The Hammer of God

by Tom Avitabile

  “It’s a good picture of you and the boss, Bill,” Margaret offered.

  “Ya think so?” He took the opportunity to right the cover one more time and feign gauging it. I don’t look as old as Joey does.

  “So then we are agreed. We do not comment, stand by, or endorse the story,” Margaret’s boss said. Then, flipping through the mag one more time, the man addressed Bill, “Did you actually do half the stuff in here?”

  “For national security reasons, I can neither confirm or deny anything about my participation, or lack thereof, in any of these scenarios,” Bill said as serious as a heart attack.

  “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about you leaking anything to the press today.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Favorite Sons

  St. Lucy’s Church in the Bronx had a grotto. It was a catacomb-like structure located across from the church. Lots of candles, and a few crypts seemingly chiseled right out of the blue gray stone. It was a dark and somber place. A kid’s first impression was that of going through a haunted cave. Later in life, it became a cool place to take a girl and, with the help of a buddy, get her to jump into your arms when he sprang out at the two of you from the shadows. Still later in life, it became a place of solitude and reverence or, as in Bill’s case today, a place to light a candle to remember his Irish grandparents who both had their funerals here.

  Peter’s funeral had been a high mass. One of the guys from the neighborhood, Arnie, who was always an altar boy and hanging around the church when they were growing up, sang the hymns and “Ave Maria” from the balcony. An older, grey-haired woman played the church organ accompanying him. After the service, Arnie came over to Bill and introduced his wife and kids. She was neat and petite and had what used to be called beauty parlor hair. The kids were cute, and all together they made a great family picture for any Christmas card. Bill liked the idea that Arnie turned out well: a family man, all around good guy and citizen. Somehow, it gave him a good feeling about many other things, including his own family-in-progress.

  Seeing Peter’s parents was hard. When he and Johnny ‘No’, had sleepovers, Anna Remo made ravioli and meatballs or lasagna or mineste. He loved having dinner at the Remo’s. It was Johnny and Pete’s mom who gave him his first taste of demitasse, making Bill feel like one of the grown ups. Anna Remo hugged him and spoke through sobs. “Peter talked of you all the time. He would always watch you when you were doing the football. He’d say, ‘There’s that Billy the Kid.’ That’s what he called you-Billy the Kid. Then when you went with the President, he would always tell everybody how you and his little brother Johnny were friends. Thank you for coming here for my sons. Peter would be so happy to know you were here.”

  “He knows, Mrs. Remo. He’s up there seeing all of us right now.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know it, Mrs. Remo.”

  “You’re a good boy, William. You always were. How’s your mother?”

  “She and Dad are fine, living out on Long Island. They do some traveling and Dad’s always ready to go fishing.”

  “You tell her Anna said hello and that she should come around the old neighborhood sometime for coffee.”

  “I’ll tell her, Mrs. Remo.”

  The funeral procession rolled down Bronxwood Avenue. Bill saw that the White Castle was still going strong, the lumberyard was gone, and Gino’s restaurant was now an IHOP. Somebody, probably a Haitian family, took over Paul Manelo’s house and now there were baby blue shutters, a large Virgin Mary, and plastic flowers in window boxes. It was pretty, but stuck out like a family in Easter Sunday clothes at Orchard Beach in July. They slowed the procession when they passed Peter’s house on Matthews Avenue then down Burke Avenue to White Plains Road; then it made a left onto Gunhill Road and headed to Woodlawn Cemetery.

  At the gravesite, Bill was looking out across the cemetery. In the distance was the elevated train running down White Plains Road. That reminded him of the reason Peter and Bill knew each other. It went back to the day Bill’s dad came into school for “what’s your father do for a living” day. Many of the dads who showed up were truck drivers like Pete’s dad, storeowners, a few cops, firemen, mailmen, Con Ed workers. Eddie’s dad was an elevator mechanic. When Peter, a train freak, heard that Bill’s dad was a subway engineer, he latched right on. Peter eventually got the senior Hiccock to allow him to “front end” the entire trip from Woodlawn in the Bronx to Utica Avenue in Brooklyn. To Peter, it was as if Bill’s dad was Mickey Mantle.

