Odd Jobs (14 page)

The cop screams, “Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to get something done over here. Do I need to rip out your vocal cords?” That seems to work, and Bino brings it down to a whimper.

The cop walks over to me and says, “You one of the fighters?”

I nod my head. So here I am being all cooperative and everything and this cop snaps an uppercut into my stomach. Even if I were ready for the shot, it would do damage, but the fact that it surprises me causes all sorts of havoc with my body. I drop to my knees, wheezing for air. That was a sick punch. I’m on the ground and still trying to get some air while the cop takes his foot and pushes me over onto my stomach. I am totally defenseless. He drops down and sticks his knee in the back of my neck. The cop grabs my hands, puts them behind my back and slaps handcuffs on me. He grabs a handful of my hair and begins lifting me to my feet. When I am standing, I notice that Vic Catino is also in handcuffs, but it doesn’t look like he was hit. Bino’s in cuffs too, and man, he looks like he just lost a cherry pie-eating contest.

The lead cop instructs the other two officers to take Bino and Vic in their car; he will take me in his car. How lucky for me to be able to spend even more quality time with this guy. The cops push us through the now-quiet crowd and toward the police cars that are parked near the back of the lot. As we progress toward the cars I notice everyone staring, including Zog the Cellophane King. He knows he should be doing something here, but he has no idea what the fuck to do. I know he wants to be effective but not look like his pal Bino, so he just stays quiet and watches us being dragged away.

The head cop pushes me into his squad car and I kind a feel cheated. In all the police shows, the cop always reads you your rights and puts his hand on your head to guide you into the car, making sure you don’t bang your head. But this guy just shoves me and my head slams into the roof as I’m on my way in. Damn, where’s the protocol?

The cop screeches out of the area in a clear effort to put on a show. He gets onto the Long Island Expressway and drives for a while, and then suddenly pulls off near Hunts Point. We pass a bunch of factories that are similar to the ones on Industrial Road. We go deeper and then past rows and rows of warehouses. Some look like they are barely standing and some are empty shells, leftovers from a fire, maybe. Whatever the case, there’s no way we’re going to a police station.

Eventually we pull into an empty warehouse that looks as if it’s been vacant for years. The good news is I’m not about to get butt-fucked in some jail cell tonight. The bad news is, I might get butt-fucked in a deserted warehouse.

The cop slows down and makes a left turn into the parking lot of one of these warehouses. He then drives around back to the loading docks. A police car and an SUV are already parked in the bay of the loading docks, well hidden from the rest of the world. The two younger cops who broke up the bouts tonight are sitting in the front seat of this other police car. They are staring at me as we slowly park next to them, and there’s no sign of Bino or Vic.

Inside the warehouse it’s pretty dark. I suspect this place isn’t exactly up to speed on the electricity bills. We walk around a bend to an area with a few chairs and a table. On the table is a glowing electric lantern; some moths are banging into the glass, attempting to find their little piece of paradise. There are a few more battery-operated lanterns hanging from nails on the walls, offering barely enough light to see. And what I see is pretty interesting. Sev is seated at the table waiting for us. In this light and from this distance I can’t really make out his face, but his figure is pretty unmistakable.

“How’d it go, Curtis?” Sev asks the lead cop.

“It was pretty easy, like you said. We were in and out,” the cop replies. “Except for that alien-looking redhead. Sneezing is gonna hurt him for a while.”

“Fuckin’ Bino. Still, I appreciate it,” Sev says.

Curtis smiles. “Gotta get these cop cars back. Let’s talk later this week.” Curtis walks over and softly punches Sev in the chest. “Damn, it’s good to see you again.”

“Thanks for the favor, man.”

My new pal Curtis, the almost cop, leaves. When I turn around to my old pal Sev, I am met by his huge hand that wraps around my throat, with quite a lot of pressure, I might add. Sev screams, “Are you out of your fucking mind? What the fuck is wrong with you? You into suicide? Are you that crazy or are you just that fucking stupid?”

