Hipster Death Rattle

by Richie Narvaez

  No pain, no pain.

  Tony walked home. He checked his phone and saw there were seven texts from Kirsten. What was that about? He’d check later. Maybe there was some booze left in the fridge.

  Just as he got to his gate, he stopped and shut off the music on his iPhone. His front door was wide open. The wood near the jamb was split. It looked like it had been kicked in.

  As he took a step down to the doorway someone came from behind him and pushed him into the gates on his front window. He felt his lip bust. He was about to turn when a cover was put over his head. All two hundred pounds of him was lifted into the air and carried a few feet, then dumped onto the metal floor of a moving enclosed space. A van.

  Its tires screeched as it roared away from his apartment.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  It was just before eight in the morning and Petrosino tap-tap-tapped his walkie-talkie on the steering wheel of his PT Cruiser along to a song by the Genies. He half-sang along: “‘Boom boom boom, bang bang bang.’”

  “That is certainly a blast from the past,” Hadid said. “Like Jurassic past. Like, maybe it should stay in the past.”

  “’Cause you don’t appreciate good music,” Petrosino said, tapping away.

  They were parked around the corner from Le Jolie Somme, one of the new boutique hotels in Williamsburg. Convenient to the hottest bars, restaurants, shops, and residential areas, it boasted personalized service and luxurious accommodations. At only $400 a night and up, minimum two-night stay. The hotel also happened to have been built on the site of a former live poultry market, a live poultry market that stank of chickenshit and death from blocks away and that Petrosino’s mother used to send him to every Saturday.

  Petrosino looked over at his partner and asked for chewing gum. Hadid was rocking back and forth in his seat.

  “Jeez, you look like you need a cigarette more than I do,” Petrosino said.

  “I’m just, just anxious. I get the feeling this is going to be big. I’ve never been part of something this big.”

  “They’re all big to somebody and small to somebody else.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I have no fucking idea.”

  Eladio Cortés, king of the Southside Quistadoreys, had not checked in with his parole officer but had checked into this hotel three nights before. His room came with thirty complimentary premium movie channels and an ergonomic bed with an orthopedic mattress. He had paid for the room for a week—in cash. A housecleaning woman had called the police, having spotted a gun in his room. And because he didn’t tip.

  “The balls of this guy to hide out in this fancy schmancy hotel,” Hadid said.

  “Pow-pow-pow-pow,” sang Petrosino along to “A Little Too Long” by the Wanderers. Then he said, “He ain’t a suspect yet. We just need him for questioning.”

  “He don’t know he’s practically got an army waiting for him.”

  “That’s Tuchman overcompensating.”

  The doo-wop song filled the car, and Petrosino sang along until it trailed off.

  In the brief silence, Hadid said, “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

  “What’s not to like?” Petrosino said.

  “There Goes My Baby” by the Drifters came on the radio. Petrosino looked at his partner and then lowered the volume. He said, “You’ve been getting better.”

  “I have? In what way?”

  Petrosino sighed. “All right. When you came in, you were a big-mouthed, fast-talking, indiscreet son of a bitch. But you learned, you changed. Like with Mr. Pak, not blabbing about the second vic right in front of him, waiting till we got outside. Good thinking. You might actually end up a half-decent detective.”

  “As half-decent as you?”

  “You little sh—”

  Tuchman’s voice barked over the walkie-talkie. “We are a go, gentlemen. We are a go.”

  When they rushed into the hotel, Tuchman took point, of course. Petrosino and Hadid were right behind him.

  Tuchman banged on the door and shouted, “Police! Open up!”

  From behind the door, Petrosino heard yelling, a man and a woman. “What the fuck is going on, Eladio?” “Shut the fuck up!”

  “We just want to ask you some questions,” Tuchman said.

  “Oh my god! Eladio!” “Shut the fuck up!”

  Even though the squad had the room key, Tuchman yelled, “Bring it down.”

