A Quiet Vendetta

NINETEEN

Angel and I, we went out to the West Coast of America; to California, named after an island in the Spanish novel Las Sergas de Esplandian by García Ordónez de Montalvo.

The Land of Happily Ever After; the Big Sur coastline where the Santa Lucia mountains rise straight out of the sea; the northern coast, rugged and desolate, deep banks of impenetrable fog; the dormant volcano Mount Shasta; beyond this, vast groves of one- and two-thousand-year-old redwood trees.

Los Angeles, The Angels, surrounded to the north and east by the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, but despite the vision and the apparent romance of this place, despite the promise of sun, of twenty miles of white sand and warmth at the Santa Monica beachfront, we came to this city in March of 1982 as immigrants and strangers.

Our welcome was no welcome at all. We moved into a three-story walk-up on Olive Street by Pershing Square in downtown LA. We paid for the place in cash and registered under Angelina’s maiden name, and though we had been people in New York, though we had possessed faces and characters and personalities, in LA we possessed nothing. We were swallowed silently, effortlessly, into the great maw of humanity within that pinpoint microcosm of America.

It was three weeks before I saw our neighbor. I came back from a meeting with Don Fabio Calligaris’s cousin who ran a chop-shop on Boyd Street. I saw a man leaving the house adjacent to my own, I raised my hand, I called out Hello, and he turned and looked at me with a sense of distrust and resentment. He said nothing in return, did not even acknowledge my presence but hurried away, glancing back only once to repeat the look of hostility. I wondered for a moment if my sins were painted on my face for all the world to see. They were not. It was not me; it was Los Angeles that did it to them, relentlessly and irreversibly.

We came here for Angelina, for the children also.

‘The sunshine,’ she said. ‘The sun shines here. It is always dull and gray in New York. There are too many people who know of me back there. I wanted to get away, Nesto. I had to get away.’

I could empathize with her. I felt the same way for New Orleans, perhaps for Havana, but the coldness of the city, the absence of feeling and family in California was disturbing.

There was no shortage of work, however. Through Fabio Calligaris’s son I met Angelo Cova’s brother, Michael. Michael was a man unlike any I had met before. He was a big man, in stature – much the same as Ten Cent – but more so in personality. We met in the first week of May, and he explained to me that there were matters of business that I could attend to in Los Angeles that would be gratefully acknowledged by New York.

‘LA is Lucifer’s asshole,’ he said. We sat in a small diner back of Spring Street. The narrow building seemed to rumble constantly with the traffic running along the Santa Ana Freeway. Ahead of us was the Hall of Justice, behind us the US Courts, around the corner the Criminal Courts Building. I felt cornered in a way, fenced in by the presence of authority and federal residence. ‘LA is what God created for human beings to exercise their depravity. Here you got hookers with faces like a bulldog licking piss off of a lemon tree. You got thirteen-year-old boys peddling their asses for barbiturates and amphetamines. You got drugs the like of which you wouldn’t give a dying man to ease his pain. You got gambling and murder and extortion, all the shit you’ll find in New York and Chicago, but in LA there’s a difference. Here you’ll find something missing, and the thing that’s missing is a basic respect for the value of human life.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Take last week,’ Michael Cova said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He held a small espresso cup in his hand despite the fact it was empty. ‘Last week I went down to see a guy who runs a few girls. They ain’t bad-looking girls, little rough around the edges, but slap some face paint on them ’n’ they look halfway decent. Sort of girl you’d slip the old salami and have a pretty good time, you know? So, I went down there to see him. He wanted some help dealing with some assholes that were trying to muscle in on the turf, and there was this girl down there, could’nta been more ’n’ twenty-one or two and she had half her face banged up so bad she couldn’t see out of her eye. Her lips was all swelled like a punchbag, and across her neck and throat were these dark black welts like some motherfucker had tried to strangle her.’

Michael cleared his throat.

‘I says to this guy, I says, “Hey… what the fuck happened to her?” and he says, “Oh, take no notice of the bitch”, ’n’ I says, “What the fuck happened, man? She get hit by one of these assholes you tellin’ me about?” ’n’ he laughs ’n’ he says, “No, she got herself teached a good lesson”.’

Michael uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.

‘So I says, “What the fuck is that all about? She got a lesson about what?” and this dumb fuck he says, “Bitch tried to hold out on me, bitch tried to hold out on me for fifty bucks she got off some rich asshole from uptown so I had to teach her a lesson, right?” and he started laughing.’

Michael shook his head and frowned.

‘I was shocked, man, I can tell you without any problem. This asshole beats the living crap outta this poor girl for the sake of fifty bucks. Never seemed to occur to him that she wasn’t gonna be entertainin’ anyone with her face all smashed up. Never thought to occur to him how much money he would lose with her out of business ’n’ all. And that’s the kinda thing I see every day down here. Basic lack of respect for the value of human life. It’s like they’s all lost their own self-respect and dignity, and sometimes it can’t help but stick in my craw.’

Michael put his empty cup on the table.

‘So things is a little different down here, and though we didn’t wanna have you involved with any of this kinda shit I’m afraid that you’re gonna come across it whether you look for it or not.’

‘So what d’you want me to do?’ I asked.

‘A bit of this, a bit of that. Angelo told me something about the kind of work you were doing for Fabio Calligaris, and we figured we could always use a little help in that quarter, you know what I mean?’

I nodded; I knew what Michael Cova meant. ‘So is there something specific?’

Michael smiled. ‘Well, that little story I told ya just then, I didn’t tell ya just for the sake o’ shootin’ the breeze and passin’ the time of day. I told you because the guy, the hitter, you know? The one who slapped the girl around?’

