Unknown Remains

by Peter Leonard

  Ruben looked at him, wondering why he was saying these things, thinking he could get to Frank, bust him up before the bodyguards could stop him. “You bring me here, disrespect my family.”

  The bigger of the two bodyguards, Val, came toward Ruben. “You don’t talk to Mr. DiCicco like that. Where’s your manners at?”

  Frank said, “It’s okay. He’s a PR, what’s he know about manners?”

  Val reached out to grab his coat. Ruben blocked his hand and stepped in, hit him with a straight shot to the solar plexus. The middle-weights he’d fought would’ve taken the punch and several more just like it, and kept coming, but the bodyguard dropped to his knees, trying to draw a breath.

  Vincent was late getting to Frank’s for the delivery, Vincent bringing a week’s worth of profits from the poker room in a canvas duffle bag on a strap over his shoulder, three hundred grand and change: counted, banded, and ready to hand over.

  He stood on the porch and rang the bell, glanced behind him at Renzo, his driver, standing next to the Caddy, smoking a cigarette. He rang the bell again, and when no one came, he knocked on the door. It was strange, usually one of Frank’s bodyguards, Val or Santo, was right there. He never waited more than a minute. Vincent took out his cell phone and dialed Frank’s number and heard the phone ringing inside the townhouse, but no one answered it. There was a chill in the air, and he could see his breath. The bag was getting heavy, and he slid it off his shoulder, resting it on the porch but still holding the strap.

  He glanced at Renzo again, saw him flick the cigarette. It hit the street and sparked. He waved him to the porch, and when Renzo came up the steps, Vincent said, “Something isn’t right. I need you to go around back, see if you see anything and call me.”

  Vincent left the bag of money where it was, walked down the steps, and pushed through the waist-high shrubs, trying to look in the window. On his tiptoes he could just see over the top of the window ledge. He grabbed the brick ledge and tried to hoist himself up, but he was too heavy. He jumped and thought he saw something on the Oriental rug. He jumped again and was able to hang from the window ledge for a second. Jesus. Unless he was seeing things, Santo was unconscious or dead on the floor.

  His phone rang. Renzo said, “I don’t see nothing.”

  “I want you to break in. Bust a window, whatever you have to do.”

  “Break in Frank DiCicco’s, you serious?”

  “Something’s happened. We have to get in there.”

  Vincent went back to the porch and waited. A few minutes later the front door opened. Renzo looked like he had seen a ghost. “Mio Dio.”

  “What is it?”

  Vincent walked in and saw Frank on the couch and the bodyguards on the floor, blood everywhere, the smell of death in the air. Frank had enemies for sure, but who would have the balls to do this? Not only shoot them but robbed them too, took their money and tossed their wallets on the floor. Could that have been the motive? He doubted it. They’d have to know Frank to get in. Vincent glanced at Renzo, picking his teeth with a toothpick, looking at the bodies with a bored expression.

  “Go wait in the car,” Vincent said. “And don’t say a word about this, you understand?”

  Renzo gave him a nod, toothpick in the corner of his mouth now, black hair slicked back, sparse stubble on his upper lip. “What’re you gonna do? Need something done?”

  “I’ll let you know. Now go wait in the fucking car like I told you.”

  Vincent went into Frank’s study, opened the cabinets, and saw the safe, a big old Mosler, looked like it weighed as much as a car, and filled with money. Frank didn’t believe in banks. Vincent’s guess, the robbers didn’t know about the safe, or they would’ve tried to open it, would’ve banged on it with sledgehammers till they were too tired to lift their arms.

  He sat at Frank’s desk and turned on the computer. Frank had installed surveillance cameras at the front and back doors, so he could see who came to his house when he wasn’t there. It was also to keep tabs on the maid, the cook, and his assistant, a nice-looking Sicilian girl named Concetta, Frank was knifing on the side.

