A grin spread across Cliff’s face as he leaned forward and said, “Do you know how many Italians I’ve killed?”
Pat leaned forward and asked in a whisper, “Excuse me?”
Cliff said, “Oh, you didn’t hear me? Let me repeat it.” Then he asked for a second time, “Do you have any idea how many Italians I’ve killed?”
Cliff reached into his front jacket pocket as he said, “Let me give you an idea.”
Pat and Mike watched him pull the Medal of Valor out of his pocket and drop it on the table between them. It landed hard on the wooden table, with a loud bang.
“For the day I got that”—pointing at the Medal of Valor—“I killed at least seven. Maybe as many as nine. But at least seven.” Cliff continued, “And that was just one fuckin’ day. When I was in Sicily, I killed Italians every day.”
Sitting back in his chair, he said, “And I was in Sicily a long, long time.”
The two Italian gangsters’ faces turned red.
“In fact,” Cliff continued, “I killed so many Italians, they made me a war hero. Consequently, because I’m a war hero, I got a license to carry this.”
Cliff removed a snub-nose .38 from his other jacket pocket and placed it, loud, on the table next to the Medal of Valor. Pat and Mike jumped in their seats when they saw him take out the pistol and lay it on the table.
Cliff leaned forward and whispered across the table to the two torpedoes, “You know what? I betcha I could take that pistol there and shoot both of you dead—right now—in this shitty little pizza parlor. Right in front of the owner, the waiters, the customers, and Charlie Chaplin. And you know what?
“I betcha, I just betcha, I’d get away with it. Because I’m a war hero. And you two are just degenerate guinea garbage.”
Mike Zitto had had enough, and now it was time for him to do the talking. He pointed an angry finger at the blond smart aleck. “You listen to me, you Army faggot—”
Cliff interrupted him by snatching his snub-nose .38 off the table and firing one bullet each into the skulls of Pat and Mike. Red blood shot out of the holes he’d just made in their craniums, spraying across the tabletop, across the front of Cliff’s shirt and face, and practically across the room.
The female customers screamed as the male customers hit the ground. Both gangsters tipped over out of their chairs, collapsing on the sawdust-covered floor. Once they were on the ground, Cliff shot them twice more for good measure.
Later, when the Cleveland Police Department questioned Cliff about the incident, he told them, “Well, they tried to kidnap myself and Miss Pendergast. The fatter one said he intended to shoot me and throw acid in Miss Pendergast’s face to teach her a lesson.” Adding, “I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared.”
Cliff’s theory proved to be right. The Cleveland cops knew exactly who Pat Cardella and Mike Zitto were. And if a World War Two hero wanted to shoot ’em dead in a pizza parlor, the police would pay for the pizza. Cliff’s story didn’t even need to be convincing. It just needed to be plausible.
And that was how Cliff Booth got away with murder . . . the first time.
Chapter Eighteen
The Name Ain’t Jughead
Caleb DeCoteau.
When Murdock Lancer mentioned that the name of the ringleader of the land pirates who’d been stealing his cattle was Caleb DeCoteau, it took all of Johnny’s poker-playing skills not to show a reaction on his face. This proud, bitter old bastard Murdock Lancer, his father, was desperate. And it was Caleb DeCoteau who was the cause of his desperation. When Johnny and his half brother, Scott, traveled from different locations to their former childhood home, it was to receive the thousand dollars their father offered them if they would listen to a proposal. Neither of the men figured they’d be interested in anything the father they hadn’t seen since they were children had to propose.
Both men were wrong.
For about two hundred miles, their father, Murdock Lancer, was the wealthiest man on the American side of the California-Mexico border. He had the biggest ranch, he owned the biggest home, and he had more cattle than any other man in the Monterey Valley. But now this rich, proud man was desperate, and desperation was not an emotion he was accustomed to. It didn’t make him look weak. Murdock Lancer had the strength, the dignity, and the face of a stagecoach relay horse. But it did make him look worried. Things were definitely bad, but the worry he wore on his face was the acknowledgment that they could get far worse.
