The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

by Martin H. Greenberg

“And just because I’m the last guy anyone saw threatening to kill him, the cops ruin my whole day. Now is that fair? Is that the American way?”

  “It really stinks.” I patted Joey on the back. “Just out of curiosity, did you kill him?”

  “No. I was proposing to the Widow Butera at the estimated time of death.”

  “Did she alibi you to the cops?”

  “No.”

  Women.

  “So I wonder who did it?” I said.

  “Could’ve been any one of a hundred guys,” Joey said.

  “More,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  The Widow Butera stepped up to Vinny’s grave and looked down at it for a long moment. Then she crossed herself, glared once more at Joey, and started walking to her car.

  When Connie Vitelli got off the phone for a split second, Joey and I paid our respects so we could get the hell out of there.

  “Such a shame,” Joey said politely to Vinny’s widow. “Him being so young and all.”

  “Not that young.” Connie shook her head. “And I think dementia was setting in already. He was seeing things.”

  “Seeing things?” Joey said. “Then ‘dementia’ probably isn’t the right word, because that’s when—”

  “Oops! I gotta take this,” Connie said as her cell phone rang.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What things was Vinny seeing? Feds stalking him? Hitters from the Bernini family coming after him?” If we knew, we might be able to figure out who’d whacked him.

  Connie rolled her eyes. “Himself, if you can believe it.”

  “Huh?”

  “The day before Vinny died, he came home in a cold sweat, babbling about how he had just bumped into the spitting image of himself on the street outside Buon Appetito. The guy was even dressed like Vinny. Right down to the bulletproof vest. Go figure.” Connie shrugged off the idea that her husband’s perfect double was out there somewhere and added, “Now I’ve really got to take this call. Thanks for coming, fellas.” She turned away and said into her cell phone, “Hello? Oh, good! Thanks for getting back to me today. Yes, I’ll be out of the house by tonight, so put it on the market right away.”

  “So Vinny was losing his mind,” I said.

  Joey nodded towards Connie and the kids. “And you’re surprised by this?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  Which is why I didn’t think any more about it. Not then, anyhow. Not until three days later, which was when a dinner-and-dance cruise accidentally found Johnny Be Good Gambone’s body floating in the Hudson River.

  “But it can’t be Johnny,” I said to Joey Mannino when he told me about it.

  “It is. Positive ID, no doubt about it.”

  “No, it can’t be, because—”

  “Vito, pull yourself together,” Joey said. “Two of our guys dead in one week. We’re going to the mattresses.”

  “It can’t be Johnny, because I saw him alive at the same time they were fishing that corpse out of the river.”

  “It must be the Berninis doing these hits. Who else would have the nerve? Those bastards! Well, if they want another war, we’ll give them another w—”

  “Joey, are you listening to me? I’m telling you, whoever they found in the Hudson, it wasn’t Johnny Gambone, because I had dinner with him last night!”

  Joey stared at me. “Are you losing your mind, too?”

  “No! They’re just putting the wrong name on the corpse.”

  But when we showed up at the mortician’s to inspect the body, I saw there’d been no mistake. That was Johnny Gambone lying on that slab, no doubt about it. Who else in the world had a purple tattoo of a naked broad on his shoulder with the word “Mom” written across it?

  “So you’re not still denying that’s Johnny?” Joey prodded.

  “Couldn’t be anyone else, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “But, I’m telling you, I was having dinner with him that evening. We talked about Vinny’s death. Johnny told me that, no matter how much we hated Vinny, it was our job to find out who’d clipped him, because we can’t just let people go around killing made guys without even asking first. Especially not our made guys.”

  “Vito, that’s impossible. According to the cops, Johnny had already been dead for thirty-six hours by the time you had dinner with . . . with . . .”

  “Something’s not right,” I said.

  And whatever was not right became even more wrong a couple of days later when Danny (the Doctor) Bardozzi, best known for chopping up four members of the Gambone family and passing them off as ground ostrich meat at an East Village restaurant which went out of business soon after Danny was indicted, was found dead.

