He’s tall, just out of college maybe, Gold’s-Gym-buff, tanning-booth-brown, head shaved like all the kids do now to make himself look tough, and wearing a black, too-tight tee, sweatpants and red Converse high tops.
“You park in that little lot, Mister?” is how he introduces himself instead of politely asking my drink order. Ice water fills my spine. What’s the kid know about the ding in that truck door? Maybe he saw everything through the plate glass picture window.
“Yeah,” I admit after a weighted pause. “That okay?”
He just looks at me like he wants to start a staring contest.
“Look,” I blink. “There a problem with parking there?”
Kid shakes his head.
“People heading into the Italian restaurant use it when they’re not supposed to,” he explains. “It’s a real problem. You’re not going out to eat at the restaurant are you? ‘Cause if you’re gonna eat there I gotta ask you to move your vehicle—assuming you drove here in the first place.”
I inhale a relieved breath. Here’s my chance, I think. Here’s the chance I need to move the hearse. But then, that would make me look suspicious. Best to just play it like the innocent man I want him to think I am.
“I’m legit,” I tell him. “Just drinkin’.”
“Good, ‘cause the fire department’s been on our ass. Brainless restaurant people actually park in front of this area’s only fire hydrant.”
I strain my neck to look outside the window. From my angle, I can see that the black truck I dinged is parked in front of the hydrant. I never noticed the fire plug. I was too focused on the door ding.
“That’s a crime,” I say. “A real crime and shame to park in front of a hydrant. What if there should be a fire here? Or in the restaurant?”
“Right?! And that lot out there is also a right-of-way to the boss’s used car lot. Boss is trying to buy out the restaurant too, but so far no dice. They been stubborn.” The kid smiles wryly. “Won’t be for long, though.” He pulls a toothpick from his pocket, picks at his teeth.
“How’s that?”
“Boss gonna offer them a deal they can’t refuse.”
I try and match the kid’s smile. I get it. His boss is one of those kinds of bosses—probably the guy I’ve been hired to keep an eye on.
Speaking of bosses, “You know if the lot’s open next door?”
Kid shakes his head.
“Boss closes early on Saturdays. He’s outside with his girlfriend and his partner.” He squints, looking into me instead of at me, like suddenly I’m a bit more important than some jerk that walked in off the street. “You need to talk with him ‘bout something?”
“Actually, I was hoping to answer an ad he put up about a salesperson.”
“You good at selling cars?” The kid smiles at me. Like he’s the least bit interested.
I nod.
“Sure. Or, I used to be good. Before I got sent away.”
He smiles again.
“Oh, you done time?”
“Manslaughter,” I lie. “But I didn’t do it.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Seven years. Good behavior still goes a long way.” Going with a prison cover always seems to work. People tend to look at you in a new light, like even though you might not look like much on the outside, you’re still nasty enough on the inside to put them down in a bar fight.
“Now you need a job.”
“Bills to pay. And New York State prison severance runs out in a few weeks.”
He picks up a wet glass from the sink behind the bar and begins drying it with a rag.
“Boss will be in soon. You can talk to him in here. In the meantime, what’ll it be?”
I order a draft beer and a Jack chaser. He brings it to me, sets it on the bar, collects my ten spot and sets down three bucks in change. I tell him to keep it.
“Thanks for the tip,” he nods. “Generous.”
“Ain’t my money,” I tell him. “It’s the state’s money.”
He laughs. Looks like I made a friend. Even if I am a lying sack of crap.
THREE
The Boss
The scream comes from outside the front door. It’s a man scream: deep, loud and thunderous. It produces an electric start in my ticker, making my already-damaged head ring. Freon replaces the ice water inside my spine. If I had to explain myself to the kid tending bar, I would have made up a story about how in prison you learn to anticipate trouble. You develop eyes in the back of your head. You sense someone approaching you from behind, like a pro quarterback develops an instinct for anticipating the rush. You stay alive that way. Otherwise, you die with a shiv planted in the small of your back.
