The Ortega Gambit: A classic crime thriller

by J. Palma

  VINCENZO WAS LOOKING up a narrow staircase with his penlight.

  The air inside the building was hot and still and reeked of urine and mildew. Sweat trickled from his pits and down his side, wetting his dress shirt. Vincenzo moved close behind Tony Pipes crouched at the top of the stairs.

  "Where are they?"

  Tony Pipes pointed diagonal from their position. Vincenzo's eyes followed, looking into the dark gloom.

  "Are you sure they're up here?" Vincenzo wasn't sure why he bothered asking.

  Tony Pipes started mumbling something. Vincenzo immediately raised his finger to his lips.

  "You hear that?" whispered Vincenzo. Both men heard gentle pounding of feet against wood. And then it stopped.

  Tony Pipes started to move. Vincenzo grabbed his shirt and pulled him down.

  "Wait. Are you sure there isn't another exit? Another way out?"

  Tony Pipes shrugged. He pulled out a lighter from his fanny pack. The flame from the lighter illuminated a much larger area than Vincenzo's focused light. To their surprise, spray-painted murals of graffiti covered every inch of brick. Vincenzo blew out the flame.

  In the darkness, Tony Pipes glared at Vincenzo.

  "Now they know exactly where we are." Vincenzo resisted the urge to cough, as his chest constricted in the foul air. For a moment Vincenzo feared the nanny would fire upon them. Did she have his brother's pistol? He'd rather not find out.

  A second later, a high frequency whirring noise filled the room and the plywood flooring quivered under their feet. A diesel generator, Vincenzo realized, brought to life.

  The loud din filled their ears with confusion, masking any clues the nanny and the boy may divulge from their movement.

  A few seconds later, two sets of powerful lights turned on with the power of a supernova, illuminating half the room in a harsh white glow. Behind the light rigs, the other half remained concealed in inky darkness.

  Both men squinted from the hot white glare. Vincenzo held up his hands, attempting to shield himself.

  "She's just buying time. Ah, she's smart. Bravo.” He coughed.

  Both men rose from their crouched position and approached the lights cautiously. In the periphery of the lights, objects were indistinct and vague. Orange power cords ran from the light rigs and snaked to the left into darkness. With his eyes, Vincenzo traced them back to the generator.

  Vincenzo raised his voice over the sound of the generator. "Some of the floor is missing." His breathing was heavy and he felt vomit deep in his throat. A comforting thought came to mind: the nanny was unarmed. Crossing the width of the floor under the lights, they were most vulnerable and yet there came no gunfire.

  Left and right, shadows played against the brick walls. Now closer, Vincenzo saw stacks of fresh plywood sheets. So many places for the nanny and boy to hide. Vincenzo and Tony walked forward, glancing left and right with each step.

  When Vincenzo reached the light rigs, he swept the lights to the right and saw more rectangular gaps in the flooring where rotted sections had been removed.

  Now Vincenzo turned the lights to his left. A silhouette of a woman starting to descend a ladder painted the far wall.

  "I see them!" yelled Vincenzo. Lucina disappeared beneath the flooring. He shouted at Tony Pipes, "Go downstairs. There must be another way out. Remember, we take them alive." Hunched forward, with the pistol before him, he approached the gap in the floor.

  As he neared, the ladder suddenly slid through the opening. The aluminum ladder crashed below and banged against the cement floor like a struck cymbal.

  Standing at the edge, he aimed into the opening, but at what? A pair of blurry shadows darted pass. The loud hum of the generator continued behind him.

  Vincenzo returned the way he entered, treading carefully across the incomplete flooring, down the urine-smelling stairwell and out through the side door into a blast of sunlight and chaos.

  A mob had surrounded Tony Pipes in the time Vincenzo spent navigating his way back out of the building. Tony Pipes was on his back with about five or six men standing around him. Vincenzo recognized one of the men as the individual Tony Pipes had repeatedly struck with his baton. The beaten man had returned with his friends, eager for an equally cruel payback. The men, in steel-toed boots, were unafraid to put them to good use. They stomped and kicked until a heavy cloud of dust spun up and around them and somewhere in the middle of that tempest was Tony Pipes. Vincenzo aimed his pistol at the men. But what could he do? Shoot them all dead? No. He holstered his pistol and intended to exit as he entered, unseen and discreet.

