by A. W. Gray
“You look like you do some working out,” Tirelli said.
“Push-ups,” Bino said. “Sit-ups sometimes.” It was a lie; the last time he’d tried push-ups he’d collapsed beside Cecil’s tank and hadn’t been able to get up for a quarter hour or so.
Tirelli slapped his own flat midsection. “You need to keep it up,” he said. “Your age, what, forty-two?”
“Three,” Bino corrected.
“Your age you can get by with a lot of shit. You wait ten more years it’ll show. You don’t watch yourself, time you’re sixty you’ll be running around looking like Big Bird, tall as you are.”
Bino squared his shoulders the same way he had at the salad and juice bar, when the two young musclemen had smirked at him.
“Just a little advice,” Tirelli said, “seeing as how we’re sort of brother-in-laws. That what you call it, Dirk? Guys married to the same woman, huh?”
Dirk showed a broad grin, and Bino wondered briefly what Tirelli’s trick might be, getting a smile out of the guy. Bino thought, Maybe I should ask to borrow Tirelli’s joke book.
Tirelli propped an arm on the back of the sofa and sipped more water. “While we’re talking workouts, I thought that might be what you had in mind, going out to the President’s this afternoon. Las Colinas, that’s awfully fucking far for you. They got no workout places closer in your neighborhood?”
Bino crossed his legs and thought, Uh-oh. He kept smiling and hoped his grin didn’t look as terrified as he felt.
“You know, Annabelle,” Tirelli said, then shook his head and grinned. “What a woman, huh? Annabelle, she really thinks she’s independent, don’t she?”
Icy prickles began at the base of Bino’s scalp. “Yeah, I guess, at least she used to be. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah,” Tirelli said, “but you’ll remember, right? Sure you will, brother-in-law. You tell Annabelle she can’t do something, she’s gonna do it come whatever.
“That’s why,” Tirelli said, sipping, “I don’t press her. She thought I was watching her she’d really get uptight, might not give old Dante no pussy a coupla weeks or something, you know?”
“I can’t imagine her not giving you any … cutting you off,” Bino said.
“You’d know about that, brother-in-law.” Tirelli bent forward and placed his glass on the coffee table. “So I don’t keep no official watch on her, but she’s got to have protection. Even a man like me, a man in the restaurant business, you never know when some enemy’s going to come fucking with a guy’s old lady. What’s happened is, since Annabelle’s been working out, a couple of my guys getting really built up themselves. Getting some legs on ’em, working those stair climbers. Good for the guys.”
“Really healthy,” Bino said. He had a sudden flashback, the noise of the electric stair climbers as he’d stood at the President’s counter talking to the cute little blond. He was conscious of Ralph, chewing on a toothpick two spaces to Tirelli’s right.
“Now old Dirk here,” Tirelli said, pointing sideways, “when we got the call you’d been talking to her, Dirk wanted to go find you and break your fucking neck.”
Bino swallowed hard. “Old Dirk did, huh?”
“But I tell him, Naw,” Tirelli said. “Annabelle, I trust the woman, otherwise I wouldn’t be married to her, right? Tell you what, Dirk, I told him, I bet no sooner than Annabelle gets home she tells us all about it, right? I tell you that, Dirk, or not?”
Dirk grunted. Bino shifted nervously in his chair.
“And sure ‘nuff,” Tirelli said, “first thing when she comes in ... Hey, brother-in-law, all that working out’s sure making her look good in them leotards. You think?”
Bino smiled. “I didn’t really notice.”
Tirelli scowled. “You didn’t? How come?”
“Well, yeah, she looks,” Bino said, then cleared his throat and said, “she’s always had a cute figure, even back in college.”
Tirelli shook his head, grinning. “Man, you college guys. Got all the answers, right? I tell you, though, it’s good for her she brought the subject right up, that you’d been to see her. Told me all about it. Now I’m an easygoing guy, but Dirk’s a young buck and gets real mad, he thinks somebody’s hiding something.”
Tirelli leaned back and crossed his legs. “So she tells me right up you’re looking for some guy. I got to ask you, how come you think I’d know something about somebody croaks
people? I got a place with the best crab claws in town, people lining up outside, what I want somebody croaked for?”
