West 47th

by Gerald A. Browne

  Moments later the have-arounds entered the woods on the run.

  After going only a hundred feet it was as though they were a hundred miles deep into its world, suckered into a domain that was rife with unfamiliar defiance and contraries. Flagellating saplings, loops of exposed roots that tripped, undergrowth that grabbed at their confining suits.

  They couldn’t have been more out of their element.

  Their hard city heels sunk into the spongy rot of the woodland floor. In some places they went in over their ankles and dirt got into their shoes, their two-hundred-dollar, made-in-Italy, fifty-dollar swag shoes.

  Bechetti, as usual, was in charge, and it was he who first spotted the pulsating amber light. They hurried ahead to it, approached it warily, weapons ready. It appeared to be only an ordinary orange and white highway construction site barricade. The single upright sort about three feet tall counting the enclosed battery and light on top.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What the fuck’s this thing doing way out here?”

  “Some kind of trick, got to be.”

  “The cocksucker is trying to throw us off, that’s all,” Bechetti decided.

  “Maybe.”

  “Kick it over,” Bechetti told Fat Angelo.

  “You want the fucking thing kicked over, you kick it.”

  Bechetti went to the barrier, kicked it over. It lay there mocking with its amber blink, amber blink, amber blink. Fat Angelo stomped on it to make it stop. “Okay,” Bechetti said, “let’s find the piece of shit and do him so we can get out of here.” The pursuit had become a search.

  They tried to stick together, to proceed in a sort of phalanx, two across. But the woods combed them apart the way unpathed woods can. When they encountered a tight stand of hemlocks, for instance, Bechetti chose to go round the right side of it while Fat Angelo avoided by going left. Dense clumps of undergrowth and outcroppings of sizeable boulders called for the same circuitous left or right decisions. Thus, the distance that separated them increased. Eventually they lost sight and sound of one another, and each was on his own; a rare circumstance for any have-around.

  Fat Angelo hated how this thing was going down. From the moment he’d come into the woods there’d been a squadron of gnats attacking him. So tiny he could hardly see them. He needed to keep swatting and shooing them or else they landed and fed on him. Why the fuck were they picking on him and not Bechetti? It didn’t seem like this place was making Bechetti half as miserable as it was him. The only other time he’d been in a woods something like this was the day about five years back when he’d had to make a trip to Danbury for Riccio. Driving up 684 he had pulled over and gone into the woods a short ways to take an emergency shit. This was like then.

  He was sorry now that he’d come along on this thing. He could have said his hemorrhoids were bothering him, or his ulcer. The reason he came was the other have-arounds wanted to and Riccio had made it sound like it was going to be easy, enjoyable work. Riccio had promised a ten large bonus to whoever whacked the guy and the bimbo. Another twenty to anyone who came up with the goods, those two emeralds. Sometimes Riccio kept his word on things like that. Another reason he’d come along was the guy who was going to get whacked was the one who’d shoved him down the stairs twice and also called him a fagala, so this thing would be a chance for payback, Fat Angelo had figured.

  Now, however, he figured where he’d much rather and ought to be was back on West 47th in his regular spot halfway up the stairs at Riccio’s. He could be relaxing on the daybed looking at pussy magazines. He was thirsty. He was pissed. He decided what he’d do is sit someplace and let Bechetti, wherever he was, do the guy. Just wait to hear the shots.

  He was trying to find a place to sit that wasn’t wet or rotten when the amber light blinked at him from down the incline. Another of those highway barricades. It was, he guessed, about a hundred yards away, blinking at him through the branches. He decided to ignore it. He found that if he moved a little to the right or left the light was obscured and he could pretend it wasn’t there; however, curiosity edged with apprehension compelled his eyes to locate it.

  Amber blink, amber blink, amber blink.

  Fuck it, Fat Angelo thought.