I’m thinking, damn, I can’t keep up with all these questions and even if I could he’s choking me. Eventually Sev lets go of my neck. I cough for a little while and look up and sputter, “What gives, man?”

“What gives? What gives?” Sev’s eyes are bulging and I see a vein in his neck dancing and flexing. I’m thinking that I may have found a whole new level on Sev’s snap-o-meter. This shit is ugly. “Man, you leave me a note saying bet on the good guy and then you fucking disappear. You don’t even return my phone calls. I got to chase you fucking down, and you just disappear.”

“Sev, I have it under control. I’m taking care of it.”

“You were going to fuck Jimmy Balducci, make him look like an asshole and then die. You don’t think you will, but I’ve seen guys do less and then take a cap.”

“Sev, I didn’t have a choice. 1 thought about all my options and believe it or not, this one made the most sense.”

“I can’t wait to hear this fucked-up logic. Let me hear this shit,” Sev commands.

“Look Sev, first off, think about what you told me. We were talking about the fights and me throwing this fight for Balducci. Remember what you said about the fight flop being a test? That I had to prove I’m on board, and then there would be more tests, harder tests?” Sev nods; he remembers everything. “I thought about what you said long and hard. It’s all I could think about. Obviously, Balducci ain’t the great guy I thought he was when I started to work here. He had this plan for me all along. I understand. They get you in deeper and deeper until you have no choice but to be on board.” Sev is listening, his eyes motionless, locked on me. “The one thing I’ve been hearing is that once you’re in, forget about getting out. So how am I supposed to not get in and stay healthy? I saw some stuff at the meat market when Zog wrapped me up in cellophane. I know some stuff I shouldn’t know. I don’t want in on this shit. I’m not looking to be a wise guy. I work for him, shit, my life’s over anyway.”

Sev interrupts, “Yeah, we all know the problem. I still don’t know what the fuckin’ solution is.”

“Look Sev, there are two things you said to me that just kept coming back to me and wouldn’t go away. Balducci’s gonna test me and Balducci’s got people he’s got to answer to. You said it, right?”

“Yeah, I said that. Go on.”

“Well, nobody above Balducci knows shit about me. Hell, I bet no one even equal to Balducci knows shit about me. Why would Balducci even mention me before I went through all his tests? The best shot I have is to break away from Balducci before anyone above him is on board, you know, before anyone upstairs from him signs off on me. Then I’m their responsibility, too. You see, I have a shot if I make Balducci look like a dick to people under him, but make him look bad to people above him, no way. It’s now or never, now or never.”

Sev cocks his head and gives me a bewildered and amazed glance, like he’s watching a train wreck. “That’s what you got? You’re betting because people above Balducci don’t get wind of this slap in the face that you can slide? Don’t you think he’s gotta make sure the people below him don’t ever think about turning on him? You know, set an example.”

“I’m an outsider,” I say, “a family friend. No one else can claim that. I’m in uncharted territory.” Sev gives me another train wreck look. “I’m not saying it’s a foolproof idea,” I continue. “Hell, I’m not even saying it’s a good move.”

“So why the fuck do it?” Sev asks. “Shit, in the Marines you look at risk-reward profiles. You ever think about your odds of surviving this stunt?”

“Hell yeah,” I said, proud to have an answer. “Forty percent chance I get whacked. Fifty-nine point five percent shot I get beaten so bad I can’t even get a piss hard-on anymore. Zero point five percent chance you bail me out. Who were those guys that kicked our asses and dragged me here? Are they really cops?”

Sev glances away and says, “They ain’t cops. I used to work with them.” I know he doesn’t mean Kosher World. “We served together in a few different countries. Curtis saved my ass in Biafra and I saved his ass in the Congo.”

“Didn’t you disappear from those guys you were with in the Army?”

