by Thomas Pluck
“Relax,” Dante said. “The bosses are all fucked up over Frankie. We can’t change nothing until the shit settles, that’s all.”
“Okay then.”
“Now speaking of Frankie, may his shit-stained soul rest in peace, that crazy move with the garbage truck offended a lot of people. Made the news. The top tier don’t like that.”
“Top tier, huh?” Jay smirked. “You gonna talk dangly fruit and shit?”
“Honey, turn the music up a bit,” Vito said.
Leticia leaned out from the pole and raised the volume, then untwirled out of her sari.
“Minga,” Dante said. “Look at this beauty. Dancing here when she ought to be in magazines.”
“Buy a magazine, we’ll put her on the cover,” Cheetah said, sipped his scotch. “We’ll call it Ebony and Italy.”
“She’s gonna be hostess once we switch this place around,” Dante said.
Cheetah kept his poker face as Dante snatched Raina’s dream away.
“But first we have to deal with Jay’s mess,” Dante said, as Leticia splayed her long legs over his shoulders. He slipped off her heels, set them on the stage. “Those garbage trucks cost a shit-ton, and it kinda ate up the money we talked about. In fact, you’re about eighty gees in the red.”
Cheetah sucked teeth.
“Funny how it works with you fellas,” Jay said. “I get you promoted, and suddenly I got a mortgage.”
“You didn’t say you were gonna total a garbage truck,” Dante said. “Those things cost a quarter mil. You’re getting friend prices.”
“I got a little issue with your math,” Jay said. “Say we call it even.”
“It’s out of my hands,” Dante said. “I’m second banana with the union. The truck was family property, Jay. I play games with union money right now, it’ll look bad.” He looked at Leticia, bent backward from the pole in a slow spin, her breasts swelling out of her top. “You’re pretty hot, babe. Why don’t you cool off a bit.” He plucked at the center of her top.
She reached behind herself and untied the bow.
Dante licked his fingertip and put a sparkle to both her nipples. “Like blackberries on tartufo,” he said, tracing over her heart. “You really are gorgeous.” He ran his finger over the blood orange wedge of her pursed lower lip.
Jay cleared his throat. Let his eyes go out of focus.
“If you split town, you leave Cheetah with the bill,” Dante said. He patted Leticia on the behind, and she hugged the pole, rubbing herself against it, eyes closed tight.
Cheetah smirked. “Still selling cars to the Russian? Jay’s good with cars.”
“I’m gonna need soldiers,” Dante said. “I could use an animal like you.”
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Jay said.
“Yeah,” Cheetah said. “He’s a mechanic, if you haven’t heard.”
“Then hit ’em with a monkey wrench,” Vito said, ending on a snicker.
“You jack a truck, it better not be at the port.” Dante stood and ran a finger along the back of Leticia’s thigh. “You fellas can go. Send in a bottle for the lady.”
Vito opened the curtains and waved them out. Before the fabric closed, Jay caught Leticia shimmying out of her bikini bottom, and Dante bending inspect her like a prize mare.
Jay chewed ice cubes, the liquor gone sour in his mouth. Oksana lap-danced her customer in his chair, and his callused hands left red prints on her thighs. She called him Eddie, and fake-smiled as she pushed his hands away, but never gave the bouncers a signal. Eddie disturbed Jay on a cellular level.
The way Joey Bello had.
The other bouncer was a big footballer, kept eyeing the game on the bar television. Jay told him he was heading to the bathroom. Inside, Jay splashed his face with cold water, to quench the fire in his temples. His scabs had healed, leaving new pink skin. He pressed a sheaf of paper towels to his face.
He was no Eddie.
But how far had he been from Joey Bello?
Jay saved his torment for the strong who abused the weak. Okie winked from the mirror. And therein lies all the difference.
On the floor, Oksana was gone. So was her customer. Jay veered from the VIP Room, where she was surely giving Eddie everything Jay had denied himself when she’d offered it to him. The Witch had ruined that for him. His hands knotted into fists as he passed the dressing room.
“Eddie, you can’t be here.”
