by John Prindle
These little pinpricks of evil sting every Tom, Jeff, and Judy when the stress level gets high enough. But Tom, Jeff, and Judy don't act. They stand on the safe side of that line, afraid to cross over. And there's no crime in a thought. Not yet, anyway.
* * * *
Me and Carlino were parked in his BMW M5 (with tinted windows, of course) out in front of Bullfrog's apartment. It was midnight, and I felt like I had a “kick me” sign on my back, the black BMW stood out like the sorest of thumbs. I told Carlino all about Dan the Man's concept of driving a car that doesn't scream criminal.
“What am I s'posed to drive, a Prius?”
“Great mileage,” I said.
“Sorry, Sam. You only live once. I can afford gasoline.”
We sat and waited. Carlino checked his watch religiously, a chunky gold number about as subtle as the BMW.
“Where the hell is he?”
“He'll be here,” I said, glad that Bullfrog was late. Gave me a chance to talk about my restructuring plans for the Corporation. And if Carlino wasn't interested? Well, he wouldn't rat me out to Frank Conese. Not for hinting at mutiny. Backstabbing and double-crossing? Just part of the game, no matter what line of work you're in.
“I've been thinking,” I said.
“Don't wear yourself out.”
“As soon as Dan the Man croaks, Eddie's gone.”
Carlino didn't say anything.
“Maybe there's a way around it. You and me, if we work together, maybe we could get rid of the real problem, and get you into a prime spot.”
“Like where?” Carlino said.
“Frank's spot.”
“Frank?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You're the new Frank.”
A truck rumbled past and let out a hissing sigh.
“I'm the new Frank?”
“You could be,” I said.
We were both quiet for a moment.
“How's Dan holding up?” Carlino said. “You seen him?”
“Not for a while. Eddie sees him quite a bit.”
“Thought you were friends.”
“That's why I don't want to see him.”
“He looks bad?”
“Real bad,” I said.
I looked at the wrinkly texture of the black dashboard.
“You can't whack Frank Conese,” Carlino said. He pulled out his pack of smokes. Lit one. Cracked the window. “And even if you could, the Corporation would put an X on you so big you could see it a mile away. Bad idea. Goddamn, Ronnie. Why'd you go and say that?”
I watched a distant cat start to cross the street, but a passing car spooked it back into the shadows.
“So how would we do it?” Carlino said. “You know—hypothetically.”
“We call a meeting with Frank. At Calasso's. Then we kill him.”
“What a plan. Genius. Wow. What about that marble-eyed freak, and the psycho beaner? If you so much as look at Frank Conese the wrong way, Mudcap'll knock your head off.”
“Bullfrog will help us,” I said.
“Oh, well, now that's different… that's totally different,” Carlino said. “I didn't know we'd have a fat brother, scared of guns, as our back-up.”
We sat for a while. I was just glad that he hadn't said no. Mocking or not, a little seed had taken root in his mind. Now I just had to water it, and wait for it to sprout.
Ahead of us, in the vast empty street, a man on a bicycle appeared, like he was drawn with fresh ink in the light of the streetlamps. He pedaled fast, but the bike went slow.
“Look at that bum,” Carlino said. “You never see a homeless guy riding his bike in the right gear. They always got it set to the lowest one, even when they're on flat ground.”
Carlino turned the key and flashed his high-beams. The bum lifted his arm and peeked out like he'd just seen the mother ship. The bike fell out from under him, but he didn't wreck. It looked like he'd simply shed the bike and landed smoothly on his feet. Carlino laughed. He killed the high beams, rolled down his window and yelled out, “hey! Change your gears, bro!”
The bum was tall like a scarecrow, and his jacket was filthy. He had a sparse beard. He walked up close to the car, his hand still up to his face to thwart off any possible threats. He looked like a man who'd just found the Holy Grail and was approaching with caution.
“Great,” Carlino said. “He's probably coming over here to take a dump on the hood of my car.”
“That's what you get for flashing your lights at him.”
Carlino opened his door and got out. I got a good look at the bum's face when a stripe of yellow light ran over it.
