by Tiana Laveen
“Ya want this over? The blood bath continues until one of you sons of bitches tells me where the fuck Luciano and Fred are!” he called out, going from room to room, killing. And killing. And killing. His arms and hands burned as he kept on, then took a moment to reload one of his pistols.
He made his way into a bedroom. Dusky rose frills and the smell of cheap perfume and baby powder overwhelmed his senses. A woman lay there in a bed, naked. Screaming. He could tell from the sheets that were perfectly made, she hadn’t been there long. She was bluffing, trying to appear oblivious to what was happening around her. Oh, she definitely knew something…
“Where in the fuck is Luciano and Fred?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about! Please don’t shoot me!” She raised her arms, waving her hands about and causing her big tits to bounce in an almost cartoonish way.
He’d about heard enough.
“If you don’t tell me where the fuck they are, lady, after I shoot every stupid ass motherfucker in this house, I’ll head to your father’s home and kill him, too. In fact, I will kill every male in your entire fuckin’ bloodline until there’s nothing left but a bunch of Amys and Kates.”
She glared at him.
He raised his gun and calmly cocked it.
“If you think I’m bluffin’, let me introduce myself. I’m Casper, bitch.”
Recognition registered upon her face.
“Shit! Please! Okay!” she sobbed. “In the basement! They’re in the basement!”
As he tore out of the room, he heard shouting, followed by footsteps.
“There he is!”
Two men approached him, guns blazing. He returned fire, taking each of them out with rapid shots to the chest, then the head. Never make a threat you don’t intend to keep. Never leave a man alive to tell the tale… He reached the basement door and opened it, only to be met with darkness. It smelled dank, musty, and was eerily quiet. He searched for a light, but it was fried. Sliding one gun back into his jacket, he pulled out his lighter and made his way down the uneven, splintered steps. They groaned under his weight. He could hear sobbing – deep, male cries. As he got to the bottom step, he immediately turned to his right and shot blind. Someone tried to rush him from the corner of the room and he knew from the shadow, it sure as hell wasn’t Fred or Luciano. The big guy dropped to the ground, and when he turned to his left, he found Fred tied to an old wobbly chair, bleeding from the mouth.
“Jesus Christ…” He quickly untied him and yanked him up from the seat by his arm.
“Angelo, I—”
“Keep your fuckin’ voice down. Where the hell is Luciano?” He held the flame close to Fred’s face. “I already know he’s dead, motherfucker. Where did they put his body, Fred?”
“I don’t know,” Fred whispered. “I haven’t seen him since this mornin’… They killed him.” His nose twitched as his bloodshot eyes became suddenly glossy. His face was covered with nicks and fresh bruising. “I know that much. They wanted money, Angelo! It all went wrong. They thought I had money, man! It was a set up. And then they shot Luc, man. Ahhh, fuck, man!” He sobbed.
“Shut the hell up! You’re making too much noise. I can’t leave here without my cousin. Do ya fuckin’ understand me? We don’t leave family, dead or alive. I’m gonna get you outta here, and get him, too. Hold this lighter and keep the flame goin’ so I can see my way outta here.”
“But Angelo, I—”
Just then a series of loud footsteps came storming down the staircase. He pushed Fred aside and opened fire with a gun in each hand.
“Fred, kill the flame and drop down on the ground!”
He could hear the strangers’ every move, and they’d have a hard time finding him in the dark. They were clumsy and unprepared, their stammering predictable. He knew the steps they’d take before they took them. Even through all of the commotion, the disturbance in the air was clear as someone moved to the left or right. He could pick up the all too familiar stench of fear, adrenaline, and panic-induced sweat. And then he shot in that direction, never letting up until he heard that body drop. Then another. Then a third. Screams and deep groans rent the air. Grabbing Fred’s arm, he brought him close.
“Stay directly behind me.”
They stepped over several dead bodies, but one was still hanging on, the fella gasping for air. Angelo’s gaze fixed on his shadowed face in the dark while death crept close and life faded.
“Bring the lighter closer, Fred.”
He could see the slight shape of a clean-shaven chin now, and he scanned the body it was attached to as the man bled out. Some of the blood was smeared on his pants, a darker hue, not fresh at all.
