by Jackson, Gil
* * *
Fariq’s mind was completely occupied with what the wharf master had told him. It was true, he supposed, that he had been around longer than himself in the neighbourhood, at least. He was in a better position to know more of the activities of Marco Giuseppi, although he hadn’t gone into details of what those activities were. What had he said, him being evil. He shrugged and gently shook his head, as if dismissing the word. The man probably uses the word evil like another man would bad. And in any case, Giuseppi was only another man: overweight, slimy and unpleasant, but still a man.
He had made life difficult for them though, him and his cronies. They were sick or evil, leastways the one that styled himself ‘The Rivet’. A real nasty bit of work. Hand it out all right; not so keen to take it back. Still Bear showed him the error of his ways, for a little while at least — while he was in hospital. They were right to take the fight back to them, he was sure. What Giuseppi would have made of the police investigation into the matter must have made life uncomfortable for him for a while at least. He would’ve liked to have seen his face though, when Tony and Sledge Driver had told him what had happened. What would have been his liking of that he wondered and smiled and felt sad at the thought of his good friend, Bear, bowing and smiling.
PART ONE
CHAPTER 3 – 1920
Fariq Mihalyvich crossed the street to his home: a row of dismal-looking buildings that had nothing to do with the time they had been first built; but for the steady influx of immigrants from Europe wanting a roof over their heads — any roof — they had been left standing. And those same immigrants, or the more fortunate of them, were beginning to move out as the depression moved in and began squeezing the life out of those remaining. These unfortunates sat on front steps making the most of what little winter sun remained before returning to the squalor of their damp rooms that they had to endure. His family, at least, were more fortunate than most in that he had brought a little money with him from his prospecting; which with his job kept the two rooms warm and furnished. They had their own sink.
It had been two weeks since Bear had died and coincidentally the same time since Giuseppi had last bothered them.
Fariq occupied the corner of the terrace and it was there that people normally to be seen outside their homes were now gathered outside his. On top of which a couple of police cars and a van. He didn’t know why, but he began to put together the last two weeks’ events with the crowd that had gathered outside his home.
Anxiously he started to break into a run towards them noticing at the same time that none of them was surprised at this show of athleticism on his part as they turned towards him.
‘What’s going on?’ he shouted to them stopping. They looked at him wondering who was going to speak first but nobody did. ‘Will somebody say something?’ his voice pleaded, but he didn’t get an answer until a woman embarrassed at their silence could keep it to herself no longer said:
‘We think it’s your wife. Oonna? She’s been murdered!’
He didn’t thank her, ran up the stairs to his rooms the woman’s voice repeating in his head, ‘She’s been murdered!’, and straight into the arms of a red-haired man, who stopped him going any further.
‘Oonna! Let me through, let me pass,’ he shouted struggling with the man.
‘Now, now, calm yourself awhile and tell me who you are?’ the red-haired man said restraining him with an arm lock he was not used to.
‘FARIQ! My name’s FARIQ. Let me go, you bastard!’
‘Now, now, son, there’s no need for that kind of talk, so there isn’t, you calm yourself and tell me what business you have here?’
But Fariq was in no mood for niceties worked out the best way to deal with an arm lock and slammed his head back into the red-haired man’s forehead. The man not used to seeing stars during daylight hours, having not had a drink yet, lost his hold and Fariq, seizing the opportunity, broke away from him and continued up the final few stairs to his home avoiding wet patches sprinkled haphazardly on the bare stairs. Realising that the wet was blood, his own ran cold, stumbled into the open door of his rooms screaming his wife’s name.
Lieutenant Frank Weinberg, of the 7th Precinct, Lower East Side Police Department, looked up from the body of the woman he was attending and screamed out. ‘GET HIM OUTTA HERE, SERGEANT! O’HARE! Where the fuck! ... ?
