Grinder (14 page)

“Phone in the trunk now,” I said as I covered the rest of the space between Luca Perino and me. His huge hands groped for the Glock as it got closer, but they retracted when my steel toe bit into his long shin bone.

The gun was in his ear as I pulled the cell phone free from his tight grip. I threw the phone into the trunk and shut the lid as music grew louder over the roar of the approaching engine. Through the tinted panes of the Escalade, still diagonal in the lot behind the parking spaces, I could make out a pair of headlights. The car stopped, and doors opened and slammed.

The engine stayed on and music poured out of the vehicle. I saw a break in the light streaming through the dark car glass — someone had walked in front of the headlights. I grabbed Luca by the belt, pushing the gun harder into his ear. I dragged him back between the Mercedes and the Dodge Shadow. When my back touched the brick of the building, I used my foot on the back of Luca's knee to put him quietly down on the pavement.

From in between the cars, I could see two bodies at the back door of Ave Maria. In the dim light, I could see that one of the men was tall like Luca, but this one was more solid. Beside him was a smaller figure in a hat that was turned sideways on his head. I could tell without getting any closer that it was Mickey and Ralphy. The two at the door probably meant that Gonzo was the one keeping the music on in the car. He wouldn't be much good for walking in the shape I left his foot in. His presence in the car and the headlights illuminating the lot kept us pinned down.

The car still belted out music while Mickey and Ralphy banged on the back door. They didn't pound on it with any urgency. Ralphy hit the door rhythmically using both hands and the toe of his shoe. Mickey nodded his head with the beat and then murmured something to Ralphy. He started the beat again with greater intensity, and Mickey bopped his head along with the faster modified drumbeat. The punks hit the door with familiarity — it wasn't the knock of a first-timer. Something was off, those doped-up leg breakers should have been scared shitless to hit a mob door like that, but the two of them showed no hesitation or second thoughts.

The door never opened. I figured the woman inside, behind the counter, knew to stay away from the back door and the type of customers who would use it. Her job was the front door of the front, and judging by the closed back door, she stuck to it.

“Why are Julian's guys here at your door?” I said in Luca's ear. He didn't answer, he just shook his head back and forth letting me know he wasn't going to say a word. It wasn't much of a head shake. The gun in his ear made part of the motion impossible.

“Why are they here?”

He just shook his head harder. I didn't need him to answer. Julian's guys were here because they were after me. They were here just like they were at Bombedieri's. But something nagged at me. At Bombedieri's they were waiting outside. Here, they were at the door, knocking to get in. Who would let those two into a back room that served as a criminal front? Mickey and Ralphy were street level; there was no way they should be high enough on the food chain to get into a neighbourhood boss's backroom office. They would be met on the street by someone under the boss to keep everything separate.

Whatever their reason for being at the door, the whole situation was turning to shit around me. Julian was pushing to kill me and he seemed to know everywhere I would be before I did. Julian was two for two in interference, and I couldn't keep surviving our encounters if my hands were tied. I had the info Paolo asked for. I had Marco on tape explaining that Luca was behind what happened to Army and Nicky. It was half of what Paolo wanted; the other half was deniability. Paolo didn't want anyone to know that he was looking into his own people. He especially didn't want anyone to know he was using me to do it. To keep Paolo in the shadows, and get me out of the line of fire, I had to make it out of the parking lot alive.

With that thought, any instinct to hold off, to try to keep Luca Perino breathing, went out the window. My hands were free of red tape — I was disconnected again, and it felt good. Luca couldn't see me grin behind his back. My face didn't change at all when I pulled the Glock from his ear and buried it in his back — right behind his heart. I pulled the trigger and I was moving before his body hit the pavement.

The music from the car on the other side of the Escalade obscured the shot, but it wasn't loud enough. The shot was sure to bring Mickey and Ralphy over to investigate.

I flattened myself on the pavement and slid under Luca's Escalade. The darkness under the SUV was total, and my shadow disappeared once I was underneath. I held the Glock in my right hand and the Mercedes keys in my left.

I watched from my stomach as two sets of feet walked towards the Escalade. No feet emerged from the vehicle on the street. The music didn't slow down or quiet — it just pumped out a loud, constant drone. It probably made the gunshot non-existent inside the vehicle.

I opened the trunk with the fob when the two sets of shoes got within feet of the Mercedes. I took deep breaths and visualized what I had to do while I waited for their discovery.