I nodded; I knew what was coming.

‘Well, seems she’s not the only one who’s been holdin’ out on fifty bucks here and fifty bucks there. Seems he’s as guilty as any of those girls of his, and we need you to go down and have a few words with him, sort of words he will thoroughly understand and never have the chance to repeat.’

‘You want him clipped?’

Michael looked surprised, and then he started laughing. ‘Shit, Angelo was right about you. You don’t fuck around, do you?’

I shrugged. ‘What’s the point? You want him clipped then say you want him clipped. We’ll save all the nice things about the weather and whatever the fuck else for sometime when I come over to yours for a barbecue.’

Michael dropped the friendly face. I heard it hit the floor of the narrow diner near the Santa Ana Freeway.

‘Sure, so we want him clipped. You can handle that?’

‘Consider it done. Any particular way you want it done?’

Michael frowned. ‘Whaddya mean?’

‘There’s as many different ways to clip someone as there are different people. Sometimes it needs to be fast and quiet, like the guy disappears for a holiday and never comes back, other times it’s because someone needs an example made to anyone else who might have the same idea-’

Michael brightened up. ‘That’s the baby. You got it there. We want him done like he’s an example to any of the other smalltime lowlife scumbags who might be getting the wrong idea about who they’re working for.’

‘When?’ I asked.

‘When what?’

‘When d’you want him done?’

Michael shook his head. ‘Today?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Today’s as good as any other. What’s the address?’

Michael gave me the address, a house on Miramar and Third near the Harbor Freeway.

I rose from my chair.

‘Now?’ he said, seeming surprised.

‘Any reason not to?’

Michael shook his head. ‘S’pose not. Why the hurry?’

‘I gotta pregnant wife back home… said I wouldn’t be out late.’

Michael laughed suddenly, coarsely. He looked at me like he expected me to start laughing as well. I didn’t.

‘You’re serious,’ he said.

I nodded.

‘Okay. Fair’s fair. You gotta do what you gotta do.’

‘Not a problem,’ I said, ‘You want me to call you and let you know when I’m finished?’

‘Sure, Ernesto, you call me.’

‘You gonna be here?’

Michael shook his head. ‘I’ll be home more than likely.’

‘Gimme your number.’

He gave me his number and I wrote it down alongside the address he gave me. I looked at the address and the number until I was certain I would remember them, and then I lit the piece of paper and let it burn in the ashtray.

‘And the guy’s name?’

‘Clarence Hill,’ he said. ‘Buttfuck’s name is Clarence Hill.’

I took a route avoiding the main freeways – Spring down to Fourth, along Fourth and beneath the Harbor Freeway to Beaudry, and there on the corner of Miramar and Third I found the place.

I backed up and parked the car two blocks south, got out and walked back on foot. By that time it was early evening, the sun was down and the lights inside told me where the girls were working.

I went up the front steps and knocked on the door, knocked three times before it was opened, and when I stepped inside, the smell of the place assaulted my nostrils violently.

‘You want?’ some ugly rash-faced Hispanic asked.

‘Need to see Clarence,’ I said.

The Hispanic frowned. ‘Whassup wit’ you? You gotta cold or somethin’? Don’t be comin’ down here infectin’ everyone wit’ no goddamned influenza.’

‘I ain’t got influenza,’ I said. ‘I ain’t gonna breathe through my nose… this place stinks like no place I ever been before,’ which was not true, because as soon as I had walked inside the door I was reminded of some late night, staggering through the doorway of the house where I had lived with Ruben Cienfuegos so many years before.

The Hispanic made a sneering noise, and said, ‘What you want wit’ Clarence?’

‘I got to see him,’ I said, ‘I gotta deliver something from Michael.’

The Hispanic smiled broadly. ‘Shee-it, why in the fuckin’ hell you not say you was here from Michael? I know Michael, me an’ Michael we go ways back and then some more. Me an’ Michael sometimes just sit down and have a beer, make some face-time, you know?’

I nodded. I smiled, I could imagine that Michael Cova sitting down and having beer with the Hispanic was as likely as me shooting the breeze with Capone.

‘So where is he?’

The Hispanic nodded towards the stairs. ‘Up on the first, third door on the left, but for fuck’s sake knock on the door ’fore you go in ’cause he’s more than likely getting his hardware polished if you know what I mean.’

I shook my head, but I smiled for the Hispanic. Clarence wasn’t only beating the crap out of the trade, he was stealing from the cookie jar as well.

I went up quickly and quietly, along the upper hallway until I reached the door. I knocked once, heard a voice inside, and I went in.

Clarence Hill was a fat fuck useless sack of nothing worthwhile. He sat back in a deep armchair dressed in nothing but shorts and a filthy tee-shirt. In his right hand he held a TV remote, in his left a can of beer. On the floor ahead of him were three more empty cans.

‘Yo!’ he said. ‘Think maybe you’re in the wrong room, mister.’

I shook my head. ‘Michael sent me.’

Clarence tilted his head to the right and squinted at me. ‘Ain’t never seen you before. How the fuck d’you know Michael?’

‘We’re family.’

Clarence smiled wide and cheerful. ‘Well hell, if you’re family with Michael then you’re family with me… come on in, take a load off.’

‘I will,’ I said. I took a.38 from the waistband of my pants and pointed it directly at his head.

Clarence dropped the remote and the beer can simultaneously. He opened his mouth to say something, something loud and worthless no doubt, and I raised my left hand and pressed my finger to my lips. ‘Ssshhh,’ I whispered, and Clarence fell silent before a single word had escaped his trembling lips.