  When he turned, he caught a sharp blow across the side of his head. Clutching his head, Vincenzo staggered backwards. He saw a man standing in front of him, a section of PVC pipe in hand, dressed similarly as the others. He thought about his pistol. Suddenly there were hands on him, punching him, pulling at him. Vincenzo fought blindly, wildly, landing a low kick to someone's knee. His left hook connected with a jaw. Hands grabbed at his arms. He pulled his right hand free, got his hand on his pistol. The small crowd encircling him pulled back and Vincenzo stood there dazed amongst the blurred faces and brawny men.

  He pushed past them, towards the street.

  The noise of an engine came at him from behind. A lifted gray pickup skidded into the lot followed by a van. The workers piled in the vehicles and pulled away, leaving Tony Pipes behind with swirling tongues of dust settling about him.

  Vincenzo holstered his pistol and jogged in the opposite direction down a side street. After two blocks, he slowed to a walk and brushed himself off.

  The sun was hot and the air muggy. Vincenzo doubled over and wretched a golf ball sized wad of greenish phlegm.

  Flat on his back, Tony Pipes stared at the late afternoon sky, unable to move. Typical summer sky in New York. A hazy soft blue. The kind of day people think of in July. He couldn't feel his feet. He could barely move his fingertips. He could barely breathe. Every movement of his lungs pressed against cracked ribs. He coughed up blood. He felt cold and sleepy despite the broiling summer air. He closed his eyes for a bit. When he opened them, Lucina stood above him, looking at him sympathetically. She had his wallet in her hands. She turned to the boy, said something, and the boy disappeared.

  She held his wallet over him, and pocketed the cash and tossed the wallet. She unfolded a piece of paper she’d found inside, her eyes swelling wide as she read the folded note. He felt warm blood in his mouth and spat at her. The blood never reached its target, just dribbled down his chin. More blood ran from his nose and ears. Lucina read the paper again, repeating the word "Andes."

  He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, she was gone. A low buzz played in his ears. He closed his eyes again and when he opened them once more, it was for the last time. The sky had turned to dusk but brought no respite from the heat.

  Vincenzo stood over him, his face expressionless. Seemingly floating over Tony Pipes, Vincenzo held his pistol with the oversized silencer a few inches from Tony's forehead. Tony Pipes thought the barrel had the diameter of a keg, ready to swallow him whole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FAT MIKEY COULDN'T believe his eyes when he saw Vincenzo enter the bar alone. Vincenzo took a stool beside Fat Mikey, ordered a water. They met at a bar north of Beacon off Route 9, the same road threading this disaster of a hit job together. With his eyes set straight ahead, Vincenzo said: "Tony is dead. The nanny and the boy got away."

  "How?" Fat Mikey asked, stunned. He looked Vincenzo up and down. The fearless assassin he was told he was getting looked haggard with his bloodied face. "Man, I knew it went to shit when I see you come in here without Pipes. That boy never misses a chance for free booze. What happened?"

  "Tony Pipes cornered them in an abandoned warehouse. Four, maybe five stories up. We thought we had them. It was dark inside the building. Like a cave."

  "It was dark?"

  "Yes. And then there was a mob. A group of men. They attacked Tony. Then me.
That's how the nanny and boy got away."

  Fat Mikey angled his head to the side. "What are you telling me? A mob? What the fuck is this?" He shook his head, unsympathetic.

  Vincenzo leaned against the bar and explained about how they chased the nanny and boy into the warehouse but there was a man who interfered and Tony Pipes gave him an ass-whooping.

  "And this guy came back with a couple of his boys?"

  "More than a couple. There were many."

  "Then what? Where's Tony? You telling me they killed him? Beat him to death?"

  Vincenzo nodded.

  "You clean it up?"

  Vincenzo ignored the question and lowered his voice. "What does Andes mean?"

  "What?" Fat Mikey stroked the stumble on his jawline, thinking.

