You'd Better Watch Out Page 4

  Angelina had city friends and we made the most of our time there. We went to parties, took in Broadway shows, visited museums. She kept busy whenever I had to go back into Brooklyn.

  She knew what I did for a living. On the tax forms it said I was an employee of one of Johnny Booze’s fronts. I didn’t even know which one. His accountant took care of all the paperwork. The checks were large and the bags of cash even larger. I had caches all around the apartment and three safety-deposit boxes. Angelina accepted the fact that I was a hitter so long as I never hurt a civilian. So long as it was all kept within the syndicate world. She knew these made guys deserved to die fifty times over. She was glad whenever I pulled a job and took another one of these pricks off the street.

  Word had leaked back to my father, of course. Even before I’d iced his man in the cemetery. He started sending me cards a couple of weeks before Christmas. Hope you are well. See you soon. He had packages of tongue delivered to Angelina’s mother’s house. It was crude and obvious. My old man certainly hadn’t learned subtlety in the joint. I suspected that my reputation had gotten so large that he was using me as a way to intensify his own standing and build a greater power base in the can. The cards weren’t so much a threat against me as a tactic to retain and build upon his position.

  I donated the packages to homeless shelters. I didn’t know who the hell would be hungry enough to eat tongue but I figured it wouldn’t go to waste.

  “Does it bother you?” Angelina asked while we were decorating the tree.

  “No,” I said.

  “You could pay someone to take him out in prison. You know the right people.”

  It made me grin whenever she talked goomba vernacular. She always came down on it too hard. You could hear the air quotes around the words.

  I added some tinsel. I stared at the “Our First Christmas Together” ornament that stood out front and center in the branches. “You know that’s not how it’s going to happen.”

  “I thought you might want to spare yourself the trouble.”

  “It won’t be any trouble.”

  “I just can’t stand the idea of him having a laugh at your expense.”

  “He’s not laughing.”

  We finished the tree, went to bed early, made love, watched half of Miracle on 34th Street, and she fell asleep just as fresh snowfall started brushing past the window. I’d almost nodded off myself when my cell rang. I answered and walked into the living room and sat naked at the piano in the dark.

  “I need you here,” Johnny said.

  I took a quick shower, dressed, and drove across the Brooklyn Bridge back to the Fifth Amendment. It was after two by the time I pulled up in front of the bar. I walked in and the captains and higher ups of the crew were already there looking tired and nervous and pissed off. A lot of whiskey had gone around the table. Johnny didn’t have a hair out of place and looked like he’d just awoken from a full eight hours. His clothes were impeccable as always. He held a glass of Glenlivet, sipping in between puffs on his cigarette. His cuffs were shot. It was a talent.

  “Vinny Venti has become a liability.”

  “All right.”

  I never asked why. I didn’t need for Johnny to explain himself. One reason was as good, or bad, as another. If Johnny felt the need to give me more information, then he would give it on his own accord.

  “I know you’ve been waiting for this,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  “You’ve held your grudge against him in check for a lot of years. I want to thank you for that. I know you did it for me.”

  I said nothing.

  “He got picked up tonight after a Christmas pageant at the middle school, wagging his dick at some little girls backstage. They’re dressed like Christmas angels with paper wings and tinfoil halos and here the pervert comes whacking his meat in front of them. I knew he had issues with women but I had no idea he was that kind of a sick son of a bitch. It’s a morals charge, nothing too serious. He didn’t touch the kids or anything like that. But so far as I’m concerned, it’s bad enough. I don’t need to be associated with that kind of scumbag. I’m already going to catch heat for having had a short-eyes in my crew. I need him aced. But not in your usual manner.”

  I said nothing. I knew what he was about to ask me to do.

  “I have to send a message. You understand that. I need for everybody...and I mean everybody—the cops, the wise guys, the people in our neighborhood—to know I’m not going to put up with that, not from one of my own boys or anybody else. This message, it has to be loud and clear.”

  “I don’t send messages,” I said.

  “You’re going to this time.”

  The crew all glared at me. They were angry with me for not showing any reaction. They wanted me to foam at the mouth and talk about how we couldn’t let child molesters prowl our streets. Vinny didn’t have many friends to begin with, and now he had none. I let them glower.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “He was booked at your father’s old precinct. They’ll arraign him Monday morning, probably send him to a psych ward for observation. He’ll tell them how he didn’t get to suck on his mother’s tit enough as a kid and they’ll send him to group therapy twice a week for two months. That’s not good enough for me.” He ground out his cigarette butt and took another sip from his glass.

  I walked behind the bar and dug around in the fridge until I found a can of beer. I poured it out in the sink and crushed the can underfoot. The crew watched me. They muttered and giggled anxiously. A couple of them kept giving me the death stare. I pocketed the flattened can and left.

  ~ * ~

  I drove directly to the precinct. I knew it well. It was the most corrupt precinct in the city regardless of the ticket that the DA ran under when my father was sent up. I knew a lot of the old cops by name. It was third shift, but a busy time. Christmas, a Friday night, and a little after two in the morning, when a lot of the bars closed. The drunk and disorderlies were being brought in. The hookers who were sneaking too much out of the pockets of their johns. The johns who’d fought with their wives and taken it out on their whores. The out-of-towners who’d been ripped off.

