“That’s funny, Sonny,” Richie says. “Funny. Sonny. Look at that. I’m a poet.”
Sonny doesn’t seem amused anymore.
Kaplan brings him over a double espresso and a plate of seeded cookies and then disappears to the back.
Sonny dunks a cookie in his coffee and munches on it. “I can only assume,” he says to Richie, “that your intent, for whatever purpose, is to fuck with me today. And, if I can be frank, it seems as if you’ve been leaning toward fucking with me for quite a while. This, I don’t like at all.”
Richie drinks from his cup even though it’s empty. He’s surprised it’s empty. He shows it to everyone. “Empty,” he says, pointing to the gravelly residue at the bottom. “You remember Sally Boy Provenzano?” he says.
“You’re asking me do I remember Sally Boy Provenzano?” Sonny says.
“Of course he remembers Sally Boy,” Ralphie Baruncelli says. “Fuck is this? You wearing a wire?”
“You go rat on us?” Chazz says.
Sonny motions to Ralphie and Chazz. “Check him, maybe.”
“You can check me all you want,” Richie says. “You ain’t gonna find a wire or even a piece. All you’re gonna find is a heart that’s changed.”
“What’s this whack-a-doodle talking about?” Nick says.
“Let me tell you the story of Sally Boy Provenzano,” Richie says.
“I got time for this?” Sonny lets out a big heaving sigh. “I know the story, assclam.”
“‘Assclam’?” Ice House Johnny says, and Nick nudges him again.
“Sally Boy Provenzano got tired,” Richie says. “He got tired of getting taken for granted. He got tired of getting looked past when big scores came down the pike. He got tired of betrayals, guys like Gentle Vic clipped by nobodies so people could move up. He got tired of psychos like Crea with no fucking code. Sally Boy was loyal for a long time—”
Sonny finishes for him: “And then one day he wasn’t.” He sucks on his upper lip. “You know what happened to Sally Boy, correct? He ripped off close to a rock and got clipped by Cosimo the Fig in Maryland at a rest stop. This is a threat? You gonna make a move here, Richie? You’re gonna announce it like this?” Sonny struggles to stand up. His feet are little. He’s angry. He picks up another cookie, jawing it to a paste as he continues talking, crumbs raining down on his lapels: “All I did for you since Vic kicked the bucket, you’re gonna come in and threaten me at the club? This is gratitude?”
“There’s an order to things,” Nick says. “You got a beef with Sonny, you gotta consult over your head. What we’re doing here, we’re trying to square a beef, that’s it.”
“A beef?” Richie says. “Well, I got a beef with Crea, too. How come only Sonny’s issues get addressed?”
“Are you hot with us, or are you hot with Sonny?” Nick says, genuinely confused.
“I’m hot with everyone,” Richie says.
Sonny slams his hands on the table, the espresso cups rattling on their saucers, the rest of the seeded cookies knocked from the plate in a wild scatter. “Well, you better cool the fuck down, Richie, before I have Ralphie and Chazz take you downstairs and put your head in the ammonia bucket.”
Richie’s not scared. He feels wired. Alive. He’s thinking about Adrienne. He shot so fast with her in the kitchen, that’s how nuts she makes him. He can’t wait for another go, maybe in a motel on the road. Get the kid a separate room and put something on pay-per-view for her. He just stares at Sonny.
“Why you looking at me like a goddamn Christmas decoration?” Sonny says.
“I got a proposition,” Richie says.
“You got a proposition for me?”
“For all of you.” Richie waves his hand around the table. “How about I take that briefcase on the floor between Nick and Johnny and just walk right out of here? And you, Sonny, and Crea’s crew representatives here, everyone just considers it as a peace offering to me.”
“You just ride off into the sunset with the dough?”
“That’s the tentative plan. Of course, I’ve gotta factor in other possibilities.”
“You gotta factor in my balls.” Sonny laughs. The table shakes with his laughter. Nick and Johnny start laughing. Ralphie and Chazz follow suit. “This guy’s got to be fucking with me.”
“Hey, you’re right, Sonny,” Richie says. “It’s just a goof. I got wind of this here sit-down and thought I’d bust your balls a little.”
