JO01 - Guilty or Else (32 page)

Karadimos slapped me again. “Tell me about Rita, your secretary. What does she know? Had she heard the tape?”

“Fuck you, Karadimos!”

“Gus, get me another syringe out of the bag.”

Do something, and do it fast. Act drunk, something. Act like someone who’d overdosed on Pentothal. I began singing again.

“Hold it. I think he’s still under the influence. If I give him any more he might blackout or croak. We won’t get shit from him.”

“Lady Madonna… children at your…feet, sweet feet.”

I slurred my voice. The Beatles would shit if they heard me sing their music.

“O’Brien, tell me about Rita. What does she know?”

“Aw, sweet little Rita. Dumb as a box of rocks. I only keep her around because she’s got a cute ass…”

“O’Brien! What does she know?”

“She doesn’t know her goddamn name…but she can sure swing that sweet little
tushy
. Good night, Karadimos. I’m going to take a nice li’l nappy.” I closed my eyes and pretended to pass out. I had to control my breathing, relax, let my body go limp. It was my only hope at staying alive.

Karadimos slapped me again. But I just lay there with my eyes closed, trying hard to keep from slipping back into the simmering fog.

“O’Brien, wake up! Goddammit, I need more information.” Karadimos’s voice echoed in my head.

“What the hell was that all about, boss?” Gus asked.

“The guy sounds like he’s drunk. I don’t think your joy juice worked.”

“He may be faking,” Karadimos said. “Hand me that lighter on the desk.”

A moment later someone grabbed my arm. I head a click then felt a searing pain on the back of my hand. If it weren’t for the lingering effect of the Pentothal, I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. But the pain would help keep me alert. I clenched my teeth and didn’t move.

“Maybe you gave him too much,” Angelo said. “Looks like you knocked him out.”

“Sometimes it happens like that. We won’t get anything more out of him. Besides, he’s getting nowhere in his chicken shit investigation of our organization. He’s nothing; I’ve got him blocked at every turn. It’s that bastard Silverman I’m worried about.”

“Maybe he’ll quit the case if O’Brien should happen to disappear.”

“No way. He’s a fucking bulldog. We’ll fight him if we have to. But I don’t want the cops finding any more bodies. There’s too much heat coming down now, because some asshole whacked that Graham bitch before Kruger could get to her.”

“What do you wanna do with him?” Gus asked.

“You two get him outta here, right now. Get him outta my sight! Throw him in the garbage pit. Then turn on the grinder.”

C H A P T E R 
50

Angelo and Gus cut me
loose from the couch, grabbed my arms and legs and carried me out the door. With my eyelids slightly open, I saw everything in a hazy blur. My mind was back in focus, but my muscles wouldn’t function. I felt like a sack of wet mush. I couldn’t resist, could hardly move, but if I didn’t get control of my body, I’d soon be dead. As we got closer to the garbage pit, the stench made me want to gag, but I couldn’t even do that.

The dim yard was spotted with circles of yellow light coming from floods mounted high on posts. The two goons carried me between a dump truck and a huge diesel tractor with a scraper blade toward an area about fifty feet behind the office. One of the floodlights illuminated the pit, a metal-lined rectangular hole in the ground with a chain guard rimming the perimeter.

They dropped me on the hard ground close to the edge and I tasted dirt. “Go turn on the grinder. I’ll roll him into the pit,” Angelo said.

“Yeah, the machine has to be up and running or he’ll plug it up,” Gus replied. “I’ll have to feed him in slow and easy with the rest of the crap. You sure he’s out of it?”

“Hell yes.” Angelo let out a mirthless laugh. “The boss thinks he’s a smart son-of-a-bitch, but he ain’t no doctor. He shot him so full of joy juice it practically killed him. That shit never works. I could’a told him. But he never listens to me.”

I turned my head a fraction and saw Gus hand Angelo his gun. “Here, use this if he comes to.” Angelo jammed the gun in his belt. “He ain’t coming to. Be more fun if he did. I’d like to hear the bastard scream as he makes a nosedive into the grinder.”

In my mind I saw a large garbage disposal ripping chunks of my body to shreds as I was being fed into its gaping maw. Not pretty.