  Petrosino’s first thought was that it was a tiny room for something billed as a boutique hotel. There, less than twelve feet away and backed between the front wall and the king-sized bed that took up most of the room, stood Cortés. He was in a little spot away from the window—which made him out of the reach of the police snipers outside. Cortés held a Glock .40 in his right hand and, in the crook of his left arm, a baby, who looked calm and angelic, as if none of this was happening. Petrosino knew the infant was Cortés’s daughter, the woman with her head peeking out of the john with the wet hair was Cortés’s girlfriend, who went by the name “Beyoncé” (birth name: Awilda Fuentes).

  “Don’t fucking shoot!” she said. “Don’t nobody fucking shoot! Don’t hurt my baby!” She moved out from the bathroom and tried to grab the baby away from Cortés.

  Tuchman said, “Ma’am, please step away!”

  “Give me my fucking baby!”

  “Chill out, chill out, chill out, chill out,” Eladio said, holding on tight to the baby.

  “…please step away.”

  “…my fucking baby!”

  The baby wailed. Then there was a shot.

  Someone, Petrosino first thought it was one of the younger cops, must have got nervous and fired. The young woman was clutching her chest. Cortés, instead of shooting back, held his gun up and dropped it to the floor, staring wide-eyed at his girlfriend, and cradling the baby so tight he could have suffocated it.

  A moment later, just as Tuchman rushed in to cuff Cortés, Petrosino turned and saw his partner on his knees, his head down and his service weapon on the floor in front of him. The officers next to him in the doorway looked at him in shock.

  It was Hadid. He was the one who had discharged his weapon.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The van drove for a while. Wedged between two sets of legs, Tony rested his head on his bulky messenger bag. They had roughly tied both his hands and his ankles with what felt like plastic zip-tie restraints.

  The bag over Tony’s head made it hard to breathe. This could his tempus mortis, be how it ended, kidnapped on the street, then imprisoned and tortured forever in some hidden location, dumped in the river or buried in a shallow grave. His mind spun a million different deaths. To stay focused, to stop from panicking and soiling himself, he tried to listen to the sounds and feel of the streets they were on.

  Judging by their first turn, they had taken Kent Avenue, but then they took a few quick turns and he lost track.

  But then they moved with speed and without stopping frequently—that meant highway, and the closest one was the BQE. But which way? North, which meant Long Island or even upstate, the kind of places with plenty of areas to dump a body. Or south, toward Coney Island and the Atlantic, or over the Verrazano, toward Staten Island—he would be able to smell if they went there—and farther on toward Jersey and the Pine Barrens, another popular destination for corpse dumping.

  The van had stopped after about half an hour. Too soon for the Pine Barrens.

  He was pulled out and lifted high and then bent over onto someone’s shoulder. Somebody very strong and tall. It was harder to breathe bent over that way, and blood rushed to his head. He knew his brain could hemorrhage or blood could pool in his lungs. He found himself wondering who would tell his mother, if Magaly would ever find out what happened to him, and how his apartment would be superficially renovated and rented again for a few hundred more dollars a month.

  He was carried through doors—temperature change, echo of steps—and up a short flight of stairs. A big empty s
pace that smelled of piss and beer. Warehouse? An empty dance club? Citi Field?

  They walked into what felt like a smaller space (less echo) with metal floors, and the room began to move up. Elevator. Metal doors moving in slots. Lots of clacking.

  The door slid open, and he was moved a short distance. A door opened and there was sound and wind. He was outside again. He was placed down, not on concrete, but on something that had a slight spring to it. He felt underneath him.

  Roof tar.

  He decided to play it tough, to show he wasn’t scared. As if this kind of thing happened to him regularly and it was merely an inconvenience. As casually as he could, he said through the bag, “So, we’re in a new neighborhood, I guess. what’s the rent like here? Are the schools goo—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Someone kicked him hard in the ribs, knocking out his breath.

  Stupid tactic. Okay, no more Mr. Tough Guy approach.

