Angel Face

NINE

Bobby Ditto’s pissed, as usual. He’s pissed about the steady drizzle, the unseasonably low temperatures, the traffic, a car that stalls at every light (‘What? I bought a fuckin’ Audi for this?’) and especially the situation. Bobby’s traveling from his home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to Paulie Margarine’s house in Astoria, Queens, and he’s coming alone, hat in his hand. He’s scared, too, though he can’t admit it.

Bobby parks the car in Paulie’s driveway, a liberty which makes him feel slightly better about himself. Then he walks into the house without being invited when Paulie’s kid, Freddy, answers the door.

‘You could take a seat in the living room.’ A year out of prison, Freddy’s not all that impressed. ‘My father’s with his nurse. He’s havin’ a treatment.’

And there he is, Bobby Ditto, cooling his heels on a couch that’s seen better days, in a room that hasn’t been dusted in a month. And no coffee, either. Just sit your ass down, keep your mouth shut and wait.

Bobby only recovers his equilibrium when Freddy wheels his father into the room. Paulie halfway to dead, maybe more than halfway. His skin’s the color of puke and he’s so weak he can barely take Bobby’s hand.

‘So?’ Paulie says after Freddy makes an exit. ‘What’s up that couldn’t wait till after my funeral?’

‘Hey, Paulie, I’m sorry for your illness. And you could trust me on this, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.’ Bobby leans forward to place his hands on his knees. An exercise fanatic who ups the ante with a steroid soup injected by his trainer, Bobby’s the physical opposite of his deceased brother. He’s terminally ambitious, as well, and prefers to get his way through intimidation whenever possible. But he has no juice here, not with Paulie Margarine. Paulie’s old school. He doesn’t scare. In fact, right now, he seems to be falling asleep.

‘Paulie,’ Bobby says, ‘you still with us?’

Paulie’s eyelids part a few millimeters and he smiles. ‘Sorry, man, but I took a couple of pain pills and they’re just kickin’ in. Hey, you wanna hear somethin’ funny? The shit they’re givin’ me, if I had to buy it on the street I’d go bankrupt.’

‘I hear you loud and clear. If we were drinkin’, I’d raise a toast to the war on drugs.’

‘And I’d drink to that toast. If I still had a liver.’

Bobby chuckles. ‘Tell me, Paulie, you ever do somethin’, somethin’ you thought about for a long time, somethin’ that seemed a hundred percent right, only it went completely wrong?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Well, this business with my brother, it’s blowin’ up in my face.’ Bobby stares for a moment at a shelf lined with tarnished bowling trophies. ‘Ya know, I had to do something about Ricky bein’ whacked. That’s our way of life, right? That’s what everyone expects.’

Paulie’s eyes are closing. ‘It’s our way,’ he agrees.

‘OK, so I find out from Ricky’s friend that Ricky had a date with this whore on the day he got hit. Then I find out the whore’s name and where she lives – I won’t say how – and I send the Blade and a kid named Ruben Amaroso to pick her up. So they snatch her in her apartment and they’re bringin’ her out, no problem, right? Then, outta nowhere, they run into this guy, he’s like a fuckin’ freak. He kicks the shit out of Ruby, puts a gun to the Blade’s head and tells the Blade that he’s comin’ after yours truly, meaning me. Then him and the whore take off together, only God knows where.’

Paulie takes a long time answering, but he finally mumbles a reply. His pupils are small enough to be a period at the end of a sentence. ‘So, why are you comin’ to me?’

‘You put out the hit.’

‘See, Bobby, that’s where you’re wrong. You were the one who put out the contract. I only connected you to a contractor. The whole thing was your idea.’

Bobby Ditto taps his finger on the arm of the chair. Bobby hadn’t exactly hated his brother. Ricky was OK, but he was in the wrong business, what with his big mouth. Plus, in Bobby’s opinion, he was definitely soft. If the Feds got their hooks into him, he’d turn rat for sure. And he didn’t contribute, either, not where it counted. The business they’re in, it’s all about muscle. They dealt with Mexicans, Colombians, Russians and half the black gangs in Brownville and South Jamaica. Meantime, Ricky hadn’t even made his bones.

‘I’m not here to put any blame on you, Paulie. I’m here because I need a line on this guy you hired.’

