Odd Jobs

by Ben Lieberman

  I want to get Jimmy talking so I can follow his voice, figure out exactly which room he’s in. In a low voice I say, “I know you saw me get shot. You must have been wondering if I was alive or not.”

  “Fuck you, Davenport. I know you lost your girlfriend, but I lost a lot, too. Shit, I’ve lost everything I got.”

  “Not everything, Jimmy. Not yet.” I use the light of the cell phone in my hand to navigate around the furniture, avoiding any unnecessary noises.

  “Kevin, listen up. I helped you out. I got you a job when you needed money. You were always welcome in my house. I was going to take you into the business. I was offering you some opportunities. Things you always wanted. Why did you turn on me?”

  Right on schedule Curtis’s guys return the power in the house and the lights go on. There I am, staring into the frightened eyes of Jimmy Balducci. There is no gun in his hand, so I can put mine away. It can’t be a coincidence that Jimmy is in this room; he was looking for his gun.

  “You killed my father; that’s why I turned on you.” I shove Jimmy in the chest. “You took everything from me. Fuck you.” I shove Jimmy in the face, nearly knocking his head into a lamp that’s next to his desk. We are in the home office of the fishing house, a place where he undoubtedly bought for free and ordered hits that ruined hundreds of families. Probably he is trying to get to a drawer in the desk. “My sister’s dead, my mom’s a train-wreck.” I shove his face again. “You gave me a job when I needed one? Fuck you. You’re the reason I was so hard up for money. I had to take care of my family, you asshole.” When I shove him in the face again, his head hits the wall hard. He slides down the wall and lands on his ass. I notice him looking toward the window. I pull out the cell phone and show him the picture of the dead bodyguard that I saved as wallpaper on Sev’s cell phone. “Jimmy, your friend Fleisher and his pals are taking a nap, so they won’t be able to help you right now.”

  A stunned and desperate Jimmy says, “Kevin, hold on a minute!”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t kill my father.”

  “Listen, it wasn’t about your father. We were protecting what we built up. Your father was a freakin’ pit bull.” Trying to work me, Jimmy continues. “I see where you get it from. He was closing in on us. We had to stop him. You have to believe me, it wasn’t anything personal.”

  I put my knee on Jimmy’s chest. I have him pinned against the wall and the desk. Being in a drug-induced coma for two weeks took a lot of my strength away, but even at a fraction of what I’m supposed to be, Jimmy is no problem. “So what the fuck was I? Some sort of sport for you?”

  Jimmy doesn’t answer. He is trying to wrestle free but I have him lodged solidly. So I repeat, “Was it funny having me over to your house and having me work in your fucking meat factory?” My head is throbbing from pent-up frustration. Jimmy is cornered in every way imaginable. “It must have been a riot bragging to all your fucked-up psychotic friends how not only did you ruin my family but you have me jumping through hoops. I hope you had a lot of laughs, because now it’s time to pay up.”

  “No, no! Shit, you have it wrong. Listen to me, you have it wrong.”

  “Speak. You have one minute.”

  “It wasn’t sport. Shit, it wasn’t anything like that. You came to Remington Academy; we didn’t know shit about you except that you could help the school build a better basketball program. Who would have thought you were the DA’s kid? A bunch of years had gone by since your father died. Trust me, we didn’t know shit then about you. I’m telling you, Davenport, when we finally put two and two together, we almost crapped our pants.”

  I hesitate a minute. I’m trying to digest what he is saying, as if I care, but something does strike me as funny. “Jimmy, who is ‘we’? You said we almost crapped our pants.”

  Jimmy hesitates. “You know, the guys I was working with.”

  I punch him in the face. His eyes briefly roll back into his skull. I say, “Cut the shit. Who is the ‘we’?”

  “Kevin, it’s not too late. We can make this right. Let’s talk business here. Don’t make this so personal. I can get you more money than you ever dreamed of. Isn’t that what you always wanted? You told me so. C’mon... let me go and we’ll talk about this.”

  I take my knee off Jimmy’s chest and stand up. I’m sure Balducci thinks I want to talk about the “business proposition” he just offered me. But I’m really looking for something to drive home a point. “Thanks for the offer, but even if I wanted to accept, which I don’t, we both know you have no money. It’s all gone, Jimmy.”