  He was dragged up against a vertical surface, maybe a wall. His hands were still bound behind his back, and his feet were still bound tightly together. A rope was tied around his chest. Someone searched his pockets and took out his phone.

  A second later, he heard a sad crunch. A sad, three-hundred-dollar crunch.

  Someone spoke. “Here is what is happening to you and why.” Male. Brooklyn accent. “This is to teach you a lesson. To mind your own business. That blackmail is unacceptable.”

  “That’s two lessons,” Tony almost said. Then he remembered his ribs. At least he knew it wasn’t some bizarrely random kidnapping or some government death squad.

  Someone to the right, another male voice, said, “Should we take off the hood at least?” A different kind of Brooklyn accent this time. Yiddish?

  “Fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” said a whole other voice, male. Brooklyn Italian. Or Irish. Or Greek. “So then he can see our faces? Fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”

  The first voice began to read again. “Just so you know, you are now sitting on a roof with no shade and up on which no one can hear you. No one knows you’re here.” Then the voice turned in another direction. “Get that tarp.”

  Tony heard footsteps and then the sound of rough cloth unfurling. They covered most of his body but not his head.

  “You’re a smartypants,” the voice said, “so you can guess how it’s gonna be. Tomorrow we got another heat wave, and you’re gonna be one microwaved enchilada.”

  And no traffic or police helicopters would see him under the tarp. Clever. Tony stopped himself from telling them he was not Mexican, if that’s what they were getting at with the enchilada crack. Again, it didn’t seem useful to speak at the moment.

  The tarp was placed over his head and tucked behind him, and from what he could hear and sense they were laying cinderblocks on the edges of the tarp, lots of them.

  “Check the bag,” he heard, muffled.

  “Is it there, Norm?”

  Or was it “No” or “Noah?” Tony couldn’t quite make it out.

  “No names, asshole!”

  “Sorry. Shit. Sorry. He can’t hear us. He’s got more things to worry about.”

  “What are these things? Weights?”

  Pétanque balls, you idiot. Pétanque!

  “They look almost like bocce balls.”

  Tony rolled his eyes under the hood and tar. He heard the muffled sounds of metal balls thudding on the roof. And then the metallic sound of one being kicked.

  “Oww.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Fucking shit. Hey. Look here. Got ’em. And a laptop.”

  “Smash it.”

  Tony heard a loud crack. His laptop. And one whose hard drive he’d never had the energy to back up. A thousand dollars to replace. Bastards.

  “Let’s go,” one of the voices said.

  Then he heard, close to his covered face: “Adios, asshole.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Litvinchouk’s station wagon was, for the most part, a utilitarian vehicle, a mobile office loaded with responsibilities. As a landlord, he drove it almost every day from building to building, and then from schools to shopping malls to synagogue.

  But she, the lovely she, by her mere presence could transform it from pragmatic dullness into a den of erotic splendor.

  “You’re incredible,” Jackie Tomasello said. Her leather skirt was hiked to her waist, showing off her sculptured thighs, her Neanderthal hips, and her blouse was open, revealing a half-open fire engine red brassiere.

  For his part, Litvinchouk’s zipper was open.

  They lay panting, side by side in the back compartment, on an old picnic blanket that smelled of mayonnaise. They were close, partly because they wanted to be, but also because they were surrounded by a toolbox, two brand-new fire extinguishers, a box of toilet paper, and a menagerie of children’s toys.

  “Ego sum,” Litvinchouk said. “I cannot lie.”

  For the sake of privacy, the windows of the station wagon were covered in black garbage bags, hastily, sloppily, duct-taped into place.

  “But I gotta say, Eli, this car is a fucking sauna,” his beauty said. “My makeup is running. I’m dripping everywhere.”

  Her wonderful legs were so long, her feet threatened to dangle over the driver’s seat. Those wonderful legs had just been wrapped around him seconds ago, and he knew he would have to make an appointment with his chiropractor because of the pain he would feel in a few hours. But it would be a sweet pain.

