Pariah

busts, that’s the best you can do.’

Doyle turns toward the voice coming from the corner of the room. A lamp flares into life, and he squints to make out the figure seated next to the circular writing table.

‘I guess you’re looking for this,’ the man says, waving Doyle’s Glock in the air. ‘Boy, do you sleep heavy. I should have put the TV on while I was waiting, all the difference it’d make to you.’

Doyle blinks a few times at the familiar face. Tries to match it up with a name in his mental record book. The guy is big. Looks like he hits the weights. He has a wide jaw and dimples in his cheeks. His thick black hair has a pronounced widow’s peak.

‘I think you were having a bad dream there, buddy. Something about a door? What’s that about? You get stuck in a revolving door one time?’

Then it clicks. ‘Sonny Rocca.’

The man smiles. A big white grin. Perfect teeth.

‘I’m flattered. You remember me. I didn’t realize I’d left such a lasting impression. I’m touched, really.’

‘I like to take a mental snapshot of those people I’m gonna have to visit again someday.’

‘You planning to come see me again? That’s nice. Please, drop in anytime. I’ll make you some cannoli. My grandmother’s recipe.’ He touches forefinger and thumb to his lips, kisses them away. ‘Perfetto.’

‘You still running errands for Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’

Doyle watches Rocca’s face cloud over, and he knows he’s stung him.

‘If you mean am I still in the employ of Mr Bartok and his brother, then the answer’s yes.’

Doyle nods thoughtfully. ‘So they still won’t have you, huh?’

Sonny Rocca grew up in Little Italy, that area of Manhattan north of Chinatown that has been home to Italian-Americans since the immigrant influx of the late nineteenth century. As a teenager Rocca ran with gangs, got involved with petty crime and auto thefts. His one avowed ambition in life was to become a true mobster, a made man, a goodfella, a wiseguy.

The problem was that not one of the families would take him into its bosom. For one thing, his mother wasn’t Italian; she was Norwegian — as blond and fair-skinned and non-Mediterranean-looking as they come. It’s one of the reasons that Rocca has always overplayed the Italian side of his heritage, sometimes to the extent of sounding like a stereotype in a badly written play.

These days, as others have proved, full Italian blood isn’t the essential ingredient it used to be, but Rocca has other baggage too. Three years ago he became engaged to a girl who was the beloved niece of a high- ranking mobster. Naturally, his actions were purely tactical: he never really loved the girl, as he frequently proved through his bedding of other women. All was fine until she found out about his infidelity and called off the engagement, at which point Rocca found his ladder of success hauled away and some very mean individuals put in its place.

Schooled as he was in the ways of organized crime, Rocca settled for the next best thing. A family partnership that was willing to accept him with open arms. The Bartok brothers.

Lucas and Kurt Bartok are not Italian; like their composer namesake they are of Hungarian descent. As such, they don’t give a rat’s ass for the Cosa Nostra or its codes of conduct. They work alone, and they have carved out quite a comfortable niche for themselves, thank you very much. Occasionally they resort to acts of violence, and when they do it can be so extreme as to make even the Italian mobs balk. The elder brother in particular, Lucas, has a penchant for disemboweling people with a meat hook. Legend has it that Lucas once used his butchery skills to carve an enemy into many pieces before having the choicest cuts delivered to the victim’s family members as Thanksgiving presents.

What saves the Bartoks from a nasty collision with rival organizations is the activities of the younger brother Kurt. Very much the brains of the outfit, Kurt’s specialty is information. His sources tend to be police officers he has turned using bribes, coercion or both. The information he gleans from the cops is extremely useful not only in safeguarding his family’s own criminal undertakings, but also as a commodity for selling on to other outfits, thereby keeping them sweet. All told, it’s a highly successful operation — an example to us all as to how to run a profitable and expanding business. Corporate America should be proud.

The reason Doyle knows all this is because three months ago he collared the Bartoks and Rocca for their part in a raid on a warehouse owned by a firm called Trogon Electronics. Naturally, with the lawyers they could hire and the people they could buy, they beat the rap before it even got to court. But word is that the Bartoks, and Lucas in particular, have never forgiven Doyle for his temerity. In his turn, Doyle feels no love for the Bartoks or their employees; hence his barb about Rocca’s inability to follow his true calling.

The struggle to maintain his composure is clear on Rocca’s face. It’s a while before he finds his jovial side once more. ‘Well, I think you know much more about that than I do, Mr Doyle. About people not wanting to accept you, I mean.’

Touché, Doyle thinks. How quickly word gets around.

‘How’d you get in here, anyway?’

The disarming smile again. ‘I ain’t just a pretty face, you know. I got skills, talents. The way I can get into places, some people think I can walk through walls.’

‘So you paid someone at the desk to make you another key card. Yeah, that’s mysterious all right. Look, you mind if I put some pants on? I’m feeling kind of exposed here.’

‘Sure, go ahead.’ With Doyle’s gun he gestures to the phone on the table. ‘You want I could call room service, get some fresh coffee sent up?’

‘Nah, that’s okay. You won’t be staying that long.’

Doyle stands up, but stumbles slightly and has to put his hand against the wall to steady himself.

Rocca says, ‘You sure about that caffeine? You look like you could do with it.’

Doyle frowns, finds his boxers and pants, and pulls them on. Being in a room with a criminal pointing your own gun at you is bad enough; being naked to boot is downright humiliating.

He sits on the bed. ‘All right, Sonny, what do you want? This payback time? Is that it? Lucas Bartok not able to sleep at nights with the thought of his arresting officer still walking the streets?’

‘Come on, Mr Doyle. I wanted to cap you, I coulda done it while you were counting sheep or opening doors or whatever.’

‘Maybe you got instructions to make me suffer first. That’s more Lucas’s style.’

‘Believe me, if Mr Bartok decided he wanted you dead, he’d come and do it himself, and then you would be wishing I got to you first. No, you got it all wrong. I’m here to offer you some assistance.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t need a maid. The hotel’s got its own housekeepers.’

Rocca laughs. ‘You’re a funny guy, Mr Doyle. That’s what I like about you. Always with the jokes, even when you got nothing left to laugh about.’ He leans forward on the chair. ‘See, what I hear is that you’ve been dumped. And I ain’t just talking about a wife or a girlfriend here; I’m talking about everyone. The whole world has put you out with the garbage.’ He shakes his head. ‘You know, every time I think about that I find it hard to believe. How is it possible for one person to be so obnoxious that the whole world turns against them? That really has to be a first. You should get in the record books for that one.’

‘Au contraire, Sonny. People are dying to meet me.’

Rocca slaps his palm on the table, laughs even louder. ‘See, there you go again. The jokes. Dying to meet you. That’s clever. Very funny.’

‘I got plenty more, you want to hear them.’

‘Another time, maybe. Another time. But seriously, this thing about people dying wherever you go, that must be a bit of a downer, no?’

‘It does kinda take the shine off the day.’

Rocca jabs his gun toward Doyle. ‘Exactly what I thought. I can see how that could start to get a little depressing after a while. Mr Bartok thinks so too. Which is why he’d like to talk to you.’

‘Don’t tell me. He wants to make me an offer I can’t refuse.’

Rocca jabs again, and Doyle starts to worry about the position of Rocca’s trigger finger.

‘Don’t think I don’t get the reference. The Godfather, right?’