Work Text:
Family Portraits
by Bunny
March 2001
He had to hang on. Just for a little while. Just until they came to get him. He had to just hang on.
June 1972
It was the best day of Hector Gutierrez's life.
He pedaled his bike faster, kicking up clouds of dust on the asphalt, Texas sunset wind stinging at his eyes behind his glasses. The baseball bat shifted in his backpack as he leaned around a corner, making him grin as he remembered the left-fielder he'd hit and scared the crap out of Jimmy Gonzales. The streetlight hummed and buzzed as they flickered to life, illuminating the road behind him as he careened his way home.
It was summer, glorious summer, and it seemed as though all eleven years of his life had been building to this one perfect season. School was officially over, and three long months of freedom stretched out before him, ripe with the promise of Sunday picnics, Boy Scout camping trips, early mornings at the lake fishing with his dad (when he wasn't building missiles to defend the country, because his dad was the best dad in the whole world). He'd had a full day, waking up late, spending half his allowance on two new packs of baseball cards and giving the bubblegum to his best friend Paco, stopping on his way to the baseball field to do his good turn for the day and help Mrs. Johnson carry her groceries to her car, hitting that left fielder and almost winning the scrimmage match, if only Dave hadn't tagged him out at third base, but feeling pretty swell about it nevertheless. It had been the best day ever, and this was gonna be the best summer ever.
He skidded his way into the driveway of the ranch house he'd lived in forever, and stopped. There was a police car in his driveway.
His bike, still shiny after only two months of hard use, was flung onto the lawn as Hector dashed into the house. "Mom? Dad? Mom!" He flung open the front door, seeing his mom sitting at the dinner table, a policeman with his hand on her shoulder, tears in her eyes.
She looked up, sniffed wetly (a horrible sound) and said, "It was a car accident. I'm so sorry, baby." And she opened her arms to him.
Hector went. It took him two hours to cry.
There were no good summers after that.
March 2001
Hector gasped for air as the guard pulled him from the water trough by his hair, gasping and spitting, lungs aflame. "Who was the employer?" snapped the warden, his thick Latin accent slurring the English syllables.
"I don't know!" Hector said again, and took one last breath before they forced him under the water again, his wrists bleeding in their bonds.
He just had to hold on. They would come for him. He wouldn't sell them out. They would come.
They had to come.
October 1974
He was so hungry, he could barely breathe. And there was a to-go bag on the front seat of the Cadillac in the alley behind the restaurant, sitting pretty as you please.
The summer has been bad for Hector, like all the summers since his father Miguel had died. His mother had stopped being Stacy Gutierrez and started being Stacy Plymouth, after she married Rick Plymouth, who taught gym at the high school. He smelled like chewing tobacco and sweatsocks, and spoke too loudly, and liked to go to the racetrack. His mother started going with him, leaving him to do his homework with only the radio for company, and they would stumble into the bedroom, beer-loud, and he would have to go outside where there were only crickets as noise. Sometime, he heard her crying, and that was worst of all.
He was thirteen when he'd made up his mind. Packing a dozen sandwiches, two change of clothes, his Boy Scouts compass, his favorite trading cards and all the money from Rick's wallet, Hector set out into the wide world. His sandwiches and the goodwill of a few truckers got him as far as Las Vegas, the bright lights a siren's call in the desert, luring him in to dash him upon its rocks. Dizzy with the people and the noise, he couldn't seem to find a way to stay, or a way to leave. He slept on park benches, coat over his eyes to ward off the light. His clothes began to itch. His teeth felt disgusting, having been without a toothbrush since his pack had been stolen by a twitching junkie. A week after his arrival in Vegas, footsore, filthy and too hungry to bear, he had climbed out of the dumpster behind the Italian restaurant and spied the to-go bag.
The black Cadillac was huge and expensive, the finest American engineering could offer, with soft leather seats the color of cream. The sheen and patina of the chrome and leather made it look like a dream, with the greasy takeout bag the only real thing about it. Licking his dry lips, Hector cast his eyes up and down the alley before inching his way towards the car. The driver door was unlocked, and he eased it open as silently as possible, creeping one hand inside the car. Faster than conscious thought, he snatched the bag, its satisfying weight making his stomach cramp, before a suited man in black leather gloves came out of the back of the restaurant. "Hey, you! Stop!"
