Onion Street (Moe Prager Mystery)

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “The kid’s fuckin’ us around,” Jimmy said, staring into the blackness of the unit. Something crashed to the floor with a sickening thud. “Lemme go look for — ”

  I switched on the Coleman lantern, shredding the veil of darkness that hid me from their view. I was seated in the far left corner of the unit, maybe thirty feet from them. As soon as I switched on the lantern, I saw exactly what I was afraid I was going to see. Lids was sprawled out on the floor before Tony P and Jimmy. He was groaning in pain. The groan was feeble and constant. His face was a pulpy, bloodied, barely human mess, his limbs bent and twisted. If I wasn’t already in knots and sick, one look at what was left of Lids would have had the same effect. At that moment, I wished the body I’d seen in the Fountain Avenue dump had been Lids, because that guy’s pain was over. But seeing Lids that way did something to me. It hardened me, turned me cold inside. It made me realize that I couldn’t surrender to my better instincts, that these guys meant deadly business.

  I heard myself say, “You said you weren’t gonna — ”

  “I kept my word, Moe. I didn’t hurt the little prick after we talked, but I didn’t say nothin’ about what Jimmy would do to him.” And he had the nerve to laugh after he said it.

  Jimmy smiled his crocodile smile.

  “You guys think it’s funny, huh? I’ll show you funny.”

  I shined the flashlight in my left hand at the front right and front left corners of the storage unit so they could clearly see what was there: a brick of plastic explosive in each corner. Once I was sure they had gotten a good look at the plastique on either side of them, I moved the beam of the flashlight so they could see the wires running from the blasting caps to two large batteries at my feet. I turned the flash along the wires leading from the batteries to my right hand. Then I showed them what was in my hand.

  “You know what this is, don’t you, Jimmy?”

  “A detonator.”

  “Correct. And why don’t you tell your boss what those silvery things are sticking out of the plastique.”

  “Blasting caps.”

  “Again, correct. You know a lot about explosives, don’t you, Jimmy Double D?”

  He didn’t say anything, but smiled his chilly smile.

  Then I talked directly to Tony, keeping an eye on Jimmy. “See how my thumb is pressing the button down, Tony? Anything that releases the pressure of my thumb from the switch and baboom! You, Jimmy, Lids, and me will get blown all to hell. See, I’d rather go this way than have Jimmy work his kinda magic on me.”

  Tony said, “You’re bluffin’. Anyways, the shit Bobby was deliverin’ to those asshole bombers was fake stuff.”

  I could tell by the look on Jimmy’s face that he wasn’t as sure as his boss.

  “Not all of it, Tony. Remember, Bobby had to prove to them that he could deliver the goods. So the detective who was running the show gave him a few bricks to prove he was the real deal.”

  Tony P pumped up his chest and smirked. “Bullshit!”

  “Come on, Tony, this is Bobby Friedman we’re talking about here. Bobby, who sees all the angles in things. Wasn’t it Bobby who saw that he could use his police cover to smuggle shit for you? Detective Casey gave him three bricks for demonstration purposes, but Bobby used only one. He kept the other two just in case. And I’d have to say, this would rate as a ‘just in case.’”

  “Bullshit!” he repeated. Only this time, there were cracks in the façade.

  “Ask Jimmy if he thinks I’m full of shit.”

  Tony P didn’t ask, but he did take a sideways glance at Jimmy. Somehow, Tony saw something in Jimmy’s reptilian face and turned back to me. The thing was, Tony P, as ridiculous as his Santa Claus physique and magic tricks had always made him seem, proved himself even more cruel than Jimmy.

  “Okay, kid, you’re serious. I give you that, but what’s the deal? If my merchandise ain’t here, what’s with all the drama?”

  “I needed to buy some time, so that you wouldn’t just walk in here and blow us all away. I wanna talk, to work something out. And don’t even bullshit me, Tony P. If Bobby was here with the drugs right now, only you and Jimmy would be walking outta here alive, no?”

  “Bobby, he’s smart, he knows money, but you, kid, you understand people. That’s more dangerous, and it’s worth more. So you wanna talk, talk.”

  “Here’s the deal: we just wanna keep on breathing.”

  “I kinda figured that out already. I’m smart that way. But what’s my reason for lettin’ you?”

