Felix stiffened and looked sideways to Carl. The other man was relaxed, pleased with himself.
“I thought we should leave a message, boss,” Carl said. “To the ones stealing our shit.”
“You did?” Pinzolo said.
Carl snorted, grinning. “Yeah.”
“Mmm. Well that’s your problem right there, Carl. I’m not paying you to think. I think. My cleaning lady thinks. My god-damn cat thinks. Not you. You follow orders.” Pinzolo stroked the ginger cat with his left hand as Carl’s grin dropped into a frown.
“I didn’t-” he began. Pinzolo held up his right hand.
“That stunt just made my job a whole lot harder. I said make ‘em talk, then make ‘em disappear. Not turn the job into a flat-foot circus.” As he spoke, Pinzolo used his free hand to open his desk drawer.
Carl followed Pinzolo’s movements with his eyes. They widened. His whole body began to shake.
“You’ve got no class, Carl. Never did.” And with that, Pinzolo lifted his right hand from his drawer, complete with revolver. Carl crumpled to the floor with a hole in his head as the cat screeched and fled from the desk. Two men in dark suits let themselves into the room from outside.
“Get him out of here before he stains my rug,” Pinzolo said. The men gathered up Carl’s body and dragged it from the room. Standing alone now, Felix looked unmoved.
“He wasn’t right in the head that one,” Pinzolo said. “It’s dangerous, when they’ve got no control over themselves.”
Felix shrugged.
“I need someone I can rely on,” Pinzolo said.
“You can rely on me.”
“Yeah, I think I can.” Pinzolo stretched back in his chair, choosing a cigar from a tin box and lighting it. “I’m a businessman, Felix, and I have a business transaction for you. I’ve been good to you, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, boss. So far.”
Pinzolo chuckled. “I like your attitude, Felix. You don’t trust anyone, even me. That means you’re smart. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
Felix smiled vaguely. “What do you need?”
“Find out who’s stealing my business. Whoever took out Marco, God-rest-his-soul, and Frankie and the boys on the truck jobs. Someone knows too much and they’re making a fool of me. I want them buried.”
Felix considered the proposition in silence, nodding. “What’s in it for me?” he asked.
Again, Pinzolo chuckled.
“Your life, for starters,” he said. “Ten thousand. And you get Vince Junior’s spot at Kitty’s Kat House.”
Felix raised an eyebrow.
“I’m bringing him in to teach him the family business,” Pinzolo said. “I’m running out of nephews here. Besides, I know you’ve got a shine in your eye for one of those dancers. Little red-head with an ass to die for.” Pinzolo winked and Felix inhaled sharply. “How about I don’t kill her either.”
Felix shot a glare at Pinzolo, quickly re-evaluating the man. There was no one, save Tilly herself that knew of their love affair. No one that knew Felix beyond the cold detachment to life and death he showed; that only she could peel away. The girl bit his bones. And apparently, Pinzolo knew all about it. Even his hunters were hunted.
“She’s nothing to me,” Felix lied. “Just a bit of fun.”
“We’ll see,” smiled Pinzolo.
Episode Four
Kitty’s Kat House
In the basement of St. Augustine’s Home for Unwanted Boys, a wooden crate was being pried open with a crowbar at one end of a long table. Two dozen young boys stood around, fidgety and sullen. It was the kind of Saturday they would normally have raced into the dingy courtyard to play two-ball, swing on lamp posts and scuffle over turns on the old bicycle kept there. But recently, their lives had taken an unexpected turn. They now had a job to do.
The basement was almost as long as the building itself. Wooden crates were stacked to the ceiling, dividing the room into parts. Many contained ammunition and rifles, hijacked off the route to Fort Hamilton. There were field rations too, granulated sugar, celery salt, pork luncheon meat and fruit bars, boxed up together in peel-back tins, never to reach the boys at the front. Instead, they were now destined for an underground market where anything could be bought for a price. An open box of Hershey’s Tropical Chocolate bars were used as rare incentives for the orphans to keep their mouths shut on what they saw. But the real incentive in working, was to avoid the punishment Pinzolo’s men regularly dished out to anyone that opened their mouth unnecessarily.