“This fucking guy,” Nick says. “You had me very perturbed, Richie. Very perturbed. The insinuations you were making.”
“Yeah, I really didn’t want to have to kill you,” Ralphie says. “I always liked you because you gave me that Mickey Mantle card the one time.”
“That was a valuable card,” Richie says.
“You’re still a friend?” Nick asks.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if you’ve got to go on meds or what,” Sonny says, “but your goof was a stupid idea. You had me going, but you don’t want to get me going, do you? Sally Boy Provenzano—what were you thinking? Just saying that guy’s name is enough to get you clipped.”
“I know, I know,” Richie says. “I’m sorry. My sense of humor’s all fucked up these days.”
“Your head’s shot to shit maybe. The wiring up there. Too much stress, anxiety, I know how it goes. Go to the Russians and get a little action, huh? Start thinking straight.”
“That’s a good idea. I am feeling a little nerved up.” Richie gets up and walks around the table, stopping to kiss them all. “Gentlemen, I apologize for my immaturity,” he says.
“Sick fuck,” he hears Sonny say, as he heads for the door.
Outside, he goes over to his white ’82 Cadillac Eldorado hardtop coupe, parked at a hydrant, and he gets in under the wheel, keying the ignition and letting the car idle. He opens the glove compartment and takes out a De Nobili Toscani cigar he’s got waiting there. He fires it up using the car lighter and puffs away with the window open, scanning the radio for something good. Hendrix. Springsteen. He settles for Yes on 104.3. He watches the club.
After a few minutes, he pulls away from the curb and drives around the corner, backing into the narrow alley that comes up behind the club. The alley has a high fence on both sides and is shielded by trees from the neigh-boring houses.
He stubs out the cigar in the coin-scattered ashtray. He pops the trunk and leaves the car running. He gets out and leans into the trunk. He’s got a pair of heavy-duty work boots there on top of his packed bags. He changes into them, leaving his sandals in their place. He takes a look at the new Nikon F5 he scored from Scrummy’s nephew. He can’t wait to use it. He imagines a life of roadside motels, eating burgers at drive-in joints, shooting old neon signs and faces behind steering wheels.
The other thing in the trunk—the most prominent thing—is the MAC-10 with its special Wheelchair Jim Strazella silencer. Fucking Strazella has that magic touch. Vic’s favorite guy. The thing whispers. He picks it up and holds it across his chest. It’s the same gun that Butch kills Vincent Vega with in Pulp Fiction is why he likes it. He saw that movie five times in two weeks at the Loew’s Oriental on Eighty-Sixth Street the year it came out. Classic. What was that, ’94?
He’s got a New York Rangers ski mask next to the gun, but he decides not to wear it. Fuck’s the point? Might as well let them see his face. He leaves the trunk popped.
The back door of the club is covered in green graffiti. Kaplan’s left it unlocked and wedged open. Good. Kaplan’s lack of hesitation in helping him is further proof that wrongs need to be righted here. Forget Richie’s private beef, his frustration with and ambivalence toward the family these days. Sonny and Crea most likely giving Little Sal their blessing to off Vic was a breach of protocol. The oath used to mean something. To hear Vic talk about it, that was poetry. The outfit merely overrun with no-good punks now.
Richie kicks past an overturned poker machine and scurries down a dark hallway lined with boxes. W
hen he comes to the dark curtain, he takes a deep breath. He thinks of the dogfights he used to go to with Vic out at Floyd Bennett Field. This one pit bull, Erasmus, he was a killer. Richie channels him now. Clenches his neck. Pushes back the curtain with his free hand and leads with the MAC-10 in the other. Kaplan seems to have disappeared for good, which makes him happy.
Sonny, Ralphie, Chazz, Nick, and Johnny—they’re sitting ducks. The MAC-10’s spitting bullets before they can even move. And none of them are even armed—regulations of the sit-down.
It’s a scene out of a gangster movie. Bodies jolt. Espresso cups shatter. The walls are painted with holes. Sonny, Nick, and Johnny slump over the table. Ralphie and Chazz have been blown off their feet.
Richie takes it in. A masterpiece. Blood in bolts on the floor. The drab quiet of the place. Spilled coffee leaking off the edge of the table. Last gurgling breaths. Sonny saying Richie’s name twice before falling silent.
