The Art of Disposal (3 page)

Dan the Man swallowed hard. A single drop of sweat blossomed on his forehead and zig-zagged its way down to an eyebrow. His eyes got narrow and there was an eerie electricity in the room, almost the way it feels before a lightning storm. He let the curtain drop.

“Yeah, that's our guy. A tasty murder-suicide. No questions.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Dan puffed his cheeks and shook his head. “Boy are you dumb. A pro don't bother making things look like an accident. Who cares if it looks like a hit? You walk up to the guy and put two in the back of his head. Or you strangle him if you need it quiet. But you never, ever whack someone just because. Boy are you ever dumb.”

Dan the Man sat there and swilled some beer around in his mouth. When he swallowed, it looked like it took some effort; like it caused a minor pain. A cool breeze was making the curtain sway like the white gown of a dancing lady.

I felt like a chump. All this time he'd just been teasing me. I'd asked about getting rid of that noisy broad—she was driving me nuts—and to him it was a big joke.

“Tell me why she's off limits,” he said, sounding like a college professor.

“She's lives too close. It's personal.”

“Did Eddie or Frank give you a contract on her?”

“Nope,” I said and looked away.

“We don't kill willy-nilly,” Dan said.

“Was he with Joey Bones?”

“Who?” Dan said.

“Willy Nilly.”

“Get outta here,” Dan said, but he laughed.

I stood up and grabbed two more cold ones from the fridge. Dan the Man took one of the bottles and gave me a crisp nod.

“Let me tell you somethin' else,” Dan said. “What I done back on that hike: that ain't right. That's what punks do, killing for kicks. I was different back then. You done it the right way. Crazy Al was a job. You got paid for it.”

Dan the Man got his briefcase off of my sofa and set it on the table. He took a long swig of beer, and then he popped the briefcase clasps and the lid sprung open. He handed me a knife, and as I unbuttoned the leather sheath and pulled it out, I knew what it was and the hairs on my neck prickled.

“That's the one,” he said.

I turned the blade around and tried to admire it.

“My old man told me how it felt to push a Jap off the blade of that very knife you're holding. That story just whetted my appetite, I guess. But I had to learn there ain't nothing cool about murder. It don't turn you into superman or nothing. You're just some guy killed another guy. That's all. You asked if I felt bad about it. Sometimes I do. But only that first one. Because he didn't deserve it, it wasn't business, it was a rat-bastard thing to do.”

Dan the Man let out one of those short, harsh burps that always seem to echo. I studied him, thinking how he wasn't quite as dumb as he played it. Maybe inside of his mind there was a much smarter guy pulling the strings. A person can divvy themselves up like that. Play one character for a wife and another for a mistress. It's weird how there are all of these people we know, but never really know.

“Eddie says you're all right. I won't be around forever. I've been at it for a long time. There's money to be made. The thing is to keep it business. Business.”

He pulled out his smokes and struck a match.

Outside, my fat neighbor was yapping away. She had no idea how two strangers had plotted her demise—even if it was never really gonna happen. It makes you wonder what people are saying about
you
when you're out of earshot.

“I still wanna do her,” I said.

“She's a winner,” he said, pulling on his cigarette.

Dan the Man seemed even more weighed down than usual. He'd laugh and grin, but there were always black stones behind his eyes, and that sunken mouth with deep creases on each side of it.

He talked a lot about Frank Conese—
the
Frank Conese who heads up the Corporation. I never knew too much about Conese, and I sure as hell never met the guy. I was barely an associate. But Dan the Man told me how that would all change as soon as I did some meaningful work. Crazy Al was just a bum, and none of the top guys would even care who did him or why.

“You do some work for Frank, and you'll be having coffee with him sometime soon. I guarantee it. But watch out.”

“I know,” I said. Everyone in the Sesto crew knew about the bad blood between Eddie and Frank Conese. Back when I was still in diapers, the Corporation split the crew to keep the peace, and Dan and Eddie had to leave New York.

Then Dan the Man went off on your average Joe.

“They think it's all Eye-talians.” He pulverized the cigarette butt into the ashtray. “You ain't Eye-talian. Me neither.”

The way he said “Eye-talian” reminded me of my Grandpa Jim.

