A whole lot of nothing like falling into a sleep so deep you don’t even dream.
Just blackness.
Nothing and nothing and more nothing.
Disappointing as hell, but damn peaceful.
I was enjoying total obliteration when I was rudely awakened. The taste of frigid water, gritty silt, and industrial sludge filled my mouth. I wanted to gag but somehow avoided spewing up whatever was in my guts. I opened my eyes to a disorienting Dutch angle of my surroundings. A crooked night sky occupied half of my vision, and a dark swath of rocky shoreline dominated the other. I heard the roar of rushing water and felt muddy sand sticking to my cheek. I smelled the wet, fecal reek of the big river.
This is where they dumped me.
Just like the others.
I tried to scream. No dice. The freezing air whistled through my windpipe and out the ragged hole below my neck. That’s when I knew, I’d bought it. I hadn’t survived the half-assed trap they laid for me. I was nothing more than a bloated head washed up on a riverbank. The stars above me shined bright and white, like cruel and terrible diamonds.
Fuck.
I wanted more than anything to mutter the word out loud. Watch it rise from my lips in a thick cloud of white steam. But nothing happened. My jaw moved, but the parts of me that made sound were gone.
It made sense if you knew how things worked in my line of work.
I was an “associate,” not a true member of the outfit because I was Irish, not Sicilian, thus forever a bridesmaid in the eyes of the old greaseballs running things. Despite my racial handicap, I’d made myself useful as hell, making a living as muscle for hire. A professional leg-breaker. The kind of guy you send to put fear into the deadbeats who owed you money. I put the hurt on a lot of people in my time. Never put someone in the ground, but I put a lot of bastards in wheelchairs. Brute force was my trade, and I was good at it. Hell, I loved it. But something had gone wrong. Someone decided I wasn’t as indispensable as I thought I was.
The last thing I remember was stumbling out of Marv’s Tavern after a long day of brutalizing degenerate assholes who couldn’t pay their debts. I’d drunk most of my pay and was on my way to call on my girl. There was a shape. An amorphous shadow in the corner of my eye. Someone stepped out of the darkened doorway to my left.
They raised their hands. There was a flash of cold, blue metal. A thunderous sound.
Then the darkness.
Wind whipped over the barren shore. Freezing air whistled through a dime-sized hole in my left temple. No doubt there were two or three more similar holes in my torso, which was likely wrapped in garbage bags and weighed down with chains, sinking into the muck at the bottom of the Cuyahoga River. I blinked my eyes, trying to figure out if all this was real. A fly landed on my nose. I reached up to scratch it out of instinct. I felt my hand, the left one, twitch. Wherever it was, it seemed to be trapped under something jagged and heavy. I put a little more oomph into it and felt the weight start to tumble away. I ran my lifeless fingers over hard and uneven chunks.
Rocks. They’d tossed my hand in the quarry.
Standard operating procedure when the outfit clipped someone. Chop them up and scatter the pieces to the four winds. It makes the body hard to find and even harder to identify. The river to the east, the quarry to the south. Both were favored dumping grounds of my former employers. It didn’t take a genius to guess where my right hand would be.
I closed good old Righty into a fist and grabbed a heaping clod of wet earth. It was buried in the woods to the north. The goons they paid to dispose of yours truly put real miles on their tires scattering my carcass. It was a real professional job for a low-level lowlife that no one would miss. I must have really pissed someone off, and I was pretty sure that someone was Salvator Amato.
Sal was a capo in the outfit and a frequent employer of my services. He was a nasty, mean-spirited little shit, even by scumbag standards. He carried a chip on his shoulder after being passed up year after year for a promotion, and he took it out on anyone and everyone below him with masochistic relish. He wasn’t liked, but he was a good earner, so the bosses kept him around and let him indulge his lust for violence, torture, and mayhem as long as the cash rolled in.
I willed my left hand forward, using my fingers to drag it across the floor of the quarry toward a service road leading out of the pit. I couldn’t see what I was doing, but the act was instinctual. My right hand was busy digging upward. I felt the dirt worming its way under my fingernails. Someone once told me that they continue growing after you buy it. I wondered how much time they’d had to grow.
Salvatore.
A few days before I’d been bumped off, I’d stopped by the social club he operated out of on the outskirts of the city's dilapidated commercial district. It was Sal’s little den of iniquity. A playground for him and his crew far from the prying eyes of the cops and even his own superiors.
