Grinder

by Mike Knowles

  “Let's go,” Mickey said.

  Once I was able to stop faking injury, I did my best to take in everything around me. Julian was ninety-nine percent of my surroundings. His bulk and rage filled the room like a silent gas ready to ignite the air. He periodically leaned on the cane for support as though his massive body might teeter over at any moment. The black suit he wore was heavy, and it hid his physique. The size was still there, imposing and terrible, but I couldn't tell how much of the size under his coat was still muscle. His hair had a bit more grey to it, and it was heavily gelled, giving it the appearance of constant wetness. There was also a smell emanating from his huge frame. It was cologne and sweat. There was so much body to cover that the cologne could not hope to cancel out the body odour; it could only tinge the smell of sweat. The nights of hot kitchens and dance floors did not agree with Julian. His suit held on to the smell, and it had probably become unnoticeable to Julian. The smell probably remained unknown to him because everyone around him would be too terrified to mention it.

  Without a doubt, Julian was still a force, but he was no longer the immovable object he once had been. He instead seemed to be an irresistible force driving those around him, but who was it he kept around him?

  “What's with the greasy kids, Julian?” I asked.

  Julian looked at me without saying a word. I watched as veins on his forehead woke and began to pulse at the surface of his skin. “The kids,” he finally said. “The kids, they do jobs for me. Things I can't do for myself. They're my hands. You should understand that. You were someone's hand once. Someone who did jobs for someone else.”

  I understood what Julian had inside his restaurant. He had his own version of what Paolo had. Julian had organized three outsiders to do his work for him. Three strung-out punks who were loyal, vicious, and, most important, deniable. No one would expect that the three punks worked for Julian. Even if they admitted that they did, no one would take their word for it. Julian had his own restaurant and his own agents. He was like a photocopy of Paolo. Everything was similar, but just a little less perfect than the original.

  “I'm no one's hand anymore, Julian.”

  “Bullshit!” he roared. “What the fuck are you doing here if you're not someone's hand?” He seethed in front of me; his massive chest forcing the fabric of his suit farther and farther off his chest. “Maybe you're just his dog, then. His pet. An animal. Dogs come when you call and they love you more when you're mean to them because they got it in their head that it's always their fault. That your problem, Wilson? You his old dog hanging around for a kick, a punch, a beating?”

  Static from the amplifiers interrupted Julian's rant.

  “Goddamn it!” Julian bellowed over the noise.

  “Sorry, boss,” Mickey yelled back.

  Gonzo yelled to Ralphy, “Harry's name is Wilson. That's even dumber than Harry.” Ralphy laughed and then held his cheek, suddenly in pain.

  “Fucking pieces of shit. They aren't good for much, but they got me you, didn't they? Outside of Bombedieri's. Why did Paolo bring you back from that tiny island to go there?”

  My eyebrow raised a centimetre.

  “What? You thought no one would find out? That old man has everyone watching what he does. Everyone is waiting for him to slip up just a little more. He can't handle the Russians. He can't even keep his family in line. But you know that, don't you?”

  I said nothing. Julian was prepared to talk, and I wanted to hear every word he had to say.

  “That old man is falling apart. There's no one left to hold him up. His little figlio ran away, and all at once he was blind.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know about me. I was better than you ever were. But after your little stunt, I was useless. The old man thought there was no way I could keep him safe with one hand on a fucking stick all the time. I'm lame, a cripple, a fucking gimp. I got set up with a place to retire. A gift for all my years of faithful service.”

  “Seems like a nice place,” I said.

  “It's a fucking dive. All I get is dirty kids who are into loud music. No matter how hard I try to get people in to eat, I end up with a full dance floor of dirty kids and an empty dining room. This place is like a curse. I renovate it, rename it, change the menu, but no one will come in unless there's loud shitty music. This is my reward, my legacy, a building full of shit. Shitty people and shitty music.”

