Don't Be Cruel

by Mike, Argento,

  He looked around the basement. No sign of her.

  He raced up the stairs and went to Soshi.

  "Have you seen Cat?" he asked.

  "Cat? She never showed for her shift."

  Papa gave Soshi a look so hard it could have been brought on by a Viagra overdose. She met his eyes with a Levitra stare.

  "You sure you haven't seen her?" Papa asked.

  "Do I look sure?"

  Papa had to admit she did. It could have been the investment bankers, he thought, gazing at them on stage performing a tribute to executive bonuses, enhanced with the excessive application of massive prosthetics.

  He walked back to his office, stopping by the dressing room to question the sociologist about Cat's whereabouts. The sociologist was crying and looking at her ass in the mirror. Papa started to say something, but thought better of it, knowing that he would be asked for his opinion of her ass and that no good could come from that.

  He slunk back to his office and flopped into his chair.

  His gaze went to the kneehole.

  "Fuck!"

  He looked again.

  It was gone.

  He got down on his hands and knees.

  Nothing.

  He collapsed on the floor and rolled onto his back.

  "Why me?" he asked. "Why the fuck me?

  Smith woke up on Grandma's sofa to the smell of bacon cooking. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and made his way to the kitchen. Grandma was at the stove, cooking breakfast as Elvis sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee.

  "Well, don't just stand there, sit down and have something to eat," Grandma said.

  Spew entered the kitchen just as Smith was finishing his eggs, cooked the old fashioned way, over easy in bacon grease. He could feel his arteries clogging, but it tasted so good. And hell, the way things were going, a heart attack was pretty low on the list of things that could be hazardous to his health.

  Spew kissed Grandma on the cheek and sat. Grandma slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him before his ass hit the chair.

  Elvis busied himself at the sink, washing the dishes.

  "Sit down," Grandma ordered. "You don't have to do that."

  "Please, Grandma, you've done so much it's the least I can do," Elvis said.

  It was all very domestic.

  Smith was beginning his third cup of coffee – it was very good; Grandma used an old stovetop percolator – when he heard Kathy's voice from the front room.

  "Anyone home?" she asked, poking her head in the shattered door.

  Smith walked out to the living room and met her. They hugged and Smith buried his head in the nape of her neck. That was where he wanted to stay.

  Kathy broke off the embrace when she spied Elvis watching them from the kitchen door.

  "Elvis is watching us," she said.

  "It's OK," Smith said.

  Kathy wasn't so sure.

  "Listen, I have something to show you," she said.

  "I'm sure you do."

  "This is something you're really going to like."

  "I'm sure it will be."

  Kathy paused. "Let me start over again."

  That was when Smith noticed the briefcase at Kathy's feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was a shit job, Slim Sam thought as he drove over the bridge into town.

  He knew it was a shit job the moment The Boss called him in and told him to go across the border to clean up some cluster-fuck orchestrated by that dumbass with the strip joint.

  At the very least, he thought, he'd get to spend a few nights hanging around the strip joint and might be able to get laid. So there was some incentive to take on the job.

  They called him Slim Sam to avoid confusion with Fat Sam, although there was little chance of that ever happening. Slim Sam was rail thin with a face that could cut cheese. He had skinny arms, which led some people to believe he was weak, a seriously fatal miscalculation. He had that weird strength that wiry people have. In a fight, he was capable of inflicting serious damage. He had learned a long time ago that fearlessness trumps strength every time.

  He followed the directions of his TomTom, programmed with the voice of Michael Corleone, to the First Church of Elvis, Scientist. Seemed like a good place to start.

  He pulled up in front of the church and got out. It looked like any church. He entered and walked into the sanctuary.

  "What the fuck?" he said, gazing up at Elvis on the golden toilet.

  Slim Sam, like a lot of his colleagues, was a recovering Catholic and seeing a church desecrated in this manner rekindled his religious fire.

  "Jesus fucking Christ."