  I know what you’re thinking, but we didn’t do it. We didn’t even know who did it, just like we didn’t know who’d clipped Johnny and Vinny. We were knee deep in bodies by now, and we had no idea who was stacking them up.

  “And the way the Doctor was killed,” Joey told me as we walked along Mott Street, “is really strange.”

  “You mean compared to the normal way Vinny was killed, with four bullets pumped into his chest and not a scratch on the bulletproof vest he was wearing at the time? Or the normal way Johnny Gambone was found floating in the river while I was watching him eat linguine and bitch about his indigestion?” Okay, I was feeling irritable and got a little sarcastic.

  Joey said, “Listen, Danny showed up at Bernini’s Wine and Guns Shop in a panic, armed with two Glocks and a lifetime supply of ammo, and locked himself in the cellar. There’s no way in or out of the cellar except through the one door he’d locked, and—because Danny was acting so crazy—there were a dozen Berninis standing right by that door trying to convince him to come out.”

  “And?”

  “Next thing they know, they hear a few shots go off. So they break down the door and run downstairs. Danny’s alone. And dead.” Joey grimaced. “Shotgun. Made a real mess.”

  “But you said he had two Glocks.”

  “That’s right. And, no, there wasn’t a shotgun down there. Not before Danny locked himself in . . . and not when the Berninis found him there.”

  “Then it wasn’t a shotgun. He blew his own head off with a Glock.”

  “No. His guns hadn’t even been fired, and there was buckshot everywhere. Just no shotgun.”

  “In a locked cellar with no windows and no other door? That’s impossible.”

  “Like it was impossible for you to be eating dinner with a guy whose two-day-old corpse was floating in the Hudson River at the time?”

  “We’re in trouble,” I said. “We’ve got something going on here that’s bigger than another war with the Berninis.”

  “That’s what they think, too.”

  “What? You mean they ain’t blaming us for Danny’s death?”

  “How could they? I just told you what happened. They know we’re not invisible, and neither are our guns. In fact, they knew something strange was happening even before we did, because they knew they didn’t kill Johnny Gambone.”

  “We’ve got to have a sitdown with the Berninis.”

  “I’ve called one for tonight. At St. Ignazio’s. I gotta have dinner at my mother’s in Brooklyn first, but I’ll be there.”

  St. Ignazio’s was dark and shadowy, lit only by candles. The whole place smelled of incense and lingering perfume . . . The Widow Butera’s perfume, I realized, as I saw her kneeling before a statue of Saint Paula, patron saint of widows.

  Father Michael and two guys from the Bernini family were waiting for me in an alcove on the other side of the church.

  “Is Joey here yet?” I asked the Widow Butera.

  “What do I care? What do I care about any of you fiends?” She rose to her feet and came towards me. “I hate you all! Every single one of you! I spit on you! I spit on your mothers’ graves!”

  “So you haven’t seen him?”

  She shook her fist at me. “Stay away from me!”

  “Hey, I’m not
the one trying to make you a widow for the fourth time. So don’t yell at me, sister. And . . .” I frowned as wispy white things started escaping from the fist she shook at me. “Are those feathers? Whatever happened to praying with rosary beads?”

  She made a really nasty Sicilian gesture and stomped towards the main door in a huff just as Joey entered the church. The poor guy’s face brightened like he’d just met a famous stripper.

  He asked her, “Have you thought any more about my proposal? I mean, take all the time you need, I just won—”

  “Get out of my way!” she shrieked. “Don’t ever come near me again! Don’t even look at me!”

  “Maybe we’ll talk later?” Joey said to her back.

  She paused to look over her shoulder at him. “Amazing,” she said in a different tone of voice. Then she left.

  “You’re late,” I said to Joey.

  “Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Father Michael, smelling strongly of sacramental wine as he came close to us, “the Berninis are eager to begin this summit, so if you—”

  “Summit?” I repeated.

  “Sitdown,” said Joey.

  “Oh.”

  “So if you’ll just take your seats . . .”

  “You’re fucking late,” said Carmine Bernini. He was Danny (the Doctor) Bardozzi’s cousin by marriage, and also the world’s biggest asshole.

