I left that evening. It was dark and the children were sleeping. I told Angelina I would be no more than a few hours, and for a while she held me close, and then she reached up and kissed my forehead. ‘Take care,’ she said once more, and stood at the door to watch as I walked down the street. At the corner I glanced back. She stood there, illuminated in silhouette from the light inside the house, and I felt something in my heart, something that should have pulled me back, but I did not slow or stop or retrace my steps with second thoughts; I simply raised my hand and waved, and carried on my way.
I took the subway as far as Vine. I made my way down Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame, turned left on Cahuenga, right onto Selma, and there at the corner of Wilcox I found the building of which Ten Cent had spoken. I could see lights right across the third floor, also the second below, and I could hear the faint sound of music coming from the windows.
Entrance was easy. I went in through the back exit out of which the garbage and tradesmen would come. I found the base of a narrow stairwell that appeared to climb the height of the building, and up I went – silently, two risers at a time – until I reached the third floor.
I stood silently in the doorway at the top of the well, held it open no more than an inch or two, and it was there I heard the music louder. It came from the apartment facing me, from behind a door with 3B clearly visible on it, and I stayed there for some minutes ensuring that there was no coming and going along the hallway. When I was sure there was no-one entering or leaving any of the upper apartments I crossed the hallway. From my inside jacket pocket I took a thin sliver of metal and eased it between the door jamb and the striker plate. I nudged it down until I felt it touch the latch, and then with silent hair’s-breadth motions I started to wedge the blade into the lock. The lock sprang without difficulty. I turned the handle and the door gave way. I inched it open a fraction and waited for any sound inside. I heard nothing but the music, louder now, and realized that whoever was there would not have a hope of hearing me as I entered.
The hallway carpet was thick and dark. Along the walls hung black-and-white photographs, some of them clearly identifiable as images of cityscapes from many years before, others more abstract and undefined as to subject matter. I closed the door behind me, slid the chain across and flipped the deadbolt. Richard Ricardo evidently believed that once he was within the confines of his own home he was safe. Nothing, but nothing, could have been farther from the truth.
I went along the hallway without a sound. My breathing was low and shallow, and when I reached the end and pressed myself against the corner of the wall I could tilt my head and see into the main warehouse apartment.
Through a half-open door on the other side of the room I could see the end of a bed. The figure of a man, apparently naked, flitted across my line of vision and I shrank back. I waited for a second and then looked again. I could see no-one.
I stayed close to the wall and went into the main room, pressing my body against the plasterwork and circumventing the entire width until I came around on the other side and stood at the rear edge of the bedroom door. I could hear voices, at first one and then a second, and with my heart thundering in my chest I withdrew my .38 from the waistband of my pants.
The sight that greeted me as I peered around the doorframe and looked into the room surprised me. There were two men, both naked, one of them lying back on the bed with his hands cuffed to the stead. The second man was kneeling between the spread-eagled man’s legs, his head going up and down at a furious rate. I watched them for a little while, my mind turning back to Ruben Cienfuegos and the men we had robbed in Havana, the death of Pietro Silvino, the things he had said to me before I killed him.
The man lying down was moaning and writhing. The second man continued energetically for some thirty seconds or so, and then he kneeled back on his haunches, pulled the other man’s legs together, and then sat astride them. Shuffling forward he moved upwards until he sat across the man’s chest, and then using his hand to hold the cock of the man beneath him he gently eased backwards. I watched as the man’s cock slid inside him. The two of them were laughing together, and then the man on top started to rock back and forth, gently increasing his speed as he went.
I stepped away from the wall, crossed the room behind them, and with a single swipe of the gun handle I swept the music player off the table. The music stopped dead. The two men stopped also.
‘What the hell—’ the upper man exclaimed, and then he turned, and then he saw me standing there with a gun in my hand, and there was an expression in his eyes that said everything that could ever be said without a single word.
