Headstone City Read online

  Phil turned, expressionless, but seething beneath the false composure. He didn't mind being ripped off half as much as being alerted to the fact.

  Guerra. The name meant “war” in Italian, and Phil liked that. It gave him an extra measure of poise, especially when he was a cop. He said his name—the word—like he practiced it, putting everything he had into it.

  Voice firm and smooth as a character actor in some noir movie from the thirties. Phil had porked up about fifty pounds since he'd retired, but he'd been working on everything else. A pretty good rug with the right amount of silver in it, a nice tan from spending half the week in an ultraviolet booth. Stylish clothes, expensive leather shoes. He was pushing sixty but looked ten years younger. The extra weight hit him mostly in the face, filling out his cheeks and making him look jolly and generous.

  Phil drove badly. Way too fast, riding bumpers all around town. He circled Wisewood and sped under the highway. He barely slowed for the stop signs and always gunned it during yellow lights.

  Years ago he'd had the moves to back up his breakneck driving, but with age the man's reflexes had slowed considerably. Dane remembered Phil and his wife Mabel taking Dane and his parents out on long drives across Jersey and Pennsylvania, to the Poconos. Upstate to Albany to see the Capitol Building. Mom would be in the backseat petrified as Phil gunned it across bridges, swinging through lazy small-town traffic and nearly clipping cattle that had wandered onto the road. Mabel would scrunch down and pour herself a gin and tonic from the Thermos she always brought along. Dad occasionally laughing, watching, always with too much on his mind. Dane would sit on his mother's lap and giggle like crazy, shouting, “Go faster, Uncle Philly! Go faster!”

  He could remember, very clearly, but without being able to feel it anymore, just how much he used to love Phil Guerra.

  “Who picked you up?”

  “Nobody,” Dane said. “I took the bus.”

  “That's terrible. That's just awful. I'm sorry about that, Johnny. If I'd known you were gonna do that, I would've come by. It must be awfully hard walking back into the world and not seeing a friendly face the minute you step outside.”

  Actually, it was a lot tougher never seeing a friendly face on the inside, but Dane didn't want to cloud the issue. “It's all right. The ride was fine. Two other guys I knew from the joint were being released the same time, and they had their whole families on board. It was like a tour bus. Wives and mothers, their sisters, kids. One guy, he's thirty-seven and has three grandchildren.”

  “Gotta be a spic then.”

  Dane took out a cigarette while Phil eyed him, trying to hide his anxiety. The thought of ashes falling onto the fabric, even if it wasn't original, put a crazed gleam in his eye.

  “Don't light that.”

  “I won't.”

  “So was he a spic or a nigger?”

  Sometimes you had to let the old-school bigotry go by, and sometimes you didn't. Dane said, “His name's D'Abruzzi. Stefano D'Abruzzi. His kids brought a laptop with them, playing DVDs on it. I watched the first half of one of the Harry Potter movies. Pretty good for a kid's flick. Anyway, Stefano's father's got a restaurant on the Upper West Side.”

  “Oh yeah? Let me think. D'Abruzzi's, that's right. I ate there a few times. They had to order their tiramisu and torrone from the Jewish bakery down the block. What proud Sicilian is gonna do that, I ask?”

  “The grandfather was from Naples.”

  “That explains it then.”

  Phil had already pulled Dane's trigger and made a harsh association, so now he had to ride his hate out. It was usually like this when you talked to the old-world Italians in the neighborhood. The old cops, the old-school mob guys. You couldn't get away from it. Their attitude was ingrained. No way to ingratiate or back down, you just had to shoulder past. Dane nodded passively, like he did whenever the bulls started to pull this sort of crap. Trying to start a race war because they were bored.

  Phil's brow unfurrowed. He knew he was getting off track and didn't have a lot of time to make whatever play he was going for. “Hey, don't light that.”

  “I won't.”

  “You see Grandma Lucia yet?”

  “No.”

  “She's gonna be worried. You should've gone straight there to say hello.”

