by Stuart Woods
“Right now?” He tried to keep his voice down so as not to wake Vanessa. “Does he have any idea what the fuck time it is?”
“Gee, I dunno,” Cheech said. “You want I should ask him?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Vinnie said, exasperated.
“Make it ten,” Cheech said.
“Tell him I’m not at home, and I have to find a cab.”
“Yeah,” Cheech said, then hung up.
Vinnie got into the clothes he had taken off at bed-time. He hated wearing clothes twice, but he couldn’t afford to waste time. He didn’t like being on the streets of New York at this time of night, either; he opened a drawer and found the fat man’s gun, then left the building. A miracle; it took him only five minutes to find a cab going south on Seventh Avenue.
They were two thirds through shooting the film, and Vinnie had already shaved a day off the schedule. He was proud of himself, but he was nervous, too. He was right on budget, but most of Chuck’s and Barbara’s investment was gone, and soon he was going to have to come up with his hundred and fifty thousand. He had seventy, which he hated to think of using, but he needed another eighty at least.
The cab driver was on his way home to Brooklyn and refused to go any farther south than Houston Street. Vinnie jogged the rest of the way.
The streets of Little Italy were deserted, and his soft Italian loafers made little sound as he ran along. He was swept back to his childhood, when running had meant that somebody was chasing him, usually for stealing. As he approached the La Boheme Coffee House, he slowed to a walk, willing his heart to slow down. He stood outside the door and panted for a moment. Suddenly the glass behind him rattled. Vinnie spun around, his heart racing again, to find Cheech standing there, his bulk filling the doorway.
“Christ, Cheech, you scared the shit out of me,” he panted.
“You better get in there,” Cheech said, indicating the back room with a thumb. “He’s pissed off.”
Vinnie walked quickly through the dark coffeehouse, aiming at the light under the door of the back room. His shirt was sticking to him, and he didn’t have his breathing under control yet. He hated not being perfectly in control of himself, hated it that Benedetto was going to see him this way. He knocked, then opened the door.
Benedetto was sitting in his usual place, and there were stacks of money on the table. The door to the big safe was ajar. Cheech went and sat at the desk where Tommy Pro often worked.
“Evening, Mr. B.,” Vinnie said, trying to calm his breathing.
“Evening, my ass,” Benedetto said, becoming red in the face.
“What’s up? How can I help?” Vinnie asked.
“This is your problem, not mine,” Benedetto replied. “You can fucking fix it.”
“What’s the problem, Mr. B.?” He had a sickening feeling that he knew what the problem was.
“You see the late news tonight?”
“No.”
“The fat man was the star of it. Oh, they had a goddamned coat over his head, but it was him getting into the car.”
“The fat man’s been busted?” Vinnie asked, mystified.
“Not exactly,” Benedetto replied snidely. “The fat man is trying to get me busted. He’s been to the DA, who has a hair up his ass about loan-sharking, and who now has a warrant out for me. I couldn’t even get into my office until an hour ago. There’s been cops all over.”
Vinnie was stunned. The fat man didn’t know his name, but he could certainly give the cops a good description. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “The man can’t be that crazy.”
“Well, he is that crazy,” Benedetto said, “and it was your job on his car that pushed him over the edge.”
“He’d never testify against you, Mr. B.,” Vinnie said. “He’d know what that’d mean. He’s not that crazy.”
“They got him sequestered,” Benedetto said.
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly, except I found out where. Cost me ten big ones.”
“You know where they got him?”
“Fortunately, yeah. Otherwise Cheech would right now be breaking your head like a walnut.”
Vinnie looked at Cheech, who seemed disappointed that he was not breaking Vinnie’s head. “Mr. B.,” he said, “just tell me what you want me to do.”
Benedetto took a slip of paper from his pocket and pushed it across the table. “That’s where he is,” the capo said. “It’s a place in Oyster Bay, on the North Shore. You go do it.”
