“You may well be right but that doesn‘t mean there aren‘t fellas nipping at our ankles. They are real and we need to deal.”
DEAL. MARY LOU‘S mind flitted back to the moment she and Frank Lagotti were escaping cross-country from Baltimore and made some money in Vegas. She had no clue how to play poker but he knew it all. He held the cards in his palm like a pro and threw them down so they rotated a full circle before landing perfectly for the dealer to read them.
She admired the skills he‘d built up to do it, learned in the joint during his interminable incarcerations. As they fled to California, Frank never missed a step no matter what problem they had to face. His mind always raced to get past the hurdle before him. Never over - always around.
Once they got a hundred bucks together in clean bills, they hightailed it out the casino. Seconds away from being caught by the mob, the cops and the Feds. Mary Lou felt so alive: never knowing if that breath would be her last.
Like the day when she and Frank argued on the way back from a gang meet before the heist. This was at a time before they knew they could trust each other. He accused her of sleeping with the bank rat, Carter and she accused Frank of fucking men in jail. The hate and pain in his eyes as the words left her lips. One drop of his spittle landed on her cheek and she thought he would kill her with his bare hands as soon as the jalopy screeched to a halt. They were alive in that casino though. And in love by then. What was its name?
Doesn‘t matter. When they walked around town and thought they were being followed by a mob guy. Frank had the brains to get them to hide in a lingerie store and the fella was too embarrassed to follow them in. She grabbed a beautiful bra-and-panties set to pretend to try on but Frank wouldn‘t let her keep it as they ran out the rear entrance.
“We‘re bank robbers, not thieves.”
“Aw, but I like it, Frank.”
“AW, DON‘T STOP. I like it, Frank.”
“Huh?”
Bobby‘s hand stopped cupping her breast and was now massaging and tweaking her nipple. This was in direct response to Mary Lou‘s hand moving up from his knee and somehow reached his groin, which she had been stroking absentmindedly for the last five minutes.
“Don‘t stop, Frank.”
He could see Mary Lou‘s eyes were shut as his hand moved toward her rose, but he couldn‘t quite reach without moving them both. Bobby considered his options and then placed a hand under her head and replaced his body with three pillows. That freed him up to lick her torso and make his way down to her belly button, the rose and then to her bush. All the while, her eyes remained shut and she opened her legs a few inches more.
“Don‘t stop...”
Still Mary Lou‘s eyes remained closed and Bobby hoped and imagined the pleasure she was experiencing. The odd judder of her thighs gave him a positive vibe. As her breathing intensified, Bobby noticed the perspiration on her stomach. Then, as he looked up her body and watched her torso heaving with the need to gather oxygen, for a moment one eye opened and cast about until it locked onto the sight of his head.
A scream and Bobby stopped in an instant, not knowing how he‘d hurt her. Mary Lou kicked him in the face as she scurried to the other side of the bed, rolled off and grabbed a pistol resting in her clutch bag lying on the floor. A second later, the safety was off and Mary Lou aimed her piece directly at Bobby‘s heart.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I‘m Bobby.”
“Frank?”
“Bobby.”
Calm voice. No motion to his body. Both hands visible. Staring straight into her eyes. Into her soul.
“Where‘s my Frank?”
“He‘s dead. Do you remember? He died before you met me. I‘m Bobby Trevisan.”
Mary Lou slumped onto the floor, sobbing. Bobby walked round and removed her finger from the trigger. Then he sat next to her, holding and comforting the woman he loved until the tears subsided.
BOBBY HADN‘T SPOKEN again about the incident in Miami and Mary Lou hardly noticed it had occurred by the time she‘d got herself back together. The rest of the vacation passed with nothing happening of any significance. Cocktails, sun, sex and lying by the rooftop pool of the Jackson. These were the tropes of their Florida experience - and retail therapy.
