Blood Money

by Laura M Rizio

  A man emerged from the yellow light, carrying a briefcase and pulling a black carryon. He spotted the cab through the fog and started toward it. Rudi leaned out of the open window and waved him away, but the man continued walking toward him. Rudi shook his head no and rolled up the window. But the would-be passenger began knocking on the closed window until he saw the driver slowly reach into his inside jacket pocket. Wisely, the man turned toward the safety of the terminal, where he could call another cab.

  Rudi strained to see through the drifting fog and caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure of a woman with long hair, young, lean. She walked assertively through the glass doors. As she came closer, her image became clearer—it was her. He quickly compared her with the photo Silvio had sent by messenger. He readied himself, thanking his mother for telling him that he could be anything he wanted—this time a Middle Eastern cab driver with a three hundred thousand dollar fare—not bad for one night’s work.

  She saw the deserted cab stand. “Merde,” she said.

  Rudi turned on his taxi sign and flashed his headlights at her, and then waited. She waved at the cab, signaling him to come over to her as she slung her large, black tote bag over her shoulder. The cab didn’t move.

  “Taxi!” she yelled, “Taxi.” she waved.

  He flashed his headlights again, but didn’t move.

  “Taxi!” She stepped off the curb into the road. He switched his headlights to bright and started to move toward her. The lights blinded her as they came closer. She shielded her eyes with her free hand. She yelled at the faceless driver, “Bruto!” The engine revved loudly over the sound of her voice. Suddenly the blinding lights were on top of her. She had no time to escape, to scream. It was too late.

  The thud of the cab striking her was music to Rudi’s ears. The sight of her body catapulting over the hood of the cab was magnificent—a grand maneuver. No stunt man or woman could possibly fake this, he thought. This was the real thing. Maria smashed into the chain link fence on the other side of the road. It clanged loudly, and then bowed as her body slid to the ground.

  Rudi pounded the steering wheel with clenched fists. “Yes, yes!” He quickly opened the door of the cab, leaped out, and ran to the crumpled, bleeding figure. He snatched the black tote bag and tossed it into his cab, humming Ravel’s Bolero as he sped off into the fog toward I-95. He wished that he could have videotaped it—her face, beautifully wide-eyed and unsuspecting, like a deer caught in his headlights. And then—poof! like magic, she was gone. God, he loved his job!

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Nick nervously paced back and forth in his living room, watching the hands of the antique case clock. It had chimed eleven o’clock twenty minutes ago. He was worried. And he was pissed off at himself for not insisting on picking Maria up at the airport. He poured a glass of Chianti from a newly opened bottle of Badia a Coltibuono and took a swallow. He listened to the ticking of the old clock in the otherwise silent apartment.

  Floured medallions of veal lay on a plate next to a sauté pan. Marsala sauce waited in a bowl next to the veal.

  He had an apology speech ready. He had practiced it a dozen times. The glass dining table was set, the candles were lit, and the roses he had bought were already starting to wilt. Where was she, he asked himself. The plane had landed on time. He had already checked with the airport. Could there have been a car accident on the way to his apartment? He could barely make out the Benjamin Franklin bridge through the fog bank outside his penthouse window. He didn’t like fog; it made him feel claustrophobic. It was like a heavy drape pulled across his mirror of the world. He fought the feeling. Then came another demon. The image of Madeline’s dying body against the backdrop of all the machines that couldn’t keep her alive. When the cancer had had its way with his mother, they had called him in to see her. He never forgot it, her shriveled body unresponsive to his pleas and his cries. He was ten years old then, and she was the only person on whom he could rely. His alcoholic father was useless. He beat them and stole their money for booze until one day Nick hit him with a baseball bat and sent him to the hospital with a skull fracture. The bastard didn’t attend Madeline’s funeral, and Nick didn’t attend his when he was burned alive in a house fire on skid row.

