The Death Panel

by Cheryl Mullenax (Ed)

The man starting laughing, the laugh spasmed into a coughing fit. The news anchor’s voice fought with the racket of the man’s lungs.

  “—no survivors have been found. The Boeing 747 was reported to be carrying a full contingent of 346 passengers, according to NationAir records. F.A.A. authorities are arriving on the scene—“

  “It was one of them Aye-rab bombs, I bet,” said the shopkeeper. “Don’t see why the rest of us got to suffer ’cause the kikes and the ragheads can’t get along.”

  “They said the plane was full,” Monroe said, half to himself.

  “Yep. You know how they are these days. Wedge ’em in with a crowbar. They interviewed the man who was first in line to go standby. Everybody showed, so he never got on. He was thanking God seven ways to Sunday.”

  No standby passengers. But what about the ticket belonging to Robert Wells? Someone must have used it. Someone—

  Monroe stumbled toward the street, his head reeling.

  “Hey, got a special today on handguns,” the shopkeeper called after him. “No waiting.”

  But Monroe was already out the door. He walked fast, fell into the New York rhythm, blind to everything.

  Someone must have used his ticket. Who?

  The mugger.

  The mugger must have checked in with the ticket, became “Robert Wells” himself, and grabbed a seat across the country. Maybe the mugger wanted out of this town so desperately that he’d risk having the authorities waiting for him at LAX. And for his trouble, the idiot was probably now in a thousand pieces, feeding fish in Long Island Sound.

  If so, the creep had gotten what he deserved. Monroe touched his sore head to remind himself that everybody had to go sometime. Everybody had to pay that one big debt. The trick was to put it off as long as possible.

  As he turned the corner, another thought came to him. Unless the spooks had been watching, then they didn’t know that Robert Wells a.k.a. Monroe never boarded the plane. They would get the list, see the name, go over the data on the terminal computer, and verify that indeed Robert Wells had met his end on Flight 317.

  A perfect bow-tie on their witness protection program. Case closed. The Fed’s star witness against Joey Scattione was now utterly and forever safe from the mobster’s long reach. Even Scattione couldn’t finger a man in the afterlife.

  Monroe walked faster, excited, his pulse racing, red wires of pain shrieking through his temples. He realized that Scattione would also think him dead. Scattione was way sharper than the Feds, even though he’d been convicted on racketeering and drug charges. Thanks to Monroe, who’d been one of his best street lieutenants.

  But Monroe knew a good deal when he saw one. When the net tightened and the Feds needed a pigeon, Monroe did even better than squawk: he’d sung like a deflowered canary. After, of course, eliciting a long sheet of promises, including permanent immunity and protection. And a new identity.

  An identity that was dead.

  What he needed right now was his old friend Sid.

  Monroe turned into a bar, though it was scarcely ten o’clock. A man in drag who looked like he hadn’t slept was slumped in one corner, holding a cigarette that was four inches of ash. Two cabbies were drinking off the effects of the third shift. The bartender kept his attention focused on the tiny black-and-white that hung in one corner. It was tuned to the same news coverage of the crash.

  “Help you, buddy?” the bartender said, without turning.

  “Scotch and water. A double.”

  “Poor bastards,” the bartender said, still watching the television as he reached for the stock behind him. “We think we got it bad, but at least we ain’t been handed our wings.”

  “Yeah,” Monroe said. Catholic humor. Like everybody was an angel.

  The man poured from the Johnny Walker bottle as if dispensing liquid gold. The ice cubes were rattled into the glass before Monroe could complain about the weak mix. Then Monroe remembered he had no money. He acted as if reaching for his wallet, then said, “Excuse me, where’s the rest room?”

  The man nodded toward the rear, eyes still fixed on the set, where the field anchor was now interviewing a witness. As Monroe headed for the dark bowels of the bar, he overheard the witness talking about airline food. The news team was groping, fumbling to keep momentum, the tragedy already sliding toward ancient history. The transvestite winked as Monroe passed, and up close Monroe couldn’t tell if she were a man dressed as a woman or vice versa.

  Sheesh, and I thought I had an identity problem.

  But maybe the she-male was onto something. In the bathroom, Monroe studied his own face in the mirror, trying to picture himself in lipstick. He shuddered. Better to take on Joey Scattione than to pluck his eyebrows and duct-tape his gut.