  “But we haven’t been waiting too long,” added Tony Randazzo. He was a good-looking kid who’d been a soldier in the Bernini family for a few years. A stand-up guy, actually, and I’d let him date my daughter if I didn’t think I’d probably have to kill him one day.

  “Would anyone care for some chips and dip?” Father Michael asked. “Maybe some cocktails?”

  “We ain’t here to fucking socialize,” said Carmine.

  “Don’t curse in church,” said Joey.

  “Well, please fucking excuse me.”

  Like I said—the world’s biggest asshole. “Never mind the refreshments, Father,” I said. “This’ll just take a few minutes.” I looked at Carmine. “Let’s lay our cards on the table.”

  So we did. And what these guys told me about Danny Bardozzi’s death got my full attention.

  “He said what?”

  Tony said, “Danny came into the shop that day and said he’d just seen his perfect double, his spitting image.”

  “His doppelgänger?” said Father Michael.

  “Yeah, his doppelgangster,” said Carmine. “He was fucking freaking out. In a cold sweat, shaking like a virgin in a whorehouse, babbling like a snitch with the Feds. Scared out of his mind.”

  “Because he’d seen this doppelgangster?” I said.

  “Yeah. He said it meant he was gonna die.”

  “He was right,” I said. “But how did he know?”

  “Perhaps he knew that, traditionally,” said Father Michael, “seeing your doppelgänger portends your own death.”

  “No shit?” said Carmine.

  “No sh . . . Um, yes, really,” said Father Michael.

  “But we got more than people pretending their deaths here, Father,” I said.

  “No, portending,” the priest said. “Seeing your doppelgänger is, in popular folklore, a sure sign that you’re going to die.”

  “Weird shit,” said Carmine.

  “Even weirder,” I said, “Danny ain’t the only one around here who’s seen a doppelgangster.” I told them about Skinny Vinny telling Connie he’d seen his own perfect double the day before he died.

  “Johnny Gambone did, too!” said Father Michael, swaying a little. “My God! I didn’t realize . . .” He wiped his brow. “Just a few days before his body was found, Johnny told me after Mass that he’d seen a man who looked very much like himself, dressed the same, even bearing the same tattoo—but nowhere near as handsome.”

  “He always was a vain sonofabitch,” said Carmine.

  “So he saw his double, too, then,” I said. “All three of these guys died after seeing their doubles.”

  “And died in such strange ways,” Tony added.

  “Yes,” said Father Michael. “Almost as if meeting the doppelgänger doesn’t just presage death, it actually curses the victim, making him utterly defenseless against death when it comes for him.”

  “So once you see this fucking thing, that’s it?” said Carmine. “You’re as good as whacked?”

  “That would explain how bullets somehow got past or around Vinny’s vest,” I said.

  “And how someone walked past all of us without being seen,” said Tony, “and got through a locked door to kill Danny.”

  “So we’re dealing with . . . what?” I said. “Witchcraft? Some kind of curse? The Evil Eye?”

  “It’s some weird fucking shit,” said Carmine.

  Father Michael fumbled behind the skirts of the shrine of the Virgin and pulled out a bottle of wine. He uncorked it, gulped some down, and then said, “Black magic. What else could it be?”

  “Fucking creepy.”

  “And whoever is doing it is damn good,” I said. “I had dinner with Johnny Gambone’s doppelgangster and didn’t even know it wasn’t the real guy.”

  “But no one has seen Vinny, Johnny, and Danny since they were found dead, right?” said Father Michael. “I mean . . . no one has seen their doubles since then?”

  I hadn’t even thought about that. “No,” I said. “That’s right. The last time I saw Johnny’s double—the last time anyone saw it, as far as I know—was before his body was found.”

  “So . . . ” Father Michael took another swig. “So whoever is doing this sends a doppelgangst . . . doppelgänger after the victim to curse him with inevitable death. And then, after the victim is dead, the perfect double continues carrying on the victim’s normal life until the death is discovered.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then it . . . ” Father Michael shrugged. “It probably disintegrates into whatever elemental ingredients it was originally fashioned from.”

