Omertá

Someone called to get the fuck out of here, and they piled in, the car starting straightaway and the tires squealing as it pulled out of the alleyway, Raymond Ortiz stepping on the gas.

“Hey, hey, be cool, they’re gonna be on us like flies if you floor it!”

“They’re gonna be on us if they see us here, dipshit, I’ll be cool later!”

Sure enough, once on the next street Ray slowed to twenty, leaning back from his position on the edge of his seat (“You drive like a monkey when you’re on the run, you know that?”) and turning to the guys who were laughing in the back seat as soldiers will laugh when they find themselves unharmed in the aftermath of an explosion. The sirens were sounding through the night a few streets away, but so long as the cops didn’t sail straight past the scene of the crime, and so long as they weren’t stopped and someone thought it strange that five young guys in sharp suits should be piled into a car together, they were safe. If the ones that stopped them decided to search the car they would also find a man in his mid-forties tied up in the trunk and eight and a half thousand dollars in the burlap sacks that were on the floor by the men in the back seat’s feet, in which case they would be screwed, but at least they could rely on a bribe if the cop was corrupt enough, which worked most of the time in this neighbourhood - but as they got further towards base they were entering the territory of the more high-and-mighty lawmen, in which case they would still be screwed. Even if the Kearney policemen accepted even a portion of their dirty dollars, they would have Tiny to answer to – but then, he didn’t scare Ray, seeing as how only a week before he would have been in the car with them, giggling too. Georgie DeVerez, however – if you so much as pocketed a ten for yourself he could sense it. The man had been a sot with a face like a basset hound, but he had kept them in line.

“You got the dough, Fazzi?”

“We all got the dough, Ray.”

“Keep it down by your feet, then, ‘kay?” The sirens were suddenly far louder.

“Aw, shit, look out, they’re on us!” Adam Lazarra was swivelled backwards in seat, red and blue lights flashing in his eyes.

“They might not be on us - they might just be on their way!”

They sat silent, waiting for the Mariah to overtake. Instead, another appeared from a street to the side just behind them and swerved onto the road, clearly intending to overtake them, which would allow them to pull them over. They were on them, alright.

“Shit! Flooritflooritfloorit!” Rubano was almost stood up in his seat behind Ray, gripping onto the headrest.

“Okay okay okay sit down!” He didn’t sit down, and was thrown back into his seat as the car accelerated just as the cop car drew even, roaring ahead amongst a cacophony of wailing sirens and flashing lights. The streets were nearly empty – residential Kearney at 1 am on a Wednesday night – and for that Ray said silent prayers of thanks, only having to swerve once to avoid oncoming traffic before taking a quick turn down a side road, out of sight of the Mariahs, losing them at least temporarily. Ray kept his foot heavy on the acceleration, just for safety.

“Shit.” Adam chuckled nervously, turning to the back seat as they echoed him. Ray turned to look at them, began to laugh out loud at their nervous smiles and Bob’s resolutely straight face.

“Everyone’s underwear holding up?”

“Just fine, thanks, now get us the fuck outta here.”

Whumph. They felt something hit the bonnet and a dark mass rolled over the windscreen and across the soft roof of the car, before falling off behind them as they continued to cut the road up. Ray didn’t slow down, but followed its fast progress across the ceiling with his eyes and kept driving. Bob swivelled around to look out of the back window.

“Shit, what was that?” Adam was wild-eyed, still smiling.

“Just a dog. To be optimistic. I don’t know. I just want to get back to base.” Ray looked anxious, checking in the rearview mirror. The sirens sounded louder again. He pulled out onto the main road, feeling a whole lot less secure to be in the full view of streetlights and windows again, but they were less than half a mile away from Rubano’s house. If they could just hide the car in his garage… but then, there was their friend in the trunk. He scowled, running a hand through his hair, which curled into short ringlets, slightly out of control. “I was thinkin’, we could hide out at your place until the Mariahs go back home, hey Matt? But I don’t know what we’d do with mister Hill. Whadduyah think?”

“We could put him in my basement. Bella’s gonna be asleep now, so if we don’t wake her we can have him out by morning, but you’ve gotta have him out by morning - she ain’t gonna like a guy in the basement one bit.”

