Thieving Weasels

by Billy Taylor

  “Five more weeks.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it. It’s only been eight days and I’m already going out of my mind. Between the itching, my mother, and all the legal mumbo jumbo I’m ready to join your mom in Shady Oaks.”

  “What kind of mumbo jumbo?” I asked.

  “Papers, court filings, stuff like that. My lawyer’s taking care of most of it.”

  “What does he think is going to happen?”

  Roy set down the hanger and said, “A lot depends on Jackie’s mom. She’s some kind of born-again Christian and wrote off Jackie years ago. If she doesn’t make a big deal about it, I might get away with a suspended sentence, or sixty days in County, tops.”

  “And if she does?”

  “I’m hosed.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “My lawyer has. She says she’ll pray for me.”

  “At least that’s something,” I said, and sat down beneath a poster of the New York Rangers from the year they beat the Canucks for the Stanley Cup. It was a little before my time, but Roy had a VHS of the series and used to watch it all the time. I’ve never understood the point of re-watching a game I’ve already seen, but Roy swore by it, and for years it was the only way he could fall asleep at night.

  “How’s the job with Mr. DeNunsio going?” he asked. “Dad said you were pissed off about having to step up.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Sorry. It’s not like I planned any of this.”

  “What’s done is done.”

  “Is it going okay?”

  “So far so good,” I replied. “I was hoping to have Vinny come along, but decided against it.”

  Roy leaned forward. “You didn’t ask him, did you?”

  “I was going to. Then we went out the other night, and he almost killed a guy at the mini golf in Deer Park.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. One second we were talking about you, and the next thing I knew he was strangling some guy with a golf club.”

  “That sounds like Vinny,” Roy said with a laugh. “He’s been wound a little tight the last couple of months.”

  “How come?”

  “Too much meth. I don’t think he’s slept more than an hour since Labor Day.”

  A player scored a goal on TV, and we stopped to watch the referee disqualify the point.

  “Give me a break!” Roy shouted. “There’s no way that guy was offside.”

  “I didn’t know you were a soccer fan.”

  “I’m not, but I watched the highlights from last night’s Knicks game at least a dozen times, and those idiots on Sports Center were driving me crazy.”

  We stared at the TV in silence until out of nowhere Roy asked, “Do you think I’m going to Hell, Skip?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why do you think? For killing Jackie.”

  “It’s not like you meant to do it.”

  “Does that even matter? I was high, Jackie’s dead, and now I’m charged with manslaughter.” Roy lit another cigarette. “God, I hate that word—manslaughter. But that’s what I did, Skip. I slaughtered her. She was so bloody and banged up it was like somebody had dropped her out of an airplane. I mean, look at my hands. Look at my face. They seem real, right? That’s how Jackie looked until I hit that patch of ice, and then . . . slaughtered.”

  A commercial came on for a Spanish talk show, and we watched as a man in a tuxedo interviewed a grown woman in a cat costume. It made no sense and fit right in with the insanity of everything else in my life.

  “Remember when Grandpa Patsy got sick?” Roy asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Remember how he looked okay at first? I kept telling myself that if we just went about our lives and pretended like nothing was wrong the cancer would go away. Then he just got sicker and sicker.”

  “I remember.”

  “That’s when I stopped going to see him. It was just too hard. But you never stopped, Skip. You kept going all the way to the end. More than Dad, more than your mom, more than all of us put together. Why did you do that, Skip? Why did you keep visiting him?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. There had to be something else. I mean what did you guys talk about?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” I shrugged and said, “Mostly we just watched TV. Kind of like this, actually.”

  “Did he tell you anything special at the end? Anything memorable?”

  “Not that I recall. He was pretty messed up on medication.” I stood up and said, “I gotta go use the can.”

  I walked into the bathroom and tried to separate the real from the con. Roy was obviously torn up about Jackie, but the stuff about Grandpa Patsy? That was just a lame attempt to learn the whereabouts of Grandpa Patsy’s money. I had to hand it to my cousin; even in his darkest hour he never stopped trying to scam people. That was forgivable, but bringing up Grandpa Patsy’s death? That was off-limits, and I couldn’t let it slide. I flushed the toilet and walked back into the bedroom.

  “Speaking of Grandpa Patsy,” I said. “Remember that time he dragged us to Our Lady of the Assumption during Easter week and made us confess everything to Father Burke?”

  “Like it was yesterday, bro.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “Sure I did.”

  I shook my head. “I was in the other confessional. All you said was that you disobeyed your parents and cursed. That was it. Nothing about stealing, nothing about lying, nothing about smoking weed.”

  “Who cares? Everybody smokes weed.”

  “I don’t,” I replied. “But all I’m saying is you didn’t tell Father Burke your real sins.”

  “So?”

  “You told Grandpa Patsy that you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I was there, Roy.”

  “Okay, so maybe I didn’t tell the priest everything, but what’s the big deal?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I replied. “I was just wondering if you ever thought about Grandpa Patsy looking down from heaven and knowing you lied to him.”

  “No, and why are you so sure Grandpa Patsy’s in heaven?”