  He washed his hands and went out. The transvestite was waiting by the door. Monroe cleared his throat. “Say, you got change for a phone call?”

  The transvestite sneered and produced some coins, then dumped them into Monroe’s palm as if afraid to catch a disease. Monroe mumbled thanks and stopped by the pay phone. He dialed a well-remembered number. As the phone rang, he watched to see which gender of bathroom the transvestite chose.

  Neither. The transvestite went out the back door. The line clicked as the connection was made. “Hello,” came the welcome though nasal voice.

  “Sid, hey, it’s me. Monroe.”

  “Monroe? Like I know any Monroe?”

  “Hartbarger. You know.”

  “Afraid not, friend.”

  “Jesus, Sid. Monroe Hartbarger. You sold me the damned name yourself, for crying out loud. Driver’s license, Rotary Club membership, credit cards.”

  “I don’t know any Hartbargers.”

  Monroe sighed. “It’s Charlie Ehle.”

  “Charlie? Why the hell didn’t you say so? You expect me to remember every job?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I need another one. Like pronto.”

  “Rush jobs cost extra, my man. But for you, I can have you set up by five o’clock.”

  Monroe nodded into the phone. Sid always got chummy when he smelled green. For a document man, Sid had enough smarm to work every side of the fence: green cards, counter check scams, fake IDs, forgery, bogus lottery tickets, anything that involved paper or photographs. But Sid liked cash, lots of it, payable when services were rendered.

  “Can’t you do better than five? I’m kind of in a jam.”

  “Oh, the Scattione thing.”

  The Scattione thing. Damn those Feds. Monroe’s testimony was delivered in closed court, the records sealed. Sure, Monroe expected stoolies in the judicial branch to leak to the Mafia. This was America, after all. But when even the criminal fringes such as Sid knew the score, that meant the clock was ticking down twice per second on Monroe’s remaining life span.

  “Fix me up, what do you say, pal? Just the basics.”

  Sid let out a slow whistle. “It don’t pay to cross Scattione. But I guess you already know that, huh?”

  “I can give you five grand.”

  That shut up the weasel. For a moment. Then the shrewd voice came across the wires. “How come the spooks didn’t set you up? Figured you’d be a family man from Des Moines by now.”

  “We decided to part company,” Monroe said. “You think I could hide from Scattione while some of them secret agent types were guarding me?”

  “Suppose not. So, what are you in the mood for? Irish? Got some McGinnitys all ready to roll off the press.”

  “With my coloring? You got to be kidding.” He glanced at the bartender, who was watching the news as if it were a boxing match. The transvestite entered through the back door, ignoring Monroe.

  “Okay, okay, already. Where you at?”

  “Just off Van Wyck.”

  “Meet me at Naomi’s Deli on Greenway. Five o’clock.”

  “You need a recent photo?” Monroe asked out of habit. He knew Sid kept files on all his old customers. You never knew when blackmail might come in handy.

  �
�No. And let’s make it six grand. I got two kids to put through college.” The phone clicked and then hummed. Monroe hung up and went back to the bar. He thought about asking the transvestite to pay for his drink, but that would be pushing it. Instead, he walked past the bar, hurried out the door, and was lost in the crowd before the bartender could react.

  He walked for a while, ten blocks, until his feet were sore. He didn’t know if Joey’s people could find him more easily if he kept moving, or if he tried to hole up. Eventually, fatigue and the dull ache in his head sent him to a bench in one of those half-acre dirt patches that the city called a public park. The two trees clung stubbornly to their oxygen-starved leaves.

  Someone had stuffed an afternoon edition, the Daily News Express, in the trash can. Monroe fished it out. More crash coverage filled the front page, photos of the obligatory grieving survivors, bits of wreckage, FAA talking suits. On page seven was a list of those believed to have been on board NationAir Flight 317.

  Monroe ran his finger down near the bottom of the list. Wells, Robert.

  So far, so good. Wells was officially presumed dead.

  And Scattione, with his resources, would know that Monroe Hartbarger had become Wells. Scattione would get the word in his Sing Sing cell, his lips would veer to the right in churlish anger, and he’d pound his fist against the hard mattress. Nothing could tick Scattione off more than revenge denied. Monroe had to smile.