“I knew you used to live in New York,” Bino said. “I just thought you might have some acquaintances.”
“That I do,” Tirelli said. “That I do, my friend, and I’ll tell you something. Nineteen sixty-seven I come to Dallas, a little burg back then with what, four hundred thousand? You think I like the weather or something? Roast your ass in the summer, got no real good winter with Christmas snow and shit. Ain’t no place in this world I like better than the City, so why you think I move down here?”
“Less competition in Italian restaurants?” Bino said hopefully.
“I know some people up there,” Tirelli said. “You grow up Bronxside you get to know a few. I never was into a lot of heavy, you know, leg-breaking or whatever, but I knew some guys. Guy, maybe, had a sports book out on Long Island, another guy sold a few numbers up on Fifty-seventh between Broadway and Sixth. Those guys all had ten-block territories, you walk up around, say, just south of the Park you’re doing business with another guy.
“But I moved to Texas,” Tirelli said. “You know why? Because I wanted away from all that Godfather shit. All those guys into illegal stuff I don’t need. What I am is a restaurant man.”
“I like your spaghetti carbonara,” Bino said. “With some broccoli on the side.”
“Ain’t bad, is it?” Tirelli said, looking thoughtful, crossing his legs. “But if I was into all this gambling and shit like people think, I’d have a couple of problems right now. The main problem I’d have, these New York guys have started doing business down here, and now I’d have a bunch of partners I don’t want, guys from up north that run sports books and shit. Which makes me glad I’m in the restaurant business and not fucking in nothing illegal. But even if I got nothing to do with these New York people around here, I hear a few things. This guy you’re looking for, Annabelle says he’s in Dallas or Houston.”
“One or the other,” Bino said. “The people letting the contract wouldn’t bring in anybody from way off.”
“New York people got no such friends around here,” Tirelli said. “And even if they did, nobody’s going to do no hits without the right kind of direction. Not no New York guy that has any connection to these people I know. But I asked around. And there is a guy. Only there’s a problem. This is a Philadelphia guy. This Liberty Bell motherfucker, he might be your boy.”
Bino continued to grin, showing his attention, wishing that he hadn’t had so much to drink. Dirk sulked while Ralph put a soggy toothpick in his pocket, fished out another packaged in cellophane, tore the wrapper away, and put the fresh toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
“This guy,” Tirelli said, “is part of a Philadelphia unit that these New York guys don’t know too good. This guy ain’t too popular around because he’s in that federal witness program. Funny thing is, the guy’s got nobody to hide from, but hey, the feds going to support a guy, give him a new address, what’s he care? The guy thinks some family’s after him, but the people he snitched off to get in the program weren’t connected to anybody made. They were some stupid fucking bankers up east, had this guy croaked was gonna testify against ’em, so who cares? And incidentally, my friend, that particular arrangement was outside this guy’s family, so they’d cut him off before he got to be a snitch. But the guy wants to think he’s hiding out, let him. Only time he’s got a problem is if he
wants to talk to the feds about any made guys. Then he’s dead.”
Bino said, “He’s whacking people while he’s in the protected witness program?”
“You seen that movie, too, huh?” Tirelli said. “Anybody talking about whacking people got it straight from the screen and don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
“That’s me, okay,” Bino said.
“But what’s to prevent him?” Tirelli said. “He’s got a pad, the government’s paying the rent, all kinds of phony ID, who better to do a contract? Now, I’m going to do you a favor, brother-in-law. I got this guy’s real name, address, and phony witness protection monicker wrote down on a card in my pocket.” He patted the front of his shirt.
Bino straightened in surprise. “You’ve got the name and address of a federal witness? That’s supposed to be Top Secret Number One.”
Tirelli snorted. “You shitting me? We know, not we, these New York guys, yeah and Philadelphia guys, too. They can give you the address for every federal witness there is, tell you what time of day the guy takes a shit if you want to know. If the occasion comes up that he’s a danger to somebody made, then we just off the guy. They off the guy, I’m getting to know these people so good sometimes I think I’m one of ’em.”