Ralphy saw it first. “Holy dhit, Mick! Deck it out, dere's a dody in the dunk. Dhit, man, dere's one over dere too. It's ducking Luca P., man.”

As soon as I heard the recognition, I hit the panic button. The feet beside the SUV jumped and moved around in circles as Mickey and Ralphy looked in every direction. I slid out on the other side of the Escalade and ran at the headlights in front of me. The Glock in my hand fired three times, in a quick burst, at the windshield. In half a second, I put a bullet in the centre of the driver's, middle, and passenger's side of what I finally saw as not a car, but a large blue van.

I thought for a second that I was shot while I was in motion towards the van, but each step dulled the pain into decreasing stabs of agony. There was no bullet hole — it was my back reminding me of the beating the three punks in the parking lot had laid on me. The reminder made pulling the trigger easy.

No one returned fire from the van as I crossed the headlights to the driver's side. The bright beams left my vision scarred by a constantly returning bright blotch every time I blinked. Underneath the blotch and over the sight of the Glock, I saw Gonzo slumped against the passenger-side door. I got into the van and had it in reverse by the time Mickey and Ralphy ran out from behind the Escalade. I tried to crouch down while I drove, but my ribs and back made it impossible. I had to lay sideways, my head in the lap of the bleeding Gonzo, as I drove away.

Bullets punched the side of the van as I blindly spun the wheel, shifted into drive, and slammed the accelerator to the floor. Once the metal-on-metal thuds stopped, I pulled myself up, keeping my eye on the sucking sound coming from Gonzo's chest and the gun he dropped to the floor below him.

“You had me fooled, Gonzo,” I said. “That fat bastard made me think he was out, and that you and your friends were the only help he could find. Nah, he used you because no one would ever see you coming. Especially not Army and Nicky.”

Gonzo let out a low laugh over the sucking sound from his chest wound. He laughed low and hysterically until he died. Two minutes later, I was outside Domenica's.

Julian had never been out. He might not have been Paolo's right hand anymore, but he was still in it up to his ears. Julian was behind everything that had brought me back. Inside Domenica's, on one good foot, was the one person with the answers. He was the owner of the unknown van that Marco saw at Ave Maria. The old me, now behind the wheel of the van, wanted to visit with Julian, and there was nothing to stop me from doing it anymore. I had let him live because there would be more questions if he were dead. Alive, there was a chance he might have talked about Paolo using me, but he'd have proof of nothing, and no one to pin it on, because I planned to be gone by the time he could get anyone to listen to what he had to say. Now he was involved, and it was my job to find out what he knew. For a second, behind the wheel, I was happy to be employed again.

I wiped the steering wheel and door handle with my sleeve and left the van around the side of the restaurant under a burned-out street light. The darkness and the locked van doors would ensure that no one would find Gonzo for a while. The restaurant parking lot was empty except for two cars — a black BMW and a grey Audi. Julian was involved in very dangerous business; he needed to keep everything quiet if he wanted to pull off whatever he had planned for Paolo. After what had happened earlier, he must have given the kitchen staff the night off, so they couldn't witness what was to come. He sent the house band for me, and he must have been waiting for them to come back with my body. Whoever was with him had to be involved with what happened to Army and Nicky. It was too late in the game to be bringing in new people. The reason I had been dragged back to the city was inside the building in front of me.

The front of the restaurant was dark. There were only a few lights on in the back of the building, and they gave off a faint glow under the awning above the front doors. The street light in front was bright enough for people to see the closed sign. I tried the front door, ready to break it open if I had to. The door surprised me by moving inward when I put a little weight against it.

Walking into Domenica's was different the second time around. This time I was able to use the front door and do it with my head up and eyes open. Inside the door, I was met by a small desk. I flipped through the book on top and saw that it belonged to the hostess. Each page was dated and contained a list of times for reservations. No one had ever made any advance plans to eat in the restaurant. The book told me that Julian was right: he had no business at the restaurant — at least not the kind he wanted. The restaurant branched out behind the desk. The dining room was dark, but I could make out tables and chairs set up all over the square room. Behind the tables and chairs was a swinging door and a counter that allowed food to be passed from the kitchen into the dining room. The light at the back of the restaurant was coming from the hallway behind that door. The stage and bar were through an archway to the right. The whole section was dark but I silently checked it anyway. Systematically, I moved around all of Domenica's front rooms. No one was waiting for me in the shadows.

