I slip easy into the soft leather of my friend’s new Mercedes. “Hey, Walter, when we get to Broad Street can you do me a favor and stop at that athletic goods place?”
“Sure. You gonna buy a gun?”
“Not a bad idea. But I was thinking more of a football helmet.”
EIGHTEEN
It’s after six when Walter pulls into Shore Securities. Sunday evening, there’s three cars in the lot besides my camper; Rags’ Jaguar with the dented hood, Straight Up Vic’s Beamer wagon, and a dirty white Lincoln Mariner SUV with fishing poles clamped to a chrome rack on the roof.
“Shit.”
“What’s the matter?” Walter says.
I nod toward the Mariner. “That fisherman is my client, Psycho Samson.”
“The wrestler with two bond defaults?”
“That’s him. He’s suing.”
“Maybe he’s here negotiating a deal with Vic.”
“Or maybe he’s hiding,” I say, “waiting to jump me.”
Walter makes a fist. “So we’ll kick his ass.”
This puts a smile on my lips. In California, skinny un-muscled guys like me and Walter accept our fate. In New Jersey, everybody acts tough. Faccia rozzo. “I did better against Rags’ Jaguar than you and I would against Psycho. Two years starting tackle at Notre Dame, ninety percent of all running plays went directly behind his block.”
Walter makes a show out of checking the near-empty parking lot, stretching his long neck, creeping his Mercedes forward like a turtle. Takes us two or three minutes to check all sides of the Mariner and my camper.
“Why wasn’t he an All-American, an NFL draft pick?” Walter says.
“Drug busts, sexual assaults, and worst of all, a bad attitude with the coaches. The school tossed him his senior year. Didn’t graduate, although I don’t think he cared too much. The World Wrestling Syndicate offered him a six-figure signing bonus.”
“Get out.”
“He’d probably be as famous as Hulk Hogan now if he hadn’t strangled a guy in practice.”
No sign of Psycho, and I can’t even see a place where he could hide. I mean, the man is gigantic. Maybe Walter’s right and Psycho’s inside, threatening Vic into making full restitution on those St. Louis hospital bonds.
I crack open the passenger door. The evening is oppressive with heat and moisture. “Thanks for the ride, Walter. I’m going to miss your air-conditioning.”
“I’ll miss your hot air. See you tomorrow, pal.”
Hobbling across the warm asphalt, my knee starts to throb. The temperature has to be over ninety. Bruise-blue thunderclouds build in a gray sticky sky.
Good thing I don’t need a left knee to drive. What the hell would I do if I couldn’t captain my camper?
I’m slipping the key into my lock when a vise clamps shut around the back of my neck. The pain is excruciating, then paralyzing, numbness radiating down my spine to the tip of my big toes. A second clamp grabs my belt, lifting me off the ground, my body weightless and disassociated. I feel nothing as I am slammed against my camper’s window.
Under painless pressure, my face and neck are flattened against the glass. Never have I felt so helpless. Like a bug under some kid’s thumb.
Thunder booms in the distance. Remnants of that hurricane. A dead fish smell permeates the tiny amount of warm humid air I’m able to breathe. A gagging fog of bait, blood, and fish guts. Just a hunch, but I think I’m in the grip of Psycho Sam.
“Hello, puke.”
I can see his left shoulder, that skull and crossbones tat. Plus the voice is unique. Real high, like a nine-year-old. But hey, and even if I couldn’t see the shoulder tattoo, even if I didn’t recognize the smell of dead fish or the little league voice, who the hell else could lift and hold me up like this? There’s no doubt I am in the clutches of Psycho Samson Attica, proud owner of fifty thousand dollars in St. Louis hospital bonds, current value forty-five hundred.
“Mr. Attica?”
“I want my money back. Every freaking penny.”
“You’re hurting me, Mr. Attica. And this isn’t going to get your money back.”
“I whip your ass a while, it might. You’ll believe me when I promise to bust your freaking neck. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do if I don’t get back that fifty grand. Understand? I will twirl you by the head, snap your freaking neck like my Momma did her chickens.”
Is that how they kill chickens on the farm? Yuk. I heard Psycho grew up between cornfields, inhaled too much of those chemical fertilizers. But breaking chicken necks?