When they returned, Bobby suggested he should hustle a little more and let her hang in the summerhouse and enjoy the weather. Mary Lou admitted to herself she didn‘t have the energy she once had and was happy to take advantage of Bobby‘s generosity - if only for a few weeks.
She spent the mornings in the conservatory and Irma made sure she ate a healthy lunch with a dose of coffee. Then a sun lounger in the afternoon. When Bobby appeared in the evening, Mary Lou had invested in a nap.
Three weeks into this new relaxed lifestyle, Mary Lou lay on a lounger around two and thought how she missed Bobby and wanted to see him. But he was out of reach. She yearned for Bobby the same way she yearned for Frank each time he was in jail.
THE LAST STRETCH when he was in the Baltimore Penitentiary was the worst. Frank‘s Shylock step uncle kept Mary Lou in clover but that didn‘t help her fill up the days. Endless hours strolling around shitty areas of Baltimore waiting for the next visit. The green was enough to get by on, but not to afford any luxuries. She‘d scrimp and save just to smuggle in extra smokes for Frank.
He was the only one in the gang to do any time for the previous robbery. Kid stuff: a supermarket heist gone wrong. Word on the street was that Frank‘s buddy, Louis had squealed to the cops who were lying in wait when the fellas exited the store. As soon as Frank was out on bail, Louis took an express descent down the outside of a building and Frank never spoke of him again.
Mary Lou never liked Louis anyway: the first night they met at one of the many parties in the neighborhood, Frank introduced her to him. Thirty minutes later, the guy had his hand on a place not even Frank‘s fingers ventured until many years later. From that moment on, she never allowed herself to be on her own with Louis. She loved Frank dearly by the end, but his friends and family sucked elephant cocks.
Those three years Frank was away stretched to eternity. Mary Lou was young and had needs of her own. She wasn‘t ready to be a gangster‘s moll and yearned to do more than sit at home and wait for her man‘s return. She dated occasionally but never someone from the neighborhood. If word got back to the Shylock that she was fucking around then she‘d have been on a one-way trip to oblivion.
The sex meant nothing, but it relieved the boredom and it got her out of that tiny apartment. Of course, all she did was spend a few brief hours in someone else‘s cramped home with her legs apart and the tingles flowing if she was lucky. Most of the time she‘d jump into the shower as soon as she got back to wash away the dried spunk and a sense of being dirty generated by the couplings. No matter who was trying to make her orgasm, she felt so painfully alone.
She spent the last six months with an S&M freak in the hope that the different experience might help her feel something but handcuffs, nipple clamps and the like left her sore and just as empty as any other way of fucking she tried during those long years away from Frank.
The only solace she found was watching the late evening chat show with a bowl of cereal for company. Vodka instead of milk and the constant sound of crunching inside her skull to mask the canned laughter from the TV.
THE FIRST NIGHT Frank was out of jail, Mary Lou had tried to be as understanding as she could. It had been years since he‘d been with a woman and her expectations had been low, even though she longed to be intimate with the man. After he‘d fallen asleep and she‘d finished herself off, Mary Lou went into the bathroom to take stock. She stared at herself in the mirror, assessing every blemish of her skin and freckle on her face.
At one point, she poked at her breasts as though they were bearing the weight of her ennui. Then her attention returned to her nose and she leaned in to get the best look. The coldness of the basin dug itself in against her rose as she moved her head on
e way, then the other, to assess the damage done despite the paucity of her years on this planet.
Every so often, she heard Frank talk to himself as he slept and an occasional vehicle zoomed past. This was the last time she would be by herself. Her moments of solitude were over now Frank had returned.
Mary Lou pulled down the lower lids of her eyes and let the skin flip back into place. A childish game she repeated two more times. Then she blinked to get her sight to return to normal.
She opened her eyes and knew exactly where she was: Oakcrest Drive. The crow‘s feet in the corners of her eyes were a clear demonstration of how much time she had allowed to pass in her life. Mary Lou knew she had to stop this malaise. She couldn‘t waste her time away again like she did waiting for Frank to serve his debt to society.
