West 47th

by Gerald A. Browne

  Maddie interrupted again. “Now I’d call that overembroidering.”

  “Would you rather have it plain, a less colorful, more abridged version?”

  “Not really,” Maddie decided, “just go a little lighter on the gorgeous buttocks stuff, hmmm?”

  Amused by that, Mitch went on.

  Telling how this lovely pseudo-highbrow Laura came over and occupied the other sofa chair across from Comforti. True to her affectation, she managed to be blasé about the Cartier bracelet. It couldn’t dazzle her. Even when Wattenberg laid it back onto the table where it was right before her eyes, the diamonds shooting scintillations, the sapphires glowing their vivid blue, she disregarded it. As though such a thing was commonplace to her. She also appeared completely disinterested in whatever transaction Comforti and Wattenberg were involved in. It meant nothing to her.

  Wattenberg was into his own act, containing his enthusiasm for the swag bracelet, concealing his eagerness to buy it. He waited a long beat, scratched his temple and did an ambivalent mouth before asking Comforti how much.

  Comforti had the figure ready. Four hundred and fifty thousand.

  The amount hung in the air.

  Wattenberg wasn’t fazed. He had a lady client in Milan who would consider eight hundred thousand a bargain. He nearly agreed to four hundred fifty; however, his West 47 nature caused him to ask if four hundred fifty was the asking price.

  Comforti just looked at him.

  Wattenberg offered four hundred.

  Comforti didn’t make a big thing of it. Calmly, he picked up the bracelet, held it up at eye level, dangled it for a moment as though bidding it goodbye.

  Wattenberg felt certain it was about to become his.

  Comforti tossed the bracelet to Laura. Gave it to her, just like that. No big deal.

  Within the next minute Wattenberg was out in the hotel corridor awaiting the elevator. Unable to not hate himself. He realized the gaffe he’d committed. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have forgotten that Comforti always considered his stated price for a piece of swag to be more than fair, a price that allowed everyone to make. Comforti’s cardinal rule, as proverbial as the man: no haggling, ever.

  Perhaps, Wattenberg thought, all wasn’t lost. He hung around the lobby of the Carlyle believing sooner or later he’d catch this Laura on her way out. She’d want the money more than the piece.

  Came noon he gave up on that.

  The following day, just by chance, he spotted her as she came out of the 580 Fifth Avenue building. Bound for a limo at the curb.

  She pretended to not recognize Wattenberg at first, which was understandable, considering prior circumstances.

  He didn’t waste words, offered her three hundred seventy-five for the bracelet.

  Her face went weary, but then she managed to modulate her regret. She did a resigned shrug and informed Wattenberg that just minutes ago she’d sold the bracelet to Visconti …

  … for two fifty.

  Maddie chuckled. “You tell one hell of a bedtime story,” she said, “but, you know, I seem to recall Hurley telling me that one sometime back.”

  “When?”

  “Four, maybe five years ago.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “You were really into it.”

  “I suppose it was better the first time you heard it.”

  “To the contrary,” she said turning onto her side and snuggling his thigh. “I’ll bet years and years down the road from now you’ll forget you told it and tell it again and I’ll probably enjoy it even more.”

  Years and years from now, Mitch thought. He’d discerned a degree of sleepiness in Maddie’s voice and it was even thicker as she smiled a mainly inward smile and said: “I love you, precious.”

  She began to sleep. It always amazed Mitch how quickly she could drop off. He believed it might have something to do with her black. Perhaps her black made it less of a fall for her. He heard her breathing change and although her eyelids were partly open he knew she was a goner. He waited, allowed time for her to get surely, really deep, then, disturbing as little as possible, he got up and lifted her. Carried her down to the second floor to their bedroom and gently laid her on the bed. Placed a pillow close next to her, his surrogate for her hugging.

  He hurried back up to the dormer, settled down. For some reason, now that Maddie was asleep and he her lone guardian, he was instilled with even greater resolve. They wouldn’t get to her. He wouldn’t let them get to her. He gazed out at the night. It seemed changed, as though the dark had solidified everything out there into one piece.

