Besides, he needed her for more than the usual. Turned out Missy had some proper schooling. Even came from a well-to-do family before things turned sour and their fortunes went south—while certain members of the family went north. She hadn’t told him all the details, but he’d hit the jackpot with a drop-dead gorgeous, classy assistant who could type, take dictation, work an adding machine, speak French, answer phones in nearly perfect English, and organize like nobody’s business. When she’d told him she could do all that, he believed her. He could spot a liar a mile away, mostly because he knew so many, and this girl was the real deal. Of course, he still would have given her some kind of job, even if she couldn’t do any of that stuff, but with all those skills, Missy was going to make him look good, free him up for more of what he did best.
Which brought him to the little demonstration he had to make once Tony showed up. Which would be…
Mouse looked at his watch. Tick. Tock. Tick.
Right about now.
Tony pulled up in a jeep at their meeting place—a deserted steel Quonset with a handy helicopter landing pad far enough from Nha Trang to not attract attention, close enough to report in for the army bullshit at Camp McDermott to keep up the ruse when necessary. He and Tony stayed under the wire like the rest of the guys in their own “special unit.” Always dressed in combat jungle fatigues so they wouldn’t stand out, just like the master sergeant on the take, the head of the NCO Club, and the colonel in charge of transport on their side. There were others, like the RVN transport colonel, one of the richest fucks in the whole country, who got his piece of anything coming in or going out. Tony was supposed to make that intro tomorrow.
Mouse told himself it would all be okay—he wasn’t gonna mess up his big chance—and hailed his cousin with a wave.
“Yo, Tony!”
Tony pretended to roll drums, followed by a cymbal crash. “Ready for the show?”
Like that scale symbol for justice in a courtroom—and Mouse had seen a few only for nothing to stick—he weighed the props and instruments of his trade up and down. Portable phonograph in one hand; tool chest in the other. Everybody had to start somewhere and he’d worked his way up from the runt getting beat to a pulp after school to the runt tormenting the same pack of bullies. One day he’d be the fat cat getting driven around in a limo like Uncle Louie, too. Just thinking about it had him conjuring a vision of Missy all dolled up in the backseat, looking like a million bucks, and giving him head while a liveried driver tooled them around Manhattan. Oh. Man. Talk about some incentive. He was gonna knock this performance out of the park, showcase his skills, make a name for himself with this operation…and somehow figure out how to keep Missy while staying clear of Uncle Louie’s fat, ugly niece.
Three more jeeps and a truck convoyed in behind Tony. A bunch of guys in fatigues got out, threw down the back of the truck, and out flew another guy trussed up like a pig. Mouse recognized him as another Jersey transplant whose last name of Fisher had gotten abbreviated. Wouldn’t be the last thing getting abbreviated on him today.
“Yo, Charlie,” Tony called, “I see you caught the Fish.”
“Oh yeah,” said Charlie. “Got him all comfy and ready to go.”
Tony walked over and kicked the man on the ground, hard, in the back. Fish screamed, then started whimpering and crying, “Tony, Tony thank God you’re here. We can clear all this up. Tony, I swear they got it all wrong. You and me, we go back—back to Jersey, Tony, come on you know—”
“Yeah, I know,” growled Tony. “And what I know is you know something you ain’t saying, Fish. I got ears like the big bad wolf, the better to hear the dirt with, and I got eyes everywhere, the better to see you with, and, Fish, you been doing something you ain’t owning up to. Now you and me and The Mouse, we gonna do something about that.”
Mouse stepped forward and, music to his ears, the Fish started screaming. “NO! NO! Please, Tony, please…” His last please came out like an unending ple-e-e-eeeease that finally ended with him sobbing. “I’ll do anything, Tony, anything. Please, come on, old times, you and me. Let’s talk, I can explain everything—”
“That’s right, Fish. We are gonna talk. Inside.”