Ever since Caleb DeCoteau and his gang of rascals had moved into the area of Royo del Oro, they’d zeroed in on Murdock’s cows to such a degree it would appear Caleb had a personal vendetta against the man for some past transgression. But, actually, nothing could be further from the truth. It was simply that, in a field of poppies, Murdock Lancer was the tall poppy, and it’s the tall poppy that gets cut down to size.
It started with the pilfering of a few head every night. In the beginning, Murdock posted a couple of ranch hands to act as guards spending the night in bedrolls to discourage overzealous steak lovers. That seemed to work at first. But then the ranch hand Pedro was descended upon by eight of Caleb’s brutal boys. They beat poor Pedro to a bloody pulp, then tied him to a tree and horsewhipped him damn near to death. The bastards herded off twenty steers that night and shot six more just for spite.
The problem with being the biggest landowner in the territory was, unless you maintained a personal army of gun-toting mean motherfuckers, it was damn near impossible to police an assault this aggressive in nature. The nearest law was a federal marshal over one hundred and fifty miles away. (And the truth of the matter was, protecting the property of rich men drew very little sympathy from law-enforcement agents paid fifty dollars a month.) Not only was Caleb herding off significant numbers of steers during the night, but he was also openly selling them at cattle pens sixty miles away (Lancer Ranch brand on their hide and all).
Then Caleb and his men moved into the town nearest the Lancer Ranch, Royo del Oro. First they took over the town’s saloon, turning its owner, Pepe, into a terrorized servant in his own establishment.
The mayor, a man who took his commitment to the civics of his community as a duty, tried to talk to Caleb. He was bullwhipped in the middle of Main Street for his efforts. The land pirates informed the merchants of Royo del Oro that unless they wanted their little red schoolhouse burned down to the ground and their women molested on a daily basis, when it came to Pepe and his place and Murdock and his cows, to mind their own fucking beeswax.
Then Caleb moved into the presidential suite of the Hotel Lancaster. And it wasn’t too long after that the land pirates started a weekly tax collection from all the business owners in the town.
Caleb’s plan was simple. A slow, steady, but relentlessly constant experiment of seeing how much guff Murdock and the citizens of Royo del Oro were willing to swallow. And experiment after experiment proved the community had a seemingly bottomless appetite.
Now, Caleb wasn’t so drunk with power that he thought this type of terrorism could last indefinitely. At some point, the Army would be called in. But they were a three-day march away. So by the time the blue bellies arrived, Caleb and his men would be long gone. Caleb only had one obstacle: Murdock Lancer’s money. When a man of principle battles a scoundrel, the scoundrel always at first has the upper hand. Because there are some things the man of principle won’t do. While the scoundrel will do whatever it takes. That is, until the man of principle is pushed past his breaking point and beyond his nature. Most of Greek tragedy, half of all English theater, and three-quarters of American cinema operated from this premise.
Other than leave town, the citizens of Royo del Oro had no recourse. But Murdock’s money offered him options. He could spend it buying scoundrels of his own. And with Caleb’s last transgression—the sniper killing of Murdock’s trusted ramrod, George Gomez—he finally pushed the old man over his self-imposed line.
The proposal Murdock Lancer proposed his sons w
as simple. Split his entire empire three ways with them. That meant cattle, that meant land holdings, that meant the ranch house, that meant bank accounts. In order to get it, they had to agree to two things: Help Murdock repel Caleb and his killing thieves from the area. And work the ranch and tend to the business of running a cattle empire for ten years. After ten years, if they wanted to leave and cash in their shares, they were free to do so. Both young men had been living hand to mouth for the last couple of years—Scott, a riverboat gambler, living from one poker hand to another, and Johnny from selling his gun arm to the highest bidder, keeping one horse length away from a posse. In both cases the brothers were risking more than they would ever hope to gain. There was no love lost between the brothers and their father, but both men had to consider his offer, because there was no other scenario on God’s green earth where either man could make the money Murdock was offering them. Not legally or illegally. Murdock Lancer wasn’t just rich. Murdock Lancer possessed wealth. Murdock Lancer didn’t just have a lot of land and a successful business—he had an empire. An empire he said he was willing to split three ways.
