Death Wish (24 page)

Porta's voice was low. “It took me thirty years to get that office downtown. Jimmy, I won't let you coup de grâce even a nigger before five young bastards with assholes itching to move up in the department, any way that turns up.”

Porta turned a flashlight on Taylor's now unconscious face and his gaping wounds spurting blood with his every heartbeat. He whispered, “Jimmy, this shine will be DOA at County . . .”

The squad pounded on scene and stood gazing down at Taylor.

Porta said, “Yablonski, get back to the car and call a wagon out here.”

But the screaming woman in the tenement window had long ago
called the Wabash Avenue Police Station to report a man downed by gunfire.

Yablonski, the cop, backed the police car out of the alley to allow the yowling ambulance to barrel down the alley to Taylor.

Both of the black paramedics recognized Taylor instantly. One of them had a relative who was a Warrior. They fed plasma into him immediately. During the short ride to Provident Hospital's emergency intensive care facility, Taylor was given the gentlest handling. At the hospital he was prepared for immediate surgery and tranfusions of blood.

Porta walked back with Collucci to the limo, gouged and dented by Taylor's rifle. Angelo's moon face was solemn as he moved a flashlight beam across Collucci's rumpled clothing, looking for wounds and hand-brushing grit off the back of Collucci's overcoat.

Collucci said, “What hospital, Paul?”

Porta shrugged. “Not to County, that's a cinch. Those two spades are his fans. They would probably spring out of their own pockets to get him into the nearest and the best . . . Provident is my guess. You got no problems. The guy can't make it . . . and Tonelli and City Hall want him planted.”

Collucci got into the limo beside Angelo and lit a cigarette. He blew out a gust of smoke and said, “Paul, if that cocksucker makes it, I'm going to find a way to finish him in there.”

Porta blew through the air in exasperation and said, “At best, he'll be a helpless cripple. I'm telling you to celebrate.” He turned away.

Angelo moved the limo away.

After frequent glances at his boss's inscrutable face, Angelo broke the long silence as he tooled the limo toward River Forest. “Jimmy, is everything peaches—?”

The sudden expression of extreme annoyance on Collucci's face cut off Angelo.

Collucci said sharply, “Cut the gab! Alright? I'm kicking around some angles.”

Then he turned and sat staring through the windshield. He laid out for himself the negatives threatening his giddy dream, the risks and pitfalls, his upcoming complex and dangerous kidnap of Dinzio, Tonelli's bodyguard.

His jaw writhed in excitement as he visualized himself moving past the hawkeyed gauntlet of garage guards, past the machine gunner in the dome above the elevator to the penthouse. He watched himself as Dinzio, stepping out into the lounge command post moiling with Tonelli's torturers and assassins. He smiled, and an ecstatic shiver shook him as he saw himself press Dinzio's electronic device in his palm that swung open the vault door to Tonelli's inner sanctum.

His jaw lumped. The deadliest obstacle would be mass sleep for the other National Commission's ancient cocksuckers.

He was led into laying out for himself the positives favoring his dream of succession as monarch of the kingdom of Chicago . . . and after that . . . ?
Capo di Tutti Capi! Boss of All Bosses!

Porta was right. He had finished Taylor. Even if Taylor made it, his bullets had blown away Taylor's image as a leader. He would be pathetic with his hooligan pride trapped in a wheelchair. Scratch Taylor!

Scratch Cocio within mere days! Suddenly as Angelo pulled into the mansion's driveway, heady jolts of power and euphoria trembled him.

He stepped out of the car and said across the seat, “Angelo, have a good night's sleep . . . Everything is peaches and cream.”

I
da Schmidt opened the door of her Gold Coast apartment to let out a stout cheapskate wearing a vicuna overcoat. Standing there in the soft shadowing hallway light and smiling her economical fifty-buck smile, the one that didn't show her imperfect teeth, Ida Schmidt was more than a fair ringer for the young Olivia Tonelli Collucci.

She moved beneath the living-room chandelier, and brassy Roman candles streaked from her mane of blond hair. But purer ones showered from Olivia's golden fleece.

