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Never tick off a mob hitman
...especially on his vacation!
of TheColumnists.com
PAULIE
COULDN'T believe his eyes: His car was a freakin' wreck--a classic
1963 Morgan Plus 4 roadster, reduced to a pile of dented and
scored sheet metal, deflated tires, slashed leather upholstery,
broken glass and splintered wood. It looked like guys with sledgehammers
had gone to work on it for an hour.
"I'll kill the bastards who did this!" he snarled.
Maria looked horrified, visibly trembling, so white she looked
like she'd been rolled in flour.
"It's Mendoza," she said, almost whispering. "It
had to be Mendoza. What am I gonna do, Paulie? I'm gettin' scared!"
"Who's Mendoza?" he said. He couldn't take his eyes
off the wreckage of his classic roadster, but he finally looked
up and saw Maria was trembling all over. "What is it, Maria?
What's this all about?"
He
wanted to know, so she told him. Mendoza ran the Latino music
business in L.A. and controlled most of the West Coast. He'd
been after Maria to sign with him ever since her rocking revival
of the old Cuco Sanchez standard, "La Ultima Palabra,"
shot to the top of the Latino single charts and people started
calling her the next Gloria Estefan. But Maria wanted no part
of Mendoza and his Mexican mafia connections. She got her start
with the Miami-based Reynosa outfit and they treated her right,
so why change now that things were starting to break for her?
"You telling me he had somebody wreck my car to punish you?"
Paulie asked. "How long's he been doin' stuff like this
to you?"
"It's been a coupla months, Paulie," she said, feeling
her stomach twisting and turning inside. "Somebody did this
to my car, too. And they came in one weekend I was away and trashed
my apartment. I can't prove anything, but who else would do such
a thing? Mendoza told me I'd regret it--not signing with him.
And stuff's been happening like this ever since!"
"You
call the cops?"
"Sure, I called them, but they wouldn't buy it, Paulie,"
Maria told him. "They put it down for a hate crime, you
know? It's so easy for them to think I'm just a Chicana from
East L.A. that the neighbors don't want moving into a high-toned
Encino condo. But that's bullshit, Paulie."
Paulie looked down at the remains of the Morgan he'd paid twelve
grand for in Malibu six months ago, then another eight grand
to have completely restored at the British Auto Works in Van
Nuys. He'd had it out of the shop two days. He was going to put
it on a flatbed trailer and truck it back to Brooklyn this coming
Saturday when his vacation was over. But he wanted to take Maria
out in it, show her how it handled on the canyon roads and just
see how she looked in a classy sports car that looked like it
just popped out of a time machine from the 1930s.
"So, you think they been watching us, following us around?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," she said. "They've
hassled every guy I've gone out with in the past two months.
I didn't think they'd dare come after you, Paulie. I should have
told you as soon as you called me up."
He looked at Maria in the dim light of the restaurant parking
lot. She was a beautiful woman, but he'd noticed something that
didn't look right about her ever since he flew into L.A. and
looked her up last Sunday night. Now he knew what it was: She
was frightened to death. It made him madder than he'd been in
years--at this Mendoza character for doing this to such a fine
girl and at Maria for not telling him about the nightmare she'd
been living through.
Paulie wasn't a big guy, but he felt his anger filling him up and the defiant set to his body made his shadow seem to grow longer. Who'd these greaseballs think they were messing with anyhow?
"Let's
get a cab," he said, quietly, forcing himself into a calm,
cold frame of mind. "I'll take you back to my hotel, then
I got things to do."
That night, after he'd had the wreckage of the Morgan towed back
to Van Nuys and reported the vandalism to the L.A.P.D., Paulie
did his best to keep his anger in check. Usually, that wasn't
hard for him. He was a very even-tempered guy, which you had
to be if you wanted to stay alive doing his line of work. But
the truth is he was pissed on a thermonuclear scale.
He tried not to let Maria know it, though. She needed to be held
close, comforted. She spent the night with him in his hotel room
on Wilshire. When they went to bed, she whispered that she was
okay now, that she felt safe in his arms and really wanted him.