‘The guy downstairs… what’s his name?’

‘L-L-Lourdes.’

I frowned. ‘Lourdes? What the fuck kinda name is that?’

‘Tha-that’s hi-his n-name,’ Clarence mumbled. ‘That’s his name… Lourdes.’

I leaned back towards the door and shouted the Hispanic’s name.

‘What?’ he hollered up from below.

‘Up here,’ I shouted.

‘Up here what?’

I looked at Clarence. Clarence nodded.

‘L-Lourdes, get the fuck up here right now!’ Clarence shouted, like he believed that co-operating with me would make the damndest bit of difference.

Lourdes came up the stairs. I stepped behind the door, and when he walked in I shoved him hard and he went sprawling across the floor.

‘What the fu-’ he started, and then he turned and saw me standing there with a.38 and he shut up real quick.

From my inside pocket I took a knife, small and sharp. ‘Take this,’ I said, ‘and cut Clarence’s tee-shirt off.’

‘Wha-’

‘Do it.’ My voice was direct and firm. ‘Do what I say real quick and real quiet and maybe someone’s gonna walk out of here alive.’

Lourdes took the knife. He cut Clarence’s tee-shirt off at the shoulders, and within a few moments stood there with the filthy rag in his hand.

‘Now cut it in strips and tie Clarence to the chair over there.’ I indicated to the left where a plain deal chair stood against the wall.

They didn’t need prompting; the pair of them co-operated and said nothing.

Three or four minutes and Clarence Hill, shaking and sweating profusely, sat tied to the chair in the middle of the room.

‘Take the cover off the cushion and jam it in his mouth,’ I said.

Clarence’s eyes were wide and white; looked like two ping-pong balls balancing on his great fat face.

Lourdes did as he was told, and then he stood there with the small, sharp knife in his hand and waited for me to say something.

‘Now cut his pecker off.’

Lourdes dropped the knife.

Clarence started screaming, but with the material in his mouth he made barely a sound. He was thrashing wildly in the chair, every ounce of his strength fighting against the restraints that held him.

‘Lourdes… pick up the goddamned knife and cut that fat fuck’s pecker off or I’m coming over there and do you first.’

Lourdes, his whole body rigid with terror, leaned down to pick up the knife. He held it gingerly in his hand. He looked at me. I nodded in the affirmative.

Clarence passed out before the blade reached him. That was a good thing for him. Lourdes did what I told him to do, but it took a good five or ten minutes because he stopped to retch and heave about once every thirty seconds. The blood was unreal. It flooded out and soaked the chair, ran in rivulets onto the floor beneath, and soon Lourdes was nothing more than a gibbering wreck of a man, kneeling there on the floor in Clarence’s blood, in his right hand the knife, in his left Clarence’s pecker.

At one point Clarence seemed to come round, his eyes opened for a split-second, and when he looked down at his own lap he passed out once more. Ten minutes, maybe less, Clarence would be dead from blood loss if he hadn’t had a coronary seizure already.

‘You did good, Lourdes,’ I said, and then I took the cushion, pressed it down against the back of his head as he kneeled on the floor, and I shot him.

Lourdes collapsed forward, and within a moment you couldn’t tell whose blood was whose.

I tucked the gun into the waistband of my pants. I stepped out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I went down the corridor, passed a door through which I could hear some guy hollering Baby baby baby, and went down the risers two at a time to the lower hall.

I paused for a moment, breathed once through my nose to remind myself of how goddamned awful the place smelled, and then I went out through the front door and closed it tight behind me.

Later, after dinner, I called Michael Cova at home.

‘Done,’ I said quietly.

‘Already?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, Ernesto, okay. Hey, how’s the wife?’

‘She’s good, Michael, thanks for asking.’

‘When’s the baby coming?’

‘June… should be June.’

‘Well, God bless you both, eh?’

‘Thank you, Michael… appreciated.’

‘You’re welcome. Tell her “Hi” from me.’

‘I will, Michael.’

‘See ya tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, and hung up the phone.

‘Nesto?’ Angelina called from the front.

‘Sweetheart?’ ‘Come massage my feet for me, would you, honey? I ache all over.’

‘Sure thing, sweetheart. Just gonna lock up the front.’

I locked the door, flipped the deadbolt, and walked back in front to see my wife.

June seventeenth 1982, St Mary Magdalene Hospital on Hope Street near the park, Angelina Maria Perez gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl. I cannot begin to describe what I felt, and so I will not attempt to, save to say that there had never been anything before and nothing since that could even come close to what I experienced in that operating theater.

We had no idea there were two. I knew she was big, but big compared to what? I had expected one child. We were blessed with two. I counted their fingers, their toes. I held one within each arm. I walked around in circles looking down at them until I believed I would fall over with the sheer weight of joy and emotion and pride and love.

My babies. My blood. My family.

At that time I did not question whether I would be caught in some conflict between the family of my business and the family of my blood. I questioned nothing. I asked for nothing. In that moment I believed that whatever God may have existed, whatever power was out there beyond the parameters of my understanding, I had been blessed with something priceless and beyond measure.

Three days later we took Victor and Lucia home. They cried, they were forever hungry; they woke us with their pleadings in the cool half-light of nascent morning, and we went from our bed with something in our hearts that had never been there before; something that we had once believed unattainable.

For six weeks, right until the end of July of that year, I made no attempt to contact anyone. In some way I was grateful for this. I received one call from Michael Cova. He expressed his good wishes and sent the blessings of his family. Ten times, perhaps more, we would wake, we would go outside the front door, and there on the porch we would find baskets of fruit, wickerwork jars of dried meats and salami. I understood then that whatever kind of people they were, whatever blood may have been spilled in the name of greed, of vengeance, of hatred and possession, they were still human beings. They respected blood and family and the ties that bound such things more than anything else. They respected me, and in this way they gave me the time I needed to be with my wife and my children.

