Jenny grabbed her purse off the dresser. “I’ve got money. My old job paid pretty good.”
He stared at her. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Sorry. Sometimes I’ve got to make a joke to keep from crying. Besides, I said my old job.”
Tony had to give the old guy credit. He was tough. The Rabbit had been watching TV while Mrs. Rabbit cleaned up the kitchen. Charlie had answered the door, surprise showing on his face when he’d seen Tony. He must have known it wasn’t a social call because he tried to slam the door, but Tony stiff-armed it open and rushed inside, Joey and the freshly bandaged Rocco following behind.
Now Charlie sat in a dining room chair, wrists and ankles taped to the armrests and legs, a dishrag jammed in his mouth. Mrs. Liuzza was on the kitchen floor, dead, a lamp cord looped around her neck.
Tony hit Charlie again. More blood from the Rabbit’s already pulverized face spewed onto Tony’s shirt.
After they were inside the house and had gotten everyone settled down, Tony had hung his jacket and silk tie on the coat rack by the door, but his starched white shirt with the French cuffs was ruined. His knuckles were sore and he needed a break, so he said again, “Tell me what you were doing at Hobnobber’s with Ray Shane.”
Charlie’s eyes were a sea of blood from the burst capillaries, but still the answer in them was clear. He wasn’t going to talk.
Tony slugged him once more, this time an uppercut to the body, and was rewarded with the unmistakable feel of bone on bone as Charlie’s cracked ribs grated against each other. The Rabbit groaned through the rag and slumped forward.
They had started out easy. After they got the Rabbit tied into the chair, Joey had dragged his wife into the dining room, and Tony had smacked Charlie a couple of times. He asked him why he had been with Shane and where Shane was now. But the old guy wouldn’t talk, so Tony had to get rougher, laying in solid punches, splitting an eyebrow and knocking out two teeth.
Still the Rabbit wouldn’t say anything. A nod from Tony, and Joey pushed Mrs. Rabbit down on top of the dinner table. Shoving his hand up her dress had got her screaming. It also got Charlie screaming. He was threatening and cursing so loudly that Tony had to stuff a rag into his mouth to keep the neighbors from hearing him.
Joey wound some duct tape around the old girl’s head to shut her up, then pulled her off the table and dragged her into the kitchen. The Rabbit wrenched his arms and legs, trying to tear himself loose from the chair. Tears streamed down his face as the sounds came out of the kitchen, bodies flopping on the linoleum floor, fabric tearing, heavy grunting.
Through the five minutes that it lasted, Tony kept saying that Charlie could stop it all with one word. All he had to do was tell Tony where Shane was hiding. But Charlie didn’t tell. He just cried and tore at his bonds. Then there were new sounds from the kitchen, a dish shattering, muffled screams, feet kicking at the floor. Then silence.
Joey walked back in with his clothes all fucked up and blood splattered across the front of his pants. Tony hadn’t known the muscle head was such a freak. Mrs. Rabbit had to be at least sixty.
When he saw Joey, Charlie started sobbing so much that Tony had to thumb the rag deeper into his mouth. Tony could see that the Rabbit was a broken man. Now he would talk.
Only he wasn’t broken and he didn’t talk. No matter how much Tony pounded on him, Charlie would not say a thing. All Tony could figure was that as soon as Charlie saw who it was at the door, he knew both he and his wife were dead. And when Joey took his wife into the kitchen, the only thing the Rabbit had left was his pride, that and his iron toughness.
The old bastard was hard as nails. Tony massaged the knuckles of his right hand and looked up at Rocco. “Give me something to hit him with.”
“Like what?” Rocco asked.
“I don’t know, a table leg, anything.”
Rocco scanned the room, then his gaze settled on the fireplace. He hobbled over to it and grabbed a poker from a small rack. “How about this?”
Tony nodded.
Holding the charred, pointed end of the fireplace tool inches from Charlie’s eyes, Tony said, “Tell me where Shane is and I’ll make it fast, old man, or I’ll heat this up and shove it up your ass.”
Tony stared at the Rabbit for a long time; then Charlie’s bloody eyes blinked and he nodded. Relieved that he could end this soon, Tony said, “You’ll tell me?”