  “I talked to her before I left the prison. She wants me to get her some cannoli and biscotti.”

  “Go to La Famiglia.”

  “I will.”

  “They still know how to bake. Their amaretti are the best.”

  Were they really talking about cookies?

  But then Phil Guerra, patting the side of his silver rug, finally managed to get around to it. “You shouldn't be hanging around this part of the neighborhood, Johnny.”

  “That right?” Like you could be in the neighborhood without being in every part of it at the same time. When you were back, you were in all the way.

  “It's not the safest place for you.”

  “Think it's safer than the can?”

  “Maybe not.”

  Phil took the next turn so wide that they wound up in oncoming traffic, tires squealing. He let out a wild guffaw and swerved back into his lane, tapping the curb. Dane shifted uneasily.

  “What, you scared?”

  “No.”

  “You look edgy.”

  “I always do.”

  It still got to him, after all these years. He hated being in a car with anybody else driving, no matter who it was or how good they were behind the wheel. Dane was a driver. He always wanted to be in charge of the machine.

  Rummaging through the glove compartment, he came up with a pair of thick glasses in dark plastic frames. He figured they'd be there, the man too vain to use them. “You sure you don't need these for driving, Phil?”

  “Ah, them optometrists, whatta they know?”

  “That you can't see?”

  “I see fine.”

  Dane put the glasses back, imagining how tough it must be on Phil's wife, Mabel, living with him now that he was retired, refusing to think of himself as any different than when he was twenty-five. She probably had gin bottles stashed all over the house, in the toilet tank, behind the insulation in the attic, in back of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. One of these days she'd grab the drain opener instead and that would be the end of her consoling, sneaky sipping.

  Now the guy was getting a little crazy. Phil nearly sideswiped a bus making a tight left turn from the opposite lane. Dane fidgeted again, knowing this was a weakness he couldn't hide, and it had taken the man all of five minutes to find it out.

  “Well, at least you've got a hard head,” Phil said. He let out a slow, low, counterfeit laugh that went on for too long. He tapped the inside of the windshield . . . one, two, three . . . then reached over and did the same to Dane's forehead . . . one, two, three. Phil even grabbed him by the neck so he could lay his fingers on the scars and check if they were still there.

  Knocking at the metal doors of his skull.

  On the day Dane and Vinny stole their third car, they went joyriding down to the Jersey Shore. They spent the day swimming, lying out on the sand, and moving the car around to different parking lots whenever a police cruiser came by. They met a couple of girls, freshmen in college, who spent equal parts of the afternoon snubbing them and aggressively flirting with them. By sunset they lay wrapped in their beach towels in the dunes, drunk and mostly naked. As with all the worst troubles in his life, Dane missed his chance at an easy escape by only a few seconds.

  Vinny spoiled the night by putting on his pants, taking out his wallet, and offering the girls money. Not even much at that. He was still a little steamed about his girl initially rebuffing him, even though she'd eventually hauled his ashes. He could carry a grudge to the bottom of hell.

  Pissed off and humiliated, the girls threw their beer cans at Vinny's chest, gave him the finger, and fled. Dane actually had to grab him by the arm to keep him from giving chase, like he was going to smac
k them around, make them take the cash. He was just starting to show the Monticelli temper, the resentments that he'd never shake.

  By the time Dane and Vinny finished another six-pack and got back to the car, they were buzzing pretty good. Dane took it slow out of the parking lot, driving carefully, but suddenly the exit was blocked by two screeching cop cars.

  Instead of pillow talk or discussing the violin, Vinny had told his girl all about boosting the car. Showing off, starting to swing his weight around, mentioning the Don. After he'd embarrassed her, she'd gone up to the boardwalk and called the nearest precinct.

  Dane said, “Uyh,” shook his head, and tried to assess the situation. He saw an escape route clear and distinct in his mind. He could stand on the gas, cross a couple of rows of parked cars, slip around a streetlight, and jump the curb. It came down to about thirty seconds' worth of real action. If he could get a fifth of a mile head start, he knew he could lose the cops, dump the ride, and pick up another. But only if he could get that fifth of a mile.

