Bechetti stood at the edge of the patch listening to the groans and blubbering supplications. They were alternately louder and indistinct. He watched the top of the brambles for any sign of movement but they were perfectly still. A catbird glided in to light upon one of the high arching canes, had hardly perched before it realized there were humans about and flew off.
Bechetti decided precisely where the guy was. Only about twenty-five feet in. He raised the machine pistol and strafed the spot with a couple of bursts. The 9mm bullets tore through the canes and leaves but it didn’t stop the guy’s groaning. Nor did another couple of bursts. It didn’t make sense, Bechetti thought, the guy had to be there, at least some of those bullets had to have hit him.
He noticed then there were drops of blood off to his right. They led to where, along the edge, the guy had crawled into the patch. It was almost like a tunnel, probably made by some animal, was Bechetti’s guess. The guy just happened to find it. Bechetti hunched down for a cautious look in. He couldn’t see in very far. It didn’t go straight in. He fired several shots in but the groaning continued along with some cursing.
Leave the fuck there, Bechetti suggested to himself. The guy was hit bad so just leave him to die in there.
Bechetti’s exasperation vetoed that. He took off his suit jacket, folded it just so and placed it down where he wouldn’t miss it later. He removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. Rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. Like there was work to do, to do this guy.
He got down on all fours and crawled into the tunnel. He found it not as large as it had appeared and denser. Even when he kept low the thorns on the brambles got to his back and shoulders, snagged at the hips of his trousers. As he crawled along his trousers were being ruined, especially at the knees, by the soft earth and fallen blackberries. He swore he’d finish this guy slower than any guy he’d ever finished. When he got to him.
And he was about to get to him. The groans and delirious swearing were louder now, real close, coming from around the slight bend in the tunnel that was just ahead. Bechetti crawled on, more cautiously. He didn’t want to get whacked by an almost dead guy.
The guy wasn’t there. A big spill of blood but no guy. The guy’s voice but no guy.
Bechetti dabbed up some of the blood, felt its slick but slightly gritty texture. He smelled it. A distinctive smell that his memory recognized and connected to the innocent paint of a second grade class thirty years ago.
The voice? There in plain view was the tiny speaker attached to the battery-powered audio cassette player. Still groaning and uttering.
But the guy had been there, Bechetti reasoned. No other way could he have spilled the paint along the tunnel and here at this dead end. He must have done it in a hurry and backed out. There was no room to turn around. It seemed to Bechetti there hadn’t been enough time for the guy to do all that, but he couldn’t see any other explanation, which meant he too would have to make his exit in reverse.
That, as it turned out, was more difficult than Bechetti expected. The tunnel seemed narrower and with less headroom now that he was going ass first. He kept backing into brambles on one side or the other, giving the thorns plenty of chances at him. They were like organized, malicious adversaries, the thorns. Some would snag his trousers as though delaying him, so others might stab and lacerate his thighs and buttocks.
Fuck doing this guy, Bechetti thought. It was a piece of shit, not the piece of cake Riccio had said it would be. Fuck this place, fuck Riccio, fuck everything!
At that moment Mitch was also in the brambles. Crawling out by way of the getaway tunnel that ran from the apparent dead end that Bechetti had encountered. Mitch had created the impression that it was a dead end, had concealed the getaway tunnel by stuffing a large tight tangle of blackberry canes and foliage into place. Bechetti had nearly caught him at it.
The getaway tunnel allowed access all the way out to the far side of the patch. It was straight enough but now as Mitch crawled along it he was sorry he hadn’t made it larger. The thorns were impartial, meting out as many or even more inflictions on Mitch as on Bechetti. There were places in the getaway tunnel where hugely thorned canes had fallen and crisscrossed, as though resenting and thus intent on prohibiting passage. There were places where Mitch was so thoroughly snagged, front, back and sides, that he could barely move. He still had a ways to go.
Bechetti, meanwhile, unaware that he wasn’t alone in the brambles, was struggling along.
