Kill City USA

by Warren Roberts

  I grabbed a cab on Collins and gave the driver a fifty in advance and told him I was in a hurry. I hoped I wasn’t the last of the big spenders. We raced across the MacArthur Causeway, and I also hoped I could remember my way to the WPP offices as in my haste I hadn’t written down their address. Fortunately the downtown traffic was light. We drove around while I got my bearings and I tried to give directions to the driver. I kept looking at my watch. At twenty-eight minutes we found the office and soon after, the Radio Shack. A pay-phone was on the sidewalk a few yards away. I got out of the cab and waited. Thirty minutes. Thirty-five minutes. I was wondering if I’d missed the call.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Go to the pay-phone across the street. Outside the liquor store. Now.’

  The line went dead. I ran across the road promising the driver more cash if he was there when I came back. He looked at me with bemusement. The phone was ringing as I arrived.

  ‘So you’re in a cab. Now listen carefully. Get straight back in that cab and have the driver drop you three blocks east of the funeral home in Coral Gables. Outside the locksmith with a big red neon key sign there’s a pay-phone. Be there in twenty-five minutes, asshole. And no calls to no one, or she’s in the oven. We’re watching.’

  I gave the driver another fifty and the instructions. He burnt rubber as we went through the traffic lights, just missing the red. He was enjoying himself.

  It was obvious where I was going to. I couldn’t believe I didn’t have a cell phone to tell Gloria about this charade, a fact Moresco couldn’t possibly know. His stupid luck. He’d seen this telephone-tag done in the movies and thought that he was being oh-so-cool.

  I took my Sig Sauer out of its rig, checked the clip and tucked it into my front waistband, untucking my shirt to cover it. The driver was watching me in his rear view mirror. He’d seen the gun. The bemusement had now drained from his eyes. He looked plain scared.

  I said, ‘You have a cell phone? Teléfono movil?’

  He answered in thick rapid Spanish, looking at me in the mirror which he’d turned towards my face. He’d understood English perfectly before. I was sure he had one but there was no way I’d be able to use it. Even with a hundred bucks to date and maybe more to come from this crazy gringo, he just wanted me and my gun out of his cab. I wanted to give him a message to get to Jonah somehow, but I had nothing to write it on or with. Again he feigned ignorance of my request.

  In Coral Gables we hit every red light and passed three green and whites on patrol, of no apparent use to me. We found the funeral home, the appearance of which sent his eyes into orbit. I pointed to the neon key blinking in the distance. He pulled up across the road from the locksmith’s and put his hand out for more money. I got out of the cab and told him to fuck off and he screeched his tires into the night, understanding my English perfectly. It was nineteen minutes since my phone call from Ernie.

  The phone was ringing as I approached it. I gathered my breath and composure and answered on its fourth ring.

  ‘You still alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You better be. Across the street is a lane with an old style street lamp at the end.’

  I looked across. There was a pedestrian walkway with a tall flowery hedge on either side. It went to a T after about thirty yards, where it was dimly lit by the streetlight.

  ‘See it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When you hang up, you walk across. Don’t make no calls from the phone or from a cell phone. We can see you. You turn left at the T and keep walking. Across two blocks. The path’s lit all the way. Walk until you reach a gate with bricks on each side. That’ll take you into the back of the home. Come to the rear entrance and buzz me. Now move, asswipe.’

  He hung up. I looked around. There was no activity and I wondered if perhaps I was under federal surveillance, if there was a stakeout on the funeral home. If I was, they had to be indoors somewhere, as there were no suitable stakeout vehicles in sight. I walked across the road and down the lane, turning left as instructed. After crossing two streets I could see the brick gate at the end of the continuation of the lane. I walked with my hand near the grip of my automatic.

  About thirty yards from the back entrance I could make out the rear of the funeral home at the end of a curved path. There was a dim light, its naked low-wattage bulb at the rear doorway compounding the macabre scene.

  I walked cautiously toward the door. As I approached I could hear the crackling of the intercom speaker. I looked around. There was no one in sight. No cars parked. I took out my Sig Sauer, gripping it firmly in my right hand.

  A voice came over the speaker. ‘Milo.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You release the clip from your gun and it all goes into the trash bin behind you. First gun, then clip. Then you strip and throw your clothes into the bin. Then you walk back here.’

