Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime (14 page)

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Authors: Robert J. Randisi

BOOK: Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime
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“
M
AYBE WE SHOULD call the cops.”
We were sitting in the car in front of a fleabag residential hotel in a rundown section of downtown. Ravisi and Davis had just gone inside with the girl.
Jerry sat as still as a statue at the steering wheel, no expression on his face.
“It’s your call,” he said, “but you’ll have to explain why you didn’t call when you first found the body.”
“No,” I said, “I meant call about these guys, not the body.”
“You’re convinced they’re not connected?”
“I’m positive,” I said. “This stuff with the dead bodies, I just walked into that by accident. These guys are involved with whoever is threatening Dino. This is the job I’m supposed to be working on.”
“Then you’d have to explain to the cops why you didn’t report when they broke into your house and worked you over.”
“Shit!” I said. “And I did that to keep both Frank and Dean’s name out of the papers.”
“Frank don’t mind that so much,” Jerry said, “but Mr. Martin, that’s different.”
“Okay, then,” I said, “I guess we better go in and get it over with.”
Jerry took his .45 out, inspected it, and slid the clip out and in. He worked the slide and looked at me.
“No gun for me.”
He raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and slid the .45 into his shoulder holster.
“Let’s go,” he said.
 
 
Of course, I didn’t know at the time that Buzz Ravisi had finally decided to share Iris with his partner, Lenny Davis. At that moment they were all getting naked in their hotel room, and Davis’s eyes must have been bugging out of his head as he got a look at the naked Iris close up, rather than up on a stage.
Jerry and I entered the hotel lobby and found it empty except for a dozing sixtyish clerk. Jerry walked to the desk and slammed his .45 down on it. The man jumped, saw the gun and gasped. Jerry put a ten-dollar bill next to the gun.
“One of these is gonna get us Buzz Ravisi’s room number,” he told the man. “It’s up to you which one.”
“R-room fourteen,” the man said. “Second floor.”
Jerry glared at the man, then pushed the ten-dollar bill towards him. He picked up his gun, but didn’t put it away.
“If you call ahead, me and my friend will be back.” Jerry made it clear that he was talking about his gun, and not me.
“Y-yessir.”
“Go back to sleep.”
The clerk immediately put his head down on the desk. Jerry kept his gun in his hand and headed for the stairs. I followed, my heart pounding because I had no idea what was going to happen when we got into the room.
On the second floor we counted off the rooms and stopped in front of fourteen.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we knock,” he said, but before I could say a word he lifted his foot and slammed it into the door just above the knob. There was the sound of splintering wood and the door slammed open.
Jerry stepped smoothly into the room, his gun held out in front of him. He blocked my view until he stepped to one side, and then I saw the three naked people on the bed. Ravisi was behind Iris, while Davis was in front of her. Both were at full mast.
Iris, in between them, was on her hands and knees, her breasts dangling down. The tip of Davis’ penis was inches from her nose as she turned her head toward the door, her eyes wide with surprise. They were blue, I noticed, because she was staring right at me. I also noticed that I could smell her perfume, along with the mingled odors of sweat and whiskey.
“What the fuck—” Ravisi said.
“Aw, no,” Davis said. He’d been just inches from heaven.
“Nobody move,” Jerry said.
They didn’t move but Ravisi’s eyes immediately went to a chair, where both men’s shoulder holsters were hanging. It was a good six feet from the bed. There was a small kitchenette off to one side, a sofa and a stuffed chair to the other side.
“Go ahead,” Jerry said to Ravisi, “try it.”
“W-what’s goin’ on, Buzz?” Iris stammered.
“Shut up,” Ravisi snapped. He looked at Jerry because he had the gun. I didn’t even think he’d looked at me once, yet. “What’s goin’ on?”
“My friend and I have some questions for you and your friend,” Jerry said. “Maybe you remember my friend?”
This time he was talking about me, and not his gun. Ravisi looked at me. Davis was still looking down at Iris. Ravisi had slumped to about half mast by now, while Davis’s erection was totally gone. Ravisi still had his hands on Iris’ ample hips.
Ravisi finally looked at me.
“Aw, shit.”
“That’s right,” I said, “aw shit.”
“Look,” Ravisi said, “can we move—”
“Naw,” Jerry said, “I like you in that position. Just stay that way.
“Mister,” Iris said, “can I get dressed and get outta here? I got nothin’ to do with this.”
“Just stay put, sister,” Jerry said. “Don’t make me shoot yer tits off.”
She bit her lips and a tear started to roll down her cheek. She buried her face on the pillow that was right beneath her head. The move hiked her ass up a little higher. That didn’t affect Ravisi but damned if I didn’t start to get an erection.
“Look, pal,” Ravisi said to me, “no hard feelin’s, huh? We was just doin’ a job.”
“We know that,” Jerry said. “What we wanna know is who you did the job for?”
Ravisi licked his lips before he said, “Uh, I can’t tell ya that.”
“Yeah,” Jerry said, “you can. Instead of shootin’ off her tits I can start with your balls.”
“Hey,” Ravisi said, looking at me. Maybe since I wasn’t holding a gun he thought he could reason with me.
“Don’t plead your case to me, pal,” I said. “My ribs are still sore.”
“Jesus, Jesus …” Davis was mumbling.
“Shut the fuck up!” Ravisi shouted at him.
“Look,” Jerry said, “we’re real sorry to interrupt your little fuckfest, here. If you just answer our questions we’ll move along and you an yer boyfriend can finish.”
“We ain’t no faggots!” Ravisi said, anxiously. Then, suddenly, a look of recognition came over his face. “Hey, you’re that big guy from the club, what pushed Catalina’s face in, ain’t ya?”
“That’s me.”
Ravisi looked from one of us to the other, slowly getting it. “You were lookin’ for us?”
“And we found you,” Jerry said. “Like my friend said, his ribs are still sore, and he’s real pissed. He wanted me to come in here shootin’ but I said no, that you guys would cooperate. After all, you was just doin’ a job.”
