by John Altman
The client from Baltimore leaned forward, looking impressed.
“I pinched some space from the trunk. Some space from the backseat. But nobody’s going to notice a thing unless they take out a tape measure. They can hold a mirror beneath the chassis, they can search the trunk and the interior, and they’ll never look twice.”
“What happened to the guy who commissioned it?”
“Funny story.” Sal inserted a pinch of tobacco into his lip. He refitted the panel, then left the car and spat onto the asphalt. “Little guy. Colombian, or maybe Cuban. So the car’s going to carry heroin, or maybe coke. I don’t ask, you know. I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business. I just do the work. But in the back of my mind, while I’m doing the work, I’m thinking heroin or coke …”
The man from Baltimore nodded.
“… then his face gets splashed across the papers. He’s a child molester. A pervert.”
“No shit.”
“The compartment’s going to hold drugs, I thought. But now I see—it’s just about the right size for a little girl.”
“No shit.”
Sal nodded. He spat again. “So fuck ’im,” Sal said. “He shows his face to pick it up, I’ll beat him clear into next week. I’ve got a little girl myself, you know. But it means I’m left with this vehicle on which I’ve done, if I do say myself, one hell of a job. I need to get it off my hands. So it’s a bargain.”
“I don’t know if I can use it.”
“I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse.”
“I’ll think it over.”
“You do that.”
They shook hands. Then the man got into his Range Rover and spun into the street, tooting the horn once. Sal watched him go, then moved back into the office. He checked the clock hanging on the wall. Eleven-forty.
When he stepped outside again a military helicopter was crossing the noontime sky.
He took his girlfriend to a matinee.
They sat in the last row, making out like teenagers. Audrey did something to him, and there was no denying it. It was similar to what Krista had done to him when they had first been married. As they kissed, his hands moved up and down her blouse; his head spun with dizziness.
On the movie screen, two Italians were discussing a hit. They were meant to be part of the Mafia. Sal, following along with half an ear, found the portrayal utterly unconvincing. Worse, it reinforced negative stereotypes. The real gangsters these days were not the Italians but the blacks, the Colombians, and the Russians. And the real gangster movies were not this warmed-over shit—gangsters reheated from decades of stereotypes, a practice that had been losing steam until The Sopranos had hit. The real gangster movies were the ones about hungry kids. He had seen a flick called City of God, about child gangs in Rio …
Then Audrey had his zipper open. She was bending down. He leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes, half-listening to the lousy actors on-screen portraying reheated Italian stereotypes as his head continued to spin.
By quarter past two he was back in the office, with less than three hours to live.
His final afternoon passed drowsily. He sat behind his desk, reading a newspaper and absently spitting tobacco into a cracked mug.
He had skipped lunch to see Audrey. At three-twenty he went to the deli down the block for a roast beef sub. After eating behind his desk, he felt the need for a nap. He moved into the cramped back room, off the garage, and lay down on the cigarette-burn-scarred sofa.
When he woke up, the quality of the light had changed. He sat slowly, rubbing at his eyes. Gradually, his synapses began to fire. He returned to the office and looked at the clock. Ten to five. He had slept the second half of the afternoon away.
Then he realized: He needed to pick up Phil from soccer practice, on his way to pick up Trish from her friend’s house.
He was late.
Big Tony was nowhere to be seen. But the shop was closing at six. Until then, they could do without him. He found his keys, left the office, and slid heavily behind the wheel of his Mustang convertible.
His first inkling that something was wrong came a half-block from the auto shop.
The inkling involved a presence in the backseat. Before Sal had registered it consciously, the presence moved in a fluid way. A length of wire looped over Sal’s scalp and dropped to his throat, pinning his head to the pony interior upholstery.
“Keep driving,” a voice hissed into his ear.
Sal’s body informed him that doing as he was told would be a good idea. The wire was pressing against his windpipe, and if he disobeyed the order, then the man in the backseat easily could cut off his air—if not his head.