  ‘Moresco. I’m doing nothing until I talk to Jay. If she’s harmed in any way, I’ll have you. I promise.’

  The speaker static stopped. I moved beside the door, with my back to the wall. There was silence.

  I pressed the buzzer. Three times.

  ‘Milo.’ It was Jay’s trembling voice.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’ve seen better days. Don’t come in here. This guy’s –’

  The intercom switched off.

  I buzzed again. Long urgent buzzes.

  A couple of minutes later, ‘Satisfied, asshole?’

  ‘You let her out and I come in. That’s the deal.’

  ‘Forget it, cocknose, you ain’t in no position to deal. You don’t come in here in thirty seconds you’ll have a souvenir to time your eggs with.’

  I walked over to the bin and dropped the pistol and the clip inside, and stripped down to my Y-fronts. I walked back to the door conscious I was under surveillance. It clicked open.

  ‘Walk in here slowly, Milo. Then close the door behind you. You then lie down on the floor with your legs and arms outstretched. Slowly and no stupid fucking business.’

  The hall area inside was slightly lit from a nearby room but I couldn’t see him. I closed the door and I heard the lock click closed. I did as I was told and lay down on the floor.

  I could sense him walking toward me from my left. Cold steel was pushed into the soft tissue behind my ear. It could have been a .22 or a .45 but it felt like Big Bertha. A handcuff’s jaws snapped closed on my left wrist.

  I contemplated rolling into him and trying my luck. I figured the odds eighty:twenty in his favour – sixty:forty I might have tried.

  ‘Put both hands together behind your back. Slowly. Keep your head face-down.’

  The gun barrel stayed firmly pressed and I did what I was told. The other wrist was cuffed and the gun pressure was slowly eased from the back of my head.

  There was an almighty blow to my ribcage. Then another as he kicked me twice with his instep, like a football centre forward.

  ‘You like them apples, Limey cocksucker?’ he said, murdering a line from a great movie.

  I could sense him moving toward me again so I rolled over onto my side and bent my body expecting another kick.

  ‘Don’t worry. There’s more where that come from, later. Something to look forward to. Get up.’

  I knelt, then stumbled up with difficulty, as he moved away. My chest throbbed as I felt a couple of bruised or cracked ribs. It was difficult to stand straight because of the pain but I tried not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt.

  He turned on the lights. He was leaning with his head against a wall savouring his control of the moment. In his hand was a big long piece, a Ruger magnum, its barrel blued. A .45 that would leave a hole as big as the Channel Tunnel. He pointed it at me sideways, like they do on the big screen.

  He walked over and patted roughly around my Ys in case I had the world’s smallest gun. He squeezed hard on my balls as he eyeballed me. He was enjoying his moment.

  ‘Men’s coglioni they ain’t,�
�� he said as he gave another squeeze, a hard one. ‘Faggot’s balls.’ He squeezed again, grinning his onion breath into my face. ‘Stugots of a fanook.’

  Stugots. Like Tony Soprano’s boat.

  Enough is fucking enough. I slowly eased myself upright and forward then gave him the old Glasgow Gorbals nice to meet you Ginger welcome, a head butt in his face. It wasn’t expected. He reeled backwards clutching his nose and came at me with a well aimed left into my hurt ribs. He put the Ruger on the floor. I doubled over with pain as I was punched again, a combination left-right in the kidneys, then another couple because he could. This guy knew where to do the damage.

  He pulled me up by my hair and I could see the blood pouring from his nostrils. I hoped it was broken.

  He said, ‘You’re dead. So’s she.’

  I tried to stand as upright as I could. He hit me in the face. Twice. I could feel a rush of blood in my nostrils and mouth. Then the pain. He massaged the hand he’d hit me with. But it had not hurt him as much as it had hurt me.

  ‘Where is she?’ I said, spitting blood as I spoke.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  He poked the gun in my ribs and pushed me backwards towards a corridor. It led toward the retort room whose ominous warmth I could feel.

  We walked to a door at the rear. A hallway led into a viewing room and then into another hall to the reception area. He pushed me toward the stairs with the Ruger barrel. At the top I could see the door to Maria Viscione’s office at the end of the hallway was open. I was kicked with the sole of his foot towards it.