“Right, right,” Ravisi said, “we was just doin’ a job.”
“And that’s what I’m doin’ now,” Jerry said. “A job. And I come all the way from New York to do it.”
Ravisi’s eyes bugged.
“He imported you from New York?”
“That’s right.”
The man looked at me with renewed respect.
“You got them kind of connections? You brung in a … a pro?”
“That’s right,” I said, trying to sound tough. “You fucked with the wrong guy.”
“Hey, hey,” Davis whined, “we didn’t know you was connected.”
“Yeah,” Ravisi said, “all we knew was—”
“You knew he worked at the Sands, didn’t ya?” Jerry asked.
“Well, yeah—”
“And who runs the Sands?”
“Well—”
“Look,” Jerry said, “you guys made a mistake. It happens. We’re willin’ to overlook it.”
“You are?” Ravisi asked. He looked directly at me.
“Well … yeah,” I was, grudgingly, “but I need some answers.”
Iris still had her head in the pillow, but I could tell she was crying because her dangling tits were jiggling.
“Let her go,” I said.
“What?” Jerry asked, without looking at me.
“Let the girl go.”
She lifted her head from the pillow and turned her tear streaked face towards me.
“Okay,” Jerry said, “get up, sweetheart. Get dressed and get out of here.”
Without hesitation Iris leaped from the bed, ample flesh jiggling everywhere now as she got dressed in a hurry. No underwear, she just pulled on her top and her skirt and slipped into her high heels.
“Hey, sister,” Jerry said.
“W-what?”
“No cops.”
“I ain’t callin’ the cops,” she said. “I swear.”
“Go on,” I said. “Get lost.”
She put her hand on my arm and said, “Thanks, Mister. You come by the club some night and I’ll pay ya back.”
“Sure.”
She turned to look at Ravisi then and spat, “And don’t you come by no more—and don’t ever call me.”
“Hey, what’d I do?” he demanded.
“You almost got me killed!”
“Iris—”
She turned and stormed out of the room, high heels clacking down the hall.
“Goddamn it,” Lenny Davis said, and he was almost crying as the sound of Iris’s heels faded away.
“Shut up!” Ravisi said. He looked at Jerry. “How about us? Can we get dressed?”
“Naw,” Jerry said. “You guys stay just like you are. We’re gonna have us a talk.”
T
HE SITUATION WAS STRANGE, to say the least. Four men in the room, two naked on the bed and one holding a gun. The fourth one—me—wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.
“This ain’t right,” Davis said.
“Shut up!” That came from both Ravisi and Jerry.
“You guys can walk away from this real easy,” Jerry told them. “Just tell my friend who hired you to work him over and warn him off.
“Warn him off of what?” Ravisi asked. “We don’t even know what we was warning him off of.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Look,” Ravisi said, “we got hired over the phone, and we picked up our pay at a drop. That’s it.”
“And what were you told to do?” Jerry asked.
“Work this guy over,” Ravisi said, indicating me with an impatient wave.
Jerry looked at me, the first time he took his eyes off the two men. Ravisi took the opportunity to move. He lunged for the top of the bed, sliding his hand beneath one of the pillows. I could only think that he was going for a hidden gun.
“Jerry!”
The big man’s head snapped back around as Ravisi’s hand was coming out from under the pillow. Jerry squeezed the trigger of the big .45. The bullet struck Ravisi in the chest and splattered the wall behind him with blood and guts. The gun in the hood’s right hand went off and a .38 slug hit Davis in the left temple and splashed his brains all over the sheets.
“Jesus!” I shouted. “Christ!”
“Take it easy,” Jerry said.
He stepped to the bed and swept the snub-nosed .38 to the floor, then checked both men before holstering his own gun.
“Are they dead?” I asked.
“Can’t get any deader.”
“Christ,” I said, again. My chest felt tight, like I was having a heart attack, and I’d broken out in a sweat. Jerry looked over at me, then got right in my face and slapped me—not hard, but hard enough.
“Breathe,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Come on,” he said, “Deep breaths.”
I took a deep breath and let it out.
“Another one.”
I did it again, and again. Suddenly, the steel band around my chest was gone. I still felt hot, but at least I could breathe.
“Okay?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, “yeah. I think so.”
“We have to look around,” he said, “but don’t leave your fingerprints anywhere.”
“What?”
“We have to search the place and then get outta here before the cops come.”
“W-what are we lookin’ for?”
“Anythin’ that will tell us who these two were workin’ for. Come on, Mr. G. The place ain’t that big.”
We went through the place as thoroughly as we could and as fast as we could. The clerk might have called the cops, or maybe the girl had, before the shooting. Certainly someone must have called them
after the shots, but I still didn’t hear any sirens. I was careful to keep my eyes averted from the bed, which was soaking through with the blood of both men. I’d had enough of dead bodies in the past couple of days to last me a lifetime. Watching the lead rip through these two right in front of me was more than enough.
“Find anything?” Jerry asked.
“No.” I’d picked up a pen from somewhere and was using it to open drawers and go through things, even underwear. “You?”
“I got a phone book and calendar,” he said.
“Anythin’ on it?”
“I don’t know.” He shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s get out of here.
I started to put down the pen I was using, then thought better of it and shoved it in my pocket.
“You touch anything?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Ya gotta be sure,” Jerry said. “From the minute we came in, did you touch anything?”
“No,” I said, “no. You kicked open the door, so … no.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
As we went through the lobby I noticed that the clerk still had his head down on the desk. He’d either stayed that way the whole time, or had assumed the position when he heard us coming down the stairs.
In the car Jerry got behind the wheel again.
“What about the clerk?” I asked. “Or the girl?”
“What about them?”
“Either one can identify us.”
“They won’t say a word.”
“Why not?”
“Fear,” he answered. “In my business, it’s my best friend. Come on, gimme some directions.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We might as well go back to your place. I think we’re done for the night, don’t you?”
“More than done,” I agreed.
 