“Sure, we got Eye-talians, but so what? There's other guys too. The Chinese Mob? Hell, they won't even let a white guy so much as touch a broom for 'em. And a spook? Forget it. At least Eddie has associates of all races. He's got more genuine diversity than a college campus.”

“Eddie runs a good crew,” I said. I'd heard Dan the Man say it a million times. I figured it was my turn to say it.

“He's not too greedy,” he said. “Don't care about image. Look at Crazy Al. Back before he got sent up, he was always gunning for something more. More money, more girls. Had that greed in his eye. Look at him now. Greed does you in, I don't care what line of work you're in.”

Dan the Man hit his beer bottle on the table.

“Eddie's the best boss you'll ever have. He pays good, and he ain't ambitious. It's smooth with Eddie at the wheel.”

Then he asked if he could feed my fish before he left, and I said yes even though it wasn't their proper dinner time. Sometimes you have to bend a little.

He crumbled the flakes above the water. He watched the tiger barbs push and shove to get a piece of the action until all of the food was gone. Then he put on his cap, buttoned his coat, grabbed his briefcase, and walked out the door.

“Hey,” I said before he'd gone down the first flight of stairs. “What should I do, for real, about that noisy broad?”

He drew his fingers along his chin like he was smoothing out a rope.

“Ask her to keep it down,” he said.

Gideon Cash works out at Love's Auto-Mall off of 95 East. Behind the dealership, there's a junkyard stacked high with the flattened carcasses of Fords and Chevys. Dan the Man and Ricky Cervetti have told me some gruesome stories about that car crusher out behind the Auto-Mall. Stuff that went down way before I was ever hooked up with the Sesto crew, during an all out war between the Conese and De Luca families.

Back when Eddie was my age, he hired a kid to watch Jake "Sneakers" Amico—boss of the De Luca family—and learn his normal jogging route. Once he knew it, he picked the most isolated spot out by Metzer's Pond and he waited there. Eddie could have hired the same kid to do the dirty work, but he wanted Frank Conese to know that he was the one who got it done.

The VIN is the vehicle identification number on the dashboard of a car. Each car that gets scrapped and smashed has a perfectly good VIN inside of it. Gideon takes them off for us and we pay him handsomely.

Then you send some guys out to steal a car of a similar make, and you swap out the dirty VIN with the clean VIN from a car that doesn't exist anymore. Then you drive the Frankensteined cars out of state and sell them to some sucker who doesn't ask for a lot of paperwork.

But Gideon was coming up short on the VIN's. Do you think he played it straight and told us to hold off on the envelopes with his money? No way. He liked the taste of those envelopes. He promised Eddie that he would get us the thirty or forty numbers he owed, but he was stalling us hard.

Eddie gave him a chance, said he'd be square if he just gave back the money. But do you think a guy like Gideon Cash is going to save a few clams for a rainy day? He was in pretty deep, too. Owed us five large, but with the vig (that's interest), that five large was getting bigger than a Texas housewife.

Eddie gives them all the details up front. Doesn't hide a thing. And then when it comes time to square up, they want to act like the money was just a gift or something. Like since they shook hands with Eddie one night at the Hotsy Totsy, he might just give them a pass because he likes them so damn much. But let me tell you something: you don't make as much dough as Eddie Sesto by feeling bad for suckers who dig their own graves.

Dan the Man stopped slapping Gideon around, drew a few fast breaths, wiped his sleeve across his wet face, and turned to me.

“You got anything to add?” he said.

“Pay the man,” I said to Gideon.

“I don't got it.”

“He doesn't have it,” I said.

“How's come he don't have it?” Dan the Man said to me.

“Why don't you have it?” I asked Gideon.

“My kid brother needed help.”

“His kid brother needed help,” I said to Dan the Man.

I felt bad for Gideon, but it was kind of funny to see him there against the wall, Dan the Man holding him up like a sack of russet potatoes. It was like Gideon Cash didn't exist. Dan the Man wouldn't even talk directly to him. I was the English to English translator.

“Guess we do gotta bring Eddie that toe,” Dan said.

“I think he just wet himself,” I said.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Dan the Man said. He stepped back a little and let Gideon Cash drop to the floor. “Can you believe this guy?”

“I heard what you done to Gonzales,” Gideon said.