His, Sergeant Charlie O’Hare, rubbed the head butt that was across his forehead came in through the door, grabbed Fariq, pulled him out back through the door and received a good thump to his ribs from Fariq’s elbow for his trouble. Charlie stumbled back but this time, ignoring the pain and losing his sympathy for the man, grabbed hold of him, and put him in a neck lock that he would not so easily remove himself without proper training. Fariq stopped struggling. ‘That’s my wife in there! Let me go!’ But Charlie held him like a vice.
‘Right you, Fariq, or whatever your name, is take it easy and we can all settle down and talk about this, I’m not your enemy!’ Fariq stopped his struggling against him. ‘Alright. Take it easy. If you want it hard I’ll give it to you, settle down and we can discuss what’s happened here.’
‘OKAY! Let me go see my wife.’
Charlie released him and they went back inside the room. ‘He says he’s the woman’s husband, lieutenant.’
‘Does he, well perhaps he’d like to tell us what he’s done to her?’
Fariq didn’t answer. On the floor, her arm, her hand still clutching the hunting knife, laid his wife. Two bullet holes one inch apart in her forehead had put her into the Happy Hunting Grounds. Lieutenant Frank Weinberg stood over him, ‘Well, Mr. Fariq—?’
But Fariq was not listening he was on the floor beside her sobbing and hugging her. Charlie looked at Frank and wiped a single tear from his own eye and shook his head. Fariq kissed Oonna on the cheek stood up and turned to Lieutenant Frank Weinberg. He spoke quietly. ‘Where’s our daughter?’
Frank didn’t know how to answer him.
‘She sleeps over there,’ he said pointing to the closed door of another room. Fariq went over to it but Frank stopped him.
‘Wait!’ He gently opened the door himself. ‘God! Charlie come and have a look at this.’ Fariq pushed him aside as Charlie came alongside them.
‘Sweet Mother of Mary,’ Charlie said.
Sitting in a chair, soaked in more blood than he had ever seen in his life was the body of a man. His head had been torn off his shoulders and thrown on the floor.
Lieutenant Weinberg went up to the body of the man and looked into the neck space where the head had once sat. He swallowed and stepped back carefully avoided kicking the man’s head. He studied the body from the back for any signs of: he didn’t know what, for it was clear how this man had died; that whoever had done it would not have needed a weapon of any kind. Charlie came in for a closer look for this was the kind of murder that could go down in history as biblical in manifestation.
‘Look at the way those arteries have been wound round, Frank,’ Charlie said relishing the fact that they would be recognised down through the annals of criminal history as the police officers that had discovered such a crime.
‘Yes. Thank you, Sergeant; I’ve got the eyes if not the stomach.’
‘The Rivet!’ Fariq said.
‘You know this man?, Frank said.
‘The bastard that did this to me’. He held up the palm of his left hand and showed it to them. ‘This is the work of Marco Giuseppi and I’m asking, where’s my daughter?’ He sat down on the edge of her tiny bed and put his head into his hands. The two policemen stood looking down at him.
Lieutenant Frank Weinberg spoke. ‘You’ve eyes to see, there’s clearly no child here, is she perhaps with one of the neighbours? I can get someone to check for you.’ Another police officer, this time in uniform came in and Frank quietly spoke to him. He went out.
Frank turned to his sergeant, ‘Right, Charlie, get the surgeon down double quick, lock the door and get someone to
stand outside we don’t want this to get out.’ He looked at Fariq. ‘We’ll look for her, we don’t want her coming back here?’ Fariq nodded. ‘You’ll have to come with us though’.
Lieutenant Frank Weinberg had no intention of letting this Fariq fellow wander the streets telling stories of people that had had their heads removed without the aid of a guillotine; and used the words: for your protection.
Fariq stood up and composed himself. ‘Yeh, I understand.’ He went to alongside Charlie and grabbed him round the neck, and as quick drew the gun from his shoulder holster, pushed him away and held it at the two of them.
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Charlie said.
He pointed to the body of his wife. ‘You will if you try to take me in. She’ll expect revenge. And me to find our daughter. That can’t be done if I’m banged up with you two. I know who’s responsible for this, and I’ll deal with it my way, move from the door!’
