Tragic

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “And I want you to live. But tell me why you’d feel that way.”

  “You’re going to hate me.”

  “Try me,” Greg replied, his steel-gray eyes unwavering.

  A long moment passed before Corcione nodded. “Let’s go sit down,” he said, indicating the living room. “This is going to take a while.” Thirty minutes later he reached the end of his story and sat quietly with his head down.

  Greg, his own eyes wet with tears, let out a deep breath. “Jesus, Jackie, I didn’t expect that,” he said. “An affair maybe, or you were having second thoughts about us. But murder?” He shook his head. “I guess I knew that the docks have a reputation as a tough place, but I thought the murder-for-hire and mob shit was crap they made up for the movies.”

  “Sorry to say, but wherever you have ports of entry into this country, you have somebody who wants to control what goes in and what goes out,” Corcione explained. “It’s worth an awful lot of money, and some people will do anything to get a piece of it.” He looked down at his feet and sighed. “Even people you wouldn’t expect. Every once in a while some reform-minded guy like Vince comes along and tries to clean it up. Somewhere he got the crazy idea that a union’s purpose isn’t to make its bosses rich or powerful, but to look out for the little guy, the members. But that runs contrary to the bosses and the criminals.”

  “But why, Jackie?” Greg asked. “I know you—probably as well as anybody ever has—and you’re not a killer or without a conscience.”

  Corcione shrugged. “First it was greed, then it was fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of going to prison. Then I was so far in it, I didn’t know how to turn back. Or, more accurately, I was too much of a coward to do anything about it.”

  Both men sat in the silence of their own thoughts for a minute until, without looking up, Corcione asked, “So do you want me to take a hike while you pack?”

  “I didn’t say I was leaving,” Greg replied as he stood up and stretched. “But I’m going for a run; I need some time alone to think.”

  Corcione nodded and wiped at his eyes. “What do you think I should do?”

  Greg didn’t answer at first as he zipped up the front of his gray U.S. Navy sweatshirt. Then he shook his head. “That’s something you need to answer for yourself, Jackie, and not just for your freedom, but for your sanity and your soul. All I know is that this has been pulling you apart at the seams and that can’t go on forever.”

  “Will you be back?”

  “This evening, yes. I’m not going to leave you alone with this hanging over your head,” Greg replied. “But after tonight, I don’t know, Jackie. You helped kill a good man, or at least you did nothing to stop it. And if that wasn’t bad enough, by doing that you betrayed us and any chance we had at a future together.”

  Corcione reached out and grabbed Greg’s hand. “Please . . . we could go away,” he pleaded desperately. “Costa Rica . . . or, or Venezuela; they don’t have an extradition agreement with the U.S. I have plenty of money. We could live . . .” His voice trailed off as his boyfriend withdrew his hand.

  “Even if I was willing to leave my work and my country,” Greg said, “do you really think I could live off blood money? Don’t you know me better than that? But more than that, this isn’t something you can run away from, sweetheart—it will follow you wherever you go. You have to decide if you can live with that.”

  Corcione hung his head and nodded. Greg furrowed his brow. “You won’t do anything stupid while I’m gone?”

  Realizing the reason for Greg’s concern, Corcione smiled. “Don’t worry, I don’t think I have the courage for that either,” he said. “I’m more the run-away-and-hope-they-don’t-find-me kind of guy.”

  Greg reached down and stroked Corcione’s hair. “You’re a good man, Jackie; you did a terrible thing, but it’s never too late to do the right thing. I’ll be back in a half hour.” With that, he turned and left the apartment.

  A few minutes later, Corcione was still sitting on the couch contemplating his next step when his cell phone went off. He looked at the caller ID and ignored it. But when the cell went off again with the same caller ID, he angrily picked it up.

  “What do you want, Charlie?” he demanded and listened before replying, “Not now. I just don’t feel like seeing Joey Barros, or dealing with any union business at the moment.” He scowled and then swore. “Goddamn it, all right, the asshole can drop off the fucking papers, and I’ll look them over and get back to you tomorrow. . . . What? Why? . . . Joey doesn’t want to meet any of my friends? Fuck him, but you can let him know I’m alone so there’s only one fag he has to be near. . . . Yeah, good; the sooner he gets here, the sooner he can leave.”

