Two separate foreign-sounding voices were nearby now. There seemed to be a third voice, and the sound of an engine idling. One of the voices was very close to Red’s hiding place. There was a discussion of some sort going on. Hardie was sure they were talking about him, that they had seen some part of his body, his clothing. In his mind he pictured two men with rifles, stealthily approaching the hole in the ground where he hid. He held his breath. A bug, insect, something crawling, began to move across the back of his neck. Hardie began to grimace silently, almost screaming from disgust and fright. He dared not move, even to wipe the crawling something away. The voices came nearer, right above, he imagined. What the hell had Mulvehill been doing, he wondered at that moment, holding his pecker behind a rock while was being shot at. That chicken-shit bastard, bullshit artist, faggot, phony, scumbag, treacherous, murderous bastard …
Mulvehill could hear new sounds of motors and vehicles coming along the road from the Base. He looked himself over once more, to be sure he looked sufficiently distressed, torn, and anxious.
Mulvehill, Red Hardie thought with anger, as he waited for shots to tear through his body, must be part of a goddam setup to kill me. Becker, too! Those two bastards are in league with whoever these bastards with the rifles are. This whole scenario has been orchestrated. Sending the other agents to the PX, they did that so Mulvehill would be alone with me! His stopping at that big rock. This was all worked out in advance! Assassins lying in wait to kill me! That treacherous, low-life, traitor, piece of shit, mother fucker, that fucking mother fucking fuck. Red started to panic silently, raging internally. They had sold him out to—to whom? Red’s mind suddenly stopped on a snag. What did these foreigners have to do with any of this? Red again thought of the foreign-speaking people Money told him had been in the Flash Inn, the ones Nichols had said were Italian. But Matthew, the waiter, said were not. Red knew the people above him were not speaking Italian.
Son of a bitch, tore through Red’s mind as he thought of Awgust Nichols. That little son of a bitch! Money had been right all these years. That sneaky son of a bitch—in league with the Government and some foreign-speaking people—was behind this. He had arranged for Red to be assassinated, throwing the blame away from himself and The Brotherhood that he was planning to take over. How did the Government figure into this? Red wondered. That clever little fuck Awgust had somehow arranged for the Government to help him with this plot.
Clever son of a bitch to do all that, Red thought.
The voices above stopped. Here they come, Red said to himself. He envisioned one of the men jumping down into the hole, pointing a rifle at him, and firing point blank. Jesus Christ, Red began to pray, I know I haven’t been good, I know I haven’t been to see you in a long, long while, but I’m sorry, Lord, for everything I’ve done. Forgive me, Jesus Christ, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. I’m sorry. So very, very, very sorry. Please have mercy on me, Lord. Please, please, please, please …
Red continued to hold his breath, even his thoughts, as he heard voices above him again. They seemed to sound a bit further away. He listened more intently. The thrashing through the woods was diminishing.
Red held his breath, straining to hear the sounds above. The sound of the car and the motor was also fading.
Yes, Lord. Thank you, Lord, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hardie reached both hands to his neck and rubbed away the crawling, ugly thing, whatever it was. He shuddered. He wanted to leap from the hole instantly. But he remained there a long time, until the forest was silent, until there were chirps, and tweaks, and noises of birds, squirrels, animals. A silent, natural, climax forest, alone, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the State of Pennsylvania, in the middle of the United States, in the middle of the world. Hardie imagined a movie camera, focusing on the spot in the forest where he lay in the hole, then watched the camera pulling back, pulling back, pulling back, until the spot disappeared, as the forest became only part of the landscape on the screen, until it was just a large tract of forest. The camera pulled back further, viewing the forest as only a part of the surrounding earth, pulling back further, streams, rivers came into view as the camera pulled back into a satellite view. Hardie didn’t exist any longer, in his own mind he had disappeared forever into nothingness.
Mulvehill stood in the middle of the roadway, waving to the approaching vehicles. Men with rifles jumped out of the cars and military vehicles. Marty Geraghty and Bill Santiago were at his side.
