Jimmy felt another wave of nausea run roughshod through his intestines. "How do you know this?"
"I heard Jonathan hollering as I passed by getting the paper this mornin'. Sounded kinda juicy, no offence, so I hung around front to hear."
That alone didn't bode well. Jimmy knew that Bass's apartment occupied the top floor of a brownstone on Thompson Street. If Ricardo heard him from the sidewalk, then he was yelling pretty fucking loud. What little Jimmy knew about Bass included his soft-spoken demeanor.
And that he preferred to do his loud talking with very sharp pieces of metal.
Wait a minute here. "Home? She still lives at home?"
"She only sixteen, Jimmy."
That did it. Jimmy ran into the can and lost his breakfast burrito into the toilet. "Ohgodohgodohgod", he muttered to the soon-to-be dead man in the mirror.
How? HOW the fuck could she be sixteen? She took it in the ass! Sixteen-year-olds didn't take it in the ass.
Did they?
Oh sweet fucking God…
He'd stuck his dick into the underaged anus of Butcher Bass's daughter.
Ricardo rapped 'shave and a haircut' on the bathroom door. The blood flooded back into Jimmy's brain with a roar. Was that little prick making some kind of joke? They both knew the rumors about Butcher's weapon of choice; a straight razor. "Hey Jimmy? Joo okay in there?"
Jimmy burst out of the bathroom and grabbed Ricardo by the neck, slamming him back into the counter. "Why are you telling me this! What's your play here, fucko?" he screamed, spittle flying in Ricardo's face. Jimmy knew Ricardo had a play, Ricardo always had a fucking play.
Ricardo only smiled condescendingly into Jimmy's outburst. "Cuz I'm a friend, Jimmy. I figure maybe somebody should keep an eye on the salon while joo away."
Away.
That was it all along. Ricardo knew that he'd need to go away. Where the hell was he supposed to go? Didn't matter. They could sure as hell find him here.
Mean Gene popped into Jimmy's mind's eye. Bass's cause and effect man. As in, cause Bass any grief, Mean Gene Ricciardi effects serious damage on your ass. Then he brought you to The Butcher for the big finish. Mean Gene had just been here a couple of months ago before his vacation.
Where was he going?
Paris. That was it. He said he wanted to get a head start on his tan. Jimmy remembered thinking of that crap movie, An American Werewolf in Paris. Gene could have passed for one if he had twenty percent less body hair and better people skills. Jimmy spent an extra hour Windex-ing Mean Gene's black curlies off the tanning bed.
Man oh man. Jimmy was woozy with the realization of just how big a world of shit he was suddenly in.
He had to go.
Fast.
"How much you got?" he asked Ricardo.
"Well, I got a couple hundred on me that I can give joo until…"
Jimmy caught Ricardo with a hard uppercut to the chin. Ricardo's jaw snapped shut with a sound like cracking ice. He stumbled, leaning backwards into one of the empty tanning beds. Jimmy slammed the top of the bed shut with all his weight on top, sandwiching Ricardo's face in the bed. Something crunched in the machine and Ricardo slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his ruined mouth and trickling from one ear.
Jimmy felt Ricardo's neck. He still had a pulse. Good for him.
He reached into Ricardo's pockets, took the money and dropped the keys to the salon on the floor. He wouldn't need them because he wasn't coming back.
Couldn't come back.
Ever.
Jimmy noticed the gold incisor catching the light again. Unfortunately for Ricardo, it was on the floor, next to his right foot. Jimmy picked up the tooth and stuck it in his pocket.
"Hi," he'd said. Like most of life's grandest clusterfucks, this one had started out simply enough. Jimmy could tell with just that one little word whether or not to continue talking to the girl two seats over or to flash his practiced fuck-me smile at another. And there was always another.
Jimmy thought she looked young, but fuck it, they were in a bar. How young could she be? The big goon in the Jets jersey sitting at the door must have carded her on the way in.
She was decked out in a black leather miniskirt and a gold spaghetti-strap tank that showed off her flat belly and clung to her nipples nicely. She was obviously looking for some attention. The only kind of attention that Jimmy gave women.
"Mm-hey," she replied through her ruby-lipsticked mouth, a small daub of crimson makeup smeared under her plump lower lip.
Jimmy gauged the situation so far as very good. Her eyes had the soft glaze that indicated she was just past her alcohol tolerance. In the twenty minutes he'd been sitting there, she'd popped back two and a half apple martinis. A little more grease, Jimmy thought, and this engine is a-runnin'.
"Want to do a shot with me?" he asked. "I hate dinking alone."
The rest, until that cocksucker Ricardo came strutting through the door, went exactly as planned.
Jimmy made a mental note to stab that fucking bouncer in the throat if he ever saw him again.
The paranoia was the worst part. It had been five days since Jimmy ran from the Tan-O-Rama, hauled his ass to 14th Street, dove into a cab and got home to Brooklyn. He hadn't opened his door since.
Although Jimmy would be willing to bet that most people he'd known for a decade or more didn't even know real last name, he wasn't taking any chances.
Everybody called him Jimmy Romance.
Romance wasn't his real last name, of course.
Jimmy earned the moniker from the long trail of women that he'd conquered over the years. They were his Achilles Heel. His one weakness. Jimmy didn't smoke, didn't drink to excess, didn't do drugs. Clean as a bean. It wasn't out of any moral or health concerns that he'd kept himself so straight-edged, it was the pussy. Didn't smoke, because he liked to keep his breath clean and teeth polished, was often complimented on his pearlies. Drugs and alcohol killed his game, fucked with the brain and body. His mind was his greatest seductive tool. His body closed the deal. Why waste the money anyway? The intoxicant under the panty line was Jimmy's only drug. It was all he wanted.
The irony wasn't lost on Jimmy.
It was women that kept him in prime physical condition over the years.
It was one girl that might end up killing him.
He didn't know if anybody knew where he lived, but was pretty certain nobody did. Was his address written down anywhere in the salon? He couldn't remember for sure. It must have been. Was it anyplace obvious? Jimmy could just imagine that grinning prick Ricardo handing his address over to The Butcher for his thirty pieces of silver. Not having as much as looked at a Bible since Sunday school, Jimmy didn't recall Jesus busting Judas's teeth onto the floor before the betrayal, but wouldn't have thought any less of Jesus for it.
Nor did Jimmy plan on going peacefully into his personal crucifixion. During the few short hours that he slept, when he felt his eyes going too heavy for even the terror to keep open anymore, he would slide his recliner to the end of the long hallway and drift into an uneasy sleep, revolver in hand. On two separate occasions, he'd almost shot a Jehovah's Witness and a Girl Scout when they woke him up in a frenzied panic out of his tortured dreams.
Dreams about sharp things. Lots and lots of sharp things.
Jimmy wondered how much longer he could keep it up.
Pun definitely not fucking intended…
He was running out of food, for starters. His last meal consisted of oily old sardines on chewy rye crisps. He couldn't remember buying the dusty can of sardines. Who the hell bought sardines? Either way, in the moment, Jimmy was glad he had them.
He lived in New York, for chrissakes, where anything at any time could be delivered to your doorstep, but Jimmy was afraid to get anything brought to his house. He didn't need anyone to know that he was home. He would carefully watch the street from behind the thick curtains for any unusual cars, but what qualified as an unusual car? Jimmy didn't know his neighbors, much less what they drove on a regular basis.