Slide

Twenty-Three

Joe Miscali was having a very bad day. After the complete fuck-up with the drug bust, the freaking SWAT team on Staten Island, the wrong location, and, oh Jesus, the Daily News, his fellow cops had been breaking his balls all day, going, “Hey, Joe, you got any hot tips, don’t tell us, okay?”

Like that.

And Felicia winding up dead didn’t help. Like he was ever gonna get another source when he let his people get wasted, half-eaten by freaking seagulls?

Joe was biting his nails, one of the reasons his wife had legged it. At the marriage counselor’s she’d screamed at him, “I’m sick of you and your fucking anxiety!” Christ, if she could see him now.

His phone shrilled and he was seriously thinking of not answering it, one more shitheel taking a shot at him. He picked up anyway, fearing the worst.

It was Rodriguez, one of his undercovers, who’d been tailing Max and Kyle. Rodriguez had been stationed outside Fisher’s building for hours. Now he said there was movement. Kyle, the ’Bama boy who palled around with Fisher, had come out of the building and gotten into a cab with some chesty blonde, maybe an UnSub. Miscali started shouting, telling Rodriguez to get his ass in gear and follow them. Rodriguez sounded real hurt, shot back that if Joe thought he wasn’t up to the job, yada yada. So now Joe had to, like, placate the guy for, what, five minutes, telling him what a terrific cop he was, with the rest of the Department lapping it up, until Rodriguez calmed down.

Rodriguez called Miscali back later, said he’d tailed Kyle and the broad to Sixth Street, Little India. He said they went into a building together, then the woman came out alone, and then went back in again a minute later.

Rodriguez went to Miscali, “What am I supposed to do?”

“Do?” Miscali shot back. “Stay the fuck where you are is what you do.”

He put the phone down, tried to figure out what the hell was going on, who the hell the broad was.

Slide went, “Fook,” as he hefted the kid’s weight on his shoulder, tried to get the balance right. He thought, Jaysus, this kidnapping lark is fooking hard work is what it is, how come they never show that in the fookin’ movies?

And here was the bold Angela, back in the apartment going, “Put him down, now.”

Like she was Miss Super Hero, come to save the day.

Raging, Slide dropped the kid onto a chair, going, “I thought I told you to leg it.” The kid had a piece of cloth tied in his mouth as a gag and bruises on the side of his face. He was unconscious.

It was hard to read Angela’s expression behind the dark shades. She said, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Gimme a fookin’ break,” Slide said, “and get me a cold one, the kid is heavier than he looks.” Slide tied the kid’s arms behind the chair with a length of chain, then wrapped the remainder of the chain around Kyle’s chest and legs. Then he got a basin of water and lashed it into the kid’s face, going, “Wakey wakey.”

“Thank God,” Angela said as Kyle’s eyes opened. “Slide, listen to me. I want you to let him go.”

Slide laughed.

“I’m not joking,” Angela said, and she grabbed the butcher knife from where Slide had left it when getting the basin. Pointing the knife at Slide’s throat she went, “Let him go.”

“The fook’re you going to do with that?” he asked.

“I’m not going to get mixed up in another fookin’ murder because of you.”

“So what’re you going to do, kill me? That’s a good way not to get involved in another murder-kill somebody.”

“I will if I have to.”

“Oh, Christ, just put the knife down and give me a hand here. We’re wasting valuable time.”

“I’ll put the knife down when he’s safe.”

Slide laughed, said, “That’s a great plan. You think he’ll go home and decide not to tell anyone he was kidnapped? I guess we’ll just hope he sees the fun in it, eh?”

“He might not tell,” Angela said.

“Oh, stop with that shite talk and give me the knife.”

Slide reached out, but Angela didn’t give it to him.

She said, “I’m not going to let you hurt him.”

“Don’t you get it?” Slide said. “This is the way it has to be. If we hurt him a little he’ll be afraid, then when we release him he’ll keep his mouth shut. Trust me-I’ve studied kidnapping and I know how the gig works. We have to hurt him, but I won’t kill him, I promise you that. Now just give me the fookin’ knife.”

Slide inched closer to Angela then he lunged toward her suddenly and wrested the knife away. They stood looking at each other for a moment, he with the knife, watching his own reflection in the lenses of her glasses. For a moment, they both wondered whether he was going to plunge the knife into her. But he didn’t. He swung his other arm around in a roundhouse instead, clocked her solidly on the temple, and she went down like the proverbial steer.

He dragged her out of the way, then got busy, spreading plastic on the floor, especially under the chair where the kid was sitting.

Slide knew he had to cut something off. A finger, an ear, whatever. That’s the way it was done. It’s how you showed you were serious.

In his chair, the kid was struggling weakly.

“What shall I cut, boy?” Slide grabbed him by the hair, tugged the boy’s right ear away from the side of his head. Just like slicing off a chicken wing. Ear’s lookin’ at you, kid. But ears, ears had been done, like, so often, they were fookin’ old. He needed something new, something original. Then, bingo, it came to him. Oh, man.

He unbuckled the kid’s belt and worked the kid’s jeans and Y-fronts down over his hips. The kid was near catatonic with fear.

Slide stepped back to marvel-this kid had a whopper all right.

“Fook, not even the black fellahs could equal that,” he said.

He grabbed the dick, and began to cut.

When she came to, Angela heard Kyle whimpering. Slide was nowhere in sight. She went over to Kyle, saw his pants around his knees, saw the crude pressure bandage Slide had put in place, saw the blood all over, and she ran into the bathroom, barely reaching the sink before violently throwing up.