Still, he was gentle with her, touching her softly, grazing his
lips over her until he knew she really wanted him and wasn't
just trying to be nice. That's when she told him the rest: Mendoza
had forced her to have sex with him in his office. She'd refused
at first, but then he slapped her around and kicked her and tore
her clothes off. He hurt her badly, but she didn't dare tell
anyone.
"He told me he'd take me out on the roof and push me over," she told him, her tears flowing uncontrollably at the last. "He would, too. I know he would."
But, so far, she hadn't signed the papers Mendoza kept sending her. Now the harassment was escalating, so she didn't know how she could keep refusing to sign.
Finally,
Maria cried herself to sleep, but Paulie lay awake, his eyes
burning with hatred. Someone would pay for this.
In the morning, he made Maria get in a cab in front of his hotel
and go out to his sister's place in Pomona. She protested that
she had to work that night at a club in Santa Monica, but he
told her he'd already cancelled her gig there.
"Paulie, you can't do that!" she complained, but he put his finger to her lips and shushed her. She saw the look in his eyes and immediately shut down her protests.
"If
this Mendoza is connected out here," he told her, "you
need to disappear for awhile. See, I'm gonna look into the situation
a little--and sometimes that makes a few waves, you know what
I mean?"
She knew what he meant, all right. She knew Paulie was a tough
guy who handled problems for some very influential people. She
also had heard what people back east called him: The Pest Control
Man. She wasn't in any hurry to find out how he got that nickname
either. So, she kissed him and climbed into the cab without another
word.
AFTER
SHE left, Paulie called Mr. Spinelli in Brooklyn and asked him
what he knew about Mendoza.
"That buttwipe?" Mr. Spinelli said. "He's gettin'
to be a friggin' pest. He's locking up all the Mexican talent
and tryin' to muscle inna our bi'ness out there. He's a nuisance
we gotta deal with one of these days. So, why do you need to
know these things, Paulie? What's he to you?"
"You know Maria Torres, the singer works for Reynosa down
in Miami?" Paulie said. "Well, I been takin' her out
some. She says this Mendoza is giving her a bad time since she
won't sign with him. He forced himself on her, then had his goons
wreck her car and trash her place. So, what's he do last night?
He has my Morgan reduced to rubble while I'm inna show with Maria."
"That the old sports car you bought out there?" Mr. Spinelli asked.
"That's
right," said Paulie. "So, what I'm callin' you for,
Mr. Spinelli, is your permission to pay my respects to this bastard
Mendoza. Maria says he's connected, so it could mean trouble."
"He ain't connected to nobody important to me," said
Mr. Spinelli. "He's in that spic outfit, the one made up
of cons, dopers and useless chili heads. They're nothin' outside
the prisons. So, do what you like. Anyway, he's a friggin' pest.
And whadda they call you?"
"I'm
the pest control man," Paulie said, grinning, as Mr. Spinelli
cackled on the other end of the line.
It was the house joke. Mr. Spinelli enjoyed calling him "the
pest control man" and laughed every time, like he'd just
thought it up. Once he even told Paulie he should have business
cards made up to leave on stiffs: Paulie Giambra, Pest Control
Man. Paulie didn't mind. The nickname kind of fit. Mr. Spinelli
always gave Paulie the impression he really didn't hate the people
he wanted knocked off. He treated them like they were ants spoiling
his picnic and Paulie was his big can of Raid. He kind of liked
that image: He was the pest control man at Mr. Spinelli's picnic.
"Sure, you go ahead, Paulie," Mr. Spinelli said, reaffirming
his approval. "Whack the mother. But do it clean and quick--and
don't leave no trail of limey auto parts somebody can follow
back here."
Mr. Spinelli was the capo of the bottom line. If he already thought
Mendoza was a pest, it was only a matter of time before he ordered
him whacked anyway. This was a good deal for the boss because
Paulie was saving him travel expenses by whacking Mendoza now,
while he was on his vacation.
LATE
THAT morning, Paulie called his sister to make sure Maria got
there all right. Maria wanted to talk with him, so his sister
put her on.
"You're not going to do anything foolish about Mendoza,
are you?" she wanted to know.