Angelina and I – like teenagers caught with the first enthusiastic sweep of love – could find no wrong with the world. Each day dawned with a brighter sun, a bluer sky, a sweeter smell in the air. Angelina did not ask why there was no business to attend to, and it was perhaps for the first time during those weeks that I began to question why she had never asked me what I had done, what business I would leave to attend to in the days before the birth of our children. At first I imagined it was because of her heritage, the fact that she had been born herself within the confines of this world, that her father, her father’s brother – all these people surrounding her as a child – had been there inside the dark underbelly of American organized crime. Later, as I watched her play with Victor and Lucia, as I caught her watching me from the doorway of the kitchen when I pulled faces and made them smile, I realized that she did not want to know. She asked no questions because she already knew the answers, and thus she stayed silent, even as the telephone calls started in the first week of August; silent as I stood in the hallway, my words hushed to a whisper, as I explained to the world beyond our door that I needed a little more time: another week, perhaps two.

After the calls ended I would walk back in to see her.

‘Everything okay?’ she would ask.

I would nod and smile and tell her everything was fine.

‘They want you back?’

‘Sure they do, Angelina, sure they do.’

‘And you’re going?’

‘Not yet… a little while longer.’

Silence for a brief while, and then, ‘Ernesto?’

‘Yes?’

‘You have a family now-’

‘Angelina… we have spoken of this before. Everyone I know has a family. All of these people have families. Their families are the most important things in their lives. They still have things to attend to, business still goes on and it has to be dealt with. Just because I now have a family doesn’t change the fact that I am responsible for my agreements.’

‘Agreements? Is that what you call them?’

‘Yes, Angelina, agreements. We are here because people helped us be here. I have a duty to return the favors that are granted. This is a long-term thing, Angelina… you have been part of this life even longer than I. You understand the way these things work, and there’s nothing that can be done to change it.’

‘But Ernesto-’

‘Angelina, enough. Seriously, enough for now. This is the way that our life is-’

‘But I don’t want this life any more, Ernesto.’

‘I know, Angel, I know,’ and then I would hold her and she would say nothing, and I would be afraid to look at her because I knew she would see right through me, and understand that I also did not want this life any more.

On Monday 9 August 1982, the same day that John Hinckley was detained indefinitely for the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, Samuel Pagliaro, a man I had known as Ten Cent in another life, came to the door of our house and asked for an audience with me.

I greeted him warmly, I had not seen him for the better part of five months and I was happy to see his face, happy as he gripped my shoulders and hugged me, and kissed Angelina, and then lifted my children from the carpet as if they were nothing more than feathers, and complimented their beauty, their bright eyes. It was good to see Ten Cent, but beneath my superficial welcome there was a sense of darkness and foreboding that warned me of what was to come.

Later, after we had eaten, he took me aside. We sat in the room at the front of the house. Angelina was upstairs with Victor and Lucia attempting to get them to sleep.

‘Don Calligaris is pleased for your good fortune,’ Ten Cent began. ‘He is very pleased with the work you have done out here, and good words have come back home from Michael Cova also. But this time has come to an end-’

He looked at me with a flash of anxiety in his eyes. He knew me well enough to understand that I could be capable of violence and passion. He was – despite his size – perhaps a little concerned about my potential reaction.

I said nothing. I merely nodded. I understood enough of the way these things worked to know that, with a word, all that I had could be taken from me in a heartbeat. These people, fiercely loyal to their own, would nevertheless see me as an outsider if I chose to cross them. I had no intention of doing such a thing, but I was aware that there was indeed a conflict within me. Perhaps what I felt was a reflection of some earlier part of my life. I had never possessed an introspective mind; I had never questioned things deeply. I could relate the sense of conflict I was experiencing to two other events in my life: the killing of Don Ceriano, how my loyalty to him was challenged by my necessity and will to survive; and the death of the salesman in Louisiana. Wishing so hard to become something my mother would have wanted me to be, I became something that was so much like my father. It was not a good thing for me to experience, but I felt it again in the presence of Ten Cent as he reminded me of who I had been, who I was now expected to be once again.

‘There is something that needs to be done,’ he went on. ‘Something that Don Calligaris feels would be most suited to your abilities, and he asked for me to come here and ask this of you.’

I nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘There has been an injustice done, a grave injustice. For many years the ties between New York and Los Angeles have been strong. Don Calligaris has family here, and they have always looked out for each other.’ Ten Cent shook his head and looked at his own hands in his lap. There was a tension and an awkwardness in his manner that were new to me.

‘Ten Cent?’

He looked up.

‘Tell me what it is that Don Calligaris wants.’

Ten Cent cleared his throat. For a moment he looked away towards the window, towards the night sky, the lights of the city. ‘Don Calligaris’s wife has a sister. She is married to an American. They have a daughter, a good girl, a fine and pretty girl, and she came out here to Los Angeles to be an actress. Last month they received word that she had been drugged and raped at some party in Hollywood, that she had been violated in the worst manner possible… things too wicked to describe.’ Ten Cent paused, as though it was difficult for him to talk about such things. ‘The girl’s parents, they spoke with the police, but the police know who the mother is, that she is the sister-in-law of Fabio Calligaris, and they tell her that there is no real evidence that their daughter did not consent to the things that were done. I understand it was some movie actor’s house, someone who is well known out here, and his father is an influential man in this business. The movie actor was not the one who did these things, but some other man, a clothing designer or something, and he has done this thing and there is no justice for what has happened. Don Calligaris asks if you will act on his behalf and see to this matter. He does not wish for there to be any further trouble beyond whatever justice you see fit, but he wishes this to be done or he will lose honor within the family. He told me to show you the pictures of what they did to his niece, and for you to make a judgement regarding what you felt would be appropriate justice.’

