Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

Vinny hadn't been quite as fortunate. He'd landed face-first against the curb, shattering his nose and taking out most of his teeth. Crushed one cheek, burst his right eye, and caused a long dent in his brow. It was almost deep enough that you could fit your pinky in it and your finger would be flush with the rest of his face.

The court took more pity on them for that. The Monti attorneys were slick and got both of them off with probation.

“I just don't want to see you wind up like your dad,” Phil Guerra was saying.

Dane frowned, and asked, “How so?”

“You know. Dead before your time.”

That tickled Dane so much that he had to suppress a chuckle, leaving it under his tongue. Jesus, Phil sure could push a point home.

“You ready to visit your grandma?”

“Drop me off at La Famiglia. I still need to get her some pastry.” The bakery was two blocks away from Chooch's. They'd circled the neighborhood and were pretty much back where they'd started.

“Sure.” Phil let him out on the corner and shook his hand. “Give Lucia my love. Good luck, Johnny.”

“Thanks.”

“Give me a call if you ever need anything. I mean that. Anything at all.”

“I will.”

“And don't steal my car!” he shouted, letting out the sham laughter again. Dane sort of chuckled with him, thinking he just might have to boost the Caddy before this was all over.

Then he smiled and let his cigarette hang loose from the corner of his mouth, knowing that when he hit that pose, he looked exactly like his father.

Phil stuck his index finger out, cocked his thumb like it was a gun, and pretended to shoot Dane. Jesus, if these guys were always this subtle with their stupid threats, it was a wonder that anybody ever got bumped. Dane let his smile widen, showing teeth, squinting, the way Dad used to do when he was on the edge, ready to take somebody down.

Dane stood there and watched his father's partner drive away, knowing with real certainty for the first time that it was Uncle Philly who'd shot John Danetello Sr. in the head with his own service pistol.

The impatient death angel, circling overhead, having waited long enough for another chance.

So here we go.

Dane walked around the block to Chooch's and stepped inside. The place was empty, which took him back a little. There were always a couple of muscle boys around and a familiar face or two at the back tables, even this early in the day. Nobody at the bar, not even a bartender.

The lights were on though. He cocked an ear, listening for noise in the back rooms, but there was nothing.

Dane moved farther into Chooch's, remembering the first couple times he'd been here with Vinny when they weren't even in their teens. Big Tommy Bartone setting up a couple of shots for them, thinking it was funny to let them drink themselves sick, dragging them both out in the alley to puke. Tommy laughing his ass off while they turned a deeper green and stumbled home.

Dane's scars began to burn, his skull abruptly pounding. He saw a slight blur of motion in the mirror and turned. Vinny was behind him, moving across the room to an empty table. He sat and stared at Dane expectantly, waiting like bait in the center of an ambush. His graceful hands folded easily in front of him. The glass eye pinning Dane, just a little off. It had a few flecks of green in it that the real one didn't have. He'd filled in the hairless section of his scarred eyebrow with an eyebrow pencil.

You wait so long for the moment to come, imagining what it'll be like and how you'll feel about it, and when it finally arrives you feel nothing. Even staring at the man who, out of everybody in the world, still knew you the best.

“It's good to see you,” Vinny said, and he sounded like he meant it. “Let's put this meeting off for a different day, all right?”

“Any time in particular?”

“Yeah, a rainy afternoon out in Wisewood. There'll be a hot-air balloon outside St. Mary's. I'll let you know when.”

“If that's a threat, it's a little cryptic.” Dane wanted to sit across from Vinny, lean across the table, and meet his eyes up close, but there were no other chairs around. There was always something that fucked up your big dramatic moment. “You want a guy's knees to tremble, you ought to be clear about it.”

“I'm telling you the truth, Johnny. I always do.”

“Your truth has a way of changing,” Dane said.

“That's not my fault. I just try to make the choices from the three I've got.”

“Is that all you have, Vinny? Still?”

“Yeah.”

Dane glanced around. “Why's the bar empty?”

“I knew you were coming, so I gave everybody the day off and told my crew to stay away.”

“I didn't think you ever closed up Chooch's.”

“It's only for a little while.”

No anger showing through, no upset or anything else. Vinny looked almost bored, maybe with a touch of regret, like he knew what was coming and had heard it many times before. Dane expected him to get a little hot, squeezing more juice out of the scene, but he only shrugged. Maybe both of them were hoping the other would just pack up and move away.

Vinny had taken something extra away from the accident too, the way Dane had done. A new kind of burden laid across their backs.

Three years after the crash Vinny became a lieutenant for his father, Don Pietro. It wasn't the usual way of things to have a blood relative of the big boss being a capo so early on, but it's what Vinny wanted, and the Don tried to play into everybody's strengths.

Vinny's first serious job had been to whack a guy named Paulo Cruz, who ran a Colombian crew over in south Jersey. They were hijacking trucks full of casino equipment from the Monticelli hotels in Atlantic City, causing lots of heartburn for everybody.

When Dane heard that Paulo Cruz had taken two in the head, and Vinny showed up at the bar wearing a glow of distinguished confidence, Dane knew Vinny had killed his first man.

It took the Jersey mob about a week to counterattack. It wasn't a particularly well-thought-out plan, just Paulo's brother Baldo and one of his soldiers walking down 82 ndAvenue with their hands in their pockets, coming toward the bar.

Dane and Vinny were stepping up the curb together.

“This doesn't have anything to do with you, Danetello,” Baldo Cruz said, which surprised Dane. Most wiseguys didn't care who they took out, so long as they got the one they were after. Classy.

A strange sound filled the air. It took Dane a second to realize it was coming from Vinny

This wheezing cackle, like he'd been laughing for hours and could barely catch his breath now.

“The hell is so funny?” Baldo asked.

“You!” Vinny shrieked. “Thrashing around on the ground like that!”

“What the hell you talking about, man?”

“The look on your face! Like you just got a bad piece of ass. Oh Jesus Christ, and… and… you're pissing yourself!” Vinny shook with laughter like a complete maniac. The fake eye never moving, staring straight ahead.

It made Dane's scalp tighten and a chill form at the base of his spine. His scars began to heat, the knowledge spreading through him that the entire world was shifting just an inch to the left. He felt dizzy and nauseous, like everything around him was reeling. Not him spinning, but the rest of existence. The metal in his head felt like it was tearing loose.

Baldo and the Jersey shooter made their move. Dane spun up the sidewalk and tried to get behind a lamppost, scared but not all that worried. The apathy had already taken hold by then. It was a bad feeling to have at a moment like this.

But they were slow, much slower than Vinny, who drew his.32 and pointed it at Baldo's legs. He fired twice and did this little dipping, zigzag motion that looked silly as hell. Like a nine-year-old girl sort of skipping along.