Jimmy Parisi Part Two Box Set

by Thomas Laird

  “You can’t say he didn’t do his homework on that book.”

  “No. He was a cop for a long time, too. Not some college professor who never got away from the ivory fucking dome of academia.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you or I are right, does it? What matters is that we finally get him. And if we don’t get him soon, there’ll be more body bags waiting for us, more homeless female children who get off the streets the hard way. Am I right?”

  I nod at him, and the anger abates, and the fierce wind in my sails subsides.

  He stands aside from my view of Lake Michigan, and I look at the gray-blue of its waters through my oversized window.

  Chapter 9

  Mary O’Connor, 1978

  This cold will not leave. The Hawk from the lake is unforgiving, even here in Old Town. It cuts through my clothes like a switchblade. I might as well be standing in the lake, instead of on the corner of Bell and Fontaine.

  He comes strutting up the street in a skin tight leather jacket that is more suitable for the early spring than for now. It’s just below freezing, although I passed the frigid mark two hours ago. It’s late and I want to grab the bus and get back to the shelter. Twice this week I had to search out that same cardboard washing machine box, and so far, luckily, the garbage guys haven’t picked it up.

  “Hello, little mama,” he says.

  He’s short, maybe five-six, and he has long, oily looking hair that comes down from the sides of his navy stocking hat. He’s got a wispy mustache and a failure of a goatee that makes me want to call a cop—but I’m hardly going to call for the gendarmes. He knows it, too.

  “I said hello, bitch.”

  “Get away from me.”

  He smiles. And then he moves up into my face. It’s late and it’s cold and the street is deserted and there’s no one to call out to for help.

  He flicks his knife out toward me, and it’s one of those blades that the military uses to cut throats. I’ve seen them in some war movies about Vietnam.

  “Mind your manners, cunt.”

  “I want to go. Can’t I just go home?”

  He knows he’s got me scared, and I can see the evil glee in his brown, Mexican face.

  “If you workin’ this neighborhood, you workin’ for me. You unnerstan’?

  He still has that nasty knife pointed at my neck.

  “I’m not workin’ this block.”

  “You a lie,” he laughs.

  “I’m not workin’ here. I work six, seven blocks north of here. I was just tryin’ to find a late bus.”

  “Bullshit, bitch. Let’s us have a talk.”

  He reminds me of those bantam roosters or whatever. He’s a little prick with a big knife. He’s a wannabe pimp. I’ve never seen him anywhere around Old Town. Black pimps tend to mind this yard.

  “I got my man,” I tell him. Nothing left to do except try to talk my way out of this.

  “What man?”

  “His name is Reynaldo, and he’s about six-three and around 235 and he used to play football in high school, and he will cut you, nickel-dick, if he sees you hassling me.”

  “How ‘bout I slice you up thin and Reynaldo can use your skinny bitch ass as cold cuts in a motherfuckin’ bun. You like the sound of all that?”

  “He’ll be comin’ round soon.”

  “I thought you was waitin’ for a bus, twat.”

  I look at him, and then I pivot and break into a sprint down the block. I don’t look back because I can hear his Nikes flapping on the sidewalk, behind me. One thing I learned how to do was run, back when I was in school. I ran a little track in the eighth grade, and no one caught me, then. Now I got more motivation to break away from what’s coming up behind me.

  After about a block I can hear him huffing and puffing, and I still have plenty of adrenalin and legs, and in a few more yards, I can’t hear those hundred dollar tennies flapping up behind me anymore. I chance a glance over my left shoulder, and I see him walking in the other direction with the same rooster strut like before.

  After I continue sprinting for another block, I slow down and then walk and turnabout full to make sure he’s out of sight, and I see that he is. The dark has swallowed him up, just like it does to me, every night out here in Old Town.

  I finally catch a bus on Broadway and Baymont. I make the three transfers and I get back to the shelter around twelve-fifteen in the AM. My luck is riding with me, again, the way it did with the would-be Mexican pimp, and there’s room at the inn, like in the bible story.

  In just under a minute, after I get under the blanket, Abby sits down on my cot.

  “Where you been? I was worried about you.”

  I sit up and look deep into her eyes. I mean my eyes are like laser beams in a sci-fi movie.

  “I’m getting out of this shit.”

  “That’s what we all say,” she answers.

  “I’m not one of you all, Abby. I mean what I say.”

  “You don’t have to get pissed at me,” she pouts.

  “I’m not pissed at you. I’m gonna get out, and I mean soon.”

  She stands up and looks down at me. I’m still sitting up on the bed.

  “I believe you. I really do.”

  Then her eyes turn moist, the way they always do when she gets blue and bummed.

  “Will you take me with you when you do, Mary?”

  *

  Casey McCaslin, 1980

  I have to watch my every step because I’ve seen Parisi and Gibron cruising by on my block. They don’t sit out at the curb the way they used to. They’re probably afraid Fred’ll throw a civil suit at them for harassment.

  What I’m really concerned about is the Robbery dicks. They’re following me everywhere I go, and the attorney says there’s not much we can do about them. Whenever I’m on the streets, they’re not far behind. And I don’t want to blow the 200 K I got from the County because it took my previous stash of cash to pay for the lawyer.

