Things in Glocca Morra

by Peter Collier

At the third-floor landing, he paused to catch his breath and then hefted the satchel once again: “Enough here to support a family of seven in County Kildare for five years! We’re lucky to live in a land of milk and honey, Lemoyne.”

  When we arrived at number 418, he knocked, then stood back a couple of feet, balancing on the balls of his feet like a boxer, his right hand hovering over the jacket pocket where Bridget the straight razor lived.

  No one answered, and I started back to the staircase, grateful to have avoided a confrontation, but Molly grabbed my arm: “Come on, Lemoyne, don’t give up so easily. We’ve just barely got our trousers off.”

  He drew a ring of picks out of his back pocket. After looking up and down the hall to make sure we weren’t being observed, he tried one after another until he heard the click of the tumbler.

  “In like Flynn,” he whispered, opening the door.

  I had time to sense that the room was dank and fuggy and had the unused smell of single men before I heard Molly gasp.

  This body was a savage parody of Val’s and might as well have been another species, but it made me think of hers and I was sick with loss again.

  Beaufort was stomach-down on the rug, naked except for underpants, with his hands tied behind his back. A rope had been looped from his neck to his ankles and then drawn up taut and knotted, pulling the head and legs up in a way that arched the spine so violently that it looked like the rocker on a chair.

  His face was the agonized figurehead on a ship from hell. His good eye stared at us with amazement; the wandering eye seemed to be still looking for the exit; the one thing they had in common was that they were bloody and big as ping-pong balls.

  “Just look at that rope, will ya,” Molly said. “Tighter than a fat lady’s sock.”

  Then he spit out the word “incaprettato,” as if getting rid of a rancid taste. “It’s the calling card of those Sicilian gobshites that work for Geist. Like they were slaughtering a goat back in the old country. Rope a poor man’s throat to his ankles and make him hold up his legs until he’s so exhausted that he can’t help but lower them and strangle himself. What I wish for those bastards is that from this day forward they have red diarrhea.”

  He pulled out Bridget and cut the rope. The crescent of the body’s inverted spine relaxed, the toes slowly settling on the carpet and the face following chin first.

  After giving the tormented corpse one last look, Molly began to examine the room.

  “Looks like the council of pandemonium just finished its annual meeting.” He whistled through his teeth. “It’s a film canister that we’re looking for in case you don’t know. Not that there’s a fart’s chance in a mitten that it’s still here.”

  The sitting room and bedroom both were in chaos—lamps overturned; dresser drawers flung upside down with their contents strewn; gray exposed film from Beaufort’s two opened cameras curling on the floor; a check holder without any checks.

  “No use.” Molly shook his head after we’d searched for ten or fifteen minutes. “This place has been kicked and booted.”

  He found the phone and called the Old Man. I took a closer look at Beaufort while they talked. His swollen tongue poked out of his mouth as if in a child’s taunt; empurpled veins stood out on the forehead like trapunto. The underpants were stained at the seat, creating a fecal bouquet in his immediate vicinity.

  I felt sorry for him, but sorrier for myself that I had to see his remnants.

  “The Boss wants a word,” Molly called to me.

  “I don’t have to tell you what’s happening, Lemoyne,” the Old Man rasped when I took the phone, and then he did just that. “Beaufort fucked us by joining Geist and doing these films. Then he decided to fuck Geist by selling them to us after all. Blackmail squared. Geist’s guys made him pay. Now Geist’s got the film and we’ve got to get it back. We need to get this thing settled once and for all.”

  “We?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Yes, we.” He was through coddling. “You and Molly. Geist’s got the film. You’ve still got the satchel. I’ll call over there and tell him you’re bringing it over. I don’t mind talking to the bastard. The amount he’s going to get from us is penny-ante for him and he’ll probably hold out for more. Doesn’t matter. Molly will know what to do.”

  Molly was somber on the way to Geist’s place on Riverside Drive. “Beaufort was a strange-looking creature, God knows. But he was no different from other men in his hopes and his greed. And he didn’t deserve to leave this world the way he did. We can only hope the poor soul was scuttered on his gin when the final moment came.”