Access to the kitchen was possible through two doors, one just off the dance floor, the other in the dining room. The swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room was identical to the door near the stage I had come through earlier when I was dragged from the car by Julian's punks. I inched the swinging door open, careful not to make any noise, and stepped into the kitchen. The only light in the kitchen came from a long hallway on the left reaching back into the rear of the building. Only half of the fluorescent lights in the hallway were lit. The appliances around me used the dim hall light to cast toothy shadows on the floor. I moved from one dark place to another, looking for any sign of the people who drove the two cars outside. Five metres down the hall that led to what must have been another back door was a single flimsy door, which spilled a brighter light out from underneath.

The door read manager and inside two voices could be heard. I stood to the side of the door and listened. I could hear random words that were louder than others, like, “hospital” and “no,” but nothing else was clear.

Before moving any farther, I pulled the digital recorder from my pocket. I turned the device on and slid it into my back pocket where the microphone could still pick up sound.

Once it was firmly in my pocket, I stopped wasting time. Mickey and Ralphy would be coming back as fast as their feet could carry them. I went through the door foot first to find Julian behind a desk with a foot up. An old man was wrapping the foot until the Glock in my hand spoke its loud, single-syllable language to him.

“Jesus,” Julian shouted. He stretched to see the old man's body fall to the floor. The movement caused the chair to tip, and he had to wave his hands frantically to get the necessary momentum to stay off the floor.

“Put your hands on the desk, Julian.”

He stared at me until he decided to do what I had said.

“Okay. Yeah. I'm doing it.”

“You lied to me, Julian. You said you were out of everything, and here I find out you still have your fingers in the pie.”

“I didn't lie to anybody. I'm here in fucking Siberia where Paolo left me. This middle-of-nowhere club.”

“You might be in the middle of nowhere, but you were still working an angle with Luca Perino. You and him were behind what happened to Army and Nicky. Your boys used their van when they went to see Luca and Paolo's nephews at Ave Maria.”

I moved closer to the half-bandaged purple foot on the desk. Julian saw me looking at the foot. “You admiring your handiwork? What you did. Crippling me twice. You fucking hit me with a car, and what does that bastard do? He lets you walk. He lets you go and retires me. You worked for him for what? Years? I put in decades, and what does that old man give me for my loyalty? This shithole!”

“You didn't retire,” I reminded him.

“'Cause he said so. No, I didn't. I'm not some old horse you just put out to pasture when he goes lame. I'm better than some stupid animal. Everybody knew that — except for Paolo. People remembered me. They respected what I did. They knew what I earned, and it wasn't this. People knew what happened to me wasn't right. I didn't put my time in so some outsider could take me out. Paolo made some enemies that day.”

“So why not go after him? Why Army and Nicky?”

Julian stared at his dead foot. “He made enemies, but they weren't going to go up against their boss. No one would stand for that. Paolo had to fall. He had to hang himself. Take himself out. Fall from grace. Then he could die.”

Julian's words rattled in my brain, and all at once I saw his angle. “You knew what he would do if you killed Army and Nicky?”

Despite the pain in his foot, Julian nodded and laughed.

“You got Luca Perino to help you make a play on the boys knowing Paolo would go after his lieutenants under the table.”

“After he retired me, he had no help left. No one he could trust.”

“You didn't know he'd get me,” I said.

“If it wasn't you, it would have been somebody else. That old man would go after his own people in a heartbeat. I mean, look how he treated me just for getting hurt. Imagine what he'd do to someone he thought deserved it. Someone who went after his nephews. His
family.”
He spat when he said “family.” “See how he treats family? The hypocrite. Everyone saw where Paolo's loyalties lay when he screwed me. They saw what happened to me. Everyone saw!”

“So you got in Luca Perino's ear,” I said, imagining the events taking place in my mind.

“I showed him the writing on the wall. He knew what was coming. It was only a matter of time till he had a shitty club of his own.”

“He didn't see all of it. You were going to use him to kill Paolo, weren't you?” Julian said nothing so I kept going. “You convinced him to kill Paolo's family with you, and when Paolo went crazy you would convince Perino the time was right to take out the boss too.”

Julian stared at me hard, letting me know I was on track.

“I bet you still have contacts with the rest of the big players in other cities. You'd tell them that Paolo had gone off the deep end. He went after his own guys and started an internal war. Then you'd tell them that you could clean everything up and get things back to the way things should be. The other families would just want business as usual, and you figured they'd use you because you were a name they could trust. A name that earned more than it got. You were going to parlay that grip on a cane into a grip on the city.”

