Chapter Text
There’s a lot of things in Sam’s life that have seemed like a bit of cruel irony. That had seemed like he was the punchline to God’s favorite joke.
There’s a lot of things in Sam’s life that he was never meant to have. And this he knows because each and every thing he desires, and that he somehow manages to get his hands on, gets ripped so violently from his grasp that you’d think he had stolen them— and maybe, in some ways, he had.
Is happiness, love, friendship, anything, worth having if your hands come away bloody when you touch them?
Every happy moment he had with Paulie, was in the midst of a crime, in the midst of killing someone’s son, of ruining someone’s livelihood, of doing something illegal.
Every memory he has of his time spent with Michelle, laying on her soft stomach, feeling her hair twist around his fingers, hearing her speak back to him, listen to him, care for him.. Every memory has been tainted by the knowledge that he’s the reason she’s on the run. That she’s hiding. That she had her life threatened. He ruined her life.
Every memory he’s built with Tommy, is a little less bloody, but still Sam knows he’s looking at them through rose-colored lenses. Of a family that isn’t his own, Tommy, Sarah, Paulie, the two littlest Angelos. Something he will never truly be a part of. And even if he did get it, did get to be a part of something like this, his hands would still come away bloody if he touched them. He’s sure of it.
And maybe that’s what his dreams of red had been about. The blood on his hands. In his eyes. On his clothes.
The very moment Sam opens his eyes, the feeling of dread settles so deeply on his chest that he debates calling in. He debates telling the Don that he’s sicker than a dog, so sick and twisted up inside that just standing makes the room spin. But what good would that do? Hasn’t every day for the last few weeks felt like a twisted up rollercoaster of horrible nausea? Hasn’t he always been sick?
Sam sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He sits like that for a long time, longer than he should, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of them.
Sam hasn’t prayed in more than 20 years, but there’s something in the way the grief of something dead weighs on his shoulders that makes him open the bedside drawer and slide the necklace from the back of the drawer to the front.
Sam pulls out the rosary and stares down at it. He thumbs over the beads and he debates with himself. Of course he still knows his Rosary prayer, of course he still knows his Saints, of course he’s got enough years of religion in him that he’s made a martyr out of himself at the expense of others more than once. But he doesn’t think God wants to hear him. He thinks maybe if he’s praying, God might just laugh at him. Might spit on him, might throw him to Hell Himself.
Sam rolls his thumb over the beads one more time, decides against the prayer, and he closes the drawer as he stands up. He has to do this. He has to go to work. He has to see the Don. He has to get promoted to Consiglieri. This is how it has to be. This is how it needs to be. This is what he worked for.
So what if he has nothing and no one, it’s supposed to be lonely at the top, isn’t it? The Don has no one by his side either. He tried to bring Frank all the way to the top with him too, but how did that turn out for him? A knife in his back? Is that what Sam wants? To turn around one day and Tommy’s plunged a blade through his back? Offered him to the Feds on a silver plate?
It’s for the best Tommy and Paulie pull off this bank job and get out of town. And Sam’s been waiting for a little over a month for this now. For the other shoe to drop. To look up and see the glint on a blade of a guillotine instead of the sun.
The only way Sam can reach his true potential is with them gone. He knows that. He has to do this. He must.
Sam puts his suit on, he fixes his hair, once and then twice, and still looks into the mirror before he leaves. There’s something not right about his appearance. There’s something in the way his reflection stares back at him that makes Sam feel like he’s staring at someone else altogether. A ghost maybe. Flesh hanging on one of the skeletons he thought he had buried in the closet, perhaps.
—
Sam gets to the bar and he feels the bile rising in his throat almost immediately. He takes another moment to himself, takes a few deep breaths, before he’s leaving the car and walking into the bar. He lights a cigarette and walks through the doors with his normal mask of self-assurance on, his shoulders squared back, his aura that of someone who could run this place one day.
It cracks right down the middle the moment Sam hears it.
The Don is yelling about something, throwing something. Glass shatters and Sam flinches. He tries his hardest not to, but he does.
He feels all the eyes in the bar fall on him and he looks back at everyone else and he sets his face to harden.