  As if on cue, static electricity erupted again from the amplifiers. Julian turned and yelled, “I swear to God, Mickey!”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “How did you know I was back?” I said.

  Julian laughed and at once, he seemed to forget about the cane and amplifiers. “The guy Paolo sent after you, Johnny, he's my guy. My paisano. Most of Paolo's guys are after what he let you get away with. He can lock me away in this hole like a fucking family embarrassment, but there are others who remember me. Johnny told me he was going out east to find you. Johnny said Paolo was sending him because he was loyal. You see? That old man doesn't even know his own people now. But Johnny did his job. He found you and brought you back.”

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “I found him. Then I came back.”

  Julian's eyes narrowed, and I could see we were almost through talking.

  “Check, check,” Mickey said into the mic.

  Julian's cheek twitched.

  “Check, check, one, two,” Mickey said again. Gonzo hit the drums in a loud semi-rhythmic beat.

  Julian's eyes fluttered.

  An electric guitar came to life, and Julian exploded. He turned to the stage and screamed, “Shut that stupid shit up, you worthless fucks! Turn it off!”

  At once, the three stopped what they were doing. Their hands froze, and their jaws went slack. Julian stopped yelling and said, “What?”

  “This,” I said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The barrel of Johnny's revolver, the revolver I had brought back across the country, was out of my pants and pressed firmly into Julian's neck. Two inches of the barrel disappeared into neck fat, showing me how far Julian had fallen from what he used to be.

  Julian roared at the band, “You didn't frisk him?”

  Mickey spoke into the mic. “We took his gun from him on the street. Then we knocked him around. He was out cold on the pavement. We didn't want anyone to see us so we just put him in the trunk. He was out cold, so we thought it was safe.”

  “Boss, he never made a peep at the drive-through. He was out,” Gonzo piped in.

  Mickey shot Gonzo a look that shut him up. They both turned their heads to look at their boss. Julian's shoulders heaved up and down as though he were growing in size.

  “Enough,” I said. “How did you know where to pick me up?”

  Julian didn't turn to look at me; he glowered at the band while he answered my question. “What? You think I wouldn't know why he brought you back? What you were here to do? I knew exactly what that old man would do. I always know what he'll do.”

  “Did you know he'd put you out to pasture here?” I asked. I took his silence for a no. “Who took Armando and Nicola?”

  “I don't know. I'm not in the loop anymore. No one runs things by me and no one officially tells me anything. I got contacts who remember the favours I did for them, so I hear some things, but those new guys Paolo brought up when he put me away on the shelf — them I got nothing to do with.”

  “So you think it was someone in Paolo's circle?”

  “I don't know. I do know that no one would have dared try anything like this when I was around. No one. They knew who to fear. Now, no one has history. No one fears. No one respects. No one knows what family is about. They're all out to make money.”

  “Army and Nicky weren't involved in the business. Paolo said so.”

  Julian chuckled. The movement of his massive frame caused him to wobble on his cane. “You can't make money if you can't maintain your reputation. Those two
assholes said some dangerous things. Someone would have to respond.”

  “Why? Those kids are connected.”

  “Are you stupid? You got rocks in your head? Did you learn nothing in all the years you spent with us? It's like I just told you — no one's connected anymore. Paolo has to promote new guys all the time. Family's not important anymore. How could it be, when people are getting replaced every day? Money and power are the new family. There are a lot of people who wouldn't blink at killing two loudmouth kids — no matter who their uncle was. Nothing holds these young killers in line anymore. They're like wild animals.”

  I eased the gun out of Julian's neck, and his tensed shoulders relaxed. He just finished a sigh of relief when my leg kicked his feet out from under him. Julian tried to stabilize himself, but his cane was no help to his heavy body already on its way to the floor. He hit the glossy dance floor with an impact that I could feel through the soles of my boots. Julian didn't waste any time on the ground; he rolled onto his back and began to sit up, using his hands for support.

  “Why did you come after me again?”

