“Crap. It ain’t gonna be easy,” Sid muttered to himself, brandishing a pry bar. In his youth, all the old buildings of Newark had skylights, stairwells, ventilation shafts, and hatches. Warehouses and restaurants had big vent hoods. But he was unaware of the vagaries of shopping center architecture. The place probably had no basement either, the next best place for forced entry.
After inspecting the six-inch diameter riser, tugging on it, and kicking gravel around looking for the outline of a hatch, Sid was on the verge of admitting that they might have to go through the door after all. Then he heard the growl of an approaching truck. Sid crouched and listened as the slow grumbling truck curved around the side of the store. Air brakes sighed back near the LTD, a door opened and closed. Something banged the top of the Dumpster.
“Sid!” came a hoarse whisper.
He crept over to the edge and knelt.
“Hey, it’s Trout Lady. Whadda you doin’ here? You know, I didn’t exactly send out invitations.”
“Sid, are ya airline pilots always hanging out up on high places?” Arms folded, Jenny stood on the Dumpster and considered Sid’s silhouette, her lips in a sardonic twist.
“I dunno who keeps spreading it aroun’ that I’m like some kinda airline pilot.”
“It’s me, flyboy. Say, just what are ya doin’ up there anyways?”
“Me?” Sid gestured at his chest.
“Yeah, you. And where are the Bobs and Russ?” Jenny craned her neck, trying to see behind neighboring Dumpsters.
Sid took a cursory look and shrugged it off.
“I dunno. They were around here someplace. You musta scared ’em into ditching. Hey, what are you doing here anyways? Where’d you come from?”
“O.K., I’ll go first. I was comin’ back from a delivery down off I-84, stopped in for pizza at Little Tony’s. Was out in my truck eating a slice when I saw your car come by with Russ and Big Bob’s face in it. I don’t know for a fact that Little Bob is here, but where ya find one, ya often find the other. Now it’s your turn.”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Sid flashed a lopsided grin.
“Well, I don’t think you’re an airline pilot at all. I think you’re a crook.”
“A crook? Hey, you got it all wrong. You wanna know what a crook is? That’s like a politician, a judge, or government-type guy that takes graft. That’s what a crook is. But me? No, I’m not a crook. A burglar? O.K., so tonight I’m a burglar. But just to help some friends in a jam, God in the witness stand.” Sid crossed himself as though he were still Catholic. Though he’d never received notice from the Vatican, he took it for granted he’d been excommunicated.
“An’ you’re gonna break in to this here video store from the roof? To help some friends? Meaning the Bobs and Russ? And for no, as they say, ‘personal gain’?”
Sid pointed and nodded at each of her questions in turn.
“But I’ll tell you the truth. I do have a personal agenda—to be honest.” He held up a pledging palm.
“Ya do?”
“Yup.” Sid looked around, his voice lowering further. “Y’see, if I help Russ outta this jam, I’m gonna get in on all his hot fishing spots.”
“No shit!”
“Yeah shit!” Sid sounded defensive.
“What about his secret shad spots?” Jenny leaned one leather-jacketed shoulder against the brick wall, whispering up at Sid in a conspiratorial tone.
“Those slices and the rest of the pie!” Sid winked.
“Hey, Sid, I got an idea. Actually, it’s a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yeah. Look. What if I turn ya all into the police…”
“Stop right there. Do you mean to say you’d rat out the Bobs and Russ?”
“And ya, to the cops. What do ya think?”
“No way. You wouldn’t do that.”
“O.K., maybe I wouldn’t. But how about this: How about I show ya how to get in here? That, plus I keep a lid on this burglary—plus that Russ has got some kinda big problem—which would only get worse if everybody knew something was up, whatever it is—all in exchange for ya showin’ me Russ’s spots.” Jenny let that sink in a minute. “Especially the shad spots.”
“O.K., how about this,” Sid countered shrewdly. “I personally will take you to each spot he shows me for an afternoon’s fishing, not to exceed five spots, and I’ll take you out to dinner somewhere nice around here.”
“Dinner? Who said anything about dinner?”