  The junkies and bums were picking up extra cash thanks to the spirit of giving in the air. That meant more overdoses, more rummy fights over the bottle.

  I walked in the front door and entered a noisy throng of bodies. There was a bigger crowd than I’d been expecting. I recognized the desk sergeant trying to process everyone and keep the peace. His name was Mooney. He’d been one of my father’s pals. He was so distracted I slipped right by him.

  Vinny Venti might be a short-eyes but as of the moment he was still one of Johnny Booze’s crew. They would afford him some respect. He’d have a private cell on the second floor, not the communal cage on the first.

  The worst security in the world can be found in any police precinct. There’s so many cops around that they expect everyone else to be guarding the place, watching prisoners, checking to make sure the evidence and firearm lockers were secured. The dirty cops have free rein of the place, and, by extension, so do the criminals.

  I walked fast and comfortably with my chin high, took the stairs up looking like a lawyer who deserved to be there. I even passed a yawning cop on the stairs. I nodded to him and he nodded back.

  There were twelve single cells on the second floor in the south wing. They were all filled. I recognized a few faces. The ones I didn’t recognize recognized me. The floor was quiet but it grew even quieter.

  Vinny Venti was in the last cell down the corridor. Since all the cells were full, no cops should show up in the wing until morning. I knew I should move fast, do what I had to do and get out quick, but I felt a little sluggish, my thoughts constantly drawn back to that Christmas day.

  Vinny Venti was sleeping on his cot. He’d made himself at home. He’d kicked off his shoes and had his coat over him like a blanket. He was snoring loudly. I could smell the sambuca on his breat
h. He’d started early in the day. He’d been drunk at the Christmas pageant otherwise he never would have flashed himself to little girls in so public a spot. It made me wonder how long Vinny had been doing things like this, and how far he’d gone with the girls, and why he should snap during the holidays.

  “Vinny,” I called. He kept snoring so I raised my voice. “Vinny.”

  He snorted and nearly rolled off the cot. He woke up angry, his features contorted in a bitter rage I suspected wasn’t only because he’d been locked up. The holidays; if you had a chink in your armor they’d stick the knife in.

  He glanced tiredly around the cell. Then his eyes focused and his gaze settled on me.

  “Heya, kid,” he said.

  “Hello, Vinny.”

  We stared at each other for a while. Maybe he was hoping I would go away. Maybe he thought I was just another piece of his ongoing nightmare. The guilt and shame hung heavily in his face.

  “I never did anything like this before,” he said. His voice was resonant with honest soulfulness. “I’m not a short-eyes.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I don’t know what I am, but I’m not that.”

  “Okay.”

  I turned and checked back down the corridor. A few of the other prisoners had pressed themselves against the bars, listening to us. It didn’t matter. By the morning the news would be all over the circuit. My name wouldn’t be mentioned.

  Vinny stood up, ran a hand through his hair, tried to straighten his tie a little. “Don’t suppose you’d consider letting me slide for old time’s sake?”

  “Not even if you hadn’t humiliated my mother and gotten the ball going the day my old man murdered her.”

  “That ball was rolling way before me kid.”

  I nodded.

  “You supposed to send a message?”

  “Yes.”

  He finally cracked. A wild sob broke in his chest and his knees trembled. Panic filled his eyes and he glanced from side to side like he was looking for an escape route. “Oh Jesus. Not like that, kid, not like that. Please, I’m begging you. I was good to you, wasn’t I?”

  I wondered if he was talking about the two hundred dollar bills he’d handed me after curing and fucking my mother. I thought again about how she must have found some solace in his rancor. I remembered standing in the hall and glimpsing his sweaty, furious face in the bedroom mirror. The way my mother had stared into his eyes.

  I said, “Relax. That’s just for show. It’ll be post-mortem.”

  “You’re gonna stuff my prick down my throat, aren’t you.”

  “No. It’s got to look like a suicide.”

  “So you’ll just hack it off.”

  “You won’t feel a thing by then, Vinny.”

  He looked heavenward. “My Christ, it’s a good thing I don’t have children. How embarrassing.”

  “Come over to the bars, Vinny.”

  “Ah my God, I even have to walk to you, don’t I? I’ve got to give you my throat.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “You’ll just catch up with me later and make it worse then.”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  He squared his shoulders and tried to man up. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. A few of them managed it, most of them didn’t. A shudder went through him so violently that it nearly knocked him off his feet. Then he steeled himself and his expression shifted to rage. I recognized his fury. Twisting black, bulging veins covered his throat.

  “Johnny should’ve at least let me tell my side of things,” he said. “He should’ve been willing to listen to me. I’ve worked for him for twenty years and now, a couple hours after I get in trouble, he wants to see me dead.”