“Easy mistake to come by,” Bino said.
“Federal witnesses getting croaked,” Tirelli said, “never makes no newspapers. The feds keep that quiet on account of it makes them look not so bright.” He reached in his pocket and brought out a business card. “Now I told you there’s a problem here.”
“I knew it couldn’t be this simple,” Bino said.
“Chances are still this is your guy. He’s been croaking guys for money all over ever since he’s been in the program. Everybody knows it that needs to. But the thing is, he lives in Houston.”
“That’s sure the right location.” Bino reached for the card.
Tirelli held the card to his chest. “Ain’t finished yet. Guy lives in Houston but the word is, he don’t do nobody in Houston. He’s got to travel to take a job.”
“Maybe he made an exception,” Bino said.
“Not likely,” Tirelli said. “This thing you’re doing, the woman found in Houston? I was you, and this Philadelphia guy did her, I’d start thinking he done her someplace else. How the broad winds up in a Houston ship channel, that’s a sixty-four-dollar question.”
“If everything else fits,” Bino said, “I’d still have to say it’s probably him. I’m shooting from the hip anyway, and this is the best I’ve come up with. I owe you one.”
Tirelli held the card gingerly between a thumb and forefinger. “Not for long do you owe me. We’re fixing to get square.”
Bino frowned. “How’m I going to do that?”
Tirelli looked to his right. “Ralph, the man’s got a question.”
Ralph regarded Bino deadpan, the toothpick dangling. “I heard.”
“Okay,” Tirelli said. “You got an answer?”
Ralph reached inside his coat. “That I do.”
Bino tensed, ready to dive for cover.
Ralph pulled out an envelope-size folder, like the ones which usually held car rental contracts. “Won’t cost you a thing, Mr. Bino. Beano, however you say it. We paid you up for a year.”
Jesus, Bino thought, they’ve bought a life insurance policy. He gulped. “How much is the principal?” he said.
“Ain’t much,” Ralph said. “Thirty bucks a month or something.”
“No, I mean, how much do you get if I die? Croak.”
Ralph leaned forward to exchange glances with Tirelli around Dirk, who continued to look glum. Ralph said, “Die? You ain’t going to die.” He waved the folder. “This here’s a membership at President’s. The one close to you, just north of here on Belt Line Road.”
“Just our little gift,” Tirelli said. “Now you can get in shape all you want, only it ain’t going to be necessary for you to drive all the way to Las Colinas. That membership ain’t transferable, if you understand what I’m telling you.”
22
MANCIL ADRIANI THOUGHT THAT LOS FUCKING ANGELES WAS one of the only places in the world where he’d less like to live than Houston fucking Texas. He wasn’t sure, though, it might be a dead heat between the two. He moved nearer the window to peer down at bumper-to-bumper traffic on Wilshire Boulevard, eighteen floors below, then raised his gaze to look out across the Pacific Ocean toward Catalina Island. He squinted. Might be he was seeing some whitecapped breakers rolling toward shore, but could be an illusion due to his imagination and his wanting to see. A lady had told him during the elevator ride up that on a clear day one could see from the penthouse suite all the way to Catalina Island, but this wasn’t any clear day. The smog was so thick that the autos on the Santa Monica Freeway, only a few blocks to the south, were barely visible, and no way was anything out at sea that resembled any fucking island. Catalina Island, Adriani thought.
Twenty-six miles across the sea, and all that shit. Man be lucky to see twenty-six feet in that pea soup out there. Wasn’t as hot as Houston, that was a plus, but Jesus, what a choice between the two burgs. Give Mancil Adriani a Philly steak sandwich dripping with provolone any old time, a walk up to city hall and a seat in the park beneath William Penn’s hat, share his sandwich with the pigeons and let the world go by.
He turned from the window, approached the man in the swivel chair from the rear, ran his finger underneath the cloth behind the man’s head to be certain the gag was secure, walked around and sat on the desk facing the man. Adriani rested his palm-size Llama .380 on his thigh. The man’s wrists were strapped to the arms of his chair and there was a wide spandex band around his chest, holding him upright. Socks were stuffed in his mouth, secured by spandex wound around his head. His salt-and-pepper hair was center parted and his eyes bugged out. The eyes were watery blue. He breathed rapidly through his nose. Got to slow his breathing, Adriani thought, the timing has to be perfect.