  He turned to Vinny to ask him what he wanted to do, but Vinny was already hissing under his breath about the girl, laughing to himself and sneering. Saying how he was going to kill her, stick a filleting blade in her kidney. Dane had never seen Vinny like that before, nearly fucking foaming.

  The longer they sat around the worse it would be, so Dane threw the car into drive, ready to turn the wheel and try to make the curb. With a crazed, grating screech of eagerness Vinny screamed at him to bust through the roadblock instead. It was the kind of nutty crap that would never work. Making a death run at the cops would only get them aggravated assault, attempted vehicular murder.

  High beams filled the stolen car and another siren blasted behind them. Megaphone voices snarling and ordering them out, onto the ground, facedown. Interlace your fingers and put your hands behind your head.

  So, it was over before it had started. Dane went to shut off the engine and Vinny let out a yelp of joyous rage. Maybe he was happy, thinking he wouldn't have to play the violin in the joint.

  He sort of dived up against Dane, giggling madhatter-style, like it was all a bad joke that would somehow end pleasantly. Suddenly he was trying to wrestle himself into the driver's seat, shoving Dane up against the door, jamming his leg across Dane's, and stomping the gas pedal. Vinny had a death grip on the wheel that Dane couldn't break.

  They hit the blocking cruisers going about fifty and they both went headfirst through the windshield.

  Dane had been lucky. Just one bad gash along his front hairline that took forty stitches, all the other trauma happening in back of his head, where nobody could see so long as he grew his hair long. A couple small metal plates to reinforce his cracked skull, about a hundred staples holding his brains in. Nothing that would show until he started to go bald in another eight or ten years.

  Vinny hadn't been quite as fortunate. He'd landed face-first against the curb, shattering his nose and taking out most of his teeth. Crushed one cheek, burst his right eye, and caused a long dent in his brow. It was almost deep enough that you could fit your pinky in it and your finger would be flush with the rest of his face.

  The court took more pity on them for that. The Monti attorneys were slick and got both of them off with probation.

  “I just don't want to see you wind up like your dad,” Phil Guerra was saying.

  Dane frowned, and asked, “How so?”

  “You know. Dead before your time.”

  That tickled Dane so much that he had to suppress a chuckle, leaving it under his tongue. Jesus, Phil sure could push a point home.

  “You ready to visit your grandma?”

  “Drop me off at La Famiglia. I still need to get her some pastry.” The bakery was two blocks away from Chooch's. They'd circled the neighborhood and were pretty much back where they'd started.

  “Sure.” Phil let him out on the corner and shook his hand. “Give Lucia my love. Good luck, Johnny.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Give me a call if you ever need anything. I mean that. Anything at all.”

  “I will.”

  “And don't steal my car!” he shouted, letting out the sham laughter again. Dane sort of chuckled with him, thinking he just might have to boost the Caddy before this was all over.

  Then he smiled and let his cigarette hang loose from the corner of his mouth, knowing that when he hit that pose, he looked exactly like his father.

  Phil stuck his index finger out, cocked his thumb like it was a gun, and pretended to shoot Dane. Jesus, if these guys were always this subtle with their stupid threats, it was a wonder that anybody ever got bumped. Dane let his smile widen, showing teeth, squinting, the way Dad used to do when he was on the edge, ready to take somebody down.

  Dane stood there and watched his father's partner drive away, knowing with real certainty for the first time that it was Uncle Philly who'd shot John Danetello Sr. in the head with his own service pistol.

  FOUR

  The impatient death angel, circling overhead, having waited long enough for another chance.

  So here we go.

  Dane walked around the block to Chooch's and stepped inside. The place was empty, which took him back a little. There were always a couple of muscle boys around and a familiar face or two at the back tables, even this early in the day. Nobody at the bar, not even a bartender.

  The lights were on though. He cocked an ear, listening for noise in the back rooms, but there was nothing.

