‘God, my head,’ he mutters. ‘I so need a painkiller for this.’
He stretches for the drawer, slides it open, dips his hand inside.
Nothing. Except a Gideon Bible. Which in his experience doesn’t make the best of weapons.
‘Jesus, Mr Doyle, you are the world’s worst actor. I hope they never send you undercover on any narco busts, that’s the best you can do.’
Doyle turns toward the voice coming from the corner of the room. A lamp flares into life, and he squints to make out the figure seated next to the circular writing table.
‘I guess you’re looking for this,’ the man says, waving Doyle’s Glock in the air. ‘Boy, do you sleep heavy. I should have put the TV on while I was waiting, all the difference it’d make to you.’
Doyle blinks a few times at the familiar face. Tries to match it up with a name in his mental record book. The guy is big. Looks like he hits the weights. He has a wide jaw and dimples in his cheeks. His thick black hair has a pronounced widow’s peak.
‘I think you were having a bad dream there, buddy. Something about a door? What’s that about? You get stuck in a revolving door one time?’
Then it clicks. ‘Sonny Rocca.’
The man smiles. A big white grin. Perfect teeth.
‘I’m flattered. You remember me. I didn’t realize I’d left such a lasting impression. I’m touched, really.’
‘I like to take a mental snapshot of those people I’m gonna have to visit again someday.’
‘You planning to come see me again? That’s nice. Please, drop in anytime. I’ll make you some cannoli. My grandmother’s recipe.’ He touches forefinger and thumb to his lips, kisses them away. ‘Perfetto.’
‘You still running errands for Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’
Doyle watches Rocca’s face cloud over, and he knows he’s stung him.
‘If you mean am I still in the employ of Mr Bartok and his brother, then the answer’s yes.’
Doyle nods thoughtfully. ‘So they still won’t have you, huh?’
Sonny Rocca grew up in Little Italy, that area of Manhattan north of Chinatown that has been home to Italian-Americans since the immigrant influx of the late nineteenth century. As a teenager Rocca ran with gangs, got involved with petty crime and auto thefts. His one avowed ambition in life was to become a true mobster, a made man, a goodfella, a wiseguy.
The problem was that not one of the families would take him into its bosom. For one thing, his mother wasn’t Italian; she was Norwegian — as blond and fair-skinned and non-Mediterranean-looking as they come. It’s one of the reasons that Rocca has always overplayed the Italian side of his heritage, sometimes to the extent of sounding like a stereotype in a badly written play.
These days, as others have proved, full Italian blood isn’t the essential ingredient it used to be, but Rocca has other baggage too. Three years ago he became engaged to a girl who was the beloved niece of a high-ranking mobster. Naturally, his actions were purely tactical: he never really loved the girl, as he frequently proved through his bedding of other women. All was fine until she found out about his infidelity and called off the engagement, at which point Rocca found his ladder of success hauled away and some very mean individuals put in its place.
Schooled as he was in the ways of organized crime, Rocca settled for the next best thing. A family partnership that was willing to accept him with open arms. The Bartok brothers.
Lucas and Kurt Bartok are not Italian; like their composer namesake they are of Hungarian descent. As such, they don’t give a rat’s ass for the Cosa Nostra or its codes of conduct. They work alone, and they have carved out quite a comfortable niche for themselves, thank you very much. Occasionally they resort to acts of violence, and when they do it can be so extreme as to make even the Italian mobs balk. The elder brother in particular, Lucas, has a penchant for disemboweling people with a meat hook. Legend has it that Lucas once used his butchery skills to carve an enemy into many pieces before having the choicest cuts delivered to the victim’s family members as Thanksgiving presents.
What saves the Bartoks from a nasty collision with rival organizations is the activities of the younger brother Kurt. Very much the brains of the outfit, Kurt’s specialty is information. His sources tend to be police officers he has turned using bribes, coercion or both. The information he gleans from the cops is extremely useful not only in safeguarding his family’s own criminal undertakings, but also as a commodity for selling on to other outfits, thereby keeping them sweet. All told, it’s a highly successful operation — an example to us all as to how to run a profitable and expanding business. Corporate America should be proud.
