by Lee, Edward
“Time Magazine Man Of The Year.”
“Um-hmm.”
Archie took a look at the Greeter’s trim waist and commendable buttocks. “Shit, I forgot, but…what’s the Greeter’s name?”
Mike frowned. “I don’t fuckin’ know.”
(II)
What on EARTH? Veronica thought when it became apparent that the digital video file Paulie had sent was over. She’d watched the three men as they watched the video—she’d watched their faces go from troubled, to aghast, to appalled. She’d watched big rugged grown men cry. What is it? What is ON that video? All any of them had said during the viewing was this:
Micky-Mack: “Holy fuck, Unc! Is that… Is that…”
Helton: “Yeah, boy. That’s our house a’burnin’…”
Then, moments later:
Helton: “Awwwww, Lord. Awwwww, no…”
Veronica thought she heard some unintelligible squawking from the voice track. Did someone with a Jersey accent say “There’s our bitch. Good job, guys”?
Now all three men stared at the laptop screen as if staring at a hundred-foot tidal wave.
“They’re diggin’ her up!” Dumar wailed. “Oh, my God! They’re diggin’ her up!”
Veronica tried to tune out the rest, grateful at least that these madmen hadn’t forced her to watch as well. Whatever had transpired on that screen…Veronica didn’t want to know.
At the clip’s evident conclusion, Dumar howled like a sick dog and passed out. Micky-Mack stood shuddering and blubbering, “You see that, Unc? You see what them evil fellas did ta my Aunt Mary Beth?” and then he fled the truck. Helton merely sat in the fold-down chair. He had tears in his eyes.
Many solemn minutes passed before Micky-Mack returned.
“What we gonna do, Unc Helton? We ain’t throwin’ in the towel, is we?”
“Hail no, boy. We gotta think. We gotta think’a how’s we can pay ’em back.”
“More’a Paulie’s kin. It’s the only way.”
Helton nodded.
“But that black fella said Paulie’s wife was out’a town.”
“Then we gots ta think’a someone else.” Helton now looked like a backwoods version of The Thinker at Columbia University. Then, very slowly, his cruxed gaze turned to Veronica.
“Hon. It saddens me ta tell ya that this feud we got goin’ probably ain’t gonna be over any time soon—”
Veronica wilted.
“—which means we’se gonna need ya fer a spell more.”
Immediately, she began to crack sobs. “You’re never going to let me go, never…”
“Now, no cryin’, hon. See, we need more’a yer help, and the more ya can give us, the sooner it’ll be that ya can leave.”
“What!” she blared. “What do you want now? More oral sex?”
Helton’s bushy brows fluttered. “Some more tweakin’, why shore—thanks fer offerin’.”
Veronica’s face collapsed into her hands.
“But a’fore that, we need ya to help us find some’a Paulie’s kin. See, we’se hillfolk, hon—the kind’a smarts we got’s backwood smarts. But you got smarts for the outside world.”
Veronica’s mind just kept spinning. “So, what? You want to know where Paulie’s relatives live?”
“Why, yeah!” Helton beamed. “I mean, all I heard is he got hisself a house in some place called New Jersey, and also in that country way far away by the name’a California.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and he also got a place in New York City. But—shee-it. We don’t know no addresses or nothin’. You reckon you can think of a way?”
Veronica rolled her eyes. For the love of— “Hand me my laptop and I’ll google his name.”
Helton shuddered, while Micky-Mack turned with a start. “Google!” the younger man said, “What’s that? Some disease?”
“Sounds like a hex, boy.” Helton looked excited. “You fixin’ ta hex Paulie?”
Veronica ran her fingers through her hair. “I’ll look his name up on the internet! Jeez! Don’t you people know anything?”
“The…internet? Oh, yeah, that magic stuff that’s connected ta yer fancy ‘puter.” Helton passed the laptop down to her. “Please, hon. Ya gots ta help us.”
Veronica frowned and went to Google. “What’s Paulie’s last name?”
(III)
“Vinchetti,” Helton told her. “Paulie Vinchetti. It Eye-tallion I’se think,” and then the big man sat in the fold-down chair as pleas and prayers spun round his head. Please, God. Let it be so that Veronnerka can help us git a line on this devil-lovin’ Paulie…
He jolted when the cellphone rang.
Veronica looked up from her keyboard. “Who on earth could that be?” she said with more sarcasm.
Helton opened the tiny phone. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Helton, ya big redneck pile’a shit,” Paulie’s voice cracked. “I’m just calling to see how you liked our little movie,” and then laughter spilled from the tiny phone.
Helton’s soul began to boil. “Hear me, ya evil prick, and hear me good. We’se gonna git you back like you never could ‘magine!”
“Sure, Gomer, sure—”
“And stop callin’ me that! I don’t know no Gomer!”
The tinny laughter crackled. “Grow a brain, buddy. Go home…” then the laughter exploded. “But, aw, gee, now that I think of it, you can’t go home, can you? ’cos we burned that fuckin’ shit-hole you live in down!”
“Ain’t no big deal, Paulie,” Helton recovered. “I’ll just build me a new house…once I pawn all them diamonds’n gold chains’n such that I stolt out your whore wife’s jewelry boxes.”
