Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  If it is Steve, they might as well both die.

  Suddenly, one beastly hand apparently touched another beastly hand in an attempt to reach deeper inside her slacks, and her molesters backed off and grunted as if an unacceptable line had been crossed.

  Jimmy lit a cigarette and opened his side window to blow the smoke out. Legless lowered his window further and rolled his bulk to ward the window to stick his head outside. And as she leaned forward and curled her shoulders together so that her raincoat fell back down to cover her breasts, a conversation began.

  “Not like when the old man was around.”

  “Fuck no. None of this business when the old man was around.”

  “Family man.”

  “Yeah, fuckin’ family man.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothin’. Except in those days we’d be muscling each other. Today we nuke whoever the hell gets in the way.”

  “Money talks.”

  “Yeah, I can hear it. You hear it?”

  “What?”

  “Money. It’s talkin’ up there in the rain clouds.”

  “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

  “Jets takin’ off over where people are lined up in beds tryin’ to get better.”

  “Well, as least it stopped raining.”

  “That’s true. Weather channel said it’d rain all night. Guess they were wrong.”

  As another jet on takeoff rumbled above, she began to wonder if perhaps Steve had been right when he first came out of his stroke. Maybe sometimes it was better off being dead in this insane world.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  A long time ago, back in the normal world where he wasn’t getting beat to a pulp, Tyrone recalled that Flat Nose called them spaghetti heads and said DeJesus got along real good with spa ghetti heads. But if DeJesus knew these guys were going to be here, he certainly wouldn’t have sent Flat Nose in because Flat Nose was proba bly still looking up at the front bumper of his truck wondering how the hell they got a truck up into a fight ring. One of the spaghetti heads beating on him had hair, the other one, obviously the boss, was bald.

  When they let up on him, giving their fists a rest, one of them turned on a police scanner and listened for a while, saying something about hoping he’d get his money’s worth out of all the expensive equip ment. When the guy turned off the scanner, the two started talking like guys on a coffee break, quiet and calm like none of this was hap pening, or like he wasn’t even there. But he was right there with them and they must have known he could hear them.

  “I should go see the fuckin’ doc.”

  “Heartburn again?”

  “I fuckin’ hope so.”

  “A guy’s job’ll do that, especially when he takes it serious. You need a vacation.”

  “I know. We’re not as young as we used to be. Be nice to be a buck again, fresh out of boot camp. I still had some hair then.”

  “You don’t believe in that Samson and Delilah shit, do you?”

  “You’re younger than me. When you get to be my age, things start to creep up on you.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Yeah. Win the Powerball and give me half.”

  “You think our odds are bad in this thing?”

  “No, we got all the numbers. Or, if we don’t got all the numbers, we at least got all the folks who got all the numbers in their heads.”

  “Too bad about your aunt’s stroke.”

  “Yeah. If it hadn’t been for that, I think she would’ve told me about it a long time ago.”

  “So what makes you think she told him?”

  “Them.”

  “Okay, them. He knows, so she knows. Why’d she tell them?”

  “Therapy. Going at it day in and day out. One day it slipped out. Only we didn’t find out about it for a while because of that fuckin’ Hogan. He should’ve been on top of the wife every minute. By the time we found out, aunty had another seizure and was in even worse shape.”

  “Booze makes a guy slip up.”

  “I think he’ll have to be fucked up when this is over. If it’s ever fuckin’ over.”

  “It will be.”

  “Yeah, one way or another. Let’s get back to it.”

  “You or me?”

  “I’ll fuckin’ do it.”

  And so they went at him again, this time the bald guy while the one with hair kept propping him up, while jets took off for Vegas full of folks whose pockets were full of cash and whose heads were full of dreams.

  He’d promised to take Latoya to Vegas one of these days and he’d do just that if he ever got out of this van alive. There was no bet ter woman than Latoya when it came right down to it. She’s the one nursed him back after that fight he got into with those Blackstone shorties, the six of them wiry as hell and all over him like flies on shit. Yeah, he was the shit for hasslin’ the dumb little shorties in the first place. Not as big of fists as this guy has, but there were six of ‘em. No, not as big of fists as this guy. These fists might even be bigger than DeJesus’ fists.

  If only they’d’ve let him talk in the first place he would’ve told them anything they wanted to hear. But he couldn’t talk in the first place because of that damn tape they put on his mouth, same sticky tape they had on his wrists. When they got him in here and sat him in the back seat and put the damn seat belt on—joking about him being a pimp in the back seat of his limo and them wanting to take good care of him—he really wanted to talk. But they proceeded to beat shit out of him. And then, after beatin’ shit out of him, they rip the tape off. But he can’t talk, can’t make his mouth do what he wants it to do. It’s like being at the dentist and having a thousand shots of Novocain. Except this Novocain doesn’t take away the pain, it delivers pain.

  He was thankful when the guy stopped hitting him, so thankful he wanted to reach his arms out and hug the guy like he was his long-lost uncle. But his arms were taped behind him and he couldn’t hug the guy, although he wanted to in the worst way because this would show the guy how grateful he really was. He tried to thank the guy, but all that came out were moans.

