by David Levien
“If he dies, he dies,” Riggi had said when Wenck asked how far they should take it.
Wenck and Gilley. Gilley was tall and rangy, a skate punk who’d grown too old for half-pipes and rail grinding. He could’ve been an electrician or a plumber, made a regular life for himself, if only he could stand people. He’d punched out enough foremen, with his big hands and longdistance right, that Riggi started hearing about him around the real estate office. He looked a little further into the stories and learned that Gilley ran with a guy, Wenck, who’d been arrested a dozen times on assault, stolen property, and extortion beefs. Wenck had served three stretches in prison ranging from thirty days in lockup to eighteen months in the state facility. He was as wide as he was tall, with a thick, smashed-down brow and a low forehead, and could only have been what he was — a piece of grease for hire. It would have been the same for him no matter what era he’d lived in. If he had been around in 1800s New York, he would’ve been a perfect Plug Ugly. When Riggi asked himself if he had the right men for the job, he could only conclude that he did.
Paul sat in his car down the street from the fine house, aware that he was in exactly the wrong place. A few lights shone in various parts of the home, but he had been there for forty-five minutes and hadn’t seen any movement or other signs of life. He was beginning to think the lights were on to create an impression but that no one was there. He felt his heart thudding; he thought he could even hear it. He and Behr had left the abandoned rental house after deciding that there was nothing else, besides that newspaper, to be gleaned from the place. They’d done their best to smooth out the broken jamb and pull the door shut behind them. Behr drove Paul back to his car, and as he had something else to do that night, they’d agreed to go and look at Riggi’s residence the next day. Less than an hour later Paul found himself sitting at Riggi’s, wondering if he had the stomach to do what he intended.
He had seen the list of addresses several times over the course of the last few days and Riggi’s street and number were burned into his brain. He’d pointed his car toward his own home in earnest after leaving Behr, had even reached the outskirts of his neighborhood, before succumbing to the raw urge that wouldn’t allow him to let it go for the night. Riggi was living well, that much was clear. The house was a whitewashed brick job, a modified Georgian with a great room squared in by large leaded windows. If the addition was a bit out of the style of the rest of the house, the place certainly looked rich and comfortable. Well-kept grass and some boxwoods surrounded it. Up and down the block lights were on in other expensive houses. There was the occasional figure passing by a window, a garage door opening and a car pulling in or out. Paul assumed there must be signs beyond that, a process or method by which a trained individual could tell if a house was occupied. But Behr wasn’t with him. He was alone. He decided on his own method: He’d wait two full hours and if there were no signs of movement, he would do it.
Rooster hung from the horizontal crossbar that stretched across the top of his cell door jacking out pull-ups. He was on his fifth set of fifteen, his forearms pressed against the vertical bars, but something was wrong. He hadn’t been able to conjure a song, not even a guitar riff, in his head all day. He thought back and realized it was before he’d been roughed up when he’d last heard music in his mind. Danzig’s “Ashes.” Then he’d been knocked around and he’d lost the music. He squeezed out his last rep, feeling the blood flow into his lats. He smacked his hands together after lowering himself to the floor, trying to summon energy, then hit the ground on his back and began his last set of one hundred sit-ups. In the past day he’d gotten to a thousand. There was no telling how long he’d be inside and he’d set his mind to staying hard. It was the only choice. If he let the mind go, the body would follow, and he’d be chum the second he was dropped into general population. He was meeting with his court-appointed attorney the next morning to prepare for his arraignment. In the meantime he was being kept in special holding. It wasn’t bad so far: no roommate; two hours optional in the television room, which he skipped to work out in his cell; fifteen-minute private shower at the end of the night before lights out. The food was rough — salty, fatty, carbed up. That was the biggest problem he’d faced in the short term. He didn’t hold much hope for Mr. Free Lawyer, either. Those guys tended to be pretty bottom of the barrel, and he found himself considering whether he should call Riggi for a hook or not. If the private investigator–fuck had shown up on Riggi’s doorstep, it’d be a suicide call. If not, it’d be what was referred to as a lifeline. He finished his set, his abdomen seizing and burning with the effort, and decided he’d wait and see what the public defender guy had to offer tomorrow before he’d make the call. He slid his feet into shower sandals, got his soap, razor, and towel, and shuffled down toward the shower room.
