King Con (3 page)

“Ya, we be rollin’, mon,” the Jake mumbled unintelligibly, as he put the van in gear and pulled out.

“Why the fuck don’t you put on some cologne?” Tommy Two Times said to Texaco, who couldn’t smell himself and didn’t know what Tommy was talking about.

They sat in silence as the van rounded the block. The tires hissed on the rain-wet pavement. With the windows up, it was close and stuffy in the van. Texaco was the kind of odd creature who took up more space than his body was allotted. He carried a lot of baggage that took getting used to. Aside from his pro-linebacker size, he also had a unique personality which included a sense of humor that had never progressed since the eighth grade. He had a huge collection of fart jokes, and a sexual appetite that was criminally short on foreplay. He was in the jump-on, hold-on category and joked that during sex he used the “Honor Method,” which instructed: Once you get on her, stay on her. It was a concept that twice got him arrested on date-rape charges while he was still playing middle linebacker for the New England Patriots. After a few midnight phone chats, both victims had a last-minute change of heart. Texaco’s body odor
and personality could cool a room like awkward laughter.

“Put the fucking window down, Demo. It stinks in here,” Tommy said. The Jamaican didn’t respond; his hands were busy driving. “Hey, you listenin’ up there? I’m talking to you.”

“Mickey Mouse is in de house but Donald Duck don’t give a fuck,” Demo mumbled but finally rolled down the window anyway. Texaco, hearing this, shook his head in disgust. What a moron. The Rasta’s name was Demo Williams. What a fucking breed of people.
Who would name their kid Demo?
he thought, forgetting that his parents had named him Texaco. The van circled the block with the window mercifully slipstreaming cold, fresh air.

“Pull up there,” Tommy said.

The Jamaican pulled the van to the curb while Tommy studied the fire door; then he started paging through a set of photocopied building plans.

“Gotta old dumbwaiter, goes all the way up. Gotta gas enjin’. It’ll be too loud to run the damn thing. If I can fit in the fucking box, you think you could pull it up fourteen floors?” Tommy said, looking up at Texaco, who nodded … glad he wasn’t being asked to get in the dumbwaiter with Tommy.

“Okay then, that’s the plan. Demo, you stay right here, keep the motor running. And Texaco, once I clear out them brown hats, I want you up there to help sanitize the place. Okay? You’ll hear ‘em hit when they come down.”

“Okay,” Texaco said, looking at the cleaning kit in a Gucci leather suitcase beside him.

“I don’t know about the garage. Far as I can see, they got nobody in there, but you gotta hold my back,” Tommy added. “I don’t wanna be up there hosing off
these assholes and have the elevator deliver me up a new squad of uniforms.”

“Nobody will be coming up the elevator,” Texaco assured him, and Tommy looked hard at his huge accomplice, pinning him with blue pig eyes that suggested Texaco was the worst fuck-up on earth. There was electricity in his look but also dead malice and timeless evil. They were the eyes of a prehistoric lizard.

The whole operation had to be fast and clean. Tommy had decided not to use a contracted cleaning crew. On some hits a crew of “sanitation specialists” would follow in right behind to wash the crime scene down with detergents and vacuum the carpets, eliminating trace evidence. The crime scene would be purged … no prints, no blood spatter, no hair or fiber. Problem was, you had to know the cleanup team was solid. It was a new specialty and Tommy had never used one; he would rather not have anybody left behind who could rat him out. Texaco was risk enough. He knew the big, ugly steroid jockey was just smart enough to figure that Tommy would kill him inch by fucking inch if he ever rolled.

Tommy picked the lock on the fire door; then he and Texaco went into the darkened building. The dumbwaiter was still located in its shaft, and once they pried the small door open they could see that the old rope was frayed and dusty with spider webs. Tommy easily fit in the little box. He sat on the metal tray with his knees up under his chin and looked out like a psychopathic child. Texaco pulled the rope, lifting the dumbwaiter fifteen feet, testing the strength of the line. It held. Then he continued to lift the dumbwaiter. Texaco had to grip the rope and ease it up hand-over-hand. By the time the huge ex-linebacker had the box seven stories high, his forehead and massive arms were dripping with sweat. Friction blisters were beginning to form on his palms. It
occurred to him that he could make a giant contribution to mankind by simply letting go of the box, sending the little Sicilian maniac on a seven-story ass-pucker ride in the free-falling dumbwaiter. But Texaco didn’t have the guts to do it. He knew Tommy would survive the fall, like Wile E. Coyote. Somehow he’d come back and kill Texaco, “inch by fucking inch,” just like he’d always promised.

