Deadly Lullaby (13 page)

Now me, Darkie D'Arco, and Jimmy Coyle are all seated in this private meeting room located in the bowels of the Venetian. We have finished our rib eye steaks and pork chops and our sides of spaghetti marinara. Aside from having to cancel my lunch date with Maggie, the other reason I did not want to eat here is the food I just ate. In addition to being the only bartender, Sam doubles as the only cook and triples as the only waiter. He fries a passable cheeseburger if what you are looking to pass is a deadly amount of grease through your arteries, and will also grill an edible steak or a pork chop when you first threaten him with immense bodily harm if he fucks it up. Sam also cooks pasta, of course, invariably spaghetti with a marinara sauce he claims is homemade. We all know, though, that his sauce is actually made and packaged by the Bertolli Company in quart-sized cans he hides in the pantry. Over the years we taunted Sam about a lot of things, but never,
ever,
about his counterfeit homemade marinara sauce. We always feared he would exact revenge by making it himself.

Sam cleared the dishes and left the room, having replenished our four top with a just-opened bottle of cheap Chianti, two bottles of beer, and a tall gin on the rocks with a squeeze of lemon. Up until now our conversation has been light and airy, the point being to put Jimmy Coyle at complete ease. Jimmy's a full-time pimp and part-time bookmaker, an old warhorse whose mind, I am told, has slipped slowly over the years to the point where his big mouth has become a liability to others and, sadly, to himself.

Our conversation will now take a definitive turn toward the business Joe and Viktor are paying me to conduct. I know this because Darkie D'Arco just told Sam before he left the room to grill him another rib eye he can carry home. Sam knows from his previous discussion with Nico that Darkie really does not want a rib eye. What Darkie really wants is for Sam to leave us the fuck alone and forget he saw us here today.

Forgetting who comes here and who leaves here alive are things Sam does very well.

Darkie sits to my immediate left. Darkie is of fair northern-Italian stock; his nickname originated as an ironic play on his blue eyes and once-wavy blonde hair. Now he's completely bald, his body is as big as an upright safe, and his tiny head rests on top of it like a grenade. His face has taken a lot of punishment over the years, and the running joke is that one of Jimmy's prostitutes once took a single look at him and shrieked in terror, saying later she freaked over his creepy resemblance to a fairy-tale monster she had nightmares about as a kid.

Darkie speaks with a croaky smoker's voice. “So, Babe, you hear the rumor goin' around?”

He gives me a conspiratorial wink, one Jimmy Coyle misses.

“About what?” I say.

“Macky,” he says.

“No, what is the word on him?”

“There are different theories,” Darkie says with an eye on Jimmy, “all of which include Macky leavin' this world. Word on the street is
buon' anima,
Macky.”

Jimmy Coyle sits to my right and closer to Darkie, silently gulping his tall gin on the rocks. The oldest guy at the table, Jimmy is a bald guy with no chin and a nose so small it would not be out of place on a six-year-old if it was not crawling with burst veins. A misaligned toupee rests on his head and his bloodshot eyes bulge behind thick eyeglasses. He looks eighty but is around sixty, rumor being his so-called alcoholism has aged him and given him his runaway mouth. Another theory is that Jimmy is suffering from Alzheimer's or some such. Whatever the cause, Darkie and I have orders to discover the source of the so-called rumors that have spewed from Jimmy's loose lips the last few days.

“That is too bad,” I say, casting a dead eye at Jimmy myself. “Macky was all right in my book.”

Jimmy turns his head away to avoid meeting my gaze.

Darkie says, “I heard a Cambodian gang hired two of Macky's people to take out Macky and his bodyguards. He said the traitors were Latzo and Levitch. Joe found out about Levitch and Latzo almost right away, then later that night had the Russians take 'em out with a fuckin' flamethrower.”

I say, “Hey, I saw the so-called gangland massacre reported in the
Times
. Coroner says it took the fire department so long to get there that identifying the bodies will be next to impossible. I would bet my retirement stash that somebody paid off the station captain to drag his feet.”

“Crispy fuckin' critters,” Darkie says on my heels. “It's like killin' two birds with one stone, so to speak.” A chuckle. “You kill the fuckers and at the same time don't have to worry about disposing of the bodies.”