The whine of a spoiled child. “You said you liked me best.”
“Later, I’ll dance for you, special.”
Jay pushed through the curtains. Eddie had Oksana by the wrist. She winced, and fire bloomed behind Jay’s eyes.
Jay twisted Eddie’s arm back and ground his elbow into the pressure point at the bottom of his triceps. Eddie’s face wrenched like a child baffled by its first acquaintance with pain. Jay muscled him out the rear door, using his face as a ram.
Kicked him in the ass and sent him sprawling on the asphalt.
Eddie tensed without a sound. Jay felt a tingle down his spine telling him to run, thinking he’d cracked the man’s skull. Then Eddie rolled over with a choked scream, and reached for his gravel-studded forehead with a trembling hand.
“No touching the girls,” Jay said, and slammed the door.
Oksana waited in the hallway. Angry, but wary. Familiar with violent men. “You did not have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did.” Jay looked away, and walked past her. “Shouldn’t have, but I did.” He punched the bricks, the pain that shot through his arm his first act of contrition.
Chapter 27
With the windows down, the summer scent of fresh-cut grass and wild onions smelled like forest nymph perfume. Jay coasted the Hammerhead into the parking lot of Wise Owl Academy. The institutional brick gave him a chill.
The one-story school was set in a suburban neighborhood of post-war Cape Cods on snug lots. Jay parked between a Honda and a Volkswagen, nose to the chain-link fence. Beyond it kids played tag and others sat in the speckled shade of mimosa trees listening to the cicada racket.
A large boy with a childish face loped to the fence and hit it with both hands. He gawped at the Challenger. “That’s a nice car,” the boy said.
“That she is.” Jay smiled.
The boy had an ursine build and freckles with a look of permanent awe. Jay remembered playing with the Down’s syndrome kids in grammar school and wondering where they disappeared to in later grades. Schools like this one.
“Can I sit in your car?”
A fit man in a polo and khakis approached, patting one of the students on the shoulder. The spectacled mirror of sandy-haired Billy Zelazko, with the swagger traded for tenderness.
“That’s up to your teacher,” Jay said.
“Mindy,” Brendan called. “They need you to play the game.”
“Hi, Mister Zee,” Mindy said, and pointed. “That’s a really nice car.”
Jay leaned against the fender. “Hello, Brendan.”
“Oh shit,” Brendan said. His strong jaw quivered.
“That’s a bad word,” Mindy said.
“You’re right Mindy,” Brendan said. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
The two men nodded at each other through the fence.
“Mister Zee, can I sit in that car?”
“We don’t get in cars with strangers.”
“But he’s your friend.”
“Just because someone knows your name doesn’t make you friends.”
“When’s lunch, Mister Zee?” Jay asked. “I’d like you to educate me. In history.”
Brendan tapped out a rhythm on his thighs. “C’mon, Mindy. Recess is over soon.”
Another boy with a peach fuzz mustache ran over. He pointed his finger like a gun and blew a loud raspberry at Mindy.
“Robbie! Say it, don’t spray it!”
Robbie laughed and ran with Mindy chasing after him.
Brendan took a measured breath. “Jay, that’s part of my lif
e I don’t talk about anymore.”
Jay narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t talk for twenty-five years. All I want for that’s a few answers, and they’re in short supply. Your brother’s being a real prick.”
“That’s Billy being Billy.” Brendan squinted through his glasses at the green roll of hills in the distance. “Thirty minutes,” he said, and walked away.
Jay followed Brendan’s Subaru to the shaded gravel parking lot of a hiking trailhead, not far from the school.
“Get out, we’ll go for a walk,” Brendan said. “Otherwise someone’ll think this is a pickle park.”
Brendan led him along a well-worn path to a split boulder that rose from the grass like a plated turtle’s back. The forest was old pine plantation left to grow wild. Trees in neat rows.
“What’s a pickle park?”
Brendan sat on the rock. “A place where gay men hook up in unfriendly areas. If they’re in the closet.” He held out his left hand, flashed a thin gold band. “Which I’m not.”