But this ain’t prison and I know instinctively that the shout came from the owner of the Dodge Ram. I know that he noticed the ding and that he’s madder than a hornet. And this too: Even before the front door opens so fast it pounds against the wall, I know that said truck owner is “The Boss.”
He’s big. So big he fills the entire door frame. He’s wearing black trousers and a loose button-down shirt made of white silk. Masking his eyes are round sunglasses. His head is bulbous and his clean-shaven cheeks are red with anger. He pounds the front door with a fist that’s as wide and thick as a sledgehammer, and the reverberation it sends throughout the bar makes the two drunk patrons nearly jump off their stools. After closing the door, he pulls a key from his pants pocket and locks it.
“Something wrong, Boss?” the kid poses.
“Some idiot driving a big black Cadillac put a huge ding in the door of my brand new truck!” The big man shouts the word “huge” like, “HUUUUUUGGGE!” It’s precisely the way he says it on TV during one of the many commercial promo spots I now recognize him from. He stands in the middle of his lot with Willy, that same skinny little sidekick who’s always in the commercials along with him. The sidekick will be sucking up to him like a scared Chihuahua will do to a big meaty bulldog. In his little Mickey Mouse voice he’ll say, “What kind of savings we got here at Billy Fucillio’s Used Cars?” Big Billy will stare into the camera with his sunglass-masked eyes, big beer gut, and slicked black dye-job and shout, “HUUUUUUGGGE!”
“You sure you got a ding today?” the kid asks from behind the bar.
Billy steps forward.
“What are you trying to say, Cheech? That a man of my superior business acumen is losing his mind?”
Kid takes a step or two back, even though he’s separated from the big boss by the bar.
“No, Boss. I’m just trying to suggest that it could happen anywhere, anytime.”
Big Billy’s face goes even more red.
“It happened here, today, right now, okay?” The whole building is trembling under the weight of his shouts.
He starts moving around the bar, dragging his concrete blonde girlfriend by the hand. He comes to the first old drunk.
“What kind of car you drive, Leo? Where you park it?”
Leo slowly raises up his head from his drink.
“Walked, Billy,” he grunts. “I don’t drive no more. Too many DWIs.” The drunk old man slurs “dee-wee” instead of spelling out D-W-I.
Satisfied, Billy moves on to the next man, who’s already waiting for him, his hands trembling around his amber bottle of Bud.
“I drive a Lincoln Town Car, Billy. Parked in the road. Not even close to your new truck. Bought it off of you back in 2001. Remember?”
The guy goes to slide off his stool, like he’s checking out. But Billy grabs his arm.
“Where you goin’?” he barks.
“Gotta get back to my sister and her kids.”
Big Billy transfers his hand from the guy’s arm to his shoulder, pushing him back down on the stool.
“I’m not done yet!” he announces. “Nobody leaves until I’m done! That includes you!”
I feel a start in my heart. My mouth goes dry. Big Billy’s got his eyes trained on me. He’s coming for me.
When
he’s right beside me, he plants a fake, car-salesman smile on his face.
The kid breaks in. “Uncle Billy, this guy is looking to answer your help wanted ad.”
“Really now.” Big Billy says. “You got any experience?”
I lift my head, trying to set my gaze on his masked eyes.
“I used to make a living at it,” I whisper.
“Used to,” Billy says. “Past tense.”
“He did time,” the kid breaks in.
Billy’s smile goes from fake to genuine and broad. The concrete blonde tugs on his hand.
“Billy, can we go eat? I’m starving.”
“Shut up,” he barks, his sunglasses still focused on me. Then, “What’d they get you for?”
“Manslaughter,” I fib. “I hit a guy in a bar. He died.”
Big Billy nods like he approves.
“What brought it on?”
Here’s where my powers of invention can’t fail me. I might be a head case—a suicide survivor with a piece of bullet still pressed up against my cerebral cortex—but I’m not dead yet. And I’ve still got a few quick survival-lies in my arsenal.
“Dude made fun of my kid. Called him a dwarf. Said the little guy didn’t even belong on the Midget Pop Warner football team. So I popped him…in the neck. Broke his Adam’s apple.”
