by Andy Rausch
Lefty thought it over. “Everyone always talks that talk about doing one last score. Most times it never works out or they blow all the money and have to come back and work again. They do like all the rockstars do and get rich and just piss it all away. Or maybe it's just in their blood and they can't walk away. But not me. I'm ready to quit. I wanna make this one last score, for Layla. I want to be able to walk away so I can take care of her, both in terms of parental commitment but also financially. This one is Layla's score.”
“You're a good man, Lefty. You're like a priest, only without the kiddie diddling. You're too good for this life.”
“That's why I want out. Will you come with me?”
Brooks sighed. “Let me think about it for a bit. For the time being, why don't we talk about something else.”
“What do you wanna talk about?”
“Hell if I know, kid.”
“What do you do these days, Brooks? How do you fill your days?”
“I listen to music sometimes.”
“What kind of music do you like?”
“Lots of stuff,” said Brooks. “I listen to a lot of Joe Cocker.”
“Okay,” said Lefty. “You wanna hear my thoughts on Joe Cocker?”
Brooks grinned. “You've got thoughts on Joe Cocker?”
“What? You think because I'm black I won't have thoughts about the man?”
“Could be. I honestly didn't think colored people listened to Joe Cocker. I haven't spent much time with many colored people other than Spook. I got nothing against them, but that's just the way it's worked out. But you've got thoughts about Joe Cocker?”
“I believe, with every fiber of my being, that both 'Feeling Alright' and 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' need to be put on moratorium immediately. I think this should be done for the good of all mankind.”
Brooks laughed. “Why is that?”
“'Feeling Alright' has been overused to the point of ridiculousness. Really, it's way beyond overkill at this point. Anytime they make a movie or a commercial that's geared towards Baby Boomers, they play that goddamn song. I haven't seen this, so I don't know this to be a one-hundred percent bonafide fact, but I would be willing to bet you that Cadillac I got sitting out front that there's a commercial somewhere for adult diapers that uses 'Feeling Alright.' I'm certain that exists.”
“That's not a thing,” said Brooks.
“It's completely a thing. And not only is it annoying to see and hear, but it's also degrading to both Cocker and the goddamn song. Imagine him sitting there in the studio, pouring his heart out into this thing, this work of art, just to have it put in a commercial for some dumb thing like Chevy trucks or Burger King.”
“Okay,” said Brooks. “And the other one?”
“You Can Leave Your Hat On,' along with Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On,' are the most overused 'sexy' songs on the planet. I mean, maybe not the planet. I don't know. Maybe just here. There are lots of Asians and Hindus or whatever. Maybe they got some so-called sexy songs that are used more, but we don't hear about them here. What we hear is 'You Can Leave Your Hat On.' And the point remains, those songs are completely overused and have, in the process, been artistically neutered.”
“Their balls have been cut off?”
Lefty nodded. “Their balls have been completely removed. Any bite these songs ever had is now a distant memory thanks to this wrongheaded misuse. That's why I believe those songs should be put out of their misery. It doesn't have to be forever, but we should definitely give them a break. I think they've earned it.”
“Interesting,” said Brooks, nodding. “And you said you don't believe in Jesus?”
“He needs a moratorium placed on him, too. If he existed, and that's a big if, mind you, historians didn't think enough of him to even record a single word about him. And I don't mean the Bible, but actual records from the time. And this was a man who was executed as an enemy of the state and supposedly rose from the dead. Somehow no one found those events significant enough to record. I find that more than a little bit suspicious, but the reason I bring it up is because we've now done a complete 360 and he's mentioned everywhere. You can't go into a gas station without seeing tracts. You can't go into a public bathroom and take a shit without seeing Bible verses scrawled on the stall. I don't know about you, but I don't wanna think about Jesus while I'm taking a shit.”
Brooks laughed. “I don't wanna think about anyone while I'm taking a shit.”