I nodded. I looked back towards the half-open doorway. I could see the light coming down from the upper landing and I knew that no more than twenty feet away my wife lay with my children as they slept. I understood blood, I understood family, and I respected and loved Don Fabio Calligaris enough to take care of his business. But my sense of responsibility to Don Calligaris did not lessen my inner conflict. As always, I had no choice in the matter, and as time would go on it would become more and more difficult to reconcile those situations where choice was not an option. I went out of duty, that was the truth, but for the first time in my life I questioned it.

The girl must have been beaten half-dead. Her face was swollen to twice its normal size. There were cuts on her upper arms and her breasts, as if someone had beaten her with a wire. Her hair was matted with blood, one eyed closed completely due to the swelling of her cheek. Her buttocks were the same, and around her lower stomach and the tops of her thighs there were marks as if ropes had been used to burn her.

‘These are police photographs?’ I asked.

Ten Cent nodded.

‘And how did Don Calligaris get them?’

‘He has friends in the New York police department. He had them send copies.’

‘And there were no questions as to why New York would need them?’

‘His friend in New York told the LAPD that he’d heard of the case, that he believed there may have been a link between this and some outstanding investigation there. They didn’t ask questions. They just sent them, and Don Calligaris gave them to me to show you.’

Never women and children… you never hurt the women and children. That was the thought that came to me. Unspoken, as if by tacit consent, and here – a member of my patron’s family – beaten within an inch of her life by a clothes designer from Hollywood.

‘His name?’ I asked.

‘Richard Ricardo is the name he uses,’ Ten Cent said. ‘It is not his real name, but that is the name he uses, the name he is known by.’

‘And he lives where?’

‘He lives in an apartment not far from Hollywood Boulevard, the third floor of a building on the corner of Wilcox and Selma. The apartment number is 3B.’

I did not write down the address. My memory was good for small details, and carrying written names and addresses was never good practice.

‘Tell Don Calligaris that this matter will be very swiftly resolved,’ I said.

Ten Cent rose from his chair. ‘I will, and I know he will be appreciative, Ernesto.’

‘You are leaving already?’ I asked.

Ten Cent nodded. ‘There are many things I have to do before I leave Los Angeles. It is late. You must see to your children.’

Once again the dichotomy of my life; black and white, no shades of gray between.

I saw Ten Cent leave. I held his hand for a moment at the door.

‘We will meet again soon,’ he said quietly. ‘Give my best wishes to your family, Ernesto.’

‘And mine to yours,’ I replied.

I watched him walk down the steps to the street, walk to the end of the block. He did not turn back, he did not glance over his shoulder, and I closed the door quietly and locked it.

That night I could not sleep. It was the early hours of the morning when Angelina stirred and woke, perhaps sensing my internal disturbance.

She lay there quietly for a moment or two, and then turned and snaked her arm across my chest. She pulled me tight and kissed my shoulder.

‘Your friend,’ she said. ‘He has something for you to do?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

She did not speak for a minute. ‘Take care,’ she said, ‘Now you have not only yourself to think of.’

And she said nothing more, and when morning came she said nothing of Ten Cent, nothing of the business that he had brought for my attention. She made breakfast as always, tending to the children – all of seven weeks old, innocent and wordless, wide-eyed and wondering at the ways of this new world they had entered – and in my heart I felt for them, felt for who I had become, and what they would feel if they ever knew.

I left that evening. It was dark and the children were sleeping. I told Angelina I would be no more than a few hours, and for a while she held me close, and then she reached up and kissed my forehead. ‘Take care,’ she said once more, and stood at the door to watch as I walked down the street. At the corner I glanced back. She stood there, illuminated in silhouette from the light inside the house, and I felt something in my heart, something that should have pulled me back, but I did not slow or stop or retrace my steps with second thoughts; I simply raised my hand and waved, and carried on my way.

I took the subway as far as Vine. I made my way down Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame, turned left on Cahuenga, right onto Selma, and there at the corner of Wilcox I found the building of which Ten Cent had spoken. I could see lights right across the third floor, also the second below, and I could hear the faint sound of music coming from the windows.

Entrance was easy. I went in through the back exit out of which the garbage and tradesmen would come. I found the base of a narrow stairwell that appeared to climb the height of the building, and up I went – silently, two risers at a time – until I reached the third floor.

I stood silently in the doorway at the top of the well, held it open no more than an inch or two, and it was there I heard the music louder. It came from the apartment facing me, from behind a door with 3B clearly visible on it, and I stayed there for some minutes ensuring that there was no coming and going along the hallway. When I was sure there was no-one entering or leaving any of the upper apartments I crossed the hallway. From my inside jacket pocket I took a thin sliver of metal and eased it between the door jamb and the striker plate. I nudged it down until I felt it touch the latch, and then with silent hair’s-breadth motions I started to wedge the blade into the lock. The lock sprang without difficulty. I turned the handle and the door gave way. I inched it open a fraction and waited for any sound inside. I heard nothing but the music, louder now, and realized that whoever was there would not have a hope of hearing me as I entered.