  I pushed the door open with my shoulder.

  Maria Viscione was standing in the eerie yellowish light near one of her fish tanks. She turned her head slightly, looking over her shoulder at me, her hands behind her back. She was dressed in a clone of the outfit she’d worn when we last met.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Where’s Jay?’ I said.

  ‘Shuddup and sit down.’

  I was pushed roughly into a chair in the middle of the room. My ribs and head throbbed with pain.

  She looked me up and down like a tailor sizing me for a two-piece. Or more likely a mortician sizing me for a body bag. Moresco unhitched his shirt and rubbed the blood from his nose.

  She walked over to her desk and pressed a button on top. Wooden panelling on the wall opposite the aquarium slid backwards revealing a bank of TV screens. She pressed a button and images started to flicker into life. I could see the retort room and the flames behind an open furnace door, then a chapel area and a receiving room. The screen on the television in the bottom left corner showed the embalming room where I could see three shiny steel tables, and on one of them was a body. She adjusted a knob for my benefit and the picture became clearer as a camera lens zoomed in on the subject.

  It was Jay. She was lying naked, spread-eagled on a mortician’s embalming table, her wrists and ankles bound to rails on the corners. A tape was over her mouth. From time to time she made a movement, trying to break free from her bonds.

  Viscione said, ‘There’s your slut.’

  ‘She’s done nothing to you. Now you’ve got me. Let her go,’ I said.

  A hard whack on the back of my head. It was Ernie letting me know he was still there.

  ‘She’ll look like Sunday lunch leftovers when I’ve finished,’ he said with another slap. ‘If my mother was still alive I’d get her favourite recipe and cook it for you. Tripa di putana Inglese. Your English whore’s tripe.’

  He needn’t have bothered. I’d translated it.

  ‘And I’ll give a Spanish paella touch with a little seafood. I got a piranha whose dying to get better acquainted with an English-woman.’

  ‘Your mother. She married when she had you?’ I said, cocking my head backwards. ‘I bet she had pay-as-you-enter tattooed on her thigh. For her clients who could read.’

  Instead of applause I got another slap. Then I felt cold steel gouging the nape of my neck.

  ‘Well, I object,’ I said to Maria. ‘And I expect my objection to be sustained. It was him after all who introduced the subject of one of his parents into the cross-examination. Let’s have a little jurisprudence here. Don’t you guys ever watch Law and Order? Boston Legal?’

  Ernie said, ‘You mad fucking Limey. I’ll give you juris-fucking-prudence.’

  Pity, he’d missed a golden opportunity to make a crack about overruling my objection. I guess he just didn’t watch TV courtroom shows. And he’d probably always copped a plea in real life.

  I heard the clack of the hammer of his gun being cocked. It was in surround sound. ‘Shut up, Ernie,’ said Maria. ‘Fucking Cafone. Jamook.’

  She was right. He was an uncouth peasant. And a lame-brained idiot.

  I said, looking at Maria, ‘So the quality of mercy is strained, Portia,’ as I felt the Ernie withdraw the gun’s barrel.

  ‘What the fuck you on about now? That some Limey literary shit?’

  Limey literary shit. This guy slayed me. I turned my attention to the monitor showing Jay on the table struggling against her bonds.

  I said, ‘So you got hold of my fax from the hotel then called her to change her flight.’

  ‘Dumb slut. Did what she was told. She was surprised lover boy ain’t at the airport. We had a limo driver hold up a sign with her name on it. Said you’d gone out of town and showed her to the limo. Abracadabra, here she is.’ Maria zoomed the camera in on Jay’s face.

  ‘If you harm her –’

  Ernie, from the rear, ‘You’ll do what, dumb shit?’

  ‘We don’t have all fucking night,’ said Maria, glaring at Ernie then back at me. ‘You caused us a lot of grief. Here with me. Then at Pauli’s. Then youse start nosing round at one of our offices downtown. Matters that don’t have nuttin’ to do with you.’

  ‘What about my nosing round Detroit?’ I said.

  She paused. ‘I don’t give a motorised fuck about Detroit.’ But her voice betrayed a hint of apprehension, and a thicker Brooklyn accent.

  ‘What the fuck you doing up there?’ said Ernie, sounding surprised. ‘Jesus. You fuckin’ our deal up there, too?’

