CHAPTER 2
‘I want you to kill me.’
As he said it, Anthony James Freemantle felt a profound sense of relief. For the past hour he had been loitering in a dark alley opposite the bar he was now in, regretting the greasy burger lying heavy in his stomach. He had pissed twice, delaying tactics whilst summoning up the courage to say the words. Now they had sealed his fate.
Well, not exactly. The disease had already done that. It had lurked within his system for years, undiagnosed until very recently. He presumed that the initial damage had been done whilst he was still at university, where he had indulged in the kind of hedonism usually associated with Roman orgies. Or it could have been on any one of his long holidays in Thailand.
It hardly mattered now. All that mattered was the short amount of time he had left to achieve what he wanted to do, which was why he stood beside one of Manhattan’s most elusive executioners, waiting for him to react.
Frank Mancini continued to stare straight ahead at his own ghostly reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar. He nursed a shot glass with long, elegant fingers. Jim Beam Black. No ice. In relentlessly black clothes, he radiated an aura of quiet menace.
Tony coughed gently, to remind the man that he was still there. Mancini downed the remainder of his bourbon before rising with graceful deliberation from his barstool.
Tony took an involuntary step backwards. In his sharp-toed goatskin boots, Frank Mancini topped six and a half feet. His presence had become as dense as a black hole, sucking out all strength from the feeble light in the bar. At that moment, Tony wondered whether his wish would be granted sooner, and a lot more painfully, than he intended.
Mancini headed towards the counter where another man slipped off his seat and melted into the crowd. He settled comfortably on the vacated stool and motioned to the bartender to fill his glass again. The big man glided over with a square bottle and poured. Tony took a deep breath and approached him again.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘He heard you, buddy. Now he wants you to leave,’ the bartender said, cocking a porky thumb towards the exit.
‘What’s it to you? Buddy?’ Tony’s voice was reedy and affronted. There was laughter in the dark behind him, three poker players who probably should have known better than to eavesdrop, but Tony’s skinny, peroxide-blond presence stood out in the dark, testosterone-charged club. An intense pool game had also been abandoned in favour of watching Mancini make gravy out of the pretty boy who did not know any better. Tony ignored them, his gaze fixed on the silent man. Mancini continued to drink, ignoring Tony.
‘There’s a mosquito in here. Get rid of it, Benny.’
‘Sure, boss.’ The bartender clicked his fingers and a bulky bodyguard appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Tony by the shoulders. He was steered unequivocally out of the bar and thrown on to the sidewalk.
He stumbled onto the road and was narrowly missed by a passing truck, horn blaring. Slowly climbing to his feet, he brushed down his clothes, brimming with humiliation. The goon who had removed him from the club was still standing in the doorway, feet planted squarely apart. Getting back in was not an option.
Trying to maintain his composure, he wandered down the street, aware of the implacable black Ray Bans following his every step. He thought about getting a cab, but he only had two dollars in his pocket right then. As he walked down Delancy Street, he realised that the stresses of the evening had made him hungry. Two dollars would just about buy a Snickers Bar and a can of Coke in a city where nothing came cheap except for a bad screw. He hoped that Pagan had done the grocery shopping for the weekend already, but doubted it. She had begun to insist that he pay his share, as he was at the apartment more than she, and ate most of the food before she had a chance to get to it. Resentfully, he thought she had been getting very mercenary lately. It was unfair, as she had a decent job whilst he slung hash in a rundown diner down in the meat-packing district.
He bought the chocolate bar and Coke with three cents to spare. His breath plumed in front of him as he returned to the tiny bedsit he shared with his sister in Chinatown. He walked past tiny grocery stores showing exotic fruit and vegetables tainted with unnameable emissions from the jostling yellow cabs and beaten-up jalopies. The countless restaurants and bars were filled with fashionable, rowdy crowds. People spilled out onto the streets, loitering on street corners or pushing their way impatiently though the congested sidewalks. Young girls with small skirts watched the crowd watching them. They chattered in high voices, all pouting lips and sensual kohl-rimmed eyes, their fake Obsession perfume assaulting Tony’s sensitive nasal passages. With some relief he turned into the dark street towards the Pleasure Garden.
It happened too quickly for him to register at first. The arm around his throat threatened to cut off his air supply as he was dragged into a deep doorway filled with stinking trash. In the dark, the silver click of a blade was almost visible before he felt the lethal edge against his ribs, directly in line with his heart.
‘Who sent you?’ Mancini’s voice was quiet and level, his grip vice-like.
‘No-one.’ Tony’s breathing sawed painfully. He scrabbled at Mancini’s arm with no affect. He began to wheeze and squirm.
‘Whatever it is you think I do, I don’t conduct my business in the middle of a fucking bar! Who told you about me?’ Another hard squeeze, to drive the question home.
‘Vincent… Galletti.’ The words came out high and strangled.
‘That’s Mr. Galletti to you, asshole. Why would a man like that talk to a little shitface like you, huh?’
‘I asked him for help and … he gave me your name.’ Tony was fighting for breath. ‘It’s the truth, I swear!’
‘Who are you?’
‘Tony Freemantle. Vin… Mr. Galletti said …’ He was thrown aside like trash and he sagged against the wall. ‘Mr. Galletti said you were the one to talk to.’
Mancini stepped back to let him climb to his feet, and looked around. ‘Where the hell are we?’
‘I live here.’
‘Alone?’
Tony rubbed at his sore throat. ‘With my sister.’
‘Is she attractive?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Tony looked suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because I have a dozen people on the streets who will gladly give the bitch a visit if I find out you’ve been talking to anyone else. Maybe they’ll have themselves a little party, and maybe by the end of it, she’ll be a bigger whore than you. If she’s a peach, I won’t have to pay them so much.’ Mancini flicked the blade under Tony’s pointed chin, forcing him to look up. His cold green eyes bore into Tony’s watery grey ones. ‘Do I have to spell it out?’
Tony carefully shook his head.
‘Good.’ Mancini retracted the blade.
He led Tony back towards the club, where an old Cadillac was waiting in an abandoned car lot. A few minutes later he parked the car snug up against a ramshackle warehouse on the edge of the East River. The stink of gently lapping, oily water mingled with the almost overpowering odour of fish. Mancini lit another smoke, ignoring Tony’s coughing and waving of his hands in front of his face.
‘Talk to me,’ he said, settling back in his seat.
Tony wound down the window a fraction, gratefully inhaling sweet, fishy air. He was more concerned with the smoke getting into his clothes. Stale odours were bad for business, and his laundry bill did not come cheap, even in Chinatown.
‘It’s my sister …’
Mancini shook his head. ‘I don’t do women or kids, Freemantle. If you want her dead …’
‘No! It’s complicated.’
‘I don’t do complicated either. I get the call, boom, end of story.’
‘Just listen to me! What I want is a man dead, and then myself, dead, and I want her to watch it happen because it’s her fault. End of story.’ He spoke rapidly before Mancini could interrupt him ag
ain.
But for the first time that evening, Mancini’s face showed something other than languid boredom.
‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’
Tony’s lips compressed. ‘I prefer “out for justice.” I’d rather not say any more until I know you’re interested.’
‘You’re asking one hell of a lot, Freemantle. What am I supposed to do with your sister afterwards? Take her to Bloomingdales for some retail therapy?’
‘Are you interested or not?’
Mancini lit another smoke and blew two ghostly rings out into the dark night. Tony watched him, noting with interest that his hands seem to tremble. Finally Mancini looked at him again, his expression neutral.
‘Interested, perhaps. Stupid, no. If you can sweeten the deal for me, I’ll think about it.’ He motioned generously for Tony to continue.
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