Casino Moon

58

“YOU KNOW,” SAID TEDDY in a ravaged voice. “I was thinking. Every day I read in the paper about the Sicilian Mafia. These guys got balls. Every day they’re blowin’ up a judge or some fuckin’ politician. They even got to a guy in the middle of a motorcade and put a bomb under his car. So I was thinking. Maybe we could get one of their young guys to come over here and work with us. You know. Start all over again. Like a new beginning.”

Vincent Russo shook his head and looked grim. “It wouldn’t work.”

Three of them were in the stash apartment in Marvin Gardens, watching the Barton-Mulvehill fight on cable TV. Teddy was on the black leather sofa with a can of diet soda in his hand. Vin was sitting in a chrome-and-leather easy chair, drinking his fourth beer of the evening and eating almonds out of a cellophane bag. Joey Snails stood in the corner, sniffing and scratching the side of his face. There were racks of men’s suits along the wall and dozens of steel lamps by the door to the swag room. Joey excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“Why wouldn’t it work?” said Teddy, shooting a look at Joey over the top of the couch. “We get a couple of these zips off the boat working for us, it’d be just like the old days. We could take over everything.”

Vincrushed an almond shell and the remnants fell into the cuffs of his trousers. “This ain’t the old country, Ted.” He balanced the beer on the arm of his chair. “It’s the land of opportunity. We brought a couple of them Sicilian boys over here, they’d be listening to fuckin’ rap music and talkin’ to their brokers on car phones in two months. Tradition don’t last in this country. You can’t bind people by the old codes. They just melt away.”

Teddy grimaced and touched his back. “I still say we could get a couple of them zips and rule this town again,” he grumbled. “It’d be like starting the twentieth century over again, only we’d do it the right way.”

On the twenty-seven-inch-wide color TV screen, there was a replay of Elijah Barton shocking Terrence Mulvehill and the rest of the arena with that sudden right hand. As the screen showed a close-up of the deep cut above Terrence’s eyelid, Vin sat up too quickly and spilled some of the almonds on the shag carpet.

“So what’d he say to you?” Teddy asked, yawning and stretching his arms as his face turned florid.

“Who? Anthony?”

Joey Snails came back in the room and Teddy just looked at him. One of the stainless steel lamps buzzed and vibrated above Vin’s head.

“Well, you know, I talked to him,” said Vin. “And, and, the kid’s got an awful lot of confusion in his mind. You know what I’m saying, Teddy? You can understand what kids can be like after what you went through with Charlie.”

Teddy was silent. Vin finished his beer and crushed the can with his fingers.

The second round ended and the two fighters went back to their corners. The camera focused on Elijah Barton sitting on his stool, breathing heavily as his brother squeezed a wet sponge over him and his cut man smeared more Vaseline on his face.

“Again,” said Vin, taking a fistful of almonds and shoving them in his mouth, “it’s this, this, you know. He don’t understand what it was like starting off the way we did. You know. This, this is a different generation. I never got my first blow job from a woman ’til I was about forty years old, just got out of jail.”

Joey and Teddy were staring at him. Vin was babbling on, fueled by the beer and the hour. “I remember it was right by the Steel Pier,” he said, chewing almonds. “Right where they used to have the horses diving in the water. I still remember those horses and her mouth on me. I’ll never have a day like that again.”

Joey Snails was still staring at him without saying anything.

Vin’s eyelids got heavy and silvery-looking. “I guess what I’m saying, Ted, is maybe we shoulda had more babies of our own if we wanted them to stay loyal with us,” he said. “They say it takes the edge off a man . . . But like you said before, the gun wasn’t loaded. I didn’t have enough of them sperms. What could I do?”

He let his head hang down. Teddy’s attention had drifted back to the television set. He coughed and put a hand to his mouth.

“He’s not gonna give us anything. Is that what you’re telling me, Vin?”

“I guess—well—yeah. He don’t want to do anything right now,” Vin said, trying to stay awake. “He don’t want to make any deals. But I’ll talk to him again.”

“He should come in and tell me all this himself,” Teddy said sharply.

“Yeah, yeah, I know Ted. But he ain’t gonna do that right away. He’s gonna go away awhile, clear his head.”

Teddy glared over at Joey. Joey excused himself to go to the bathroom once more.

“What’s the matter, you getting a small bladder?” Vin called after him. He turned back to Teddy. “I used to be able to drink beer all night and only have to go once. It’s all this espresso they drink now. They spend half their time in the can.”

“Things change,” Teddy told him in an exhausted voice.

“Hey, Joey!” Vin shouted toward the bathroom. “Grab my comb if you find it, will you? I been looking all night.”

On the TV, the round-card girl, who wore a red feathered headdress and an uncomfortable-looking sequined swimsuit, finished circling the ring and climbed through the ropes as the bell rang. The two fighters left their stools and touched gloves.

“I don’t know, Ted,” said Vin with a sigh. “I don’t know how you keep up.”

Joey Snails came out of the bathroom with a nine-millimeter Browning handgun and blew the back of Vincent Russo’s head off.

He went around to the other side, put the gun in Vin’s mouth and fired another shot through the top of Vin’s skull.

Teddy looked irritated. “What happened to the silencer?” he said.

“Couldn’t find it. I thought you said you left it in the kitchen.”

“It’s the drawer where we got all the corkscrews.”

Teddy looked past his shoulder and saw a purplish red bloodstain spreading on the white shag carpet. Vin’s Ace comb was lying nearby. It had fallen out of his pocket earlier in the evening.

“For Chrissake, who’s gonna clean that up?”

Joey looked abashed. “Maybe I shoulda thought to lay newspaper. I’ll move the couch over it.”

Vin’s body gave a sudden jerk and slumped down in its seat. At least seven separate tributaries of blood were flowing down his face. It looked like someone had poured a jar of red molasses over the remains of his head. His mouth was open and twisted. The empty cellophane bag was lying sideways on his lap. Unshelled almonds were scattered by his feet.

Joey shot him a third time in the chest and Teddy jumped.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelped. “Why’d you have to do that? Can’t you see the man’s dead?”

“Hey,” said Joey. “What do I look like, a doctor?”