  Hanging up, Corcione went into the bathroom to wash his face. He didn’t want Barros to know he’d been crying; he wasn’t going to give the bastard any more ammunition for his homophobic bullshit.

  He’d just returned to the living room when the door intercom buzzed. “Yeah?” he answered, his gut clenching at the thought of the ghoulish Joey Barros standing in the doorway of his building fifteen floors below.

  “You alone?” Barros asked.

  “Yeah, Barros,” Corcione replied. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to get gang-raped by a pack of wild homos.”

  There was a pause and Corcione imagined that he could feel the man’s cold hatred for him radiating up to the loft. “Let me in,” Barros replied tersely.

  Corcione shivered as he pressed the button and waited impatiently at the door for his visitor. At the soft knock, he turned the deadbolt and opened the door to see his antagonist dressed in a black raincoat and fedora. Looks like a funeral director, he thought. He expected the look of disgust in the man’s dark eyes, but he didn’t expect the expression to morph into a grin as Barros extended his right hand, in which he held what looked like a flashlight.

  “Night-night, fairy,” Barros sneered as he pressed the stun gun just below Corcione’s rib cage and pushed the button.

  The electroshock weapon immediately sent a bolt of intense pain shooting through Corcione’s body as well as caused his muscles to contract and spasm, knocking him backward off his feet. He was twitching and completely disoriented as Barros calmly shut the door and threw the deadbolt.

  Barros then walked around and, grabbing him by the back of his sweatshirt, dragged him into the living room, where he left him before disappearing from sight. Corcione could hear him moving through the apartment, calling out, “Hello? Is there anybody here?” When there were no answers, he returned.

  Barros walked over to the dining room table and picked up a chair that he placed in the middle of the living room. He grabbed the still-dazed Corcione by the hair and yanked him up and into the chair. Binding his victim’s wrists to the arms of the chair with a roll of duct tape, he grabbed Corcione’s sweatpants and yanked them down, exposing his genitals, before taping his ankles to the chair’s front legs. Barros stood up, panting lightly.

  As he came increasingly to his senses, Corcione struggled against his bonds, which seemed to please Barros, who smiled and reached into his raincoat pocket. He pulled out a notepad and pen, which he showed to Corcione and placed on the coffee table. “We’re going to have a little conversation and I’m going to take notes,” he explained. His hand disappeared back inside the pocket and emerged with the stun gun.

  Holding the weapon in front of the terrified man’s face, Barros pressed the button again; the electrodes arced wickedly with a crackling flash of blue light and the smell of burned ozone. He then lowered the device until it was hovering just above Corcione’s groin.

  “I want the location and number of all your bank accounts and the passwords,” Barros demanded. “I have an associate standing by who will let me know if the information you give me is accurate.” He leaned over to speak quietly into Corcione’s ear. “And if you even think of lying to me, I’m going to fry your balls into jelly, you little cocksucker, and then I’m going to do the same thing to your
boyfriend.”

  At the mention of Greg, his boyfriend’s face flashed in Corcione’s mind. Suddenly, love overwhelmed his fear and in that moment he found his courage. “You know what I think, Joey?”

  Arching an eyebrow at the sudden resolve in Corcione’s voice, Barros smirked and shook his head. “No, Jackie. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re queer and still in the closet—that’s why you wanted a look at my junk.”

  Corcione only had a moment to enjoy the look of shock and rage that came over Barros’s face before the most intense pain he’d never even tried to imagine shot from one point of his body and into every molecule of his being. It hurt so much that he couldn’t even scream before he blacked out.

  The next thing he knew, somebody was slapping him. “Wake up, funny boy,” Barros snarled as he struck him again with the flat of his hand. “I want the information now, or I’m going to light you up like a fucking Christmas tree. I had my electric friend here set on low; now it’s on high and you are not going to like what it does one little bit.”