  “It’s the life Vinny. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know that.” He sniffed heavily and sighed. “That day at Stan Tripp’s house, when you were holding the .38 with the firing pin filed down...I would’ve put one in your head if you’d even thought about turning the barrel on me. Johnny said you might. He said you held a grudge in check, but with a gun in your hand you might not be able to control yourself. He doesn’t have any idea who you really are. You don’t ever lose control.”

  He started to laugh. He wheezed and gasped and held his belly. He wasn’t laughing at me. He wasn’t laughing at anything. He was scared of dying and his body and mind were in a riot of confusion. I let him go on.

  When he finally stopped he sat there sucking air deeply into his chest, his eyes clear and his face ruddy. I asked, “Who is she, Vinny? The woman you hate so much. She’s the one who sent you here. She’s the one who sent you to my mother’s bed.”

  “I always knew it would be you who iced me. I knew it the day your old man killed your mother. I knew it.”

  “I always knew it too,” I said. “Who was she?”

  “Does it matter?”

  I said nothing.

  “My sister. Gloria. She’s a year older than me. She had double D’s when she was thirteen. It screwed with my head. Messed up every relationship I ever had. I always wanted to fuck her. She lives in Phoenix but she came back and visited the neighborhood today. My niece, she’s sixteen and looks just like her. It got to me. It made me crazy.” He started sobbing but collected himself almost at once. He thumbed the tears off his face. “I’d never hurt a little girl. It was the fucking sambuca. Gloria brought it. I should’ve known it would be my poison.”

  “Do me a favor and drop your pants.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  He did as I asked and unbuckled his trousers. They slid to the floor and he stepped out of them. I motioned that he should continue. He got out of his briefs as well.

  “Sit on the floor.”

  “Don’t let me feel anything.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Okay then.” A look of something like peace filled his face, a kind of martyr’s grace. “Kid, you believe in God?”

  I didn’t answer. I took out the switchblade, reached between the bars, took gentle hold of his hair, and slashed open his throat. He didn’t die instantly and he didn’t die well. I turned his head away and the blood spurted across his cell. He struggled and tried to plead with me some more but I’d nicked his vocal cords. The plaintive, terrified noises he made sounded like a trapped, dying animal, which he was. The blood kept arching and painting the far wall of the cell. As he died the spurts weakened until his blood just bubbled and stopped.

  Vinny Venti slumped back against the bars and immediately began to vent. I got to work with the beer can. I tore it in half so that there was a nice sharp metal edge. The cops would think it was just Christmas trash that got kicked around on the floor.

  It didn’t take much time sawing to cut off his cock and balls. I put the beer can in his left hand and his dick in the other. It would look like he was so distraught he cut his own throat and in a fit of rage slashed off the thing that had led to his downfall. Even if they suspected anything else, they wouldn’t be able to prove it.

  My hands were covered in blood. I walked to the next cell and told the man there, “Give me a rag.” He did. I wiped my hands off and threw it back to him.

  Then I walked down the hall, back down the stairs, and out the precinct front door.

  ~ * ~

  The message was sent. It was completely unnecessary. Everyone already knew not to mess with little kids. Anyone who did wasn’t going to think twice because of what happened to Vinny Venti on the second floor. They already knew what happened to a short-eyes in prison. It didn’t stop them. Vinny had been right. Johnny should have at least listened to his side of the story first. And as bad as wagging his willy at some girls might be, it wasn’t rape. He hadn’t been a short-eyes.

  I spent the two hundred dollars that Vinny had given me all those years ago on groceries for a big Christmas Eve dinner I was preparing. The money had been folded for so long that it had almost split through at the seams, but the store clerk took the bills. I cooked antipasto, baked ziti, ham, and made
a couple of devil’s food cakes from scratch. My mother had taught me how.

  Angelina’s parents came over, and so did a dozen of her friends. We ate, drank sambuca and wine—except for Angelina—and they told stories and jokes with references to people and events that I didn’t understand or care about. I laughed anyway. When her father got good and roaring drunk he shocked everyone by sitting at the piano and playing Christmas songs. Neither Angelina nor I knew he could play. I had never heard him actually laugh before.

  At midnight the party started to wind down and that’s when Angelina told everyone the good news. She was pregnant. With twins.

  Her mother called it a miracle; I’m not sure why. Her girlfriends swarmed forward and started making plans for baby showers and painting the babies’ room. The guys clapped me on the shoulder and called me daddy while I handed out some Gurkha cigars that no one could smoke inside because of Angelina’s condition. We smoked on the terrace. It looked like it might snow but it never came down. Her father hugged me. He’d been eyeing a little place in Tampa Bay but now, he said, he was thinking twice about moving out of New York. He wanted to see his grandchildren and have some impact on their lives. He told me he was proud of me. He hugged me again and called me son.

  After everyone had left Angelina and I made love and lay there in the darkness going through baby names. We couldn’t settle on any. She didn’t want to know what the sexes of the babies were going to be, which I thought would make the whole process a lot more difficult, but I didn’t mind. I had no real preference in names but felt like I should contribute to the discussion. I called names out one after the other. Some she laughed at, some just made her moan.

  On Christmas Day, shortly after Angelina and I finished opening our gifts to each other, Johnny Booze called.