Hit #29, page 18
I kept remembering that Sweetlips was talking for his life. If his answers weren’t good, I would kill him right there. We both knew that.
And, even if his answers were good, if I had the slightest doubt, I would still have to kill him. “Didn’t you know they were tailing me?”
“No, Joey, I swear to Christ I only just found out today. They said they didn’t tell me before because they didn’t think it was important. Okay, they’re stupid. Then this meeting thing and the guns came up. They got scared and called me.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said, “that’s wonderful. There’s only one problem, jerk. These guys were tailing me when I was driving my own car. They got my license-plate number. They can tag me if they want to. What are we gonna do about that, huh?”
“Believe me, Joey,” he said, “believe me, they won’t tag you.”
“Why not? How come you’re so sure?”
A lot of peoples’ lives, the hoods’, Sweetlips’s, even Squillante’s, depended on this answer. If it wasn’t good enough, I would have to put off hitting Squillante to another time, another place. “It’s simple,” Sweetlips explained, “they got nothin’ to gain and their lives to lose if they turn you in. They know the police won’t kill them if they don’t answer their questions—and they know the Fat Man will if they do.”
It made a lot of sense. The hoods might be stupid, but they seemed to like living. My real problem was Jackie Sweetlips. The safest thing to do would be to kill him. I could always find something to tell the Fat Man. After all he was on the killing ground, and there was no reason except he fucked up.
But then I had another thought. If he was up-and-up with me, Sweetlips had come out here, at the risk of his own life, to help me. I didn’t understand that, so I asked him about it.
“Believe me, it ain’t for you,” he said. “I couldn’t care less if you live or die and if I had a preference you know which way I’d go. But I got a job to do and that is to make sure Squillante’s dead. The Fat Man wanted you and I got you. So I gotta follow through on it. Believe me, when I tell you it ain’t for you.”
There was still one major question bothering me. I wanted to hold onto it, to pop it at a better time, at a time when I could read the truth from his reaction, but there was no better time. It was almost 11 and Squillante would be coming around the block any minute. So I asked. “Here’s the big one, Jackie. You answer this and I may believe you. What the fuck were you doing at Squillante’s apartment the other night?”
He didn’t even pause. “I was doin’ the guy a favor! His mother had a heart attack and he couldn’t get over to the bank and to the hospital in time for visiting hours. He was trying to balance his schedule and I was dropping off his lists and his payoffs. That’s all, it’s my job.”
I believed him. I wouldn’t swear by him, but I believed him. That was enough to prevent me from killing him. But now the problem became Squillante. There was no way I could kill him with witnesses around, even if they were in the Fat Man’s debt. If they saw me killing Squillante they would have to go too, and two more killings were hassles I didn’t need. The police aren’t going to bother too much when one hood gets killed. When three get it, it’s sort of a massacre and there are problems. “Well, Jackie, ole’ buddy,” I said sarcastically, “what do we do now?”
“Whattya mean? You gotta kill him.”
“I don’t gotta do shit. What happens if I don’t?”
“You’re gonna lose him. He’s leaving Monday on an eleven o’clock flight to Europe. A one-way ticket.”
“What about his mother?” What a dumb question.
“What about his own life?”
I asked him if he thought Squillante suspected something. He nodded. “I’m sure he suspects now. I didn’t think so when I spoke to you this morning, but he’s doin’ too much for a guy who thinks he’s in the clear.”
I remembered an old saying: Even the best laid plans go awry. I really had no choice but to go ahead and kill Squillante, but there was no way I could follow my original plan. I started trying to work something out in my head, something quick and easy. One thing was obvious, it wasn’t going to be here, not with his two sheepdogs following him. They had to go. I made a very dangerous decision, the first time in my career I ever found myself in this bind, I was just going to play it by ear.
I had one advantage that might make the difference: I knew I was going to kill him; he could only suspect it.
Sweetlips just sat quietly on the floor. I think he understood that I was really working in my head. I checked my watch. It was just after 11. “Let me tell you something babe,” I said to Sweetlips, without taking my eyes away from the window, “what you say sounds good and I think I believe you. But if Squillante don’t show up, all I can figure is that this was a setup.” I looked at him very quickly. “And then I’m going to kill you.”
One minute passed.
A second minute passed. No movement on the street.
It was 11:06. Sweetlips was getting a little nervous. I could hear him twisting the belt. I decided I’d better check it out and leaned down behind him to tighten the notch.
As I did I heard a car outside. The Chevy sedan, two men in front, drove by slowly. If Jackie was right, Squillante would follow and these boys would circle the block and pull up somewhere behind him. Two minutes later Joseph Squillante pulled into the space he had been directed to. Sweetlips started breathing easily again.
Squillante left the engine running as he sat there. He was simply looking over the area. Evidently he was satisfied because he turned the car engine off, then turned the lights out.
The dim streetlight down the block cast weird shadows from the tree branches and barely lit up the inside of the car. I could see Squillante lean across the front seat and open the latch on the passenger side. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. He released, leaned back, and began waiting.