On the fourteenth floor, Tommy slowly and quietly opened the door of the dumbwaiter and, when he didn’t see anyone, slipped out into the hall. The building was musty. Ornate ceilings and faded green-and-red-patterned carpets framed the columned hallway. He could hear the two deputies talking in low tones around the corner from where he was standing. He moved silently to a maintenance closet and slipped inside. He needed to listen to the sounds on this floor to determine how many people were up here. Standing with hanging mops and Lysol bottles, he waited patiently, taking his time, enjoying the intrusion. Killing for Tommy was a luxuriant, tactile experience that rivaled sex. He was in no hurry to end it. He heard a phone ring, and a little later, a toilet flushed. After listening carefully to the sounds and muffled voices, he thought there were at least two women in the corner suite and two men in front of the elevator. The rest of fourteen seemed quiet. The empty rooms talked to him. … He could hear no TVs or radios coming from the other section of the floor. He thought the Prosecution had probably chosen the fourteenth floor because nobody else was up here. He was looking out of the maintenance closet through a slit in the slightly opened door.

A beautiful woman he recognized as Victoria Hart left at ten
P.M.
He could hear her laughing with the cops before she got in the elevator and the doors closed. It
was going to be much easier than he had originally thought.

After she left, Tommy “Two Times” Rina slipped out of the closet and moved up the corridor to where the two deputies were looking at something in the
Star
tabloid. Tommy pulled out his silenced 9mm SIG-Sauer P-226 and held it in his right hand. In his left, he had his 9mm silver and black Israeli Desert War Eagle. They were his two favorite handguns. The Germans and the Jews made the best guns. It was an irony that completely escaped him.

“Evening, gents. Is Liz Taylor getting a new husband?” he said flatly.

Both cops spun, going for their weapons, but they froze when they saw Tommy holding the two silenced 9mm cannons. If they moved, they were a micro-second from death.

“The fuck …?” Tony Corollo said, astounded that Tommy had somehow gotten up there, behind them.

‘The fuck?” Tommy mimicked. “Was that the fucking question, you worthless fuckface?” he said deadpan.

The deputies looked at him and knew they had no chance to get to their shoulder holsters.

“I want you two cheeseburgers to get up and move over to the elevator and stand there with your hands on the door. You, with the brown hair, push the button. Get the box up here.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Deputy Corollo asked hesitantly.

“Gonna throw you two shitheads a party. Gonna be fun. …”

When the elevator arrived, Tommy told Deputy Manning to reach in and push fifteen, which was the floor directly above, then told him to let the elevator go on up. Bobby Manning did as he was told, and once it was gone, Tommy waved his guns at them. “Okay. Now pry
them doors open again; let’s get us a look in there.” They hesitated, so he re-cocked the SIG-Sauer for emphasis, and the two frightened officers pushed their fingers in and pried the elevator doors open. They both looked down the yawning dark throat of the elevator shaft.

“Officer Krupke, whatta ya see down there?” Tommy grinned.

“Nothing,” Tony Corollo said, wondering if he could dive out and catch the cable, slide down it, and get out of the way before Tommy pulled the trigger.

“Nothing? Look again, get way out there. …” Tony and Bobby craned their necks but didn’t lean out. “What you’re looking at down there is the landing zone, fellas. That there’s ground zero. Now I want you two bricks to hit right smack in the middle of the shaft. We got cash prizes for that lucky winner.” Tommy was really beginning to enjoy himself. “This is “The Jersey Solution,’” he said. “I get the lady, and you two hemorrhoids get the shaft.”

