HE WINDOWS OF THE three-bedroom, unfurnished apart-ment on the fourth floor looked out over the roof-tops of the ethnically mixed, lower-middle-class neighborhood. Farther to the southwest, one could see the towering Las Vegas Hilton rising above the convention center. Mitch stood on the small balcony, gazing out on the part of town where Stephanie worked. Why hasn’t she come back from lunch? Kirsten had been of absolutely no help, and no one had answered at Maggie’s house.
“Come on, Lightnin’, we better get back,” Cap’n insisted. “Sound’ll be waitin’at the T-bird.”
Mitch stepped inside and glided the balcony door shut. He marveled at the changes that had come over the big black man. Nearly clean-shaven, he wore a pair of coveralls–that looked like they’d been sewn by Omar the tentmaker–over a white T-shirt that bulged at the biceps. Despite his cleaned-up appearance, however, he still had on the same old pair of combat boots. “Thanks but no thanks,” is all he’d say when asked if he wanted a new pair. The skin on his face appeared smooth and tender from the years of cover the old beard had offered. A small, thin, well trimmed grey goatee now made a light shadow across his jaw and chin. His bushy eyebrows had been trimmed, and with the nose- and ear-hair removed, he actually looked quite normal– even ten years younger.
The worry etched in Mitch’s face was evident. “I’ve got to find her.”
“I know, but we better wait for orders from Nurse or Sunny. You can’t be wanderin’ around town, not with Mr. Vinnie out lookin’ for you.”
“I can’t stand around waiting, either,” replied Mitch. “You go back to the T-bird without me. I’ll help Smitty shave and meet you back here later tonight, after I find her.”
Smitty poked his mop-haired head from the bathroom door down the hall and shook it defiantly. Cap’n smiled, then said, “I’ll agree on one condition: You don’t leave ‘til Smitty’s bathed and dressed in his new clothes.”
A worried smile crossed Mitch’s face. “Deal.”
Cap’n extended his thick hand as a gesture of understanding and wrapped his stout fingers around Mitch’s firm yet more slender grip. “Deal,” Cap’n smiled. “Smitty’s always had some sort of fear of water. Unless you’re a stronger man than me, you’ll still be here when I get back.” Cap’n went out the door.
At the click of the lock, Smitty’s face again appeared from down the hall, staring at Mitch. The expression signaled genuine dread, as if he’d lock himself in the bathroom forever if anyone even mentioned the ‘B-word.’
“It’s a good thing this place came with a fridge,” Mitch said in a loud voice as he walked across the living room and into the kitchen. “We won’t be eating at any soup kitchens for a while. Not until we take care of Mr. Vinnie, that is.” He pulled himself up on the countertop. “I wonder what Mr. Vinnie will do if he gets his hands on my wife . . .”
That brought Smitty creeping out of the bathroom. Down the hallway he came, worming up next to the refrigerator, nearly out of sight, to listen.
“Her name’s Stephanie,” Mitch carried on, a trace of sadness in his voice. “She’s been trying to choose baby names. Did I tell you she’s pregnant with twins? . . .” He raised his bowed head enough to see Smitty–barely visible through the space between the fridge and the wall–shake his head no. “I saw these tiny x-rays called sonograms the other day. The doc thinks they’re a boy and a girl.” A sheepish smile wrinkled Mitch’s forehead. “I asked if they were identical. . . . Imagine that, a boy and a girl identical.” The vision of Stephanie sitting at the kitchen table, drawing a strand of long blond hair up behind her ear, flashed through his thoughts. Where was she? Was he too late?
The sound of running water roused Mitch from his daydream. He hopped from the counter and peered down the hallway toward the bathroom. Smitty’s dirty clothes were strewn along the floor in threefoot intervals. The last piece, a pair of grimy-gray briefs, lay halfway outside the open doorway.
Mitch wagged his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. With hardly any effort at all he’d just coerced a man who was deathly frightened of soap and water into taking a bath. However he’d done it, it was justified. Stephanie needed him now, not in an hour or two. He had to find her, or at the very least call and remind her he loved her. And it might be handy having the little lock-pick along, in case they needed to gain access to Maggie’s house.
The contrast between the sleek red Ferrari and the rusted-out relic of a pump in front of the practically abandoned Husky station was too stark for words. Equally distinct were the two men inside the scratchedglass pay booth. The well-dressed one stood screaming obscenities and hurling accusations at his listener. The other, settled calmly behind his desk, rolled the excess ash from the tip of his cigarette. There was a graphic symmetry to the entire scene, a meeting of opposites, the perfect blend of self-styled “grace” and ugly “gauche.”