Hector ran. Gripping the bag with all his might, he bolted down the alley like a man possessed, hearing the heavy footfalls of Italian leather shoes behind him. He risked a glance behind him, seeing the man begin to falter and slow, and putting on a final burst of speed, preparing to tear out of the alley and disappear into the crowd.
He bounced off a solid form and landed on his ass, skidding with momentum, the bag tearing in a splatter of marinara sauce and breadsticks.
Shaking his head to clear it, Hector looked up at the man in his path. He was only of middling height, but his well-cut suit and piercing eyes made him seem taller. With his salt-and-pepper hair and hawkish nose, Hector was reminded of a bird of prey; for a terrified, hunger-foolish moment, he feared being devoured.
"What's going on, Vittorio?" the new man asked in a calm baritone voice.
Hector found himself roughly grabbed by the collar and hauled up right. "This little punk," said the other man (Vittorio?), giving him a shake, "tried to jack your Caddy, signor!"
The hawkish man smiled, looking down at the ruined leftovers. "It would seem that he was trying to jack your dog's dinner, Vittorio." He glanced Hector up and down, Hector wrapping an arm around his aching middle and glaring at the man, trying not to cry. They'd give him to the police, and they'd put him in jail for stealing, or send him back to Texas, and he didn't want to go, no, hungry was better than that... "When was the last time you ate, young man?"
Hector blinked, as surprised at the left-field question as Jimmy Gonzales. "Um... I don't know. What day is it?"
The man frowned, then smiled. "Boy needs a meal, not a car," he said with easy grace, accustomed to being obeyed. "Bring him inside, Vittorio. We'll find something for him."
"I don't have money," Hector confessed. It had all been in his Boy Scout pack.
"Consider it my good deed for the day," the man said, and Hector wondered if he'd been an Arrow Scout too.
They gave him what they called the special, something spicy with pasta and shellfish that he barely tasted. Hector managed half a breath to thank the man as he leaned back in his chair, looking around the restaurant's private dining room. It certainly wasn't the Olive Garden, that was certain.
"You're pretty fast for a kid," the man said (whose name was Salvatore Salaccio), taking a cigarette from a silver case. He offered one to Hector, who took it, not sure what to do with it.
"Fastest runner on my baseball team," Hector said, copying Salvatore by putting the cigarette in his mouth before touching the tip to the lighter flame the man held. It was mostly true. The only one faster than him had been that bossy girl, and girls didn't count. Hector tried sucking air through the cigarette and ended up with a coughing fit, drawing a laugh from Salvatore and Vittorio.
"You'll get used to it," Salvatore assured him. "My business has a need for fast young men, you see. Delivery boys and couriers, that sort of thing. I wonder if you'd be willing to take up employment with my company. Help you find a place, food allowance, pay stipend, all in cash. All standard, and if you're fast and clever, there's always room for promotion. So, what do you say, Hector?" Salvatore extended a well-manicured hand over the table. "We have a deal?"
Hector considered the heavy feeling in his stomach, the promise of clean beds and steady meals. He considered the gold watch on Salvatore's wrist, the expensive cigarettes burning in their fingers. He considered the butt of the gun just visible under the line of Vittorio's suit jacket. And because he was fast and clever, he smiled. "Deal."
They shook on it.
March 2001
A man tried to kill him.
Hector stood in the lunch line, gripping his tray and trying not to sway on his feet. The stripes on his back burned horribly where the clumsily-taped gauze did not cover and the rough wool of the prison shirt scraped against him. His eyes were dark with lack of sleep. His bare feet ached at the touch of cold concrete, not trusted enough to have shoes.
But because he had been the best mercenary in the company, he still heard the subtle shift as the man behind him reached under his shirt, still spun to block the shank's thrust to his kidneys, still thrust his fingers into the man's unguarded throat and leaving him gasping for air, trachea paralyzed.