“Do what, Mr. B.?”
“Make him dead. Cheech’ll give you a gun.” He turned and looked at his bodyguard. “Give Vinnie something heavy to make his bones with. I don’t want no surprise recovery.”
Vinnie’s mind went into a kind of crazy fast-forward. He would try to get to the fat man, and the cops would kill him. He would never see his film released, never make love to Vanessa again, never go to another dinner party at Barbara Mannering’s to meet the rich and powerful.
But then again, maybe not. Maybe he would pull it off and get the credit for saving Benedetto’s ass. He would make his bones and be one of the boys. And Benedetto would have him by the balls for the rest of his life, tell him what and what not to do, rule his life, own him.
Benedetto was turning back toward him; Cheech had a .45 automatic by the barrel, wiping it with an oily cloth.
Decide! Decide! He decided. His hand went to the waist of his trousers and grasped the fat man’s revolver. He was moving too slowly, he knew; Cheech was big, but he was quick as a cat. Vinnie started up with the gun, saw the surprise in Benedetto’s face. Vinnie shot him in his surprise.
The bullet went in under the left eye, and Benedetto spilled backward from his chair. Vinnie knew he might not be dead, but Cheech was doing something with his hands. Vinnie turned, crouched, and fired twice. The first one got Cheech in the left shoulder, the second hit him in the neck. He still had the .45 in his hand, clasped in the oily cloth. He was having trouble getting a finger on the trigger through the cloth.
Vinnie quickly walked toward him, stopped three feet away. He put one into Cheech’s head, saw some skull come away and blood splash the desk. He fired one more into the forehead.
There was a noise behind him. Benedetto was on his hands and knees struggling toward him. His face was contorted with pain and rage. He reached up and got hold of Vinnie’s trouser leg. Vinnie backhanded him with the pistol; he didn’t want blood all over him. Benedetto reeled, but recovered and started toward him again, blood pouring from his face. Vinnie shot him twice more in the top of the head, and the pistol was empty.
Vinnie turned back to Cheech, terrified that the giant might still be able to fire the heavy pistol at him, but Cheech was on his back, bleeding into the floorboards. He wheeled back to Benedetto, but Mr. B. was very dead, too.
Vinnie stood, frozen, in the middle of the room, the gun in his hand, taking deep breaths, trying to stop his heart from flying from his chest. Then a deep voice behind him shook him to his roots.
“Well, Vinnie,” Tommy Pro said, “you’ve really made a mess, haven’t you?”
Vinnie whipped around, the pistol out in front of him, to find Tommy standing in the doorway, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.
“Your piece looks empty,” Tommy said.
“Empty,” Vinnie said, recovering. “Yeah, it’s empty.”
“Is it yours?”
“No, I got it from a guy.”
“It’s clean, then?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Tommy reached out and took the pistol from Vinnie’s hand and pocketed it. “I was upstairs working late; an all-nighter. I’m glad it was you.” He looked at Vinnie closely. “Thank Christ you were empty, I think.”
“Yeah,” Vinnie said. “I probably would have kept shooting. You scared me bad.” He was feeling numb now, tired to the bone. “You gonna give me to the Don, Tommy?” he asked weakly.
“Are you insane?” Tommy Pro asked. “Look around here, do
n’t you see what I see?”
“I see Benedetto dead,” Vinnie said.
“You don’t see any money on the table, Vinnie? You don’t see the safe open?” Tommy chuckled. “Even I don’t have the combination to that safe.”
Vinnie began to recover; the numbness was leaving him. “You and me, Tommy? We take everything?”
“Not exactly, Vinnie,” Tommy Pro said. “You take half the money. I take everything else.”
“What else?” Vinnie asked, looking around the nearly empty room. Then he understood.
Tommy went to the safe and opened it wide. He took two bank bags from a shelf and began to stuff money into both of them. When he had finished, he stood up and began bagging the money on the table. Finally, he held out both bags to Vinnie. “No time for counting. I divided it up; you got dibs.”