His eyes moved to the rearview. The shape behind him was dark and low. Behind the shape he could see the shifting lanes of rush-hour traffic—not too terribly thick, out here in the boroughs. In the city, the traffic would have been thicker. If the traffic had been thicker, someone in another car might have glanced into the interior of the Mustang and seen the large man behind the wheel with a wire looped around his throat and a figure skulking in his backseat. But they were not in the city.
“Watch the road,” the voice commanded.
Sal’s eyes slipped away from the mirror, to face the road again.
For several moments, they drove in silence.
“You’re making a big fucking mistake,” Sal said then.
He was surprised by the evenness of his voice. Fear and anger were competing inside him—for the moment, anger seemed to have the upper hand—and either emotion might be expected to make his voice shake. But he spoke with the calm determination of a man stating an inarguable fact. “A big fucking mistake,” he said again.
No answer from the backseat.
“You trying to scare me?” Sal said. “Well, I’m not scared. You’re the one who should be scared. I’ll split your skull for this. You motherfucker.”
“Turn left,” the man commanded.
Sal didn’t reach for the turn signal. The wire pinched harder into his throat, cutting off his air. He cursed, hit the turn signal, then spun the wheel. They moved off the avenue and onto a side street, heading in the direction of the bridge.
The wire let out an inch of slack; Sal drew a burning breath.
“You’re with Liguori,” he said.
Michael Liguori had been threatening Sal for about eight months now, ever since Sal had started to cut into his territory. Sal wasn’t afraid of the wannabe gangster, who was strictly nickel-and-dime, and didn’t understand his place in the scheme of things. He hadn’t expected this, however. He had thought that Liguori was all bluff. Evidently he had been wrong. The wannabe gangster had sent this man to put a scare into Sal … or something worse than a scare.
He looked in the rearview again. Except for the eyes, the face there was cloaked in shadow. The eyes were cold as dead ashes.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Sal said.
But his hands on the wheel were white-knuckled, giving lie to the statement. Sweat had broken out on his brow. He shifted in his seat, and the wire dug into his flesh. “Goddamnit,” he said, “let up a little.”
“Turn right.”
This time he obeyed without argument. They turned into a parking lot behind a seafood restaurant. The lot was empty. Beyond it was the waterfront; towering over them, the bridge sparkled like tinsel in the late-afternoon light.
“Park behind the Dumpster.”
Sal slid the Mustang behind the Dumpster. Now they were hidden from the parking lot, hidden from the eyes of everyone except the commuters in their cars on the bridge above. To those commuters, the Mustang would not attract attention. All they would see was a car parked by the water. A couple of teenagers looking for a quiet place to make out. He remembered kissing Audrey in the movie theater, the way his head had spun.
If only he had taken down the Mustang’s roof, he thought, then they would not be hidden from view. But he had been waiting for summer. It had been a hard fucking winter
and a rainy fucking spring, and for the first time in a decade, he had reached the end of April without taking down the Mustang’s roof.
“Raise your hands,” the man said.
“Fuck you,” Sal said, and then spun in the seat, meaning to get his hands around the man’s throat. He would show this cocksucker what it meant to fuck with Sal Santiori. He would send a message to Michael Liguori, not open to interpretation. For a fraction of an instant, he was pleased that this had happened—he had found a chance to bust a head today; he had found a chance to send a clear message to everyone who thought that Sal Santiori could be bullied into giving up even an inch of his territory. They thought he had grown complacent, fat, soft. They were wrong. As soon as he had his hands around his man’s throat, he would show them all—
He managed to turn halfway around in the seat. Then the wire was biting into his windpipe so harshly that the sparkle of the bridge brightened, washing out everything else. An exquisite pain blossomed in the precise center of his skull. The entire world was pain and light, his throat and his skull.
When the wire loosened infinitesimally, Sal was no longer angry. Now he was only afraid.
“Christ’s sake,” he managed.
“Hands.”
