The Last Gig

by Norman Green

  She could still hear his voice.

  Do it the same way, every time. Don’t ever let your technique get sloppy. Do you hear me? Let the other guy get sloppy, that’s how you beat him, especially if he’s bigger and stronger than you. You absorb the punishment, you take the pain, you survive, and you wait for your opening. When you see your opportunity, you drive right through it. Then he had turned against her, sided with Magdelena. She wanted to let go of that, but it kept coming back up.

  She watched the three guys standing next to the gas company truck. There is an art to looking busy while doing nothing, and most hardhats are masters of it. These three, though, seemed to be working way too hard at occupying the space in front of her building. She focused on them for the next five minutes as they studiously ignored her side of the street, but then all at once all three of them turned and stared in the direction of the front entrance of her building.

  Maybe somebody came out. Maybe something on the stoop attracted their attention. There was a young girl on the third floor who was pretty hot, maybe she came out and flashed them or something . . .

  Right.

  It was discouraging.

  I just want to go to sleep, she thought. I want to get the keys back from TJ, and I want to go to bed. Can’t they come back for me in the morning? But three was too many, this wasn’t surveillance. This was something more serious. One of them looked directly at her kitchen window, but she had the lights off inside. There was no way he made actual eye contact, but for a second it did feel like that. She could sense him willing her to come out.

  She waited.

  They waited.

  You could call someone, she thought. You could call the cops. You could call your father, who would probably call the local precinct and get a couple of blueshirts to come and roust these guys. And then he’d come himself, wouldn’t he? She didn’t know. But it was a good forty-five minutes from where he lived, up in the Bronx, down to her Brooklyn street, even in a car, even if there’s no traffic. There’s always traffic . . . She didn’t feel like calling him.

  And there’d be plenty of questions later. Most of them would come from the local cops, who would be incredibly aggravated by her lack of cooperation. Her father would sit back in silent judgment. It’s what he had done, years ago, when she’d left her aunt’s house and hit the streets. He’d reacted the same way when he found out she’d moved in with Tio Bobby. Her father was the kind of man who’d spent his entire life waiting for God to smite the wicked, and who had been consistently disappointed when it didn’t happen.

  I don’t need that, she thought. I don’t need to see that look on his face again.

  Overhead, the ancient timbers that made up the roof of the building creaked, and then a second later creaked again. Someone up there, she thought. Sitting or standing in one position too long, had to move.

  She was willing to bet there was another guy outside, down at the bottom of her fire escape, cutting off the obvious escape route. Probably another one inside, waiting somewhere in the stairwell, hoping she’d show her face. You go down the stairwell, she thought, the guy waiting at the bottom hears you coming, no matter how careful you are. He calls his buddy on the roof, they’ve got you boxed in. Maybe you can immobilize the guy on the ground before his buddy can get down to you, and maybe you can’t. And that’s assuming they aren’t armed, and that they don’t just put a bullet in your sorry behind . . .

  The guy on the roof moved again. Getting restless.

  Same story on the inside. You march down those stairs, you’re caught in the stairwell, they’ve got a man above and below you. They’ll grab you, toss you into the back of that truck, nobody ever sees you again.

  Fuck it, she thought. I can handle this.

  She gathered up the paperwork, stuck it back in the envelope, shoved the whole mess into her oven and shut the door. What guy would ever look in there? She unlocked her rear window, the one that fronted the fire escape, and eased it open a millimeter at a time. It was already dark inside, so nobody could see her take down the curtain she’d improvised out of an Indian-print sheet and lay it aside. Clear path, she thought. But for them or for you?

  She tried to maintain her grip on her emotions. Stay calm, she told herself. Your temper is your greatest weakness . . . She couldn’t do it. She felt herself beginning to boil as she headed for her front door. Five, six guys, she thought. Six guys for one skinny little broad. Somebody must want you real bad. Plus the gas company truck, somebody is laying out a nice piece of change to stage this little exercise.

  Bastards.

