House of the Rising Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jenny parked three houses down from Charlie Liuzza’s, on the opposite side of the street. From there she had a clear view of the house. Two cars sat in the driveway, and no one was out front. Ray had disappeared through the door while she was moving her car.

She looked down at her phone, checking to make sure it was on. She hoped Ray called before he came out. That would give her time to move. He would be pissed if he came out and found her parked so close.

When she looked up again, she saw Joey-the same Joey who worked for Vinnie and Tony-step out the front door of Charlie’s house. Not that unusual since all these wiseguys hung out together, but for some reason it gave her a bad feeling. She thought that Ray was meeting with just Charlie. As Joey neared the end of the driveway, Jenny scrunched down in her seat, afraid he would see her. At the sidewalk he turned right, heading up the street and away from her. Charlie’s was the fourth house down from the next street. At the corner, Joey turned right again and disappeared.

Not more than two minutes later, Jenny heard a car start and saw the spill of headlights from around the intersection, then a dark green Lincoln-Tony’s dark green Lincoln-whipped around the corner and nosed into Charlie’s driveway.

Tony Zello stepped out the front door. Jenny sunk lower in her seat as her heart started to pound inside her chest. From the top of the driveway Tony gestured toward the Lincoln, holding one hand in the air and spinning it in a circle. His other hand looked like it was holding something to his ear. The Lincoln’s reverse lights came on. The driver backed out into the street, turned around, then pulled tail first into the driveway. Tony gave one-arm hand signals until the Lincoln stopped just inches from him. He pounded on the trunk until the driver popped it open.

Peering just over her dashboard, Jenny watched as Joey climbed out of the Lincoln and ambled back toward Tony. They talked for a few seconds. Then Tony looked up and down the street, like he was about to do something he didn’t want anyone to see.

“Come out of the house, Ray,” Jenny whispered. “Come out and I’ll pick you up.” Her heart was doing the talking because in her mind she knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Then Ray came out, right through the front door just like Jenny had hoped, but he was with Rocco. The big goon was at Ray’s side, his right arm locked around Ray’s neck and his left hand gripping Ray’s arm. With just the light from a street lamp illuminating the scene, she couldn’t tell for sure but it looked like Ray had something wrapped around his mouth, something that went all the way around the back of his head. His hands were behind his back and he was walking funny. He looked hurt. Rocco was walking funny, too, like he had a stick up his ass.

Tony said something, and Rocco hurried the last few steps, practically dragging Ray to the car. There was no hesitation and no discussion as the two muscled apes hoisted Ray up and tossed him into the trunk. Tony slammed it closed and looked around once more. Then all three of them got into the car. Joey driving again, Tony in the front seat beside him, and Rocco in the back behind Tony.

They turned left out of the driveway, the headlights sweeping past Jenny’s Firebird and for a second the whole interior of her car was lit up. Even all the way down, lying across the console with her head in the passenger seat, she was still terrified Tony would see her.

As soon as they passed her she grabbed her cell phone, intending to call the police. But what would she say? Where could she send them? Not to Charlie’s house. They were already gone, but where were they going? She had to find out. She sat up, cranked the Firebird, and whipped it through a tight U-turn.

The Lincoln’s taillights were two blocks up, just making a right turn. Six-lane Williams Boulevard was just a couple of blocks in front of Tony’s car. If they got into heavy traffic before she caught up, she’d lose them for sure. Jenny made an instant decision, something she’d seen on TV. She spun the wheel and turned right at the first cross street, two blocks over from the one the Lincoln was on, but she’d get to Williams just a few seconds behind them.

She blew through two stop signs and reached the crowded boulevard at the same time as the Lincoln. They were two blocks to her left, and Jenny could see the Lincoln was held up, waiting for an opening in the traffic. The way the car was angled she knew Joey was going to turn right. Waiting, waiting, waiting, then the big green mobster-mobile turned. As it went past her, Jenny turned her face, praying to God Tony didn’t recognize her car.

Two more cars went by. Then she pulled into traffic behind the Lincoln. They were going to kill Ray, of that she was sure. But where? And how? Shoot him, strangle him, toss him off the bridge into the Atchafalaya swamp doing seventy miles an hour?

