Where It Hurts

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  The guy at the counter looked the part. He weighed four hundred pounds if an ounce, the skin of his jowls hanging off his jawbone like sheets of flesh-colored wax. His face was covered in salt-and-pepper stubble and something that he probably thought looked like a mustache. The fat man was dressed in a blue and gray flannel shirt the size of a tent. It didn’t look or smell like it had ever been washed. I guess he was afraid of shrinking it for fear of not being able to get another one that size.

  “Frankie around?” I asked.

  The fat man didn’t look up from the newspaper he was reading, using his index finger to follow along. His lips moved as he read, silently sounding out the big words. Even from across the counter, I caught whiffs of his breath. Yesterday’s coffee and thirty years of cigarettes, it smelled worse than his shirt.

  Finally, he said, “Huh?”

  “Frankie, is he around?”

  He lit up a cigarette, blew out some smoke. “Which one?”

  Progress.

  “Frankie Tacos.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes barely visible in the folds of his Shar-Pei-like face. “Who’s asking?”

  “See anyone else standing here? I’m asking.”

  He ignored that.

  “What kinda parts you looking for? We got every kinda Honda, Toyota part you could want.”

  “Good for you. I’m not looking for parts. I’m looking for Frankie Tacos.”

  “Huh?”

  We were back to that again. Sometimes it really sucked not having a badge anymore. Flashing tin tended to cut through the bullshit. But I wasn’t a cop and I didn’t want to pretend to be one. I’d pulled it off with Mr. Martino only because he was old and didn’t hear me too well through the storm door. As thick as the fat man was, I didn’t think it would work with him. So I did the next best thing to cut through the bullshit. I took a twenty out of my wallet and put it on top of the paper in front of him.

  I said, “Maybe that’ll help your hearing.”

  “Frankie Tacos . . . yeah, I think I heard that name somewhere before.”

  I put up another twenty. “The first one was for your hearing. This one’s for your memory, but that’s all the help you’re getting from me, Jabba.”

  “Joba was my favorite Yankee, but they fucked him all up with them stupid rules and yanking him in and outta the pen. Ruined his arm. I woulda gone to Detroit, too, even if it was to freakin’ Detroit. What a fucking shithole, Detroit.”

  I didn’t have time to point out the irony of a guy like him sitting in a junkyard, calling Detroit names. Nor was I willing to explain that I was talking about Jabba the Hut, not Joba Chamberlain, the former Yankees pitcher.

  “Frankie Tacos,” I repeated, reaching for the twenties.

  Jabba’s hand moved quicker than I expected and he snatched up the bills. After he did, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed over his shoulder with it.

  “Come around the counter, go t’rew this door here, and you’ll find him in the engine shack. That’s the red steel building. He got his own office in there.”

  “Thanks.”

  Frankie Tacos was right where the fat man said he would be, at a desk in a small office inside the red steel building. The building was full of car engines in all states of dissection and disrepair. When I knocked at the open office door, the man at the desk looked up at me and I immediately recognized him as Frankie Tacos. His colorful moniker had nothing to do with Mexican food, but with his family name: Tacaspina. His father was Frankie “Spins” Tacaspina Sr., the man who had been running the carting business in Smithtown and Brookhaven for the Piazza family. The carting business, like the salvage business, had long been run by the Mob.

  “Yeah,” he said looking up at me, “what can I do for you?”

  I put a photograph of TJ Delcamino on his desk. He didn’t flinch. The son of Frankie Spins wouldn’t.

  “Suffolk PD or DA’s office?” he asked, a smirk on his face. “You’re no Fed, that much I know.”

  “How?”

  “You ain’t wearing a tie and you don’t look like you got a metal rod permanently stuck up your ass.”

  We both laughed.

  “Suffolk, retired,” I said, a smile still on my face. “Name’s Gus Murphy. You recognize the kid in the photograph?”

  “You know I do, but that’s all I’m saying without some explanation.”

  So I explained.