“Don’t any of you have a job to do or somethin’?” Sam asks, and he makes a show of rolling his eyes. The eyes turn away from him but the whispers don’t stop. The whispers crawl up and down his spine and Sam has to take a moment to close his eyes and take another drag of his cigarette.
Something’s not right.
“Where is he? Where’s Sam?” The Don’s voice echoes off the walls and Sam stands up straighter at hearing his name being called.
“Good luck, Trapani.” He heard someone snicker and before Sam even takes his first step in the direction of the conference room, Sam knows immediately what’s wrong. What’s happened. The shoe has dropped, and the executioner is setting up the blade for him.
Sam closes his eyes for a moment, grabs the door handle, twists it open. “Hey Boss. Sorry ‘m late. Head’s killin’ me.” Sam speaks, his voice gruff as he turns the knob and pushes the door open.
He doesn’t have to pretend to be sick. The wave of nausea that hits him as he throws open the door is genuine; and if he weren’t holding onto the door knob, his knees might’ve buckled.
There’s papers on the floor, a hole in the wall, a chair overturned, even the Don’s desk is crooked. Had the Don not been standing in the room, had Sam not heard the destruction of the room himself, he would’ve thought the place had been ransacked.
“Did you know about this, Sam?” the Don asks, his voice raised.
Sam steps into the room and closes the door behind him. His eyes don’t leave the Don. Sam doesn’t speak, not yet, he just assesses the situation.
“Don’t. Make me repeat myself, Sam. Did you fucking know about this? Did you look me in the eye every day these last four weeks and know you were going to stab me in the fucking back? After all I did for you? You were a son to me Sam!”
“Don.. Listen.” Sam takes a cool breath, calm and collected, “I didn’ think Paulie was stupid enough to go through wit’ this.” He decides on this. Though still a lie, it’s just enough truth that Sam knows it’ll satiate the Don.
“Paulie an’ his schemes… Boss, there’s a lot of shit Paulie would do without thinkin’ but robbin’ a bank..? That’s not what we do. We ain’t ever done that. I didn’t think he had the balls to.”
The Don chuckles, but there’s not an ounce of humor in the action.
“Paulie is stupid, sure. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like this. And honestly, I had been thinking of ways to get Paulie off my hands in the first place. But Tom?” The Don slams his fists down on his table. “How could he do this to me? After all I’ve done for him? He would be nothing without me! He would be dead if not for me!”
The words filter through Sam, but none of them stick. He is only half listening to the Don. He doesn’t want to know what the Don is saying. He’s incapable of thinking of anything more than standing on his own two feet. Of not throwing up all over his loafers.
Though Sam is able to catch the phrase where the Don insinuates he had wanted to get rid of Paulie in the first place. He wants to be shocked but he can’t. The Don had pushed Paulie off to work on rackets which allowed Paulie to be gone for days at a time. Away more than present. Allow Paulie the freedom to run his own area, anything, as long as he wasn’t questioning what the Don was doing.
The Don used the excuse that Paulie was past his prime. That Paulie was useless now. Dead weight. But Sam knows the truth. Sam knows that even the Don would’ve known that Paulie would’ve seen right through him had he been around to watch.
“I-i didn’t think Tom was goin’ to go through with it at all, Boss. He had too much to lose.” Sam slowly rights the tipped over chair and sits inside of it. He runs his hands down his thighs just to disguise the way they’re shaking.
“I let a lot slide for him. He was family to me. Like a son.”
Sam has to physically tilt his head back just a bit further to swallow down the bile as it raises to the top of his throat. Like a son. Sam was like a son to him too. Right?
“Tom let that whore live and I didn’t say nothin’. I never brought it up again. I knew it would be a lot for him up on his moral high horse to kill that innocent broad. I don’t know why I expected he could’ve ever gone through with it. He couldn’t even kill the poor bastard that had been harassing his fuckin’ girl.” The Don takes a long swig of the glass of amber brandy on his desk.
Sam feels as though his vision is swaying even though he’s sitting still. “The whore?” he asks, his voice not nearly as strong as he’d like it to be. He clutches at the loose fabric of his pants leg and breathes deep through his nose.
