Sleep with the Fishes (8 page)

The second
week of May arrived the next morning with all horns blaring. A warm high-pressure front had rolled the cold air back to the north, stretching the sky in great flourishing streaks of stratospheric mares’ tails. Cool maroon shadows carpeted Hellbender Eddy; a hot purplish sky contrasted neon overhead.

Though Russ awoke from a dreamless night to the smell of fried ham, coffee, and cinnamon rolls, and even though he actually felt well rested, he remembered what had happened the night before. He lay there on Sid’s couch, a blanket pulled up to his nose, staring at the ceiling: police should have been called, eternal irrevocable shame and doom averted. He could hear Sid knocking around the kitchen, whistling tunelessly as a Frank Sinatra CD played. The percolator slurped along, but out of sync with “One for My Baby.”

As if he’d heard Russ’s eyes open, Sid marched into the living room, yanked on the curtain drawstring, and cranked open the picture window.

“C’mon, get up. C’mon, c’mon—outside, c’mon…”

Sid poked and jostled Russ out the front door, spooking a tizzy of skippers from the daffodils next to the cabin. They marched off the portico and into the side yard, where Sid planted Russ and squared his shoulders. Russ stood squinting uneasily at the river, wiggling his toes in tube socks wet from the grass.

Many people would have liked to believe that men like Sid Bifulco were criminally insane, that they were, in point of fact, evil. Could sane, rational, emotionally balanced people murder? And yet there were model citizens who made a living crawling through sewers, eviscerating cattle, or performing autopsies on putrefied remains. Perhaps people could sanely do almost anything, irrespective of good or bad, revolting or repugnant, violent or vile, if it was suitably rationalized. For some, killing was not evil, rather the apotheosis of rationality, in that death is inevitable, final, and ultimately irrelevant.

This was not to say murder came easily to an otherwise sane person. For Sid, it was difficult the first few times. But as death became familiar, it almost rationalized itself, a process often facilitated with some spiritual guidance. And in the insular world of wiseguys, there was often an old hand to point out the path to vindication.

“Russ, look at the tree, the big, sticky, Christmas-type tree over my cabin. It’s alive, am I right? Now the cabin. What’s it made of, Russ? It’s made of logs, am I right? Now think about this: do the logs know they’re dead?”

Russ just blinked. It was occurring to him that whenever Sid opened his mouth, Russ felt like he’d just smoked a joint.

“Now think about this. Did you ever notice the logs was dead? No, you didn’t, did you? O.K., now look at the river. Look at it. What is it? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a bunch of water rolling down the hill toward Trenton. Think about this, Russ. How long has this river been flowing? Long before Trenton was ever there, am I right? Long before you an’ me was born. Maybe before anybody was born, anybody at all. And I’ll tell you something, Russ. It’ll be flowing a long time after everybody dies. A long time after this cabin rots away. A long time after this big Christmas tree is nothing but mulch. And nobody—nobody, Russ—will even remember they was here. But they was alive once, and that’s the only thing that ever matters to the tree, and the logs back when they was alive. So let’s go have breakfast.”

Russ stood in the side yard for some minutes after Sid had gone inside, a bit dazed and decidedly confused. Whatever Sid was on about, it sounded like it should make sense. Eventually Russ turned, went in, sat down at a card table on the screened porch, and ate breakfast in silence.

He cut through two slabs of ham and three cinnamon rolls, and as he raced Sid on a third cup of coffee, the sun crested the opposite bank of the river, filling the porch from the top down with lemony spring light.

Russ cleared his throat. “Where is he, Sid?”

Sid was eating a cinnamon roll with a knife and fork. He didn’t even miss a beat.

“He’s gone, Russ, plain and simple. I took him away where he’ll rest for all time. I took him to where only God can find him, and you can be damned sure he will too. Where he goes after God gets through with him?” Sid pointed his fork at the floor and winked at Russ.

“Anyways, I figure we’d do a little fishing today. My idea—well, what I’d like to start with is smallmouth bass.” Sid lifted the percolator to fill their mugs. His parole officer, the guy who expected “bronze backs,” was sure to be his first visitor, and he knew it’d be important to impress upon him how well he was fitting back into society.

“But what about—”

“Your friends? Your friends are good people, Russ. They understand. Last night you hit a tree. See?”