The Lincoln busted a light just as it turned red, and both cars in front of Jenny stopped. She jumped on the brakes, heard her tires squeal as she skidded to a stop just a foot shy of crashing into the bumper of the car in front of her. The smell of burned rubber stung her nostrils as she pounded her palm on top of the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

In the rearview mirror she saw at least a car length of distance between her and the guy behind her. She slammed the gearshift into reverse, stepped on the gas, then jammed on the brakes. With the wheel cut to the right, she shifted into drive. The tires let out another squeal as she stomped down on the pedal, powering through the empty right-turn lane and past the two cars stuck at the light.

For just a second she had to stop for traffic crossing through the intersection, and then the V-8 roared as she shot through a slender gap between a couple of cars. Ignoring the blare of horns behind her, Jenny put her foot on the floor and raced to catch up to the Lincoln.

Headed south on Williams she followed Tony’s car under the interstate overpass, then for another mile through heavy congestion until Joey made a left turn into a subdivision. Without other cars to cover her, Jenny had to back off and give the Lincoln more of a lead, but she still had to stay close enough to see where it went. She had expected them to jump up on the I-10 and head toward the swamp, out past the airport. What they were doing in a residential neighborhood, holding a man captive in the trunk, Jenny had no idea.

Through a couple more turns, she slowly closed the gap with the Lincoln, every second afraid she was going to lose them. Fifty yards ahead of her, Joey turned left. When she got to the street, she made the turn behind them. Too late she saw the yellow diamond of the dead-end sign. The street was only a block long and ended in a cul-de-sac. The Lincoln was stopped a quarter of the way around the circle, on the right-hand side.

Near panic, Jenny whipped into the first driveway and killed the lights. There were already two cars in the driveway, and the lights were on in the house. Even if Tony hadn’t noticed her car pulling into the driveway, or if he did and thought it belonged there, the people inside were going to want to know who was sitting in their front yard.

The Lincoln sat in the street in front of a two-story brick house. Jenny saw the automatic garage door start to rise. Joey threw the Lincoln into reverse and backed partway into the garage. When the car stopped, both right-side doors opened and out popped Tony and Rocco. Rocco was still moving slowly, as if he were in pain, and Tony still held something pressed against his ear. What the hell happened to these guys?

From the driveway where she was parked, Jenny couldn’t see into the garage, but she saw the Lincoln’s trunk open. Tony and Rocco, both already standing at the back of the car, reached into the trunk, then jerked around like they were having trouble, like Ray was putting up a fight. Rocco threw a punch into the open trunk, and the struggle ended. Through a narrow slice of space between the back of the car and the garage, Jenny caught the briefest glimpse of Rocco dragging Ray out of the trunk.

Joey climbed out of the driver’s seat and slammed the trunk closed. He got back behind the wheel and eased the car forward enough to clear the garage. As the automatic door slid down, Joey jumped out of the car and ducked under it.

Ray was in there with three mobsters, and if he wasn’t dead already, he soon would be. Jenny had to think of a way to get him out. But what could she do? One woman, alone and unarmed, against three killers.

Then she had an idea. What if she wasn’t alone, what if she got help? Maybe some guys who weren’t afraid of mob assholes. Jenny reached for her cell phone.

Tony didn’t keep cars in his garage. He kept them parked in the driveway. The house might belong to his wife, she could put up all the frilly shit she wanted to in there, but the garage was his and it was off limits to her.

He wasn’t into woodworking or fixing cars, but Tony had a workbench stretching the length of one wall and a four-foot-by-eight-foot sheet of Peg-Board nailed to another wall, the holes filled with steel hooks hung with yard and patio tools: a broom, a rake, clippers, sheers, a hose, and extension cords. A door in one corner led into the laundry room, which connected to the kitchen by another door.

The rest of the garage was set up as a den and game room. The floor was unfinished cement, but Tony kept it clean enough to eat off. In the middle of the room, facing the back wall, sat a sofa and coffee table. Beside the sofa was a leather recliner. Mounted on the back wall was a sixty-inch flat screen, and to the right of that stood a cherrywood cabinet with etched glass doors.

