The Good Guys Read online

  “Gees, Bobby,” Eddie said with admiration, “you got some fucking sense of humor.” Eddie turned the Russian about ninety degrees and pulled him back a few feet. He still wasn’t certain he had him positioned exactly right. “Go ahead and try it,” he suggested. “Let’s see.”

  Bobby pressed down on the lever, and the lift began descending, bringing down with it a 3,577-pound Buick LeSabre. The Russian started shrieking in terror, struggling desperately to get loose. Once again Eddie put his foot firmly on the Russian’s neck and pushed down hard. The Russian stopped squirming. His eyes opened wide in absolute terror as the skid came down lower and lower and lower. The skid was about a yard above his feet when Bobby shut it down. The Russian closed his eyes in relief. “Now what’s the problem?” Eddie asked.

  Bobby walked over to the bench and retrieved Pam’s Pan Am blue skirt. He stuffed as much of it as he could manage into the Russian’s mouth. “I can’t stand that screeching,” he said. Then he went back to the controls and once again pushed down on the lever. As it turned out, Eddie had positioned the Russian perfectly. The metal ramp carrying the Buick came down directly on both of his feet. He tried to splay them to the side with only limited success. The lift barely slowed as it crushed his feet. If the breaking bones made any sound, neither Bobby nor Eddie heard it. After squashing both feet the skid began pressing into his legs.

  Bobby stopped the lift again. He wasn’t feeling good or bad; at most he felt a small sense of satisfaction. He was doing what had to be done, putting the world right. The bad guy was being punished. This was simply an act of revenge.

  He raised the lift up a few feet, then ordered Eddie, “Move him down a little more.” The Russian was writhing in pain, his agonized cries muffled by the mouthful of cloth. Bobby tried hard not to think about Pam lying there, caught in this same torturous situation, but that proved impossible.

  Eddie put a shoe on the Russian’s shoulder and shoved him down two or three feet. The Russian was in too much pain to resist. The second time Bobby lowered the steel skid it came down directly on Kuznetzov’s hips. Neither Bobby nor Eddie knew anything about physiology, so they didn’t know exactly what kind of damage was being done. They didn’t know if it would be fatal. They didn’t even know if the skid was pushing his hips apart or crushing them straight down. It didn’t make any difference. As Eddie watched, one thing he knew for sure was that this guy wasn’t going to be dancing any time soon.

  What they did know was that the hydraulic lift exerted a tremendous amount of downward force per square inch, and as a result the Russian killer was literally being squashed into the cement. It was like lowering a cinder block on a grape.

  Bobby let the skid continue to press down on the Russian’s hips until he stopped screaming. The lift had literally pressed the air out of his lungs.

  And then he raised it again. By then the Russian was semiconscious. His lips were moving, but the only sound coming from him was a low guttural moan. Bobby had next intended to crush his chest, but that no longer seemed to have any real purpose. For a few seconds he even considered just leaving the Russian there to either live in excruciating pain or die slowly. But he pretty quickly dismissed that thought, knowing that if the Russian somehow lived, his only reason to keep breathing would be to kill Bobby. “All the way under,” he shouted at Eddie.

  Eddie grimaced. This was a pretty tough thing that Bobby was going to do. Not that it bothered him. He figured, what the hell difference does it make how you go so long as you go? And obviously this was how they made Skinny Al skinny. Once again he put a sticky shoe on the Russian’s shoulder and jostled him a little bit farther under the hydraulic lift, until his head was directly beneath the left skid. And then Bobby pushed the lever down. All the way down.

  Only the top half of the Russian’s head was actually under the skid, and it provided no more resistance than an egg. Like everybody in the business, Eddie knew the legendary story of the big-mouth wiseguy whose head was crushed in a vise until his eyes popped out and rolled across the floor, and he had wondered if that was really possible. As it turned out, this didn’t help him answer that question, because the Russian’s eyes were covered by the skid. Bobby could actually hear his skull cracking when the lift pressed down on it. It sort of crackled like a piece of wood breaking. The only sound the Russian made as the skid smashed down on his skull was a high-pitched whine. But that stopped abruptly, sort of in midwhine, like somebody had pulled out his plug.