Lieutenant Frank Weinberg stood where he was. ‘I can’t do that, Fariq, it’s our job. I understand what you’re going through, but you’ve got to do it our way, please, give me the gun.’
‘That’s right, Fariq, you’re in no mind to reason straight, do what the Lieutenant says,’ Sergeant O’Hare added.
‘Reason straight! What’s reasoning straight got to do with all this? Marco Giuseppi has killed my wife and abducted my daughter and I’m going for him.’
‘We can understand how you feel, Fariq,’ Frank said, ‘but you’ve still to leave it to us, we’ll go and see Mr. Giuseppi and see what he’s got to say. Until then you’ll be safer with us.’
Sergeant O’Hare held out his hand for Fariq to hand over his weapon. But Fariq was having none of it and put the gun to Charlie’s forehead. ‘I’m not playing games, Sergeant, I’ve nothing to lose.’ The man had a look of determination but Charlie had other ideas and put his hand on Fariq’s wrist and looked straight at him. Frank seeing this called to Charlie his voice quiet.
‘Let him go.’
Charlie looked at him and Frank knew that his Sergeant was prepared to take this man on. But one of them had to show some restraint.
His voice now with authority. ‘I said, let him go, sergeant.’
Charlie looked back into Fariq’s face and for a moment Frank wondered who was going to give. To his relief Charlie removed his hand from Fariq’s wrist. Fariq nodded and was gone. Back down the stairs he had come up ten minutes before when he thought he had a family.
* * *
Tony Di Sotto was sitting in a chair behind a screen in the hospital. The inside of his left arm had been opened from the wrist to the elbow. It was a single cut that had severed two veins and which had lost him a deal of blood as a result. The doctor attending to him remarked the wound looked like someone had tried to skin a rabbit. Not that he was saying that Tony Di Sotto was a rabbit. Tony had nodded at him and didn’t care what anyone thought; he wanted the pain to go away. He had winced when the doctor dabbed antiseptic on the cut and when asked what had happened, had replied he had caught it on a piece of jagged metal.
‘Did your ear go the same way?’ Tony gave him a look that would kill. ‘Sorry, Mr. Soames, none of my business ... there we are, good as new,’ the doctor said running his hands down the newly bandaged arm.
Tony got up to go, for he had no intention of staying longer than he had to. He staggered and fell against a trolley.
‘Steady on, Mr. Soames,’ the doctor said stopping him from going right over, ‘I suggest you sit yourself down for a while, you’ve lost a lot of blood.’
Tony brushed him aside. ‘I’ll be O.K.’
‘As you say, Mr. Soames, any problems, you come back.’
Tony walked out of the hospital in both a state of shock from the injury that he’d sustained at the hands of Fariq’s wife and confusion as to why Sledge Driver hadn’t got in touch with him. That they’d made a proper mess of this “frightener” was of little doubt, but where was he now? Why hadn’t he met him at Duchies as arranged? Although his arm did need attention he’d waited for as long as he could stand the pain before going to get it sorted — Sledge would have known that he would be at the hospital if he’d missed him. He would have to find him, if they didn’t meet soon and get their story straight, well, they could be up shit creek. He should have gone back and got Sledge out of there straight away instead of him trying to finish the job on his own. He told him that he was in trouble with his injury and that he would need help, but he’d said that he’d be all right and get himself sorted with a doctor and leave the rest to him. He hadn’t the strength to argue with him as he staggered down the stairs bleeding. Perhaps he should go back. Sweet Mother Mary I can’t think right to do. No Duchies. I’ll go there.
He continued to walk, crossing the park and out into the centre of the town. The doctor had been right, he was feeling weak and his arm was throbbing with pain. He needed a drink and a lie down.
The shout from the newsvendor at the Greyhound bus station distracted him from his discomfort only to replace it with another.
‘MAN AND WOMAN FOUND MURDERED! GIRL KIDNAPPING MYSTERY! READ ALL ABOUT IT! YOUNG BOXING HOPEFUL FOUND DROWNED!’