“I promise we’ll have him out by morning, then.” Tiny’d just have to remember that when you were out on a job, sometimes you had to adapt to your situation.

---

“You did what?”

“We hid him in Matt Rubano’s basement. And the cash in the car. We sat up with him until half four – we’re not stupid, Frank. We wouldn’t just leave him there.”

“Who did you leave with the money?” Frank was holding onto the edge of his desk. His office was nice, cushy, but it still smelled of DeVerez – cigars and malt liquor and tension. Frank seemed almost out of place there; a young guy at only thirty years old, black hair slicked into a side parting and combed so neat it could have been molded on; handsome, tired face; sallow complexion. This office smelled and looked like it belonged to an old, fat guy.

“We didn’t leave anyone… but hey, we have it, okay? So what’s it matter if we didn’t leave anyone with it? I mean, it was in the garage – no one was gonna come along and take the car out of the garage while we’re in the house. Adam and Fazzi were in the lounge the whole time and all – no-one was gonna get away with the cash. You gotta trust us, Frank. We did a good job, hey? We got the guy, we got the money, we got away from the cops.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, leaned forward and rested his forehead on his hand for a moment. “Yeah, okay, you did good.” He looked up and smiled a little. “But you know I can’t trust you guys, and you know why. I know just how reckless you can be, because I was one of you last week. I just have to put my faith in the fact you’ll do fine without me, y’know?”

“No offence meant, Frankie Sir, but I think we do better without you.” Ray grinned at him, getting up to leave.

“Well, at least I’m getting a bigger cut than you now, hey?” Frank got up to show him out, having to resist sticking his tongue out like a child. Ray laughed. “Just remember – this isn’t any little gang on the run from the law, cop chases and chucks all round. You’re Soldatos. Capeesh?”

Ray bowed in a respectful parody - “Very much so, sir. Have a nice day.” – and left Frank’s office.

---

“Do you know why you’re here, Mister Hill?” The room was deliberately very dark, with only a lamp concentrated on Jonathan’s face, further blinding him.

“I sure do like your light effects! Real pretty, they are. You got a nice place here, y’know, I’m sure.”

“I can tell you’re delirious. If you weren’t, you would be cooperating.” The voice was coming from somewhere at his right side in front of him. It was male, low in tone and husky around the edges, cigarette-laced, but not old. The ‘you’re’ was compressed to a ‘year’, the rhythm and consonants on ‘cooperating’ lilting. “I’ll try again – do you know why you’re here?”

Jonathan swallowed, giving up on trying to see into the darkness and closing his eyes. “There ain’t any reason I should be here. The law don’t say there’s any reason I should be here.”

“The law says lots of things. The law says you shouldn’t be trading heroin from your basement, but lookit that. You left the law behind, my friend. It can’t help you now.”

“Why am I here? Where am I?” He shuffled in his chair, straining arbitrarily on the bonds that held him.

“Why, you’re in another basement. Basements seem to like you, don’t they, Mister Hill? You just can’t keep out of them.” There were low chuckles from all corners of the room.

“How many people are in here?”

“Worm, will you raise the lights?” Someone reeled the lamp away from his face, and the ceiling light flickered into dim life, revealing five men – one at each corner like large, bullish or large and bullish ornaments, and one now standing over him with his hands in his pockets, their knees nearly touching his, causing Jonathan to cry out with the shock of the unexpected proximity. This man was in a black suit and a red tie, which were the first things that Jonathan saw, as the buttons on the jacket were level with his eyeline. He looked up to see a pale, round, soft-featured face against the halo of the ceiling lamp. There were dark rings under the man’s eyes, and Jonathan noted that his hair was approaching too long to be smart and that greasy tendrils of it hung in front of his eyes. The man was smirking down at him, as a child may smile at an ant he is hovering a magnifying glass over.

“You’re not the Don.” This comforted Jonathan somewhat, that he was obviously not being taken care of by the higher authorities.

“Oh, but I am. The boss you were expecting sadly passed away a few weeks ago. I’m the Don now. Yes, you’re in a tank with the big fish. How does that feel?” He spoke somewhat out of the corner of his mouth, as if he usually had a cigarette there impeding his speech.