  The computer booted up and he clicked on the security icon, clicked on the front-door camera, scrolled back to midday. There was a time code on each frame. A UPS man delivered a package at 2:31 PM; Concetta opened the door and signed for it. There was no other activity till Concetta left for the day at 5:37. Frank and the bodyguards arrived at 6:23. And then nothing till Cobb and Diaz showed up at 6:56, which surprised him. Why did they come to see Frank? Frank didn’t usually deal with the collectors. That was Vincent’s job. He watched the video. Cobb rang the bell, and Val opened the door and let them in. Twelve minutes later, Cobb and Diaz left the townhouse in a hurry, moving quickly down the steps and then out of view.

  Next, Vincent saw himself ringing the bell, knocking on the door, and turning to look at Renzo. Now he checked the camera at the rear entrance, saw the maid leave at 4:31, and no one else until Renzo appeared lighting a cigarette, looking in windows.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Vincent, sitting in the back of the Cadillac, was thinking about the girl as they drove through Manhattan. God, did he have a thing for her. Vicki was all he thought about. He’d been trying to get in her pants since the day he hired her, waited to make a move and she brushed him off. Every time he tried, she shut him down. Vicki would say something like “Vincent, I’m seeing someone, okay?” Or, “Vincent, I’m sorry, you’re not my type.”

  Vicki had come highly recommended by Panetta, one of the older dealers, knew Vicki’s old man, who’d run a game. Panetta said she knew cards, knew how to deal, and she did. Vicki said she knew how to play too and for a while did okay. But then she started losing and quickly got in over her head. Vincent told her before he lent her the first fifteen, “You sure you want to do this? It can get out of control fast.”

  “Yeah, but I won’t,” Vicki had said, flashing that sexy smile.

  He secretly hoped she’d get in trouble and come to him for help, but it didn’t happen that way. In trouble or not, she didn’t want anything to do with him.

  Within a couple weeks, what Vicki owed had turned over a couple times and it didn’t look like there was any way she could pay it off. That’s when Duane Cobb approached him with a plan. Get a rich guy to fall for her and take over the debt. Vincent liked the idea, and it would get Frank off his back.

  Vicki’d hooked a Wall Street dude right away, and after they’d gone out for a while, she told him the situation she was in, and the man said he’d help her. She didn’t even ask; he offered. They’d tacked four hundred grand onto what Vicki owed, Vincent’s idea. She went along with it ’cause she was afraid, and now she was dead. If Vincent couldn’t have her, no one was gonna.

  Ruben was packing his suitcase, thinking about what happened at Frank DiCicco’s earlier, the situation going sideways right away. Ruben picturing the scene in his head. After he hit Val, Santo pulled a gun from behind his back, holding it down his leg, seeing that Cobb had already drawn his, a black semiautomatic he held at arm’s length, aimed at Santo’s chest.

  “The fuck’s going on? Put it down,” Frank said to Cobb. “Are you crazy? Put it on the floor.”

  “I do that, he’s gonna shoot me.” Cobb was talking to Frank but had his eyes glued to the bodyguard. “Tell him to put his down first.”

  “Listen to me,” Frank said. “You gotta be outta your fucking head, you bring a gun in my house. I ain’t gonna tell you again. Drop it.”

  “You want to walk out of here,” Ruben said, “shoot him.”

  “Put the fucking gun down,” Frank said. “You hear me?”

  “Shoot him,” Ruben said to Cobb.

  Santo brought the gun up now and Cobb shot him, turned and shot the one with the ponytail, reaching behind his back, the hard ring of the gunshots filling the room. Frank got off the couch, put his hands up. “That’s enough.”

  Cobb turned his gun on Frank.

  “Li
sten to me,” Frank said, “It’s over, what happened here. It ends now.”

  Ruben said, “How dumb you think we are, uh?”

  “The fuck you doing? I’m made, you know what that means? They gonna come at you with everything they got.” Getting tough, ’cause that’s all he had left.

  Ruben glanced at Cobb. “You hear what he’s saying? Do it, man. Leave him like this, we’re dead.”

  “You’re dead anyway,” Frank said. “You just don’t know it.”

  Cobb shot Frank twice in the chest and he fell back on the couch, his white shirt turning red, the sounds of the gunshots bouncing off the walls of the big room.