  Julian looked angry and unafraid from his spot on the floor. “You look at me and you gotta ask why? I owe you. I did this for payback. Revenge. Vendetta. You left me a gimp. You cost me everything. I'd give anything to do the same to you, to take away from you everything you have and leave you broken, so that everyone knows I'm more than some crippled owner of some dive. I'm not this, I was never supposed to be this. You should be this.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gonzo moving behind his drum kit. Ralphy was moving his eyebrows up and down, trying to instruct his friend in some sort of idiot code. Mickey stood still, guitar in hand, towering over the microphone stand in front of him. His shark eyes, sunken in his pale face, were watching me. His face was blank, as though he was watching television, a rerun he had seen before that could now barely hold his interest. I moved the gun away from Julian's chest towards the amplifier to the right of Gonzo. I pulled the trigger and heard the boom followed by the screech of the damaged amplifier. Gonzo and Ralphy jumped; Mickey didn't even twitch.

  Ralphy fumbled with the amp cord, finally managing to pull it free to end the deafening squeal. With the cord loose in his hands, he began to giggle. Gonzo joined in. The insane laughter must have been infectious because Mickey's deadpan face began to twitch into what he must have thought was a version of laughter.

  I watched them laugh. They looked like hyenas holding musical instruments. I tilted my head, never taking my eyes off the animals on stage, to look at Julian. He was biting his lower lip as he looked away from the stage at something only he could see. I bent at the knees and picked up the cane that had fallen from Julian's hands when I knocked him over. Gonzo and Ralphy still howled while Mickey contributed a bit of shoulder shaking to his smirk.

  I held the cane in my hand and was surprised by its weight. The cane was a solid piece of wood with a polished sphere of metal at the top. I knew the cane was custom made for Julian because few people would have the sheer strength to use something so heavy as a walking aid. I looked at the band members, who were still lost in their hysterics, and let the gun hang loose at my side. I stared at Mickey and watched him laugh his creepy laugh. I felt my lips pull, and I matched his smirk with my own grin. His shoulders stopped shaking as hard, and his smile dimmed a fraction, changing his expression into something more confused than entertained. I flipped the cane over with a toss and lifted it above my head. I let it pause in midair before I sent it hurtling down onto Julian's ankle.

  “Jesus!” was all Julian could scream before the cane hit the ankle again. Each time I brought the cane down on Julian's ankle, Mickey's smile moved down another millimetre. The cane bounced off the bones in Julian's leg at first. Each impact propelled the metal sphere back up into the air like a happy child on a trampoline. But each blow generated less and less spring as the skin bruised and the bones began to shatter. I hit Julian's ankle long after he passed out. I crushed the bone and kept going. Gonzo and Ralphy caught on to what I was doing and they stopped laughing, only to start up again while watching me work. I stopped when Mickey was done smirking.

  “You want to sing me your song again?”

  Mickey didn't answer.

  “No? No tune to sing? You see this right here,” I said, pointing to Julian's soft unconscious frame. “This happened before. You could call it my greatest hits. I bump into you three again, it won't be like it was on the street. There won't be a song. You won't see me coming — you'll feel it.”

  Mickey still didn't move. His mouth hung slightly open, and his shark eyes stared back at me unblinking. I dropped the cane with a clatter and brought the pistol straight up at Gonzo. The revolver's humourless black eye stared at the laughing kid, unimpressed. Gonzo stared into the barrel and stifled his giggles. He looked into the gun's one eye and then into both of mine. He whistled the tune from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and then began laughing again. I walked to the stage stairs, keeping the gun's eye on Gonzo. Mickey watched me approaching without saying a word. Ralphy had gotten another case of the giggles and said, “Oooh, scary,” through his swollen mouth.

  I stopped three feet from Gonzo and said, “Give me the keys.”