  His legs seemed to think otherwise. They took him down the incline in the direction of the light, with difficulty across a couple of mushy runoffs and through a tangle of wild grape. By then he was inspired by the possibility that maybe the light was on his side, leading him to the guy so he could do him and be the one who did him and Riccio would count him off ten large, which would make him a five hundred across-the-board player when he went to Aqueduct come Friday. Or, he might even get luckier. It wasn’t too much to ask that after he’d done the guy he’d find those two emeralds on him. In that case Riccio could keep his measly twenty large. Fat Angelo knew the whole lot more he could get for those emeralds. He’d have to hide them somewhere better than a pocket, though. He’d stick them up his ass. Hemorrhoids or no hemorrhoids, up they’d go.

  He paused a moment to check his weapons. He had two. A .45 automatic that he’d killed twice with, but not recently, and a snubby .38 caliber backup revolver he’d never had to use. The latter was holstered to his belt behind his left ham, concealed by his suit jacket.

  He was surprised to come upon the marsh, nearly tromped right into its southern end where it was thick with cattails and reeds. The blinking amber light was in the clear at the water’s edge about a hundred feet away. Same as the first, mounted on an orange and white stupid highway construction barrier. No reason for it to be there.

  Then he saw the guy. About a hundred feet beyond the blinking light. Standing at the edge of the water with his back turned, just standing there, the asshole. Be perfect if he’d just stay like he was, Fat Angelo thought.

  Mitch had seen Fat Angelo come down the incline, and, although he was turned away, he knew to the moment when Fat Angelo got to the marsh. From the frogs Fat Angelo had startled, their noisy leaps from the bank into the water.

  And now, from those same blurping sounds in succession he knew Fat Angelo was sneaking along the bank in order to get into range. He waited until the frogs told him Fat Angelo had covered about halfway. Then he stepped out onto the precisely submerged span of painted plywood.

  Fat Angelo froze. From his point of view it appeared as though Mitch was walking on water. He brought his pistol up to take a shot but he was awestruck. How could he shoot a guy who could walk on water? Besides, both of his previous killings had been close in, practically muzzle against the back of the head.

  Mitch reached the opposite bank. Fat Angelo was directly across the way, apparently unaware of the submerged span that was right there below him. Perhaps reflections on the surface of the water prevented him from noticing it. Mitch acknowledged him with the universal fuck you gesture.

  Fat Angelo emphatically returned two of the same. What to do? He set out for the opposite bank by going around the end of the marsh. A stumbling, sloshing trek.

  Mitch jogged easily back across the span, so again they were on opposite sides.

  In all his inciteful and frustrated life Fat Angelo had never been more incited and frustrated. He glared across at the inaccessible Mitch, who was now taunting him with open arms and beckoning fingers. Come on, come on over.

  Fat Angelo couldn’t take much of that. He averted his eyes downward.

  He saw the trick. His pointed-toe shoes were pointing right at it: the two-foot width of painted plywood weighted down on that end by several large rocks, the way it extended across the marsh.

  No way was he going to go across on that board, Fat Angelo told himself. Not even if he was one hundred percent sure the guy had those emeralds on him. He imagined himself doing the guy and finding the emeralds in one of the guy’s pockets. He imagined the ride back to West 47th, him sitting on a fortune, knowing they were his secret, tucked up into him. Some wish.

  Compelling en
ough to cause him to take a testing step out onto the plywood span. It was sort of slippery but it hardly gave. He took another cautious step and another slightly less cautious and, after the next, he was thoroughly encouraged.

  However, as he went along he had to split his attention between where he was stepping and the guy on the bank ahead. No telling when the guy would make a move. So far all the fuck had done was stand there, like maybe he was waiting for the Lexington Avenue local.

  Fat Angelo was nearly halfway across. About forty feet to go. He thought about chancing a shot from there but, being far from a good shooter, he decided to give himself the advantage of another step closer, and still another.

  The closer he got the more he had to keep an eye on the guy, which meant he couldn’t pay real careful attention to where he placed his feet.

  It took only one misstep.

  By his right foot, which happened to be more off than on the span. He went into the water front first, a sort of low-level belly flop. There was some thrashing and spewing before, with considerable difficulty, he managed to get himself upright.