  “Look, Murphy, I don’t know who sent you my way, but I had zero to do with TJ’s killing. I liked the kid. Liked him a lot. He didn’t try to be a hard guy, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded that I did.

  “So who sent you to look at me?”

  “His father,” I said.

  “The kid’s father, Tommy D.?”

  I nodded some more.

  “But the old man’s dead. How’d he send you my way?”

  I’d left Tommy D.’s murder out of the explanation. That he knew about it wasn’t exactly a revelation, but it told me some things about Frankie Tacos.

  “So, you know about Tommy Delcamino’s murder?”

  He laughed a little too loudly. “C’mon, Murphy. It ain’t exactly a state secret.”

  “But you knew who Tommy was, that he was TJ’s dad?”

  Frankie Tacos’ expression was shifting. Like with all real hard men, like Shivers, he could smile with half his face. I wasn’t sure I had hit nerve, but I knew that I was annoying him.

  “Again, no state secret. Tommy D. wasn’t unknown to me, but now neither are you,” he said, the half-smile on his face turning predatory. “Between you and me, Murphy, the father was a bum, but the kid had some skills. I hear that there wasn’t a vehicle made by man the kid couldn’t handle. Too bad the kid couldn’t handle his drugs the same way.”

  “You hear?”

  His smile turned from predatory to cruel. “Yeah, you hear things. Cops, even retired ones, they hear things. No crime in that.”

  “None,” I agreed. “When was the last time you saw the kid?”

  Frankie scratched his cheek and gave it some thought. “I don’t know . . . maybe a week before he was killed. Sometime last August or something like that.” He shrugged. “He was in a bad way, you know?”

  “Drugs?”

  “Yeah, but not how you think. He looked like he needed some, and soon. His nose was running, had the chills, needed to get healthy and soon.”

  “Besides that, did he look all right?”

  Frankie was confused. “What the fuck does that even mean? I told you, he—”

  “Did he look like he’d taken a beating? Did he have a black eye or anything like that?”

  Frankie was shaking his head. “Nah, nothing like that. Why?”

  “Just curious,” I said. I suppose he could have been lying about it, but it didn’t feel that way to me. “Can I ask you why he came to you?”

  That stopped the conversation in its tracks.

  “I thought you said you weren’t a cop, Murphy, but you’re asking a whole lotta cop questions. And why are you even here? I mean, the old man is dead. The kid is dead. What’s in it for you?”

  “I’m not a cop. Not anymore. And you’re right, both of them are dead. Still, I got my reasons for wanting to know what happened to them. They might be dumb reasons, but they’re mine. No matter what they are, you don’t have to worry. I’m not wearing a wire,” I said peeling off my leather jacket, slipping my sweater off over my head, and laying them down on the floor. “I’m not trying to entrap you or get evidence. I’m just trying to find out what happened. If you wanna come check me more carefully, come on.”

  Only a stupid man, one destined for prison or an early grave, would have taken my word for it and Frankie was not a stupid man. He came around the desk and patted me down, made me drop my pants, and gave me an examinati
on that my urologist would have envied. He threw my jacket outside the office.

  “Okay,” I said, slipping my sweater back over my head and zipping up my pants, “now that you’ve had a close look, can you tell me why TJ came to see you?”

  “The kid came to me with an air bag to pedal,” he said as casually as if he was telling me what he’d had for breakfast. “One stinking air bag.” He shook his head, a sad expression on his face.

  “Did you take it?”

  “Nah. I just gave him two hundred bucks for his troubles and sent him on his way with the air bag.”

  “Why’d you give him the bread?”

  “I liked the kid and we’d done some good business together.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I bet. Like around ten thousand bucks’ worth of business last Christmas?”

  That wiped all the friendly pretense away. Frankie’s smiles, the half and full ones, vanished. The sad expression, too. All that was left was the hardness. “Look, Murphy, I told you, I didn’t have anything to do with the kid’s murder and I didn’t even know his old man, so back the fuck off. We’re done talking.”

  I didn’t back off. “Okay, you didn’t do it. Can you think of anyone you like for it?”