I was in no mood for his shit when I walked in. The bum he’d sent me after made a run at me with a baseball bat. The dirtbag got off a lucky shot to my ribs before I wrestled it away from him, and beat him to a whimpering pulp with his own weapon. My side throbbed with pain every time I inhaled. Sal was bullshitting with one of his cronies by the pool table when I walked up and slapped a fat envelope down on the green felt. A wet, red stain marred the corner of the white paper.
“How much?”
Sal was a short man with thick eyebrows set in a constant scowl above a crooked Roman nose.
“I don’t know, whatever he had on him. I didn’t have time to play 21 questions.”
Sal grunted and picked up the envelope. He licked his thumb and counted out the bills, peeling off a crumpled Benjamin for me.
“Next time, try not to get so much fucking blood on the money. I’ll take the ruined bills out of your cut, capaice?”
I fought the urge to grab a pool cue and go to work on the disrespectful little troll. Instead, I took a deep breath and nodded. While I was a proponent of direct and violent responses to assaults on my honor, even a dumb lug like me knew: made men were off limits. Instead, I took solace, I’d been engaged in a more subtle form of revenge. I’d been banging his daughter, Gina, for the last six months or so. That day, I walked out the door determined to stop by her apartment for a vigorous roll in the hay just to spite the cranky old asshole, cracked ribs be damned.
Gina.
She had to be the reason for my current situation. Someone must have squealed to Daddy Dearest and wham, bam, thank-you mam’, that’s one in the dome for old Victor.
I mouthed a wordless chuckle on the lonely riverbank. Lefty was making his way up the service road. Righty, meanwhile, had clawed his way above ground, and I directed him toward the two-lane highway that led back to the city. My big mitts retained their savage strength and seemed incapable of tiring. That was good. We had business to take care of. I didn’t know how or why I was brought back, but I wasn’t going to waste time taking advantage of such a unique opportunity.
I was going to kill Sal and ask questions later.
Lefty hit the asphalt of Route 260 in record time, and Righty quickly caught up. I kept to the edge of the road, feeling the vibrations of cars roaring by, oblivious to my hands groping their way toward the lights of the city. I moved them onward with grim purpose, hoping they wouldn’t get pancaked by late-night drunk drivers or speed-crazed truckers rushing to make their deliveries.
The thing I had with Gina wasn’t just about tweaking Sal’s nuts, though it was a nice bonus. I was in love with her. We were an unlikely pair of star-crossed lovers, a down-and-out thug in his forties and a drop-dead gorgeous twenty-four-year-old law school student. Sal had big plans for Gina. He wanted her to be somebody in the legit world. Like a lot of mob princesses, she had an attraction to the dark corners of her father’s business. I met her by accident while making my usual drop at the club. Sal was away on business, and Gina took the opportunity to hang with the wise guys who worked for him. His goons surrounded her like a pack of wolves circling a juicy meal. She was wearing tight jeans and a Ramones shirt. Her eyes were the color of brown sugar and her jet-black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. I walked by her and nodded politely.
We didn’t say a word to each other that day. A week later, she rolled up outside Marv’s in her cherry red Mustang and asked me out. I had no idea how she tracked me down or where she got the balls to show up out of the blue and demand my company. I have to admit it turned me on. Still, I should have told her to hit the road. Getting into that car with that girl would be one hell of a hazard to my health.
I got in the car anyway. We grabbed coffee, then dinner, then drinks. After the drinks? Well, you can guess where it went from there. She had me eating out of the palm of her hand. I was tied up in knots over the girl and I loved every minute of it.
We carried on our dalliance under her father's nose. Sure, he’d never find out until it was too late. We had a plan to save up enough cash and escape somewhere beyond the reach of Sal and the outfit. It was stupid and reckless to think we could pull it off, but the haze of love made us both naive enough to believe we could. I wondered what terrible punishment Sal would inflict on his darling girl. He doted on her, but his tolerance, even for his own kin, had its limits.
“Christ, I think I threw my damn back out lugging that huge freak’s body in and out of here.”
It felt like the voice was coming from someone standing next to me. It was familiar. Sal’s right-hand lackey, Jimmy Vincent. I rolled my head around in the muck toward the sounds. All I saw was more shoreline.
“Stop your fuckin’ whining Jimmy. You didn’t even have to whack the big idiot.”
Sal.
I heard his footsteps on a hard tile floor. The sound of a faucet being turned on. A tinny-sounding radio played 80s hits in the background. I knew these sounds. The sounds of the kitchen at the back of Sal’s club. It had long ceased to be used for its intended purpose. While the occasional sandwich or steak might come out from its windowless double doors, the place was used for a whole different kind of butchery the rest of the time.