  Vincenzo looked uneasy. "He was still alive when I found him. The men, they broke his back. He couldn't walk. He couldn't move. He kept repeating the word ‘Andes.’ I think that's what he was saying. I never could understand the words that came from his mouth."

  A heavy sigh slipped from Fat Mikey's mouth. "I asked if you cleaned it up?"

  "It is done."

  "All this for a fucking broad and a kid. Unbelievable." He brought his fist to his lips and bit the side of his index finger. "This might be unforgivable."

  "I'll finish the job like we planned. Suicide-murder. Boy first, then the girl."

  "Listen to you. Big shot. You don't fucking know nothin. Oh, I know you'll finish the fucking job you dumb bastid. It might be the last thing you do. But you'll finish the fucking job." He gestured to the bartender for another pint.

  Vincenzo said, "I saw her go through Tony's satchel. She took his money from his wallet, and a small piece of paper. I saw her read it. And then she placed this paper safely in her bag. What is on this paper must be very important, no? Why else go through this trouble, unless…“

  The bartender delivered a new pint and Fat Mikey finished half in a single gulp. He pressed his thumb in the beads on the cold glass.

  "Satchel? Nobody calls it that. You mean his fanny pack? How could you see this?"

  "I doubled back. I watched her from across the street. I was too far away to get them both, and there was the issue of what to do with Tony.

  “As she read from this paper, I saw her smile,” Vincenzo continued, “and for someone such as her, it must mean something. One might call it an epiphany where the entire reason for her being is suddenly clear. For a girl such as her, given her history, her situation, there is only one thing that would make her smile like that. This realization, it was tangible, you understand? I saw her change with this information."

  "What are you talking about? Her situation?"

  "She figured it out."

  "Yeah? What the fuck is that? What's this fucking epiphany?"

  “She has figured out her and the boy’s role in our plan and realizes the only escape is revenge. People like her, they've been under the Camorra thumb since birth. And now she finds herself in a situation where she can take a stand and do something."

  Fat Mikey, scratched his head, the muscles in his face relaxed. He said, "I know what's on that paper. Andes you said? That dumbass. I gave him a piece of paper with an address a few weeks back. I forgot about it until you brought it up. Tony was supposed to have read it, memorized it, and burned it. He told me he did."

  “Why is it so important?”

  "After we finish the job, we're supposed to deliver proof to the client. Not email, not text. No, they want physical proof that it's over. We decided on hand delivering a Polaroid to that address on that piece of paper so we could collect the final payment." He hunched forward on his elbows and said, "You don't think…I mean you think she'd really make a move for them?"

  "That's what I would do. Where else can she go? What else can she do? You are getting a lesson in Neapolitan women. Their passion is only second to their will for revenge."

  Fat Mikey looked away, exhausted and miserable. Then he said, "What I can't figure out is why she hasn't gone to the cops. Take the easy way out."

  Vincenzo drank his water and then placed his glass centered on a square napkin. "She intends to do this her way. Try to see her situation with her eyes. In Campania, the police line the men in villages like hers and treat them like criminals. The clans come by the next day with candy for the children and promises of work for the men. This fear of the police, this distrust, this is something you do not leave at the border of a new country. This fear is as much a part of her as her hair or her teeth. It's a part of who she is. It is genetic."

  "You think that's what she's going to do? You haven't been right a lot, you know?"

  "I’d stake my life on it."

  "You already have."

  Fat Mikey started to slip off his stool when Vincenzo placed his hand on his shoulder. Fat Mikey froze, his eyes dropped to Vincenzo's hand.

  Vincenzo said, "Something has been bothering me since the motel."

  Fat Mikey settled into his seat again and appeared unconcerned. "Sure, what's up?"

  "Why didn't you leave Tony in the motel? I wondered why all three of us went that day but we leave my brother behind. If Tony was there...?"

  "Tony can be unpredictable. Besides, he had a stroke a few years ago from smoking crack rock. He can be hard to understand at times."

  "What do you mean, unpredictable?"

  "He's a hot head. Doesn't always think things through. He caught a bum charge for rape and did some time for it. I just thought … ah never mind."

