by Thomas Pluck
“Thanks for this,” Jay said. “You’re the first one’s been honest with me.”
They walked to the car, the highway twinkling with electric stars. It brought him back to their nights sprawled in the grass holding hands. Thumb circling her palm until she’d pounce, tickle and kiss. Lips hot against the pulse in her neck.
She blipped the Aston Martin unlocked.
“Tried to swim in the old pool,” Jay said, “But it’s private now.”
“We have a pool in the yard. I bet you still can’t swim.” She leaned against the driver’s side.
Jay took her hand, and she let him. He pressed his lips to her knuckles.
“We could’ve raised some hell, Blackbird.”
Ramona smiled with sad eyes. “You and me against the world.” She stroked his cheek, fingertips over the abrasions. Arms around his neck as she rested her head on his chest. He slinked his arms around her waist and held her close, her soft curves molding to his muscle. Nuzzled in her hair, his head flooded with violets. He kissed her scalp, felt fire bloom inside.
She pushed him away, slow but firm. “No, Bluejay.”
Jay sat silent in the passenger’s side as she shifted through the gears. She dropped him by his car and pulled away fast.
Chapter 17
Jay memorized the addresses Yvette had given him and burned the papers with a Zippo. Strick’s house sat on a parcel of farmland fronted by identical barn-shaped mansions built close together along the county road. The wrought iron gate read Strick Farms, tall and spiked. The view from the street revealed little except a manor shrouded by red maples.
The satellite view of the property from Tony’s computer had shown a dirt road leading to a barn at the rear of the property and squares of tilled fields. He nosed the Challenger up the dirt ruts and K-turned to point downhill.
He killed the engine, depressed the brake pedal, and reached under the dash to pop the hidden switch. He took what he needed from the small duffel inside and eased the seat down until it clicked. He slipped on his creeping gear and jogged behind the barn.
Perfect rows of pine trees stretched off to the forest. Babies at one end, bushy saplings at the other. Jay followed a trail behind the house and spied the open double garage. A mineral gray roadster and a chromed-up motorcycle sat inside. According to the DMV records, Strick owned the Harley, and the bank owned the Porsche.
Strick’s words echoed from the chasm in Jay’s stomach. The lies and empty promises.
The front door clicked shut and sandals crushed the grass. Jay cut back to the garage in time to hear the Porsche roadster snarl to life and spin in reverse with a sandy-haired man behind the wheel. The driver buzzed toward the gate, his nub of a ponytail bobbing to the stereo.
Jay ran for the car.
The Hammerhead bogged down the dirt road, the road race springs too low for the ruts. The Porsche blew past him on the road, framed by a break in the trees. Jay jerked the pistol shifter and gave chase, but Strick was already gone.
Jay gave it pedal and the big engine ate up road. Took air on a crest and came on the Porsche tailgating a minivan. He downshifted and let the engine clear its throat, leaning on the brake as the Porsche’s rear bumper approached fast. Nosed to a stop with a car length to spare.
The Porsche took the Hammerhead’s roar as challenge and revved in neutral to answer.
At the first opening in the oncoming traffic, Strick veered into the opposite lane and barked through the gears. Jay followed with a squealing plume of smoke.
He fought to keep the nose straight until the Hammerhead chirped into third. The Porsche rabbited through the curves ahead, and Jay scraped roadside brush and worked both pedals to keep the Challenger’s ass from sliding out from under him. Nearly lost a mirror to an oncoming truck, and the little gray two-seater disappeared around the bend.
Breaking out of the curve into a long uphill straightaway, the Porsche waited a quarter-mile ahead at a stoplight. Jay buried the nose in the pavement with both feet on the brake, skidding alongside in the shoulder.
Strick the Elder twisted his sandpaper complexion into a familiar sneer. Thinning hair pulled back, belly gone to seed. A burnt-out star twinkling his damnedest to defy the impending dark.
“You didn’t think we were racing, did you?” Strick said, and broke into a smug grin.
Jay winked through cheap shades. “Got you beat in a straight line. But that’s not good enough, dealing with a crooked piece of shit like you.”
The turkey tracks around Strick’s eyes deepened and his gray-toothed smile melted away.