  Ruben thought he heard someone at his apartment door. He put his glass of tequila on the table, and stood looking through the peephole at Vincent. There was someone next to him in a gray jacket. Ruben could see only part of the man, but not his face. How’d they figure it out so fast? Vincent knocked again.

  “Ruben, hey, you in there? I need to talk.”

  “Tell me what it is. What do you want?”

  “Open the door, come on. Something’s happened. I have to talk to you.”

  “I can hear you.” Ruben had his eye in the peephole. He should not have come back here. He should have left town. There were others next to Vincent. He could see parts of them. He could see one of them holding a sledgehammer, and another a gun.

  Ruben waited till he saw someone raise the sledgehammer, and went left into the tiny kitchen as the door crashed open and three men came through the entryway. The first one was Renzo, holding a gun, looking straight ahead into the main room. Ruben stepped in and hit him with everything he had, felt the man’s jaw break and his legs give out, and saw him drop to the floor.

  Ruben backed into the kitchen, grabbed the handle of the cast-iron skillet from the stovetop, two of Vincent’s men—he had never seen—moving toward him, single file in the narrow room, the first one swinging the sledgehammer, sounding like a gunshot as it missed Ruben and struck a cabinet door, punching a hole in the wood. Ruben, his back against the refrigerator, threw the skillet. It crashed into the man’s forehead, blood mixing with grilled meat and chipotle peppers. The man yelling something in Italian as he went down.

  Now Ruben felt the sting of a bat as it slammed into his ribs. Jesus, the pain taking his breath away. Ruben covered his face and head with his arms as if he were in the ring, against the ropes. He moved left, threw a combination: straight right that broke the second man’s nose, followed by a right hook to the body that dropped him and almost dropped Ruben, the pain like a hot poker in his ribs.

  Vincent looked surprised to see him come out of the apartment, Vincent raising his hands in surrender, backing away. “I just want to talk.”

  “You bring all these men with weapons to talk? What you want to know?” Before this Ruben had liked Vincent, thought of him as a friend.

  “Why’d you kill Frank?”

  “It just happened.”

  “How am I gonna explain this?”

  Ruben had no idea.

  “You gotta get out of here. You gotta go somewhere, disappear, don’t come back.”

  Ruben walked to the elevator, holding his side, looking over his shoulder. Was Vincent being straight, saying they weren’t going to come after him? He didn’t say it exactly, but that’s what Ruben understood, or wanted to.

  He rode down and went outside, waited for traffic to clear, and crossed the street. Hiding in the shadows of a darkened storefront, keeping an eye on his building. He phoned Cobb, told him what happened, told him to get out of his apartment and do it fast.

  Cobb said, “Where you gonna go?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll meet you in the morning.” He could feel the cool night air go right through him, his damaged ribs tightening, spasming. He could feel the sweat on his forehead getting cold.

  Maybe fifteen minutes later, he saw them come out of the building, Vincent steering the three tough guys as they wobbled, unsteady like drunks, to a black Cadillac parked on the street. Ruben watched them climb into the car and drive away.

  He waited until they were out of sight, crossed the street, and went back to his apartment. The door was open, the molding cracked and splintered where the door had been busted open. He went in, saw the baseball bat on the kitchen floor, grabbed the bottle of tequila from the cupboard, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink, feeling the liquid burn his throat and the alcohol relax him.

  In the bathroom, Ruben unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, the pain shooting through him like someone stabbing his insides. He had a bruise on his left side where the bat had landed. He touched his damaged ribs, checking to see if any were broken, but couldn’t tell.

  There was a roll of surgical tape in the medicine cabinet. He pulled off long strips, wrapping them around his ribs and torso, stopping to take drinks of tequila when the pain was too much. When he was finished, the layers of tape looked like a cast. Ruben opened a bottle of aspirin, poured four in his hand, and washed the pills down with a swallow of tequila.

  When the pain lessened, Ruben went in the bedroom closet, loosened the floorboards, and took out plastic-wrapped bundles of cash, fifty-seven grand. He finished packing, taking just the clothes for warm weather, guayabera shirts, cotton pants and sandals, his watches and jewelry, and a straw porkpie.