  “Because he made a full confession. That’s probably the best thing about knowing you’re going to die. You can get it all off your chest.” Then I looked him in the eye and said, “Too bad Jackie didn’t get the same opportunity.”

  Roy bit his lip, and I immediately regretted my words. Yes, it was uncool of him to bring up Grandpa Patsy, but bringing up Jackie was a total dick move. I thought about making it up to him by offering him something from my mother’s medicine cabinet, but decided against it. The guy had enough problems without getting hooked on painkillers.

  Besides, he probably sold them to her in the first place.

  24

  “WHERE’D YOU FIND THIS BOAT?” I ASKED THE NEXT afternoon when Mr. DeNunsio picked me up in an ancient Cadillac.

  “I usually keep it in storage for the winter, but I had my guy drop it off at Shady Oaks in case I need to make a quick getaway. But it turns out it was a total waste of time because the deal’s off.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because of this.”

  Mr. DeNunsio put the car in park and handed me a sheet of paper covered in numbers and percentages.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “The results of a paternity test.”

  “Who’s the lucky father?” I asked.

  “Me.”

  I looked down at the sheet and said, “Aren’t you a little old for this kind of thing?”

  “I am now, but I wasn’t seventeen years ago.”

  “Seventeen years ago? At that rate you could be m
y father.”

  “Not could be, Skip. Am.”

  I looked up, and there were tears in Mr. DeNunsio’s eyes. My mind flashed to my mother, and the stories she told her therapy group, and I knew it was a scam.

  “You sure about this?” I asked. “I mean, don’t you have to take a blood test or something?”

  “Not anymore. All you need is some DNA.”

  When I heard the letters DNA I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. That was why Uncle Wonderful jammed that swab down my throat in the O’Neil Pavilion parking lot. It was all part of the con. A paternity test would tie me to Mr. DeNunsio by blood, which might make him trust me more. Might being the key word. Now it was my job to crank it up a notch.

  “All it says is alleged father and child,” I said, looking up from the paper. “This could be anybody.”

  “Did you give your uncle a DNA sample?” he asked.

  “Not voluntarily, but yeah. How about you?”

  He nodded. “I figured, why not?”

  “You actually believe this?” I asked. “You know my family. They’d just as soon rip you off as tell you your shoe is untied.”

  “And when was the last time you met an honest criminal?” Mr. DeNunsio said with a laugh. “Anyway, I talked to the people at the lab. They assured me it was a hundred percent legitimate.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not believing any of this until we take another test without my family being involved.”

  “That makes sense.”

  I took out my iPhone and did a quick search on paternity tests. “Damn, it says here that the average turnaround time for a paternity test is five to seven business days. Even if we submitted the DNA tomorrow, we won’t know the results until after I’m back at school.” I handed the paper back to Mr. DeNunsio. As much as I wanted to quit this job, I knew my family would only come up with another one in its place. The best thing to do was just get it over with.

  “Paternity test or not, I say we proceed.”

  “No,” Mr. DeNunsio said. “I already lost two kids. I’m not losing a third.”

  “Do the numbers. Knowing my family, the odds that you’re my father are like twenty percent. But the odds that Fat Nicky killed your family are a hundred. Where would you put your money?”

  He sighed and said, “I don’t know.”

  Then I delivered the clincher: “Besides, if it turns out that I am your son, I sure as hell want to kill the guy who killed my sisters.”

  He thought about it for a moment and said, “Okay, but if things get hinky I reserve the right to pull the plug on the job until the last second.”

  “Deal.”

  Mr. DeNunsio put the car in gear, and we drove a circular route through Amityville and Copiague. When he was satisfied no one was following us he made a sharp turn in front of the Cheshire Arms Apartments. It had been years since I’d been in this neighborhood, and my mind flashed to riding my bike down Pine Wood Drive, and how I must have passed Fat Nicky’s house a thousand times. I tried to picture myself back then, and what I would have said if someone told me that one day I’d be hired to kill the guy who lived there. I would have said they were crazy.

  Mr. DeNunsio slowed down and said, “It’s coming up on the left.”

  “The one with the humongous hedges?”

  “That’s it.”

  The house looked fairly nondescript considering the man who lived there was once one of America’s top criminals. I don’t know what I was expecting to see as we drove past. A moat? Gun turrets? For the most part, Fat Nicky’s house looked downright cozy. I couldn’t see much beyond the hedges, but the only things that looked out of the ordinary were a pair of floodlights mounted on high poles on either side of the yard.

  Mr. DeNunsio said, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven past this house. It’s like a magnet for me. I’d tell myself I was just going out for cigarettes, or to gas up the car, and then I’d always end up here. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess deep down I always knew I’d try and kill the bastard.”

  We drove to the end of the block, made a couple of turns, and parked in a marina facing the Great South Bay. Mr. DeNunsio turned off the engine, and we stared out at the water as he gave me my final orders.

  “Do it while you’re on the clock at the Pavilion so you’ll have an alibi. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than an hour. Wear latex gloves and something dark. Slip out, do the hit, and come back. Remember, you gotta shoot him twice in the head. He got lucky last time, but if his brains look like a pile of scungilli, you know he’s history.”

  “How many men have you killed?” I asked.