He raised his hands, trying not to breathe because breathing made the wire slice deeper into his windpipe. Then a second length of wire looped around Sal’s wrists, pinning his hands together above his head. The man in the back pulled it tight without mercy.
Reflexively, Sal tried to lower his wrists into his lap—that would be more comfortable—but the man stopped him with a sure hand. Sal caught another glimpse of the eyes in the rearview. Now the cold ashes in those eyes were smoldering.
For several seconds, they held each other’s gaze.
He realized with a dull thud of surprise that he recognized those eyes.
The face around them had changed—aged, softened. But the eyes belonged to the little man who had commissioned the modified Honda. The child molester.
“I’m going to ask you a question,” he said.
“Christ’s sake,” Sal said again.
“Did you tell anyone about me?”
“Fuck—”
The wire around his throat tightened. Something in the sleeve of the man’s tunic jingled softly, like the chimes on the door of the auto shop.
When the wire relaxed, Sal was seized by coughs. A dollop of bloody mucus hit the center of the steering wheel and clung for a moment before beginning a long, slow downward slide.
“Did you tell anyone about me?”
Sal’s throat felt as if it had been torn open. A single tear ran down his cheek. He shook his head; the motion brought a flare of agony.
“Not the police?”
“Nobody.”
“Is the car ready?”
He nodded, as tightly as possible.
“Keys?”
“In … the office.”
A low rasping burr reached his ears. He knew that sound—a strip of duct tape coming off a roll. A gloved hand came forward and slapped the tape across Sal’s mouth. Somehow the wires around the wrists and throat never loosened.
Another burring rasp, as a second strip of tape was pulled free.
The second strip went over Sal’s eyes.
Then he was being tossed into the passenger seat like so much luggage. Enough rationality remained for him to be surprised at the little man’s strength. A moment later, the man had climbed behind the wheel. Sal was riding shotgun, trussed around the wrists, blindfolded and gagged. He could go for the little man, he thought. He could dive across the seat, bound wrists or no, and try to pay back a little of the strangling. But his chances would be better if his hands were free …
… he rotated the wrists, exploring. The wire was tight, but there was some slight give. He kept rotating his wrists, striving to loosen it.
“Stay low,” the voice said. A hand pressed on his head, forcing him down into the seat.
He stayed low, moving his wrists in quick, tight circles.
When sixty seconds had passed, they turned again. By then Sal had gotten his left wrist half-loosened from the bonds. But from the crackle of gravel beneath the tires, he knew that they had reached the garage. Was Big Tony still inside? Would Big Tony look out and see what was going on?
The engine died. The door opened. The man was going to check on the Honda, Sal understood.
He kept trying to tug his hands free. His wrists were slicked with blood. But the blood served as a lubricant. Five seconds passed, and he felt close to slipping the left hand out. Give him ten more seconds …
The man was in the car again. “Looks good,” he said mildly.
He took Sal’s hands, tugging the wire tight. Sal uttered a muffled cry into the duct tape over his mouth. Then more tape was coming free.
The tape was slapped over his nose—cutting off his air.
Not good, Sal thought.
He began to whip his head from side to side. His lips beneath the tape worked like a horse’s chewing cud. A terrible heat began to burn in his temple. He jerked his hands with such strength that they tore out of the man’s grip, then reached up to claw at the tape on his face.
The man firmly took the wire between Sal’s wrists and restrained him.
Ice was filling Sal’s belly in great, cumbersome chunks. It spread out through his veins, chilling him. He kicked at the dashboard. He began to try to climb out of the car—his feet padding up onto the wheel, kicking at the windshield. Big Tony, he thought, what the hell is wrong with you, look out the window for Christ’s sake—
Purple slashes cut the darkness. The need to breathe was passing. The need for anything was passing.
Beneath the tape, his eyes bulged. A shuddering tremor passed through his body as his bowels evacuated.
For another thirty seconds the assassin continued holding Sal’s wrists, making sure.