On the way in he hadn’t noticed the wolf trap. It was situated at about the midway point a little off to the right covered with leaves. On the way in Bechetti had missed springing the trap by a mere inch or two and now, as he was backing out, his right foot and leg avoided it by about that same margin. So did his right forearm and hand.
It was the machine pistol that sprang the trap.
The steel jaws snapped shut.
The teeth that Mitch had honed so sharp chomped together with tremendous force.
They clamped onto the trigger guard of the pistol and, in so doing, impaled Bechetti’s trigger finger, sliced deep into the knuckle of its second joint, nearly to the point of amputation.
Bechetti’s howl had some tremolo in it. He knew nothing of traps, hadn’t ever seen one. His spontaneous reaction was that some animal had him in its bite, but then, through his pain, he realized the thing was made of metal and had a chain attached to it.
He tried to extricate his mutilated finger from the trigger guard. The teeth of the trap had it, flesh and bone, skewered against the trigger, pressed so tightly that all the slack of the trigger was taken up and the merest additional pressure would cause the pistol to fire. With his free hand he tried to pry open the trap. It couldn’t be done one-handed. The effort intensified his pain.
How could he deal with this? Why was he being made to suffer? That guy. Was he ever going to do that fuck. Once he got out of these bushes.
He resumed his backwards crawl. It was even more difficult now. Not only was he having to contend with the thorns but, as well, his every move aggravated the torment of his finger.
He couldn’t bear either.
His impatience exploded.
Without giving a second thought to the consequences, he got his feet under him and heaved upward. Full force against the weave of thorn-studded brambles overhead. Some gave, more defied, refused to relent unless Bechetti accepted their punishment.
His fury was anesthetic.
Head first, he burst up out of the green tangle, then tore his shoulders and arms free. Like a grotesque throwback suddenly risen from its breached domain bearing countless wounds. Blood streamed from his scalp and neck, ears and cheeks. Even from his eyelids. A deep slash on his nose ran from bridge to tip and it must have been particularly vicious thorns that had clawed his mouth.
Just seconds earlier Mitch had emerged from the getaway tunnel. He stood at the rear edge of the patch surveying his advantage. It had gone as he’d hoped. Bechetti was in the thick of the brambles where he couldn’t see out but could be easily picked off. Mitch would just stand there or anywhere around the patch and blast away at him. In fact, certain uppermost brambles were being disturbed, betraying where Bechetti was at that very moment.
It was then that the bloodied Bechetti heaved up through the top of the brambles little more than twenty feet away, chest and head exposed.
An easy shot for Mitch. He went for his Glock.
His holster was empty.
At some point in the getaway tunnel it must have gotten snagged out.
Bechetti spotted him, leveled the machine pistol and let go with a burst.
Mitch dove for cover, crawled swiftly along the edge of the patch to put some distance between himself and Bechetti.
Bechetti was resolutely forging his way out of the chest-high patch.
Mitch had to make a run for it. The clearing wasn’t entirely level. A zigzagging dash and another desperate dive got him safely to a shallow depression and gave hi
m a moment to consider his options:
He would be exposed to Bechetti’s fire when he crossed the clearing and got back into the pines. He would rush through the pine grove and over the boulders and runoffs and down the wooded incline to the edge of the marsh, to where he’d left the shotgun.
The shotgun wouldn’t be there. It would be in the marsh where Bechetti must have surely thrown it. Maybe not but most likely.
Mitch craned up and saw Bechetti was now pulling free from the last of the brambles, would be coming on. Mitch was quickly up and out of the depression and into a sprint. Down the clearing in the direction of the river. When he reached where the clearing made a transition to woodland he glanced back at Bechetti and saw he’d gained considerable distance.
Bechetti was limited to less than a full-out run but more than a jog. Because of the wolf trap, the clamp its teeth had on the machine pistol and his trigger finger. He was using his left hand to hold and steady his right, pistol, trap and all. Otherwise it felt as though his finger was being ripped off. His having to do that prevented his arms from moving normally in opposing sync. Then, too, there was the trap’s anchor chain. Its heavy four-foot length dangled and kept hitting his crotch.
