It was Tuesday when I saw her next. At around seven-thirty in the evening I was walking along Moody Street to my job when I heard footsteps racing behind me. Next thing I knew an arm was hooking mine and a small hand resting on my leather jacket sleeve below the elbow. It was Sophie. Her face was flushed. In a breathless whisper she told me that it looked like a car was following me.
It was a cold late October night with the wind whipping up, and I’d been walking with my head bowed and hadn’t been paying much attention to the street. I turned and saw that she was right. A light blue Chevrolet sedan was creeping along keeping pace with me. There were two men in the car. Both looked hardened. The driver slid his glance sideways and noticed me looking his way. His eyes were cold and empty, his face scarred and with a toughness to it. Without any change of expression, he stared straight ahead and sped away.
Sophie recited some random numbers. I stared at her, confused.
“The license plate,” she said. “Damn, Leonard, you have to pay more attention to what’s going on around you. There are obviously people out there holding grudges.”
“I was hoping I had already slipped into yesterday’s news.”
“Obviously not.” Her face had flushed to a deep red. There was so much excitement in her eyes. “You know, I might’ve saved your life tonight. I might have to think of a way for you to repay me.”
It was possible she was right. Those two in the blue Chevrolet could’ve been Lombard’s boys. They had the look of it. But it could also be part of the game Sophie was running. An awful big coincidence her being there at the right time to warn me about that car, but not if she had arranged it in the first place.
“Any idea how I’ll be able to do that?” I asked.
“I’ll think of something.”
I had thrown it out there, and she decided to play me the right way and not be too anxious for her pitch. If she had asked me then about writing a book with her, she’d be tipping her hand that it was all a con and that she already had her payoff in mind. I wondered which it was with that car. It could just as likely have been Lombard’s boys as an arrangement by Sophie, but the more I thought about it the more I was leaning towards Lombard. Sophie probably knew my routine by now, and was most likely out there looking for me when she happened to see me and the car, then realized quickly how she could use it.
We walked another two blocks without either of us saying a word. The feel of her hand on my arm and the occasional touch of her hip against mine damn near took my breath away, and she knew the effect she was having on me. We were a block away from the side street I needed to take for my job when she told me that this was where she was getting off and that she’d see me around. She let go of my arm and I watched mesmerized as she walked into a small Hispanic grocery store. For a few seconds all I could think of was the feel of her hand on my arm. After the door had closed behind her and she was out of sight, I felt a heavy sigh rumble out of me, and I trudged off to work.
Chapter 17
1979
Vincent DiGrassi opens an eye as I approach him. He’s lying propped up on his bed. Both his eyes are now open. As yellowish and bloody as they are, there’s still an alertness to them. He knows full well why I’m there. I pull a chair up next to him and sit so I’m resting the forty-five and its attached silencer on my thigh. What used to be such a robust bull of a man is now only skin and bones. He’s probably dropped eighty pounds in the past year.
“Sal send you?” he asks, his voice not much more than a croak.
“Yeah.”
He digests that, puckers up his mouth, and says in an aggrieved tone, “So you’re dealing with Sal directly now.”
“Yeah, ever since it’s been clear how sick you are.”
The little that’s left of his face folds into an ugly frown. At first I think he’s going to start bawling, but he turns his eyes towards me and stares with utter fury.
“This is bullshit,” he insists.
I shrug. What is there for me to say?
“I’m not talking to no cops. There’s no reason for Sal wanting this.”
I scratch behind an ear, smile at him sadly. “What if you end up hopped up on drugs? Who knows what you say then.
Vincent, you know this has to be done.”
“You little punk, you calling me Vincent now? What the fuck happened to Mr DiGrassi?”
I don’t say anything. His color’s not much better than gray now. He looks away, the fury fades from his eyes leaving them glassy.
“You can tell Sal I’m not going to any hospital,” he says. “I plan on dying in my own bed.”
My smile grows more genuine thinking how right he is. I realize this and force a somber look. “Your wife or kids might think differently. Mr Lombard can’t take the chance. You have to know that.”
“Don’t you fucking patronize me,” he spits out. Then, showing his self pity, he adds, “Fuck you. After everything I’ve done for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes slide sideways to look at me. “That business last year with that skirt you were supposed to hit. The one you claimed was tipped off and made a run for it.”
He was referring to Joey Lando’s inside person. The one I let get away. “Yeah, what about it?” I say.
“Sal and some of his boys thought it sounded funny. They thought maybe you’d gone soft and couldn’t hit a skirt. I went out on a limb for you and convinced them you were on the level. I hadn’t done that you’d be buried in a landfill now.”
He’s staring hard at me, trying to read inside me. He sees what he’s looking for and turns away. “What the fuck do you know,” he mutters. “They were right.”
His thick lips curl to show the contempt he feels for me.
“She was just a kid,” I explain. “It wouldn’t have been right.”
“Who the fuck are you to make that decision? A bank guard died in those robberies your rat punk buddy did and she was as responsible as the other two of them.”
He realizes then the irony in chastising me for being sentimental and not killing one of my targets while at the same time trying to talk me into doing the same now. I can see the confusion clouding up his eyes.
“You don’t have to use the forty-five,” he says after a while. “You can use the pillow instead. That way Angie and my kids can have an open casket.”
He’s bracing himself waiting. I don’t move. There’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask him for a long time.
“That hit I did right before my wedding. Who the fuck was that guy?”
His eyes come alive once he remembers the hit. He starts laughing. It’s a weak, broken-down type laugh, and before too long he starts choking on it, then breaks into a coughing fit. After he settles down, he nods and tells me, “You.”
I’m confused. I ask him what he means.
“The guy you hit was the same as you. Another hit man for Sal.”
“Why’d I hit him?”
DiGrassi makes a face showing his disgust. “’Cause he got soft. Claimed one of his targets skipped town to parts unknown without him tipping the target off. Sal didn’t believe him. Neither did I. So are you going to use the fucking pillow or what?”
I shake my head, push the barrel of the forty-five against his right temple. He’s too weak to put up any fight.
“I’m sorry, Mr DiGrassi,” I say. “But I have to do it the way Mr Lombard told me to do it.”
“Motherfucker,” he starts, “you owe me at least a call to Sal to ask him-”
Before DiGrassi can finish the sentence I pull the trigger and send a good chunk of his brain splattering against the wall. Then I shove the barrel into his dead mouth and shoot off three more rounds. Sal wants his boys to think DiGrassi was a rat. That’s the reason for the violent death. It’s easier to explain the hit of a loyal friend that way. Who knows, maybe we get lucky and the cops think that a rival did the job.