by Warren Court
“Used to be a cop, remember?”
“Yeah, used to be. I don’t like it, Jack. I fucking hate guns.”
“Don’t worry. I always keep it on the boat. I just wanted it back from Don before I left. You know, in case of pirates.” I grinned. She flicked her butt into the shrubs and started to go back inside. “I’ll see you tonight, after seven?”
She didn’t answer; just let the door slam behind her.
On my way back to my boat I stopped at the public washrooms. There was a payphone there. I pumped it full of money and called the Rochester, NY, number that Soos had given me. I recognized the voice that answered it.
“Hey, Jocko, is that you?”
“Yeah. Who dis?”
“Jocko, it’s me, Jack. Soos’s guy.”
“How’d you get this number?”
“The doc gave it to me. He wants me to do a switch with you.”
There was a pause on the other end and a distortion like a hand covering the mouthpiece. Then it was gone and Jocko was back.
“Okay, man. Same place as last time. Four a.m. You got the digits?”
“Yeah, I remember them.” Jocko meant GPS coordinates. I’d used them a couple of times and had them memorized. Right out in the middle of the big lake, somewhere along the invisible border between Canada and the United States.
I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to get out there. No way would I take the Purpoise. I’d need something faster than that.
I went back to my boat and went below, and knew immediately that someone had been on her. She had been locked back up, but the locks on these things aren’t that hard to pick. And there was a smell, a mixture of Old Spice and body odour. I looked through my things. Stuff was out of place just a bit. The chart of St. Augustine had been picked up and laid down but not in the same position—slightly off-set. I pushed my way through the tons of gear I had on board to the foc’s’le, the very front of the boat. Everything was fine, nothing stolen. Still, I was shaken. And I was pissed off. I decided to take charge of this thing.
Chapter 5
The Scallas run a vending machine business and their office is down on Railway Street, a dead-end road tucked in behind an abandoned freight station. They liked it down there; felt safe, I bet. With the street being a dead end, anyone driving in could be spotted and monitored.
There were only two buildings down there, both owned by the Scallas. If you didn’t have business down there you were unwelcome. A few years back, a writer doing a book on organized crime thought he’d drive down Railway Street. Some of the boys the Scallas had working for them were out front when the car came down the street. The jerk-off writer realized he’d made a mistake, lost his nerve and tried a quick three-point turn. He ended up clipping the front of one of the boys’ cars, and they systematically tore the writer’s car apart with crowbars and cinderblocks and put the writer in the hospital for a month. He didn’t file charges and he never published the book.
I passed Railway Street and spotted Fat Enzo’s Cadillac out in front of the Scalla Vending Machine building. Enzo only drove Caddies and always had a new one. There was another car parked behind it, a dark blue four-door sedan.
I drove down another block and turned left on Saratoga Road, which ran parallel to the truncated Railway Street. I parked in front of a two-story house that backed onto the Scallas’ place. I got out and tucked the Browning into the back of my shorts.
I checked the street and cut through the backyard of that house to a chain-link fence that was overgrown with ivy. There was a gap in the fencing, and I slipped through, crossed the laneway, and put my back up against the rear wall of the Scallas’ shop. There was a rear door and in front of it were a couple of dirty plastic patio chairs arranged on a concrete slab that was littered with cigarette butts and crushed beer and pop cans. Above the door was a security camera. Its wires into the building were cut; it had probably been done by the police at some point to facilitate occasional raids on the premises. The Scallas were too lazy to fix it. The door to the back room was open and I slipped in. I moved the Browning Hi-Power from the rear of my shorts to the front and put my golf shirt over it loosely.
The rear door led into a storeroom. There were boxes and some chairs stacked along the walls. A card table was set up and there were several full ashtrays on it. The Scallas ran a regular card game here that I was no stranger to. Along one wall were some dusty vending machines. All the new stuff was kept out in the storeroom next to the office or in another warehouse. The door to the office was slightly open and I crept over to it. I could hear talking coming from the front office. It was Bruno, the younger Scalla.
“This putz, I tell him ten times he doesn’t pay, I gotta do something.”
“Ten times?” It was Enzo.
“Yeah, well, maybe not that much. I lost track. So many deadbeats around here it’s hard to keep track, you know. Anyway, I say to this fuckin’ hump, ‘My money ain’t in my hand by today, you not going to piss right for a month.’”
Enzo laughed. I could picture his fat belly jiggling up and down. I couldn’t see into the office; they were just over to the left where they had some chairs and a couch.
“You want me to go see him?” It was another voice. It took a second but I placed it. Sylvester Vittorio, Enzo Scalla’s number one muscle.
“Yeah. Maybe we should go together. It’ll be fun. I haven’t had to bust somebody’s legs in, I don’t know, maybe a year. We’ll do it right in his store. Let his girls there see him take a fall. Maybe we won’t even have to do it. Just show him the pickaxe handles. He’ll think we’re there to kill him when he sees those.”
