by Daniel Kraus
It was my habit at Pattersons’ Inn to go directly to Wilma Sue’s room. I put my ear to the door and right away knew that something was awry. Without ado I threw open the door and found a man looking annoyed and a woman covering herself. She was as skinny as a coyote and had a light mustache. I demanded the whereabouts of Wilma Sue. The man told me to get out of the fucking room. The coyote said that she did not know any “Wilmy Sue” but if this was the kind of thing that happened at Patterson’s Inn then she would have to reconsider her employment.
I believed that I might be sick. I charged down the hall, kicking open other doors and finding girls in all states of undress, though not one shoulder or thigh or breast belonged to Wilma Sue. Downstairs I ran and took the bartender’s shirt from across the bar. He began shouting out the name of Mr. Patterson. Presently the innkeeper materialized, wiping his hands on a towel. He smirked and said that Wilma Sue was gone and good riddance, for she had had too many customers—he said this pointedly—who overstayed their welcome. I stood there trembling as he left the room. My paralysis dissevered and I careened after Patterson, finding him in a dim closet counting boxes of produce.
He was a large man and not unafraid. Nor was I. I threw him against the shelves. Tomatoes toppled onto his shoulders and erupted upon the floor. It smelled of food and I experienced a swirl of panic that I’d never gotten around to dining with Wilma Sue at Allagauer’s Fireside, never traveled with her on that street car to the North Shore beach, never held her hand at the top of the Ferris wheel, never saw how she looked in any setting aside from this dank, stinking rathole.
Patterson never had a chance. Between blows I accused him of casting out an angel and replacing her with a toothless, syphilitic witch. When muscle ache forced me to quit, my enemy was a twitching pink lump. I did as trained and emptied his pockets.
That, Dearest Reader, is how I came upon my Excelsior—bright, clicking, indifferent. Its metronome provided me with hope. It had divided hours in its patient fashion long before Wilma Sue had arrived and would continue in the face of her absence. The Excelsior promised time, plenty of it, practically an infinity, and if I kept it near me it might be as if I had climbed into Wilma Sue’s bed after all. I slipped the watch into a pocket and felt the familiar, contented beating of her heart next to mine: tick, tick, tick.
I bolted through the snow. It was simple when you looked at the evidence with a cleared head. A man like Luca Testa demanded the full attention of his army and it would not escape his attention when a promising young soldier missed an appointment, or two, or three, because of extended lounging within the limbs of a common tramp.
Never had I been inside Testa’s home but I knew as well as anyone its location. Two men pretending to read newspapers guarded the entrance. They knew me and put on grins. I grinned back and then cold-cocked the bigger one in the face. He wailed and fell to his knees. The other guard spat his toothpick, elbowed me aside, and kneeled down to assess the damage to his friend.
“Finch, you piece of shit. You want to talk to Jonesy, why don’t you ask instead of getting violent? Ah, look at his nose. That’s gonna break his mother’s heart.”
The vestibule was gilded with candleless sconces and vacant art frames and opened into a parlor both lavish and empty. Unopened crates contained the majority of the furniture and finery. A wide staircase to my left swept upward but before I could go for it a set of double doors parted and out came Jonesy, a bald, pear-shaped man possessed of the unique talent of making bow ties look intimidating. His heels made heavy clumps across the marble.
“You busted Pavia’s nose, you know that, you testa di cavolo?”
The speed with which he had received this news amazed me, though I resigned myself to letting that particular mystery go unsolved. I reached into my jacket and withdrew my Peacemaker. Jonesy slumped his shoulders in exasperation.
“Have you gone batty?”
“I want to see him.”
“Why don’t you put that thing away before you embarrass yourself?”
I lifted my head and shouted into faraway, curtained corners.
“TESTA! GET OUT HERE!”
“Madonna,” groaned Jonesy. “You’re going to be Swiss cheese if you don’t knock it off.”
