Book II – Chapter 25: 1978

Posted On June 24, 2020

Illustration by Eyugho

Summer, 1978

Victor’s new car suited him. It wasn’t his first Lincoln, nor would it be the last. The ’78 Continental Town Car swept down the service road — a wide, angular beast fresh off the assembly line. It was a black tank with luxury trim, and the first vehicle he’d paid for himself. The windows were rolled down, allowing the thick, muggy air to sweep cigarette smoke into the night sky.

Harold slumped in the passenger seat. He ran a few fingers through brown curls, cursing the humidity’s influence on his hair.

“You know this thing came with A/C,” Victor said. He was multitasking — both fiddling with the radio and ignoring the speed limit.

“If we roll up these windows and I come home smelling like an ashtray again—“

“Yeah, yeah. Ruth will kill you.”

Victor settled on a radio station, the volume just high enough to hear Dolly Parton over hints of static. Streetlights left gold stripes over the hood of the car, swelling and vanishing in cadence.

“You really think this guy is going off the record?” Harold said, idly tapping his hand on the car door.

“Either Ricky is the shittiest auto fence I’ve ever met, or he’s keeping our cut to himself.

“And what’re you going to do when we prove it?”

“Whatever the fuck Dad wants me to do — whatever it takes.” The Italian took one last pull of his cigarette before flicking it out the window. The car slowed to a stop at an intersection, red light blanketing the dashboard.

Harold raised his brow. “You’re ready to kill a man, you mean.”

“I’m ready to be made.” The knuckles of Victor’s thumbs cracked over the wheel. “Apparently being the boss’ son isn’t enough.”

“You’d really want to be part of an outfit where that was all it took? Nepotism?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

Harold smiled — he hadn’t expected any other answer from Victor. The voice on the radio changed to one more fierce, her words rolling like a storm at sea. Because the Night.

“Good. So go out there and earn your button.”

“Yeah, shut up for a second.” Victor leaned in to twist up the volume knob. “I love this song.”

Red flicked to green. The Town Car stole through the intersection, a dark, glossy titan and two men singing.

The restaurant was their last stop before Fioretti Auto. A few straggling customers were smoking near the entrance, flushed from the wine and the heat. Gino slid into the backseat, immediately straightening his lapel in the window’s reflection. Victor leveraged his hand on Harold’s headrest as he looked back.

“Papà, sei pronto?”

“Certo.” Gino nodded. “E voi due?”

Victor frowned, then glanced at Harold. “Uh — you got a piece?”

“No.” He let out a painfully feigned sigh. “Guess I can’t kill anyone today.”

“Check the glovebox, you wiseass.”

There was a clunk as the compartment opened, followed by the sound of stilted rummaging. Harold wasn’t looking very hard.

“No firepower,” Harold said. He uncovered a small cedar box, lifting it to squint at the engraved text. “I did find cigars, though — Davidoff? Vic, I thought we talked about your spending.”

Victor’s posture stiffened, as if bracing for an impact.

“They were for a special occasion. Vanni wanted to wait until dinner this weekend, but — doc says the kid’s gonna be a boy. Still on track for next month.”

Gino clasped his hand on his son’s shoulder, giving him a little shake. “Che grande! That’s wonderful.”

Harold was silent, looking down at the wooden box. He gave a distant smile, as if he were in another place entirely.

“Oh. Er—” Victor paused, then clumsily packed the cigars back into the glove compartment. “Sorry, Harry. I know you and Ruth have been trying. Any, uh — any luck?”

“I—“ Harold’s expression held, though it was clearly taking some effort. “Well, we’re guessing it’s not meant to be. But I’m happy for you. Just hitting your twenties and you’ve got a son on the way. You’re making me feel like an old man.”

“You’re only—“ Victor took a moment to count on his fingers. “Seven years older than me.”

“Six years, seven months.”

“Merda, you go to one little Ivy League and you come out an insufferable jackass.”

Harold shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fair. You two decide on a name?”

“She likes ‘Sergio,’ but — ma non sono sicuro. I don’t know, it’s not very American.”

Gino clicked his tongue. “Mi piace. Sergio is a fine name. Don’t be ashamed of where you’ve come from.”

“You gave me an American name, Papà,” Victor said.

“Well, one of us needed to sound like a citizen.”

Victor groaned, rolling his head back as his two passengers laughed — not with him, but at him. Merciless.