Charlie nodded again.
Tony yanked the dishrag out of Charlie’s mouth. The old-timer said something but it came out as just a dry croak. “What?” Tony said, proud he’d finally broken the legendary killer.
Charlie’s voice sounded like sandpaper scraped against rough wood. “Shane . . .” He tilted his head back and made a painful sound in his throat.
“Speak up, goddamn it.” Tony leaned over, putting his ear next to the Rabbit’s lips. “Where is Shane?”
Charlie “The Rabbit” Liuzza leaned forward and chomped down on Tony’s ear.
Tony dropped the fire poker and screamed as he tried to jerk his head away, but the old man wouldn’t let go. His teeth were locked down like a pit bull’s. Tony’s feet got tangled and he fell backward, pulling Charlie and the chair down on top of him.
“Pull over right here,” Ray said. This time he rode shotgun in Jenny’s Firebird. She had driven him to the 3600 block of Delaware Avenue in Kenner, a suburb five miles outside New Orleans. Kenner’s twin claims to fame were being home to the New Orleans International Airport and a riverboat casino. It was also a popular home for New Orleans mobsters.
“Is this it?” Jenny asked.
“Just stop.”
She pulled the car against the curb. “Where’s he live?”
“Not far.” Charlie’s house was two blocks up, but Ray didn’t want Jenny or her car anywhere near the house.
“Then why are we stopping?”
“I’m walking the rest of the way,” Ray said. “You wait here.”
He could tell by her face that she was going to argue, but she must have changed her mind at the last minute. Instead she said, “You got a pen?”
“Why?”
She shifted the car into park, then reached down between her feet and slipped a hand into her purse lying on the floorboard. She pulled out a cell phone and laid it on the console. “Write down my number. When you’re done talking to Charlie, call me and I’ll pick you up.”
“My phone—”
“Oh, shit, I forgot. It’s ruined.”
Ray smiled. “I don’t have a pen anyway.”
She dug in her purse until she found one. “Ask Charlie if you can use his phone.”
“How about I just step outside and wave at you?”
Jenny grabbed Ray’s hand and scrawled her number on his palm. “Just in case.”
He nodded. Then he pulled Dylan Sylvester’s .40-caliber Smith & Wesson out from under the passenger seat.
“What’s that?” Jenny asked as Ray slipped the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and covered it with his shirt.
He turned to her. “What’s it look like?”
“Why do you have a gun?” She looked scared.
“Charlie’s a killer,” he said. “As far as I know he’s trying to help me, but like you said, he’s one of them. If this is some kind of setup, I don’t want to go in empty-handed.”
“If you think this is a setup, then let’s just leave.” She dropped her hand to the gearshift.
Ray shook his head. “It’ll be all right.”
“You sure?”
He just nodded as he opened the door.
The fire poker made a wet THUNK as it caved in Charlie Liuzza’s skull. He lay on his side on the floor, still taped to the chair, a hunk of Tony’s ear clamped between his teeth.
After Charlie bit Tony’s ear and the two of them toppled to the floor, Tony had scrambled out from under Charlie and the chair. He snatched up the poker. Charlie was helpless. Tony loomed over him, screaming, “Fuck you!” as he brought the fire poker do
wn onto the side of the older man’s head.
Tony dropped the poker and ran into the bathroom. He looked at the side of his head in the mirror. A piece of his fucking right ear was gone. Blood streamed down the side of his face, soaking his shoulder. He jerked a hand towel from a ring mounted to the wall and pressed it to his shredded ear.
“What do we do now, Tony?” Rocco stood in the bathroom doorway. “The old guy didn’t tell us shit.”
Tony spun on him. “How the fuck do I know?” With both hands jamming the towel against his head, Tony started kicking the bathroom door and shouting, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Rocco just backed away.
After Tony’s tantrum subsided, he walked back into the living room, still holding the towel against his ear, and looked at the overturned chair and at Charlie’s bloody body. He was going to have to answer for this. The Rabbit was the boss’s man—his fixer—and Tony had just killed him. Beaten him to death with a fire poker after Joey raped and strangled his sixtysomething-year-old wife.
