CHAPTER 14
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS
At the Phoenix airport a couple sour-faced toughs in black suits were standing in the lobby. I could tell right away they were Family friends, even before they spotted Vinnie. The huge tall one sort of hung back, looking this way and that, casing the place out, while the short skinny one stepped up to Vinnie with a big smile on his face. "Vinnie, you son-va-bitch!" he said. He said it with no accent, so I figured he was from North Jersey or The Big Apple.
`"Snake, you fucking little weasel!" replied Vinnie with a huge smile, and the two hugged each other like they do in those mob movies, while the big guy eyeballed me, sizing me up. He smiled a little, and his eyes sort of twinkled, and I knew exactly what he was thinking: that he could take me out if he had to, no problem, and he'd have fun doing it. Mobsters, you gotta love um. These are real guy-guys, the real deal, and no bullshit.
"This the Kid?" asked Snake, eyeballing me himself.
"That's him," said Vinnie, nodding. "Jake, this here is Snake and Tiny. We go way back.”
"Pleased to meet you," I said, with as much sincerity as I could muster, offering my hand, which they each shook, Tiny squeezing hard enough to let me know where I stood in the pecking order; as if I needed any education on that score.
We walked away from the gate. Snake and Vinnie went first, followed by me and then Tiny, who followed me like he was my shadow. I didn’t like it. I missed my comfortable first class airline seat already, with the free drinks and the curvy flight attendants; I missed it plenty. We all walked to the airport entrance, and stepped to one side, out of the path of rushing tourists and business folks. Vinnie and Snake faced off. They were in no hurry; everything they did was careful and deliberate. "So. You find our Indian friend?" Vinnie asked Snake casually.
"Sure, we got him stashed away in a little house in the country. Why is this red guy so hot? Red hot, right?" He laughed.
"That's just what me and Jake need to find out. You see any elves or other funny folk here-abouts?"
Snake laughed some more. "Not since Halloween. The papers got that all blown out of proportion. We got some rattlesnakes and Indians out here, but we been working on that. Another couple years and it’ll be just as nice here as Queens."
Vinnie never broke a smile. "It ain't so funny now, back in Jersey and the Apple. We think maybe the elves are trying to nose in on our turf."
"No shit!"
"Lots of shit. Tons of shit. Magic shit, even. Jake here can tell you guys some pretty wild shit stories later. How far to the house with the shaman?"
"Not far. We got enough hours of daylight to make it there easy. Here's our limo." He pointed to a long black SUV-limo parked curbside where there wasn't any parking allowed. A cop stood nearby, waving away anyone that threatened to block off the limo. Our tax dollars and non-tax dollars at work.
"What about our luggage?" I asked Vinnie.
"Yours is going to Hawaii, smart ass. Mine is in the limo, right Snake?"
"Sure. We wouldn't screw around wasting your time."
We piled into the plush limo, me and Vinnie and Snake in the back and Tiny in front with the driver, another oversized sourpuss who didn't say a word. Though he sat in front, Tiny kept staring at me by use of a mirror on the back of his visor, while giving me that goofy little smile of his. The big guy was still bugging me. It must have been part of his job description.
I decided to pay more attention to other things. The inside of the stretch-SUV limo was all polished black leather, probably standard mob-issue. Pretty easy to clean up blood, I bet. They probably kept a roll of paper towels and some body bags stashed on board somewhere, for those awkward messy moments that can happen.
The countryside was totally weird. As we moved away from the concrete of the airport, I noticed the flowers planted all over the place, sprinklers shooting water up from hidden underground pipes, and trees: weird trees, if they were trees. "Hey, what the fuck are those things?" They were tall with a few big leaves only at the top, the same kind of leaves you see Catholics running around with in the spring.
"Palm trees, Jake," said Vinnie. "Oh, that’s right, you ain't never been west of Pittsburgh or south of Baltimore, ain't that right?"
"Damn, you know more about me than I do!"
"That's how I stayed alive so long, Kid. Enjoy the trees and flowers and so forth now, when we get out of town there won't be so much of them."
He was right. Green life and lawn sprinklers quickly gave way to tan sand, rock, cactuses, and brownish leaved, dead looking bushes. There were scrawny little trees too, here and there along dry streambeds, but mostly it was pretty damn plain. I ain’t knocking Arizona, but Jersey dirt is mostly sand too, but at least there's green stuff growing all over it. This whole place was mostly dead and empty looking as hell. It was hot out there too, in the late afternoon sun. A dry heat, but this was obviously a damn tough place to live. Even worse than Connecticut, maybe, and that’s saying something.