“I don't buy none of it,” Jimmy says, slurring and taking a deep drink from his gin, his third in our presence. He cuffs the moisture from his mouth and leans forward on his elbows. “Al Levitch was Macky's niece, fer Christ sake, and worshiped the dog shit stuck on the soles of his shoes. And Latzo, c'mon, was just too fuckin' simple to be a traitor. My guess is the Cambodian story is nothin' but a ginned-up reason for Joe and the fuckin' Russian to go to war with the gooks. Shit, Joe and this Tarasov hump are plannin' a raid on the Cambodians this week. Friday, I think it is, they're takin' down a stash house on Fifty-Third near the projects over there.”

No one has told me about this; this is not surprising, considering I have one foot and most of my torso out the door of Sacci's crew.

Darkie apparently knows nothing of this raid either, but it is difficult for me to say this with certainty. He casts a wary eye at me before he says, “Jimmy,” a mild but clear warning in his voice, “tell us what you know about this raid.”

Jimmy shrugs. “All I know is some Cambodian whore told Joe or somebody about some big delivery of smack or coke or some shit, and—”

“A Cambodian whore did what?”

Jimmy speaks louder. “What, you goin' deaf? A Cambodian whore, a
gook,
told somebody about a shipment of horse the Cambodians have comin' in at a plumbin' company over there. Joe and the Russian then planned this raid. You got it now?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Who told you all this?”

“Forget about it,” Jimmy replies, so blindly agitated and homeless drunk he cannot see the threat Darkie presents to him. “My point is Joe's tellin' people the raid's some kind of vengeance for Macky, and that's bullshit. Joe's been plannin' this thing before Macky died, and he didn't tell Macky 'cause he knew Macky wouldn't go along with it. So he got the Russian to go along with it, and they got together and wasted Macky. Now they're tryin'ta sheep-dip Latzo and Levitch as traitors to cover their asses.”

“I asked who told you about that raid,” Darkie says, “and you better fuckin' tell me.”

Jimmy belittles the question with a dismissive wave of his hand. “One a Macky's guys, Grogan or Hill, fuck, I dunno. One of 'em, maybe both, maybe neither. What the fuck's it matter?” He shakes his head, gulps more gin, and addresses the table. “What I'm sayin' is, This Thing of Ours is goin' straight down the fuckin' crapper. Goddamn Russians have already been pushin' us white men outta the big picture and now Joe's sellin' out Irishmen and givin' Russians a even bigger piece. Mr. Balboa would'a already had you,” he says to Darkie, jabbing a finger in his chest, “splatter some fuckin' brains and get the foreigners scramblin' for the next boat home. Joe don't have the stones for it no more. To hell with us, all Joe wants is to kill Irishmen and suck Russian
dick.
”

Darkie points the business end of a steak knife at Jimmy. “Grogan, Hill, or somebody else, you drunk fuckin' Mick. Who told you about that raid?”

Jimmy sulks, gulps more gin.

“Jimmy?”
Darkie says.

Jimmy pats his lips together like he just applied Chapstick and is evening it out, clamps them into a thin line and shoots Darkie a red-faced look of defiance.

At which point Darkie matter-of-factly jabs the point of his steak knife into the fleshy part of Jimmy's cheek.

Jimmy clamps both hands over what, in light of the fate that will soon befall him, amounts to a minor injury, and howls, rocking back and forth in his seat. “Owwww, shit, goddamn you, what'd ya do that for, owwww, god
damn
….”

Jimmy stands.

I stand faster, push him back into his chair and hold him firmly in place by his shoulders.

Darkie allows Jimmy's howls to subside before he speaks. “Listen to me.”

Jimmy presses a napkin against his cheek, cuts his hate-inflamed eyes up at me, then settles them on Darkie.

Darkie talks in a calm voice. “I've known you a long time, Jimmy, and I like you. Babe's known you a long time and he likes you as much as me. We don't like hurtin' you neither. The thing is, I don't know nothin' about what Joe and Tarasov are plannin' to do to this fuckin' gook stash house this week.” Darkie eyes me briefly. I nod and he continues. “Now, Jimmy, listen close. If this raid's for real, and I don't know that it is, but
if
it is, the reason I don't know nothin' about it is because Joe don't want nobody to know about it, at least not nobody who's not involved in it. And Joe's gonna be real interested to know somebody's blabbin' about it and he's gonna want to know who that somebody is. And I'm gonna tell him who that somebody is because
you,
Jimmy boy, are gonna tell
me
who it is.” He flicks the bloody point of the steak knife to within an inch of Jimmy's right eye. “If you refuse to tell me again, this time I will stick this knife in your fucking eye and pluck it from its socket. Then, if you still refuse to tell me, to balance out your face I will pluck out the other one.”

