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Chapter Twelve: One-Way Trip

Tony squirmed in his seat. His sweat was incessant. Despite the powerful air conditioning, he had to keep wiping it away, his jacket sleeves wrinkling until they too began to drip. His throat was dry, but there was little he could do about it, other than suck on his tongue and keep a bite on his lower lip.

“You fucked up, Tony. I know you’re my nephew, but you fucked up. I mean Holy Christ did you ever fuck up.”

Tony wringed his hands, his uncle Sal’s words echoing in the backseat of the nondescript sedan. He’d wanted to beg when the lawyer had come to pay his bail. Plead for his life, for forgiveness, right then and there. Plead to have his bail revoked, and to remain in police custody, even. But it would have been pointless — how many people in lockdown were friends of the family? Or at least interested in getting family money. He’d have been shivved the moment the guard turned his back, unless the guard did it himself.

“You told us you could handle those bitches, Tony. That’s why all we ever sent over was Butchie. What fucking piece of shit are you, to not be able to control a bunch of whores? Jeez, even that idiot brother of yours can keep ‘em in line enough to pimp when we ask him to.”

Keep them in line. Break them was more like it. Girls didn’t last long under his brother’s stewardship. They either ran away, turned into hopeless drug addicts, or worse. Those girls weren’t under his control, they were under his heel.

But that must be what the family wanted. Why else would his own uncle be taking him out to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what to Tony? Jesus, why couldn’t they just fucking shoot him? But no, it had to be something worse. Beat him to death with a pipe, maybe. Crush his head in a wine press. Tie him to a chair, coat him in gasoline and set him alight. They always had to make this so hard, so complicated. Maybe if he just flung the door open and threw himself under the tires. One last “fuck you” to his relatives, going out his own way, rather than letting them choose.

“What’s the matter? You used to be the talkative one.” Uncle Sal lit a cigar, idly staring out the window. “You were always talking about school. Talking about figures. Shit, you should have been talking about the family business. Or better yet, listening.”

The family business. What kind of business was this? Even soldiers killed purely out of necessity. Sure, Tony was under arrest, but so what? Did they really think he was going to talk to the cops? Did they think that, if he did talk, he could feel either protected or vindicated? If so, they were even dumber than he thought they were. There were only two ways this could end. One, the family would have him killed, which was what was happening. Two, they could let him live, and he’d spend a few years in jail before bouncing around from one dead-end job to another until he had a heart attack and died. Even if he did testify, even if he did turn them in, nothing would happen to them. All they’d have to do is threaten to open their mouths about which politicians had been in their clubs or with their girls and every prosecutor in the state would be ordered to back off.

So this was cover-your-ass, then. They were killing him because they could, or because they were afraid. He was certainly afraid. Not of death itself, but of the pain. He’d seen what Uncle Sal could do to a victim. Some poor saps took hours or days to die, the life slowly dragged out of them while Sal got them saying and doing whatever he wanted. Sure, what they said was invariably just a lie, but it was better to be proven “right” by a dying enemy than “correct,” at least when the family’s massive pride and ego was involved.

Maybe that was the secret, then. They were putting him to death because they couldn’t show themselves to be wrong, to be fallible. Sure, they put coke up the noses of all their girls, but they hadn’t been caught doing it, he had. Sure, they caused girls to have “accidents,” but when one of his girls shot up and went off the road, the axe fell on him, because people knew about it. And if anyone was going to be the fall guy, it was going to be him, because they didn’t like him, and they couldn’t be shown playing favorites with or showing mercy to a guy they didn’t like. So that’s what this was. A bigger, more deadly and disgusting version of a high-school clique. Real fucking mature.

“Hang a left here.” Uncle Sal pointed a bit, the massive Mercedes slowly lumbering in the pointed direction as the driver blew through a stoplight like it wasn’t even there. If this was all just high school, Uncle Sal was both the principal and the chief bully, beating even Tony’s father into line, and steadfastly standing against change. Tony remembered their constant fights and arguments, the way that Sal had refused to listen. Coming home from college, Tony had pointed out that, at this point, they could easily go legit, saving them millions in bribes, kickbacks and “cleanup costs.” Even in their sorry state of management, most of the fronts were now doing better than their illegal counterparts. The family didn’t have the connections or the inner-city turf to sell crack, and cocaine was so ubiquitous, cheap and pure that the price just went down, not up. Why should they break the law when they could just turn Trump and steal the money legally through real-estate deals?

But Uncle Sal couldn’t see it that way. For all the lip-service he and the others gave to “going straight,” they bucked at any rules other than their own, and turned up their nose at the innumerable regulations, ordinances and laws they had to follow. Even when Tony nimbly tip-toed through them, leaving his elders with nothing to do but sign papers and collect a check, they turned up their noses in order to get more disgusting, dirty street-cash, all of it stuffed into shoeboxes and shoved under mattresses, into cupboards or buried in the desert. They’d rather lose ten thousand dollars to a beetle infestation than double it by investing in a club’s lighting or hiring better, non-mafia-associated DJs.

