Bigger Than Jesus Read online

  “No. I’m the fourth owner, I think.”

  “Okay, but you can get some bucks for it. The thing I’m trying to instil in you, Edward, is that you roll in here with four hundred bucks on this big a debt, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about our relationship. One time a guy came to me and he had his kids’ piggy banks. That guy understood the system. He understood our relationship, see? The guy with the piggy banks? Bad guy. Bad father. Bad husband. But a good risk. He squeezed everything he had to come up with more dough before he came to me. When I look at you, I see a kid who’s never been hit. Never got a real education. Edward, you are a guy who owes me a lot of fuckin money and you act like you can work this out without inconveniencing yourself. That inconveniences me, Ed. I got a daughter with expensive tastes. Am I right, Jesus?”

  It hurts your face, but you give him a smile.

  “Huh. That’s good. You didn’t lose no teeth. A miracle is what that is, Jesus.”

  You brace for the punch you’re sure is coming.

  “Give me until morning and I’m sure I can come up with more money. I just need more time. I can get $2,500 maybe even $3,000 if you give me until morning. Mom cut me off, but I’ll make sure she knows…about God and Job and stuff.”

  Pete laughs. “Good! And I can help you help your mom understand, too.” Pete flicks the lit cigarette into Edward’s face as he rises and kicks him hard in the chest. The kid gets knocked over backward in his chair and goes sprawling. You saw a guy get kicked like that in Basic once. The sergeant’s boot heel drove so hard into the guy’s chest that it messed up his heart’s electrical system and stopped it. That recruit had to be shocked with a defibrillator. Unfortunately for Edward, he’s still moving.

  “He looks as pale as the vampire Edward from those movies,” Pete says. “And dressed all in black, you look even more white. Is that the look you were going for? I ask because I’m a people person. Some guys, it’s only about the money, but I got into this business for the people. Does that look work with the little chickie-poos in the club? Do you use lines on them like you used on me? ‘Next week. I promise, I’ll love you tomorrow —’ ”

  The kid drools and sobs, which as answers go, doesn’t accomplish much. Pete stands over him. You’re relieved he’s not thinking about you for the moment.

  “You said we’d work it out!” Edward screams.

  “We are working it out. This is me working out.” Pete picks up the folding chair, collapses it and raised it above his head before bringing it down on Edward’s ass again and again. “You’re a little boy in need of a spanking!”

  Edward doesn’t so much cry as bleats. You’ve never heard a person in pain do that before, but he really does sound like a lamb getting the shit beat out of it.

  “Your mom is going to believe you, Ed! She’s going to help you pay down a lot of cash!”

  You’d think the sight of Pete beating on the boy with a folding chair would remind you of old-time wrestling. It doesn’t. In fact, the horror of his helplessness freezes you. All you can think about is the pain in Edward’s ass and the look on his face because Edward knows somewhere deep down that Pete isn’t even half done. Pete’s just getting started.

  Edward’s cries grow louder. Pete stops and you think maybe God does have mercy. Then God pulls the noise-cancelling headphones over his ears and steps on the fingers of Edward’s left hand, one by one, with his heel.

  Jake ambles over, reaches down and rips the chain from Edward’s face. The lip and ear hoops come away with the flesh and blood. Edward’s cry of anguish is unforgettable. You want Edward’s torture and the terrible bleating to stop, sure, but when they’re done with him, they’ll start on you. The scared and scarred part of you hoping they’ll keep wailing on him? That’s bigger than the human being praying they’ll soon finish. Even in terrible moments like this, you discover there’s still room for self-loathing. If you survive, you really should think about finding a shrink.

  Pete’s kicks are slowing.

  Edward stops bleating and, somehow, his silence is worse.

  Pausing to stare your way, Jake licks Edward’s blood from his knuckles and grins. “You’re next, Cube!”

  You know monsters. You grew up under the rule of sadists so you know that, for Jake, a beating isn’t a means to an end. Pain and power is an end in itself.

  You are next. Think of something. Quick.

  THE PUNISHMENT

  Jake drags the kid away. Pete lights his next cigarette as he turns back to you. Pete’s smiling. He’s more scary when he smiles.

