by Chris Mattix
"Relax," Paul told him finally. "I'm here to see Amato. I'm on your team, pal."
The big guy seemed even more confused. "Red’s expecting you?" he said.
"Yeah, but I'm a little early."
"How early?" the big guy said.
"1:30."
The big guy checked his watch, a diamond-encrusted Rolex, and a look of recognition settled onto his face. "Now I know who you are," he said gravely. He shook his head, the bands of muscle on either side of his neck rippling as he did. "You know you're standing knee-deep in your own shit, don't you?" he said.
Paul turned the key in the ignition, and the driver’s window began to roll up, the mechanism straining with the effort. "Believe me," he said under his breath, as the pane of glass rose like a shimmering wall before him. "I'm well aware of that fact."
*****
Red Amato sat at a paint-weary metal desk, talking on the telephone in the back room of the Isle of Capri Social Club. In the far corner, four men in wifebeaters played cards lethargically. As Paul Curcio watched, they all tossed a quarter into the kitty, and one of them dealt out a new hand.
The big guy who'd ushered Paul in from the street was leaning against a billiard table, balancing a cue stick in one hand. He’d been practicing double-rail shots for several minutes without much success. A large, dented fan on a five-foot pole roared loud enough that Paul couldn’t hear the colliding pool balls or the clink of the change from the poker table.
Paul sat squirming in a gray, metal folding chair, waiting for Amato to finish his phone call. He took long, slow breaths, reminding himself that his survival depended on an ability to project equal parts fear and repentance. Not enough of either, and he was sure to end up dead.
Make this good, he told himself. You have to convince every Guido in the room that you’re pleading for your life. Act like you’ve never acted before, like you’re Robert-fucking-De Niro, or this insane plan of yours will never work.
The second Red hung up the phone, Paul began to speak, the words tumbling from his mouth.
"Honest, Red," he said. "I didn’t forget about the money I owe you. Not for one minute." He glanced up from his folded hands. Red was glowering at him, not in the mood to listen to bullshit. Good, Paul thought.
"So you didn’t think I’d get word about your little poker game?" Amato said. "You walk away with a big jackpot, even if it’s out in Rhode Island, and Red Amato’s gonna hear about it. I got ears everywhere, my friend."
Yeah, Paul thought, you weasely idiot. I had to chat up practically every bartender downtown before word finally got back to your "big ears." If you were any dumber, I’d have had to put up a billboard out on Boulevard of the Allies. But he didn’t say it. Instead, he began whimpering like a dog that had been beaten one too many times.
"Let me explain, Red." Amato cut him off.
"You’re into me for fifty large, Paul, and I need to get my cut. First, you pay back the people you owe, then you buy yourself that new pair of diamond cufflinks. That’s how it works, Paul."
"Right, Red, but you see there’s a little problem. I don’t actually have the money anymore." Red Amato leaned forward, visibly perturbed. "Not right now anyway, but trust me, Red. I’m going to have the money—and then some—in a week’s time. If you can just wait a week, I’ll have the entire fifty, all of it. I’ll be able to wipe the slate clean between us."
Amato wasn’t listening. "So all that cash just blew away, like smoke? Is that what you’re asking me to believe Paul?"
Amato flung open his desk drawer. Gun, Paul thought in a panic, but when Amato’s hand reappeared, it was clutching a pack of Marlboros. He set the pack on his desktop, then rooted through the drawer until he found his lighter.
"Those things'll kill you, Red," Paul said with a nervous, half-hearted laugh. The lighter sparked and a blue flame sprung forth. Amato lit the cigarette with both hands, protecting the flame while he inhaled.
"I want my money, Paul," he said, the cigarette crammed in the corner of his mouth, tip glowing a fierce red. Amato exhaled and the roaring fan swept away the cloud of smoke the moment it left his lips.
"See, here’s the thing," Paul said, straining to sound reasonable. "A friend of mine from Providence—the same guy who took me to the poker game—he’s a scam artist up there. And after the game, he tells me that he’s got a deal working that’s a sure thing. All he needs is cash. The guy guarantees me he can double my money in no time at all. He says, if I’ll just give him three weeks, he’ll turn my thirty-thousand into sixty.