  She opened her front door, stuck her head out, and looked around. Nobody in sight. If there was a guy in the stairwell, he must be down a couple of floors. She slithered out, left her door ajar, crept up the final flight of stairs, the ones that led up to the roof. The steel door at the top, contrary to the fire code, was generally chained and locked closed in a lame attempt to make the building somewhat secure. The chain and lock were both missing, but there were two large dead bolts on the inside of the door, and they would do. They made a clear and distinct sound when she slapped them shut.

  Four seconds to get back down the stairs. Two more to get back inside her apartment, yanking the door shut behind her, where it locked automatically. Four more seconds to get to the open window. As she traversed the space, she heard footsteps on the roof above. Human nature, you hear somebody lock your ass out, you have to go and yank on the door handle . . .

  Five more seconds and she was looking over the edge of the roof. The guy was standing over by his side of the steel door, still jerking on the doorknob. He fumbled for something on his belt. She got ready to duck, but it was a Nextel, not a gun; she heard the thing beep as he held it up to his face. “Goddammit, Ramon,” he said. “Quit fucking around. You know I don’t like heights to begin with . . .”

  She stepped up onto the roof while the guy’s attention was compromised, crossed the space between the two of them at a dead run, slammed into the middle of his back with her shoulder, pinned him against the door as she grabbed the hand holding the phone, and jerked it behind his back. She twisted his wrist and arm into a shape God had not intended. The guy lost the phone, it skittered across the roof and over the edge. A couple of seconds later she heard it crash into the weeds of the empty lot next door. Meanwhile, the guy’s body had taken over, overwhelming him with the imperative to escape the sudden wracking pain that flooded his consciousness. Like a bumper car stuck in a corner, the guy slammed himself into the steel door over and over as Alessandra used his own strength to hold him there. It was a good feeling, knowing she didn’t have to be bigger or stronger than he was, she just had to be better. It actually took very little of her own strength to control him. The guy was squalling, sounded like a munchkin with a sore throat. She eased the pressure off his wrist and elbow slightly, enough for him stop moving and shut off the noise. She leaned up close and whispered in his ear. “You’ve got fifteen seconds to convince me not to give you a flying lesson,” she said.

  “Anything you want.” His voice was guttural, harsh with pain. “We was supposed to work you over. Warn you off Willy Caughlan.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Jerry Tomasino.”

  She’d heard the name, couldn’t remember when or where. Plenty of time for him later . . . “Why does Tomasino give a shit about Willy Caughlan?”

  “He don’t. He say he owe some guy a favor.”

  She didn’t answer, she just ratcheted up the pressure on his arm.

  “Ahhhhhhh! Jesuchristo, lady! It’s the troo, I swear! We wasn’t gonna hurt you too much, we was jus’ gonna have a lille fun . . .”

  Cuban accent, she thought. Born there, most likely he learned his English here, on the street. “I bet you were. How many guys?”

  “Tree in the truck, one out back, and me.”

  “Nobody in the stairwell?”

  “No. We got the fron’ cover, why would we—”

  S
he tweaked his arm again just to shut him up. The thought of him and his friends having some fun with her made her so mad she thought she was going to crack a tooth. “Who was Tomasino doing this for?”

  “How the hell should I know? He don’ esplain shit to me, he jus’ say, ‘go do this,’ an’ I go do it.”

  Pretty soon this guy’s arm will go numb, Al told herself, and when he can’t feel it anymore, you won’t be able to control him. She wrapped her free arm around his neck, just under his chin, got the right grip, and squeezed. The guy didn’t react because he didn’t understand: she wasn’t trying to shut his wind off. The pressure of her forearm on his neck pinched off his carotid artery, cutting the flow of blood to his brain—what he had of one . . . It took about forty-five seconds for him to lose consciousness.

  She released him and he slumped down to the tar paper surface of the roof. It took an act of will to keep from damaging the guy further. She patted him down quickly, relieved him of the .38 in a holster strapped to his ankle. He had pissed his pants. Another time she might have been amused.

  She stood up, sucked in a breath of cool night air, looked at the windows of the St. George Hotel across the street. If I could just jump over there, she thought, if I could fly across that space, somehow . . .

