by L. A. Morse
The kid reached down to my shorts, fingered the faded material, rubbed a thumb over a clock face. I tried to move back deeper in the chair, and it felt like my genitals were trying to climb up into my body. “You know,” he said with a smile, ‘‘time’s running out.” He giggled briefly. Nice to know Tony New had a sense of humor. Yeah, real encouraging.
He moved back a couple of steps. He smiled again, then spoke as though thinking aloud. “I’ve heard that old men’s bones are real brittle. Snap just like that.” He broke his cigarette in half and dropped it on the floor.
“I told you. I’m doing the best I can.” My voice rose almost as high as the kid’s, a squeal of panic. I tried to get up, but the guy behind me put his hands on my shoulders and pressed firmly down.
The kid ignored me. “Know anything about that, Rudy?” he asked the bruiser in front.
“Toes is real good, boss,” Rudy said, and yucked a couple of times.
“Hey—” I squawked.
Rudy knelt down. I tried to squirm away. Hands tightened, moving closer to my windpipe. Rudy put his knee on top of one foot, pinioning it with his whole two seventy-five or so pounds. One hand tightly held my free leg, and his other gripped my toes and started to bend them back.
I desperately searched for something to say, but all I managed was another “Hey—”
Rudy looked over his shoulder at the kid, for the go-ahead.
After a moment’s consideration, a connoisseur weighing alternatives, Tony New said, “Let’s not start there. You never know; we may want him to be able to move around.”
Rudy shrugged and stood up. Clearly, he was a craftsman used to satisfying a demanding patron. I relaxed a little, just enough so that I was unprepared when Rudy suddenly grabbed my left wrist. Without pausing he had my little finger braced against his other hand while a large thumb pressed it out and back. My body was seized in a rising spiral of pain. My mouth opened to scream, but some kind of cloth or gag was jammed into it. The pain was so bad I could almost hear it. And then I did hear it. A sharp crack. Not much. Like a twig breaking. Only, it sounded to me like a gunshot, and the crack went through me like the thrust of a spear.
Holy fucking shit! Goddamn! Sweat poured out of my forehead and colors flashed and spun behind my eyeballs. An insane howl surged, burning, up my throat, to be muffled by whatever was in my mouth. Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn!
I blinked to clear my eyes. I saw my finger bent at a wrong angle at the first joint. The initial rush of pain had subsided, yielding to regular throbs that began at the end of my finger and pulsated over and through my body. My heart was pounding so hard it almost literally shook me. I felt more drained, exhausted, hollow than I could ever remember. And this was little, just the beginning, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to take a lot more. And I knew I had to stop it soon, or I’d never get out of this chair again.
To paraphrase what someone once said, there’s nothing like excruciating torture to help focus the mind. Mine, at least, saw a glimmer.
I lifted my head and looked at Tony New. He was staring back, coolly interested, detached, as though comparing my response with reactions he’d elicited in the past. I doubted that I had ever hated anyone so much, had ever wanted so badly to inflict pain in return. Had ever been so powerless to do so.
I pulled the gag from my mouth. It was an old piece of toweling. They came prepared. I wondered how many other screams it had muffled.
I considered saying something like, “Thanks, I needed that,” but decided these were not the fellows to appreciate a show of spunk and resistance. Instead, I tried to sound all beaten and subservient. It wasn’t hard.
“You didn’t need to do this.” I gingerly held up my injured hand. “I always knew you were serious.”
“Serious? We haven’t even started, old man.”
“Oh, I know you can do whatever you want to me, but believe me, I’m not going to be able to hold up to much more.”
“So?”
“So killing me isn’t going to do you any good.”
“It’s not going to do you no good, neither,” the guy behind me burst out. It was the first I’d heard from him. What a sense of repartee. He didn’t so much talk as bray.
“Shut up, shithead,” the kid said. His tone indicated that every time Shithead opened his mouth, the kid told him to shut it.