“Well, what do you think, Harry?” Victor said. “Too Italian?”

Harold gave his friend the most sincere smile he could muster. “If I say the name is perfect, will you actually drive?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

#

Fioretti Auto was a half-car shop, half-junkyard heap of loose steel and chain link fencing. Red neon reflected in scattered puddles. The Town Car parked just inside the gate, flanked by a pair of stripped Cadillacs. Noise and light poured out of the garage through an open door — the sound of two men laughing and the shuffling of glass bottles.

“Oh, good.” Victor freed a handgun from his belt, snapping in a fresh magazine. “He’s home.”

Gino waved the weapon away with his hand. “Non ancora. Wait for my word — understand?”

Victor nodded, but kept his grip on the pistol. It was time to arrive unannounced.

Gino entered first. The garage fell silent, both heads turning toward the figure in the doorway and the two men behind him. Ricky was seated on a crate, kitty-corner from his mechanic and right-hand man. There wasn’t a soul that would call Gino ‘tall,’ yet somehow, he towered over the room. He kicked aside a discarded bottle with his heel.

“Nice evening, isn’t it?” Gino smiled. “You boys enjoying yourselves?”

There was a lightness in his tone, something pleasant and almost genuine. Even so, Ricky was paralyzed. Gino had locked eyes, meeting his stare with a deep, cruel blue. The bottle rolled to a stop against a tire with a clink. Ricky snapped out of his daze.

“Shit, uh — Blue, you didn’t say you were comin’.” He stood, a little too fast. “Yeah —  yeah! Come on in. You want a drink?”

Ricky fumbled through a cabinet, pushing aside papers and boxes to retrieve a bottle of bourbon. It was unsteady in his hands — slippery, as if his palms were sweating.

“That looks like a 50 year old bottle, Ricky. I thought you were broke,” Victor said.

“It was a gift.” The man was focused on his task, tipping a glass as he coated the bottom with amber, oakey liquor. He offered the lowball to Gino, leaving clammy fingerprints along the glass.

“How generous of you — sharing this with us.” Gino tilted the glass to take in the scent. “Not enough men understand the importance of sharing.”

Ricky gave a stiff smile. The man had a wiry figure, angular and unshaven with a knob at the peak of his throat. He swallowed.

Victor made his way through the garage, running his hand along a table. His fingertips left trails in the dust and he rubbed them together with a frown. The place was a mess. Tools and documents mingled together on various surfaces — wrenches, oily rags, and receipts. He adjusted his glasses, peering across the space toward a vehicle covered with a canvas sheet.

Victor jerked his chin toward the car.  “What’s that you got? Something new?”

“Just a repair. That’s all we really got, lately — repairs.”

“Too bad, after we spent all this money setting up your shop. Just repairs, huh?” Victor’s hand found its way to the sheet, curling the fabric between his fingers before sweeping it free. The cloth fluttered to the concrete floor, revealing a polished, ivory-white Mercedes-Benz. Its surface glinted under the fluorescent lights of the garage.

“Doesn’t look broken to me.” Victor gave the hood a light knock. “What do you think, Harry?”

Harold had already made his way to a cluttered desk, picking through notebooks and sheets of paper before finding the ledger. He gave a thoughtful hum as he flipped through pages, scanning rows of longhand and dollar signs.

“Nope. No Benz in here.”

“I was going to put it in there — we just got this one in today.” Ricky wrung the hem of his shirt in one hand.

Harold tossed the ledger aside. Metal clanged as he opened drawers, rummaging through stacks of files. One book in particular seemed to catch his interest — a yellowed notebook with grease stains on the spine. He didn’t have to read for long before he found what he was looking for.

“No,” Harold folded the ledger open, facing the page outward.. “I don’t think you did.”

There it was — the other ledger. The one filled with line after line of vehicle models, dates, and most importantly, cash flow. Mercedes-Benz 450SL, white — $26,000 (cash).

The mechanic, who hadn’t yet spoken a single word, leapt to his feet. The crate beneath him clattered as he barreled toward the door, his breath heavy and his steps hard. He only made it a few feet before a heel cut his ankles, sending him lurching to the floor. Gino’s loafer was quick to pin the man down by his spine. The gunshot echoed.