  Nick was still a kid, but he had gotten a reputation as a tough guy after putting his father in the hospital. The story had reached the ears of Vince DiCicco, head of the Philadelphia mob. Nick was alone and needed a family, and DiCicco needed a trustworthy bag boy to run cash between card games. Later, he was promoted to chauffeur and almost got himself killed a few times by a stray bullet. He would have been a dead man, or in jail, if it hadn’t been for Joe Maglio.

  The phone rang, jolting him out of his reverie.

  “Hello”

  “Mr. Ceratto?” asked a familiar sounding voice. “This is Detective Kirby. Remember me?”

  “Yes, Detective.”

  “Sorry for the call this late. But I’m afraid I have bad news for you.” Kirby was direct and brief. He extended his sympathies but did not stay on the line. He had work to do.

  When the line went dead, Nick looked at the receiver in disbelief. Then he pulled the phone out of the jack and threw it against the window with all his strength, shattering the doublepaned glass.

  CHAPTER XIX

  “A hit and run,” Kirby said on the telephone. The ash from his most recent cigarette dropped onto his burnt, scarred desk. “That’s all we’ve got right now, Captain. She had just come in on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv. Yeah. She just got off the plane. No luggage. Nothing checked on the plane. And no purse. Could have been stolen. She had her passport in her pocket. That’s how we IDed her…Italian…yeah…I called her boyfriend, Nick Ceratto. I know him. I had met her at his apartment. Just a coincidence, I guess…Yeah, Nick Ceratto, from the same firm. They should be in the funeral business.” Kirby chuckled slyly, drawing deeply. More ash fell into his lap. He ignored it.

  “Some guy coming in on the same flight heard about it on the news and called the department…yeah…He’d seen a taxi across the road waiting in the dark that wouldn’t pick him up. The driver reached in his coat pocket for something when the guy banged on the window, so he split. We were already out to talk to him. We got nothing—no make, no model, no license tag, not even the cab company. The dispatcher left because of the fog. He thought all flights had been canceled. Was seen at the airport bar. Real idiot, right? We’re following up with that…I’ll keep you posted, Captain.” Kirby nodded his gray head, wondering where he got all the patience. “I’ll get a report out right away, Cap. She has to be formally identified. Then the body can go straight to he medical examiner for an autopsy. But we’ll have the report in a few hours… Yeah, the boyfriend, Ceratto’s going to do it. I feel sorry for him. She’s a mess. Car musta been flying when it slammed into her… Yeah, we’re checking him out, too…no stone unturned, Captain. I’m meeting him at the morgue right now…Yeah, bye.”

  Kirby slowly raised himself from his desk chair. His arthritic knees protested the change in position. He buttoned his frayed shirt collar and pulled up his only tie. More bodies, he thought as he reached for his ancient coat. He put it on slowly, grimacing with the creaking of his aching bones.

  Nick had been waiting for half an hour at 321 University Avenue, the medical examiner’s headquarters. He sat alone on the scruffy steel and vinyl bench. He had been told that he had to wait for Detective Kirby before he would be permitted to see her. Nick was fuming inside. He got up and paced, hands in pockets. He turned on the male receptionist at the desk.

  “Jesus Christ! I’ve been here a fucking half hour. I want to see her now!” he yelled, pointing a finger in the pale face of the man sitting at a scratched piece of metal furniture that vaguely resembled a desk.

  “Sir, I have my orders. You’ll have to wait. I’m sorry.” The man went back to reading The Daily News and munching a Baby Ruth.

  “I don’t care if I have to pull every corpse out of every fuckin
g drawer—I’ll find her.” Nick started to walk past the receptionist. Just then the heavy metal door opened with a loud bang.

  “Mr. Ceratto,” Kirby rushed in, breathless. “I’m so sorry you had to wait…”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you are.” Nick stood his ground menacingly as Kirby approached. The detective nodded at the receptionist and the young man pressed the buzzer, opening the automatic door into the morgue.

