The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

what happened. So why’d he take it off? It don’t make sense.”

“You mean you didn’t hear, Vito?”

“Hear what?”

Connie was shouting into her cell phone, “Speak up! Are you driving through a tunnel or something? I’m getting tons of static!”

Vinny’s daughter, now twenty-two years old and reputedly still a virgin, stepped up to the grave, made a face at her father’s coffin, and then spit on it.

“Poor Vinny,” said Father Michael, who looked like he’d taken a fistful of Prozac before coming here. “He will be missed.”

“Not by anybody I ever met,” muttered Joey.

I said to Joey, “What is it that I didn’t hear?”

“Oh! The strange thing is, Vito, Vinny was still wearing his vest when they found his body.”

“Huh? So how’d four slugs wind up in his chest?”

Joey shrugged. “It’s a mystery. No holes in the vest. No marks at all, like it was never even hit. But as for Vinny’s chest… ” Joey grimaced.

While I thought about this, Connie Vitelli said, “But how big is the master bathroom?”

“So, Joey, you’re saying that someone clipped Vinny, then put that vest back on him? For what? A joke?”

Joey shook his head. “That vest never came off him, Vito.”

“Of course it did. How else did four bull-”

“The cops said the fasteners on Vinny’s vest were rusted and hadn’t been disturbed for years.”

“Jesus. So it’s true what Connie said. Vinny even showered in that thing!”

“Uh-huh.”

I frowned at Joey. “But what you’re saying… I mean, how did the bullets get past the vest and into Vinny’s chest?”

“That’s what’s got the cops stumped.”

“And why’d the cops tell you this?” Cops don’t usually say nothing to guys like us besides, “I’ll get you into the Witness Protection Program if you cooperate.”

“I don’t think they meant to tell me,” Joey said. “It just sort of slipped out somewhere during the seven straight hours they spent interrogating me yesterday.”

“Oh, that’s why you weren’t at the wake.”

Joey nodded wearily. “I’m thinking of suing them for the emotional trauma caused by missing a dear friend’s wake, as well as the stain they have placed on my good reputation.”

“How come they think you’re the one who whacked him?”

“Well, you know, I had that argument with Vinny last week at Buon Appetito.”

“So what?”

“So it turns out there were three undercover Feds in the place at the time, and they took it the wrong way when I held a steak knife to Vinny’s throat and said I’d kill him if I ever saw him again.”

“Man,” I said, sick at how unfair it all was. “You just have to be so careful these days. Watch every damn little word.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Whatever happened to the First Arraignment?” I said.

“Amendment.”

“Whatever.”

“I admit,” Joey said, “I thought about whacking Vinny.”

“Sure.”

“Who didn’t?”

“You said it.”

“But it’s not like he didn’t deserve it,” Joey said.

“Absolutely,” I said as Vinny’s son opened his fly and pissed on his father’s grave.

“So I don’t see why the cops have to get so bent out of shape just because someone finally did whack Vinny.”

“Me neither.”

“And just because I’m the last guy anyone saw threatening to kill him, the cops ruin my whole day. Now is that fair? Is that the American way?”

“It really stinks.” I patted Joey on the back. “Just out of curiosity, did you kill him?”

“No. I was proposing to the Widow Butera at the estimated time of death.”

“Did she alibi you to the cops?”

“No.”

Women.

“So I wonder who did it?” I said.

“Could’ve been any one of a hundred guys,” Joey said.

“More,” I said.

“Yeah.”

The Widow Butera stepped up to Vinny’s grave and looked down at it for a long moment. Then she crossed herself, glared once more at Joey, and started walking to her car.

When Connie Vitelli got off the phone for a split second, Joey and I paid our respects so we could get the hell out of there.

“Such a shame,” Joey said politely to Vinny’s widow. “Him being so young and all.”

“Not that young.” Connie shook her head. “And I think dementia was setting in already. He was seeing things.”

“Seeing things?” Joey said. “Then ‘dementia’ probably isn’t the right word, because that’s when-”

“Oops! I gotta take this,” Connie said as her cell phone rang.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What things was Vinny seeing? Feds stalking him? Hitters from the Bernini family coming after him?” If we knew, we might be able to figure out who’d whacked him.

Connie rolled her eyes. “Himself, if you can believe it.”

“Huh?”

“The day before Vinny died, he came home in a cold sweat, babbling about how he had just bumped into the spitting image of himself on the street outside Buon Appetito. The guy was even dressed like Vinny. Right down to the bulletproof vest. Go figure.” Connie shrugged off the idea that her husband’s perfect double was out there somewhere and added, “Now I’ve really got to take this call. Thanks for coming, fellas.” She turned away and said into her cell phone, “Hello? Oh, good! Thanks for getting back to me today. Yes, I’ll be out of the house by tonight, so put it on the market right away.”

“So Vinny was losing his mind,” I said.

Joey nodded towards Connie and the kids. “And you’re surprised by this?”

“No, I guess not.”

Which is why I didn’t think any more about it. Not then, anyhow. Not until three days later, which was when a dinner-and-dance cruise accidentally found Johnny Be Good Gambone’s body floating in the Hudson River.

“But it can’t be Johnny,” I said to Joey Mannino when he told me about it.

“It is. Positive ID, no doubt about it.”

“No, it can’t be, because-”

“Vito, pull yourself together,” Joey said. “Two of our guys dead in one week. We’re going to the mattresses.”

“It can’t be Johnny, because I saw him alive at the same time they were fishing that corpse out of the river.”

“It must be the Berninis doing these hits. Who else would have the nerve? Those bastards! Well, if they want another war, we’ll give them another w-”

“Joey, are you listening to me? I’m telling you, whoever they found in the Hudson, it wasn’t Johnny Gambone, because I had dinner with him last night!”