Deadly Lullaby Read online

  Macky looks so bored he is practically yawning, so I take a thick envelope from my breast pocket and toss it over the desk to him. “In any event, this is not about him. It is a matter of honor with me,” and I say this because this is the kind of corny Goodfellas crap that I know impresses Macky.

  And he is, in fact, impressed. He sighs after a long few seconds and says, “Well, I certainly understand that,” and nods and shrugs as if he would never allow a stand-up guy like me to dishonor himself, like he is only accepting the money for my benefit.

  He finally picks up the envelope and peeks inside it, thumbs through the bills absentmindedly like he knows it is all there. He looks up. “I demanded that both of you be here in person so I can make something very clear.” He points a fat finger at my son. “The only reason you’re not dead or at least seriously fucked-up is because I’ve known your father for years. This is the only pass you get. Ever welsh on another betting tab with one of my guys? I’ll have you slaughtered like an Easter lamb—Crucci or no Crucci, cop or no cop. Understood?”

  My son barely nods.

  Macky looks at me.

  I nod.

  Macky appears satisfied.

  I rise and prepare to say, We now have no conflicts and no debts between us, a take on a line from Godfather III that I know will make Macky want to hug me again.

  But Macky does not stand. Instead he leans back in his chair, picks up the revolver and rests it on his bloated stomach. “Not yet, Babe. I want to talk about something else.”

  I sit.

  “You need work?” Macky says.

  My son rustles in his seat.

  I am not surprised by the question, because my so-called employment with Joe Sacci, the man I have worked with for years, is the subject of much talk and conjecture on the street. “Why do you ask?” I say.

  Macky smiles. “Sacci says you’re not on his full-time payroll no more.”

  “That is correct.”

  This is a true statement.

  “He says you’re available to the open market.”

  “I am.”

  This is also a true statement.

  “Good, I have plenty for you to do.” A grim smile. “You know about Viktor Tarasov?”

  “Very little.”

  This is not a true statement.

  Macky turns solemn and his face becomes even more inflamed than usual. “Tarasov’s a Russian who’s been establishing a presence here in LA for about a year now. I thought me and him were becomin’ friends, but now it looks like that ain’t gonna happen. Last week we had some disagreements, and—well, let me be frank—eliminate me from the face of the fuckin’ planet is what he wants to do. I need good men like you to protect my interests. Men who will permanently see to it that Tarasov will no longer present a competitive threat.”

  He winks as if a wink is necessary for me to understand the underlying meaning of the latter comment.

  I pause as if I am thinking it over—though I am really savoring the irony of all this—then we talk amicably about money, about fees, the expenses he will cover, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Then I say, “Sure, on those terms I will help you address this Russian menace.”

  This is not a true statement.

  I say further, “I have admired and respected you from afar these many years,” which is not true either, “and swear upon the soul of my dead mother that I will be loyal to you ’til my bones turn to dust.”

  Ditto.

  Macky is so clearly moved by this goombah bullshit, the likes of which I have heard uttered only in movies, that his eyes mist up.

  He rises from his chair, places the revolver on the desk, and walks around the desk to give me The Welcome-Aboard Hug. “I’ve always wanted you in my family. C’mere, you big wop, you’re one of us now.”

  I am relieved he does not hold out his fucking hand for me to kiss, which would have sent me into such a fit of uncontrolled laughter that it would have spoiled everything.

  He gives me The Hug and I enthusiastically return it.

  We separate a few inches and look into each other’s eyes. I pat his cheek affectionately. “Macky?”

  He smiles. “Yeah, Babe?”

  “Viktor Tarasov wanted me to say goodbye to you on his behalf,” and I clutch his trachea by sticking three fingers just below his voice box on one side and poking the thumb behind the other side, then squeeze my fingers together and twist with all my might.

