Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

Picone and his wife rented a redbrick house all the way out in Evanston. It was the kind of neighborhood where everyone drove an Audi or BMW, and the only American car on the block belonged to the nanny, so David had to keep stealing nicer rides than he preferred, just so he wouldn’t be made. Picone spent his days either sitting around the house in his underwear, working on a laptop, or making drops at the Field Museum, or the sprawling Hilton on Michigan Avenue, Gene’s & Jude’s in River Grove, Buckingham Fountain, out in front of Wrigley Field, wherever there were a lot of people. His big spy move was to have his buyer tape an envelope stuffed with cash on the underside of a bus stop bench. If everything was in order, Picone would leave a duffel bag of pills in a bush or garbage can. If the envelope wasn’t there, or the money was short, he’d just keep moving, no deal, no problem, no one sticking guns in anyone’s face, and he could go see a dinosaur or get a red hot and be on his way. He didn’t even carry a gun.

Still, David couldn’t very well shoot Picone in front of Wrigley Field. He also couldn’t walk into Picone’s house and put one in his head while he slept — he could , it just wasn’t prudent. A murdered Canadian citizen in a solid upper-middle-class suburb was the kind of thing that ended up on the news. That wasn’t going to work. Plus, he wasn’t real keen on killing Picone’s wife.

He needed a work-around. So, he did the only thing that seemed sensible. He called the cops.

On Saturdays, Picone did a big drop on Navy Pier, usually in front of the Children’s Museum. He’d park blocks away and drag a suitcase behind him, pretend to take photos, talk on his cell phone, look frustrated, sometimes stop and ask directions. It was a whole bit. If he hadn’t been so predictable, it would have been a decent cover. When David picked him from the crowd, he was walking along the promenade wearing a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, big sunglasses, a baseball cap. The only thing that stood out were the two Latin Kings with the neck tattoos waiting over by the bike racks. Seemed Frank Picone had at least one other tail.

A few yards behind Picone, an old man pushed himself along in a walker.

Perfect.

David called 911. “There’s a guy in a walker out front of the Children’s Museum flashing his dick at the kids,” he said, then he hung up, ditched the phone in a planter, and stepped behind Picone, kept pace with him for a few minutes, until the Navy Pier security and cops started to stream out of every corner. Picone tensed up, and David put a hand on his back, pulled him close.

“You’ve been made,” David whispered. “Walk back to your car.” Picone nodded once, kept moving toward the museum for a few more seconds — there was a science fair going on, kids and parents and cotton candy and clowns and a bunch of rent-a-cops simultaneously putting walkie-talkies to their ears — then turned heel, David now a step back.

“Who the fuck are you?” Picone asked, trying to sound hard, not that it was working. They’d made it to Gateway Park, Picone still dragging his suitcase full of oxy.

“Ronnie Cupertine would like to have a conversation,” David said.

“I don’t know anyone named Ronnie Cupertine,” Picone said.

“He’s interested in doing business with you,” David said.

“I’m not a decision maker.”

“You are now,” David said.

Picone brightened, hazarded a glance toward David. “He thinks so?”

“Yeah,” David said, “you’re the guy he’s looking for.”

When they got to Picone’s car — a black 5 Series BMW with tinted windows and Ontario plates — David directed him to drive to his warehouse. He’d never actually killed anyone in his warehouse space — he killed a local gangster, he just shot them in the street; if he was doing some contract shit, it was easier to just make it look like a robbery gone wrong and do it at a victim’s house or job, preferably the job, since no one brought their kids or pets to work — but this called for special circumstances. When they walked inside, before Picone could say a word about the foundry or the metal press, David put one in the back of his head.

Then he got to work.

He called Air Canada using Picone’s cell phone and, using Picone’s Visa, booked Picone a ticket to Windsor, one-way, leaving that night out of Midway. He called Kirkpatrick’s Florist in Evanston, ordered two dozen red roses, and had them sent to Picone’s wife, along with a note that said he’d been called out of town. His wife was smart. She’d know that if he hadn’t called and just sent flowers, maybe he had a job to do and wouldn’t ask questions. Two dozen roses would make anyone happy for a few days. Maybe a week. Eventually she’d get antsy, but then she’d see the Visa bill, and that would keep her another week. Still, she wasn’t going to file a missing person’s report. Gone meant gone in this business. She’d know that. Besides, the guy’s name probably wasn’t even really Frank Picone.

Ronnie didn’t want any evidence of the guy’s existence, which meant no body, so David first cut him up, then used the metal press, then used the furnace, then used the foundry, but it was a terrible mess. The metal press had been an inspired idea, but it took him hours to clean, so long that he had to drive Picone’s car to a long-term parking lot, leave it, catch a bus, and come back to scrub even more. He was the fucking Rain Man. He didn’t do floors. It ended up taking him three full days with industrial cleaners, some selective melting, and then a meticulous black light check to even feel confident about it.

He didn’t have a secret place like that in Las Vegas, wasn’t even sure how to go about looking for one. There was nothing old in this town. Once something wasn’t useful anymore, they’d just implode it and start again, or do it like Fremont Street and throw a million lights on it and call it an “Experience” and give everyone a souvenir football filled with beer. Besides, he was a respected member of the community now, or would be beginning on Monday; he even had a set of keys to the temple, and that meant he needed to conduct himself a bit differently. He couldn’t exactly rent a murder shop.

That meant trusting Bennie.

Slim Joe finally walked out of Ibiza Tan five minutes later — he’d gone in for a full thirty-minute bake — his cell phone already up on his ear, like the idiot didn’t have enough radiation coursing through his veins. It was only ten in the morning, and David couldn’t imagine anyone Slim Joe knew was actually awake yet. No one would miss Slim Joe for at least another ten, fifteen hours, and even then, no one who might miss him would be in the business of contacting the police. His own mother had just seen him, so even she wouldn’t notice his absence for a few days. And maybe by then she’d be dead, too, though David was hoping to avoid that.

David watched Slim Joe get into his car — a black Mustang with a rear spoiler you could land a plane on — and tried to figure out how Bennie came to associate himself with such an obvious liability, cousin or not, particularly since the first thing Joe did when he got in his car was roll down the windows and begin bumping rap music. That he was still pretending to talk on his cell phone at the same time filled David with such an uncommon disdain that he nearly shot him right then.

Instead, he got out of the piece of shit Buick Bennie had secured for him, double-checked to make sure there weren’t any cops lingering around — not that David believed the Summerhill Plaza was a hotbed of criminal activity, though there was a Gold’s Gym in the corner of the center that was filled with guys who must have thought they looked pretty tough hanging out in front of the elliptical machines — and headed over to the Mustang and got in. Slim Joe recoiled immediately and practically jumped out the window. David thought he even heard Joe scream a little, but he couldn’t be sure with the bass creating sonic booms every other second. David tried to turn the volume down, but Slim Joe’s stereo had more lights and buttons on it than a fucking spaceship, so David just reached over and yanked the keys from the Mustang’s ignition.