Julian still said nothing. His hands stayed in his lap, and his destroyed foot stayed on the desk. I looked down at the man on the floor and then back to Julian. His eyes were on the Glock pointed at him. He wanted to get up and take it, but he knew his body wouldn't let him. He stared at the gun until he saw my left hand pull the tape recorder from my pocket. I clicked it off and held it in my hand.

“You took a big chance with all of this.”

Julian looked at the recorder as he spoke. “I spent my life putting Paolo up. Me. My muscles, my sweat, my blood is what let that old man sit in his comfy restaurant and spout off about fucking animals all day. It was no chance that I took. It was an experiment, survival of the meanest. Heh, Paolo loves experiments, and this one was right up his alley. I wanted to see if that old man could keep order in his own house. If he could, then I belong where I am. But if he couldn't take care of his own, then his seat belongs to me because I put him there.”

Julian's experiment went just like he thought it would. Paolo turned on his own people without a second thought. Just like he turned on Julian. Just like he would turn on me.

“You know Army and Nicky have family in Buffalo. Big shots.”

“Yeah, I know. Pop Guillermo, their cousin, is over there. So what. How's he helping me. What's he done for me?”

“I'm saying this tape gets loose, Paolo won't matter. If he doesn't get you, someone else will.”

“There's always someone,” he said.

“Luca Perino is dead,” I said as I put the recorder away in my pocket.

Julian looked up at me, confused; he didn't understand what I was saying. I didn't try to explain myself. Instead, I pulled out the phone and dialled the number I had called more than once over the past few days. Paolo answered on the second ring. After he spoke I said, “I know what happened. Everything.”

“Where are you?”

“Place called Domenica's. You know it?”

“'Course I know it. I gave it to Julian. Why are you there?”

“I have everything wrapped up here. You need to come here and finish this. This can only end with you.” I hung up the phone before he could reply.

Julian stared at me. His jaw worked back and forth, grinding his teeth down. I put the cell phone in my back pocket and pulled out the revolver I took off Johnny, the pointy-shoed messenger, endless days ago. I put the Glock under my armpit and wiped the revolver clean with my shirt. I put Johnny's gun, still loaded, on the corner of the big desk and waited for Julian to look away from it to me.

“This is your chance to have one less someone. But if you come after me in any way,” I said, patting the recorder in my pocket, “this will make sure I don't come back for you alone.”

I backed out the door, watching Julian watch the gun. As I moved into the dining room, I could hear Julian grunting as he tried to get at the gun. After a minute of what must have been agony, the noise stopped — Julian had something more deadly than a working foot. I let Julian live because there was too much about him that I didn't know. How many more people like Luca Perino was he involved with? How many other people knew I was back in the city? If others like Julian knew I was involved with Paolo and the attacks on two of his lieutenants, I would never be safe. Worse, Steve and Sandra would never be out of danger. People would use them to get at me. People with less restraint than Paolo. Keeping Julian alive, but on a leash, was the best way to survive. Julian's sins against two made kids gave me what I needed to cage the hobbled beast. He would not come after me like Paolo did. What I had on Julian would also keep Steve safe. He would no longer be a bargaining chip. Julian was my way out.

I went through the archway to the stage and moved into the deepest shadow I could find. In the dark, I waited. Minutes slowly turned on the clock mounted on the wall above the doorway. After the minute hand had worked its way halfway around the clock face, Paolo walked in — alone.

“Figlio?”
Paolo whispered as he walked into the dining room. He never looked my way; he was focused on the kitchen, and the bright light spilling out of the office door I left open at the end of the dim hall. I watched him disappear into the kitchen and then move out of sight. I left the shadows and walked to the door. A single shot rang out in Domenica's as I left.

Outside, I dialled the phone and got an answer on the second ring.

“Sully's Tavern.”

“It's finished,” I said.

“No, it's not. He's still out there in his car.”

“He needs to disappear without a trace. No one can see him go. Can you do that?”

Steve didn't answer or hang up. The hard plastic phone just landed on the bar. Once again he was loose. I hoped it would be the last time.

I ended the call and walked away from Domenica's towards Ave Maria and the car I left behind. The car would still be there. It was too far away for anyone to notice it. There would not be cops around it, either, because the woman at Ave Maria knew what kind of men she worked for; she wouldn't call in any suspicious gunshots. As I walked, I took apart the phone and lost it piece by piece. The gun went next. All that was left was me, but I couldn't lose myself in the city so easily.