Devil's Redhead

by David Corbett

  She swallowed dry the first two capsules that tottled into her palm. Taking a deep breath, she settled down onto the cold floor and prepared to wait.

  Abatangelo gave Waxman a lift to the Cantina Corozan, down the street from his flat. It was time for the rituals of sobriety. Coffee. Ice water. Cheap heavy food. Waxman leaned into the pay phone, connecting with the Metro desk to get a go for the next day’s edition.

  The article, scrawled on place mats, a third of it in Abatangelo’s handwriting, lay on the counter. It had taken two hours to get it down. After muddled agonizing, Waxman chose a front-on shot of Shel for the art.

  This was the way with Wax, Abatangelo remembered, you had to stroke his hand. You had to check his fever, bring him soup, tell him how much you loved absolutely every thought he stole from you. Otherwise he’d stop listening halfway through. The eyes would glaze over. You’d never recognize a word you said.

  One of Waxman’s modifications, except for one teasing line, was to downplay the Aryan Menace theme, until the connections seemed a bit less contrived. Abatangelo had responded, “Sure, sounds smart,” secretly feeling a little off the wall for having played this card to begin with. Blut und Ehre, he thought. Blood and Iron. Where the hell did that come from?

  Another of Waxman’s self-assertions involved removal of all mention of Abatangelo from the article. In defensive tones, Waxman had argued that an “anonymous source in the narcotics trade” conveyed more credibility to the average reader than a named felon. Abatangelo offered only token protest. Remaining nameless had the advantage of postponing Shel’s awareness that he was the one who’d dropped the dime on Frank. It troubled him, thinking how she’d react once she knew. He made a pact with himself—he would never claim he only did it for her.

  Regardless, if all went well, in less than twenty-four hours, Frank would be on the run alone, in custody for murder, or dead. Better than I have a right to expect, he thought. But exactly what Frank had coming. Remember, he’s not just some sorry, hapless twerp. He kills people.

  At the pay phone Waxman seemed neither agitated nor terribly pleased. They were dealing, him and whoever. The smell of boiling beans and fatty meat impregnated the tiny cantina. Above the grill, Christmas decorations streaked with greasy dust rattled in the overhead fan’s humming exhaust.

  Waxman said, “Sure, sure, sure,” and got off the phone. He scratched his throat and turned, eyes searching out Abatangelo, nodding. They were on. He crossed the room as though the man on the other end of the line were still arguing with him.

  “Congratulations,” Abatangelo said. “How’s it feel?”

  Waxman sat down and tasted his coffee. “We bump a piece on the American Atheist Society. Twenty column inches somewhere between the obits and the weddings. No art.”

  Abatangelo shrugged. “From tiny acorns,” he offered. He would have liked a stronger bid out of Waxman, but he told himself, Be patient. He slid the manila envelope containing the best of his prints—of Shel, the ranch house, the cars coming in and out—across the counter. “Just in case,” he said, trying to sound optimistic. Waxman accepted the envelope, then fingered the article lying out before him, folding it into sixes.

  “One o’clock deadline,” he said. “This still needs tuning.” He removed his glasses and put his fingers, short and thick and freckled, to his eyes, massaging them in circles. “Take it to the tabs, Jew,” he murmured.

  “You ride yourself too hard,” Abatangelo told him.

  Waxman smiled wanly, finished his coffee and put his glasses back on. Away from his face, his hands shook.

  “I’ve got two cats to feed,” he announced. He rose and searched his pockets for his keys.

  They bid each other good night. Abatangelo, outside the cantina, watched while Waxman trudged uphill along Delores Park, brightened one moment, darkened the next, as he passed through successive wastes of lamplight. When he vanished finally into the shadowed doorway of his apartment building, Abatangelo turned away to find his car.

  Steering toward home, he fidgeted with the radio and found a nightfly playing Ellington’s “The Midnight Sun Will Never Set”—winking horns, a Johnny Hodges solo insinuating flesh and romance. At Market and Church, streetlights flashed overhead in a winter mist. Derelicts and leather queens ignored the crosswalks, wandering the street in defiant oblivion. In a high lit window, a man with a sheet gathered around his neck got a midnight haircut from a woman in a red slip.

