Falling Into Place (6 page)

Tommy had crossed paths with Hector multiple times over the last few years and, despite being a lowlife degenerate, the pimp had always been straight with him. Of course, that might have something to do with Tommy’s reputation as a man who didn’t put up with bullshit. In fact, it was well known that he preferred to break various body parts with his bare hands than tolerate someone lying to him. It was the most obvious reason for his alliterative nickname.

Actually, he’d first been called “Two Fists” by his high school boxing coach. Tommy had always been ambidextrous and capable of inflicting damage with either hand. Coach Hamilton had come up with the name after his first knockout. Tommy liked the moniker enough to keep it long after high school. Once he began his career in organized crime, he felt it gave an intimidating reputation, which allowed him to get things done with just the threat of physical violence, more often than not.

In his younger days, Tommy had truly enjoyed taking someone apart just for the fun of it. Most people knew better than to test him and cooperated long before he needed to inflict any permanent damage. However, when Tommy was forced to lean on someone, he was a true artist in the medium of pain. This talent served him well as he made his own ascension up the ranks of the crime family. As he got older, “Two Fists” took a more diplomatic approach to problems, giving others a chance to talk
before
breaking something.

In this case, he was prepared to use every technique in his vast arsenal to find out what happened to Sandra Westhoff. If Hector Guerrero or anyone else, up to and including his partner, got in his way, they would know a world of hurt unlike anything they’d ever imagined. It was the only way Tommy McCabe did business: to the fullest extent of his rather impressive capabilities.

Hector Guerrero’s base of operations was in a newly renovated apartment building located in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan. Despite the refurbishment, the complex remained a den of drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal activities. The Manelli Family spent the necessary money in bribes to ensure it stayed that way. Hector had an apartment on the top floor: his “penthouse pad,” even though it was little more than a one- bedroom flop house.

As Tommy entered the building with the “work bag” he’d retrieved from the trunk of his car, a few of the haggard-looking working girls tried to sidle up to him. One look at his face told them it was “no sale.” He pounded on Hector’s door and waited, still and silent as death itself. After the third attempt, Tommy kicked in the door with the force of a howitzer. As the splintered doorframe cascaded to the ground, “Two Fists” entered the apartment and surveyed the scene. Slowly his lips twisted into a sneer as his face took on a slight crimson hue.

The first thing he noticed was the small table to the right of the door, littered with razorblades, syringes, pills, bags of cocaine, heroin, and other drug paraphernalia. Tommy placed his bag on the table and headed deeper into the apartment. There was a girl dressed only in a wife-beater T-shirt and purple thong lying face down on the bed. Tommy couldn’t I.D. the girl because her head was turned away from him toward the three windows heading out to the fire escape. The left window was smashed, obviously from the outside judging from the pieces of glass littering the floor and bed. On either side of the bed were bookcases filled with various DVDs, jewelry boxes, magazines and crumbled fast food bags. The top shelf of each bookcase had various teddy bears and other stuffed animals. Across from the foot of the bed was a flat screen television sitting on a dresser with the frozen image of a buxom porn star having sex with two men. Someone had paused it and never started it again.

Near the bed was an unconscious Hector Guerrero slumped over awkwardly, bleeding from his mouth. Blood was caked on his oversized moustache and his short, curly hair was covered in a fine, white powder. Probably cocaine, Tommy mused. He was dressed in a pair of N.Y. Knicks shorts, crew socks (the ones with the gold toes), and an average, Hanes, white V-neck T-shirt that looked like a family of four had used it as a napkin after a particularly messy meal. All in all, the pimp and his apartment looked like the aftermath of one hell of a party. As he made his way toward the bed, Tommy could hear the pimp’s labored breathing amid small, unintelligible grunts.

“Sloppy,” he muttered to himself. “Just fuckin’ sloppy.”

Before he could inspect further, the fixer noticed something odd. The bedroom closet was missing its door. It had been completely removed but with no apparent damage. The door stood leaning against the wall to the left of the closet, right next to the dresser with the TV on it. Upon closer inspection, Tommy realized the hinge pins had been removed and the still-locked door was simply taken out of the door frame and placed to the side. The door removal seemed strangely out of place amidst the other chaos and destruction. For no particular reason, he bent down and picked up the hinge pins, placing them in the right, inside pocket of his blazer.