"Naw," he said. "I just want to talk some sense
to him, so's he leaves you alone. I'll tell him Mr. Spinelli
wants to buy your contract. Once he hears that, he'll mess his
pants every time he hears your voice on the radio."
Maria
knew Paulie was a sort of trouble shooter for a man named Spinelli,
but she had no idea who Mr. Spinelli really was. She figured
he was somebody real important in the music business, who had
guys like Paulie protecting him. She also knew Paulie's boss
had some kind of influence over the Reynosa people who ran her
record label and maybe even the whole Latino entertainment scene
based in Florida. She thought Paulie was Mr. Spinelli's bodyguard.
Paulie didn't want her knowing any more than that. He liked her
quite a lot and who knows where their relationship might go someday?
PAULIE DIDN'T think Mendoza would be much trouble for him. He
made a few calls to Miami and got the scoop on him. His pal,
Aldo Bucci, at Reynosa told him Mendoza was an old guy who ran
a company called Estrella Entertainment, which mostly contracted
out the services of Mexican pop singers for anytime they worked
this side of the border. He had a reputation as a hardass who
exploited the hell out of the talent, sold them high and paid
them low. Though he used some hired muscle to push people around,
they were supposed to be mostly two-bit Mexican hoods. He was
linked up to the Mexican Mafia, though, so he might have some
of their troops at his call. None of the West Coast families
had done any business with him, but Paulie thought it still would
be a good idea for them not to know one of Mr. Spinelli's boys
was in town, looking to whack Mendoza. Even if the branches got
along okay, it was an unwritten rule you didn't drop your pants
and do your business in the other guy's front yard.
Aldo also told Paulie he thought Mr. Spinelli was ticked off
that Mendoza was getting to be a big cheese just when the Latino
market was starting to hum. It was a small, but growing business
for the Spinelli crime family because they were able to work
with the Cubans in Miami, providing worldwide distribution. They
told him Mendoza was making real inroads, especially with the
Mexican performers, and Mr. Spinelli feared the action was starting
to shift toward L.A.
That made Paulie think his timing was just right to do the boss
a big favor while taking care of his own business. He doubted
Mendoza's men knew they'd trashed the car of a made man from
a New York crime family. If they figured out it was a hit, they'd
probably just think the L.A. mob was trying to move in on Estrella.
PAULIE SPENT the rest of the day scouting Mendoza's setup. The
layout was an office building on Wilshire, less than a mile from
where Paulie was staying. Estrella had the 19th and 20th floors.
With his field glasses, Paulie could see the windows had steel
shutters to discourage snipers. That wasn't a promising sign.
From that building, Estrella handled artist bookings and repackaged
Mexican-made tapes and CDs for the U.S. market.
Mendoza
lived in a rooftop apartment. Paulie visited a few other outfits
in the building. He counted maybe half a dozen security guys
wearing Mendoza's colors, but they were a bunch of burrito-bellies
who milled around the Estrella lobby on the 19th floor, trying
to make time with the foxy Latina clerks and secretaries while
they watched the traffic pass through the metal detector.
Paulie ate dinner in the ground floor coffee shop and chatted
up a middleaged waitress who'd been there for years. She told
him Mendoza was like the invisible man: Everybody knew he was
up there, but he never left the building. She said he was a gardening
freak and spent all his time on the roof. She said Mendoza had
a garden up there that had been written up in the L.A. Times
Sunday magazine. On his way out, Paulie saw the article--framed
and mounted in the lobby.
"He's had so much dirt hauled up there that the building
inspectors came around and told him he was putting too much stress
on the roof," the waitress had told him. "He musta
paid somebody off because that's all we ever heard about it--and
he's still haulin' in the dirt."
The following day, Paulie took the elevator to the rooftop restaurant
in the office tower across Wilshire from Mendoza's building.
He was thirty floors up, so he looked down on the old 20-story
building across the street. The waitress was right. Mendoza had
a friggin' Old MacDonald's farm up there, only with flowers instead
of vegetables. Paulie could see the old guy, wearing a straw
hat, dicking around with a watering can in one hand and an umbrella
in the other, shielding himself from the hot L.A. sun. Paulie
ate a long lunch and noticed Mendoza quit around two in the afternoon.