Jay found a misplaced birch scarred with teenagers’ initials and leaned on it. “Think I ran into one on a walk the other night. Gave me quite the surprise.”
“I sympathize with what you must’ve gone through,” Brendan said, removing his glasses to wipe them on the hem of his shirt. “But I hope you didn’t come here thinking I owe you something.”
“Why does everyone think this is about money? My father worked with his hands, but it’s not like I came from hunger.”
“Then what do you want? We did what we could, Jay. We were kids.”
“How about the same loyalty I gave you? Maybe I wasn’t born here, but I jumped in to fight for you. Because y’all were my friends.”
Brendan sighed. “Leo placed me under psychiatric care, after…you know. Even if I testified, it wouldn’t have mattered. Do I think your sentence was fair? No. But they had to do something.”
“You of all people,” Jay said. “I thought you’d be on my side.”
“Jay,” Brendan said. “What you did was wrong.”
“We did,” Jay said. “Maybe not you, but it wasn’t just me. And we did the world a favor.”
“It was not your place,” Brendan said, raising his voice. “If the right belonged to anyone, it was mine. And you took it from me, along with any chance of moving past this shit. You want me to fawn over you?” Brendan huffed. “For what? Giving me nightmares about a kid who’s dead because of me. Thanks for that.”
Jay hit the tree with a quick jab cross, and his knuckles flecked red. “You weren’t as forgiving back then.”
“I called Billy before we came out here. So calm down.”
Jay snorted, rubbed his knuckles. “Figures.”
“Nothing we said would have changed anything. They didn’t believe us then, and they won’t believe us now.”
“You ever wonder why?”
Brendan rolled his eyes. “Because he was the son of a big shot. You know the type. ‘I know a guy.’ Bello was that guy. Still is, probably.”
“And that made the town hero cop’s kid fair game?”
Brendan sighed. “Do you remember my father? He broke bricks with his bare hands. For fun. I told him we were outnumbered. Know what he said? ‘Bring a baseball bat.’ He didn’t get it.”
The only time Joey Bello had ever looked scared was when his father got called to the school. Even when they’d pounded his face in, he had mocked them. He’d dealt with something much worse.
“He said it would toughen me up,” Brendan said. “Leo knew I was gay before I did. He didn’t say ‘gay,’ of course. He said I was ‘different,’ and that meant I’d have to be stronger.”
“Matty had to eat shit ’cause his father needed Mr. Bello,” Jay said. “He was in charge of zoning and building and whatnot, but you got worse. A lot worse. No one else dared to fool with you boys but Joey Bello. You don’t think Joey’s father had something on your old man?”
Brendan folded his arms. “No one ever got close to him. I tried to run with him one morning, below the power lines. He took it as a challenge. I nearly caught him, but he disappeared. He can push himself harder than anyone I know.”
If anyone could have caught him, it was Brendan. He set the freshman record for the 880-yard run, and the trophy sat in the school case until it was vandalized. Joey Bello scratched out the second n and changed the name to ‘Brenda.’
“I left him to his own misery,” Brendan said.
“Pardon me if I’m not as forgiving.”
“I don’t forgive him,” Brendan said. “I pity him. Revenge is part self-loathing, you know. Blaming yourself for allowing yourself to be hurt, and taking it out on the transgressor. You have to grow past it. You think the Bellos are satisfied? They wanted you executed.”
Jay smiled. “They tried. And I don’t mean legally. They hired some goombah to hit me in there.”
Brendan frowned and looked at the dirt. He found an old pine cone, pondered it, and tossed it into the dry brambles. “Do you blame them?”
“Them I don’t care about. The rest of the town thinks I went plumb crazy. They need to know what Joey was.”
“Is that why you’re here? My partner and I want a family. It’s difficult enough without our names in the papers. Billy won’t like it,” Brendan said, turning stony. “You dragging me through this again.”
“Your brother don’t like me as it is,” Jay said. “And he’s gonna like me a lot less. Kinda funny, him being a homicide detective. He’s got what you call hands-on experience.”
“He doesn’t deserve that.”
“We all got our hands dirty. We did what we were best at.”
