Zombie Pulp

4

Next morning I was sitting in my office pouring hot tar down my throat when the blower rang. I’d been sitting there thinking about H. Hill and what it might mean as I answered it.

“Yeah?” I said, setting my coffee down.

“Vince?” Tommy Albert said and I could hear it in his voice again, that sense of disgust like he’d just found out his mother had the clap. “Well. My friend, this ain’t getting any better. In fact, it’s getting a hell of a lot worse.”

“Lay it on me.”

I could hear him striking a match and I could almost smell that turd he was smoking. “You recall a guy named Buscotti? Tony Buscotti?”

I did. Tony “The Iceman” Buscotti, a.k.a. “Frankenstein”, a.k. a “The Headhunter”. Big Tony, as he was also known, was an enforcer and a torpedo for the Italians. He was one of the main cogs in their protection rackets. He was the guy who collected late payments from bookies, loanshark customers, and a variety of other businesses the wops decided needed “protecting”. He was also the guy the mob gave contracts to. A stone killer, Buscotti very often used a knife on his victims. His specialty was a few slugs in the knees to cripple his prey and then some fancy knifework to finish the job. He was a big fierce man, part human and part grizzly bear. Rumor had it he ate raw meat. And when you were nearly seven feet tall and weighed around four hundred pounds, you could do any goddamn thing you wanted to. He made the toughest cops on the force want to wring out their shorts.

Or had, that was.

A year ago he’d been convicted of some seven homicides and sent to the big house for the hot squat. Two weeks ago, he sat down in that chair and put the funny hat on and they fed him the juice. Worm meat now, but the memory persisted like a bean fart in a closet.

“He’s dead,” I said. “Nobody showed at the funeral. Hard to understand, he was such a sweet kid…when he wasn’t using a baseball bat on someone’s jewels.”

But Tommy wasn’t in the mood for that. “His body’s missing.”

I almost spilled coffee all over my lap. “Missing?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I’m out here at the cemetery. You better get out here. I think we’re developing a pattern.”

I was already pulling my coat on. “Which boneyard are you at?”

And then he said it and I knew: “Harvest Hill,” he said.