The Legend of Joey Trucks: The Accidental Mobster
Page 24
“Why don’t you go on the fishing trip with the boys, Phil? You could check him out at close range. Unless everyone in the neighborhood is in on it, he can’t be killing you out there, he’d have to kill everyone else too. You really think he’s planning on killing four people out at sea? How would he do that, Phil?” She was heading for a giant tangent…a thought-vacuum that was about to swallow her mind for a good three hours and unless I threw up a roadblock, she’d be wrecked in a ditch in just a minute or so. “Gladys, I am not going on that deep sea fishing trip with them boys. You want me wearing a pair of cement slippers and sleeping with the seven fishes like those poor souls he tried to kill on Christmas Eve? Huh?” I was really shocked that she wanted me to go with them. “You’re trying to get rid of me Gladys, is that what this is about?” She looked away with a scowl on her face.
“Gladys, why in God’s name did you invite him in here?’ I asked her incredulously. “You might as well petition the governor of California to let old Charles Manson move in with us, while you’re at it.” I was furious. I felt my face go flush and my lips quiver. “That man is a cold-blooded killer and you never know when he is going to strike and you just let him waltz in here with his paper bag full of tomatoes.” I had to sit down. My blood pressure was skyrocketing again. “I’m sorry Phil,” Gladys said, “He seldom comes over here, and he just showed up and knocked on the door. I didn’t check to see who it was before I opened it and then when I did, I was so stunned...” Gladys was starting to ramble and make even less sense than she usually does. I felt kind of bad for her. Just for a second. “It’s okay Gladys,” I offered, “He’s smooth like that. You just promise me that you won’t ever let him in here again. You hear?” Gladys timidly gave me her word.
Now I had this to worry about. I was starting to get tired of saving the neighbors from old Lucky Luciano over there and not being appreciated for it. Heck, nobody but Tim Peppers believed me, even after almost a year of gathering evidence against him. What more did they want? I nearly had pictures of him burying them burlap body bags in his garden. I done heard him setting up the murder of his own mother and father and grandmother, and only my quick thinking and my shellfish allergy saved those folks. I sent the sheriff over there, and he gets bought-off with food and money. Heck, Timmy Peppers was in the middle of eating one of them “special recipe” tomato sandwiches when I reminded him about what was in those body bags. The survival of this entire town is entirely on my shoulders and I can’t find one person as smart as I am to help me expose this gangster.
I thought about it long and hard. I guess I was going to have to go on this fishing trip with the rest of them numbskulls if I wanted to have any neighbors left by Labor Day. If I don’t go along and remain vigilant, old Mezilli will kill them all and dump them in the Atlantic. I called over to Joe’s house. When he answered I found my throat tightening up a little. I didn’t realize the man frightened me like he did. I wasn’t scared like a girl would be scared...I was nervous-scared. Like a wild animal that senses he is in a life or death battle. “Alert” is what I believe it’s called. “Hello Joe.” I said, matter-of-factly. “I was thinking,” I continued, “I could use some time with the other fellas on the street. I haven’t been fishing on the ocean in a mighty long time. If there’s still room for me, I’d like to go along, if that’s okay.”
“Why Phil that would be wonderful!” Mezilli said. He seemed just a little too happy about me going, or so it seemed. That made me suspicious. But I swallowed hard and got the details from him and circled the date on my calendar. Joe told me not to worry about food or drinks; he was bringing all that and just let him know what it was I wanted. “Bring your Dramamine,” He said, “In case you get seasick.” I was going to remind him I was a Navy man, but I didn’t want to reveal to him that I was military trained. If I was ever going to expose this criminal, I would have to thwart one of his evil plans right as it happened. To do that, I have to remain sharp. I thanked him and hung up. I had about two weeks to get prepared for the trip.
