Grinder

by Mike Knowles

  At the third red light, I rolled down the window so I could smell the black diesel leaving the bus in front of me. I lost myself in the smell of the city in some sort of grey-concrete zen daze. The fumes mingled with the roar of the bus engine, dulling the cell phone chirp from the seat beside me. I got my head in the window and opened the phone on its third ring.

  “You want me to call you back, stay off the line,” Paolo said.

  “I saw the video,” I said.

  “Something, ain't it? Stupid kids are like parrots repeating everything they hear.” Paolo never stopped comparing people to animals. He loved to show everyone how low they were on the food chain compared to him.

  “Parrots are smart, though, aren't they?”

  “Being capable of speech doesn't make anything smart. Let's see a parrot make me an omelette. That would be one smart fucking bird.”

  Traffic picked up and I stayed right, riding the slow lane back to the plaza. “The video, they mention three names,” I said.

  “Figlio, I gave you all the information you need. Did those two years make you soft? You never needed me to hold your hand before.”

  “I never had to wipe your nose before,” I said, and instinctively moved the phone away from my ear to avoid what was to come.

  “You little fuck!” Paolo screamed. “You think because I asked you for help you're worth all this trouble? I let you go as long as I did because you were on the back burner. You never got out, you never left; I just put you on pause. If you want, I can finish this myself, but if I do then I don't need you. And if I don't need you, what the fuck do I need the bartender for? Not to mention those nice people who own the boat you were working on.”

  I knew the threats would come and I still walked into it. I cursed myself for being so hotheaded. Deep down, though, I wasn't mad at Paolo, or my temper. I was scared that I wasn't what I had been anymore after being away for so long. If I couldn't do what needed to be done, it wouldn't be Paolo who killed my friends, it would be me.

  I could still hear Paolo seething on the phone. I decided to ignore the outburst. “I never needed you to hold my hand before because I knew all of the players on the board. I don't know these names that well.”

  “You only fuck over people you know? That why you screwed me over for the bartender?” Paolo was still acting petulant after two years.

  “Who are they to you? Are they important?”

  “After you whacked the Commie bees' nest, they swarmed all over us. They knew our people and our business. They had been planning to take us out for a long time, and someone had fed them current information. A lot of people died or just disappeared. Those Russian fucks tried to take all the leaders away so the family would just fall apart. I had to promote prematurely to fix all of the holes. Bombedieri, Perino, and Rosa got an early leg up, but they were eager and they were workers. We hit that bees' nest back hard. Bees calm down around smoke, so we lit a whole lot of fucking fires.”

  “How important are they to you?”

  “They're family, but they're not family. They got to move up pretty high pretty quick and so they never spent the years making connections or learning how to act. They're a rough crew — not at all like their predecessors, but they earn in spades. They're big players, but they got no real support. They could be gone tomorrow and no one would cry about it. They made enemies out of a lot of the people they left behind when they became management. People who were none too cheery about their sudden advancement. No one comes right out and says it, but I heard whispers.”

  “From Army and Nicky?” I interrupted.

  “I never talked business with them because they were never going to take over.”

  “Anyone tell them that?”

  Paolo was silent for a moment, then he spoke quietly. “They were never in this life. They went to private school, for Christ's sake.”

  “So did you.”

  “These kids ain't me. They don't have the instinct. Even back then, in those schools, I had it — everyone knew. My nephews never even showed interest in this life. They liked the money and the respect, but any sign of trouble and they'd cry to their mother. I never told them no 'cause everyone knew they were never going to go to work.”

  “Everyone but them,” I said, more to myself than to Paolo. “You saw that tattoo, heard that music. They thought they were in the life already. They acted like they had a crew and they were the up-and-comers.”

  “Stupid parrots,” he said.

  “What I want to know is, who is the most likely to move on your family?”

  “None of them. They're made. They know the rules.”

  Rules. There was a time when I tried to speak to Paolo about rules. “You told me there were no rules, only the law of the jungle.”

  “There are rules if I say so.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Who's got the most balls, and the most pride?”

  Paolo thought about it for a second. “Bombedieri,” he said.

  “Army and Nicky said he was just a numbers guy.”

  “And I told you they were never involved in the day-to-day business. That shit they said on the Internet was garbage. You don't get to just be a numbers guy — we aren't the Ontario gaming commission. Dom Bombedieri spent a lot of time getting everyone in the neighbourhood on side with how he runs things. Everybody: the police, the Russians, even those Chink gangs stay clear of his rackets. But there was a time they didn't, and he made sure everyone knew where he stood about that by making a lot of people lay down, capisce? That's how he got the name ‘Dom the Bomb.' My nephews would have had no idea about what he was into, or what he did to get into it.”

  “So he's not the pushover Army and Nicky said he was.”

  Paolo laughed. “I don't promote pushovers. Bombedieri's as bad as they come — more so now that he works quiet. He's like a pike. You ever see one of those? Ugly fish — all scale and bone. But it comes up under bugs on the surface and takes them without warning. That's what Dom the Bomb is like now that he's in charge. No one sees him coming.”