‘I didn’t hire him, you did.’

‘OK, OK, I get it. But how did he get connected to the whore? Because I was thinkin’ I’d take out the whore and the pimp, and that would be it. Bobby’s been avenged, no harm, no foul. That’s what I meant by doin’ somethin’ you know is a hundred percent right, only it goes wrong.’

Paulie’s perking up a bit, the story having caught his attention. ‘First thing, how do you know the guy who took the whore is the guy who whacked Ricky?’

‘According to the Blade, the guy said, “You tell the brother to heat up the cappuccino because I’ll be comin’ to visit.”’ Bobby feels the muscles in his arms and legs tighten. ‘Hey, you know me for a long time. I been threatened before. Only before, I knew who was makin’ the threats. Before, I could do somethin’ about it. Now I gotta sit and wait.’

Paulie knows exactly how Bobby Ditto feels. He was in the same place only a couple of years before, a place called helpless. ‘From what you say, it’s gotta be our guy who saved the whore’s ass. But about the reason I got no idea. None whatsoever. Me and our guy, we don’t socialize.’

‘I hear ya.’ Bobby does hear Paulie, especially the part about our guy. Now he’ll have to beg when what he’d like to do is yank this fuckin’ gimp out of his wheelchair and put a knife to his eyeball. ‘What I need, Paulie, is a heads-up. I can’t give this guy the first move. I mean, he killed Ricky in Ricky’s own house, so now I gotta worry every time I come home about what’s on the other side of the door.’

‘Or what’s comin’ through the door while you’re asleep.’ Paulie raises a hand, palm out. ‘But the thing is, my job, as a middleman, is to protect you and him both.’

‘And that means you didn’t tell him, right? About me?’

Paulie’s answer is prompt, since he’s already anticipated the question. Plus, Freddy’s waiting in the kitchen with a shotgun. ‘Most likely this is comin’ from the whore. Or maybe our guy did his homework. What’s certain is that he’s involved with the whore some kinda way. He was probably comin’ by for a quick hump when he ran into the Blade and Ruby.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Bobby Ditto rubs his fingers over his chin. He’s a heavily bearded man, his five o’clock shadow commonly visible at ten in the morning. ‘Look, our guy, he’s good, right? Or else you wouldn’t use him.’

‘He’s the best.’

‘OK, he’s the best. But from what you said, he’s not connected to our thing.’

‘Also true.’

Bobby takes a thick envelope from the pocket of his sport jacket and drops it in Paulie Margarine’s lap. ‘I need some help here, Paulie. Otherwise, I’m not gonna see him comin’.’ He gestures toward the envelope. ‘There’s five grand in there.’

‘You want me to sell out? That’s what you’re askin’?’

‘It’s our thing, our cosa nostra, not his.’

There’s an unspoken threat here, one that Paulie’s quick to recognize. Paulie was present at Bobby Ditto’s christening. Back in the day, he and Bobby’s father worked together on deals. So it’s not a hard choice for Paulie, since refusing a favor of this kind might easily result in a war.

‘You know what’s gonna happen if our guy puts two and two together?’ Paulie answers his own question. ‘He’s gonna come after me and Freddy. That’s a lotta risk. Plus, I don’t really know all that much about him. In fact, I hardly know anything about him. So, be warned in advance. You might be puttin’ out your dough for nothin’.’

‘Hey, you gotta have a way to get in touch with him.’

‘Yeah, by email, which I send off to a website in Belarus.’

‘Bela who?’

‘It’s a little country near Russia.’

‘And that’s where he lives?’

‘No, Bobby, it’s not where he lives, which is the whole point I’m tryin’ to make.’ Paulie holds the envelope between bony fingers. ‘You want, I’ll put this in my pocket. You wanna take it back, no hard feelings.’

‘Just tell me, Paulie. I got no choice here.’

‘He’s an American who goes by the name of Carter, which could be his first or his last name. He was a mercenary at some point and he was involved with a British officer named Montgomery Thorpe. That’s it ... no wait. You remember a couple years back when I lost a few soldiers?’

‘Yeah, you had a problem with some kinda raghead gang, right?’

‘Uh-uh. It had nothing to do with them. What happened to me was Carter, all by himself. So if I was in your shoes, Bobby, what I’d do is take a vacation.’