  A part of Corcione’s mind screamed at him to tell Barros anything he wanted to know. Sooner or later you’re going to cave, so why not save yourself the pain. He’s going to kill you anyway. Do you want to suffer first?

  However, as the coward in Jackie Corcione pleaded for him to get it over with, something else in him was fighting back. What does it matter? You’ve lost Greg. And why? Because you wanted to live like a prince, sure, but that was theft; the point of no return was when Charlie Vitteli decided that Vince Carlotta had to die. Up yours, Charlie, your dog Barros can kill me but I’m not giving you two a goddamned thing!

  Corcione was about to say just that and geared up to resist the next bout of pain when he noticed movement behind Barros, who had his back to the front door. Greg was creeping up and getting ready to pounce.

  “Fuck you, Barros!” Corcione shouted and spit at his attacker to distract him.

  Enraged, Barros almost missed the warning sign when his victim’s eyes suddenly focused on something over his shoulder. But quick as thought, he spun around, jabbing with the stun gun.

  A well-built younger man in a gray sweat suit leaped back just in time to avoid being electrocuted. But Barros attacked without hesitation, thrusting the weapon like a fencer. He was fast, vicious, experienced, and normally would have overwhelmed his opponent. But the former Navy SEAL in front of him, blocking and twisting away from the weapon, was better trained, in better shape, fearless, and mad as hell.

  Greg was also patient, and though at first surprised by the assassin’s speed and skill, he focused on frustrating his opponent’s attack, letting him wear himself down in the flurry of initial attacks, and then methodically countering while watching for his opportunities. He saw an opening and chop-blocked a thrust with his right hand, slightly turning his opponent, exposing his back; he stepped in and delivered a short, powerful, roundhouse punch to the man’s kidney area.

  Barros grunted in pain and swung wildly, but the younger man had already retreated outside of his reach. The blow to his lower back made it difficult to catch his breath. Many years had passed, and a lot of blood had been shed since he’d last doubted the outcome of a fight, but he now recognized the chill of possible defeat in his bones. It made him more desperate as he slashed with a backhand motion.

  Rather than retreat, this time Greg stepped inside the arc of Barros’s swing and delivered such a hard two-handed block into the other man’s arm that it stopped the motion as surely as if Barros had struck a wall. Then, before Barros could recover from the shock, Greg’s right hand slid down to his opponent’s right wrist, extending it out, locking the elbow. He then stepped forward with his left leg, twisting into the blow he delivered with his left forearm into the back of his opponent’s locked elbow.

  There was an audible snap as the joint dislocated, followed by an even louder scream. The stun gun went clattering across the floor as Greg followed up with a side kick to the back of Barros’s knee, driving him to the ground, where momentum carried his face into the coffee table. The killer groaned as he pushed himself up from the table and knelt on his knees, swaying slightly.

  Greg stood directly behind him, every bit of his training telling him to finish the job now. But he’d finished too many jobs in the not-so-distant past, and he’d sworn when they put him on a medical evacuation plane out of Kabul that he was done killing. So he hesitated. “Get on the ground, asshole,” he demanded. “Or I’ll break your fucking neck.”

  Barros didn’t turn around. “Please, no more,” he begged. “I got a family . . . daughters, they have queer friends. You can turn me in to the cops.”

  “Don’t trust him!” Corcione yelled.

  Corcione’s shout distracted Greg just long enough for Barros to spin on one knee, slashing at his legs with his razor. This time when Greg tried to leap out of the way, he wasn’t quite fast enough. He felt a sharp, burning pain halfway up his thigh and when he glanced down, the leg of his sweatpants was cut clean and already red with blood. He knew he needed to end the fight quickly or risk passing out from blood loss.

  However, Barros had other plans. Bleeding profusely from his mangled nose, he jumped to his feet and came at Greg scything his blade back and forth so rapidly that the polished steel looked like a silver blur. Suddenly the assassin’s hand shot forward and Greg turned his face just fast enough to avoid losing an eye, though the razor laid open a cheek.