Stranger still was what he discovered in the closet. On the floor was a makeshift bed, with a small couch pillow, a filthy, hole- filled blanket and half of a thin, stained mattress. Next to the mattress was a half-eaten bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, 3 soiled pairs of panties, and assorted empty water bottles. The closet itself stunk of urine, vomit and ass, a familiar combination to anyone who’d ever ridden the New York subway system. It was obvious that someone had been forced to live in there. Sandy Westhoff, maybe? Were these the lengths Hector went to break in his new girls? Tommy made a quick sweep of the rest of the apartment before finally making his way to the girl on the bed. He checked her pulse but didn’t find one. He turned her over gently and his world turned to shit. It was Sandra Westhoff.

“Aw, for fuck’s sake!” the fixer bellowed.

Senator Allan Westhoff’s little girl was dead in the roach-infested, dingy, drug den apartment of New York City’s most despicable pimp. This had officially become a fuck up of monumental proportions and Tommy had no doubt in his mind he’d be made to get the shit end of the stick because of it. In need of information and with only one place to get it, “Two Fists” went to the kitchen, retrieved a faded chair and roughly hoisted the still unconscious body of Hector Guerrero off the floor. He wasn’t very large, 5’10” and no more than 175 pounds, so Tommy had no trouble moving his limp body.

He sat the pimp in the chair and, unable to control his rising anger, punched Hector directly in the face. The punch shattered Hector’s nose and the pain briefly rousted the lowlife awake before he once again fell into the abyss of drug-induced oblivion. Blood flowed out of the unconscious pimp’s nose like a faucet. Tommy knew it would abate in a few minutes, but he wanted Guerrero to see it when he finally forced the lowlife awake. A large amount of his own blood on a man’s chest was another good motivator when asking questions. Fully aware of the time sensitive nature of the situation, the fixer nonetheless went to wash his hands before starting.

When he returned, Tommy screamed in Hector’s ear, “Wake up, asshole!” The unconscious pimp did not stir. The fixer slapped him across the face. Still no signs of life. Growing impatient, “Two Fists” resorted to some old-fashioned tactics. Luckily, there were two full ice cube trays and a half empty two-liter bottle of Sprite in the freezer and fridge. McCabe took the cap off the soda and carefully flexed the plastic trays until the cubes popped free but stayed in each cup. He calmly pulled open Guerrero’s basketball shorts and poured the 24 ice cubes down his pants before quickly emptying the Sprite over his head, while walking behind the chair. After a few seconds, Hector sprung to life.

“Wha – What the fuck! Hey! What?” Hector screamed as he tried to move to no avail. Tommy had made sure he wasn’t going anywhere with duct tape restraints. His wrists were taped in front of him with palms up; over a dozen strips were around his chest, waist and arms to further restrict movement, while his ankles were firmly taped to the legs of the chair on which he sat. After 30 seconds of frantic attempts to free himself, Hector’s body sagged and Tommy knew the reality of the situation was sinking into his pea brain. Only then did he walk around the chair and into the pimp’s line of vision.

“Hello, Hector,” Tommy said with an icy glare.

“Tommy Two Fists! Oh, shit! Hey...hey, what’s goin’ on, man?” Hector responded with sheer terror in his eyes. He kept squirming in an attempt to free the ice cubes from where they’d come to rest as he continued speaking, almost pleading, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, man, you know me. Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do nothing. I never do nothing, man.”

“Shut up, Hector.” Tommy got another chair and placed it in front of the other man, no more than 3 feet away. He got a TV tray from the kitchen and placed his bag on it. “Two Fists” then sat on the chair and casually removed a ball peen hammer, a pair of pliers, a box of razor blades, an ice pick and a vintage Italian switch blade. As he removed the items, he said in a very low, menacing voice, “Now, you and me are gonna have a little talk, okay? How that talk goes is up to you. But make no mistake, you
are
going to tell me what I want to know. Do you understand me, Hector?”

As each item appeared, Hector’s eyes got wider and wilder. They darted around the room, desperately searching for anyone or anything that could help him get out of this. Tommy couldn’t help but notice that Guerrero seemed fixated on the closet, his gaze repeatedly coming back to it. He briefly tried to get free again but the fixer’s furled brow quickly dispelled that notion. Hector looked into Tommy’s steely eyes as tears began to fill his own. The realization that he was at the mercy of organized crime’s most efficient and tenacious fixer eventually hit home and he began to whimper like a sick dog. Finally, the most feared and vicious pimp in the syndicate nodded yes over and over again as tears ran down his pock-marked cheeks and cocaine powder wafted down from his scalp.