“Yeah. The one with the big mouth.” The Don clarifies, as if Sam could forget. As if Sam hadn’t thought of her every night since the Don slid her picture across the table to Tom.
“No surprise Tom let her go. It was nothing for me to have her killed. Once a whore, always a whore. The only thing she was good at, besides spilling our fuckin’ business, was being a whore. Workin’ just a few cities over. Didn’t have much sense in her, huh? All looks.” Salieri chuckles and sits back in his chair, though a muscle in his face twitches with obvious annoyance.
Sam’s ears are ringing and it takes his full concentration not to slap his hands over them, get up, and walk out. Michelle is dead. This whole time Sam had been using her almost as a Saint. His reason for keeping straight on this path was knowing that he had saved her. Only to find out that he hadn’t saved her at all, just delayed her death. Caused her to suffer more than Tommy would’ve ever made her suffer.
Sam can almost hear the Heavenly chorus of laughter as God makes yet another joke out of Sam’s life. The only selfless act he has ever done out of love, ensured that he had made her suffer more than she ever would have otherwise.
“Even with Frank,” Salieri starts speaking again and it takes every nerve in Sam’s body to force himself to focus on the words spilling from his mouth.
“Even when he lied to my face about killing Frank, even when he watched me shed tears over little Alice’s grave. I let that bastard live.” Salieri shakes his head, his jaw clenching in another wave of annoyance.
“Frank’s alive?” Sam chokes out, the words feel like ripping barbed wire from the very back of his throat.
“Frank was alive longer than I thought, yes. At least he had gotten a nice funeral here. Can’t say the same for whatever the fuck he got back home. For all that brain in his head, he didn’t have the goddamn sense not to place bets on the track.” Salieri pours himself another half-glass of brandy.
“As if I wouldn’t know. Anywhere in the world he could’ve gone, and I wouldn’t have known, but back home? Back to the same track that stupid bitch of a dog we had together raced, back to the track where he broke my nose when I tried to kill that useless bitch? Did he really think I wouldn’t have eyes there?”
Sam blinks as he watches the Don. He hadn’t known Tommy had spared Frank either. Tommy watched Sam swallow down tears over the old man. Tommy had listened to him, Paulie, and Sarah recount stories of growing up with Alice. Tommy had listened and not said a word. What other secrets had he kept?
“But this.” The Don looks at Sam over the rim of his glass as he brings it to his lips to take a drink. “This. Tom isn’t going to walk away from.”
Sam’s skin pricks with goosebumps and his lips quiver, just minutely, before he steels his face back into its concrete neutral state.
“Boss?” Sam asks, his voice is steadier than he feels, and for that he’s grateful.
“Sam. I need you to kill Tommy.” The Don says, like he had been telling Sam to pick up his dry cleaning, or something just as mundane. “Sarah and the kids, they live. I promised Luigi. But Tom? I want him with two in the head.”
Sam’s ears ring and the world stops spinning. Time hangs heavy in the air and Sam chokes on the silence.
The Don looks at Sam, and he can almost see the way Sam is starting to fray apart at the seams.
“Sam. In this line of work, you make sacrifices. You kill the men you thought were your brothers. The men you thought you would’ve died for. God knows I have.”
Sam doesn’t even recognize the Don’s voice any longer. It distorts and stretches before Sam is even able to process it. He blinks. Once, then twice, then his eyes focus back on Salieri.
“I wouldn’t ask you this if I had a choice, Sam. You know this.” His voice is so sincere, Sam knows that once upon a time, he would’ve believed it.
“I need to know you’re loyal to me. That you can make tough calls. That you can make sacrifices. Listen, I did you a favor, Sam. I had some of the rookies kill Paulie so you wouldn’t have to. I know you aren’t a fighter, and Paulie is a quicker shot than you. But Tom? You could easily catch him off guard. You could lower his defenses. He would never expect this from you.”
“P—“ Sam chokes on the name. Sam once again runs his hands down his thighs, “Dead?” he manages to choke out. And as pathetic as it is, he knows he’d never be able to get the whole sentence out.
The Don nods, swirls the liquid in his glass and watches Sam’s reactions. Sam knows he’s being observed, being watched, being studied, but it takes all he has not to start crying. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to pretend anymore.