“I considered Pinnochino’s, but, you know, I thought maybe it was too romantic. Didn’t want it to look like I was pressing,” Behr found himself volunteering after Susan had complimented Donohue’s. “Cool place,” she’d said. “Clubby.” “Also, you go all out on the first date, how do you know what she’s coming back for, right?” he added, wondering why in the hell he was acting so gabby.
“C’mon, Frank. How ‘bout a little confidence in what you have to offer?” She smiled. “Sorry, I haven’t been out much lately.” “Yeah? That case you’re working on?” “That. And my line of work. I never meet—” “Me neither.” “You? No—”
“Who’m I gonna date, the inkblots I work with? Nah.”
She drank Johnnie Black on the rocks and ordered a flank steak right along with him.
“I’m not a salad girl,” she offered without much apology, starting in on her food.
“Good,” he said.
“Ah, you’re probably right. Pinnochino’s, the candles in the wine bottles and all, might’ve reeked a little like desperation,” she allowed, then asked, “Ever been married?”
“Once. You?”
“Close one time. Kids?”
“Had a son.”
“Had?”
“What say maybe next time we talk about it?” Behr said, trying to keep any edge out of his voice.
She gave him the eye, trying to decide what she was dealing with. Then she nodded and went back to her food.
“Who’s that?” she asked of Pal Murphy, who was, at the moment, sitting and holding court with six young men in their early twenties standing in a circle before him.
“The owner.”
“Oh, he’s Donohue then,” she concluded.
“No, Murphy.”
“He bought the place from Donohue?”
“Uh-uh, Maguire, I think: Must’ve been a Donohue somewhere down the line, though.”
“Yeah.”
They smiled at each other.
Oscar Riggi’s left knee bounced in a rapid rhythm beneath his cocktail table. He was tired of the taste of scotch and salted nuts and had twice gotten up to leave, only to grab ahold of himself and ask where the men’s room was once and where the telephone was the second time. He’d had his credit card swiped through and had had a tab open for the last hour and a half. He’d made sure the waitress knew him, and the bartender would remember him, too, now that he’d asked the brace of questions. There had been a dozen random patrons in and out over the course of the last hour, in addition to a wave of conventioneers whose panel discussion had just broken, and more than a few would recall the well-dressed man with the shining dome who’d sat alone in the middle of the bar. “He seemed to be waiting for someone or something,” they’d think, not knowing that it was a call to his cell phone from Wenck and Gilley to tell him it was done. Time was crawling, though, and he couldn’t keep the doubts in his mind at bay. He’d told the boys to take their time, to pick the right moment and location, but they were eager and he’d expected them to call already. He couldn’t make himself wait anymore. He held up his hand for the check. He’d head home, make some calls, and sign on to the Internet from there. Not as good as wai
ting in the bar, but he was out of patience.
Paul drummed his fingers on the wheel and calmed his breathing as he came to his decision. His thoughts had been of Jamie during the past hour and a half. It was unusual. He had taken a disciplined approach when it came to musing about his son. When he let himself go for more than a moment or two, the memories flooded in and threatened to wash him away altogether, so he preferred to keep them at bay. But sitting in the car with nothing else to distract him besides the large white house filling his view, he’d been powerless to stop or even organize the images in his head. He pictured Jamie as a young boy, wearing his choo-choo train pajamas, sitting in his lap, the soft weight of him in his arms. He remembered him standing in right field, half bored, his mitt hanging low at his side. He recalled the smile on his boy’s face when Paul pretended he couldn’t find him and he had popped up from a cardboard-box fort in the basement after Paul had said, “I give up. I just don’t know where the heck he is.” The memories were like a jab to the stomach that left Paul half gasping and sickened. He rubbed his face and got out of the car.
