After another hour of discussion and planning Paul left in his old Jeep to get some equipment and start his preparations. Jim was left with Amos and Allanah but the boy was not talking about anything much to Allanah’s growing annoyance.

  Jim had learned over the last few days that if you wanted any kind of interaction with Amos then you needed to ask him direct questions. He would always answer but the answers were becoming shorter and shorter. They would just have to accept this until whatever had happened to him was either reversed or it had worn off on it’s own.

  Jim was not counting on Amos’ condition wearing off or Allanah becoming more patient with it. They needed to find away to force the old woman to explain what she had done and how to fix it. He was worried about Paul’s approach but he certainly didn’t have any better ideas.

  If only Randy had stayed around for a few days longer, that would have helped. He really valued the quiet, understated intelligence of Randy. He was a straight shooter, one who wouldn’t hesitate to tell you if your big plan was full of holes.

  “So do we trust this Paul guy? He still looks like a middle aged soccer coach to me.” Allanah was looking at Jim for his thoughts and they were both surprised when Amos volunteered his opinion.

  “He’s honest. He’s also incredibly sad and probably happy to die. He won’t take his own life but he is not afraid of death either.”

  “How the hell do you know that? He told you all this between getting mugged and grabbing sandwiches?”

  “It’s his bugs, they’re different than anyone else’s that I have seen. He has large beetles that move round his head, slowly but with purpose. They don’t try to hide or flee, they are not afraid like everyone else is.”

  Alanah and Jim just started at Amos across the table and after a long pause she spoke with a low, slow voice. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”

  It took a while but Amos managed to explain to them both about the visualizations of bugs he saw that would routinely appear around someone’s head when they in a stressful or emotional situation. This is why he had volunteered to go with Paul to get lunch, he had wanted to evaluate Paul’s insects if they appeared as well as the ones that might appear with the people that turned up around them.

  “All right….so Paul’s got honest but depressing sad bugs. What about me? Do I have beautiful butterflies or delicate ladybugs on my head?”

  “No.”

  “You have a lot of angry wasps. They are moving around all the time, I think they are looking for something to sting.”

  “Yeah…well I guess we will find out tonight then won’t we?”

  Paul had picked up the two just after eleven pm and they drove across town to Giorgio’s restaurant.

  “It usually closed by nine and no one is there by ten….unless you are chained up in the kitchen.”

  “What if there is someone else in the kitchen?” Paul seemed a bit surprised by Allanah’s comment.

  “We free them, just like last time I guess.” She turned to Amos who was sitting by himself in the backseat. “Are you sure you are up to this?”

  When Amos just stared at her she got a bit impatient. “Amos, can you safely find you way back into the rear courtyard through the building you used to escape the last time we were here?”

  “It will be easier this time. I can see so well now, especially at night and I can hear everything. Jim gave me some good tools to break any latches or locks as well.”

  “Don’t forget to look for and cut the phone cables like I told you” said Paul “they’ll be in back and if they have any alarm it’ll be runnin’ through that.”

  They both watched with a shared sense of unease as Amos climbed out of the jeep and walked off towards the apartment building adjacent to the restaurant. Just a moment earlier he had remarked that he heard someone coming down the stairs and he went to intercept the door that opened moments later.

  “It’s unnatural, there’s no two ways about it. I dunno know what she did to em’ but it looks like it isn’t done with him yet so who knows what’ll happen to em’. It’s good that you’re pushin’ back.”

  Alanah muttered under her breath “I can’t freakin’ wait to start pushing back.”

  The woman leaving the building almost tried to shut the door in Amos’ face. His stony face combined with the sunglasses was off-putting but when he pulled the door open and stepped back to let her pass she decided to keep moving towards the bus that was coming up the street.

  Whatever happened with this kid could be someone else’s problem, she just wanted to be safely seated on the bus.

  At the top of the stairs Amos found the roof access door and using a small prybar he easily forced it open. At the parapet edge he looked down into the restaurant courtyard and then moved over to the corner and found the gas pipe that he had used for his initial escape from the courtyard. Moments later he was at the rear door listening for any sounds.