Hidden behind one long wall of crates were two makeshift offices with grubby tables covered in cigarette butts, lewd magazines and playing cards. There was another table near the center of the main room, where Pinzolo’s goons could keep an eye on their young charges. A few steps away, Vincent Carelli Junior spilled the contents of the crate he was opening onto a long table. Fist-sized packets of small white pills piled in front of the children.
“Same as yesterday, kids. Wrap each one in newspaper and string. Pile them back in the empty crate. When you’re done, start a new one.”
With their eyes down, the orphans scurried to begin. No one wanted the beating they knew was waiting if they disobeyed. The youngest boy, of about nine years old, looked at the pills warily. He turned his dirty face up toward Vince.
“What are they?” he asked. The others stopped and stared, mouths open. The sandy-haired kid closest to him elbowed the boy hard in the ribs.
“Shut up!” the bigger boy hissed.
Nearby, the table of men stopped playing their card game and looked over through a haze of cigarette smoke. One smirked.
Vince narrowed his eyes and stared at the boy, who shrank back.
“What’s your name, kid?”
He hesitated.
“Samuel.”
“You like to know what’s going on, hey, Sam? Don’t like to follow orders?” Vince strolled casually toward the boy and leaned down. He dropped a heavy hand on Sam’s tiny shoulder. The boy pulled himself straight, barely breathing. His eyes were like saucers. The kids standing around the table, shuffled back, subconsciously. Despite his fear, the dirty-faced boy lifted his chin slightly. He met Vince’s eyes with his own.
“Not really. I just want to know what they are, that’s all.”
The others recoiled. Vince however, looked surprised. He bent down, face to face with the boy. Sam frowned back.
Finally, Vince laughed.
“I like you, kid. You’ve got guts. I was never one to follow the rules either, so I’ll humor you.” He straightened back up. “They’re magic pills, Sam. You take one and all your troubles disappear for a while. You can do anything, like a fucking superhero. These are what keep our soldiers fighting even where they’ve got their legs blown off and a dozen Krauts up their ass.”
“So, why have you got them?” Sam asked, feeling a little braver.
“I’ll tell you why,” Vince smirked. “Because Mr. Pinzolo’s a business man and there are people out there that pay good money for ‘em. It’s all for the greater good, kid. The city needs to keep on moving. We keep the trouble-makers fixed up and under control, it’s less trouble for Uncle Sam. And if we don’t, someone else will do it and we miss out on the dough. Gotta keep the money rolling in to look after you kids, don’t we?” Vince gave the boy a rough clap on the back.
“Yeah, I guess,” said Samuel, eyeing off the pills. Vince followed his gaze to the table.
“‘Course that stuff wouldn’t work on you lot, you’re too young. A kid like you would end up in city morgue if one of them got dropped in your pea soup.” Vince smirked. “Don’t make me prove it.” He winked at Sam.
Vince walked away and sat down at the table with the Pinzolo’s other men who had resumed their card game. “Now, get to work you lot,” he yelled, over his shoulder. “And keep your mouths shut.”
A few minutes later, Felix descended the stairs to the basement and wove his way through crates toward the table of smoking men. His m
outh was set in a hard line as his eyes surveyed the room.
“What’s this?” he said, nodding toward the table of orphans working. Vince looked up.
“New runners. Donny wants ‘em trained,” Vince replied. “No one’s gonna stop a kid playing on the street corner, are they?”
Felix grunted, frowning. “Where you gonna fit a gat? In their diapers?” he said.
Vince stood up, chest out. He didn’t like Felix; the man was too hard to read. Dangerous.
“Don’t burn me up,” Vince said. “I don’t give a shit. The boss says it goes, I do it. Donny has a way with kids you know. He likes ‘em.” He turned to look at the table. “They wanna do it, don’t you kids?” The orphans shuffled together, avoiding the gaze of the men.
“Yeah,” said a quiet voice. It was Samuel. “We wanna do it.” The little boy looked at Vince and got a nod of approval back. The kid had nerve.