  “Go talk to the kid’s shithead friends. That bunch of morons must have some ideas.”

  “I didn’t ask about his friends.”

  “Even if I had an idea, I wouldn’t share it with you. I’m no rat. I don’t like rats. Rats are why my dad’s spending the rest of his life in some shithole prison in some buttfuck state in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yeah, and I thought it was because he bashed in Wally Malone’s head with a shovel for daring to open up a carting business in Medford.”

  Frankie almost smiled at that. Almost. “You missed your calling, Murphy. You shoulda been a comedian or a freakin’ diplomat. You really know how to make friends and influence people.”

  “I’m not trying to make friends. I’m trying to get some answers and justice for the kid.”

  “Justice ain’t gonna do the kid no good where he’s at.”

  “Maybe not, but maybe that doesn’t matter to me.”

  “We got lotsa spare things here: rims, tires, fenders. You name the part, we got it or we can get it. Justice, answers . . . none of that shit around here.”

  “None to share, not even for a kid you liked?”

  “None. Not much of it anywhere around that I can see. I’m in the salvage business, not the salvation business. Don’t go confusing the two. You want salvation, go the fuck to church.”

  I thought Father Bill might’ve said something similar, if not exactly in the same way. I guess I was smiling at the thought. Frankie didn’t much care for that. When I looked up, he was smiling his predatory smile back at me. He was also pressing a buzzer on his desk. I went and collected my jacket. When I was done putting it on, I heard footsteps echoing through the big steel building. Some of the footsteps were human, some not. When I turned to look back at Frankie Tacos, I noticed he was pointing a gun at me, a .357 Magnum like the one that had killed Tommy Delcamino.

  “Stick around. I want you to meet some friends of mine.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “Come on back in here.”

  I stepped back inside the office. About ten seconds after I did so, Frankie and I had company. The guy holding the two pit bulls outside the office entrance was a real zipperhead with slicked-back black hair and a build like Hercules. He was a juicer with a lupine face, but I was more focused on the two dogs—one brindle-coated, the other a pure gray—straining at their leashes and eyeing me with nasty intent.

  My old service Glock was in my jacket pocket and I thought about going for it. Frankie must have read my mind.

  “If you came in here carrying, that was a pretty ballsy thing to do,” he said, mock admiration in his voice. “But my gun’s bigger than yours and mine is in my hand. And you’re trespassing.”

  “This guy giving you a hard time, boss?” Hercules asked.

  “You know, Nardo, as a matter of fact, he is.”

  Nardo’s wolflike smile unnerved me as much as the growling dogs. “Should I feed him to the pups?”

  Frankie’s face got serious. “Nah, Nardo. This guy is a pest, like a flea on a dog. But he does look like a guy who keeps in shape. He must be a runner. You a runner, Murphy?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, that’s all about to change for you. Now get the fuck outta here and don’t let me catch you here again. Trust me when I tell you I got more friends on the job than you do. Now get lost.”

  With that, Frankie sat down in his chair and picked up his phone. He was done with me and had already moved on. It was time for me to do the same. I turned and walked out of the office, but Nardo and the dogs stayed in place. When I was almost out of the building, I turned back to see Nardo and the dogs coming my way. When I got outside, I closed the door behind me.

  Normally, I would’ve liked my chances. It wasn’t all that far from the entrance of the engine building to the door of the front office shack, fifty yards or so, about the width of a football field. Too bad for me, this wasn’t normally. My leg wound was healing all right, but it wasn’t totally healed and I hadn’t tested the calf by running. And there was the fact that the run, as short as it was, wouldn’t be a straight one. There were lots of narrow lanes between car chaises, axles, fenders, radiators, bumpers, and brake rotors. Loose parts like nuts and bolts and hoses littered the paths, and the base of the paths themselves was a mixture of crumbled concrete and packed dirt. No, this wasn’t going to be fun at all. At least if the dogs got to me, I’d already had a tetanus shot. I ran.

  I’d made it about halfway when I heard Nardo scream, “Blood! Blood!”