The hallway carpet was thick and dark. Along the walls hung black-and-white photographs, some of them clearly identifiable as images of cityscapes from many years before, others more abstract and undefined as to subject matter. I closed the door behind me, slid the chain across and flipped the deadbolt. Richard Ricardo evidently believed that once he was within the confines of his own home he was safe. Nothing, but nothing, could have been farther from the truth.

I went along the hallway without a sound. My breathing was low and shallow, and when I reached the end and pressed myself against the corner of the wall I could tilt my head and see into the main warehouse apartment.

Through a half-open door on the other side of the room I could see the end of a bed. The figure of a man, apparently naked, flitted across my line of vision and I shrank back. I waited for a second and then looked again. I could see no-one.

I stayed close to the wall and went into the main room, pressing my body against the plasterwork and circumventing the entire width until I came around on the other side and stood at the rear edge of the bedroom door. I could hear voices, at first one and then a second, and with my heart thundering in my chest I withdrew my.38 from the waistband of my pants.

The sight that greeted me as I peered around the doorframe and looked into the room surprised me. There were two men, both naked, one of them lying back on the bed with his hands cuffed to the stead. The second man was kneeling between the spread-eagled man’s legs, his head going up and down at a furious rate. I watched them for a little while, my mind turning back to Ruben Cienfuegos and the men we had robbed in Havana, the death of Pietro Silvino, the things he had said to me before I killed him.

The man lying down was moaning and writhing. The second man continued energetically for some thirty seconds or so, and then he kneeled back on his haunches, pulled the other man’s legs together, and then sat astride them. Shuffling forward he moved upwards until he sat across the man’s chest, and then using his hand to hold the cock of the man beneath him he gently eased backwards. I watched as the man’s cock slid inside him. The two of them were laughing together, and then the man on top started to rock back and forth, gently increasing his speed as he went.

I stepped away from the wall, crossed the room behind them, and with a single swipe of the gun handle I swept the music player off the table. The music stopped dead. The two men stopped also.

‘What the hell-’ the upper man exclaimed, and then he turned, and then he saw me standing there with a gun in my hand, and there was an expression in his eyes that said everything that could ever be said without a single word.

‘Oh my God… oh my God,’ he started, but the man beneath him was pale, in shock. Not a word came from his mouth as he lay there, with his hands cuffed to the frame of the bed, as naked as the day he was born, his cock inside someone’s ass and feeling like the world was ready to end.

The man on top fell sideways and started to his feet.

‘Sit the fuck down,’ I said.

He did as he was told.

‘You want money?’ he started whimpering, and then there were tears in his eyes. ‘We have money here, a lot of money… you can have all the money-’

‘No money,’ I said, and it was in that second that both of them realized what was going to happen.

The handcuffed man began crying, and pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to turn his body away so I could not see him naked.

‘What d’you want?’ the seated man asked.

‘Which one of you is Ricardo?’ I asked.

The seated man looked at me with horror. ‘I… I am Richard Ricardo,’ he said, and his voice cracked with fear.

‘You’re traveling both ways then?’ I said, and I smiled.

Ricardo frowned.

‘Girls and boys, whichever takes your fancy, right?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean… what do you want?’

‘Retribution,’ I said, and from the inside jacket of my pocket I took one of the photographs that Ten Cent had shown me.

I held it up so it could be clearly seen.

Ricardo stared silently at the picture, and then he closed his eyes.

‘What’s his name?’ I asked, and indicated the other man lying on the bed.

Ricardo glanced sideways at him. ‘His name?’

I nodded. ‘His name.’

‘Leonard… this is Leonard.’

‘Well, tell Leonard he ain’t a fucking ostrich. Just because he ain’t looking at me doesn’t mean he’s invisible.’

Ricardo reached over and put his hand on Leonard’s shoulder. Leonard tried to shrug it off. He buried his face deeper into the pillow, and though the sound was muffled I could still hear him sobbing.

‘Undo the cuffs, Richard,’ I said.

Ricardo reached for the key on a small table beside the bed and unlocked the cuffs. Leonard tugged the bedsheet up and covered himself.

‘Leonard?’

Leonard didn’t move.

‘Leonard… turn this way and look at me or I’m gonna come over there and shove this gun so far up your ass you won’t stop hurting ’til Sunday.’

Leonard turned onto his side, and then eased himself upright. He clung onto the sheet as if he believed it would protect him against a bullet.

I held up the photograph so he could clearly see it. ‘You he might love for eternity,’ I said, ‘but your friend Richard has a certain way with the ladies that they don’t appreciate.’

‘You… you don’t understand-’ Ricardo started.

I raised my gun, pointed it directly between Ricardo’s eyes, and took three steps forward until the barrel touched the bridge of his nose.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ I said. With my other hand I held the photograph and waited until he was looking directly at it. ‘You know this girl?’ I asked.

Ricardo tried to frown, tried to make out like he was remembering whether or not he knew her.

‘We’re not playing games here,’ I said. ‘I know and you know, so don’t waste my time telling me anything else. You know this girl?’

Ricardo nodded. He closed his eyes. Tears were running down his cheeks.

‘You did this to her?’

‘She… she wanted me to… wanted me to hurt her… you gotta understand she’s a crazy fucking bitch. She wanted me to hurt her…’

‘She wanted you to hurt her,’ I said matter-of-factly.

Ricardo was nodding furiously.

‘She wanted you to beat the crap out of her, wanted you to hit her so hard she couldn’t see straight for days, wanted you to whip her with a wire coat hanger until she’d screamed so much she lost her voice? She wanted you to do that?’

Leonard was looking over Ricardo’s shoulder at the photograph, his eyes wide and incredulous.

‘Ricky… Ricky? You did this to that girl?’

