“Shut up, Jimmy. I’ll get to you in a minute. Ordinarily, I’d agree. But we’re all here and I just had prostate surgery, so you’ll excuse me if I’m not up for any more travel and shenanigans today. Where were we?”
“You just made Pete aware that I’m going to be buried with him,” you say in a cheerful, helpful tone.
“Pete’s an old friend. I’m not going to let Jake shoot him in front of Lily. Lily’s like a granddaughter to me. It’s not that kind of day. But Pete? You disappoint me. Deep. Jimmy’s the heir apparent, but you would have still been his chief adviser when I give up the ghost. That’s not going to happen now. You’re demoted. You get to keep your book, but I’m going to need to take ten percent more starting now. Also, the after-hours club is all mine. Any questions?”
Pete looks at the carpet and shakes his head.
“I didn’t fucking think so,” the old man says genially. “Jake, put the heater away. You look a little too eager to use it. You were loyal, so you’ll be working with me from now on. Paulie’s a good guy, but obviously too stupid since instead of being here he’s tied to a hospital bed. You’re my new driver, Jake. Congrats.”
“I just want to pipe up here, sir,” you point out, “Lily doesn’t want to see me killed in front of her, either. And you should know I’m a bleeder, Jimmy. I’m really going to mess up this fine carpet.”
“We’ll use a plastic bag, then,” Big Denny says.
A plastic bag. That cold bastard. You wish you’d never told Denny the truth about your history in that terrible basement in Florida. You wish you’d never saved him. You wish lots of things. Except for getting Lily, your wishes have never come true. Now that’s slipping away, too.
Vincent ignores Denny. He’s back to watching your eyes so you stare back. All the lies are out. All you can do is own them and wait for your moment. Your moment better come quickly, before Denny steps behind you and slips a plastic bag over your head and seals it off with a zip tie around your throat.
Vincent shifts uncomfortably in his seat and takes a pill bottle from his jacket, opens it, and knocks back a couple oblong tablets, swallowing the painkillers dry. “You think just because I went under the knife that now’s your opening? I’ll give up The Machine when I choose. I didn’t work my way up for so long to have one of you apes just step in the moment I hit a speed bump. I’m bigger than cancer, boys. I’ve dodged bullets for years. I sure as shit can deal with you humps. Get it?”
The men nod. You allow a shrug. You consider telling Vincent that you just wanted the skim so you could get out and far away. You didn’t have any designs on a quick promotion. The old man doesn’t look so genial anymore, so you shut up.
“Next, just so you all understand once and forever that I am not weak, I gave the order for Bob to get whacked. ”
The blood drains from your face. You can feel it.
“I told Jimmy to order Jesus to whack Bobby. It tore my heart out to do it. My own step son. I never thought of him like that. I always, always just called Bobby my son. But he got greedy. I could even stand that. I understand that. There’s too thin a line between ambition and greed. Under the right circumstances, Bob might even have been a good boss someday. But he had his gambling problem. I can’t abide weakness. Stupid, I’m used to. Weakness, I can’t stand. But worse, Bob was talking to the feds.”
Mouths drop open around the room. Even Bald Van, who you thought wasn’t listening, looks more pale. He leans back against the window pane, cooling the back of his head.
“So…” you venture, “this was never about the skim.”
“Nope. I could tolerate a little of that. I gave him rope. I knew about his gambling debts in Atlantic City. I wanted him to grow up and deal with it himself. If I had stepped in earlier, maybe the feds wouldn’t have gotten their hooks into him so deep. They picked him up with a limo outside a casino in Atlantic City and gave him a dream of escape from us, after we gave him so much.”
“How did you know for sure?” you ask, thinking of how Vincent car bombed three guys, knowing only one of them was the rat.