  “Well,” I said, looking at my watch, “if I don’t call Bobby up in ten minutes from now, you’ll never see your six kilos and you’ll be out for all the money you owe the supplier. My guess is you don’t wanna be dipping into your cash to pay him for drugs you’ll never sell. You take a double hit that way. Second, Bobby will give you back the money he made off the original deal between you two, plus a little something on top as a sign of good faith.”

  “How much good faith?” Tony P wanted to know.

  “Twenty-five grand worth.”

  “I’m still listenin’.”

  “Once Bobby drops the drugs off in a safe place for you to collect them, we’re all through. There’s nothing to tie you to Bobby. He’s got nothing to tie you to anything. Me, I never had any real connection to you except the quarters you used to pull outta my ears. I don’t know anything about your operation. And even though I know it was Jimmy that killed Samantha Hope, I can’t hurt you. I got no proof.”

  “Here’s the problem with that, Moe,” Tony said, holding his palms up to the ceiling. “You, I trust. I swear.” His expression was as sincere as a first kiss. “I’m sure you mean what you say and I could sleep safe at night knowing you would keep your word. Problem is, I don’t trust Bobby as far as I could t’row him, not where money’s involved. And what I’m thinkin’ is maybe you shouldn’t’ve trusted him neither. What makes you so sure he’s even gonna be on the other end of that phone when you call him up? He’s probably got the stuff stashed somewheres and he’s halfway to California by now, or maybe he’s already got a buyer for it and they’re making the swap as we speak. See, the thing is here that I know Bobby like you don’t. Bobby would never pay me back the money he made and there’s no way he’d put extra on top. Sorry, kid, I think your pal fucked you and left you holdin’ the bag.”

  “But — ”

  “And you know what else I think, kid? I think those explosives really are bullshit.”

  “You wanna find out?”

  Tony P’s face turned hard. “Maybe I do. Yeah, in fact, I’m sure I do. Jimmy,” Tony said without looking at his muscle, “this little weasel’s moanin’ and groanin’ is annoyin’ the shit outta me. Do me a favor, shut him up.”

  With that, Jimmy reached underneath his coat and pulled out a .45.

  “Wait a second,” I shouted, thrusting my detonator hand forward. “You’re forgetting something.”

  “No, Moe, I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’. I just wanna see how serious you really are. Are you gonna blow us all up to save this drug-pushin’ piece a shit? You realize he works for me, right? Who do you think supplies him with his product, the welfare office?” Tony P smiled. “Fact is, Moe, seems like all your friends work for me.”

  “Wait! Wait!” I shouted again. “I’ll let go of the — ”

  Then the world changed speeds. Instead of things happening in a smooth flow of actions, one second spilling into the next, space fractured. Movement is a series of rapid still photos, a series of blackness and bright strobing flashes; sound lags sadly behind. Jimmy Ding Dong racks the slide of the automatic, a chambered bullet ejects into space. I swear I can see each individual tumble as the shell spins in midair and arcs to the ground, bouncing as it hits. Jimmy turns to look at me, his face coming in and out of focus. Then, in an eternal second, his face frozen in that cruel, icy smile of the crocodile, he has placed the muzzle of the .45 behind Lids’s left ear.

  I shout again, “Wait!” but
there seems to be no sound. I release my thumb from the detonator switch. Tony P is only half right. The plastic explosives are fake. The blasting caps are not. There are two bright flashes. Smoke, lightning, but no thunder. Shocked faces, panicked faces lit by the flashes emerge out of the dark background. Jimmy jerks his gun arm away from Lids and raises it at me. Another figure strobes into the frame. Bobby! Something’s in his hand. Something metal. Something I’ve seen before.

  Sound returns to the world in a dizzying rush. I hear everything all at once: the racking of the .45’s slide, the pinging of the ejected bullet shell against the concrete floor, my scream, Lids moaning, the blasting caps exploding, Bobby’s footfalls. Then there is a distinct sound, a new sound: cha-ching. And suddenly I know what it is in Bobby’s hand. This time when lightning comes, it comes with thunder. Jimmy Ding Dong’s neck and shoulder explode in a spray of flesh and blood and bits of bone, some of it splashing onto the skin of my face. It’s warm, I think, almost like human blood. Jimmy falls forward, his .45 skittering along the cement floor to my feet. Cha-ching! Thunder and lightning again. Tony P goes down in a heap, his abdomen and groin a bloody red mess.