I pointed the Peacemaker at a lamp and fired. Instead of exploding into dust, as had every other lamp I had joyfully demolished in my life, the bullet punched a hole through one side and exited the other, eliciting a carefree ding and a tulip of white dust. I stomped my foot like a child and looked for something noisier to shoot.
Five men arrived at the parlor aiming four snub-noses and a single bolt-action rifle. Among them was poor disfigured Pavia, who used a winter scarf to staunch the blood streaming from his crooked nose. I aimed my own weapon back at Jonesy. There was a clicking chorus of hammers being pulled back. I took a deep breath to shout out for Testa before things got loud.
Like magic he responded before I could do it.
“Kid. You’re killing me.”
He appeared at the same doorway from which Jonesy had emerged, draped in a shiny red kimono. He held a small gun, too, but it hung uncocked at his side. He waved back his retinue of triggermen.
“Everyone relax. This is Finch. Finch just recently went insane but we’re going to see what we can do about that. Now—” He cut himself off, noticing something to my right. He narrowed his eyes into a red-hot glare.
“You shot my lamp?”
“Boss, I didn’t want to tell you,” said Jonesy.
“That was the only lamp in this fucking place that I liked.”
My Peacemaker weighed a ton.
“Why not that davenport behind you?” asked he. “You could take target practice on it for all I care. It’d be a mercy killing.”
“Boss,” sighed Jonesy. “We’ll send it back, I told you.”
Testa swore beneath his breath and started back through the double doors.
“Come here. And put that pop-gun down before you murder any more furniture.”
The door was closed behind me after I entered. We were alone, Testa and I, for the first time ever, in a room centered by a long, sculpted table and a crystal chandelier. No doubt it had been intended for formal dining purposes, but the notebooks and city maps, not to mention the combination safes lined up against the back wall, told me that Testa had repurposed the space as base camp for general operations. On the far side of the table lay a strange two-handled gun with the oddest-looking magazine. Testa wandered toward it and picked it up.
“Just a prototype. Thing’s as useful as my nephew. But one day, Finch, when the smart guys figure out the mechanics, a gun like this is going to own this town. You wait and see. I’ll have five hundred of these babies. You might have one or two yourself. Replace that lit match you’re packing.”
He bent his knees and curled his bottom lip like a boy playing cops and robbers and pretended to shoot. With his spiffy new toy and posh pajamas, he looked happier than I’d ever seen him. He scurried about the room, slaughtering squadrons of imaginary police with a clip of bullets that never seemed to run out. He ducked behind a few slender columns and peeked at me as if getting the drop.
“Bang. Gotcha, Finch.”
“Where is she? What did you do with her?”
Testa leaned his shoulders onto two columns so that his amused face emerged from between them, begging to be hammered.
“You know how many sciupafemmini like you come to me moaning about a missing girl? You think I got a spare room somewhere where I stockpile them? That might sound like a fun idea to you, but when you get older, your priorities change. You expend your energy in different ways. What you don’t do is go shaking your little pistola in the face of the guy who gives you your payday.”
“Just tell me where she is.”
“Where who is? You hear what I’m saying? Look, I don’t like to get emotional
. But you’re emotional, so I’ll make an exception. You’re just a kid, Finch, but I like you. You think I’d let just anyone come in here and shoot my lamp? That’s a compliment, free of charge—but it’s the only one you get. Now be smart and back off. We got a lot of work to do together.”
He could see as well as anyone the blood and tomatoes smeared across my suit. They say that a leopard cannot change his spots; neither, perhaps, can a gunman scrub his clothing hard enough to wash away the red.
My voice was no more commanding than broken wind.
“Is she okay? Can you at least tell me that?”
Testa caressed the columns.
“First off, I’m not saying I know anything about any flatbacker. But I might have heard by the by how you had a special one. Maybe she could screw the paint off a wall; if so, congratulations. Chances are—aw, look, Finch, it’s a hard world. Chances are she caught herself the clap. Or met the wrong guy and he did her in. But, hey, why be pessimistic? How about some Arabian prince fell in love and whisked her off to a life of luxury? Shit, she probably just got tired of it. Walked away. Think of it this way: if she was smart, she left. Was she smart?”