  On Balducci’s desk, there is a brass letter opener in the shape of a dagger; that will do nicely. I grab Jimmy by the throat and throw him back down on the ground. I shove the letter opener into his right eye and drive it in. There’s a sonic pop that booms through the house. It reminds me of the gunshots that ripped through Rocky and me. It reminds me of the pop the suffocating cellophane made when it finally burst. A combination of blood and eyeball fluid is flowing over Balducci’s face and my shirt. I even taste some in my mouth. It must be all over my face.

  Balducci shrieks like a dying cat. As much as I want to do this, the sight and sound of blinding Jimmy is making me queasy. “I’m not fucking around here. Who the fuck is ‘we’?”

  Understandably, Balducci is having a little trouble focusing. “Oh God, I can’t see! Oh God, it hurts, oh it hurts.”

  “You want me to make this hurt more? Who the fuck is ‘we’? Who else?”

  “Wellington. Please stop! Buster Wellington. He’s the one with all the political connections. We were partners. Oh God, this hurts.”

  “Keep going,” I demand.

  “I provided the muscle. He had the political connections. He stayed behind the scenes. How do you think my kid got into Remington Academy? I needed help and he helped me. Oh God, please don’t do this!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” I drive the letter opener into his throat. I was going to stab him in the heart, but you’d have to be a microbiologist to find it. The throat is working nicely though. He is gurgling and wheezing and he is suffering.

  I slump down on the ground and sit next to Balducci. I want to see it all the way through. But give Jimmy credit; at the end of the day, he managed to steal something else from me. Him and his “I buy for free” bullshit; he’s the ultimate thief. I lived for the satisfaction of taking Balducci down and finishing the job my father started. But then Jimmy told me about Buster Wellington. All that time at Remington Academy, I never saw Buster or Jimmy speak two words to each other. When I was dating C.W. Wellington, I never saw any connection. Shit, even when I was spying on Balducci inside his house, I never saw a connection. Was he bullshitting?

  I’m about to ask him if he’s lying when he begins to gurgle. Then he’s gone. He still has a little air left, but he’s not here. He’s probably halfway down some giant sliding pond dropping him off at Lucifer’s Playground for the Hopelessly Evil.

  The gurgling stops. It took me 25 minutes. Five minutes to spare; Curtis will be happy.

  CHAPTER 30

  Sev and Curtis are standing and talking outside the black Escalade. The three Special Service guys that took out Balducci’s guards flank them. When I appear from the other side of the bushes, they look me up and down to observe how soiled my shirt is.

  Sev speaks first. “I sure hope the house is spotless.”

  “Not exactly,” I say. “The house is pretty messy too.”

  Curtis frowns. “Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sloppier in my life.”

  I show them the letter opener and say, “I took this with me, you know, so I wouldn’t leave any evidence.”

  Sev smiles and says, “Good idea, kid.”

  Curtis takes the letter opener from me and hands it to one of his guys. He says to the group, “You have three bodyguards and Jimmy Balducci. Make the bodies disappear and take care of this house. I need a first-rate job here. By the time you’re through, no one should be able to recogni
ze even the foundation of this house.”

  Sev and Curtis get back in the Escalade. Sev looks at me and says, “Are you coming or what?”

  I’m dazed. I nod and head toward the back door of the SUV. Curtis says, “He ain’t coming in my car like that. You have any idea what that’s going to smell like?”

  Sev motions to a Special Service guy who is wearing a t-shirt under his regular button-down black shirt. The guy takes the shirt off and offers it to me. I take off my bloody t-shirt and, in a moronic move, offer the horrific shirt to the Special Service guy, like we are trading.

  “Thanks,” he says sarcastically.

  “Oh, shit, sorry.”

  Curtis says, “C’mon, let’s go.”

  No one speaks during the ride. I took down Balducci, but shit, Buster Wellington is just as bad, if not worse. Fuck. I want to talk to Sev about this but our car ride is over and we are parked in front of a helicopter.

  Curtis says, “Let’s go; New Paltz to Manhattan in 30 minutes.”