Russ pivoted, and through a hole in the bushes next to the pin oak on Ballard Pond he could see his truck, the front wrapped around a tree.

“A tree?”

“Sure.” Sid wiped his mouth with a napkin, sniffed, and scooted out his chair. “C’mon.”

A leisurely stroll across the Ballard dam breast to Russ’s yard and driveway took them to where the truck was firmly pressed into a tree. The bark was torn and everything.

Leading him to the passenger side, Sid wrenched the door open with difficulty and ushered Russ into the driver’s seat.

“A tree,” Russ mumbled, almost believing—almost. After all, he hadn’t seen the actual collision. It could have been a tree, couldn’t it? The sun was as bright and blinding as the night had been dark and ominous.

“You hit a tree, Russ. I think a mechanic’ll find that your steering box cracked when you turned the wheel and the gears locked, seized up, and was steered right into the tree. You’re a lucky guy. You mighta been hurt. Big Bob said he’ll send a truck over to tow this beast into the shop for repairs—on me. I can’t stand to watch you mess with that truck on such a beautiful day. Besides, you an’ me got a deal. I helped you with your problem. You help me with mine. Now let’s go fishing, huh, Russ?”

Omer had
his Karmann Ghia pointed back to New York when he stopped at a pay phone next to a general store whose side advertised “Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco.” He hadn’t seen one of those since he hooked up with Arthur Bremer at a covered bridge outside Milwaukee in 1972. And to think with four bullets Bremer couldn’t kill Democratic candidate George Wallace. Well, four more shell casings for Omer’s collection.

“Hullo.” The background clatter was either that of a bottling plant or a bowling alley.

“It’s Mr. Phillips. Good news. Johnny Fest is out of the game, permanently. Believe it or not, he had an accident—run over by a truck.” Omer pushed back his wool crusher and let the sun warm his face.

“As long as it’s fixed, that’s all. Who did the job?”

“A neighbor—name of Russ Smonig—ran him over with a truck when he came home last night. Fest was just approaching our Bifulco’s cabin, and I was in position to intervene…” Omer filled his nostrils with the heady fumes of warm morning grass.

“What was the name again? Spell it.”

“Who? The neighbor in the truck?”

“Spell it.”

“R-U-S-S S-M-O-N-I-G.”

“I’ll call from another number, in a little bit. Don’t move.” The line went dead.

Omer dangled the receiver by a single index finger before sending it home. The store was closed Sundays, but some loose change got him a Hires from a bottled pop machine. Been ages since he’d seen one of those. It reminded him of a cold Sunday in Harlem, a gas station, and a meeting with Talmadge Hayer. Now there was a fellow who knew how to do the job. He not only blasted Malcolm X with a shotgun, but then others stepped up with pistols and finished him off. The shells from that incident took up almost a whole shelf.

Sitting on the edge of his blue sports car, he drank his Hires and didn’t think about what had made his employer nervous. Omer had learned long ago not to ask too many questions, even if only of himself.

A crow plunked down on a crab apple tree across the road and surveyed the stranger with a jocular eye. Arching an eyebrow at his audience, Omer watched as the crow hopped to another branch, cocked its head at him, and stood on one leg. The bird’s beak was open, and its red dagger tongue flicked as though it was about to say something.

The pay phone rang, breaking the staring match. Omer climbed the porch.

“We got problems, Mr. Phillips.” A steady hiss and racket punctuated the statement. Sounded like a body shop.

“Problems are my business.” The crow started to make excited, dice-in-a-cup sounds behind Omer’s back.

“There’s a contract out on this Smonig guy. Has been for ten years.”

Omer pulled the receiver away and looked at the handset like it had licked him. A contract on Smonig? “What do you want me to do?”

“For now, just listen. You remember anything about Georgi Ristocelli and a pal gettin’ gunned down in front of Neglio’s in Hartford? Five guys pulled the job. You and I are interested in the welfare of one of ’em, though he didn’t touch a trigger. Well, do you also remember how there was all kindsa witnesses that the cops have been looking for ever since?”

“Yes, I remember. It’s been on television, I think.”

“You bet it was, on that show
Mug Shots
. They reenacted the whole thing just recently, said how they was looking for those same witnesses. But just between you, me, an’ the wall, we happen to know they’ll never find those witnesses.”

“I see,” Omer said flatly. He didn’t want to seem too interested. Frankly, he wasn’t.

