No such luck. Aldo fought him fair and square but was too quick. Neil never laid a hand on him. Aldo, on the other hand, beat the shit out of him, to the point where he was unable to stand by the time Vinny arrived.
As they’d gagged him and tied him to a chair to keep him upright, he overheard Vinny tell one of his workers to yank the engine and transmission and gas tank from the Dodge. Neil didn’t care what they did to his car as long as they let him live. Then they started to put more hurt on him and he began to wonder when he’d die rather than if.
Aldo did most of the work. He really seemed to get off on pounding someone with his fists. Vinny mostly watched and ate donuts, but every once in a while he’d pick up a crowbar and go to work. He broke Neil’s knees and elbows. Neil screamed into his gag till his voice was gone, and still they kept it up.
Then one of Vinny’s worker guys came in and said, “Look what we found.”
A few seconds later Vinny yanked Neil’s sagging head up by his hair and held something before his face.
“What the fuck is this?”
Neil could barely see through his swollen eyelids, but somewhere in the blur he made out a black box about the size of a cigarette pack and a wire with what looked like a microphone at the end.
“Your car was wired?” Vinny screamed. “You were recording my mother?”
Neil wanted to tell him no, that he knew nothing about it, but he was gagged and could only shake his head.
He couldn’t say what happened after that, because everything went black.
Until now. Now he was back in his car, but not in the trunk. They’d tossed him on the floor between the front and rear seats where he lay in a pool of agony, in and out of consciousness. His pain-fogged brain could barely form a coherent thought, but he managed to wonder how many intact bones he had left. His hands didn’t seem tied so he tried to remove his gag but his broken arms were useless.
He heard voices outside and then the engine started. Where were they taking him? What were their plans? Dump him in a ditch to freeze to death? That almost seemed better than what he was feeling now. No, it seemed definitely better.
Wait. That wasn’t the Dodge engine—something much more heavy duty.
The car gave a violent jolt that shot a blaze of agony through every damaged cell in his body. It rose into the air, moved a few feet, then was dropped to land with another burst of agony.
Had the car stopped moving, or had he passed out and more time had passed? What now? What were they doing? If only he knew where he was.
Another heavy-duty engine roared to life, then another impact, gentler this time. He heard steel scream in protest. The windows shattered, showering him with glass confetti. He forced his swollen eyes open and saw the roof buckling toward him.
They were crushing the car!
He tried to scream but the gag muffled the pitiful attempt.
SUNDAY
1
Neil slowly became aware of a rocking sensation. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. He tried to move but the spikes of agony from everywhere in his body reminded him of the punishment he’d endured since this afternoon.
Since this afternoon … really? It seemed like an eternity. How had this happened? What had gone wrong? Better question: What had gone right?
He remembered Vinny telling him the old bat had no grandkids. If that was true, then who was the kid bitching about his cheap grandmother in The Main Event that afternoon? Neil was sure he’d said his name was Lonnie. But if he wasn’t the Filardo broad’s grandson, who was he?
And what was that tiny microphone Vinny had dangled in front of him? His car had been wired? How?
And something else Vinny said came back to him: If that guy hadn’t called me, you’da got away with it.
Who’d called him? Who could have even known—?
Julio.
Shit!
Rosa knew about his scam line. She must have told her little brother. Had he put the kid in the bar up to it? No way. He wasn’t smart enough. And even if he was, he was too hot-tempered to work a setup like that. It took patience, it took cool.
But how had he known the right moment to call? The wire?
Didn’t matter. Had to be connected to Julio and Rosa somehow. They were the only ones who had anything to gain from all this. Julio was probably thinking he’d killed off a buyer for that crummy bar.
Wrong, motherfucker!
He’d get the money some other way. Better believe it. When he healed up, he’d be back, kicking ass and taking names.
And Rosa—did she think this would teach him some sort of lesson? Fuck no. Did she think he’d made her life miserable before? Just wait, bitch. Just wait.
And then he remembered something else—thrown in the back of his car, the roof coming down, glass shattering. They’d crushed his car with him in it!
He tried to lift his head but something held it down. Slowly he came to realize that he was hemmed in on all sides. They’d turned his car into a coffin, with him in it.
Which meant they thought he was dead. They’d probably dumped the car in a scrap yard and figured the rats and mice would dispose of his body.
And something else—the crushing had dislodged the gag from his mouth. He could yell for help.
He began doing just that, but the only sound he could manage was a faint, hoarse, high-pitched wail.
“Hey!” said a voice. “You hear that?”
Yes! Someone was out there! He was saved!
He loosed another pathetic wail.
“Holy shit! Yo, Vinny! Check this out!”
That voice sounded familiar. And he’d called to someone named Vinny—
Oh, shit! Oh, no!
“What?” said Vinny’s voice.
“I heard something. I think the fucker’s still alive!”
“I don’t hear nothin’.”
No way Neil was going to make another peep.