Ricardo turned suddenly. ‘Shut the fuck up, Lenny… just shut the fuck up?’

‘Yes,’ I interjected. ‘Shut the fuck up, Lenny.’

Lenny closed his open mouth and turned away. He looked like he was going to puke. I figured he wouldn’t want to fuck Richard Ricardo in the ass again.

‘So seems to me that whatever the hell went down between you and this girl, well she got a little more than she asked for… would that be somewhere close to the truth, Ricky?’

Ricardo didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word. I jabbed the barrel of the gun into his forehead. He winced with the pain.

‘You reckon that’s somewhere close to the truth?’

Ricardo nodded.

‘You sorry for what you did to her?’

‘Oh Jesus… oh Jesus God, I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be that way… I promise I never meant for it to turn out like it did… it was a wild night, it was crazy, there were all these people and we drank too much and took too much coke, and things just got out of hand-’

‘Ssshhh,’ I whispered. ‘Ssshhh now, Ricky, it’s okay… it really is okay.’

Richard Ricardo opened his eyes and looked up at me. There was a pleading expression in his eyes – pleading for understanding, for forgiveness, for mercy, for his life.

‘Never again,’ he mumbled. ‘Never again…’

‘Too right,’ I said, and with all the force I could muster I raised the gun and brought it down on the top of his head.

The sound was indescribable, as if his whole body had collapsed from within – ‘Nyuuuggghhhh’. He fell sideways and rolled off the edge of the bed onto the floor. Blood started to ooze from the split in his skull and soak into the carpet.

Lenny started screaming. I reached across the bed and grabbed him by the hair. I forced him face down into the mattress to muffle the sound, and then I warned him that if he didn’t shut the hell up he was going to get a bullet in the back of his neck. He stopped immediately.

I dragged him off the bed, and threw him to the ground next to his friend.

In my hand I held a pillow.

I looked down at Lenny, his tear-streaked face, his wide and horrified eyes.

‘When was your birthday?’ I asked him.

He looked at me in dismay.

‘Your birthday?’ I repeated.

‘Jan-January,’ he stuttered.

I nodded. I held up the pillow. I pressed the gun into it. ‘Last fucking birthday you’re ever gonna have,’ I said, and I pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit him in the throat. His hands grasped his neck. He clawed at his own flesh as if believing that he could pull the bullet out. Blood erupted from the wound and spattered across his chest, his legs, across Ricardo, and then he fell sideways and lay on the floor. His body shook for some time. I stood there and watched him until he stopped.

Ricardo stirred.

I let fly with a mighty kick to his chest and he went still. I leaned down, pressed the pillow against the side of his head, and shot him through the temple.

An hour and a half later I stood in my bedroom looking down at the sleeping forms of my wife and my children. I leaned forward and kissed them – all three in turn – gently on their foreheads. I held my breath. I did not wish to make a sound that might wake them.

I left the room. I walked downstairs. I washed my hands and face at the kitchen sink, and then I sat for a while in the darkness smoking a cigarette. When I was done I went through to the front and lay down on the sofa. I fell asleep there, slept like the dead, and when Angelina woke me it was gone seven in the morning. I was still fully dressed apart from my jacket and shoes.

‘Come and have breakfast with us,’ she said quietly. She leaned down and kissed me. I rose and stood for a moment, and then I placed my arms around her and pulled her tight.

In the kitchen the TV was playing silently. I said nothing when Richard Ricardo’s face appeared on the screen, and also the face of his friend Leonard. I made no sound, I didn’t even flinch, and when the anchorwoman reappeared I reached out and switched it off.

I ate my breakfast. I talked to my children even though I knew they could not understand a word I said. I felt unsettled, anxious. I did not feel good.

An hour or so later, having shaved and showered, and dressed in a clean shirt and a different suit, I left my house and walked three blocks to a diner. There I sat in silence, and with a cup of coffee in front of me and a cigarette in my hand, I watched people as they walked by the window and out into their lives.

Two of those lives were closed last night. Two of those lives – people of whom I knew nothing – were terminally closed. I did not question what I had done, nor why I had done it. I was asked to do something and I complied. This was the way of my world; the only world I knew.

It was the following day that I saw the newspaper. It was a day old, lying there innocuously on a chair at the back of Michael Cova’s cousin’s barbershop where I had stopped to have a haircut. I picked it up and turned it to the front page.

TWO SLAIN IN BRUTAL HOLLYWOOD MURDER

Son of Los Angeles Deputy Mayor shot

My breath stopped for a moment.

I looked at the images of the two men I had killed in the apartment.

Last night, in Hollywood, the son of Deputy Mayor John Alexander was murdered in a double slaying that has rocked the city of Los Angeles. Leonard Alexander, 22, was found murdered at the home of well-known celebrity fashion designer Richard Ricardo. Police Chief Karl Erickson was present at the scene, and made the following statement-

I read no further. I closed the paper and tossed it back onto the chair.

I got up and left the barbershop, walked two blocks with no particular purpose in mind, and then I turned around and retraced my steps.

For the first time in my life I imagined people were looking at me.

I found a phone booth on the next junction, and I called long distance to New York. I reached Ten Cent with no difficulty.

‘Ernesto?’ he said, surprise evident in his voice.

‘You heard what happened?’

‘I did, yes… is there a problem?’

‘A problem? The other man was the son of the Los Angeles deputy mayor.’

There was silence at the other end of the line.

‘Ten Cent?’

‘I’m here, Ernesto.’

‘You heard what I said?’

‘Yes, I heard you… what’s the problem? Did someone see you at the building?’