Inside the Quonset it was dark and cool, but Mouse could feel the sweat popping out from his underarms and the back of his neck. It was kind of like stage fright before a performance, and the more important the audience, the more nervous he got. He was just more nervous than usual because he didn’t know if this new thing with Missy might mess with his process, but, nah, he wasn’t gonna even let himself think it. He’d done this enough to know that once he got started and into the zone, all that nervous-Nellie shit would go away. He’d be fine.
Certainly finer than the Fish.
“Okay, Charlie, you and the guys get him ready,” Tony instructed and flipped a switch. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a yellowish glow on the bare cement floor in the cavernous space. While the Fish screamed and begged for mercy as he was brought in, even his burly escorts struggling to hang onto him while he flipped and flopped like some overcooked manicotti, Tony hitched a thumb to a small side room. He and Mouse entered and closed a door with stick-on gold letters that spelled: PRIVATE.
Mouse was familiar with the office by now, with the army-issue desk, the files all in order on top of it, a shitload of boxes neatly stacked on the floor, the bookcase against a plain wall—except for the splatter of dried blood Mouse knew was behind the bookcase—and the official-looking swivel chair with nice, wooden arms and a padded, black-vinyl seat that Tony was extremely protective of as its official owner.
Tony pulled the chair away from the desk, gave the seat a twirl, and pointed Mouse to it. “Check it out, Mouse. See how it feels. Won’t be long and it’s all yours.”
He had tried it out once when Tony wasn’t looking, because Tony didn’t put up with nobody sitting at his desk, like they were claiming squatters’ rights and gunning for his position.
Some idiot had actually tried that once. Hence the paint job behind the bookcase.
Mouse sat. He liked it. A lot. Made him feel like he’d just shot up a few inches, giving him the edge of height and the commanding presence he felt born to, even if outward appearances disagreed. Sometimes he didn’t even want to go back to the States. This was one of those times. Sitting at the big desk in the commander’s chair, imagining Missy taking dictation in one of those slinky silk dresses, with her little butt situated at the corner of the desk, swinging a shapely leg while she wrote down what he told her until she looked at him with those exotic eyes and…
Shit. He was nursing a boner in Tony’s chair. That was not cool. Not with Tony in the room, anyways, and thank Jesus, God, and Mary, Tony was busy pulling down a book from the bookcase. Then whap, there it was. An accounting book labeled December, 1967, staring Mouse straight in the eyes from the desk where Tony had dropped it.
“See this? This was the first ledger I got handed down when I came here.” Tony flipped the book open and ran a finger down the neatly printed entries, pointing out invoices of receivables, exports, the whole mother lode of the operation in dollars and cents, painstakingly recorded in black and white. “Now it’s gonna be your job, Mouse. You keep the books perfect, not a penny out of place. Everything copied and sent home. Never mess up this stuff. Rocky Z. who came over right before me? Dumb shit. He didn’t last no time. Thought he could be clever and cook the books. Try to grease your pockets under the table and not much left to put in them once you get your hands cooked in oil. And the moral of the story is…?”
“Don’t cook the books or they cook you.”
Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “Mouse, you gonna do great, even better than me. I know you got a head for details and more ambition to work your way up than I was born with. Not to mention…” Tony cocked his head in the direction of the noise outside the closed door. “You got a talent, Mouse. Real talent. Shit, just watching you go to work gives me goose bumps.”
&
nbsp; “Thanks, Tony. But you know, if it wasn’t for you and your pop and Aunt Rosa, no telling where I’d be.”
“Hey, don’t say shit like that, Mikey. We’re family. You know that.”
What Mouse knew was that he’d had a family, one of his own—until he rolled down the window of the car and his papa had turned and shouted, “I told you not to roll down the goddamn window!”
And Papa didn’t see the garbage truck that hit the car with the whole family in it.
Only one of them escaped because he flew out of the window that he shouldn’t have rolled down and made Papa so mad he turned around. Things went a little fuzzy after that, but the next thing little Mikey knew he was landing right on his chin, then he rolled and rolled before he got up with his face and arms and legs all bleeding and his jaw hanging down like a Halloween skull. All he could do then was watch while the car burst into flames.