 
When we got to my place we approached it slowly, carefully. I didn’t know if we were expecting more goons, or the cops. I didn’t want anyone to be there because I needed to sit quietly, have a beer and think.
Once we were inside and established that we were alone I grabbed two bottles of Piels from the refrigerator, handed one to Jerry, and then went to sit on the sofa in the living room. Jerry chose the big, overstuffed armchair across from me.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him.
“What for?”
“That you had to kill those men.”
“I didn’t kill both of ’em,” he said. “I killed one and he killed the other one.”
“Whichever way it went—”
“And there ain’t nothin’ for you to be sorry about,” he went on. “The idiot went for a gun. I’m sorry I had to kill ’im before we got what you were after.”
“You didn’t believe them?”
“What? That they got hired on the phone and picked up their money from a drop?” he shrugged. “Could be. It ain’t the way I would work, but these two weren’t real pros.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m back to square one. At least with them warning me off I had somebody to go lookin’ for; I had a reason to believe that the threats made to Dean Martin were real.”
“Look on the bright side,” he said.
“What’s the bright side?”
“With those two dead,” he said, “whoever hired them is gonna have to hire somebody new to go after you.”
“To go after—you mean—”
“They ain’t about to let it go,” Jerry said. “You got beat up and threatened off and you still kept goin’. Next time, they’re gonna try harder.”
Christ. I hadn’t thought of that.

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