“Sam, listen to me.” The Don puts his drink down and the clink of the glass on the hardwood table makes Sam jump. He takes a long blink and then focuses his attention back on the Don.
“Kill Tommy. Get the money they stole from the bank. Come back. Give it to me. Go home. And in a couple hours, after you pull yourself back together, you’ll be my Consigliere, and we’ll be swimmin’ in dough. Not just from the bank job Paulie and Tommy so graciously gave us, but from our little investment in Black Tar.”
Salieri laughs, and this time the humor dripping from it makes Sam retch. He’s just barely able to stamp it down before it’s noticeable.
The phone rings and Sam nearly jumps out of his skin. He grips his thighs and wills his eyes to focus back on the phone in front of him.
“See? There’s the call that Paulie’s done with right now. Sam. Drive down to Paulie’s place. Get the money from those goons. I don’t trust them with it in the slightest. Then wait there. Once you see Tommy, call him and tell him to meet you at the City Gallery. Once there, kill him. Don’t even let him get a word in. Kill him. And bring his body back with you. Let us present it to Sarah, so she doesn’t have to know the circumstances in which he died. She deserves to see him before she has to read about it in the paper.”
Salieri is speaking but every word sounds like it’s underwater. Sam is barely able to string together a coherent thought out of the sounds he’s hearing.
He feels himself stand before his body even realizes it. “On it, Boss.” Sam mutters; again, before his body even realizes what it’s doing.
“I knew I could count on you, Son.” The Don answers him, and then he’s picking up his phone. Sam takes long strides until he’s out of the room, ensuring he hears as little of the Don’s conversation as possible.
He doesn’t remember the walk to his car. He doesn’t remember the drive to Paulie’s apartment. He doesn’t remember commanding the new kids to put the money in the backseat of his car.
He feels like he comes back into his body the moment Tommy pulls up to Paulie’s apartment complex. The moment this all becomes sickeningly real to him.
Sam tells the men to go wait at the art gallery, that he’ll be there soon, with Tommy. And that no one is to fire on him with Sam’s explicit approval.
Sam watches Tommy go into the apartment building. He hadn’t had the stomach to see Paulie. At least like this, he can pretend Paulie’s just sleeping in.
Sam counts to 10, and then he exits his car. Paulie lived on the second floor, and with how quickly Tommy had exited his car, Sam knows he would make it there soon.
Sam walks across the street and to a pay phone that is hidden behind the corner of a building. Sam waits another 15 seconds and then he’s picking up the phone and dialing Paulie’s number.
For a brief second, it hits him that he will never need to know this number again, and Christ.. he nearly hangs up. Abandons the plan altogether. Sam doesn’t know how he’s going to pull this off. He knows he had to be the lure for Tommy. Maybe if he leaves quick enough, he won’t have to hear the last few moments of Tom’s life.
Sam takes a deep breath and the line connects. “Paulie?” he chokes out. And again, the emotion and tremble in his voice is nothing he needs to fake. Sam had nearly thrown up speaking the name aloud.
“Sam? It’s me.. It’s Tom..” Tom’s voice is a shell of what it normally is and the nausea that hits Sam makes him nearly drop the phone. He has never heard this tone from Tommy before. Well, maybe, once, when Tommy had been holding Sam’s blood-soaked shirt in the loft of that barn, and had been trying to convince the both of them that Sam would be alright.
He should’ve died then. That night. God was truly playing the long-haul on this joke. Maybe if Sam makes this quick, God will have some mercy for him by the end of it.
“Where’s Paulie?” Sam continues this charade on, and he hears the hesitation in Tom’s answer, “He’s.. He’s dead.” Tom’s voice waivers and Sam can almost see the way Tom swallows it down. “I’m lookin’ right at him, slumped over in the hallway. Two in the fuckin’ skull.”
The phrase turns Sam’s stomach so violently that he almost retches. The boys that killed him were new. And Sam’s certain the Don drilled that into them before they left that morning.
“Oh God.. I was.. I was callin’ to warn him..”
“About what?”
“Jesus Christ.. I owe you fellas my life, three times over.”
