Charlie Hustmyre: House of the Rising Sun

Back on his bed, Ray set the near-empty glass of whiskey on the crate, then stuck another cigarette in his mouth. This time his Zippo flared on the second strike. He tossed the lighter down and punched the POWER button on the remote.

Then the phone rang. Ray stared at it, thinking, hoping really, that it would stop. But it rang again.

What did she want now? He snatched up the phone and answered it without looking at the screen. “Don’t ever hang up on me again!”

Tony Z’s voice barked in his ear. “Shut the fuck up, Ray.”

Ray shut the fuck up.

“Vinnie wants to see you.”

Ray pressed MUTE on the remote. “Now?”

“No. Just whenever you can squeeze him into your schedule.”

“Huh?” Ray not catching Tony’s sarcasm.

“Of course right now, you fucking moron!”

The hair on the back of Ray’s neck stood up. It was an autonomic warning system left over from the caveman days. There was danger here. Vincent Messina didn’t want to see him so he could congratulate Ray for doing such a good job this morning. “Where?” Ray asked.

“In his office.”

Ray paused.

“You there, dipshit?” Tony said.

“I’m on the way.”

A young legbreaker led Ray into Vinnie’s fourth-floor office. The kid wasn’t wearing a suit, which was a sign of the times. When Ray had been in Vice, he never saw a wiseguy who wasn’t wearing a suit. These days it was different. The new generation of wiseguys didn’t have the same respect for the old ways, for tradition, as the previous generation. The kid who let him in had more of a casual mobster look, dressing down, wearing khaki pants and a pullover golf shirt. He was big, offensive tackle size, and after opening the door to the office, he stepped aside to let Ray go in first.

The office was a deep rectangle, with Vinnie’s oversize desk and chair at the far end, facing toward the door. The room was laid out like a great hall with Vinnie Messina as a feudal prince seated on his throne, eyeing his supplicants. Floor-to-ceiling windows on the long exterior wall looked out over the French Quarter.

The young legbreaker put a hand on Ray’s back and guided him toward a leather sofa set at an angle in front of the big desk. Tony Z. sat in a leather wingback next to the sofa. Tony looked fresh, decked out in another Italian suit, his hair oiled and combed, not a strand out of place. Ray wondered if he ever slept.

There were two other guys in the office. One was another young arm-twister, dressed casual like his partner in khakis and a knit shirt. He sat in a hard-backed chair in the far corner, between the desk and the windows. The second guy was Charlie Liuzza, the man everyone called Charlie the Rabbit. Charlie was in his early sixties, but looked trim, like he kept in shape. He sat at the end of the sofa, dressed in a suit and tie, but not the expensive Italian kind Tony wore, more like one you would find hanging on the rack in a decent department store.

Charlie had nothing to do with the House, so why was he here? Ray wondered.

As Ray dropped onto the end of the sofa, opposite Charlie Liuzza, he wondered why he was here. This office made him nervous. On the floor he saw several large rugs, rugs big enough to roll up a body in. The offensive linemen-looking ape who had guided Ray into the room took a seat in the near corner. He and his twin looked like a pair of goombah bookends with Vincent Messina in the middle.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Ray,” Vinnie said in his high-pitched nasally voice. He was fiftysomething and fat, with a bald head he tried to hide under an absurd comb-over.

Ray didn’t know if he was being reprimanded for not getting here quickly enough, or if Vinnie was just making polite conversation. Right after Tony’s call, Ray had showered, dressed, gulped down another glass of Jameson to settle his nerves, then slipped into a sport coat and left. Fifteen minutes and two cigarettes later, he pulled his eight-year-old Mustang into the parking lot on Decatur, two blocks from the House.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Ray said.

Vinnie stared at him, his eyes dark and cold and set deep in his jowly face. The look made Ray wonder if he was going to get out of here alive. He glanced again at the two young goons, but neither of them looked like they were getting ready to make any kind of move against him. Squeezed into the chairs like they were, if they did make a play for him, he would have at least a few seconds to react.

Ray relaxed a bit as Vinnie pointed to Charlie Liuzza. “You know Charlie, don’t you? He works for my brother. Charlie is here, at my brother’s invitation, to make sure we don’t screw this up.”

Ray didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded his head at Charlie, acknowledging the man’s presence.

“But I’m going to handle this my own way,” Vinnie said, giving Charlie a sideways look, “and with my own people.”

An anxious silence enveloped the room. Ray tried to break it. “Handle what?”

Vinnie waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I want you to know that in no way do I hold you responsible for what happened this morning.” He glanced at Tony. “No matter what some people might say.”

“Thank you, Mr. Messina,” Ray said. “I want to tell you personally how sorry I am about-”

“But I want you to find them,” Vinnie said.

Silence.

Finally, Ray said, “Find who?”

“The people who shot my son.”

Ray looked around the room. There had to be a way out of here. Everyone was staring at him. “Mr. Messina… I can’t do that.”

Tony clapped his hands together. He was looking at Vinnie. “I told you.”

Ray chimed in. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I’d do anything to help you. Pete was like a kid brother to me. But I just can’t do this. I don’t have… the ability.”

Vinnie shot him a hard stare. “What do you mean you don’t have the ability? You were a goddamn detective. You sure as shit know how to find people who don’t want to be found.” He leaned forward, keeping his eyes fixed on Ray. “I’m asking you to find the motherfuckers who murdered my boy.” Vinnie choked on the last word and had to cover it with a cough. He was a Mafia big shot, but still a man who had just lost his only son.

Ray felt a lump in his own throat. He glanced out the nearest window. Pete had been a good kid, simpleminded but sweet. An innocent kid. Ray swallowed the lump. There was a lot at stake here. This was no time to get sentimental over a dead half-wit, he told himself. He looked back at Vinnie Messina. “I used to be a detective. Now I’m just an ex-con.”

“That’s even better,” Vinnie said. “Don’t you see that? You know both sides of the street. Plus, now you’re not constrained by all that legal bullshit. I’m not asking you to kill these guys. I’m asking you to use your street smarts and your contacts at the police department to find them. We’ll take care of the rest.”

Ray cleared his throat. “I don’t have any contacts left. I was in prison for almost five years. I’d be as welcome at Tulane and Broad as clap in a convent.”

“What did I tell you?” Tony said. “He’s a fucking coward.”

Ray ignored him. He kept his eyes on Vinnie. “To work it like a cop, you need access to information-lab reports, ballistics, criminal histories, driver’s license information-stuff I can’t get.”

Tony jabbed a finger at Ray. “We lost that money because of you, Shane. You’re either going to find the guys who did this, and get back our three hundred G’s or-”

“Three hundred!” Ray said, turning toward Tony.

“You heard me.”

“We never have that much cash in-”

Vinnie pounded his fat fist on his desk. “I don’t give a shit about the money. I want the motherfuckers who shot my son.”