A swirl of notions spun through Caruso’s mind, the Old Man’s stark command that Tony was not to speak to Sara, the word he’d scraped on the shell casing of a thirty-eight,
“What did you do to Sara?” Tony demanded. He started to rise but Labriola pressed the barrel of the thirty- eight against his forehead and drew him back down to his seat. “You’re a pussy, Tony,” he sneered. “I’d have done better at a nigger orphanage.” He turned to face the others, the cold look in their eyes, how fully they abhorred him. For a moment he seemed to see himself as they did, a vision that appalled him, so he turned away and settled his gaze on Caruso. “Should I show ’em who’s boss, Vinnie?” he asked quietly.
Caruso thought of the chambered rounds, the dark cathedral where they lay, a fully loaded gun, then of Sara Labriola on her back, helpless, the Old Man pressing down upon her, laying down his rule.
“Vinnie, should I show ’em who’s boss?” Labriola repeated.
Caruso felt something deep inside tear lose, something sharp and corroded, a long embedded hook. “Yeah,” he whispered, “show ’em, Mr. Labriola.”
Labriola placed the barrel against the side of his head. “I’ll show you who’s the fucking boss,” he sneered.
“Stop it,” Tony cried.
Caruso stared at Tony evenly. “Let him,” he said coolly.
Tony seemed to study him for a moment, concentrated, intent, like a man trying to decipher a secret code.
“Let him,” Caruso repeated.
Tony looked at Labriola, the pistol poised at his head, then back to Caruso, their eyes fixed in cold collusion.
“Let him,” Caruso said a final time.
Labriola peered back and forth from Caruso to Tony, his face now locked in a curious suspicion. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” he taunted.
Tony glanced at Caruso, then turned toward his father. “I didn’t think you had the balls,” he said mockingly.
Labriola’s lips jerked downward in hideous contempt. “Just watch and see, pussy boy,” he said.
The pistol trembled at Labriola’s temple, but still he didn’t fire, and in that interval Caruso saw the barkeep’s hand drop over the side, and shook his head silently, a gesture he knew was full of warning but also of assurance, a gesture that said only,
Finally he leveled his gaze squarely upon Leo Labriola. “Show ’em,” he said.
A dry cackle burst from the Old Man’s lips. “Fucking A,” he cried.
Make Someone Happy
MORTIMER
As he closed in on his apartment, Mortimer felt a wholly foreign joy wash over him, and he thought it must be the feeling a magician gets when he reaches into the black hole and the rabbit’s there, by God, just like it’s supposed to be, and he pulls it out, and the people can’t believe it, and all he hears in the vast dark room is the thrilling burst of their applause.
So much had gone wrong lately, he recalled, so much fear and dread, the deadly threat that still hung over him but which he’d come to live with, accept as part of his experience, a dark music forever playing in his mind.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? he thought as he entered the elevator and glided up to where he knew he’d find Dottie snoring in front of the television, wrapped in a thick terrycloth housecoat, looking like nothing so much as a huge ball of thick pink twine, just to look the whole thing in the face, shrug it off, and go on.
STARK
Clearly she could not have been more surprised to see him.
“Hello, Kiko.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked him stiffly.
“May I come in?” he asked.
She opened the door silently and he passed her and stood in the small, elegantly appointed living room.
“Did you forget something?” Kiko asked coldly. “Let me guess. Cuff links? Tie clip?”
Stark shook his head.
“So, what, then?” Kiko demanded.
He turned toward her slowly. “A guy pulled a gun on me,” he said.
She couldn’t suppress a brittle laugh.
“No, I mean it.”
“A guy pulled a gun on you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, fine, so a guy pulled a gun on you.”
“I thought he was going to do it.”
“Kill you?”
Stark nodded. “I’d always thought I wouldn’t care.”
“But you did?”
“Yes. Because at that moment I thought about you.”
She released another short laugh. “Okay, I’ll spring for it. What, Stark, did you think about me?”
He started to answer, but she lifted her hand to silence him.
“No, no. Let me guess. It was my hair, right?”
He shook his head.
“Legs? Tits? Ass? You have to admit, it’s a great ass.”
“No one thing, Kiko.”
“Okay, what? And this better be good.”
The answer came to him so quickly, he knew that it was true.
“That I would miss you,” he said.
Her eyes glistened. “So, you want a drink?” she asked.
CARUSO
He opened the trunk of the Lincoln, and the sight of Labriola curled up inside it convinced him at last that he was actually dead.
“The boat’s over there,” Tony said as he stepped up beside him.
Caruso nodded. “I guess I loved the guy,” he said quietly, his gaze still fixed on Labriola, the massive body now curiously small.
“He didn’t deserve it,” Tony said. He peered at his father a moment, then added, “You don’t deserve anything you don’t give back.” He looked at Caruso. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About what he did . . . to Sara?”
Caruso shook his head. “No, I didn’t know about that, Tony.”
“Good,” Tony said.
They hauled the body from the trunk of the car, then across the deserted parking lot and over to Tony’s boat. After that Caruso waited while Tony went into the warehouse and retrieved two cement blocks and a length of chain.
“Okay,” Tony said. “Let’s go.”
Within minutes they were out to sea, the boat’s white wake coiling behind as they made their way across the dark water.