  Abatangelo pictured Shel lying awake in his bed, dressed as he’d left her, in his sweatshirt and boxers. He imagined she’d be restless, staring at the walls. Probably her headaches had kept up. It still seemed a miracle of sorts she was even there.

  He stopped at a corner market for another liter of Stolichnaya. Two Lebanese brothers manned the store—one scowled, the other offered a smile of dizzying falsity. Abatangelo asked the two brothers where the pay phone was, and in sudden, familial unison they pointed back toward the ice machine. He dialed his own number, preparing to apologize for not calling sooner. It rang ten times. Eleven times. Behind the register the smiling brother, mimicking a baseline fade-away, ash-canned a crumpled candy bar wrapper from ten feet.

  “I not be stopped,” he shouted, fists in the air. “I am Hakeem.”

  Abatangelo hung up, barged out of the grocery, threw himself behind the wheel of his car, and headed for North Beach. Don’t go off till you know there’s something to go off about, he told himself. She’s not your secretary, why would she answer your phone? She’s unplugged the damn thing. She’s asleep. He turned onto Columbus recklessly, tires catching the film of fresh oil the rain had lifted off the pavement. Abreast of The Smiling Child Market he braked so suddenly the car fishtailed across the center stripe. He nearly tagged the 30 Stockton heading downtown.

  He parked and charged up the stairs. The door was locked, like he’d left it; he tried to believe that was a good sign. He opened and closed the door quietly, in case she was sleeping. Leaving the vodka in the kitchen, he continued back to the bedroom. A note rested atop the pillow on the unmade bed.

  Dear Danny:

  Don’t hate me, okay? I love you. I mean that. Bottom of my heart. Now and always. But there are people after me, people I don’t wish on anyone. Least of all you.

  Don’t follow. You won’t find me.

  —Shel

  He read it twice, the paper rattling in his hands as he told himself not to panic. You won’t find me, she says. It wasn’t meant as a tease, he realized, she was trying to warn him off. But there was no way he could do as she asked. Follow? You bet. And I know just the place to start.

  All things considered, though, a little insurance was called for.

  He found a nearby pay phone and dialed. A vaguely toasted voice responded in a tone that suggested availability. “I’m here.”

  “This is Dan. Dan Abatangelo.”

  Surf music wailed in the background. After a moment, the voice on the other end shouted, “Right. Sure. I’m here.”

  The man’s name was Jimmy Toretta. Abatangelo had met him at Dominic’s café. Toretta had introduced himself with an air of breezy respect and said they’d met in the neighborhood long ago. “I was just a kid, but you were a legend, man. Bad Dan. We all knew you around here.” Abatangelo took him for undercover and kept his distance. Then Marco, Dominic’s bartender, gave the all clear. “He’s nobody to worry about,” Marco said. “He’s just him. He operates. Talk to him, don’t talk to him. You’re good either way.” And so Abatangelo talked to him. Just once, at Dominic’s, over wine. Toretta had a boutique operation. Psychedelics. Exotic companions. Weaponry, for discriminating folk. Call anytime, Toretta said. You and me, we’re neighborhood.

  “It’s late,” Abatangelo said, “I realize.”

  “Not at all,” Toretta responded, turning the music down. “Nighttime. The right time.”

  “This is sudden, too.”

  “I can deal with sudden. I can deal with late.”

  “Can we m
eet?”

  “Sure,” Toretta said. “Absolutely. Know your way to the zoo?”

  The zoo, Abatangelo thought, smelling a joke. “Be there in fifteen,” he offered. “West lot.”

  “Whoa, chief.” Toretta chuckled. “Make it thirty. Walk, don’t run. Am I right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

  “Me too. In thirty.”

  Abatangelo made way for the park, then west on Cross-Over Drive to JFK. At Stern Grove he turned right onto Sloat then out to Ocean Beach. He parked in the west lot near the reflecting pool, spotting Toretta’s maroon Aerostar parked in the cobbled distance near the Irish Cultural Center. For all his talk about slowing it down, Abatangelo thought, he was the first to get here.

  He walked to the van’s driver side window. “Anybody here?”

  “Door’s open,” Toretta called out.

  Inside the van, in the back, two refitted bucket seats faced each other across fireproof carpeting, with padlocked cabinets along each wall. Nothing lay in plain view. A slide window communicated to the front, also locked.