  The helicopter isn’t what I’d pictured an Army helicopter to look like. The pilot is separated from the passengers by a partition. We are in an area with two plush leather rows facing each other and a coffee table in between. There is burl wood veneer throughout the interior.

  “Nice ride,” Sev says to me. “Curtis’ department busted a big Brazilian drug cartel and they confiscated about ten of these. Curtis gets a chopper for his department to use as they see fit. That’s how it works here; kind of a merit system.” The helicopter takes off. I’m feeling frustrated. I want to talk to Sev and Curtis about Buster Wellington, but it’s too noisy to talk. Curtis puts on a large headset with a big microphone and motions me to pick up a headset. Sev does the same. “You guys knew about Buster Wellington, didn’t you?” I can hear my own voice in the headphones.

  Sev answers. “Yeah, we knew.” I can hear him perfectly now. Almost like we are on the phone, but we are looking right at each other.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You must have known for a while.”

  Curtis says, “Is it my imagination, or am I correct in saying we gave you exactly what you asked for? Not only did we stop Balducci, we also waited till you were ready to terminate him. Think about tonight. It was like going to a fuckin’ Mickey D’s take-out for you. Don’t make it like we did something wrong.”

  “Yeah, well fuck that. I want Wellington, too.”

  Curtis says, “Sorry, kid, that one you can’t have.”

  My frustration boils to a fever. “You can’t do that to me. He was Balducci’s partner. He was just as responsible for killing my father and sister. He ruined my whole family. Look what they did to Rocky! I need this. Please, guys.”

  Curtis says, “Believe me, I know how you feel. I know how this stings, but we need Wellington. I threw a lot of resources at this; we can’t come up empty-handed. If it makes you feel better, Buster’s life is taking a dramatic turn for the worse tonight.”

  “That’s why you needed me to finish Balducci in 30 minutes. You said you have a high-profile arrest to make.”

  “Yes. Buster Wellington is at a fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria. The room is filled with senators, businessmen and socialites. When we take Buster in, it will be all over the news.”

  Sev laughs. “Kevin, you can’t believe how much shit we have on this asshole. Remember when you were getting antsy because we weren’t moving in yet?”

  “Yeah, sure. Petro, too. We all were on the edge and you were eating pancakes.”

  “Yeah, pancakes help me think. Anyway, that’s where the dominoes really fell. Balducci was a caged rat. He was desperate and he blew his cover with Wellington. There are direct phone calls, attempted meetings, and all the codes that they had throughout the years were revealed and deciphered. We located the money trails and linked them to both Balducci and Wellington. We have pictures and surveillance tapes. Balducci knew he was cornered, and he’d figured out that Petro didn’t have the resources to organize this effort. He knew something was up and that being arrested wasn’t out of the question. Shit, for Balducci, getting arrested was the best option. In the end, he was more scared of Buster Wellington than us. He knew Buster wouldn’t risk being exposed. He was right, too; Buster was planning to kill Jimmy.”

  “No shit?” I say.

  “Yeah, Buster was more cutthroat than Balducci by a long shot.”

  Now I’m even more frustrated. I went after the wrong guy. “Curtis, are you the one who’s going to arrest Wellington?”

  “Hell, no. I can’t blow my cover. We have district attorneys for that. If people know me, I’d never be able to get things done. Tonight, we’ll be in a surveillance truck watching the whole thing.”

  I ask Curtis if he can give me five minutes alone with Wellington.

  “Why? So you can strangle him?”

  “I want to, that’s true, but I understand everything you’ve been saying. You come away with a big-profile arrest and your department gets stronger. It’s easier for you to go after other scumbags now. I wouldn’t ruin that for you. But I’d still like to confront Buster Wellington. Can you arrange that for me?”

  Sev looks at Curtis. Curtis pauses and says, “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER 31

  I’m mad at myself. Did I let my feelings for C.W. Wellington blind me? Did I miss something while I was idolizing her? If I did a better job, if I kept my mind more open, could I have figured out Buster’s involvement? For Christ’s sake, I was at their house all the time. If I did the job better, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten Rocky killed. I’m such an asshole.

