John Connolly - The Reapers

Some branches of the law had been given cause to differ with the Fulcis’ interpretation of their condition over the years. The brothers had been jailed in Seattle for the theft of $150,000 worth of Russian vodka from the port, even though they had only been hired to drive the trucks. Nevertheless, they were the ones who were found in possession of the booze, and they took the fall. They had also done time in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the Canadian maritime province of New Brunswick, mostly for offenses involving what their good friend Jackie Garner liked to call “transfers of ownership,” occasionally involving a degree of violence if someone deliberately or inadvertently broke one of their rules. As with the law, ignorance was no defense.

But the most significant moment in their lives occurred when they were arrested for murder in Connecticut. The death in question was that of a bookie named Benny the Breather, who had engaged in a little creative accounting that did not meet with the approval of his bosses. These bosses were distantly related to some of the individuals who had been involved in the garbage disposal dispute that had ended the life of the Fulcis’ father. Benny the Breather was so named in honor of a conviction for making lewd and lascivious telephone calls to various women who had been less than flattered by his attentions. Since Benny had made all of the calls from the comfort of his own bed, it hadn’t taken the police long to track him down. In the course of his arrest, Benny had taken a nasty tumble down the stairs of his apartment block due to the fact that one of the women he had called was the wife of a sergeant at the local precinct. This fall had left Benny with a slight limp, so he was also sometimes known as Benny the Gimp. Benny hadn’t cared much for either of his nicknames, and had been known to protest vociferously at the use of either of them, but the judicious introduction of a bullet to his head had solved the problem for all concerned.

Unfortunately, a good citizen had witnessed the crime and came forward with a description of the men responsible, which happened to match that of the Fulci brothers. They were hauled in, identified in a lineup, and tried for murder. Circumstantial evidence was found confirming their presence at the scene, which was nearly as surprising to the Fulcis as their initial identification in the lineup, given that they hadn’t killed anyone, and certainly not Benny the Breather, aka Benny the Gimp.

The judge, taking into account psychiatric reports, sentenced them to life imprisonment, and they were sent to separate institutions: Paulie to the Level Four Corrigan Correctional Institution in Uncasville, and Tony to the Level Five Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. The latter was designed primarily to manage those inmates who had demonstrated an inability to adjust to confinement and posed a threat to the community, staff, and other inmates. Tony’s immediate incarceration there-do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars-was ordered because his mind began to shake off the shackles of his medication while his trial was still ongoing, resulting in an altercation that left one jailhouse cop with a broken jaw.

And there the brothers might have remained-puzzled, hurt, and innocent-had the men who ordered the killing of Benny the Breather/Gimp not felt a pang of guilt at seeing two Italian-Americans wrongfully convicted of murder, particularly two Italian-Americans whose father had died in the service of a greater criminal good, leaving a widow who was regarded by one and all as a model of ethnic motherhood. Some calls were made, and it was suggested to a crusading attorney that the convictions in question were unsafe. The case against the Fulcis was further weakened when two similarly large gentlemen were arrested in New Haven following the attempted murder of a nightclub owner and were found to be in possession of the weapon that had killed Benny. Apparently, it had some kind of sentimental value to one of them, and he had been reluctant to part with it.

The result was that the Fulcis were pardoned and released after thirty-seven months in jail, and obtained a very nice settlement from the state of Connecticut for their troubles. This they used to ensure that their mother would be kept in comfort and style for the rest of her days. Louisa, in turn, gave the brothers a weekly allowance to do with as they chose. They chose mainly to buy beer and ribs, and a monster Dodge 4x4 that they customized to within an inch of its life. Next to their mother, and each other, it was their most cherished possession on earth.

It was this truck that Willis and Harding had just busted up with their shotguns.

“Wow,” said Jackie Garner, because it was he who had been sitting by the side of the road, waiting for the Fulcis to finish their business in the woods, “you guys are so screwed.”

Thus it was that when Harding turned around he saw two very large and very irate men emerging from the woods. One was hurriedly zipping up his fly. The other was staring unhappily at the truck. Their faces, which tended toward redness even at times of relative calm, had assumed the complexion of a pair of mutant plums. To Harding, they looked like trolls dressed in polyester, twin refrigerators in big-man pants and jackets. They couldn’t even walk properly, they were so wide. Instead, they shambled from side to side, like wind-up robots. The sight of the two men lumbering in their direction was so confusing to Harding and Willis that it took them a moment or two to react, so that Harding was still raising his shotgun when Tony Fulci’s fist connected with his face, breaking a number of bones simultaneously and sending him flying backward into Willis, who at that moment had lifted his own weapon and was about to fire. The shot tore through Harding and killed him instantly, even as Jackie Garner rose up and clubbed Willis across the back of the head with the butt of a pistol. Paulie then finished the job by pounding on Willis some more, until he was on the verge of departing this life and following his partner to his final reward, at which point Paulie desisted because his hand hurt.

Tony rounded on Jackie Garner.

“You was supposed to watch the fucking truck, Jackie,” he said.

“I was watching the truck. They asked me to move it, but you had the keys. I didn’t know they were going to start shooting it up.”

“You still ought to have said something to them.”

“I tried to say something.”

“Yeah? Well it wasn’t the right thing.” Tony reached out and yanked the candy bar wrapper from Jackie’s pocket. “How come you got time to finish a Three Musketeers bar but you ain’t got time to watch the truck? You can’t do both at once? I mean, the fuck, Jackie? You know, it’s just-the fuck.”

Jackie assumed a conciliatory pose and tone. “I’m sorry, Tony,” he said. “I don’t think they were reasonable men. You can’t talk to unreasonable men.”

“Well then, you ought not to have talked to them. You ought to have killed them.”

“I can’t just go killing people over a truck.”

“It wasn’t a truck. It was our truck.”

His brother was tenderly stroking the hood of the truck and shaking his head. With a last despairing look at Jackie, Tony went over to join him.

“How bad does it look?”

“Upholstery’s ripped to pieces, Tony. There’s some holes to the paintwork, too. Lights are shot. It’s a mess.” He was on the verge of tears.

Tony patted his brother on the shoulder.

“We’ll fix her up. Don’t worry. We’ll make her as good as new.”

“Yeah?” Paulie looked up hopefully.

“Better than new. That right, Jackie?”

Jackie, sensing that the storm was already blowing over, offered his support for this view.