It looked like he took an elevator downstairs. Maybe that was
when he did his office duty at Estrella Entertainment.
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Paulie waited one more day and saw Mendoza follow the same routine,
just like he was punching a clock at the taco factory. So, he'd
have to get up to the roof somehow to get Mendoza alone, sometime
before two. He liked the idea. If he could make it look like
an accident, nobody would come after either Maria or the mob.
The trick would be getting past the security without attracting
attention. Paulie was used to that. In fact, it was his specialty.
He was average height and kind of slim. He definitely didn't
look like a wiseguy. He worked out, so he was in great shape,
but he wasn't heavily muscled. He was okay looking, but nothing
special, so even the receptionists didn't pay him much attention.
If he dressed like a tradesman, you saw right through him and
never even noticed he was there.
ON THE AFTERNOON of the second day, Paulie went to a uniform
supply place in the San Fernando Valley, bought a suit of coveralls
in his size and had them steam on a generic logo that just said
DELIVERIES. In the morning, he went back to the office tower
across the street and watched for Mendoza to appear on the roof
and start his gardening ritual. He gambled that Mendoza didn't
like to be disturbed when he gardened and wouldn't carry a cellphone.
Once Mendoza showed up, Paulie went back down to his rented car
and put on his coveralls. Then he loaded two big bags of potting
soil on a handtruck and wheeled it up the alley behind Mendoza's
building and into the freight elevator.
When
he stepped out on the 19th floor, he was eyed closely by two
security guys flanking the Estrella Entertainment receptionist.
"Where's the garden?" he asked. "Some old guy
called and raised holy hell about us sending the wrong stuff.
Said he needed this in an hour's time and I'm damn near late."
"Wait just a minute," the receptionist said, picking
up the phone. "You don't want to get on the wrong side of
Mr. Mendoza by being late."
She
dialed four numbers, which must have been the extension of Mendoza's
rooftop apartment. She waited a minute, then hung up. "He
must be out in the garden already. Go through there and you'll
see another elevator. Press the button that says 'roof.' Leave
the stuff right outside the elevator and come right back down."
Paulie started down the hall, but she stopped him.
"Whatever you do, don't stay long," she said. "He
doesn't like anybody else up there."
"Okay," he said and wheeled his dirt bags past the
two security guys and up to another guy standing by a metal detector.
This guard was a fat Mexican with an Alfonso Bedoya mustache
and a very mean look about him. He gestured for Paulie to turn
the hand truck over to him. The guy looked it over carefully,
then ran a long probe like an ice pick through each of the two
bags. They started leaking dirt when the guy wheeled the handtruck
around the metal detector, then motioned for Paulie to step through.
Even after he passed through, the guy used a hand-held scanner
to check Paulie out further. No bells or whistles went off.
Waved on, Paulie wheeled the bags into the small elevator at
the end of the hall and pressed "roof." Moments later,
he stepped out onto the roof. Looking around, he saw nobody,
so he popped the rubber hand grips off the handtruck and pulled
his weapons out of the hollow handle: A one-piece stiletto with
a six-inch blade and a slim leather sap, filled with lead shot.
Then he went looking for Mendoza.
He quickly sized up the layout: Living quarters to the rear,
the rest a large garden with gravel paths between flower beds,
rows of ornamental hedges and small trees in large containers.
There was a stairwell, which came out of a large, box-like utility
structure, topped by a water tank.
He found Mendoza bending over a bed of zinnias, digging happily
in the dirt like a kid in a sandbox. He approached through a
flower bed, so his feet wouldn't crunch on the gravel, but Mendoza
heard him anyway and turned around.
"What's this...?" the old man began. "Who are
you?"
"I'm the Pest Control Man," he said. "Maria Torres
and Bruno Spinelli asked me to pay you a call."
Mendoza
looked startled. He fumbled in his coveralls and came up with
an old .32, but Paulie kicked him in the groin and he dropped
it with a little yelp. Then Paulie leaned over and clipped Mendoza
hard on the temple with the sap.
Mendoza went out without a word, eyes wide open, staring at Paulie's
dirt-caked Reeboks. He looked pathetic, but Paulie never let
his conscience come after him at times like this. He knew Mendoza
was a rat-fuck and deserved to die. His arrangement with Mr.