From time to time the pay booth literally shook from the one man’s seething jolts and jabs. Finally, after what seemed like an avalanche of thundering threats had rained down on him, the calm one got to his feet, pinched the short butt of the nearly smoked cigarette between his thumb and middle finger, and casually flicked it at the other. The trailing ash and sparks lingered for only a moment, then dropped at their feet and died.
Vinnie blinked in disbelief as Bino looked him square in the eye, mentally recording what in all likelihood would be the final seconds of his miserable life. The smoldering butt had struck headlong on Vinnie’s shirt collar, then–as if a camera were clicking at each instant, recording the surreal act for all eternity–had taken a slow-motion tumble down the lapel of his silk suit and landed on the floor, its coiled smoke continuing to rise in the foul, sultry air.
Both men stared down at the ground as Vinnie placed the toe of his size-10 Gucci on the butt and crushed out the last of its life. Then, in a well-oiled maneuver, he wrested the firearm from inside his jacket and drew the hammer back. With cold steel pressed up against his temple, a remote shiver ran up Bino’s spine. Then the death sentence was spoken: “Consider your debt paid in full.”
Bino, remarkably calm, closed his eyes to await his fate. “And yours,” he whispered, “is just beginning.”
Vinnie, suddenly sensing he was in the center of a large spotlight, glared out the window. A busy Rancho Drive was too public a place for snuffing out a life–even if it was just Bino. Jamming the gun back in its holster, he decided to take a different tack. “Didn’t Jimmy once tell me you have a daughter?” he said, his stony disposition returning.
Bino’s eyes flew open. His voice came in jagged, halfway convincing cries. “Jimmy was a . . . a liar!”
“And you’re a coward–always have been. ‘Sides, joinin’ Mike would only put you out of your misery. I’m gonna let you twist in the wind a while longer.” Vinnie scanned the street again before continuing. “Today you’re ready to die, maybe be a hero, or maybe restore honor to the family name–that’s my bet.” With a sudden wide sweep of his arms, the wise guy cleared the three eye-level shelves of their carefully arranged motor oil jugs, cigarettes and car fresheners, scattering the contents across the floor and desk. As he did so, a small video camera clattered down onto the dirty tile. On its second bounce, its cartridge panel popped open, spewing out a small video tape.
Bino stared down at the tape, then up at the mad man’s cold smile. Vinnie let out a contented grunt, then leaned over, picked up the tape and dropped it in his pocket. “Now where was we before you so rudely flung your garbage in my face?” He brushed a stubborn ash from his lapel and realigned his jacket sleeves. “Oh, I remember now. You was volunteerin’ your services to find the kid and his pretty little wife for me–for the which I’ll forget about the daughter you don’t got, the Fed you lined me up with, and the cleaning bill for my suit.”
In slow surrender, Bino slumped back into his chair and drew the remaining filtered cigarette from his shirt pocket. “What do . . . you want?” he asked, flicking open his lighter.
“The kid’s wife was seen with an older woman about noon. Here’s the plate number of her car.” He dropped a scrap of paper on the desk. “You got an hour to call me with the address.” Vinnie slid the booth door open, then paused, his back still turned. “An’ if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll blow your knee cap off.”
Maggie pulled under the single-car carport at the side of her modest home and turned off the ignition. Long shadows from the evening sun stretched down the driveway. Only the sound of birds chirping was heard on the quiet street. Gazing into the rearview mirror, she watched the tan sedan, which had followed them from the Federal building, pull up in front of the house.
“Mitch lied to me,” grumbled Stephanie, finally breaking the silence. “He’s been lying to me all along, from the very beginning. He probably wasn’t an innocent bystander in the robbery back in high school–and now this. . . .” The expectant mother bent over and put her face in her hands.
Maggie reached out and stroked Stephanie’s back. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes . . . no. . . . I don’t know anymore,” she whimpered. “He’s been lying to me about going to church, and . . . about going to the airport, and . . . who knows about what else. . . . Now he’s wanted for murder. What am I supposed to believe?” She lifted her head and wiped her crimson nose with a crumpled tissue. “Wh-what do you think?”
“Well, from my experience,” Maggie began, resting her mature, slender hand on the younger woman’s arm, “when a man has given his heart to the woman he loves, and she has given her heart to him–I mean when they’ve really given their hearts away–you can look right into each other’s soul and know what the other person is feeling. Sometimes it takes years of practice, other times only a few months. From what I know of you and Mitch, you’ve already given one another that kind of love. Sure, you may still need some practice at understanding how the other is feeling, but the love is there.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Can you ever imagine yourself being without Mitch?”
Stephanie’s distant gaze came to rest on a point beyond the windshield, far out toward the setting sun. Finally she shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What if he was convicted of a serious crime?”