“Foreigners, people speaking a foreign language, Russians, I think, with rifles, and a jeep. They ambushed us. Hardie ran. Must have been an escape plan. Sons of bitches went off that way.” He pointed into the forest where the Jeep had broken though the forest and disappeared. He pointed to tire tracks leading off the road and into the trees. The rescue squad mounted up into the cars and trucks, and turned off the road and into the forest. Mulvehill entered a car with Santiago and Geraghty.
Hardie was still in the hole. He was going to wait there until dark, no matter how many creepy crawly things slithered on him. There was no way he was going back to let that Mulvehill son of a bitch kill him.
Belt Parkway, Brooklyn : August 12, 1996, 1:15 P.M.
“License and registration,” said Lou Castoro standing next to the pearlized white Cadillac Seville he had just pulled over. A rotating red light, magnetically attached to the roof of Castoro’s unmarked government vehicle was flashing. The Belt Parkway skirted Brooklyn’s western shoreline, on the edge of the Narrows. Across the water was Staten Island.
“Whadda youse guys want?” Tony Balls rasped as he glared from behind the steering wheel of his Cadillac. Another member of the Task Force squad stood on the other side of the car.
“License and registration.” repeated Castoro, his mood not much better than Tony Balls’. He had been on a two day break from babysitting Hardie in the woods of Pennsylvania, but Supervisor Becker, discontent to see anyone on the squad with leisure time, called and instructed him to come into the office for a special assignment; he then assigned him to pick up Tony Balls and bring him to headquarters.
The other Task Force agent, an N.Y.P.D. detective on loan to the Task Force, stood next to the front fender on the passenger side of the Cadillac, watching Tony Balls through the windshield. It was a bright, sunny day. Ships in the Narrows pulled against their anchor chains in the outgoing tide.
“What happened, they busted youse down to traffic cops, that you gotta break my balls about a license today?”
“License and registration,” Castoro repeated.
“You fucks know I don’t have no license, so what the fuck you breaking my balls about?” Tony’s legendary boldness was beginning to stir. Even though the world was different, he was not about to turn his head or lower his eyes when the spiru came around, asking him questions. Fuck them! If I do something, they gotta do whatever they gotta do, otherwise, leave me the fuck alone, had always been, and still was, his attitude.
It was just this brazenness, this refusal to assume his proper role in the good guy/bad guy melodrama which made Federal and State Officials throw every indictment they could think of at Tony Balls seven years ago. If it weren’t for Sandro Luca, who somehow was able to roll all the charges into one seven year term—with time off for good behavior—he probably would have been given a lot more time on the wrong side of the bars, or been in the midst of the mirthless, ambitious prosecutor’s recent anti-organized crime campaign, looking ahead to longer time.
“Step out of the car, please,” said Castoro.
Tony Balls slammed his hand against the interior door handle, shoving the door open violently. When he stood, his bulk was three inches taller than Castoro. He filled his large chest with a massive intake of anger. “What the fuck d’you want?” he exploded.
Cars began to slow. Rubber neckers took in what looked like a fight on the shoulder of the highway.
“We don’t need trouble, Tony,” said the other Agent from behind Tony Balls, opening his jac
ket.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” Tony Balls spat.
“We don’t need any trouble, Tony,” Castoro said calmly.
“You shoulda thought about that before you stopped me. What the fuck do youse want from me?”
“Our Boss wants you to come to the office. Let’s just go and get it over with. Get in our car. I’ll drive yours.”
“What fuckin’ for? This I wanna hear. For fuckin’ what, I gotta go with you?” snarled Tony Balls.
“For driving without a license, for starters,” said the other Agent. “Step into our car.”