And that was the first time It happened.
He was watching, but he wasn’t there. Like when he rolled part of him had floated out and stuck around to watch without feeling anything, while the mangled little boy who killed his whole family got put into a hospital before getting taken to his new home. Once he was there, Aunt Rosa, his mamma’s sister, she never blamed him. Her husband, Uncle Jimmie, he never blamed him. Tony never blamed him. Maria and Anna, his other two cousins, they never blamed him neither.
For a long time he didn’t talk, and not just because his jaw was wired. He couldn’t feel a thing. He just watched and listened and told his body what to do when it had to do something like suck a straw or poop. Then, little by little, he started feeling something again. Maybe it was all that love and not blaming him from Aunt Rosa and his cousins, and even Uncle Louie being nice to him when he came to talk business with Uncle Jimmie.
But that didn’t stop all the abuse once he got healed up and went to school, especially when he reached sixth and seventh grades and had to walk the daily gauntlet without Tony around to knock some heads when Mouse got pelted with the usual insults, spit ons, ear twists, nuggies and knees in the groin until…
The day before his twelfth birthday It happened again. And after that, he learned It could be a good thing. Problem was, he couldn’t always control It. But he had gotten better with practice and discovered he could call on certain memories to trigger the hocus-pocus of leaving his body to watch and direct from a safe distance, then come back with that special sensation of relief once he got past doing whatever he had to do that he couldn’t feel too personal about. Things like working over then offing dipshits who got out of line. Didn’t bother him at first, but in the past couple of years that KRZY radio dial had started messing with his head, and then that bitch Janis Joplin got in on the act, talking about taking another little piece of his heart.
Nobody knew about any of this, not even Tony. And Mouse wasn’t about to tell him now while he needed to make like that Certs breath mint commercial where he could split into “Two! Two! Two Mikes in One!”
Especially since Tony might decide it was more like “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t…”
Uh-uh, no way was Mouse telling Tony, and he never would. Because if he did, Tony wouldn’t be reassuring him they were family and moving things along by saying, “Now let’s get out there so you can show your stuff and make all the guys about to report to you piss their pants. Once you’re done and they’re cleaning up, we’ll head back here and get down to business. Whatcha say?”
“I say…” Mouse took a deep breath, got up from the chair that would soon be all his, and reclaimed the props and tools he had dropped at the door. “It’s show time.”
Chapter 10
The guy called Charlie and their other muscle guys had the Fish tied up in a chair. There was a wire around his neck and barbed wire ringing his forehead, like the stained-glass picture of Christ with his crown of thorns that had always fascinated Mouse at mass back home. Every Saturday night as long as he could remember, and then on Sundays once he was an altar boy.
The priest had liked him a little too much.
That was just one of the memories Mouse had to call on that had stacked up like bad pennies burning a hole in his pocket, and depending on the stage and cast involved, he carefully selected the memory that would fuel his best performance.
Sometimes picking and choosing wasn’t the easiest, but the music? He had his 45s ready and that much never changed. Sure, he tried to sound cool with all the latest slang, but when it came to the music, forget The Stones, The Beatles, all those other Brits—they weren’t built to last. Not like his idols. Sinatra, Martin, Bennett, Darin, those cats’d be around till the second coming.
The Fish’s shirt was off and he was barefoot, his feet tied with more barbed wire to a board.
Mouse deposited his toolbox next to the chair, quickly set up the phonograph with records in just the right order, and Tony promptly began to make the formal introductions—or tried to, only to slap the shit out of the Fish when he wouldn’t shut up.
