Dead Man's Grip

39

Fernanda Revere sat restlessly on the edge of the green sofa. She gripped a glass in one hand and held a cigarette in the other, tapping the end impatiently, every few seconds, into a crystal ashtray. Then, with a sudden snort, she put down her cigarette, snatched up her cellphone and glared at it.

Outside a storm raged. Wind and rain were hurtling in from Long Island Sound, through the dunes and the wild grasses and the shrubbery. She heard the rain lashing against the windows and could feel the icy blast through them.

This huge living room, with its minstrel’s gallery, ornate furniture and walls hung with tapestries, felt like a mausoleum tonight. A fire crackled in the grate but she could get no warmth from it. There was a ball game on television, the New York Giants playing some other team, which her brother shouted at intermittently. Fernanda didn’t give a shit for football. A stupid men’s game.

‘Why don’t those stupid people in England call me back?’ she demanded, staring at her phone again, willing it to ring.

‘It’s the middle of the night there, hon,’ her husband replied, checking his watch. ‘They’re five hours ahead. It’s one in the morning.’

‘So?’ She took another angry drag on her cigarette and puffed the smoke straight back out. ‘So this associate, where is he? He’s going to show up? You sure? You sure about this, Ricky?’

She stared suspiciously at her brother, who was sitting opposite her, cradling a whiskey and sucking on a cigar that looked to her the size of a large dildo.

Lou, in a checked alpaca V-neck over a polo shirt, chinos and boat shoes, looked at Ricky, his face hard suddenly, and said, ‘He’s going to show, right? He’s reliable? You know this guy?’

‘He’s reliable. One of the best there is. He’s in the car – be here any moment.’

Ricky picked up the brown envelope he had prepared, checked its contents once more, then put it down again, satisfied, and turned his focus back to the game.

At forty, Ricky Giordino had the Italian looks of his father, but not the old man’s strong face. His face was weak, a tad pudgy, like a baby’s, and pockmarked. It shone with an almost permanent shiny patina of grease, from a congenital problem with his sweat glands. His black hair was styled with a quiff and his mouth was slightly misshapen, as if he’d had an operation for a harelip as a child. He was dressed in a thick black cardigan with metal buttons, baggy blue jeans which concealed the handgun permanently strapped to his calf and black Chelsea boots. So far, to their mother’s dismay, he had remained single. He had a constant succession of brainless bimbos in tow, but tonight he had come alone, as his particular way of showing respect.

‘You done business with this guy before?’ Fernanda asked.

‘He’s recommended.’ Ricky gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘By an associate of mine. And there’s a bonus. He knows this city, Brighton. He did a job there one time. He’ll do what you want done.’

‘He’d better. I want them to suffer. You told him that, didn’t you?’

‘He knows.’ Ricky puffed on his cigar. ‘You spoke to Mamma? How was she?’

‘How do you think she was?’ Fernanda drained the rest of her Sea Breeze and got up, unsteadily, to walk towards the drinks cabinet.

Ricky turned his attention back to the game. Within moments, he leapt out of his armchair, shaking a hand at the screen and showering cigar ash around him.

‘The fuck!’ he shouted. ‘These guys, the fuck they doing?’

As he sat back down a series of sharp chimes came from the hall.

Ricky was on his feet again. ‘He’s here.’

‘Mannie’ll get it,’ Lou said.

Tooth sat in the back of the Lincoln Town Car, dressed casually but smartly in a sports coat, open-neck shirt, chinos and brown leather loafers, the kind of clothes in which he could go anywhere without raising an eyebrow. His brown holdall lay on the seat beside him.

The driver had wanted to put it in the trunk when he had collected him from Kennedy Airport, but Tooth never let it out of his sight. He never checked it in, it came inside the plane with him on every flight. The bag contained his clean underwear, a spare shirt, pants, shoes, his laptop, four cellphones, three spare passports and an assortment of forged documents all concealed inside three hollowed-out paperback books.

Tooth never travelled with weapons, other than a quantity of the incapacitating agent 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate – BZ – disguised as two deodorant sticks, in his washbag. It wasn’t worth the risk. Besides he had his best weapons on the end of his arms. His hands.