"And I know this guy, Red; I’ve known him since we were in grade school. He’s no crack addict, or juicer, or pill-popper; he’s a straight-ahead con man, and a good one. So he tells me all this, and I think to myself, I bet Red would like to get all his money back, not just a down payment."
Amato considered this for a moment, taking a long draw from the cigarette. "Eddie, come over here, will you?" he said, glancing back toward the pool table.
The one-eared thug straightened up from where he was lining up another shot and rested his cue stick carefully against the wall. He sauntered over to Amato’s desk, a malevolent smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Across the room, the poker game came to a halt, and all four players laid their cards face-down on the table.
"Which hand do you write with, Paul?" Red asked. Eddie’s lower lip tightened.
"The right one," Paul said and reflexively glanced down. Here we go, he thought.
"Hold it out," Amato told him, "out where I can see it." Amato demonstrated. "That’s it, Paul—out in front of you."
"No please," Paul said. "Please Red, I’m begging you. Just give me three more days to get the money. I’ll go up to Providence and talk to my friend personally. He said his deal was coming through on Friday. That’s the end of the week. If you’ll just…" Eddie took a quick step forward, grabbed Paul by the wrist, and yanked the arm toward him, nearly yanking Paul from his chair in the process.
Paul was on the verge of tears now, forcing himself to lay it on thick. "Come on, man," he pleaded. "You gotta give me a break. I don’t want my wife to know I’m in any kind of trouble. She doesn’t know anything about my gambling. She’s a good woman, Red, a real good woman. We’ve been together almost twenty years now. She thinks I’m just a regular guy, a medical supply salesman. She doesn’t know—and I got two kids at home, Red. Sweet little kids, a boy and a girl. The youngest, Paul Junior; he thinks I hung the moon. I couldn’t stand to have him know that his father is involved in something shady. You know what I’m saying, Red? Please…I'm begging you, for my wife and kids."
Amato nodded, and with catlike quickness Eddie snapped Paul’s index finger backward, the bone breaking with the ease of a twig. The thwack echoed through the room like someone cracking open a crab’s leg. Paul bellowed in pain, a long, painful moan that hung in the air for a full minute. The card players cackled with amusement.
"You broke my goddamn finger," Paul said, once he was capable of speech again, but a hint of a smile came to his face, despite the waves of pain. Amato saw it and gestured toward Eddie.
"You know Eddie, I was thinking," he said. "I mean, Paul here claims he loves that wife of his so much, maybe we should do him a little favor, for his wife’s sake, you know, something to spice up things in the bedroom." Red nodded thoughtfully, expelling a long, smoky breath. Eddie snorted with delight.
"Break his other finger," Red said, "his pussy finger." Paul bellowed in outrage as Eddie grabbed his middle finger and bent it back toward the wrist like a man separating the drumstick from a turkey.
The pain was overwhelming. Paul’s vision swam to a tiny dot before expanding back out again. "You dumb, muscle-bound asshole," he shouted.
"Hey, now," Amato said, laughing with malicious delight. "That's no way to talk to Eddie. He did you a favor. That darling wife of yours is going to like you even better once that finger of yours swells up to the size of a Panatela."
The poker players burst
into uproarious laughter as Paul slumped to the floor, passing out from the pain.
*****
Eddie was down on his hands and knees, cleaning up the vomit in front of Paul's now-empty chair.
"Well, that was pretty fucking interesting," Amato said and lit up another Marlboro, leaning back in his desk chair. Eddie looked up, his face immobile as a block of granite.
"What are we going to do about that deadbeat scumbag, Red?"
"I guess we’ll give him until the end of the week to get the money together," Amato said. "Then I’ll let you pay a little visit, to his house this time."
"You think he was really on the level about that money out in Providence?" Eddie asked from the floor.
"He’d better be, because I’ll tell you what: next time, we go straight for that wife of his, and the kids. I guess the guy made his Achilles heel pretty damn clear, don’t you think? If we start breaking his wife's fingers, or slicing up her face, I’ll bet he shows up pretty quick with the money."