She went to the bathroom where she stripped off her nightgown and stood before the washbasin. Putting one foot on the commode cover, she dabbed a soapy washcloth at armpits and crotch. Then she brightened her makeup for Cocio, who was Larry Fillmore to her, she let him think.

Her face close up in the mirror was stained with whiskey blotch. The feet and fists of her pimp, who OD'ed the week she met Cocio, had rashed her face with scars.

As she blotted her lipstick, she remembered that Cocio had been so excited by his first sight of her, he slammed on the brakes. Hazarding life and limb, he leaped from his car and sprinted through the heavy traffic.

She was properly indignant to force apology for the crudeness of his sidewalk approach to a lady. Then she let him con her into his car. She was glad she had let him muscle into her life. She had to admit old Larry Fillmore had the weirdest hangups of all her johns. But he was the best, buckwise, she thought as she went into the bedroom with her trademark sway of sexy hips and butt double dimpled.

She took a nun's habit, stained with semen, from the closet and quickly returned it. For tonight's date she remembered she had been told to wear the bridal gown. Her nose crinkled at the rank odor of the semen-encrusted gown. Nevertheless, she wiggled into it. It was an expensive replica of the peach peau de soie gown Olivia had worn at her wedding and at the reception on the Tonelli estate that night her beauty broke the rhythm of Cocio's heart.

Ida adored herself for a moment in the dresser mirror, cocooned in the new blue mink maxi Cocio had orgasmed her with on her thirtieth birthday.

She gazed at a group picture on the dresser of herself at fifteen with her ma and pa and brothers and sisters, towheaded and tattered on the stoop of the cedar chopper's shack down in Walberg, Texas.
Holy Toledo, I was pretty that year the trucker brought me here,
she thought as she turned away.

She felt suddenly very tired as she locked her door and headed for the elevators. Halos of frozen fire glittered on her fingers as she pressed the “down” button. Quickly she jerked her eyes from her haggard reflection in the elevator door glass.

A twinge of pain razored her hip and her right leg buckled and went dead for a long moment.

I've got to be the loneliest, ass-draggingest hooker in Chicago,
she thought as she rode down to the garage.

•  •  •

Two of Spino's terrible Bomato assassins from Sicily watched for the highway approach just outside Chicago of Cocio's Jag. They peered from the office of one of Cocio's chain of motels, darkened except for a pale desk-lamp light.

They did not expect or fear discovery. They trusted the renowned casing skill of Collucci's undertakers, Marty and Freddie Rizzo.

They learned from the undertakers that Cocio always closed down the motel for his dates with Ida. He gave his employees a day and night off, with a bonus and instructions to stay off the motel grounds. On those occasions, Cocio needed absolute privacy with Ida to act out, suffer, and enjoy his love-hate fantasies about Olivia Collucci.

The fox-and-bull team of Bomatos tensed and grinned at each other as they ducked down into the office murk.

Cocio's Jag pulled off the highway into the motel driveway. He coasted to the steel gates of the ten-foot chain-link fence. He didn't notice, as he turned his key in the lock on the gate chain, the metal-painted putty on a sawed-through link of the chain. But then, neither had he spotted the Bomatos' sedan hidden in a stand of trees down the road.

He pulled the chain through to swing open the double gates. Then he pulled the Jag inside the fence and sat smoking a cigarette as he watched the highway in the rearview mirror. On his second puff he spotted Ida's silver El Dorado approaching. She drove inside the fence, and Cocio relocked the gates. Ida followed the Jag to the end of the most distant row of rooms.

The Bomatos watched Cocio insert his key and unlock the unit that he had completely mirrored from ceiling to wall-to-wall polar bear carpeting.

Ida stepped inside. Immediately she flung her coat on the bed and stood near the door with emotion twisting her face. She was prepping for the familiar scenario with Cocio.

Cocio sat inside the Jag smoking nervously. He was eager to have his fantasies about Olivia become real for him in the scenario.

Inside the office, the sharp-faced Bomato waved his brother to the plastic garbage bag they brought along. They stripped off their clothes, opened the bag, and put on rubber boots and glossy peg leg jumpsuits. They were of a rubbery plastic that had the dull sheen of the rubber aprons worn by the butcher knife masters of the heart shot down in the stockyards.