  The mortar in the top of the brick chimney next to the door to the stairwell had long since eroded away, and the chimney was not much more than a squarish pile of bricks. Al peeled four of the bricks off the top of the pile and eased up near the front of the building. The BUG truck was still there. Two cars passed by, pausing at the intersection of Henry Street before moving on. Al waited until they were gone. Nobody on the sidewalk. She wondered if the goons standing behind the truck were half hard already, anticipating the games they were going to play with her in the back of that truck. Well, she thought, I know a different game . . .

  She lofted the four bricks out into the night air in quick succession. They picked up speed as they sailed down through the five-story space between her and the street. The first two exploded harmlessly on the sidewalk behind the truck. Adrenaline, she thought, you threw them too hard . . . The third brick hit the bull’s-eye, though, it took out the truck windshield with a satisfying crash. The fourth caught one of the phony hardhats, hit him on the top of a shoulder as he flinched away from the flying glass. He flopped down to the street, lay there without moving as his two compatriots ran for the front of her building.

  As she dropped down onto the top level of the fire escape attached to the front of the building, she wondered how long it would be before they realized their mistake and one of them came back out. She flew down the iron stairs, hit the sidewalk, turned to walk away. Henry Street was just steps away. She didn’t sense the man stepping out of the alley between her building and the next until it was too late. She only got a glimpse of the guy before she felt the cold steel barrel of his pistol on her neck.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t breathe, don’t think.” He grabbed her hair with his other hand and backed her into the dark space between the buildings. “You know,” he said, his voice soft and low, “you are making some important people very angry.”

  “Who are you?” she said. She matched her tone to his.

  He jabbed at her neck with his pistol. “‘For the living are conscious that they will die, but the dead are conscious of nothing at all, for there is neither wisdom nor work nor devising nor knowledge nor anything at all in Sheol, whither thou art hastening.’ Don’t be in such a hurry to meet your maker, Martillo. Don’t make me shoot you. I’d hate to do that without getting paid for it.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You’re thinking you can come back on me.” She thought she could hear amusement in his voice. “Listen to me. You’re good, but you’re not immortal. You can die from lead poisoning just as quickly as the next guy. Do not turn around, I thought I made that clear.”

  “Sorry.” She tried to place his accent. English? Maybe, but definitely not street. An educated man, she thought. “You’ve got a couple of guys down. Shouldn’t you be getting them some medical attention?”

  “All in due time.” She heard some noise coming from the front of her building, then the sound of feet coming down the alley. Two sets of footsteps, two guys. One of them breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Good, you got her. I think Ivan’s arm is broken, and Angelo is—”

  “Shut up, you idiot.” The pressure of the steel against her neck never wavered. “The two of you, get the other two loaded up into that truck. Get them the hell out of here. And you,” he said, apparently addressing the second man, “you come back here and help me with her. We’ll do what we have to do, right here.”

  “Just the two of us,” another voice said. “That’s too bad.”

  “Mova la culo,” the man with the gun said. “Shake your ass, we don’t have all night.”

  They softened her up, first.

  The Brit pushed her face-first up against the alley wall, held her there in almost the same fashion she’d held the one they called Ivan against the steel roof door, only this time it was the pressure of his pistol in the back of her neck that kept her compliant. When the second man returned, he slipped something over her head. It was made out of a coarse, rough fabric and it smelled of dust. There were some mumbled instructions from the first guy, but she did not quite hear his words. Pay attention, she told herself. Calm down. Try to remember everything they say . . .