  The water was up to his waist. Actually only about half that depth was water. The other half was silt. His legs were mired deep in the mucky decomposed stuff of the bottom. He tried to lift his feet but it was as though he was cemented in place. Bubbles like underwater farts rose to the surface around him and silently exploded dreadful-smelling methane gas. He still had his pistol in hand. He used it as an instrument of surrender, held it harmlessly up and out to the side and let it drop into the water.

  Because he was no match for the shotgun Mitch now had pointed at him.

  “What you going to do?”

  Mitch didn’t say.

  Fat Angelo asked again.

  “I’m deciding,” Mitch told him.

  “Why don’t you get a branch or something and help pull me out?”

  “I’m deciding whether to shoot you or leave you there to starve and rot.”

  An unnerved smile from Fat Angelo. “You’re just trying to sweat me.”

  “Yeah,” Mitch lied and lowered the shotgun some.

  Fat Angelo figured that was a cue for his plea. He went into a self-deprecating rant. About what a low-life, lowest kind of grease-ball he was. A nothing, a babbo, a shmuck. Everybody treated him like the scumbag he was, including Riccio. Riccio especially. He’d been a garbage collector before. Had been better off. He was no have-around. Only reason he was up there on this thing today was Caselli got sick. He had to take Caselli’s place. Caselli got the shits and pukes and couldn’t make it.

  Throughout this babbling appeal Fat Angelo underscored and punctuated with his hands. Typical of his nationality, a lot of intricate and wide gesticulating.

  Mitch appeared to be listening attentively to Fat Angelo. Actually, he was only half hearing him. He was thinking about what West 47th would be like if the likes of Fat Angelo weren’t working it. Not a tender-conscienced, guileless, untainted West 47th, to be sure, but enormously improved.

  Inside of one of Fat Angelo’s gesticulations his right hand went to his belt behind his hip for the snubby .38.

  Mitch’s mind wasn’t that much elsewhere. He fired from the hip. A round of buckshot. In bringing the gun up he had overcompensated slightly so the hit was a little high. The tight pattern of 12-gauge steel pellets struck Fat Angelo in the collarbone, throat and face. Didn’t merely damage, and probably would have been enough; however Mitch rapidly pumped another shell into the chamber and fired. The 12-gauge slug blasted into the center of Fat Angelo’s chest, and that was more than enough.

  Due to his obesity and because his lower legs were mired Fat Angelo went down strangely. A fast flop that settled into a contorted sort of backbend.

  Uncomfortable to say the least, Mitch thought. It seemed to be true that a second killing was easier. He wasn’t feeling a single pang of remorse. It was as though his conscience was having an outage and he was on his own, telling himself no harm, that this guy he’d wasted had been a waste. He raised his eyes a fraction and vowed to the sky and whatever overseer might be in it that if he got through this day he would never kill again. Wouldn’t even swat a fly or step on an ant.

  After today.

  Chapter 33

  Bechetti would come, Mitch knew, surely he’d heard those two shots. He couldn’t be far off. He’d come.

  Mitch placed the shotgun aside. It might be of further use; however he’d found that it restricted his movements in the woods, especially where there was dense brush and branches. He had the Glock. It would do.

  There still wasn’t any sun. Everything damp. Drops from tips of leaves. A primeval impression influenced by the marsh. A massive reptile might rise from it. Not Fat Angelo.

  Bechetti was coming down the incline at the far end of the marsh. Yet out of sight, but the saplings were being disturbed. Mitch waited, watched for the tan suit, the inverted white triangle of shirt front, the contradicting oblong of human head. There would also be the black of the Tech 19 machine pistol.

  Bechetti broke into view and paused at the edge of the marsh, warily taking it in.

  Mitch couldn’t be missed, little more than two hundred feet away. To make sure he was seen he raised and waved his arms.

  What was it with this guy? Bechetti wondered. It looked as though he was signaling, wanting to give up. Like he figured then this thing would end in a push or something. Civilians didn’t know, they just didn’t fucking get it.