The reason Doyle knows all this is because three months ago he collared the Bartoks and Rocca for their part in a raid on a warehouse owned by a firm called Trogon Electronics. Naturally, with the lawyers they could hire and the people they could buy, they beat the rap before it even got to court. But word is that the Bartoks, and Lucas in particular, have never forgiven Doyle for his temerity. In his turn, Doyle feels no love for the Bartoks or their employees; hence his barb about Rocca’s inability to follow his true calling.
The struggle to maintain his composure is clear on Rocca’s face. It’s a while before he finds his jovial side once more. ‘Well, I think you know much more about that than I do, Mr Doyle. About people not wanting to accept you, I mean.’
Touché, Doyle thinks. How quickly word gets around.
‘How’d you get in here, anyway?’
The disarming smile again. ‘I ain’t just a pretty face, you know. I got skills, talents. The way I can get into places, some people think I can walk through walls.’
‘So you paid someone at the desk to make you another key card. Yeah, that’s mysterious all right. Look, you mind if I put some pants on? I’m feeling kind of exposed here.’
‘Sure, go ahead.’ With Doyle’s gun he gestures to the phone on the table. ‘You want I could call room service, get some fresh coffee sent up?’
‘Nah, that’s okay. You won’t be staying that long.’
Doyle stands up, but stumbles slightly and has to put his hand against the wall to steady himself.
Rocca says, ‘You sure about that caffeine? You look like you could do with it.’
Doyle frowns, finds his boxers and pants, and pulls them on. Being in a room with a criminal pointing your own gun at you is bad enough; being naked to boot is downright humiliating.
He sits on the bed. ‘All right, Sonny, what do you want? This payback time? Is that it? Lucas Bartok not able to sleep at nights with the thought of his arresting officer still walking the streets?’
‘Come on, Mr Doyle. I wanted to cap you, I coulda done it while you were counting sheep or opening doors or whatever.’
‘Maybe you got instructions to make me suffer first. That’s more Lucas’s style.’
‘Believe me, if Mr Bartok decided he wanted you dead, he’d come and do it himself, and then you would be wishing I got to you first. No, you got it all wrong. I’m here to offer you some assistance.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t need a maid. The hotel’s got its own housekeepers.’
Rocca laughs. ‘You’re a funny guy, Mr Doyle. That’s what I like about you. Always with the jokes, even when you got nothing left to laugh about.’ He leans forward on the chair. ‘See, what I hear is that you’ve been dumped. And I ain’t just talking about a wife or a girlfriend here; I’m talking about everyone. The whole world has put you out with the garbage.’ He shakes his head. ‘You know, every time I think about that I find it hard to believe. How is it possible for one person to be so obnoxious that the whole world turns against them? That really has to be a first. You should get in the record books for that one.’
‘Au contraire, Sonny. People are dying to meet me.’
Rocca slaps his palm on the table, laughs even louder. ‘See, there you go again. The jokes. Dying to meet you. That’s clever. Very funny.’
‘I got plenty more,
you want to hear them.’
‘Another time, maybe. Another time. But seriously, this thing about people dying wherever you go, that must be a bit of a downer, no?’
‘It does kinda take the shine off the day.’
Rocca jabs his gun toward Doyle. ‘Exactly what I thought. I can see how that could start to get a little depressing after a while. Mr Bartok thinks so too. Which is why he’d like to talk to you.’
‘Don’t tell me. He wants to make me an offer I can’t refuse.’
Rocca jabs again, and Doyle starts to worry about the position of Rocca’s trigger finger.
‘Don’t think I don’t get the reference. The Godfather, right?’
‘I can do it in a Marlon Brando voice if you prefer.’
‘So how about it? You willing to come with me and have a little chat with Mr Bartok?’
Doyle glances at the bedside clock. ‘Now? It’s two in the morning.’
Rocca looks askance at him. ‘It’s Saturday night. The city’s still rocking. Come on, Mr Doyle, live a little.’
