Slide (9 page)

Ten

Sideswipe

C
HARLES
W
ILLEFORD

Joe Miscali was a good guy. You ask anyone and they’d go, “Joe? Yeah, he’s a good guy.” It seemed like everybody loved Joe and you had to wonder—where’s the flaw? what’s wrong with this picture?—since Joe was a cop and, yeah, a damn good one.

He’d worked out of the 19th Precent so long that they called him Joe Nineteen. Even the bad guys kinda had a soft spot for Joey Nineteen. He was divorced—sure, came with the doughnuts and the buzz haircut—but even his ex old lady had nothing but nice things to say about him. She’d go,
Joe? Oh, yeah, Joe, he’s a good guy.

Joe didn’t work at being Mr. Nice. He was just one of those rarities, a good man in a bad situation.

He was built like a brick shithouse—pug face, broken-veined complexion, hands thick as shovels. A typical Joe Miscali outfit: polyester pants with a nylon shirt and a plaid sports coat. Note to Norman Mailer:
Good guys wear plaid.
He was born in Queens, loved the Mets, Jets and Nets. He watched re-runs of
The Odd Couple
, like, a lot. He loved to quote from the show, insert lines into casual conversation even if no one understood what the hell he was talking about. Silly, yeah, but Joe got a kick out of it.

His lineage was that old volatile mix of Italian and mick. So how’d he wind up with such a sunny disposition? Go figure.

Joe had a pretty good record of closing cases. Not that he was a great cop but he was smart, knew snitches were the way to go. He’d been lucky, often getting to the right snitch at the right time. Thing is, like luck, snitches had a very short shelf life, so you got as much as you could from them before their mouths or dope took them off the board.

If there was a sadness in Joe’s life, it was for Kenneth Simmons, an old buddy from way back. They’d gone to the Academy together and the son of a bitch had been a hell of a cop—relentless, never let go. Joe admired that, but it would turn out to be Kenny’s downfall. Last year, he was after Max Fisher, a smarmy, smug businessman who was on the hook for killing his wife and another woman. Over brews one night, Kenny’d told Joe, “The schmuck is guilty and I’m gonna nail him.”

But someone’d nailed Ken before the case got up and running, and no one had ever really gone down for it. Joe kept an eye on the Fisher punk, knowing that somehow, in some goddamned way, he’d been the cause of Kenneth’s death.

Kenneth had had a partner, a cocky mother named Ortiz. Joe could never figure the deal out—Kenneth, a sweetheart and Oritz, a badged prick. But, hey, like marriage, you never knew what glued people together.

After Kenneth bought the farm, Ortiz had let the case go. Time to time, Joe would ask him if anything was breaking on the deal, but it seemed like Ortiz had given up. Then, one night, Ortiz was killed instantly in a smash-up on the Jersey Turnpike on his way to A.C. to—rumor had it—screw some bimbo he had down there. And this with a wife, eight months pregnant, home in his apartment in the Bronx. Nice guy, huh? What was left of Ortiz they shoveled back to some small town in Santa Domingo.

Joe kept an eye on Max, hoping to get some closure for Ken. Yeah, it had become personal to Joe. There was sure some weird karma around that Fisher fuck, like everyone round him got wiped and he just kept on keeping on.

Then Fisher went off the radar. Joe heard he’d fallen on hard times, gone broke somehow, was drinking his ass off, got into a couple of bar fights. Did Joe shed any tears? Like fuck he did. He was secretly hoping that Max would piss the wrong guy off at some bar, get his ass nailed to the wall.

A couple months went by and Joe didn’t hear much of anything. Then imagine how surprised he was when he heard that Fisher was back and, word was, he was dealing. You fucking believe it?

Joe put a tag on Max. Yeah, he could’ve nailed him for a couple of small-time crack deals, could have at least slapped him with Possession with Intent. But the DA wanted the whole deal and didn’t want Joe to move in too quick. So Joe got a hold of a new snitch—a stripper-slash-prostitute named Felicia Howard. No surprise there—Fisher was as smarmy as they came and he had a thing for busty broads. Fisher’s old flame, Angela Petrakos, had also been built.