“Warn him about what, Sam?”
“Salieri. He found out about the bank job.. You’re in deep shit, Tom. You gotta disappear.”
“Okay, okay. I just need some cash to get me and the girls out of town. Can you swing that?”
Sam is lucky Tommy can’t see him, because he grimaced at the mention of Sarah and his kids.
“Sure. Anything, pal. You want me to come to Paulie’s?” Sam asks, and before the question is out of his mouth he regrets it. Though, he knows Tommy will most likely decline, not wanting to be in the room with their dead brother, but.. what if he agrees?
“No.. No, I can’t stay here.. Meet me at the City Gallery.”
Sam’s relief turns into thick, sulfuric, apprehension, at the mere mention of the Gallery. The mention of the place that had designated for Tommy’s demise, being the same he suggests.. Just a reminder of all the ways the Don knew Tommy. Knew him like a Family should.
“Yeah, okay. Keep your head down, Tom.”
“See you soon. And thanks, Sam.”
Sam can’t bring himself to accept Tom’s thanks. He would never be able to stomach it had he done so. “I always pay my debts, Tom. You know that.”
Sam hangs up the line before Tommy. He has to. He hangs the phone and rests his hands on top of the pay phone. He’s shaking. He has to do this. He has to do this.
Sam takes another deep breath and he sits up, smooths out the front of his jacket, straightens his bow tie. He has to do this.
Sam keeps repeating it over and over in his head as if it’ll make a difference. As if it’ll make this easier.
Sam gets back into his car and drives to the Gallery. He knows he’ll get there around the same time as Tommy, and he’ll have to rush through the back entrance to ensure that he has enough time to give a bit of a speech, establish his power, before he tells the goons to kill Tommy.
But in another cruel twist of irony, in another instance of his truly comedic timing, Tommy is just walking into the doors the moment Sam steps onto the balcony.
Sam wants to turn around, he wants to run, he wants to fucking throw up actually. But this.. This is his chance. His moment. He will be Consiglieri to them soon, he needs them to know he can do it. He can look his best friend in the eyes and order him killed.
Sam steps up to the balcony and he watches Tom, watches how the underlings have Tommy pinned with guns. Hell, he can almost see the way Tommy is trying to piece together what’s happening.
Sam knows this is his moment.
“Hey Tom.” he calls out. He forces his voice to carry it, to sound authoritative. Sam pours every once of his willpower left into this one sentence.
Tom turns his attention up to the balcony and Sam sees the emotions filter over his expression before he ever speaks, “Sam? What the hell’s going on?”
“You and Paulie.” Sam has to take a moment to breathe, he turns his head to the side so the action isn’t so apparent, and then he’s turning back to Tommy, “You put me in a bad spot.”
“I know, Sam. And I’m sorry about that.” Tom’s sincerity makes Sam balk. Sam has lured Tommy to his death and still Tommy looks at him and apologizes. Tommy. Apologizes. To him. His murderer.
Sam doesn’t look at Tommy, he can’t. He’s about to cry again. He knows he is. He wonders about Paulie now. If Paulie had looked at his killers and asked him if Sam knew about this. If they thought Sam would let them do this to him. Would Paulie have asked that? Would Paulie have still trusted that Sam didn’t know. That Sam would try to save him?
Sam is so trapped in his thoughts, he nearly misses Tom’s next sentence, “But I need you to get me out of town. Can you help me or not?”
Sam looks down at him only to find Tommy looking up at him. His arms outstretched as if he’s praying. As if Sam is God, is the Final Judge, as if Sam has a say in any of this.
“There you go again.. Making me choose between my friends and the Family.” Sam says instead, looking down at Tommy. It’s hard to see Tom through the way Sam’s completely disconnected himself from the events unfolding here.
But even Sam doesn’t believe the words as he’s saying them. To call this the Family knowing that after this, Sam is going to be alone. Isn’t going to have a family. Isn’t going to have anything. No hope. No brothers.
Sam looks away again to try and steel his nerves, try to keep the whimper out of his voice. He picks up the rack of money he had with him and waves it in the air, “This is what you were lookin’ for at Paulie’s. Here’s your cut.”