“Next time, we race for pinks, old man.” Jay peeled through the red light and hit the onramp, leaving two black scars across the asphalt.
Jay white-knuckled the wheel, heading to Tony’s shop. Fire burning in his gut. Leave everyone else out of it, Strick had said. And we’ll take care of you.
They’d been caretakers, all right. The graveyard kind.
At a stop light, Jay frowned at the buzz in his pocket. He dug out the phone and thumbed open its silver clamshell. “Hello.”
“Gonna need you to work the club today,” Cheetah said, hurried. “We’re short a bouncer because of you.”
“I’m kind of tied up.” Tony had said he could work nights, after hours, when no customers might see the pariah.
“I don’t care if you’re half-dick deep in angel pussy, get your ass in here.”
Muted horns filled Cheetah’s office with yearning and pain. Jay found him sitting on the couch, kneading his temples with delicate fingertips, listening to Marvin Gaye sing his heart out.
“The way you do my life, makes me wanna do a lot more than holler,” Cheetah said. He folded his hands, rested his chin on them. “You couldn’t just bust Randal’s ribs? Had to go all Tyson, bite his damn ear off?”
“They had clubs.” Jay untucked his shirt, showed black leopard spots haloed in mustard yellow. “Anyway, Holyfield was head-butting.”
“Evander did no such thing, but even if he did, who got the shitty end of the stick? The big bad-ass who poured gas on the fire. Except Holyfield’s corner couldn’t shoot Iron Mike in the head and cremate him. Randal’s can. And will.”
“They want a war over this shitbird, they’ll get one.”
“No they won’t, because you’re gonna apologize,” Cheetah said. “Frankie Dell wants a sit-down. Frankie fucking Dell. I ran his club eight years, I’ve never met the man. And I don’t want to.”
“He wants to talk, we’ll talk. This is on me, brother.”
“Everything’s easy with you. You have no idea what we could be walking into.”
Jay grinned. “I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.”
Cheetah navigated the clogged backstreets constricted by a gooseneck of the Passaic which gave the Down Neck neighborhood its name. “If we walk out of here, you gotta chauffeur Leticia in that redneck ride of yours.”
“No problem.”
“Dante’s got his nose open for her,” Cheetah said. “But keep that on the DL.”
Jay had met Dante at the chess games Okie held in the library. Another Italian, Big Kenny, made a crack when Dante lost his white queen.
“If she’d been black, you’d of protected her,” Kenny laughed, and Dante’s hound dog eyes went wolf dark. “What? So you like the eggplant. Who doesn’t like eggplant? I bet Cajun Jay likes eggplant. You coon asses are half moolie, right?”
Jay flattened Kenny with a hook to the jaw. Okie swore at him for bruising his hand, but Dante repaid the favor by handling the betting on Jay’s fights. They got flush with cash and contraband, and Jay used his share to work in the auto shop and get his certifications.
“Dante is married to Frankie Dell’s goddaughter,” Cheetah said, turning the wheel. “But he always keeps a tall sister on the side. When Frankie got word about his last piece of strange, he put Dante in charge of the recycling center at the port. Where they shred plastic, aluminum cans, like that.
“Do-nothin
g job, but you gotta show. He takes Dante to dinner to congratulate him, then they drive out there. Where they got his girl tied up, all beat to shit. Brutalized,” Cheetah said. “Got her feet-first in the mouth of this big machine that grinds tree stumps into fertilizer. And Frankie asks him, do you want to spend the rest of your life with this woman, or my goddaughter?”
Cheetah pulled into the parking lot of a Portuguese steakhouse with a terra cotta roof. The scent of charred flesh thick in the air. “Made Dante pull the switch himself, is what I heard.” He turned to Jay. “Think on that before you go making any smart talk in here.”
The restaurant boiled with loud men and the clatter of silverware. A gorilla with a flat top led them beyond the louvered doors of a private dining room done in dark red and faded gold.
Two men sat in bespoke chalk-striped suits, alone at a table for twelve. Dante sulked. Beside him sat a mottled stone bullfrog sporting a coiffed silver pompadour. Paper-skinned hands folded on the white tablecloth with nails like glass claws. Sharp eyes above a thick-lipped frown as he picked over one platter splayed with tentacles of fried calamari and another of eggplant rollatini.
