Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

“Oh yeah? Let me think. D'Abruzzi's, that's right. I ate there a few times. They had to order their tiramisu and torrone from the Jewish bakery down the block. What proud Sicilian is gonna do that, I ask?”

“The grandfather was from Naples.”

“That explains it then.”

Phil had already pulled Dane's trigger and made a harsh association, so now he had to ride his hate out. It was usually like this when you talked to the old-world Italians in the neighborhood. The old cops, the old-school mob guys. You couldn't get away from it. Their attitude was ingrained. No way to ingratiate or back down, you just had to shoulder past. Dane nodded passively, like he did whenever the bulls started to pull this sort of crap. Trying to start a race war because they were bored.

Phil's brow unfurrowed. He knew he was getting off track and didn't have a lot of time to make whatever play he was going for. “Hey, don't light that.”

“I won't.”

“You see Grandma Lucia yet?”

“No.”

“She's gonna be worried. You should've gone straight there to say hello.”

“I talked to her before I left the prison. She wants me to get her some cannoli and biscotti. ”

“Go to La Famiglia. ”

“I will.”

“They still know how to bake. Their amaretti are the best.”

Were they really talking about cookies?

But then Phil Guerra, patting the side of his silver rug, finally managed to get around to it. “You shouldn't be hanging around this part of the neighborhood, Johnny.”

“That right?” Like you could be in the neighborhood without being in every part of it at the same time. When you were back, you were in all the way.

“It's not the safest place for you.”

“Think it's safer than the can?”

“Maybe not.”

Phil took the next turn so wide that they wound up in oncoming traffic, tires squealing. He let out a wild guffaw and swerved back into his lane, tapping the curb. Dane shifted uneasily.

“What, you scared?”

“No.”

“You look edgy.”

“I always do.”

It still got to him, after all these years. He hated being in a car with anybody else driving, no matter who it was or how good they were behind the wheel. Dane was a driver. He always wanted to be in charge of the machine.

Rummaging through the glove compartment, he came up with a pair of thick glasses in dark plastic frames. He figured they'd be there, the man too vain to use them. “You sure you don't need these for driving, Phil?”

“Ah, them optometrists, whatta they know?”

“That you can't see?”

“I see fine.”

Dane put the glasses back, imagining how tough it must be on Phil's wife, Mabel, living with him now that he was retired, refusing to think of himself as any different than when he was twenty-five. She probably had gin bottles stashed all over the house, in the toilet tank, behind the insulation in the attic, in back of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. One of these days she'd grab the drain opener instead and that would be the end of her consoling, sneaky sipping.

Now the guy was getting a little crazy. Phil nearly sideswiped a bus making a tight left turn from the opposite lane. Dane fidgeted again, knowing this was a weakness he couldn't hide, and it had taken the man all of five minutes to find it out.

“Well, at least you've got a hard head,” Phil said. He let out a slow, low, counterfeit laugh that went on for too long. He tapped the inside of the windshield… one, two, three… then reached over and did the same to Dane's forehead… one, two, three. Phil even grabbed him by the neck so he could lay his fingers on the scars and check if they were still there.

Knocking at the metal doors of his skull.

On the day Dane and Vinny stole their third car, they went joyriding down to the Jersey Shore. They spent the day swimming, lying out on the sand, and moving the car around to different parking lots whenever a police cruiser came by. They met a couple of girls, freshmen in college, who spent equal parts of the afternoon snubbing them and aggressively flirting with them. By sunset they lay wrapped in their beach towels in the dunes, drunk and mostly naked. As with all the worst troubles in his life, Dane missed his chance at an easy escape by only a few seconds.

Vinny spoiled the night by putting on his pants, taking out his wallet, and offering the girls money. Not even much at that. He was still a little steamed about his girl initially rebuffing him, even though she'd eventually hauled his ashes. He could carry a grudge to the bottom of hell.

Pissed off and humiliated, the girls threw their beer cans at Vinny's chest, gave him the finger, and fled. Dane actually had to grab him by the arm to keep him from giving chase, like he was going to smack them around, make them take the cash. He was just starting to show the Monticelli temper, the resentments that he'd never shake.

By the time Dane and Vinny finished another six-pack and got back to the car, they were buzzing pretty good. Dane took it slow out of the parking lot, driving carefully, but suddenly the exit was blocked by two screeching cop cars.

Instead of pillow talk or discussing the violin, Vinny had told his girl all about boosting the car. Showing off, starting to swing his weight around, mentioning the Don. After he'd embarrassed her, she'd gone up to the boardwalk and called the nearest precinct.

Dane said, “Uyh,” shook his head, and tried to assess the situation. He saw an escape route clear and distinct in his mind. He could stand on the gas, cross a couple of rows of parked cars, slip around a streetlight, and jump the curb. It came down to about thirty seconds' worth of real action. If he could get a fifth of a mile head start, he knew he could lose the cops, dump the ride, and pick up another. But only if he could get that fifth of a mile.

He turned to Vinny to ask him what he wanted to do, but Vinny was already hissing under his breath about the girl, laughing to himself and sneering. Saying how he was going to kill her, stick a filleting blade in her kidney. Dane had never seen Vinny like that before, nearly fucking foaming.

The longer they sat around the worse it would be, so Dane threw the car into drive, ready to turn the wheel and try to make the curb. With a crazed, grating screech of eagerness Vinny screamed at him to bust through the roadblock instead. It was the kind of nutty crap that would never work. Making a death run at the cops would only get them aggravated assault, attempted vehicular murder.

High beams filled the stolen car and another siren blasted behind them. Megaphone voices snarling and ordering them out, onto the ground, facedown. Interlace your fingers and put your hands behind your head.

So, it was over before it had started. Dane went to shut off the engine and Vinny let out a yelp of joyous rage. Maybe he was happy, thinking he wouldn't have to play the violin in the joint.

He sort of dived up against Dane, giggling madhatter-style, like it was all a bad joke that would somehow end pleasantly. Suddenly he was trying to wrestle himself into the driver's seat, shoving Dane up against the door, jamming his leg across Dane's, and stomping the gas pedal. Vinny had a death grip on the wheel that Dane couldn't break.

They hit the blocking cruisers going about fifty and they both went headfirst through the windshield.

Dane had been lucky. Just one bad gash along his front hairline that took forty stitches, all the other trauma happening in back of his head, where nobody could see so long as he grew his hair long. A couple small metal plates to reinforce his cracked skull, about a hundred staples holding his brains in. Nothing that would show until he started to go bald in another eight or ten years.