“Precisely my point. It's not that I got anything against Jesus, per se. I'm sure if he existed he was a cool guy, had his good qualities or whatever, but come on, man, I'm trying to take a shit here. I don't need to know that Kilroy was there or that I can call Linda for a good time. And most of all I don't need to read about the divinity of Jesus. Not then, not there. I just wanna take my shit in peace.”
“You're a funny kid,” said Brooks. “You remind me of your old man. He was a hoot. He was angry and cranky most of the time, but then he would say something that would catch me offguard; something funny that would have me in stitches, cracking up. He was one of a kind. I've never met another man like him.”
“Would you want to?”
“Not really,” said Brooks. He changed the subject. “Let's talk about this contract in Detroit.”
“You're interested?”
“Maybe,” said Brooks. “But I wanna know who the mark is.”
“The mark's name is Bruno De Lorenzo.”
“De Lorenzo? Like the crime boss?”
“Antonio De Lorenzo is his daddy.”
“That changes things,” said Brooks. “I don't have a long time left to live on this planet, but I don't wanna spend my final years watching over my shoulder, waiting for some gunman who's half my age to pop out and whack me.”
“Bruno De Lorenzo's supposed to be a real piece of shit,” said Lefty.
“Most of these guys are. What makes this one so special that he's worth two million dollars?”
“He's evil. He's done some objectively bad stuff. You haven't heard about any of that?”
“No,” said Brooks. “I've been out of the game for a long time. I left, and I didn't look back. I got no ties whatsoever. What kind of stuff did Bruno De Lorenzo do?”
“Bad stuff,” said Lefty. “I mean, really awful shit.”
“Like what? Give me an example.”
“Alright,” said Lefty. “I'll tell you a story I heard…”
Four
The Story Lefty Heard
Bruno De Lorenzo was the talk of the Detroit crime world. He'd had a well-known reputation of being crazy since he was a teenager. Way back then, before he was even old enough to be a gangster, he was already doing gangster shit. During a dispute between the De Lorenzo family and a rival drug kingpin, a then sixteen-year-old Bruno took it upon himself to whack out said kingpin, leaving a messy bloodbath in his wake. He'd lied at the door, somehow managing to gain entrance into the man's lair, and then went inside and murdered six people, including the boss, leaving their brains spattered on the walls like some kind of grotesque Jackson Pollock art display. As he grew older, Bruno's thirst for blood became more and more insatiable.
At the age of twenty-two he'd shoved a beloved Mafioso captain from a balcony in a dispute over a questionable call during a World Series game the two were watching together. Most of the De Lorenzo crime family had been outraged over the incident, but Don Antonio had stepped in, defending his crazy offspring. In the years to come, Bruno became the enfant terrible of the crime world.
Stories of Bruno raping women and torturing enemy mobsters were a dime a dozen, many of them completely embellished or exaggerated at the least. But a great many of the stories were true. Bruno De Lorenzo had become the boogeyman, a mythologized figure whose powers for evil were discussed and analyzed, making him a crime world legend for all the wrong reasons. He became fodder for jokes, but no one ever dared speak them in his presence, for if they did, everyone was fully aware of what the outcome would b
e.
Bruno was given free reign to do as he pleased in the Detroit crime world, and he made the most of it, controlling a stable of prostitutes, overseeing collections for his father's business, and operating as an extremely-successful loan shark. In this last endeavor he'd become known as a man you didn't want to miss a payment to. If you did, the results were generally unfavorable to say the least.
Joe Abelli, a longtime associate of Don Antonio's, had pushed his luck to the max, missing not one but two payments to Bruno. It was a modern day miracle Abelli had survived the first non-payment with his limbs and digits intact, but his missing a second payment all but ensured a reprisal.
“You got big balls, Joe,” Bruno said, standing over him, wielding a Roberto Clemente-signature ball bat. They were in Bruno's swanky 22nd floor penthouse, where Abelli was sitting on a plush leather ottoman, fearing for his life. By this point Bruno's goons, Pino and Dom, had already beaten the living hell out of the fifty-two-year-old Abelli, cracking and possibly breaking several of his ribs.