  “Hard to believe that he thought he could put one over on both Mr. Kennedy and Geist.”

  “I guess he believed a little too fervently in free enterprise,” Molly gave me a benevolent look.

  “But Beaufort was Mr. Kennedy’s man. It was Mr. Kennedy who brought him out here in the first place. Why did he go over to Geist?”

  “Maybe it was being in sunny California where everything is new and the old rules don’t apply. Maybe he got the DGs.”

  “DGs?”

  “Delusions of grandeur. A sad affliction.”

  “And why is Geist now trying to blackmail us after Mr. Kennedy took up his cause with the studios and helped against Selkirk?”

  “I’m just a corporal and we’re talking about the actions of generals here, but I’m sure it’s a fancier thing than your typical blackmail.”

  Molly reached for his flask and had another swig. “The Boss told me a little about what’s shown on this can of film we’re about to get back and I know you’ve had a look yourself. He says it has value only if he rises again or Johnny does or maybe one of the other kids. Otherwise who cares? Geist is betting on the future. He doesn’t need a few dollars now. He wants to put a large deposit of obligations in his account with Mr. Kennedy that he can maybe draw out later on. Men like him are always three steps ahead of the likes of us, Lemoyne. But I’m sure the Boss isn’t surprised. He’s such a man himself, after all.”

  When we parked in front of El Verdugo, the bar that served Geist for an office, Molly took his .38 out of its shoulder holster and put it in the glove compartment. Then he opened the trunk of the car and got out the satchel again. When we were about to enter the bar, he told me to stop. Then he stepped behind me and I felt his fingers on my butt.

  “Don’t worry, Lemoyne,” he said, giving me a little pat, “I’m not giving you the glad eye. Just putting Bridget in your pocket for safe keeping. No offense, but I don’t think they’ll bother frisking a man such as yourself.”

  The sign in the front window said closed, but the door was open. Stepping in, I saw that the double door leading to the back room had been opened just wide enough to frame Geist sitting with folded hands at a small table, the film canister positioned dramatically in front of him and the Draco twins standing on either side. He beckoned us in with a face as placid as nirvana.

  Geist looked at Molly appraisingly: “Kennedy’s helper.”

  “The very same,” Molly said, tossing the satchel on the table next to the film canister. He opened both flaps of his jacket, nodding at the empty shoulder holster. Then he gave the Dracos a derisory smile: “We just saw that little rope trick over at the Highpoint. Goat fuckers’ way of killing a man, I’d say.”

  “Appreciate your candor,” Geist brushed him off and quelled the brothers’ aggressive noises with a sharp look. “Also glad to see that you’re not packing in the usual spot, but we still need to have a little pat-down for all the other secret places, so let’s get it over with.”

  “Okay.” Molly pointed at Charley Draco. “I’ll take Scarface. Greater of two evils.”

  Charley advanced on Molly with a misshapen smile and began to frisk him gently—too gently, I understood—starting with his chest and proceeding down the front of his leg to check for an ankle carry; then moving around to the back where he did underarms and butt cheeks—brushing lightly, not even patting—before runnin
g a hand down the back of one leg, again just caressing the fabric of his suit, and up again and then back down to the ankle of the other. But on the way back up to the knee of the second leg, he suddenly brought the ridge of his hand up hard into Molly’s balls.

  What happened next I experienced in something like a trance. I’ve carefully avoided violence all my life, never allowing myself to get in a situation where it was even remotely possible that it should touch me—aside from my brief time driving ambulances in the North African theatre, where the mayhem had at least a small degree of organization and usually was already an accomplished fact by the time I arrived on the scene. What now unfolded before my eyes hit me as a series of stop-action scenes, like those caught in a disco’s flashing strobes.

  As he was hit in the scrotum, a mournful look crossed Molly’s face and he emitted something like a dog’s growl, drooping for a second before instinctively raising his elbow and swiveling it around without turning his body to smack Draco’s face. The other twin started to advance, but Geist gestured him back: “Stay put, Joe. Charley can handle this.”