  “Four.”

  “Does it ever bug you?”

  It took him a long time to answer, and I watched through the windshield as a seagull dove into the water and came up with a fish in its mouth. See that, I told myself. In the animal kingdom everyone’s a murderer.

  “One guy still bothers me,” Mr. DeNunsio finally said. “The other three? It was their own fault. They knew the rules and they screwed up. But the other guy . . . that one still gets to me.” He pulled out his inhaler and lit a cigarette. “It was right after my first hit, and I felt like God Almighty. I was leaving a bar, and this kid snuck up behind me and stuck a gun in my back. I should have just let him take my wallet, but I was a cocky punk back then. After he took off, I went back to my car, grabbed a tire iron, and a-hunting I did go. I found him a few blocks away counting my money. He never saw me coming. I smashed his arms. I smashed his legs. I can’t remember half of what I did. But I’ll never forget the expression on his face right before I brought the tire iron down for the last time. He had this look of wet fear in his eyes that I still see in my dreams. Or should I say nightmares?” He sighed and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Ain’t that a kick in the head? He’s the only one who did something to me personally and he’s the one I still feel guilty about.”

  We drove away in silence, and I tried not to dwell on Mr. DeNunsio’s story. After all, if he beat a guy to death for taking his wallet, what would he do to me for stealing his life savings? Maybe that’s why my family had stuck with petty crime for all those years. Maybe deep down we were all just a bunch of lightweights who couldn’t take the pressure.

  It didn’t seem like a smart idea to take a bus to a murder, so I had Mr. DeNunsio drop me off near Roy’s apartment. I had been lusting after a bike like Roy’s for days, but had remained honest and not stolen one for myself. Stealing Roy’s bike, on the other hand, barely qualified as theft. Besides, with both his legs broken, it wasn’t like he would need it any time soon.

  I climbed the stairs to Roy’s apartment, and as I reached the second floor I heard the thump, thump of a stereo cranked up super loud. Talk about a lucky break. It was just what I needed to drown out the sound of me breaking into Roy’s apartment. Then, as I got closer, I realized the music was coming from inside Roy’s apartment. This made no sense because Roy was back at Uncle Wonderful’s house, so I peeked in the window and saw Roy and Vinny sitting on the couch. They had big grins on their faces, and a woman in cowboy boots was dancing in front of them. I couldn’t see her face, but she was wearing a short skirt and a Shooters’ belt, and I turned away out of embarrassment. There was something about a woman performing exclusively for Roy and Vinny that struck me as ten times creepier than Jackie dancing for a room of drooling idiots at Shooters. Then I realized Roy didn’t have any casts on his legs and when I turned back to double-check I saw that the woman dancing for Roy and Vinny was Jackie.

  Ice water shot up my spine, and it took all my self-control to keep from screaming.

  This can’t be possible, I told myself. If Jackie is alive that means there was no car accident—

  And if there was no car accident that means Roy isn’t really hurt—

  And if Roy isn’t really hurt, then there’s no r
eason for me to be doing this job—

  Unless, I was supposed to be doing this job all along, which meant—

  I was being set up.

  My brain shifted into high gear, and I tried to figure out who else was involved in the con: Roy, Vinny, and Jackie, obviously. And Uncle Wonderful, too. But who else? My mother? Aunt Marie?

  And what about Mr. DeNunsio? He was supposed to be the mark, but if there was one thing I’d learned growing up in a family of con artists, it’s that if you’re not 100 percent sure who the mark is, then the mark is probably you.

  Someone changed the song on the stereo, and I realized it was time to get out of there. I ran down the stairs and slipped around back to the parking lot. I spotted Vinny’s Hummer in a handicapped spot and was tempted to smash his windows with a brick. But that would have been stupid, and the last thing I needed in my life was more stupidity. I’d been wallowing in it for days, and it was time to wise up.

  It was either that or get conned, killed, or both.

  25

  THE FIRST TIME ROY AND I PLAYED CRASH IT WAS A GOOF—just a couple of juvenile delinquents messing around on bikes—but the more we played, the more competitive we became. Which is a nice way of saying crazier and way more dangerous. The time Roy broke his wrist is the perfect example. One of us got the bright idea to ride our bikes on train tracks, and the other agreed. For those of you who have never tried it, riding a bicycle on train tracks is right up there with sticking pebbles in your ears or playing with matches as A Really Dumb Thing to Do. First off, you have to ride your bike over railroad ties, which is like totally impossible. Second, you have to stand up the entire time, or it’s like getting punched in the nuts every two seconds. And third, you can get hit by a train.

  The way we got around the railroad tie and nut-busting part was to cut the tires off our bikes and ride directly on the train rails. This is infinitely more difficult than it sounds, and the hardest thing about it was getting started without falling over. That’s how Roy broke his wrist. But here’s the amazing part: After Roy broke his wrist he didn’t say a word. He just got right back on his bike and fell over three more times before he finally got going. Can you imagine landing on a broken wrist not once, but three times? It must have been excruciating, but Roy didn’t even grunt. Which was why I should have known something was wrong when I visited him after the accident and he complained about his leg itching. Complaining just wasn’t Roy’s style.