“Mr. Attica?”
“Yes?”
“Listen. I understand you’re pissed off. Heck I would be, too. It’s a lot of money.”
Ouch. My face is pressed so hard against the glass, my teeth cut into my cheek. That’s the bad news. The good news, I feel pain again. The numbness is leaving. Little yellow lights pop on and off inside my flattened eyeball.
“It’s difficult to talk like this, Mr. Attica. How about letting me down? Perhaps we can work something out, reach some satisfactory compromise.”
Hey, if it’ll save my life, even keep me out of a wheelchair, I’ll sign a freaking IOU for a million dollars. Why the hell not add Psycho to my long and growing list of creditors?
“Okay, puke,” he says. “But up first, then down.”
Whoa. Suddenly I’m flying, soaring across Shore’s parking lot, the blacktop zipping by beneath me like I was watching out the window of an airplane.
I break the fall with two hands and a body roll, but my crash landing still feels like I fell off a two-story roof. I start checking myself for broken bones, then change my mind. Think I’ll hang quiet here a while on the warm, sun-drenched asphalt. Austin Carr, playing dead.
“Get up and take your beating like a man,” Psycho says, “or I’ll kick you like a dog.”
Tough choice. In fact, I still haven’t made up my mind ten seconds later when I hear another sharp crack of thunder. At least I think it’s thunder. Close enough to rattle the marrow in my bones. Maybe it’s time to say a prayer. Dear God...
“Get your ass out of my parking lot.”
Hey. The new voice sounds like Straight Up Vic at Shore Securities’ back door, but I can’t twist far enough to confirm. Not yet anyway. The vertebrae in my neck have been welded into one piece of pain.
Psycho’s feet turn on the new voice. I have a very clear picture of his black rubber fishing boots. “Who the hell are you?” he says to the guy I think is Vic.
“I’m the son-of-a-bitch who’s going to shoot your ass you don’t get off my property.”
It’s Mr. Vic alright. My prayers have been answered. I manage enough of a head twist to see his face. I also see his right hand holds a short-barreled revolver.
Boy am I glad I’m a good golfer.
NINETEEN
Twisted lines of blue smoke rise from Mr. Vic’s revolver. Can’t honestly say I recognize that puppy from way over here, but I remember now it’s a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38.
The boss’s shown the weapon to us more than once in my time, Mr. Vic firing off a blank or two in hopes of reviving what he considered a sleepy, non-productive sales staff. It definitely got our attention, put us all back on the money machine, although I’m a little less certain about any actual increase in sales. At least for an hour or two. I usually took the rest of the day off.
If that second clap of “thunder” was Straight Up playing deputy sheriff, I wonder if the boss is popping real bullets this go-round, Mr. Vic quickly improvising a plan to save Shore Securities time and money on Psycho’s pending lawsuit? How many times did Mr. Vic say he hates paying attorney fees?
“You and that half-pint squirt gun don’t scare me,” Psycho says.
Sam Attica is maybe the only man in the whole world I could believe when he says that. To bring down Psycho Sam, that .38 round would have to be perfectly placed.
Mr. Vic saying, “Than you’re even dumber than you sound,
Samantha. How come you talk like a leprechaun? Was your daddy a fairy?”
I love my boss.
Psycho growls, a shrill gargle that rattles my chest, piercing, like an electronic fire alarm. I try to merge with the hot asphalt as Psycho Sam Attica takes off running toward Straight Up Vic Bonacelli.
Mr. Vic extends his arm, aiming the revolver at Psycho’s head. I judge my position relative to the angle of Mr. Vic’s potential shot, hoping to determine if any blood and/or brain matter will splash in my direction.
Hard to tell, but I duck anyway.
Mr. Vic saying, “I just called the police, told them Samson Attica was assaulting my employee, that my associate’s life is being threatened. That call puts the Branchtown law on my side, Samantha, even should I now decide to put a hole in your face.”
To illustrate the bullet’s potential target, Mr. Vic uses his left hand to touch the tip of his classically prominent Italian nose. He’s always showing people his profile, even total strangers, claiming family ties to one of the Caesars.
