Death Wish (16 page)

“Attend the dead! Attend the dead! The murderer later! The murderer later!”
she heard them instruct.

Mayme looked at her wristwatch in the glow of the altar. She had given the undertaker a special fee. Yes, it was now late enough to slip into the mortuary morgue and properly release Larry's spirit.

She called to notify the undertaker she was on her way. Soon, she sat in her parked Mustang near the rear of the funeral home. A moment later, the garage door swung up. She carried a suitcase down the sidewalk. The undertaker led her past several limousines and a hearse, then through a door. The mortuary morgue reeked of formaldehyde.

The undertaker went through a side door. The only light in the room was an overhead spot focused on the nude corpse of Bone. She went to the porcelain table and stared at the butchered remains.

With a strangled cry she flung herself on the bloated coldness and kissed his hands folded across his chest. She held her face against his for a long while and sobbed uncontrollably for the first time in her life. While she stroked the hideous wounds with her fingertips, she chanted, through bared teeth, a Haitian vow of vengeance.

From the suitcase she took a small urn containing gunpowder. She lit and flung a match. There was a whooshing flash that would drive away her brother's enemies. She forced a pinch of arsenic powder between his stiffened lips. This to protect his eternal sleep from sorcerers who might awaken him and press him into everlasting enslavement as a zombie.

Then she embraced him and shrilled her vow of vengeance until her voice was a whisper. Finally, she slipped out into the night and drove home heavy with sorrow.

Mayme walked the floor until dawn thinking about Larry and herself as children. She remembered what a harsh lot it was to be the children of lowly peasants, half-starving and half-naked most of the time. But worst of all, for her at least, was the utter facelessness, her tortuous feeling of nonbeing, as anonymous as the insects.

She was having coffee when the phone rang. She picked it up. A Warrior under instructions from Taylor persuaded her to ignore the police theory of Bone's death. He convinced her it had to be Southside enforcer Collucci who was responsible for Bone's murder. He assured her that the Warriors were very eager to kill Collucci. Mayme promised to give her life if necessary to achieve their mutual goal.

Then she went into her temple. She gave thanksgiving to her friends, the all-powerful and wise Loas, for revealing Collucci as the murderer of her brother.

T
he day had come to put Tit For Tat Taylor to sleep. Collucci was alone behind the locked door of his study. One wall of the study was a bookcase crammed with works from Shakespeare to Schopenhauer. High up near the ceiling was an extremely well-thumbed volume of illustrated examples of human sex organ deformities and transsexuality. The urgency of removing Tat Taylor had given him no time to open a book in weeks. Not even his favorite.

Now he concentrated on matters that related to the everlasting sleep of Joe Tonelli.

Collucci stood before a mirror, bearded and mustached in the image of Dinzio “The Sphinx.” He mimicked into a tape recorder microphone the mumbly voice of “The Sphinx.” Collucci listened for the dozenth time to the playback and smiled his satisfaction.

Listening intently, he was unaware that Angelo had pulled the limousine into the driveway. Angelo got out and opened the rear door for Olivia and for Bellini, invited to Olivia's celebrated lasagna on the cook's day off.

Olivia and Bellini went into the entrance hall. They removed their coats before seating themselves in the living room. After brief chitchat, Olivia went to the kitchen to prepare her specialty.

Bellini listened to the odd sound of Collucci's muffled rehearsal. He rose and went across a hallway toward the door of the study, then halted abruptly several feet away. He was surprised and shocked to hear what was unmistakably the voice of Tonelli's most trusted bodyguard, miles from his responsibility.

Bellini's further curiosity was impelled by the memory of Collucci's hide-out derringers at the Tonelli conference. He put his ear against the door to hear the repetitious droning. Bellini went quickly back to the living room and pondered the mystery.

Collucci switched off the recorder. He stripped off and secreted the Dinzio beard, Old Country mustache and tape. Then he went into the living room and greeted Bellini with a wide smile and a warm embrace.

Bellini said, “Giacomo, how about letting me pick your pocket for a couple of sawbucks before lunch?”

Collucci bowed extravagantly and flung his palms out toward the study. Every play of the cards was a misadventure for Bellini. He was preoccupied with the mystery of Dinzio's voice.