  But not laugh.

  He couldn’t laugh until later, when Monroe Hartbarger was officially laid to rest, along with Charlie Ehle and the half-dozen other identities that Monroe had adopted over the years. Fingerprints were no problem, really. All he had to do was build up the kitty, turn a few deals, and grease a few palms. Everywhere a record was kept, there was a human recorder who had access to it. All Monroe needed was access to the recorder.

  Monroe had learned that it wasn’t a question of whether integrity could be bought and sold. It was only a question of price.

  He managed to nap a couple of hours, keeping the newspaper over his face. Scattione had probably passed out a hundred photos. Monroe could change his name, but he was stuck with those same recognizable features. At least until he got to Cayman, where he knew a decent plastic surgeon. First things first, he needed to live long enough to get his new identity.

  The walk downtown took longer than he expected. When he entered the deli, Sid gave him the once-over. Monroe’s suit was rumpled, the knees dirty from being rolled by the mugger. He hadn’t shaved, either.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” Sid said, as Monroe slid into the booth opposite him.

  “I haven’t fallen yet,” Monroe said.

  Sid was eating a Reuben, and though Monroe hadn’t eaten all day, the smell of the sauerkraut curdled his stomach. Monroe checked the door. Sid wasn’t known as a double-crosser. He couldn’t afford to be, in his line of work. But, with Scattione in the mix, everything was subject to change.

  Sid brought out a large envelope, put it beside his plate. “Hello, Mister Raymond Highwater,” he said.

  “Highwater? What sort of name is that? It’s so phony, I won’t make it to Jersey.”

  “I stole it out of the phone book. That’s what you get when you ask for a rush job.” A piece of corned beef was stuck between Sid’s teeth.

  “Listen, I got to ask you for a favor.”

  Sid patted the table. “Pay for the last one, then we can talk.”

  Monroe leaned over the table. A group of Hassidic Jews were across the room, two women were chatting over coffee, a college-aged kid, probably a film student from Columbia, was reading a magazine at the counter. None of them looked like Scattione’s people. But in this city, the walls had ears, eyes, and sometimes a .45 automatic.

  “I’m short at the moment,” Monroe said. In the ensuing silence, he heard a bus honk outside, and somebody in the kitchen dropped a pan.

  Sid stopped in mid-bite, took a slow chew, then began working his jaws like a ferret. “Short,” he said, spraying rye crumbs across the table.

  “Listen, I can make it good.” Monroe’s words came fast, like bullets from a clip. “You know me. I can have it for you tomorrow. And—what say we make it ten big ones? All I need is a little time as this Highwater guy.”

  Sid wiped at his mouth with a paper napkin. Then he put one hand on the envelope, and in a smooth motion, slid it back inside his jacket.

  “Come on, Sid,” Monroe said, checking the door again. “We’ve done business for years.”

  “Always cash on delivery.”

  Monroe tugged at his collar, sweat ringing his forehead. He knew the window of opportunity was small. Even though Scattione thought “Robert Wells” was dead, at least one person knew that Monroe was still breathing. Sid.

  With a fake credit card, Monroe might still be able to get out of the city. All he needed was a name. He’d already died once today, he’d killed off a dozen other identities in his time, but he’d always been the one to deep-six himself. By choice. “I can deliver, Sid. I know you got skills, but it only takes you an hour to crank out a set of documents.”

  Sid shook his head. “It’s not about the money. It’s about pride and reputation.”

  Same with Scattione. What sort of rep could a Mafiaso have if the man who’d fingered him was walking around as free as sin?

  “Nobody will know, Sid. I promise. I’ll deliver, then you’ll never see my ugly mug again. I’m thinking Cozumel, maybe Rio.”

  Sid sat back and pushed his plate away. The group of Hassidic Jews continued chattering. The college kid set down his magazine and ordered something. Monroe looked at the clock.

  “Please, Sid.”

  Sid pursed his lips. Then he stood, dropped some bills on the table to cover the cost of the sandwich, and brought out the envelope. Except this one had come from a different pocket. He dropped the package in front of Monroe. “Joey pays twenty.”

