Killer

chapter 5
1969

I know he’s dead. I think it happened when I cracked his head against the door. It wasn’t that hard a blow, but he must’ve had something already wrong with him. Shit, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I sneak a quick peek over at Charlie and Hank. They haven’t caught on yet, so I keep up the act pretending the fucker’s still breathing. This was only supposed to be a shakedown, and I don’t want to let on yet that I’ve fucked up. My first kill, and it’s a damn accident.

“You miserable cocksucking prick,” I say, lifting the dead fucker by his collar, his head lolling limply to the side, “where the fuck’s our money?” While holding him up with my left hand, I start hitting his dead face with my right fist.

Hank and Charlie are swapping jokes. They stop. The only sound is me punching that dead face. It doesn’t sound much different than if I’d been pounding a cold slab of beef. Charlie tells me to relax, that there’s no reason to work up such a sweat. I sense Hank moving closer so he can get a better look.

“Shit, Lenny, I think he’s dead,” Hank says.

“Fucker’s just playing possum,” I say. I’m breathing hard now from my exertion. I reach back to throw one last punch, but Hank grabs my arm and stops me.

“He’s not playing. He’s dead.”

I make a face as if I still don’t believe it. “In that case, I better fucking make sure, huh?” I pull my arm free from Hank’s grip, grab a lead sap that I keep under my waistband, and hit the dead man hard enough in the skull to leave a three inch dent. I let go of the body and it drops with a thud to the floor.

“Fucking vicious sonofabitch,” Charlie says, but he’s laughing softly, maybe even with a little admiration. The two of them are taking it better than I would’ve thought.

Because it was only supposed to be a shakedown, none of us bothered wearing gloves. Hank and Charlie have been in the game longer than me, and they start walking around the room wiping off fingerprints. I bend down over the dead man, wipe my sap clean using his shirt, and pull out his wallet. There’s three hundred dollars in it. He was on the books for five grand, but at least this is something. I tell Hank and Charlie about the money. “I knew the cocksucker was holding out on us,” I say. I kick the body a couple of times in the chest, hard enough to have killed him if he wasn’t already dead. I’d rather have Hank and Charlie think I’m a psycho then give them any hint about me worrying how Vincent DiGrassi is going to take this. And I am worried.

Hank and Charlie have worked their way to a back entrance. Hank tilts his head to one side, signaling for me to join them. I kick the dead body once last time and, as nonchalantly as I can, leave with them.

We walk quickly down an alley, then once we’re a block away, at a more normal pace to a side street where we left the car. It’s late, the streets are empty. Charlie’s laughing softly, puts an arm around my shoulder and comments how I’ve got antifreeze running in my veins. Hank looks deep in thought. After Charlie pulls away, Hank moves close to me and tells me softly enough so only I can hear that DiGrassi isn’t going to be happy. As if he’s telling me something I don’t know.

We still have some time before last call. I’m driving so I stop off at the Broken Drum. Since I’m the one who fucked up, I buy us each a half a dozen rounds, beating last call by minutes. The bartender’s not happy pouring out so many rounds that late knowing how much longer he’s going to have to keep the bar open, but he knows who we work for so he doesn’t say anything. While we’re drinking I notice for the first time how swollen and cut up my knuckles are. None of us talk much, it’s almost as if we’re at a wake. It’s not as if the fucker didn’t deserve a beating, but I don’t think he’s what any of us are thinking about – at least he’s not who I’m thinking about. When we’re done with our drinks, I drive Charlie and Hank back to Revere where we hooked up earlier, then I drive across the bridge to Chelsea and to my apartment.

It’s not until three days later that I meet with Vincent DiGrassi again. It’s in the backroom of a club in Revere. I feel some relief over where we’re meeting. If he’d been planning to make an example of me and have me taken out in a bag, we would’ve been meeting someplace else, someplace more private, like that house in Winthrop where I’d had my initiation.

When I walk into the backroom, DiGrassi’s waiting alone, which is another good sign. He gives me the evil eye and keeps it fixed on me while I take a chair across from him.

“You fucked up,” he accuses me, his tenor’s voice shaking with anger. “’Cause of you I got a dead business partner and five grand pissed out the window. What the fuck you have to say about that?”

I took the three hundred dollars that I had gotten off the corpse and toss it on the table. “You’re better off without him,” I say. “And this three hundred dollars is more than you were ever going to get willingly from that cocksucker. The other forty-seven hundred I’ll make up on my end, which won’t be all that hard once the other deadbeats out there hear about this.”

I meet his stare. After a minute or so of this, there’s a shift in his expression. A cautiousness. A consideration. He wets his lips, leans back in his chair. “You get off on beating this guy to death?” he asks.

“Hank and Charlie tell you that?”

“They just told me what happened.”

I smile one of my rare smiles. “I didn’t get off on it,” I say. “I knew the guy was dead before they did. Everything I did afterwards was for their benefit.”

DiGrassi’s staring at me intently, maybe even a little concern showing in his eyes. “So how do you feel now?” he asks. “Anything bothering you?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I was just doing my job.”

Again, with that intense stare as if he’s trying to look into my soul. “You sleeping okay?” he asks.

“No different than usual. Eating okay, too.”

“So this doesn’t bother you at all?”

I shake my head. “Other than I got to kick in forty-seven hundred to make good, no.”

“Nothing troubling your conscience?”

“What fucking conscience is this supposed to be?”

He’s considering this. His eyes darken, almost as if a veil has lowered over them. “You’re right, Lenny,” he says at last. “The guy was a cheap sonofabitch chiseler, and fuck him now that he’s worm food. Forget that forty-seven hundred also. Go out of town for a few weeks, make it a vacation. When you come back, we’ll be changing how we use you.”

I stand up and start towards the door. I have a good idea how he’s going to be using me. At some subconscious level, maybe I’d known all along. I’d spent four years on the fringes for DiGrassi doing collections and other diddly shit, so maybe in a way I was auditioning, trying to show them I was more important than how they were wasting me. It had to’ve been something like that ’cause it made no sense for me to have accidentally killed the guy. I’m not that careless. Before leaving, I nod to DiGrassi.