  Charley recovered quickly and threw a hard punch at Molly’s neck that dropped him to his knees, followed by a stomping kick to the back that slammed him onto his stomach. Charley was immediately on top of him, repeatedly hitting the back of Molly’s head and causing his face to thump the floor with the syncopation of a boxer working a speed bag.

  Blood spattered in an abstract pattern on the floor. I thought Molly was out cold, but he somehow managed to throw up his arm without turning over and grab the shoulder pad of Charley’s coat. The Sicilian smacked at his arm, but Molly didn’t let go. Using this handhold for leverage, he rolled himself onto his side, taking punches on the jaw and ear now. His face looked like it had been dropped from a two-story building.

  In a move of pure strength, Molly flipped himself onto his back, but Charley moved up to pin Molly’s arms with his knees and began throttling him with both hands. Molly tried to pry the fingers off his throat and bucked as if in sexual ecstasy as he fought for air. Then he sagged and I was about to turn my head so as not to have to see him die, when suddenly he got one arm free and hit Charley with a fierce cupped blow on the ear that caused him to wince and relax his stranglehold for an instant. This allowed Molly to wrench his other arm free and grab the back of Charley’s head with both hands, pulling it down hard to smash the nose into his own forehead. As Charley gushed blood with a startled look on his face, Molly, still on his back, seized a fistful of hair with his left hand to hold the head steady while reaching up with his right to jab his thumb into Charley’s eye, scooping out the eyeball in one easy, oyster-shucking motion.

  Charley shrieked and jumped up with vitreous fluid running down his cheek and the eyeball hanging by bloody threads of tissue. While he danced around trying to stuff the eye back into its socket, Molly rose with surprising agility for a big man. By now the other twin had put his brass knuckles on and was pushing past Geist. Molly sidestepped his rush and lunged toward me. When he spun me around, I thought he was going to use me as a shield, but then he shoved me aside, having pulled the straight razor out of my back pocket and freed the blade in one motion.

  Joe Draco’s brass-knuckled fist was in mid-strike when Bridget bit under his forearm, slicing through the jacket sleeve and cutting the flesh within. Then the razor kissed the twin’s chin, opening a deep gash that showed a whiteness of bone.

  “You’re a fortunate man,” Molly said clinically as he watched Joe try to stem the torrent of blood with his fingertips. “If Bridget had decided to go two or three inches lower, your throat would be cut.”

  Charley was now on his knees, moaning and crawling around the room. Molly bent over and grabbed him by his hair. I thought he might slash him, but he just used the fabric of his jacket to wipe Bridget clean.

  After Molly stepped away, Charley, now holding his eyeball between finger and thumb like a child with a marble, crawled to Geist and looked up at him with his empty socket as he frantically grabbed a pant leg.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Geist snarled.

  When Charley held onto the pant leg harder, trying to pull himself up, Geist drew back his other leg and kicked him hard in the jaw with the heel of his shoe. The scarred face hit the floor like falling fruit.

  Molly gave the twins a contented look as he closed Bridget and put her away. He pulled out a handkerchief from an inside coat pocket and began to mop the blood seeping out of the cuts on his face. Then he brushed off the front of his jacket with the back of his hand.

  “I’m sure you have some good qualities,” he gave Geist a little smile as he nodded at the twins, “but it appears that personnel decisions is not one of them.”

  “You’re right,” Geist conceded. “It never occurred to me that one bog trotter could handle two dragons. Congratulations.”

  Molly picked up the film canister from the desk and pointed at the satchel. Geist looked inside it, picked up a couple of the rubber-banded rounds of bills, then dropped them with a derisive look.

  “This might make a down payment.”

  “The Boss says paid in full, account closed.” Molly said, pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger and then setting it back into shape with an audible snap.

  “Not my boss,” Geist smiled. “I’ll leave the lackey stuff to you.”