  Gonzo patted his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, man, they must be in my other pants.” He and Ralphy began laughing at his joke. These punks were something new. No real crew would use such violent, immature addicts. Whatever they spent their free time pushing into their blood had changed them. They didn't look at the world like everyone else. They were manic, psychotic snowflakes. They had just witnessed their boss getting beaten and had wound up with a gun pointed at them and they couldn't stop themselves from giggling. It wasn't nervous laughter, either; it was the laughter of things in the dark. It was the laughter of predators. They were too young and stupid to understand that there are things that even predators have to learn to fear.

  “Check again.”

  He patted his pockets and lifted his arms in an “I don't know” gesture. I sighed and looked away. Gonzo turned to Ralphy and began to laugh again. “My other pants. I don't even own these — they're yours. Remember? I lost mine after that show.”

  Ralphy laughed a bit too hard; his hand flew to the cheek I dented with my head.

  “Hot foot,” I said, remembering how funny they thought it was outside my trunk. Gonzo looked back, still laughing, but now half puzzled about my words. I let him think about it for a second, and then I pulled the trigger.

  The revolver sent a piece of lead straight through the old Converse All-Star Gonzo was wearing. The shock and pain cut through all of the chemical giddiness. “What the fuck, man? What is your problem?”

  Ralphy stood up behind his drum kit, but I waved him down with the gun. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Mickey had not moved an inch.

  “The keys,” I said.

  “Fuck! They're in the car. I left them in the ignition.”

  I walked away from the three kids and Julian's unconscious body. Everything hurt, but Julian would be worse. I was alive and back in control. If I could have, I would have laughed like Ralphy and Gonzo.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The keys were in the car as promised. I took the Volvo out of the restaurant parking lot without stopping to retrieve the electronics I hid in the trunk. I left the restaurant and watched each street sign fly past the windshield as I tried to get an idea of where I was. At an intersection, I saw that I was on Duke Street. A sight that made a bell ring in my head. I pulled out the sheet of paper that contained Paolo's information and looked at the addresses. Luca Perino worked out of a place on James Street — which was less than a minute away. I couldn't believe it. I was right where I needed to be.

  Paolo's info put Luca Perino inside Ave Maria — a little shop that sold Catholic religious items. A huge portion of the city was Italian Catholic, and religious stores were a common sight throughout Hamilton. The colossal statue of the Virgin
Mary I saw in the window of Ave Maria as I drove by told me the shop blended in just fine in the city. The shop would repel most people. Almost everyone preferred stores that catered to their vices rather than their spirituality. Those that did venture in off the concrete would either know about the shop's dual identity and not mind — seeing it as commonplace in the community — or the customers would be so pious they would not even think to notice the blasphemy taking place behind the counter.

  I drove slow in the right lane eyeing the rows of cars on both sides of the street. I was looking for one vehicle in particular, according to Paolo's intel — a white Cadillac Escalade. The Escalade had been a mob staple since its inception. It was a sort of moving billboard broadcasting the fruits of criminal success to the community. A white Escalade was a bit different than the standard mob black, but I figured an up-and-comer would want to be part of the trend and at the same time identify himself as special.

  The car wasn't on either side of the busy street, so I used Main Street to circle around to Hughson, which ran behind the shop. I drove slowly up the less busy street and stopped in the parking lot behind Ave Maria. There was no Escalade, only a rusted Dodge Shadow parked in an employees-only space along the side of the building. There were two other employee spots vacant, something that didn't sit well with me. A shop this small and this specific would never have more than one employee working at a time, two tops. Of the prospective employees, there was no way that they all were drivers. Stores like this would not offer enough cash to pay for a car, and the deeply religious women who typically worked behind the counter were usually unmarried or widowed, making them lower-income wage earners and thus frequent bus passengers. One of the two vacant parking spaces was much bigger than the other. The hand-painted lines were a bit wavy, but they were clearly designed to contain two cars of different sizes. No one painted parking spots behind stores like this — it was too much trouble. Someone had gone a long way to ensure that a really big car got a permanent spot. I was sure I could figure out what kind of car fit inside the painted lines.