Maybe they were just ignorant. Tony was the only one who ever went to college, after all. And one of the few to finish high school. Why stay in school when Uncle Sal could hook you up with 50k before you could even legally buy cigarettes? Doing the opposite had never helped out Tony. It wasn’t even going to help him live longer.

He shakily reached into his coat pocket, searching for cigarettes. Of course, they’d been confiscated when he was arrested, now being smoked by whatever cop was due a perk this evening. Uncle Sal smiled, reaching into the center console and retrieving a full pack. He pulled one out and handed it to Tony. Tony put it to his lips, the tip shivering and shaking as Sal slowly lit it.

Sal had bought him his first pack, and like that first pack, Sal had proven a bad, deadly habit that was impossible to break. Always giving, but always taking. Smiling even now. Tony stared at him out of the corner of his eye. How could anyone be so calm when they were about to murder their own nephew? Were he an optimist, he’d take this as a sign that he was not to be murdered, but merely secreted somewhere. That must have been what DePalma thought, when he got pulled over with a kilo of coke under the spare tire. Butchie must be dead by now, too. What had he thought, when going to his execution? Had he thought at all?

“You know, I always had hope for you, Tony. I always thought, that one was gonna go far. He’s gonna go to college, and he’s gonna make something of himself.” Uncle Sal grabbed a beer from the limo’s cooler, cracked it open and began to drink. “Why did you disappoint me, Tony? Why did you let me down?”

Tony wished he had the strength to grab Uncle Sal and start choking him, to yank the door handle off its hinges and use it to bash Sal’s teeth in. Hope? Go far? Sal had been against him at every turn, onto retroactively taking credit for Tony’s successes after they had become too evident to deny. They had gotten into numerous fights, with Sal always winning, Sal being free to beat the shit out of Tony whenever, to deny him the funds or support his father wanted to give him, to do whatever was necessary to prove he hadn’t been wrong when he said Tony was a waste of time. Tony had succeeded, in whatever small degree, in spite of Sal, not because of him.

But that didn’t matter now, did it? Sal had won, like he always did. Maybe there was some way Sal could have saved Tony, maybe not. Either way, Tony was going to die, and not gunned down by the cops like some gangster hero, but instead unceremoniously dumped into an abandoned mine shaft or hurriedly buried in the desert like a losing gambler. What bullshit. But then again, life was bullshit. Why would death be anything less?

He turned to look at Sal, taking a long drag on his cigarette and sizing up the fat old weasel. Even with twenty years separating them, Tony knew he couldn’t take the guy. Nor would that matter, seeing as the two heavies in the front could subdue him in an instant. He could barely make it up a flight of stairs without wheezing, could barely hold a camera steady for more than a few minutes at a time. He’d always been physically weak, and around these toughs, mental strength didn’t compensate for much.

He leaned back and started out the window, impatient for the ride to just be over with. He had no idea where they were at this point, their constant twisting and turning leaving only Sal with any idea where they were, if even he knew. They were going someplace private, perhaps, or someplace noisy enough to obscure a gunshot. He could see endless lines of sodium lamps casting cones of sickly yellow light across the various roads and buildings throughout town, their bright glow turning everything into a single shade. Was this the last thing he was going to see? Did that even matter? Everyone had to die at some point. This was just his time.

He tried to shift his mind to more pleasant thoughts. At least, if he fell on his sword like this, the girls would be okay, wouldn’t they? Surely Sal wouldn’t be so bloodthirsty as to have them killed too. The police would certainly look the other way at a gangster being killed, and could even just claim that Tony had skipped bail and was nowhere to be found. But all those girls, those beautiful girls, surely, they were safe, weren’t they?

After all, a pile of dead bodies, even of whores, would be too much for even the corrupt LAPD to ignore. And they were porn stars, everyone knew who they were what they looked like, even if no one would admit to it. If they disappeared or their bodies were found thrown in a dumpster, someone would know. Someone would care. Hell, it was caring about a whore that had gotten them all in this situation. If no one had cared about Candy dying, no one would have drug-tested her, and so no one would have had reason to search Tony’s house for drugs.

Still, he had to know. He had to hope they were okay. His house could go. His stores could go. Even his videos, his amazing videos with all their editing and glorious high-definition VHS quality could go. But his girls had to be all right. They just had to be. He turned to Sal, his throat surprisingly dry. “What will happen to the girls?” The words cracked in his throat, barely audible over the noise of the road.

“What?”

