Darwin's Nightmare (19 page)

“Easy, boys,” I said as I approached. “I have some
business here today.” I stopped in front of the group. “You know this place is watched, so keep your hands loose. If we start a gunfight no one leaves happy. I was told to come down and I'm here — on my terms. I'm going in, and you're staying here. Everyone watching this place will see me go in and everyone will see you stay out front as usual. You come inside and everyone watching will turn into everyone listening. When there ends up being something to hear, everyone will come in for a closer look.”

I hoped my lies would play on the constant paranoia people in organized crime find themselves in every day. The men out front glorified themselves in their own minds. In their heads they were important, dangerous men. They could not imagine a group of law-enforcement officials who would not fear them, and therefore would want to keep constant tabs on them. In reality no one watched the restaurant all the time. If anything it was bugged by recorders that were collected and transcribed later. The law wouldn't know I came for months, if at all. Who knew if the tapes were even checked.

Four hard faces looked at me. Four hard faces saying nothing. I didn't wait for a response; instead I moved to the left of the group. If they drew guns they would have to move them across their bodies to get to me. The extra milliseconds would be necessary if I had to draw on them from under my arm. No one moved as I walked a semicircle around the group. I went through the door of the restaurant sideways, my eyes never leaving the small crowd of men. Once I was inside, I turned, and the newspaper followed my gaze towards the coat-check stall. Cold eyes greeted me, and one manicured hand was already under the counter.

“We've been here before.”

The coat-check girl said nothing.

“And you know what? I'll still be through the door before you draw.”

“I'm faster than I was,” she said, her hand still under the counter.

I looked at her and let the grin form on my face. For a second her lips separated and her eyes found my hand in the newspaper pointed at her. She was instantly unsure of herself.

“It's good that you've gotten better. Me, I've never slowed down.”

Her hand stayed under the counter as I went through the second set of doors.

I walked down the steps into the restaurant. All of the tables had chairs up on them as usual. The only difference was in the hallway where the booths were located. Two men stood there with guns in their hands.

Neither of the two gunmen spoke to me. They took turns looking at me and at my hand in the newspaper under my arm. I took deep breaths and visualized shooting the one on the right and diving left toward the tables. I had to quickly re-evaluate my decision when I realized that my left arm couldn't take a bump on the floor; I'd have to shoot left and dive right.

“What in the hell did you do,
figlio?
” I heard Paolo before I saw him. He came out, empty-handed, from between the two men.

“The boys you sent didn't seem friendly. I decided I would come and see you myself. I meant no offence.”

He stopped dead. “Don't you fucking lie to
me
, you stupid fuck. You took from
me
and attacked my people. You . . . you . . . fucked with
me.
” Every
me
was emphasized like a sonic boom. Paolo was physically shaking. His rage dilated his pupils and made his hands shake. It turned him into the focal point of the room. No one could look anywhere else. “Then you lie to me like I'm worth nothing.
Not even an explanation. I bailed you out when you should have been dead. I gave you work when I should have made an example of you, and to reward my generosity you become Judas? What did it take to turn you, Judas? How much money,
figlio?
” Paolo's voice had worn down into a whisper; he was now the grand inquisitor.

I said nothing. The man calling me
son
wasn't my father; he kept me employed because it helped him. He hung me out to dry days ago for the same reason. I didn't argue back. I forced myself to stop hearing Paolo so I could focus. At some point I would be told to drop the newspaper. In my mind, I visualized tossing it in front of me and using the movement of the paper and the heavy sound of the gun hitting the ground to conceal my drawing of the other gun from my waistband. I watched myself in my head, over and over again, until I realized Paolo was staring at me.