Sam tosses the money off the side of the balcony like it’s burned him. The band snaps and the loose bills flutter down from the balcony like snow. And when Sam pulls his hand back to him, he’s not all that surprised to find it bloodied.
The room is silent except for the flutter of the paper and Sam takes this moment to release a shuddered breath. “It’s more than you deserve.” He spits out, trying to keep himself together just a moment longer. He’s shown his teeth. He’s established himself. What more does he need here?
“Sam..” Tom’s voice shakes and Sam grips the railing. Tom doesn’t care about the money falling. Doesn’t reach out for it, doesn’t start to pick it up, doesn’t move at all. His eyes transfixed on Sam the way one may look at the Crucifix while praying.
“You killed him? You killed Paulie?” Betrayal and hurt and disgust drip from each syllable and Sam closes his eyes to avoid looking down at Tommy.
Sam had done a lot of fucked up shit in his life. Sam had lied, stolen, killed.. but nothing’s hurt him as much as the way Tommy is looking at him in this moment. Did Tommy really think he would kill Paulie? That he could stomach it? Did Tommy think so little of him?
The only emotion Sam can process is anger, and that’s what he lets shine through. Sam jumps down from where he was leaned against the balcony’s railing, “No. Paulie got himself killed!”
“And you seem real tore up about it.” Tommy counters, and the anger rising in Sam is nearly palpable in this moment. Sam’s always been a hot-head, Sam’s always said shit he doesn’t mean when he’s mad, he always says exactly what he knows is going to hurt the most. And this is no different.
“I’m just in a good mood. Things are right between me and the Don. I’m moving up.” Sam pauses, he smiles, saying it out loud like this, letting Tommy know that after this Sam is going to be alright, he’s going to be Consiglieri. He wonders if in a different moment, in different circumstances, if Tommy would’ve been happy for him.
“And I just found this big bag of money.” Sam continues, gesturing to the money. He has to get his mind back on track, he needs to solidify this. He looks back at Tommy and settles his elbows on the railing. He needs to wrap this up. Make Tommy know this was a long time coming. That this isn’t all Sam’s fault.
“The Don knows about Frank, Tom.” Sam debates saying this next part, but he has to, “The whore, too.”
Once again, the disgust that crosses Tommy’s face is not the reaction Sam wanted, not the reaction he thought he’d get.
“That ‘whore’? The girl you were sweet on?”
No. No. This is not how it’s supposed to go at all. Sam has three guns pointed directly at him, and still Tom finds it in his to ridicule Sam. Tom has always been able to see right through Sam. It’s not a surprise. But Sam wishes Tom could just pretend like he does. That Tommy can just play his role.
Sam throws his hands in the air, “You’re the one that let her live.” He says, completely absolving himself from the situation. Absolving himself from the fact that he had asked Tommy to, that Tommy had, without thinking or second guessing or questioning, gone against a direct order of the Don’s at Sam’s wish. At the wish of his best friend.
Even if Sam didn’t pull the trigger, he would have to live with the thought that ultimately, he put a foot of Tommy’s in the grave long before Tommy ever got himself killed.
Sam cocks his gun and sighs, “I’m sorry about this, Tom. But our business has rules. It’s a shame too.” Sam pauses, all of the anger is out of him now, and reality sets in. Tom is about to get killed right in front of him.
“Don Salieri,” Sam starts, and his voice wavers. He tries so hard to swallow it down but he knows Tommy’s seen right through him finally. “really liked you.” Sam continues, takes another little break, then finishes, “Guess we’ll both have a good cry at your funeral.”
“You think you’re doing this because you’re loyal. But you’re not.” Tommy looks at Sam with his beautiful brown eyes, full of pity and sorrow, and other emotions Sam doesn’t deserve. “You’re just scared.”
Sam’s hands shake, he doesn’t speak for a moment. Maybe a moment too long, maybe he is showing his weakness. Maybe his silence is an admittance. Tommy has seen right through him, to his very core.
Sam is scared. Terrified. He doesn’t want this. If the Don could have Paulie killed, if the Don could order Tommy killed.. Hell, if he could kill his own best friends, people he had known longer than Sam had been alive— Frank, Morello, even old Don Peppone— it would be nothing for him to have Sam killed.