Paulie’s laughter faded. “Lemme tell ya somethin’, Helton. Nobody fucks with Paul Vinchetti. Nobody. I never had so much fun in my life as when I was takin’ a shit in that cracker tramp’s dead mouth, but you can count on something else, too. One day, real soon, I’ll be takin’ a shit in yours.”
The line went dead.
Helton re-sat himself with a sigh. He closed the annoying phone.
“Fuck, Unc,” Micky-Mack said. “Was that him?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“What the evil bastard say?”
“Just trash talk, boy. Burns me up, though. Patience is a virtue—says so in the Good Book. Reckon I just gotta work a tad harder on that myself.”
“We’ll git him, Unc. We’ll git him.”
Helton watched Veronica fiddle with the little keys. “Havin’ any luck?”
“I think so,” she answered. “Paul Vinchetti is all over the internet. Mostly court dockets, pre-trial announcements, things like that. Shouldn’t take me long…”
“Hot damn!” Micky-Mack celebrated.
Helton clasped his hands together. Please, God. Please…
Moaning resounded from an opposite corner. It was Dumar, rousing. The stringy-haired man sat to stare, blinked, then brought his hand to his belly as if sick. “Aw, my Gawd, Paw. It weren’t a nightmare. It were real.”
“Just git’cher mind off it, son.”
“How could they do that ta my lovin’ wife? Shorely only the most devilish’a men could do what they done…”
“The more ya think about it, the worst you’ll feel. Best ta think ’bout what we’ll do ta git ’em back.”
But Dumar just kept moaning. “Awwwww, awwwww. Bad enough they fucked her but-but, aw holy Moses!” and then his voice corroded down to a dismal gurgle. “They put her back in the ground with her belly full’a their shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…”
Distracted, Veronica shot a sharp glance up. “What?”
“Nothin’, hon. He didn’t say nothin’,” Helton urged. “Just…git back ta yer ‘puterin’.”
Veronica flinched, then resumed her key-tapping.
“My lovin’ faithful wife,” Dumar continued to moan. “How… how could they?”
“Micky-Mack,” Helton snapped. “Take Dumar outside fer a breath’a fresh air. It’ll do him good.”
“Shore,
Unc,” and then the younger man escorted Dumar out.
Faithful, lovin’ wife? Helton reflected. Well, that wasn’t quite the case. He’d heard a story or two about Mary Beth. He couldn’t substantiate them but…
Dumar had likely heard some stories as well but disregarded them posthaste—love, indeed, was blind. When one was in love, one chose not to believe such gossip. Nevertheless, Mary Beth had had a reputation before her proper marriage to Dumar: a reputation of promiscuity. There’d been one time, though, after the marriage, when the corn liquor rations had worn thin, and Mary Beth—quite the toper, mind you—had implied that if Helton upped her ration slightly, she might be inclined to express her gratitude via oral avenues. (Dumar had been out on a deer hunt for several days when this occurred.) But Helton—naturally—had declined the sultry woman’s offer and had, well, punched her up a bit for stooping to such an immoral low. It stood to reason, though, that if Mary Beth had made this offer to Helton for extra liquor, there existed a high order of probability that she’d made the same offer to others; hence, cheating on Dumar. Further, Helton had heard quite a few verifications of this…
Of course, he’d never mentioned this to his son, and the whopper of a bruise on his wife’s face had been convincingly explained as the result of a clumsy fall whilst gathering firewood. But the woman, point-blank, was a high-order tramp, and Helton supposed it was even possible that the sprightly, young—and now very dead—Crory Tuckton had been in fact sired by loins other than Dumar’s.
So much, then, for faithful, lovin’ wife.
Helton looked woefully at Veronica just in time to see her glance up, smile, and say, “Got it.”
“What’cha got, hon? What’cha got?” he replied excitedly. He stooped over to look at the screen.
“I pulled up a newspaper, and—”
“Newspaper? Where?”
Veronica grew flustered. “On my computer. Online.”
“But that ain’t no newspaper! That’s a machine.”
Veronica couldn’t have sighed more wearily. “It’s the New York Times-dot-com, Helton. No, it’s not a physical newspaper, it’s the newspaper’s website.”
Helton gripped his own head. “Hon. All’a this tek-noller-gee’s givin’ me a blammed headache!”
Veronica’s own headache throbbed. “It’s a newspaper in magicland, all right?” She could’ve screamed. “Anyway, it seems that Paul Vinchetti comes from a long line of alleged criminals. He’s been arraigned a dozen times for everything from racketeering, bribery, and tax evasion to drug trafficking, contract murder, and distribution of illicit pornography.” She shrugged. “But he’s never been convicted. Dream Team lawyers and lots of money. Look. Here’s a picture of him,” and then she read the under-caption: “‘Alleged Mafioso Paul Vinchetti, aka Paulie the 3rd, seen here leaving federal court after his trial. Vinchetti was arrested in June for allegedly producing snuff films for the underground porn market. All charges were dropped when state’s witnesses failed to appear.’”