Felicia was promising—Joe had scared her and good. He had her on prostitution charges for taking money from the clients she danced for and was hanging three-to-five, no parole, over her head. He could tell she was probably sick of Fisher herself. There was no way in hell she’d go down for that jackass.

The early stages with a snitch were always tricky. He had to build up trust, or if not trust, at least a relationship. He never had any problem with paying his informants. Some cops, they used intimidation, bullied the poor fucks into giving up information but Joe knew, that way you only got half the story. First thing Joe did, always, was slip them a few bucks and it worked every time. Nothing like cash money to loosen up somebody’s lips. And paying hookers for info usually worked out really well. If they’d give away their bodies for some green, why wouldn’t they give up info?’

But Joe had been working with Felicia for over a week now and he was getting impatient. He felt like she was stalling.

He arranged to meet her at the Green Kitchen diner on Seventy-seventh and First. They did some mean meatloaf there, not a bad rice pudding either. When Joe was seated at a booth toward the back he spotted a dog-eared paperback with a torn cover that somebody had left on the cushion. He could barely read the title—was it
Cockfighter?

Whatever, he thought, and shoved it aside.

Felicia arrived. It was hard not to notice her in the short skirt and with all the cleavage. Practically every male head in the diner turned to watch her pass. A few women too. When she sat across from Joe, he smiled. He gave great smile. Ask anybody.

He gave Felicia that look, then went, “You need anything?” and took out his wallet, showing her the corner of a twenty sticking out. Figuring he’d whet her appetite right off the bat.

“Why you so good to me, Detective Miscali?” Felicia said. “I ain’t used to kindness.”

He knew she was full of shit, went, “You’re full of shit.” And yeah, here was his handkerchief, all sympathy and bull, and he said, “Felicia, I’m your friend, I’m gonna get those minor charges wiped but you gotta give me something on Fisher, you know, keep my bosses happy. And call me Joe, okay?”

She nodded, wiping daintily at her eyes, and said, hesitantly, “Maybe I do got something for you...Joe.”

He was all focus now, cop antennae on full alert. Asked, “What is it?”

“Hold up,” she said. “What am I gonna get?”

“You get not to go to jail.”

“I mean what am I gonna get’s green and white, has presidents on ’em.”

“Look, Felicia,” Joe said. “Just because I haven’t played hardball with you yet, doesn’t mean I’m not capable. Yeah, I’m a good guy, but I have a hardass side to me, too, and, trust me, you don’t want to meet it.”

Joe was trying to intimidate. He knew it wasn’t working—hell, she knew he knew it wasn’t working—but he kept the glare going anyway.

She nodded, said, “I’m just playin’ with you. You know how bad I wanna help you, right? But I just hope there’s more twenties like that in yo’ wallet, know what I’m sayin’?”

“How many twenties we talking about?” Joe said, smiling.

“Fifty,” Felicia said.

The smile went. Joe said. “Look, if you think I’m giving you a thousand bucks you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Five hundred,” Felicia said.

“Two hundred,” Joe said.

“Deal,” Felicia said.

Joe, feeling like he’d been taken, went, “Do you have anything for me or not?”

“Yeah, I got somethin’ good for you,” Felicia said. “You gonna be thankin’ me for this shit. He’s in with some Colombians.”

Joe waited a second then said, “You mean Colombian Colombians.
From
Colombia.”

“Ain’t talkin’ about no District of Columbians,” Felicia said. “He’s movin’ up—way up. Motherfuckers are from some drug cartel or some shit. They having a big meeting in Staten Island tomorrow night. You show up there, you can get ’em all.”

Felicia gave Joe all the info about the meeting and Joe didn’t think she was bullshitting. When you worked with snitches you had to have a good bullshit detector, and Joe had one of the best in the business. He wrote everything in his pad, meticulous to get every detail down. After a few minutes or so of this, he looked up at Felicia and said, “Can I ask where you got this?”

“How you know Max didn’t tell me?”

Joe gave her a look, like, Was I born yesterday?

Felicia recognized the look, went, “From Kyle, some white boy from Alabama. The boy’s hung, know what I’m saying?”

