[S1.24]
24. INSTINCT
open heart surgery
It's not difficult to snap a neck cleanly, given the right kind of leverage and a convenient span of height; the element of surprise tends to help. At best, the tensile strength of solid bone wobbles near a hundred and thirty megapascals, give or take; Dino learns this in freshman biology on a rare occasion of attention. Later, he imagines aloud that individual vertebrae, slotted together and loosely associated, can hardly compare.
Reborn encourages thought experiments like these - Dino can tell, even upside down, by the way he eyes the room, considering: the whip stretched across Dino's shoulders and over the door, the precarious perch Enzio has claimed over the edge of Dino's fish tank. Dino can tell, too, that he's safe for now: until Reborn touches the brim of his hat or cocks his gun, a thought experiment this will remain.
Dino, he smiles, time to make some house calls.
+
They say the Cavallone House where Dino grew up is a hovel - dwarfed by the estates of the Vongola or the Giglio Nero, shadowed by the glory of past generations; this is something else Dino learns as a freshman, tailed by the gossip that follows any family heir. The Cavallone Family, they say, is in decay, and no better sign than the shrinking foundations of its home. Dino knows better.
There's a crooked, winding street along bluffs at the edges of Cavallone territory: a tent city, poor as they come and swelling with every closed factory. The first time he was recognized here, Reborn had to drag him home bruised and muddy.
It's October now, chilly at night even with the bluff at their backs, open fire too much a danger to rely on. Dino brings blankets and lanterns, sweaters long outgrown, thick skeins for the nonnas who knit, pilfered apples and cans of soup. His scarf he leaves with a young mother, gaunt and newly nursing; his coat to Doctor Nereo, too ill himself to see patients.
As he leaves, he recognizes Angelo, the boy who went North last spring.
No luck up north? Dino asks, offering the last of the apples. He can never carry enough.
You know how it is, Angelo smiles, front teeth gaping, always too many Southerners looking for work.
Dino smiles back, gently tugging his hat down over Angelo's ears with cold, stiff fingers.
+
In all technicality, there are a few, very specific things Dino is to learn from Reborn. Things like poise, balance, a sense of inner calm and a show of outer stillness appropriate to a mafia boss, and, incidentally, how to stay alive long enough to be a mafia boss. Dino is supposed to learn the politics of the cosa nostra, the code of mafiosi, the ruthlessness and violence of a leader, and none of the compassion.
In truth, Dino's got the instincts and maybe the intuition, but what matters most is reflex and impulse, electricity and motion. The problem, says the Ninth, is this: Dino is too soft to act on reflex.
+
Dino's first kill is the night he inherits the family. He's seventeen, two years of Reborn's tutelage under his belt, and all the skill that practice could instill.
The hitman slips through on the rotation of the watch: Romario for Bono and a hundred other men outside, clockgear treading on carpet - halt, then double time at the first gunshot. Dino falls out of bed with Enzio tangled to the whip and wrapped over his ankles, rolls across his floor tugging loose one foot after the other.
He's on his feet and three doors down before a coherent plan forms, but Dino knows: that it's not difficult to puncture a skull, given focused pressure and critical distance, velocity. Blood will well from the nearest great vessel, clot and cover, a tumor over the wound and two, three liters short.
Dino holds his breath and hopes this, too, remains a thought experiment, then, on an exhale, shoulders open the door, Romario's footsteps echoing his own. He flattens them both to the ground on a second gunshot, whip coiled on the third.
There's a woman's body in the corner, blooming red in his mother's nightgown, a blonde man slumped at his father's desk; Dino looks away from the angle of his back to coil the whip tighter over his knuckles. Eight seven six seconds, he's got the hitman by the neck, kicked out knees and pistol on the ground and this is it, time to test the theory: he's got tension in the leather and the advantage of height, he's got - arm wrenched free and another gun on his back, too fast and too close and Dino closes his eyes on reflex, sets his feet and pulls.
+
Ciaossu, says Reborn.
Dino smiles, light and empty.
There's something important about Reborn and the way he's standing still while Romario and the men are pacing down the hall, checking corners for shadows and dust-motes. Dino thinks of past visits to Venice, watching terraces and rooftops swoop past the cars over cobbled bridges and bike-borne carts as he swirled down a canal at the whim of a current; he's floating again, cotton-mouthed from painkillers and too distracted to take everything in. There's something he's forgetting.
The family doctor is at his right, peeling back his shoulder with bloody forceps and gloves. On his left, the artist is slotting a bottle green tube against the needle, inking the family motto over his bare wrist, marking him the Tenth.
Ah.
Dino looks down at the desk under his arms, wiped gleaming and clean. There will be time, he knows, to pay his respects, to mourn, and -
Your father, Bono hesitates. There were -
His father's checkbook is open on the desk, a wash of red ink like blood over the last page, matches bundled neatly along the seam.
We can still take care of it, Bono adds with a gesture at the checkbook, tapping at the matches before lacing his fingers together.
Dino sucks in a deep breath, and thinks of cracked streets, cold hands and faces peeking from tent flaps. He nods, catching Bono's eye.
With a pen, if you will.