Vincent shrugs. “There’s lots more going on behind the scenes than you imagine, kid. Like all little guys, you think the game is all about you. You’re the worst kind of dummy. You’re the kind of dummy who thinks he’s smart. You think all I do is sit back and drink wine while you run your little errands and it’s your world. Meanwhile? I’m a business man. I cultivate people. I have meetings. One day I get a phone call from an FBI agent. He tells me I’ve got a rat and for an exorbitant amount of money, he’ll show me proof who it is. I met with this bastard, heard a tape and saw some photos and I was still crying when I paid that FBI bastard his money for the information. I would have excommunicated Bob and left it at that if it weren’t for the feds. Bob threatened the entire Machine. Bob wanted out, but he wanted us to fund his retirement and then live high off the hog in some WitSec program. A fat guy like Bob, he wasn’t going to testify and let the feds ship him off to be a shoe salesman in Arizona with a new name. He wanted to get out, to send us all to jail where we wouldn’t chase after him and keep the skim, too.”
“My brother was a rat?” Jimmy looks ashen.
“Easy, Jimmy. When I told you to have the little Cuban whack Bob, you didn’t fight me so hard. You thought this was just about the skim. You couldn’t have loved Bob that much. You’re not so different from Pete, here. You saw your ascent in Bob’s fall.”
“You told me to give Jesus the job. I don’t question your orders, Dad.”
“Sh. Sh! Don’t pretend it was loyalty. Sure, there’s that, but it was self-interest more. That’s the problem. We aren’t a machine until you get that we are bigger than you. The Machine is bigger than any one of your little dreams. Which brings us to you, little man.”
“I’d like to point out that I’m almost 5’9”,” you say.
“Good for you. Your legs reach all the way to the ground. Your problem is you got your head in the clouds. Diaz, Lily tells me you want out of The Machine, too. You saw the skim as a way out. You wanted to take Bob’s skim and whirl our little Lily far away from all that we’ve given her.”
“Would you have let me go if I’d come to you?”
Vincent laughs. “You were in the army. Did they just let you go when you asked to go home?”
You shrug. “I got out. At first I thought all I had to do was kiss a sergeant. Turns out that doesn’t work with all sergeants. Some, you have to break their jaws.”
“You’re a funny guy, Jesus.”
“You say that like pretty girls say they like a guy with a sense of humor. Then they end up dating some prick with money whose jokes are lame.”
“Why am I here for this?” Lily says. “You said it was going to be all right. You said I could be in the room. I thought if I was in the room, that meant you were serious that everything was going to be okay. You’d give us the key to the storage locker and your blessing and we’d walk out of here. You promised me everything would be all right, Abuelo!”
“Shut up, kiddo. I’m not your abuelo. Since Pete has proved himself disloyal, sadly, I’m now simply your father’s pissed off employer. I said everything would be all right. I didn’t say how. I got a machine to oil if we’re all going to stay out of federal prison, so you just shut up. You aren’t hearing me. You’re too pretty for your own good, Lily. Always were. We have always spoiled you and this is our reward. You think everything is just about you, too. You think the money for your car, your apartment, your education…that it all falls from the sky and you stay clean? Nobody’s clean. Everybody has a dirty hand in.”
Lily steps back and leans her hip against your shoulder. It’s a silent apology that’s way too late. Moving slowly so Bald Van won’t blow your head off, you offer her your hand and she takes it.
Vincent sighs. “Young love. The most stupid love of all. Lily, you got the curves but you don’t have the brains. You don’t understand what it takes to do what we have to do. I had my ow
n son killed. What makes you think you’re so special?”
Lily looks up and with a defiant sneer you know too well says, “I killed Harv with a frying pan.”
Vincent didn’t know that. You can see it in his face. Jake must have told him you killed Marv’s twin.
Pete leans forward, his head in his hands. “What am I going to tell your mother? Oh, God….”
“Shut up!” Vincent yells for the first time.
Jimmy smacks you in the back of the head as he steps in from behind your chair. “What the hell is wrong with you? How could you let Lily get in this deep? I thought you said you loved her?”
“She killed Harv with a frying pan because she loved me,” you reply. “The rot in The Machine is deeper than you think, Jimmy. Lots of us want out. As soon as Marv and Harv heard about the skim, they were both ready to kill for it to get out and away. Harv was going to kill me to get the key and Lily loves me so much, she killed for me.”
Lily squeezes your hand and you feel her warmth flow back into you. The ice in your stomach goes away and you feel more strength. “Marv was going to kill me, but then he thought Jake killed his brother and all he wanted was to get revenge and get out with the skim, too.”
