by James Lepore
Nick introduced Chris. Labrutto, eying his surprise visitor but showing no sign of unease, led them into a sunken living room where a trio of oddly shaped chairs were set around a large glass coffee table. Labrutto, remaining standing, gestured toward the chairs and Chris and Nick sat. They were facing, about twenty feet across the room, a full glass wall through which they could see a woman, apparently naked, sunning herself – a cell phone resting on her stomach – on a lounge chair beside a kidney-shaped swimming pool, its surface a shimmering pale blue as it caught the late morning sun. The woman, who on closer inspection was actually wearing a string-like thong bikini, with no top, was Allison McRae.
“The son of the famous Joe Black Massi,” said Labrutto. “I hear you’ve had some trouble. Do you need work? I can use you.”
Chris was not insulted by these remarks. No serious Mafioso – no serious businessman for that matter – would be so impulsively condescending. It was obvious that Labrutto, a lowlife, was puffed up by what he believed was his new found stature in the world of organized crime. He did not know that he was being used and that it would take only one or two false moves for him to end up at the bottom of a lake in the Adirondacks. The people who would be happy to take his place making porn videos and giving half the profits to Anthony DiGiglio were legion. Even if he had felt some sting from Labrutto’s comment and question, Chris would not show it as he was not about to lose the opportunity to get to Barsonetti that the effete and beady-eyed film-maker presented.
“No,” he replied, his voice neutral. “I’d like you to introduce me to somebody.”
“Who would that be?”
Chris glanced at Nick. He did not want to implicate the ex-fighter any more than he already had. Jimmy Barsonetti would soon be dead, and people would be wondering how he had been reached.
“I see,” said Labrutto, noting Chris’ glance. “Why don’t I get us something to drink? Nick has to run some errands. Then we can talk. What would you like?”
“Water would be fine.”
“Come with me, Nick,” said Labrutto
While Labrutto and Scarpa were out of the room, Allison pulled her long blonde hair back into a pony tail, rose from her lounge, and, her back to the glass wall, slowly stepped into a pair of form-fitting midriff jeans. Then, turning sideways, her slender body in profile, she slipped into sandals and pulled on a pink half tee shirt with puffy sleeves and silver sequins sprinkled across the front. Chris watched, a captive audience of one, as she crossed the pool’s concrete apron and entered the room through its sliding glass door. Inside, she seemed startled to see him, then, regaining her composure, putting a bright smile on her face as if it were a prop or makeup, she approached him with her right hand extended.
“You must be a friend of Guy’s,” she said. “I didn’t know he was having company. I’m Stacey.”
Chris rose to introduce himself and, while shaking Allison’s hand, he took the opportunity to look directly into her once pretty blue eyes, which had a hard bright sheen to them, to feel the clamminess of her palm, and to note the fresh track marks on the inside of her left forearm .
“Do I know you?” Chris asked. “Your last name is...?”
“It’s Electra, but that’s a stage name.”
“I see. And your real name?”
“Oh, that’s long forgotten.”
“Do you know a woman named Danielle Dimicco?”
“Danielle Dimicco?”
“Yes. She wants you to call her.”
The confusion in Allison’s eyes, emerging briefly from her drug-induced miasma, was all Chris needed for an answer. Something else appeared for a half second in those glazed-over eyes, something that may have been fear or panic or just junkie paranoia. Chris was pondering this flash of emotion when her fake smile returned and it was his turn to be confused. But then he saw she was looking over his shoulder at Labrutto, who had reappeared, followed by Nick carrying a tray containing a bottle of designer water and a glass filled with ice, which he placed on the coffee table.
“I see you’ve met Stacey,” Labrutto said.
“Yes.”
“She and Nick are just about to go out.”
“Oh,” Allison said, “I thought Mickey...” “I need Mickey here,” Labrutto said. Then, to Nick, he said, “The work on my car is done. Run Stacey down to the Mercedes dealer on Route 9. Follow her back here.”
