Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

A foot cracked against his ribs.

“Roll him over,” a voice commanded.

Someone kicked him over onto his back. The room was still dark. The shadow of a man stood near the door. “Get him up,” the shadow said. “He tries anything, crack him with that steel pot again.”

Two guys, one on each arm, pulled Ray to his feet. At least three of them in the apartment. Still he couldn’t make out any faces. His ribs felt like they were on fire. The pain sucked the air out of his lungs. With his head spinning and his lungs unable to draw a breath, Ray’s knees turned to jelly. The hands clutching his arms were all that held him up.

“He’s too heavy,” the one on the right said.

“I think we hurt him,” the one on the left said.

The shadow in front of Ray let out a sigh. He walked away from the door and dragged a chair over from Ray’s garage-sale dinette set. The two guys on either side dropped him into the chair.

The dark image walked back to the door and flicked on the light switch. As the light seared into Ray’s head, doubling his pain, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block it out. Something trickled down the side of his head and dripped into his ear.

After a couple seconds he opened his eyes, blinked them clear, then found himself looking at Tony Zello. Tony was leaning against the door, ten feet away, hands in his pants pockets, looking cool in a charcoal gray suit with blue pinstripes, a maroon handkerchief folded in the breast pocket, and a green paisley tie. “How you doing, Ray?”

“What the fuck do you want?” Ray croaked, his tongue thick in his mouth. When he glanced up to his right, he saw Rocco looming over him. Another big steroid guzzler named Joey stood to his left. Both of them were pushing down on his shoulders to keep him in the chair. On the floor lay a two-quart steel cooking pot. When he left this morning, it had been on the stove.

Tony Zello slipped one hand out of his pocket as he stood up straight. He jabbed a finger at Ray. “You’re stupid, Shane. You know that?” He stepped closer. “You’re just like every other cop I know. You want to be a player, but you ain’t got the balls.”

The chair in which Ray had been dumped was one of three he kept around his breakfast table, molded plastic with four aluminum legs and no arms. The weight of the two goons pressing down on his shoulders kept him planted in the seat.

As Tony got near him, Ray swung his right arm up and smashed it into Rocco’s forearm, but it was like striking a telephone pole.

“Hold him still, goddamn it,” Tony said.

Ray dropped his left shoulder and tried to squirm out from under Joey’s hand, but the two goons just drove his shoulders down harder and grabbed his arms with their free hands.

“You ain’t going nowhere, you dumb fuck,” Tony said as he stepped in and landed a solid punch just above Ray’s left eye. “You thought you were smart, huh? Thought you could take our fucking money.”

Ray had a sick feeling in his stomach, a fluttering, like being on a roller coaster as it plummeted down a steep drop. He could tell by the way they were acting, the set expressions on the faces of the two goons, that they were going to kill him. The fact that Tony thought Ray had done something wrong was enough to kill him. These guys had a very low burden of proof.

“Tony, what the fuck are you talking-”

The next punch almost knocked Ray out of the chair, despite the two goons. Blood ran into his eye, then down the side of his face.

Through his bloodied vision, Ray saw that Rocco and Joey were both staring at Tony, their mouths set tight. Both worked at the House, both were young. There was a good chance neither had ever made his bones, been directly involved in killing someone. Ray didn’t want to be their first.

He had always been a good talker. Once he had spent nearly an hour talking to an enraged Mexican who was brandishing a machete. The guy had come home from work, found his wife on all fours, the clerk from the neighborhood grocery mounted up behind her. Ray, still working uniform patrol, got to the scene first and cornered the husband in the bedroom, the chopped-up bodies of his wife and the grocery clerk still in the bed. Every other cop wanted to shoot the guy.

Instead of shooting, Ray holstered his gun and walked into the bedroom. An hour later he led the man out in handcuffs, the two of them talking like old friends. He had a way with words. It was a gift. But when he needed them most, to save his own life, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Tony raised one foot and stomped it down on Ray’s stomach. The kick doubled Ray over as he fought for breath. If it weren’t for the two bruisers holding him in place, he would have been curled up on the floor sucking wind.

“I figured it was you all along,” Tony said. “It had to be. Then, when I found out you knew those two guys…”

How the hell had Tony found out about Michael Salazaar and Dylan Sylvester? Ray had just learned about them himself, and he hadn’t even found Sylvester yet. In short gasps, he said, “I don’t know… who you’ve been talking to… but I don’t know those guys… I arrested them is all.”

He had explained the same thing to Jimmy LaGrange.

Tony kicked him again. “I take back what I said about cops ain’t got no balls. What you did took balls, but like I said, it was stupid.”

Ray tried to speak but only managed a dry heave. Finally, he got the words out. “It wasn’t me.”

Tony slid a small revolver from under his suit coat. Ray recognized it as a Smith amp; Wesson. 38, the Chief’s Special model with a two-inch barrel, just like the one Ray had carried in an ankle rig while he was on the job.

“You fucked up, Shane. Now you got to fess up. This is going to go down one of two ways, easy or hard. It’s your choice.” Tony laid the muzzle against Ray’s knee. “Either way, you’re going to tell me everything.”

“I didn’t take your money,” Ray croaked.

Tony grinned. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He cocked the hammer.

“Hey, Tony.” Rocco’s voice was nervous. “Ain’t you gonna call Vinnie? You know, like he said.”

Tony stared up at Rocco, his concentration broken. He lifted the gun off Ray’s knee and waved it around, gesturing with it as he spoke. “No, I ain’t gonna call Vinnie, you dumb fuck. I’m gonna straighten this out myself.”

The other knuckle-dragger said, “Yeah, but I still think you should at least call-”

Tony’s face flushed beet red as he screamed, “Vinnie told me to handle this, and that’s what I’m fucking doing.” Then he leaned into Joey’s face, spittle flying from his lips as he shouted, “If you ain’t got the stomach for this kind of work, go back to being a fucking busboy and a dishwasher.”

For just a second, no one was paying attention to Ray. The pressure from the two goons on his shoulders had eased, same with their grip on his wrists. Words weren’t going to work. There was no way to talk his way out of this. He had to make a move, and he had to make it right now.

Ray lashed out with his right foot and kicked Tony in the balls. Tony grabbed his scrotum and fell to his knees, his revolver clattering to the floor. For an instant the two goons were distracted, and Ray came out of the chair. He made a grab for the. 38 but couldn’t reach it.

Rocco and Joey clawed at Ray but they missed. Ray threw a right hook into Tony’s jaw that knocked him onto his back.

The door was ten feet away, just three steps. But it was too far and Ray knew it. The two musclemen would drag him down from behind before he made it halfway. There was another way out. The window. Three feet wide and four feet tall, it overlooked the back half of the boathouse below his apartment. Beyond that was the marina, and beyond that, Lake Pontchartrain. The two goons were blocking his path.