But Bruno hadn't killed him. Not yet, and it seriously looked as though Abelli might live to see another cannoli. But he wasn't out of the woods yet, not by a long shot. Should he survive the day, there would be a time for rejoicing later, but this wasn't it.
“You needed a loan,” said Bruno. “You pissed away all your money betting on the ponies down at Hazel Park. But you didn't go to the bank to get that loan, did you?”
Abelli shook his head. “No, I didn't.”
“Why didn't you go to the bank, Joe?”
“Because they wouldn't give me the money.”
“Right,” said Bruno. “They wouldn't give your sorry ass the money. But wasn't it also because you didn't want your wife to know how much you lost? Let's call a nigger a nigger here. Call it what it is. That was the real reason, wasn't it, Joe? If you got a legitimate, above-board loan from a reputable financial institution, she'd find out what a miserable no-good piece of shit you are. I mean, why else would anyone risk borrowing money from a crazy fuck like me?”
Bruno laughed at his joke while Abelli nodded in agreement.
But Bruno wasn't satisfied. “Say it. Say the fuckin' words, Joe.”
“You're right,” said Abelli. “I didn't want her to know.”
“So you came to me.”
“I came to you.”
Bruno grinned. “How you feeling about that decision now, Joe? You still feel like that was a good idea? That workin' out good for you?” Bruno pointed the barrel of the bat at him. “But back to the point at hand… I graciously…out of the goodness of my own heart…loaned you the money you needed, did I not?”
“You did.”
“You're right, I did,” agreed Bruno. “$20,000 cash. But now, when it comes time for you to pay the vig, you got nothin' for me. That's kinda fucked up, Joe. This feels like a one-sided friendship. Here I am, taking you out to the movies and dinner, giving you roses and chocolates, but you ain't got no pussy for me. That's real fucked up, Joe.” Bruno looked over at his goons. “Isn't that fucked up, guys?”
Pino and Dom both grinned. Abelli stared up at Bruno, blinking, but not pushing his luck so far as to speak.
“This is the second time you haven't had my money,” said Bruno. He looked over at Pino and Dom again, putting on a show for them. “After I gave you the money, you got nothin' for me. I find that offensive, Joe. I find that downright unfortunate. I mean, who does that, Joe? Who the fuck does that?”
Abelli said nothing.
“I'll bet you had the money, too, didn't you, Joe? I'll bet you had the money set aside to pay me, and then… What did you do, Joe? You went back to the track, didn't you? You went back down there and lost all your money again, didn't you?”
Abelli started to cry. He didn't want to cry, but that didn't stop the tears from flowing. “I didn't go to the track.”
Bruno was startled by Abelli's audacity. He leaned forward. “What did you say?”
“I didn't take the money to the track.”
“But you had it, right?” said Bruno. “At some point you had the money set aside to pay me, didn't you?”
Abelli nodded.
“What did you do with it, Joe?”
Abelli looked up. “Lottery tickets.”
Bruno looked at him, not believing what he was hearing. “You bought lottery tickets with the money?”
“I did.”
“That's a lot of goddamn lottery tickets,” said Bruno. “And you still didn't win anything? That's some real piss-poor luck you got, Joe.”
Abelli said, “I won some free tickets.”
Bruno looked at him as though he was the dumbest piece of shit on the planet. “What do you think I should do here? If you were me, what would you do in my situation? How would you handle this little bit of fuckery you've presented me with?”
Abelli considered it. “I'd give me another chance.”
Bruno chuckled, looking up at the goons, encouraging them to laugh, as well. They did. “Somehow I knew you'd say that, Joe. Somehow I knew that shit. I must be psychic or somethin'.” He paused for a moment, starting to pace, thumping the barrel of the bat against his open palm. “You don't think I should break all your bones?” He stared at Abelli, expecting an answer. “Should I crush in your skull?”
“No, I don't think so.”