  Toretta had a low-key visual style: Top-Siders, corduroy slacks, v-neck cardigan with a white T-shirt underneath. His hair was thick, his skin shone. Every woman’s idea of: Oh. The only thing—sometimes, fresh from the psychedelic kitchen, he smelled of ether.

  “Mind if I smoke?” Toretta asked. The perfect host. Abatangelo waved his hand as a go-ahead, and Toretta lit his cigarette. His face yellowed, the eyes hollowed into shadow. He blew out his match, then drummed his fingers on his knee.

  “I presume we’re talking a piece here,” Toretta said. “You know I can’t advance you, right? A straight five, up front.”

  Abatangelo was at a loss at this, so he laughed. “I thought we were neighborhood, Toretta.”

  Toretta exhaled smoke. “You can always try Anthony’s Gun Rack. Except, oh yeah, you’re a felon.”

  “So you quote me a prick rate.”

  “I smell risk.”

  Abatangelo tapped his hands together uneasily. This was arrogance, not caution. He felt an urge to make a scene. “I need a piece. For protection. Where’s the risk in that?”

  “I’m not hunting you down for my money.”

  “Who says I’m going anywhere?”

  Toretta trimmed the ash of his cigarette against the edge of his ashtray. “Just for the sake of knowing, why the rush?”

  “It’s not your problem,” Abatangelo said. “Besides, you said sudden was no hassle, remember?”

  “I don’t need some low-level idiot with his ass in the fire pointing back my way.”

  “I don’t do that, Toretta. I hold my mud.”

  “Suppose we’re not talking about you?”

  “There’s no one else to talk about. Look, Toretta, are we making a deal or fucking around?”

  Toretta crushed out his cigarette and wiped his fingers with a handkerchief. It gave both of them time to reheel. Abatangelo wondered if the handkerchief smelled of ether.

  Toretta said, “How much you got on you?”

  “Three.”

  “Christ.” Toretta sighed and turned away. “I got to tell you, my friend, this tack you’re taking, it’s not flattering. You have a reputation to maintain.”

  “I’ll have to talk with my image. We good?”

  “Not at three.”

  “Okay, fuck me. Three now, the rest later.”

  “Next Friday,” Toretta said. “And no telling me Dominic’s good for it. Your merchandise, your debt.”

  “Show me what you’ve got,” Abatangelo said.

  Toretta turned around, worked the combination on one of the cabinets, opened it and withdrew a hard-shell case. He said he had a few extra pieces with him because it was Fleet Week. He declined to elaborate and Abatangelo didn’t ask him to.

  There were three guns in immediate view, each resting in a neoprene mold.

  “What’s the advantage of the Colt?” Abatangelo asked.

  “It’s the smallest,” Toretta told him. “That’s about it.”

  Abatangelo nodded. In a sudden reversion to six years old, he found himself liking the name: Mustang. He also realized it was not a criterion.

  “The Beretta?”

  Toretta picked up the second weapon and cradled it in his palm. “This has the largest magazine, thirteen rounds. It’s a little thick in the hand. It’s accurate, though. How good a shot are you?”

  “It’s never really come up,” Abatangelo admitted.

  Toretta stared in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

  “The way I did business, things went better if I used my brain, not muscle.”

  Toretta’s brow furrowed. “The brain is a muscle.”

  “The brain,” Abatangelo said, “is an organ. My point is that in my day, especially compared to now, things were relatively mellow.”

  “Not that mellow. Not possible.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I hit surprise a few miles back. Where there’s money, there’s heat.”

  Abatangelo groaned and rubbed his eyes. “I will admit, in the past I’ve resisted the impulse to have weapons around because, to my mind, they carry a distinctly phallic association.”

  Toretta laughed. “Exactly.”

  They sat like that a moment, staring across a chasm of incomprehension. Finally, Toretta shook his head, put down the Beretta, and held out a black 9 mm.

  “This is an Israeli piece, a Sirkis. It aims reasonably straight and you’re likely to stop anything you hit. Go ahead. Hold it.”

  Abatangelo took the weapon in his hand and felt an immediate match. It was very light, he could palm it easily. The grip seemed natural and uncomplicated. Like picking a pup from a litter, he thought. You just know. “What are its disadvantages?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. He still hoped to shave the price.