“Who told him I killed Harv?” Jake asks, bewildered.
“Oh, who do you think, fuckface?” Jimmy says. He fishes out the locker key from his pocket. “Take a good look, Jesus. This is the closest you’ll ever get to Panama Bob’s skim and the cozy little life you’ve been plotting with Lily. Millions of women in New York City and you gotta… It’s just not done! If Lily weren’t the headstrong little princess we all allowed her to be, if anybody in this goddamn room asked permission —”
“Marv was really gonna kill me?” Jake looks at you with new hate in his eyes, but that’s okay. He was pretty much full up with hate for you, anyway.
You manage to smile back at him. “It’s human nature, Jake. Nobody likes you. And everybody dreams of escaping their regular job, winning the lottery and getting away where there’s no boss and we can all live the lives we see in movies. The end part. The happily ever after. We’ve all got that in us. We’ve all been sold happily ever after but that’s just for movies, I guess.”
Vincent’s eyes narrow. “And Denny? He rearranged your face pretty good, so can I trust him, or is he a happily ever after guy, too? Was Denny going to kill you for the key, grab the skim and get away from us? Who can I trust, Jesus? If you speak the truth, I’ll know. I need to know.”
You nod toward Jake. “You can trust him, but he’s a moron.” You tilt your head toward Bald Van at the window. “You can trust him and he’s no idiot, but in a few minutes, he won’t be part of the equation.”
Vincent’s forehead furrows, but before he can interject, your gaze falls on your old friend on the couch, the brother you chose. “Of all of us, Denny’s motives were the most pure. Denny didn’t care about the skim. He was just trying to get me out of the way to make sure I wouldn’t tell anybody his secret. I wish he could have trusted me with the secret. If he had, none of us would be in this mess now and maybe me and Lily would already be living our happily ever after.”
Harv and Marv and Panama Bob won’t stir up any great sadness in you. You’d planned to kill Marv before this was done, anyway. But the innocent civilian? Denny’s neighbor? She didn’t have to die. You don’t know her name, but you’ll never be able to forget her bloody head and her dead eyes staring back at you with accusation.
“What’s Big Denny’s big secret, Jesus?” Vincent asks. “Convince me. It’s time I cleaned The Machine and got it working right. No machine can work right if it’s got too many complex parts. Help me clean The Machine and I promise you this: You’ll die easy.”
“Denny’s a loyal cog in The Machine,” you say evenly. “He didn’t try to kill me for the skim. He tried to kill me so I wouldn’t tell anybody that he’s in love with Jimmy’s wife.”
You should expect the punch, but it comes quicker than you can think. Jimmy drives his fist into the side of your face. Maybe you hear a crunch, you’re not sure. Certainly, your left eye is going to stay blackened for a long time with all this ongoing abuse. It would if you lived that long, anyway.
Jimmy starts screaming for Barbara but it’s Denny he wheels on next. He runs at Denny, who doesn’t move from his place on the loveseat. Jimmy’s almost on him when Denny lifts one of his crutches and drives the point into Jimmy’s solar plexus. Jimmy goes down, clutching his stomach and gasping for air.
Barbara heard Jimmy scream her name and comes running. She stands over him, watching her husband writhe on the floor. He can’t talk yet, but he reaches out, his palm up, pleading with his eyes as he struggles for breath.
Barbara doesn’t rush to her husband’s side. Instead she watches him flop around like a fish on a dock. Her little smile proves that sometimes you do tell the truth.
Jimmy’s open palm closes and he points at Barbara. His fingers make a gun. Jimmy’s getting his breath back and he uses it to scream. “Kill her! Kill Denny! Kill them both! Do Jesus, too! Do them all! Clean house! Clean house!”
Jake pulls his pistol out again, pointing it first at Denny, then at Barbara. Vincent struggles to stand. It pains him, but he’s shouting at Jake, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Not here! Not here! Not yet! No!”
You want to get up in front of Lily, for the little good that will do, but Bald Van trains the SPAS-12 on you and shakes his head.