“I heard it. I swear.”
Vinny’s voice got closer. “Hey, asshole, you alive in there? If you are, I’ll hand it to you: You’re a class-A asshole, but you’re a tough one. So if you can hear me, lemme tell you, I’m glad you’re still alive. Because nothing’s too bad for you, and now you’re gonna drown. I hear that ain’t a nice way to go.”
Aldo laughed. “Yeah! You know what they say: Sleep with the fishes—and feed ’em too!”
With that the car tilted and began sliding downward. Neil heard a loud splash and then water swirled around him. It quickly engulfed him as his last breath bubbled out in a silent scream.
2
Jack and Julio maneuvered the round oak tabletop through the apartment doorway. Not terribly heavy, but its four-foot width made it awkward and unwieldy for one man. They leveled it over the paw-foot pedestal and Jack dropped to his knees to guide the holes in the underside onto the bolts jutting up from the pedestal.
“Thanks, man. I’ll fasten it down later. Want a beer?”
Julio shook his head. “Nah.”
“Come on. You’re always buying me one.”
Another head shake. “I pour the stuff all day.”
“You don’t mind if I…?”
“Do it.”
The first thing Jack had done upon moving in was to stick a six of Rolling Rock longnecks in the fridge. He grabbed one now, twisted the top, and took a pull as he returned to the front room.
“Gotta say it again, meng, this one shitty-looking table.”
Jack had found it in a used furniture store down in SoHo. The top was a scratched-up mess and someone had painted the whole thing a Chinese magenta.
“You know what this would have cost with a nice finish? Lots.”
“It puts the ugh in ugly.”
“As a kid I used to work for this guy named Mister Rosen in a store called USED.”
“Used what?”
“Used anything. All secondhand stuff. I picked up a few things working for him. One of them was lock picking—because lots of times furnit
ure would come in with locked drawers and the key was long gone. The other was an eye for quality old furniture. Not so much antiques, but good old stuff.”
He dropped to one knee beside the table and motioned Julio to do the same.
“Check out the underside here. Hardly anybody ever paints that. See that wavy grain? That’s golden oak. Mister Rosen showed me how to strip furniture down to the original wood. This’ll clean up nicely.”
He’d get to work on that soon.
“You need help?” Julio said as they rose again.
“Thanks, but I kind of like working with my hands.”
“I owe you, Jack. You know, for Zalesky.”
“Don’t even think about it. I get off on that. But we’re not done with him yet. We’ve got to figure a way to get into his safe deposit box.”
“Too bad you can’t just walk in with the key and say you’re him.”
Jack shook his head. “He’s probably been in and out a bunch of times. Somebody might know him.”
“We can get someone who looks like him.”
Jack shook his head again. “I don’t want a third party involved. Let’s keep this just between the two of us. Besides, it would have been just his style to hit on one or more of the ladies.”
Julio grinned. “Then they really remember him.”
Just what Jack was afraid of.
“I’ll think of something.”
He hoped.
“I still owe you, meng.”
“Well, then, if you feel that way, the best thing you can do for me is get working on helping Rico get set up in business.”
Julio shook his head. “You got some kinda godfather thing going?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, like I owe you, this Rico guy’s gonna owe you—”
“I owe Rico for his leg. I’m just evening up.”
Julio gave a derisive snort. “You saved his sister! For that alone he owes you big-time. Now you set him up in business—”
“He’s gonna think the money came from you, and he’s gonna pay you back.”
“Unless he’s a real dumbass, he’s gonna figure where the money’s from, and so he’ll owe you twice.”
“Whatever. So anyway, how’s that make me a godfather?”
“You keep up like this, pretty soon you have people all over town owing you favors. Like that mafia guy—what’s his name? The one who talk funny.”
“Don Corleone?”
“Yeah. Him.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah right. Like that’s gonna happen.”
But he did prefer to be owed favors than owe them.
Julio had to take off for the bar, so Jack began looking for a spot in the new place to hide his cash and guns. He’d brought them uptown in a backpack he’d kept tightly strapped in place.
With the extra advance rent and security deposit on the apartment, plus the cash he’d given Julio to help Rico, his money supply was dwindling. He was still more comfortable than he felt he had any right to be, but he needed to find an income stream. He’d have to work on that. But first he had to work on a way to get into Zalesky’s safe deposit box.
He emptied his pockets and found a receipt from a one-hour photo place. He stared at it a moment, wondering where it had come from. Oh, right. Two weeks ago … taking shots of Zalesky’s bank lady friend at that midtown pub. Well, with Zalesky out of the picture now, the bank lady didn’t matter.
He crumpled the receipt and was about to toss it in the garbage when he remembered that Zalesky was in those shots too … from all angles …
He flattened out the receipt as an idea began to form.
3
Jack noticed Cristin wince when he slung his arm over her shoulders. They were walking along Second Avenue on their way from a tapas-fest at Rioja, one of their regular feeding stations; a cold wind had risen as winter reasserted its hold on the city and Jack was trying to offer a little extra protection.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little sore there.”