Then Enzo said, “To hell with this guy and the pickaxe handles; I want to know about Crouch. Where is he?”
“We don’t know. He wasn’t on his boat. We gotta guy outside of his place. Everyone’s looking for him, including our friends, you know?”
“Yeah. Well, I want you to find him, bring him here,” Enzo said.
I swallowed hard and said, “That won’t be necessary. I’m already here.” And I walked into the office.
Sylvester stiffened when he saw me come through the door. Bruno jumped to his feet. The older Scalla, Enzo, who weighed three hundred pounds, didn’t move a muscle. He was crouched over, eating a meatball sandwich and having a Coke.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Bruno said.
“You left the door open. Thought I’d save you guys the hassle of trying to find me.”
Enzo started to chuckle, and I could see the massive slabs of fat on his back move up and down. He screeched his chair around to take a look at me.
“What’s the gun for, Jack?” he said.
“I don’t know. Just felt like carrying it.” I pulled the shirt up over the butt so the others could see what Enzo had seen.
“Why didn’t you just use the front door, Jack?”
“I’m a control freak,” I said.
“We were going to talk to you later today.”
“I figured you’d want to, so I saved you the hassle.”
“Thanks for that, Jack, but do you think it was a good idea you coming down here?”
“I ain’t a cop no more.”
“That’s right. But still, some people are. They take a great interest in us. Especially now.”
“I was careful.”
“So, what is it you want to say?”
“That you aren’t going to have any trouble with me. If you were to have trouble, that is.”
“That’s swell of you, Jack. Hear that, Bruno? We ain’t goin’ to have no trouble from Jack here.”
I moved into the room and let the door close behind me in case someone came in the back.
“Sylvie, you can go take care of that thing we talked about,” Enzo said, not bothering to look at him.
When their muscle was gone, Enzo invited me to sit. I did, but made sure I kept Bruno in my line of sight.
Enzo was the boss. They called him Fat Enzo and Enz
o The Hands or Handzy because he was known to strangle someone to death when he could. He could never catch anyone; the victims were always brought to him.
Bruno was volatile and impulsive. It must haven taken them a lot of effort to keep him under control, I thought. But when Enzo wanted to send a message, he let Bruno off the leash. He was a psychopath about town, always dressing stylishly and charming the ladies. He was known as a cold-blooded killer who just didn’t quite have enough smarts to make it into the upper management of organized crime like Enzo had. Both of them were considered small time, though. They knew their place, never stepping too heavily on Toronto’s or Montreal’s toes.
“Long time no see, Jack. You don’t come around anymore,” Enzo said.
“I’m just doing my own thing. Got my boat.” Why had I brought that up?
“Heard you’re sailing away down south.”
“Yeah. Trying to.”
“When you going?”
“Was trying to get away this week.”
“That might be a good thing. I would hate for anything to delay you. Where you headed?”
Enzo knew the answer, but he wanted to see how evasive I would be. He loved these types of mind games.
“St. Augustine,” I said truthfully.
“Nice place. What are you going to do with all those niggers down there?” Both Scallas started to laugh. I joined in for show.
“I don’t know. Take their money? Going to run a bar or something.”
“Hear that, Bruno? Jack’s going to run a bar for the niggers. You serious, Jack?”
I nodded.
“Maybe you need a partner?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. Bruno grinned. “We good here, Enzo?” I said.
“Yeah, for now, Jack. You just make sure you get on your boat. Have a good trip. And don’t ever sneak up on me again.”
I got up slowly and backed out the way I’d come in, keeping an eye out for Sylvester, which gave Bruno a bit of a chuckle.
I had caught them off guard and, deep down, Enzo might have some respect for that move. But it wouldn’t change anything. With Garigue on ice, I was a liability for them. I wouldn’t have been in this mess if I hadn’t let the Scallas use my boat to dispose of Garigue five years ago.
Chapter 6
I could still remember that night they came to me. It was raining heavily and it was cold. Most of the boats were out of the water for the year, up on stilts in the parking lot of the Harbour Club. I, like a stupid idiot, wanted to stretch out the season as long as possible so I was delaying pulling my boat out. It was early November; most of the boaters had their boats out by Thanksgiving. My life was starting to crumble and I could see what was coming. I was under investigation. I knew I was going to lose my job. A prison term was a very real possibility. And my wife, Gloria, was on to me. My evil ways. My philandering, thieving. The drugs. The other women. And now my connections to the underworld were coming to light. I wasn’t the only one on the force wrapped up in it, but I was pegged as the fall guy.
And then when I was at my lowest, drunk out of my mind on my boat, who comes along but the Devil himself in the form of Enzo Scalla and his brother? They took me over to their car. Popped the trunk and in it was Robert Garigue. He was tied up, dazed. He’d been beaten. A snitch’s beating. I could see cigarette burns on his hands, his cheeks. There was a bit of blood in the bottom trunk of the Caddy. Enzo was going to have to get a new one to get rid of this evidence.