  “As the guy who’s possibly going to be your son-in-law, Pete,” you say, “I’d really appreciate you untying my hands.”

  Pete smiles wider. “Let’s talk first. Tie a guy’s hands behind his back and sit him in a chair and…well, it keeps you sharp, thinking about how I’ve got a burning cigarette and you’re sitting with no way to cover your crotch.”

  You cross your legs.

  Jake burbles his little girl laugh, his back against the door again, arms crossed, his fist wrapped around the butt of the .38 in his fancy cross-draw shoulder holster rig. Some guys even have holsters with springs in them for a faster draw, like this is Tombstone and every day they face another desperado.

  It’s time to take control before Pete’s burning and beating you and Jake is dragging you out, rolled up in a rug from one of the offices upstairs.

  “In the old days, they called enforcers like you ‘leg breakers.’ It was a bad strategy. You break a guy’s leg, he’ll respect, but how’s he gonna run and get you your money? Later on, we called the guys who were most persuasive ‘dentists.’ You break a guy’s leg, he’s only got two and he’s fucked up. Knock a tooth or two out and the guy’s motivated to keep the rest of his smile.”

  You smile, showing your pearly whites. “Whose side you on, Pete?” You don’t feel it, but you have to inject calm into this situation, feel him out. He knows something you don’t, but you’ve got to introduce a little doubt and make Pete think it’s him on the dumb end.

  “Panama Bob’s dead, so not much use being on his side,” Pete says. “So I’m on Vincent’s side. Always side with the big guy with the big guns. Respect. Faithfulness. Crucifixion. These are the things that build empires.”

  “There’s more sides to this than just Vincent’s.”

  The folding chair scrapes across the cement as Pete pulls it close and sits to stare in your eyes. On the one hand, he looks intrigued, but he’s also close enough to reach out and burn your eye with that cigarette. He waggles his eyebrows and you start talking, unsure what the end of the sentence is going to be until you get there. You lay it out, going slow:

  “Jimmy sent me to do a job with Denny.” True, sort of. He gave you the job and you asked Denny to drive.

  “Denny killed Panama Bob.” A lie.

  “I just drove the car and didn’t know what the job was until Denny already did it.” A lie.

  “Jimmy said the hit was Vincent’s order, just before he went under for his surgery.” This is what Jimmy told you, but you didn’t believe it for a second.

  Pete’s right. Sitting here helpless does make you sharp. At least you thought so until Pete’s first bitch slap rocks you sideways and your nose is gushing blood again. Pain is such a tiny word for the huge wave that crashes over you.

  “I already talked to Jimmy, kid. Jimmy says Bob planned to take over The Machine. He had something big going on that he wasn’t letting Vincent in on. Bob was making moves on his own and cutting the organization out. Jimmy didn’t know what. Vincent didn’t know what and Jimmy didn’t want to let his father know what was going on until he’d confronted Bob. You were just supposed to bring Bob to Jimmy’s house.”

  And there it is. Jimmy’s got what the military calls plausible deniability and he’s making you the goat. Edward may have bleated like a lamb when they beat him, but they’ll have you making whatever sounds a goat makes in a moment.

  “Jimmy Lima says there’s a l
ot of money involved. Then you call up Bob’s ex-wife to ask about the combination to the safe in his office. We don’t know what happened with Big Denny. You and Denny are friends, Jesus. It’s hard to imagine you killing him. Actually, it’s hard to imagine you trying to kill him and being successful. Is he really dead, Jesus? Was it Bob who beat the piss out of you? If you come clean, I won’t have to beat the shit out of you. Where’s Denny and where’s whatever was in the wall safe?”

  When you catch your breath and the tide of pain in the bridge of your nose ebbs a bit, Pete’s still waiting. You decide to tell some truth and see if that works. “Jimmy sent me to kill Panama Bob. Jimmy wants to take over The Machine.” Then you get an inspiration for an idea that could be the truth. “I called the ex-wife to try to get into the safe because I thought there might be evidence in there.” That sounds plausible.

  Pete stares. Maybe he’s considering what you’re saying. Who can tell what’s going on behind Pete’s eyes?

