“You’re a funny man,” said Rizzo in spite of himself. “I don’t know what you guys think you’re doing.” His voice was muffled from the hood and from the way his face was shoved into the corner.
“We’re just doing a little job, that’s all, Rizzo,” said Hoerner. “For somebody who doesn’t like your business methods much.” Abe Montara. The name flashed through Rizzo’s mind. But Abe wouldn’t do this. The freeze-out was bad enough. Speranza wouldn’t let him go this far. Hiring outsiders.
Just then, Rizzo felt the car leave the smooth highway for the roughness of a secondary road. The tires didn’t whisper now; they muttered and grumbled at the resistance of the roadway. He sensed that they were approaching their destination.
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound casual, “where are we going? Look, let’s talk about this. I mean, Caster’s place doesn’t mean anything to me. What do I want with a small-time joint like that?”
“You keep thinking like that, Rizzo,” said Hoerner, “and you’ll live a lot longer.”
They rode a few minutes more in silence while Rizzo searched for something to say, some argument that would carry weight. Harry felt mingling apprehension and a sense of power over the man who had been his tormentor. The car slowed to a stop, and Rizzo imagined that his heart stopped, too. But after a few seconds the car started again, turning onto what felt like a dirt road. On one bump Rizzo bounced so hard that his head hit the window ledge with a sharp rap.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” said Hoerner coldly.
The car jolted to another stop, and Hoerner killed the engine. Rizzo went rigid as stone.
“Get him out,” he heard the driver tell the gunman in the back. The other door opened and slammed, and Rizzo waited like a man on a hanging scaffold. The door opened and Rizzo fell like a sack of flour into a soft bank of fallen leaves. He didn’t move.
“Up you go,” said Hoerner, jerking Rizzo up by the coat and making him stand on tiptoe. Rizzo tottered unsteadily on muscles stiffened during the ride.
“Walk him.” Rizzo, at the reluctant prod of Harry’s pistol, began to shamble forward at a blind man’s hesitant, hurtling pace, fearful at every moment of running into something.
“Hey, take it easy,” he complained.
“You’ll have a long time to take it easy, greaser,” Hoerner said. He brought Rizzo to a rough halt by the rope around his hands. “Untie his hands.”
Harry fumbled at the tight knots for a moment and then undid them and unwound the rope from Rizzo’s hands. Rizzo’s arms moved out from his sides involuntarily, and he felt the fizzy pain of the circulation returning.
“Whoever you are,” he said, “be reasonable. I—”
Hoerner cut him off. “Okay,” he said, “waste him.” At the same time he brought his revolver up next to Rizzo’s head and squeezed the trigger once.
Rizzo was engulfed by the roar, felt the sting of pain in his face and sensed that he was hurtling through space. He gathered breath to scream, but then the black inside the hood was filled with blinding light, and he lost consciousness.
Hoerner started back to his car and then noticed that Harry had stayed behind looking down into the blackness that had swallowed Rizzo.
“Come on,” Hoerner said.
“You’re just going to leave him there?”
“That’s right. Come on; we’re leaving.”
Harry followed Hoerner silently to the car. But as they got moving on the bumpy back road, he burst out: “Christ, I never saw anything like that before.”
“You didn’t do so badly yourself, Mr. Caster,” said Hoerner with a hard smile. “The way you were handling that gun in the back seat, I thought you were going to cool Rizzo and put me out of a job.”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I don’t know. Rizzo’s not badly hurt back there, is he?”
“He’ll be all right,” said Hoerner.
“How’ll he get back to Parker’s Landing?”
“That’s his problem. Our problem is what he’s going to do once he gets home. If he jumps the wrong way, we may be in a bit of trouble.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“If he’s sensible, he’ll nurse his hurt feelings for a while and then go off to find somebody else to lean on. If tonight didn’t convince him that we mean business, he’ll have to learn his lesson an even harder way. What you mean, Mr. Caster, is what are we going to do. Don’t think that you’re going to be able to just sit back and cheer from the sidelines while Rizzo and I cut each other up. I didn’t give you that gun tonight just for show. If worst comes to worst, you’ll have to use it.”