Joe smiled at his snitch, proud of how well everything had worked out.

“Nice work,” he said. Then he grabbed a menu and went, “Now how about we get some food on the table, you hungry girl you.”

Eleven

Burn

S
EAN
D
OOLITTLE

Angela was fuming, not from the cigs she was chain smoking but from waiting for Slide again. W
here the fook was he?
He’d said he was going to kidnap the Rolling Stones. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but only because she’d been three sheets to the Jameson wind. Yeah, bring back the Stones, way to go, Slide, good on yah. Bloody Jameson, it was worse than any drug. Not only did it tell you you could do anything, it downright persuaded you that the maddest, most insane scenario would work. How else can you explain Riverdance?

But he seemed gung ho on the idea and she knew men well enough to let them do all kinds of crazy shite and then she’d reap the reward. She heard the car pull up and then Slide was running towards the house—alone. What, no Jagger? No Richards? Not even Charlie Fookin’ Watts?

Slide came bursting in, going, “Gotta have me big drink.”

She wondered what happened to,
And how was your day, sweetheart?
Fucking men—me, me, me. But she got a glass, poured a large Jameson, then asked in a cold tone, “Ice with that, sweetheart?” Leaning on the endearment, like they even had a fucking refrigerator.

Then she noticed Slide was dripping with sweat. And was that blood?

He gulped the drink, belched, said, “Sweet Jaysus.” Then he said, “We gotta get out of here, now, and I mean not just outa here but, but outa the country.”

She had to know, asked, “What happened?”

The booze seemed to calm him a bit. He took a deep breath, said, “I took the wrong guy, all right? A fookin writer, and turns out he’s related to one of the Boyos, you know, the IRA?”

Was he kidding? She knew who they were. More important, she knew you don’t, like, ever fuck with them. There wasn’t much that scared Angela. Growing up in New Jersey, her friends used to worry about the Mob. Like if Angela picked up some Soprano at a bar her friends would tell her she was crazy, she didn’t know what she was getting into. But Angela would just laugh, knowing a Soprano was a kitten compared to a Boyo.

She nearly shrieked, “Are you sure?”

If Slide had really kidnapped one of their relatives, oh Sweet Jesus, that was like fookin’ suicide.

Slide gave her the look, said, “No, I’m making it up.” Then went, “Of course I’m sure. He even had a Belfast accent and he said they’d cut me balls off.”

That convinced her. She knew, alas, that was exactly what they’d do.

She asked, “Did you give him back?”

He seemed stunned, said, “Are you stone mad? It’s not like a pair of jeans that didn’t fit, I couldn’t
return
him. I didn’t, like, keep the receipt. Oh, and here’s the worst part.”

Christ, what could be worse, unless he killed him? The blood, she realized with a sinking heart.

She said, “You didn’t—”

Slide interrupted, went, “I was seen, all right? Well, at least the car was and they got me number, they’ll be able to track us in jig time.”

She wanted to scream,
Us? You stupid prick, it’s you.

He read her mind, asked in a chilling voice, “You wouldn’t run out on me, would you?”

Angela shuddered as the past danced before her eyes. She mostly suppressed her past, kept it locked nice and tight. Like they said on
Seinfeld
, It was in the vault. But sometimes it came out to play.

Her mother had had connections to the Boyos. Time to time, some shadowy figure would arrive, literally off the boat, with that thick Belfast accent and thicker manners. Her mother would feed him and he’d get Angela’s room.

One freezing February night, before Angela left home for good, one of these guys arrived. Had that Marine Corps look about him, ramrod straight, shaved head, menace oozing from him.

Angela’s mother was at work—she worked with a cleaning crew that serviced the Flatiron Building, supplemented her income by stealing books from a publisher who had offices there and returning them to various bookstores around the city for credit. Angela arrived home to find this guy in the kitchen, dressed in just a string vest and combat trousers and reading
An Poblacht
, some paper Sinn Fein sold in the Irish pubs. Her mother had warned her, severely,
Don’t ever, ever talk to these men.

Like hello. You tell a woman like Angela to stay away from a certain man and, gee, guess what?