“I like you already. What’d you say your name is?”
He holds out a big bear claw of a hand. I take it, my right hand getting lost in it.
“Vincent,” I say, my cold, wet-palmed hand still engulfed in his. My eyes drift across the bar. “Vincent Cinzano…like the drink.”
“Nice Italian name,” Billy remarks, gesturing to the kid who pours a couple of shots of Jack. “Nice drink too, on the rocks, splash of lime juice.” He continues gripping my hand while the kid slides the shots in front of us. Then, “Vincent, you’re hired. Drink up!”
I raise one of the shot glasses. He raises the other.
“Salute!” he chimes.
“Yeah, salute,” I say.
We down our respective shots and slap the glasses back down on the bar. As he goes to walk away, still dragging that concrete blonde behind him, I’m beginning to think that maybe I dodged a bullet. That he isn’t about to blame me for the ding. But just before he gets to the door, he stops, turns, and beams his sunglasses on me once more.
“Oh, I almost forgot, Vincent Cinzano. What kind of car you driving these days?”
FOUR
The Confession
The entire joint goes silent. It’s like we’re all waiting for the earth to somehow slip out from beneath us. Big Billy’s fat face goes from red to pale. Every set of eyeballs in the place locks onto me.
I’ve got a choice here. I can either admit I drive my old man’s big black hearse, the one that dinged his door. Or I can lie and somehow sneak out of here later without anyone knowing the difference. There are a lot of cars out there, so why not just lie? Besides, who’d drive a big black, gas-guzzling, 1978 Cadillac hearse that sports an eight-track tape player but a total head-case? I convince myself that lying is the best policy when Billy starts making his way back over to me.
“You don’t mind I take a look-see at your car keys, Vincent, do you? One HUUUUUUGGGE used car salesman to another?”
I’ve got no choice but to hand over the key ring. It’s sitting right out there on the bar. Now I’m really screwed and I’m guessing Big Billy knows it. He’s just staring down at the heavy key ring, shaking his head. He’s a car man after all. He knows his cars and his keys. And he knows the only 1978 Cadi in that crowded lot outside is mine. He raises up his head and gives me a smile.
“Jeez, just when I was starting to like you.”
I swallow something that’s about as big as a spare tire.
“Listen, I have insurance!”
It’s a lie. On top of lying about my identity and lying about damaging his new truck, now I’m lying about insurance. I’ve never been a very good liar and now the compounded lies are making things worse. I’m showing it on my face, as if every time I say something that isn’t true, my nose grows six inches longer. And right now, my nose is HUUUUUUGGGE.
The concrete blonde standing beside Billy has this look on her face like Billy is about to explode like a live grenade with the pin pulled out. Same goes for Weasel Willy. The kid bartending is doing the smart thing. Head lowered, he’s not looking at Billy or me.
Billy sucks in a deep breath and releases it. He’s still wearing that smile.
“Tell you what. Let’s start all over here. You need a job, and I was just beginning to like you. Plus, you have experience as a used car salesman. Or so you claim.”
I’m listening. Nodding and listening.
“You just lied to me about the insurance, but I’m gonna let that one slip since I’m really a nice guy and willing to give an ex-con a chance at rebuilding his life.”
More nodding.
“How much a door ding cost these days? You know, total door panel replacement? Couple Gs including parts and labor?” His arm is extended now. He’s pointing a beefy finger at my face from across the bar. “Tell you what, Vincent Cinzano. I’m going to make you a deal you can’t refuse. It’s gonna be HUUUUUUGGGE!”
“Sure,” I say. “Anything.”
“You’re gonna work for me and you’re gonna pay off what you owe me in sales.”
For the first time in forever, I begin to feel like I might make it through this thing unscathed, my three Gs intact, my twenty-seven more still hanging in the balance. All I need is for Big Billy to hire me, even if I do have to pay off the two Gs I’ll owe him for the door ding.
I slip off the stool.
“I’ll call you tomorrow!” I make a beeline for the door. But a hand larger than my face slaps me against the chest.
“Not so fast, Vincent.”