“I mean,” I went on quickly while I had the chance, “that you’re getting heat. You said so. Well, it’s not going to help you to go to those people and say that Spanner got the money but you got Spanner. A dead old man in exchange for three-quarters of a million? No one’s going to congratulate you on making a good deal.”
At first I was afraid that I’d pushed it too far; then I saw that Tony was seriously thinking about it. Maybe he was rising fast, like everyone said, but there was still a lot of weight on top of him. Screwing up with that kind of money had never yet advanced anyone in any organization.
“What do you think this is all about, old man? Hand over the dough. If you give it to me, I’ll consider leaving you alone.”
“I wish I could, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to get it back.”
“Fucking old men!” the kid said to the ceiling in what seemed to be becoming a refrain. “Why am I wasting my time with this asshole? Rudy, get on with it.”
“Wait a second. I haven’t finished.” I took a deep breath. Here it was. If I could sell the kid, I’d see another day. If not... “I may not be able to get your dough, but I might be able to get you the cocaine.”
“Shit!” The kid looked disgusted. “Rudy.”
“You can kill me or you can have a chance to get your dope.” I shrugged. Christ, I wished I felt as cavalier as I sounded.
“Where’s an old fart like you going to come up with fifteen keys of coke?”
“The police.”
“What’re you trying to pull? I’m getting tired of being jerked around by an old shit like you.”
“Look, I’m not guaranteeing it. I just said there’s a chance.”
“How?”
“You’re not the only one who’s getting heat. I’m taking plenty, too. From the cops. Sergeant Nicholson.”
“That bastard! He’s been on me a long time.”
“Yeah. He wants you bad. He’s pissed at me because I queered his deal. Thinks I’m somehow connected with you.”
“You and me? What a dumb shit.” Nicholson’s mistake seemed to amuse him, though. “Go on.”
“I think he wants you bad enough that maybe, just maybe, I can convince him to let me have the coke in order to set you up. So he can nail you.”
“This is supposed to tempt me?”
“Suppose I double-crossed the cops? Broke the setup so that you got the dope but stayed in the clear.”
There. It was all out. Would the kid buy it? Or would Rudy go back to work? At least the kid was considering it.
“Why should I think you’ll play it that way, like you said?”
I looked at Tony New, trying to strike just the right note. “If you were in my place, who’d you want after you? You or the cops?”
The kid thought, then nodded. “You’re right. It’d be much healthier to have the cops pissed at you.” He smiled in that way that made my bowels twitch.
I’d guessed right. If there was one thing Tony New believed, it was that everyone was scared shitless of him. That was motivation he could understand—maybe all he could understand.
“This setup idea—” he said. “How can I be sure the switch’ll work?”
“I don’t know how we’ll do it yet, but I’m pretty sure we can come up with something that’ll make you feel okay. If you don’t like the way it looks, then you don’t do it. Either way, you’re clear. What do you say? Let me see if I can get this going. What do you have to lose?”
“Boss, I—”
“Shut up, shithead.”
I didn’t know what advice Shithead was going to offer, but I was glad he shut up, because
it looked to me as though Tony New was sold. He was nodding as he figured the angles, then said to himself as though it decided the matter, “That cocksucker Nicholson’ll shit blue mud.” The thought made him flash me that discomforting smile. “Okay. You got one more day to get this going. If you don’t, you won’t have to bother making plans for the rest of the week. Got it?”
I nodded, relaxing a little. The future wasn’t exactly welcoming, but at least there was one, which was more than I’d had a few minutes ago. A day at a time, Spanner. That was all you could ask for. Yeah, sure.
“Rudy, why don’t you repair this old gentleman’s finger?”
I didn’t want the ape to touch me again, but the kid assured me Rudy had been a medic in Viet Nam and was very good. I could only guess what else he’d learned there.
Actually, Rudy was pretty good. He got my finger straight again, made a splint out of the handle of a spoon —after snapping off the top as though it were made of plastic—and taped both up against my third finger. It was a little awkward, but it would do the job.