At lunch Collucci watched Bellini pick at his favorite dish and said, “Papa, have you found a new great love that steals your appetite?”

Bellini shook his head and said softly, “No, Giacomo, not after my Angelita.” He paused and looked squarely into Collucci's eyes. “Perhaps even our simple pleasures eventually desert us like false friends near the end.”

Collucci grunted and said as he rose from the table, “Papa, a guy can say hello to you lately and you're going to bend his ear with a buck and half worth of cracker-barrel philosophy.”

Olivia and Bellini looked at each other as Collucci stomped from the dining room.

Olivia said, “What on earth . . . ?”

Bellini leaned toward her and squeezed her hand. “Don't be upset, my dear. I was not offended,” he said as he rose from the table.

He stood beside her chair looking down into her upturned face, bright with concern, patted her shoulder, and said, “I am very sorry I could not eat more of your delicious food. I will devour even the plate next time.”

Olivia rose and followed him to the entrance hall coatrack. She said, “Have one more cup of coffee before I ring Angelo.”

He shook his head and slipped into his overcoat with her help. “Angelo said his wife is ailing; let him nurse her,” he said. “Besides, I need the walk to the cabstand.”

She kissed his cheek and said as he opened the door, “I apologize for Jimmy . . . he . . . Well, one of his playmates has probably picked up her marbles and he'll be uptight for a hot week or so.” Immediately she regretted revealing her bitterness.

Bellini said, “I am afraid his problem is not that simple.”

She said, “Papa Bell, do you know something . . . something about him, some danger or trouble I should know about?”

Bellini embraced her waist. He looked down into her anxious eyes and lied. “I don't really know anything that you should worry about. Persuade him to take you away for a while to some new, quiet place. Perhaps he can reacquaint himself with you and realize his good fortune. It will be a blessing for his health to escape the pressures of his business and ambition.”

She said, “If there was something bad . . . unpleasant, you wouldn't spare me? You would have faith in my strength?”

He said, “You are a Tonelli, and I would trust you with my life.” He cupped his monstrous hands. “Since I held you like this at your christening, the Bellinis and Tonellis have comingled their blood and trusts, and for five hundred years before that. Need I remind you my Angelita was sister to your father's mother?”

She shook her head and said, “I too would trust you with my life, Papa Bell.”

She brushed his cheek with her lips as he turned and stepped away. Then she pushed the door shut. She sensed a presence behind her as she looked through the front window at Bellini striding down the walk. His silky mane of hair was like a platinum skullcap in the sunlight. She turned her head to glance at Collucci's tight face standing behind her looking past her at Bellini.

Bellini halted on the sidewalk as Petey's private school bus pulled up. Petey got off the bus and ran into Bellini's outstretched hands.

She said without turning her eyes from the window, “Jimmy, you were an ass, and you should apologize to Papa Bell.”

Collucci grunted and said, “When he apologizes for his senility. Already he's reading minds. Next, he'll have his exclusive hot line to Mars or somewhere out there. Olivia, you stop calling me names . . . talking to me like that, or I'll swat some tone into that old bouncy butt of yours.”

She turned and gave him a treacherous hooded look. She hissed, “Wretched bastard!” Then she turned to greet Petey with a warm bright smile.

Collucci went to the kitchen back door and put his hand on the doorknob. He turned and went to the dining room. He swept a vase of fresh flowers off the buffet, then went to the breakfast nook where he scooped up a bowl of fruit and went out the back door to Angelo's apartment.

Angelo opened the door, and Collucci stepped into the neatly arranged living room, brightly decorated in turquoise and red. He placed flowers and fruit on the coffee table next to Angelo's butterball wife napping on the couch. Her olive face was pale and moist with flu.

Angelo said, “Maria will be cheered.”

Collucci nodded and pointed to his wristwatch.

Angelo said, “Five minutes.”

Collucci shut the door and went up the stone steps leading to Lollo “The Surgeon” Stilotti's second-story apartment. Collucci drummed his knuckles on the door. The door opened, and Stilotti's half-naked bulk almost filled the door frame. Collucci glanced past him at Stilotti's possum-faced blonde. Her forty-eight boobs spilled into a tray as she munched lunch in bed.