“Took a hell of a long time chopping him up, you did what I told you to?”
“Of course. Old Vic’s in more pieces than Humpty fucking Dumpty.”
“You did it exactly as I ordered?”
“How many times are you gonna’ ask me? Yes, weighed down or buried everything but the head, it’ll wash up and be in papers. I bet one of the tabloids’ll put the picture on the front page.”
It felt like I was listening to them from the bottom of a deep well. One of my ears must be in the trashcan next to the sink. As good as Sal and Jimmy were at taking me apart, they did a half-assed job of cleaning up the mess.
“Good. I want my daughter to see those headlines. Can’t believe she was gonna run off with that Irish shitheel. Not made, not even Italian.”
“Kids these days, no respect for traditional values.”
“Well, if this doesn't teach her to keep her legs closed and listen to her father, I don’t know what will. Maybe I’ll send someone by her place to teach her a lesson. A couple black eyes and a busted nose to remind her just who is in charge. Anyway, get the fuck out of here. Call Spider in the morning and tell him to finish cleaning up in here.”
The door to the kitchen opened and closed. Jimmy’s footsteps moved away.
“And tell him to take out the trash before it stinks up the place,” Sal yelled. He snorted through his big nose and hawked a wad of God-knows-what into the can. Something thick and viscous dripped down my earlobe.
“What a night,” he muttered.
There was a rustling of clothes and the snap of a zippo lighter. If my nose had been there, I’m sure I’d smell the stink of Pall Malls.
I thought about Sal and Jimmy cutting me up, and of Gina being forced to see my rotting mug washed up out of the river like garbage. Rage, red and all-consuming, welled inside me. It fueled me, running through all my parts. It must have made my hands move faster because they were already in the parking lot of the club, guided by whatever dark power granted me this life after death. I felt clumsy, thumping footsteps crunching along loose gravel. My hands crept under a nearby car, I somehow knew it was Jimmy’s. The steps got closer, and I imagined his cheap wingtips poking into view as he stopped to unlock the door.
Let’s give this a whirl.
Righty kicked things off by clamping himself around Jimmy's ankle. He struggled, pulling back, and kicking wildly in the air. My grip was strong and Righty held fast. In his panic, Jimmy lost his balance and tumbled ass over teakettle into the dirt. He screamed so loud that my ear heard the muffled cry in the kitchen.
“The hell is that?” Sal muttered. I heard the unmistakable sound of him drawing his trusty Glock 9mm.
I didn’t waste any time while Jimmy was flailing on his back. Lefty darted out from under the car and skittered up his chest like a fleshy spider from hell. Jimmy moaned. I felt a frantic heartbeat hammering through his chest.
I wrapped my fingers around his throat and squeezed. Jimmy’s breath started hitching, so I squeezed harder. I could feel the cartilage of his windpipe give, then snap. Jimmy’s hands clawed helplessly against Lefty’s vice-like grip. He opened his mouth in a desperate attempt to suck in air, but Righty was waiting in the wings. I forced the hand into his mouth, gripped his tongue, and tugged with all my might. There was a satisfying popping sensation as it ripped loose. Something warm poured out of Jimmy’s mouth onto my hands. His body went limp. One less rat walking the earth.
Their work done, my hands began to move toward the club. I strained my ear to hear what was going on in the kitchen, but the place was silent. Sal had turned off the radio and wasn’t moving a muscle. He was lying in wait, gun drawn.
Righty took a direct route, scampering across the parking lot and shoving aside the unlocked front door. I moved him across the dining room and burst through the swinging kitchen doors.
“Holy Mother of God!” Sal screamed from one of the far corners of the room. “What the fuck?”
A murderous glee welled up in a heart I didn’t have no more. A frantic volley of gunfire erupted in the small kitchen. Righty bobbed and weaved. One of the bullets ricocheted off the floor and I felt a shard of tile whiz past my hand. Righty scrambled gracelessly under a gap between the kitchen sink and floor as Sal emptied the rest of his clip. My ear was ringing and everything sounded dull and fuzzy. Righty flattened himself and backed against the wall in the cramped space.
“Son of a bitch,” Sal spat. I heard the crashing and clattering of drawers being ripped open. His footsteps clomped over toward the sink. Something metallic rattled.
“How about some barbeque, you little shit?”
With a hiss, something cold sprayed on Righty. I thought of the aerosol cans of cooking spray. I’d seen in my visits to the back kitchen. No self-respecting Italian would use them, but Sal was cheap and lazy as hell.