“Hey, hey,” I said, getting out of the car, “don't mess with him. I know this guy.”
“Old college buddy?”
“Z,” I said to the bum. “It's me: Bullfrog's friend.”
“Oh boy,” Mister Z said. “I thought you were two Rebbonia Blengins. One a whip-lash-tail, the other a sting-tail. Yeah, yeah, I remember you, Reggie.”
“Ronnie,” I said.
“Little bit cooler out today, huh Reggie?”
Mister Z always said it was a little bit cooler out today. Could be December, could be August: it was always a little bit cooler inside of Mister Z's brain.
“When'd you grow a beard?”
“I'm undercover,” he said. Then he looked over his shoulder, and back again. “They're after me. The government. I just met up with three Greys. They gave me this.”
Mister Z dug into his filthy backpack and pulled out a banged-up walkie-talkie. It looked like he'd found it in a trash can.
“Greys?” Carlino said.
“Those are the bad aliens,” I said.
“The ones with the anal-probes?”
“Shhhhh,” Mister Z said, “they'll hear you. He looked over his shoulder. Then he looked at Carlino. “Is he human?”
“We think so,” I said.
“Why'd he flash his lights?”
“'Cause he's a dick,” I said.
“Oh,” Mister Z said.
“You seen Bullfrog?”
“Not tonight, man. You waiting for him?”
“No, we're waitin' for Godzilla,” Carlino said.
“What's he look like?” Mister Z said, with real curiosity.
“Big lizard. Two hundred feet tall. Speaks Japanese.”
“Sounds like Chuck Hayashi. But he O-D'd three years ago. My research into his case was thorough. Possible android. Some kind of mercury chip in his arm, probably the work of those three-eyed toads from M one ten.”
I looked at Carlino and raised my eyebrows. “Mister Z used to teach high school science.”
“Galileo over here,” Carlino said.
Right then the beams of a car shone on the three of us. It was Bullfrog. He parked and got out, yawning.
“Where you been?” Carlino said.
“Your Mom's.”
“Did she ask about me?”
“Her mouth was too full,” Bullfrog said.
Bullfrog's place was pretty well laid out. Expensive blinds, artsy black and white prints on the walls, chrome light fixtures. Real high-class industrial. Bullfrog took off his floppy hat and tossed it on the kitchen counter. He weighed out two Ziploc baggies of product and gave it to Mister Z. Mister Z asked Bullfrog if he'd seen any green or red lights outside of his windows, possibly two nights before, and Bullfrog assured him he hadn't. They shook hands. Mister Z gave Bullfrog a quick hug and a pat on the back, and then he left.
“Don't he pay?” Carlino said.
“No,” Bullfrog said. “He's an employee. Keeps an eye on things around the neighborhood.”
“Oh, he's sharp all right.”
“Don't even,” Bullfrog said. He held a hand up, and his face was grim. “Don't say another word about him.”
We sat around and counted money, and we weighed up small baggies for the dealers on the street. Carlino and Bullfrog took small bumps while they worked, and they rubbed the dust along their gums, and they talked and the
y talked. They kept pushing it my way, but I told them it made me feel like hell, and I had a big day tomorrow.
Three drinks and a dozen bumps in, and Carlino got mighty chummy.
“Darnell,” he said, sounding like a hiring manager at an important company. “If I was to move up—real high up—in the Corporation, back in New York, I'd need a trustworthy person to run the narcotics division.”
“You movin' up?” Bullfrog said.
“Like George Jefferson. And I want you to come along with me. You're good at this shit.”
“Them wops in New York ain't gonna have me.”
“They will when I'm in charge,” Carlino said. “Shit's about to get real. Ron's gonna need some brothers like us, with street smarts, to help him get this thing done.”
Bullfrog blew out some smoke. He looked at me. He looked at Carlino.
“You gonna take out Frank Conese?” Bullfrog said.
“With your help,” I said.
Bullfrog laid back in his chair. He tried to make a few smoke rings, but failed. “You gonna put me up high in the Corporation? How high?”
“You'd be the man. West side,” Carlino said.