Spinelli was simple: He would whack anybody they told him to,
as long as they were bad guys. He wouldn't do regular people.
They could get all kinds of volunteers for those jobs. He just
did bad guys, so he never had any trouble sleeping at night.
He was real good at handling the tough jobs, so Mr. Spinelli
went along with him on that.
Paulie
bent over and picked up the old guy, who weighed nothing. He
carried him over to the parapet. The old guy had a contented
kind of look on his face, like he was dreamin' of walkin' barefoot
in fresh compost.
"This is for my car," Paulie said and rolled Mendoza
over head first, dropping him 20 stories to the concrete service
alley.
He
was tempted to lean out far enough to see where Mendoza landed,
but he didn't want anybody spotting a head peering over the side
of the building. Instead, he turned to hurry back down the staircase--and
found himself looking into the business end of a sawed-off shotgun
held by a muscular Mexican who had just stepped out of the stairwell.
He had an even meaner look on his face than the metal detector
guy.
"Who the fuck are you?" the Mexican asked, butting
the gun barrel into Jack's chest. "Where's Mendoza? He don'
like nobody up here without his permission."
"Relax, Gordo," said Paulie. "Your boss just decided
to drop out of sight."
The Mexican sentry looked puzzled. Then Paulie dropped the sap
on a water bucket with a loud noise and the Mexican looked down,
which was all the distraction Paulie needed to bat the shotgun
away with his left hand and shove the guy hard. The heavy man
lost his balance and went over on his back in a bed of petunias.
Paulie stepped on the wrist of the guy's trigger hand, but couldn't
stop the man's finger pressure. The shotgun went off with a roar,
missing Paulie's leg by an inch or so, but blowing a huge hole
in the side of the big water tank behind him. Cursing, Paulie
bent over and jammed the stiletto up the guy's left nostril and
into his brain. Blood gushed from the Mexican's nose while water
fountained from the holed tank.
"So much for my quiet getaway," Paulie mumbled to himself.
His ears still were ringing from the shotgun blast, but he imagined
alarm bells were going off all over the joint by now.
No point in the subtle approach now. Paulie took a deep breath
and picked up the dead guy's shotgun, which still had several
shells loaded. By the time he had the staircase door open, two
more burly Mexicans were halfway up the steps to the roof, huffing
and puffing. They were the 19th floor security guys. One was
carrying an Uzi. His head jerked up in surprise at seeing a delivery
man levelling a shotgun at him. It was the last thing he ever
saw. Paulie blasted his face off at close range, then exploded
another round down the stairwell at the guy next in line. The
Ouzi went off, making a hell of a noise in the stairwell. It
was beginning to sound like an off season Cinco de Mayo fireworks
display.
Retreating to the roof, he slammed the door behind him. He knew
the next guys up those stairs wouldn't be so easily surprised.
He looked around and saw some of Mendoza's gardening tools propped
against a wheelbarrow loaded with more bags of potting soil.
Paulie grabbed a shovel from the stack and jammed it under the
door, then heaved the heavy sacks against it. That might hold
them off a few minutes, but not much longer.
He
turned and stepped in a large puddle of water. The old water
tank was hemorrhaging water through the shotgun hole and the
roof soon would be awash. Paulie saw the pooling water top the
lip of the stairwell and start spilling down the steps to the
blocked doorway. He thought maybe this could work for him, so
he emptied the shotgun at the tank and tons of water burst through
one side onto the garden area.
His next job was the elevator. Paulie knew it wasn't a viable
escape route because it opened right into the 19th floor security
station. But he had to stop Mendoza's boys using it to bring
more firepower after him.
There was a spade and a short-handled hoe in the wheelbarrow.
He grabbed them and ran to the elevator. With the spade, he pried
open the doors and saw the elevator already ascending toward
the roof, no doubt loaded with gunmen. Stretching as far as he
could over the shaft, he reached the pulley wheel mechanism above
the cables and tried to jam the metal end of the hoe into it,
but it wouldn't fit.
"Damn it to hell!" he swore, dropping the hoe into
the elevator shaft.
The elevator was past the 19th floor, just a few yards away.