“I bet you’re the one that pulled the trigger on my cousin. Yeah… that’s Luciano’s blood all ova ya, isn’t it? You spilled my cousin’s blood, you cocksucker you. I can see it on ya. Smell it on ya. Hear it on ya. Taste your satisfaction as he drew his last breath. Well, now you’re about to take yours… See ya in hell.”
He gave the guy a wink, then a swift kick to the head, then another, and another, stomping him out, causing the moron to choke on his own blood. Soon, all was quiet. Fred whimpered, breaking the silence.
“Be quiet, Fred, and kill the lighter,” he ordered.
They were on the move again, ascending the steps which creaked and sighed like the moans of a disgruntled ghost.
Their footsteps blended with the noise of their own harsh breathing. When they reached the top step, he opened the door and entered the kitchen. Fred stiffened at the sight that greeted them. It was carnage all around. The light shined upon body after body he’d taken down in a matter of seconds before getting to the basement.
“Stay close to me, but look around. Help me find Luc.” Fred stepped to his side and nodded in understanding. “I doubt they took him upstairs. He’s too big, and they’re lazy.”
“He wasn’t in the basement with me, either. I almost passed out at one point, but I was coherent,” Fred whispered.
They drifted from room to room, and then, he noticed one small closet that was partially ajar. He opened it, and out fell Luciano’s ghostly white, bloodied dead body with a gaping hole in the back of the head. He caught the body right before it hit the ground. His limbs were a bit stiff. Rigor Mortis had started to set in.
“AHHH, FUCK! LUCIANO! LUC! OH, MAN!” Fred yelled, coming undone. Angelo quickly grabbed his dead cousin and turned him over to see the poor guy’s eyes still open as he struggled to hold the dead weight.
“Fred! Pull yourself the fuck together and grab his gotdamn legs. We gotta get outta here!” The two of them hauled Luciano’s cumbersome body towards the front entrance he’d blown up earlier. Just as they were about to step out onto the small porch and beat it, shots rang out once again.
“FUCK!” Angelo’s shoulder got hit. An immediate burning sensation radiated throughout his body and a piercing pain joined it in an aching accord, forcing him to drop Luciano. Gripping his bleeding arm, he looked up, and there at the top of the steps stood big fucking Patrick, his face beet red, his eyes even redder, holding a rifle. He shot at them again, but this time, he missed.
BAM!
Using his good arm, Angelo shot Patrick in the neck. Blood sprayed from the hole, and Patrick’s screams rattled the entire damn house. He shot at the man again, and again, until the bastard tumbled down the steps towards them like a giant snowball and landed at the bottom in a fleshy, bloodied heap. His body was distorted and grossly mangled, the broken appendages twisted in awkward positions.
Some lady was screaming, and Angelo assumed it was the same broad he’d encountered in the rose colored room. She sounded as if she’d gone upstairs now, and he could hear running footsteps – but they were becoming fainter, as if she were trying to find a place to hide. When he turned around, Fred was puking his guts out on the porch. Luciano’s body lay next to them with his dead eyes, graying complexion, and hardening appendages, looking up at the sky. Fighting through the
pain in his shoulder, Angelo grabbed his cousin’s body once again, grunting.
“Fred, I don’t have time for this shit. Grab his fuckin’ feet. Let’s go!”
Moments later, Luciano’s body was in the backseat of his car. Fred had gone pale, as if he too were dead. The guy kept quiet, barely even breathing. Angelo drove down the street, the window cracked, smoking a cigarette while ‘Hey Joe,’ by Jimi Hendrix, played in the car.
“You’re not gonna sit there and turn comatose on me. Open your fuckin’ mouth and tell me how the hell this happened.”
Fred audibly swallowed, then slumped forward, staring at his feet.
“We came, and at first, everything was fine. About twenty minutes into the meeting, they uh, wanted to speak to me privately. Asked Luc to step outta the room. Luc refused, said that where I go, he goes. Things got crazy, they started tryna shake me down, wanted me to call people and get money. Turns out, they didn’t need another runner; they wanted my connections. Wanted to start a gambling operation, but ya know, it takes money to make money. Said I could help run it. That was a lie. I knew at that point, I was fucked. They handed me the phone, told me to call all these different people to get cash, but nobody picked up. Then, I thought to call Hector. I knew you weren’t home, but I remember you sayin’ you’d be in that area near his store today. Said ya had errands.”