  Dane moved farther into Chooch's, remembering the first couple times he'd been here with Vinny when they weren't even in their teens. Big Tommy Bartone setting up a couple of shots for them, thinking it was funny to let them drink themselves sick, dragging them both out in the alley to puke. Tommy laughing his ass off while they turned a deeper green and stumbled home.

  Dane's scars began to burn, his skull abruptly pounding. He saw a slight blur of motion in the mirror and turned. Vinny was behind him, moving across the room to an empty table. He sat and stared at Dane expectantly, waiting like bait in the center of an ambush. His graceful hands folded easily in front of him. The glass eye pinning Dane, just a little off. It had a few flecks of green in it that the real one didn't have. He'd filled in the hairless section of his scarred eyebrow with an eyebrow pencil.

  You wait so long for the moment to come, imagining what it'll be like and how you'll feel about it, and when it finally arrives you feel nothing. Even staring at the man who, out of everybody in the world, still knew you the best.

  “It's good to see you,” Vinny said, and he sounded like he meant it. “Let's put this meeting off for a different day, all right?”

  “Any time in particular?”

  “Yeah, a rainy afternoon out in Wisewood. There'll be a hot-air balloon outside St. Mary's. I'll let you know when.”

  “If that's a threat, it's a little cryptic.” Dane wanted to sit across from Vinny, lean across the table, and meet his eyes up close, but there were no other chairs around. There was always something that fucked up your big dramatic moment. “You want a guy's knees to tremble, you ought to be clear about it.”

  “I'm telling you the truth, Johnny. I always do.”

  “Your truth has a way of changing,” Dane said.

  “That's not my fault. I just try to make the choices from the three I've got.”

  “Is that all you have, Vinny? Still?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dane glanced around. “Why's the bar empty?”

  “I knew you were coming, so I gave everybody the day off and told my crew to stay away.”

  “I didn't think you ever closed up Chooch's.”

  “It's only for a little while.”

  No anger showing through, no upset or anything else. Vinny looked almost bored, maybe with a touch of regret, like he knew what was coming and had heard it many times before. Dane expected him to get a little hot, squeezing more juice out of the scene, but he only shrugged. Maybe both of them were hoping the other would just pac
k up and move away.

  Vinny had taken something extra away from the accident too, the way Dane had done. A new kind of burden laid across their backs.

  Three years after the crash Vinny became a lieutenant for his father, Don Pietro. It wasn't the usual way of things to have a blood relative of the big boss being a capo so early on, but it's what Vinny wanted, and the Don tried to play into everybody's strengths.

  Vinny's first serious job had been to whack a guy named Paulo Cruz, who ran a Colombian crew over in south Jersey. They were hijacking trucks full of casino equipment from the Monticelli hotels in Atlantic City, causing lots of heartburn for everybody.

  When Dane heard that Paulo Cruz had taken two in the head, and Vinny showed up at the bar wearing a glow of distinguished confidence, Dane knew Vinny had killed his first man.

  It took the Jersey mob about a week to counterattack. It wasn't a particularly well-thought-out plan, just Paulo's brother Baldo and one of his soldiers walking down 82nd Avenue with their hands in their pockets, coming toward the bar.

  Dane and Vinny were stepping up the curb together.

  “This doesn't have anything to do with you, Danetello,” Baldo Cruz said, which surprised Dane. Most wiseguys didn't care who they took out, so long as they got the one they were after. Classy.

  A strange sound filled the air. It took Dane a second to realize it was coming from Vinny

  This wheezing cackle, like he'd been laughing for hours and could barely catch his breath now.

  “The hell is so funny?” Baldo asked.

  “You!” Vinny shrieked. “Thrashing around on the ground like that!”

  “What the hell you talking about, man?”

  “The look on your face! Like you just got a bad piece of ass. Oh Jesus Christ, and . . . and . . . you're pissing yourself!” Vinny shook with laughter like a complete maniac. The fake eye never moving, staring straight ahead.