  To learn how to crush a trachea, surround a fat carrot with, say, two sticks of celery. Wrap a flank steak around the entire concoction. Anchor it in a vise, then hold the top steady with one hand and perform the above procedure with your dominant hand—a forceful squeeze followed by a mighty twist. The carrot should be cleanly broken and the celery reduced to a juicy pulp when you unwrap them. If the latter two events do not occur, do not try to kill someone in this fashion—instead, go to the gym.

  Macky’s unconscious if not dead already, his pallid face turning reddish blue and streaked by white.

  At the other end of the spectrum is my son’s face, which is drained of all color. He lights the wrong end of a cigarette and takes a deep drag before his eyes go wide at the flaming tip. He nonetheless takes another drag, then stares at me and moves his mouth soundlessly, like a big fish that needs to jump back in the lake for a dose of oxygen.

  I have my son’s rapt attention.

  I allow Macky’s body to collapse to its knees, step gingerly behind it, cup the chin in the palm of my left hand and grab a hunk of hair with my right. In a rapid counterclockwise motion, I twist the head.

  The neck snaps.

  My son flinches.

  Try as I might, I have never figured out the right combination of inanimate materials that realistically simulate the sensation of snapping a human neck. You can, of course, practice on stray dogs that shit in your yard, the bigger they are, the better. But, if you are a kid, I do not recommend you do this to your father’s pet German shepherd he named Adolph who bites you one too many times. It will give your father yet another excuse to pummel you senseless, and the Department of Children and Family Services will take you away.

  I ease the carcass to the floor.

  My son’s elbows are propped on his knees and his head is in his hands. He uncovers his face, which is flushed from the neck up. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

  An odd sense of rejection hits me in the gut. I thought he would be impressed—won over, even—by the physical prowess and sheer cunning I just displayed, the élan. Stunned mute by his reaction, I step over Macky’s remains to retrieve the cigarette smoldering on the floor; it has burned a patch in the yellow carpet, and I fear the stink will alert the bodyguards outside. After extinguishing the smoke in the desk ashtray and stowing the butt in my pocket (fingerprints, fingerprints), I lean down to quietly address him. “Is this really something you would want to know about ahead of time? I mean, think about it.”

  “What? I—” He shakes his head, blinks, as if waking from a bad dream. “You used me. You claimed you wanted to help me just so you could burn Macky.”

  “Pull yourself together and lower your voice,” I say, giving the closed door a quick glance. “Listen to me. There wasn’t any other way to get to him.”

  He stares at me as if I am speaking in tongues.

  Try another tack: “He slapped you, for Christ sake.”

  No dice: “I was going to pay the fucker back someday but, goddamn, I wasn’t—” Another shake of the head, another blink. “That was psycho,” he says. “Even coming from you, that was fuckin’ psycho,” and he runs both hands through his hair and looks away in disgust. “I don’t know what—” His expression of shock and anger quickly mutates to one of concern. He jerks his head at the door. “You got any idea how we’re supposed to get out of here alive?”

  “Oh, them. They will be no problem,” I say, and reveal my straightforward plan: I surprise the bodyguards outside with Macky’s pistol and tie th
em up with the cords from the window blinds and phones.

  “What about Godzilla downstairs?”

  “Chief? I will tell him what happened then offer him a job. Me and Chief are friends, plus now he needs work. He will present no problem.”

  He stands. “I want out of here now.”

  “Let’s go, then,” I say, and retrieve the revolver from the desktop, then snatch the fat envelope of cash resting next to it. I move toward the door with my son in tow, conceal the gun behind my back and grip the doorknob. I pause an instant to think, then whisper, “I’m starving. You are still up for breakfast at La Parrilla, right?”

  His reaction makes it obvious to me that the ball game is out of the question, too.

  —

  About fifteen minutes later we walk into the bright sunlight that bathes the loading dock and find Chief leaning against a support beam. A cigarette dangles from his lips and a crooked length of ash falls to his lapel when his facial muscles attempt to form a smile. The smile, such as it is, dissolves into a bewildered expression when Leo floats past him wordlessly, expressionless, like a ghost in a residual haunting, a mere time stamp on the environment.