The night air had a late-winter bite to it, just a promise of spring off in the distance. He approached the house, leaving the flagstone path and cutting across the lawn. He didn’t knock or ring the bell before trying the knob. Locked. He circled the house in a replay of what he and Behr had done that afternoon. He found this to be a house with sturdy doors and bolted sliders, not to mention armed alarm panels glowing inside behind small, thick windows in both the front and back doors.
Paul performed a full loop of the house and discovered nothing close to a way in. He knew he should get his ass back in his car and speed it out of there, but he sat down on the back patio on a piece of lawn furniture to think. It was peaceful in the back, only the sounds of the neighborhood, distant and muted, floating in as a reminder of where he was. Deep inside him a faint voice was urging: leave, leave. But still he didn’t move. During his wait he tried to conjure up cover stories as to what he was doing there should Riggi get home and discover him. When he came up with absolutely nothing plausible, he began to consider whether he could handle the man physically should it come to that. He wasn’t sure. He played two scenarios in his head — one that had him kicking out Riggi’s knee and pouncing on him, the other beginning with a hard cross to the man’s face before he was ready for it. Neither seemed too definite.
Finally the sounds of the night began to intrude and Paul realized he’d stayed too long and it was time to clear out. As he got up and headed back around front, he saw a small hutch that protected the garbage from raccoons and other vermin. He looked around and crossed to it. He opened the hutch doors and found three large Rubbermaid trash cans. Two were empty, but one held a pair of kitchen-size garbage bags. Paul half held his breath before pulling the bags out, closing the hutch, and hustling back toward his car. He opened his trunk to put them inside when a pair of headlights washed him with blinding white.
Behr had enjoyed the feel of having a young, pretty woman at his table. Her scents changed the familiar booth to an exotic place. There was the light mint, remnant of the gum she’d chewed for a minute after her coffee and then wrapped in a sugar packet, a citrus he clocked as hairspray, and an exotic floral that was her perfume. It was time to leave, however. He didn’t want to stretch a first date’s conversation to the point of uncomfortable. That didn’t seem to be a danger as Susan knew how to alight on a subject just long enough before moving on to the next and to sit quietly for pleasant moments as well. Still, though, when something had gone as well as this dinner had, Behr was loath to kill it by dragging it on too long. He raised his hand toward Kaitlin, who was standing by the service end of the bar, and she headed right over with the check she had ready.
“Anything else, Frank?” the waitress asked, her voice husky from a lifetime of nights spent working in places like Donohue’s.
“No, we’re good,” Behr said, looking to Susan, who nodded. Kaitlin moved on as Behr reached for his cash.
“Can I … ?” Susan said, picking up her purse.
“No, you definitely can’t,” Behr answered, counting out bills, “but you’re a peach for asking.”
“I knew you’d say no.” Susan smiled, causing his blood to rush to his stomach.
“Ready?”
“Let’s blow this joint,” she said, collecting her bag, coat, and scarf and sliding out of the booth.
Rooster be-bopped into the shower room, silence inside his head and out. He’d mastered a confident walk his first time in jail. He’d learned it was paramount, even if one wasn’t feeling confident. He steered clear of two big dudes who were just finishing up, moving down the row of showerheads to the end of the line. He flexed his lats a little and realized he was bulked up but not truly big and never would be at one eighty-five, one ninety tops. The two guys, turning off the water and toweling dry, each had forty, fifty pounds on him and probably didn’t work too hard to get it. The County towels barely went around their trunks. Rooster felt his own somewhat heavy steps on the tiled floor and recognized his own size change was a sham. He was jacked but still not truly big. And he’d lost some speed and quickness, which used to be among his primary weapons. If he could manage to get out of this place, get back to a diet of his own choosing, he decided he’d cut down, go high rep, fast twitch, until he was wire and sinew like an Asian shoot fighter. He’d give up the bull and become the cobra.
He kept half an eye on the guys down the way as they collected their stuff and drifted out of the room. He adjusted the water and stepped under the needle spray of the water-saver head. He worked his cheap soap into the best lather he could and began washing. He was rinsing off when they came in, three of them now, big and thick. Rooster felt them move down the row, heard their steps under the shower’s sizzle. He saw shoes on the first one, out of the corner of his eye, and that was a bad sign. He played it cool for another second, girding to turn to them and start the ritual of proving he was no bitch. But they weren’t circling and testing. They were on a direct course.