Jonathan tried a sneer, but it appeared more like he had just had a stroke, and his bottom lip trembled. “You’re young enough to be my son. You guys are really going downhill.”

“Oh, no we’re not.” Gerard squatted down so he was level with the man’s face. “We’re just doing things… differently now. And I’m starting by tying up all the loose ends my father left. You, my friend, are a loose end. So we’ve tied you up. You like?” He patted the side of Jonathan’s face a couple of times, and Jonathan flinched away. This man’s breath smelled slightly stale, of coffee and smoker’s halitosis. He wrinkled his nose and kept his eyes open, went for a dignified stare-down. The Don’s eyes sparkled back as him, large and bright as new gold buttons in his tired, white skin. “You were told enough times that we take care of New Jersey. All of it. Including your basement, including your beatnik friends, including you. We take care of you, Mister Hill.”

“What are you going to do to me? What do you want? I’ll stop… I’ll… If you…”

“Oh, but you’ve already stopped, haven’t you? No-one's purveying the good stuff from your basement while you’re with us, are there? No. It’s just you. So that doesn’t work. However…” He glanced up at the two men now stood a little back from Jonathan’s chair, hands clasped over their bellies. They stepped forwards and each put a hand on his shoulder. “…We have a use for you. Tell us who you got your goods from.”

“If I tell you… are you gonna let me go? Is that how it goes? I tell you and you set me free?”

Gerard smirked in an incredibly unsavoury way, his mouth twisting lop-sided and revealing a few very small, shark-like teeth. “Free as free can be, my friend.”

Jonathan didn’t like this answer one bit, even less the way none of the henchmen seemed to be able to keep a straight face at this. He turned to look at them in turn, and every one of them seemed to have caught this awful, contagious little half-grin, and were looking down at him like some dirty joke. He felt he could be sick, but words came out instead of vomit. “Moretti family. New York. You know Moretti’s guys?”

“Oh, I know Moretti’s guys.” The Don’s eyes lit up, his eyebrows twitching a little upwards, the smile untwisting itself. “Which crew?”

“I dunno, I never know their names, I just know they’re Moretti’s guys. They never tell me in case it ends up like this – I could point them out to you, I’m pretty sure, I mean –“

“No, you’re alright, we don’t need that. So long as we know the family, we can sort it out.” He made eye contact with the man at Jonathan’s left shoulder for a moment, and brought a hand to his neck as if rubbing out an ache. “You’ve been a great help, Mister Hill. Thank you. Worm, can you let Mister Gio in?”

“You’re taking me out, right? You’re gonna… you’re gonna let me go now? I mean, I can tell you anything I know if you want to know it, you know, I mean, there’s nuthin’ I’m holding back now, y’know, and –“

A young man, not more than twenty-four, walked in through the door being held open by the largest of the cronies, round-shouldered and a little sheepish, as if he was also here for questioning.

“You can be quiet, now, Mister Hill. That’s all we require of you now.”

“Oh, God, you’re not… NO! NO, YOU’RE NOT! SHIT NO!” The hands tightened on his shoulders and he was paralyzed, unable to even rock the chair back and forth.

“This is Harry Gio. He’s going to be a soldato, but first he needs to kill you, so that he’s never gonna betray anyone in this organisation when we can testify against him right back. It’s a wonnerful system, hey? It’s one of those practical traditions.” The Don clasped his hands in front of him and stepped back into the corner of the room. “Take your time, Harry, just so long as you don’t take too long, hey? We don’t go for cruelty, just convenience.”

The young man seemed to follow the philosophy that the faster you do it, the faster it’s over with. He took a large kitchen knife out of a paper bag in his pocket, hovered it by Jonathan’s neck (which he made as non-existent as possible) with the measured consideration of a butcher, then down his torso to his chest, took a moment to aim so as to be perfectly anatomically correct, and plunged it in. Jonathan screamed and soon felt a rough hand over his mouth. The blade was cold, but as it stayed inside and Harry Gio twisted it, his face set and a small frown on his forehead, the wound began to feel very warm. The warmth spread all over, and the last thing Jonathan Hill saw before blacking out was a figure silhouetted against the light stood over him again, and a soft voice saying “That’s enough – clean this up.”