  “You fuckin’ bastard!” he’s screaming in anger and agony, but paradoxical tears stream down his swollen cheeks. “You fuckin’ little bastard. I’m gonna kill you.”

  Bobby, his permanent smile gone forever, puts the sole of his boot against Tony’s face, pressing it against the floor. He pumps the shotgun one last time — cha-ching — and places the muzzle against the soft flesh of Tony’s fat neck.

  “What’s the matter, Tony Pepperoni, you fat, ugly fuck, nothing to say to me now? No fucking threats? Beg and maybe I won’t kill you slow.”

  “Stop it, Bobby,” I said, voice cool.

  “No, this asshole’s gonna pay for having Sam killed.”

  “Put the shotgun down, Bobby,” I said, realizing that I had Jimmy’s .45 in my hand and that it was pointed at Bobby Friedman’s chest.

  “Look what he did to Lids. He was gonna kill us all. He — ”

  “Put it down, Bobby. C’mon, just leave him for the cops. He’s probably gonna just die here anyway.”

  Then, as if what he’d just done hit him in the gut, the air and fight went out of Bobby. He laid the shotgun, the one he’d stolen from Detective Casey’s white van, on the floor behind Tony. Bobby dropped to his knees and began sobbing uncontrollably. Killing, I guess, isn’t as easy as it seems, even if the victim deserves it. What happened next is not what I thought would happen, because I found myself kneeling not over Lids but over Tony P. I was kneeling over him and pushing the barrel of Jimmy’s .45 against Tony’s cheek.

  “You wanna live, Tony? Gimme the name of the cop who ratted out Samantha,” I heard myself say.

  “Fuck you!”

  I pressed the muzzle harder to Tony’s cheek and counted, “One … two … thr — ”

  “Fitzhugh!” he shouted, his eyes getting big. “Detective Patrick Fitzhugh. He’s on the Luchese family pad. We share info sometimes and they get a taste of my profits. Now get me some fuckin’ help. Jeez, this fuckin’ hurts, man. It hurts bad.”

  “Okay, when we get outta here, I’ll call you an ambulance.” I turned to Bobby. “Get Lids into the car. I’ll clean up in here.”

  But almost as soon as I got those last words out of my mouth, Tony P’s body started jerking like crazy. He gasped for air, clawing at his throat. Then he stiffened. His body just kind of shook like a jolt of electricity was shot through it. And suddenly it was over. This was no sleight of hand, no illusion. Tony Pizza, or Pepperoni, or whoever the fuck he had been, was no more. There was no rabbit, no hat to pull it out of, no quarter, no ear from which to make it appear. There was nothing left of him but his fat carcass and his beloved car. I looked away from Tony to Bobby, and away from Bobby to Lids, and wondered just how different they really were from one another. It struck me that I was glad there was no mirror in the room, and I stopped wondering.

  From Long Island Newsday

  Bodies Found in Storage Warehouse

  Kathleen Eull

  Last evening Suffolk County Police discovered the bodies of two men in an abandoned storage warehouse in Lake Ronkonkoma. The victims, identified as Anthony Pistone, a.k.a. Tony Pizza, and James DiLaurio, a.k.a. Jimmy Ding Dong, both of the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, were known to police and were suspected of having ties to organized crime in New York City. Both Pistone and DiLaurio died of shotgun wounds.

  “The bodies had been there for a minimum of a week, or as long as two,” said a spokesman for the Suffolk County Police. “An investigation is underway.”

  Sources within the New York City Police Department speculate that the murders of Pistone and DiLaurio are the result of an ongoing border clash between the Anello crime family and rogue members of the Luchese and Gambino families.

  “In the name of peace, the Anellos had tolerated a certain amount of rival family activity on their turf,” said Salvatore Barone, author and expert on New York’s organized crime families. “But it was only a matter of time after two of Anello’s most trusted soldiers, Chicky Lazio and Peter ‘Cha Cha’ Gooch, disappeared off the streets of Brighton Beach. Neither has been heard from in months, and both are presumed dead. Then when word began circulating of large shipments of heroin being moved within his territory, Tio Anello had to put his foot down.” It has long been rumored that Tio Anello, the presumed head of the Anello crime family, has a strict policy forbidding his people from selling drugs.