I was worried about him supplying the food…that made me suspicious. What if he drugged us all before he shot us and dumped us overboard wrapped in chains? How would I ever be able to stay alert and awake if he did something like that? That remark he’d made about me bringing my Dramamine…that stuff makes you drowsy. Sure, I thought, bring your Dramamine Phil. It’ll make it easier to cap you and fit you with cement shoes. The more I thought about what it was he was up to, the angrier it made me. He must have finally realized that we’re not so stupid down here. That’s what it is! He wants to kill us because we’re going to figure out that he’s really one of them mafias and then we’ll stop him from setting up his own family. He done figured out that I’m wise to them Yankee, Mafia tricks.
I was really mad now.
I called Peppers the next day and asked him for his little voice recorder that he carried in his truck. Tim Peppers has the worst memory in the entire free world. If he went to the bathroom, he’d forget whether he was supposed to stand or sit. So he carried this voice recorder with him. He bought it at the Radio Shack at the mall. Darndest thing I’ve ever seen. It has no tape or nothing. I don’t know how it records your voice, or on what, but it sure as heck does, by God. It’s real high tech and it hurts my head trying to figure it out. But it’s small and it fits in your pocket, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
Peppers asked me what it was for. “I’m going fishing with Don Barzini across the street next month, Timmy. I want this recorder to gather evidence.” I told him. “Evidence for what?” he asked me. Now, he was on the phone, but I swear to you I could hear his mouth hanging open. “Evidence for the killin’ Peppers! Dear God, son, don’t you understand anything?”
“Phil,” Peppers said softly, “What am I not understanding? Isn’t this just a fishing trip?” I wanted to smack my head with the phone. “Peppers,” I said, “If you watched the Sopranos like I do, you’d know more about the way these mafias think and do business.” I explained to him about the time they took Big Pussy out on the boat and shot him for being a rat. Then they stuck him in a body bag and weighed it down with chains and dumped him overboard. “That’s what he plans to do with us, Peppers. Me, Erickson, and Hank Milledge. He’s bringing that hit man Tommy with him; you know the one he grew up with who has his own crew? The one who drove Mezilli’s family down here for the Christmas Eve whackin’? He’s coming along. And he even sent for his cousin George. He’s probably a hit man too. He figures it’ll probably take all three of them to handle us country boys.
“Phil, Erickson is Swedish, ain’t he, from Minnesota?” Peppers asked timidly. “I know that!” I barked, “But dangit, he’s been here so long now, that he’s learned from me and Milledge.” “Learned what?” Peppers asked me. Why, Lord...why? I thought, Why am I the only smart man in Forest? “Peppers!” I yelled, “Who taught Erickson how to shoot? And who taught him to actually use all the tools on a Swiss Army knife? I did!” I was incredulous. “I turned that man from a wimpy little insurance salesman, to a rugged outdoorsman!”
Peppers didn’t have much to say after that. “I’ll bring that recorder over the week before you go fishing, Phil.” He said. “Remind me ahead of time, so I don’t forget.” He was quiet after that. I tried explaining to him how these mobsters think. I told him about how Don Corleone was a seemingly nice guy unless business was involved. I told him how Tony Soprano loved his family, and animals, but was a sociopath. I guess it didn’t get through to old Peppers, because after a long period of silence –where I thought he was actually absorbing some of my insight- he said, “Phil...What, uh...well what if you’re wrong about Joe?” It was too much for me. I just said goodbye and went to the kitchen and ate an Alka-Seltzer. Yeah, I ate one. It was a trick I learned in the Navy. Let that ol’ tablet dissolve in your mouth and the medicine goes to work twice as fast. Besides...the fizzing tickles my brain. I kinda like the way that feels.
Bocce and La Birra
But Forest, Virginia lets you have your very own. Heck you could buy them everywhere. The first year we were here, my boys and I had a raucous Roman Candle war in the back yard. Then, at dusk, we launched fireworks for about two hours. We’d hosted a pool party, and all the neighbors were there. Even the Lowery’s came over. Poor Milledge’s dog wound up stuck in my hedges after he took off running when the fireworks started to explode. His collar got caught in one of the low-lying ewes and he sat there yelping, with his hind legs in the air.