His right eye riveted on the point of the knife, Jimmy says, “I want to talk to Joe.”

“Hold this stubborn Mick's head still,” Darkie says.

I grab hold of Jimmy's ears.

“All right, all right,
shit,
” Jimmy says as Darkie moves into position to pluck out his eye. “Last night, at Casey's bar over on Grand, Tommy Mosko told me about it.”

Something goes wrong in Darkie's eyes, the smallest flinch. He clears his throat, twists his neck. “Oh, ah, thank you, Jimmy boy, for your willing cooperation.” Darkie withdraws the blade from the vicinity of Jimmy's eye. He acts like he doesn't want to ask the next obvious question, but he does, reluctantly, beads of sweat freckling his brow. “Now I'm gonna ask you another question: Since we all know Tommy Mosko's always worked for Macky and has no ties to Joe or the Russian, how the fuck do you think he knows about this raid?”

“I. Don't. Know. The only thing else Tommy said was that he knew Joe was trying to rig a race at Hollywood Park this week.”

Darkie casts a mischievous grin my way. “No shit? Which horse in which race?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“Jimmy?”

His face appearing as if he just walked out of a sauna, a constellation of sweat beading on his forehead, Jimmy says, “I don't know. I swear I don't.”

“Okay,” Darkie says, shaking his head and moving the blade closer to Jimmy's eye. “Now, Jimmy, here's the ten-million-dollar question, and you better be honest with me. Who else have you told about this supposed raid? If we ever find out you're lyin', we'll fuckin' kill ya, you understand that?”

Jimmy works his mouth around to build wetness, then gulps, thinking through his answer like his life depends on it; his eye depends on it, yes, but his life is beyond saving at this point. “I told Nico.”

“You dumbass,” Darkie says. “I'm not worried about Nico, shit. Anybody else besides him?”

“No,” Jimmy says, looking off into space. “Nobody, Darkie, swear to God. I swear to God I told nobody else.”

“You know we'll find out if you're lyin'.”

“I'd tell ya if I told anybody. I didn't, all right? I
didn't.
”

Darkie withdraws the blade and looks at me. “You okay with that?”

I nod. “Yeah, he is telling the truth.”

“Let him go, then.”

I comply.

Darkie says to me, “I'd like to get my hands on Mosko, the bastard.”

Unknown to Darkie, I know this is not a true statement.

Darkie says, “But Joe said this morning that Mosko split town to parts unknown.”

Unknown to Darkie, this is not true, either.

Jimmy has been shrugging his shoulders and twisting his neck since I let him go, dabbing blood from his cheek all the while. Now he stops doing those things and shoots his cuffs and folds his hands before him as if at a poker table awaiting a deal of the cards.

Darkie puts down the steak knife and looks at Jimmy. “Jimmy boy, I want to emphasize how fuckin' stupid it's been of you to spread rumors about who murdered Macky. You been runnin' your mouth about it to people other than us, and Joe's heard about it and he's really pissed. You could get innocent people thrown in jail, or worse.” He glares even harder at Jimmy. “Joe won't stand for it, understand?”

Jimmy throws his hands at him. “All right, fuck, I understand, Darkie, geez, give it a fuckin' rest.”

Darkie stares at him a long few seconds. “You've been connected to Joe a long time, and he'd like to give it a rest. He told me to tell you he's sorry, that he can't give it a rest. See, Joe don't think you'll ever understand how dangerous your mouth is.”

Darkie stands.

I scoot my chair back, away from Jimmy.

“Sorry, pal,” Darkie says to Jimmy Coyle, “I really am,” and whips a collapsible police baton from behind him as he expands it with a flick of his wrist, winds up, and pops Jimmy in back of the head, the steel rod whistling through the air before it lands with a
crack.
It was a glancing blow, and Jimmy's toupee flies away like a startled squirrel. His head goes all lopsided, but he otherwise reacts as if his skull is made of Kevlar, throwing this wobbly, cockeyed look in Darkie's general direction, moving his mouth like a ventriloquist dummy and saying, “Hey, hey, heyyy—”