I found myself nodding. Yes, that had to be it. I had not misjudged her affection for me. She’d simply made her overdue escape from Patterson’s. I should, in fact, be glad about it.
“Well,” said Testa, “there you go. We done here?”
Isn’t it interesting how certain moments grow ever fatter in your mind, eating your other memories one by one so that, one day, they will be the last memory left?
I have long wondered if Testa was aware of the double-edged brilliance of his question. If I did not kill him in that room that very second, the only other option was to redouble a dedication to the Black Hand that had eroded since meeting Wilma Sue. There could be no second-guessing my choice between her and Luca Testa, not if I valued my sanity. Besides, how would I ever find her?
I had never bothered to learn her last name.
Said I, “Yes. We’re done.”
“Good.” He clapped twice. The doorknobs rattled behind my back and I smelled the dusty inrush of parlor air. “Jonesy, fill in Finch about the De Gravio letter. We gotta deliver this one today. Wait till you see this buffone. I wouldn’t change into a clean suit, not yet.”
Jonesy gripped my shoulder. I became aware of a letter with the Black Hand symbol being pressed into my palm. Details were supplied regarding names, places, and times. Soon I began letting these facts displace the memory of that “flatbacker” of mine in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. In lieu of her, I had her stolen heart, the Excelsior, which would now beat in replacement of my discarded original. Funny how long I have depended on the thing—for over a century. Like me, it is a machine of astonishing durability.
VI.
LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR passed between Wilma Sue’s disappearance and my offing, but oh, was it a fruitful time for Zebulon Finch. With Wilma Sue I had toyed with tenderness; in order to forget her, I mastered ferocity. What time was there to think of her, or where she might be, when there were so many lips to split and arms to break? Testa’s fertile mind continued to bear bloodthirsty fruit, though as business accelerated, I saw less of the man himself.
His final, and most fateful, piece of advice came when he tagged along with Jonesy to question me concerning a roustabout from which I’d left with a busted lip. I attempted to collect the draining blood in a cupped palm while Testa repeated one of his favorite chestnuts, that so long as I insisted on entering into each confrontation as a dog bounds after a skunk, I would be no stranger to a spray of ass. He insisted that there was but one way to survive in this business.
“You don’t need to show it, bimbo,” said he. “But you gotta have fear in your heart.”
It was a slip of advice I did not heed.
The job that winded the clockwork of my murder began in March of 1896. From out of the mist (so it seemed) had risen an enclave populated by good-looking immigrants from a tiny island off the heel of Italy. They lived at the elbow of two unremarkable streets and had adopted a socialist lifestyle wherein each family took up the job most needed by the community. You need only visit the neighborhood on a Saturday to see these sturdy folk line their carts upon a wildflowered knoll and trade goods. Ne’er a penny changed hands.
We called them the “Triangulinos” because of the tattoos worn on their left biceps: a triangle made of triangles. This insignia lent the otherwise congenial immigrants the aura of a posse; one got the impression that they would be all too happy to die for their shared ideals. In short, they were not the sort of fraternity a man of intelligence would disrupt, which is exactly why the assignment ended up in my angry, idiot lap.
For days I strolled their borders, chewing jerky and spitting cigar butts and watching the insufferably handsome men tip their hats to their magnificent women. It would take a fine disaster indeed to bring down this bunch! I puzzled upon arsons; I mused over explosions; I considered the kidnapping of a beloved elder or some other such key figure. None of them sat right in my gut. The fires would be extinguished with awesome speed, the dynamite defused before damage was done, the kidnapped fellow eagerly self-martyred.
Jonesy claimed to sympathize with me but a man cannot sit on his hands forever. I delivered the Black Hand letter (the amount specified was extraordinary even by our standards) and waited the specified number of days for the Triangulinos to respond. Of course they did not pay, so that night I took up my club, waited in the darkened entryway of a bakery, and when one of their fine young men happened by, took out his knee with a good, swift blow. I muttered Black Hand boilerplate and made my exit.