  “Pog mo thoin,” Molly said scornfully. “You probably don’t know it, being a Jew bastard yourself, but that’s Gaelic for kiss my ass. You should be aware that you’re still standing only because Mr. Kennedy told me not to send you off to kingdom come today, even though you’re an abscess of a man not worthy of God’s grace, from my own point of view.”

  “The honor among thieves we hear so much about,” Geist eyed him coolly.

  “Whatever. But you should have yourself a hooley tonight and remember when you climb into bed that your guardian angel was fluttering nearby this afternoon.”

  Molly nodded at me and started to walk out, stopping to look one last time at the Draco brothers, one of them still pinching the bloody furrow on his chin and the other shuffling blindly on his knees.

  “Just look at the pair of you,” he vaunted. “I hope that poor man you mutilated today will be visiting you in your dreams tonight.”

  Out in the sunlight I saw more clearly the extent of the punishment Molly had taken. Purple pouches were beginning to close his eyes and small pustules of blood congregated like sweat over the rest of his face. One cut in particular on his forehead that looked like it had been made by a flensing knife was giving him blood bangs despite his repeated effort to sponge it up with his handkerchief.

  He saw me looking and shrugged: “Nothing that the styptic and a touch of the little green man can’t handle.”

  Then he brought out the straight razor again and held it up exultantly, showing bloody teeth as he grinned: “Bridget, darlin’, you did good work today.”

  He tossed me the keys and pointed at the car’s steering wheel. “You drive, I drink.”

  We got into the Chrysler at the same time. I was about to step on the starter when motion on the passenger’s side caught my eye. I looked past Molly to see the lower torso of someone walking rapidly toward us. A pistol appeared in the open passenger window followed by the face of Niccolo Fortunato.

  Molly reached for the glove compartment just as the gunshot exploded. The sound, contained by the cab of the car, spiked my ears. A fine mist of blood drifted over the front seat as if pumped out by an atomizer. In the new layering of smells, cordite was at the top with ferrous just below.

  Molly had managed to get his hand on his .38 before he was hit; he now slowly released his hold on it as he slumped onto my leg. A rosette of blood bloomed in right above the cauliflower of his right ear and dribbled down over the back of his head onto my pant leg. His lips twitched and his eyes blinked once before their light went out.

  Geist had sauntered out of the bar to watch the denouement with his hands in his pocke
ts and an unlighted cigarette clamped between his teeth. Now he came to the driver’s window, nodded at me in a neighborly way, and then looked up at Fortunato over the top of the car.

  Fortunato stood back and scowled at him, “What did you think you were going to do, Mone, hold private showings? Sell it to me?”

  “Things got a little out of control,” Geist averted his eyes in what seemed intended to convey contrition but actually looked more like pure animal terror.

  Fortunato allowed the silence to bear down, and then said, “We’ll sort this out another time.”

  Then he opened the passenger door and roughly pushed Molly’s legs aside so he could grab the film canister from the floorboard.

  “Fear is a pig smell,” he shot me a contemptuous glance. “Joseph Kennedy has a favorite daughter about my daughter’s age.” He was so emotionally destitute that speaking was a chore. “That strunzo, he has a son, your friend, who he wants to make into a big man. I will be watching them both and all the others. You know the question I will be asking. Why should that man have children when I don’t?”

  He pressed the cold barrel of his gun on my forehead. That moment when he finger-shot me in the San Bernardino Mountains now seemed premonitory.

  “Why don’t I just go ahead and kill you too? Maybe because I have a soft spot for lapdogs. Maybe because you are in their business and I want you to tell your friend and the piece-of-shit father about what I just said, so they won’t think the things that will happen in the future are accidents.”

  Then he spat on Molly’s dead torso and pulled back from the car. I could only see his midsection as he shook the film canister violently: “Tell them that if I ever forget my reason for living, I’ll only need to hold this in my hand.”

  He took a few steps away, then sent a ferocious burst of Italian toward me: “La vendetta di cento anni ha ancora suoi denti de latte!”

  As I lifted Molly’s dead bulk off my leg and propped him against the passenger door so I could get out, I saw Fortunato walking away with the film canister in his left hand and the pistol pressed along the side of his right leg.