Gus dashed off into the dim light toward a tall iron platform twenty feet away. Beyond the platform loomed a cluster of heavy-duty machinery. I had to act. But I was still too weak to put up a fight.

Angelo pulled one of the metal pipes, a stanchion connected to the thin guard chain, out of a small hole in the ground and cast it aside, leaving a section open. He grabbed my legs and dragged me close to the edge. I heard Karadimos, probably standing somewhere outside his office, shout, “Angelo, for chrissakes, dump him in the goddamn pit already and get your ass back here. I need help going through these records.”

“Aw shit, boss. I wanna watch him get chewed up in the grinder.”

My body teetered on the side of the pit for a second or two. Then, Angelo rolled me the rest of the way in. As I twisted and started to slide into the hole, I grabbed the chain lying on the ground and held on for dear life. The chain snapped and the pipe stanchion followed, hitting me on the head as I tumbled into the pit and landed on a pile of rotten cantaloupes. My head hurt and blood ran down my face. But after what I’d been through, it didn’t seem to matter.

Suddenly I heard a loud whirring noise, like a jet engine firing up. The grinder! I felt a vibration, and the rotten cantaloupes under me started to move. I was sinking into the morass. I had to do something fast. Gus must have also switched on the conveyor that fed the giant garbage disposal. It moved under the refuse. I didn’t give a damn about the putrid smell, the viscous slime oozing into my pores, or anything else. I just had to get the hell out of there. Adrenalin pumped through my system, eliminating the Pentothal effects, and my body came to life.

Holding the pipe in one hand, I reached out with the other, feeling for the side of the pit. Like a gator swimming through a river of shit, I squirmed and kicked and made it to the side, but I continued to sink deeper. The side of the pit was slippery with sludge; no foothold. I scraped and clawed and only slipped farther down into the muck.

Looking up, I saw stars in the night, but I also caught sight of the edge of the pit, maybe five feet above my head.

Above and to my left, an angle iron brace crisscrossed the opening. I ran my hand over the chain that was connected to the pipe—rusty and thin. It snapped before when I held it as I rolled in, but I had to try again. It was my only hope.

Holding the end of the chain, I tried to loop the pipe around the brace. No luck. It fell back and I sank deeper. The grinder made crunching, gnawing sounds as it gobbled up the refuse being fed into it.

I had one more chance before being sucked down under the garbage heading for the grinder. I brought my arm back like a spear thrower and snapped it forward. The pipe shot upward; it didn’t fall back. It circled the brace and dangled there. I quickly looped the other end of the chain around the angle iron and started to climb out of the pit, hand over hand.

I prayed Angelo hadn’t disobeyed his boss and hung around to watch, and I prayed that the chain would hold my weight. My prayers were answered. It held.

I crawled over the edge of the pit, exhausted and covered with rotting garbage, but alive. Sprawled on the ground for a moment, I gasped for air. The pigs in Saugus would have to make do without ground lawyer on the menu tomorrow.

I shot a glance around the yard: no Angelo. In the shadows off to my right, I could see the tall platform. I made out the dim outline of Gus standing atop it. He stayed busy feeding garbage that came up an inclined conveyor into a hopper above the giant grinding machine. I also spotted an enormous steel cylinder beyond the grinder and could smell the ground slop being cooked in the long rotating tube.

Undoing the pipe looped around the brace, I scrambled to the bottom of the platform. I had to get Gloria’s aluminum case before Karadimos destroyed the evidence, and I needed a weapon. Gus had given his revolver to Angelo, but he probably had another gun tucked away.

The deafening cacophony of the machinery concealed any sound I may have made as I scurried to the top of the platform. Gus turned and faced me, eyes wide, just as I wound up and bashed his head with the pipe stanchion. He fell where he stood. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

Quickly, I went through his pockets and felt around the rim of his pants. I also patted his legs looking for an ankle holster.

Goddammit, no weapon of any kind. What kind of asshole gangster didn’t carry a hidden gun, or even a knife?

Back down on the ground, I glanced toward the lights burning in the office. Karadimos and Angelo were still there. It’d be suicide to walk in unarmed. But soon they’d wonder about Gus, and they’d come out to look for him.