  “Would you prefer a room at the Ritz-Carlton, my dear?”

  “No,” she said, kissing him. “What I love about this is that we don’t have to act like solid, respectable citizens in here. We can be crazy, lovesick teenagers. Just like we used to be.”

  “Well, you were the teenager.”

  “And I was the pretty young thing you broke in.”

  “Forbidden fruit is sweetest. Frank Jr. would have killed me if he found out.”

  “You always worry. He didn’t know then and he doesn’t know now. He’s harmless. That’s why I married him. That and his daddy’s business.”

  Litvinchouk hated to spoil the mood, but they had precious few moments to be genuine, to really talk. “Speaking of Frank Senior…” was all he needed to say.

  “Ah, that,” said Jackie. She didn’t seem upset about the return to present matters. She didn’t even button up her blouse, allowing him further appreciation of her prognosis for her father-in-law. “Still in critical condition, so it looks like any day now. So he won’t be around to stop us either.”

  “Now we just have to conclude this little business here, and then we can be free.”

  “I don’t trust that little number. She’s a piece of work.”

  “She’s on our side. That is, the side of money. She won’t upset the money train.”

  Litvinchouk took a surreptitious look at his watch. She caught him looking and gave him a sad smile.

  “My love,” he said, “I’m afraid I have to meet with a congressman in half an hour.”

  “Back to business then.”

  Jackie fixed her bra and blouse and hiked down her skirt. Litvinchouk zipped up. They shuffled into the front seats. They each took off the garbage bags from their sides. It was still morning. They were parked outside of an old warehouse.

  “This is a nice spot,” he said. “It’s a quiet spot. You can’t find too much of them in New York anymore. Certainly not in Williamsburg.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Remember our spot outside the Navy Yard?”

  “Mmmm, yes. Don’t get me started again, unless you want to be late for your congressman.”

  Litvinchouk pointed to the warehouse. “So how long are you going to leave him up there for?”

  “Another day, maybe two.”

  “What if he doesn’t survive?”

  “So what? No one will raise a fuss. He’ll just be another missing person.”

  “He does have friends. Like that social activist girl he hangs around with.”

  “Don’t
worry. We know where she lives.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  To Gabby Vasconcellos, the subway was totes obnoxious. What was it with people today anyway? Everyone pushing and shoving. And grabbing. Men totally taking advantage of the close quarters. Disgusting. She had had a long day at the Sentinel, finishing up her story on the Italian feast. Tony had written up the incident with the fake slasher guy, some somehow-still-alive Vietnam vet/addict who told police it was just a joke, but it wasn’t time to be funny, no-oh—but after she pleaded a little (surprisingly little), Tony let her write up a general overview of the feast, which really meant a lot of captions, but some of them were paragraphs-long, so. Plus, she would be getting a byline again, and she’d had a byline a few times in the paper already, but every time it felt amazing, every time she saw “By Gabrielle Vasconcellos,” she felt proud and professional and powerful. Her Hunter College degree shining for the world! Now if only she could get the men on the subway to stop grabbing her ass.

  After work, she had decided to hang out with the girls because the girls were hanging out. Her BFF#4 Lala had decided to quit her job—she hadn’t actually quit yet, but the deciding was good enough reason to get together. But Lala lived on the Upper West Side, so that meant going to a bar in the Upper West Side because Lala just couldn’t. It was just for dinner and a few drinks anyway, and then she would bounce back home.

  Three hours later it was—what time was it anyway? Funny thing, it was supposed to be dinner and drinks, but they had forgotten about dinner somehow. Gabby checked her phone. Low battery, yes, fine. 2:30 a.m. O-M-G, five hours later. How was she going to wake up in the morning? She better get the coffee machine ready before she went to sleep. She was getting so organized as she adulted, she really was, and she liked the feeling. But maybe she should also make herself puke a little to make sure she didn’t have too much of a hangover tomorrow.