beat reached a crescendo as the car rolled to a stop, and Vinnie ushered her out of the car. It pounded against her chest as the car sped away, leaving her alone with her husband.

“Inside.” It was the first thing he had said since they left the club. She just nodded and bit her lip, hoping it was still possible to avoid an argument. But as the door shook and slammed behind her, Mercedes knew she had to change her approach. Avoiding an argument was no longer an option, her best bet was to mitigate it as much as possible.

“Vinnie, you are making a big deal outta nuthin’” She started, making her way through the house in a subtle effort to put distance between them.

Vinnie was having none of it, though, grabbing her wrist to turn her to face him before shoving her into the hallway wall. “You don’t ever, ever, disrespect me in public again. You hear me?” he roared in her face, spittle striking her. She nodded but he slammed her again, “Are you fucking him?”

“Tom? Why do you think I am fucking him?” Mercedes argued back, even knowing it wasn’t smart to back talk him.

“I saw you flirting with him! How long you two been fuckin’?” His fingers fisted in her dress, causing slits to appear in the fragile material.

“Vinnie stop!, We aren’t! Vinnie, you’re ripping my dress!” She grabbed at her husband’s hands, trying to pry them loose. This seemed to further infuriate him, until he spun her around and dragged her into the dining room. With a thud, she was smashed into the wooden table.

“I bought this for you!” He bellowed, ripping the satin dress from her skin. Cloth shrieked as it tore, leaving her in only under garments. Her bra and garter belt were left unmolested, but her panties were ripped off as well, as he held her down against the table.

“You wanna be a whore? You think I won’t turn this ass out if I didn’t love you so much? Don’t play me Mercie. Nobody plays me.” Fat fingers dug into the back of her head, pressing her face down into the hard wood surface of the table. She struggled and squirmed as she felt his rub his erection against her lips, unaroused and unyielding to his approach. He lifts her upper body just a few inches before slamming her down again, knocking the air from her lungs with the impact. As she gasped to refilled her lungs, he thrust into her, half his length ripping open her delicate womanhood.

“Vinnie!” She screamed out, her voice cracking under the vicious pounding of her sex, his meat cruelly splitting apart her tight walls, “Stop! You hurting me!”

“Good. Maybe you’ll learn something this time. Remember who you belong to.” His fingers tightened in her hair, pulling from the base and threatening to rip out thick sections. Her one mercy was that it didn’t last long, though the pain made everything happen in slow motion. One last stroke, banging against her cervix, and she was flooded by his climax, dripping from her violated hole as he pulled out of her. “Clean yourself off,” he snarled before turning to head into the bedroom, leaving his wife defiled against the table.

---

The hot water had run out, and taking a cold shower didn’t sit with Mercedes’ mood, so she trudged out from the stall. She still didn’t feel clean, not ever after an hour. She wondered if she would ever feel clean again. If she would ever feel whole, and not used, and dirty, and violated. If there was such a thing to wash Vinnie’s taint from her skin.

In the bedroom, she could hear Vinnie snoring. Her rapist. Her husband. He didn’t even care how much he hurt her. Didn’t lose any sleep over her tears or her agony or her shame. That bastard! She had looked the other way on so many things. The other women, cheating on her, while demanding that she not even so much as talk to another man. Even taking another woman down to Mexico, for “vacation.” Admittedly she didn’t know if procuring an illegal abortion for his mistress was better or worse than coming home with a bastard, but that fact that he was in the situation to begin with was an affront to her. To their marriage. And now this…

No! He doesn’t get to go on, like nothing happened. He doesn’t get to sleep in their marriage bed after treating her like a whore.

There was a gun in the closet. A Smith and Wesson .357 revolver. Loaded. Vinnie had bought it for her, in case anyone ever tried to attack her, to hurt her husband. Even taken her to the gun range a few times, to teach her how to shoot it. Mercedes knew what she had to do. Gripping it in shaky hands, she moved towards her husband. Standing beside him as he slept.

She wasn’t a whore. She wasn’t some floozy to be used and discarded. She wouldn’t let him get away with treating her like that. She couldn’t. Raising the gun to his head, she looked down at him. Squeeze the trigger, and end it. End it, end him, and his bullshit.