Then he let go. The bound hands fell into Sal’s lap. Sal rolled bonelessly onto one side, spearing his ribs on the gearshift.
The assassin left the Mustang, bringing his bags. He turned to look into the car. Sal was sprawled facedown in the passenger seat. The pony interior was splotched with blood, mucus, and pungent shit.
He spent two seconds looking down. Then he turned and made his way toward the office. Three miles away, Sal’s son watched as his last teammate climbed into his parent’s car. Phil Santiori gave a sigh. He set down his shoulder pads and checked his watch. Where the hell was Sal?
14
APRIL 30, 2100 HOURS
At 1630 dinner was served. Until 1705 the subject left both food and water untouched. During this time he faced the one-way mirror, clearly meaning a show of rebellion. Subject’s willpower proved short-lived and at 1705 he began consuming both food and water, completed at 1715 hours.
Nausea occurred at 1740 and was more pronounced than expected. (Lower dose of staph enterotoxin recommend for future use: 20 cc?) For twenty minutes he expelled his dinner into the latrine, with shivering and extreme perspiration. Shortly past 1800 he crawled to bed, where he remained motionless for nearly an hour.
At 1855 subject began talking to himself. Verbalization was slurred and slow, the words themselves inaudible. Yet increased agitation and distress are unmistakable. Disassociation is evident in many mannerisms, including shaking of the leg, compulsive touching of the beard, occasional touching of the scar on the right ear, and a contortion of facial features in a childlike manner.
At 1940 subject’s nausea apparently returned. He lay down on the cot and soon fell into an uneasy slumber. Cell lighting has been discontinued, coaxing the brain from a waking alpha state to a beta state, reinforcing an environment conducive to trance. The sleep will be interrupted at two-hour intervals throughout the night, increasing disassociative tendencies.
In the early morning a conversation will be initiated to determine whether behavioral conditioning is proving effective. If not, commencement of depatterning is feasible at an
y time, as subject’s deterioration is pronounced.
“Ms. Miriam Lane?”
“Yes?”
Behind him, a mother was scolding her children. He hunched farther into the phone nook, raising his voice to cover the sound. “This is Jack Atelier, calling from Atelier Discount Auto Parts.”
Tension hissed over the line. The woman was holding her breath, he realized.
“I’ve got good news,” he said. “The final drawing of our promotional campaign has indicated that the winner of the grand prize is—you, Ms. Lane!”
She exhaled with the force of a wind tunnel. “Praise the Lord,” she said.
“How do you feel?”
“Praise the Lord,” she said again.
“You’ve won five hundred dollars and a brand-new Honda Accord. Subject, of course, to final confirmation by the division of promotional compensation. Atelier Discount Auto reserves the right to revoke or amend this gift if fraudulence on the part of the rewardee is discovered. Other terms and conditions may apply.”
Silence.
“Ms. Lane?”
“Yes?”
“Within no more than twenty-one business days, you’ll be receiving a check for five hundred dollars. Within no more than seventy-two hours, you’ll be receiving a brand-new Honda Accord. Can you use a new car, Ms. Lane?”
“Lord knows I can.”
“We’ll deliver the car directly to your door. We’d like you to begin using it immediately, if that’s not a problem. Because in two weeks you’re going to be flown down to New York City, where you’ll take part in the filming of a television commercial. It would be nice if you had spent some time behind the wheel, so you can talk honestly about what a fine vehicle it is.”
“It’s so exciting,” she said.
“It certainly is. In New York you’ll be staying at the Parker Meridien Hotel, located at One-eighteen West Fifty-seventh Street. But I’ll be back in touch next week, to provide more details about that. This call is only to inform you of your status as grand-prize winner, and to arrange the delivery of the car.”
“I’ve never won anything before in my life.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Within the next seventy-two hours, as I said, the car will be delivered to your door. There’s no need for you to be home to receive it; the key will be left in your mailbox—or, if you’ve got a mail slot in your door …”