A red trail trickled from the hole in the back of the mechanic’s skull — thick, and slow. The Italian tugged a silk handkerchief from an inner pocket. It was deep water and endless skies — blue, monogrammed with two initials: GG. It draped over the back of the man’s scalp, darkening with the soak of blood. His eyes returned to Ricky.

“Is there anything you’d like to say before Harold starts reading?”

Ricky’s breaths had roughened. His chest rose and fell, lungs grinding air through a raw, dry throat. He shook his head.

Harold gave a shrug. “Well, all right. ’74 Ford Thunderbird. Six grand, cash — two days ago. ’77 Cadillac Seville—”

There was a thump as Ricky backed into a half-gutted truck.

“I— I can’t believe this.” Ricky spat onto the floor. “You’re going to trust this kike over me? Over me? You can’t be fucking—”

The sound of bone on glass was one Harold would never forget. Victor breathed inches from Ricky’s face, his elbow pinning the man to the truck window.

“Sorry, what were you going to say? All I heard was ‘kike.’”

“You can’t—“

The man heaved as he was kneed in the gut. His body crumpled, dragging down the truck door before hitting concrete.

“It’s—“ Ricky gave a few wet coughs. “It’s in the bottom drawer. All— all of it, just take it.”

With a wrench, Harold cracked open the lock on the final drawer of the desk. After a moment of evaluating its contents, he gave Victor a thumbs-up.

“I was going to tell you,” Ricky said from the floor. He grasped Victor’s ankle with a shuddering fist. “I was going to kick it up. I swear — Jesus, I swear. You know me, Blue. You gotta— gotta give me another chance. Fuck — please. You’ll give me a— another chance, right?”

Victor snapped back the slide of his handgun, letting the round chamber with a clack. He observed the man begging at his feet, then glanced back at his father.

Gino shook his head.

“No,” Victor said. “Maybe next time, Ricky.”

Two shots pierced the air, and the garage was silent once more. The fingers on Victor’s pant leg went limp.

“Piece of shit bigot,” Victor said. He kicked the hand off, his eyes flat with indifference.

Harold joined him beside the truck, cleaning his glasses with the hem of his shirt. He peered through the lenses with scrutiny before replacing them on his face.

“Vic, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Shut up, Harry.”

Harold ignored him, only offering a smile. “You did it. Finally made your bones.”

“It had to be him,” Gino said with an offhanded gesture. “I only had one handkerchief.”

With a scoff, Victor turned back to his father. “Cazzo, stai scherzando? How many of those things do you even have? Jesus — is that why they call you ‘Blue?’ Cause of that fucking hankie?”

“No.” Gino took a moment to smooth back his hair — coal-black with silver temples. “It’s because of my eyes — I have beautiful eyes, you know. I prefer Azzurro, anyway. It sounds more dignified.”

“Papà, none of these American trash bags are gonna call you Azzurro.”

“Too bad. Back home, they did.”

Victor’s stare fell back to the body at his feet. Those eyes were still open — drab and motionless. He took a sharp breath through his nose before kicking the body over with his heel.

“Well,” Victor said. “This is home now.”

He couldn’t see Ricky’s face anymore, but those eyes stayed floating in his vision — two brown eyes with two bullet holes between then. From the bridge of his nose to his brow, that face had been demolished — unrecognizable. Those eyes would never blink again.

“Victor.” It was Harold’s voice. “You okay?”

Victor inhaled, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah — yeah, I’m fine.”

“Going to earn yourself a nickname, too?”

“I didn’t come here to earn a fucking label.” He cracked open the door of the truck. With a crouch and a grunt, he heaved the body into the driver’s seat. Willfully ignoring the blood on his sleeves, he grabbed a gas can.

“I don’t need some— some signature. You want me to leave a napkin? A business card?”

The smell of gasoline stung their nostrils as he dumped the can’s contents over the body, then kicked the door shut. The slam reverberated across the garage.

“I don’t have time for that shit.”

The can was tossed aside, plastic clunking over concrete in a trail of stray fuel. He could still see those eyes. They bore into him, daring Victor to rid the world of their rotten stare. His lighter clicked open, its wheel scratching before a tall, lean flame popped up. He watched the fire for a moment, then flicked the Zippo through the truck window.

Flames consumed the fuel-soaked upholstery, writhing over the corpse — hungry. The glow reflected in his lenses, a burning, devouring red. Fire was all he could see now. No more eyes — nothing. He smiled.

“There,” Victor said. “Let’s see ‘em make a nickname out of that.”