We turned off the big highway onto a small one, and off of that onto a dirt road (I say dirt, but it was mostly just more sand and stones), and off of that onto a dirt path. The limo moved on smoothly, rocking a little like a big boat, but taking on big rocks and ruts like they weren't even there.
I’m not sure I like that in a car. In the Ford, I can feel the road really good, every Jersey crack and hole and patch, and crack or hole in a patch. That lets you know what’s going on with your tax dollars. In the mob limo I was riding smooth, too smooth. I was beginning to get a bad feeling that this whole trip was like that; first class airline seats and then limo travel that could let a guy get a false sense of well-being.
We drove on and on. I’ve been in the country lots of times, but I never seen nothing like this. Back home there would be junk yards as you moved out of town, then the occasional farm and fruit stand and lots of small bars. Little chunks of civilization, even out in the boonies. Here there was no traffic, no cows, no bars, no nothing. I ain’t never seen so much nothing.
Meanwhile, Tiny kept turning and eyeing me, and smiling. I was getting a little nervous. I couldn’t help thinking that this easy to dig in sand-pit of a state was a really good place to take someone if you wanted to bump them off, especially if you were mob guys. And I happened to be in a limo full of mob guys. "Nice and quiet out here," I remarked, hoping to spark some friendly conversation. Male bonding, the geeks call it.
"Quiet as a fucking grave," said Snake, laughing. Tiny laughed too, proving he had sort of a frog-voice plus a morbid sense of humor, and everyone including the driver eyeballed me like they knew something I didn't, but didn't care to talk about. Not to me. Why bother talking to me, anyway? Maybe I was dead already, to these guys. Shit.
I took out one of those little bottles of brandy I grabbed from the plane and chugged it down. "Makes a guy thirsty, being out here in the desert," I remarked. Actually I was a little cold, the A/C was turned so high, but I was sweating anyway. Tiny stared at me almost constantly now, smiling more and more, and probably reading the growing fear in my eyes. Mob guys can read you that way, just like a pit bull can. No, Tiny was more like a mastiff; Vinnie was the pit bull. Snake? He was a smallish Doberman. Me, I was the burger, chopped up and ready to be ripped apart.
Was this it? Were they going to bump me off? What would Vinnie tell Elaine, I wondered? The Elves got me? Indians got me? Scorpions got me? This place reminded me of a particular gravel pit back home in Jersey, famous for bodies somehow showing up in it after-hours. Only it looked like this whole damn state was a gravel and sand pit. No wonder the mob liked it! This whole fucking place was one big setup, I realized, and here I was, quietly going along with it, taking the limo ride to hell. At least I was going first-class. I checked my pockets for more booze and came up empty. While I was on the plane I should have stashed away more of them little bottles of hooch.
Just when I figured there was nothing out here but my grave, we pulled up to an old shack. Another guy in a black suit waited at the o
pen door of the shack. He was another big, mean, ugly looking bastard, but I was really so glad to see him and the shack, and not just a Jake-sized hole in the sand, I could have kissed his ugly puss.
We stepped out of the limo into the late afternoon sun and the heat and the brightness of it damn near knocked me down. In the city back East we’ve got protective smog to cut back on them nasty, deadly rays from the sun. No such natural comforts here, where there was nothing but clear blue sky and more of that damn dry heat. Luckily we had only a few feet to walk to the shack, and my trusty white fedora shaded my head. It was made of heavy wool felt material though, and I was begining to appreciate that in certain climates a light-weight straw Panima hat might be a good idea.
Inside, I was disappointed to find it wasn’t even air-conditioned. It was hot as hell, and so dry it hurt to breathe, but at least we were in the shade. It was dark as a cave in there, and almost as sandy and dusty as outside; the desert was moving in to take over again, through all the little holes and cracks in the ancient windows and wood-slat walls.
In the darkest corner a small figure with gray ponytails sat cross-legged on the dusty wood floor. He had a many-colored blanket wrapped around his shoulders, even in the heat. I couldn’t make out his face. Vinnie and I stepped forward to face him, with Snake behind Vinnie, and my shadow Tiny right behind me. Too close behind me; I could hear the big guy breathing, and feel his stinking breath on my neck, and I didn’t much like it.