Still, he pressed on, found a path through the woods that made the going easier. All the way to the granite bluff overlooking the Hudson. He hadn’t expected a river, didn’t know what river it was. He went close as he dared to the edge of the bluff and peered down. It was like looking from the roof of a thirty-story building.
He disliked heights, avoided them. They always caused his insides, from his balls to his throat, to cringe and go hollow, as though giving him a taste of what it would feel like to be falling a long fall.
After that one look down he backed off from the edge, kept well clear of it as he proceeded along the hard granite shoulder of the bluff. Looking for the guy. Where was he? He couldn’t have gone any further unless he could fly, Bechetti thought. He wouldn’t put anything past this tricky fuck.
Actually, Mitch had gone over the edge. He was now crouched on a narrow mantel-like formation that jutted out just below the bluff’s rounded shoulder. He was able to estimate Bechetti’s whereabouts by listening to the sound of his steps on the granite surface, the clips and grates being caused by the leather soles and heels of Bechetti’s shoes. Shoes surely not meant for such terrain, suffering it. To make matters even worse, or for Mitch, better, Bechetti had metal insets in the heels to save sidewalk wear, an old-mob thing.
Bechetti’s footsteps receded. He had gone further on along the bluff. He’d be able to go only so far before coming to a vertical sheer rise of granite, like an insurmountable wall. He’d have to return.
Mitch waited, listened for him. What he heard was distant gunfire. The distinct sharp cracks of pistol shots being fired in rapid succession. Coming from the direction of the house, which also meant the equipment barn. The shots ceased but after ten seconds or so resumed, about a dozen shots again rapidly fired.
Mitch thought the worse, just as he had when he’d heard similar shots from there the day before. Now, however, they certainly wouldn’t be Maddie target-practicing. They could only mean …
Bechetti was coming back along the bluff. His footsteps on the uneven granite surface became more and more distinct.
To hell with taking a peek, Mitch decided. He loomed up suddenly, leaped up over the rounded edge of the bluff and charged at Bechetti.
Bechetti was turned away. Mitch went at him bull-like, head down, and, before Bechetti had a chance to react, rammed into the small of his back.
Bechetti went front down hard upon the hard granite. Momentum carried Mitch down with him. Bechetti recovered quickly, managed to stand.
The machine pistol was firing skyward, as though it could do so at will. Bechetti brought its muzzle down to Mitch’s level.
The burst of 9mm bullets and Mitch were headed in convergent directions as Mitch again charged Bechetti, bulled past the extended machine pistol and into Bechetti’s midsection.
Bechetti was driven back but managed to keep his feet.
Mitch held on, kept close in, clutched Bechetti with his left fist while his right delivered three hard blows below Bechetti’s rib cage.
The machine pistol quit, its magazine spent. Bechetti used it and the trap as a club. They slammed down between Mitch’s shoulder and neck. Twice more.
Mitch hung on, kept the struggle in close. He made a defensive grab for the pistol, didn’t get it. However, the trap’s dangling anchor chain was whipping about and his hands found it. Before its links could run through his grasp he got a grip on it.
Now he backed off. He pulled on the four-foot-long chain and heard and saw the pain that caused Bechetti. The chain was like a tether connected to the trap and its teeth that were connected to the pistol and Bechetti’s deeply incised finger.
Mitch yanked the chain sharply.
Bechetti cried out in pain and, needing slack for relief, came with it.
Mitch yanked the chain again spitefully and then, not allowing slack, he began circling Bechetti.
Bechetti circled with him, alternately pleading for mercy and calling Mitch a stronzolo, which Mitch didn’t know meant piece of shit.
Mitch circled faster.
Bechetti was being whirled, round and round. He wanted to let go, would have, but the trap had his trigger finger.