  “You and Denny went about this all wrong. If it’s supposed to look like a suicide, you don’t hang around and rifle Bob’s office. If it’s a clean hit, you don’t leave a body around. Murders? The police take murder seriously. Missing persons? Not so much. If Bob were a missing person instead of a murder victim, there’d be a lot less heat on us, stupid.” He slaps you again, between the stu and the -pid.

  When you open your eyes, he’s still staring at you, waiting.

  “Jimmy wouldn’t have sent you to kill Panama Bob unless he’d already considered whether Bob was careless, a thief or a rat. You think the boss is an idiot?”

  “Ow,” you say. You want to say much more about the pain you’re in, but that might encourage him to do it again. “Jimmy had already sent Cat to talk to Bob and Cat never came back. We don’t know what happened to him. Jimmy and Cat are tight, you know that. Jimmy was through the talking phase. He wanted his half-brother dead. It was supposed to look like a suicide but it didn’t go down that neatly…though Bob did fall down pretty neatly in the end.”

  “You’re asking me to take the word of a tiny Cuban whose pretty new to The Machine. The one guy who could stick up for you, you say is dead. Are you sure you don’t want to rethink your story and give Big Denny a call? How about I get out my cell phone and we get Denny back from the dead and he confirms your story.”

  “Denny wasn’t so trustworthy. He was banging Jimmy’s wife.”

  That gets Pete’s attention. He looks like you slapped him. From the door, Jake bursts out with “Bullshit!” but Pete isn’t so sure.

  “Sh!” you tell Jake. “The adults are talking.” You might have seen that in a movie once. As bad as things are, it still feels good to watch Jake turn red and go from simmer to boil.

  “Jimmy’s wife…” Pete is thinking. “They say the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Fuck! If there is anything I can’t stand, it is faithlessness and ingratitude.”

  “Denny was trying to kill me when I pushed him down into a construction pit.”

  Jake leaves his post by the door, anxious to get in on the slapping action, though if Jake gets involved, it’ll be punching and kicking. “You’re saying Denny threw Panama Bob off a building and then Denny fell to his death, too? That’s a lot of falling in one night, man.”

  You look Jake dead in the eye. “Shit happens. Life really is like a Coen brothers movie sometimes.”

  Pete slaps you a third time. If he slaps you again, it feels like no one will ever have to again. Your ears ring with bells that peel pain, pain, pain.

  “What were you doing calling up Bob’s ex? What was in the safe?”

  When you bring your head up, you want to shake it, but that seems unwise. Something might come loose. You need ice over your eyes and you need to stop the cut that’s opened up over your left eyebrow. Pete really does just think with his right hand. He’s not working you over as professionally as old Denny did. “Careful, Pete, you’re going to make me asymmetrical.”

  Jake laughs that stupid, trilling giggle. With the headache you have, that sound drills into your skull and feels almost as bad as the slaps.

  Mixing the truth and lies together isn’t working so well. If Pete slaps you again, your head will spin around on your neck. You think about the pistol in the small of your back. It’s still just as useless. Pete knows it’s there, but he’s not worried. That makes the pain worse. He knows about the switchblade in your sock, too, and he doesn’t think enough of you to bother to take your weapons away. He respects you not at all. If you try to go for it, the best case scenario is you shoot yourself in the ass. Worse case, in the spine. Worst case, you shoot yourself in the spine and then Jake and Pete kick you until you bleed out. Yeah, that would get the goat sounds going really good.

  Once you’re out of the picture, there’s no one to warn Vincent that it’s Jimmy who’s taking over The Machine. Jimmy who ordered the hit on his stepbrother because he thinks Bob killed Cat. The fact that you happened to kill Jimmy’s wife’s lover, too? Happy circumstances all around for Jimmy. Not so good for you in any way. Bob was Vincent’s stepson too, of course, so there’s no mercy in your future and enemies at ever turn. That’s why Jimmy picked you, the relative newcomer and outsider for the job.

  The fact that Bob was skimming from The Machine might even be a minor thing to Vincent. When Jimmy ordered the hit, you should have jumped the chain of command and gone to Vincent. The truth is, the moment Jimmy ordered you to kill Bob, you were screwed and from where you sit now, it’s hard to imagine how you ever thought this would work out any other way. For Jimmy, this is about getting even for Cat’s death, getting the power, getting the skim and blaming the whole mess on you.