And where would that leave her? Vinnie would be dead, and someone would have to pay for that. He would be dead, and she would be arrested. No judge or jury would hear out her case. It’s wasn’t rape when it was her husband. It was just her wifely duties, her own fault for not just giving him what he wanted. His suffering would be over and done, and she’d spend the rest of her life in prison. Even if she did avoid a conviction, Vinnie was a made man, and she’d never be safe from the mob.

Exploding into a torrent of sobs, she collapsed onto the bed. She couldn’t kill him, and she couldn’t let him live. Couldn’t leave, and couldn’t stay here with not. Not anymore. There had to be another way, a way to hurt him, as badly as he hurt her. Worse, even. Take everything from him, until his empire was dust beneath her feet.

If it took the rest of her life, Mercedes Morello was sure she’d make him pay. Make him suffer. Make his wish he had never laid a hand on her.

 

[The Nevermore Bird]

The first thing Nino discovered when he hit the proper outskirts of the city was that territory had changed rapidly from when he remembered it last. There had been a time when the Irish mob didn't dare show its face anywhere west of Losee Road or south of East Washburn - a nice little cut of the northeast part of the city where a man could find some of the few cops not on Vinnie's payroll. Of course that's because their second paycheck was coming from the man everybody lovingly knew as 'Big Ox'. They didn't mess around with the flesh trade so the cops didn't have to worry about another red light district because the Irish mob made their money on liquor and gambling - which just so happened to be the same markets that Vinnie had come to the City of Sin for. But now here they were spreading across half the city. Maybe it was some old racism from his days hunting them down on Vinnie's coin, but Nino didn't remember there being quite so many flat-caps walking around the eastern half of Las Vegas. Had they broke a deal with Vinnie? Pushed him back?

Nino had more questions the further he drove into the city. And he knew where he could hope to find answers.

The 'Bleeding Virgin' was an old bar on the southeast outskirts of the city. It had been just on the edge of Vinnie's territory back in the day, and he had always chosen it as his favorite watering hole because it was far enough away from the Gilded Cage to avoid getting pulled into talking shop with whatever members of Vinnie's 'family' wanted his business whenever he just wanted to quench his thirst. Plus the bartender, another fellow by the name of Vinnie, knew how to pour a clean glass of whiskey that seemed to go down better than any other place Nino could think of. So he made his way down those old familiar streets in his dark blue Chevrolet - a Bel Air convertible that the Sicilian assassin had bought down in Austin a few months back when he was in need of a new ride. He found the Bleeding Virgin sitting seemingly unchanged at its old street corner and he found a parking spot in its mostly empty lot. The doors were quickly locked and he made his way to the door.

He wasn't two steps through the door before he saw it.

More flat-caps. Day labourers and muscle-bound tough-guys. And too many eyes watching him over their mugs for his liking.

But he was committed and didn't want to stand in the doorway like an asshole.

Nino made his way to the bar and scanned the room with those cold green eyes. He hadn't made it three feet past the door and he could see a gun tucked on the ankle of a scrawny fellow leaning near the door to the men's room. A shotgun over the bar that didn't use to be there. A shillelagh beneath that that definitely hadn't been there before. The Sicilian approached the bar and made himself comfortable on one of the stools and had just leaned on the bar when the bartender drew close. Muscle-bound with a fat gut and shock-red hair with a beard down to his chin. It didn't take a genius to realize that his favorite bartender wasn't working there any longer. Green eyes met green eyes and for a moment the two men watched each other. Both were starting to turn gray at their temples and chin from stress beyond their years. One look and he could tell that the man in front of him remembered Vinnie's rise to power if he'd been around Las Vegas for it.

The bartender looked just past him without saying a word. He just gave a subtle nod.

Nino had just jumped from the bench when a baton met the back of his shoulder.

He screamed and fell to a knee, but still tried to twist around at the waist and fight back. Then a hand grabbed him by his close-cropped black hair and slammed his face against the bar hard enough to daze him. A second time, hard enough to make him see stars. And he wasn't even aware of the third time before he was passed out on the floor.

There was a commotion as old souls who recognized the ink on the back of his hands and the now bloodied face rushed over to drag off the assassin. While at the same time the workers and common joes stared into their beers and tried to pretend they hadn't seen anything just in case the police came by on a noise complaint.