His hand is plastered to my ribs. He’s got to feel my pounding heart. I look up at him.
“Since you are now in my employ and you’re a paroled ex-con, I can’t take a chance on you running away.”
“I’m not following,” I swallow.
“Yes, you are.” Turning to Concrete Blonde and Weasel Willy, he says, “Let’s go show Vincent his new home away from home, shall we?”
Reaching behind his back, Billy sticks his free hand up and under his big shirt. When it comes back out, it’s gripping an automatic. From what I can quickly make out, it’s a 9mm Glock. The kind with no safety. He presses the barrel against the back of my neck.
“Walk, Vincent,” he orders. “Walk like your little, lying, prison-worked-in fanny depends upon it.”
FIVE
My New Home
Weasel Willy duct tapes me up at gunpoint. He’s got me strapped to the bottom of one of those H-shaped hydraulic car jacks. I’m facedown, eyes peering south at the black gasoline-and motor-oil-filled pit. My wrists are taped tight behind my back and the circulation is cut off; same for the ankles.
Big Billy holds court on the garage floor, Weasel Willy on one side of him, Concrete Blonde on the other. Removing his sunglasses and stuffing them in his shirt pocket, he barks, “If you’re gonna work for me, Vincent, we’re gonna get a couple of things straight.” His eyes shift to the suck up. “What’s my first rule for new employees, Willy?”
“Don’t be late for work.”
“Very good.”
The big man’s eyes now shift to his girl.
“Number two, doll face?”
“No lying…Only you get to lie.” She’s staring down at the oil-covered floor.
Billy shifts his gaze back to me.
“Excellent. You see what I’m talking about here, Vincent? I don’t like it when people lie to me. And I don’t like people who are late for work ‘cause that’s the same as stealing. And people who steal are liars too. Already, you’ve lied to me. You dinged the door on my new truck and you lied about it. You thought nobody, least of all me, would notice until it was too late and you’d be gone from the bar,
back home safe and dry in your jammies, watching Letterman in bed. And then tomorrow, you’d come to my lot to inquire about a salesman position, knowing all the time that you were requesting work from a man whose door you dinged yesterday, and never took responsibility for. That makes you a liar, a thief, and a cheat all rolled up in one. So you know what I’m gonna do for you, Vincent?” He pauses, like I can possibly answer him. “I’m gonna teach you a lesson they couldn’t possibly teach you in state prison. Willy, if you please!”
The weasel takes a step forward, places both hands on the pneumatic controls and pulls back one of three levers. That’s when the jack starts slowly descending towards the pit.
Out the corner of my eye, I see the concrete blonde cover her eyes.
“Oh, I hate this part,” she squeals.
Weasel Willy laughs, his whole skinny body trembling.
“Oh, I freakin’ love it.”
“Shut up, the both of ya’!” Billy barks. “This is serious stuff. Life lessons being learned here.”
My eyes are wider than my eye sockets. But I’m seeing nothing but a pool of black sludge, fumes filling my nostrils the closer I come to it. I’m struggling to free my hands from the duct tape, but it’s too tight. I try moving my head to the side, but I can’t. I try to scream, but nothing happens. I see the blackness coming for me and I know what I have to do. I suck up a breath through my nostrils. And then I make contact.
I’m drowning in a toxic pool of old motor oil—my face, my body, my head. The jack stops its descent. Weasel Willy’s keeping me under. If I try to breathe, even a little bit, I’ll suck in oil. Which is exactly what I do. It rises up into my nostrils and slithers down my throat. I cough and choke and spit so violently that the duct-tape covering my mouth explodes, ripping and tearing away from the skin, even under all that oil.
Then suddenly the jack raises back up, and I’m coughing and heaving a combination of vomit and old STP. Billy is laughing so hard I think he’s going to lose his bowels. So is the weasel, just laughing like this is how they always wile away a Saturday afternoon. On the other hand, the concrete blonde is still avoiding the whole thing. She’s relocated to the far corner of the garage and is shaking in her knee-length boots, smoking the crap out of her cigarette.
Intrigue (Stories of Suspense) Page 23