  He walked to the altar. He found a door that he believed led to an office and walked through. It was a gift shop, full of all kinds of Elvis gimcracks – coffee mugs, bumper stickers that said "Elvis is my copilot," refrigerator magnets, all sorts of crap. He pawed through a pile of clothing on a table. Elvis thongs.

  "You gotta be fucking kidding," he said, holding up a thong.

  He looked around and stuffed it into his pocket. It would make a nice gift for his girlfriend. He walked back into the sanctuary and gazed at the empty pews. The guy said he was pretty sure they'd be here. He walked toward the door, turning as he exited the church for one last look at Elvis.

  "Jesus."

  They sat at the kitchen table gazing at the open briefcase.

  "Holy shit!" Spew said. "That's a lot of fucking money."

  "Don't pee yourself," Kathy said. "It's only two million."

  "Only?" Smith asked.

  "Two million doesn't go as far as it used to," Kathy said. "Ask the investment bankers."

  They sat in silence for a moment. Grandma Spew busied herself at the kitchen counter, already preparing dinner, a pot roast. The only sounds in the kitchen were Grandma chopping a carrot while humming Metallica's "Enter Sandman." Spew had been listening to the song earlier and it stuck in her head. It was a catchy tune, she thought.

  Elvis leaned against the counter, helping Grandma. Polamalu was outside with the imaginary Buster.

  Smith sat back in his chair.

  "Well, it's not exactly 'fuck you' money, but it'll get us out of town," he said. Kathy leaned forward.

  "You know that greedy little bastard better than I do, but do you really think two million is enough to get far enough away to discourage him?"

  Smith pondered the point. It wasn't.

  "It's worth a shot."

  "Well, we have the three of us, including Spew," Kathy said. "We can't leave Grandma or Elvis or Santonio behind. And then, there's Nunn and Traci With an I …"

  "Shit," Smith said. "I forgot all about them."

  "I'm sure they're fine," Spew said.

  "I don't know about fine," Smith said, standing and reaching into his pocket for the truck keys. "I'd settle for alive."

  Nunn and Traci With an I sat on his deck, sipping wine and talking. They had been there for hours, just talking. They hadn't spoken much since Traci had moved in. Now, they had time.

  Nunn told Traci his life story, about the wrecked marriages, the wrecked businesses, the wrecked life. He left nothing out, not one bit of the douchebaggery that led him to this point in his life, as a recovering follower of Elvis one step away from being blown to bits. It wasn't pretty. Nunn himself recoiled at hearing some of his exploits described out loud, like that time in Tijuana when…well, it was pretty nasty.

  Traci listened. She wore an expression of great interest, perfectly matching the intense loathing she felt welling inside her.

  Nunn shared his life story hoping to win Traci over. It would be a first for him. He was done lying to everybody and to himself. From this day forward, he intended to be completely honest and unvarnished, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  The problem was, the truth could be ugly. He was so used to getting through the day on a million little lies that telling the truth seemed like an unnatural act.

  He finished tel
ling his story, getting to the part where Papa took over his strip joint and he wound up playing house with her. The rest she knew.

  And he gazed into her eyes, hoping she would feel the strength of his truth-telling, that she would fall deeply in love with this tragic and flawed character, a love borne of raw, naked honesty.

  "I think I'm going to be sick," Traci With an I said.

  She raced into the house to the bathroom in the front hall.

  She stayed in there a long time.

  Slim Sam had been sitting in front of the McMansion for some time. He watched. Watching was important. Watching was how you stay out of jail.

  He checked the address again, written on a cocktail napkin from The Happy Beaver, scrawled over a depiction of a stripper with a body that defied gravity and the laws of physics. He pocketed his pistol, a Beretta .25, and swung open the car door.

  He looked around and walked to the front door. The trick was to look like you knew what you were doing. Nobody paid attention to people who knew what they were doing. If you looked like you knew what you were doing, you were practically invisible.