“Billy told me. Not that I wanted to know.” Brendan sighed, removed his glasses, and kneaded the bridge of his nose.
“Bren,” a voice called from behind them on the trail. Billy.
“I have to get going, Jay.” Brendan headed back. “Maybe you paid more than you should, but don’t play innocent. If you didn’t bring that hatchet, Joey would still be alive.”
“And he’d leave how many more like you, huh? Ever think about that?” Jay followed him back to the lot. Billy stood waiting with one hand beneath his blazer. Next to his twin, his eyes looked all the more hollow.
“Thanks, bro,” Brendan said in passing, and patted him on the shoulder.
“We’re having dinner at Ma’s Sunday,” Billy called. “Bring Kevin.”
“We have plans,” Brendan said, climbed into his car, and pulled away.
A second officer, a muscular black man swelling the sleeves of his blue uniform, sat on the trunk of the Challenger. They had it blocked in with an unmarked squad car.
Jay tilted his head. “Did I break some bullshit law, Officer?”
Billy drew his service pistol. “I told you to stay away from my family.”
The hood of the Challenger burned Jay’s cheek as Billy’s partner zip-tied his wrists, the plastic rasping like a viper’s hiss.
“They find bodies out here in trash bags all the time,” the officer said. Wisps of tattoo ink peeked from his snug shirt sleeves like serpent tongues. “You run with Cheetah Plunkett, right? Maybe we’ll do you here, and drop a throwdown in his club. Take care of two shittums in one day.”
Jay grabbed for his nuts behind his back, and the cop bounced his face off the sheet metal.
“Easy, Drake,” Billy said.
“What’s this ‘shittums’ you’re calling me?”
“A shittums is what y’all are,” Officer Drake said, and gave Jay a rough frisk. “We lock ’em up, and the lawyers keep shitting ’em out.”
He tossed Jay’s car keys on the hood. Threw his money clip in the dirt. “He’s clean,” he said, then looped his arms through Jay’s and lifted him up, keeping clear when Jay snapped his head back. “But he is one sneaky motherfucker.”
Billy stuffed a haymaker in Jay’s belly. After a thought, he sank two more.
“Still swing like you’re scared,” Jay heaved.
Jay bent to keep his arms from breaking. Gritted his teeth and put away the pain.
“Hit him when he tries to breathe.”
Billy wrenched his face and dropped punches. Jay fell to the gravel wheezing, saliva dangling from his chin. “That better, asshole?” He panted. Drake folded his arms and stood behind him.
Jay spat and missed. “You two wouldn’t last five minutes as Rahway hacks. You two are real cute.”
“There was a burglary at your old house,” Billy said, catching his breath. “You get nostalgic?”
Jay huffed a breath. “You still stick kielbasa in your pants so you know what it feels like to have a dick?”
Billy lunged with a punch. Jay took it on the forehead. Billy growled and clutched his knuckles, stumbling away.
Jay laughed his way into a coughing jag that didn’t quit until he tasted copper.
Drake cocked a fist, feinted. Threw a hook that clipped Jay’s shoulder and brushed his jaw. “Boy can box,” he said. “Want the Taser?”
“Not yet,” Billy said. He squatted out of kicking range, looked Jay in the face. “They found Stan Carnahan with a bullet in his brain.”
Jay kept his eyes dead-steel seas. A catbird broke the silence with its cry.
“Postman smelled the stink. The cat ate his lips and earlobes,” Billy said. “That’s loyalty for you. Looked like suicide. He was a drunk, his wife split, they wouldn’t let him work as a crossing guard no more. Only a matter of time. But I got a feeling you paid him a visit.”
“Must’ve had a guilty conscience,” Jay said. “That’ll get you every time. I heard he and your old man planted a throwdown on that carjacker kid. Some heroes.”
“You don’t know who your friends are,” Billy said. “That’s your problem. Carnahan was on your side, or tried to be. Nutley don’t have much in the way of forensics, but I pulled some strings, got Newark to lend some. If you were there, we’ll know.”
Jay watched turkey vultures coast overhead through the blue.