“How,” said Vinnie, lifting a thick paw in greeting to the Indian. You got to admire those mob guys; they can communicate OK with anyone.
It was too dark to tell for sure, but the old man didn’t seem to do a damn thing in return.
“What’s your name, chief?” asked Vinnie.
The old man still didn’t do nothing.
“He don’t talk much,” explained Snake. “We figured we wouldn’t wear the old guy out ourselves, till you got here, Vinnie. We figured you’d want to talk to the old dude yourself.”
“Sure. You and Tiny can wait outside. Me and Jake will persuade our friend here to talk.”
“Right,” said Snake, and he and Tiny moved towards the door, with knowing smirks on their faces.
“Hey no, you know what?” added Vinnie, as they reached the door. “Why don’t we let just Jake do it? That OK with you, Jake?”
“Me?” I was too astonished to say anything else.
“Sure Kid, that’s what you came here for, right?”
“OK, sure, I’ll talk with him.”
Jake patted me on the back. “You’re one of the Family now, Kid. Use that curse thing of yours on him.”
As Jake closed the door behind him I could feel the old man’s eyes on me. “You be the cursed one, white man,” he said, in a quiet voice. It was a strong voice though, a voice with authority and no fear, like might have been expected under the circumstances of him being snatched by the mob.
“I just got a few questions, Nomoxin, nothing for you to be afraid of. Just tell me exactly what Henry Jenkins got from you.”
He chuckled. “You know that better than I do. You cannot escape your fate. The fear is yours, not mine.”
What the hell! It was like he was reading my mind! “Listen John, I can help you get away from these guys. Just cooperate.”
“No, it is I that can help YOU escape, Jake Simon.”
“How the fuck do you know my name? Did the mob goon squad tell you? And what do you mean, you can help me escape?”
“It is you that can’t escape, Jake Simon, unless I help you. I have talents, white man, like the elves. I can cause your friends outside to forget you, for a time. Then you can leave here; go away someplace and start your life over. You are carrying enough money.”
He was right. I had some of the cash from Grisim’s last check, stuffed away in my shoes and shorts for Hawaii. “I don’t get it. What’s in it for you?”
“I don’t like being brought and held here. This is the way I will get back at them. This way you can get out of trouble. You can escape them all.”
It was what I wanted, all right. A fresh start. No mob, no trolls or elves, no marrying into the Mob. It was perfect. Almost. No Elaine, for one thing. In my head I could see her sad puppy eyes. I could hear her voice. Then there were the legs and other good parts. Shit. “No deal,” I said with a sigh. I must have been crazy.
“No? Are you sure? The troll left a treasure. My tribe could help us get it. We could both be rich.”
“Treasure? What kind of treasure?”
“You know! You’ve been working with the troll, cursed one. What is he after? What are the elves after? You know what it is, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Even if you don’t know about the treasure, I can still save you, get the treasure myself, and share some of it with you, just to get even with these evil white men. You can escape them forever with some of the treasure, and you can escape the Family.”
Sure, it sounded good. Too good. Elaine was only one reason for not doing it. The other big one was that I couldn’t chance it, it was too risky. I was already way out on a limb with the Hawaii thing, and I didn’t want to end up in London and Paris at the same time. “No can do. Sorry, Nomoxin. I’m going to play this straight through for the Family. I wouldn't betray them for anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure. I ain’t crazy; no damn way would I ever, ever cross the Family. Now just tell me exactly what you gave Henry.”
The guy stood up and pulled off the blanket and a gray wig. Even in the dim light I could see now that he was a little old white guy in a dark suit. The usual dark suit! One of the mob! He whistled.
Vinnie led the others in. He was smiling and shaking his head. “Son-va bitch, you did it, Kid! Our man here was wired and we heard it all. You passed with flying fucking colors!” He patted me on the back, knocking the wind out of me.
“This was a setup?” I managed to ask Vinnie.
“Sure. Nothing personal, Kid. Family business. We had to be sure, especially after that Hawaii crap. I set the whole thing up with Snake.”
“There is no John Nomoxin?”
“Sure there is. Snake?”
“In the back room,” Snake said, as he nodded towards the back wall. Sure enough, there was a doorway that in the poor light I hadn’t even noticed before. Snake opened the door to the second half of the shack and we all went in. A boarded up window let in just enough light to show it was another empty room, except for a small thin guy standing along the far wall.