  “It’s not out of the goodness of his heart,” said Barone about Anello’s alleged no-drug rule. “He just doesn’t think the money he’d make is worth the risk. And with these two guys, Tio had to act or he’d appear weak to his enemies.”

  Speculation was fueled by the discovery of a huge cache of heroin in Queens by NYPD Detective Wallace Casey. The nearly pure heroin had an estimated street value of well over four million dollars. Casey got an anonymous tip about the stash of drugs. Most sources believe the tip came in courtesy of the Anellos. Detective Casey and the NYPD have refused to comment.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  On a Friday night two weeks after the events at the warehouse, Detective Casey picked me up at my folks’ apartment and we went drinking at the Onion Street Pub. Although I didn’t know it then, the Onion Street Pub was a cop hangout. The place was crowded and loud and full of cigarette smoke. The jukebox was blasting, and the atmosphere was much friendlier than I’d found it during my first visit. Even Angie, my dance partner, was there, but she’d let her blonde hair down. Of course, I didn’t realize until later that she was a cop groupie. A lot of bar patrons stopped by our spot at the bar to pat Casey on the back. He had, after all, just made one of the biggest heroin finds in New York City history.

  “Six fucking kilos,” one drunk cop said, hugging Casey around the shoulders. “How the hell did you do it, man? I didn’t even know you were working narcotics.”

  “Clean living,” Casey said, “and luck.”

  “There’ll be a bump in it for sure, you lucky son of a bitch. Let me buy you and your buddy here a shot to celebrate.”

  It was apparently bad form to turn it down, so Casey agreed and the bartender lined up three shots of Scotch. We clinked glasses and gunned the shots in single gulps, slamming the overturned glasses down on the bar when we finished. After another round, this one on Casey, the drunk guy faded back into the crowd.

  The good cheer vanished from Casey’s face. He turned, staring straight ahead. “Pretty amazing.”

  “What, the Scotch? I never really drank it before, but it’s not bad. What kind is it?

  “Cutty Sark. Smooth as razor blades,” he said. “But that’s not what I’m talking about, Moe.”

  “Then what?”

  “The anonymous phone tip I got telling me where to find all that heroin.”

  “Like you said, Detective Casey — ”

  “Just call me Casey,” he said. “Everyone calls me
Casey.”

  “Like you said, Casey, it’s luck. Maybe it’s like they said in the papers.”

  He curled up his lips into a joyless smile. “That it was the Anellos. I don’t buy it. Those guys would rather eat their young than rat out even their worst enemies.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Who knows?”

  “You’re right, and besides, not all my luck has been good. The garage where I keep the van I used to deliver the dummy explosives was broken into.”

  “Can’t be a good thing to steal a police car. I hope the moron who did that got outta town quick.”

  “I didn’t say the van was stolen, Moe. Only its window was busted, and the guy took my shotgun and the shells I kept in there for protection.”

  “Hope it turns up.”

  “I doubt it will,” he said. “My bet is the shotgun’s at the bottom of a lake somewhere.”

  Before Casey could see me turn pale, two more well-wishers stopped by and bought a few more rounds. By the time they left, I couldn’t see straight.

  Casey said, “I hear your buddy turned up, but that he was in rough shape.”

  “Huh? Oh, Lids, yeah. I heard that too.” I wasn’t sure if it was my head or the room that was spinning, nor was I sure it was all a product of the Scotch. Casey was scaring the shit out of me with his talk of the shotgun and the drugs. I needed some fresh air, and I bolted.

  Outside, the cool early March air was giving me some relief. Relief or not, I found it difficult to stand, so I sat down on the sidewalk, my back to a cold brick wall. Above my head, lazy jet after lazy jet, engines whining, followed the end of the glide path to the runways at JFK. I was so drunk that I swear I thought I could make out the faces of individual passengers. Some of them seemed to be staring right at me, pointing down at me. Why I should matter to them was beyond me. I wasn’t a circus freak. I wasn’t feeling guilty about things. I hadn’t killed anyone. I hadn’t gotten anyone killed.