In the beam of the headlights he watched the high grey electric gates opening and the rain pelting down. Then they drove on through, until ahead he could see the superstructure of a showy modern mansion.

The driver had said nothing during the journey, which suited Tooth fine. He didn’t do conversation with strangers. Now the man spoke for almost the first time since he had checked Tooth’s name at the arrivals lobby at the airport.

‘We’re here.’

Tooth did not reply. He could see that.

The driver opened the rear door and Tooth stepped out into the rain with his bag. As they reached the porch, the front door of the house was opened by a nervous-looking Filipina maid in uniform. Almost immediately, she was joined by a mean-faced, pot-bellied man in a fancy black cardigan, jeans and black boots, holding a big cigar.

Tooth’s first reaction was that the cigar was a good sign, meaning he could smoke in here. He stepped inside, into a huge hall with a grey flagstone floor.

A wide circular staircase swept up ahead of him. There were gilded mirrors and huge, bizarre abstract paintings which made no sense to him. Tooth didn’t do art.

The man held out a fleshy hand covered in glinting rings, saying,‘Mr Tooth? Ricky Giordino. Y’had a good journey?’

Tooth shook the man’s clammy hand briefly, then released it as fast as he could, as if it was a decomposing rodent. He didn’t like to shake hands. Hands carried germs.

‘The journey was fine.’

‘Can I fix you a drink? Whiskey? Vodka? Glass of wine? We got just about everything.’

‘I don’t drink when I’m working.’

Ricky grinned. ‘You haven’t started yet.’

‘I said I don’t drink when I’m working.’

The smile slid from Ricky’s face, leaving behind an awkward leer. ‘OK. Maybe some water?’

‘I had water in the car.’

‘Great. Terrific.’ Ricky checked his cigar, then sucked on it several times, to keep it burning. ‘Maybe you want something to eat?’

‘I ate on the plane.’

‘Not great, that shit they give you on planes, is it?’

‘It was fine.’

After five military tours, some of them solo, fending for himself behind enemy lines, eating beetles and rodents and berries sometimes for days on end, anything that came on a plate or in a bowl was fine by Tooth. He wasn’t ever going to be a gourmet. He didn’t do fine food.

‘We’re good, then. All set. Do you want to put your bag down?’

‘No.’

‘OK. Come with me.’

Tooth, still holding his bag, followed him along a corridor furnished with a fancy antique table, on which sat ornate Chinese vases, and past a living room that reminded him of an English baronial hall in a movie he’d seen long ago. A bitch in navy velour was sitting on a sofa, smoking a cigarette, with an ashtray full of butts beside her, and a loser was sitting opposite her, watching a bunch of dumb fuckwits playing American football.

This is what I risked my life for, gave my all for, so assholes like these could sit in their swell homes, with their fancy phones, watching dickheads playing games on big television screens?

Ricky ducked into the room and reappeared almost immediately carrying a brown envelope. He ushered Tooth back along the corridor to the hall, then led him down the stairs and into the basement. At the bottom was an abstract painting, as tall as Tooth, covered in what looked like photographs with weird faces. His eyes flickered with mild interest.

‘That’s pretty special,’ the man said. ‘A Santlofer. One of the up-and-coming great modern American artists. You wanted to buy that now, you’d pay thirty grand. Ten years time, you’ll pay a million. The Reveres are great patrons. That’s one of the things my sister and my brother-in-law do, they spot rising talents. You gotta support the arts. Y’know? Patrons?’

The painting looked to Tooth like one of those distorting mirrors you saw in fairgrounds. He followed the man through into a huge poolroom, the table itself almost lost against the patterned carpet. There was a bar in one corner, complete with leather stools and a stocked-up wine fridge with a glass door.

The man sucked on his cigar again, until his face was momentarily shrouded in a billowing cloud of dense grey smoke.

‘My sister’s pretty upset. She lost her youngest son. She doted on the kid. You gotta understand that.’

Tooth said nothing.

‘You shoot pool?’ the man said.

Tooth shrugged.

‘Bowl?’