  She felt her arms pinioned behind her back. Rope was looped around her wrists, drawn tight. She tried to sense the man’s presence, tried to feel where his face might be, then jackknifed her body as hard as she could, striking out with her head. She felt her resolve turn to disappointment as she connected with something soft, heard someone grunt as the air went out of him. “Pendeja,” the man muttered. “Bitch. Can’t you hold her still?” The other guy grabbed her then, got her by the throat, yanked her erect, held her up on her toes. It was then that she felt the first blow, a savage shot to her sternum. She recoiled in pain, heard herself make a noise like she’d never made before, lost her balance as the guy holding her let her go. She collapsed to the ground, unable to break her fall with her arms, cracked her head on something hard. Stars pinwheeled behind closed eyelids as she rolled herself into a ball. The two of them began kicking her then, hurriedly, as though they had a plane to catch. Or maybe this particular alley wasn’t quite as dark or secluded as they may have wanted . . . It went on for what seemed an eternity, but probably was only a few minutes. She took a lot of shots to her legs and thighs, which, though painful, didn’t worry her too much. It was the hits to her stomach and rib cage that scared her, and the ones to her head, because she knew there were things there that once broken might never mend. By the time they were done, she could barely move from the pain. She almost passed out when they dragged her out of her protective fetal curl. She went cold all over when she felt one of them stripping her pants off, but she had no strength to resist. Her heart thundered in her chest. You had to know this was coming, she told herself. They rolled her facedown on the ground, one of them sat on her head and neck. The pain was so intense she hardly felt the other one kick her legs apart.

  “Hey! Hey!” Another voice, affronted, irate, coming from the end of the alleyway. “What the fuck are you guys doing?”

  “Bugger off!” It was the Brit, the guy sitting on her neck—she felt as well as heard his words.

  “Oh, yeah? Fuck you, asshole, I’ve got your picture, I’ve got you and your friend, douche bag, right here on my cell phone, and I’m going for the cops!” Alessandra’s mind reeled. It was TJ’s voice, she was sure of it, he’d finally made it back from the parking lot. He had more balls than brains, but she couldn’t fault his timing.

  Thank you, God . . .

  “Ramon, go get that bloody phone!”

  “Yeah? Come on, motherfucker . . .”

  Run, TJ, she thought, you’re a musician, not a fighter . . . More feet, then, one
man fleeing, another chasing. The pressure on her head eased as her assailant got to his feet. She heard his shoe leather creak, heard the slight snapping sound of his knee as he got down to whisper in her ear. “It seems I have to go, but I trust our message has been delivered. You do understand? Back off. Nod if you heard me.”

  She didn’t nod, a tiny gesture of defiance. “I heard.”

  “I’m going to untie your wrists, and I’m going to take the covering off your head. You keep your eyes closed, or I will shoot you.”

  “Yeah.”

  He jerked at the rope, pulled it off roughly. Every movement now seemed to cause her head to explode. He yanked the covering from her head, taking some of her hair with it. “We can do this anytime we want,” he said. “And more. You were lucky tonight. Don’t forget that.”

  He stood back up. She heard him walk back down the alley, the sound of his footsteps receding as he reached the end of it. She lifted her head, looked in his direction just as he turned the corner. A short man, blond, stiff, erect posture to go with the accent. She didn’t get a good look at his face. Slowly, by degrees, almost involuntarily, her body rolled itself back into a ball.

  Get up, she told herself. Get up, you’ve got to get your pants back on, if someone finds you here like this, they’ll probably pick up where Ramon left off. She couldn’t, though, it hurt too much to move. She faded out for a while.

  Later, she awoke with a start. She was cold, everything that hurt before was still hurting now, and she was beginning to stiffen up as well. She felt a spasm every time she inhaled. Breathing in shallow gasps, she rolled herself up into a sitting position, her back against the alley wall. Everything went dark for a couple of seconds, the world spun on a strange new eccentric orbit, but she steadied herself, her hands on the ground, and rode it out. Her pants were just a few feet away, but for a long time she could only sit there and look at them. Go, she told herself, the sun will be coming up soon, people will start walking by, they’ll see you here like this. That thought might have sent her scrambling for cover just hours ago, but now it didn’t seem to matter all that much. She stared down at her bruised thighs. No matter how bad this is, she told herself, it was very nearly a lot worse. Silently she thanked whoever it was who had interrupted her assailants, hoped that he got away. Had it really been TJ? She couldn’t say for sure, it was too hard to reach back through the haze of pain to relive that moment. Later, she told herself. You can find that out later. She gathered her strength and her courage, fell over onto her side, reached over, caught one leg of her pants, and dragged them over to her. She took the phone off the belt, dropped the pants on the ground next to her, and snapped the phone open, praying that it still worked. She made the call.