While Rudy was working, Tony New got all warm and friendly, or as much so as that cold-blooded little reptile probably ever got.
“What made you say you were with Sal Piccolo?”
I hesitated, then: “That was the name he gave me.”
“You didn’t know him?”
I shook my head. “Said he was a friend of a friend. I didn’t check. He told me he needed help.” I decided to hold onto whatever edge I got from the knowledge that Sal was really alive. I just had to hope Tony didn’t know about my old connection with his grandfather.
Apparently not, because he just nodded. “What did this guy look like?”
“About sixty, I guess. Medium height. Kind of heavy.”
Tony frowned, then shook his head. “I’d like to know who that son of a bitch was.”
“Believe me, so would I.” I sounded very sincere.
“At least you know it wasn’t Sal Piccolo.”
“Now I do. I’ve been poking around today.” Since Tony seemed so conversational, I decided to push it a little further. “Piccolo was the guy who set up your cocaine arrangement, wasn’t he?”
His eyes narrowed and he stared hard at me. “You’re pretty sharp for an old fart, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “I hear things. I put things together.”
“Yeah, he fixed it up. Got a line of supply. Shipment. Tied in with a guy at the airport who’d see to it that every once in a while a suitcase from a South American flight never got to the baggage pick-up place. A fucking sweet arrangement. All he needed was some capital and a connection here.”
“And you could get those?”
“Right.”
“And then he died?”
“Right again.”
“But not before everything was all set to go?” Tony New just smiled. “Too bad for him,” I said.
“Yeah, wasn’t it?”
“But okay for you?”
The kid gave me a look that made me think maybe I’d gone too far, but then he grinned, showing little white teeth. He was the kind who never worried about hiding anything, whose past atrocities were merely a source of pride. There was never any guilt, because, for him, there could be no crime, only expediency, only what he wanted. Everything else was unimportant, separate from him, unconnected.
“You’re smart, old man.” He pointed a small soft finger at me. “But don’t ever start thinking you’re too smart. If you get the idea of pulling anything fancy, remember that other old man. Sal Piccolo was smart. But I didn’t need him anymore. He was in my way. So I got him out of the way.”
“You did the fire?” Tony New smiled. “How could you be sure you’d catch him?”
“I made sure.” He smiled again, then hit his palm with a fist to show he’d knocked him out.
Christ! I tried to stay cool, but this was too much. “But he was your grandfather—”
Tony New’s choirboy face flushed an angry dark red. “He was a fucking old fart.” His voice was a nearly inaudible squeak.
“But the other people there...”
He glared at me, then said, “Let’s go.” He paused at the door, looked back, pointed. “Tomorrow,” he hissed. Then he left, followed by Rudy and Shithead.
I was okay for a couple of minutes, then I started to shake. Some kind of uncontrollable delayed reaction, a combination of fear and pain, anger and resentment, hatred and rage and almost unbelievable disgust. My bare, skinny legs knocked together; shivers made my chest and back and shoulders twitch. I thought I would be sick, but I couldn’t get out of the chair to go to the bathroom. Then slowly it subsided, leaving me feeling very cold and empty. And frightened. And eager to inflict pain, to make that mutated little monster squirm on the end of a pin. And helpless to do anything about it.
Although I was in shit up to my eyebrows and Sal Piccolo was responsible, I felt a sort of perverse admiration for him. Also a sort of perverse pleasure, because I knew that Tony New was in a lot of hot water, and I was the instrument of his difficulties. It was a small and existential satisfaction, that of the martyr, but it was the only one I had.
The situation was nearly completely clear. Had I ever been right to doubt that people might change. I apparently hadn’t changed, or Sal wouldn’t have been able to play on me like a goddamn violin. And Sal sure hadn’t. Not only was he incredibly devious; he was the same vindictive son of a bitch he’d always been. He waited a long time, but finally found a way to get back at me after all those years. And in such a way that it would settle a more recent score and make him rich at the same time. And all the while keeping him completely safe.