“Thirty pieces of silver, eh Judas? You have no loyalty. I knew that when you first bit the hand that fed you. When a dog does that they put him down because they know that he's got a wild streak in him that's no good for nothin'. I made a mistake there. I thought you were better than a dog. But you're not better than a dog, you're still a crow. You come in here with a gun and lie to my face. To me! You cripple a man, my man, and then lie to me about it. Take off that shirt and we'll see the liar. Take it off! Show me you're not lying and I'll apologize for the invitation that offended you so much. I know what's under that shirt. I know because you didn't kill that kid, or his mom. That was always your problem. You only killed people you thought deserved it. You never saw that you were living in the jungle and everyone deserves it. The lions take who they want; they don't weigh out the morality of the situation — they just act. Acting is what makes them king — not
morality. I'm king of the fucking jungle. People die all the time because I say so, not because they deserve it — screw deserves. People die because I live. I'm what Darwin dreamed of at night. Top of the food chain, no remorse. Now take off your shirt.”

“I did the job you wanted done. I picked up what you asked for. You lied. You never told me what I was dealing with.”

“Risks, boy. Did you forget what you did for a living?”

“I never forget. I complete jobs that you need done. Jobs you want to be able to distance yourself from. I work for you, but I'm not your fall guy. You left me out to dry. You knew that the Russians would find me eventually. You knew they would have to work to find me and kill me, and you thought that in the time it would take them to do that you would be able to hurt them bad — maybe kill their organization completely. You set me up, and when that didn't work you sent men to bring me to you; to bring me to die. That's not how I work. My shirt stays on and I leave . . . for good.”

“
Figlio.
” His voice was calm. “Do you know where you are? You don't show up at my place and tell me anything, and you don't quit — I fire you . . . for good.”

Sensing the turn in the conversation, the two men raised their guns. The thug to my left said, “Put down the paper,” in a cold, flat voice. I cursed myself for letting Paolo run the conversation and for getting me to talk. Since I had been shot I had just pushed forward, never stopping to plan. I was racing ahead while I was falling apart. My mouth let him get the better of me, and now I was at a disadvantage. Outgunned by two drawn pistols, I forced my knees to bend and my breathing to relax. I readied myself to shoot the man on the right. Two thumbs moved, and the guns in front of me cocked. The thug on
the right repeated his order as the two men moved forward from the booths past Paolo, so that he was obscured from my view. We had fifteen feet between us.

I took one big breath and a step to the right table. “Okay, I'll put it down.” My body started the turn, and I was about to let the paper fall when gunfire broke out.

I stopped and turned my head. Behind me, the sounds of gunfire popped again in the street. No one inside wasted time; four more bodies, armed with handguns, came out from the booths behind Paolo. The two men in front of me looked at Paolo for instructions; he had already decided what to do.

“Joey, go with them. Tony, watch Wilson.”

Paolo went to the booths and picked up a revolver from a seat on the left. Tony, who stayed to watch me, had not moved his feet. He was looking to the door, back to me, then to Paolo.

“Get his shirt off,” Paolo said. Tony looked at me, and I could see his eyes resist the urge to look anywhere else.

“Drop the paper,” Tony said.

More gunfire sounded, closer now. It was automatic chatter, and it was replied to with single shots. I watched Paolo listen. Watched him realize he and his men were outgunned. Paolo and Tony looked over my shoulder toward the sound of approaching footsteps; I moved a few steps right, toward the kitchen.

“Boss!” Joey yelled as he rushed past me to Paolo's side as though he were a child afraid of thunder.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” Paolo roared as I took another few steps toward the kitchen. Paolo's eyes found me. “Tony, you make sure he stops moving.”

“I'm putting the paper down. That's all,” I said, and I slowly took the paper out from under my left arm to prove it to everyone.

“Boss, it's the Russians. They're in the street. They're killing everyone!”

Tony had his eyes on mine as I moved my arm to toss the paper toward the tabletop. We ignored Paolo and Joey's voices as they went over what was going on outside. I tossed the paper high and it landed with a loud thump. The sound interrupted the conversation and pulled every-one's eyes to the newspaper. No one watched my right arm move.