“Now let’s try this again. For you new guys here, this is Mike Gallini. He’s my man and now he’s your man. His word is the word coming down from the top. He don’t like you, you are gone. Make him unhappy with you?” Tony nodded to the toolbox. “Don’t let it get there, believe me. Back home everyone knows The Mouse—just don’t call him that till he gives you permission.” And then in reverse, “Mouse, you already met some of these guys—Charlie, Buck, Cal,” and on down the line Tony went with introductions to a group of new recruits. “They work in transport by day, your local muscle day or night. These are your boys, always on call and cleared by the Top Sergeant…”
Tony continued on and Mouse caught snippets, “…and this here is our chopper man, Chief Warrant Officer Schmidt. He handles air along with Mac here. Mac is with Air America. Handles any air anywhere, even all the way to Burma. Good man. Flying us up today to the Highlands. Got a tour. Meet the new major handing us our orders. Pick up a load off the mules and bring it back…”
Mouse caught the gist but he couldn’t afford to be distracted by details when he had a production to put on. He had started out crude, but once he took the leap, it was like greatness had been thrust upon him. Even before he could legally buy a beer Uncle Louie realized he had the equivalent of nuking Hiroshima with the threat of unleashing The Mouse on those who got out of line.
The performance was one thing; summoning the magic to help him perform was another, and that’s what he had to do now.
Mouse tuned out Tony and focused on the ritual of very carefully reaching into his pocket, and then twice popping the metallic clink of his treasured Zippo that had belonged to Papa. He lit the flame, stared at it for a second and…zap. Mouse welcomed the sensation of leaving his body so he could watch and direct the other part that went to the phonograph, dropped down the first 45, with the rest of the stack on automatic.
Strains of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” filled Mouse’s ears and flooded his brain. The audience around him, the room they were in, receded and it was just him following direction while he and The Voice limbered up together. Crack knuckles. Roll his head, get it loose around his shoulders.
Brushes on snare. Piano. Tap. Tap. Tap.
A little soft shoe shuffle to the tool box. Hammer. A couple of big nails and a nice slide on the knees. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound of a shriek cut into his focus, and for payback Mouse hit the last nail to foot harder, and then turned up the volume. Soft shoe to the tool box and there it was, the perfect instrument for the perfect song. Under my skin. And that’s where the probe was being tap, tap, tapped into the Fish, when the next 45 dropped down and a horn section broke in, revved it up a notch. Mouse heard the direction to wait for it…wait for it…
And there it was. Right on cue he was suddenly spinnin’ while he kept grinnin’, until his foot connected with the barbed wire wrapped around Fish’s forehead in perfect time to Dino crooning, Ain’t that a kick in the head!
It was like modern art where the paint flew from a brush and splattered wherever it landed on canvas. Mouse was in the zone, and if it weren’t for messing with his timing, or the way Fish was strapped into the chair, Mouse would have brought out the drill to make “quote” quite the “hole in the boat“…
Mouse continued dancing, spinning, gliding, immersed in the music as he worked over the Fish—but not so much that the room would go completely black—until his performance culminated in what had become his new signature song, the best ever, and for this one, this one, Fish could have a moment’s reprieve while the automatic replay was set, because the director was telling him, You’re gonna be at this awhile.
Mouse bent down, face to face with the Fish who was sobbing, tears running from his eyes and snot from his nose. With a crook of his finger, Mouse signaled Tony over to get what information he needed. And as the orchestra accompanied his grand finale, Mouse sang in time to the beat while altering the lyrics to suit the occasion:
Now Fish, the end is near
It’s time to face the fact it’s curtains
You ain’t a friend, that much is clear
In this case, that much is certain…
Regrets, you got ’em, too
Like too few screws to mention
I gotta do what I gotta do
And see it through, no exemptions…
Now it’s time, that you knew
I could bite off more than I can chew
And through it all, don’t you doubt
I’ll eat it up and spit it out…
Mouse chomped down on the Fish’s right ear, got the whole thing back in his molars and started grinding while Tony extracted information amidst horrific screams and frantic thrashing. Once Fishy talked, Mouse pulled back, tore off the whole ear in his mouth, and landed it in Fish’s lap. The Fish was done. Mouse took his nose and other ear anyway for the demonstration, then put a fork in him.
UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2) Page 9