  The guy moved in close as if he knew about the hugging. The guy’s face was at the side of his face. The guy whispered into his ear.

  “Okay, shithead, we’re gonna let you talk now. You don’t have to talk loud. I’m right here. You’re gonna help us out, and in return, I’m gonna help you out. See, we’re businessmen. And as you know, busi nessmen are sometimes in a hurry for information. That’s why there are so many computers. We businessmen live on information. And sometimes, if we don’t get the information we need when we need it, whole shitloads of cash get lost. You get my meaning?”

  Tyrone nodded and moaned.

  “Like I said, no need to talk loud. Just whisper it to me. I’m here for you.”

  “Ah … I’ll … I’ll tawk,” Tyrone managed to get out after swal lowing the blood in his mouth.

  “Good, that’s real good,” the guy whispered back.

  “I’ll … I’ll talk,” Tyrone repeated, realizing whispering was a lot easier than talking out loud when all he could move was his tongue.

  “Okay. I’m gonna listen real good. It’s better if I hear what I want to hear the first time, because if I don’t hear it the first time, there probably won’t be another time. That’s the way this business works. Okay, where’s Steve Babe?”

  Tyrone wanted to tell this guy exactly what he wanted to hear. He wanted to do it in the worst way. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where Steve Babe was. He knew the guy wouldn’t be happy if he told the truth, if he said he’d been in Babe’s room looking for him because he wanted to hassle him some, but what else could he do? Maybe if he dressed it up some, maybe then the guy would be happy.

  “The business world is waiting. Companies are being bought and sold as we speak.”

  No, he couldn’t tell the truth. The last thing this guy wanted to hear was that he didn’t know where Babe was. He
’d have to make something up. He’d have to dress it up good and stick to it, otherwise this guy would see through him. He swallowed some blood clots that had gotten tied in knots at the back of his throat.

  “I’m listening,” whispered the guy as he put his ear to Tyrone’s mouth.

  “He … he had a stroke.”

  “I know he had a stroke.”

  “No, ‘nother one. Tonight. They took him to hospital. Happened ‘bout seven. They sent me to his room to get somethin’ they needed at the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “They sent me to his room to get somethin’ they needed …”

  “What did they send you to get?”

  “They sent me to get his … medication.”

  “Don’t they have plenty at the hospital?”

  “Yeah, but they needed to know what doses he’s on.”

  “What were the names of the medications?”

  “I think Citicol was one … somethin’ like that. They didn’t tell me ‘xactly. Jus’ said get any medication vials he had in his room.”

  “Don’t they have that on his chart at the nurses’ station? Doesn’t the staff deliver medication?”

  “Yeah, but they think he had a stash an’ been takin’ more than they handed out. They think it might have somethin’ to do with this new stroke he had. I was lookin’ for vials in his drawers. I couldn’t find nothin’ and I just turned off the light and had to take a shit. We’re not supposed to use the patients’ cans so I didn’t turn the light on.”

  “You know what, shithead?”

  “What?”

  “I think this story of yours is gettin’ a little too fuckin’ long.

  Nurses don’t give pills to patients so they can take them whenever they feel like it!”

  The guy backed off, paused a second, then hit Tyrone hard in the gut.

  The world was full of shit. The fuckin’ world with its fuckin’ shorts with hearts and its fuckin’ hospitals keepin’ zombies alive and fuckin’ jets takin’ fuckin’ losers to Vegas was full of shit. Flat Nose was full of shit, and DeJesus was full of shit, and this guy hitting him was full of shit. Medicare and Medicaid and the whole goddamn sys tem was full of shit!

  As he lay back in the seat, Tyrone tried to breathe in as much of the cool outside air coming in where the side door was cracked open. He tried to breathe all the cool night air there was in the universe into his lungs. He tried to suck something good out of the cool night air, something that would make the puke go back down, something that would make the shit in his shorts go back inside where it belonged.

  The puke stayed down. The inside of the van stopped tossing and turning. For a moment he could rest because as long as they were talk ing, they couldn’t be hitting him.

  “So maybe he did have another stroke.”

  “No fuckin’ way. Patty would’ve seen them take him away.”

  “Well, he wasn’t there, and Patty didn’t see him leave, so maybe Patty didn’t do such a great fuckin’ job.”

  “What about that guy Patty threw down the stairs? Maybe there’s more than one nosy aide in the place.”

  “You think there are others who know about this?”

  “I don’t know what I think anymore. Anyway, you’re the one brought Patty in on the job in the first place, and if something’s up with Patty …”

  “I can’t know everything about everyone!”

  “Fuck it! Enough!”

  They had raised their voices, now they whispered again.

  “She’s got to think it’s him in here. We got to count on that.”

  “What’ll we do?”

  “Get the fuck out before some cop decides to cruise back here.”

  “Where to?”

  “Someplace graves are handy. Tell Jimmy and Legless to drive her in the car. You drive the van.”

  “Should I call up Patty?”

  “No, leave him be in case Babe decides to come back.”

  The guy with a full head of hair turned and looked outside. “Hey, who’re they?”