Flat Top gave them both a cursory frisk and removed the batteries from their cell phones.
“Sit,” Frank said, popping a ring of calamari into his mouth.
Cheetah sat. Jay remained standing.
Beads of sweat pearled on Cheetah’s neck. Frank chewed loudly, and Dante smoldered.
Jay stepped forward and offered Frank his hand. “Mister Dellamorte, sir, my name’s Jay Desmarteaux.”
Flinches all around. Flat Top’s meaty hand eased under the flap of his jacket. Dante and Cheetah stared, lips parted.
It took five heartbeats before Frank curled his fat lips into a tombstone smile, hauling the trawler net of his sagging neck. He pondered Jay’s palm a moment before he held out his own liver-spotted hand, a signet ring gleaming from a finger.
Jay squeezed his hand lightly, then sat.
“Jay. Is that short for Jason?”
“Just Jay. Sir.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jay,” Frank said, watching the imprints of Jay’s fingers disappear from his flesh. “Dante tells me you come from New Orleans.”
“Around there.”
“I’ve never been there,” Frank said. “The humidity is no good for me. I prefer Napoli. The Mediterranean climate is perfect.”
“A friend of mine’s mother used to tell us to go to Napoli, when she got mad. Never got around to it.”
Frank shuddered with a silent laugh, and then sipped his wine. “Ah, she must be Calabrese. Va fa’ Napoli. Well, you should go to Napoli, some day. The people there are direct. You know where you stand with them.”
“Sir, that’s something I appreciate,” Jay said. “That and good eggplant.” He forked a piece onto his plate, cut it in half and took a bite. “And this here is real good, Mr. Dellamorte.”
“The boys call me Frankie Dell. Or the Silver Fox, behind my back. Call me Frank.”
“Thank you, Frank.”
Frank tapped his empty glass with his ring. “Dante.”
Dante snapped his fingers at Flat Top. A waiter rushed in to pour ice water and wine.
Frank looked to the server. “Four steaks on the stone. And another bottle of Amarone.” When the waiter left, he turned to Jay.
“I am told that you and my nephew are in dispute,” Frank said, lifting a glass of arterial red. “Normally we would not speak over this. It would simply be handled. But Dante says you were helpful during his time away, and deserve a chance to redeem yourself. Convince me.”
“Randal and I had us a little tiff. I put it aside, but he wouldn’t let it go. He and a couple friends set on me with lead pipes. No disrespect, but you come swinging like that, you’re gonna get hit back.”
Frank stared into his eyes. “My nephew is prone to such things, but he is still my nephew. My blood. Do you understand?”
“No disrespect, but if he was anyone but your nephew? He’d be bobbing in the Passaic about now.”
Frankie remained stone still.
Jay caught Cheetah’s side-eye.
“I didn’t go snapping their necks as they ran,” Jay said. “I didn’t chase them down, and I didn’t creep in their bedroom windows and gut ’em like fish, which is what your garden variety shitbirds would’ve got. Now I apologize for hurting your nephew. But I’ve been watching my back for a week, wondering if that boy’s gonna take a shot at me, or if my car’s gonna explode. You can ask Dante. In situations like that, I was taught to take what a good friend of mine called ‘pre-emptive revenge.’ Meaning, if a sumbitch has it out for me, it’s safer for me if he wakes up dead. But I let your nephew slide. Out of respect.”
“You had a problem with him, you should’ve come to me,” Dante said. “It never should’ve gotten this far.”
“Excuse me, Dante,” Cheetah interrupted, “I planned on telling you at the next pickup, but Randal’s been dealing again, and brought in some of the Russian’s girls. With the Rock around the corner, that brings a lot of heat.”
“We pay you to deal with heat, Alfonse,” Dante said. “Talk to our lieutenant.”
A knock at the door. Flat Top looked to Frank, who held up a finger.
