Charlie Hustmyre: House of the Rising Sun

This was getting dangerous, Ray thought. Very dangerous. Looking back at Vinnie, he said, “I understand what you want done, but I’m on parole. One screwup and my P.O. will put me back inside.”

“Are you saying you won’t help me?” Vinnie said. His voice was low and had lost a lot of its nasal sound. Now it sounded menacing.

“You got guys at the Eighth District who can get you any kind of background information you’d need,” Ray said.

Tony snorted. “Cops are always the last ones to know what’s going on. The scumbags who did this, you don’t find them inside a fucking computer, you got to find them on the street. The street always knows. All you got to do is know how to ask it.”

Vinnie rubbed a hand across his face, but his eyes never left Ray. “I don’t want the police getting their hands on these bastards.”

“We might own half the Eighth District, but those cops are only going to go so far,” Tony said. “They got pensions to protect.”

“That’s why we’ve got to do it ourselves,” Vinnie said.

Ray glanced at Charlie Rabbit, an old-timer with a reputation as a cold-blooded killer, and at the two beefed-up bone-breakers sitting like stone statues of sumo wrestlers. He felt his heart thumping in his chest and a cold knot of fear growing in his belly. “I still think they can do you more good than I can. The Eighth District cops, I mean. But if you bring me into the picture, they may not be willing to work with you.”

Tony jabbed his finger at Ray again. “It’s his mess. He needs to clean it up. If he wasn’t such a chickenshit and had done his job in the first place, none of this-”

“Vinnie’s right,” Charlie Liuzza said. “Money is not important. Blame is not important. Not now.” He pointed to Vinnie. “This man lost a son. Carlos lost a nephew. Blood demands blood. Later, Carlos will deal with the other matters.”

Vinnie’s face flushed. He leaned over his desk, the edge cutting a crease in his bloated belly. “You tell my brother I run the Rising Sun, and I make the decisions here.”

Charlie raised his hands toward Vinnie, palms out, gesturing for peace. “He wants these men found and punished for what they did to your son. Nothing else. We can always make more money.”

Looking somewhat mollified, Vinnie sat back in his chair. “Pass my thanks on to my brother.”

As Charlie nodded, Tony jerked his thumb toward Ray. “What about him?”

“What about him?” Charlie said. “Vinnie asked for his help.”

Charlie took in a deep breath. “I’ve heard some good things about Ray. Let’s give him time to think about it. I’m sure he’ll come up with something that can help us.”

“Think about it,” Tony snapped. “We let our people think about whether or not-”

Vinnie pounded his desk again. “Tony!”

Tony’s eyes narrowed, but he closed his mouth. The two goons shifted in their seats. For the first time they looked uncomfortable.

“Everyone’s upset,” Charlie said. “Everybody’s tired. Let’s put off any further discussion until tomorrow. By then I’m sure Ray will have come up with something, at least a general direction for us, based on his years of investigative experience.”

Tony slid forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees. He fixed his eyes on Charlie. His face was hard, his tone challenging. “What’s your involvement in this?”

The older man was cool, not letting Tony get to him. His answer was like his style, slow and steady. “A tragedy happened here that involves every one of us. We’ve come together to do what’s best for the family, just like always.”

Vinnie looked at Ray. “Then I guess you have until tomorrow.” He made it sound like a temporary stay of execution.

Ray nodded.

“You played it smart in there,” Charlie said.

“What do you mean?” Ray asked, wondering why Charlie Rabbit had wanted to talk, wondering if Charlie was buying him a farewell drink before killing him, like giving a condemned man a last cigarette as he stood before the firing squad.

After the meeting in Vinnie’s office broke up, Charlie had bumped Ray’s elbow and jerked his head in a “follow me” motion. They went downstairs and out the front door of the Rising Sun without saying a word. Now they were across the street, sitting at the bar in the Hog’s Breath Saloon.

“I’m talking about that prick Tony,” Charlie said. “You didn’t let him get to you. That was good.”

Ray took a drag of his Lucky Strike, then sipped at his whiskey, wishing he knew why he was here.

“Where did you do your time?” Charlie asked.

“Terre Haute.”

“How was it?”

“Long,” Ray said, swirling his glass and watching the ice spin.

“You did about four years, didn’t you?”

Ray looked up. “Four years, three months.”

Charlie lit a cigarette. “I know what you mean about it being long. I’ve been down twice.”

“Where?” Ray asked. He was warming to the old man’s soft-spoken, easy style. Warming to it as long as it didn’t end with a bullet behind his ear.

“First stretch was state time at Angola. You talk about a miserable shit-hole. That was the worst place I’ve ever been. Got lucky, though. I drew a double sawbuck, but I beat the case on appeal and got out after three years. Later, I did nine years’ fed time in Atlanta.”

Ray stubbed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray. “I don’t think I could have done nine years.”

“I said the same thing after I did my three at Angola, but everything is relative.” Charlie took a sip of his drink. “You know the best way to do a long stretch?”

“How?” Ray asked, flicking his Zippo three times to get a flame. Then he lit another Lucky Strike.

“Just like you do the short ones…” Charlie held his glass up.

Ray smiled. He raised his glass and clinked it against Charlie’s. “Day by motherfucking day,” he said at the same time Charlie did. Then they downed the rest of their drinks.

The bartender brought a fresh round. Charlie slid a twenty across the bar. After the bartender moved away, Charlie asked Ray, “You know what’s wrong with us today?”

“Who do you mean?”

“Our thing,” he said. “ La Familia.”

Ray shook his head.

“Everything’s too easy,” Charlie said. “You take a guy like Tony. Young pretty boy, all that gel in his hair. He looks like an actor playing a wiseguy on TV, instead of the real thing. You look at him, you know right away he’s never done time. Probably the only trip he’s ever made to lockup was to bond somebody out.”

“He’d end up somebody’s bitch inside a week.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Charlie said. “You did the right thing, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not smacking him.”

“You talking about today, in Vinnie’s-Mr. Messina’s office?”

“He’s not the fucking pope,” Charlie said. “You can call him Vinnie, but I’m talking about yesterday, last night, this morning, whatever time it was that Tony and his boy Rocco roughed you up behind the bar.”

“You heard about that, huh?”

“I keep an eye on the place for the Old Man.”

“From what I hear that’s not all you do.”

“I eliminate problems,” Charlie said.

“Am I a problem?” Ray asked, working hard to keep the nervous tremor out of his voice.

Charlie smiled. “Not yet.” Then he took a sip of his drink. “I’m serious. You did the right thing by handling that situation the way you did.”

Ray nodded at the compliment. “He punches like a girl.”

Charlie laughed. “He’s a made man, though. I ain’t saying he ever should have been made or that he would have been made back when I was coming up. But he got his button, so you handled it the best way you could.”