I admit I was a little shocked. If it hadn’t been for the bottle of dark rum, I might have done something about it. Maybe help Robert, get him out of that spot, run away, faint; I don’t know. But I just stood there like an idiot looking down on him. They wanted me to help get him out of the car. I refused. At least my mind was that clear. I backed up, and Bruno called me a pussy. He reached in and pulled Garigue, who was coming to, out of the trunk.
He kicked a bit and Enzo came in and put a haymaker right on his jaw and knocked him out again. I went back to my boat. I knew what they wanted. They dragged Garigue after me. I got to my boat first and turned around, determined to make a last stand.
The duo of gangsters came up to me, snitch in tow. I put my hands up. Bruno’s face was fiery, his eyes ablaze. Enzo was calm. He had Garigue by one arm, and Bruno had the other.
“Look, guys. This ain’t cool. We’re not doing this.”
“Yes, we are,” Enzo said.
“Not on my boat.”
“You don’t have to come,” Enzo said. “Just take a walk. It’ll be like we were never here.”
“Give him the money,” Bruno said. “That’s all he wants—the money. He’s just another whore like this punk here. Isn’t that right, you little whore?” Bruno said.
“Easy, Bruno. Look, Jack, we can’t debate this all night. Move out of the way.”
And so I did. And that was all she wrote for Garigue.
I got the money, eventually, after the fact. A bundle of dirty bills I left in the glove compartment of my truck for a week. I couldn’t touch it or look at it. Maybe I was hoping someone would break into my truck and relieve me of it. But in the end, I used it. Some of it went to my wife; she always needed cash. Some of it went to Wave Dancer for repairs. Most of it went up my nose.
Chapter 7
Back on board my boat after my visit to the Scallas, I killed time by reading for the hundredth time a guidebook on St. Augustine. It was dog-eared and full of notations I’d made in the margins. I cracked a beer while I read. The heat wore me out and I drifted off, a dangerous thing to do when there’s a potential contract on your head. I slept for an hour or so.
When I woke up my head hurt. I retrieved a couple of Advil from down below and saw the binoculars sitting on the bunk where I’d left them. I brought them back up to the cockpit and trained them on Wave Dancer. I could see two people on her. One was an older man, the boat’s current renter. He was a prick, a lawyer with a big firm in Toronto. The other was female and definitely not his wife. I knew his wife. She was in her fifties and wide at the beams. This lady the lawyer had on board was young, firm and provocative. She wore a skimpy bikini and was fawning over him. He’d had a different woman on board two weeks ago. A redhead. This one was blonde.
They were drinking and making asses out of themselves. Eventually they went down below and within a minute Wave Dancer was rocking counter to the rhythm of the gentle harbour waves. I began to plan a little escapade of my own. Could I? I ran through the problems in my head and made a decision.
After an hour the two lovers emerged from the Wave Dancer’s cabin and left. I grabbed a towel and headed off to the showers. I brought the Browning Hi-Power with me into the shower stall, tucked inside my rolled-up towel. I felt rested, which was good. I had a long night ahead of me.
Cindy was getting off at seven; we would have time for dinner and a roll back at her place. Then I’d have to split. She would be furious, but I had some dirty work to perform out on the lake. It was probably a good idea to slowly put some distance between us. It would make it easier on both of us when I finally sailed off. I had an overwhelming urge to slip my lines and sail off that night, but that wouldn’t be fair—to Cindy or to me.
I couldn’t go back to my apartment to change; the Scallas probably still had a guy there waiting for me. I would be most vulnerable coming to or from my apartment. I felt safer down at the boat. There were a lot of people around and a couple of security cameras around the docks. And there was only one way on or off my boat: that was the jetty. I had one of the last slips, so I could see someone coming down the dock a long way off. That was the only approach unless you wanted a swim.
That hadn’t stopped the Scallas from sending someone, most likely Silvio, down to my boat when I wasn’t there, but there was a difference between that and killing me in front of a dozen soused sailboat owners.
I dragged a golf shirt out of a duffel bag. It was a little wrinkled and smelled musty from the canvas, but it was clean. I went back into the
bar to meet Cindy. It had more people in it now. All the stools at the bar were occupied and about half the tables. It was noisy. The older types preferred to take their afternoon drinks in the air-conditioned comfort of the bar instead of on the hot aft decks of their yachts. Cindy was behind the bar cashing out.
I pushed in between two punters at the bar and got Wendy, Cindy’s replacement, to make me a quick rum and Coke. People I knew were crowded all around me. Some nodded hello but most kept silent. These were people I’d drunk with, sailed with over the years. I had no time for friends now. Were any of them really my friends? They all knew who I was, my disgrace. Some had gotten over it over the years and others had not. I kept to my rum and Coke. Marty came up beside me.