  “You got your balls in an uproar. Didn’t you hear what Patty said? According to my watch, this must be it. A few cars’ll come in and they’ll park and some folks’ll go inside. After that, a few folks’ll come out and get in their cars and drive away. It’s called a shift change.”

  “I know what it’s fuckin’ called. Do we take off now or not?”

  “Wait ‘til the shift change is over. Shouldn’t take long.”

  When Tyrone heard this it took him a second to realize the tape was still off his mouth before he took a deep breath and did his best to scream. What came out was more like a death rattle. And just as the death rattle began to change into a real scream, the bald guy’s two big hands closed around his neck and cut him off.

  Instead of simply applying a piece of tape to his mouth like last time, the guy with a full head of hair reached over the top of the bald guy doing the choking and wrapped a length of tape around Tyrone’s head several times, covering his mouth and his nose.

  He was dead. He knew it.

  But then the guy who’d been doing the choking took hold of the top edge of the tape near Tyrone’s eyes and yanked the tape down so it was bunched up just below his nostrils. The guy used the bunched up

  tape to shake Tyrone’s head up and down in an exaggerated nod. “Next time we ask for answers, we’ll fuckin’ get ‘em, right?” Where a moment earlier the cool night air had been somewhat of a

  relief, now the air was damp and smelled of tape adhesive and the wet trees and wet earth that bordered the parking lot. All Tyrone could think of was a hole in the ground with him in it, the damp earth cov ering him and stopping the breath of life. Suddenly he began to shiver uncontrollably.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  ONE

  As Valdez turned onto the exit ramp, the GPS system sounded the double bell indicating they were at their turnoff. Beside him, beneath the bright overhead lights of the exit ramp, Valdez could see that Hanley had finished loading three magazines and was sliding one of the magazines into a Sig Sauer pistol. Valdez caught a detailed glimpse of the pistol.

  “Did they give us P229s?” asked Valdez.

  “No,” said Hanley. “It’s the newer Sig Pro that the DEA and the French use. It comes with an attachment.”

  Hanley reached into the briefcase and pulled out a tubular object. He held up the object and Valdez could see it was a silencer. Hanley put the pistol along with its silencer and the magazines away carefully beneath his golf jacket, then he dug inside the briefcase once more and held up several pairs of latex gloves. “Extras,” he said.

  After putting the latex gloves away in his jacket, Hanley reached again into the back seat, returning his briefcase to the back and retriev ing Valdez’s briefcase. Hanley opened this briefcase and began the process of loading Valdez’s Sig Sauer along with two extra magazines.

  Once off the Eisenhower Expressway, Valdez headed south. He saw by the GPS display that Saint Mel in the Woods Rehabilitation Facility was five miles away. On city streets at this time on a Friday evening, Valdez figured it would take them less than a half hour to get there.

  Hanley returned the second briefcase to the back seat and sat with Valdez’s pistol, silencer, extra loaded magazines, and latex gloves in his lap. “I’ll hang onto these until you get stopped by a light,” he said, looking straight ahead.

  “Do you think we’ll need the Sigs?” asked Valdez.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do they have night sights?”

  “Yes.”

  At the next stoplight, Valdez put the magazines, silencer, and gloves into the inside pockets of his golf jacket and tucked the pistol into his waistband.

  “How will we know if Lamberti or his men are straying too close to our territory?” asked Valdez, as he started off from the stoplight.

  “I suppose we might ask about the condition of Mrs. Gianetti, a longtime rehab friend of our spouses,” said Ha
nley.

  “Do you think we’ll have an opportunity to converse on that level?”

  “From what our contacts have told us, I doubt it.”

  Valdez stopped the car at another stoplight and glanced at Hanley. “If we need to use our Sigs, what will the cover be?”

  “An underworld dispute,” said Hanley. “Langley arranged it with the New York office. East Coast bosses will have gotten upset that they lost drugs and money a long time ago and just now found out who was to blame. They will have sent in someone to represent their interests. Coincidentally, our Sigs were confiscated in New York not that long ago. And, to add to the confusion, Gianetti and his crew also use the Sig Pro. It’s replaced their venerable Berettas.”

  Hanley stared at Valdez for a moment, then looked back out the windshield. Valdez thought he saw a slight trace of a smile from Han-ley and wondered about it.

  “The light is green,” said Hanley

  Valdez accelerated abruptly and glanced Hanley’s way again. Al though Hanley still stared out the windshield, Valdez thought he no ticed a change in disposition in Hanley.

  “If it comes down to it,” said Valdez, “how will we be certain we have closure?”

  “Perhaps we’ll never have closure on this one,” said Hanley.

  “Is that because there are others out there?” asked Valdez.

  Hanley was silent, so Valdez pressed him.

  “If we follow the money to its end, will there be others?”

  Hanley took off his golf cap, scratched his head, put his cap back on, and said, “Yes, there will be others.”

  Valdez looked at the GPS display and saw they were only three miles from the rehabilitation facility.

  Although one guard at the front counter was new to Hell in the Woods and the other was a veteran, both of them were young.