The next day was spent urging my Excelsior to make the sun drop faster. At dusk I headed out with my club and busted an elbow. Day, night: this time it was a rib. Sleep, wake: a collarbone crumbled. A Triangulino fell each night for two weeks. Could I extend it to three? Yes, I could: the snaps and pops of broken bones became my evening lullabies.
There was nothing innovative about my dark-corner thuggery, but the sheer number and regularity of the beatings began to bestow upon me the reputation of a phantom. Soon I came to identify this as the exact notoriety I’d for so long sought. What’s more, I had achieved it without the management of Testa or the aid of additional muscle.
My experiment was closing in on a month when it came to a precipitous end. I was rambling along my now-favorite block, whistling and twirling my Excelsior, when a young man stepped before me with enough abruptness to bring me to a foppish halt. He wore his Sunday best though it was Wednesday, his hat freshly mended and his fingernails cleared of dirt. I prepared to deliver an admonishment (“I say, sir,” or something of the sort) when my eyes were drawn to the triangles-within-triangles inked into his biceps.
His arm shot forward. At last, thought I, it was my turn to experience a blade to the stomach! But the object from which I flinched was an envelope so thick with cash that it had been girdled in twine. My first thought should have been how glad Testa would be to hear of my overdue success. Instead I found myself disheartened, as if this immigrant had made an exceptional offer on a prize calf I had yet to raise to full maturity.
This barbaric business with the Triangulinos would end up being the worst thing I had ever done, or would ever do. And that, as you shall see over time, is saying a mouthful.
Within the week I graced two separate “Wanted” posters. I heard the news as I was about to dig my mitts into a basket of shaved pork, and I left it for the flies so that I could rush out and see for myself. The first likeness made me look as if I had water on the brain, but the second lent me the lackadaisical glamor of a Jesse James or John Wesley Hardin.
I tore down one example of each and hurried home to award them proud positions within my scrapbook. It had ballooned since the days of Wilma Sue. Now that I slept alone, the collected posters of my fellow criminals had
become my confidants. At night I’d whisper to them as though we shared a bunkhouse: “Good night, Butch ‘the Rat’ Higgins. Sleep well, J.R. Baker, Murderer. Until morning, Clyde Landsness, for Whom a Mighty Reward Is Offered.”
The rise of my reputation did not escape the notice of the boss. “Testa sends his regards,” said Jonesy, handing me a shiny new bottle of bourbon. But the twist of his mouth said something else: You did fine. Enjoy it. Just remember, this ain’t about you, Finch.
In my mind, of course, it was. I came to view the Triangulino affair as a prime example of the major weakness of Testa’s Black Hand. Namely, the extortion letters. They came from Jonesy sealed but I began to take peeks, only to find that they were just as I had feared: the novice jottings of the barely literate. I remembered that first meeting with Testa and how he’d mocked my offer to compose letters, asking if I thought I was Shakespeare. Well, next to these dilettantes, I was!
The first letter that I, if you will excuse the understatement, revised was for the prosperous entrepreneur butcher Salvatore Petrosino. What Jonesy handed me was claptrap: “Deny if you have Sufficient Courage this demand of $2,000 and risk all Future Happiness. Your Money or your Life is required at the following Day and Time and Location . . .”
It chagrined me as a fellow intellectual that savvy, successful Petrosino might read such solecistic drivel. I hid myself in the corner of a pub, withdrew a piece of paper, licked the tip of my pen for dramatic effect, and met the two in hopes that magic would alight.
Mr. Petrosino,
So you spear with hook your beef as it still kicks its hooves; so shall you kick when lifted by our beefiest men. So you slice your cattle from brisket to round with little thought of breath or soul; such operation to us is familiar, for we open bodies the same as we unbutton a shirt. So you collect innards within a fist; so we collect your TRUE innards, your loved ones, within ours, a fist much Blacker.