Helton squinted at the shimmering screen…
“So there he is. Paulie,” he intoned. The smartly dressed man in the digital photo smiled as he was about to get into a waiting limousine. “Rat-faced little bastard, huh? Ya can just tell, Veronnerka. Ya can tell how evil that man is by lookin’ at his face.”
Veronica diddled with some keys. “Here’s another picture,” and she read: “‘Alleged criminal mastermind Paul Vinchetti III having dinner at New York’s premier restaurant, Massaccesi’s, just one week after alleged rival and district mob boss Agostino Pagnatelli was murdered by unknown gunmen. Vinchetti is seen here with his wife Marshie and his mother, Adele.’”
“Yeah, that’s Marshie, all right. Got tramp’n backwoods whore written all over her. And them big tits on her? They’se implants. Bet she’s got almost as much money as him after inheritin’ Thibald Caudill’s fortune.” He chuckled, however grimly. “Hon. That fussy cracker hose-bag is what we call a ‘sperm-GURGLER’, yessir! With money’re without, low-life trash is low-life trash. What she is is like a spittoon in a bar, only it ain’t spit that’s been fillin’ it up all these years. It’s cum.”
Veronica winced. “Helton, please…”
“Oh, sorry. Pardon my coarse language.” But his eyes widened when he looked harder at the photo. “And that there’s his mother, you say?”
Veronica nodded. “Adele Vinchetti. She’s 62.”
“Looks dang good fer a gal her age, huh?” Helton rubbed his crotch without conscious forethought. “Bet she’s got them fancy implants too.”
“And every other kind of cosmetic surgery,” Veronica supposed of the shapely, Sophia-Lorenish-looking woman in the photo. “She’s very, very rich. Owns a brownstone in the Upper West Side according to the city tax records.”
“A brownstone? The hail’s that? Who wants brown stones?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she snapped. “You wanted me to locate some of Paulie’s relatives, so I did.”
Helton scratched the brush-like beard. “These pictures is fine but, hon, we need an address.”
Another jiggle of the keys, then Veronica pointed. “The good old AOL White Pages, Helton.”
“Huh?”
“12 West 75th Street and Dessorio Avenue.”
“The hail?”
“Adele Vinchetti’s address.”
Helton stared fixedly, then:
“EEEEEEEEEEEE-ha!” He leaned over and—
Veronica’s face shriveled.
—planted a big wet halitosis-tinged kiss on Veronica’s cheek.
“Git yer butts back in here, boys!” he yelled out the side door. “We’se going on a trip!” and when Dumar and Micky-Mack re-entered the truck, their faces were full of wonder.
“Gather ’round!” Helton trumpeted. “Veronnerka done struck gold again! She up’n got the address fer Paulie’s mother!”
In unison, Dumar and Micky-Mack railed: “EEEEEEEEEEE-ha!”
“And she lives in…” Helton looked down. “Where she live, hon?”
“In a multi-million-dollar brownstone she inherited from her late husband, Paul Vinchetti, Jr.,” she said. “It’s in Manhattan, Upper West Side.”
Micky-Mack was jumping up and down. “Manhattan? Where the hail’s that?”
“New York City.”
Micky-Mack stopped jumping up and down. He, Dumar, and Helton all traded glances that could only be called ominous.
“New York City?” Dumar inquired. “The New York City?”
“The one and only.”
“Sheeeee-it,” Micky-Mack whispered. “That’s big as even Pulaski, ain’t it?”
Veronica winced. “Pulaski is hardly a big city, Micky-Mack. It’s a town. It’s got a population of ten thousand. New York’s got a population of ten million.”
More ominous glances back and forth.
Dumar stammered. “But we ain’t never…been to any big cities.”
“Well, we’se shore as shit goin’ ta one now!” Helton roared. “And we’re gonna git our proper revenge on Paulie’s Maw!”
“EEEEEEEEE-ha!”
Veronica pressed her palms to her ears. “Helton, please! You’re gonna let me go first, right? You’re not going to make me ride all the way up to New York City with you? Right?”
“Aw, don’t worry none about that, missy. We’ll make the ride comfortable for ya as possible.”
Veronica began to cry.
“Start the truck, Dumar!” Helton ordered in glee. “We’se a-goin’ to New York City, yessir!”
— | — | —
Chapter 11
(I)
But before they’d even gotten out of town, it occurred to Helton and his kin that they didn’t have a clue as to how to drive to New York City. All Veronica had told them was this: “Take West Main Street to Count Pulaski Drive, then merge onto Interstate 81. It’s about 500 miles, an 8- or 9-hour drive,” and after that, still handcuffed to the table, her despair, shock-induced exhaustion, and
sheer dumbfoundment as to her predicament had shrouded her in a deep, troubled sleep. “Shit, Paw,” Dumar said at the wheel. “Where the hail we goin’?” And Micky-Mack: “I ain’t even been out the county ‘cept fer couple times in my life.” Helton looked back to see Veronica asleep and curled into a ball. “Well, after all Veronnerka’s done fer us, it ain’t right we wake her up, so…” He spotted something through the windshield. “Pull in there, son. We ain’t dopes. We’ll just up’n buy ourselfs a map.”