“And then what?”
“So, I called Hector. I was, uh… scared. They had a gun to my head. It was the only person I could think of that might have a little bread and would pick up the phone. As I was on the phone with him, Pat threatened Luciano because—”
“You were on the phone with Hector’s son. Danny. Danny actually was the one who answered the phone, Fred. Tony cleared that up for me.”
The man looked a bit confused, but simply nodded and continued.
“Okay, well, uh, Danny then. Luciano said to take the fuckin’ gun off me. They refused. He said that was it, he was finished, and we were leaving. That this wasn’t what I came for. He and another guy started arguing, and that guy pulled out his gun, but Luc was faster and shot him, Angelo. Then… then before I knew it, another one jumped up and shot Luc up. You know the guy, the same fella you saw in the basement. Luc fell to the ground, but… he was still alive even after all of that. He tried to crawl away. To get away…” He paused, and started to sob once more. Up and down his shoulders heaved, trembling. “People started screamin’, and then, Pat stood over Luc and shot him again, in the back of the head. He shot him, Angelo! Killed him dead!”
Fred started blubbering again, falling to pieces. Angelo just kept on driving slowly. “Then, it was a mad house. Everyone in there panicked. I heard ’em sayin’ that the guy fucked up! Ya know, the one that shot Luciano. Pat said he had to finish him off, that the damage was already done. They were all arguing amongst themselves. They got into it, and Pat was in his face sayin’ that ya don’t shoot a guy like Luciano, and definitely not anyone he’s in business with! Jesus! They knew they were screwed, man. They knew it!”
“…And then what?”
“Pat told the guy who shot him to put his body somewhere, out of the way. Things got all crazy. I sat there while they made some calls, tryna figure out what to do. They said they were already in too deep. Before all of this happened, Luc had told them he was there to lend moral support. Said he was a friend of mine, and since they knew him, they let him stay at first. Everyone knows you two are related, though. Everyone knows, besides me, that he was your right hand. They knew they fucked up when they killed him, Angelo, ’cause then they’d have to deal with you and anyone else who got sicced on ’em. You two looked out for one another… and I know, before you even say it, man!” Fred turned to him, his face red and splotchy, the bleeding cuts in his flesh a sure sign he’d been tortured. “Ya told me to not deal with them! I KNOW YA FUCKIN’ TOLD ME, MAN! I’m sorry, Angelo! I’m really fuckin’ sorry.”
Angelo lit a fresh cigarette and puffed away while ‘The World is a Ghetto,’ by War, was playing.
“Angelo, you gotta believe me, man. The conversations went good at first, ya know? No problem. They didn’t want Luciano there though. He refused to budge. He followed your orders.”
“Don’t you ever, in your fuckin’ miserable, maggot life, try ’nd pin my cousin’s death on me.”
“I… I’m not, Angelo! I’m just saying he was loyal, is all.”
Angelo glanced through the rear-view mirror at his cousin laid out in the back. His face looked peaceful. He’d crossed his arms over his body and closed his eyes, as if he were already in a casket. Waves of sorrow pulled him under. He hadn’t wanted to feel that way ever again; the pain of losing someone you cared about so deeply had a way of ripping your damn soul out of your chest.
“Loyal, huh? Yeah. Loyalty is an interesting concept, now isn’t it?” He puffed on his cigarette, needing to get a few things off of his chest. “For most of our lives, since we were kids, Fred, you’ve always gotten into jams. You’ve always tried to be someone you’re fuckin’ not!” Fred hung his head. “Ya wanted to be a fuckin’ gangster… Ya wanted to be big time! You’d beg me, when we were younger, to tag along everywhere I went. Ya wanted everything I had, everything I was, and I kept tryna protect you from it. You just couldn’t accept yourself for the good square you are. Naturally. Fred, I told you a million fuckin’ times that men like me are born, not made. We’re then cultivated by our fathers, uncles, pimps, whores, drug dealers – whoever gets their hands on us and decides to teach us, mold us, school us, once they see we’ve got that dark seed.