Vinnie took one of the bags.
“You remember how we used to run across the roofs?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah,” Vinnie replied.
“You go out the back way, go up the fire escape, across the roofs to your mother’s place. Hide the money somewhere good. Stay at your mother’s until you hear from me. People are going to want to talk to you. I’ll handle things here.”
“I’ve got another place, in Chelsea,” Vinnie said.
“Can anybody put you there tonight?”
“Yeah, there’s a girl.”
“Wait’ll morning, when there’s people on the street. Go back to Chelsea and call me around ten. Act surprised on the phone.”
Vinnie nodded. Without speaking again, he left through the back door. A moment later he was flying across the roofs, a child again with Tommy Pro, running from somebody.
CHAPTER
9
Vinnie lay on his dead mother’s bed and tried to think. For an airtight alibi, he needed to get back to Chelsea before Vanessa woke up. Thank God, he thought, she sleeps like a rock. But how would he do that? He’d never get a cab at this time of night, and he might be noticed at this hour on the subway. He certainly didn’t want to be walking the streets in the middle of the night with a lot of money in a bag. Then he remembered something.
He got off the bed and went to the chest of drawers where his old clothes were. He got into some athletic shorts, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, then picked up the money and left the apartment. As silently as he could, he tiptoed down the stairs. There it was, at the bottom. A bicycle, with a helmet dangling from the handlebars. The kid who lived downstairs worked for a messenger service. Vinnie stuffed the money into a saddlebag, donned the helmet, and very quietly got the bike out of the building. The gears were a little crazy, but he soon got the hang of it. He pedaled through the silent streets, past the groceries and coffeehouses he had known since boyhood, and soon he was headed uptown.
At Sixth Avenue and Twelfth Street a police car gave him a bad moment when it pulled up next to him. He gave them a smile and a wave and kept pedaling.
He left the bicycle leaning against a bus stop shelter on Seventh Avenue and jogged the rest of the way home.
Back in the apartment, he got a knife and cut through the plastic bonding material that held four bricks in place. He stuffed the moneybag into the hole and replaced the bricks, carefully filling the cracks again. A little soot from the fireplace and the filling matched the cement holding the other bricks together. It was near dawn when he gratefully crawled into bed next to the sleeping Vanessa.
She was up first; she had a modeling job that morning. “Where were you last night?” she asked. “I got up and went to the bathroom, and you were gone.”
He knew what kind of sleeper she was. “Sweetheart, you had a dream. I never budged at all last night.”
“Oh,” she said, then kissed him and went on her way.
When she had gone, he resisted the temptation to count the money. Instead, he called Tommy Pro. “Just checking in,” he said.
“Bad news,” Tommy said. “Benedetto got hit last night. Cheech, too.”
Vinnie always assumed the line was tapped. “No shit,” he said, sounding as astonished as he could. “Who did it?”
“We’re working on it, and so are the cops, but no leads so far. They cleaned out the safe, too. Wasn’t much in it, just the proceeds from the coffeehouse for a couple days.”
“Anything I can do?”
“I’ll let you know,” Tommy replied, then hung up.
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Barbara. How about tonight?”
“Dinner party?”
“Just you and me, babe.”
He didn’t have to think long. “I’ll look forward to it.”
He stayed away from the shoot that day, since they were still in Little Italy and he didn’t want to be seen there, even though there was no reason for the cops to question him. They were only a couple of weeks away from a rough cut of the picture, and he had to think about the next stage.
Finally he was unable to resist the temptation; he took out the bricks and had a look at the money. It was in bills of all sizes, and it came to a little over a hundred and ninety thousand. He could finish the picture now, even if he went over budget, but he was determined not to do that. He hid the money again.
Barbara Mannering ran a long fingernail down Vinnie’s chest to his pubic hair. “Again, lover?” she asked sweetly.