  It was worth every nickel, of course. Joliet is no fucking four-star hotel. It’s one of the meanest jails in the country, and you don’t have to worry much about hitting the mortality age if you get stuck in there for very long.

  I also have to be very careful not to hang with my crew, just yet. My probation is still on, and you can’t associate with known felons without going back in for a very long stretch, and I’m getting kinda used to my freedom. You never know what you have unless they fuck you out of it.

  I’ll be all right financially for a while, but with the Robbery detectives being so hot for me, no new income is coming in, and eventually this wad will be depleted, too. As soon as I feel that they’re backing off, I’ll get my associates back together and we’ll see what is available for us. I’ve had a couple calls from the wops, and they want to know why I’ve dried up on them. They must be fucking oblivious to what’s happening in my world, but I tell them I’ll be back before long.

  The pressure cooker is building, however. I wake up at night and I have to fight the urge to cruise Old Town. I tell myself there must be other ‘hoods where my kind of prey is out walking those mean streets late at night. But Robbery is very good at what they call triangulating you, when they’re following you. You never see all of them, and it’d just be my luck for them to nab me with a kid in the Mustang.

  So I’m thinking of buying a second ride. Some cheap Chevy or Ford—an old man’s car. Maybe a Fairlane, maybe a Chevette. Something that doesn’t draw attention to itself.

  I go out looking at used car lots, and I make sure there are no Robbery guys watching me. They can’t keep an eye on me twenty-four seven, and it looks like they’ve taken the afternoon off to watch someone else or someone else’s crew. We’re not the only boosters in this fucking burg.

  I see a Chevy Chevette that I like. It looks like something some third shift factory drone would drive. I could see him hauling his brood and old lady to the fucking Dells every summer to watch the fucking water show. You know? The babes on water skis?
No one looks at rides like this. No doper dealer would let himself be caught dead in a piece like this. The tires are just standard fare. Nothing gaudy or hot rod. Just a vehicle that would transport Joe the Polack to his job every morning and get him to the bar in Berwyn for a couple of drafts to help him blow off steam, steam that hasn’t vented from all the shit he’s taken from some supervisor on the job all day. And maybe those few beers will carry over enough so he can pop the old lady for his weekly piece of ass she gives him when she’s so inclined.

  I pay this slick used car salesman fifteen hundred in cash, and he zooms through the paperwork with me, which leads me to believe that these cars of his might come from dubious sources. But I don’t care. This ride is to get me out of the house at night without my little friends accompanying me.

  I took the bus to this dealership, so I drive the Chevette home, but I park it three blocks from my building. It doesn’t pay to advertise about my new ride. I walk home from the parking spot, and when I get inside I figure I’ll take a nap and wait until the sun goes down. It’s summer, again, mid-June, and it won’t get dark until around nine.

  When I wake up, it’s nine-thirty. I get my clothes on. I’m hungry, so I’ll head to some fast food joint that stays open until midnight. I make my way out the back door, and then I hop a few fences, and I end up at the new car, three blocks away. It’s ten o’clock, and all the factory fucks are watching the ten o’clock news, waiting for the Tonight Show to come on. Maybe they’re popping their old ladies for their once-a-weeks.

  The streets are empty, and there’re no suspicious cars around me as I pull away from the curb. The Chevy has nowhere near the kick that the Mustang does, but I knew that going in. I’m not going to get into any high speed chases with this fucking dog anyway. It’s just to get me where I want to go.

  Old Town.

  The kids flock here because of the head shops and the easy availability of scoring dope, mostly lightweight stuff like marijuana. If you’re a street kid, you can’t afford much more than a doobie or two. The hard stuff, like H, costs more than these fucking teeny boppers can raise with a standup blowjob in an alley. Vice is here, of course, but I don’t do drugs. All I want is an occasional beer. I don’t much like alcohol. The high’s too short, and so is the satisfaction. I haven’t found anything close to the buzz of the hunt and what comes after. Finding them is part of the high. Catching them and subduing them is a real hardon. And watching them depart is the money shot.

  By the time I get to Old Town, it’s ten-thirty, early for these parts. I stopped for a burger and fries, and I ate them in a hurry because I didn’t want to linger anywhere in case some cop recognized me despite the new vehicle. Kids are on the street as soon as it’s dark, but I usually wait until after midnight because the tourists and the regular teenagers will all be gone home by then. The runaways walk late, like the big dogs are supposed to.

  Nothing seems to be happening as I cruise the boulevards and streets and avenues—until around eleven fifteen. It’s been a slow night, as I say, but then I spot a lone chicken strutting her punk bitch stuff down the sidewalk.

  So I slow to a glide, and I call to her out my driver’s side window.

  She looks coyly in my direction, but then she turns away and keeps walking. The conditions are ripe. She’s the only pedestrian I can see for a block in either direction. Someone must have rolled up the streets tonight.

  I call over to her again as I roll slowly alongside her. I don’t get physical with them until I’m back on my home turf.

  She finally stops. So do I, too. Then she comes ambling over to my window.

  “Are you a cop?” she says.

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “If you ask, they have to tell you they’re police.”