Turning to face the older woman, Stephanie’s mind flashed frame by frame through a hundred painful memories, most revolving around her own mother’s slanderous words. She could hear them now in her mind. “He’s a boy from a junkyard, Stephanie. He’ll never amount to anything. . . . Is he really guilty? . . . How do you know he’s innocent? . . . Did he lie, or is this just a wild misunderstanding? . . .” Then Stephanie asked a question of her own, one only she could answer: “Is Mitch capable of murder?”
“I don’t think so,” she said at last, “but I just don’t know.”
“Maybe that’s what you need to decide before we go back and hear the rest of the evidence. Look inside your heart, and then inside his. You’ll find the answer.” Maggie gave Stephanie’s arm a final squeeze and said, “Now, we started out for lunch almost eight hours ago. You said you were starving then, by now I’ll bet you and those babies are famished.”
Stephanie let out a spent sigh. “Now that you mention it, I am.”
“Well let’s go inside and see what we can throw together.” Maggie began to reach for the door.
Stephanie cleared her throat. “Maggie, thank you. . . . I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Then, despite the river of tears she’d cried during the day, her eyes welled to overflowing.
Maggie leaned back across the seat and gave the younger woman a gentle hug, her own eyes filled with love and compassion. “Oh, you sweet girl. I wouldn’t dream of letting you go through this alone.”
Only three short miles from Maggie’s home, Mitch and Smitty stood shoulder to shoulder in front of a bathroom mirror. Staring at their reflections, Mitch asked, “Don’t you know how to shave?”
Smitty shook his head. He’d been standing at the sink, dressed in his new clothes, for at least five minutes, the razor and can of shaving cream held limply in his hands.
“Didn’t you ever watch your dad shave?”Smitty’s head again wagged side to side. Then he went into a routine of pretending to use an electric razor.
Mitch, his mind focused on Stephanie, hurriedly asked, “Would you like me to teach you?”
Listlessly glancing up and down between the can and razor in his hand and his scraggly image in the mirror, the mute locksmith struggled to make up his mind. Tongue-tied since birth, Smitty, now in his late 40s, stared past the stringy beard, past the rotting teeth and long hair. Within seconds, the lingering image staring back at him in the mirror was that of his own father.
Clarence Webber, Smitty’s real name, was large of head. Breach at birth, he was the first child born to a young mother. It was before the days of modern technology, in a time when it was not uncommon for both mother and child to die during childbirth, especially in a small, Midwest county hospital. And indeed, according to his stepmother and half siblings who lived in the same tiny house, he would have been “better off dead, like her.”
Unable to speak, write or read, Clarence could never fully communicate his feelings to the one person who loved him: his father. Throughout his unhappy childhood, nearly all others had been most unkind. His stepmother had always expressed a special hatred towards him. Even as an infant he could remember the desperate feelings of helplessness, of not being able to take a breath as she held his head under the bath water. Consciously, he couldn’t remember the near drownings at her hand, only the painful awareness of being hated. For years he kept his feelings under wraps. They only surfaced when he was around water–of any sort–or when he was confined to any small space. But after a time those repressed feelings became magnified a hundredfold, and he began to act out in more and more strange ways.
Up until his father’s sudden death, since Clarence was four years old, he’d worked constantly at the man’s side. At first, traipsing along-side the strapping young man as he went about his work as a locksmith was merely an act of self preservation. But later, as the “dumb Webber child” honed the same talents his dad owned, it became an accomplishment no one had thought possible of the boy. It wasn’t long after his father’s passing that his stepmother sold the family business, and Smitty became a casualty of the homeless forgotten. Nurse, in her goodness, had taken him in and nurtured and taught the boy the basic survival skills of the street.
Now Smitty reached out to touch the face in the mirror, as if greeting a long-lost friend. Then he quickly retracted his fingers from the cold, lifeless glass. Thrusting the razor in front of Mitch, he nodded a confirming yes. Mitch squirted a blob of cream in his own hand and waited for Smitty to do likewise. Then, like a father-and-son team, he walked him through each simple step.
When five long minutes had passed, the mirror reflected back two clean-shaven faces, one unspotted yet still tense, the other smiling from one ear clear across to the other, his face covered with nicks and bits of bloody tissue.
“You clean up pretty good, Smitty,” Mitch said, giving him a slap on the back. “All you need now is a haircut and a trip to the dentist.” At mention of the word ‘dentist,’ Smitty’s smile faded, followed by a head shake.
“Okay, okay. The haircut can wait ‘til tomorrow and the dentist is off limits forever. Now, let’s go find my wife.”