‘No, no-one saw me at the building. Of course they didn’t. But the kid was the son of the deputy mayor. They won’t let this thing lie down.’

‘We know, we know Ernesto… but don’t worry.’

‘Don’t worry? Whaddya mean?’

‘We’re gonna take you out and send you someplace safe.’

‘Take me out?’

Ten Cent laughed. ‘Take you out… yes, take you out of LA, not take you out for Christ’s sake! Don’t worry, Don Calligaris understands the situation, and he’s not gonna leave you there.’

‘He is upset about the other man?’

Ten Cent laughed again. ‘Upset? He’s as happy as I’ve ever seen him. You know what he said?… he said, “Two assholes for the price of one”. That’s what he said.’

I was quiet for a moment.

‘Ernesto?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s gonna be okay… I ain’t never heard you scared before. It’s gonna be fine… we’ll have you outta there just as soon as Don Calligaris figures out where to put you. You sit tight. Do nothing, say nothing… we’re gonna make it right, okay?’

‘Okay, okay… don’t let me down.’

‘I give you my word, Ernesto. You’re as much family as anyone else.’

I closed my eyes, I breathed deeply, I said ‘Okay’, and then I hung up the phone.

I walked home like a man lost. I walked home scared. Ten Cent had been right; this was a new feeling, and the feeling was difficult to comprehend.

It came back to family. Now there wasn’t just me, now I was a responsible man, a man who carried the burden of a wife and children, carried it willingly, yes, there was no question about that, but it made everything so different.

Angel was waiting when I arrived home.

‘The children are asleep,’ she said, and then she turned and walked through to the kitchen. It was obvious she wished me to follow her, and I did without question.

I sat at the table while she made coffee. I smoked a cigarette, something I had refrained from doing at home since the children had been there, but in that moment there was a sense of nausea and tension within me that it was hard to assuage.

Angelina placed the coffee in front of me and sat opposite.

She reached out and took my hand. She held it for a moment, and then she looked directly at me and smiled.

‘Something has changed, hasn’t it?’ she asked.

I nodded but did not speak.

‘I’m not going to ask about it, Ernesto… I trust you, always have done, and I know you wouldn’t have done something unless there had been a very good reason for it. But I am not crazy, and I am not stupid, and I understand enough about the way our family is to know that whatever might have happened it isn’t something you will talk about.’

I opened my mouth to speak.

‘No, Ernesto, you will listen to what I have to say.’

I closed my mouth and looked down at the table.

‘Whatever this thing is,’ she said, ‘I want you to tell me if it has endangered the lives of our children.’

I shook my head. ‘No Angelina, it has not.’

‘You would not lie to me Ernesto, I know that, but this time I am going to ask you to give me an answer, and whatever the truth might be I want to know. Tell me now if this thing will endanger the lives of our children.’

‘No,’ I said quietly, and I shook my head once more. ‘It will not.’

‘Okay,’ she said, and her very being communicated her relief. ‘So, what does it mean for us?’

‘It means we will have to move soon,’ I said. ‘We will have to go to another city and make our home all over again.’

Angelina did not say anything for some time, and then once again she squeezed my hand. I looked up and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I married you because I loved you,’ she said. ‘I knew who you were, I knew enough about the people you worked with to know how this life would be, and if we have to move then I will come with you, but I will ask one thing of you and I want you to give me your word.’

‘Ask it, Angel, ask it.’

‘I want you to promise me that nothing will ever happen to Victor and Lucia… that is the only thing I ask of you, and I want you to promise me that.’

I reached out and took both her hands. I held them for a moment, and then I touched her cheek, with my fingers, wiped away the streaked tears that were trailing down it.

‘I promise,’ I said. ‘I promise on my life that nothing will ever happen to them.’

She smiled. She bowed her head, and when she looked up she was smiling. ‘I wanted to stay here, Ernesto… in California. I wanted the children to feel sunshine on their faces and swim in the sea-’

She stifled her tears and was quiet for some moments.

She looked up at me again.

I felt my heart like a dead fist in my chest.

‘How long do we have?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. They will tell me when they have a place for us.’

‘Not New York again, Ernesto… anywhere but New York, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay.’

We waited three months. The worst three months of my life. There was nothing for me to do. I was told to stay home, to be ‘a family man’, and Ten Cent would call me to make arrangements when things were in place.

Three times, seated there at the window in the front of the house, I saw squad cars pass by slowly. I imagined they knew who I was, where they could find me, and they were just waiting for me to leave the house so they could follow me and make their arrest.

They never did. I left the house very infrequently, and by the time November arrived, by the time Ten Cent finally called and told me where we were going, I believed that I could not have stood another day in that place.

Angelina was the soul of patience. She became the perfect mother, investing every ounce of her attention, every second of her time, in the children. I watched her, I envied her ability to lose herself entirely in what she was doing, but I also realized that this was the only way she could cope with the situation I had created. I could have given her such a life, but I brought her to this. I felt bad for that, guilty, and I cursed the day I had been so eager to please Don Calligaris. He had said to kill one, but I had killed them both. That was my mistake, and I paid for it dearly.

‘Chicago,’ the voice said at the end of the line. ‘Don Calligaris is moving to Chicago and taking a large part of our operation there. He wants you to be there with him, you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘You leave the day after tomorrow. Make your way out to O’Hare and I will meet you there.’

I said nothing.

‘Ernesto?’

‘Yes?’

Ten Cent smiled; I could hear it in his voice. ‘Tell Angelina to pack some warm things for the kids… Chicago is a fucking icebox this time of year.’ He laughed and hung up the phone. I stood there with the burring sound in my ear and a cold stone inside my heart.