Thank God Notre Dame makes its athletes actually attend class. Psycho seems able to understand and believe what the boss is telling him. He stops his charge. The tensed muscles around his mouth and eyes begin to slacken. He even touches his nose.
A master salesman, Straight Up Vic understands the awesome power of suggestion. Mr. Vic waves his revolver. “Go on, get out of here.”
Psycho stops beside me. “Don’t think we’re done, puke. I owe you a very physical warning.”
His high-pitched voice stabs at the throbbing mass of pain that is my neck. “What the hell kind of warning was the one you just gave me?”
Seems like a reasonable question, obtuse grammar aside. I’m obviously headed straight back to the hospital emergency room where they ask for this kind of information on the insurance forms.
“That was no kind of warning, puke. I was just saying hello.”
What a world. What a world.
While I’m at the emergency registration desk this time, waiting for a doctor, perhaps I should inquire about a monthly pass.
TWENTY
A humming sound wakes me up that night.
Light from a hallway filters onto the straight-back chair at the foot of my steel bed. Oh, yeah. I forgot. I’m in the hospital again.
On my left, an elderly roommate has kept the water-proof green curtain closed around his bed all night, even when I invited him to watch the Yankee-Dodger game with me, one of those inter-league games they play now. I think my geezer roommate might have been embarrassed by his chronic flatulence. Not that the curtain helps much with that. Whew. I have to remember not to eat the food here.
The humming gets louder. A strange gush of sadness hits me behind the eyes. Wow. What the heck is that? Being such a loser, back in the hospital again? The pain in my knee and neck? Or...that humming. It reminds of something unpleasant, doesn’t it? Some ego-bruising event.
When the memory comes, it moves quickly, like a short film. We open inside a marriage counseling session with my wife Susan, a scene where the shrink suggests we purchase a vibrator as a potential cure for our sexual problem—there ain’t any but more sex. Then cut to Susan’s telephone voice days later, “I had four orgasms today.” Seems while I was at work one afternoon, Susan drank a few glasses of wine, took a hot bath, and enjoyed incredible life-altering sex with our new Hitachi 3000. After that I was offered nothing but sloppy seconds. After six months of that, I needed an affair to repair.
I mean how can a guy compete with something that’s fourteen inches long and vibrates?
I open my eyes. The hospital room is filled with gray morning light.
A dark human shape comes into focus at the foot of the steel bed and my head snaps off the pillow. Pain shoots down my neck. My blood pumps with adrenaline. Who is that?
“Hello, Carr. I’m Detective Mallory, Branchtown Police.”
I sigh, take a breath. My heart begins to slow down. I wonder if cops do these things on purpose. And I know this guy, too, thought we were sort of friends. Mallory is one of only six detectives on the Branchtown force, a tall Irishman with graying red hair and hard blue eyes. We coached T-ball together three years ago.
“Hey, Jim. This an official visit?”
“It’s official,” he says. “I need to ask you a few questions about the incident at Shore Securities yesterday. First, tell me in your own words exactly what happened when you encountered your client Samuel Attica?”
“Samson, actually.”
“Okay. Samson Attica.”
I go through the whole episode ninety-nine-percent truthfully, using enough detail to make myself comfortable with the story. But in the end, it’s a story. Of course I could see Mr. Vic had a gun. His famous Smith & Wesson. But I’m not ratting out the boss.
“You’re telling me you didn’t see a weapon in Vic Bonacelli’s hand?”
“He could have had a gun,” I say. “He could have had a box of candy, or flowers. I didn’t look.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“Why? Scared you’ll lose your job? Vic already told us he was the shooter.”
A much younger Branchtown detective scurries into my hospital room. It’s Mallory’s partner, I guess. The kid looks like an eighteen-year-old Eagle Scout. “Jim. I need to talk to you,” he says.
Mallory and the Eagle Scout are only out of my sight and earshot maybe thirty seconds, but Detective Mallory is hot-wired when he saunters back to my bed. Flushed around the neck. Eyes brighter. Like a new user and current beneficiary of stimulant drugs.
“You own a pickup truck with a camper?” Mallory says.
“Yup.”
“A yellow 1993 Chevy with lots of rust?”
“Bought it three weeks ago.”