Vinnie still hadn’t caught his breath from the first time. “Barbara, you are insatiable, you know that?”
She chuckled. “I know that. I’ll give you a minute.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s your movie coming?”
“We wrap next week.”
“When can I see it?”
“I want it finished before you see it—scored, the titles and the opticals in.”
“Oh, all right, I’ll be patient.”
“You know anybody at the New York Film Festival?”
“Sure. A girl I knew at Bennington is the executive director.”
“Can you get her to look at the picture?”
“I expect so. The festival’s next month, though. She’ll need to see it very soon if she’s to schedule it. In fact, it might be too late already.”
“Tell her I’ll have a rough cut in ten days. I’ll book a screening room at the film school.”
“I’ll see what I can do. You all rested now?”
He turned back to her. “I’m all rested.”
Since there were no titles yet, the film just stopped.
“I love it,” the woman said. “I just love it. But we’ve booked the whole festival.”
“Surely you can squeeze us in somewhere,” Vinnie said. “Look, this is a homegrown New York product, with a score by a student at Juilliard and a director from the NYU Film School who’s going to be very hot. A couple of months from now you’ll look very smart to have had this in the festival.”
“Can you finish it in time?” she asked.
“We can,” Vinnie replied. He hoped that was true.
“Tell you what. We’ve only got a single feature scheduled for the second night—a new film from England. I’ll run yours first.”
“Run it second,” Vinnie said. “Everybody will show up for the English film. We’ll be dessert.”
She stuck out a hand. “You’re on.”
Vinnie held his breath and dialed the number. “Mr. Goldman’s office,” a businesslike female voice said.
“Hello, this is Michael Vincent. May I speak to Leo, please?”
“Does he know you, Mr. Vincent?”
“How else would I have this number?” Michael said, laughing.
“Just a moment.”
There was a very long wait, but finally the voice was male. “Leo Goldman,” he said briskly.
“This is Michael Vincent; how are you?” God, is he going to remember?
“Barbara’s friend. What can I do for you?”
“Will you be in New York for the film festival?”
“I’m there for the opening, the
n I have to go on to London.”
“I’ve got a film showing the second night.”
“Bring it to our screening room—the Centurion Building, on Fifth Avenue. Let’s see…”
Vinnie could hear pages turning.
“Three o’clock on opening day.”
“That’s good.”
“See you then.” Goldman hung up.
Vinnie replaced the receiver and held his breath for a moment. Then he exploded in laughter. “A screening with Leo Goldman!” he shouted to the empty room.
CHAPTER
10
Vinnie sat in a taxicab and sweated. He had less than ten minutes before his appointment with Leo Goldman and he was still forty blocks away. The film lab had been late finishing the print, and he was nearly crazy. He had meant to have the film delivered to the Centurion offices, but now he had to hump the cans up there himself. He found a handkerchief and patted his face; he breathed deeply, settled himself into a kind of mild trance. There was nothing he could do about this; he would go with the flow.
He was ten minutes late for his appointment, and when he reached Goldman’s office, his secretary said he was waiting in the screening room. He took the elevator down, handed all the film cans to a waiting projectionist, straightened his tie, and entered the screening room.
Leo Goldman sat hunched in a chair, cigar smoke rising from him. He nodded at Vinnie, then pressed a button, and said, “Let’s go, Jerry.”
Vinnie took a seat as the film began to run. They were thirty seconds into the titles when a phone rang.
Goldman picked it up and started to talk rapidly, alternately puffing on the cigar.
Vinnie reached over and pressed the intercom button. “Jerry, please stop the film and back it up to the beginning.”
Goldman stopped talking and placed a hand over the receiver. “I was watching,” he said.
“Leo,” Vinnie said calmly, “all I want is ten minutes of your undivided attention. If you’d like to take calls after that, feel free.”
Goldman looked at him oddly for a moment, then spoke into the phone again. “I’ll get back to you.” He hung up and pressed the intercom. “Let’s go, Jerry.”