David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

All things considered, though, a little insurance was called for.

He found a nearby pay phone and dialed. A vaguely toasted voice responded in a tone that suggested availability. “I’m here.”

“This is Dan. Dan Abatangelo.”

Surf music wailed in the background. After a moment, the voice on the other end shouted, “Right. Sure. I’m here.”

The man’s name was Jimmy Toretta. Abatangelo had met him at Dominic’s café. Toretta had introduced himself with an air of breezy respect and said they’d met in the neighborhood long ago. “I was just a kid, but you were a legend, man. Bad Dan. We all knew you around here.” Abatangelo took him for undercover and kept his distance. Then Marco, Dominic’s bartender, gave the all clear. “He’s nobody to worry about,” Marco said. “He’s just him. He operates. Talk to him, don’t talk to him. You’re good either way.” And so Abatangelo talked to him. Just once, at Dominic’s, over wine. Toretta had a boutique operation. Psychedelics. Exotic companions. Weaponry, for discriminating folk. Call anytime, Toretta said. You and me, we’re neighborhood.

“It’s late,” Abatangelo said, “I realize.”

“Not at all,” Toretta responded, turning the music down. “Nighttime. The right time.”

“This is sudden, too.”

“I can deal with sudden. I can deal with late.”

“Can we meet?”

“Sure,” Toretta said. “Absolutely. Know your way to the zoo?”

The zoo, Abatangelo thought, smelling a joke. “Be there in fifteen,” he offered. “West lot.”

“Whoa, chief.” Toretta chuckled. “Make it thirty. Walk, don’t run. Am I right?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

“Me too. In thirty.”

Abatangelo made way for the park, then west on Cross-Over Drive to JFK. At Stern Grove he turned right onto Sloat then out to Ocean Beach. He parked in the west lot near the reflecting pool, spotting Toretta’s maroon Aerostar parked in the cobbled distance near the Irish Cultural Center. For all his talk about slowing it down, Abatangelo thought, he was the first to get here.

He walked to the van’s driver side window. “Anybody here?”

“Door’s open,” Toretta called out.

Inside the van, in the back, two refitted bucket seats faced each other across fireproof carpeting, with padlocked cabinets along each wall. Nothing lay in plain view. A slide window communicated to the front, also locked.

Toretta had a low-key visual style: Top-Siders, corduroy slacks, v-neck cardigan with a white T-shirt underneath. His hair was thick, his skin shone. Every woman’s idea of: Oh. The only thing- sometimes, fresh from the psychedelic kitchen, he smelled of ether.

“Mind if I smoke?” Toretta asked. The perfect host. Abatangelo waved his hand as a go-ahead, and Toretta lit his cigarette. His face yellowed, the eyes hollowed into shadow. He blew out his match, then drummed his fingers on his knee.

“I presume we’re talking a piece here,” Toretta said. “You know I can’t advance you, right? A straight five, up front.”

Abatangelo was at a loss at this, so he laughed. “I thought we were neighborhood, Toretta.”

Toretta exhaled smoke. “You can always try Anthony’s Gun Rack. Except, oh yeah, you’re a felon.”

“So you quote me a prick rate.”

“I smell risk.”

Abatangelo tapped his hands together uneasily. This was arrogance, not caution. He felt an urge to make a scene. “I need a piece. For protection. Where’s the risk in that?”

“I’m not hunting you down for my money.”

“Who says I’m going anywhere?”

Toretta trimmed the ash of his cigarette against the edge of his ashtray. “Just for the sake of knowing, why the rush?”

“It’s not your problem,” Abatangelo said. “Besides, you said sudden was no hassle, remember?”

“I don’t need some low-level idiot with his ass in the fire pointing back my way.”

“I don’t do that, Toretta. I hold my mud.”

“Suppose we’re not talking about you?”

“There’s no one else to talk about. Look, Toretta, are we making a deal or fucking around?”

Toretta crushed out his cigarette and wiped his fingers with a handkerchief. It gave both of them time to reheel. Abatangelo wondered if the handkerchief smelled of ether.

Toretta said, “How much you got on you?”

“Three.”

“Christ.” Toretta sighed and turned away. “I got to tell you, my friend, this tack you’re taking, it’s not flattering. You have a reputation to maintain.”

“I’ll have to talk with my image. We good?”

“Not at three.”

“Okay, fuck me. Three now, the rest later.”

“Next Friday,” Toretta said. “And no telling me Dominic’s good for it. Your merchandise, your debt.”

“Show me what you’ve got,” Abatangelo said.

Toretta turned around, worked the combination on one of the cabinets, opened it and withdrew a hard-shell case. He said he had a few extra pieces with him because it was Fleet Week. He declined to elaborate and Abatangelo didn’t ask him to.

There were three guns in immediate view, each resting in a neoprene mold.

“What’s the advantage of the Colt?” Abatangelo asked.

“It’s the smallest,” Toretta told him. “That’s about it.”

Abatangelo nodded. In a sudden reversion to six years old, he found himself liking the name: Mustang. He also realized it was not a criterion.

“The Beretta?”

Toretta picked up the second weapon and cradled it in his palm. “This has the largest magazine, thirteen rounds. It’s a little thick in the hand. It’s accurate, though. How good a shot are you?”

“It’s never really come up,” Abatangelo admitted.

Toretta stared in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”

“The way I did business, things went better if I used my brain, not muscle.”

Toretta’s brow furrowed. “The brain is a muscle.”

“The brain,” Abatangelo said, “is an organ. My point is that in my day, especially compared to now, things were relatively mellow.”

“Not that mellow. Not possible.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I hit surprise a few miles back. Where there’s money, there’s heat.”

Abatangelo groaned and rubbed his eyes. “I will admit, in the past I’ve resisted the impulse to have weapons around because, to my mind, they carry a distinctly phallic association.”

Toretta laughed. “Exactly.”

They sat like that a moment, staring across a chasm of incomprehension. Finally, Toretta shook his head, put down the Beretta, and held out a black 9 mm.

“This is an Israeli piece, a Sirkis. It aims reasonably straight and you’re likely to stop anything you hit. Go ahead. Hold it.”

Abatangelo took the weapon in his hand and felt an immediate match. It was very light, he could palm it easily. The grip seemed natural and uncomplicated. Like picking a pup from a litter, he thought. You just know. “What are its disadvantages?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. He still hoped to shave the price.

“It’s a blowback,” Toretta said. “The barrel’s going to return on you to eject the fired round. The site’s not all that hot. It’s double action, the first trigger pull’s harder than the rest. Other than that there’s not much to think about.”

“I like that,” Abatangelo admitted.

“It uses a standard parabellum round. Get them anywhere. Don’t need a permit for ammo. Good news for felons.”

Rowena came back in Shel’s truck an hour after she left. From the sounds of it, she’d brought a man back with her. Shel listened from the cellar. Rowena barked instructions at Duval to leave them alone, go out in the living room. “Play that game of yours with the magazines,” she shouted, slamming the bedroom door.