  I wondered if Army and Nicky saw him coming when they disappeared. If it was him at all. “The address you gave me for him. What is it?”

  “His uncle Guy runs a cleaning-supply store. Dom uses part of it as his office. He's got his own entrance out back and he and his crew run their business out of it. He is in charge of everything west of James Street.”

  “Big chunk,” I interrupted.

  “I told you, I don't promote pushovers. He took over that part of town when Lolli and Porco disappeared. It was a lot of territory to take over, especially with those Ivans hitting made men, but Dom made it work. He runs that part of town for me, and he does it real well now that he's learned a thing or two.”

  “Who's his number two?”

  “Figlio, I gave you a list. The list had all the information you need. I didn't bring you home so we could play phone tag like a couple a fruits. Use the list and get the fucking job done.”

  “One last thing. Tell me about his number two.”

  Paolo sighed. “It's a kid named Denis. Denis is Dom's cousin on his father's side. All I know is Dom vouches for him. I don't micromanage everyone's operations. As long as the money comes in, I don't give a shit who's on staff. Dom vouches for him, and that is enough because if something gets fucked it's Dom who will be responsible.”

  “He at the store a lot?”

  Paolo began to get annoyed. “Yeah, a lot. His father owns it. He's always there. He makes sure his old man never has to get involved with Dom's business.”

  “How old —”

  “No more questions figlio, not a one. You get out to these men and you start finding things out. Don't call me again unless you have good news for me. I'm not playing twenty questions while you waste my time. Got it? If I have to I'll give you some incentive to work harder, but I don't think the bartender would like that.”

  “I just don't want to be in the dark again. You did that to me before.”

&nbs
p; Paolo's voice became low and he spoke slowly enunciating each word carefully so that there was no way I would misconstrue the threat. “I am almost sorry I brought you into this at all. When I am totally sorry, I will make sure that you feel worse.”

  I hung up the phone without saying goodbye. I didn't worry about Paolo's threats. He never threatened me before; he never had to. With Paolo, you always had one bite at the apple before he forced it down your throat. The constant threats meant Paolo was in a bad situation. I had to make sure I knew everything I could, so I didn't go down with Paolo like some kind of kamikaze.

  I parked the car back in the restaurant parking lot and looked around at the other stores in the plaza while waiting for Paolo to show. I saw the Mandarin looming huge from the concrete taking up five storefronts. Beside it was a shoe store, then a chain discount-clothing store, a religious paraphernalia shop, and a menswear chain. Mark's Work Wearhouse sold clothing for construction workers and professionals alike. I got out of the car and walked straight through the crowded lot full of hungry buffet seekers to the automatic doors of Mark's Work Wear-house. I breezed through the entrance past the registers to the menswear section.

  I found several different types of pants hanging on display racks. I passed the denim and lighter-colour pants until I stopped in front of a dark brown pair of cotton pants. The material was durable and advertised as wrinkle-resistant. I flipped through the rack and pulled my size to hold them up in the light so I could examine the pants front and back.

  “They got secret pockets too,” a woman's voice said. An older woman with short blond hair and an athletic build approached me from behind a rack of clothes. “Sewn into the leg are concealed pockets. You can carry all kinds of things in the pants and no one would ever know. My husband carries his BlackBerry and one of them multi-tools; you know the kind, with the pliers and all those gadgets. People are always so surprised when he gets them out because you honestly can't tell where he gets them from.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “I need a T-shirt to go with the pants and something heavier to wear if it gets cold.”

  “No problem,” the saleswoman said. She walked two aisles over and pulled out a black T-shirt with a little pocket on the front. “You look like a large.”

  While I felt the shirt's cotton material, the woman found a black lightweight jacket made of a water resistant material. “You can wear this zipped or unzipped depending on how cold it gets.”

  “They're both great,” I said. “All I need is boots.”

  She looked down at my old boots, stained by fish and boat grease. “You sure do. Those need to go wherever it is boots go to die. You want something similar?”

  I stared at my boots, realizing that I hadn't noticed how gross they were. I looked up and nodded.

  “I know how it is when you love a pair of shoes, believe me. I still have shoes I wore in high school. Can you believe that? High school. They're too small now. Funny how shoes get smaller. But I could never part with them — sentimental reasons, you know. I'll find you a nice pair of boots so you won't feel too great a loss. Follow me.”

  Not more than a minute later, I had a dark pair of steel-toed boots that looked a lot like the boots on my feet must have once. I took all my things to the register and paid cash for everything. As I shovelled the change into my pocket, I asked where the nearest drugstore was. The teenage cashier told me that there was one of the chain drugstores on the other side of the plaza.