  He tried the front door. Locked. He reached into the breast pocket of his gray suit and pulled out a leather case containing lock picks. Ten seconds later, he opened the door and slipped inside. He listened for a moment and then walked to the back of the house, his hand on the grip of the pistol in his pocket. He saw the target sitting on the deck. He grinned. He approached from behind and jammed the barrel of the .25 behind the target's right ear. One shot. That was it. No need for small talk. He turned and calmly walked out of the house.

  Smith and Spew burst through Nunn's front door, guns leading the way, just as Traci With an I was leaving the bathroom.

  "Jesus!"

  "Traci, are you OK?" Smith asked.

  "No. Do I look OK?"

  She looked pale and drawn, like she had food poisoning. Smith refrained from answering the question.

  "Where's Walt?"

  "Out back."

  "Stay here."

  Smith nodded to Spew to take the route through the living room to the kitchen. Spew nodded back and then started following Smith down the hallway. Smith turned and said, "What are you doing?"

  "Following you."

  "No, go that way."

  "Why didn't you say so?"

  They crept through the house and met up in the kitchen. Smith could see the back of Nunn's head, resting on the chaise. He pocketed his Glock and walked outside, approaching Nunn from behind.

  Without turning around, Nunn said, "Honey, did you hear that noise? It sounded like a gunshot."

  Slim Sam dropped the coins into the phone at the 7-11, dialed a number and said, "It's done."

  "OK," the voice on the other end said.

  Slim Sam was about to hang up the phone and then paused.

  "This guy," he said, "was he like some kind of delivery man?"

  "How the fuck am I supposed to know?" the voice growled.

  He hung up the phone and returned to his car. He looked at the napkin and punched a new address into his TomTom.

  It was a rare occasion that D'Onofrio showed up at a crime scene. But it was also a rare occasion when somebody was killed on the mayor's deck.

  "What do we have?" he asked the uniform.

  "One white male. He's 10-7," the uniform said.

  The uniform thought, first a body at the mayor's house and now D'Onofrio makes an appearance. The reports on this are going to be a bitch. He was already calculating the overtime he'd be putting in and thinking about how he could pad it.

  D'Onofrio walked over to the body in the chaise lounge. He was 10-7, that was for sure. One bullet hole in his head. A trickle of blood running down the nape of his neck and staining the collar of his white polo shirt.

  D'Onofrio walked back into the house and did a cursory search. "Anyone home?" he yelled.

  He thought he heard a noise coming from upstairs. He commandeered another uniform and they went up the stairs. He listened and nodded to the uniform.

  "In here."

  He swung the bedroom door open and found, naked and bound spreadeagled on the bed, the mayor's wife. She was gagged with what appeared to be a pair of pantyhose. Her panicked eyes darted around the room. D'Onofrio pulled the pantyhose from her mouth. "Are you OK?"

  The mayor's wife coughed and spit.

  "Do I fucking look OK?"

  "Well, ma'am," D'Onofrio said, giving her body the onceover, "I'd prefer not to make that kind of value judgment."

  He turned to the uniform and said, "Cut her loose and get her some clothes."

  The uniform said, "Are you sure? I think homicide would want to photograph this."

  "I'm sure they would. Cut her loose."

  He went back downstairs and collared the uniform on the deck.

  "Did anyone call FedEx?"

  "I did, but all I got was a recording."

  "Try again."

  They packed into the cab of the Hatfield brothers' pickup truck and drove slowly out of Green Acres. They turned a corner and saw the flashing red and blue lights and police cars parked haphazardly on the street.

  "What's with all the cop cars?" Spew asked.

  "Beats me," Smith answered.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Elvis and Polamalu sat at the kitchen table while Grandma finished working at the stove, frying up a batch of chicken.

  "That smells awfully good, Grandma," Elvis said.

  "Well, I hope you boys are hungry. I have a whole other chicken."

  She put a platter of fried chicken on the table, along with a bowl of homemade cole slaw and a basket of biscuits, fresh from the oven.

  "You didn't have to go to all of this trouble," Polamalu said. "Really, you shouldn't have."

  "Don't be silly. You boys have to eat."