The newsvendor’s words hit him like a bombshell. There were killings and murders everyday in New York but he knew that this was to do with them. It was too much of a coincidence. ‘Give us a paper!’ he shouted impatiently to the seller, throwing a coin into an old tin the man used for his money.
‘Here, Mac,’ he replied handing the newspaper and taking no heed of his rudeness, continuing, ‘READ ALL ABOUT IT! WOMAN SLAIN, BIZARRE MURDER!!!’
Tony snatched the paper and started to read. What little blood he had left drained from his face. He started to walk but he was feeling so bad that he had to guide himself along the street using the walls of the buildings for support. Falling through the door of Duchies his head swimming and his face completely drained, he managed to stagger to a table in the corner.
Dutch emerged from the door of the kitchen behind the high counter of the greasy eatery. Following him, his wife: sweating, overweight from cooking and overeating; wearing her traditional red and white chequered kitchen cloth around her waist. She looked at Dutch with disdain and muttered: Just what we need another arsehole hoodlum driving the regulars away. ‘Serve him quick and get rid of him.’
Dutch smiled at Tony uneasily from the other side of the counter in case he had heard what his wife had said. She turned and went back into the kitchen not bothered if he had or not muttering, ‘Mafia — they weren’t old enough to remember what they were all about’.
Dutch came around the counter to him wiping his hands on a similarly coloured kitchen cloth. ‘You alla righter, Tony, you looka as if you’ve just seen Capone paying his taxes, whata caneye get you.’
‘Cut the wise cracks Dutch, Sledge Driver been in?’
‘Haven’t seen him all day, Tony, youa maybe alooking for him.’
‘No, I’m asking for the benefit of my health, course I’m looking for him, idiot, get me a coffee!’
Dutch shrugged and went back behind the counter; worked up the steam from an old chrome and steel Desiderio Pavoni espresso machine that had seen better days — but not in this establishment. Burning his hand on the steam that was leaking from the side of it he managed to pour a cup of coffee and milk, sugared it, wiped the spills from around the cup with his cloth and went back to Tony’s table to present it to him. Tony ignored him; Dutch made nothing of it, saw the bandage with the leak of blood that had seeped out of it and noticed the front page of the paper that he had read; put two and two together and went back behind his counter quickly leaving him to his business.
Tony continued reading the front page, before thinking.
If it was about them ... well ... they hadn’t killed an Indian girl: what are they talking about? And who was this man with no head? Fariq? Sweet Mother Mary! What the fuck had Sledge done up there? God! It was Sledge. They’re looking for a man who may have lost a lot of blood.
The bandage round his arm was beginning to seep again so he let his arm hang down by his side.
Tony was aware that he was being watched from behind the counter looked up and saw Dutch and his wife. ‘What’d you two staring at?’
‘N-Nothin’, Tony, couldn’t help noticing your
arm ... that’s all.’
‘Yeh, well, let’s keep it at nothing, eh, Dutch, otherwise, well, you know Tony’s problems could become Dutch’s, follow me, now fuck off and take the scold with you!’
‘Anything you say, Tony, no offence ...’
‘Yeh well, it’s rude to stare, innit.’
Dutch went behind his counter to serve another customer when he was interrupted by Mrs. Rossi. Jabbing at him with a wet finger. ‘Eh youer, maybe youer not takin anymore shit from hisa kind much alonger eh.’ She smacked a copy of the same paper that Tony was reading onto the counter. ‘Maybe youer get on the blower to the police, tell ‘em eh, there’s a woman murderer in your establishment and youer want him outta ‘ere, eh, Mr. Rossi, anna maybe we’er payin’ no more protection?’
‘Sshh, you perhaps want for him to overhear and come over and kill us you mad woman.’ Tony looked across at the commotion and saw the look on the scold’s face. Dutch shrugged and politely smiled at him again. Tony not in the mood for trouble got up from the table pushed his chair aside, threw a dime on the table, and left without finishing his coffee — most of which he’d spilt from shaking from a combination of fear and pain — but read more than enough of his paper to realise he was in deep shit.