  He leaned out the dormer window and gazed upwards. Overcast, no stars, no sky. He told himself that didn’t mean no heaven. He settled down again.

  He couldn’t prevent Ralph Lentini from coming to mind. Ralph and the fur-coated hooker. Their bodies shriveled white and bloated with the gas of decay, risen by now, trying to break through that layer of green scum.

  Ruder was another matter. Probably the harbor current and undertows had scuttled him along the bottom, and the fish, all sorts and sizes, the blues and snappers and such, had fed on him. For sure the sharks down off Sandy Hook.

  Poor Ruder.

  Chapter 32

  Riccio’s have-arounds didn’t come that night, nor the next morning.

  Since daybreak a fine rain had been falling, so misty a rain that it seemed to be atomizing the land. Every exterior surface looked slick and darker, as though it had been varnished, especially the trunks and leaves of the apple trees down in the orchard.

  The rain contributed to the complacency that was now sharing Mitch’s outlook. He had begun to think that inasmuch as the have-arounds hadn’t come by now they might not come. Possibly Riccio only intended to intimidate. Wasn’t it, after all, a ridiculous vengeance, senseless, way out of proportion? At that very moment Riccio was probably in his West 47th lair operating his money-counting machine or popping caraters out of their mountings, while his have-arounds, all of them, were in that room off to the side eating heros and watching reruns. The killing of Mitch Laughton and wife the furthest thing from their minds, or, if they gave that any thought, it was to laugh at the way they had Mitch shitting in his pants.

  On the other hand, quite possibly Riccio had dilated this situation and couldn’t bring himself to return it to its appropriate size. Riccio’s old-mob mentality. What he said he was going to do he had to do. Such an ugly face to save.

  Anyway, Mitch felt that Riccio’s one-sided assault was somewhat less inevitable than it had been yesterday. Less enough to leave the dormer at mid-afternoon, go down and make a fresh pot of coffee and a tuna salad sandwich. Less enough so that when Maddie remarked she felt cruddy and was going to take a bath, he told her, only after brief reservation and no second thought, to go ahead.

  He heard the tub filling and went to the bathroom to observe her. She was already in. On the floor lay her combat fatigues and sneakers, shoulder rig and Beretta. A container of bath oil was on the edge of the tub; the air redolent with the scent of lilies. Maddie often had difficulty determining measures and evidently she’d given this bathwater a huge overdose. The oil coated Maddie’s skin as she shifted about. She scrunched down, submerged all save her head and, a moment later, when she sat up, the oil caused water to scurry into beads on her shoulders, arms and breasts.

  Mitch had to escape from the overly fragrant air. He went back up to the dormer to resume his vigil.

  He looked out and saw the rain had let up. He looked further out and caught sight of the chrome grille of a Lincoln Town Car, a black Lincoln followed close behind by another identical. They were coming in on the drive, slowly, as though they were part of a funeral procession. They stopped short of the spot Mitch had figured, a good hundred yards from the house. No one got out. For some reason they just sat there with the engines off. For several minutes not a move.

  Mitch waited to see how many he would be up against. He’d expected one car.

>   They got out then. All at once. Fat Angelo, and Little Mike from the lead car. Bechetti and Fratino from the other. They were regularly dressed, in suits and sports jackets. A city entourage.

  Car door slams. A hundred blackbirds frightened out of the pines like applause. From the trunk of the lead car weapons taken out and distributed. There was a brief dispute over who would get a machine pistol. Bechetti claimed it and a spare magazine.

  One of the rear doors of the second car had been left open. Another person got out.

  Riccio.

  Mitch thought it a bad sign that Riccio had chosen to be personally involved. But really what difference would it make? He’d probably given in to his craving for firsthand violence. The old-mob maniac in one of his ill-fitting suits, the collar turned up and the lapels folded across. He paced a couple of circles to get the ride from his back and legs. He looked up at the sky as though ordering it to cooperate. He used the stub of the twisted Sicilian cigar he’d been smoking to light another, puffed up a cloud that, in the damp, heavy air, hung around him and instead of rising descended onto his shoulders. He stood apart from his have-arounds. They, waiting in a group with the pistols on the ends of their arms. Riccio called Fratino over, said something to him and then with a disdainful gesture signaled the other have-arounds to get on with it.