The Ninth was not wrong, but. This, too, is a reflex.
open heart surgery
It's not difficult to snap a neck cleanly, given the right kind of leverage and a convenient span of height; the element of surprise tends to help. At best, the tensile strength of solid bone wobbles near a hundred and thirty megapascals, give or take; Dino learns this in freshman biology on a rare occasion of attention. Later, he imagines aloud that individual vertebrae, slotted together and loosely associated, can hardly compare.
Reborn encourages thought experiments like these - Dino can tell, even upside down, by the way he eyes the room, considering: the whip stretched across Dino's shoulders and over the door, the precarious perch Enzio has claimed over the edge of Dino's fish tank. Dino can tell, too, that he's safe for now: until Reborn touches the brim of his hat or cocks his gun, a thought experiment this will remain.
Dino, he smiles, time to make some house calls.
+
They say the Cavallone House where Dino grew up is a hovel - dwarfed by the estates of the Vongola or the Giglio Nero, shadowed by the glory of past generations; this is something else Dino learns as a freshman, tailed by the gossip that follows any family heir. The Cavallone Family, they say, is in decay, and no better sign than the shrinking foundations of its home. Dino knows better.
There's a crooked, winding street along bluffs at the edges of Cavallone territory: a tent city, poor as they come and swelling with every closed factory. The first time he was recognized here, Reborn had to drag him home bruised and muddy.
It's October now, chilly at night even with the bluff at their backs, open fire too much a danger to rely on. Dino brings blankets and lanterns, sweaters long outgrown, thick skeins for the nonnas who knit, pilfered apples and cans of soup. His scarf he leaves with a young mother, gaunt and newly nursing; his coat to Doctor Nereo, too ill himself to see patients.
As he leaves, he recognizes Angelo, the boy who went North last spring.
No luck up north? Dino asks, offering the last of the apples. He can never carry enough.
You know how it is, Angelo smiles, front teeth gaping, always too many Southerners looking for work.
Dino smiles back, gently tugging his hat down over Angelo's ears with cold, stiff fingers.
+
In all technicality, there are a few, very specific things Dino is to learn from Reborn. Things like poise, balance, a sense of inner calm and a show of outer stillness appropriate to a mafia boss, and, incidentally, how to stay alive long enough to be a mafia boss. Dino is supposed to learn the politics of the cosa nostra, the code of mafiosi, the ruthlessness and violence of a leader, and none of the compassion.
In truth, Dino's got the instincts and maybe the intuition, but what matters most is reflex and impulse, electricity and motion. The problem, says the Ninth, is this: Dino is too soft to act on reflex.
+
Dino's first kill is the night he inherits the family. He's seventeen, two years of Reborn's tutelage under his belt, and all the skill that practice could instill.
The hitman slips through on the rotation of the watch: Romario for Bono and a hundred other men outside, clockgear treading on carpet - halt, then double time at the first gunshot. Dino falls out of bed with Enzio tangled to the whip and wrapped over his ankles, rolls across his floor tugging loose one foot after the other.
He's on his feet and three doors down before a coherent plan forms, but Dino knows: that it's not difficult to puncture a skull, given focused pressure and critical distance, velocity. Blood will well from the nearest great vessel, clot and cover, a tumor over the wound and two, three liters short.
Dino holds his breath and hopes this, too, remains a thought experiment, then, on an exhale, shoulders open the door, Romario's footsteps echoing his own. He flattens them both to the ground on a second gunshot, whip coiled on the third.
There's a woman's body in the corner, blooming red in his mother's nightgown, a blonde man slumped at his father's desk; Dino looks away from the angle of his back to coil the whip tighter over his knuckles. Eight seven six seconds, he's got the hitman by the neck, kicked out knees and pistol on the ground and this is it, time to test the theory: he's got tension in the leather and the advantage of height, he's got - arm wrenched free and another gun on his back, too fast and too close and Dino closes his eyes on reflex, sets his feet and pulls.
+
Ciaossu, says Reborn.
Dino smiles, light and empty.
There's something important about Reborn and the way he's standing still while Romario and the men are pacing down the hall, checking corners for shadows and dust-motes. Dino thinks of past visits to Venice, watching terraces and rooftops swoop past the cars over cobbled bridges and bike-borne carts as he swirled down a canal at the whim of a current; he's floating again, cotton-mouthed from painkillers and too distracted to take everything in. There's something he's forgetting.
The family doctor is at his right, peeling back his shoulder with bloody forceps and gloves. On his left, the artist is slotting a bottle green tube against the needle, inking the family motto over his bare wrist, marking him the Tenth.
Ah.
Dino looks down at the desk under his arms, wiped gleaming and clean. There will be time, he knows, to pay his respects, to mourn, and -
Your father, Bono hesitates. There were -
His father's checkbook is open on the desk, a wash of red ink like blood over the last page, matches bundled neatly along the seam.
We can still take care of it, Bono adds with a gesture at the checkbook, tapping at the matches before lacing his fingers together.
Dino sucks in a deep breath, and thinks of cracked streets, cold hands and faces peeking from tent flaps. He nods, catching Bono's eye.
With a pen, if you will.
The Ninth was not wrong, but. This, too, is a reflex.