“Maybe.” Sam allows, though he knows Tommy will see right through that as well, and he feels the anger rising again. After this, Tommy’s going to be dead. And he’s going to be alone. And this is all going to be Tommy’s fault.
Paulie, he was reckless, Sam never thought he’d grow to an old age with Paulie. But Tommy? Sam hadn’t imagined a life without Tommy, and now it was nearly too much to bear.
“But you’d have lived a lot longer if you’d had just looked over your shoulder from time to time.” Sam spits out and when he’s done, he rests on the bar and again, the tears well in his eyes.
He looks down at Tommy, and Tommy is silent, looking right up at Sam. Sam is sure Tommy knows he’s right. Had Tommy been more careful, less trusting.. Had Tommy never gotten so close to Sam in the first place.. Had, all those years ago, Tommy taken that money and never looked back..
“Goodbye.” Sam says, and it’s a barely more than a whisper. He never got to say this to Paulie, he’s made sure to say it to Tommy. His voice shakes and at this moment, he doesn’t care who hears it. He tears his eyes away from Tommy for just a moment, “Don’t let him suffer, boys.” He turns to look back down to Tommy, only to find Tommy had never looked away.
Sam’s look lingers on Tommy for a moment longer, almost as if he’s trying to remember every detail. Then finally, he speaks again: “He’s my buddy.”
One of the men takes a step toward Tommy and Sam turns around and begins to walk off. He is both thankful and remorseful that Tommy didn’t return his goodbye. But at the same time, Sam knows that Tommy will be a ghost he is always going to live with.
Once out of their gaze, Sam lets the tears fall from his eyes. And under the cover of the first few gunshots, he lets a sob rack through his body.
Though the more he walks through the Gallery, the more shots he hears, the more shouting, the more steps, he knows Tommy isn’t dead. That somehow Tommy had found his way out of this as well. And that’s when it dawns on Sam. That’s when Sam knows he’s found the perfect solution. The perfect way out of this.
Sam has found a way to let Tommy live. Tommy can have his money that Sam had thrown out there. Tommy could take it and run. Tommy can take Sarah and his kids and they can be happy. They can be free. All Tommy has to do is kill someone who he considered his brother. All Tommy has to do is kill Sam.
And Sam wouldn’t be going against the Don. Sam wouldn’t be taking the coward’s way out of killing himself, no. If Tommy could gun down all the goons the Don had sent here, then of course it only makes sense Sam got caught in the cross-fire. If the Don didn’t even believe Sam could kill Paulie, it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe Tommy had killed him. That Sam had put up a fight and still lost.
Sam didn’t have anything left to live for, of course, so the decision wasn’t a hard one to make. He lets Tommy catch up to him. Lets Tommy shoot him. Though of course, Tommy did it in a non-fatal spot. So. Sam starts to walk slower, make less of an attempt to run away.
And finally, after the blood loss becomes too much, after breathing becomes too hard, Sam sinks down with his back against the railing of the balcony, exactly where all of this had started, and he waits for Tommy to find him.
It doesn’t take long before Sam can hear the sounds of Tom’s heavy footsteps. “Nobody’s carrying you to the doctor this time, Sam.” Tommy says as he rounds the corner and sees Sam laying there.
Sam remembers that cold, rainy, night he had gotten shot in that barn, running that booze. Things had been so simple then. Paulie was so worried about him, Tommy nearly catatonic. Tommy carried Sam, defended him, almost begged to stay by his bedside that night.. Sam almost smiles before he remembers what he has to do.
He has to get Tommy to kill him. Two in the head. Make it look deliberate. So he does what he does best. He starts talking.
“You kill me now, and the Don? He’s never gonna stop lookin’ for you..” At one point in time, Sam would believe it’s because of what he meant to the Don, only now, he’s not so naïve. “But you let me live.. I’ll tell Salieri you’re dead. You can disappear, just like Frank.” Sam bargains, as if he’d want to live, as if he didn’t know he was never walking out of here.