‘Oh my God . . . oh my God,’ he started, but the man beneath him was pale, in shock. Not a word came from his mouth as he lay there, with his hands cuffed to the frame of the bed, as naked as the day he was born, his cock inside someone’s ass and feeling like the world was ready to end.
The man on top fell sideways and started to his feet.
‘Sit the fuck down,’ I said.
He did as he was told.
‘You want money?’ he started whimpering, and then there were tears in his eyes. ‘We have money here, a lot of money . . . you can have all the money—’
‘No money,’ I said, and it was in that second that both of them realized what was going to happen.
The handcuffed man began crying, and pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to turn his body away so I could not see him naked.
‘What d’you want?’ the seated man asked.
‘Which one of you is Ricardo?’ I asked.
The seated man looked at me with horror. ‘I . . . I am Richard Ricardo,’ he said, and his voice cracked with fear.
‘You’re traveling both ways then?’ I said, and I smiled.
Ricardo frowned.
‘Girls and boys, whichever takes your fancy, right?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean . . . what do you want?’
‘Retribution,’ I said, and from the inside jacket of my pocket I took one of the photographs that Ten Cent had shown me.
I held it up so it could be clearly seen.
Ricardo stared silently at the picture, and then he closed his eyes.
‘What’s his name?’ I asked, and indicated the other man lying on the bed.
Ricardo glanced sideways at him. ‘His name?’
I nodded. ‘His name.’
‘Leonard . . . this is Leonard.’
‘Well, tell Leonard he ain’t a fucking ostrich. Just because he ain’t looking at me doesn’t mean he’s invisible.’
Ricardo reached over and put his hand on Leonard’s shoulder. Leonard tried to shrug it off. He buried his face deeper into the pillow, and though the sound was muffled I could still hear him sobbing.
‘Undo the cuffs, Richard,’ I said.
Ricardo reached for the key on a small table beside the bed and unlocked the cuffs. Leonard tugged the bedsheet up and covered himself.
‘Leonard?’
Leonard didn’t move.
‘Leonard . . . turn this way and look at me or I’m gonna come over there and shove this gun so far up your ass you won’t stop hurting ’til Sunday.’
Leonard turned onto his side, and then eased himself upright. He clung onto the sheet as if he believed it would protect him against a bullet.
I held up the photograph so he could clearly see it. ‘You he might love for eternity,’ I said, ‘but your friend Richard has a certain way with the ladies that they don’t appreciate.’
‘You . . . you don’t understand—’ Ricardo started.
I raised my gun, pointed it directly between Ricardo’s eyes, and took three steps forward until the barrel touched the bridge of his nose.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I said. With my other hand I held the photograph and waited until he was looking directly at it. ‘You know this girl?’ I asked.
Ricardo tried to frown, tried to make out like he was remembering whether or not he
knew her.
‘We’re not playing games here,’ I said. ‘I know and you know, so don’t waste my time telling me anything else. You know this girl?’
Ricardo nodded. He closed his eyes. Tears were running down his cheeks.
‘You did this to her?’
‘She . . . she wanted me to . . . wanted me to hurt her . . . you gotta understand she’s a crazy fucking bitch. She wanted me to hurt her. . .’
‘She wanted you to hurt her,’ I said matter-of-factly.
Ricardo was nodding furiously.
‘She wanted you to beat the crap out of her, wanted you to hit her so hard she couldn’t see straight for days, wanted you to whip her with a wire coat hanger until she’d screamed so much she lost her voice? She wanted you to do that?’
Leonard was looking over Ricardo’s shoulder at the photograph, his eyes wide and incredulous.
‘Ricky . . . Ricky? You did this to that girl?’
Ricardo turned suddenly. ‘Shut the fuck up, Lenny . . . just shut the fuck up?’
‘Yes,’ I interjected. ‘Shut the fuck up, Lenny.’
