Odd Jobs (38 page)

I’m sitting in the back of a black Escalade; Curtis and Sev are in front. Curtis has a small television screen on his lap and he motions me to lean forward so I can view the screen. The screen splits into three windows, each showing a different location around the fishing house, each with a separate guard. Curtis says, “It’s like a fucking zombie movie here. These guys don’t know they’re dead.” He looks at his watch. “It’s time.”

We quietly watch the screens. Two of Balducci’s guards are dropped with a silent pistol shot to the skull, and the third has his throat slashed while his mouth is covered. I ask Curtis, “Why cut one and shoot the other two?”

Curtis answers, “Personal preference of my guys. I don’t like to micromanage.”

Makes sense, I guess. I stare at the surveillance screen in Curtis’ lap. The Special Service guys have disappeared and the guards are lying where they fell.

Curtis says, “C’mon, we’re on a schedule tonight. We got to make a big arrest after this. We kept everything on ice till you got ready, but we can’t fuck around anymore.”

I guess that’s my cue. I get out of the Escalade. “Okay, Curtis, I’m ready.”

Sev rolls down his window. He asks if I’ve got the gun he gave me, and I say yes.

“You want me to come in there with you?”

“No, thanks. I got this one under control. Is Balducci still getting my calls forwarded to Rocky’s phone?”

Both Sev and Curtis shrug; they’re not sure. I ask to borrow Sev’s phone, and he tosses it to me through his window. I catch the phone and thank him. Then I say, “Mom and Dad, if I’m late, you don’t have to wait up for me.”

Curtis says, “You got half an hour and then we come in and take care of business. I’m on the clock tonight.” When I hesitate, Curtis adds, “C’mon, kid, you can get this done in a half hour.”

I expect I can. I walk toward Balducci’s cabin, stepping over one of his dead guards. I start to pass him, but I realize there’s enough light from the house to take a picture with Sev’s cell phone. I can’t resist snapping a shot.

I wait by the window and look at my watch. Any minute now. I look toward the Escalade concealed by bushes. While I’m waiting, I open Sev’s cell phone and change the wallpaper to the picture I just took of the dead guy lying on the lawn. Finally, the house goes dark. The power has been cut off; that’s my cue. I force open a locked window and crawl through. Balducci sticks his head out of another window, hollering, “Hey, Fleisher! What the fuck is going on?”

Obviously, Jimmy is going to have to wait a long time to get an answer from Fleisher. I pull out Sev’s cell phone and dial my own cell number. I can hear it ring in the distance. It rings several times but Balducci isn’t answering. My phone calls are still being forwarded to Rocky’s cell phone. He still has Rocky’s cell phone. I hang up when I hear the beginning of my own voicemail. The house is pitch black, and the ringing must be driving Balducci nuts. I call again, and this time I call Rocky’s number. I’m assuming he is holding the phone, trying to get all the information he can if someone is calling me. I hear it ring from the phone I’m calling on, and I can hear Rocky’s ringtone coming from only a few rooms away. The unmistakable voicemail picks up.
“Hi. This is Rocky, sorry I can’t get your call, but if you leave a message, I’ll call you right back.”

Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that. I dial the number again and I hear it ring in the distance. I miss her voice so much; I even missed her funeral. Her voicemail is all I have now. I dial it again just to hear her voice. I hear it ring again. Balducci surprises me; he picks up the phone. There is no greeting, only breathing from his side of the phone. If I can hear him breathing, his heart must be pumping through his skull. I let him breathe for another minute. After all, how many breaths does he have left? Finally I say, “Jimmy, it’s time.” He doesn’t answer. I still hear him breathing.

I want to get Jimmy talking so I can follow his voice, figure out exactly which room he’s in. In a low voice I say, “I know you saw me get shot. You must have been wondering if I was alive or not.”

“Fuck you, Davenport. I know you lost your girlfriend, but I lost a lot, too. Shit, I’ve lost everything I got.”

“Not everything, Jimmy. Not yet.” I use the light of the cell phone in my hand to navigate around the furniture, avoiding any unnecessary noises.

“Kevin, listen up. I helped you out. I got you a job when you needed money. You were always welcome in my house. I was going to take you into the business. I was offering you some opportunities. Things you always wanted. Why did you turn on me?”

Right on schedule Curtis’s guys return the power in the house and the lights go on. There I am, staring into the frightened eyes of Jimmy Balducci. There is no gun in his hand, so
I
can put mine away. It can’t be a coincidence that Jimmy is in this room; he was looking for his gun.

“You killed my father; that’s why I turned on you.” I shove Jimmy in the chest. “You took everything from me. Fuck you.” I shove Jimmy in the face, nearly knocking his head into a lamp that’s next to his desk. We are in the home office of the fishing house, a place where he undoubtedly bought for free and ordered hits that ruined hundreds of families. Probably he is trying to get to a drawer in the desk. “My sister’s dead, my mom’s a train-wreck.” I shove his face again. “You gave me a job when I needed one? Fuck you. You’re the reason I was so hard up for money. I had to take care of my family, you asshole.” When I shove him in the face again, his head hits the wall hard. He slides down the wall and lands on his ass. I notice him looking toward the window. I pull out the cell phone and show him the picture of the dead bodyguard that I saved as wallpaper on Sev’s cell phone. “Jimmy, your friend Fleisher and his pals are taking a nap, so they won’t be able to help you right now.”

A stunned and desperate Jimmy says, “Kevin, hold on a minute!”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t kill my father.”