  Peter, however, never got to watch the Yankee games, or the Mick, from the tin shed at the end of the 161st street el platform as Joey and Bill did. Most of the guys who worked for the T.A. scheduled the shed for one of their kids on game days. All the engineers and conductors would keep an eye on ‘em like surrogate fathers peering from each passing train. The token booth clerk would check on them every half hour or so just for good measure. By the time Billy was old enough to enjoy this perk, Peter was in his room a lot, building stuff and almost burning down the house. In fact, while the other guys were going to Orchard Beach or horseback riding on Pelham Parkway, Peter apparently got a job working at NBC. That was why nobody ever saw him.

  Bill’s train of thought, triggered by the number 2 train, stopped when Johnny Remo, Peter’s brother, and Bill’s childhood pal, came over and gave him a big bro-hug and thanked him for coming.

  “Billy Hiccock, It’s been too long.”

  “Too long, Johnny, too long.”

  “We know how busy you are. It really means a lot to us to have someone like you here.” He was shorter than Peter, tight-cropped razor haircut in a Frank Sinatra, circa 1970’s way. He was a mass of muscle and wore a gold pinky ring. He talked like an ironworker, mainly because he was one.

  “Whoa, John, I ain’t someone like me,” Bill said. “I’m someone like you; we both grew up here, and Peter and you and all the guys know me like nobody else does.”

  “No Billy, you were smart. Always were, you work with your head, not your back like us stiffs.”

  “Paycheck’s a paycheck, Johnny.”

  “No. Well, just the same, thank you, and thank you for being there for Peter. He was all excited about seeing you last month.”

  “John, I got to tell ya, I wasn’t much help to him. In fact, there was nothing I could help him with.”

  “No, hey, Billy, you gave him time. You listened; you did what a friend does. Towards the end, Peter didn’t have too many friends, you know what I mean?”

  “He was driven to…”

  “No, no, he was obsessed. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what killed him,” John said turning to the coffin now lowered into the grave.

  “Have you found out…well maybe this isn’t a good time to talk about this.”

  “No, Bill you are right, later. You coming to the house after this?”

  Bill checked his watch; he had a 4:30 out of LaGuardia back to Reagan. “Sure, I got time.”

  “No, we’ll talk then. I got something I want to show you.”

  ?§?

  David had been a cop in Haifa before taking on the security detail of the West Bank. His responsibility was for the safety and peace of Palestinians and Jews living side by side. There were flare-ups and occurrences that would be shocking in places of other demographics and geographics, but against the centuries-old rivalries of two peoples positioned in close proximity, these schisms just passed as any other day in this once proud prize of Israeli land. So the reported death of Hamir al-dashabi, a truck driver for an Israeli MRI manufacturer was little more than a footnote in the homicide log for that day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Key To The City

  “On behalf of the bank, welcome Mr. Rashani,” loan officer, David Wasserman said as he rose and shook the hand of Commercial Bank’s newest customer. “And thank you very much for your business.”

  “I am sure this will be a long and fruitful relationship. We have many movies to make here in Amer
ica and, hopefully soon, a TV series,” Rashani said.

  “Good, good, we like to hear that.”

  “Yes, your state’s new tax incentives are a long time coming. Our investors are very happy we are shooting in New York State.”

  “Our bank lobbied hard to get the Governor and the State Assembly to offer these incentives and, may I just say, Mr. Rashani, you are living proof that these incentives are good for New York. Please don’t hesitate to call me personally if there is any further way we can help you.” Wasserman stood and earnestly reached out to shake the man’s hand.