  They were chomping on the chicken while Grandma busied herself making brownies for dessert, when a thin man with a hatchet face appeared in the doorway. Elvis and Polamalu dropped the chicken and froze. The hatchet-faced man reached into his coat pocket.

  Grandma saw the new arrival and went to his side.

  "Well, don't just stand there," Grandma said, guiding her guest to the table by his elbow. "There's plenty for everyone. I'm making another chicken. Sit. Eat."

  Slim Sam didn't know what to do. Professionally, he knew he should just ice Elvis and the guy with the shit on his head and get out of there. But he couldn't do it in front of this old lady, not without capping her too. But that wasn't part of the deal. He didn't go into this line of work to shoot old ladies – unless, of course, it was part of the deal. He was in a very strange ethical place.

  He sat.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  "Don't wait for me, boys. Go ahead."

  Elvis and Polamalu tentatively picked up their chicken and took small bites. Slim Sam picked up a thigh and nibbled at the crunchy skin. His eyes widened.

  "This is really good," he said, taking a large bite.

  "Thank you. I didn't catch your name. Are you a friend of Shane's?"

  "You could say that." The three men at the table ate chicken in silence, trading furtive glances. Elvis ate a drumstick with one hand, his other resting on the butt of the .44 tucked in the back of his slacks. Polamalu broke the ice.

  "Pass the slaw."

  Slim Sam passed it, never breaking eye contact with Polamalu.

  Suddenly, Polamalu's face became unfocused. Slim Sam blinked, trying to reset his corneas. He felt a shiver go up his spine. His throat felt tight. His stomach did flips. He felt lightheaded.

  "Are you OK?" Elvis asked.

  Slim Sam tried to speak, but his larynx felt like it was in the jaws of a pair of visegrips.

  "He doesn't look so good," Polamalu said.

  Slim Sam clutched at his throat. He could feel the hives starbursting on his neck.

  "Peanuts," he croaked.

  "Peanuts?" Elvis said.

  "Pea…" was all Slim Sam could get
out before keeling over.

  Elvis and Polamalu looked at Slim Sam on the floor. His face was swelling and turning blue.

  "Grandma, what did you use to fry the chicken?" Polamalu asked.

  "Just my old cast-iron skillet and peanut oil. It makes the chicken taste good."

  It was also killing Slim Sam.

  "Uh, Grandma," Polamalu asked, "any Benadryl in the house?"

  Half a bottle of Benadryl later, Slim Sam was lying on the couch, finally able to breathe, or wheeze, without serious discomfort. His face was swollen and covered with hives. His eyes had sunk into the bulbous mass that used to be his forehead.

  Polamalu sat across from him, Slim Sam's Beretta in his lap. Slim Sam started to sit up, but Polamalu protested, picking up the gun and showing it to him. Slim Sam collapsed back on the couch.

  "You should have one of these," Elvis said through a mouthful of brownie as he entered from the kitchen. "They're amazing."

  "Don't speak with your mouth full," Grandma shouted from the kitchen.

  "OK, Grandma."

  Elvis had just settled into a chair when Smith, Spew, Nunn and Traci With an I walked through the front door.

  "Who's this guy?" Smith asked.

  "I was kind of hoping you'd know," Polamalu said.

  "What the fuck happened to him?" Smith asked.

  "He ate some chicken."

  Smith thought, I guess that makes sense. He looked around.

  "Where's Kathy?"

  Grandma walked out of the kitchen with a plate of brownies and said, "She took Buster for his walk. Now, who wants brownies?"

  Kathy rode in the back of a cab, the briefcase on her lap, to her apartment complex. She looked at the cabbie's license. It identified the driver as Akbar el Hussein. He seemed kind of squirrelly.

  Hussein had been kind of squirrelly ever since the feds cut him loose. No explanation. They kept him locked up, played loud terrible music, made him go for days without using a normal bathroom. And don't get him started on that Glenn Beck shit. Then, day before yesterday, they put a hood over his head, drove him to a bad neighborhood and threw him out on the street. He still had no idea what it was all about.