“I don’t want you to worry anybody’s going to shoot you,” Adriani said. “Robbery, that’s all that’s going on here. You understand me? Nod your head.” He snugged up his right gray work glove.
The chin moved up and down, the flesh slightly red below the spandex. The tightness around the eyes seemed to loosen some, the guy telling himself that at least he was going to live.
Adriani wore mustard-colored coveralls with Riverside Air Conditioning Service written in script on a white oblong patch above the pocket. He’d done time at El Reno with an old honky-tonk owner, a guy taking a fall for peddling speed to truckers stopping by. The guy used to say to Adriani, “You show me a sumbitch with a sign on his pocket, I’ll show you a man that’s fixing to get drunk and start some shit.” The memory made Adriani smile. He reached out for the wrist nearest him and felt the man’s pulse. Still fast, but not racing as much as it had been just a minute ago.
“So you can’t get hurt,” Adriani said, “unless you do something dumb like yelling for those secretaries outside. Far as they know I’m just screwing around with your thermostat, right?”
Another nod, the expression more calm. The chin lowered slightly, folds of the neck drooping over the pale blue collar and nearly obscuring the knot on the dark red tie.
“Now that we have this understanding,” Adriani said, “I’m going to cut you loose. Then you’re going to get up and hand me whatever’s in that wall safe. Remember I’m holding this gun.”
The man nodded rapidly as Adriani loosened the strap on the right wrist, paused to watch the red mark fade as circulation took hold. Just about right, Adriani thought. He undid the other arm, watching in satisfaction as the skin quickly regained its normal color. We walkin’ and talkin’ now, Adriani thought.
“Don’t move,” Adriani said, waving the pistol, going around behind the chair, glancing out the window at the ribbon that was Wilshire Boulevard,
bumper-to-bumper traffic like toys. “We’re taking it slow and easy, all right? I don’t want you having a stroke on me.” Adriani took the spandex from around the man’s chest, stood back and rolled the stretchy stuff up like an Ace bandage as the man rubbed his wrists, then massaged the back of his neck. “I’m taking the gag off now,” Adriani said, sticking the spandex bonds into his pocket. “Only, no talking. No quick movement, you don’t start up out of that seat till I tell you. Hey, that’s good, you’re learning to nod without being told. Before I’m outta here we’ll have it down pat, huh?”
Adriani removed the headband, reached around to yank the white athletic socks from the mouth, getting to the tricky part, cramming the spittle-dampened socks into his back pocket. He dug into his side pocket for the ring, slipping the ring onto his middle finger, being careful to avoid the quarter-inch pin protruding from the metal surface. He took a step back. “Now, don’t look at me, I don’t think you want to remember my face too good.”
The man seemed collected now, breathing normally, sitting relaxed in the chair awaiting instruction. Adriani inclined his head for a side view, watching the red indentations fade from around the man’s month and under his nose. Working like a charm, Adriani thought. He clapped the man lightly on the shoulder, saying, “Okay, time to move,” and caught the slight intake of breath, the quick sideways jerking motion of the head as the pin pricked the skin. “On up now, over to the safe,” Adriani coaxed gently, liking now the man’s expression changing from one of surprise to a puzzled look, the man’s hand coming up to rub his shoulder where the pin had penetrated just enough so that it was too late for anything to save this guy.
“The safe. Yes,” the man said softly, then rose and took one step as Adriani counted to himself, thousand seventeen, thousand eighteen, the man stopping, turning to Adriani with a look of pain, a remembering look, recalling with sudden hopelessness the sticking of the pin. The sight of Mancil Adriani’s pug-nosed face was the last thing the man would carry with him to wherever people went when they weren’t no more. The man clutched his chest, his face relaxing once and for all as he crumpled. His forehead bumped the edge of his desk as he went to his knees, then pitched headlong to the floor.