There was the click of a lighter, and Righty burst into flames. This pissed me off righteously. I launched my flaming hand out from under the sink. Sal was ready for the counteroffensive, and I felt several violent jolts as he repeatedly stomped on it. His shoes came down hard on Righty’s pinky and ring fingers, breaking the bones and rendering them useless. I grabbed the cuff of his slacks and the heat of the flames crawled up his pant leg. Sal yawped and used his other foot to kick Righty off, hurling him up in a graceless arch before he flopped down on the long wooden table in the center of the room. That cold butcher’s slab was the last place my body had been whole.
Sal cursed, smacking at his leg to extinguish the flames. Righty was in bad shape, but I rallied him for a second assault. Before I could launch my next attack, Sal screamed and rushed me. I tried moving my burned hand, but he was too fast. Something hard and sharp sank through the top and out the palm, pinning Righty to the table. I assumed it was one of the carving knives conveniently placed throughout the dingy kitchen.
“How do you like that?” Sal’s voice took on a manic edge. “Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m not, but you’re in a world of hurt, my little pal.”
Pots and pans clattered to the floor behind Sal. He yelped. My grin widened.
Reinforcements had arrived. While he’d been duking it out with Righty, Lefty had snuck through one of the vents at the back of the building, scuttling stealthily along the top of the kitchen’s walk-in freezer. I used Jimmy’s tacky blood to write a little message on the wall above the freezer’s door. Back by the river, my milky eyes watched the endless stars gleam as I pictured Sal whirling around to see the dripping note I’d left him.
JOIN ME IN HELL SAL. UR FRIEND VIC
“Vic,” Sal said.
It was the first time I’d heard genuine terror in the man’s voice. A wave of sinister elation washed over me.
I hurled Lefty off the top of the freezer kamikaze style, hoping to get a swipe or two at Sal's ugly mug. He sidestepped and the hand crashed to the floor skidding along the slick tile. Sal fumbled for something in his clothes. Another knife or maybe an extra clip for the Glock. He was too slow. Lefty shot like quicksilver across the floor. Sal tried dodging again, but I got a good grip on his pant leg and started climbing. I reached the fork of his crotch and grabbed the capo's balls.
I squeezed with all my might.
Sal howled like an animal. His hands frantically beat Lefty as I pulverized his testicles. His screams reached a register I previously thought impossible for a grown man.
While Sal tried to dislodge Lefty from his marriage tackle, Righty was busy freeing himself from the knife. I felt the blade pull diagonally through my palm, slicing away the charred and crushed ring and pinky fingers. The hand was weak. I hurled its mangled form off the counter, where it landed on the floor with a meaty plop. It crept toward Sal, still bucking and hollering in the throes of Lefty’s iron grip. Righty climbed up Sal's pant leg, then his shirt, clinging to his thrashing body like a rodeo pro on a pissed-off bull. Sal’s screams were muffled as my hand clambered over his mouth. My fingers found the soft orbs of his eyes and plunged themselves into the sockets. They dug and dug until I felt hot jelly running down the scarred landscape of Righty’s overcooked flesh. Sal's screams morphed into an infant-like mewling. He collapsed on the floor, the fight leaving him drained and blind.
“Vic, please,”
Righty moved down and tore Sal’s silk shirt. Lefty removed himself from the capo’s decimated balls and groping along the floor, that was covered in pots, pans, and other detritus from our struggle.
“Vic, you don’t have to do this. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Lefty’s fingers closed around the handle of a paring knife. Small enough to maneuver and sharp as hell. Righty tore Sal's shirt open, revealing his heaving, hair-covered chest. My ear picked up the scrape of the knife’s blade as Lefty dragged it across the floor.
“Don’t do me like this! I’ll give you anything, money, my daughter, take Gina, take her!”
It was too late for Sal. I was beyond bargaining, mercy, and even love. The malevolent power inside me ebbed. I stopped listening to his pleas. Lefty got closer with the knife. Between him and Righty, I was confident they could work together to wield the little pigsticker with the necessary finesse. Unlike Jimmy, I planned to take my time with Sal. I’d take him apart piece by piece, just like he did me. One good turn deserves another, right?
Yes, I’d take my sweet time, and when it was done, I’d drag him into the black nothingness with me. Into the endless dark where we would float endlessly with whatever nightmares lived there; two hell bound bastards lost in the night eternal.
Back on the riverbank, the sun was coming up. I lifted my eyes to the fading stars above and smiled at the abyss.