  “What’s up with him?” Chief says.

  “Kids these days have no respect. Forget about him.”

  Chief shrugs as if he forgot him already. “How’d it go up there?”

  I stroll toward him. “You know how Macky gets with us Italians. He got all choked up.”

  Chief nods. “Really laid it on him thick, huh?”

  “I left him breathless.”

  “Breathless,” he says and cuts his eyes at me. He squints one eye against a wisp of cigarette smoke, tilts his head as if pondering a riddle, and studies my midsection, where the bodyguards’ pistols tucked in my waistband bulge against my sport coat. “Choked up.”

  He doesn’t get it yet, but he is close.

  I move closer to him and lower my voice. “Say, Chief, how would you like to work for me?”

  He toes out his spent cigarette on the pavement, lips a new one from a pack he pulls from his breast pocket, and fires it up with a vintage Ronson lighter. “You,” he says, “not Joe Sacci.”

  “Right. Do not get me wrong. Me and Joe are still all right. It is just we are not joined at the hip anymore. I wanted to be an independent contractor, in a manner of speaking, and he agreed.”

  He nods while he thinks this over, his face simmering with curiosity until something occurs to him. “Say, how come you didn’t ask me to work for you when you got here?”

  “You had an employer then.”

  Now he gets it.

  I smile.

  “I knew you were up to something,” Chief says, takes a nervous drag from his smoke, and tilts his head toward Leo, who is now entering my car. “So that’s what’s eatin’ him.”

  I nod. “He will be okay.”

  “I dunno, bein’ a cop and all…”

  “Chief, I said he will be okay.” I wink. “Trust me.”

  A roll of his eyes heavenward. “Trust you, right…Tell me, how’d you do Macky?”

  I describe how I did him.

  “Oh, yeah, okay, choked up and breathless, sure, now I get it….What the hell did you do with the other guys up there, the bodyguards?”

  “Bound and gagged them very securely. Hope they’re not friends of yours.”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, the pricks treated me like a rented mule….What’s gonna happen to ’em?”

  “Tarasov’s guys will stop by to question them soon, after I make the call. Joe and Tarasov believe they possess information that is crucial to a smooth transition of power.”

  “Sacci’s in on this, too?”

  “Does that bother you, Chief? I mean, being that Sacci and Macky were friends and all?”

  Chief shows me his palms in a gesture of submission. “Oh, no, not me, no. I’m just—” He clears his throat. “Look, tell you what, when Tarasov’s guys are finished questionin’ the assholes up there and, you know”—he slashes his forefinger across his throat—“tell ’em I’ll help…get rid of the bodies, whatever.” He takes another drag from his cigarette and his fingers tremble just enough to be noticeable. “And I’ll answer any question they got about Macky’s operation. I know where more than a few skeletons are buried.”

  “No, it would probably be in your best interest to get as far away from here as you can before the mad Russians arrive.”

  Chief pauses and lifts an eyebrow that breaks into two pieces from the scar tissue that has formed there. “They plan to kill me, too?”

  “Not you specifically, no. But all persons on the premises are potential witnesses. So, bottom line is I am sparing your guinea ass,” I say, and shrug.

  Chief shakes his head, grins sheepishly. “Guess that don’t leave me a lot of room to haggle over what you’re gonna pay me to work for you, huh?”

  I put my hand on Chief’s shoulder, say as gently as I can, “Chief, my friend, I do not remember offering to pay you shit.”

  —

  I shut the front passenger door to find Leo gripping the Caddy’s steering wheel for dear life, his eyes burning yet another metaphorical hole through yet another windshield. We stew in silence a few seconds before he speaks. “I’m a cop, and just held a weapon on three men while you bound and gagged them. That makes me an accomplice to you and to whoever the hell is comin’ over here to murder these guys. A total of at least seven felonies that could get me life in prison without parole—if I get lucky and don’t get a jolt of Jesus juice along with you.”