“But you’re smart enough to stay gone, right?” Sam adds on, he can see Tommy turning over the offer and every muscle in Sam is screaming. He’s lost so much blood and talking is taking such an effort, but Tommy.. Christ, Sam didn’t think Tommy would be raising to the bait. But of course he is.. Even after all of this, even after Tommy thought Sam had killed Paulie.. Tommy is still weighing the option to keep him alive.
Sam doesn’t deserve this.
“What happened to him?” Tommy asks. And the question is so out of place, all Sam can do is gawk at him for a moment. What happened to who? After a moment it dawns on him— Frank.
Sam takes a shuddering breath, “He was hidin’ out in Europe. But the dumb bastard started bettin’ at the dog track. He got spotted by a friend of the Family. So Salieri.. sent out a crew..”
It’s getting so hard to talk, to breathe, to concentrate. Sam didn’t think Tommy would want to have this conversation right now. Sam thought Tommy would just kill him and it would be over. He’s honestly growing a bit annoyed. This is so like Tommy.
“And his family?”
Sam looks at Tommy in disbelief, he shakes his head and displays his hands in a shrug. Like Tommy, what do you think happened to his family? What did the Don tell you to do to his family?
The moment takes too much effort and Sam is growing too short on breath. He starts to cough and he can feel the blood bubble and pool out of the wound on his chest.
“Christ,” Tommy sighs, and cocks his gun. Finally. Sam leans his head back on the railing and looks up at Tommy. Tommy lowers the gun to be eye level with Sam and Sam closes his eyes. He doesn’t want Tommy to have to see the look in them. He knows Tommy will chicken out. He’s never been one to shoot people at close range.
Sam has his eyes closed but the shot never comes. And Sam can feel the pity and reluctance rolling off of Tommy in waves. It makes him nauseous. Christ, Tommy is probably thinking of ways to save Sam. Ways they can both make it out. Tommy is naïve that way. Tommy always wants to see the best in people. Tommy still believes Sam can be good.
Sam opens his eyes and looks at Tommy and he knows his thoughts were true. He’s going to have to push Tommy into doing this. He’s going to have to make Tommy kill him.
Sam scoffs just a little, “You can’t do it, can you?” He asks, and he knows the answer, he knows he can’t. “Always that little voice in the back of your head.. Maybe sounds like your little girl, or Sarah..” Sam takes a break, and even though Tommy raises his gun back to focus, he can see it shaking, and he knows that’s not enough to push Tommy over the edge, so through his own pain, he keeps talking.
“Always tellin’ you not to pull the trigger. And you can’t make up your mind..”
“It’s gettin’ easier every time you open your fuckin’ mouth.” Tommy nearly spits the words and Sam has to fight the smile tugging at his lips. He’s almost there. Tommy is almost free. They both are.
He chuckles just a bit. And maybe it’s true what people say, that your life flashes before your eyes right before you die, because all Sam can see is memories of him and Paulie. Then him, Paulie, and Tommy. Him and Tommy. Him and Sarah. Him, Paulie, and Sarah. Him, Paulie, Tommy, and Sarah. Tommy’s kids.. Christ, Sam’s family.. And in hindsight, it’s the only family he’s ever had.
Though his eyes are closed, he can feel Tommy watching him, and Sam knows how to do it. What to say. Sam makes his peace.
He opens his eyes and looks up at Tommy again. It’s quiet for a moment as he takes Tommy in for one last time, “Heh..,” he lets the chuckle die in his throat, “We sure had some laughs, right?” He looks up at Tommy and the tears brim in his eyes. He thinks through the tears, he may see some of Tommy’s own as well.
“Remember that time..” Sam’s breath shakes, but he has to do this. He’s said his goodbyes already. He’s made a way that Tommy can be free. Tommy can still escape this. “Me, you..” Sam can see the gun lowering and he knows he has one last chance to get Tommy to kill him the right way before his plan falls to shit. “And Paulie—“
Sam hears the shot before he feels it and he lets his eyes slip closed. The shot enters his chest and his will to live is fully gone. He lets his eyes slip closed and he hears Tommy’s finger on the trigger. If Sam had any strength left, he would smile.
The last thought Sam ever has, is that he hopes Tom remembers to put two in his skull.