Despite everything, I had to laugh. It was as nice a scheme as I had ever come across. I did all the work. The puppetmaster just sat back and waited. If it failed, he was out some money—the five hundred he used to hook me, the limo rental, other props—but nothing more. And if it worked, he was home free, invisible, untouchable, unsuspected—he was dead, for Christ sake!—and there was only Jake Spanner, the fucking stupid old dick, standing alone in the spotlight saying, “Huh?”
Nice. Very, very nice.
I didn’t feel much like eating, anymore, but I had a shower. It cleaned my body but there was still the stench of fear in my nostrils.
I got into bed and picked up the adventures of Al Tracker. He was hanging by his fingers from a freeway overpass. How did he get there? I didn’t care. After recent events, Al’s exploits seemed all too tame and plausible.
I turned off the light and studied the inside of my eyelids.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was a long, unpleasant night, not made any easier by the fact that for most of it I was unsure what was nightmare and what was waking recollection. Didn’t exactly make me greet the morning with a song on my lips, especially since I couldn’t help but wonder if this was going to be my last Friday.
The hell with it, I told myself. I still had a few cards to play. Right now they looked like twos and threes, but they still could prove to be trumps.
I put on my most sober, respectable-looking clothes. For the selling job I had to do, I didn’t want to come across like a decrepit old fool. Instead, I looked like Willie Loman on a bad day. Must have a word with my tailor.
I was downtown pretty early and had to wait for Sergeant Nicholson. When he finally showed, I didn’t get much of a reception, but he did take me into his little cubicle. It didn’t look like he’d changed his clothes, or his disposition.
I told Nicholson some of the things I’d found out, then explained my idea. His response was to the point. “You must think I’m a complete asshole,” he said, but since he didn’t throw me out, I went through it once more.
After the fourth time, Nicholson was chewing on it, nervously fidgeting with a yellow pencil. The pencil snapped in half. A shiver went down my spine, and my stomach did a flip. It sounded just like my finger breaking. Nicholson looked at the two pieces in his hand. “Oh, fuck.” He opened a
drawer in his desk and rummaged around in the back of it, finally coming out with a crumpled half-full pack of cigarettes. He took one out, lit it, inhaled deeply. “Three months,” he said. “Then you come along.” The nicotine didn’t seem to be making him any more cheerful.
I kept talking to him. With every go-round I thought it was sounding better and better, but then, I wasn’t precisely impartial. “What’ve you got to lose?” I finally said. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately.
Nicholson looked with equal distaste at me and the butt between his fingers which had burned down to the filter. “You mean besides three quarters of a million in coke, my job, my pension, my self-respect, and my sanity?”
Before I could say something bright, he got up and left me alone for quite a while. I figured the longer he was away, the better my hand looked. He came back, we talked some more, and he went out again. That went on for most of the morning. Every once in a while, someone poked a head in the door, stared at me without expression, then left. I could imagine the conversations that were going on. At least I didn’t hear the howls of laughter.
About noon Nicholson came in and looked sourly at me. “Tell me I’m not making a mistake,” he said.
“You’re not making a mistake.”
“What do you know? You’re full of shit.” He sat down, sighed heavily. “All right. We’ll give it a try.”
I breathed in deeply, hoping my relief wasn’t too evident.
“How you going to set it up?” he said.
“I’ll give him a call.” Nicholson waved an inviting hand at the phone. “I think it’ll be better if I call from outside.”
Nicholson stuck out his lower lip, but said, “Yeah, I suppose.” He pointed. “After all this, he damn well better bite.”
I’ll say.
“You know,” he went on, “we haven’t even started, and they’re already calling this ‘Nicholson’s Folly.’ “
It could be worse, I thought. It could become known as Spanner’s Last Stand.