Though he'd be passed out for most all of it, inside the hour Nino would be stripped down to just his slacks, tied up to a chair, with a hood over his head, and waiting in the backroom of one of the Big Ox's clubs closer to the heart of Las Vegas - his 'headquarters' in the 'Tír na nÓg'. He was waiting tied up while the mob's fabled figurehead worked out business. After all, finding his son's killer after so long hearing nothing was big, but apparently the Italian powerhouse was rather busy with other matters . . .

 

[Xanaphia]

Traveling at night wasn’t a smart idea in this town, but it was Mercedes only choice. Vinnie was asleep, and for once wouldn’t have eyes on her. Traveling through this part of town was especially bad, with her olive skin and dark hair, fearing someone might recognize her as Vinnie’s wife, but she didn’t have a choice about that either. If she was going to give Vinnie his comeuppance, the Irish were her best bet. Big Ox had been itching for Italian blood. Mercie could only hope he’d at least hear her out, and not slake his desires on her.

Eyes were on her as she walked through 'Tír na nÓg', but she didn’t pay them any mind. Strength was everything, here. If she showed a hint of weakness, she’d be torn to shreds. As long as she walked like she belonged her, nobody start any trouble with her. Hopefully.

“You’re in the wrong club, dago whore,” one pasty bastard spat. She met his gaze with steel in her eyes and her purse, the hefty weight of her revolver taking up most of the space. Before he could blink the bag went across his face, the pistol cracking his jaw unexpectedly. He stumbled back a few steps, still trying to figure out what she hit him with before glaring at her with bloodshot eyes.

“I ain’t no whore. You tell Big Ox that Mercedes Morello wants to see him,” She exacted, standing firm against the wild glower of the Irishman. His companions laughed and whistled, holding the sore guy back. The sore guy and another headed into the back room leaving her with one skinny ginger paddy, who leered at her, but didn’t dare speak. There was a bellow from the office, and he motioned with his head for her to head back there.

They were pouring drinks from a bottle of Irish whisky, the man she hit still scowling, rubbing his chin as she entered. Big stood at the bar, sipping at his glass as she watched her enter the room, looking for a sign of fear, or weakness. Which wouldn’t have been unwarranted, given that he was built like a fucking ox, just as his moniker suggested. Even being older enough to be her father hadn’t softened the man any, his arms as her thighs. But she maintained composure, holding her head high as she approached him.

“You got some kind of moxie, lassie,” Mickey, “Big Ox” Donaghue laughed, handing her a glass “comin’ up me club and smashin’ on me boys. But what else can I expect from Vinnie’s little wife. So, what’s your dammed good reason for being here?”

“We got a mutual problem that we could help each other out with,” Mercie explained, downing the liquor before she could taste it. It just hit the spot, easing the ache of bruised ribs.

“Oh, do we now?” Mick asked, his voice animated with the hint of threat. Just daring her to break down or back down. No way in hell was this rat bastard, or any others going to threaten her anymore.

“Well, he don’t know we’ve got a problem yet, but I figure you can use that, can’t ya?” Mercie explained, crossing her arms over her chest. “Y’all wantin’ to go to war. Maybe there don’t need to be more bodies on your side, is all.”

Mick laughed into his closed mouth, appraising her. Not just her figure, but her strength, her resolve. “War is bad for business, lassie. And I got the bastard who put a bullet in my son’s head. I dun need to bury no more of me boys.”

Wait, what? Mercie swallowed hard at those words, not expecting. Did that mean…Nino! A Silician she could actually trust, one who would have hated Vinnie as much as she did. Not that it was going to do her any good, if these paddy bastards beat him to death. Shit, she had to do something, if there was any hope of getting her revenge on her rat bastard of a husband. “You a damn fool Mickey, if you are satisfied with that.”

“What’s that now?” Mick asked, closing in on her now. No flinching. No weakness.

“You got the man who pulled the trigger, but what about the man who put the gun in his hand? The man who paid a fat stack of bills to see your son face down in a ditch. You’re thinking too small Mickey, and Sean deserved better than that.”

“You don’t say my son’s name,” Mick roared, knuckles turning white from restraining himself. She swallowed hard, but didn’t relent, standing tall. After a moment of tense silence, he spoke, “You sayin’ Vinnie ordered the hit?”

“None other. Nino don’t do nuthin’ unless someone is paying for it. Vinnie paid for it. I say, let him pay for it again.”

Mick scratched his chin for a moment before nodding. “Bring that greaseball here, now.”