As far as Johnny was concerned, there was only one problem. He hated the fucker. This was the same fucker who threw him and his mother out in the rain. The same fucker who turned his mother into a money-grubbing whore. The same fucker who was ultimately responsible for putting her in that hotel room with that other wealthy fucker who slit her throat. Johnny was twelve years old when that fucker stood trial for the killing of his mother and was found not guilty. He was fourteen when he killed that fucker. And he spent the next ten years killing every member of that fucking jury who acquitted that motherfucker. Johnny slit all their throats, so they’d know how his momma died. Gurgling blood, unable to speak, dying slowly, terrified as they looked up at their killer. Then Johnny would smile at their agony and tell them, “Marta Conchita Louisa Galvadon Lancer says hola.”
It took ten years to kill those thirteen people, but finally Marta Galvadon Lancer was avenged. But the last person left who had yet to pay the final price for his momma’s murder was the man who sent her on her path of degradation. His father. Murdock Lancer.
Still, that was a lotta cows, a lotta land, a lotta ranch, and a lotta money. More than Johnny could make on his own in ten lifetimes. And all he had to do to get it was keep from killing his old man and from getting killed by a murderous gang of rustlers. But Johnny had a secret. Something neither Murdock nor Scott nor anybody else at the Lancer Ranch knew.
Johnny Madrid and Caleb DeCoteau were friends.
Johnny Madrid rode his horse down Royo del Oro’s main drag. When he rode in on the Butterfield Wells Fargo stage two days ago, it seemed a town like a hundred others he’d seen before. But that was before knowing the narrative that Murdock told him and his half brother. Now Johnny saw what separated Royo del Oro from other towns: This town was terrified. When he first arrived, he noticed the town’s big saloon, and he noticed the collection of owl hoots collected in front of it. Now, a lotta towns had saloons with a lotta owl hoots collecting in front of them. But Johnny knew these weren’t just any owl hoots. These were some of the men Johnny had been lured into town to shoo off or kill. These men were the men responsible for Murdock’s misery. These were the land pirates that worked for Caleb DeCoteau.
As he rode past the Gilded Lily, he felt their eyes follow him. Out of the corner of his squinty eye he counted four owl hoots. One was a black fella dressed like a bandito. Two were banditos dressed like banditos. But it was the fourth man that caught Johnny’s eye. A big white man, older than the rest. While the other three adopted the dress of Mexican scum, he wore a tailored western black suit and fancy cowboy boots of black leather. He sported a crisp big black cowboy hat on his head and a big soup catcher on his upper lip, slathered with a generous application of mustache wax. The big man sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the Gilded Lily, carving a wooden horse figurine with a pocketknife. Tiny flecks of wood collected in a small pile by his shiny boot. Aside from both his age and his dress, he was different from the other three owl hoots on the porch. They were henchmen; he was a cowboy of quality. Johnny couldn’t place him. But even if he didn’t know who he was, he knew what he was. The big man in the black suit with the black boots and the big mustache was a big name with a big reputation. These other prairie dogs divvied up slices of pie for the havoc they caused and the ruckus they raised. The big man was paid a sack of gold by Caleb personally before any work was done.
In a gangster story, he’d have been known as an “Out-of-Town Torpedo.” In an earlier chapter of the big man’s story, he could have been the hero, and he had been. But on this page—today—he sold his gun arm to the highest bidder. And in this story, that bidder was Caleb DeCoteau.
Johnny climbed down from his horse and tied it to the hitching post located in front of the Hotel Lancaster. The big man in black folded up his pocketknife and put it away in his pocket. Johnny started crossing the main street of Royo del Oro in the direction of the saloon. The big man in black placed the little horse figurine he was carving on a tiny barrel in front of him and rose out of the rocking chair, moving toward the front of the patio. Johnny was nine steps away from the bottom stair of the three-stair porch steps that led to the saloon’s front porch when he heard the big man in black call out, “That’s far enough, Jughead.”
Johnny stopped walking. “Name’s not Jughead,” Johnny corrected.
“Whatcha doin’ round here, boy?” the big man asked.