  The telephone cables took longer to sort out. There was a mess of them that converged on a leaning and weathered wooden pole just beyond the rear fence. Amos had to retrace the route of several wires before he settled on cutting two of them. Then he turned back to the rear door and used the prybar to force open the lock.

  In the end, it was the old wooden doorframe that had given away. It was so rotted that the prybar kept removing chunks of wood until the rusted strike plate was loose on the deadbolt. Amos listened again and after hearing nothing he pushed his way into the restaurant.

  “Jesus, that was quick. Do your freaky new powers allow you to fly too?” Allanah was both impressed by and nervous about the abilities of the new Amos. He was getting more capable for sure but his personality was also dying.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  What happens when there is nothing left? What does he do then? She kept trying to keep her humour but it was getting harder to do and Paul wasn’t much livelier than Amos either so she was really struggling being with the two of them.

  Paul guided them into the restaurant and then took over operations immediately. ”We take ten minutes max. That’s it. Amos, check every single room for anyone that might be here. Check everywhere. Allanah you stand against the wall, keep away from the window and watch the door and I will get started in here.”

  He didn’t wait for any answers, they had reviewed the plan several times before coming so there would not be any questions or hesitation. He started moving and throwing tables and chairs to the sides of the room to clear the centre of the dining room. As he was finishing he caught sight of Amos returning and he looked at his watch.

  “Seven minutes, what did you see?”

  “The bathrooms are clear, the office and kitchen and the stock room are clear too. There is something weird in the stand-up oven. It doesn’t smell right and one of the doors doesn’t seem full closed.”

  Paul handed Amos a bottle. “Get started in the center. Nice and big and make them clear. I’m going to check the oven and get another handheld if they have one”

  Moments later Paul returned with his arms full of bundles of cash and some paper wrapped rectangles. “They are using this as a stash house. Cash and drugs, we gotta move. This place is gonna be watched carefully. Four minutes. Allanah, pack up this cash in the bag here. Amos, make a pile with these bricks and douse them too but keep them well clear of the message.”

  Paul went back into the kitchen and returned with a fire extinguisher and he started to spray the perimeter of the dining room. “Two minutes, I’m moving around and towards the door. Amos, grab the one we brought and hit the perimeter again.”

  Once they were back at the door Paul pulled out a handgun and said “One minute, Amos grab the bags. Allanah you’re last out so light er’ up on my signal and let’s go. I’m going to make sure we’re clear.”

  Moments later they heard him from the sidewalk. “Let er’ rip…let’s go let’s go”.

  Allanah bent down and lit the carpet in two spots and watched the flames come alive and then tossed the lighter and turned for the door.

  “Don’t run, just walk to the car. We’ve got a few minutes before all hell breaks loose.”

  Once in the Jeep, Paul eased away from the curb and told Amos “let me know as soon as you hear something and if you don’t we’ll take another pass and…”

  “There it is” said Amos “the sprinklers have gone off and the alarm is going.”

  “Good, if the sprinkles don’t put it out then the chemical residue from the extinguishers will stop the flames from spreading at least until the truck get here.”

  As the old Jeep shifted through the gears and picked up speed Paul began to smile. The tension amongst the three had lessened a little and for Allanah it felt good to have done something to retaliate.

  “Well done, that went perfectly. Let’s go tell Jim and then we can plan our next move as well”. Paul’s smile widened and the Jeep just managed to catch the light ahead as it turned to yellow.

  “Giorgio we closed over an hour ago, you can’t be here, I’m all done and I wanna go home”.

  “Fuck that Alessia, those fucking bastards really did it this time and it’s all your Mom’s fault.”

  Alessia threw the bar rag down hard on the table. “Then you go tell that. Go on. She’s up, she’s lonely and she’ll talk to you all night. You go and tell her.”

  “No, no, no…” Giorgio was shaking his head back and forth, either in anger or disbelief. Probably both Alessia thought or perhaps he was confused as well. He was certainly dumb enough.

  “What Giorgio…”

  “Quiet!” Giorgio looked right at her. His nostrils moved in and out as he paused before speaking again. “You be quiet. Those kids really fucked up. They really really fucked up and they are going to pay now.”

