“What do you want to talk about?” Frankie asked.
“The job you and Manso did on Paulie Cerino,” Angelo said. “I’m sure you guessed that we work for Mr. Cerino.”
Frankie’s eyes darted from Tony’s face to Tony’s gun, then up to the image of Angelo in the rearview mirror. He was terrified. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “I was just there. It was Manso’s idea. They forced me to go. I didn’t want to do it, but they threatened my mother.”
“Who’s “they’?” Angelo asked.
“I mean Terry Manso,” Frankie said. “He was the one.”
With a sudden wicked slap, Tony cracked Frankie across the face with the barrel of his gun.
Frankie screamed and pressed the palms of his hands against his face. A trickle of blood oozed between his fingers.
“What do you think we are? Stupid?” Tony sneered.
“Don’t hurt him yet,” Angelo said. “Maybe he’ll be cooperative.”
“Please don’t hurt me anymore,” Frankie pleaded between sobs.
Tony swore contemptuously and forced the barrel of his pistol between Frankie’s fingers and into his mouth. “Your brains are going to be all over the inside of this car if you don’t smarten up and stop screwing around with us.”
“Who else was involved?” Angelo asked again.
Tony withdrew the barrel of his gun so Frankie could talk.
“It was just Manso,” Frankie sobbed. “And he made me go along.”
Angelo shook his head in disgust. “Obviously you are not cooperating, Frankie. Remember about the lights. At the same time Manso threw the acid, the lights went out. That wasn’t a coincidence. Who was screwing around with the lights? And the car. Who was driving the car?”
“I don’t know anything about the lights,” Frankie sobbed. “I don’t remember who was driving. Somebody I didn’t know. Somebody that Manso got.”
Angelo shook his head in disgust. Nothing was easy anymore. He hated this kind of dirty stuff. He had entertained vague hopes that Frankie would have spilled his guts the moment they got him into the car. Obviously that was not to be the case.
Glancing up into the rearview mirror, Angelo caught a glimpse of Tony’s face in the flickering light of the passing streetlamps. Tony was sporting one of his contented smiles that told Angelo Tony was enjoying himself. Even Angelo thought Tony could be scary on occasion.
Once they got to the Greenpoint pier area in Brooklyn, Angelo turned right on Franklin, then left on Java. The area was run-down, especially the closer they got to the water. Abandoned warehouses lined the street. Seventy-five to a hundred years ago, the area had been a thriving waterfront, but that had long since changed save for a few isolated enterprises, like the Pepsi-Cola plant up toward Newtown Creek.
In the cul de sac where Java Street dead-ended at the East River, Angelo drove through a chain-link gate. A sign over the gate said: AMERICAN FRESH FRUIT COMPANY. The car began to vibrate on the rough cobblestone surface, but Angelo didn’t slow down. When he could drive no farther, he parked.
“Everybody out,” Angelo said. They were parked in the shadow of a huge warehouse built out over the pier that stuck out almost a hundred yards into the East River. Just across the river was the monumental mass of Manhattan ’s glittering skyline. Tony got out holding Doc Travino’s little black bag and motioned for Frankie to get out too.
Angelo unlocked an overhead door to the warehouse, pulled it up, and motioned for Frankie to enter. Frankie hesitated on the dark threshold. “I’ve told you everything I know. What do you want from me?”
Tony gave Frankie a shove that sent the boy stumbling forward. The click of the lightswitch echoed in the cavernous warehouse as Angelo threw the switch activating the mercury vapor lights. At first the lights merely glowed, but as they walked out the pier dragging a reluctant Frankie, they became progressively brighter. Soon it was enough to illuminate the huge stacks of green bananas that filled the warehouse.
“Please!” Frankie moaned, but Angelo and Tony ignored him. They walked to the very end, unlocking a paneled door. Angelo found the lightswitch that activated a single bulb suspended by a bare wire. The room contained an old metal desk missing its drawers, a few chairs, and a large hole in the floor. Below the hole the water of the East River looked more like oil than water as it swirled around the pier’s piling, flowing with the tide.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Frankie wailed. “It was all Manso. I was forced to go along. I don’t know anything else.”
“Sure, Frankie,” Angelo said. Turning to Tony he added, “Tie him to one of the chairs.”
Tony put Doc Travino’s bag on the desk and unsnapped it open. From within he pulled out a length of clothesline. Then, with a depraved smile, he told Frankie to sit in one of the wooden side chairs. Frankie did as he was told. While Tony tied him up, Angelo lit himself a cigarette.
Tony gave the rope a couple of yanks to test his knots. Satisfied, he stood up and nodded to Angelo.
“Once more, Frankie,” Angelo said. “Who else was involved with the acid trick? Who besides you and Manso?”
“Nobody,” Frankie sobbed. “I’m telling the truth.”
Angelo derisively blew smoke in Frankie’s face. Glancing at Tony, he said, “Time for the truth serum.”
Tony pulled a small glass bottle and an eye dropper from Doc Travino’s bag. He handed both to Angelo. Angelo unscrewed the cap and gingerly sniffed the contents. When he got a whiff, he pulled his head back quickly. “Geez, powerful stuff.” He blinked a few times and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Any chance you want to change your story?” Angelo asked calmly after walking over to Frankie.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Frankie persisted.
Angelo looked at Tony. “Hold his head back.”
Tony grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair just above the forehead and yanked Frankie’s head back.
“Tell me, Frankie,” Angelo said as he bent over the boy’s upturned face. “Have you ever heard the expression “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’?”
Only then did Frankie realize what was happening. But despite his attempts at clamping his eyes shut, Angelo managed to empty the eye dropper into Frankie’s lower right lid.
A slight spattering noise like water hitting a hot skillet preceded an ear-piercing shriek as the sulfuric acid ate into his delicate eye tissues. Angelo glanced at Tony and noticed that Tony’s smile had swelled to a grin. Angelo wondered what the world was coming to with this new generation. This kid Tony was having a ball. For Angelo, this was not entertainment, it was business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Angelo set the sulfuric acid bottle on the desk and took a couple more puffs on his cigarette. When Frankie’s screams had abated to choking sobs, Angelo leaned toward him and calmly asked if Frankie wanted to change his story.
“Talk to me!” Angelo commanded when it seemed that Frankie was ignoring him.
“I’m telling the truth,” Frankie managed.
“Chrissake!” Angelo muttered as he went back for the acid. Over his shoulder, he called to Tony, “Hold his head back again.”
“Wait!” Frankie croaked. “Don’t hurt me anymore. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Angelo put the acid back on the desk and returned to Frankie. He looked at the tears streaming out of the kid’s shut eyes, especially the one where he’d put the acid. “OK, Frankie,” Angelo began. “Who was involved?”
“You have to get me something for my eye,” Frankie whined. “It’s killing me.”
“We’ll take care of it as soon as you tell us what we want to know,” Angelo said. “Come on, Frankie. I’m losing my patience.”
“Bruno Marchese and Jimmy Lanso,” Frankie muttered.
Angelo looked at Tony.
Tony nodded. “I’ve heard of Bruno,” he said. “He’s a local kid.”
“Where can we find these guys if we want to talk to them?” Angelo asked.