He had one more chance to stop it: The shotgun. Grabbing the
coaming around the top of the elevator door, he swung out over
the shaft and jabbed at the pulley with the six-inch stub of
shotgun barrel. It neatly slipped between cable and pulley and,
with a horrendous screech, halted the rise of the elevator cab.
The gun barrel started to crumple slightly, then held. If he
was lucky, an elevator full of killers was now stuck between
floors.
Now that he had blocked both ways into the penthouse, Paulie
knew he had to find a way out before the troops battered down
the doors. He heard no sirens yet, so he figured there was still
a chance to get out alive. He knew Mendoza's men would try to
make sure he was dead before letting any cops or firemen in.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the layout of the building.
He knew the alley side was windowless down to the 18th floor.
The three other sides were almost identical--floor to ceiling
glass windows, but now the steel shutters would be locked tight.
Then Paulie remembered something: On the side facing Wilshire,
there was an open patio area of some kind. During his surveillance,
he remembered seeing tables with umbrellas there. It must be
some kind of lunch room or cafeteria for the offices directly
below the Estrella Entertainment floors.
He headed back into Mendoza's garden. Just a few steps from the
penthouse, he found himself knee deep in water. It wouldn't take
long for all that water to find its way through the vents into
the rest of the building. That ought to bring the fire department
pretty damn fast. It could be just the diversion he'd need to
get out of the building--if he could somehow get off the goddamned
roof!
Splashing through the soggy garden, Paulie hitched himself up
on the ledge and peered over. He could see the patio opening
three floors down, bordered by thick planter boxes with low hedges
growing inside. He also made the mistake of letting his eyes
drift further down to the busy street 20 stories below. He felt
a sickening tug at his guts.
"Don't let this be the only way out!" he told himself,
knowing he probably wouldn't have time to find another.
Nearly 10 minutes had passed since Paulie blocked the stairwell
and already he could hear them pounding on the door with what
sounded like fireaxes. He looked around for a rope or anything
he could imagine using to lower himself down to the open patio.
He saw nothing of the kind--except a neatly coiled length of
green garden hose attached to a faucet. He picked it up and felt
it. Warmed by the hot L.A. sun, it felt squishy and malleable.
The faucet end looked sound enough, but would the connection
hold the weight of a 160-pound man? It looked like about seventy-five
feet long, which ought to be enough, but would the hose stretch
and rip once he put his weight on it?
There was only one way to find out. Paulie unreeled the hose
as fast as he could, passing it in one loose loop around the
guard rail, then dropping it over the side. When he got it all
over the edge, he was happy to see it stretched about 10 feet
below the patio opening. Would it be stronger if he turned the
water on and let the hose fill? He thought it might, but he also
feared getting the goddamn hose so wet that he'd slip right off
the end of it.
"What the hell," he grumbled. What would be, would
be. He took a deep breath, looped the hose once around his shoulder
and backed over the ledge. As he dropped over the side, he heard
the unmistakable wail of sirens in the distance.
Paulie's weight immediately closed the loop over the railing
and tightened it down to the size of a narrow ribbon. The wind
began to buffet him, but he managed to lean back far enough to
"walk" down the slick concrete wall of the building
without his feet being blown out from under him. He worked downward
as fast as he could and quietly blessed himself for wearing rubber-soled
Reeboks.
Before he reached the opening, Paulie heard a distant crash and
felt a heavy spray of water sprinkle his face, almost like a
sudden cloudburst. He almost lost his grip. Slimy water was starting
to run down the hose, so he increased his speed and soon had
his feet on the lip of the patio ledge. Squirming, he was finally
able to get over the edge of the planter box and out of the gusting
wind and faint water spray from above. But he was still so deathly
afraid to release his hold on the hose that he almost pushed
himself back out of the opening when he felt someone grab his
legs.
"I've got you, I've got you," someone yelled. "You're
okay."
Paulie crooked his neck and looked past the shrubbery to see
a young woman pulling at his legs. She was wearing a work smock
and didn't look like she was trying to kill him. He was too tired
to resist anyway, so he let go of the hose and fell into the
patio, knocking the woman on her butt and tipping over a patio
table, umbrella and all.