“I did. Hey, if you want, I’ll even take you to Little Tony’s, but if I was you I’d go for the big money, like someplace French. Then maybe you could put on a dress, some nice, uh, shoes maybe. I’ll even wear a tie.”
“Ya wanna take the Trout Lady on a date?”
“Whadda I gotta do, Jenny? Spell it out on a pizza in pepperoni?”
“Shhh, dammit! Get down off that roof, Sid. Ya gotta deal.”
Ten minutes later, after the Bobs and Russ had crawled sheepishly out of the shrubbery, and after they’d moved the LTD and truck back around front, Jenny instructed them all to retreat into the forest shadow behind the video store.
“Jenny, this better not be one of your jokes!” Russ fished around the bushes for the fedora a twig had removed from his head.
“Hey, ya owe me that shad spot, Russ. Any more of your lip an’ I’ll up it to two or three.” Jenny pointed at the rustling bushes. “Now ya guys settle down. Be real quiet, an’ watch the master at work. Used to get beer like this.” Jenny marched up to the back of the video store.
Crushing his fedora back on his head, Russ grabbed Sid by the shirtsleeve.
“What the hell did you bring her in on this for! What did you tell her?”
“Relax. I didn’t tell her nothin’, Smonig. All she knows is that we’re in some kinda jam. I cut a deal with her.” Sid shrugged off Russ’s grip.
“Deal? Deal? What kind of deal?”
“Would you stop clawing at my goddamn shirt, Smonig. Relax! What, you think I promised her something? O.K., I promised her dinner, Smonig. You can get almost anything outta a lady with an expensive dinner.”
“Y’guys! Shut up!” Jenny stood in front of the back door, gauged her distance, then ran toward it. A red hiking boot rose to the occasion and kicked the bottom of the door. The impact echoed down the alleyway, but the door remained closed. Jenny disappeared between the Dumpster and the wall.
Some time passed, and the gang in the bushes fought off itches, aches, and sneezes. Eyes strained to cut through the shadows and make out fuzzy dark images of the brickwork and door frame.
Kicking the back door was not intended to open it. The idea was to move it just enough to break the circuit on a magnetic sensor, thus triggering a silent alarm. Back when she had worked hauling Pepsi in Hawley, a beer-hound they’d called Whiz used to get into the beer distributor at Indian Orchard in just such a fashion, whence he would liberate a few cases of Yuengling.
Sure enough, headlights flashed the bushes, and a white late-model Chevy with an eagle emblem on each door swept up behind the store and screeched to a stop. High beams flicked on, fully illuminating the back door to the store. More time passed as the security guy sat in his car considering the possibility that it was a false alarm.
Finally, the girthsome guard groaned out of the sedan and sputtered something unintelligible into a walkie-talkie. Producing a ten-pound ring of keys, he counted them off and jammed one into the lock of the back door. Shouldering the door open, he scanned the shop interior with a log-sized flashlight. He went in, leaving the door ajar.
Jenny slid from behind the Dumpster and peeked inside. She crept farther and farther until she was gone.
“Hey, Jenny went in the store!” Little Bob squeaked.
“She’s gonna get caught,” Big Bob predicted.
“Boy, has she ever got nerve!” Little Bob countered.
“Ho—keep it down.” Sid was familiar with Jenny’s ploy, and he didn’t like it much. A guard wo
uld normally start searching from the back of a store, an area usually full of hiding places in stored merchandise, and move toward the front of the store. Standard procedure so he won’t get jumped by anybody. When finished, he would return to the back door without searching the spots he’d already searched—which was where Jenny would be hiding. The alarm control box is often next to the back door where curious customers don’t have access to it, either physically or visually.
After probing the premises, the guard would reset the alarm by punching in his access code. Jenny, meanwhile, would be watching the guard punch in his code and would be able to disarm it once he’d left.
Clever as it was, Sid didn’t like it much, if for no other reason than that it seemed dishonest. An honest break-in involved forced entry. Oh well. Sid figured this wasn’t one for the record anyhow.
Sure enough, no sooner had the guard left than Jenny was leaning in the open doorway.
“C’mon, fellahs. Let the crime wave begin!”