  I picked up the pace, forcing myself not to look behind me as I ran. My legs, especially my left one, felt like wet rope—thick, heavy, hard to flex. It seemed like minutes passed between the sounds of my footfalls. Each of my breaths was isolated, disconnected from the one coming and the one prior. Yet even as I foundered, I was amazed at the speed with which my mind burned through scenarios. As I negotiated the last twenty yards, through tiny valleys of junked cars and their parts, I looked for where I might escape the dogs if they got too close. I calculated how much speed it would cost me to stop pumping my arms and to grab the Glock out of my jacket pocket. I weighed the speed lost against the advantage of having the gun in hand. I heard their paws thumping behind me. Louder. Louder still. I looked back. Mistake. Big mistake. Because looking back slowed me down and because I saw only one of the dogs. I could feel the panic trying to impose itself on whatever calm and clear thought I was struggling to maintain. I shoved it back down.

  I felt a sharp tug on my left pant leg and just about lost it. I jumped into a pile of discarded tires. The impact took some of the wind out of me and I no longer felt that tug on my pant leg. The brindle-coated pit bull came skidding past me, its nails failing to grab on the concrete. He slammed into rows of more neatly stacked tires, which toppled over on him. He yelped in pain as he struggled to get out from under. I was only about ten yards from the office door and if I had any clue where the gray dog was, I might’ve risked it. But I didn’t know where he was, so I took the Glock out of my pocket, racked a bullet into the chamber, and fired two shots into a car door that was propped up against a wire bin. Those shots were plenty loud and they echoed around the yard. I meant them as a warning to Nardo that I would kill the dogs or him if I had to. He got the message.

  “No. No!” he screamed, emerging through one of the narrow paths of parts. “Don’t shoot ’em. They’re only doin’ what they’re supposed to do. Don’t shoot ’em! I’ll get ’em. I’ll get ’em.”

  Jabba heard the shots, too, and came hulking out of the office to see what all the commotion was about. He moved as deliberately as a man of his size would, each step seeming to take seconds of motor pl
anning and a lot of energy. I got tired just watching him. I shouted to him to warn him about the dogs, but it was no good. Too late. The gray pit bull came out of nowhere and lunged at him. Jabba was bleating in panic, his forearm in the dog’s jaws. The dog was tearing at him with its full weight, violently yanking its head from side to side.

  “Stay on your feet,” I yelled, running to help him. “Stay upright.”

  But Nardo was already there, commanding the gray pit bull to release Jabba’s arm. The fat man’s shirt was soaked through with blood, and when he saw it, he fainted. He went down with a sickening thud as his head smacked against the broken concrete. Nardo was beside himself, screaming at the top of his lungs, not at the dog, but at Jabba.

  “Stay the fuck in the office, you fat piece of shit! You know you ain’t supposed to come back here.”

  I didn’t waste any more time. I ran. I don’t think I breathed again until I was driving down Deer Park Avenue, heading toward the LIE.

  36

  (THURSDAY, LATE AFTERNOON)

  Two things happened after my audition as the mechanical rabbit at the dog track: I went into the hotel manager’s office at the Paragon and asked for my two-week vacation to begin immediately, and I called Al Roussis to ask for a meeting later that afternoon. The symmetry seemed perverse yet perfect, as we’d be getting together at roughly the same time Tommy Delcamino had been murdered the week before. Neither Kurt Bonacker, the hotel manager, nor Al Roussis was very pleased with my request, but both relented. Bonacker agreed but only if I could arrange for my shifts to be covered. That was easy enough. Between Fredo, who had a new baby on the way and was always looking for extra shifts, and our relief driver, it took me all of twenty minutes to make the arrangements. Covering my shifts at the Full Flaps was no sweat at all. There was an endless supply of retired cops looking to pick up two hundred bucks off the books for a night of checking IDs and checking out divorced women. Al Roussis, though unhappy, agreed without preconditions, which made me suspicious as hell. What made me even more suspicious was where he chose to meet.