“Me?” said Harry, all innocence. “I hired you to—to…”
“To what, Mr. Caster? To fight Rizzo? To put a bullet through his guinea head so that you can go back to your peaceful little bar? Is that what you thought you hired? A murderer?”
“No, of course not.”
“No,” agreed Hoerner, wheeling the car back on the highway, “you hired me to help you fight back against Carlo Rizzo. To help you protect yourself, your family and your property.”
“But your organization…”
Hoerner laughed shortly. “My organization consists of exactly two people—you and me.”
“But those movies, and that big guy at the Lamplighter tonight. What about them?”
“Yeah. What about them? The movies were a favor by a documentary filmmaker I know who’s not working now. And the geek with no forehead was casual labor who needed a fast twenty. I never saw him before tonight, and with luck I’ll never see him again. So you see, like it or not, it boils down to you and me. Mostly me, but you’ve got to understand I may need backing up.”
“Christ,” said Harry. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Of course, if you’re not satisfied, just say the word and I’ll drop the case right here and let you hire somebody else.” Hoerner took one hand from the wheel and reached for his inside breast pocket. “I’ll just give you your money back and…”
“No, no,” said Harry. “I don’t want that.”
“It’s a good thing, Mr. Caster,” Hoerner said, “because I’ve already spent a big piece of it, and if I didn’t have the rest tomorrow, the finance company would be driving this car and I’d be walking.”
“You mean,” Harry asked, “that you’re a phony? That you’ve been running a big bluff?”
“I’m no phony,” said Hoerner angrily, unconsciously stomping down on the accelerator pedal. “Don’t get that idea. I may be running a bluff, but I mean every word I say. I can take Rizzo. I know it. You’ve got to believe that, Mr. Caster, or we’re through before we start. You don’t know how many agencies your brother went through before he got to me. I’m your only chance, Mr. Caster, and you’ve got to know it.”
“I believe it,” said Harry without too much certainty. “I don’t see that I’ve got much choice. All right, let’s say that you—that we can take them. Now what? To begin with you can knock off the Mr. Caster stuff. Call me Harry. What do I call you?”
“Suit yourself. Call me Alec or Hoerner. It doesn’t matter.”
“All right, Hoerner, what next?”
“We wait,” said Hoerner. “And we hope that Rizzo learned something tonight. We hope he stays off your back.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Well,” said Hoerner, “he can’t do much alone. Like you, he needs some help to fight this kind of war. Unless my information is terribly wrong, he’s not going to get much joy from the Speranza family.” He told Harry how Rizzo stood with Abe Montara, the real power in the family, and why.
“But what if Montara does forgive Rizzo?” Harry asked.
“Then we’re in the shit, Harry. Up to our pretty little necks. But it won’t happen. Believe me. I wouldn’t have jumped into this situation just for the sake of getting smashed by Abe Montara. I’m not that crazy.” They were entering the s
cattered outskirts of Parker’s Landing. “I’ll drop you at the Lamplighter, right?”
“Yes,” said Harry, “my car is there. But what about Rizzo’s friend? The one he left sitting in front of the place in his car.”
“It’s after four in the morning. If that monkey is still sitting there, Rizzo’s going to be an easier touch than I thought.”
The street in front of the Lamplighter was empty.
“Thank God for that,” said Harry. “I wonder where he is.”
“He’s wondering the same thing about Rizzo. I wouldn’t want to be him when Rizzo gets home. You go home and get some sleep now, Harry. If I’ve figured Rizzo right, he’s going to be closed up tight and licking his wounds for a bit. I don’t think you’ll be hearing from him immediately. Don’t forget, he thinks he’s up against some pretty tough operators. He’ll be seeing a gunman around every corner for a while.”
“So will I,” said Harry. “Call me tomorrow morning just to check. If I don’t answer the telephone. I’m dead. Rizzo got me.” He got out of Hoerner’s car and watched the detective drive smoothly away. He was very conscious of the weight of the gun in his pocket.