“I’m thirsty,” Johnny answered, pointing his finger at the establishment. “That’s a saloon, ain’t it?”
The big man in black turned around and glanced up at the big sign that read SALOON, hung up over the entrance, then turned back to Johnny and said, “Yeah, that’s a saloon. Only you can’t come in.”
“Why?” Johnny asked. “Y’all closed?”
The big man smiled and patted the grip of his pistol, which rested in the waistband of his trousers, right up against his belly. “Oh no, we’re open for business.”
Johnny, getting the picture, smiled right back and asked, “So it’s just me can’t come in?”
The big man smiled even wider, this time showing teeth, and said, “That’s right.”
Johnny asked, “Why?”
The big man in black explained, “Well, you see, we only serve ladies on Ladies’ Night.”
The other three owl hoots on the porch laughed at his little joke.
Johnny laughed a little too and said, “That’s a good one. I’m gonna hafta remember that one.”
The big man warned, “You take another step near this saloon, you ain’t gonna be remembering nothin’ ever again.” Placing his hands on his hips, the gunfighter in black explained to the young man in the sangria-red ruffled shirt the immediate future.
“Now, looky here, Jughead, you’re gonna climb back up on that nag you rode in on, and you’re gonna hightail your ass outta here—you hear me, boy?”
Johnny squinted his eyes and said, “Oh, I hear just fine, but apparently you don’t. ’Cause I done tole’ you, the—name—ain’t—Jughead.”
That’s when Johnny’s hand lowered to the pistol that sat in the holster on his hip, and he unhooked the tiny leather loop wrapped around the hammer of his widow-maker.
In response, the big man’s hand lowered down his front, where the grip of his smoke wagon rested inside the waistband of his trousers.
Then, as the porch, the street, the town, and the state got quiet while the two men twitched into their killing stances—SUDDENLY—the squeaky batwing doors of the saloon were flung open and out stepped the villain of this piece, Caleb DeCoteau.
The outlaw gang leader was dressed in a brown rawhide jacket with leather fringe running down the sleeves, and he was eating a fried-chicken drumstick. Johnny felt Caleb step out on the porch, but he was committed to his staring contest with the troublemaker, so he didn’t raise his eyes to greet his old friend.
“Mr. Gilb
ert,” Caleb said, addressing the big man from behind his back, “don’t let me stop you from earnin’ the money I pay you—I know how bored and restless you get when you run outta tamales.” Caleb took a big bite out of the chicken leg, and as he chewed the greasy meat he said with his mouth full, “But if I were you, I’d find out that Jughead’s name.”
Gilbert asked his boss, “Who is he, Caleb?”
Caleb leaned in the doorway of the saloon, swallowed the meat in his mouth, and said, “Allow me to introduce the two of ya.”
Pointing at the man in black’s back with his chicken bone, Caleb said, “This here is Bob Gilbert.”
So that’s the Businessman, Johnny thought.
“The Businessman?” Johnny asked.
“That’s right,” Bob said. “Business Bob Gilbert. And who might you be?”
Before Johnny could answer, Caleb tore with his teeth another big piece of meat and skin off the chicken bone and said, “That’s a fella named Madrid. Johnny Madrid.”
“Who’s Johnny Madrid?” Bob asked sarcastically, repeating the name in a mocking ridiculous fashion. The other three porch owl hoots laughed, until Caleb shot them a shut-the-fuck-up-when-grown-folks-are-talking look. They piped down.
Business Bob was confused, irritated, and beginning to get a little concerned. He was hired by Caleb to shoo off or kill fellas like this jughead in red. And he was paid handsomely in gold coin to do it. So why, all of the sudden, is the man who paid him actin’ all cute?
“I mean it, Caleb, who the hell is this joker?”
Caleb tossed what was left of the chicken bone into the street between the two men and said to his hired gun, “You’re about to find out, Businessman.”
And with that, Caleb disappeared back behind the batwing doors. Johnny Madrid turned and faced Bob sideways, his showdown stance, demonstrating to the Businessman that Johnny meant business. Bob Gilbert’s throat went dry as Johnny, standing still as a statue, said, “Ready when you are, Gil-bert.”
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 23