  Sensing a change in the momentum, Barros pressed his attack as he forced Greg to retreat past where Corcione sat strapped in his chair. Greg planted his wounded leg and appeared to stumble slightly, which caused Barros to shout triumphantly as he leaped forward to deliver a fatal cut. However, his progress was suddenly diverted when Corcione threw himself and the chair he sat in sideways into him.

  The move gave Greg just enough time to regain his footing. He stepped inside of Barros’s next forehand slash and pinned his opponent’s arm and weapon against the side of his body. Using his free hand, he chopped into the dislocated elbow, causing Barros to scream in pain and rage.

  The scream was cut short when Greg drove the web of his left hand into the man’s exposed throat. He then grabbed Barros’s larynx, squeezing like an iron vise as he shoved up and back, propelling the two of them through the screen door to the balcony. He drove Barros into the railing so hard that it knocked the wind out of the killer.

  Barros gasped and the straight razor fell at his feet. But Greg continued to bend him backward over the rail toward the street fifteen floors below.

  “Mercy!” Barros cried in a strangled voice.

  Greg stopped pushing for a moment, but it was only to look in the defeated man’s eyes and say, “Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice . . .” He smiled. “I don’t get burned twice.” He gave a little shove and Barros was gone with a shriek that ended abruptly with a crash that sounded like a bomb had gone off fifteen stories below. A woman screamed as a car alarm started bleating, and then several more people screamed and shouted.

  Greg looked over the railing. Approximately 180 feet from the balcony railing, what had once been Joey Barros was sticking half in and half out of a Mercedes windshield. He’d gone in headfirst so only the lower half of his body was visible, but that was enough to show the man was beyond dead.

  Suddenly faint, Greg stumbled back from the railing. He hobbled over to an area on the roof where he liked to work out. He picked up a piece of exercise tubing that he swiftly tied around his leg above the wound as a tourniquet. But he knew he was still losing blood and needed help fast.

  Returning to the doorway, Greg picked up the razor and stumbled over to where Corcione still lay on his side, struggling to get free. “Hold on a second, Jackie,” he gasped and then sliced through the tape binding his boyfriend’s wrists and ankles. He then slumped back against the couch, his legs splayed in front of him as he pulled on the tubing to slow the flow of blood.

  Corcione crawled over to him
on his hands and knees. “God, you’re hurt!”

  Greg smiled weakly. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Barros?”

  “He left by the back door.”

  “Back door? . . . Oh . . . You came back . . . I thought maybe you’d just keep running.”

  “I told you back when this all started that I wasn’t going anywhere unless you told me to leave,” Greg replied. “I don’t give up on people I love.”

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I don’t know what you deserve, Jackie, but it’s for a higher power than me to decide,” Greg said. He winced. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind calling 911 and asking for a medic, I’d appreciate it, or I may be answering for my sins a long time before you do.”

  28

  THE DOG DAYS OF AUGUST slapped Karp in the face like a warm, wet sponge as he emerged from the Criminal Courts Building during the noon recess in The People of the State of New York vs. Charles E. Vitteli. The heat and humidity were overwhelming. Everyone standing or walking on the sidewalk along Centre Street—tourists, cops, lawyers, businessmen, and street people alike—looked damp, drained, and in a foul, sweaty mood.

  As he stood at the door trying to decide whether to proceed, the three tattered women who’d been watching parts of the trial approached. They stopped when they saw him and appeared about ready to flee. He opened the door for them. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. “Care to get out of the heat?”

  The women looked at each other and then nodded. “Thank you,” they said and hurried past him just as he heard his name, followed by an epithet, shouted from the newsstand next to the curb.

  Dirty Warren, who appeared to have been watching for him, waved and called out again as he scurried over toward Karp holding out a newspaper. “There you . . . oh boy oh boy whoop . . . are. You forgot to pick up your copy of the Times this morning.”

  “That’s right, and thank you, the trial has me running,” Karp said as he walked forward to meet his friend. Then he paused and looked suspiciously at the news vendor. “What gives with the restraint? Why aren’t you challenging me with On the Waterfront trivia questions now that we’re into the trial?”