“Dark seeds bring money. They bring fear. They give growth to power. You don’t think there’s a price for that?! You don’t think we pay in some way? SEEDS NEED WATER, AND WE PAY WITH OUR FUCKIN’ BLOOD! THIS IS HOW WE FUCKIN’ PAY!” The car rocked as he snapped around and pointed angrily at his cousin’s dead body. “You didn’t have this horrible shit inside of you. You were good! Ya saw it as an insult, all these years, when I’d tell ya you had nothing to prove. We liked ya just how you were, Fred. You had the life a lot of guys like me wanted, if we could swing it. But no…” He laughed dismally. “The grass was always greener on the other side. Everyone liked ya, Fred. But you never liked yourself.”
Fred pressed his head against the window, his eyes full of tears.
“I’m sorry, Angelo,” he repeated for a third time.
“Sorry won’t cut it. Sorry didn’t do it, Fred. You did. I warned you about these guys! I begged ya not to go over there. I then find out you defied me, wanted to do it anyway, tempt fate, so I call my main man, my cousin, one of my best fuckin’ friends, and ask him to accompany ya so that nothing shady goes down. And this is how it ends… You’ve been trying to destroy your life for years. For a while you got on a good track. You even went to college for a bit, got married, had some kids. Nah, life wasn’t perfect, your wife is a cunt sometimes, but she loves ya, and you love her. Your life was fine. It was fuckin’ normal, and you pissed it away.”
He came to a red light and stopped.
“Angelo, I know you’re cross with me. I know—”
“Cross?” He sucked his teeth. “Cross isn’t the word, Fred. I gotta drive Luc over to his ol’ lady, a woman who’s like a sister to me, and tell her that her husband is dead. She’s given birth to four of his kids, and her belly is big with the fifth. I gotta tell my grandma that another one of her grandchildren got popped. She knows the life he and I live, just like she knew what my father did, her son-in-law. We just don’t talk about it. But now, I gotta bring this shit to her front door! I gotta go to my nonna and tell ’er that her poor Luciano is gone. Ain’t no comin’ back from the dead. He’s gone for good!” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “Luciano was like a brother to me. We understood one another. I’ve lost my cousin, and I’ve lost my friend. All because you couldn’t stand to be normal…”
Nothing else was said for the rest of the ride home. Angelo pulled up to Luciano’s apartment, park
ed the car, and went inside. As if in a fog, he looked Marie in the eyes and told her the horrible truth. The short woman with the long black hair and big dark brown eyes fainted in his arms. After helping her come to, he went out the door. And then he stood there. Unmoving. Staring at his car. At Fred.
Moments later, he snapped out of it and approached his Firebird, unzipping his jacket with the bullet hole in the shoulder along the way. His arm was feeling heavier and heavier, and blood was trickling down his chest from the wound, sticking to his shirt. He could hear Marie’s scream as he sat in the driver’s seat. His world was crumbling. The wailing went on and on from that moment forward. It didn’t stop. It wracked his brain. It would haunt him all damn night. Perhaps longer than that.
“Angelo, aren’t we leaving Luc here?” Fred said with concern in his eyes.
“No. Change of plans.”
Tossing the jacket on the floor of the vehicle, he turned the car on and pulled away from the curb.
“Angelo, you… you’re bleeding a lot from your arm there. You’re shot. We gotta get you to the hospital.”
“It’s a graze.”
“It’s not a graze. It’s bleeding bad. You need help!”
“It’s a fuckin’ graze. Shut the hell up.”
“Angelo, if ya hate me so damn much, why do you keep me around, huh?!” the man yelled, sounding more pitiful than angry. “I thought we were friends. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. I’ve been there for ya! When you call, I drop everything and come, but you always make me feel like I’m stupid! A liability!”
The sounds of ‘My Life’ by Billy Joel filled the space, overwhelming him. He turned it down a notch to listen to Fred bitch and moan.
“Fred,” he stroked his goatee, trying to not go off the deep end, “that’s because you and Luc were two of the few people I knew who would never stab me in the fuckin’ back. That’s why I kept ya around, Fred. You are an idiot, but you’re my friend, like a brother, and you’re steadfast. And there’s more to it.”