Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

“The family.” Jesus.

“Yeah, right, and . . .”

“And the cops come, and the newspapers,” Angie said, “and soon they’re closing down the York Motel and half the whorehouses on Tonnelle Avenue. In time, it blows over and he moves in on your territory.”

Bobo thought. Then he said, “Who is this guy?”

“Soldato. Right now he’s under the protection of nobody. But after he makes his move, he seeks an accommodation . . .”

“And you got a hard-on for this guy why?”

Angie sat back and lifted his palms. “Why?” he asked, feigning surprise. “Because he figured this. You and me. So he tells some guy he doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

“Maybe you hop a Greyhound or something.”

“No good. Not for the long run.”

Bobo agreed. Then he rubbed his chin. “You want in?”

“Hell no. It’s yours and God bless you.”

“But what?”

“One, Muzzie’s goes back to scungilli and calamari.”

“Two is . . . ?”

“Nobody misses this guy.”

Bobo couldn’t decide on his own, Angie knew, but how the big guy left the table told him he was going to get his way.

HE WAITED UNTIL “Mala Femmina” ended on the jukebox and joined Turnip at Sal Rossi’s horseshoe bar.

“So?” Turnip asked.

“It’s done. You’re off the hook. Drive in peace.”

Turnip smiled his relief.

“So what happens?”

Angie said, “Stay out of the Grotto until I tell you.”

They wandered onto Houston. Traffic to the FDR was backed up to Mulberry Street.

“Ang, I’m surprised at that guy, to tell you the truth.”

“How so?” They turned up their leather collars in unison.

“If he gives you a hard time, I’m sitting there,” Turnip said. “I can put two between the third and fourth buttons before he knows what hit him.”

“Not likely,” Angie said as they headed toward the garage on Elizabeth Street. “The guy at the bar with the wavy hair, black suit, resoled loafers? Playing with his onyx pinkie ring?”

Turnip frowned. “Three stools down? You’re shitting me.”

“Carrying double. On the right ankle and the ribs.”

“How’d you — your back was to him. How’d you make him?”

“My guy’s sunglasses,” Angie said. “Plus your guy got up when the genius scratched his chin.”

Turnip shook his head in wonder. “How you like that.”

As they walked in silence toward the Camaro, Turnip pondered how much his friend could achieve if he had a speck of ambition.

PINHEAD WENT PAST the bar and poured himself a big cup of hot clam broth, dropping in a couple shots of Tabasco. Screaming at the widows gave him a scratchy throat, so he threw it down, thinking a Schlitz chaser.

“Yo, Pin,” said Milney, the night bartender. He wiggled a crooked finger.

Pin said, “What?”

Milney leaned over. “The senior center on Fourth Street,” he whispered. “Some bullshit in the lounge. Take a cab, but go.”

Pin understood and he threw Sally B a fin.

Milney slipped it over the half a yard Turnip gave him a half hour ago.

Outside the Grotto, Pin flagged the first cab that rolled the corner. He didn’t notice Angie behind the wheel.

Soon, they were on their way toward the Jersey City end of the viaduct, taking the cobblestone road behind the last horse stable in Narrows Gate.

“Angie, you got some set of coglioni on you, you know that?” Pin said. “But I admire that. I do. Tells me we can do something, a guy like you.”

Angie looked in the rearview, seeing if the barbed wire he’d used to tie Pin down was making a mess of the vinyl seat.

“Pin, there are five stages of receiving catastrophic news,” he said. “You blew through anger — wisely, if you ask me — and you’re bargaining now. Which means depression is next.”

“Hey, Ang, smart is smart, but sometimes what’s smart in books —”

“You don’t hurry, there’s no time for acceptance.”

Fourteen minutes later, Pinhead went over the rusted rail atop the viaduct and landed two hundred and thirty feet below, smack on a chain-link fence outside the bus terminal, the cops trying to figure how the barbed wire got hooked so thorough around the weasel’s neck and hands.

“SYMMETRY,” SAID ANGIE as he entered Muzzie’s, old Maxwell House coffee can in his hand. “I love it.”

Muzzie and Little Muzzie came from the kitchen. The asbestos in their hair and on their faces reminded Turnip that soon they’d be coated in flour, making fresh linguine for the seafood and flaming-ass sauce.

Turnip sat next to his friend at the bar and pointed to the nothing where the platform had been. One of the Muzzolinis had spackled the holes.

“What happened to Miss Ping-Pong?” he asked.

Little Muzzie, who now feared Angie more than ever, shrugged. “I heard the Gigentis are opening some new clubs on Tonnelle Avenue.”

“Could be,” Angie said. “You of the mood to pour a little sambuca?”

Big Muzzie stepped up. “We’re closed —”

“No problem,” said Little Muzz, going quick to the round bar, yanking back the canvas cover, and coming up with a bottle. With Pinhead two weeks dead and Soldato missing, Little Muzz was looking to the future.

Turnip smelled the anise through the cap.

Two shot glasses, and Little Muzzie retreated as the friends set their elbows down to raise a toast.

“To what?” Turnip said.

“To Soldato,” Angie replied, “and to being careful what you wish for.”

Turnip didn’t get it, but he sipped anyway, expecting a coffee bean to bump his lip. When he put down the little glass, he said, “So you’re going to tell me?”

“Tell you . . .”

“What’s in the coffee can?”

Turnip shook it and heard something rattle inside.

“You like to guess,” Angie said. “Guess.”

A minute later, Turnip said, “I could use a fuckin’ clue, Ang.”

“What did Soldato say?”

“He said he didn’t want to see you no more.”

“Which did not mean . . .”

Suddenly, Turnip recoiled.

“Bingo,” said Angie.

“Madonna mio, Ang.” Then he whispered, “You took his eyes?”

Figuring the Muzzies were peeping, Angie nodded slow.

Turnip blessed himself.