Lenny closed his open mouth and turned away. He looked like he was going to puke. I figured he wouldn’t want to fuck Richard Ricardo in the ass again.
‘So seems to me that whatever the hell went down between you and this girl, well she got a little more than she asked for . . . would that be somewhere close to the truth, Ricky?’
Ricardo didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word. I jabbed the barrel of the gun into his forehead. He winced with the pain.
‘You reckon that’s somewhere close to the truth?’
Ricardo nodded.
‘You sorry for what you did to her?’
‘Oh Jesus . . . oh Jesus God, I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be that way . . . I promise I never meant for it to turn out like it did . . . it was a wild night, it was crazy, there were all these people and we drank too much and took too much coke, and things just got out of hand—’
‘Ssshhh,’ I whispered. ‘Ssshhh now, Ricky, it’s okay . . . it really is okay.’
Richard Ricardo opened his eyes and looked up at me. There was a pleading expression in his eyes – pleading for understanding, for forgiveness, for mercy, for his life.
‘Never again,’ he mumbled. ‘Never again. . .’
‘Too right,’ I said, and with all the force I could muster I raised the gun and brought it down on the top of his head.
The sound was indescribable, as if his whole body had collapsed from within – ‘Nyuuuggghhhh’. He fell sideways and rolled off the edge of the bed onto the floor. Blood started to ooze from the split in his skull and soak into the carpet.
Lenny started screaming. I reached across the bed and grabbed him by the hair. I forced him face down into the mattress to muffle the sound, and then I warned him that if he didn’t shut the hell up he was going to get a bullet in the back of his neck. He stopped immediately.
I dragged him off the bed, and threw him to the ground next to his friend.
In my hand I held a pillow.
I looked down at Lenny, his tear-streaked face, his wide and horrified eyes.
‘When was your birthday?’ I asked him.
He looked at me in dismay.
‘Your birthday?’ I repeated.
‘Jan-January,’ he stuttered.
I nodded. I held up the pillow. I pressed the gun into it. ‘Last fucking birthday you’re ever gonna have,’ I said, and I pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit him in the throat. His hands grasped his neck. He clawed at his own flesh as if believing that he could pull the bullet out. Blood erupted from the wound and spattered across his chest, his legs, across Ricardo, and then he fell sideways and lay on the floor. His body shook for some time. I stood there and watched him until he stopped.
Ricardo stirred.
I let fly with a mighty kick to his chest and he went still. I leaned down, pressed the pillow against the side of his head, and shot him through the temple.
An hour and a half later I stood in my bedroom looking down at the sleeping forms of my wife and my children. I leaned forward and kissed them – all three in turn – gently on their foreheads. I held my breath. I did not wish to make a sound that might wake them.
I left the room. I walked downstairs. I washed my hands and face at the kitchen sink, and then I sat for a while in the darkness smoking a cigarette. When I was done I went through to the front and lay down on the sofa. I fell asleep there, slept like the dead, and when Angelina woke me it was gone seven in the morning. I was still fully dressed apart from my jacket and shoes.
‘Come and have breakfast with us,’ she said quietly. She leaned down and kissed me. I rose and stood for a moment, and then I placed my arms around her and pulled her tight.
In the kitchen the TV was playing silently. I said nothing when Richard Ricardo’s face appeared on the screen, and also the face of his friend Leonard. I made no sound, I didn’t even flinch, and when the anchorwoman reappeared I reached out and switched it off.
I ate my breakfast. I talked to my children even though I knew they could not understand a word I said. I felt unsettled, anxious. I did not feel good.
An hour or so later, having shaved and showered, and dressed in a clean shirt and a different suit, I left my house and walked three blocks to a diner. There I sat in silence, and with a cup of coffee in front of me and a cigarette in my hand, I watched people as they walked by the window and out into their lives.
Two of those lives were closed last night. Two of those lives – people of whom I knew nothing – were terminally closed. I did not question what I had done, nor why I had done it. I was asked to do something and I complied. This was the way of my world; the only world I knew.