On vacation, Bobby had been right: there had been too many losses of late and the moment for action had arrived. They needed to bring the fight to San Francisco.
25
MARY LOU WASN‘T going to sit around and let herself get cornered like happened with Frank when they were fleeing the heist. If she‘d learnt anything from the time spent in Burbank Airport, it was to watch your back and come out fighting. They were out to get her and so were the Russians in San Francisco. She could kneel on the ground next to the lockers, pinned down by gunfire from the hoods, or she could pick up Frank‘s piece and shoot her way to freedom.
The Markov scum must be obliterated from this world and that is what she would do. To put this plan into practice, she needed some high class muscle, so she asked Milton for his help.
“Thanks for dropping a dime. We don‘t speak nearly as much as we used to.”
“I need your assistance in a matter I wish to resolve. Can I count on you?”
“With my life, you know that. What do you need?”
She outlined her idea and Milton listened intently. When she finished, he whistled allowing his exhalation to form into a single note. He hadn‘t heard anything as bold for many years. Respect to the woman.
THE NEXT DAY, Mary Lou drove over to LA to speak with Milton in person. The Palace had faded over time, the paintwork was chipped, plasterwork crumbling, but Mary Lou didn‘t notice as she walked along the corridors to Milton‘s office. Like every other operation the man had ever touched, he had let it turn to shit. The only difference with the Palace‘s call girl racket was that it took twenty long years instead of Milton‘s usual six months to fuck it up.
“Thanks for the opportunity. I doubt if you realize how good it is to be working with you again. I‘ve missed being so close to the action.”
“Don‘t know what you‘re talking about. Let‘s get down to business, shall we?”
“Sure, I‘m listening.”
“You need to source at least ten reliable men, who can handle themselves. Get me?”
“It‘ll take a short while as I‘m not in that line at the moment, but it can be done. Just a function of time and money.”
“Once we‘ve all met up to go through the details then we‘ll take the place when it‘s full.”
“When all the Markovs are in one building?”
“Yes, that‘s what I said.”
“How many vehicles do you want for the hit? Everyone in their own or as few as possible for a fast getaway?”
“There‘s no point doing it if we can‘t get safely away.“
“Right...”
Milton tilted his head and looked at Mary Lou. He couldn‘t decide if his hesitation was caused by not concentrating on what Mary Lou had just said or if there was a disconnect between her words now and what she‘d told him on the phone yesterday.
“You got a problem with this?”
“Not at all. I won‘t lose any sleep over a few dead Russians. From what little Bobby said to me, sounds like it‘s payback time.”
“Shoot ‘em in the knee and get the hell out of Dodge.”
“The knee? I thought we‘re killing them.”
“Yep.”
“Murder, not maim.”
“Homicide is the name of the game.”
“Good. You lost me there for a second.”
“We send one fella in early to stake the place out and then the rest of the crew swoops in, does the job and gets out before any law enforcement can grab us.”
“Shall we use Naldo?”
“Whoever you think is best. There‘ll be big bonuses for everyone when we get back.”
“I‘d advise you and Bobby to stay at home - or rather book and go to a restaurant that night. You must have a watertight alibi.”
“Bobby?”
Mary Lou looked straight at Milton, who returned the gesture. There was his confusion coming right at him again.
“You don‘t want him there, do you?”
“Use the best you can get.”
“And Bobby?”
“You decide - I told you.”
Milton‘s mouth went dry as a sense of anxiety welled up inside. Was this an elaborate ruse by Mary Lou to put Bobby in the line of fire? More likely he was being oversensitive and needed to keep his head in the game, but his instinct to double-check with the man might place a target on his skull.
Over the years, Mary Lou handled treachery the way a surgeon dealt with a malignant tumor. She smiled at him and relaxed back into her chair as though the main order of business had been taken care of.