Three quick shots sounded; they were followed by a woman screaming, “No!” More automatic gunfire rang; its volume let us know it was just outside the dining room doors. Everyone's attention moved to the doors as I pulled my gun. I had it pointed at Tony for five seconds before he noticed it. His eyes moved to the barrel and grew wide. The only word he could find came out in a childish tone.

“Boss.”

Paolo and Joey looked away from the door. Both saw the gun in my hand immediately.

“God damn it, Tony.”

“Shut up, Paolo,” I said. “The gunfire is slowing down, so we're going to have company soon. We need to get out of here. Is there a way out of here besides the front and the kitchen?”

“I don't run from no one. Especially those fucking commies.”

“You can stay,” I said. “But I want out, and if killing you gets me there I'll do it.”

Tony and Joey brought their guns up. Yelling, “Boss, get down!” was all that stopped me from shooting them. The gunfire from Tony and Joey pushed three men back through the doorway, shattering the glass that led to the coat-check room. The men were clad in black, their pale white skin accentuated by the colour they wore. They took
cover from the gunfire in the coat-check area, but the darkness inside the room made it impossible to tell where.

No one moved. Muffled by the walls, a gunshot broke the silence; two more followed seconds later. There was a big gun outside.

I moved right, walking backward, keeping my eyes on the door, and on Joey, Tony, and Paolo, who had overturned two tables for cover. When I got to the wall, I followed it to the far corner of the restaurant. I couldn't stay there exposed in the room for all to see. “Joey, Tony,” I said. “I'm going to work my way behind you. The Russians are in a nasty choke point in there. They can't move out of it and into here without getting mowed down, even if you only have two guns. You start shooting at me, you'll lose focus, and the choke point. I'm moving behind you from your left.”

“You stay put,” one of them said.

“I'm not staying here. If this place is going to turn into the Alamo, it can do it without me.”

I started moving down the wall toward Paolo, Joey, and Tony. To their credit Paolo's boys didn't look scared. They had a look of determination on their faces. Paolo just looked angry.

Joey and Tony kept their guns aimed at the door, but they stole looks at me out of the corners of their eyes. They were tense — waiting for an order to come. In a moment, I would be right behind them, and I knew they didn't want a gun behind them too.

I spoke to the two men, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Now, boys, I'm going to pass behind you. It would be smarter for you to keep your eyes on that door.” As I spoke I noticed that my arm was getting tired from holding the gun up. “Paolo,” I said. “Tell them to let me by. You know it's a smart play.”

After a pause Paolo spoke. “You two watch that door. If anything moves, you light it up.”

“Thank you, Paolo,” I said. Meaning it.

“Fuck you. We're not done. Not by a mile.” The angrier he got the less philosophical he became; he spoke more like the thug he was destined to be, and less like the educated gangster he played at being.

I kept my gun trained on the door. I was a prime target alone on the wall without cover. I crouched low, trying to move knee to knee, but no one shot at me from the door. I didn't stop to wonder why it was so quiet behind the doors. I thought instead about the big gun outside. The front of the building was surrounded, and it wouldn't be long before the Russians tried to move through the doors into the dining room again. The Russians would kill me, and so would Paolo if he managed to get out of this alive. The back door was my only option. The fact that no one had come through the kitchen meant that the Russians were concentrating on the front door. They probably thought they could blitz through the restaurant like they did at 22 Hess, but Paolo's set-up was stronger than they expected. The Russians would regroup in the entryway, then hit the dining room hard. I had a small window of opportunity to get out alive.

“Paolo. What's out back?”

He didn't look over at me to answer; he kept his eyes on the door. “What do you think? You know the place. The alley is out back.”

“I know about the alley,” I said. “Tell me the layout. Everything you can remember.”

“Why? You afraid you're gonna get lost running away?” He stopped then and considered his words and mine for a few seconds. “I heard those shots. You think someone's out front, huh?”

“Someone with a big gun. If I leave, I'll take him with me.”