"Is anybody else trapped up there?" she asked, getting
to her feet. "Did the roof really cave in?"
"I think something blew up," he said. "We better
get the hell out of here."
Paulie unzipped his now filthy coveralls and stepped out of them.
He was wearing a light sweater and jeans underneath. He took
the surprised worker by the arm and walked her into the hallway
in a din of alarm bells. Most of the other workers had avoided
the lobby elevator and had crowded into the stairwells, so they
joined the pack and walked down a mile of stairs to the street,
where he quickly melted into a mob of gawkers watching firemen
stream into the building.
LATER THAT afternoon, Paulie turned on the radio in his rental
car as he pulled onto the eastbound Ventura Freeway. They were
just getting details on the weird accident in a building in the
Wilshire "Miracle Mile" district: A water tank had
burst, flooding the rooftop garden atop an older 20-story office
building. The rooftop must have had an illegal concentration
of topsoil on it and all the water added tons to the weight,
finally caving in the ceiling of the floor below, flooding the
upper two stories with tons of water, mud and other debris. Los
Angeles fire officials said it might be days before the bodies
of several office workers could be recovered and identified.
"Messy, too damn messy," Paulie told himself. "I'm
gonna hear about this one."
He was right about that. The call came from Mr. Spinelli after dinner that night. The coroner had dug some gunshot victims out of the mud on the 19th floor. Now the cops were all over the place, asking questions. Somebody in Mendoza's outfit was putting out the word there was a mob hit on the old man and maybe a gunfight on top of the roof. They were starting to think Mendoza didn't fall when the roof collapsed, but maybe was murdered.
"This isn't good, Paulie," said Mr. Spinelli. "By now, the Mex organizaton knows this was a hit. If they go after anybody in the L.A. outfit because of this, then their people are going to wonder why one of my people really was in town. You could wind up with everybody lookin' for you--the Mexicans, the Fontinella family and the cops."
"Wait a minute, Mr. Spinelli," said Paulie. "Why would the L.A. people know I was in town? I didn't tell nobody."
There was a long silence. Finally, Mr. Spinelli spoke: "You been a good boy for me, Paulie. But you screwed up. I hadda cut my losses."
"You told 'em it was me?" said Paulie. "You set me up? Why, Mr. Spinelli?"
Mr. Spinelli didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Paulie was beginning to get the picture. He was supposed to whack Mendoza all along. But Mr. Spinelli didn't want the L.A. mob to know he was cutting in on Mendoza's business in territory that should be left to the Fontinella brothers. So he found a reason why one of his "boys" might have gone independent to whack a crime figure on their turf.
"It wasn't Mendoza's boys who trashed my car, was it?" Paulie finally said. "Did you have somebody hassle Maria, too?"
Spinelli chuckled. "You always were a smart one, Paulie," he said. "We knew he was after her because we were after her, too. We didn't know what else he'd done to her, but when we found out you were sweet on her--well, we saw a real opportunity there."
"You played both of us," said Paulie. "Now they're gonna come for me and you're in the clear."
There
was a dead moment before Spinelli spoke again.
"You been a good boy for us, Paulie," he said. "But
you're really not a team player, you know? We do what we gotta
do when we gotta do it--and this was the time to cut you loose.
Anyway, if I was you, Paulie, I'd rearrange my vacation plans
about now. I don't think you're gonna find the next 24 hours
too relaxing."
That was true. Paulie was beginning to feel like a termite in a house that had just been bagged for fumigation. But the important thing was he wasn't dead yet. He had a lot to do if he wanted to come out of this vacation alive. It was time to move.
"Have a good laugh on me this time," he told Spinelli before hanging up, "but don't start thinkin' this is over yet. I did some pest control for you out here--and now it's time for you to pay my bill."
© 2000 by Ron Miller. The skull-tower illustration is ©
2000 by Jim Hummel. The other illustrations are from IMSI's Master/Clips
Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd., San Rafael, CA 94901-5506.
Tell us what
you think of this story or contact Ron Miller by sending an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
Ron
Miller has published a dozen short stories in national magazines.
He's also the author of "Mystery!--A Celebration,"
official companion book to the PBS "Mystery!" series.
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