Johnny Four-Fingers had built the cabinet for Tony. Johnny had been a hell of a carpenter but a piss-poor gambler. That’s why he was dead. The cabinet was stacked with a multidisk CD/DVD player and a ton of stereo equipment. To the left of the TV was a stand with a smaller television. Sometimes Tony had to watch more than one game at a time. In two of the corners were a pool table and Ping-Pong table.

This is where Tony got away from the bitch. Where he could watch anything he wanted without his wife nagging the shit out of him. Like Asian lesbo porn. He loved to watch those chink chicks do each other.

Ray Shane sat on the floor, leaning against the back wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Rocco and Joey stood next to him and had kept an eye on him while Tony had gone into the bathroom and cleaned up. His ear had stopped bleeding but the pain was almost unbearable. The only thing getting him through it was thinking about how much pain he was going to put Ray Shane through.

When he got back into the garage, sporting a wad of gauze taped to his ear, Tony stared at the ex-detective, glad he finally had hold of the slippery son of a bitch. “Now that we got some time and some privacy, we’re gonna have a little talk, Shane.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything with tape still around his head. He just stared back at Tony. His face-what Tony could see of it above the tape-looked like a prizefighter a couple days after losing a fight. The shiner Tony had put on Ray’s eye was fading, leaving his skin that sickly yellow color of a healing bruise. Blood had drained out of his left ear, leaving a crusty trail down his neck and a stain on his shoulder. But there was no mistaking the look in Ray Shane’s eyes-pure hatred.

Tony nodded to Rocco. “Take the tape off.” Then he told Joey, “He makes any noise, kick his fucking head in.”

Rocco eased himself down to his knees and grabbed Ray’s hair. Using a fingernail, he peeled off some of the tape, just enough to get a grip, then ripped the long strip off Ray’s face and head. A groan of pain slipped through Ray’s clenched teeth but otherwise he said nothing.

Tony was a little disappointed. He had hoped for something more. “You think you’re a tough guy, don’t you, Shane?”

Shane just kept staring at him. It was making Tony a little uncomfortable. Shane was on the floor, he was beat to shit, and he was about to die. Did he know that? Did he care? Of course he did, everybody cared about dying, no matter what they said. So why was he just sitting there, doing nothing? Groveling, begging, crying-those were the things Tony expected, the things he wanted. Not this stony silence. But one way or the other, he was going to get what he wanted.

Tony strolled over to his workbench. He pulled Ray’s Smith amp; Wesson from his waistband and tossed it into a drawer. He needed something more terrifying than a gun. Mounted to the wall behind the workbench was a three-inch-thick sheet of wood. Carved into the sheet were a couple dozen custom tool cutouts, each designed to fit a specific tool, each lined with green velvet. Another piece of master carpentry by Johnny Four-Fingers.

Tony gazed around the board and finally selected a pair of Craftsman Robo-Grip pliers. With the pliers in hand, he turned and looked at Joey and Rocco, then pointed the Robo-Grips at Shane. “Pick him up.”

After the two muscle heads jerked the ex-cop to his feet, Tony held the pliers up and snapped the big jaws together a couple of times. “Take off his pants.”

“Nine-one-one operator,” a woman’s voice said. “What is your emergency?”

Jenny had just circled the cul-de-sac and was stopped at the other end of Tony’s street. She stared up at the street sign.

There was no time to explain the situation to the police; she needed help and she needed it right away. She spoke in a whispered panic, like a woman afraid for her life but afraid someone might hear her. “Help me! My husband’s trying to kill me.” Her voice rose as she said, “I need the police.”

“Where are you calling from?” the operator asked. “Your address isn’t coming up on my screen.”

“I’m on a cell phone. Send the police, for God’s sake!”

“Calm down, ma’am. I need to know where you are.”

She had seen Tony’s address on his mailbox. “Two thirteen Spruce Street, Kenner.”

“You said your-”

Jenny cut her off. “Are the police coming?”

Silence for a second, and then the operator said, “Help is on the way, ma’am. Please try to stay calm. Does your husband have a gun?”