How the fuck am I going to explain this?
Old Man Carlos had said to do whatever he had to do, but Tony was pretty sure he hadn’t meant it was okay to kill Charlie. And Tony was positive the boss hadn’t meant Joey could rape and strangle Charlie’s wife.
Tony stepped into the kitchen doorway. Mrs. Liuzza’s body lay on the linoleum floor. The floor was smeared with her blood. The old lady’s face was blue and her eyes bulged from their sockets. Around her neck were bright red ligature marks from the lamp cord. The blue print dress she wore was bunched around her hips, and a pair of ripped cotton panties lay three feet away. Her crotch was smeared with blood.
This was going to get Tony killed.
He had no idea what to do.
Someone knocked on the front door.
Tony spun and stared at the door. The pain he felt from his torn ear was instantly washed away by another feeling—panic.
Ray saw two cars in the driveway, a black Cadillac—mob guys love their Cadillacs—and a Toyota Camry that probably belonged to Charlie’s wife. As he passed between them he touched the front grille on each. Both were cool.
The Rabbit’s house was a 1970s ranch-style with a two-car garage. The garage door was closed so Ray couldn’t see what the Rabbit kept inside that was so important he kept his cars outside. Probably set up as a workshop; old-timers loved their woodworking.
From the top of the driveway Ray stepped onto the railed porch and walked past a couple of wooden rockers sitting in front of three big windows. He knocked on the door.
No answer. He knocked again. The light shining behind the curtains of the three big windows suddenly went out. Usually when you knocked on someone’s door the lights came on. Maybe Charlie was just extra cautious, but maybe something else was going—
The door flew open. A dark shadow loomed there for just a second; then hands grabbed Ray and yanked him through the door. He stumbled over the threshold and almost fell, but the hands held him up. Something hit him in the ribs. Then something else cracked against his left ear. Inside his head, Ray heard something go pop. Then he felt a piercing pain, like an ice pick shoved into his ear. Behind him the door slammed shut. Hands pulled him up straight. Then someone slugged him in the stomach.
The Smith & Wesson thunked against the hard tile floor of the foyer.
“He’s got a gun,” someone shouted.
“Pick it up.” It was Tony Zello’s voice.
Metal scraped against the tile. “I got it.”
“Get the light.”
“Huh?”
“The fucking light, you moron. Turn it on.”
From behind, an arm clamped around Ray’s neck, pulling him backward, arching his spine.
The lights came on.
Ray blinked as he found himself looking at Tony Zello and Joey. Tony held a bloody towel to the side of his head. Ray clawed at the arm around his throat, the arm that was squeezing off his air supply. It was thick and hard, hairless like a bodybuilder’s. A bodybuilder like Rocco.
Tony grinned. “I been looking for you, Ray.” He held up the stainless-steel pistol. “What were you going to do with this?”
Ray wheezed as his vision started to fade.
“Don’t kill him,” Tony said. “Not yet.”
The pressure on Ray’s windpipe eased, and he managed to suck in some air. Tony Z. stepped aside, then turned and pointed with the gun to the living room floor. Ray looked down and his stomach heaved, kicking up bile into the back of his throat. Charlie was on the floor, taped to an overturned chair, his face a lump of hamburger. The side of his skull was cracked enough so that through the bloody hair Ray could see the soft pink of Charlie’s brain.
Tony turned back to Ray. “I was just talking to your friend Charlie. He said he didn’t know where you were.”
Ray wasn’t looking at Tony. He couldn’t take his eyes off the bloody thing on the floor. Charlie’s head rested on the carpet, his face white with that pasty look of death that Ray had seen so many times before, on the street and at autopsies, but it was different when it was someone you knew. The carpet had soaked up most of the blood, leaving a red halo around Charlie’s head.
Joey held out a roll of duct tape to Tony. “We need to get out of here.”
Tony stuffed the pistol into the back of his pants, then grabbed the roll of tape. “Get the car.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jenny parked three houses down from Charlie Liuzza’s, on the opposite side of the street. From there she had a clear view of the house. Two cars sat in the driveway, and no one was out front. Ray had disappeared through the door while she was moving her car.