I watched him. And I waited too. I had no doubts that sitting next to him on the front seat was his new gun. If he was totally petrified I was in trouble. As soon as he saw me he’d start shooting. Knowing this, I stood quietly inside, giving him some time to relax, to let the tension ease up. Giving him time to get used to his surroundings. The peace and quiet of the place.
I was not at all comfortable. I stood inside the doorway, hands at my side, just watching him and the area. His eyes, I’m sure, shifted more than once to the rear-view mirror. And we waited. For what, I don’t know, the perfect moment, the moment when the man on the high diving board finally feels completely and totally ready. Soon.
So far the hoods didn’t seem to be back. I was watching for the lights of their car on the rear of Squillante’s bumper, because I couldn’t see back down the block, but so far they didn’t seem to have come back. I was suspicious of everything else in the area. If the wind started to blow I would be suspicious. Why did the wind suddenly start to blow? Is there any law around waiting for me to make my move? Are there any honest citizens in the area? I waited some more.
Jackie sat wet and quiet, not saying a word. In the back of my mind I understood the possibility that Sweetlips had sweet-talked me into a trap, that when I was halfway to Squillante’s car his hired guns might open up on me. There was only one way to find out, but I wasn’t quite ready.
At almost 11:30 I took a deep breath, checked my silencer to make sure it hadn’t loosened, and started to move to open the door. But just as I did, Squillante started moving around in his car. I stood motionless. There was no way he could know where I was coming from, but I didn’t know what he was up to. All of a sudden, his door opened and he stepped out of his car. I scrambled back away from the door, a reflex action because I knew he couldn’t see me, and waited for what he was going to do. This was another of those totally unexpected events which seemed to be plaguing this entire hit.
In all the jobs I’ve done, this was the first time somebody had done something quite as unexpected as Squillante was doing.
He looked around the area very slowly and then, just as slowly and carefully, he walked to they front of his car and stood motionless. Now I knew. I couldn’t actually see what it was but I had no doubts. Joseph Squillante was taking his last piss.
Inside, I laughed. I was more relieved than he was. Who knew what that crazy fucker would do? Take a piss. Actually, Squillante was lucky, taking a piss is a luxury to a hit man. If I’ve got my duck sitting and I’m waiting for the moment and I’ve got to take a piss, I’ve got no choice but to go in my pants. And taking a shit is completely out of the question. On the day of a hit I’m very, very careful about what I eat. No bananas, no beans, no prunes or prune juice and very little fruit. Nothing that is going to make me shit.
Squillante finished and walked back to the side of the car. Again he looked around and stretched, and then he took his jacket off. He threw the coat across the front seat. I squinted as best I could and there, shoved into his belt, was the gun. He stood there, leaning against his car, waiting.
It didn’t strike me then, and only now as I remember that night do I think of it, but Squillante must truly have been very frightened. That was one cold night, he had turned the engine off, and yet he was still sweating enough heat to take his jacket off.
I watched him standing out in the cold, alone, looking around, and I began to get a little itchy. He wasn’t doing anything at all except standing there. Under my breath I muttered something like, “Get back in the car you motherfucker.”
“What?” Sweetlips whispered.
“Shut up,” I whispered. It was a command.
I waited because there was no way I was going to expose myself while he was standing outside. That gave him too much mobility. I wanted him in the front seat of that car, trapped like a rat. Finally, finally he climbed back into the car as the cold reached him. Now I had him just the way I wanted.
I reached into my belt and hoisted the new .38 into the air. Then I gently stuck it back in my pants, keeping my hand on the handle. I checked to see that I hadn’t put the safety back on. I hadn’t.
I pulled my old .38 from its leg holster. I took the safety off and put it back.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the flashlight. Bending very close to the ground, so there would be no reflection at all, I turned it on and off quickly. It worked perfectly.
Finally I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out Jackie’s car keys. I threw them on the ground next to him. I took one deep breath, checked the new .38 one more time, pushed open the door and started walking toward the car. “What about …” Sweetlips started to whisper.
I knew he could free himself in a reasonable period of time. “Freeze,” I said, and left him sitting in the cold.
THE LONGEST NIGHT
I started walking toward the car. Slowly at first, then I speeded up just a bit. The total distance between the building and Squillante’s car was no more than 30 yards, a distance I can normally cover easily in less than 30 seconds. I have no idea how long it took me that night, but it was quite a bit longer.
Jackie Sweetlips, left sitting in a puddle inside the hallway, was forgotten, a part of my distant past. Everything was now, this moment.
Mentally I divided the 30 yards into three separate areas of concentration. The first ten yards I looked to my sides and behind me, trying to locate either the Chevy with the two punks in it, or pick up anybody that might be coming up on me from the rear. I couldn’t find the Chevy, and I began to think the hoods just took off. There didn’t seem to be any other movement behind me.
I walked right into a big puddle I never even noticed. My shoes and socks soaked right through and I knew this was going to add to my unhappiness.
I spent the second ten yards surveying the area in front of me. I made visual arcs, as I learned in the army, each arc just a bit wider and deeper than the one before it. If anyone was going to come out of the park toward me I wanted to pick him up very quickly.