A gun would probably make them come faster. “Yes, he has guns. They’re all over the house.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tony,” Jenny said. “His name is Tony Zello.” Jenny gasped into the phone. “Oh, my God! He’s coming. I’m in the garage. I need help. Please, God, send help!” Then she broke the connection.

Jenny made a U-turn, then parked at the curb, facing Tony’s house. Thirty seconds later she heard sirens wailing in the distance.

The more Ray struggled, the more Tony laughed.

Joey and Rocco were on the garage floor trying to control Shane. They had him on his back, but he was fighting hard and had almost gotten away a couple of times. “You girls need help?” Tony asked.

The two musclemen each had one of Shane’s arms, and Rocco had a forearm against Shane’s neck, jamming his head into the cement floor, while Joey tried to pin down his legs.

Tony snapped the pliers a couple more times, liking the sound of it, liking the look of terror on Shane’s face. There was nothing he really needed to know from Shane. This was just going to be for fun.

The short blast of a police siren came from just down the street, followed almost immediately by the deep roar of a big engine getting closer.

Tony froze.

Tires squealed as a car braked hard in front of his house. Joey, Rocco, and Shane stopped struggling.

Two car doors slammed, a fraction of a second apart. There were voices just outside, and then another car screeched to a stop. More car doors, more voices. Pounding on the front door.

Tony leaned over Ray. He held the Robo-Grip pliers inches from Shane’s face. “Keep your fucking mouth shut.”

More pounding on the front door. A man shouting, “Police officers. Open the door.”

Ray Shane’s blood-streaked face broke into a grin.

Tony ran through the house to the front door and let the cops in. It was either that, or they were going to break down the door. There were five of them, four Kenner cops and a Jefferson Parish deputy. One of the Kenner cops was a sergeant. “What happened to your ear?” the sergeant asked Tony as the other cops fanned out through the house.

Tony raised a hand to it, conscious of what a mess it must look like. “Playing with the dog.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“Shopping.” Wondering why the hell they wanted to know where his wife was. He sure didn’t give a shit, as long as she was gone.

Two cops went straight into the kitchen. Pointing at the laundry room door, one of the officers asked, “Where’s that go?”

Tony’s heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest, but he tried to keep his voice under control. “That’s the laundry room.”

But the cop wasn’t satisfied. “How do you get to the garage?”

Be cool, Tony thought. He couldn’t bluff his way out of this. Even though they were just Kenner cops-NOPD gave out ass whippings just for looking at them wrong-these guys were still cops. Their laid-back style of policing was one of the reasons so many mob guys and dope dealers had moved out to Kenner.

The two cops in the kitchen went through the laundry room into the garage. Tony followed them in, holding his breath, with the sergeant trailing in right behind him. Inside, Rocco and Joey sat on either end of the sofa, sandwiching Ray Shane between them. The TV was on, ESPN showing a college basketball game. Tony let out his breath.

The cops made everyone stand up and break out ID’s.

The sergeant eyed Shane’s busted face. “Dog got you, too?”

Tony’s asshole was so tight he could not have farted if his life depended on it.

“I fell off a ladder,” Shane said.

“What’s this about?” Tony asked. Stunned at Ray’s answer, but thinking he needed to take control of the situation to keep from going to jail.

“Where’s your wife?” the sergeant repeated.

“I told you, she’s shopping.”

“We’re going to look around and make sure she’s not here.”

“Why?”

“Someone claiming to be your wife called nine-one-one and said you were trying to kill her.”

The other Kenner officer and the deputy sheriff walked into the garage. The deputy glanced at the sergeant and shook his head. An incredible situation, Tony thought, a house full of cops, a guy beat to hell, and so far no one had been arrested.

Just as the sergeant pulled a notebook from his back pocket, Shane flashed a grin at Tony, then raised his hand to his head. He buckled his knees and dropped to the sofa, moaning. It was the worst acting job Tony had ever seen.

One of the cops, a young kid with a fresh-from-the-academy look, sank down beside him. “Sir, are you okay?”

“I think I have a concussion.” Shane collapsed onto his side. “Do you think you can give me a ride to the hospital?”

The sergeant keyed the radio mike clipped to his shoulder and called for an ambulance.

Tony seethed.