“What about Ronnie?”
“Ronnie wants out. That's the deal. We take over, and no one goes after him once I'm in charge.” Carlino looked at me. “That about right?”
I nodded. “That's it.”
We all sat for a while, Bullfrog cleaning his scales and rubbing his gums with the leftover dust from the baggies, and looking like his mind was cranking overtime.
“What's the deal with Z?” Carlino said. “I don't get you, giving product away.”
“He works for it,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Carlino said. “He's a moocher.”
“Mister Zastrow,” Bullfrog said. “My high school science teacher. Lotta cats gave up on me back then, but Mister Z always had my back.”
“Was he weird back then?” Carlino said.
“Shit, that fool used to walk like a damn crab right in front of the class while we was taking our tests. They canned him.”
“How come?”
“I heard he wouldn't change a kid's grade. Kid wanted a B but he earned a D. Kid's parent's complained and complained. They told Mister Z to just change the grade, make life easy, but he wouldn't budge.”
“Right on,” Carlino said. “That's what's wrong with goddamn kids these days. They all have to be winners. They all gotta get an A. Don't matter if they earned it or not.”
“'Bout five years after high school, I hear how Mister Z's wife left him. Turned boozer. Went homeless. Meth, heroin. You think a teacher has his shit together; turns out he don't. Well, maybe he was always kinda off. I was running a small pot thing back then. I went looking for him on the street, and I found him, and I gave him some money and I said to him, 'Mister Zastrow, you can come work for me,' and that's how it is. He's like a stray cat who got a few cans of tuna from me. Ain't no getting rid of him, but I don't mind.”
“One hell of a stray cat,” Carlino said.
THE RULE OF THIRDS
Carlino and Bullfrog were an unlikely pair, but they'd become tighter than Beaver Cleaver and Larry Mondello. They were bringing in good cocaine from a guy down in Miami. Not enough to get noticed, but enough to make some decent dough. I'd watch Carlino count out Eddie's cut of the drug money, hand it over gladly, pat Eddie on the back, and even sit there and smoke a cigar with him.
But could I really trust Carlino to side with me, when the time came? Maybe I was just a pawn in his chess game. Expendable. And even more ominous, Dante Delgado was frequenting the Totsy, playing bar dice with Lucky and the other losers; and it always felt like he was looking at me over the top of his drink. I spent a lot of nights tossing and turning, wondering if I was on that list of guys who were going away and never coming back.
I asked Carlino why Frank was letting me in on the plan. When bosses clean house, they usually sweep the whole floor.
“That thing with Ricky,” Carlino said. “And the hit on G-Mack.”
The hit on G-Mack was, to me, a minor thing. But I guess it meant something to Frank. G-Mack was a dealer in New York who'd stolen three pounds of heroin from one of Conese's boys. And since Conese “isn't in the drug business” he had to call on me, an outsider, to make things right without the Corporation finding out. I recovered two of the three pounds of dope, all of G-Mack's petty cash (nineteen thousand dollars), and I brought back both of his little fingers, as requested.
But the days kept moving along, and none of the people in passing cars or crossing in crosswalks gave a hoot; none of the birds in the trees, none of the fish in my fishtanks, none of the kids splashing through sprinklers—none of them knew or cared one damn bit that something big was going to happen in my slice of the universe. The whole world just kept moving right along. I even saw a story on the local news about a bread truck going over a guard rail. The driver died, but the aerial helicopter footage showed great swarms of blackbirds swooping in and pecking away at the strewn slices of white bread. That's the way it is, I thought. A truck is on fire, a man is dead, but there's perfectly good bread to be eaten—and the universe will eat it.
One day I got a call from Frank Conese asking me how I'd like to make a quick twenty grand.
“Who wouldn't?” I said.
“Good. Pack your bags.”
“Where am I going?”
“Sedona,” he said.
I'd been there once before, when I was a twenty-something hitchhiker. Cute little Arizona hippie town, right out of a motion picture. Red hills and spires and Gila monsters.
“I'm overnighting the details,” Frank said. “Make sure you're around tomorrow.”