11
It was the cold, damp and insinuating, that woke Rizzo. He fluttered his eyes and then opened them to the shock of total darkness. Then he remembered, and his first thought was, why am I not dead?
With impatient, cold-stiffened fingers, Rizzo ripped off the hood, and the light of a full moon attacked his eyes like sunlight after a long tunnel. When he could see again, Rizzo found that he was at the bottom of a sharp fifteen-foot slope jammed against the thick trunk of a squat tree.
Except for a terrible ringing in his ears and the pain in his head, Rizzo seemed to be in one piece and unharmed. Gingerly, he felt his body for broken bones and then put his hand to his smarting face. It came away black with blood.
Rizzo looked at his hand and felt sick. Then the smell of gunpowder and burnt cloth came to him, and he knew what had happened. The gunman had fired very close to his head but missed him —either on purpose or by mistake—and the blast of the gun had scorched the hood and peppered his cheek with tiny bits of powder. He picked up the hood and found it charred and bloody. Rizzo carefully patted the singed side of his head and felt burned hair fall away.
Patting his face with a handkerchief, Rizzo leaned back against the tree that had stopped his fall. He could see nothing at the top of the slope. Through the shattered crystal his still-running watch told him it was a quarter after four. Listening carefully, he could hear only the rustling of branches and the sound of an occasional night bird. He felt better. His head still ached, but his cheek seemed to have stopped bleeding.
Home seemed the answer, so slowly and stiffly Rizzo edged up the steep slope. He feared, almost expected, at any moment to hear voices or feel the impact of a bullet. Nothing happened. Rizzo got to the dirt road and found nothing but darkness and silence. He trudged warily up the dirt road wondering where the hell he was.
Soon he found the rough macadam road and turned onto it without thinking. But then there was a flash of lights and a screeching of brakes.
“You trying to get yourself killed, mister?” asked a loud voice from a pick-up truck which had slammed to a stop just a few feet behind him.
Rizzo was blinded by the headlights until he got past them to the driver’s window. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t see you.” He tried to keep the right side of his face away from the driver. “I’ve had some trouble with my car. Are you going toward Parker’s Landing?”
“Part way.” The driver was dressed in the rough clothes of a farmer and wore thick, round glasses. “Get in. I’ll take you as far as I go.”
Rizzo gratefully eased himself onto the plastic-covered seat and closed the door. They had driven in silence for about five minutes when the driver spoke. “You’re bleeding.”
Putting his handkerchief to his face, Rizzo said, “I had a bit of an accident back there.” He wondered if the farmer believed him. “Look,” said Rizzo, “I feel lousy. Could you drive me clear into Parker’s Landing? I’ll pay you.”
The driver said nothing.
“I could pay you five dollars.”
“Make it ten,” said the farmer.
“Okay,” said Rizzo, sinking gratefully back into his worrying thoughts.
Rizzo had the farmer let him out a block from his house and paid him. As he turned the corner, the first thing he saw was his car parked in front of his house with Pete sleeping behind the wheel.
Rizzo raised enough strength to rip open the car door, causing Pete to nearly spill out into the street.
“Wha—” Pete grabbed for the steering wheel to save himself and reached for the gun inside his jacket at the same time. Then he recognized Rizzo. “Mr. Rice. Where did you go? I waited in front of that bar for hours.”
Rizzo raised his hand but then let it drop futilely. “Go home and get some sleep, Pete,” he said. “I want you here at eight-thirty to take my kids to school. Bring Ernie with you, and come prepared to stay for a while.”
“What’s up, Mr. Rice?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning. Go now.”
Rizzo limped up the walk and opened the front door quietly. Behind him the first gray of predawn was showing. As the door swung open, the flash of a large white envelope on the hall carpet caught his eye. Stooping stiffly, Rizzo picked it up and carried it into his small den. Switching on a shaded light over the expensive, carved desk, he ripped open the envelope and a large photograph slid out and fell face down on the desk.