  “So if you hid the fucking body well enough, it would be years before anyone even knew you’d made the hit. Hey, this black magic is some fucking great stuff! If I could learn to do it—”

  “Whoever has learned to do it,” I said, “is out to kill all of us. Get it? We’ve got to stop him before we’re all dead!”

  “Vito’s right,” said Joey. “We’re all in danger.”

  My cell phone suddenly rang, making us all jump a little. (Hey, if you thought someone was about to kill you that way, wouldn’t you be a little jumpy, too?) I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “Hello?”

  “Vito?” said Joey at the other end. “I’m coming from my mother’s, and I’m still in Brooklyn. Stuck in traffic. You’d better start the sitdown without me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  My blood ran cold as I stared at the Joey sitting here with me, absently stroking his chin the way the real one often did. Choosing my words carefully, I said, “Seen anything strange lately?”

  “Huh?”

  “Anyone familiar?”

  “Well . . . my mother, obviously.”

  “No one else?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Okay, good,” I said with relief. I like Joey, I’d miss him if he was the next one to die. “Listen to me very carefully. Stay right where you are. Call me back in an hour.”

  “But Vito—”

  “Just do it!” I hung up.

  “Who was that?” asked Joey.

  I jumped him, took him to the floor, and started banging his head against the stone. “Vito!” he screamed. “Vito! Stop! What are you doing? Ow!”

  “Vito!” cried Father Michael “Stop!”

  “Fucking maniac,” said Carmine.

  “Thought you’d get Joey Mannino, did you?” I shouted at the doppelgangster. “Well, think again, you bastard!”

  “This is one of them?” the priest shrieked.

  “Yes!” I kept banging its head again
st the floor. “And it’s gonna tell me who’s behind these hits!”

  Its eyes rolled back into its head, it convulsed a few times, and then its head shattered like dry plaster.

  “Whoa!” said Tony.

  I looked down at the mess. Nothing but crumbled dust, lumps of dirt, and feathers where the thing’s head had been. Then its body started disintegrating, too.

  “I think you whacked it, Vito,” said Tony.

  Father Michael poured the whole rest of the bottle of wine down his throat before he spoke. “Well . . . I guess this means that Joey is safe now?”

  “Not for long,” I said. “Whoever did this will make another one the moment he knows this one has been . . . Wait a minute!”

  “Vito? What is it?” said Tony.

  “Maybe it’s not a he,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it! Who would hit the Berninis and the Gambones? Who hates both families that much? Who wants all of us dead?”

  “You saying the fucking Feds are behind this?”

  “No, you asshole! I’m saying the one person who hates both families equally is behind this!” I grabbed a handful of the crap that had been Joey’s doppelgangster a minute ago and waved it at these guys. “Feathers!”

  “Vito, this is a very serious accusation,” said Father Michael, slurring his words a little. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Huh?” said Tony.

  “Just fucking follow him,” said Carmine as I ran for the same exit that the Widow Butera had taken.

  I kicked in the door of her apartment without knocking. I’d figured out her scam by now, so I expected the feathers, the blood sacrifices, the candles, the chanting, and the photos of Bernini and Gambone family members.

  I just didn’t expect to see my own perfect double rising out of her magic fire like a genie coming out of a lantern. I pulled out my piece and fired at it.

  “Noooo!” screamed the Widow Butera. She leapt at me, knocked my gun aside, and started clawing at my face.

  “Kill it! Kill it!” I shouted at the others.

  Carmine said, “I always wanted to do this to you, Vito,” and started pumping bullets into my doppelgangster while I fought the Widow. Father Michael ran around the room praying loudly and drenching things in holy water. Tony took a baseball bat—don’t ask me where he got it—and started destroying everything in sight: the amulets and charms hanging everywhere, the jars of powders and potions stacked on shelves, the cages containing live chickens, and the bottles of blood. My perfect double shattered into a million pieces in the hail of Carmine’s bullets, and the pieces fell smoldering into the fire. Then Tony kicked at the fire until it was scattered all over the living room and started dying.