The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

Joey stared at me. “Are you losing your mind, too?”

“No! They’re just putting the wrong name on the corpse.”

But when we showed up at the mortician’s to inspect the body, I saw there’d been no mistake. That was Johnny Gambone lying on that slab, no doubt about it. Who else in the world had a purple tattoo of a naked broad on his shoulder with the word “Mom” written across it?

“So you’re not still denying that’s Johnny?” Joey prodded.

“Couldn’t be anyone else, but…”

“But?”

“But, I’m telling you, I was having dinner with him that evening. We talked about Vinny’s death. Johnny told me that, no matter how much we hated Vinny, it was our job to find out who’d clipped him, because we can’t just let people go around killing made guys without even asking first. Especially not our made guys.”

“Vito, that’s impossible. According to the cops, Johnny had already been dead for thirty-six hours by the time you had dinner with… with…”

“Something’s not right,” I said.

And whatever was not right became even more wrong a couple of days later when Danny (the Doctor) Bardozzi, best known for chopping up four members of the Gambone family and passing them off as ground ostrich meat at an East Village restaurant which went out of business soon after Danny was indicted, was found dead.

I know what you’re thinking, but we didn’t do it. We didn’t even know who did it, just like we didn’t know who’d clipped Johnny and Vinny. We were knee deep in bodies by now, and we had no idea who was stacking them up.

“And the way the Doctor was killed,” Joey told me as we walked along Mott Street, “is really strange.”

“You mean compared to the normal way Vinny was killed, with four bullets pumped into his chest and not a scratch on the bulletproof vest he was wearing at the time? Or the normal way Johnny Gambone was found floating in the river while I was watching him eat linguine and bitch about his indigestion?” Okay, I was feeling irritable and got a little sarcastic.

Joey said, “Listen, Danny showed up at Bernini’s Wine and Guns Shop in a panic, armed with two Glocks and a lifetime supply of ammo, and locked himself in the cellar. There’s no way in or out of the cellar except through the one door he’d locked, and-because Danny was acting so crazy-there were a dozen Berninis standing right by that door trying to convince him to come out.”

“And?”

“Next thing they know, they hear a few shots go off. So they break down the door and run downstairs. Danny’s alone. And dead.” Joey grimaced. “Shotgun. Made a real mess.”

“But you said he had two Glocks.”

“That’s right. And, no, there wasn’t a shotgun down there. Not before Danny locked himself in… and not when the Berninis found him there.”

“Then it wasn’t a shotgun. He blew his own head off with a Glock.”

“No. His guns hadn’t even been fired, and there was buckshot everywhere. Just no shotgun.”

“In a locked cellar with no windows and no other door? That’s impossible.”

“Like it was impossible for you to be eating dinner with a guy whose two-day-old corpse was floating in the Hudson River at the time?”

“We’re in trouble,” I said. “We’ve got something going on here that’s bigger than another war with the Berninis.”

“That’s what they think, too.”

“What? You mean they ain’t blaming us for Danny’s death?”

“How could they? I just told you what happened. They know we’re not invisible, and neither are our guns. In fact, they knew something strange was happening even before we did, because they knew they didn’t kill Johnny Gambone.”

“We’ve got to have a sitdown with the Berninis.”

“I’ve called one for tonight. At St. Ignazio’s. I gotta have dinner at my mother’s in Brooklyn first, but I’ll be there.”

St. Ignazio’s was dark and shadowy, lit only by candles. The whole place smelled of incense and lingering perfume… The Widow Butera’s perfume, I realized, as I saw her kneeling before a statue of Saint Paula, patron saint of widows.

Father Michael and two guys from the Bernini family were waiting for me in an alcove on the other side of the church.

“Is Joey here yet?” I asked the Widow Butera.

“What do I care? What do I care about any of you fiends?” She rose to her feet and came towards me. “I hate you all! Every single one of you! I spit on you! I spit on your mothers’ graves!”

“So you haven’t seen him?”

She shook her fist at me. “Stay away from me!”

“Hey, I’m not the one trying to make you a widow for the fourth time. So don’t yell at me, sister. And…” I frowned as wispy white things started escaping from the fist she shook at me. “Are those feathers? Whatever happened to praying with rosary beads?”

She made a really nasty Sicilian gesture and stomped towards the main door in a huff just as Joey entered the church. The poor guy’s face brightened like he’d just met a famous stripper.

He asked her, “Have you thought any more about my proposal? I mean, take all the time you need, I just won-”

“Get out of my way!” she shrieked. “Don’t ever come near me again! Don’t even look at me!”

“Maybe we’ll talk later?” Joey said to her back.

She paused to look over her shoulder at him. “Amazing,” she said in a different tone of voice. Then she left.

“You’re late,” I said to Joey.

“Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.”

“Gentlemen,” said Father Michael, smelling strongly of sacramental wine as he came close to us, “the Berninis are eager to begin this summit, so if you-”

“Summit?” I repeated.

“Sitdown,” said Joey.

“Oh.”

“So if you’ll just take your seats…”

“You’re fucking late,” said Carmine Bernini. He was Danny (the Doctor) Bardozzi’s cousin by marriage, and also the world’s biggest asshole.

“But we haven’t been waiting too long,” added Tony Randazzo. He was a good-looking kid who’d been a soldier in the Bernini family for a few years. A stand-up guy, actually, and I’d let him date my daughter if I didn’t think I’d probably have to kill him one day.

“Would anyone care for some chips and dip?” Father Michael asked. “Maybe some cocktails?”

“We ain’t here to fucking socialize,” said Carmine.

“Don’t curse in church,” said Joey.

“Well, please fucking excuse me.”

Like I said-the world’s biggest asshole. “Never mind the refreshments, Father,” I said. “This’ll just take a few minutes.” I looked at Carmine. “Let’s lay our cards on the table.”

So we did. And what these guys told me about Danny Bardozzi’s death got my full attention.

“He said what?”

Tony said, “Danny came into the shop that day and said he’d just seen his perfect double, his spitting image.”

“His doppelganger?” said Father Michael.