Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

“I may be a drunk,” I said, “but I’m not crazy.”

A hangover is a symptom of alcohol withdrawal, so the surest cure is more booze. I poured myself a shot of Bushmills and threw it down. Together we wandered into the living room, collapsed on the couch, and snapped on the TV. We watched the Red Sox all Sunday afternoon before switching the channel to ESPN. Our stomachs begged us to leave them alone, and for once we listened. Sometime during the third or fourth replay of SportsCenter, we fell asleep.

Monday morning I got up late again, stumbled down the stairs, and collected my mail from the box in the hall. Then I opened the outside door and fetched the daily paper from the stoop. Upstairs, I tossed four frozen sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches into the microwave and started a pot of coffee. When I dropped the sandwiches on the kitchen table, the smell roused Joseph from the couch. He trudged in and snagged the sports page. I scanned page one and spotted a two-deck, one-column headline at the bottom of page one.

VANDALS ATTACK DISPATCH NEWSROOM.

It was accompanied by a photo of Twisdale’s office, where plastic fish bobbed in what looked like about six feet of water. According to the story, the damage was estimated at seven thousand dollars.

I slid the front page to Joseph. He glanced at it and laughed. Now that I’d sobered up, I didn’t find our escapade all that funny.

“Think they suspect you?” he asked.

“Oh, sure,” I said, “along with the forty other people the company let go in the last year and everybody who’s got a beef with anything they printed.”

“A lot of suspects, then?”

“Hundreds.”

I finished the paper and turned to the mail. A credit card bill, three offers for more credit cards I didn’t want, and a little package. I didn’t remember ordering anything. Puzzled, I tore it open and found a pale blue box with gold lettering. Inside were a gift card and a heavy sterling chain, each link in the shape of an old-fashioned typewriter. It looked expensive. I flipped the card open.

I’m sorry. I was wrong to doubt you. Please call me.-Yolanda.

I draped the chain over my head and let it settle on my neck. I liked the way it felt.

“Sweet,” Joseph said. “Is it from her?”

“It is.”

I snatched my cell from the table and placed a call.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

“Hi, Mulligan. Did you get my peace offering?”

“I did. Not sure it’s appropriate, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not a writer anymore.”

“Baby, you’ll always be a writer. Nobody can ever take that away from you.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

“How about coming over tonight and giving me a look at those infamous Bruins boxers? I’ll cook for you.”

I hesitated. One glance in the mirror this morning told me that my lost weekend had done some damage.

“Can we make it Tuesday? I’ve got some things I need to do today.”

Tearing Jefferson’s Achilles had cost me more than heartache. I’d lost fifty bucks betting he’d make the team. Then again, my winning wager on Benton was worth two bills, so Whoosh owed me a hundred and fifty dollars. Leaving Joseph behind in the apartment, I skipped down the stairs and fetched Secretariat.

I’d just cranked the ignition when it occurred to me that Mario Zerilli and Marco Alfano were out there somewhere and probably still nursing a grudge. I went back upstairs for my nine mil, stuck it in my waistband, and headed out again. Ten minutes later, I pulled up to Zerilli’s Market and parked on the street a few car lengths in front of an unoccupied gray Honda Civic. Christ! The damned things were everywhere.

The store lights were burning; but the place was locked up tight, a “Closed” sign hanging on the front door. That was odd. I shaded my eyes with my right hand and peered through a gap in the beer and cigarette advertising posters plastered all over the front window.

At first, I saw only Doreen, the latest in a series of gum-chomping high-school dropouts Whoosh had hired to man the register. She was standing halfway down the center grocery aisle. She looked terrified. Then Whoosh appeared and beckoned her to follow him. They turned left at the end of the aisle, and I lost sight of them. I shifted to look through another gap in the window and spotted them climbing the short flight of stairs to Whoosh’s private office. A tall, scrawny guy in jeans and a black T-shirt followed them up. He had a silver pistol in his hand.

I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and called 911.

Unless a patrol car was in the area, it was going to take the Providence cops at least ten minutes to get there. I sprinted around the building to the back door and tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn, but the lockset looked cheap. I slid a credit card from my wallet, shoved it between the door and the frame, and felt the lock give. But if the dead bolt was thrown, I was sunk.

It wasn’t. I pulled my gun, pushed the door open, and stepped into a storage room piled high with cartons of cheap beer and boxes of Doritos, Ding Dongs, and cigarettes. I tiptoed through it, found another door, nudged it open, and emerged just a few feet from the stairs to the office. At the top, the steel door stood slightly ajar. Angry voices floated down, but I couldn’t make out the words. I put my foot on the first step and started up.

I was halfway there when I heard a grunt. Then, in quick succession, a thump, a growl, a shriek, and a single gunshot. A heartbeat later, a woman screamed. Leading with my gun, I burst through the door.

Doreen was standing beside the keyhole desk, her face contorted as if she were about to scream again. Whoosh was sprawled on the carpet, bleeding from a gash on his head. The man who’d held the gun was doubled over in pain, the weapon lying uselessly on the floor. Shortstop, his jaws locked on the man’s gun arm, dug his back paws into the carpet and dragged the creep down.

Mario Zerilli’s head made a cracking sound as it hit the thin carpet. I pointed my pistol at him and kicked him once in the ribs. Hard. When he didn’t react, I knew he was out cold, embarked on an exciting new career as a canine chew toy. I looked closer and saw that he was also bleeding from what appeared to be a bullet wound in his right foot.

I squatted, grabbed the silver pistol, and slipped it in my back pocket. Then I went to Whoosh, helped him up, and deposited him in his desk chair.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“Want to call off your dog?”

“Why the hell should I?”

“He’s gonna kill Mario if you don’t.”

Whoosh took a couple of seconds to decide whether he gave a shit.

“Shortstop! Come here, boy.”

The big mutt unlocked his jaws from Mario’s arm, loped over, and rested his bloody maw in his master’s lap.

My first words to the homicide twins: “Believe me now?”

“Believe what?” Wargart said.

“That Mario’s still alive.”

“Barely,” Freitas said. “He’s got a hairline skull fracture, a painful gunshot wound, and a dog bite that nicked an artery. The punk lost a lot of blood.”

“He gonna make it?”

“The docs at Rhode Island Hospital say yeah.”

We were drinking coffee in that same interrogation room. By now, I was a regular, so they knew how I took it.

“Start at the beginning,” Wargart said, “and tell us what happened.”

“I don’t know much,” I said. “By the time I got there, it was all over but the bleeding.”

It was midafternoon by the time they were done with me. A squad car gave me a lift back to my vehicle, which was still parked in front of Zerilli’s Market. Just down the street, Patrolman Bobby Santo, one of the few Providence cops I remained on good terms with, was pawing through the trunk of that gray Honda Civic.