Eddie nodded enthusiastically. "You think his wife will be hot?" he asked. "That'd be a plus." The poker players all nodded in agreement, and Red plucked another cigarette from the pack.
"Either I get my money by the end of the week," Red said, pounding on the desktop, "or I swear, Curcio's wife is as good as dead."
Eddie got to his feet, carrying the vomit-soaked towels to the garbage dumpster out in the alley. In the far corner of the room, the poker players picked up their cards, groaned in dismay at what they saw, and everybody threw another quarter in the pot.
Killer, Duck, and The Boys
By Shannon Barber
Four tweakers, one roll of duct tape, one .44 caliber pistol, one rusty hunting knife, two cheap unreliable switch blades and four ski masks do not a good heist plan make.
~Urban Proverb
The plan happened after Rip, Jimmy, and the Flore brothers got themselves four fat bags of dope and spent the last of their money. Jittering and sweating, they paced in the one room flop they shared, trying to come up with ideas.
"I know, I know why don’t we roll some hookers?" Jimmy was into his idea, he loved hookers.
"Shut the fuck up man, you wouldn’t roll a hooker if she paid you." The brothers cackled in unison—they did damn near everything in unison, or at least it seemed that way to Rip. It was worse when they were high.
"Shut up. Fuck you guys."
Jimmy stomped out of the room and into the hall, presumably down to the battered old soda machine.
Rip stood on his toes, bouncing and trying to slow his thoughts down.
"I can’t think, let’s go."
The four of them piled into Rip’s battered old Bronco and drove aimlessly, arguing about where to get more cash until they came up to Big Bob’s. The strip club wasn’t called Big Bob’s anymore, but that’s how everyone knew it. All grime outside, hot girls inside. They pooled what was left of their cash and went inside.
Two girls were up on stage and after Rip liberated a wallet, they sat with a pitcher of beer watching the girls wander by.
Jimmy elbowed one of the Flore boys.
"Check it out man. That dude? Big one over there everybody calls him Duck. Like Duck and cover. He’s a bad dude man, lots of money."
Rip looked at Duck and sucked his teeth. Duck was huge and looked mean. A scar ran pale shiny-white over his bald head. He barely watched the girls, just talked to some guy in a suit.
As happens when one does too much meth, Rip started to get an idea
When the DJ started new patter, his attention returned to the stage.
Men moved in a herd towards the stage as the DJ did his thing.
"She’s a killer boys, coming to the stage is our own Kiki. Back from Vegas and looking, foxy!"
Duck waded through the crowd and stood at the head of the stage with a big smile on his face. The lights came up on a long-legged black girl. Rip elbowed Jimmy.
"Goddamn man look at that. Since when they got bitches like her in here?"
Kiki the Killer was the kind of girl you saw in videos. Dark brown skin, a few scattered tattoos, long braids and a big, high, round, proud ass that she knew what to do with. The four of them were as rapt as the rest of the crowd.
"Aw shit man, I’d hit that raw dog."
"Man, you wouldn’t know what to do with that if she sat on your face and wiggled."
While Jimmy and the Flore boys joked, Rip watched her interact with Duck with the kind of attention only a tweaker can have. Money rained down on her as she bent over and wiggled her buttcheeks at the crowd. More flew when she did this thing like she was fucking somebody. Jimmy almost drooled and felt a hot pool of intense jealousy in his bowels.
Rip watched her when she was done and Duck moved to the side of the stage. She handed him her little bag stuffed with bills and he kicked the others under the table.
"Let’s go."
"But, but Rip…I was gonna get me a dance from that girl with the big titties."
Jimmy was whining and pointing at a sullen-looking Native girl with enormous tits. Rip kicked him in the shin.
"Let’s. Go. Bitch."
They tumbled out and back into the Bronco, Jimmy whining the whole way. In the car he called shotgun and as they sped away Rip slapped him on the side of the head.
"Shut up about that girl. Listen, what do you know about this Duck dude? What’s he into?"
There was where they went wrong.