Pain blossomed across his scored back as the guard's baton drove him to the ground. A boot to the ribs curled him in on himself, leaving him hunching and gasping as he was dragged out of the lunch room's growing pandemonium, a hand under each arm, bare feet scraping across the gray cement slabs.
February 1979
When he was seventeen, Hector killed his first man.
He'd been apprenticed to Vittorio, Sal's tailor, for a year now. The tailor, Sal had explained to him with a smile, was his right hand man, because when Sal said "make it so," it was the tailor's job to so it. Hector had smiled too, proud to be given such an auspicious position, wanting to make Sal proud. He was a man now, Sal said, and he was determined to prove him right.
"Maybe I can be your tailor someday, sir," Hector had said, his voice as grave as he could muster.
Sal had returned gravity for gravity, looking Hector directly in the eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked. "You know what that means. It's a hard job, troppino, and you won't be less for not taking that job."
"I know, sir," Hector had said. "But I think I can do it."
Sal had smiled, clasping his hand on the back of Hector's neck. "If you think so, then I think so too. Che il mio troppino, always too smart by half, eh? You'll outsmart me, someday, and then where will I be?"
"Never!" Hector insisted, and Sal laughed.
He had been apprenticed to Vittorio that day, the gruff man having warmed to Hector over his years as a grafted branch of Sal's family tree. Hector shadowed Vittorio, watching the older man intimidate and coerce, often staring down men much larger than himself without so much and brandishing a fist. "There's two rules to being a good tailor," Vittorio had said over a lunch in Chicago, attending to more distant business as the company grew. "You gotta know more than the other guy, and you gotta know how much to let him know that you know. You tell a guy his name and how many kids he's got, and he's gonna wonder what else you know, and what you can do with what you know. And that, kid, is what makes them scared." Vittorio leaned back in the booth and sighed. "I'm full up. You gonna steal my doggy bag, kid?"
Hector threw a french fry at him.
Later that night, they stood in a modest apartment on the north side of town, silent and still in the black, guns heavy in their hands as they waited. The Gioncarlos were trying to muscle in on the Salaccio territory here in Chicago, and a message had to be sent. Sal said "Send them a message," and off they went to make it so. Hector tried to focus his breathing, to make each exhale as silent as Vittorio did, but his breath was loud in his own ears. He had concentrated so hard, he almost missed the creak of the front door as it opened.
The silhouette in the door shifted his grocery bag from one arm to another, reaching out a hand to flick at the light switch. A grumbled curse sounded as the light failed to turn on, the bulb having been loosened by Vittorio's gloved hand. The figure moved into the kitchenette to drop the bag on the table, but before he could make for the kitchen light, Vittorio stepped forward and fired two bullets from the silenced gun, dropping Fernando Gioncarlo's nephew and second lieutenant Marco to the floor. He was dead before he hit the linoleum.
Hector exhaled a shaky breath, turning his head to the open door, and his heart leapt into his throat to see another man come running inside, hand inside his coat, pulling a gun out to aim at Vittorio! Finesse lost in fear, Hector gasped and fired blindly, silenced bullet sinking into the other man's back before he could clear his gun. As Vittorio spun around, he saw Hector's dim outline as the young man stepped up, took a careful bead on the groaning man's head, exhaled ("blow out when you squeeze the trigger, Hector, or it'll go wild") and fired. The man's skull collapsed like rotten fruit, a black blossom in the darkness.
Vittorio blew out a rush of air and turned the corpse over with his foot. "Giacomo," he said. "Marco's brother. Sweet Christ, kid. Think you saved my life. Kid?" Hector's hands were trembling, and Vittorio sounded very far away. "Kid!" All he could hear was the thwip of the silenced .38, all he could see was Giacomo Gioncarlo's head caving in on itself, pooling blood on the shag carpets, over and over and-
Crack! Hector's head snapped sideways by the force of the slap, brought back to the present. "Enough," Vittorio said, holstering his gun. "Time to go."
Hector nodded. They turned on the record player, locked the door behind them and walked calmly out of the apartment complex, taking a cab to the airport.