  I stowed my new clothes in the trunk of the car and walked around the plaza past a video store and used-record shop to the Shoppers Drug Mart. The store was located in an adjacent plaza that had spawned off the one I was in like a tumour. The plaza had a retail chain drugstore, supermarket, and pet store, as well as an unemployment office, and a gym. No one who used the unemployment office could afford the goods offered by the big-box stores in the plaza. The prices were only deals to the middle class. Everyone else had to trudge farther into the city to find deals on items that the bigger chain stores had already rejected.

  The Shoppers Drug Mart had the same smell in every store. The perfumes and colognes mingled with the antiseptic smell of the pharmacy to create a scent that could be found nowhere in nature. The chain store had almost anything anyone could ever want. Eventually, I thought, every store could be a Shoppers Drug Mart.

  I immediately found the men's aisle and picked up a razor and an electric hair clipper. As I searched for the rest of the toiletries I would need, I found the stationery aisle. At the end of the row beside the different notepads was a digital recorder. It had a back-to-school sale sticker on it, and I figured it was something university students would use to record their professors. The item was in a locked display case, and it took me five minutes to flag down an employee to get it out. Ten minutes after that, I was back at the car loading more bags into the trunk.

  I wasn't hungry so soon after eating with Paolo, but I would be in a few hours. I decided to stock up on some food to eat later. I had already exposed myself several times buying clothes and toiletries in busy stores. I hated being in the open around so many people, but it was something that had to be done. I knew that I would be unrecognizable to most of the people I encountered once I shed my clothes and beard, but I still wasn't happy. It was a long shot that someone would recognize me at this plaza after almost two years away, but I was having no luck with long shots. I had already gotten my face in every major publication in the country, which was something I thought impossible until it happened. I had interacted with enough new faces already, so I decided to make my way back to the Mediterranean restaurant. I found Yousif waiting just inside the doors — alone.

  “Hello again, sir. Are you hungry again? Well, you came just in time. Very soon we will be busy.”

  “I need some takeout. Something that will keep for a few hours. Can you get something together?”

  “What would you like, sir?”

  “You decide what's best. You're the restauranteur.”

  After a twitch that was part pride and part surprise, Yousif was off to the kitchen. He was so excited that he didn't say another word. Two sales in one day must have been a record.

  I walked around the empty restaurant looking at each of the immaculate tables in the dining room. I mentally went over what I had bought. I had clothes, stuff to clean myself up with, and a gun. I ran my hands over my hair and was thankful I bought the clippers. My hands moved down my neck to my lower back, and I stretched, feeling the muscles loosen slightly. My hands felt the hard sheath of my fishing knife. I smiled to myself and added the knife to my checklist.

  The knife and the gun would get me by, but eventually I would run through the six remaining shots in the revolver. I needed a tool to make conversations easier, something less loud and bloody. It was hard to get someone to talk after you shot them, and a knife was only as good as your resolve to use it, and once you cut someone they weren't quiet — even the hard ones screamed. I wanted a sap, but finding a sap would force me to mingle with more people. The kind of people who lived in the core of the city. Those type of people would be more in my element, and they had memories like elephants. There would be a good chance I would be recognized even with the fisherman's disguise I wore. The food came and interrupted my train of thought.

  “I gave you a wonderful selection of tapas and —”

  “I trust you, Yousif; it smells great. Thank you for taking the time to make this up for me. I know you are busy getting ready for the dinner rush. What do I owe you?”

  Yousif beamed with pride and looked around his empty restaurant, mentally going over all the chores to complete before no one showed up. “No charge, sir.”

  “How much, Yousif?”

  “You have been good to me today. I only ask that you return with a guest for a full meal, and that the guest not be the man you brought earlier.”

  I laughed and said goodbye to Yousif, promising to return for a proper dinner. I was amazed at how easy it was to make a friend. I re
alized it happened because I put myself out there. I made myself noticeable — something I spent a lifetime trying to avoid. I swore inwardly at myself and wondered if I had lost a step. I wondered if I would survive the next few days so out of practice. My frustration was interrupted by a small dog, which found its way under my foot. The dog yelped, then growled.

  “Watch where you're going,” an old woman said. Her hair was puffed with extra aerosol hairspray, making it almost transparent. Her scalp showed through the hair like a glossy, veined egg. The dog made me think of different canines I had come in contact with over the years. One mean dog in particular split his time guarding a bookie and gnawing on a heavy rubber bone. I remembered the bone in particular because as a teenager I picked it up to play a game of tug with the dog. The animal stared at me, shocked, before latching on to my sleeve. I screamed and dropped the bone, trying to escape a game of tug I then wanted no part of. The bookie screamed too, and told the dog to let me go, but nothing happened. I watched helplessly as the dog's eyes met mine for a split second before disappearing in a blur. The shake of its powerful head almost pulled my arm out of the socket. The dog paused and growled, preparing for another shake. As the attack started, another movement caught my eye. The heavy chew toy hit the dog behind the ear, as he closed his eyes and wrenched at my arm. The blow was so fast nothing in the room had time to prepare a reaction. The dog fell sideways as though it were suddenly struck by lightning, and my arm came free.