“See, Felix,” Vince said, “I’m good with kids, too.” The other men laughed.
Felix wasn’t amused. “There’s a new truck arriving any minute,” he said. “You lazy bastards are meant to be clearing a space for the crates, not sitting on your asses, babysitting. You want the boss to come down and catch you at it?”
Vince scowled. The other men jumped to their feet, butting their cigarettes. They disappeared into the mosaic of stolen crates, quickly filling the basement with the sounds of wood scraping across the floor. Vince stood up, crossing his arms.
“Now you listen to me. This is my gig, and I’ll decide how to run it. How about you take a hike. The girls at Kitties need you to go powder their noses. Tell them I’ll be over later to kiss ‘em goodnight -”
With a quick snap, Felix’s fist flew across the gap between them. Vince’s head cracked back, and he stumbled for balance. Blood streamed from his nose.
“Don’t mess with me, Vince,” Felix said, his voice smooth, like ice. “I don’t care who your daddy was. If you mess with me, you’ll lose.” He turned to leave. “By the way,” Felix said, over his shoulder. “Donny wants you.” He left.
Betty leaned her bicycle against a concrete building but stayed on it, one leg resting on the ground, with her shoulder to the wall. She bit into an apple, taken from her handlebar basket. The last rays of the sun were disappearing behind a long, decommissioned railway shed some distance in front of her, but she stayed out of sight. She’d be down there soon enough. It was a run-down industrial area, frequented only by the women that ran the great hydraulic presses in a metal factory closer to the main road. Betty was quite safe, for now, and could easily have talked her way out of a tight spot by claiming she was peddling cosmetics to the workers. But there was no one around at this time anyway, and she was quite invisible in the shadows.
The dirt road at the base of the hill below her ran parallel to empty railroad tracks. Traffic had been diverted many years ago, to newer, asphalt roads and this route was rarely used. Except of course, by Army supply trucks. Betty had followed their routes often, from the various storage warehouses and ammunition factories into Fort Hamilton where the ships waited for cargo. It was easy enough to read the minds of the drivers to determine their ever-changing routes through the city. There were only so many diversions they could make, which made them vulnerable to tracking. Clearly Pinzolo’s men had tracked them too, no doubt with less savory methods. The best Betty could do, was beat them at their game, and take as many of Donny’s men down each time as she could, until she grew closer to the man himself.
Betty didn’t have to wait long. Two unmarked trucks came along the road, slowly, so as not to leave a telling dust cloud in their wake. They pulled up on the far side of the rail shed, hidden from view of anyone driving past. This time, Betty thought, I’ve beat them to their own heist. She had ten minutes until the trucks were due to drive by. If she moved fast enough, she could take them all out before they passed, and let them continue unheeded. Betty tossed the apple core, swung her leg over the bicycle and propped it against the wall. She smoothed her cornflower blue dress, feeling the row of knives circling high around each thigh, warm in their holsters. She only ever wore her knives clean, wrapping them in a towel in her basket to take home for washing, after she’d dislodged them from the ribcage or eye-socket of her victims. Cleanliness was next to godliness, so the saying went. Really though, it was simply a preference to keep her impeccable wardrobe unstained.
Pinzolo’s men were out of their cars. There were eight all together, and they positioned themselves in the shadows of the railway shed, ready for the ambush. She took note of where each man was hiding, as she hugged the dark spaces of the hill, making her way down quickly. She was close now, close enough to see their dim faces, but still out of sight. From here, she’d have to cross the grassy space onto the road. A bright floodlight lit the road in front, where the truck tires would be shot to stop them. She would be exposed.
Betty leaned forward, about to stand.
No.
Something’s different.
There were two new figures alighting from behind the shed. They weren’t Pinzolo’s men. They were children.
“What do we do?” called a boy’s voice, no more than ten years old. A flurry of cursing and arms waved them away. There was a shuffle and one of the men leapt out of his hiding place.