  “You get that on TV?” I smile at her.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She can’t be older than thirteen.

  “Aren’t you a little worried you’ll get busted for curfew?” I grin at her.

  She’s got long strawberry blonde hair that reaches down to her back. She’s wearing a sleeveless top that shows off her fair-sized tits. I can see the bulge of some nipples at her chest. The kid looks mature from the neck down. But her baby face betrays her age.

  “You looking for a date?” she smiles.

  I look up and down the street.

  “You’re not a cop, are you?” I ask her.

  “Do I look like a—”

  “C’mon. Get in.”

  She walks around the Chevette and gets in. I’m wondering if she really is older than her face tells me she is.

  I pull away from the curb and head us back toward my place. I’ll park the car on a different block, but I’ll hoof it to the apartment with her. We’ll take the alley and use the back door, again.

  It takes about thirty-five minutes to get back since the streets are deserted well after midnight. I kept checking the mirrors to make sure the Robbery police weren’t suddenly behind me, but I figure they don’t know about my new ride yet. We park three blocks away from my address in the other direction from where I parked when I left to go out.

  “Where do you live?” she asks as we get out of the Chevette.

  “Not far. Just a little way.”

  She takes hold of my left hand. Her grip shocks me, for some reason, but I hold onto her hand.

  We walk down the alley.

  “I don’t want to do it in an alley.”

  “You’re not going to. We’re just going in the back way. My ex-wife likes to cruise past the front to see if I’ve got anyone in my place with me.”

  “I don’t want to get involved in some family shit.”

  “You won’t,” I tell her. “She just likes to keep tabs on me. But it’s too late, now. She never drives by this late. But if we go in the back way, there’s no way there’ll be a scene, okay?”

  She squeezes my hand again.

  We go through the back gate. I’m not going to make her climb over the fence.

  It’s now that I should stun her with an elbow or a shot to the forehead, but I don’t. I find myself bringing her inside just like I do with the full grown whores I bring here from time to time.

  “Sit down,” I tell her when we’ve entered the living room.

  The blinds are closed. I light a candle, and that’s the only glow in the room or in the apartment. There’s only some dim illumination coming from the streetlights outside.

  “You want a blow job?” she says almost immediately.

  I should give her a straight right to her face. I’m standing in front of her as she sits on my blue couch. I don’t have the slightest idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

  “Sure. You don’t like to talk, first?”

  “This is business, isn’t it?”

  She smiles. She’s not as hard as she thinks she is.

  “How old are you? Really.”

  “Eighteen,” she says, kind of reluctantly, it sounds like.

  “You don’t look that old.”

  “That’s the idea, isn’t it? Weren’t you looking for young pussy?”

  “I guess so.”

  She unzips my fly. And handles me. I’m already up. She takes me into her mouth before I can say anything else to me, and before I can protest, it’s over.

  She puts me back inside and zips me up and then she goes off looking for the bathroom. I hear water running, and then she’s back.

  I’m on the couch, sort of paralyzed, in a way. My legs are like rubber. I can’t figure out why I haven’t smacked her and taped her and cut her jugular by now.

  “Why’s there plastic on the floor and on the couch?” she asks.

  “Oh…I’ve been painting.”

  “Doesn’t smell like paint,” she says.

  “I was going to. Tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  She rubs my crotch.

  Hit her. Right between her green eyes. Then hit her again. The duct tape’s in the closet, where it always is. Do
her wrists first, then her ankles. Show her the razor. Make her eyes get big. Then cut her below the throat. Don’t want to nick any arteries yet. Then seize her by the hair and stand her up. Watch her eyes get wider still. Then bring that blade across her throat and behold the gouts and the gushes of crimson blood spurt forth—

  “Where are you from?” I find myself saying, as if I’ve got no control over my speech. My mouth is working independently of my brain.

  “I’m from here. Couple miles from here, actually.”

  “And what’s the story? I mean why—”

  “Don’t get along with the old lady. And my father….”

  “What?”

  “You know what. Same old, tired out shit.”

  “He moved on you?” I ask her.

  She doesn’t answer, but I get it.

  “My old lady used to beat hell out of me. Until I gave her a dose of her own shit,” I say.

  “Really? We got something in common, then. Hey, why does a good looking guy like you have to pick up people like me on the street? I mean you’re really cute.”

  Now she sounds like the thirteen year old instead of the eighteen year old she says she is.

  “You really eighteen?”

  She smiles.

  “Well, maybe not. I’m almost eighteen.”

  “Then you’re illegal.”

  She smiles. I’ll let her keep on lying to me.

  “I ain’t going to call the cops on you.”

  Now her face is dead serious, sober.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Listen, where do you live, then?”

  “Wherever. In shelters, when there’s room.”

  “Don’t they try to place you somewhere? You know, social services and that kind of shit?”

  “They try, once in a while, but I take off before they can bring me in. I don’t want any fucking foster family. People my age have made it on their own, before.”

  I could slam her nose flat down and force the cartilage right into her brain. She’d die in seconds.

  But then I couldn’t cut her and watch her fade away.

  “You want to stay here tonight?” I ask.

  “You kidding?”