Bruno looked at him with a tired expression on his face. “Why is that, Joe? Tell me why I shouldn't bash your head in. I'm all ears.”
Abelli struggled to find an answer, eventually landing on, “If you kill me, you won't get your money.”
Bruno nodded. “Good a reason as any, I guess. Not entirely accurate, but we'll go with that. I'll tell you what, Joe. I'm feeling magnanimous today. I'm gonna let you slide this time, with no broken bones. With your life intact. What do you say about that?”
Abelli started to cry harder. “Thank you, Bruno. Thank you.”
“But I'm gonna need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” said Abelli. “Just name it.”
“You got a daughter, correct?”
Abelli was instantly stricken with fear. “I got two daughters.”
“The little one,” said Bruno. “How old is the youngest one?”
“That's Jess. She just turned eleven.”
“I want you to bring her up here to see me. I wanna have a talk with her.”
Abelli bit his lip, worried. “Why?”
“I wanna tell her some things about her degenerate fucking gambler father. That okay with you?”
“You promise you won't hurt her?”
Bruno looked over at Pino and Dom. “What? You think I'm in the business of hurtin' kids, Joe? What kind of guy do you think I am? Do I strike you as the kind of guy who goes around hurtin' kids? If I crossed my heart and hoped to die, would that ease your mind?”
Abelli said nothing, afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“I'm guessing you've heard some stuff about me. Tell me, Joe, what have you heard? What's the word on the street about Bruno De Lorenzo?”
Abelli struggled. “I just heard you can be…”
“Cruel?” Bruno asked, a twisted smile on his face.
Abelli nodded.
“Tell you what, Joe. If you don't bring your daughter Jess to come and see me, you're gonna find out what cruelty really means. Your whole family will. I'll bring such great pain and suffering down on your house that you'll think Job had it good. You remember Job, from the Bible?”
“Yeah.”
“God did all kinds of fucked up shit to that man. Gave him worms, killed his kids, killed his livestock, destroyed his crops… And you know what? That's not even close to what I'll do to your ass—to the collective asses of every single person you love—if you don't do what I ask and bring that little girl to come and see me. Capeesh?”
Abelli nodded. “I got it.”
Bruno looked at him. “Do you?”
“I'll bring her to you.”
Abelli spent
the next day seriously contemplating suicide. He had dug himself into a hole he now feared he would not be able to climb out of. The determining factor of his deciding not to take his own life was the realization that such an act would not stop Bruno's wrath against his family, and would probably even motivate him to inflict more damage. So, against his better judgment, Abelli decided to just get it over with and bring Jess to see the man.
As they rode on the elevator, some crap music playing in there, Abelli prepared the little girl. “We are going to meet a man today,” he said. “He's going to talk to you. But… I should tell you he's going to say some bad things about your father. That's just the way it is, there's nothing we can do about it. So you just do me a favor and don't say anything back to him unless he asks you a question. Try not to get upset by what he says, and when we're finished, I'll take you to that ice cream parlor you like…”
She perked up at this. Now he was speaking her language. She looked at him, her eyes big. “We'll go to Ice Cream Dream?”
Abelli nodded. “Just me and you, kid. I'll let you get whatever you want.”
“I want pineapple ice cream.”
“Pineapple ice cream then.”
“With gummy bears on top.”
“Sure,” Abelli said. “Lots of gummy bears.”
“And Fruity Pebbles.”
“Right,” he said, nodding again. “Sounds good.”
“Yum,” she said, smiling.
“But let's talk about this man for a moment. He's not a very nice man.”
“Then why are we talking to him?”
“That's a good question,” said Abelli. “But Daddy works with him. He's like a boss, and sometimes bosses aren't very nice people. Sometimes they're dicks.”
She looked at him solemnly. “Is that a bad word?”
“Yes, it is. It's a grown-up word. Only grown-ups can say that one.”
“Okay,” she said, considering it. “Can I say it when I'm a grown-up?”
“Sure. You can say anything you want when you're a grown-up. So what are you gonna do if this man says mean things?”