Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

THREE

Dane had taken a step toward the front door, feeling the possibility of his own murder about to come down, when Phil Guerra, his father's old partner, drove up in a sky-blue Cadillac.

“Oh man, beautiful.”

Dane took a step back and nodded his approval. The car had been waxed to perfection, radiant and gleaming. He could see his reflection in what they called the Magic-Mirror acrylic lacquer finish. Looking really uptight and more than a little lost.

It was a sin to be that uncool around a '59 Caddy.

Sixty-two hundred Series. The dream car and pinnacle of success for every man in Headstone City around Phil's age. And their sons and grandsons.

Outrageous rocket tail fins and jet pod taillights. The grille was a glittering partition of chrome. Dane checked and saw there was even a dummy grille across the lower rear deck. The parking and turn signal lights were paired at the outer ends of the massive front bumper. The rear bumper had huge, chrome outer pods with recessed backup lights. It got his pulse thrumming just to see the car in such cherry shape.

Phil lowered the driver-seat window, leaned over, and asked, “You like it?”

“Oh yeah. I know it's what you've always wanted.”

“Me and everybody else. My old man had one of these, right off the line. Same color. I was thirteen and he never let me drive it. Not once, the prick. But he'd make me wash it twice a week after school until I had soapsuds coming out of my ass.”

“Looks like retirement's been good to you.”

Grinning now, posturing a touch. Phil had a self-satisfied smile that just kept going and going until you could see all the way down the back of his throat. “You ought to get something for your thirty years besides a gold watch.” Some acute bitterness there, but not like the cops who'd really gone to the wall. “Putting your life up against it every day, in the street with the garbage. I would've been better off in sanitation with the rest of the mooks.”

Dane's father had been proud of his badge, never bitched once, and had died on the job. So Dane didn't have much sympathy for Phil. “You get a full pension, insurance, and benefits. Then you take a security position in a warehouse someplace, sleep on the job, and draw another check.”

“Why don't you get in, Johnny? Before some wiseguy decides to shoo you off the sidewalk.”

Dane thought about it. Maybe he should take care of this first. When you had accounts to square going all the way back to your childhood, it was tough to prioritize. They all threaded together and snarled into the same web. There'd be time enough for the showdown after he'd cleared up a few other matters. He took another look at the front door of Chooch's, imagining blood on the ceiling. He grinned at Phil and climbed in. “Sure.”

Fifteen years ago, when he was seventeen, he could've stolen and sold this car for maybe twenty grand cash. Now, he couldn't even guess what it might run.

“You know why the Caddy has such ludicrous fins?” Phil asked.

“Yeah.”

“You do?” Like he was afraid if he said some kind of bullshit now he'd get called on it.

Dane looked at him. “Yeah. The designers were fascinated with rockets and space missions. Before man walked on the moon, but they knew it was coming soon. You take a look at the rear, it resembles the exhaust ports of a jet, right? Even when it's sitting in your driveway, it's still cruising. Cadillac was going head-to-head with Chrysler at the time. They put a rush schedule to get the 1959 draft completed. The entire lineup flaunted visibility. Spaciousness. You can see all four corners with this windshield.”

“I like how it curves.”

“Nice. They did a good job refitting it.” Dane ran his hand over the seat. “You got burned on the fabric though.”

Phil froze, the proud smile going rictus. “What?”

“The interior isn't original.”

“You fuckin' with me, Johnny?”

“No.” Dane felt good, showing off. A couple hundred hours stealing cars and working in chop shops came in handy for conversations like this. “You've got the metallic fabric used on the Fleetwood Sixty Special. It trapped the hairs of women's mink coats so the manufacturer switched it out. Weird that your restorer would put this in.” Stroking it, enjoying the feel, like petting the back of a sleeping woman's head. “Same period… even more rare, really, when you get down to it. But not the high-class stuff.” Dane tried to think which mob garages might've had the old Fleetwood fabric tucked away for fifty years.

Phil turned, expressionless, but seething beneath the false composure. He didn't mind being ripped off half as much as being alerted to the fact.

Guerra. The name meant “war” in Italian, and Phil liked that. It gave him an extra measure of poise, especially when he was a cop. He said his name-the word-like he practiced it, putting everything he had into it.

Voice firm and smooth as a character actor in some noir movie from the thirties. Phil had porked up about fifty pounds since he'd retired, but he'd been working on everything else. A pretty good rug with the right amount of silver in it, a nice tan from spending half the week in an ultraviolet booth. Stylish clothes, expensive leather shoes. He was pushing sixty but looked ten years younger. The extra weight hit him mostly in the face, filling out his cheeks and making him look jolly and generous.

Phil drove badly. Way too fast, riding bumpers all around town. He circled Wisewood and sped under the highway. He barely slowed for the stop signs and always gunned it during yellow lights.

Years ago he'd had the moves to back up his breakneck driving, but with age the man's reflexes had slowed considerably. Dane remembered Phil and his wife Mabel taking Dane and his parents out on long drives across Jersey and Pennsylvania, to the Poconos. Upstate to Albany to see the Capitol Building. Mom would be in the backseat petrified as Phil gunned it across bridges, swinging through lazy small-town traffic and nearly clipping cattle that had wandered onto the road. Mabel would scrunch down and pour herself a gin and tonic from the Thermos she always brought along. Dad occasionally laughing, watching, always with too much on his mind. Dane would sit on his mother's lap and giggle like crazy, shouting, “Go faster, Uncle Philly! Go faster!”

He could remember, very clearly, but without being able to feel it anymore, just how much he used to love Phil Guerra.

“Who picked you up?”

“Nobody,” Dane said. “I took the bus.”

“That's terrible. That's just awful. I'm sorry about that, Johnny. If I'd known you were gonna do that, I would've come by. It must be awfully hard walking back into the world and not seeing a friendly face the minute you step outside.”

Actually, it was a lot tougher never seeing a friendly face on the inside, but Dane didn't want to cloud the issue. “It's all right. The ride was fine. Two other guys I knew from the joint were being released the same time, and they had their whole families on board. It was like a tour bus. Wives and mothers, their sisters, kids. One guy, he's thirty-seven and has three grandchildren.”

“Gotta be a spic then.”

Dane took out a cigarette while Phil eyed him, trying to hide his anxiety. The thought of ashes falling onto the fabric, even if it wasn't original, put a crazed gleam in his eye.

“Don't light that.”

“I won't.”

“So was he a spic or a nigger?”

Sometimes you had to let the old-school bigotry go by, and sometimes you didn't. Dane said, “His name's D'Abruzzi. Stefano D'Abruzzi. His kids brought a laptop with them, playing DVDs on it. I watched the first half of one of the Harry Potter movies. Pretty good for a kid's flick. Anyway, Stefano's father's got a restaurant on the Upper West Side.”