  He stood there, fists clenched and his chest was heaving slightly, probably from the exertion of climbing the stairs as quickly as he did after crashing through the door and stomping his way up.

  Jesus, he wants me to say something…. “Giorgio, what the fuck happened, you told me nothing, what the hell do you want me to say?”

  The big chef smiled in a half crazed way and walked towards the bar and leaned forwards placing two big meaty hands on the edge of the bartop. “You wanna know? Lemme tell you then. Those little bastards came back and broke into the restaurant…”.

  He shook his head and looked down at the floor and spat. After a moment he looked up at Alessia and continued.

  “They ripped us off again. I had money there…a lot……and ….other things that I needed to move on behalf of la Famigilia. They took it Alessia, all the money and then they burnt our packages in the dining room.”

  Alessia’s eyes widened. This was getting serious, no one, especially kids was allowed to target la Famigilia like this. This was going to get ugly fast and those kids were now in serious shit.

  “Oh Alessia….there’s more.” Giorgio turned his fleshy red face on a bit of an angle and that same menacing half smile reappeared. “They left a message for your mom….they burnt it into the floor OF MY RESTAURANT.” The big man had screamed the last few words and had let his anger completely take over.

  “DON’T YOU WANT TO HEAR THE MESSAGE? DON’T YOU WANT TO HEAR IT?”

  “Giorgio, Giorgio…calm down. Please calm down. I’ll help you…I’ll help you. I can talk to my Mom. What was the message?”

  “Those little bastards…” he breathed out shakily and went on “they burnt the words

  LIFT THE CURSE

  into the carpet. The sprinklers came on and the water ruined everything in the kitchen and the dining room. It’s all destroyed.”

  Alessia stared at him, eyes open in shock. This was not good. Her mom had targeted this boy and now, instead of begging for her mercy he had sent her a message.

  Shit…shit…this was not good and if they found out that she had driven her mother to do this instead of telling the where the boy was….shit. They cannot know.

  “Ok Giorgio, it’ll be ok. Some new paint, new carpet, the place will look better than ever.”

  “THAT’S NOT THE GODDAMN POINT.” Giorgio slammed his big fist on the bar top.

  “They stole Alessia. They stole from US. They damaged our property. They BURNT our property. They are mocking us and now people will know about it.”

  Alessi wiped her loose hair back from her face and then started to wring her hands subconsciously. “No one will know, it was bad luck, just a fire…”

  “Oh no….there were cops there. Firefighters too. We will have many bribes to pay over the burnt packages they found but no one can stop them from talking about Lift the Curse. Soon the whole neighbourhoods gonna be talking about it.”

  The big man turned away from the bar and started towards the door. He shouted over his shoulder “Fix this Alessia, talk to your Mom and bring us to those kids.”

  He stopped and turned back to face her. “Find us those fucking kids. That is the thing you must do now.”

  “Find. Those. Kids”.

  “There’s three bundles of cash here. It’s a lot so we each take one. I use mine for more supplies. Jim, you use yours as you need and Allanah, keep this for better days ok? There will be better days soon.”

  Allanah wanted to be happy, they had won a small victory against Giorgio and sent a message but none of this fixed Amos. She hoped that Paul was right. That this would put pressure on the old woman and cause her some stress at home. If it didn’t then there would be more to come.

  “It went really well. It went off without a hitch actually.. . For once it…” Allanah caught herself just before she continued. She was going to make fun of Amos and how his plans always hit a snag but thought better of it.

  With Amos the way he was, now wasn’t the time.

  “So, how do we hit them next?”

  “Momma, Giorgio was so mad. He was freaking out. Those kids burnt his restaurant and stole some things too. They left a message or a threat too. Everybody’s gonna hear about it tomorrow.”

  The old woman lifted her head and leaned forwards towards her daughter.

  “A message, what message. Tell me what they said?”

  Alessia swallowed. They burnt a message into his floor. It said LIFT THE CURSE.

  The cops saw it, firefighters saw it. They’re all gonna talk about it now.

  Nonna Conti folded her hands on her scarred wooden table and leaned back with a satisfied smile. “Good, good. Alessia you must listen to what they are saying and tell me everything.”