  Maria had returned to look at her fish with her back to me. She put a small net into one of the tanks and removed a large red goldfish. I could see her squeezing it with her fingers until it bled. She then slapped it forcefully into another tank where two piranhas were cruising. There was a bloodied frenzy as the Amazonians fought over their late-night snack. In a few seconds they retreated to the bottom of the tank, while bloody goldfish debris hung in suspension.

  ‘I said, asshole. What youse doin’ in Detroit?’ It was Ernie again.

  ‘Took in a Tigers game. Saw the Riviera mural at the DIA. Paid my respects to The Fist. Then met my old chum Pandora at The Russian Blue Boy. Just in case I ran into Johnny Steaknife. You know the sort of thing one does in Motown.’

  Maria had a net in the goldfish tank again carefully choosing the piranhas’ second course. She netted a yellow and black striped fish and then gently removed it from the tank, still with her back to me. Her elbows rested on the tank’s edge as she stared into it, seemingly deep in thought.

  She relented, and dropped the reprieved fish back into its tank where it raced to hide behind a large water weed.

  ‘Who the fuck’s Pandora. What she got to do wit the price of fish,’ said Ernie, not realising that given the present circumstances, that was very funny.

  I said, ‘Ask Maria. She knows all about fish. And Russian blues.’

  ‘’Sides, Johnny the Steaknife was whacked,’ said Ernie.

  Maria slowly turned and looked at me. She had the fishing net in her gloved hand as if she was about to conduct the Ride of the Valkryies. She was certainly dressed for the role. It now pointed towards Ernie the percussionist.

  ‘Get down and check on the oven. And make goddamn sure no one’s around,’ she said in Ernie’s direction.

  Maria went to her desk and removed a revolver from
the drawer. A .38. She expertly checked that it was fully loaded, pushing the cylinder latch forward and then flicking the cylinder out and back with a twist of her wrist, like they do on NYPD Blue. She sat against the edge of her desk, facing me, the gun in her hand.

  No movement from Ernie. She said, ‘Now, fuck-face.’

  There was no mistaking who was in charge here.

  I turned to face him, as far as my ribs and handcuffs would allow. I hurt. ‘You touch Jay, your balls and dick’ll become fish food and you’ll personally feed them to the Brazilians over there, then watch ’em being eaten.’

  He went to slap me across the face with the back of his hand but held back as he looked at Maria. Something had slipped him by and he didn’t know what. The situation was getting beyond The Hammer.

  Maria yelled, ‘Close the fucking door. Behind you.’

  It was a short while before I heard it click, as he reluctantly left the room.

  Maria sat there propping up the desk, and she put the revolver beside her, pointed at my chest, then let her hands grip the desk’s edge. She put her head back and her chin jutted toward me.

  ‘Tell me what you know. Who else knows it. You have exactly one minute.’

  ‘About what.’

  ‘Don’t play fuckin’ games.’ She was sounding less ladylike by the minute.

  ‘Do I call you Johnny Vittorio, Johnny Steaknife, Maria Viscione or Sadie?’ I said. ‘Or have I missed someone? I’m getting confused wit your various personas.’ I had said wit. ‘I just hope you get a group discount with your therapist.’

  I had her attention. Totally. Her mind was in overdrive as she tried to compose herself. I was enjoying the moment.

  ‘How’d you find out?’

  ‘You were sloppy. After twenty-odd years, Johnny Vittorio’s prints were on some shipping documents at a bank. Same as a scam pulled years ago by Castellano. The same prints. The bank hired a private eye and so I private-eyed it.’

  ‘What made them check the fucking documents for prints? How’d they know something’s wrong?’

  ‘Elementary fuck-up. A bunch of used containers in a shipment all bearing consecutive identification numbers. Odds of billions to one against. You didn’t read Basic Fuck-Ups to Avoid in Shipping Scams For Dummies, page one, chapter one.’ I continued, having her total attention, ‘They don’t have your prints because you always wear gloves except when you touch shipping documents. An eccentric witch who runs a funeral home. But this is South Florida and everything’s wacko here so even you don’t stand out. Where it’s Halloween all day every day. Unfortunately for you the Feds have computers and records and long memories. Johnny Vittorio’s prints were still on file since the aforesaid similar scam was pulled in 1985.’