  “Quit acting like a Boy Scout. You work for Joe Sacci, and lost your cleanliness and reverence months ago.”

  “What I do for Sacci is like boosting candy compared to what you just did, to what I just did.”

  “And you’ll get paid in proportion to the risk you are taking.” I reach into my breast pocket to remove the envelope of cash I handed Macky earlier, extend it halfway across the cab to him. “Will this make you feel any better?”

  His expression is one that can only be described as avaricious. He licks his lips and works his mouth as if to think it over, says, “Yeah, it will,” and reaches for the envelope.

  I withdraw it beyond his reach.

  He flushes and talks through clenched teeth. “Old man, you shouldn’t fuck with me like that.”

  I ignore the death wish that tinges that statement. “You’ll get the money after you agree to some conditions.”

  “What conditions?”

  “We’ll talk about it at La Parrilla, over lunch.”

  “You really think I’m gonna eat lunch with you now?”

  “You promised.”

  “Tell me what your conditions are and give me the fuckin’ money. I’ll find a way home.”

  “You promised, damn it.” I look out my window and work my jaw so hard my molars hurt, then give him my best Fuck you glare. “Turn me in if you want, go ahead, but you don’t get one dirty dollar unless you eat lunch with me.”

  Detective I Leonardo Dominic Crucci

  As we drive through the heart of Boyle Heights, a liquor store appears ahead to my right and the thought that hits me is tequila…I need a bottle of tequila. The only question is: Would I drink it or smash it over the old thug’s skull?

  Achieve two objectives in one stop, shit, buy two bottles of tequila….

  That thought flies away when sweat drips into my eyes, and when I take my eyes off the road to cuff them dry, the front tire scrapes the curb as I’m hanging a right from Soto onto Cesar Chavez.

  “Damn, kid, those are brand-new tires.”

  I don’t even look at him.

  Every time our eyes have met since leaving the warehouse parking lot I’ve seen Macky’s face, purple and distorted, eyes set to rocket from their sockets any second.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a rat’s ass that the fucker’s dead. When death began to glaze Macky’s bulging eyes, I realized the world’s going to be a better place without the disa
ster of this man’s life in it, and I deleted all sympathy for him the instant I’d processed the thought.

  The thing that jammed my circuits was the sheer magnitude of my old man’s criminal insanity.

  Look at him there in the passenger seat next to me, digging the street scenery and humming along with a Cranberries tune on the radio. Relaxed, happy, your basic SoCal businessman on lunch break.

  And he slaughtered a man forty-five minutes ago.

  A complete absence of shame or remorse, of any concern whatsoever.

  My knowledge of psychology is pretty basic in the academic sense, but you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to conclude that what sits before you is a criminal sociopath.

  It occurs to me that I never really knew him until I watched him waste Macky. Not that I knew him before then—at least not since I was a kid—but I’ve kept tabs on him. Have had his rap sheet at my fingertips since I joined the force seven years ago, and even got my hands on some old files through a back door of Organized Crime and Vice that detailed his movements for days on end. So before today I knew my father was as street-smart as any hood to ever have preceded him, could be a charmer when it suited him, and could be your basic bad motherfucker when that suited him.

  But I never really knew him until I witnessed his profile spring to life in that singular act of cold-blooded murder.

  I look up to see La Parrilla restaurant, just where we left it a hundred years ago. I curb-park just west of the place, exit the car. Loud, pastel paint and neon trim deck the façade of the restaurant and make me feel like a kid again, set off a shitstorm of memories. This place is near my childhood home, one of the prime venues for the sporadic periods of normalcy me and my father spent together—some edgy times, too, often coming here to dodge my mother when she was bingeing on booze and downers and reds, or when she was just flipping out for no apparent reason.

  We approach the restaurant entrance and images of her are fast-forwarding, looping, fading in and out.

  My mother, god, talk about a Subject To Be Avoided.