“What will happen to the girls?” Tony swallowed. “I have to know.”

“Don’t worry about them.” Sal ashed his cigar. “What you need to do is worry about yourself, Tony. Something you should have been doing a long time ago.”

What did Sal think Tony was, a complete moron? They wouldn’t have bailed him out if he was going into court. They’d have left him to rot, given him some time behind bars to realize how much he needed them and how he wouldn’t survive a day if he took a plea deal rather than being declared “Not Guilty.” Hell, when Tony was just getting into the business, Sal had taken him for a “ride along” just so he could get used to seeing the blood, and understand the price of failure. Tony had no hope of survival. But the girls had to be okay. They just had to.

“I need to know, Sal. I need to know they’re going to be okay.”

“Look, it was those girls that got you into trouble in the first place.” Sal opened the window slightly, tossing the butt of his cigar out onto the road. “If you’d just handled them like I told you to in the first place, you wouldn’t be here.”

Handle them. He mean break them. Like he had your wife. His daughter. His sister. They were all smashed little dolls, permanently chained chained to the kitchen stove, shitting out more and more sons for him to feed into the meat-grinder. And for what, for money? Glory? Power? Sal was a two-bit crook in a $500-a-plate town. Just because he could threaten politicians and movie stars didn’t mean he was one of them, or even that he had the respect they did.

“Besides, fuck ‘em. Those carpet-munching bitches probably had AIDS crawling out of their snatch. I dunno what you see in them, Tony. Girls are like paper towels. Single use only.”

Tony wanted to rage. If he only had a gun. Strength or no strength, he could do some damage with the right firepower. They might overpower him even if he had an Uzi, but he could take them all down before he went. That was the point of automatic weapons, after all. No matter how many there were, you could get them all. Only in movies did the hero get away, squibs blasting all around him as he ran. In the real world, everybody died. That’s just the way it was.

And this being the real world, Tony did not pull out a concealed Uzi and blow away the bad guys. Instead, the car came to a stop, and everyone got out, including Tony. Sure he could fight back, sit there sobbing in the car, forcing them to pick his ass up and carry it. He could make a scene, make them do their job, scream and cry and yell for help. But what was the point? He’d die anyway, he’d just die screaming.

Tony could hear the roar of jet engines all around him. They must be somewhere near the airport, although where precisely he couldn’t tell. Damn near the runway, though, as there were running lights on either side of him. They shone brighter than the sodium lamps of the city, their brilliance blinding him if he so much as caught them in the corner of his eye. He had to admit, it was a good place to kill someone, if you were so inclined. Lots of noise to obscure the gunshots, blinding lights to make it impossible to see what was going on, and a great big open sea for the bullet to fly off into. Sal probably took people here all the time.

Sal put his arm around Tony’s shoulder, turning him away from the runway. He was saying something, but Tony couldn’t hear it over the roar of the wind, waves and engines. Instead, Sal focused on a small dot of light, an oncoming airplane, clearly lined up and ready to land. He wondered who was on that plane. Where did they come from? Where were they going? What did they do with their lives? Did they know about people like him, who were trapped by their families into lives and jobs they hated?

He wondered if any of his girls were on a plane like that. He hoped they were. On a plane and getting the hell out of LA. Sal was a violent and impulsive thug, but he was also a slow-acting thug. Even if Sal planned to off them, they could still get away, change their name, change their location. They were smart, or at least smart enough, they should have bugged out by now. And if they turned themselves in to the cops, they’d be protected, not left in an unmonitored cell with a bounty on their head and half a dozen junkies with shivs in their pockets.

So they had to be safe. They had to have gotten away. Especially Lindzi. She had always been his favorite. Wonderful, beautiful Lindzi. Not his first girl, not his last, but the only one who ever really made him feel like he’d succeeded. Maybe not a trophy wife, but at least a trophy whore, the sort of attractive arm-dangler that made him look as good as he felt. The sort of girl that he could have only dreamed about in high school, and yet every time he so much as asked she’d drop down on her knees and suck his dick. So what if she was a prissy, drug-addled bitch? She made him feel good, made him feel important, made him feel like he’d succeeded.

That was it, then. Lindzi had to be safe, somewhere. The other girls too, hopefully, but that vixen had made it through, probably hopped in her car and started driving east hours ago. She was probably halfway to Dodge by now, that beautiful white Fiero of hers burning up the tarmac. Or maybe she’d hopped a flight, just like the one getting closer and closer to him now. Only the wheels on her plane would be going up, carrying her away to Miami, New York, Paris, Tokyo, some place far from here, far from here.

Tony closed his eyes as the plane roared overhead. If Lindzi and the others were safe, then what did it matter what happened to him? He’d had fun, and they’d gotten away scott free. It was just too bad he couldn’t see them off and wish them well.