“How‘s the Palace doing?”
“So-so. The Hollywood parties are fewer: the stars prefer a more private space for their booze, narcotics and fucking nowadays. It‘s the control of the studios: they want their product to be wholesome and clean. But our regulars still pass through although the cops are getting harder to pay off because we look more like a cathouse than somewhere for the rich and powerful to come. And play.”
“Times are tough, Milton. Every year, it gets more difficult to make money out of the things on which we could always rely: prostitution, narcotics. Even gambling.”
“For real? I thought the casinos were doing great guns.”
“They are today, but look what‘s happened in Vegas. Entertainment companies now own mob venues. Crazy. And the only reason gaming has been permitted outside Vegas is so states can get their grubby hands on hard-working people‘s money. So that means they‘ll over-regulate the fuck out of it and we‘ll be pushed to one side. Not now or tomorrow, but eventually.”
ELEVEN MEN AND one woman sat in a large disused room at the top of the Palace. Mary Lou, Milton, Naldo and nine other guys who you‘d be a fool to mess with even on a bright day in the middle of summer. Each had found a chair and they‘d formed a loose circle like they were attending a group therapy session.
Milton made some cursory introductions so everyone more or less knew each other. Most of the crew had worked with at least some others before but in the heat of the moment, it paid to know who your friends were.
“When we go in, we enter hard. The best we can hope is that they aren‘t expecting us. Once the first shot rings out then they‘ll draw their guns and fire back. We need to be slick, fast and ruthless. If we leave one Markov alive, they will come and destroy us.”
The men murmured to each other - not because the job was too difficult but because their adrenalin was already pumping and they weren‘t even in the right city yet. Mary Lou ran through the family tree and took pains to make it clear she wanted them to identify each body so she could keep an accurate tally of who they still had to whack.
“Is there anything you want to add, Milton?”
“Not really. You covered the important points.”
He glanced at his watch and a bead of sweat dropped onto his wrist. Then his eyes darted to the corridor and flitted back to Mary Lou. Almost on cue, the door opened and Bobby walked in and the entire room fell to an eerie hush.
“What‘re we doing here, people?”
“I‘ve instigated an operation to clear up the Markov problem.”
He nodded and took Mary Lou off to one side so they wouldn‘t have
to talk in front of the fellas.
“What are you doing?”
“Cutting out a tumor.”
“We have a peace agreement with them. We shouldn't move on them unless they become an irritant or they break their word.”
“They can‘t be trusted and we need to preempt their inevitable attack.”
“No, it is to our advantage to get them to build on their San Francisco empire. That way, when we take over, we‘ll have something significant to own.”
Bobby turned round to face the guys.
“Thanks for coming but there‘s been a change of plan. You can step down for now. Of course, we‘ll cover your costs with a bonus for any inconvenience. Milton, will you get things organized?”
“Sure, Bobby. Always happy to help.”
Mary Lou fumed where she stood. Arms folded, she said nothing and couldn‘t understand why Bobby was treating her this way. The betrayal of it all. In contrast, he could not wrap his head around why she believed now was the time to take out the Markovs. They didn‘t utter a single word to each other all the miles back to Palm Springs.
The next day Mary Lou woke up as though nothing had happened, but Bobby knew and remembered.
26
BOBBY CHOSE TO pop over to Alice‘s apartment rather than spend time in her cramped and crummy office. A heap of Chinese food had just arrived and they spread all the boxes out on the dining room table.
“I think we‘ve over ordered.”
“You reckon?”
They sat down and pecked at the noodles, chicken, veg and rice until they thought they would burst. Half the food remained untouched: Alice‘s prediction was right. Then she poured two more beers and they moved over to the couches to settle in for the evening.
“We nearly went to war a few days ago.”
“What was the Bay of Pigs moment?”
“Don‘t joke. We were damn close.”
Mama’s Gone Page 15