  Eddie was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. As he watched, a mass of reddish pulpy material oozed out from beneath the skid, blending into the substance already there. To Eddie it looked like the highway crap he usually referred to as roadkill soup. While nothing ever repulsed Eddie, admittedly this did make his stomach a little queasy.

  Bobby had to force himself to keep his eyes locked on the Russian’s face. It was like being in a horror movie. If he had felt even the slightest tinge of compassion for the Russian, he would not have been able to watch. As almost two tons of steel pressed down on the Russian’s head, his entire body seemed to arch upward. The skin on the lower part of his face was stretched when the skid pressed down on the upper half, causing his upper teeth and gums to be exposed. Then Bobby looked at the Russian’s tightly clenched hands. When they opened, exposing the bullet hole, he knew the Russian was dead. It was really important to him that he saw him die.

  He turned off the lift. The bottom half of the face was still visible, his upper teeth bared like a skeleton’s. “Ugh,” Eddie chuckled defensively. “That’s some fucking headache. Man, I’m not gonna be able to eat nothing for an hour.”

  Bobby spit at the dead Russian, who was lying on the cement in a spreading pool of blood and brain. “C’mon.”

  “You just wanna leave him there like that?” Eddie asked curiously. He wasn’t used to leaving his work behind.

  “You wanna scrape him up, go ahead. That fucking prick doesn’t deserve it, though . . .” Bobby stood there staring at the remains of the Russian gangster. There was no reason to hide the body or clean up the garage. Bobby wasn’t worried about the cops. Nobody was going to report this killing. The people who needed to know who did it would know. And if things got a little warm, if the law put some heat on him, there were these two FBI agents he knew who might just want to put in a good word for him.

  The last thing Eddie wanted to do was scrape him up. “It’s our funeral, I guess,” he said, and laughed. He picked up Myrtle from the top of the bench, checked to make sure the safety was on, then shoved the barrel down into his waistband. His sports jacket covered the weapon. “Let’s go.”

  Bobby was absolutely exhausted. This had been the longest few days of his life. Whatever was going to happen next, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The train was going full speed down the mountain. As they walked out of the office, Bobby said firmly, “Thanks for that. I owe you.”

  Eddie beamed. Tonight was one of those experiences that bonded men together forever. This wasn’t an ordinary hit; this one people were going to be talking about for a long time. And they had done it together. Eddie was a realist, he knew his own limitations. He was a camel, a proud soldier who carried the load for other people and made a nice living from it. And that was fine with him. He didn’t want or need the problems that came with being a boss. But Bobby . . . Bobby was smarter than most of the other guys. Bobby had a real shot at making it—and if he did, after tonight, Eddie was going with him. They made a great team. “It’s nothing,” he murmured.

  They were still in the shadows, walking away from the pumps, when the first guy stepped out in front of them. “Stand still,” he ordered. He was pretty much hidden in darkness, but Bobby assumed he was holding a gun. “Keep your hands where they are,” said a second man, standing behind them.

  Bobby instantly ran through the possibilities: No way they were cops, either NYPD or feds. They would have identified themselves immediately. That was the law; they had to admit who they
were. So they weren’t law. And they didn’t speak with any accent, so they weren’t Russians. That meant they were wiseguys. Almost for sure Cosentino’s people.

  “Oh fuck,” Eddie sighed softly. He just hadn’t expected forever to be so brief.

  Bobby didn’t back off. “Who the fuck are you guys?” he demanded. He had nothing to gain by being cute. Their only hope was to come right at him. Whatever they were going to do, they were going to do, and at this particular moment there wasn’t jack shit he could do about it.

  “Just wait,” the guy ordered.

  Bobby thought he recognized the voice. He decided to take a shot, “That you . . . Jimmy?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jimmy Smiles ordered.

  Shutting the fuck up wasn’t going to save his life. “I want to talk to Mr. Cosentino.”

  Tony Cosentino appeared almost magically, moving through the shadows. Bobby didn’t even try to guess how long he’d been there and how much he knew. One thing was obvious: He was pissed off. He came right up to Bobby and jabbed his finger in his chest. “I fucking warned you, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you to stay away?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby admitted, “you did.”