My blood ran cold when I saw him. Old Indian shaman hell, it was a fucking elf! Ears, fangs, slanted eyes, the whole damn nine-yards!
“Hi Chief,” said Vinnie. “I want you to tell us what Henry Jenkins got from you a couple weeks ago.”
I backed away, towards the door, but got only as far as Tiny.
“Can’t you see what he is?” I yelled.
“What the fuck you talking about, Kid?” asked Vinnie.
How could I explain? And if I did, who would believe it?
Then it was already too late. The elf reached into a pouch that hung from around his neck and waved a hand full of glittering faerie dust into the air, as a dozen more of the creature’s elf and dwarf friends poured through the door and into the room, laughing and grinning. They weren't dressed like cops or Indians either; these were wearing pointed hats, green tights, fury vests and other weird stuff.
My mob buddies just stood there blank-faced and covered with faerie dust.
“Vinnie,” I yelled. “Do something!”
“Hurt Jake,” shouted the fake shaman/elf at Vinnie, pointing at me with a clawed finger. "Hurt him bad, Vinnie, but don't kill him."
Vinnie turned his massive body towards me, his huge fists clutched. But otherwise he didn’t move. His faced showed confusion, like he was maybe trying to fight off the dust.
“Jake is a traitor to the Family, Vinnie, hurt him
, but don't kill!” said the elf.
“He’s lying, Vinnie,” I pleaded.
Vinnie’s beady black eyes turned as cold as a hooker’s heart. I had seen that look before, on the faces of other guys under elf control just before they tried to clobber me. “Call me Mr. Veracruz, punk. Only my friends call me Vinnie.” He reached into a vest pocket. I thought he was going for a gun, but his huge right hand came out with a couple of pounds of brass knuckles across his thick fingers. “Shooting would be too good for you, punk! I'm going to break you to bits and pound you into bloody pulp.”
Dull eyed mobsters and gleeful elves and dwarves backed against the walls to make some room for me to get clobbered. There were a couple of dozen elves and dwarves; they were so dense I couldn’t even see where the windows were, and they also managed to block the way out through the door.
When Vinnie swung at me with a right hook that would have crushed bones, I sprang away from the blow, and fell into Tiny’s loving arms. I kicked and squirmed, but I was like a little kid to the huge lug. Tiny held me tight as Vinnie moved in to smash at me again. Vinnie wound up for his next haymaker and let loose.
At the last moment I was jerked roughly aside. I could feel Vinnie’s fist whistle past my left ear to again strike only empty air.
“What the fuck is going on?” asked Tiny quietly in my ear, as he held me like a rag doll, again yanking me out of the way from another thunderous blow from Vinnie.
When I got close to Tiny, I must have broken the spell they had him under, and now he was saving my lucky hide! Meanwhile the elves and dwarves, quickly figuring out that something was wrong, latched onto both Tiny and me, dozens of hands pulling and pushing me towards Vinnie, while Tiny, even with angry screaming elves and dwarves hanging from his legs and arms, yanked me away from blow after blow from Vinnie. It was so rough that I lost my fedora. It was probably being trampled to bits by mob, elf, and dwarf feet. But I was still in pretty good shape, thanks to Tiny.
My big guy was already tiring though. There were too damn many elves and dwarves. They were hitting us now too, and getting in some pretty good punches for little guys. But in a fistfight I knew that Vinnie was the one to worry about. The elves and dwarves were getting in Vinnie’s way, actually making it harder for him to get in good shots at me, but I knew that it was just a matter of time before he clobbered me good.
“Throw me at him,” I shouted at Tiny, over the screaming oaths of the throng that attacked us.
“What the fuck?” asked Tiny, as he smashed a dwarf with a huge left hand and two more took its place.
“Trust me,” I shouted. “Throw me at Vinnie!”
In a flash I was airborne, powered by both Tiny and our attackers, who were taken off-guard, and were still pulling me in the direction of Vinnie. With something like a flying tackle I hit Vinnie, head to head, knocking him to his knees. Then I kissed the big guy, the most feared mob hit man in the country, square on his ugly puss, hoping that would break the elf spell really quick, like before he could break me in two.
It did. He looked at me funny, and wound up as though to still clobber me, but in another moment he was knocking screaming dwarves and elves through walls and windows. Tiny, now that he was free of me, was doing the same.