  “Actually, in about three months, I might want to bring some new investors to the city. Perhaps you could be in attendance and show them what a good job you and the bank are doing for us.” Rashani emphasized the lie he had just uttered by clasping his free hand over their clenched grip.

  “I’d be honored; helping our clients grow is how we grow.”

  As the impeccably dressed producer of Iran’s biggest production company left the bank, Wasserman called his wife.

  “Honey, I just signed a 25-million-dollar account with the largest independent producers of film in Iran. Yes, just now! That’s going to bring my three-month total to 185 million. They have to give me that V.P. slot now!”

  Rashani’s next stop after establishing a production bank account was the insurance company. Along the way, he reflected on the brilliance involved with paying a Hollywood agent $50,000 cash just for a favorable introduction to the bank. That agent, nor Mr. Wasserman, could pick the real Rashani out of a line up of him and a Girl Scout troop, let alone care about the color of his money. Yes, greed is good, Rashani thought, remembering a line from an American movie that was actually made here in New York.

  So far, the creation of American Partners Iranian, L.L.C. had cost about $85,000, a mere grain of sand next to his 25-million-dollar “production budget.” With his new API, L.L.C. bank checks, he was able to write the $10,500 dollars necessary to obtain the Producer’s Liability package. It was a mixture of many diverse insurance policies that protected the producer from all kinds of calamities that can befall a cinematic production, from rain to bad film stock ruining a shot. He did not purchase E and O insurance however, even though it was discounted with the package. Errors and Omission insurance protected the final movie from all claims. There would be no final movie. In fact, there were only two reasons to have the Producer’s Package at all: it had workman’s comp, which any good crew person or trade union insisted on before walking onto a working set, and, more importantly, you could get a permit to film on the streets of New York. Even with police escort and protection — all free of charge! You could close a bridge, clear an avenue, wreck cars, and burn down buildings, theatrically of course. As long as you held the insurance naming New York City as loss payee for one million dollars per event, you were instantly a reputable production company. A New York City film permit was truly the key to the city.

  “Wanna see what got my brother killed?” John said motioning upstairs in the two family house that the Remos lived in since their sons were three and thirteen. On the way up the stairs was a framed photo of John and other hard hats down at “the pile.” It made Bill stop.

  “John, you were there?”

  “No, not just me — the whole union. We all turned out. There was thousands of metric tons of steel there, had to cut it where it lay. Every time we came across remains, we had to stop. Then there was a ceremony; then we’d start working again. There was 250 tons of human remains compressed into the 10-story pile.”

  As they went up the stairs, the effort made John cough. 9-11 sickness Hiccock thought. At the top, under a table, were work boots that looked like they were sitting in pancakes. John bent down and got them. “No, look see, these were brand fucking new, first day look, look here, the souls are melted. That fucking pile was like walking on an oven for 10 days. Brand new fucking pair of steel toes — instant garbage. That was some hell of a place. But we cleaned it up in record time.”

  “You guys were amazing.”

  “No, sometimes I think we should-a let it sit there forever, to remind everybody what those fuckers did to us. People, they are forgetting, getting soft, letting down their guard. It’s not good, I tell ya.”

  “The President and me, we’ll never forget, John.”

  “No, you’ll keep all those Washington jerks on the trigger, no, I know that.”

  Bill suddenly remembered why John’s nickname growing up was “Johnny ‘No’.”

  “C’mere, let me show you what I brung you up here for.”

  Bill remembered the hallway, from when they were kids and the bathroom at the end of the hall. How embarrassed he was one night, when, on a sleepover, he walked in on Anna washing her nylons in the sink. She was in a slip, but in those days, even seeing your friend’s mom in a slip was a weird and creepy thing. They went into what used to be Peter’s room. There, amid the guest bed and older furniture, was a box of stuff. John reached in and pulled out a gray envelope with the old, interlocking blue NBC logo on it. Inside was a brown binder with yellowed pages. John flipped open the binder; it was a photocopy of a book. It looked as if someone had laid it flat on a copy machine.