Pete leaps up from the couch to lunge at Jake. Jimmy shoots him in the shoulder before the bookie can take another step. Pete cries out and spins to the floor, holding his shoulder.
“Papi!” Lily screams.
The wound doesn’t look bad from where you sit, but everybody knows that once you commit to shooting somebody, you empty that mag so they can never get up and come after you.
Jake’s committed to the craziness of the moment now. He draws a bead on Barbara. He’s only listening to Jimmy’s screams, blocking out everyone else. Jake must have never imagined he’d be ordered to whack the boss’s wife. He hesitates and in that moment, Barbara looks her would-be killer in the eyes and crosses the floor to sit on the loveseat beside Denny. She wraps her arms around him and the big lug kisses her. It’s the most romantic fucking thing you’ve ever seen. You could never have dreamed the most romantic gesture you’ve witnessed in your life would involve Big Denny De Molina.
Lily has slipped behind you by the bookcase full of fake books, her eyes on Jake, screaming to be spared and pleading for her father who writhes on the floor.
“Kill them both, goddammit! Do it!” Jimmy bawls, struggling to his feet.
Jake takes another breath to brace himself for what he’s about to do. Barbara and Denny are about to die. The SPAS-12 booms. Jake leaves a bloody smear on the wall as he slides to the floor out of sight behind the big couch.
Your eyes are on the key. Happily ever after. It’s there, embodied in the little key on the floor at your feet where Jimmy dropped it. Sure, they’ll find you wherever you go — earth’s not that big — but you could at least escape with Lily for a little while. Ever after isn’t in your cards, but escaping for a little while is better than a lot of people ever experience.
However, your prospects to survive the minute are poor. “Not here, not yet,” Vincent had said, but soon, obviously. Vincent has the key and now he knows how deep the rot goes. You’ve got nothing left to give him besides the location of the locker, but since you figured it out, surely Vincent has figured it out, too. Vincent doesn’t need you. He’ll kill you. He’ll clean house just to make sure no one questions that he’s still the alpha dog and he’s smarter than everybody.
No doubt Vincent is smarter than you on the fly, but you did have some time to prepare. You glance at your watch. The Romanians are late.
TAKE IT
Crash! The Romanians hit the outer gate.
The great room’s floor-to-ceiling windows provide an excellent view of the battlefield. The crash
is eighty yards away, but the commotion inside the house ends as everyone swivels to look out to see Doom hauling ass up the driveway. A big armoured cube truck — a United States Post Office vehicle — hits the gate and the sheet of iron bars bursts almost all the way inward.
Figures. An armoured truck used by banks is a tough get, but the armoured postal trucks sit in rows beside the regular delivery vehicles, waiting to be stolen. The outer gate is heavier than the driver expected and the truck has to back up and take another run at it before he crashes through. Had the driver committed to hitting the gate at full speed, the element of surprise wouldn’t already be slipping away. Two cars following the truck too closely have to wheel out of the way, their tires screeching and smoking to make room for the second run at the iron obstacle.
“It’s a bunch of white guys!” Bald Van yells.
“It’s the Banda,” Vincent says.
An alarm starts up that sounds like a submarine klaxon. From the first floor, running feet pound through the house and, below, Juan and Twist come into view as they run down the front steps. They deke around the Cutlass’s back bumper and kneel behind the fountain in the center of the circular driveway. That should be decent cover for them to pick off the Romanians as they pour out of their cars.
Jimmy forgets his adulterous wife and stares out the window in shock. “We got defenses that will make these bitches shit kittens.” Even as he says it, five more guards carrying heavy ordnance — four AKs and one guy with a Rocket Propelled Grenade — run out the front of the house to join Juan and Twist. Three kneel in defensive positions behind the fountain. Another squats behind the Cutlass’s trunk and the guy with the RPG takes cover behind the car’s engine block and shoulders his weapon.
The truck’s engine roars, using power rather than speed to slowly push through the steel of the first gate’s moorings. It plows a path on to the estate with two cars tight behind, bumper to bumper to bumper. Cracks of gunfire begin. The guys in the back of the second car lean out of their windows to fire at the house. Vincent steps back from the windows.
Bigger Than Jesus Page 17