“No, you don’t see, Mr. Phillips. One of these witnesses was a young woman named Sandra Jones, who as it happens was this guy Smonig’s wife.”

“I see.”

“Sure, they made it look like an accident, like the steering went out on her car, but this guy Russell was thrown clear of the wreck and survived. Said he saw someone at the wreck with a gun who called him Evel Knievel. It was Smonig’s contention that somebody had messed with the steering box. Nobody bought it. Her family, his family was all burned up at him for makin’ the fuss, an’ sudden-like he’s gone. Which suited us fine. The contract was pretty much a ‘when or where’—no big deal, so it’s kinda forgot, what with inflation and all. And now, since the Palfutti family is history…

“The deal is this: we don’t think she ever told him about bein’ a witness or he woulda used that t’convince the cops she was whacked. Yeah. He couldn’t see too good after the wreck, but he might recognize our friend as the guy who showed up with the gun. If not now, maybe later. An’ he might start askin’ questions. I dunno. Anyhow, I guess our friend don’t recognize Smonig either.”

“I see.” Omer did, finally, see.

“A delicate matter, Mr. Phillips. We don’t want anything to upset our friend’s retirement, make him seek out the Witness Protection Program, maybe cut some more deals with the Feds that might be bad for us. Our sources say he’s got some kinda incriminatin’ evidence stashed, the kind that might find its way to the DA even if he was dead. Yeah, but likewise, we don’t want our friend to go into a more permanent retirement ’cause quite frankly we’re hoping to reactivate him at some point. You know, on a specialty basis, somethin’ like you, Mr. Phillips. Craftsmen is hard to come by. Lot of ’em in jail these days. Speaking of which, what happened to Fest?”

“Bifulco took care of it, just like old times, you might say. And it seems Smonig and Bifulco have decided to forget the whole thing.”

“Heh-heh.” There was only morbid satisfaction in the chuckles. “Just like ol’ times. Where are they now, what’s the picture?”

“They went fishing.”

Silence on the other end. A car started, an air compressor rattled to a stop.

“Look out for our friend, Mr. Phillips, look out for our friend. I guess one way to work it would be t’eliminate this guy Smonig, but that might get the cops on Sid’s case. I mean, he’s a convicted murderer, an’ livin’ right next door. Another way to look at it, if Smonig somehow, like, finds out Sid is the guy that did his wife, he may be very pissed with our boy Bifulco. It’s your call, Mr. Phillips, but for now maybe you better just try’n figure out exactly what Smonig knows while playin’ guardian angel for Sid. See Smonig don’t send Bifulco to sleep with the fishes.” The line went dead.

When Omer turned away from the phone, he found the crow perched on his gearshift knob, pecking at loose change in the car’s ashtray. The crow flapped madly, dropped a few feathers, and made for the sky, something silver gleaming in its beak.

Omer took off his crusher and played with the brim as he searched the sky for the thief.

“A delicate matter indeed.”

Hands on her hips, Val shook her head at Little Bob, who lay sprawled on the couch before a snow-filled TV screen. He knew better than to try to bed down with the missus when he came in late. That just got him a lecture, especially on a Sunday.

Tapes were scattered about the VCR, camcorder open and empty nearby. Val sniffed derisively when she confronted the clutter. Why couldn’t they have a DVD player like most people? Over at the Show Time Videomat the selection of VHS tapes was getting smaller and smaller. Her sister in Pittsburgh said that they don’t even rent VHS format at all anymore where she lives. And then Bob had to buy that silly VHS camcorder at a tag sale.

White go-to-meeting gloves in hand, she singled out the rental boxes for
Reverend Jim Chattanooga’s Jesus Jamboree
and
The Elvis Conspiracy
. Then she initiated the search for the tapes. One was on the floor. Oh—and the other tape she’d left in the machine. She’d fallen asleep in front of the TV waiting for Bob, and had finally dragged herself off to the bedroom around three a.m., a lecture fermenting in her mind. Training the evil eye on her prone hubby, she stuffed the tape one way, then the other into the tape box. Darned if she could remember which way they were supposed to go in.

Besides, she was in a hurry. She wanted to drop the tapes off at the Videomat “Nite Deposit” before church.

At the screen door, she stabbed sleeping Bob with a last reproachful glare. Wouldn’t
he
feel guilty for having missed services.