  “I told you that you didn’t know what was going on, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Bobby nodded and took a deep apologetic breath.

  “Now, you tell me, asshole, where the fuck is the Russian?”

  Bobby hesitated. Within a few seconds Cosentino would know that the Russian was dead. There was nothing he could do to prevent that. In a conversational tone he said, “Well, see, Mr. Cosentino, I don’t think he’s going to be talking to you. The truth is he’s under a lot of pressure right now.”

  Eddie’s mouth opened. He looked at Bobby with awe and admiration. Holy fucking shit, he thought, here this guy is looking death right in the eyes and he’s got the balls to James Bond him.

  “That supposed to be funny?” Cosentino said. It was not a rhetorical question.

  Another guy came walking back from the office. “Tony,” he said with a shudder in his voice, “you better come see this. They fucking squashed the guy’s head under that thing . . . you know, whattya call that thing that lifts cars up in the air? They dropped it on his head.” Then he made some kind of sound indicating his disgust.

  “You fucker!” Cosentino snapped, getting right up in Bobby’s face. His anger was so intense, so complete, that his only outlet was a kind of disbelieving laughter. Not only had Bobby disobeyed him, a capital crime, he had betrayed him. He had destroyed the biggest deal anybody could ever imagine. Even if he could whack him two times, three times, even then he wouldn’t be close to even.

  Bobby stood his ground, wondering for an instant if the Hammer might be a little jealous that he’d never tried this method. Actually he was pretty surprised to discover that he wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of Cosentino. He figured that maybe because he was resigned to his fate he didn’t have to worry about getting hurt. He already knew he was going to get hurt. That was a given. He was going to get hurt bad. And there wasn’t too much he could do to stop it. So his heart was barely pounding. “Mr. Cosentino . . . ,” he began.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Cosentino screamed at him.

  Bobby knew he had nothing to lose. “The guy whacked Skinny Al.”

  “I fucking said . . . ,” Cosentino warned, then stopped. Just stopped cold. Until that moment Bobby had never completely believed that you could see hatred. But that’s what he was looking at, inches away. Pure white hatred. Cosentino finally took a step back, trying to figure out what to do. Jackie Fats was standing a few feet away. Jimmy Smiles was there. Three other guys were close enough to hear him. They all heard Bobby make that claim. And if he was telling the truth, he had every right to kill the Russian and anybody who tried to stop him. More than that, he had an obligation. It was a family matter.

  Looking straight into Cosentino’s eyes at that moment, Bobby learned one other thing: Cosentino knew that. He knew the whole deal and he took it. Cosentino had averted his eyes, looked down, looked away in shame. He knew that the Russian asshole had killed D’Angelo, and he had done absolutely nothing about it. If that could be proved, Cosentino was a dead man. A boss who allowed a member of his crew to be whacked and did nothing to avenge that killing betrayed the tradition. A boss who would sell the life of one of his people lost his honor, and without that he was nothing. A piece of shit.

  Cosentino had to put up a defense. “How the fuck you know that?” he challenged him.

  “I got people,” Bobby told him. He couldn’t exactly tell him that the FBI had provided that information. Nobody standing there was going to believe anything said by the FBI.

  For his own safety Cosentino needed to end this conversation fast. He didn’t know how much Bobby really knew, and with members of his crew standing right there he wasn’t about to dig too deeply. He just might be digging his own grave. So once again he waved a warning finger at Bobby. “You better be fucking right about that. I’m warning you.”

  “I’m right,” Bobby said confidently.

  Cosentino looked around anxiously. There was no doubt in Bobby’s mind that Cosentino desperately wanted to whack both him and Eddie right where they stood, but that would make people too curious for his future health. “I’m gonna find out,” he promised, “and I swear to God, I swear, if you ain’t right, I’m gonna break fucking parts you don’t even know you got.” He turned to Jackie Fats. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

  Jackie Fats indicated the garage. “You wanna leave him there?”

  “What the fuck do I care?” He pointed at Bobby and Eddie. “It’s their problem.”