The fibrous ligaments and connective membranes of that finger were nearly severed. It was a wonder they’d held together until now, couldn’t any longer. The lacerated soft tissue also gave way.
The finger tore off, second knuckle to tip.
With it came the pistol and the trap.
For Bechetti it was like being thrown from a speeding carousel. The sudden release from the centrifugal force sent him reeling across the width of the bluff. He tried for balance, fought the momentum, and he might have been able to stop himself had he been wearing appropriate shoes rather than the typical have-around city sort with leather soles and heels that slipped on the granite and couldn’t for the life of him put on the brakes.
He was reaching wildly, as though the air might offer him anything to grab on to, when he hurtled over the edge.
Chapter 34
Riccio felt the bathwater. It was on the hot side. She couldn’t be long out of it. The tile floor was wet where she’d dripped.
The smell in the bathroom made him not want to breathe. It brought to mind embalmed guys laid out and surrounded like they always were with lilies. A couple of months ago up in the Bronx he’d paid respects to an old, onetime capo, and, although he’d only stayed a polite half hour, he’d come away so stunk up by lilies he’d had to hang his best black suit out to air.
This place was worse than four funerals. So bad it had his eyes watering. He pinched his nose shut and jerked open the door that was at one end of the bathroom. She wasn’t in there. Just a toilet bowl with blue water, and a bidet. Only rich people have such special little rooms where they piss and shoot water up their cunts, Riccio thought.
He and Fratino went on with their search of the house. They were sure she was hiding somewhere in it. Probably, because she was blind, it would be an obvious place such as beneath one of the beds or in the back corner of a closet, wishing she was invisible.
Riccio had Fratino believing there’d be something extra in it for him if they found her and got what they wanted out of her. Intentional emphasis on the word extra so Fratino would take it to imply it meant one of the twenty-five extra large the two emeralds would bring. Riccio had said all along and too often that to him this thing was first and foremost a matter of saving face. If the emeralds came it would just be a nice plus, he didn’t expect them, they probably wouldn’t come but if they did it would be as he put it, nice.
The have-arounds knew Riccio well enough to see through that old-mob shit. The emeralds were what Riccio had first in his head. Not to say that doing the guy and his wife wasn’t also there.
The wife, th
e rich wife, she’d know where the emeralds were, Riccio reasoned. Mitch wouldn’t have kept that from her. Civilians usually made the mistake of letting their women in on such things. She’d know, and when Fratino had her bound and bent over and greased and it became evident what he intended to do to her she’d give them up.
Her give-up, however, wouldn’t make a difference to Fratino. He’d keep on with it, and there’d be no reason for Riccio to stop him. Fratino had never had his way with a blind man or woman, someone unable to see how repulsive he was. He’d remarked to Riccio that just the idea of it caused him to have half a hard-on.
They gave the house a thorough going over from cellar to roof. For Riccio, not finding her was an insult. He couldn’t accept it. About twice a minute he grunted like he was being poked with a stick.
He went from room to room looking for things to take that might appease his disappointment. Nothing he saw was going to make up for twenty-five extra large. What’s more he didn’t have the understanding or appreciation for the valuables that were there. None of the paintings. He passed up a Jackson Pollock and a Willem de Kooning and an Egon Schiele nude that he believed must have been painted by some whacko with the shakes.
Grudgingly he settled on a Georgian silver service. Placed it near the front door for one of his have-arounds to carry to the car on the way out.
Fratino uncorked a couple of bottles of vintage red. He and Riccio went out onto the second-floor rear terrace. They sat close to the rail. Riccio lighted another of his Sicilian twists. He grunted between swigs and puffs.
“Did you look on the roof?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe she’s up on the roof.”
“I tell you I looked.”
“How could you see the roof?”
“I went outside and looked up. It’s slanted.”
An increase in grunts.
“This fucking place,” Riccio grumbled. “How’d you like to live up here?”
“Not me, no fucking way.”
“I’d go crazy up here. Think how it must be in winter.”
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