“You see this fuckin’ car,” Tony Balls snarled, twirling to face the other Agent across the hood of the car. “While I was away, my wife, my daughter, putana madon,” Tony Balls twirled back toward Castoro, “my family collected milk bottles, soda cans, saved money, so when I came out, when I came out of that mother-fucking rat-trap you guys put me in, I would have this beautiful car, specially painted and everything, as a surprise homecoming present. And you tell me I should step in your piece-of-shit car, and you’re gonna drive my car?” Tony Balls raised his hand to his mouth, biting his clenched fist to release his mounting anger. “I wanna see you get into this car, you cocksuckers. Go ahead. I ain’t got nothin’ on me,” he said, raising both his arms parallel to the ground so they could see his body. “There’s nothin’ in the car. Youse both got your guns. You try and get in this car, you’re going to have to fucking kill me first. You hear me?” he shouted, red faced, for all Brooklyn to hear. “Try and get in my beautiful fuckin’ car, and you’re going to have to kill me! Now tell me!” he said softly now, studying the two Agents’s eyes. “Is it worth it? Hanh? Is it? Get in if you got the balls. You know I ain’t fuckin’ kidding, right? You know it, right?”
“Tony, for Christ sake. You’ve never had any fucking brains,” said Castoro. “They just want to talk to you about something. I have no idea why they would want to do that, or what they want to talk about. But that’s what they want. Me, I was home, sitting on my ass. You think I want to do this? Let’s just get it over with and we’ll all go about our business. This macho shit isn’t necessary.”
“And neither is driving my car. You want me to go to your office? No fuckin’ problem. You want me to come with you, you free-holes? Fine, no fuckin’ problem. But you get in your car. I’ll get in mine. I’ll follow you wherever you want. Where the fuck do you think I’m going to go? I’m going to escape someplace? I’m going to run away from you two free-holes?”
Castoro pursed his lips, considering. He glanced at the other Agent. Some of the rubber neckers had stopped at the side of the road.
Castoro nodded reluctantly. “Get in your car,” he said with subdued anger. “I’ll go with you.”
“You kidding me? You want I should be seen driving in my car with a cop? Get in your own stinking car.”
Castoro fumed silently. “Follow us. But make one little move, make one little move, and I’ll personally shoot you and that bullshit junk box car of yours so full of holes, you’ll both look like cheese graters.”
“Don’t be calling my car a bullshit car,” Tony rasped, his anger now more contained. “Call me anything you want. Just don’t call this car, a bullshit car. I told you, it was a gift from my wife and kid. They saved for years to give it to me. Who the fuck would save anything for you two free-holes?”
“Get in the car and follow us,” said Castoro.
“No,” said the other Agent. “You know what would be better, Tony, you fresh mouth fuck. You know what would be better? You make that move. Please. Make my day.”
“Hey, fuckin’ Clint Eastwood, give me a break, okay?” Tony Balls turned and sat behind the steering wheel of his car, shutting the door gently. “Spiru. Putana Madonna. Bitze fidend, sfacime spiru.” He bit his hand again.
The Agents led Tony Balls through the Battery Tunnel back to the Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza, just across the street from the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square. Before entering the building, however, the Agents had to wait while Tony Balls parked his car in the parking lot beneath a residential building next to the new Federal Courthouse on Pearl Street. They had already radioed Supervisor Becker that they were bringing Tony Balls in.
“I hope you guys realize what you just cost me, making me park my car with Jesse James,” Tony Balls said lightly as he now sat in the back seat of the Government vehicle as the Agents drove toward the official parking area beneath the Federal office building. “The fucking thieves at the payout counter ought to wear a mask and carry a six gun, they charge so much to park. Now there’s something you guys ought to investigate, the amount of money the parking lots charge.” The Agents chuckled. “I’m serious. Think about it. They rip people off, over and above human rates, every day, in every parking lot in New York City. The take is more dough than the skim in Las Vegas. You see the sign outside that joint. Big letters. Six dollars, fifty-nine cents. And, in teeny, tiny letters underneath, it says, ‘first half hour’. You can’t walk up the ramp in less than a half hour. Then they bang you out for about twenty bucks for the full hour. It’s a conspiracy, too. All them parking lots charge the same thing, the same way. Why don’t you investigate a real scam, instead of bothering regular people.”