The first blow landed on his lower back with a wet slap just before he was ready. He felt a moment’s smug confidence at the lightness of the blow, the lack of pain it caused, and turned to kick some ass. Fighting naked wasn’t his first choice, but such considerations fled his mind as fury rushed in. Then his body realized it wasn’t an open-handed smack. He’d been stabbed. Fuck, he breathed, as his kidney went cold. It felt frozen over. Then the shivs started landing like a flurry of bee stings. His fists went out in a feeble combination that caught nothing but air. The attackers’ jabs produced bright red starbursts of blood against his pale skin. His legs turned to lead, then went taffy soft. He didn’t drop, more melted to the floor near the spray of the shower. His three attackers stood over him for a moment, towering black men he’d never seen before, blank looks on their faces.
“Welcome to County, short eye,” one of them said in a low voice.
They extended their bloody metal points into the flowing water, and once they’d been rinsed clean, turned and left the room. Rooster felt his eyes go clear. He wasn’t seeing anything now. He squinted and fought for focus. The tile floor came into view. His blood ran in a brown stream, with water, down the floor drain a few inches from his face.
I could have been special echoed in his mind, then evaporated. He sighed, the last oxygen he’d ever breathe seeping from his lungs.
They were crossing the short expanse of Dono-hue’s parking lot when they heard the staccato thump of two car doors closing. Behr glanced toward the street. A car was there, motor running and lights on. Two men approached. More of Pomeroy’s terriers, Behr thought. Their appearance caused him to keep walking toward his car, in an attempt to look unworried, rather than turn back inside the restaurant.
The men, Mutt and Jeff in size and vibe, started coming faster. They didn’t say anything, and Behr saw the blood in their eyes and realized they weren’t cops.
“Get around the car,�
� he said to Susan, flipping her the keys. It was then he made out in the darkness the length of pipe each held alongside his leg.
The shorter of the pair, a stout bastard, led the way, stepping like a crab, pipe raised, other hand up around his face, ready to rock. But Behr was ready, too. He dove toward the incipient violence with abandon, the way he knew he must.
The side kick of a strong, trained six-foot-six-inch man is a weapon for which there is very little answer in the street, and the stout man ate one full bore. Behr loaded up and stepped into the kick, sending it right up the middle below the man’s defenses. Despite the fact that Wenck weighed north of two hundred and thirty pounds while standing only five foot six, he was lifted off his feet. He landed hard, sitting down on his ass, behind a great out-rushing of air from his lungs, a look of befuddlement on his face.
Behr regained his stance, left foot forward, and squared just as the tall guy swung at his head. Behr understood, when he managed to block it, that the pipes they carried weren’t hollow but solid-core cut-down rebar. He took a glancing blow off his forearm that would swell and bear a bruise for months, but it didn’t catch bone. As bad as his left arm felt was as good as his right did when he pivoted and connected to the lanky man’s chin. A shiver ran up Behr’s arm, all the way to his shoulder cap. The man crumbled back and sagged to a knee, the rebar dropping from his hand. A broken jaw for certain.
Behr glanced over his shoulder to see that Susan had gotten behind the car and was crouching at the fender. He turned back to locate the recipient of his kick, expecting the man to be back up in his face or pointing a gun at him. Instead the man was on hands and knees, his abdomen heaving for breath, ropes of saliva hanging out of his mouth. Behr swept up the piece of rebar and stepped toward the man, who stood, then took a half-step forward, before he lost his will. He turned and fled from the parking lot toward the street. Behr would have chased him if not for Susan and the screaming freight train of agony that was only now rushing into his forearm. He looked back to the tall one, who had managed to scuttle a good ten yards away on his hands and heels. Now he got up and ran, in dizzy, loping strides, after his partner. They got in their car, which Behr made as a Gran Torino, though he couldn’t see any license plate, and it backed out of the alley fast. The car shot into the street, lurched into forward gear, and disappeared.