  Jimmy sold you out. Pete just wants the truth about the wall safe before he kills you. The truth will not set you free.

  The arc of your life will go from Castro escapee to slave to soldier slave, to bag man to enforcer to a crime lord’s goat. There’d been girls, but there’d only been one woman. Lily was your only port in this shit storm and she’ll never know what happened to you. You’re going to be a missing person. Soon she’ll be doing the salsa with someone else. You’ll just be another guy she knew for a time.

  “What was in the safe, moron?” Jake Cibrian yells.

  You ignore him and focus on Pete. “Future father-in-law. Remember when I asked whose side you’re on?”

  “Yeah. What are you telling me? That I should be on your side?”

  “Nope. You should be on your side. When Vincent finds out Jimmy had Denny kill his own stepson, you don’t want to be standing so close to Jimmy. Jimmy’s poison. I just drove the car. I’m the innocent bystander in the struggle for power that started tonight.”

  Jake raises a hand to his forehead. “I’m going to need a roadmap. This trip is all twisty.”

  Pete ignores him and keeps his gaze on your eyes, looking for a flicker. “Vincent isn’t going to kill his only surviving son, kid—”

  “Which is one reason you should be listening to me, Pete. Vincent isn’t going to kill his only surviving son, but he will erase the people under him. Jimmy’s only as powerful as long as he’s got lieutenants, like you. You should start thinking that I’m looking out for my future father-in-law. That maybe I came to warn you how things are going bad.”

  “Because you love me so much?”

  You see it now. Pete has a tell. Just before he bitch slaps, he takes a slightly deeper breath and his jaw gets tight. His jaw is getting tight now.

  “Because I love Lily so much. Something happens to you, she’s not happy with me. Something happens to me, you’re in the doghouse and Lily isn’t the forgiving type, is she?”

  That stops him. His jaw softens. “I think you’re the only one getting erased, Jesus.”

  “Yeah,” You roll your eyes. “Like Vincent rose to run The Machine because he’s such a patient, understanding-type guy.”

  “Watch your mouth, kid.”

  “What if I am lying? What if you’re r
ight and Denny is still alive? Maybe he’s out hiding the money we found in Bob’s safe. Like you said, Denny is my best friend, but we both know he’s not the sharpest. Maybe he runs with the money Bob skimmed or maybe he goes to Vincent to make himself a hero.”

  “If you believed either of those things, you wouldn’t be here now. You’d be on the run with Denny. You guys would be taking the skim and running back to Miami.”

  “Lily doesn’t want to go to Miami, so you know I gotta stay. You know I love her. She’s your daughter, Pete. You tell me how anybody could not love her.”

  “You’re trying to make me go soft on you, Jesus, but I still got a raging hard-on here. Just tell me about the skim. Tell me why you really aren’t on the run already. Did Denny want half? More than half?”

  That’s when you get a new idea. It’s really an old idea. You heard about it from Denny. You drove around with Denny for hours dropping off drugs and picking up money. You and Denny spent so much time together, most of it with Denny doing the talking. He talked baseball and who was an asshole and who wasn’t and he talked about what he read. All Denny ever read was weight loss cookbooks and books about the mob. Denny told you about the grift. It’s how a Boston gangster set up a guy for a hit once.

  “Where’s the skim, Jesus?” Pete asks. Pete’s jaw tightens again and he takes a deep breath before he slaps you. You try to roll with it, but you’ve been hit too many times tonight to be that fancy.

  Pete hits you, not so much with the savage whip of the back of his hand this time. There’s more meat in it as he drives the heel of his hand across your jaw. Pete really puts his shoulder into his work.

  You’ve got one shot at the grift before Jake comes over and joins in. Then, whether you’ve told them anything true or not, it’s all over and you will never hold Lily on the dance floor again.

  THE GRIFT

  A good grift depends on the greed of the mark. The believable lie is one that doesn’t make you look too good. The best lie is in line with the worst people expect from you. If you say you did the worst thing the mark would do themselves, they want to believe.