  They started for the house. Mitch slung on the shotgun and rushed down the stairs shouting to Maddie. She was quickly out of the bath and, without toweling dry, into her combat fatigues. No time for her sneakers. She grabbed up the shoulder rig and the Beretta and, along with Mitch, using him to lead, dashed down to the first floor and out the back way.

  On the run across the maintained rear grounds, past the greenhouse, through Straw’s vegetable garden. All the way to the edge of the West Meadow.

  They paused there. Mitch glanced back to the house. As yet no sign of have-arounds. He looked at Maddie, beheld her intensely, desperately, feeling perhaps this might be his last sight of her. At least in this world.

  “Do exactly as we discussed,” he told her.

  “I will.”

  “Don’t take any chances.”

  “I won’t.”

  He thought to head her in the direction of the old equipment barn located far out in the meadow; however she had already set out for it.

  It was crucial that she reach the barn before the have-arounds could spot her. Mitch stood there and looked back and forth, from the house to her. If they came out and spotted her in the meadow he would change his plan, follow her to the barn and make a stand there, a stand that he’d have no chance of winning.

  He mentally hurried her. She was doing as best she could, unable to run, barely able to stride in that thick, unmowed, thigh-high grass. To make matters worse, the grass was wet and heavier for that. No doubt the legs of her fatigues were sopped by now. Tough going, Mitch thought.

  The have-arounds surely must have reached the house by now, were somewhere within it.

  Maddie still had a ways to go.

  Just grant me this, Mitch pleaded to whatever power determined such crises.

  He looked back to the house.

  He looked ahead to Maddie.

  She reached the barn, entered it, was no longer visible.

  Not a moment too soon. The have-arounds came out onto the second-floor rear terrace, from where they had an easy view of the meadow.

  Mitch made sure they spotted him. Though way out of range, he fired an attention-getting shot and immediately made a dash for the high piled-rock wall about a hundred yards away, the wall that served as a separating boundary between the West Meadow and the adjacent expanse of pastureland.

  He stood on the crest of the wall, and took stock of the have-arounds, who by now had come from the house and were hurrying in his direction. Little Mike, Fat Angelo and Bechetti. All intent on him with no interest in the equipment barn. Good.

  Mitch took off across the pasture. The herd of cows was still out. About fifty or so. They weren’t a tight herd this day, not gathered at one particular area of the pasture, but spread far and wide as though in an antisocial mood. Soon, out of habit of schedule or using cow sense, they would start for the distant dairy farm. Many were already grazing their way towards it. Others appeared to be through for the day, were at rest on the damp, chewed-up, hooved-up ground. They lay motionless, like ideal depictions of their kind, front and rear legs folded just so beneath them to avoid placing too much weight on their distended utters.

  Mitch had thought the cows would play in his plan. He would scurry among the herd, use them in a darting now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t manner, while he took a roundabout course back to the rock wall. However the herd was too widespread for that, and he was already about a hundred or so yards into the pasture, committed to it, would have to improvise.

  He decided on some resting cows off to his right. A loose group of a half dozen. They were only mildly disturbed by his sudden presence, not enough to rise and move off. He used the nearest cow for temporary cover, kneeled out of sight on the far side of it. Cautiously, he peeked over the bony ridge of the cow’s back.

  Bechetti and Fat Angelo were standing on the piled-rock wall, like spectators. Little Mike was into the pasture and coming on. It appeared that he was the designated hitter. Either that or he was just much faster and more eager than the others, had gotten to the wall and up and over it ahead of them. Malingering and amused in their typical have-around way, they were letting him do the job, waiting to see how he made out.

  Little Mike was some kind of runner. Seen at a distance, with his stubby legs scooting him along, he resembled a wind-up mechanical toy, but, as he drew closer Mitch could see his legs working like pistons. He was closing fast.