“Let me get my purse,” Allison said, and then she gave Chris a short wave and said, “Nice meeting you,” before heading off into the interior of the house.
“Nick won’t be long,” Labrutto said to Chris. “I’ll meet Stacey outside,” Nick said, as he nodded to Chris and headed toward the front door. Labrutto watched Nick go and then excused himself to “make a quick call.” When he returned a few minutes later, he and Chris took seats facing each other across the glass coffee table. Chris said nothing. Labrutto shifted his considerable weight in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, arranging his flowing silk shirt over his basketball-sized belly and smoothing out his beautifully tailored black slacks as he did.
“So,” said Labrutto. “Who do you want to meet?”
“Jimmy Barsonetti,” Chris replied.
“Jimmy Barsonetti? Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m serious.”
“I can’t help you. I never met the man.”
“I heard you guys hung out together in California. I must have heard wrong.”
“You did. Like I said, I don’t know him.”
“That’s too bad. Do you know anybody who can vouch for me?”
“I might. What would you want to talk to him about?”
“A business proposition.”
“What kind of a business proposition?”
“It involves two million dollars in untraceable cash.”
“To be stolen?”
“When you mention it, he’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“I told you, I don’t know him.”
“You never know,” Chris said, “you might meet him in the next day or two.”
The eyes are the window to the soul, but Labrutto, a drug dealer, a pornographer, an abuser of women, did not have one as far as Chris could see. Instead, a series of calculations appeared to be taking place in the stocky little producer’s head, a spinning of wheels and symbols that he was fairly certain would come up yes.
“I would have to go to a lot of trouble,” Labrutto said, finally, “to get an audience with Barsonetti.”
“I could pay you for your trouble,” Chris said. “How much would you want?”
“A hundred grand.”
“I’ll give you fifty when the meeting is set up and fifty when it’s finished.”
Labrutto nodded and stroked his goatee.
“What’s to stop me,” he said, “from going to Junior Boy with this. I assume you know he and I are in business together?”
“Nothing,” Chris answered, “except he’d wonder why I came to you to get to Barsonetti.”
“Why would I bring Barsonetti into it?”
“You could lie to him, but I think he knows me better than he knows you.”
Labrutto’s eyes narrowed at this suggestion that he had no credibility with Junior Boy. “You know it would be on Barson’s terms completely,” he said. “You’d be searched. You’d be isolated.”
“I don’t want to kill the guy. I want to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“You could end up like your old man.”
Chris had smiled wryly when he used the famous line from The Godfather, but now his face went blank as he took a breath and stared quietly into Labrutto’s eyes. He had no choice but to let this insult to his dead father pass.
“One last thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I can’t get the money without some help. If I were to die, I’ve left a trail that leads right to you and Jimmy Barson.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that.”
“Good. I w
ant him to know who he’s dealing with.”
“How can I reach you?”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Then we’re done,” Labrutto said. “You can wait for Nick here. I have some work to do.”
When the porn producer went off, Chris poured himself some water and took a long drink. There had been no need for Labrutto to insult Joe Black, except as a show of power, which was absurdly unnecessary. Placing his halffull glass gently on the glass table, he assessed his feelings. He was angry, not so much at the reference to his father’s degrading death, but at the fact that an idiot like Labrutto could feel so free to make it.
Shaking his head, he turned his thoughts to Barsonetti, who, Chris was certain, would not be able to resist the temptation of Richie the Boot’s legendary two million dollars. In his mind, stealing it from Joe Black’s son and killing him in the process – for no doubt that’s what he would want to do – would have a beauty and symmetry that would eventually lull him – somehow, somewhere along the line – into letting down his guard. Like the music that charms the snake.
Glancing around the room, Chris decided he had had enough of Labrutto and his pretentious house. He rose to leave, and as he did, he spotted Allison’s cell phone on a small table next to the sliding glass doors. He walked over to it and picked it up. Reflexively, he turned it on and pushed the redial button. After three rings, a female voice – a voice he thought he vaguely recognized – said, “Leave a message, I’ll call you back.” He clicked the phone to off and put it back down on the table. Then he let himself out and headed down the long driveway toward the massive front gate, where he would meet Nick for the ride back to the city.