  "You thought if we left him behind with the nanny…"

  "And your brother who no speak English, I thought it'd be a recipe for a disaster, you know?"

  "Men like him would never be in our clan."

  Fat Mikey bit his bottom lip. He narrowed one eye at Vincenzo. In a low voice he said, "You killed him, didn't you? Was there even a mob? Tell me the truth. I have ways of finding out. He can be a lot to handle sometimes. Was this about him wanting to leave Nino behind?"

  "I have not lied."

  "You had them in your hands and you let them get away because of your old-world code, didn't cha? Is that what happened? We got monsters in all of us. He was the best car thief I've ever seen and he was a friend. I've heard you've killed women and children. Even old people. It don't matter to people like you. That's why you were brought in. We needed some real low-life motherfuckers. What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you forget who you are? We had them you cocksucker. Man, you don't know nothin’. You dumb wop piece of shit." He dropped a heavy hand on Vincenzo's shoulder, shaking him roughly. He saw Vincenzo's hand move to his pistol with the speed of a viper. "What you gunna do? Shoot me right here? In this bar? Fuck you." Fat Mikey got off the stool. "Fuck you. I gotta call Rizzo. See what he wants to do next."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  LUCINA FOUND TONY Pipes' Bronco unlocked with the keys still in the ignition. The truck was mustard yellow with a white racing stripe down the side, patches of rust above the wheels. The Bronco had vinyl upholstery and a great big bench seat. Lucina slid behind the wheel. The boy jumped in the front and fastened his seat belt. In the glove box, she found a pistol—a heavy .357 Python—and shoved it in her shoulder bag. She backed out of the lot and found her way back on Main Street. They passed the restaurant where they ate breakfast earlier, now closed. The boy said he was hungry but she didn't want to stop. Still, Charles's wouldn't shut up about it.

  She returned to the Rite Aid and parked along the curb a block away. Inside, she bought potato chips and pretzels and bottled water. Police sirens wailed in the distance. They passed a coffee shop with four metal tables outside. A leather jacket was draped on a chair back closest to the street. A paperback book, spine up, opened on the table. The owner inside ordering another coffee. Lucina slipped the jacket off the chair and kept on walking without changing her pace.

  They returned to the Bronco and left Main Street, driving through wooded residential streets until they came across an elementary school
where she parked, cut the engine.

  "You shouldn't steal," he said.

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Stealing is not very nice."

  "Is that right? Given what we have been through, this should be the least of your worries."

  "I want to go home."

  "I do too."

  "Do you think we're still being chased?"

  "Yes."

  Charles munched on his chips.

  After a few minutes, she asked, "You okay?" She put her hand gently on his cheek. He recoiled under her touch.

  "You don't want to tell me? That's fine. I'll tell you how I am. Nobody ever asks how I am. Well I'm going to tell you whether you like it or not. First, I'm in a new country, a strange place. Two, there are these people, unthinking beasts really, I don't know why, but they are determined to kill us. I don't know why, exactly. I have ideas. Thoughts. Do you know why? And in this strange place, I’m alone. I have no one. I lost both my nonna and Papa within the same year. Sometimes, I believe what the villagers say about me. That I'm cursed. That death follows me like a shadow. But what does this leave me? With just you. A little boy. And you can't sit still for two fucking minutes. But these people who are after us, they will not stop. I am angry. I am angry at the neighborhood I had to run from. I am angry at my father. I am angry for letting Livio send me here." She stopped seething long enough to catch her breath.

  Vincenzo was wrong. Her epiphany did not occur outside the warehouse, but rather here, outside in the muggy summer night. A smiled crept across her face with this new perspective. "Livio. He did this to me. Everything he told me was a lie. He knew. He must have known. A coincidence that he sends me here and days later the parents, who aren't even your parents, leave me with you? What kind of people do this? Was this even Papa’s last wish? Why did he never tell me? He loved Campania. Why would he want me to leave?" The realization seemed to calm her down, her anger turning to resolve.

  "Why can't we go to the police?"

  "By this time tomorrow, one way or another, this will all be over. I promise."