“Listen, it wasn’t about your father. We were protecting what we built up. Your father was a freakin’ pit bull.” Trying to work me, Jimmy continues. “I see where you get it from. He was closing in on us. We had to stop him. You have to believe me, it wasn’t anything personal.”

I put my knee on Jimmy’s chest. I have him pinned against the wall and the desk. Being in a drug-induced coma for two weeks took a lot of my strength away, but even at a fraction of what I’m supposed to be, Jimmy is no problem. “So what the fuck was I? Some sort of sport for you?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer. He is trying to wrestle free but I have him lodged solidly. So I repeat, “Was it funny having me over to your house and having me work in your fucking meat factory?” My head is throbbing from pent-up frustration. Jimmy is cornered in every way imaginable. “It must have been a riot bragging to all your fucked-up psychotic friends how not only did you ruin my family but you have me jumping through hoops. I hope you had a lot of laughs, because now it’s time to pay up.”

“No, no! Shit, you have it wrong. Listen to me, you have it wrong.”

“Speak. You have one minute.”

“It wasn’t sport. Shit, it wasn’t anything like that. You came to Remington Academy; we didn’t know shit about you except that you could help the school build a better basketball program. Who would have thought you were the DA’s kid? A bunch of years had gone by since your father died. Trust me, we didn’t know shit then about you. I’m telling you, Davenport, when we finally put two and two together, we almost crapped our pants.”

I hesitate a minute. I’m trying to digest what he is saying, as if I care, but something does strike me as funny. “Jimmy, who is ‘we’? You said we almost crapped our pants.”

Jimmy hesitates. “You know, the guys I was working with.”

I punch him in the face. His eyes briefly roll back into his skull. I say, “Cut the shit. Who is the ‘we’?”

“Kevin, it’s not too late. We can make this right. Let’s talk business here. Don’t make this so personal. I can get you more money than you ever dreamed of. Isn’t that what you always wanted? You told me so. C’mon... let me go and we’ll talk about this.”

I take my knee off Jimmy’s chest and stand up. I’m sure Balducci thinks I want to talk about the “business proposition” he just offered me. But I’m really looking for something to drive home a point. “Thanks for the offer, but even if I wanted to accept, which I don’t, we both know you have no money. It’s all gone, Jimmy.”

On Balducci’s desk, there is a brass letter opener in the shape of a dagger; that will do nicely. I grab Jimmy by the throat and throw him back down on the ground. I shove the letter opener into his right eye and drive it in. There’s a sonic pop that booms through the house. It reminds me of the gun
s
hots that ripped through Rocky and me. It reminds me of the pop the suffocating cellophane made when it finally burst. A combination of blood and eyeball fluid is flowing over Balducci’s face and my shirt. I even taste some in my mouth. It must be all over my face.

Balducci shrieks like a dying cat. As much as I want to do this, the sight and sound of blinding Jimmy is making me queasy. “I’m not fucking around here. Who the fuck is ‘we’?”

Understandably, Balducci is having a little trouble focusing. “Oh God, I can’t see! Oh God, it hurts, oh it hurts.”

“You want me to make this hurt more? Who the fuck is ‘we’? Who else?”

“Wellington. Please stop! Buster Wellington. He’s the one with all the political connections. We were partners. Oh God, this hurts.”

“Keep going,” I demand.

“I provided the muscle. He had the political connections. He stayed behind the scenes. How do you think my kid got into Remington Academy? I needed help and he helped me. Oh God, please don’t do this!”

“Shut the fuck up!” I drive the letter opener into his throat. I was going to stab him in the heart, but you’d have to be a microbiologist to find it. The throat is working nicely though. He is gurgling and wheezing and he is suffering.

I slump down on the ground and sit next to Balducci. I want to see it all the way through. But give Jimmy credit; at the end of the day, he managed to steal something else from me. Him and his “I buy for free” bullshit; he’s the ultimate thief. I lived for the satisfaction of taking Balducci down and finishing the job my father started. But then Jimmy told me about Buster Wellington. All that time at Remington Academy, I never saw Buster or Jimmy speak two words to each other. When I was dating C.W. Wellington, I never saw any connection. Shit, even when I was spying on Balducci inside his house, I never saw a connection. Was he bullshitting?

I’m about to ask him if he’s lying when he begins to gurgle. Then he’s gone. He still has a little air left, but he’s not here. He’s probably halfway down some giant sliding pond dropping him off at Lucifer’s Playground for the Hopelessly Evil.

The gurgling stops. It took me 25 minutes. Five minutes to spare; Curtis will be happy.

CHAPTER 30

Sev and Curtis are standing and talking outside the black Escalade. The three Special Service guys that took out Balducci’s guards flank them. When I appear from the other side of the bushes, they look me up and down to observe how soiled my shirt is.

Sev speaks first. “I sure hope the house is spotless.”

“Not exactly,” I say. “The house is pretty messy too.”

Curtis frowns. “Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sloppier in my life.”

I show them the letter opener and say, “I took this with me, you know, so I wouldn’t leave any evidence.”

Sev smiles and says, “Good idea, kid.”

Curtis takes the letter opener from me and hands it to one of his guys. He says to the group, “You have three bodyguards and Jimmy Balducci. Make the bodies disappear and take care of this house. I need a first-rate job here. By the time you’re through, no one should be able to recognize even the foundation of this house.”

Sev and Curtis get back in the Escalade. Sev looks at me and says, “Are you coming or what?”

I’m dazed. I nod and head toward the back door of the SUV. Curtis says, “He ain’t coming in my car like that. You have any idea what that’s going to smell like?”