  “It’s a blowback,” Toretta said. “The barrel’s going to return on you to eject the fired round. The site’s not all that hot. It’s double action, the first trigger pull’s harder than the rest. Other than that there’s not much to think about.”

  “I like that,” Abatangelo admitted.

  “It uses a standard parabellum round. Get them anywhere. Don’t need a permit for ammo. Good news for felons.”

  Rowena came back in Shel’s truck an hour after she left. From the sounds of it, she’d brought a man back with her. Shel listened from the cellar. Rowena barked instructions at Duval to leave them alone, go out in the living room. “Play that game of yours with the magazines,” she shouted, slamming the bedroom door.

  Through the floorboards Shel heard the drunken tottering steps, the sotted lunge onto the bed, the murmured negotiations. “Hey, call me Roger,” the man slurred, then came the scattering of belts and shoes and clothing around the room and shortly the yawning groans and yelps and the rhythmic knocking of the bed against the wall.

  She went out for a trick, Shel realized. She must’ve worked a bar. Otherwise why bring him back here? And she didn’t just want her rate, she wanted every cent he had on him, so a car job wouldn’t cut it. Bring him back here, promise him something special. She’ll make it quick, he was drunk to begin with, she’ll wait till he nods off then roll him. Leave him here to sleep it off. Grab Duval and disappear. In my truck, Shel thought, staring at the ceiling.

  She’d been unable to attempt the stairs, too weak, too much in pain, her limbs too soupy from pills. The cinder-block cellar walls smelled clammy and felt cold; a grave vault came to mind. She recoiled from the morbidity. Come on, girl, buck up. The pain does these things, she thought. The pain and the fear, they’re the evil sidekicks in this episode. Which reminded her. She dug the prescription bottle out of her pocket, fought with the cap using first her fingers then her teeth, and swallowed the first three pills that materialized. A Haldol, another Pavulon, one of the green jobs. The pills went down slow and dry.

  Come on, she thought. It was time for something to happen.

  As things grew qu
iet in the bedroom above, Shel renewed her search of the junk piled up on a bookshelf against the cellar wall. She’d already ransacked everything within reach, cardboard cartons, suitcases, shoe boxes. The object of interest was the amethyst Danny had given her in San Diego that first week after they met. She wanted to wear it from here on out, whatever happened. If Danny came to ID her body she wanted him to find it among her effects.

  She thought it through as best she could, the move to this house, where she’d put what, and finally it came to her. She’d hidden it in a hatbox filled with snapshots, along with Danny’s letters. She’d put the box in the crawl space where Frank wouldn’t go rummaging around for it.

  She looked up. Crawl space, dead ahead. Mustering the strength from a reservoir of will she feared was almost empty, she dragged herself up to the low concrete wall. Tongue between her teeth, she propped one knee onto the crawl space ledge, reaching as far as her fingernails could get her. The hatbox tottered from its perch atop a steamer truck, then fell open, spilling pictures. Letters. The black felt box.

  Several car doors slammed outside. Withdrawing her hand from the crawl space, she listened. Scurrying down, she shambled to the window well, grabbed a stepladder near the wall and struggled up three rungs so she could peer out. The glass was filthy. She wiped the grime away with her fist, craning to see.

  It wasn’t Felix. It wasn’t Dayball or Tully, either, or Roy or his brothers or even Frank.

  Six dark men. They wore gray suits. Two of them carried valises. They marched across the gravel toward the house.

  She heard the front door splinter off its hinges from one hard kick and Duval screamed in the living room. It sounded less like the scream of a child than the shriek of a bird. Rowena slammed out of the bedroom, running toward the sound and then she was screaming, too, her voice twice as hideous as the boy’s. The sound of blows and angry shouts in Spanish, then the rubbery screech of duct tape and the screams were stifled to whimpers. The men rushed about the house, searching rooms. Duval and Rowena got dragged to the kitchen, thrown to the floor. “Puta madre,” a man cackled. The other men laughed, followed by the muffled shriek of a silenced weapon fired six times—three in rapid succession, a moment later three again—then the same sound slightly softer, as though through a pillow, from the bedroom above. Call me Roger, she thought.