  Ruben felt free for the first time in years. He didn’t like what he was doing and wondered why he had not quit on his own, walked away instead of running from the Italians. He was better than this, dealing with Frank and Vincent, collecting from losers. When they found McCann and got the money, he’d be set, could take it easy for a while, maybe even retire. Get a little place in Ponce, fish during the day, chase women and drink rum at night.

  It hurt to put on the blue overcoat, but that was okay. Pain had always been part of his life. It kept you honest, made you tougher. Ruben studied his beat-up face in the mirror, thinking he looked distinguished. People still recognized him in the old neighborhood. He squared the hat on his head and carried the suitcase out of his apartment for the last time.

  Ruben saw him in a car parked on the street when he came out of the building. It was cold and the window was down, the man smoking a cigarette. Ruben started down the sidewalk with the suitcase, looked over his shoulder, saw the car following him and then moving up next to him. He could not see the driver but had an idea who he was. The man’s arm came through the window, glove on his hand, aiming a gun. Ruben lifted the suitcase, a reflex to protect himself, felt the impact of silenced rounds tear through it and thought he was hit, but he wasn’t. He ran back the way he came, the suitcase slowing him, his bruised ribs on fire. He saw the car backing up, trying to stay with him, until it was struck by oncoming traffic. Ruben, still moving, saw the collision, thinking it was over until Dominic Benigno got out of the car.

  Ruben moved toward the subway entrance at the end of the block, walking as fast as he could, took the stairs down to the row of turnstiles, slid the suitcase under one and lifted himself over it, the pain taking his breath away. There were people on both sides of him but no one gave him a second look.

  Now he was on the platform, moving through the people waiting for the train. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Dominic Benigno coming down the stairs. Ruben thinking about what Dapper Dom had said that day in the restaurant with Frank. Something about Mickey Ward kicking his ass and something else about tiptoeing for chili that he did not understand, but it was not said in admiration, he was sure of that.

  Ruben ducked into a janitor room that said Authorized Personnel Only above the entrance. There was a closet door on the right side, a big sink straight ahead with buckets under it, mops and cleaning supplies hanging in fixtures on the walls. He put the suitcase on the floor, picked up a broom, and unscrewed the pole. He took out a pocket knife and shaved the grooved tip into a sharp point. Ruben opened the closet door, pushed in the suitcase, and stood just inside. He looked out the doorway and saw Dominic Benigno walk past him,
moving along the subway platform. A couple minutes later, Dapper Dom, aiming the pistol, walked into the janitor’s room. From his hidden position in the closet, Ruben waited till he was right there before lunging with the pole, driving it into the meat of his side. Ruben hearing him grunt, hearing the pistol hit the floor. Watching him try to pull out the spear as Ruben pushed it deeper into him. Seeing his suit and hands wet with blood.

  And then Dapper Dom was on the floor, Ruben standing over him, hearing his raspy breathing, seeing the pain in his eyes. Ruben’s damaged ribs had slowed him, but the rush of adrenalin kept him focused. “Listen, you hear me? Mickey Ward didn’t kick my ass. Was a draw, but I kick yours, uh? Cono motherfucker.”

  PART

  THREE

  TWENTY-NINE

  Jack drove up the coast past Delray, Boca, and Boynton Beach to West Palm and took the Flagler Memorial Bridge across the Intracoastal to Palm Beach. He went south on County Road past the Breakers, where he had stayed with Diane a couple times over the years, and past Royal Palm Way, looking at the tall groomed palm trees lining the boulevard.

  He parked on Worth Avenue and walked down the street to Ta-boo. Inside it was cool and dark. Jack sat at the bar. There was an empty seat to his left, and to his right was a fiftyish woman with big hair and a lot of diamonds. She was having an afternoon martini in a stemmed cocktail glass, and he could see an olive submerged in the translucent depths.

  Jack ordered a Stoli and tonic and looked at a menu until the woman said, “Are you going to nosh?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “The crab cake is to die for.”

  Even in the subdued light, he could see she’d had a lot of work done on her face. It looked like you could bounce a quarter off the skin on her cheeks, and her lips were curled up like a duck’s.