The ride back to Hellbender Eddy was as festive as a fish fry in the rain. The tape wasn’t in the video store. In fact, it looked like it had been rented out.
Big Bob broke the silence as they were coming down Ballard Road.
“Mechanic said your truck should be ready this week, Russ. Said he’d never seen anything like what happened to that steering box, locking up and busting like that.”
As Sid turned the LTD down the driveway and the headlights swept across the Smonig abode, Russ flashed to the events of the previous night. The crunch, the thud, the steam. An icy spider of doom marched up his neck.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty neat trick, but the cops buy into it. Makes for a perfect ‘accident.’ Especially when the cause of death is watchamacallits.” Sid snapped his fingers. “Head drama.”
Little Bob raised his hand.
“I think that’s head trauma, Mr. Bifulco.”
“What I said, head trauma.”
The LTD ground to a stop at the Smonig trailer, headlights spotlighting the old powder blue Dodge sprouting weeds in the side yard.
Russ opened the door, put one foot out, then turned back to Sid.
“So, not only are you a murderer and a burglar, but also a master at insurance fraud? Let me guess, steering boxes are a specialty? I happen to know quite a lot about steering boxes, and anybody who knows anything about cars wouldn’t buy it. And the police? They only know what the mobsters who pay them off let them think. Gangsters like you, probably. And you think it’s some kinda game, but the innocent people who get in the way of your moves get chewed up.”
“Whoa, Russ, whoa.” The menace of Russ’s stormy, cold stare and trembling voice surprised Sid.
“There’s no ‘whoa’ about it. You love this stuff, dumping dead bodies, videotapes, ruin, prison: I’m on to you, Sid.”
The door to the LTD slammed, and Russ stalked off toward his gloomy trailer. The gang in the car shared a silent moment.
“Hey, sure, so maybe Russ isn’t all wrong. Gotta admit, this does seem a little like old times. But I swear to you guys—FBI as my judge—I’m not, and will not, drag this thing out. I’ll, y’know, hit the video store tomorrow, get the tape during working hours when that guy in the store files—Price—returns it. Maybe nobody’ll have looked at the whole thing. You said the beginning was long an’ boring, am I right? I mean, there’s this long bit while the camera is on the car seat?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t rewind, I don’t think.” Little Bob sighed, dejected.
“I think I should go in and talk to Russ. I think he needs someone to talk to.” Big Bob pushed the front seat forward, opened the door, and squeezed out.
“Big Bobby, if you ask me, kinda seems like Russ wants to be alone. Maybe you should try him tomorrow, know what I’m talkin’ about? Y’guys go on home. Everything’ll be awright.”
Little Bob stepped out of the car too, and Big Bob held the door.
“I dunno.” Big Bob scratched thoughtfully at his stubble, the car’s dome light illuminating him up to the belt buckle. “Ya think maybe Russ is a little suicidal? There was a whole Newstime on that back in December. You gotta keep an eye on people under stress.”
“Hey, whatever you wanna do, Big Guy. But I don’t recommend it, know what I mean? See you guys around.”
Sid threw the car in reverse and shot backward up the drive.
The Bobs decided to head home.
There was only one occasion when Sid had thought he was going to get whacked, and he’d left a mental bookmark at that page.
He’d been in with the Palfuttis maybe three years. Having sacked with a little number in fuchsia pumps, Sid was unable to tear himself away from his liaison for a weekly business meeting. It was the wrong thing to do, but he was young and a little cocky, so to speak. He showed up two hours late.
The Palfutti boardroom was a canyon of corrugated boxes surrounding a card table and four metal chairs in the A2Z Supermarket basement, and when Sid arrived late, it was deserted, lit only by a fluorescent bulb buzzing overhead. There was the usual smell of rotting lettuce and rat poison. Cigarette smoke still loitered in the air. When he turned to leave, placing a hand on the light switch, he somehow—either through some small sound made by a grin, the faintest whiff of macho musk, or the radiant body heat of a carnivore—realized he was not alone. Someone was there, hiding, waiting for him, ready to gut him.
Sid turned out the lights and left. The person never showed himself, even though there had been every opportunity to slit him. The intended message had come through loud and clear: Don’t fuck up.