  The helicopter lands on a pad near Chelsea Piers. Another black Escalade is waiting for us and rushes us to the Lexington Avenue side of the Waldorf Astoria. TV trucks are parked out front to cover this big celebrity charity event. Sev and Curtis lead me to an NBC TV truck parked in front of the Bull and Bear restaurant, a block north of the Waldorf. Immediately, I can tell this isn’t an ordinary TV truck. It holds an impressive array of TV screens that have every angle and every corner of the grand ballroom covered. One flat panel TV, bigger than all the others, is focused on a deserted table.

  Curtis says, “That’s the Wellington table. No one is there now, but the main course is about to be served.”

  Cameras are panning randomly through the crowd, highlighting the celebrity guests. There are major movie stars, models, athletes, senators and captains of business like Buster Wellington. They’re all here for the noble cause of saving the planet.

  Curtis points to the left wall of the mock TV truck. He is showing me that one wall of this operation is dedicated to following the Wellington family. Buster is on the dance floor wearing his Armani tuxedo. He’s spinning his wife around the floor to the music of a 40-piece orchestra.

  Another camera is focusing nearby on CW.’s younger twin sisters, who are dancing as well. They seem to be with some very proper young men.

  One camera is locked in on C.W. at the bar, and that grabs my attention. She’s wearing a beautiful low-cut shiny brown dress. Very classy, but just tart enough to attract the attention that she thrives on. She’s at the bar with some preppy guy and working him like only C.W. can. I think to myself, Enjoy these last few minutes, C. W. Trust me, it sucks having the world you thought was yours taken away.

  Everyone has been called back to their seats for the main course. The master of ceremonies has taken the stage. It’s Debby Brooks, a popular comic. Behind her is a tremendous screen that projects her image throughout the room where the people who donated an insane amount are in front of the people who donated only a crazy amount. Brooks is barking her routine and the crowd is eating it up. She’s tearing into some of the CEOs in the crowd and everyone is enjoying it. Right now she is crushing Brian Richmand, the CEO of Limestone Private Equity.

  Brook’s announces the keynote speaker, former Vice President Al Gore.

  The flat screen TV shows the Wellington family sharing the table with the dates of the four daughters.
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  A voice reaches out to Curtis through his walkie-talkie. “Curtis, we’re behind a few minutes. They’re all there. Should we move in?”

  “Not yet. I can’t do that to Gore. Shit, the man was the vice president. Don’t worry. Wellington always makes a statement at these things. As long as I have him there, it’s all good.”

  Gore is speaking with a southern drawl and I’m sure everything he is saying is important, but shit, can the man talk any slower? When Gore is well into his speech, Curtis says into the walkie-talkie, “Any minute now. Stay loose.”

  When Gore finally finishes, Debby Brooks introduces the auctioneer for the silent auction. She teases Gore about the election he lost, and Gore jabs back pretty manfully. By most standards, this event is quite a success.

  Curtis says into the walkie-talkie, “Okay, this is the spot I was looking for. We can make maximum impact and not ruin the event. Let’s go before the auction starts.”

  In less than 15 seconds, 20 police officers burst into the Waldorf. They are fully armed and fully protected in riot gear for effect. It’s a long march to the front of the room and the Wellington table. There is plenty of curiosity, but I bet there are plenty who think this is a gag and part of the event. However, that thought is suspended when the United States attorney approaches Buster Wellington. The DA says, “Alexander Wellington, you are being arrested on charges of violating the federal RICO act, conspiracy to commit murder, grand larceny, violating international trade regulations and treasonous acts against the United States government. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney.... ”

  While Buster is handcuffed, the crowd tries to converge on the table. The chatter has risen to a clamorous roar.

  Sev says, “This will be a long fall from grace.”

  The Waldorf ballroom is huge, and the patrons from the back tables are wrestling through to get a look. The camera angle we have is well positioned and I assume that’s not by accident. Wellington’s wife is sobbing and trying to stay poised, you know, the WASP thing. The look on C.W.’s face is priceless. She knows it’s over. She is frozen in shock. I know she is maneuvering something in her head. She’s already in recovery mode and in denial about how bad things are about to get. What’s the proper reaction to a family scandal, anyway? It doesn’t much matter; her world is different now. It can change that quickly.