I still hated to see Gonzales around the neighborhood. He'd gone back to his old job at the warehouse, and every so often I'd see him at Rudy's buying a pack of Marlboro's. I heard that his wife left him, but that just figures. What kind of woman wants to put up with a degenerate, loser gambler? Gonzales never stopped in at the Hotsy Totsy anymore either, not that you could blame him. It would be a hell of a thing to have a pinky finger clipped off and then have to drink a beer with the guys who did the clipping.

But the truth was that we did Gonzales a big favor. Eddie Sesto wanted him gone. He even offered me the job. I talked Eddie out of it. Dan the Man did the actual clipping. I just duct-taped Gonzales to a chair and covered his eyes.

“What do you think Ronnie? Should we give this guy a Gonzales?”

I was looking out the window, watching two white swans cut smoothly across the surface of the golf course pond. I didn't really hear Dan the Man.

“Hey nature-boy!” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. A Gonzales. Hell, I don't know. That's a goddamn mess. I got a date with Marcia set up for tonight.”

Dan the Man pulled Gideon up from the ground, and looked right at the pee-stain on his trousers, crinkling his lips and flaring his nostrils.

“Mister Aquarium's gotta date tonight,” he said. “Guess we gotta go easy on you.”

“Thank God,” Gideon Cash said and clasped his hands together. Dan the Man laid a sharp smack across his right cheek so hard it sounded like a gunshot.

“You play this course?” Dan the Man said.

Besides his sales job at Love's Auto-Mall, Gideon Cash is also a part-time caddy at The Sycamore Golf Club. A lot of deadbeats, when they know that Eddie is looking for them, get a sudden urge to put in some overtime at their place of employment. Sleeping at your home address makes you easier to find.

“You like golf?” Dan the Man said. He punched Gideon and sent him back to the ground, with a bloody nose for his trouble. Then he grabbed a nine iron from a golf bag in the corner. I thought it was a little too soon for that kind of thing, and I flinched because I thought he might swing it and splatter blood on me right before my date with Marcia; but Dan the Man just rubbed the head of the golf club with his fat thumb.

Gideon cowered in the corner like a tortured animal, arms stretched out, hands wide open, getting ready to stop whatever might be coming his way.

Eddie wanted his money and he was going to get it. Not because eight or nine large even meant anything to him. It was the principal of the thing. If you give one guy a pass, they all expect one. You lose the power of threat if you don't back it up with some real muscle every now and then. Once, when me and Dan the Man were out collecting around the neighborhood, he gave me an ear-full on Eddie's life story…

“He had a brother.”

“Had?” I said.

“That's what I said.”

I was hooked on the story now. At first I was just expecting more of Dan the Man's half-assed philosophical discussions about the afterlife, and if guys like us would be allowed in.

“You didn't hear it from me,” he said, hands on the wheel at ten and two.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“His name was Dino,” Dan the Man said. “Eddie's kid brother by eight years. Dino's sophomore year of high school wasn't so grand. Got plowed over by a drunk driver. Guy wrapped his car around a tree about a mile up the road right after he hit the kid.”

“Damn,” I said.

“Long story short, that drunk driver survived the wreck—but he didn't survive Eddie Sesto.”

“No way,” I said.

“Way,” Dan the Man said, and raised his eyebrows.

“How'd he do it?”

“Made it look like a train hit him. Blood alcohol sky-high. They say Eddie drank him stupid, then led him to the tracks…”

I heard another sharp crack, like the end of a whip, and it snapped me out of my memory. Dan the Man was really going at it now, smacking and punching poor Gideon to punctuate his sentences.

“Nine grand (smack!). Nine grand and I swear it'll be ten by the end of today (punch!). So pay up (smack!). Pay up (punch!). Pay up (smack!).”

“I can't give you what I don't got,” Gideon Cash said, his teeth so bloody it looked like he'd been eating fresh roadkill. His face was black and welted, and the skin around his eyes looked like meat that had gone bad.

“Nine grand, or the VIN's you owe us,” Dan said. “Hey Ronnie, tell this joker how we do business.”

I sat down in one of those swivel desk chairs, the kind you might see in a high school gym teacher's office. Dan the Man walked away. He took my spot at the window and I could hear him breathing, warm and airy and angry.