Collucci whispered, “Lollo, I need you . . . in five minutes.”

Stilotti looked petulant and stroked stubble on his jaw.

Collucci intoned, “Five minutes,” and went down the steps.

Olivia was in the master bedroom repairing a broken fingernail when Collucci went to get his black Melton overcoat. She gazed at him and thought how well it went with the dove-gray Brooks Brothers suit he was wearing.

Perversely, she went and plucked a dot of lint off his coat sleeve and said, “Ah! At least there's a bit of business she won't perform for me.”

He said, “Madame Paranoia, clean your fucking crystal ball and see it's your father's lousy business again. Just for laughs I ought to take you along.” He whirled out of the room.

She hurled at his back, “I apologize if I'm wrong this time, Rubber Dick!”

Collucci scowled and hurried to the limo for the trip to kill Taylor at Rachel's uncle's funeral.

Angelo was behind the wheel. Collucci signaled him to remain, then he climbed into the Caddie. Collucci and Angelo laughed to see Stilotti with his collar and tie askew lumber down the driveway and trip on an untied shoelace. Stilotti crashed, bounced, and landed on his rear end. He struggled mightily to rise and then sat there, his outrage and embarrassment twitching his pink face.

Angelo went and helped him to his feet. Stilotti hoisted himself into the front seat, then Angelo backed the Caddie through the electronically opened gate of steel bars.

When they got to Phil's white stucco house in suburban Cicero, Stilotti, Phil's first cousin, went to the door. Phil's oldest son
admitted him. Stilotti fought to keep his face straight as he sat in the living room watching Phil's Amazon wife, Ella, draping and pinning material on Phil's gaunt frame.

Phil darted a look at Stilotti as he shucked himself free of the cloth. “I'm the only one in the house close to her height,” Phil said as he straightened his checkered bow tie and hunched his shoulders. “So, I'm the dummy for the dress she's making for when Junior gets his degree in pharmacology next week.”

Stilotti glanced at his watch and rose from the sofa. He grinned and said, “Filippo, with some silicone up front—” Stilotti's hands made a pinching gesture.
“Marone!”

They laughed. Phil led the way through the house and out the back door to his workbench in the garage. He took an encased .257 Weatherby Magnum rifle off a shelf and slipped it free of its case before passing it to Stilotti, who hefted it and examined it with satisfaction.

“A lotta rifle.”

Phil said, “Yeah, with the 180-grain slugs the boss is gonna get high speed and the accuracy that goes with it.”

Stilotti said, “Sanitary?”

Phil said, “Yeah, a hundred and ten percent untraceable!”

Stilotti gestured toward the large Buick sedan in the garage. “That's the transportation?”

Phil said, “Uh-huh, and also a Dodge already stashed in a drop with clean plates.”

They got in the Buick. Phil drove to the street. Angelo and Collucci followed a block behind as the Buick cruised toward the far Southside. Phil pulled to the curb at a light honk of the Caddie's horn. Collucci and Stilotti switched places in the cars. Angelo drove the Caddie to the Dodge sitting in a two-car garage behind a fire-gutted house. Angelo and Stilotti transferred to the Dodge. Several miles later, Phil turned into an alley and drove past a row of condemned tenements.

“Mr. Collucci, you know I'd be happy to do the job on this dinge,” Phil said seriously.

Collucci said, “Phil, you do it, I'll feel only half good. For most of my life I've wanted to put him to sleep. Today is my day to feel all good!” He chuckled, “And besides, Phil, even with a scope, at four hundred yards, maybe you'd be slightly unsure going for the noggin. You're damn good, Phil, but not for this one.”

Phil shrugged and braked behind a corner tenement. They got out and stepped toward the abandoned building and noticed Angelo and Stilotti walking down the alley toward them. The Dodge was parked in the backyard of a condemned house.

Collucci and Phil went up a scabrous stairway through the stench of ancient urine to a rubble-strewn apartment on the fourth floor.

Collucci stood wide-legged and flexed his gloved fingers like a gunfighter before a showdown in the Old West. He sat down on a tattered sofa covered with newspaper that Phil had positioned the day before.