Smitty hunched over, slapped his hand on the small leather fanny pack clipped to his waist–carrying the tools of his trade–and lit out for the door like he was late for supper.
At eight-thirty, almost an hour and ten minutes after Vinnie’s visit, Bino slid the old rotary dial phone over near the ashtray. With his stained index finger he slowly dialed the number and waited. “Hello, Sis. . . . No, just a little . . . tired’s all. . . . I know, I know. . . . Look, I was wondering . . . if you’d do me . . . a little favor. This lady . . . came in and . . . bought gas a few minutes . . . ago. A nice woman . . . well dressed. But she . . . left without paying. . . . No, she’s not . . . the type. I just wanted to . . . give her a call. . . . I’m sure she’ll come . . . back and pay without . . . the embarrassment . . . of some officer . . . knocking on her door. . . . I know you’re not. . . . No, I . . . shouldn’t have asked. . . . Never mind. . . . I’ll just call the cops.”
Bino paused a moment, then replied, “Are you sure?” He picked up Vinnie’s scrap of paper and read off Maggie’s plate number. In a few seconds he was scribbling her address on the same slip. “Thanks, Sis . . . I owe you one. . . . Tell the boys hi . . . from their uncle Bernalillo. . . . Love you, too.”
Ten minutes later up on the 13th floor of Three Queens, Vinnie summoned Frankie from the main lobby, where he’d been keeping an eye on the teller booth. The wise guy paced restlessly across the white carpet, waiting for the elevator to arrive. As soon as the doors opened and Frankie’s face appeared, Vinnie launched into his orders. “Go check this place out.” He crushed a slip of paper containing Maggie’s address in the big ox’s palm. “Now don’t go off doin’ somethin’ stupid. Just call me when you get there.”
“Okay, Vinnie. Anything else you want?”
“If I give you more than one instruction at a time you’ll screw it up just like you . . .” Vinnie lit into the unfortunate brute with a volley of insults, ending with, “. . . just call me after you check it out!”
“Sure thing, Vinnie.” Frankie trudged back into the elevator and pressed the button. The doors had almost closed when Vinnie crammed his foot between them. Stepping into the elevator, he glared up into Frankie’s face. “Don’t screw this up,” he sneered, “or I ship you back to your ol’ man in a trunk. I want the girl unhurt and alive.”
“Okay, okay, I got it, Vinnie.”
The two-bit gangster stepped from the elevator and the doors closed. “Mr. Domenico,” his phone beeped.
A frustrated look on his face, Vinnie marched over to his desk and pressed the intercom. “I thought I told you not to bother me . . .”
“I’m sorry, sir . . . but I have a collect call from a man named Lawrence Ritter,” the secretary stammered. “It’s the tenth time he’s called. Should I, uh, take a message?”
“What’s he want?”
“I don’t know, sir. I haven’t accepted the charges.”
Vinnie swore under his breath and slouched down into his white leather chair. “Put him through.” Patience not being one of his virtues, when the phone rang Vinnie snatched up the receiver and roared, “Yeah, wha’d’ya’ want?”
“Evenin’, mate. It was right fine a’ you to take me call, it was,” the voice rambled. “You won’t regret it, for sure.”
“Who is this?” Vinnie shouted.
“Me mum, who’s been bad off an’ in the hospital the last few years, calls me Lawrence; me friends call me Ritter.”
“And I don’t have time for games and our conversation’s over.” He began to hang up.
“Mitch Wilson!” Ritter yelled from the other end of the line.
Vinnie returned the phone to his ear. “What?”
“Mitch Wilson, a right cheeky devil. Got a friend a’ his hid away, I do. The bloke’s smellin’ right sod now. Poor twit had his fluids leakin’ out on the trunk floor. Too bad about the picnic and barbeque. Lost the meat now, didn’t we?”
Vinnie went on the attack. “I don’t know what you’re tryin’ to pull here . . .” Then his threats suddenly altered course to telling Ritter exactly where he could shove the prank call.
“Ain’t no prank, mate,” answered Ritter. “See, they got me locked in the Federal suite. Can’t be too careful these days. Now I need a good attorney and fifty-grand in bail to bring the meat to your flat, I do, where we can chat about me lotto face to face.” Ritter hung up the phone and smiled as he thought, I hope the Jersey-accented hard guy isn’t so lame he can’t figure out what I been tryin’ to tell him.
He’d placed his call now, and knew it had been recorded–probably even listened in on. But it didn’t matter. By the time the information made it back to anyone who knew what he’d been talking about, it’d be too late.
In his 13th-floor suite, Vinnie’s mind sorted through the jumble of British slang. Slowly he placed the phone into its cradle. Then he yanked it back up to his ear. “Get my attorney on the line!”