I let my boys help me light the fuses and they got a big kick out of all the exploding and displays. Pop and I never got to do that because fireworks are outlawed in Philly. It was a heck of an evening. I had the laptop out with the Phillies game playing over the internet. I might live in Virginia now, but I’m a Philly boy at heart, and if you’re going to have a cookout on July Fourth, you have to have the Phillies in the background.
I was explaining this to Milledge and Erickson and to the newest neighbor, Charlie Bransford. Bransford was a retired FBI agent who had worked out of Washington DC. He moved here to Forest after retirement and taught some criminal justice classes at the college. He made Tommy nervous. He always wondered if Charlie somehow knew about his history. Anyway, I was telling the boys about how summer cookouts required a transistor radio in the background, with the greatest play-by-play voices in the history of baseball painting the picture.
For the next thirty minutes or so, we went back and forth arguing who those voices belonged to. Milledge had grown up listening to the Braves broadcast and Skip Carey. Or he caught the Yankees on days when you could get the radio skip from New York. “Swede” Erickson said he’d grown up listening to Ernie Harwell’s broadcasts of the Tigers. “Even in Minnesold-ah” he’d explained in his thick accent, “We heard Ernie Harwell, don’t-cha-know?”
It was a great discussion. The kind of thing women have no appreciation for, but men will talk about for hours. Of course my loyalties were with Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn. I started telling the boys about how my dad didn’t have much time to take me to games when I was a kid, with the responsibilities of the trucks and all. But we’d sit on the front porch almost every evening listening to them on the radio. Tommy smiled as he sipped his beer. “I remember that,” he said wistfully. “Your Nonna too,” he said, “She loved the games as much as any of the men on the block.
That made me smile. Tommy was right. Sometimes I had to explain the same things to her ten times a night, but Nonna loved her Phillies, and she loved Harry Kalas. Everyone loved Harry. “Ooh that Harry Kalas!” She’d say to my grandfather as they sat on the porch listening to the radio. “He’s so handsome! And that voice! He’s Greek you know Giuseppe...he’s almost one of us!”
My grandfather would get red-faced, stand up, wave his hand at her dismissively, mumble something in Italian, and go inside to grab the bottle of vodka.
Sitting there in my big back yard in Virginia, listening to the Phillies and cooking burgers with my neighbors, it was about as perfect as it could be. Next year, I thought to myself, I’m bringing Nonna down here for the Fourth. Independence Day was actually on a Saturday this year. The Monday after, I called the neighborhood boys and reviewed our plans. “You guys are all ready?” I asked each guy. They all said they were and they were excited about the trip. I felt badly that Bransford wasn’t going with us. He’d only recently moved in, and the wife had a long honey-do list he was still attending to, “I’ll catch the next one.” he said. I called my cousin George and reminded him that he’d fly down on Wednesday, and I’d pick him up in Roanoke. We’d be going out on Thursday afternoon and coming back Sunday morning.
That week was busy. Anj had already planned to take the kids to her parent’s house in New Jersey for the week. They left on Monday, and I spent the rest of the week cooking, buying supplies, checking weather charts and fishing reports, and having the trucks detailed. George called me on Tuesday and we talked for a long time. It was going to be good to see me, he’d said. We’d missed each other. Georgie is my closest male cousin and more like a brother than anything else.
I picked George up in Roanoke at 7:30 AM and we spent the day running errands and getting ready. We were in the garage late into Wednesday evening, loading the trucks and getting ready. Mostly we were just talking about the old days. The plan was that Tommy would drive my Tundra with one or two of the boys, and I would drive Angie’s Escalade with everyone else. We’d split the supplies between the two vehicles. Lowery came sauntering over after dinner on Wednesday. George and I were talking to Charlie Bransford in the garage. In between packing the trucks, I was teaching him to play Bocce on the court I’d built beside the garage. Charlie was enjoying the new game and we were laughing at him trying to curse in his limited Italian. It turns out that Charlie had been stationed in Anzio while he was in the Navy, before he’d joined the Bureau, and he’d really fallen in love with the place, and he’d learned a dozen or so of the more colorful Italian words.