“You will treat my nephew as if he is my own flesh,” Frank said, leveling the finger at Jay. He nodded to Flat Top, and the waiters brought platters trailing the bite of charred meat. Each man received a square of butcher block topped with a thick stone tile glowing dull red, crowned with a chunk of sizzling ruby prime. The servers knifed each cut into four slabs and capped them with garlic butter.
A glare from Dante sent the servers back to the kitchen.
Frank breathed in the crematory fumes and struggled out of his chair. “It is what it is. I’m going to use the baccausa,” he said. “When I return, I’d like two things. My steak medium rare, and for you and Dante to come to an agreement. Take care of the low-hanging fruit, gentlemen.”
He turned to Dante. “Medium rare. Not medium.” Frank lumbered toward the doors, and Flat Top opened them for him.
Dante flipped his own steak, barely seared. He snapped a finger at the guard. “Outside.”
Flat Top closed the doors behind him.
Dante carved the butter-soft meat, dark juices spilling over his plate. “It is what it is. You like that shit? Don’t even know what it fuckin’ means. He spews shit like that all day long, like the Dalai Parmigiana.” He hawked a stringy oyster of spit onto Frank’s steak.
“Low-hanging fruit. He can suck my low-hanging fruit.” Dante popped a chunk of his own Pittsburgh blue filet into his mouth and chewed while the other steaks sizzled away.
Jay shook his head and flipped his own.
“We got a few minutes. The Fat Fuck Fox pisses sitting down,” Dante said. “Trickles like a leaky faucet. Got a prostate the size of a grapefruit.”
“Don’t wanna ask how you know that,” Jay said.
“Because I got my head stuck up his ass.” Dante sneered. “You ain’t changed one bit. Balls like fuckin’ steel. Frankie likes that shit. That’s how I got the job slicing his steak.” He flipped the slabs on Frank’s plate, mopping the dregs of spittle. “Don’t think it buys you jack shit.”
Jay popped a flower of fried squid legs into his mouth.
“Dante, you know how Randal is,” Cheetah said, and pressed on his steak to force the blood out.
“You could tear both of that mamaluke’s ears off and fry ’em on that fuckin’ stone for all I care.” Dante plated Frank’s steak and cut it into little cubes. “Believe this shit? At least I don’t gotta wipe his ass.”
“Not yet.” Jay chewed a piece. “How ’bout you remember the riot, and we call this even. I’ll be out of your hair and Randal can go play King Shit.”
Dante glowered. “Because I already doled out your chips for that.”
“How you figure?”
“Your buddy back in Nutley, the mayor.” Dante smiled
. “He got talking with a knockaround guy who said he could call a hit on you in Rahway. Guess who the mook came asking to? Let’s say he fell down some stairs after a poker game, and you had nothing to worry about.”
“Funny how that works. I’m owed a debt, now I’m the one in hock.”
“It is what it is.” Dante snickered. “So we’re even.” He turned back to his steak. “Next order of business. You like working with your hands, don’t you? So you work off your debt down the docks, where Randal is too good to dirty his mitts.”
“What kind of debt we talking about?”
Dante shrugged. “That’s up to the Fox, but the pay’s pretty good there. You’ll be out from under this nut in no time.”
Flat Top opened the doors and Frank waddled to his seat, tucked a napkin over his silk double Windsor, and dug in to his little cubes of steak. “Perfect, Dante.” He chewed, dabbed his lips with a napkin. “So are we past this unfortunate impasse? I do not want my wife getting another call from her sister.”
“Yes, Frank,” Dante said. “We can put Jay down by the port.”
“Good,” Frank said, mopping a chunk of steak in the juices on his plate. “In the union, they pay a man for loss of limb or ability. Dante, find out what we pay for an ear. That’s what he pays my nephew.”
Dante nodded.
“Alfonse,” Frank said. “We need more cars in the parking lot. Get your people to park there. Give out free cognac, if you must. As long as the lot looks close to full, if someone were to photograph it.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mr. D.”
“Now, Jay.” Frankie looked up. “I’m told my golfing partner is an acquaintance of yours.”
Jay tilted his head. “And who might that be?”
“A young man named Matthew Strick.”
Jay set his fork down. “We’re acquainted.”
“And you harbor him a grudge.”
“You could say that,” Jay said, a quiver in his upper lip.