Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

“Yeah, they will.” It was true. This wasn't Vinny's serious play anyhow. It was him having fun, breaking balls, keeping Dane on his toes.

“Those bunch of goomba pricks don't forget nothin' about nobody,” Mako whined, shuffling his feet so they squeaked. “If they did, they'd have let you ride out of here.”

“It's a different situation.”

“And I'm supposed to trust what you say? That they'll fade back?”

“Yeah.”

“I get told I got a visitor. First visitor I've had my entire nickel in the joint. My pa don't come, my old lady, not even my kid, the little bastard. This visitor's a big guy in an Armani suit, one eyebrow, hands like he goes around slugging brick walls for fun.”

That'd be Roberto Monticelli. It took Dane back some, wondering why Berto had come himself instead of one of the family capos or lieutenants.

“Guy tells me I do this to you or I get it done to me. Goes into all this bullshit about blowtorches and meat grinders, how he's gonna mail me to six cities all over New Jersey. Except with him, I know it's not bullshit.”

Dane couldn't really help but argue the point. “Most of it is.”

“It's the part that's not that worries me.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“The hell you gonna do that?” Mako groused. Thinking about Berto had gotten him all wired up, given him the shakes. The point of the shiv danced against his T-shirt. “Even if you get out the front gate, you'll be dead before you hit the corner.”

“Don't believe it.”

“We got no choice.”

Kremitz started to steel himself. Jaws clenched, leaning forward on his toes, he was jazzing himself up to attack.

Dane had been a pretty poor soldier overall, but he'd liked the hand-to-hand combat training. His drill instructor would use him all the time as a practice dummy, flipping Dane over his hip and throwing him down in the dirt. Kicking his feet out from under him over and over. The DI would demonstrate how to drive the knife in, how to keep the blade from getting stuck in bone.

Without fully realizing it, Dane had absorbed a lot, and would pull the moves when he got drunk, beating on the loudmouthed Irish officers who called him a greasy guinea. But he never got used to the stockade the way he did the slam, and he couldn't figure out why.

Mako and Kremitz weren't going to be too tough so long as he didn't slip on the wet tile. They didn't know how to work as a team, standing too far away from each other. They swept out clumsily with their shanks and both of them tightened up, lurching, wanting to end it fast. Faces growing more grim, but with a hint of pleading in their eyes.

The drill instructor would call Dane and another guy over, tell them to charge at him. He had this one routine where he'd maneuver past Dane, grab hold of him by the elbows, and use his body like a shield to block the other soldier's attack. Dane would be standing there like a bag of potatoes, getting the crap beat out of him while the DI let out a brash chuckle.

Dane had never tried the move and decided this might be a good time. He dodged past Kremitz, hooked him by the elbows, and swung him around into Mako's face. Mako let out a grunt of surprise and jumped back, under the steaming force of the shower. Dane kneed Kremitz in the thigh from behind, brought him low, and shoved. The sound track from a Stooges short couldn't have made it any more perfect. Kremitz and Mako clunked heads and dropped their shivs, slid to all fours in the soapy water.

Dane couldn't help himself and let out a chuckle of his own. He hated the sound of it, but there it was. You were nothing but an amalgam of your influences. He grabbed one of the shivs and stabbed both men in their upper legs, in the thick meat of the muscle where it wouldn't do a lot of damage. He twisted the blades just enough to make the wounds look especially ugly. Mako and Kremitz both started to scream, and Dane said, “I'm doing you a favor, so shut the hell up.”

While they writhed on the shower floor Dane ducked back under the showerhead and rinsed off the rest of the soap. Blood swirled near his feet. When he was finished he toweled off and got dressed, listening to them groan through their teeth trying to swallow down the pain. They rolled and squirmed across the tiles.

“Sheezus shheee-it!” Kremitz hissed. “Y-you crippled us!”

Moaning, Mako stuck his face in the drain, blowing bubbles as he gripped his leg to hold in the blood.

“You're both going to be fine. Say that you got into a fight with each other.”

“Jeezus!”

“You'll be in the infirmary for three or four weeks. You're not hurt bad but they'll want to keep an eye on you for infection. After that, the bulls will toss you into solitary for at least another month. By the end of your run, I'll either be dead or this shit with the Monticelli family will be cleared up.”

“You sure… about that, Johnny?” Mako whimpered.

“Even if I'm not, you're better off than I would've been, right?” Dane let out a slow smile. A part of him wanted Mako to end it now. Cut their throats, finish it the right way. You don't injure the enemy, you eradicate him. His fingers twitched. A small, sharp fury nearly broke free from the center of his chest, but as he felt himself about to take a step forward, it receded. He almost wished it hadn't gone. “Don't fuckin' complain.”

Mako grabbed him by the ankle and squeezed once, as a sign of thanks. Dane combed his hair back, checked himself in the mirror to make certain his grandmother wouldn't give him a rough time.

He walked out past the guards on the Monti payroll, gave them a grin and a little salute. He felt good, stronger than he had earlier in the day, more settled. He'd been half wondering if he'd had a death wish, and the answer seemed to be no. Still, it was the kind of thing you couldn't be a hundred percent sure about.

When he got back to his cell, the girl he'd killed, Angelina Monticelli, was sitting on his cot.

“Oh Christ,” he said, his scars suddenly burning.

She wavered for a moment, fading and reappearing, then vanished, leaving an old man sitting where she'd been-Aaron Fielding, a neighborhood grocer and fish seller buried a couple of rows from her in Wisewood cemetery. The guy was always smiling and letting the kids steal cheap candy bars from the wire racks at the front of the store. He'd let out this heavy, booming laugh whenever something hit him just right.

But old man Fielding had a wild and desperate look to him, colorless eyes flitting all over the place, hinges of his jaws pulsing. He raised a hand to Dane in a gesture of pleading. “Johnny, I need-”

“I can't talk to you right now, Mr. Fielding,” Dane said, his voice hard, flat. “Later.”

His gray face filled with terror. There was none of the joy and peace the nuns taught you about when you were a kid, what you hoped for when you hit the other side. “Please!”

“No.”

“Just for a little while.”

“No, Mr. Fielding.”

“A minute. Only one moment more!”

“No!”

Angie snapped back into focus. She let out a soft laugh, like it was funny the shit she had to go through to talk to Dane. Or what he had to do to bring her in.

She said, “Berto says they're going to let you go home and visit your grandmother first, then they'll clip you on your second or third week out.”

“I guess he's not as eager as I thought he was.”

“He wants to build up tension, make it spectacular.”

“He doesn't have the imagination or style for that.”

“I know, but it's what he tells his crew.”

“Does the Don agree with all this?”

“No, but Daddy doesn't really stand up to Roberto anymore. He's old and in a lot of pain.”

“What about Vinny?”