Doyle sighs. ‘You mind if I finish dressing?’
‘Please. It’s cold out there. Don’t want you to catch your death.’
Doyle points a finger and thumb at him, pistol-style. ‘I see what you did there. You’re catching on.’
He finds the shirt he tossed on the floor a few hours ago. It’s a little crumpled, but it’ll do. It’s not like he’s going for a job interview.
‘Speaking about catching my death, what about you? You not afraid to step outside with me, case it leads to you getting your head blown off?’
He isn’t looking directly at Rocca as he asks this, but he catches sight of him in the wall mirror. He sees that Rocca is temporarily flummoxed, as though the notion that this might be putting him in danger has never occurred to him. It takes Rocca a few seconds to come up with a response.
‘If this guy knows anything, and from what I hear he knows a lot, he’ll understand that nobody hurts the Bartok family or anyone who works for them. Maybe you cops can’t find him, but believe me, Mr Bartok would hunt him down and the outcome would not be pleasant.’
To Doyle the reply lacks conviction, but he lets it go and finishes dressing.
‘You done?’ Rocca asks, getting up from the chair.
‘All except my nine. You mind if I have it back? I still feel naked without it.’
Rocca hefts Doyle’s gun in his hand. ‘It’s okay with you, I’ll hang onto it for a while.’
Doyle shrugs. ‘All right. Just don’t look at me to save your ass when the boogeyman starts shooting at us.’
He watches Rocca’s face, and again the reaction isn’t what he expected. He can’t fathom it, but something’s going on in Rocca’s mind. Maybe he really is starting to worry about this assignment.
They head toward the door. ‘Nice jacket,’ Rocca says. ‘Quality leather. You like my suit?’
Doyle gives him the once-over. ‘Sharp.’
Pleased with the compliment, Rocca puffs out his chest. ‘It’s Italian.’
‘I might have guessed,’ Doyle says.
NINETEEN
The car is a fully specced Lexus. Rocca drives, with Doyle slumped in the back, allowing himself the short-lived luxury of feeling like a VIP. Both men know that, at anytime, Doyle could make a play to retrieve his gun and take control of the situation, but what’s the point? This isn’t a kidnapping; it’s a lift to a meeting. At the moment, Doyle feels no need to give Rocca any grief.
They drive over to the Meatpacking District — a small patch of west Manhattan into which once were crammed a couple of hundred slaughterhouses and packing plants, and where the air hummed with the odor of dead flesh. Now most of the meat-processing companies have gone, to be replaced by clubs and bars and restaurants, and the smell on the night-time breeze is mostly that of money.
Rocca maneuvers the Lexus into a small space in an alley alongside a converted warehouse. He parks tight against the wall, leaving no room to climb out on the passenger side. Rocca gets out and opens the rear door for Doyle. At once, Doyle hears the rhythmic booming from within the building, and realizes that the place is now a nightclub.
‘The Bartoks like to strut their stuff on a Saturday night?’ he asks.
‘Something like that,’ Rocca answers.
‘Yeah, I bet that old Lucas has got some really fancy moves.’
They walk around to the street. To the consternation of the line of people waiting to get into the club, they go straight up to the entrance. Rocca nods to the doormen, who part to allow them entry.
Inside, the noise is deafening. A steady bass pounds Doyle from all sides. The floor vibrates and he can literally feel the sonic waves rippling through his body. It’s not the most invigorating of sensations to a man whose brain is crying out for sleep. Doyle’s discomfort isn’t alleviated by the colored spotlights playing over the crowds and occasionally dazzling him with an intensity that makes him feel like his retinas are being fried.
The dance floor, which seems to take up most of the cavernous area, is packed. Sweaty, half-dressed bodies gyrate and undulate in their alcohol- and drug-fueled private heavens. Doyle isn’t sure where he’s meant to go, until Rocca taps him on the shoulder and points the direction.