Mallory and his young partner exchange a glance. When my former T-ball coaching mate puts his gaze back on me, Detective James Mallory of the Branchtown Police Department thinks he’s holding a straight flush to my pair.
“Put your pants on, Carr. We’re going for a ride.”
TWENTY-ONE
I’m cold, shivering in the rear of Detective Jim Mallory’s city-sponsored four-door Ford Crown Victoria. Fog shrouds a blinking red train crossing as we approach. Our tires squeal to a halt. The wooden gate drops inches from our headlights. Clanging bells poke my ears, and in the distance, the engineer blows his discordant horns.
Not sure whether to blame my shivering and shaking on another sudden shift in New Jersey’s weather or the anticipation of additional calamities. Mallory and the Eagle Scout are driving me to Luis’s Mexican Grill for unexplained reasons, and I’ve got a nasty chill worrying what we might find.
A misty drizzle keeps the wipers busy thumping across the windshield. Those hurricane remnants and warm humid air have given way to a storm front out of the Great Lakes. Much lower temperatures. In the closed Ford, I smell leather, gun oil, and from the back seat’s stained rug, a feint stench of dried vomit.
A crime’s been committed at Luis’s, I was told. A bad one, I’m guessing. Across the tracks, through the glare of the flashing crossing lights, I can see into the restaurant’s parking lot. Three squad cars, half a dozen cops, and a circle of yellow tape surround a lump on the asphalt. The lump’s covered by a blue tarp.
The train arrives, shutting off my view. The yellow tape and blue tarp stay bright in my head. Neon color in a wet drab world.
“Somebody dead?” I ask.
Neither detective speaks. They keep looking straight ahead. Ignoring me.
“Come on, tell me,” I say. “Or I’m not saying another word until I see a lawyer.” Hey, I watch all the good cop shows. If everyone exercised their right to be silent, our prisons would be empty.
Mallory sighs. “Someone who works at the restaurant has been shot. A Hispanic male.”
The train passes, the gate lifts, and we pull across the railroad tracks into Luis’s parking lot. My heart’s skipping rope, joggin
g and jumping at the same time. There’s a double-granny knot in my stomach. Did Branchtown Blackie’s friend take another, better aimed shot at my favorite bartender?
When we pull up, the Eagle Scout jumps out and yanks me from the Crown Victoria. None too gentle. Mallory’s partner is stronger than he looks. The little dick.
The drizzling fog tastes like fish. The Catch of Yesterday.
I try walking toward the tarp, thinking they want me to have a peek at the body, but Mallory grabs my arm. “This way, pal.”
Mallory’s tug pulls me off balance. Stumbling backward, my ex-favorite T-ball coaching partner slams me against a squad car. Whoa. What’s the hell’s going on?
Mallory’s Crown Victoria blinks high beams on me. My hand jumps up to cover my eyes.
Somewhere in the darkness, a cop says, “Put your hand down, asshole.”
I comply, but can’t help squinting at the Crown Victoria’s brights. My eyes sting with the glare.
“Stop making faces,” the same cop-voice says.
Finally it dawns on me. I’m in a one-man line-up, scoped out by someone behind those lights. Am I a murder suspect? Oh Lord, I hope that dead body isn’t Luis.
“That’s him,” a whiskey voice says. “That’s the guy what lives in the camper.”
Sweet Jesus. The uniformed cop who called me an asshole and Eagle Scout tug me over to Mallory’s Crown Victoria and stuff me in the back seat. I missed the smells.
Mallory’s grinning when he sticks his head inside to talk. “We have a witness says you were fighting with the victim. Lots of shouting, cursing.”
My skin turns clammy, my breathing shallow. Oh, please, not Luis. “Who’s the victim?”
“You wanna take a look?” Mallory says. “I mean, if you admit hanging out here a lot. Knowing everyone.”
Mallory walks me over. My legs are wobbly. Trickles of sweat run down my flanks. The foggy air closes in on me like heavy snow.
The Branchtown detective waves, and one of the uniformed cops pulls back the blue tarp. Another train’s coming. I hear the clanging bells. The distant horns.
Sweet Jesus. Not easy to tell who it is. The face is bashed, features smeared across a bloody hunk of meat. But I recognize my friend by the overall size of the head, the partial hairline, the shape of one good ear.