“Stay back,” he hissed to the boys, “I said to keep out of sight ‘til I call you in! Get in the truck.” Betty recognized the voice. It was Vincent Carelli Junior. She hadn’t heard his voice in many years, but it hadn’t changed all that much since his late teens. Of all her cousins, Betty would be disappointed to kill him. As a child, he’d been sweet. As a teen, overindulged with family money, attention and a distinct lack of parental moral fiber, he’d soured. His pockets were lined with blood money and his hands were filthy with death. And now he’d dragged children into his web.
The two boys scuttled back around the side of the building, but they didn’t return to the truck. Betty could see the shape of them against the back wall, crouching low. Somehow, they’d become part of this terrible mess.
She froze. Betty never left witnesses alive. She never had to. The men she killed were long past redemption. But, children.
Her breath caught, and she steadied herself against the ground. Her vision blurred and her heart raced. She felt sick as she weighed up her choices. If she took out Vince and his men, the boys would see everything. Under the glaring flood light, they would see her face. Her whole life, unmasked. There was too much at stake. Her perfect life would peel away. Her children, her George, her picket fence and perfumes and painted smile. Gone, all of it.
Inside, Betty felt old scars needling and stretching, threatening to tear apart. This is where she’d begun. As a child on the sidelines of violence, a witness to murder. Hauling stolen goods and selling drugs on street corners while grown men watched from parked cars. Cold, scared, chin up and trying to prove they could do a man’s job with a boy’s heart. Secretly terrified of the day they might catch a bullet instead of a cold. Her mind stuttered, and she was trapped like a fly in a web of memories that raced beneath her eyelids, dragging her back to a street corner, her corner, at only thirteen years old.
*
It was a shabby part of town where the occasional kid stopped for a cigarette on their walk home from school, but there was rarely any traffic. Susie was waiting for one of her regular customers, perched on a low brick fence by the side of a park. Behind her, empty swings squeaked on rusty chains beside a derelict toilet block. A metal climbing frame was skeletal against the darkening dusk sky.
Susie’s shoes were wet inside, her feet like bricks of ice. The rain fell intermittently, never letting her alone long enough to pull her precious magazine from the shabby school bag on the brick wall beside her. As usual, Susie had rolled it into a milk bottle and stoppered it to keep it dry for the walk to school. It wasn’t worth the risk now to read it though, the glossy smiles and glamorous stories of Cosmopolitan would be ruined, sodden by the
rain. And Susie couldn’t bear to see those faces fall apart.
Her text books would be soaked, and she’d earn the strap from Mr. Carrick for letting it happen, but the man was late and there was nothing to be done. She couldn’t go home without the money.
A new downpour began. Susie lifted her school satchel above her head for cover against the rain. She saw two men rounding the corner ahead, walking toward her through the gray sleet. Under the light of the lamp above her, they were silhouettes, like characters from a comic book. One was Jack, who she’d been expecting for over an hour. She could tell by his rounded shoulders and the old wool newsboy that was too big for his skinny head. He’d brought someone else.
Susie could hear them talking. Not across the distance, but inside her own head. She dropped her bag down on the brick wall again and rubbed her face, pushing away the rain and wishing the voices would wash away with it. She was nearly used to them now, the constant violations of her peace. They were just words. Intentions. Invasions. And already, they’d saved her more than once. Selling on the street wasn’t safe for anyone. Especially a thirteen-year-old girl.
“That’s her? The kid?” the new man was saying.
“Every Wednesday.” Jack, was edgy, more than usual. As he drew closer, Susie saw that he was pale and hollow, ashen skin circling his eyes. He shoved his hands into his pockets, then drew them out again, compulsively fisting then stretching his fingers, then shoved them back down. His jacket was threadbare, and he shivered as he drew up close to the brick wall.
“You’re late,” Susie said, trying to project a bravery she didn’t feel. She’d been a year on the street now but still got scared every time someone approached her. Even Jack, who’d never tried to hurt her, either by hand or inside his foggy mind. Susie pushed the fear down and straightened her back.
“Scrapping,” Jack said. He gestured toward Susie’s school bag with a shaking finger. “You good?”
Avon Calling! Season One Page 9