Angela was in man-eater attire, the mini, the sheer hose, heels. The
wanna fuck?
jobs. They were killing her, naturally—did men actually believe women enjoyed wearing these things?—and was heading out when he spoke, startling her.

“What’s yer hurray,
cailin
?”

He put the paper aside and she saw the gun. He’d taken it apart and was cleaning it. It looked sleek and ugly. He was wearing Doc Martens and used his boot to push a chair aside.

He ordered, “Take a pew.”

Mainly, she wanted to take her goddamn heels off but his whole languid lethal attitude was strangely exciting.

He said, “You’ll be knowing why I’m here.”

She didn’t, said, “I don’t.”

He snapped the barrel of the weapon in one fluid motion and the gun was assembled. He laid it on the table and said, “I’ve a bit of business in Arizona. A bollix stole from us and I’m going to recover it.”

He was smiling, but no warmth or humor came from it. She felt sorry for the poor bastard in Arizona.

“They tell me tis fierce hot out that way,” he said, and she said, “Dry heat.”

He laughed, more like the sound of an animal’s grunt, and said, “Only in America. Back home, you could say we have wet rain...lashings of it.”

She was tempted to say, “How utterly fascinating.”

Now he rolled a cigarette, expertly, like Bogart in the old movies, with one hand. He licked the paper and produced a Zippo with a logo on the side,
Fifth of
...something. She couldn’t see the rest.

One flick and he was lit. He drew deep, then exhaled right into her face and said,

“Afore I go, I have a wee job to do for yer Mammie.”

She knew better than to ask.

He seemed to know she wouldn’t and said, “Yer Uncle Billy, he used yer Mammie’s name to get a loan and the fooker, he’s welshed on the repayment, left her in a right old mess, and old Billy, he supports the English Team.”

The latter seemed to be the greater crime, if his expression was any indication. He offered her the cig, the butt wet from his lips, and she was too rattled not to accept.

As she took a full pull he grinned and said, “You like it unfiltered, don’t you, gra?” Then he took it back, mashed it on the floor, and went, “I’m going to tell you what’s coming down the pike for our Billy, so you know...never...fooking never...piss on the Movement or yer own kind. We never forget and we never fooking forgive, you got that?”

Hard not to.

She nodded slowly, hoping the wetness between her legs didn’t show in her face, though she felt a burn on her cheeks.

“First I kneecap him,” he explained, “and then, as he called yer mammie a toerag—see, the hoor’s ghost is using Brit words—I’ll cut off two of his toes and shove them down his gullet. Make him eat his words, and every time he hobbles around, he’ll remember...” Then he sat straight up, asked, “Don’t you have work to do?”

She tried to stand but her knees were shaking.

He went, “Any chance you could make a fellah a decent cup of tea?”

She never saw him again, though she did see Uncle Billy, with a cane and about twenty added years in his face. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d been able to pass the toes, though she imagined that looking in the toilet bowl must have been a fascinating adventure for him from then on.

Now, looking at Slide in horror, she couldn’t believe he’d screwed with the lads. Oh sweet Jesus, they’d make him eat both legs—and as for her, she was, in their eyes, one of their own.

She wanted to scream. “You crazy bastard, you’ve really put your foot in it. Where are we supposed to go?”

“America,” Slide said.

And so they sat down, hatched out a plan to get some serious money and fast. In spite of all the fear, all the anger she felt toward Slide, Angela was excited about the thought of returning to New York. Oh God, she realized how much she missed it.

She gave Slide her full look, drilled her eyes into his, and she couldn’t help marveling at the piercing blue. His expression, as usual, was impossible to read, though. You never knew if he was planning murder, mayhem and general madness, thinking about sex, or some of each.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do and this is how we’re going to do it.”

The plan: They’d hit the bars, the posh ones where the suits and the money hung. She’d lure some schmuck outside and then Slide would do his gig. She was estimating if they hit maybe ten pubs, they’d score, say, in six, and have the run-like-fook-away money.

Slide was game, said, “Game on.”

As long as violence was in the mix, he was up for it.

She cautioned, “And try not to kill anyone, can you fucking do that?”

He smiled, said, “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”