  Bill was frozen. Just as Peter described. Holy shit he wasn’t hallucinating…at least about this part.

  “This is what I figured got Petey killed.”

  Bill felt as though someone had just showed him the original draft to a Shakespeare play. This was the book Peter told him about on the steps of the Memorial.

  “How do you know he was killed over anything more than a bar fight?”

  “No, what the fuck was he doing in France? No, he never cared about places like that. I’m telling you, that old man got whacked, then Peter went on his crusade shit and bam now he’s dead.”

  “Old man? You mean Professor Ensiling?”

  “Bingo! Dat guy!

  “I hear you, John, but Joey Palumbo — you remember Joey — he works with me now.”

  “No, Palumbo? No shit. Last I heard he was working with the feds.”

  “Yeah, I kinda screwed that up for him, so now we…anyway, he checked the Ensiling thing out, and he says the fat lady sang natural on this professor guy.”

  “No, Billy, I don’t mean to argue here, but that’s bullshit. Peter told me about the threats, the attempts, the time they missed him and the old guy and killed that broad.”

  “John, I never heard about any woman being shot.”

  “No, all I’m saying here is that this book, with all this gobbledygook and fucking formulas, got everybody killed. You want it?”

  “After a sales job like that? Yeah, sure I want it, John. I’m dying to have somebody come after me, too.”

  “Then at least you’ll know Peter was right? No?”

  Bill just looked at his childhood friend’s smirking face. “Thanks a lump.”

  Between what was in Peter’s files and Mrs. Remo cajoling him to stay for cake and coffee, Bill just made the 8 o’clock back to D.C. from La Guardia and decided to skip going to the office and had his driver take him directly home. It was 9:30 and the funeral had taken more of a toll on him than he realized. The thought of going home to Janice and splicing into some iota of a normal routine was a comfortable idea.

  He rolled out the garbage cans to the front of the driveway and went into the house from the garage entrance into the kitchen. As if he were eight years old, there on the fridge, being held up by magnets shaped like bananas, oranges, watermelon slices, and lemons, was the Time magazine cover. Under it was a Post-it note that read, “I always wanted to tramp around with a ‘cover boy.’ I await you upstairs Mr. Bond.”

  Bill smiled, opened the fridge, grabbed the orange juice, and was about to take a slug from it, when the door closed and he was looking right at the cover picture of him with the President of the United States. Self-consciously, he got a glass from the cabinet and poured.

  Janice was under the covers and her body was radiating heat.
He snuggled close and she spoke softly into the pillow. “You look like you should be the President in that picture, Billy boy.” She reached around and pulled him into her.

  Bill kissed her neck. “You’re just saying that to have your way with me…”

  “I’m going to have my way no matter what I say, Mr. Commander n’ Geek.” Then she rolled over and made good on her promise.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was curling Bill’s hair around her finger while he dozed off with his arm over her stomach, his head on her chest. “Did you read it?”

  “What?”

  “The article; did you get a chance to read it?”

  “Yeah, good writing. Like a serialization of a novel.”

  “Bill, I am concerned.”

  Now he was up. He rolled over on his back, sat up, and took a swig of the orange juice in the glass. He jutted it to Janice as if to ask, “Want some?”

  She shook her head. “The article makes it seems like you single-handedly caught the terrorist mastermind.”

  “Jan, you know I can’t really talk about this…”

  “Yes I know. But what if these guys get pissed off at you?”

  “Who?”

  “The terrorists; what if they come after you, personally? If I were them, and I read that article, I’d want to kill you for ruining my plans.”

  “Hey, I’m an American, so they’d want to kill me for that alone. I’m in the government, so that’s another reason. And I let you speak back to me and go out in public with your face and ankles showing, so they can cut my head off three times before they ever get to ‘I ruined their party.’” He dragged his index finger under his chin in a slashing gesture for emphasis.