She looked down at her phone, checking to make sure it was on. She hoped Ray called before he came out. That would give her time to move. He would be pissed if he came out and found her parked so close.
When she looked up again, she saw Joey—the same Joey who worked for Vinnie and Tony—step out the front door of Charlie’s house. Not that unusual since all these wiseguys hung out together, but for some reason it gave her a bad feeling. She thought that Ray was meeting with just Charlie. As Joey neared the end of the driveway, Jenny scrunched down in her seat, afraid he would see her. At the sidewalk he turned right, heading up the street and away from her. Charlie’s was the fourth house down from the next street. At the corner, Joey turned right again and disappeared.
Not more than two minutes later, Jenny heard a car start and saw the spill of headlights from around the intersection, then a dark green Lincoln—Tony’s dark green Lincoln—whipped around the corner and nosed into Charlie’s driveway.
Tony Zello stepped out the front door. Jenny sunk lower in her seat as her heart started to pound inside her chest. From the top of the driveway Tony gestured toward the Lincoln, holding one hand in the air and spinning it in a circle. His other hand looked like it was holding something to his ear. The Lincoln’s reverse lights came on. The driver backed out into the street, turned around, then pulled tail first into the driveway. Tony gave one-arm hand signals until the Lincoln stopped just inches from him. He pounded on the trunk until the driver popped it open.
Peering just over her dashboard, Jenny watched as Joey climbed out of the Lincoln and ambled back toward Tony. They talked for a few seconds. Then Tony looked up and down the street, like he was about to do something he didn’t want anyone to see.
“Come out of the house, Ray,” Jenny whispered. “Come out and I’ll pick you up.” Her heart was doing the talking because in her mind she knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Then Ray came out, right through the front door just like Jenny had hoped, but he was with Rocco. The big goon was at Ray’s side, his right arm locked around Ray’s neck and his left hand gripping Ray’s arm. With just the light from a street lamp illuminating the scene, she couldn’t tell for sure but it looked like Ray had something wrapped around his mouth, something that went all the way around the back of his head. His hands were behind his back and he was walking funny.
He looked hurt. Rocco was walking funny, too, like he had a stick up his ass.
Tony said something, and Rocco hurried the last few steps, practically dragging Ray to the car. There was no hesitation and no discussion as the two muscled apes hoisted Ray up and tossed him into the trunk. Tony slammed it closed and looked around once more. Then all three of them got into the car. Joey driving again, Tony in the front seat beside him, and Rocco in the back behind Tony.
They turned left out of the driveway, the headlights sweeping past Jenny’s Firebird and for a second the whole interior of her car was lit up. Even all the way down, lying across the console with her head in the passenger seat, she was still terrified Tony would see her.
As soon as they passed her she grabbed her cell phone, intending to call the police. But what would she say? Where could she send them? Not to Charlie’s house. They were already gone, but where were they going? She had to find out. She sat up, cranked the Firebird, and whipped it through a tight U-turn.
The Lincoln’s taillights were two blocks up, just making a right turn. Six-lane Williams Boulevard was just a couple of blocks in front of Tony’s car. If they got into heavy traffic before she caught up, she’d lose them for sure. Jenny made an instant decision, something she’d seen on TV. She spun the wheel and turned right at the first cross street, two blocks over from the one the Lincoln was on, but she’d get to Williams just a few seconds behind them.
She blew through two stop signs and reached the crowded boulevard at the same time as the Lincoln. They were two blocks to her left, and Jenny could see the Lincoln was held up, waiting for an opening in the traffic. The way the car was angled she knew Joey was going to turn right. Waiting, waiting, waiting, then the big green mobster-mobile turned. As it went past her, Jenny turned her face, praying to God Tony didn’t recognize her car.
Two more cars went by. Then she pulled into traffic behind the Lincoln. They were going to kill Ray, of that she was sure. But where? And how? Shoot him, strangle him, toss him off the bridge into the Atchafalaya swamp doing seventy miles an hour?
House of the Rising Sun Page 21