“What’s a twenty to a guy with your dough, Tony? All you have to do is dig up a coffee can,” said Castoro as he maneuvered the government vehicle into a parking space.
“I wish. I’m on unemployment, looking for work.”
Tony Balls wasn’t kidding. Supervisor Becker, of course, was sure that Tony Balls’ collection of unemployment insurance was merely another scheme. But it wasn’t the D.E.A.’s job, so he let it slide. The fact was, however, that in addition to being both unemployed and unemployable, Tony Balls was broke. Despite the flashy front, his years in prison had used up every dime he had, every resource he was able to reach. And, with everybody being in the Can, on the lam, or dead, there were no ‘friends’ in the street to have a good crap game or even hit up for a loan. The unemployment money and the cash from Moscarella’s—he didn’t even let himself think about the few bucks he made moving a few measly bags of cocaine—was all that Tony Balls had for the moment, and that was chicken feed, which he kept in crisp tens in order to lend additional bulk to the meager bank roll in his pocket. While he was in jail, over Tony Balls’ mighty objections, his wife and daughter took jobs. His wife worked in a local boutique, selling ladies apparel. His daughter worked in a computer store in the mall under the World Trade Center.
Tony’s wife and daughter had talked, about two years before Tony Balls was to be released from prison, agreeing to pool a portion of their weekly paychecks for walking around money for Tony. But they decided an offer of money would have wounded Tony to the depths of his soul. So they bought him the Cadillac instead.
“I didn’t mean to get too rough with you guys back there,” Tony Balls said calmly, “it’s just, who the fuck needs this today, you know what I mean? I was just going to meet Flor for lunch.”
“Right, right,” said Castoro. “Today is Wednesday, isn’t it.”
Tony laughed. “You fucks! Got everything clocked, don’t you?”
“Part of the routine, Tony.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Actually, in a perverse way, the Agents’s attentions gave substance and significance to Tony Balls’ life. If the authorities were no longer interested in him, following him, surveilling him, who would he be? He’d be a nobody. Nothing. An out-of-work stiff with no danger or threat attached to him, a harmless sucker, a jerk-off. Their surveillance, in a very real way, gave bounce and dash to Tony Balls’ existence. “Who we going to see?” he asked.
“D.E.A. Supervisor Becker,” said Castoro.
“D.E.A.? What the fuck’s the D.E.A. got to do with me? And who the fuck is Becker—some free-hole with a rod up his ass?”
“You’ve met Becker before, I see.” said Castoro. The other Agent laughed.
“I never met nobody in m
y life. What’s he want?”
“We’re only government workers, Tony,” said Castoro. “They point, we fetch.”
“Hello, Tony,” said Supervisor Becker when the two Agents brought Tony Balls into his office.
“I know you, you callin’ me, Tony?” What Tony Balls saw was a man with a hawkish, bony nose and brush-cut reddish hair. A fucking boy scout, thought Tony Balls.
“I’m Supervisor Becker.”
“Hello, Supervisor Becker,” Tony Balls said with affected courtesy. “How’s it hanging?”
Becker frowned.
Tony enjoyed his own brashness, particularly as Becker was obviously straight laced and offended by it. He glanced at all the law enforcement caps on the wall of Becker’s office, D.E.A., Marshal’s Service, F.B.I., N.Y.P.D., A.T.F., various Sheriffs Departments, Corrections, and many others. “Tell me, how do you know which one of them hats to wear when you play in the office softball league?”
Becker pointed to a chair in front of his desk. “The reason I had my Agents bring you in, Tony, is I wanted to ask you some questions—”
“I would’a never guessed.”
“—about Sally Cantalupo and Sandro Luca.”
“Who the fuck are they?” rasped Tony Balls. He looked with affected confusion at the other Agents.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know Billy Legs’ son or your own lawyer?”
“Oh, you said Sandro Luca? I thought you said Chris Trapuca.”
“In addition to certain things regarding Sally Cantalupo, we’d like to know a little more about Mr. Luca, and his Senator friend, Galiber.”
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