  It was quiet and it was cold. The place had the stale smell of death. Nick knew it well. It was the arrested decomposition of human flesh without the masking smell of flowers.

  They approached the viewing room and stood on one side of the glass wall.

  “I want to warn you. She’s a mess,” Kirby said apologetically, hands tucked deeply into his pockets.

  Nick remained silent, his heart pounding. He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to pretend that whatever was lying in there wasn’t her. But he stayed, staring at the darkened glass. “Let’s do it.”

  Kirby gave a signal and the lights were turned on. An attendant wearing a blue uniform and latex gloves wheeled a gurney up to the glass partition. He peeled back a black plastic sheet, uncovering Maria Elena to the collarbone.

  Nick reeled. He turned his head. He’d seen death before. He’d seen mangled corpses, shot, stabbed, burned—but nothing like this. She was more than a mess. Her hair was a tangled mass of coagulated blood. Half her face had been torn off by the rough road surface. There were so many broken facial bones that there was hardly a nose or cheek. One eye was gone, and her jaw was so twisted it almost touched her left ear. He turned and vomited heavily on the white tile floor. He wiped his mouth with back of his hand. He screamed with a rage he had never known before.

  Kirby waved the attendant away and the room went dark. He said nothing. He couldn’t find any words.

  “They did this,” Nick’s voice cracked. He was barely able to speak. “They knew what she had, and they fucking killed her for it. Squashed her like an insect.” He turned and walked through the double doors past the man who was still chewing on his candy bar. Kirby quickly followed.

  “Look, I know this is a bad time—a terrible time.”

  “Yes it is, Mr. Kirby. It sure is.” Nick pulled his coat collar up and walked out of the building toward the parking lot.

  “Mr. Ceratto, can you stop for a minute?” Kirby hobbled slightly from the pain in his arthritic knees. He couldn’t keep up with the fast-walking younger man. “I’d like to talk to you, sir, just for a minute.

  Nick turned to him, reaching into his coat pocket for the keys to his red Boxster. “I don’t have time to talk,” he snapped. “I have work to do.” He squeezed the plastic tab on his key chain, and the car door locks clicked open.

  “You’re right, you know.”

  “Right about what?” snapped Nick, standing against the low sports car.

  “About them.” Kirby took a cigarette out of the pack from the pocket in his threadbare coat. He lit it with one click from the cheap Bic lighter. His lined face was illuminated briefly by the flame, and Kirby’s honesty became apparent to Nick in that one moment. He held the pack out to Nick, who took one and put it in his mouth. He drew on it heavily as Kirby lit it for him.

  Kirby examined the face in the flame. It was young and determined, much like his when he was young. Kirby was not a believer in coincidence. He feared that the young trial lawyer might be next.

  “So, now what?” Nick blew the smoke past Kirby’s face.

  “Don’t know. It’s all in the hands of Ms. Gates. Depends on what she wants to do.”

  “No. It’s not. It’s in my hands now. And I know what I have to do.”

  CHAPTER XX

  Silvio refused to answer the phone. He had turned off the ringer so he wouldn’t hear Celeste’s whining, telling him to remember to lock the front door and feed the cat he had hated ever since she brought it home as a kitten, ten years ago. He had planned to poison it but decided against it after thinking about how she would complain about missing it, being lonely, how her life was meaningless. Celeste was on a retreat with her group, the Ladies of the Blessed Sacrament. They were praying for him in San Francisco, three thousand miles away, for one whole week. If he had believed in God, he would have thanked him.

  Margo Griffin couldn’t stand the ringing anymore. Silvio hadn’t budged as he lay on the bed next to her. She grabbed the receiver, saying nothing as she lifted it to her ear in case it was the “holy one.”

  “Hello,” a heavily accented male voice said. “Hello?”

  “Yes?” She was careful to say nothing more.

  “Is Mr. Silvio there?”