The man indicated him to follow and walked through into the room beyond. And now Tooth was impressed.

He was staring at a full-size, underground ten-pin bowling alley. It had just one lane, with polished wooden flooring. It was immaculate. Balls were lined up in the chute. All down the wall, beside the lane, was wallpaper that gave the illusion of rows of stacked bookshelves.

‘You play this?’

As his reply, Tooth selected a ball and placed his fingers and thumb in the slots. Then he squinted down the length of the lane and could see that all the pins, white and shiny, were in place.

‘Go ahead,’ the man said. ‘Enjoy!’

Tooth wasn’t wearing the right shoes, so he made the run-up carefully and sent the ball rolling. In the silence of the basement it rumbled, like distant thunder. It clouted the front pin exactly where he had aimed it, slightly off centre, and it had the desired effect. All ten pins went straight down.

‘Great shot! Gotta say, that’s not at all bad!’

The man drew again on his cigar, puffing out his cheeks, blowing out the heavy smoke. He hit the reset button and watched the mechanical grab scoop up the pins and start to replace them.

Tooth dug his hand into his pocket, pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes and lit one. After he had taken the first drag, the man suddenly snatched it out of his hand and crushed it out in an onyx ashtray on a ledge beside him.

‘I just lit that,’ Tooth said.

‘I don’t want that fucking cheap thing polluting my Havana. You want a cigar, ask me. OK?’

‘I don’t smoke cigars.’

‘No cigarettes in here!’ He glared challengingly at Tooth.

‘She was smoking a cigarette upstairs.’

‘You’re down here with me. You do business my way or you don’t do it. I’m not sure I like your attitude, Mr Tooth.’

Tooth considered, very carefully, killing this man. It would be easy, only a few seconds. But the money was attractive. Jobs hadn’t exactly been flooding in just recently. Even without seeing this house, he knew about the wealth of this family. This was a good gig. Better not to blow it.

He picked up another ball, rolled it and hit another strike, all ten pins down.

‘You’re good, aren’t you?’ the man said, a little grudgingly.

Tooth did not respond.

‘You’ve been to a place in England called Brighton? Like in Brighton Beach here in New York, right?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You did a job for my cousin. You took out an Estonian ship captain in the local port who was doing side deals on cargoes of drugs.’

‘I don’t remember,’ he said, again being deliberately vague.

‘Six years ago. My cousin said you were good. They never found the body.’ Ricky nodded approvingly.

Tooth shrugged.

‘So, here’s the deal. In this envelope are the names and all we have on them. My sister’s prepared to pay one million dollars, half now, half on completion. She wants each of them to suffer, real bad. That’s your specialty, right?’

‘What kind of suffering?’

‘Rumour has it you copied the Iceman’s stunt with the rat. That right?’

‘I don’t copy anyone.’

The Iceman had been paid to make a victim he’d been hired to hit suffer. The client had wanted proof. So he wrapped the man, naked, in duct tape, with just his eyes, lips and genitals exposed. Then he left him in an underground cavern filled with a bunch of rats that had been starved for a week, and a video recorder. Afterwards his client had been able to watch the rats eating him, starting with the exposed areas.

‘Good. She’d appreciate you being creative. We have a deal?’

‘One hundred per cent cash upfront only,’ Tooth said. ‘I don’t negotiate.’

‘You know who you’re fucking dealing with?’

Tooth, who was a good six inches shorter, stared him hard in the eye. ‘Yes. Do you?’ He shook another cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Do you have a light?’

Ricky Giordino stared at him. ‘You got balls, I tell you that.’ He hit the reset button again. ‘How can I be sure you’ll deliver? That you’ll get all three hits?’

Tooth selected another ball from the chute. He lined himself up, ran, then crouched and sent the ball rolling. Yet again all ten pins scattered. He dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out a plastic lighter. Then he held it up provocatively, willing the man to try to stop him.

But Ricky Giordino surprised him by pulling out a gold Dunhill, clicking it open and holding up the flame to his cigarette.

‘I think you and I – we’re pretty close to understanding each other.’

Tooth accepted the light but did not reply. He didn’t do understanding.