Phil came over in stealth mode. That’s what I had come to call it when he was trying to be sneaky. He likes to think he gets there magically so he can overhear a few seconds of your conversation before you know he’s there. He slinks in the shadows created by the setting sun and he is certain nobody sees him until he materializes in the front of the garage like he just got beamed there by Scotty from Star Trek. The problem for old Phil is that he isn’t a small man. He’s not tall, but he is wide. He has a gut like a small, hillbilly Buddha. Heck, the shadow of his belly weighs thirty pounds. There is no place where the darkness is sufficient enough to hide him completely, but he doesn’t realize that.
The other problem he faces –and it’s one that literally makes me ill- is that he wears Aqua Velva. Lots of it. When I was a little kid, we had an insurance man in the neighborhood, Mr. Catallano, and he all but bathed in the stuff. He’d come calling on my mom and dad, and she’d have to open the windows and air the place out afterward. Well, Phil likes it at least as much as Mr. Catallano ever did. I can smell Phil coming almost before he crosses the street. There are times when even my dogs will leave the garage after a while, because you simply can’t breathe.
Phil is a little old-school and he insists on shaking hands every single time he sees you. “Howdy neighbor” he’ll say, and then he’ll stick his hand out. Now, I’m not a serial hand-shaker anyway. But Phil slathers on the Aqua Velva with those hands, and he touches up the coverage throughout the day. If you forget this fact, and shake hands with him, you wind up smelling like Aqua Velva yourself.
Then it gets in your hair, on your clothes, hell I’ve got a pair of shoes that I had to replace the laces on, because they smelled so strong of that drugstore cologne that they stunk up my closet. The way I’d broken him of the habit was one of my all-time best fables. It’s a story that bears retelling.
After about a month living in the neighborhood, I had to do the unthinkable. I had to lie. Phil came over one evening while I was tinkering with the ‘Vette, and, as usual, Phil stuck his hand out. I’d been dreading this day, but I had decided that if he was going to pursue this ridiculous handshake business, I would have to concoct a story to make him stop. So when he arrived in my garage that night -three minutes after his scent had already set up camp- and reached out his hand, I put my plan in motion. I looked at his hand, and then I looked at Phil. I cocked my head to one side and stepped backwards. I reached under my sweatshirt and pulled out my gold Italian Horn necklace. (I never did wear one of those because they fit the “Goombah” stereotype too much, but I had one for thi
s occasion.) I made my voice sound really nervous and said, “Maddonn...Phil. Nobody told you it’s the worst kind of Sicilian curse to shake hands more than ten times with the same person?”
Phil stopped dead in his tracks and looked at his hand. “Wha?” he gasped. “Yeah Phil,” I continued, “It’s called La Stunod a Mano.” “What’s ‘at mean?” he drawled.
“It means The Deadly Hand and it’s one of the worst curses in all of Southern Italy.” They say if you shake someone’s hand more than ten times, a day of eternity vanishes from your soul.” The Deadly Hand? I thought to myself, I crack myself up sometimes. This was especially funny to me because La Stunod a Mano actually means “Stupid Hand.” I knew this, but Phil did not. I know that Phil goes around misusing Italian words he picks up from me and I couldn’t wait until this one got back to me.
The only thing worse than my lying to Phil, was the beauty of how seriously he took that incredibly baseless story. The next time he came over, he stuck out his hand to me automatically. I looked at his hand and shot him the maloik. He snapped that hand back like he was feeding sticky buns to alligators. “Oh yeah,” he mumbled, “The Deadly Hand.” Eventually he stopped offering a handshake altogether. That was funny enough, but what was really great was that Tommy told me that from the first time Phil and he met, Phil would mumble a number when they shook hands. Tommy thought he was OCD. “That fajoot across the street, Lowery. What is he, Rainman?” he asked me. I told him what I did about the handshake and Tommy laughed until he was literally crying. Apparently, Phil now makes mental notes of number of times he shakes anyone’s hand. Madonn!