Seeing things like this, doing things like this, no matter how many times, Richie can’t help thinking it’s not real, it’s a movie, the bodies aren’t real bodies, the blood is fake blood. But it’s real and this one’s different, because it’s the end of this life for him.
He goes over and grabs the briefcase where it’s flopped over on the floor between Johnny and Nick, blood-streaked. He cleans it off with some paper napkins from the table and snaps open the lid. The money’s there. Half a rock is what he heard, and half a rock is what it looks like. He slams the top closed, struggling with the safety lock. Then he takes the last cookie on Sonny’s plate, the only one the fat fuck hasn’t ravaged, and eats it in one big bite as he walks back to the Caddy and places the MAC-10 and the suitcase in the trunk with his other bags. He gets back under the wheel, lights the remaining half of his De Nobili, and drives calmly out of the alley as if he’s just left his grandmother’s house on some Sunday long ago.
WOLFSTEIN
“When I was a kid,” Bobby Murray says, still holding the gun on Wolfstein, “I stole some money from my mother’s dresser drawer. You know what she did? Some mothers, they come after you with a wooden spoon back then. Not my mother. My mother comes after me with a tire iron. Had me put my hands on the table. Smashed them. I was in casts, both hands, I forget how long. Different day and age. Doctors didn’t give a shit. Rotten kid deserved it, stealing like that. I couldn’t eat. Had to suck everything up through a straw. Couldn’t write. Couldn’t hold my wang to take a proper leak. Pissed all over the floor. But I learned my lesson.”
“Bobby,” Wolfstein says.
“‘Bobby,’” he says, mimicking her. “I didn’t want no trouble in Florida. I had plenty of trouble in my life. I wanted to have some fun. Pop some Viagra, dabble around in the sack a little with someone appreciates a good time. I worked sanitation my whole life. Had a little dough saved. Figured I had a few years of living it up down there before I was too feeble for screwing or anything else.” Now he’s looking at Rena, telling her the story, explaining his side. “And then Lacey comes along.”
“I thought you had a decent heart,” Wolfstein says.
“Oh, I got a decent heart. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you stomp all over me, you know? I’m no chump, that’s for sure.”
“Can I say something?” Rena asks.
“Maybe you should stay out of it,” Wolfstein says, feeling semi-bad that Rena’s been dragged into this but glad it’s not just her and Bobby in the house. Also, Bobby’s probably figuring Rena for just some neighborhood biddie, not realizing she’s a wiseguy’s widow.
“Let her say what she’s gonna say,” Bobby says, keeping the gun on Wolfstein.
“Put the gun down, huh?” Rena says. “This is just a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
“I’ll get your money for you, okay?” Wolfstein says.
“The money’s a secondary concern,” Bobby says.
“What then?”
Bobby puts the gun back to his own head. “I’m gonna off myself, I swear.” He’s crying now.
“What can I do to stop that from happening?” Wolfstein asks.
“Marry me,” Bobby says.
The first night Wolfstein met Bobby in Fort Myers, they’d gone back to the condo he was subleasing in Cane Palm. Nice place. Coffee table stacked with paperbacks, clean windows, big-screen TV, stereo system, leather sofa, fake flowers on the table. They were drunk. She remembers that he was humming—what was it? A Sinatra song? His refrigerator contained low-fat plain yogurt, prunes, and leftover mahi-mahi from some bar or other. On the counter was a shaker full of salt substitute. He talked about his mother then, too. How she was only fourteen years older than him. Crazy, right? The sex was disappointingly long, as it often was when the mark popped a Viagra. He’d fallen down, bare-assed, swatting at a fly.
She’s trying to remember something personal they talked about, something she can use to disarm him a little.
“I remember you said your sister lives in Connecticut,” Wolfstein says suddenly, scrambling for anything.
“Come on,” Bobby says. “You’re gonna try this game with me? I know the score.”
“I’m just making small talk.”
“Quit it.”
“Your sister’s name was what—Marsha?”
“Never mind my sister.”
“She still a gun nut? I remember you saying she liked classical music, too.”