  Mitch changed cows, made a dash to another of those at rest about twenty feet away. There was the chance that this tactic hadn’t been noticed and, if so, Little Mike, coming on so fast and headlong, might overrun him.

  Mitch hunkered down behind the cow. A big old bossie, intolerant but too comfortable to move. She whipped her switch at him a couple of times and indicted him with a look. Pink lips, yellowed, cracked horns, a runny nose that she licked with her long tongue. The earlier rain had soaked her down to her hide.

  Mitch snugged against her. He heard the thumps of her tremendous heart, which at first he thought was the pounding of his own. He heard the digesting gurgle of her stomachs as she reswallowed her cud.

  Would Little Mike overrun on the left or right? Mitch had the Glock in hand, ready for either direction. Little Mike would run past. His back would be the target. It didn’t matter that Little Mike would be so disadvantaged, Mitch told himself. He’d never shot a living thing. Don’t give it a thought, don’t think of the Glock being arbitrary death, make it absolute, stopping death. Just aim, shoot and kill the little fucker. Kill him in the back, side, head, chest, didn’t matter.

  Three rapidly fired bullets struck the old cow. Easily penetrated her tough hide and tore into her. She threw her head up and bellowed and bucked and almost managed to stand for a moment before her front legs gave way. Her hind half, still useful, wanted to run. It struggled with the wounded rest of her, tugged and staggered.

  Little Mike fired again. Two more point-blank shots from fifteen feet. That brought all of the innocent animal down, but not out of the way. Rather sacrificially, her bulk still concealed Mitch.

  He was spontaneously filled with shame for his kind, the inhumanity, a shame that converted into rage, a rage that overrode his trepidations. Thus, it was not altogether courage that brought him suddenly upright, exposed him to the next two shots Little Mike got off.

  Mitch wasn’t sure he hadn’t been hit. He only knew there was no pain and he wasn’t prevented from pointing the Glock in Little Mike’s direction. No time but also no need to take careful aim. It was impossible for him to miss simply because Little Mike so deserved to be shot.

  He fired twice.

  The first .40 caliber hollow point smacked into Littl
e Mike’s chest about an inch or two above the sternum, spread upon impact and was close to twice its diameter when it tore through the right atrium of his heart. The slug that followed a split second later was so equally accurate that it had a ready-made entry, didn’t spread until it struck and shattered the spine.

  Little Mike knew what hit him. He was jolted back and literally lifted off his feet. Like an awkward, unaccomplished tumbler he went heels over head, and failed to complete a somersault. He lay there, a crumpled extinguished thing in a beige suit, having lifeless twitches.

  Now look what you’ve done, Mitch thought, but immediately revised that to look what you had no choice but to do. There were fourteen rounds left in the Glock, including the one in the chamber ready to be spent. His adrenals had given him another spurt. He felt somewhat beyond control but capable of anything. He glanced at the cow. It was belly-up, flailing with all fours as though kicks could stave off death. Mitch had to look away.

  The other two have-arounds were coming into it now, scrambling down the distant rock wall to the pasture. They set out for Mitch at a fast walk. No need to go running after him. Little Mike, the stupid runt, had run and look what it had gotten him. As they saw it Mitch was way out there in plain view with nowhere to hide. Not even a rock or tree, just cows. All they had to do was keep him in sight and keep after him to eventually get to him.

  What they didn’t take into account was how deceptive a vast open space such as this two-hundred-acre cow pasture could be. These city guys hadn’t ever had any experience with pastures. It seemed to them their every step was on a straight course. They didn’t realize the illusion until they saw that the piled-rock wall which had been behind them at the start was now up ahead and Mitch was approaching it. He, their only reckoning, had been purposely misleading them, taking a wide gradual circling course.

  Now the have-arounds ran after him.

  He climbed over the rock wall and crossed the West Meadow, keeping well away from the rear side of the equipment barn. When he reached where the meadow bordered the woodlands to the north he paused in plain sight, looked back and saw that the have-arounds were following the swath he had caused in the thick, high meadow grass. He disappeared into the woods.