  “Asleep,” she answered curtly.

  “Mrs. Silvio, I gather?”

  Margo didn’t respond.

  “Sorry for disturbing you, but I must speak with Mr. Silvio. I’m calling from Tel Aviv.”

  “Hold.”

  Silvio lay with his back to her. Margo reluctantly shook his large, hairy shoulder. She knew how difficult he was to wake, and how pissed he could get when he was awakened.

  “Marty, wake up. Marty.”

  “What?” he asked, giving her an elbow in the stomach as he flopped over.

  “Ouch, you bastard,” she said, holding her hand over the receiver. “Some asshole insists on speaking with you. He says he’s calling from Tel Aviv.”

  Silvio bolted upright and grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Silvio, I know this is very late your time and I’m sorry for the call. My name is Ari Miller. I’m with international accounts at the Bank Naomi. I must inform you, sir, that someone posing as a branch examiner obtained access to your account, the Midas Limited account in particular.”

  “How the hell did this happen?” Silvio went for the cold, damp cigar left from the night before.

  “Well, sir, it was a woman, very beautiful. And she, well…” he stammered. “She used her charms to convince one of our managers to give her access to the account without consulting me first. She knew about the numbered Swiss accounts and their transfers to the Midas accounts. I’m sorry to say that she downloaded the account information onto a disc, so we were told.

  “That’s a disgrace!” Marty yelled. “What kind of security do you have there? That woman could be a thief—could pilfer our accounts—could be a terrorist, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry. We have fired the person responsible for the security breach and have assigned new account numbers and double security codes for Midas.”

  “I ought to move the account,” Silvio yelled, reaching for the yellow disc on the night stand and kissing it.

  “Please don’t do that, sir. We guarantee nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  “I’ll have to think about it and ask my partner what he wants to do…”

  “Sir, one more thing; when we questioned the young man we fired, he told us she also printed out the material from the disc, and then made a phone call to Philadelphia. I don’t know if that means anything?”

  “Do you have the print-out?” snapped Marty.

  “No, I’m afraid she took it with her.”

  “Fuck!” he said, spitting a piece of cigar into an empty glass. Rudi had only given him the disc, nothing more, and now he was worried. “Are you sure about the print-out? About the papers?”

  “Yes. Why would the man mention the print-out if she only had a disc? He was with her all the time.”

  “Great. Just fucking great.” Silvio’s mind raced. What to do? What to do?

  “Sorry…” Miller was about to go into another apologetic litany, but Silvio didn’t let him.

  “You’re dead, Ari Miller. I’ll see you’re fired, too, you incompetent fuck!” and Silvio slammed down the receiver. He walked around the bed, balls-naked, to his jacket on the floor. He fumbled in the inside pocket for his cell phone and quickly accessed a number. Margo watched Silvio’s anxiety build. She didn’t know what was going on, and she knew better than to as
k.

  “Hello there, Mr. Silvio. What brings you to the phone so late, another job?”

  Silvio heard classical music playing loudly in the background. “Could you turn that down? I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like Bach? I could switch to Mozart.” Rudi laughed loudly, enjoying the knowledge that he was annoying the piss out of Silvio.

  “Listen, I don’t have time to play games, you sadistic bastard. It’s late. I’m tired. I know you don’t sleep, so just turn that music the fuck down so we can talk.”

  The sound quickly died. “Good,” Silvio said. “Now, you gave me a disc from the girl’s bag, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You said that’s all there was in it besides girl stuff, clothes, makeup?”

  “Right. That was it. That’s what you wanted, right?”

  “I want the bag. Where is it?”

  “I burned it.”

  “You sure you burned it?”

  “Of course. I always burn evidence.”

  “I just got a call from a bank in Tel Aviv where she was before her accident. They told me she was carrying documents—papers as well as a compact disc. Now I need those papers.” He grabbed a dry cigar from the box on his dresser and paced the floor.