  Mitch kept on waving.

  Bechetti rushed ahead and was close to being close enough to pull off some shots when Mitch bolted into the woods. Bechetti followed and within thirty paces found himself again surrounded by contraries, the branches, roots and vines. Fallen trunks. Sticky webs on his face, nothing substantial underfoot. It would seem that way out here would be a good place to do a guy, but it wasn’t, Bechetti thought. There was too much life here. Be different if this was some stairwell, warehouse, any kind of room. He had whacked fourteen guys up to now, eight of those had been in bed.

  So, where was this guy? It occurred to Bechetti that maybe the guy had cut back and was coming at him from behind. He stopped, crouched, scanned slowly all the way around. Everything was different and yet the same, green-leaved and damp. No movement. A dangerous silence. Bechetti convinced himself the guy was somewhere ahead. He hurried on.

  Past a gang of boulders, across the trickle of a habitual runoff. To the upper edge of a shallow swale. Directly opposite was a stand of pines. And there on its perimeter between two close, competing trunks, stood the guy. Arms folded, as though simply waiting.

  He was close enough. Bechetti opened fire, a couple of bursts.

  The guy scampered into the pines.

  Bechetti went after him and was immediately in the maze of straight trunks, a darker atmosphere. The ground, carpeted with slippery needles, handicapped him because of his leather-soled shoes.

  There was, however, an advantage being among the pines. No undergrowth. Only the tree trunks for concealment.

  Bechetti caught a glimpse of the guy. Scurrying from behind one trunk to behind the next further on. The camouflaged fatigues didn’t help the guy much here. He’d been clearly visible, but only for an instant, not long enough for Bechetti to get off a shot.

  Within a minute the guy again darted from trunk to trunk, but again all Bechetti got was the merest glimpse. He figured the guy now realized what a wrong move he’d made in getting into these pines and was now trying to work his way out of them.

  Too fucking bad.

  Bechetti focused his attention and aim on the space between two of the tree trunks. Just a guess as to where the guy might next show himself. He held on it for what seemed a long while and was about to give up on it when the guy darted into view, was right there.

  Bechetti fired two bursts from the Tech 19. A spray of ten or so rounds. Bullets splatted into bark and ground and, as well, into the guy, according to what Bechetti heard—a loud painful gasp.
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br />   Bechetti cautioned himself that even a sound so truly agonizing could be a trick. Shouldn’t the guy’s legs or some other part of him be in view? Bechetti gave it some time and then advanced stealthily. He would finish the guy off if he wasn’t already done. There’d been no other sounds so he was probably done.

  The guy wasn’t there. Just a lot of his blood. Bright, wet red on the base of the tree and on the layer of brown pine needles.

  The fuck was hit bad, Bechetti thought. He wouldn’t be able to go far.

  There was an obvious trail of blood. Drops of various sizes and smears in places. Bechetti had no difficulty following them, anticipating that at any moment he would come upon the guy unconscious or dead or perhaps just weakened and unable to go on. Bechetti hoped for the latter because of the inconvenience this guy and these woods had caused him. A slow finish would be a payback.

  The blood led him on. All the way through the stand of pines and out to a clearing where the terrain was more congruent. No sign of the guy or his blood. Bechetti had lost the trail of blood. He didn’t, however, have to search much to pick it up. Bright red on the tufts of wild grasses. Even more apparent on the white, wild daisies that were closed for the day due to lack of sun.

  Faint groans.

  Also gasps and entreaties to God. They seemed to be coming from across the way where there were a lot of bushes of some sort. Now Bechetti had the blood and the suffering of the guy to go by.

  As he approached the bushes he saw what they were. Brambles, a large tight patch of them. The situation wasn’t hard to figure, Bechetti thought. The guy, seeking any possible refuge, had taken cover somewhere in this bramble patch, had somehow crawled into it, and maybe that was smart and he might even have gotten away with it except he was bleeding too much and had so much pain he couldn’t keep it to himself.