It was the following day that I saw the newspaper. It was a day old, lying there innocuously on a chair at the back of Michael Cova’s cousin’s barbershop where I had stopped to have a haircut. I picked it up and turned it to the front page.
TWO SLAIN IN BRUTAL HOLLYWOOD MURDER
Son of Los Angeles Deputy Mayor shot
My breath stopped for a moment.
I looked at the images of the two men I had killed in the apartment.
Last night, in Hollywood, the son of Deputy Mayor John Alexander was murdered in a double slaying that has rocked the city of Los Angeles. Leonard Alexander, 22, was found murdered at the home of well-known celebrity fashion designer Richard Ricardo. Police Chief Karl Erickson was present at the scene, and made the following statement—
I read no further. I closed the paper and tossed it back onto the chair.
I got up and left the barbershop, walked two blocks with no particular purpose in mind, and then I turned around and retraced my steps.
For the first time in my life I imagined people were looking at me.
I found a phone booth on the next junction, and I called long distance to New York. I reached Ten Cent with no difficulty.
‘Ernesto?’ he said, surprise evident in his voice.
‘You heard what happened?’
‘I did, yes . . . is there a problem?’
‘A problem? The other man was the son of the Los Angeles deputy mayor.’
There was silence at the other end of the line.
‘Ten Cent?’
‘I’m here, Ernesto.’
‘You heard what I said?’
‘Yes, I heard you . . . what’s the problem? Did someone see you at the building?’
‘No, no-one saw me at the building. Of course they didn’t. But the kid was the son of the deputy mayor. They won’t let this thing lie down.’
‘We know, we know Ernesto . . . but don’t worry.’
‘Don’t worry? Whaddya mean?’
‘We’re gonna take you out and send you someplace safe.’
‘Take me out?’
Ten Cent laughed. ‘Take you out . . . yes, take you out of LA, not take you out for Christ’s sake! Don’t worry, Don Calligaris understands
the situation, and he’s not gonna leave you there.’
‘He is upset about the other man?’
Ten Cent laughed again. ‘Upset? He’s as happy as I’ve ever seen him. You know what he said? . . . he said, “Two assholes for the price of one”. That’s what he said.’
I was quiet for a moment.
‘Ernesto?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s gonna be okay . . . I ain’t never heard you scared before. It’s gonna be fine . . . we’ll have you outta there just as soon as Don Calligaris figures out where to put you. You sit tight. Do nothing, say nothing . . . we’re gonna make it right, okay?’
‘Okay, okay . . . don’t let me down.’
‘I give you my word, Ernesto. You’re as much family as anyone else.’
I closed my eyes, I breathed deeply, I said ‘Okay’, and then I hung up the phone.
I walked home like a man lost. I walked home scared. Ten Cent had been right; this was a new feeling, and the feeling was difficult to comprehend.
It came back to family. Now there wasn’t just me, now I was a responsible man, a man who carried the burden of a wife and children, carried it willingly, yes, there was no question about that, but it made everything so different.
Angel was waiting when I arrived home.
‘The children are asleep,’ she said, and then she turned and walked through to the kitchen. It was obvious she wished me to follow her, and I did without question.
I sat at the table while she made coffee. I smoked a cigarette, something I had refrained from doing at home since the children had been there, but in that moment there was a sense of nausea and tension within me that it was hard to assuage.
Angelina placed the coffee in front of me and sat opposite.
She reached out and took my hand. She held it for a moment, and then she looked directly at me and smiled.
‘Something has changed, hasn’t it?’ she asked.
I nodded but did not speak.
‘I’m not going to ask about it, Ernesto . . . I trust you, always have done, and I know you wouldn’t have done something unless there had been a very good reason for it. But I am not crazy, and I am not stupid, and I understand enough about the way our family is to know that whatever might have happened it isn’t something you will talk about.’
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