Without hesitation he fired twice, once from each gun. Both silenced automatics made faint hissing sounds like a man spitting out a fruit seed. The first bullet blew Bobby Manning out into the darkness. He hit the opposite wall, slamming against the structure, throwing a spray of arterial blood into the air and all over the brick-walled shaft. Then he fell silently down, palms and shoe soles trailing like streamers as he plunged into the dark abyss. Tony Corollo was simultaneously hit in the mid-back. He flew out into the dark shaft but managed to grab and catch the metal cable. Blood gushed from a huge exit wound in his stomach. He weakly pulled his service revolver and, hanging on by one hand, dripping blood like icehouse beef, he tried to aim at Tommy, but his grip slipped and he had to drop the gun to grab the cable with his other hand. As he hung there, they locked
gazes. At the bottom of the shaft, Bobby Manning hit. The sound was faint, like a snowball hitting a brick wall. “Nice try,” Tommy finally said to the Deputy, whose intestines were now snaking out of him, blood and stomach acid raining down on his dead partner. Then Tommy fired his silenced Desert War Eagle again, this time hitting the Deputy in the mouth. Tony Corollo’s head snapped back and he was blown back off the cable. Little pieces of his teeth recoiled forward and rained ivory chips on the purple and red hallway carpet. Then he too was gone, cartwheeling freely down the shaft.

On the ground floor, Texaco Phillips heard both of them splat in the oil and shale goop that was in the bottom of the shaft. He gathered up his suitcase of brushes, sponges, bleaches, and hand vacuums, then pushed the elevator button. In seconds he was riding up to join Tommy.

She was in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, pinning the hem on her new tan dress, when Tommy walked in on her. “Who are you?” Carol said, looking up in alarm. “What’re you doing here?”

“Taking care of my brother and having a pretty damn good time to boot,” Tommy said. And then he finished the job, right there in the overUt tile bathroom, exploding little pieces of her into the bathtub, covering the tub wall with a fine spray of brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid.

Demo pulled the van away from the building, screeching the tires.

“Don’t burn rubber. Just go slow,” Tommy said from the back seat. Demo slowed down. “Go to this address.” Tommy handed a slip of paper to the Rastafarian.

“We still be chillin’, right, mon?”

“You ask a lot of questions. You’re gonna be one
dead fucking rent-a-nigger, you keep it up,” Tommy growled.

Texaco saw Demo’s shoulders tighten. But the Rasta didn’t do anything; he just drove slowly, heading across town toward the address Tommy had given him.

They arrived at a locked junkyard in Hoboken. Once they parked, Tommy took out a key. Texaco opened the gate and they pulled in. Tommy looked at Demo and smiled. “That pissed you off when I called you a rent-a-nigger, didn’t it?”

The Rasta turned in his seat and looked into Tommy’s eyes. He saw craziness and changed his response.” We be hat up, brotha. De work be done. Ain’t no need ta be disrespectin’,” he finally said.

“Fuck there ain’t. You come here, you sit in my van, you drip fuckin’ chicken grease all over the seats, you make a fuckin’ mess. You’re nothin’ but a ganja-smokin’, voodoo-dancing, low-bone motherfucker who oughta be buried up to his scrawny neck in pig shit and hosed down with donkey piss.”

The Rastafarian looked at Tommy like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Now you’re probably so pissed I can’t fuckin’ turn my back on you, right?” Demo said nothing. “So now you gone and give me a big fuckin’ problem. Y’see what I’m saying? Now I gotta either watch my back constantly or buy you a fuckin’ suit right now.”

And with that criminal logic he fired the SIG-Sauer right through the back of the seat. The Jamaican was thrown into the dash. Blood shot up onto the windshield and stained the headliner over his head. Tommy looked at Demo with interest. “Maybe you can help me with something.” he said to the dying Jamaican. “That was the Kraut cannon … okay, now here’s the Jew gun.” He fired two more rounds through the upholstery from the Desert War Eagle. The body danced on the seat as
the bullets slammed into Demo Williams, killing him. “You tell me, Demo, ‘cause I’ll be damned if I can tell. Which one you think got more stopping power?”

Tommy picked up his brass and got out. He looked at Texaco, who was standing, shivering in the cold night. “Fuckin’ guy was a Dixie cup, just like I told ya.”

Texaco still didn’t get it.

“Disposable,” Tommy added.

Texaco Phillips nodded; his nerves were badly jangled. There was no doubt in his mind that Tommy Rina was insane.