“This is her piece. She doesn’t know I took it.” Bobby shakes his head and thumps his free hand against his chest. “Never mind my fucking sister, okay? I’m gonna blow my brains out in your living room if you don’t marry me!”
“Marry you right now?”
“Agree to marry me, I mean. Lacey, I was never so happy as I was with you. I’ve been miserable since I left Florida. Two years, I been trying to find you. I didn’t even know your last name. I had to hire this private investigator out of Yonkers, Quinlan, and he finally tracked you down.”
“Bobby,” Wolfstein says, “listen to me. I took you for fifteen grand, from what I remember. I got that much right upstairs. Let me give it to you and then we’ll part ways, okay? I’m not gonna marry you, because I’m not marrying anybody.”
“Go get the money,” Bobby says, wiping tears from his cheeks with his gun hand.
“Now you’re using your head,” Wolfstein says. “You just put the gun down and sit tight a second.”
“Okay, okay.” He sets the gun on the counter.
Wolfstein goes up to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She’s ambivalent about leaving Bobby alone with Rena, but this is her only shot to shake him. She stands on the bed. The vent is in the center of the wall above the bed. It’s big, with a steel cover kept in place by six screws. She keeps the screws half-tightened so she can just undo them with her fingers and push the cover up. The fireproof battery bag fits snugly in the duct. She yanks it out and drops it on the bed. She unzips it. The money is wrapped in plastic. She counts out fifteen large. She hopes Bobby doesn’t come knocking. She works fast. She closes the bag and puts it back in the duct, replacing the cover. She gathers the money in her hand and wraps it with a hair tie she finds in the top drawer of her dresser. One hundred and fifty hundred-dollar bills. The pile doesn’t look that substantial.
She goes downstairs and offers it to Bobby. “We’re square,” she says.
“This was never just about the money,” Bobby says.
“Take it. And let’s be done here.”
Bobby pockets the money. “I appreciate the gesture.”
“It’s time to go. We’ve got a lot going on right now.”
“You and your pal here?”
“Right.”
“How about a quick celebratory drink?”
“Celebrating what?”
“Your effort to make right by me.”
“Stop.”
“You owe me a drink, I’d say. All I’m asking. One drink and then I’m out of your hair.”
“Fine,” Wolfstein says. Then to Rena: “Would yo
u like something?”
“Thanks, I’m good,” Rena says, sitting back on the sofa, her head in her hands.
Wolfstein fills a pint glass with ice and then pours vodka with a heavy hand. She squeezes lime juice in until it clouds the vodka, the way Bobby likes. She brings it over to him, and he takes a belt.
“That’s a good idea?” Rena says.
“He needs to stay calm,” Wolfstein says.
“I shouldn’t have aimed the gun at you; I’m sorry,” Bobby says, slurping more vodka. “I just have this deep love for you, Lacey. I never felt like that before. My old gal, Myrna, the broad I went with for years before Florida, I never felt like that once. I know you were just hustling me. I had Quinlan track you down. He found out some stuff. I was just a mark, like your friend said. But I don’t believe you were faking it all.”
“I like you,” Wolfstein says. “But, listen, there’s no future or anything here. I’ve squared things with the dough, and that’s as far as I’m going to go.”
Smacking his hands together, Bobby says, “Can’t pull a gun on a broad and expect fireworks after that.”
“I also think there’d be some trust issues, me having ripped you off.”
“Maybe, yeah. I just think there’s still a connection.” Another long pull from his glass, draining what’s left.
“That was a lot of vodka,” Wolfstein says.
“Turns out I was thirsty. I’m feeling a little looser.”
There’s no shaking Bobby. He talks Wolfstein into another drink and tries to dance with Rena, pulling her up from the couch. “There’s no music,” she says. Wolfstein’s losing patience.
He starts singing “Mack the Knife,” twisting Rena’s arm.
“Aw, leave her alone, Bobby,” Wolfstein says.
Rena escapes his grasp and heads up to the bathroom, whispering something about needing to freshen up.
“I chased her away,” Bobby says.
“You’re loaded.”
“I’m feeling good. Sue me. Turns out I really needed a drink. And I got this dough burning a hole in my pocket. You want to go to the casino with me?”
A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself Page 8