It took Hector five hours to cry. Sal held him tightly and told him that he was a man, and while men had to be strong for strangers and women and children, men could cry before family. So he did.
March 2001
They put him in solitary confinement. "Safety," was all they said, but they did not say whose.
The cells were old and dark, the walls thick and excluding even the warmth of the Ecuadorian jungle. The bars of the door were old and red with rust. There was no window, the only light creeping down the hall like a condemned man. It was an oubliette, a place of forgetting.
Hours blended into days. Hector paced until his feet bled. He hummed all the snatches of opera he could remember, arias cracking in his dry throat. He shouted for water, over and over. The first time the guard came, he tossed an icy bucketful on him through the bars, laughed and walked away. Hector sucked the moisture from his soaking shirt and shouted again. The second time the guard came, he sprayed Hector through the bars with tear gas, waiting until the smaller man was coughing and writhing on the cell floor before opening the cell door and reaching for his belt buckle.
Hector did not shout again.
He lay on the cot where he'd hauled himself up in the aftermath, back to the wall. He slept in dim light and woke to dim light. They did not feed him, nor change the waste bucket rotting in the corner.
They weren't coming to get him. No one was. He had been forgotten.
He was alone.
May 1992
Sometimes, Hector longed for a just little solitude.
He walked into the parlor, already crowded with family men, brothers and uncles and cousins and family friends. Sal had called a meeting in the big house in the desert, an oasis of green in the dust, and Hector had flown back in from business in Atlanta for the occasion. He was a dashing figure, summer suit and undone collar loose in the breeze, long hair carelessly tied back in a ponytail, gold-rimmed glasses sparkling over sparkling eyes. But the men in the family nodded as he passed by, for he had been tailor since Vittorio retired to Miami, watching the family interests in Cuban imports, and he was good at his job.
Sal rose from his chair to greet him, his hair completely white now, some heavy weight on his brow despite his warm smile. "Figlio," he said.
"Signore," Hector replied, grasping Sal's hand and bowing to kiss it before being drawn into an embrace.
"Late as always," Sal chided.
"But I'm never absent."
"No. Not when I need you." He patted Hector's face and sat again, leaving Hector to stand at his right hand. Most of the men were smiling at the affectionate display, but cousin Dick stood off to the side, somber as a tombstone in his pressed charcoal suit. Dickie never smiled at anything, though, so Hector shot him a broader grin and a wink, pleased when Dickie's dark brows creased ever so slightly.
"Gentlemen," said Sal, and all eyes were fixed on the head of the family. "I've called you all here for a very serious announcement. I'm retiring."
Hector's eyes shot to Sal as a murmur went up through the assembly. Retiring? His mind was having trouble processing the concept. Sal Salaccio was the most respected mobster in the nation, the top of his game. There was no reason for him to retire now!
"Basta, basta, quiet down!" Sal called, rising to his feet and holding up his hands until the room quieted. "I'm not getting any younger. I'll be sixty-five soon, and I've earned myself a rest. In the meantime, I cede my place as head of the family to my nephew, Richard Steele."
Shock upon shock. Hector watched in amazement as cousin Dick stepped up to Sal, clasping the older man's hands and kissing both cheeks before turning to the assembled audience. "Gentlemen," Dick said, his black hair slicked perfectly back, his voice steady and unemotional, his glass eyes cool. "I wish I could tell you that nothing will change, that business will continue as usual. It will not. I intend to make this company effort grow, to expand our borders around the globe and offer a multitude of goods and services to the highest bidder. This will, of course, result in higher payouts for all our loyal employees. I require your full support in this endeavor, so that we may make Salaccio Enterprises known and... respected, throughout the world. Thank you all."
There was stunned silence. Hector cast a confused glance at Sal, but the older man sat quietly, chin in his hand, shoulders bowed. One person in the back of the room began to clap, then another, and then all of the family men were applauding, some raucous cheers and shouts in Italian punctuating the tide of noise. Dick did not smile, but Hector thought he was standing a little straighter, that his chin was lifted a little higher, and Hector felt as though he'd lost something.