Hunched down, I made a dash for the big D7 Caterpillar parked close to the office and climbed atop the bulldozer. I knew about these beasts from working summer construction jobs during high school. Pushing the button, I started the pony motor—the small motor that starts the big one—and waited a few seconds, then pulled the lever in front of the instrument panel, engaging the main engine.

The diesel coughed once, belched smoke, and turned over. I feathered the choke, and it ran smoothly. I pulled the throttle out a hair, put the dozer in gear, and jumped off the monster. It crawled away, moving in a circle like a lumbering ogre at about two miles an hour. The dozer’s racket was deafening, drowning out whatever noise came from the grinder.

I darted to the old house Karadimos used an office and flattened myself against the wall next to the front door.

Holding the pipe like a baseball bat, I waited. I figured when Karadimos heard the tractor start up he’d assume Gus was messing with the machine. After all, I should be dead by now.

I didn’t have to wait long. He immediately sent Angelo to find out why Gus would be driving the tractor around in the middle of the night. When Angelo came through the door, I was ready. He stuck his head and shouted, “Gus! Hey, asshole, what the hell is going on?”

He ventured a little farther into the yard, closing the door behind him. I took my best swing with the pipe, and he toppled to the dirt. He fell in a heap, not making a sound.

I quickly grabbed the .45 from his waistband and darted back to my place near the door, where I took a few deep breaths. Sweat ran down my face and mingled with the caked blood. The .45 felt heavy in my hand as I held it up. I couldn’t wait any longer; I had to get the drop on Karadimos. He’d likely be at his desk, going over the files. I kicked the door open and jumped in, gun leveled.

No Karadimos. My eyes swept the room. Nothing. Behind me, the dozer continued to rumble. Where the hell was he? Taking a crap?

I backed up and turned, holding the gun out in front of me. Karadimos stepped out from the corner of the building. He held his revolver straight out, aimed at my chest.

I flinched. “What the hell—”

His finger was wrapped around the trigger, the gun cocked. “Say goodnight, O’Brien. It’s time to turn out the lights—”

We both heard it at the same time: the loud crunching shriek of metal chewing metal.

“Shit! My goddamn car! The fucking dozer is running over my Mercedes—” As Karadimos flicked his eyes toward the metallic carnage, I shot him in the head.

I dropped the .45 as the distant sound of sirens wailing in the night came closer.

C H A P T E R 
51

Light streamed in from the
hospital room window. It was Friday, almost thirty hours after Sol and the cops found me staggering around Karadimos’s dead body. When he noticed my bloody face and dead eyes, Sol had one of the deputies rush me to the emergency room at St. Frances in Lynwood.

Dr. Kaufmann, a plastic surgeon, did what he could to heal my facial wounds and improve my appearance. He told me I should feel better soon and could be released in a day or so. Other than a few small scars, I’d look the same as before the trauma. I told him I’d slip him an extra fifty bucks to make me look more like Robert Redford.

“No dice,” he said, “not enough to work with.” But for twenty-five, he could make me look like Phyllis Diller. I passed on the deal.

I remained in the recovery room for hours after the surgery, then a couple of gurney jockeys wheeled me into a private room with a view. I couldn’t get out of bed to see the view, but they assured me it was nice. During Dr. Kaufmann’s most recent visit he indicated I was healing fast and could now have visitors. People had been waiting to see me, he said. He’d let them know I was awake.

Soon after the doctor left, Rita slipped quietly into the room. When she noticed my eyes were open and saw me smiling, she rushed to my side and took my hand.

“Oh, Jimmy, we’ve all been so worried. Sol has been here the whole time. He just went to get some coffee. He said you were almost killed. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“You could take over the firm.”

“Don’t say that!” She tapped me playfully on the arm. “Sol told me some of it, but not how he knew you’d been kidnapped, or what happened at the yard.”

I gave her a sanitized version of the story, omitting the fact that they threw me into the garbage pit. But I did tell her about the shootout in Las Vegas, my discovery of Gloria’s briefcase, and my showdown with Karadimos and his thugs. Then I explained how Sol and the police found out I’d been captured and taken to Karadimos’s facility in Cudahy.

“Late Wednesday night Sol drove back from Vegas and stopped at Rocco’s for a quick drink before going home. He recognized a thug named Lenny parking my car in the lot and followed him into the bar.”