What was it with the red shoes? A curse? That incident had been preceded by fuchsia pumps. This time, Sid had just come from a tête-à-tête with Jenny and her crimson hikers. Warning lights flashed in Sid’s cerebral cortex as he stepped away from the LTD toward his front porch. He could feel eyes watching him from a dark recess. Someone was waiting in the shadows.
If it were a mob hit, the killer would show himself and do the work with a knife or wire because it was more brutal. They liked their rats to know they were getting whacked, and they liked to leave an ugly mess to discourage future rats. So if it were someone hiding around the side of the cabin, the assassin would have to rush up from behind while Sid was standing at the door. The hit would have been designed to make sure Sid suffered.
The steady churning rhythm of the river filled Sid’s ears. His senses reached out, expanded, sharpened. Warm pine needles and cedar shingles choked his sinuses, the bug-light porch lamp stung his eyes, gravel crunched under his feet like shattering lightbulbs. A shovel leaning against the cabin, in the garden near the porch, drew his watering eyes. His palm stretched, ready to grasp.
Dead ahead, a man with a blond flattop and baby blue windbreaker stepped from behind the side of the cabin. Sid’s vision swam—for an instant.
“I’m here about the fish.” Trooper Price had been a little nervous about matching wits with a mobster of Sid’s reputation, and had decided it would be best to try to sound tough and use mob jargon. When he’d stopped at the Duck Pond in his quest to find out where Sid lived, he’d had a drink or two and debated for a while whether to use the word “stiff” or “fish.” Price stood in the amber light, hands flexing at his sides and his diamond stud a spark at his ear.
Sid waggled his shoulders, relaxing.
“Shit, you’re here about the fish.” Sid tapped his forehead. He’d forgotten: the taxidermist. A drop of sweat slid down his shirt collar.
“So you’re not…surprised?” Price took a tentative step forward.
“Well, I guess a little. Didn’t even see your car.”
“Parked up the drive a little. I wanted it to be a surprise. Then you know why I’m here?”
“Yeah, you want the fish.” Sid was looking through some keys for the one that opened the front door.
“I know all about how you and Russ whacked him.” Price hunched his shoulders, trying to sneer.
“Yeah? Pretty exciting,
huh? And he is a big mother, know what I’m talkin’ about?” Sid propped the screen door open with one foot.
“I don’t suppose you know about the reward?” Price rocked on his heels.
“Reward?” Sid pushed the door open. “C’mon in.”
These mobsters sure were slick. Real cool. He followed cautiously.
“Yes, reward.” Price took a look behind the door before entering.
“I didn’t know they gave rewards. Shit, I’m sure glad I didn’t chuck him in the river.”
“Then you didn’t dump him?”
“No way. The bastard’s right here.” Sid nudged an oversized Styrofoam cooler with his foot. It was a florist’s cooler, over four feet long and almost three feet wide, that had come loaded with flowers from Endelpo as a housewarming gift. Along with the carp, Sid had packed it full of ice and then generously duct-taped it closed.
Price looked at the giant cooler, confusion flickering on his face.
“In there?” Price went a little pale.
“Yeah, he was a monster, but I made him fit, know what I mean? Once you let the blood out they kinda deflate. But don’t worry. I numbered all the pieces so you can, like, put him back together,” Sid jested. He stuck his thumbs in his belt loops and gave Price a good-humored wink.
Denial was past, and Russ was faced with the fact that he’d killed a man. Who was he? Was there someone, a wife perhaps, waiting for a spouse that wasn’t coming home? There seemed to be a terrible twist of fate at work.
But Russ hadn’t gotten very far with this line of thought or his Yuengling before there was a knock at the door.
“Go away, Sid.” Russ curled into a tighter knot on the couch.
There was a cough from beyond the door.
“It’s not Sid.”
“Go away.”
“Mr. Smonig, I think I can help you.”
Hairs stood up on Russ’s neck.
When he opened the door, he didn’t expect to see a little dark bow-tied gentleman with a wool crusher. And as Omer had been out in the chill from the river, his slightly pointed ears and cherubic cheeks had a radish hue.
Sleep with the Fishes Page 10