It was a slaughter. The Elves and dwarves were going down and out so fast I had to move fast to give the fake Indian elf an upper-cut to the chin. He went down cold. Magic-smagic, good old-fashioned fists worked just fine on these guys. In less than a minute not a single elf or dwarf was standing. It was a wonder that the cabin was still standing. Most of the windows and walls were gone, knocked out by flying elf and dwarf bodies.
Tiny and Vinnie gave each other a high-five, and then turned to me. “What the fuck just happened?” Vinnie asked.
“You were both under a spell by the elves,” I explained, “then my troll anti-magic curse brought you two around.”
“Me?” Vinnie exclaimed. “Controlled by fucking elves? I don’t believe it.”
“Ask Snake and his buddies,” I said, pointing at where the skinny mobster leader, the limo driver, the first fake Indian, and another mobster stood motionless like zombies. They had been bounced around a little during the melee, but they looked none the worse for it.
“O.K. Snake, what gives?” asked Vinnie.
“Look, he’s still spooked,” said Tiny, who was waving his hands in front of Snake and getting no reaction at all.
Vinnie snapped his fingers in front of Snake’s face. No reaction. He shook him. No reaction. Finally he shrugged and motioned me into action. I shook Snake's hand; I didn't feel like kissing his ugly puss.
Snake’s eyes cleared and took in the scene. His jaw dropped open in astonishment. "What the fuck just happened?" he asked, straight to the point, just like Vinnie had asked. Mob guys, you gotta love-um.
Vinnie smiled. "You got yourself a little elf problem around here yourself, just like we got back in Jersey. We was all magic-spelled clean out of our gourds, and my guy Jake here got us out of it. Show him Jake." He pointed at the limo driver. I shook the driver's hand, and the hands of the other two guy's, and we all stood back to watch the fun. Sure enough, they all soon came around OK and were winking and blinking and asking dumb questions.
"Oh shit," I remarked, shortly thereafter. We had all started looking around, admiring Tiny and Vinnie's handiwork, when the unconscious elves and dwarves that were lying around simply vanished.
"Son-va-bitch," agreed Vinnie. He picked something up off the floor of the shack, shook some dust from it, and handed it to me. It was my white fedora, and by some miricle it was as good as new! At the same time, his cell-phone rang. He answered it and carefully listened to it for a few long seconds, then said "right," sharply into it, before hanging up and turning to me.
"Some big trouble back home," he told me. "We was gonna spend the night at a good hotel. I even had them two nice stewardesses lined up to keep us company, Jake. Now we gotta go right back home on a company jet."
"Shit," I remarked, as we exited the remains of the shack, wondering if I would have had the brunette or the redhead or both.
We piled into the limo and it headed back towards the airport, while Snake made a few calls of his own. "My guys found the real John Nomoxin, what's left of him," he told us, a few minutes later. "Looks like them elf bastards found the real shaman first. He’s dead, and then some."
Just then my own cell phone rang. I was amazed that like my hat it hadn't been smashed to bits, given all the rough-housing, and even more amazed that I had coverage all the way out in the middle of nowhere. "Is that you, Jake Simon?" asked an all too recognizable voice. It was Loranda, the head elf bitch.
"Sure," I mumbled.
"I have someone here you know who wants to talk to you."
Worst case, I knew who I didn't want to hear at that moment, but that's just exactly who it was. "Jake? Is that you?" she asked. It was like a blow to the gut; the breath went right out of me. It was Elaine.
"Baby?" I asked, as best I could. "Is that you? Are you OK?"
But it was the elf bitch that was talking again. "Come home and help us find the toll, Jake, and just maybe we'll let her live. Maybe." Loranda laughed then, that crazy elf laughter. She laughed and laughed.
I was quickly past being scared and hurt and well into being pissed off. "You little bitch!" I screamed. "I'll break your fucking head off if you hurt her!"
After more laughter the line went dead. I turned to look at Vinnie. He has looking back at me, stone faced. "I know, Kid," he said. "They carried Elaine off a few minutes ago. We had guys watching her, but they pulled some kind of magic shit on them."
"That's why we got to get back to Jersey right away, Mr. Veracruz?"
"Right. That's why, Kid."
Numbly I nodded in agreement.
"Oh, and call me Vinnie."
****