As he was approaching the caretaker’s cottage, thunder boomed and boomed again and the storm clouds, accumulating all morning over the river valley, released their torrents. The small overhang above the cottage’s front door provided no protection against the driving wind and rain, and so Chris, knocking first, entered and was immediately in a sparsely furnished room that was half kitchen and half office. The BMW was missing, so he did not expect anyone to be in the cottage, but he called out anyway and received no answer. Outside, the storm was increasing in intensity, and the sky had turned almost black.
The back screen door, torn open by the wind, was swinging violently on its hinges. Chris crossed the room, pulled it shut and set the eye-hook. On his way back, on the kitchen table, he saw several porn magazines – anal teens, men on men, girls on beasts – in that vein. One of them was opened to the classified section where an ad in the lower part of the page was highlighted in yellow. It read: Will pay top $$ for home videos. Box 2194, NY 10001. Next to the magazines was a stack of DVDs, about six in all, each tightly wrapped in cellophane, each neatly labeled, “Candy Meets Ron.” He picked one of them up. As he was idly turning it over, the front door swung open, and Mickey, the gatekeeper, entered the cottage, pointing a nickel-plated, nine millimeter Beretta at Chris.
“Put that down,” Mickey said, his voice surprisingly deep for all his thinness, easily heard above the howling wind, which was battering the one-room cottage, and knocking tree branches down along the driveway.
“Take it easy,” Chris said, glancing at the pistol, then meeting Mickey’s pale brown eyes for a second, a brief second, before they started rolling around in their sockets and then darting around the room, looking, it seemed, for additional signs of Chris’s intrusion. “I just came in out of the rain.”
With his free hand, Mickey took a cell phone out of his jacket pocket, flipped it open, pushed one button and held it to his ear. His hair was plastered to his head from the rain, which, with his opaque eyes below brows now knitted in concentration, made him look scrawny and a bit stunned, like a newly hatched bird. Drops of water were running from his temple down his jaw line, and there was a gash on his forehead, oozing blood.
“I’m at the cottage,” he said into the phone. “Massi was here nosing around when I walked in...He’s not going anyplace...Yes, it’s done...Okay. First, I need to take care of the car.”
Mickey closed the phone and put it in his pocket. He was still pointing the Beretta at Chris’ stomach. Chris was still holding the DVD.
“Guy wants to see you.”
“Sure,” Chris said. “But don’t you want to wipe your face first? Here, use this.”
In the motion of an abbreviated tennis backhand, he flipped the DVD at Mickey, spinning it like a Frisbee, aiming for his head. Mickey raised his free hand, but not in time to prevent the DVD, with its sharp, hard edges, from hitting him just below his left eye. Chris closed the ten feet between them in one leap, knocking his thin but wiry and surprisingly strong adversary to the floor, and tumbling on top of him. He then quickly found Mickey’s gun hand – the gun was still in it – and slammed it twice against the floor, breaking the albino’s wrist and jarring the gun loose. They both scrambled for the gun, but Mickey stopped, crying out in pain as he put pressure on his shattered wrist, giving Chris the chance to grab the gun and swing its barrel into the gatekeeper’s face. Chris then flattened the pistol into his palm and smacked Mickey on the side of the head with it, knocking him out cold.
Silence. And then Chris’ ears began working again, and he heard the hard patter of rain on the roof, and the wind blowing, though with less force, around the cottage. Still holding the Beretta, Chris went through Mickey’s pockets, finding a wad of hundred dollar bills in a money clip, and a wallet. Inside the wallet were a few scraps of paper, and a driver’s license in the name of Michael Rodriguez of 40909 Topanga Canyon Drive, Los Angeles. The picture on the front was definitely Mickey. The scraps of paper were empty, except for one, which had “Michele 212-534-8977” written on it in blue ink. This Chris put in his pocket, along with one of the “Candy Meets Ron” DVDs.