March 2001
Hector did not move off his cot as the rusted bars swung open. His head was so thick and hot with solitude, he almost didn't notice him. The guards hauled him to his scabbed feet, pulling him roughly when his knees threatened to buckle, and slipped a bag over his head before binding his sore wrists and pushing him blindly from the cell.
So it had come to this. The stray thought drifted through the white noise of Hector's mind. He would probably be taken out behind the prison, shot and have his body dumped in the jungle, left to rot in the heat. The warmth of sunlight seeped through his clothes, and the cement below his feet became dirt. Snippets of Spanish was heard around him. His feet were not bound he could have run, but they would only catch him and beat him before killing him. Why bother? Why make an effort when there was no hope to be had? Still bound and hooded, Hector was lifted up and prodded into the back of a truck, more Spanish flying senselessly around his ears. Then there was the shutting of doors, the turn of an engine and the jostle of a truck making its way down an unpaved jungle road.
They drove, Hector couldn't tell how long. He'd lost all sense of time in the oubliette, and there was only now. Now, one man said something to the other in Spanish. Now, the truck whined its way to a stop. Now, there was a shout and a gunshot, and the heavy thud of a body. Now, there was the nearby thud of a man climbing into the back of the truck, of handcuffing clicking as they fell from his wrists, of the bag being pulled from his head to reveal a quarterback smile as blinding as the Ecuador sun, of blue eyes bright with relief.
"Hey, partner."
Now, there was only a hoarse cry of relief as wounded arms snaked around a broad torso and held as tightly as they were able, of being held with care taken of hot, aching sores, of crying in front of family.
They had come for him.
January 1993
A new year, and it promised to be busier than the last. Dick was making good on his claims.
Hector had feared demotion, some sort of petty revenge for the countless annoyances Hector had laid on his uptight cousin over the years, but he was still tailor, still second-in-command. He was killing a lot more people, though. One of the "services" Dick was offering to his new international clients was assassination, the removal of opponents both political and social. Sal had frowned upon killing seeing it as a last resort, when all other options had been exhausted. But to Dick, it was all business, lives worth as much as the highest bidder will pay. And every kill was easier than the one before it.
Dick had been right about something else, too. Not only was the company growing, it was bringing in more money than ever before, enough to keep Hector in a string of apartments all over the world, diversions and company to delight the senses in each port of call. Hector respected Dickie for that, at least. He was still a stick in the mud, but he was a good businessman with an eye for new talent.
He walked into Dick's office in Chicago, the wall of windows behind Dick's desk displaying a panorama of Lake Michigan. Dick was getting up from his chair and shaking hands with a blond man Hector didn't know. Hector rolled his eyes at the thought of making the display again, but since needs must before strangers, Hector walked around the desk, took Dick's hand and bowed over it. (He did not kiss it. Dickie was the head of the company, but he was not his boss man. Only Salvatore Salaccio was Hector's boss man, until the day he died.)
A tiny crease appeared in Dick's forehead before quickly being smoothed away. "Hector," he said quietly. "I'd like you to meet Mr. Marsters."
"Brad Marsters," said the man, extending a broad hand. Everything about the man was broad, his body, his voice, his personality. His hair was clipped in a tight cut, his square jaw was clean-shaven, his blue eyes were clear and his smile had probably charmed the panties off every cheerleader in the squad. Hector was tempted to rub a finger down his face and see if he squeaked, but settled on a handshake.
"Hector Gutierrez," he said affably. "Meetcha. So, what's a clean-cut guy like you doing in a place like this?"
Dick answered for him. "Brad here shows a lot of promise. Clever, quick, thinks on his feet. I believe he'd be a real asset to the company. He'll be partnering with you, Hector. Teach him everything you know."
Hector cast his mind back to a skinny, starving thirteen-year-old, to a gawky, eager sixteen-year-old, and saw shades of those ghosts in those All-American Midwest eyes. He grinned suddenly rocking back on his Cuban heels. "Just don't steal my takeout," he said, "and I'll show you a pretty wild ride. Welcome to the family, dude."

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