The Bull took the master key from a board above the desk and dropped it into his jumper breast pocket. He sat down beside his brother. They watched Cocio go inside. Then they lit up strong black cigars to enjoy while waiting for the couple to settle in.

Cocio stepped through the door and frowned annoyance to see Ida. He said, “You goddamn slut. Why have you come here on your wedding night?”

She clutched at him with an agonized face as he shucked out of his clothes. His forty-five automatic fell silently to the fur rug from his overcoat pocket.

She pleaded, “Please forgive me! It was a mistake. I love you.”

He curled his lips. “What can a lousy tramp like you know about love? Get out of here, Olivia! Get out of here before I kick you to pieces!” He was nude and breathing hard.

She knelt, remembering the script, and looked up piteously at him. “Let me rest beside you. Please . . . Your body is so slender and cute . . . so exciting to me.”

She pressed her face into his crotch and sobbed as she embraced his legs.

He slugged the side of her head, and she screamed as she toppled backward. She spread her legs so she'd fall to expose the crimson lining of her organ.

She lay blubbering, begging him over and over, “Please say you love me! Please say you love me!”

He screamed over and over, “Olivia, you slut, I hate you!” He beat himself inside his fist to the rhythm of her wailing.

He climaxed. His legs trembled as he stood over her and fouled the bridal gown. Glistening with sweat he staggered backward and fell panting across the bed.

She stripped off the gown and kissed his lips as she lay down beside him, stroking his temple and dabbing tissues at his brow.

He said breathlessly, “Damn that was good! . . . Ida, you were just great.”

She crooned, “So were you, Larry, sweetie.”

He got up and went to the bathroom for a shower. She lay back to enjoy a cigarette until she would shower. Then for an hour or so they would pet and fondle each other before saying good-bye.

Inside the motel office, the Bull armed himself with a hatchet to carry out Collucci's beheading clause in the contract. The Fox gripped a length of lead pipe and stuck a thirty-eight pistol, with attached silencer, into his jumper pockets. They locked their street clothes in the office and crept through the darkness toward the only light for miles around.

Ida stiffened in bed, a cigarette dangled from her frozen face. She was almost certain she'd heard a noise above the shower racket. It had been just outside the door, something like the sound a basketball player's shoes make in sharp braking.

She had one foot on the floor pointed for the shower when they oozed through the door. The Fox scowled and aimed the thirty-eight at the center of her forehead. His brother shushed his own lips with an index finger. She felt a shriek of panic building up.

But she was amused at her last thought before her mind bank exploded. The fat round silencer at the muzzle of the thirty-eight reminded her of her pa at the movies. He had taught her at five to
sneak her hand so smoothly under the straw hat on his lap that Ma and none of the kids ever knew she played with Pa's tool.

She was dead with three eyes staring up at them from the floor. But the Fox pumped a slug into her navel when they passed anyway.

They stood at the half-open bathroom door. Steam swirled around their heads when they stepped inside. They stood loosely watching Cocio's shadow through the curtain, soaping itself.

Cocio reminded himself to take some mint sherbet home to Mama Victoria. He threw his head back and raggedly sang a few lyrics of her torch song. They laughed out loud to see his pipe stem frame shake with the effort.

Cocio's throat locked. He stood very still and cocked his head to one side like a baby chick listening to the rustle of a weasel. Tile squeaked their boot soles as they came to the shower. Cocio knew instantly his only chance was to somehow get past them to the forty-five in his overcoat pocket.

He stepped from beneath the showerhead and turned off the cold water. Hot water hissed from the head, and a mist of steam enveloped Cocio. He whipped back the curtain at the same instant that he punched up the shower nozzle with the heel of his hand.

They threw their hands up to their faces against the scalding spray as he leaped for the thin space between them at the moment they ducked down and rushed him. The impact knocked him to the flooded tile.

They seized his throat and privates, but their hands slipped off his soapy body. He rolled toward the door as they cursed and stomped him. The Bull hacked down at him with the hatchet and lost his balance on the slippery floor and the hatchet clattered to the tile.

Cocio rolled and snatched up the hatchet. The Fox stepped back and fired at his heart. He turned quickly, and the bullet shattered his left buttock and skidded him through the flood of hot water to the doorway.