People who don’t do meth know not to listen to a word any tweaker says about anything beyond the quality of the shit they are doing and maybe some quick street math.
"All kinds of shit. Slow down, check it out—that’s his car right there. Almost as pretty as his girl."
Rip slowed down to look at a sleek black Caddy parked a block away from the club.
"Yeah, he’s got that car. And that Kiki chick is his girl. I bet he has a big dick, I mean you gotta have a big dick and big money to keep a girl like that."
Jimmy said it so solemnly they all agreed. As he said it, he felt that hot stab of jealousy again.
"Right. And we are gonna get that money. Hey, Flore. You guys go find out where he lives."
They pulled to the curb and the Flore boys jumped out without a word, slinking off into the darkness. Rip shuddered.
"Fuck, they are creepy. Now we gotta see a man about a donkey."
Three hours later and completely spent, they reconvened at the room.
Rip and Jimmy had negotiated, wheedled and stolen some weapons. The Flore boys found out that Duck and Kiki lived in a little house in a neighborhood not too far away, and it was set.
"I’ll hold the gun on the girl, you guys get the cash and tie up this Duck dude. I’ll deal with the lady. Ladies love me."
They had one stop to make, Jimmy ran into a 24-hour drug store and stole gloves and duct tape. They rolled back to the strip club and waited. Rip tossed the ski masks in a fit of tweaker upset when he thought he saw fleas on them.
In the car they carefully divided up the remains of their dope; Jimmy and the Flore boys snorted their shit, Rip decided it was an occasion and pulled out his works from the glove box.
Jimmy squirmed, whining again. "Oh man, come on. Don’t do that in here. Shit scares me. Fucking junkies do that."
Holding a length of random wire picked up off the floor, Rip snarled at him around his clenched teeth and the wire while he tied off. "Shut the fuck up. It’s my shit, it’s my arm, I do it the way I wanna do it."
He coughed a few times when it hit and grinned, showing his crumbling teeth.
Jimmy pouted, the Flore brothers whispered to each other, giggling together over some private creepy twin thing.
"There they are."
Rip was good. He was alert and used everything he’d learned watching cop dramas on TV to follow the caddy back to the quaint little bungalow-style house. He pulled up a half-block away and they watched Duck lift Kiki off of the sidewalk and carry her into the house.
Jitte
ring, they waited an excruciating twenty minutes. They saw lights come on and off, they watched them moving around behind the big picture window.
"You ready for this?"
Rip was rocking in his seat, getting himself good and worked up to get mean, the pistol in his hand. Jimmy lifted his rusty hunting knife. The Flore boys held up the duct tape. The gloves and switchblades lay forgotten at Jimmy’s feet.
The Flore boys were bouncing up and down, chanting: "Let’s do this, let’s do this."
Inside the house, Kiki got in the shower—and as was their habit, Duck checked on his birds, fed the cat and laid in bed to count out her cash.
The boys had assumed the common sense things. There was lots of cash in the house, it was a good time to hit them coming from what looked like a good night at the titty bar, it looked good to go. Two fat chickens ready for plucking.
What they didn’t count on was what everyone else in the neighborhood knew.
Kathleen "Kiki the Killer" Arthur-Sims was not called killer because of her amazing body or dancing prowess. She was a killer, convicted at fourteen and released the day after her eighteenth birthday due to a masterful plea bargain. Had any of them asked someone in the neighborhood, they would have gotten the whole story. After one too many beatings she had stabbed her stepmother seven times and been the poster child for abuse until the DA wrangled a deal and locked her away.
Edward "Duck" Sims had at one time been the guy they expected him to be. After a devastating car accident, he had settled down with Kiki and his ducks. Duck had done everything from moving serious weight in whatever drug the streets called for, to overseeing the daily operations of shady money-laundering outfits. By the time the would-be-heisters showed up, he had slowed down. After rolling a car and nearly dying, he had made the wise decision to retire before he got caught.
The boys got to the door and knocked hard.
They could hear Duck coming and puffed themselves up. When the door swung open, Rip drew himself up as much as he could and pointed the pistol at Duck’s chest.