When he got outside, he pitched the Beretta into the woods, then made his way, inside the tree line and out of sight of the security cameras, to the front of the property, hopping over the low stone wall that ran along the street. The wind had died, leaving in its wake what promised to be a long steady rain. Chris’ khakis and cotton sweater were soaked through, but he was barely aware of them. What had so alarmed Rodriguez that he thought he needed to point a gun at Chris’ chest and march him up to see Labrutto? Why had Mickey left the grounds if Labrutto needed him around, as he had told Allison?
When he left the cottage, Chris noticed what looked like fresh damage to the grill of the BMW. Had Mickey, his forehead oozing blood, been in an accident? What had Chris walked into the middle of? And most important, what affect would it have on his plans to get Labrutto to set up a meeting with Barsonetti? The answers to these questions were unsettling, to say the least. He did not need to be embroiled in Labrutto’s sleazy world, and, having decided to commit premeditated murder, and having acted on that decision, he did not need distractions. He needed good luck, not bad. Up ahead, he saw a car’s headlights coming toward him. Sticking out his thumb, willing the driver to stop, he realized there wasn’t much he could do: get home, get dry, deal with the awful pain in his rib cage, sort the rest out tonight, or tomorrow.
14.
“So how did you get back?”
“I hitched a ride into the little town there and got a cab.”
“Are you sure it was Allison?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“And she’s using?”
“She’s using and she’s starring in porn flicks.”
“I’ll have to call Danielle.”
They were sitting, Joseph and Chris, in the living room of Chris’ apartment. Chris, on the sofa, was holding a bar-towel ice pack to his left side, where Mickey Rodriguez had clubbed him twice with his gun while they were struggling on the floor of the cottage. He had probably broken a rib or two, and the discoloration was pretty ugly – eggplant purple streaked with a lurid yellow. Chris had tried to reach Joseph immediately on his return to the city. When Joseph did not answer, he left a message, and then drank off a double
scotch. Needing something more – the pain in his side was peaking – he went down to the African Queen to ask Vinnie Rosamelia for some kind of prescription narcotic, which he knew Vinnie always had on hand. Vinnie, wide eyed but asking no questions, had put Chris to bed with a nicely calibrated dose of codeine, Valium and butazolodin – the last an anti-inflammatory used on race horses—and applied a homemade ice pack, which he changed every hour or so for the four hours that Chris was out cold. As a result, though Chris’ rib cage area was stiff and sore and remained darkly discolored, the swelling had subsided and the pain was tolerable.
“Are you positive it was her?” Joseph asked, eying the photographs Chris had handed him.
Chris looked at his brother and shook his head slightly.
You learn, when you are closely connected to a heroin addict, to recognize their states of being, of which there are only a basic few: clean, edging toward getting off, edging toward withdrawal, and what addicts call “correct” or “right,” the non-euphoric high in which they believe they are functioning normally. Being correct is pretty much all a true junkie lives for. In this state, which lasts some eight to twelve hours after a fix, he can eat and drink a little, smoke cigarettes by the dozens, drive a car, and even, in his mind though no one else’s, work. Chris knew, when he sat down for a drink with him on the Thursday evening just past that his brother was clean. He had pressed him on the issue out of an ancient anger – and cruelty – that welled up in him whenever Joseph, like a peacock, presented himself in all his striking beauty to the world, as if his cares had always been trifling and his harrowing heroin habit was the foolish but charming detour of a rich dilettante. Tonight, Chris could see that Joseph, overwrought, manic, was on the verge of scoring some dope, but he was in no mood to baby him. He was thinking about the cesspool he had stepped into in Alpine, and the unearthly look in Mickey Rodriguez’s rolling eyes as he talked on his cell phone to Labrutto and pointed his gun at Chris’ chest.