Next day the FedEx guy rapped on the door, and soon enough I was sitting at my kitchen table, sorting through an envelope with scraps of info about a poor chump who didn't know he would soon be dead.
His name was Mark Mason. Back in 1993, he was a minor player in the Conese Family: a friend of an associate. A real nobody, really. There was a current photo of Mark Mason, and a newspaper clipping about a guy named Abe Mendelberg who'd bought some paintings by an artist named Mike Masonfield.
Why was Frank sending me so far away to do a job? Maybe he was going to make his move on Eddie while I was out of town. I tapped the cardboard mailer on the table. I got up and put a Bill Evans Trio album on the turntable, and I sprayed the record with cleaning fluid, and held the felt brush snug against it, angled, and watched the record go round and round and round. Then I dropped the needle, and I lay down on my couch and closed my eyes and drifted around in the misty waterfalls of shimmering piano keys and crackling brushed snare drums. Then I snapped up, turned off the record, and grabbed my phone. I called up Dan the Man. Dotty answered.
“How you holding up?” I said.
“I've been better.”
“I bet.”
“I'll get him,” she said. The phone was silent for a while, and then it rattled around and I heard a cough and a gasp.
“Ronnie,” Dan the Man said, sounding like he was already a ghost.
“She keeping you in shape?”
“She's an angel.”
“Any broad marries you has got to be an angel.”
“No doubt.”
“I got some business questions.”
“Ain't you gonna ask how I'm doing?”
“How you doing?” I said.
“I'm thinking of going sky-diving. Without a parachute.”
I laughed. So did he.
“I'm off to Arizona,” I said, “to void a warranty. Some chump who messed up back in the early nineties. Mark Mason. Ring a bell?”
“Loud bell,” Dan said. “Like one-a them church bells.”
“How's about an Abe Mendelberg?”
“Art dealer. Friend of the family.”
“I got some paperwork here, some warranty forms,” I said. “But it bothers me.”
“How's come?”
“Frank. Edd
ie. It would be real convenient for him, you know, to—”
“—No way,” Dan said. “Frank ain't gonna touch nobody till I'm gone. That wop's got manners.”
“What did this Mason guy do?”
Dan the Man choked and coughed and wheezed. “Frank asked me to void that warranty, but I couldn't track down the customer. Guy disappeared.”
“Looks like they found him.”
“Twenty years in Arizona? Poor bastard suffered enough already.”
“Says here he robbed a bank.”
“Gino Nazario hatched that dumb plan. Tomato gravy name, all the way. Gino runs the plan by Frank. Tells him how he's got a guy on the inside, it's foolproof, blah blah blah. Walk right in, walk right out with two hundred grand. Frank tells him no. Don't do it. But Gino knows what's best. Huh. Mark Mason was just the driver. The alarm goes off. He spooks. Drives away. Gino runs out of the bank and there's nowheres to go. Mind you, this is a smalltown bank they hit. Middle of the night. Gino runs off down the road, across a strip mall parking lot and into the woods, but the local cops pick him up.”
“How long was his stretch?”
“Stretch nothing,” Dan the Man said. “Gino had a little slip and fall in the county jail hallway. Broke his neck and died. Real shame. Once Gino was retired, Frank went after Mason. But by then, the guy was MIA. Not even his own mother knowed what happened to him.” Dan got a little excited. “He don't want you to void the Mendelberg warranty too?”
“Nothing about that,” I said.
“Good. I like Mendelberg.”
“Got a picture of Mendelberg with a rising art star—a Mike Masonfield. Looks just like an older version of Mark Mason. Hmm.”
Dan the Man wheezed and laughed. “Guess he should've stayed away from painting.”
“Or not been so good at it.”
“You know who's good?” Dan said. “That Happy Little Tree guy, what's his name, white guy with a fro?”
“Bob Ross,” I said.
“Yeah, Bob Ross. Maybe, if there is some kind of heaven, you get your own little cabin by a lake, with a mountain in the background, and pine trees all around you.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Wish me luck.”
“Don't be dying till I get back in town.”