“First off, it was the Marines, but the CIA grabbed us from the Marines, and second, once the CIA is involved you can never really disappear. So while you’re worried about getting stuck with Jimmy Balducci for life, the U.S. government is a lot worse. At least you can have some laughs with Balducci. The government doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.”

“I don’t know. Your boy Curtis seemed to be having a ball with me and Bino tonight.”

Sev laughs and looks down at his feet. “Let me tell you, Kevin, Curtis knows how to get the job done. He got in and out of there with little chance of disruption.”

“The other cops took Bino and Vic. Where are they?”

“They dropped the other fighter off in Flushing somewhere, then they dropped Bino about a l0-minute walk to a hospital in Forest Hills. But they were both told to relay a message. No more fights, unless the cops get some more kick-back money.”

“What’s the point if they’re not really cops?”

“It’s just a red herring. First, Balducci’s organization will get all pissed off at the cops for looking for more money. When they realize it wasn’t the cops, they’re really gonna freak out. They’re gonna start thinking someone else is trying to cut in on all this union action. These stiffs are gonna go nuts at how easy it was for Curtis and his boys to walk in and wreak havoc. They’ll start pointing fingers and getting all paranoid with each other. It’ll be a real shit show. I love it.”

“I get it. They can think anything they want as long as they don’t know you had anything to do with it.”

“Yeah, you got it. It’s the way they taught us.”

I smile and say, “That’s a great plan, a win-win situation.” Then with a chuckle I add, “Except for Bino.”

“Not so fast. It’s not so win-win for me,” Sev mutters. “Yesterday I was invisible. Today I’m not. Curtis has a lot of pull, but you don’t procure police cars and staff and make this happen all by yourself. Especially in one day. I shit you not, I’m a lot more vulnerable now.”

“Damn, Sev, I’m sorry.” This was supposed to be just a summer job. How did I let this get to here? How do things get this far? “I don’t want to get you fucked up.”

“Look, kid, you didn’t ask me. I did this. So far, your mistakes are your own. I’m telling you, if you can do anything, if you can learn anything, make sure your mistakes are your own. Look, I let you go into those fights at the Industrial Road bouts and I brought you along to those union meetings. I was trying to help you out, but I ended up dumping gas on the fire. I liked the way you were handling yourself, but in the end you wound up facing down Jimmy Balducci. I could have stopped this.”

“I don’t know Sev. You didn’t let me do anything I didn’t want to. I was enjoying fitting in and being something here. Why you being so tough on yourself?”

“I’ve been here before. I could have stopped this from developing, and I should have. Let your mistakes be your own. That’s a hard one to learn. Let your mistakes be your own.”

Sev is just kind of staring off into space. I had enough of this hidden bullshit. “What mistake? Don’t hold out on me. Would you please come clean?”

Sev pauses, and then speaks, and his voice is soft. “I made a bad judgment in my past that affected people real bad and I have trouble living with it,” he says. He tells me that back in 1981, in El Salvador, he got orders to train a special group, the first unit of its kind to complete its training under the supervision of United States military advisors. The government said the El Salvadorans needed help defending themselves in counter-insurgency warfare, but it was all Cold War bullshit. So Sev and his buddies taught these guys how to shoot and how to fight. “We gave them a real fighter’s edge. We got their teeth sharp, know what I mean?”

Sev says that, despite their training, these guys have their own ideas. They are supposed to stop guerrilla warfare but they can’t find the guerrillas, so they figure if they get the families of the guerrillas, they’ll fish them out. “The cocksuckers we train go into a village on their first mission, their first motha-fuckin ‘mission.... ” Sev pauses, his face darker than usual. It’s at least a minute before he continues. “They wipe out a whole town. Torture and kill the men. Then they slaughter the women, and they finish the day by holing up the kids in a damn church and gunning them down. One hundred and eighty people dead, 180 fucking people dead. And I trained the guys who killed them. So I’m telling you, let your mistakes be your own.”