  Bobby and Eddie watched Cosentino and his crew walk away, walking backward, their guns still aimed at them. Only after they were out of sight did Eddie dare speak. And he laughed, he laughed incredulously. “He’s under a lot of pressure? Are you out of your fucking mind? Are you nuts? I couldn’t fucking believe it.”

  Bobby was feeling okay, which was about the most he could expect for a while. Pam was dead and nothing was going to change that. But so were the people who killed her, and the big one died hard. Eventually, he knew, Cosentino would be coming after him. No question. As long as Bobby was alive he remained a danger to him. And when that happened, he’d be ready for him. He’d deal with it. But Cosentino had to let some time pass first; he’d have to give people time to forget.

  And Bobby was never going to forget. What you gotta do, you gotta do.

  SIXTEEN

  Connor O’Brien looked across the candlelit table at an absolutely stunning Laura Russo, who was smiling demurely at him. It was as perfect an evening as he could imagine. Diamonds of light sparkled in the wine goblets set in front of them. Around them handsomely dressed diners spoke only in hushed tones, to a background of soft classical music, punctuated on occasion by the distant clatter of silverware. He found it almost impossible to take his eyes off her. Jim Slattery, dressed formally, a white towel draped over his arm, poured champagne for each of them. Connor lifted his glass and said softly to her . . .

  “I mean, you wouldn’t have believed that fat slob. You should have seen him. Little Eddie was so hopped-up it was like he was shooting caffeine.”

  The deep gravelly voice punctured O’Brien’s daydream and brought him back to reality. He and Russo—who was actually wearing a white turtleneck sweater—were sitting at a table in the back at ManPower, a gay bar in the West Village, with Jim Slattery and Special Agent Victor Valone. Valone was one of the bureau’s most promising young undercovers, having successfully infiltrated Henry “the Hammer” Franzone’s Freemont Avenue crew, where he was known as Vito Valentine or Vito V. To maintain operational security, his true identity was known to very few people other than Slattery, his supervisor, but he had agreed to a sit-down with O’Brien and Russo to help them close their case. Holding this meeting in the back of a Greenwich Village gay bar substantially diminished chances that they would be spot
ted.

  Valone was describing the scene inside the social club the afternoon following the killings at the gas station. The agents had seen the official transcripts, but Valone put flesh on the bones. “The guy was so happy to still be breathing that he couldn’t stop telling the story. I mean, he even acted it out in like charades for the Duke. I swear to God, he lay down on the floor and made these like real ugly faces. And all of those guys around, they were making up jokes. Like Georgia One-Time goes, ‘Hey, hey, I guess the Russian was pressed for time,’ and then somebody else goes, I think it was Lenny, ‘The Russian can’t come, Tony, he’s got a pressing engagement,’ or ‘You gotta say this about that guy, he definitely has a one-track mind.’”

  Slattery laughed happily in all the proper places. Watching him, O’Brien decided that his laughter was as much real as it was supportive. There was no question about it, Valone’s imitation of the Freemont Avenue crew really was funny, but Slattery was the kind of supervisor who would laugh at Little Lulu if he thought that’s what his agents needed to hear. One thing Connor O’Brien knew for sure: After what Slattery had done, he was entitled to laugh long and hard. The man had put his career on the line in the most courageous way: He had nothing to gain personally and his reputation and career to lose. If everyone worked out perfectly, no one would ever see his fingerprints. Only if the whole operation went to shit would his involvement become known. Nobody at headquarters was going to risk their own career to defend him. If this plan had failed, he would have paid for it big-time. And if the whole story ever became public, he would still be as vulnerable as a turkey the day before Thanksgiving.

  After O’Brien and Russo had set the showdown in motion by meeting with San Filippo, Slattery had picked up the telephone and pulled the twenty-four-hour surveillance off the gas station. He’d made up some bullshit excuse to get the agents away from there and didn’t assign replacements. And with that action he had cleared the path for the bloodbath. It was an incredibly gutsy thing to do but absolutely necessary. For the plan to work, the agents working the stakeout had to be removed. If they had been there when the shooting started, they would have been forced to respond. It was a bizarre situation: FBI agents could have screwed up a deadly operation simply by doing their job, by trying to save lives. The setup was the gunfight at the Not So O.K. Corral.