Rizzo turned the photograph over and found that it was an enlarged frame of the film he’d been shown that night at Caster’s bar. It was a full-face photo of Maria, eyes downcast with childish preoccupation. Slightly soft and out of focus, the picture emphasized the girl’s delicate features and vulnerability. Superimposed on her face was the spider-web sighting of a telescopic sight. The effect brought flaring back to Rizzo’s mind all of the shocks he’d been through in the last few hours. He started to rip the photograph up, but couldn’t do it. He shoved it quickly under the desk blotter. The envelope was blank except for “Rizzo” scrawled on the front.
Crumpling the envelope and throwing it at the waste basket, Carlo Rizzo embarked upon a series of miscalculations and errors of judgment. First, he remembered only the humiliation and pain he’d suffered that night, discounting the cool efficiency and deadly seriousness of his captors. He was no longer grateful to be alive. Rizzo knew only that he’d been had, and for that someone was going to suffer terribly. He had only contempt for those who’d had his life in their hands and let it slip.
Second, Rizzo refused to accept that they could seriously hurt him and his family. The lesson of the night was already fading away. It was others who were hit, who were punished, who felt the pain.
They were the victims, the suckers, the fish—not Carlo Rizzo. He dealt out the fear; they bent under it. Helped by his family, his friends, his bosses, his subordinates, Rizzo could take on these lucky amateurs—they had to be amateurs—that Caster had foolishly called upon for help. They’d see who would win.
At once more relaxed, Rizzo walked through the darkened house to the bathroom at the rear. In the mirror he looked like a man who had been shot at and very nearly hit and then pushed off a cliff. Stripping off his ruined clothes, he showered and did what he could to doctor the side of his face. Then, taking blankets from a cupboard, he bedded down on the couch in his den to try to sleep the dawning hour.
Only a couple of hours later, Angie Rizzo woke in their big bed and reached out to touch her husband. Finding herself alone, her plump face clouded with worry and she got up and slipped on a robe. The children were still asleep. There was a cold, gray light outside, but the house had the stillness of night.
Angie padded down the stairs to Rizzo’s den. Carefully she opened the door and saw his blanket-shrouded figure on the sofa. She walked into the room until she stood over her sleeping husband
, drawing back slightly as she saw the raw and blackened cheek above the satin-edged blanket. She placed her hand next to but not touching Rizzo’s injured face as if to draw the hurt from it into her own body.
Later, after Pete had taken Bobby and Maria to school, Angie heard the bathroom door shut and the sound of running water. Shortly, Rizzo emerged as dapper as ever except for the white bandage on his cheek and a smudge of soft black which escaped the bandage.
“Good morning, Carlo.”
“Morning.” Rizzo sat down at the kitchen table and took up the morning paper.
“Would you like some bacon and eggs?”
“No, just coffee. I’m going right out.” Rizzo put the paper up as a barrier to unspoken questions and worried looks. As he sipped his nearly boiling black coffee, Rizzo felt an urge to tell Angie everything. But he couldn’t. The pull of custom was too strong. A wife could share only so much.
After his coffee, Rizzo kissed Angie goodbye. “Stay in today,” he told her, “and when the kids come home, keep them in. Tell Bobbie I said so. Pete and Ernie will be with you all day, and Pete will pick up the kids after school.”
Angie nodded silently and stood in the doorway watching Rizzo speak briefly on the sidewalk with Pete and Ernie. After watching her husband’s car disappear around the corner, she turned back to her kitchen, her pleasant face taut with worry.
12
Baptiste Speranza was in his garden treating aphids on a tall, late-flowering rosebush when Kathy told him that Rizzo had arrived. “Ask him to wait a few moments,” he told his auburn-haired granddaughter.
Kneeling heavily before the ailing plant, Speranza was a man at peace with the world. His long, once-powerful limbs were weighted down with flesh which seemed to pull him toward the earth he had come to love so much in the last few years. Once a rich and flashy dresser, he now wore a pair of baggy overalls, a blue denim work-shirt and a maroon cardigan with one unraveling cuff. Pushed back from his thick, gray hairline was a very old straw hat nine-year-old Kathy had found someplace and had insisted that he wear. Speranza found that it suited him. Once, coming unexpectedly upon a mirror, for a second he had thought he was seeing his father as he had been in the last few years of his life.
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 48