“Hurt your neck?”
“No.”
She seemed hesitant—all the more reason to push.
“Well, why’s it sore?”
“Just got a tattoo there.”
“Tattoo? You?”
“Wasn’t that the name of a Stones album when we were kids?”
“You’re avoiding the question. Tattoo?”
“You’ve got something against them?”
“Well, I don’t understand them. The stick-on kind you can wash off—fine. But permanent?” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“What if it really means something to you?”
He shrugged. “Opinions change. Tastes change. I’ve seen amazingly ugly tats on people.” One of the shirtless DDP guys flashed from his memory of Thursday afternoon. “Just last week I saw this guy—”
“The one who worked over your face?”
The bruises had turned a sickly yellow and were fading, but still pretty obvious. He’d given her a sketchy rundown of what had happened.
“Not sure. One of them, probably.”
“You hang with strange people.”
“I definitely don’t hang with these guys. Anyway, he had this huge tattoo on the back of his shoulder—a black-and-white skull with Technicolor flames roaring from its eye sockets. I wouldn’t want something like that on my wall for ten minutes, let alone on my skin where I’d be carrying it to my grave.”
“De gustibus … right?”
“Yeah, of course. And it’s his skin. But what gets me is that if he thinks that flaming skull is so cool, why place it where he can’t see it? It’s only where other people can see it, and only if he takes off his shirt.” Jack shrugged, genuinely baffled. “I mean, what’s the point?”
She smiled. “Well, if it’s where he can’t see it, he won’t have to look at it if he decides later he hates it.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. Some of these ugly tats might have seemed like a good idea at the time—like when you were stoned or drunk—but in the light of day I’ll bet there’s been tons of times people have shuddered and said, You mean I’m stuck with that the rest of my life?”
“What if you could have van Gogh tattoo Starry Night across your back? Would you turn him down?”
“I’d send him to you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. If it’s on my back, I can’t see it unless I’m looking over my shoulder in a mirror. If it’s on your back, I can sit and gaze in wonder. Might be even more wonderful across your front. Those hills could be—”
She hit him on the arm. “You’re too damn practical. And how do you know I’d take my shirt off for you?”
He laughed. “That’s never been much of a hurdle.”
She laughed too—and hit him again.
When they reached her apartment she took off her coat, turned away from him, and lifted the back of her hair to reveal a strange symbol in black ink across her nape …
“Okay. What is that?”
“Ama-gi.”
“Gesundheit. Really, what am I looking at? It looks like golf-tee Tinker Toys.”
“It’s Sumerian. I was leafing through a book in a client’s apartment—”
“Making a house call?”
“He’s head of an anthropology department and wanted to throw a retirement party for an old professor on the faculty. Anyway, he had this book with all these cuneiform symbols—”
“Cuneiform, eh?”
“The first writing—started out as pictograms and eventually evolved into—well, golf tees is a pretty good description. I used to reference them for dress designs.”
“For your FIT assignments?”
“Right. Everyone thought they were sooo original—like I’d come up with something totally new.” She smiled. “I might have forgotten to mention that they came from the dawn of civilization.”
“Why would you? I’m sure the copyright has lapsed.”
“Anyway,
they’ve fascinated me ever since. And when I saw that this means ‘freed,’ I had to have it.”
“Why not just ‘freed’—in English, I mean?”
She dropped her hair and turned to him. “Because it’s more than a word. It was the first written form of the concept of liberty. And it was originally a tattoo! The Sumerians tattooed it on freed slaves. The professor told me it’s literally ‘return to mother.’ Isn’t that cool?”
Jack didn’t know much about slaves, but he’d heard many were abducted as children—he thought of Bonita—so it made a lot of sense.
He slipped his arms around her waist. “You want to return to your mother?”
“No. But the point is, I can if I want to, but I don’t have to. I’ve declared myself free.”
He kissed her forehead. “Of what?”
“Everything: people, conventions, society, laws.”
“So you’re an anarchist?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t think much about politics.”
All he knew about the two major parties was they talked different talk, but once in, they both seemed to walk the same walk.
“This isn’t politics—this is personal.”
“Okay, fine. But come on, Cristin. You’ve got to have some rules.”
“I have tons of rules—for myself.”
“What about everybody else?”
“Just one: Don’t tread on me.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I can go with that.”
“And anarchy doesn’t mean ‘no rules,’ by the way. It means ‘no rulers.’ Big difference, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” Sounded like Cristin had given this some real thought. He loved how she was so full of surprises. He ran his lips along the side of her throat. “Why the back of your neck?”
“Because then no one can see it.”
“But neither can you. So what’s the point?”
“The point is, I know it’s there, because I put it there. And I didn’t put it there to tell the world, I put it there to remind me to avoid all entanglements, foreign and domestic.”