Guerrero knew he was in deep shit but he had no idea why. “What’s going on, Tommy? Seriously, I ain’t done nothing wrong. Ain’t skimming or no shit like that, you gotta believe me, man!”

“This isn’t about any of that, Hector. It’s about that dead girl behind me. Remember her?” Tommy said without emotion.

“Princess? My princess is dead?” Guerrero shouted trying to look over McCabe’s shoulder to see. “Oh no, Tommy! You didn’t have to kill her, man! She was just some dumb bitch from the Midwest. She didn’t even turn her first trick yet,” Hector said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I didn’t kill her, you dumb fuck!” McCabe replied, his voice rising with each word. He took a breath to calm himself before continuing. “She was dead when I got here but I
was
looking for her. Now tell me what happened to her, Hector. And don’t even think about bullshitting me.” He picked up a razor blade, unwrapping it quickly.

“I don’t know, man! We was just havin’ some fun, that’s all! I swear! I didn’t do nothin’!” Hector said frantically.

“Hector, Hector, calm down. Just calm down.” Tommy spoke softly in a soothing, melodic tone. Then out of nowhere he sliced the palm of Hector’s left hand four times with the razor blade, causing the pimp to howl in pain.

“Now I’m going to ask you again and I don’t want any more of this ‘I don’t know’ shit, ok?” Tommy continued, taking out some fresh supplies from his bag: two lemons and a shaker full of salt. He gently wiped the blood from Hector’s palm as he said, “What happened here?” He then poured half the contents of the salt shaker into the captive man’s outstretched hand. Hector screamed in pain as Tommy rubbed the salt into the open wounds.

“I don’t – I mean, I mean we was partying, yeah we was doin’ some blow and some bags but Princess got sleepy after the dope so she laid down!” Hector said as fast as he could, hoping it would appease the fixer. “That’s what happened, man! For reals!”

“Two Fists” McCabe backhanded Hector across the face, blood flying out of the pimp’s mouth as it twisted to the right. He then took the ball peen hammer and smashed the big toe on Guererro’s right foot, causing the loudest screams yet. Hector began to stammer incoherently as Tommy grabbed the ice pick, moved around behind him, and forced him to look at the bed.

“Look at her, you lowlife piece of shit! Look! Does she look “tired” to you? She’s dead, motherfucker and you killed her!” the fixer screamed right next to his ear, spittle flying out of his mouth and mixing in with the blood on Hector’s t-shirt.

“No, no, no, no, no, man! I only gave her half a bag! No way she O.D’ed on that shit! No way, Tommy!” Hector pleaded, half crazed from the pain. “I always been straight with you, right? There ain’t no reason for me to hurt my Princess. I’m good to my girls.”

Tommy had to admit, Hector had a good point but his gut told him the pimp was hiding something and he didn’t have time to coax it out of him gently.
Shit!
Tommy thought to himself before plunging the ice pick into the soft spot between the clavicle and the acromion bone of Guerrero’s left shoulder. Tommy left Hector writhing in agony as he went to wash his hands.

By the time Tommy got back from the bathroom, the pimp was a whimpering, quivering mess. Tears, mucus, saliva and blood had congealed all over his face making it a disgusting smorgasbord of bodily fluids. Tommy sat down in front of him again without a hint of remorse.

“Please, Tommy, please. Don’t do this, man. I didn’t do nothin’. We was always cool...why you comin’ down on me like this, man? Why?” Hector pleaded between gasps for air. He sounded like a man with the worst head cold in history due to his continuous weeping. It was pathetic.

“You say you weren’t doing anything, just partying like normal, but one of your girls dies and you have absolutely no idea how that happened?” Tommy began quietly. “Let’s say I believe you, Hector.”

“You gotta believe-” was all Guerrero got out before “Two Fists” punched him in the left eye, snapping his head back like a rubber band. He groaned loudly but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

“Like I said, let’s say I believe you about ‘Princess.’ Here’s what I’m wondering, Hector. What happened to the window? Who did you have stashed away in that closet and how the fuck did that girl end up dead on your watch?” Tommy stood, once again causing Hector to flinch dramatically. Tommy got close to Guerrero’s right ear and whispered, “Do you have answers for me, Hector, or do I have to start getting serious with you?”