As they thread through the crowd, Doyle tries to make sense of the geography of the building. The ceiling seems to be as high as the floor is wide, and like the walls, its red bricks have been left unplastered. On one wall, iron staircases lead up to two metal walkways, one above the other. Doyle presumes that the doors he can see on each of the two levels lead to offices. Some of the lights that have been blinding him are fixed to the underside of the walkways. Guarding the entrance to the staircase nearest him is a burly looking security guard. On each of the stories above him, Doyle can make out similar-shaped figures watching the pulsing mass below for signs of trouble. Also dotted on the walkways are a number of dancers. Presumably employed by the club, they wear even less clothing than the customers, and their movements are just that little bit more synchronized and professional.
Doyle is ahead of Rocca, moving toward the staircase. He’s finding it difficult to swim a straight path through the human tide. Just as a space clears ahead of him, a girl blocks his route. She wears a white shirt tied high under her breasts and exposing a muscular, perspiration-beaded midriff. As Doyle’s gaze drops to her tartan micro-skirt, he thinks to himself that he’s worn wider ties than that. Her hair is tied into pigtails and she’s licking a huge lollipop as she contorts her body before him with the agility of a belly dancer. The whole naughty schoolgirl effect is helped along by the fact that she looks barely sixteen to Doyle. She doesn’t say anything, but her intentions are unmistakable as she looks Doyle in the eye, plays her tongue around the lollipop and beckons him toward her with her index finger.
Given his lack of human contact lately, and with his defenses lowered by the alcohol still in his system, Doyle finds the invitation difficult to refuse. Somehow he manages to override his baser instincts.
‘Sorry,’ he says, yelling to be heard. ‘I have to go see the school principal. I think I may get detention. If not, I’ll see you behind the bicycle sheds later.’
He’s not sure if she’s heard him, but she seems to get the message. Shrugging, she turns on her heel and skips away. Just before she melts back into the crowd, the hem of her skirt flicks up and Doyle gets a glimpse of black thong. He turns to Rocca behind him, sees that he’s grinning again.
When Doyle finally breaks through to the stairs, it’s the security guard’s turn to step in front of him, only he’s not as easy on the eye as the schoolgirl was. In fact, he has a face like a constipated pug.
‘Hey, you wanna dance?’ Doyle asks. ‘I can do a pretty mean salsa if you’re willing to take the woman’s part.’
The behemoth shuffles closer to Doyle, the scowl on his face suggesting that tripping the light fantastic isn’t the physical activity he has in mind right now.
Clanging up the metal stairs and onto the first walkway, Doyle gets a closer look at the dancers shaking their booties there. The sight of all that jiggling firm young flesh starts to get his pulse moving to the beat of the music, until Rocca taps him on the shoulder and points the way up the next set of stairs.
The upper level is like the lower. More dancers, more heavies, more doors. Rocca indicates one of the doors halfway down, and as they head toward it, Doyle can’t resist leaning over the railing for a top-level view of the crowd. He realizes how vast the interior of this place is, but also how difficult it could be to make a quick exit from up here if the need arose.
Rocca knocks and waits. The door opens a crack, and another muscleman peers out at them. If it’s one thing the Bartoks aren’t short of, Doyle thinks, it’s somebody to take the lids off their peanut butter jars. Another Masonic exchange of nods, and they’re in. As he passes the bodyguard, Doyle tips his own head to the man, who looks at him like he’s just fallen off his shoe. Doyle figures that he hasn’t quite got the hang of the gesture.
As Doyle walks across the polished wood floor, the bodyguard closes the door behind him, dampening almost all of the sound from the nightclub. Doyle takes a quick look around the plush office before his eyes settle on the man seated behind the huge oak desk in front of the window. Lucas Bartok.
Bartok the elder is not a pleasant man. Anyone who knows of his reputation for violence and sheer cruelty could tell you that. But with Bartok it goes further. It’s somehow ingrained on his face. You only have to glance at that mug to see how deeply it’s etched with his sourness and malevolence, like notches on the butt of a gun. And don’t, whatever you do, look into those eyes. You will flinch at what you see. And if you can bear to maintain your gaze, those eyes will drive you insane, make you unable to stop yourself from trying to imagine the warped picture of the world that this man must have.
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