The last ten yards were all Squillante’s. I walked toward the car at a steady pace. I was not in any hurry to get there. I had absolutely no idea what was going through his mind as I made this walk. I had to assume he was scared. Scared to be there, scared to be meeting somebody, scared to be holding a loaded gun in his hand.
I had no doubts he was holding the gun and ready to use it. I just wanted to make sure I could startle him briefly. That would at least prevent him from shooting on sight. If he did that I didn’t have a super-wonderful chance of walking away unhurt.
I reached my left hand into my belt and pulled the new .38 free. I kept it inside my coat, completely concealed. I took one quick look over my shoulder, again trying to pick up the Chevy. If they weren’t there, I could simply blast him and walk away. If they were there, they were watching me make this walk. I already know they can’t stand up to pressure—they talked quick enough when the Fat Man asked the questions—so I know they’re going to talk if some high-powered detective is doing the asking. I could not afford any witnesses.
Squillante realized I was coming when I was approximately ten yards from the car. I could see him watching the rear-view mirror at that distance and, as I got closer, he shifted his body so he was facing the passenger door. I knew his gun was sitting in his hand.
I made sure I stayed as close to the car as I could. When I was briefly hidden by the dead visual spot between the back window and the rear side window on the right side of the car, I stuck my right arm as far away from my body as I could, pointed the flashlight right where I guessed Squillante’s head was going to be, and turned the beam on.
There was no shot. I eased up a little on my breathing. Normally if an individual is in a state of panic and a light goes on quickly and unexpectedly, he’ll fire away at it. As long as my body isn’t behind it, I won’t get too badly hurt. And the beam from the light will cause him to become temporarily blinded, making him an easy target.
But he didn’t fire. I reached the car and opened the door very wide. As I thought, he was holding his gun in his right hand, pointing it more or less in my direction.
“Whattya say, Joe?” I said as calmly as I could, then slid into the passenger seat. It’d been a long time since I was looking down a gun barrel first.
He looked at me almost blankly. He knew who I was, yet didn’t know what to make of my being there. He knew I was a hit man, but he didn’t know if I was there to hit him. So he did nothing. He sat and kept that thing pointed right at me.
Moving very easily so as not to upset him, I took my right hand and pushed the gun away from me. “Watch it,” I said, “those things hurt people when they go off.” I also took my left hand off my gun, but left the .38 loose inside my jacket, so I could get at it very quickly.
He seemed to come out of the daze. “Hey Joey,” he said almost brightly, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
I agreed. “Yeah, it’s sort of a surprise party.”
He still didn’t know whether to believe that he was the intended or not. If it had been me sitting in his seat I would have plugged me as full of holes as there were bullets available. But he wasn’t used to the gun, so he hesitated, and hesitated. “Who’s gonna be surprised?” he asked.
What was I gonna tell him? “You’ll see,” I finally answered. Then I sort of gave him a command. “Listen, put that thing away and let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Just drive, I’ll tell you where.” I think I finally got through to him. He put the gun inside his belt and turned frontwards. He started the car.
“What’s with the flashlight?” he asked as naturally as he could, but still with some strain.
“It’s dark out. I wanted to make sure it was you in this car.” I paused for effect. “What’s with the gun?”
He tried to be casual about it. “Oh, you know. It’s dark, it’s late, I didn’t know who I was meeting. And … well, I’ve had some problems with some people and I just wasn’t sure that you weren’t one of them.”
“Problems?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.
He did not elaborate. “Problems,” he said. As he started to back the car up I took a good long look in the rear-view mirror. About 40 yards behind us a pair of headlights flashed on and off, then stayed on. The boys of night had indeed returned.
In my mind I was trying to figure out two problems: one, how to drop the tail and two, where to take him. “Just head downtown,” I told him, I knew I’d come up with something. I also knew it shouldn’t be too difficult to lose a tail that didn’t want to stay attached. The hoods knew that the Fat Man held their lives in his hand, so I knew they weren’t going to be too serious about tailing Squillante, especially after it became obvious he was trying to lose them. I just had to give Squillante a reason to want to lose them. They had done their job—they had gotten Squillante to his appointment.
“Yeah,” I said as easily and friendly as I could, trying to set something up, “I know what you mean about problems. I got problems too. That’s the real reason for the flashlight.”
“What sort of problems did you have?”
“Just problems,” I said. We both laughed. I think he was beginning to feel more comfortable with me.
We rode silently down through the Bronx as I tried to figure a location Squillante would find believable. My first choice was under the Williamsburg Bridge, where I first met with Petey, but I knew Joe would never go for that. He’s supposed to point somebody out, that’s the story, and I knew he wouldn’t expect to find a crowd under the bridge at midnight.
Where would he find a crowd? The answer was obvious: at a restaurant. Outside a restaurant would be okay. In a big parking lot. In the back of a big parking lot. I started to think of restaurants I knew in Brooklyn or Queens with big parking lots. Then I thought of one. A big place in Queens, right on the water. “When you reach the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge,” I told him, “take it to Northern Boulevard.”