  The bell rang as Sid went out the door. Monroe stooped, picked up the envelope, and tore it open. Who was he this time? Not that it mattered. He’d even be a damned McGinnity if he had to.

  He stared at the driver’s license.

  It didn’t make sense. It was his face, all right. But this license was gone, floating somewhere in the East River. He read the name slowly, his lips shaping the syllables.

  Robert Daniel Wells.

  He moved fast, got to the street, but Sid was gone.

  Monroe glanced at the crowd, among the eyes that seemed to shine like search beacons. Which ones belonged to Joey’s people?

  He broke into a run. A laugh tore itself from his lungs, a spasm borne of fear and hysteria. He should have known that Joey’s reach, even from a prison cell, was longer than the longest arm of the law. Monroe had been around long enough to know that Joey liked to play.

  Like a cat with a cornered mouse, like a spider with a stuck fly.

  Monroe ran on. He thought that maybe if he ran fast enough, someday he’d catch up to himself. But somedays never come, and Robert Wells had a debt to pay. Under any name.

  Fly By Night

  Tim Curran

  * * *

  1

  When Donny Cerrone was pulling five years hard time for extortion conspiracy at the federal hole in Lewisburg, he got into a beef with a black drug runner named Willy Sikes. Just some bullshit over a lottery the cons were running and distribution of said profits. Typical thing cons banged heads about. Donny, working in the prison infirmary, told the doc there, said to him that if Sikes didn’t cool his fucking heels, he was going to wake up one morning with his head shoved up his own ass. The doc, some Korean dude sitting on a stretch for trafficking OxyContin, thought that was funny. Said such a thing was not physically possible.

  Donny figured he was right.

  Years later, he found out different.

  2

  “That him? That the stiff?”

  The guy doing the talking was Archie Mann, a ballbuster out of the State Police Organized Crime B
ureau. He was a real regular over in Ducktown, Atlantic City’s Italian neighborhood, though he was about as Italian as beans and rice. But he wanted the people to know he was there, that somebody in New Jersey gave a rat’s ass about them, the shit they had to chew and swallow. Because Atlantic City was mobbed-up and always had been. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as the old days when Nicky Scarfo was running things and bodies were dropping like rice at a wedding, but it still could have been better. So Mann liked to drop around, let the old wops see him, let them know he had his eyes open and his hands in on things.

  And that’s what brought him in on this, a dead man in a cold water walk-up. Just that stiff hanging there, looking like something a couple anatomy students had just gotten through hacking on.

  Michael Perno stood by Mann, his face twisted-up like he’d ate something rancid that wouldn’t stay down. But a lot of cops looked like that and more often than not, it didn’t take a corpse to inspire it. It just was.

  Looking at the body hanging there, the CSI techies in their white utilities measuring things and scribbling other things in their notebooks, Perno said, “Richard Rice, age thirty-two, got a sheet on him longer than a horse’s pecker and not much better to look at … assault, attempted manslaughter, strong-arm robbery, all the goodies … a real fucking boy scout here. Around the block they called him Richie R. He’s been out of Yardville maybe sixteen months, word has it he’s been real tight with Donny Cerrone and his crew.”

  Mann nodded, looking at the stiff and thinking it was enough to put a guy off meat. Rice looked like something from an Italian zombie pukefest. “What do you make of this? What kind of chord is this striking with you?”

  Perno shook his head, pulled his eyes away from the body which looked like about 250 pounds of raw hamburger. “It’s not good, Archie, but I don’t see LCN in this one. I mean, shit, this isn’t La Cosa Nostra, no way. This is just fucked-up.”

  That pretty much said it.

  Richard Rice, a.k.a. Richie R, had been—according to the Medical Examiner’s cursory exam—beaten to the proverbial pulp, nearly decapitated, then disemboweled and hung up like a party pinata with his own intestines. That was real sweet, that bit. Took real imagination to come up with that one. But Mann had seen lots of crazy shit in his time. He told Perno about that Puerto Rican broad over in Vineland, how she’d been sharing the goods with some of her husband’s friends, so he stuck the barrel of a Remington 12-gauge up her cootch and pulled the trigger. Said that had been an ugly one, all right. With the Remington hanging out of her, she looked like a corndog on a stick someone had taken a big bite out of.