Cigar Bar (16 page)

The crowd was jamming as Tony danced behind the glass. Becky went to the back and joined him.

Tony looked out at the judge, sitting front-row center with a new young Latin girl as his date. Hanging out with pretty, young women was his thing. Tony shook his head. Then he saw something. A man walked up to the judge and said something to him. Judge Matthews’ face had fear written on it. He got up and swiftly exited through the front door, leaving behind his date and his coat.

“Who’s that man with the judge?” Tony asked as Becky looked on.

“You mean Charlie? Yeah, Charlie’s the head of a not-so-nice group of young thugs that terrorize this area, but how they know him I couldn’t tell you, baby.”

They sat back there. It amazed him how she was able to reach out to all these people. She never told him how she knew. Becky was the major reason for their success.

“You know, I wanna tell you something,” Tony said, pulling Becky up into his arms. “If it wasn’t for you, none of this shit would be happening.”

She smiled. “No, you’re the one who decided to stay off that bullshit. I was here to make sure you were okay.”

Then they kissed while the crowd jammed to Stevie. He believed that his world, for that moment, was okay.

But all good things must come to an end.

The Next Morning

Tony drove down to the airport in his black Lincoln. Flaco was already there. He simply wanted to scoop him up and leave, trying not to be seen. When he pulled up, Flaco was out there talking to some young girl. He didn’t even see him.

Tony blew the horn. Flaco turned and said, “Oh shit! My bad, Tony. This is…” Before Flaco could finish the introduction, Tony rolled up the window and pulled the car up a few feet. Flaco ran up to the car. “Yo, what the fuck, man?”

“I told you I don’t know anybody here and I don’t want to.”
Maybe this was a bad idea
, Tony thought. “Hey, get the fuck in!”

Flaco trotted back, got his bags, and threw them into the trunk. He exchanged numbers with the girl and sat in the car.

Tony knew at that point. “Shit!” he said. “I have the perfect face for this thing already, Becky.” He looked at Flaco. “I can’t make him security.” Tony knew that nobody would be intimidated by Flaco, so he figured he’d let Flaco run the bar, hoping that he wouldn’t screw it up.

“Tony, my man! What up?”

“Danny, listen up. This shit here is serious. I’m building something, but I’m way in the backfield, so you can’t come down here with that Bronx bullshit. We’re on a different level now. Cool?”

“Yo, no problem, Tony. Damn! You never called me Danny before. I know this shit is real,” Flaco realized.

“Just keep your head down, do your job, and we won’t have any problems,” Tony insisted.

“I got you! Chill, nigga! Fuck!”

As the Lincoln left the airport and entered the highway, neither man noticed a taxi with the young girl in it had pulled right behind them.

“Yo, Spazo.”

“Hey, Sasha. What up, Mama?”

“Yeah, I got a tail on your boy here. He just jumped into a Lincoln. There’s a white boy driving, but I don’t know if it’s
your
white boy. We took a plane out to Seattle, Washington. I’m gonna stay as close to him as I can, then I’ll get back to you.”

“Cool. Thanks, baby girl.” Spazo hung up the phone, then turned to Ghetto, “Yo, I think we got this motherfucker, G. That Flaco motherfucker took a plane to Seattle! Sasha is on him.”

“Good, my nigga. I’m tired of not doing anything. It’s been almost a fuckin’ year and this fuck still has Dawn and we ain’t made no gotdamn moves! Let’s fuckin’ bounce!” Spazo called Mr. Y. “Yeah, look it, I have some info for you. We think your boy is out in Seattle. I’ll let you know more when I have this motherfucker in front of me,” he said.

“Very good.”

“Yo, tell my sister I’m comin’ to get her, and then you and I have some unfinished business,” he said.

“You see, that’s why I like you,” Mr. Y said. “Even though I have your balls in a tight grip, you still find the time to threaten me. Good. Very good for you. If this thing works out, maybe we can work together.”

“Fuck you!” Spazo said. “Just let my fuckin’ sister go!”

“How about this? You come to my office and we talk business now. How about I bring your sister along?”

“Wait, what the fuck? You tryin’ to pull some shit?” Spazo inquired.

The Ukrainian mobster responded with, “No shit being pulled. Please, come meet with me, Mr. Spazo.”

“Okay, we’re on our way. Where do you want to meet?”

Spazo got the address and then said to Ghetto. “Listen, I don’t fuckin’ trust this nigga, G! What should we do?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have a couple of our people set up around the perimeter a couple blocks away. If some shit jumps off, cool. And you know I
always
got a backup.” Ghetto showed him the small .38 tucked in a secret pocket in his jeans.

“Cool,” Spazo said. Spazo pulled up to the location with Ghetto. It was a small restaurant that served Ukrainian dishes only. They could tell by the appearance of the place that the only customers they had were the old-school gangsters who sat out front.

When they walked in, they were met by two huge bodyguards who patted them down and relieved them of their weapons. One man pointed to the rear of the restaurant. As they walked to the back, they saw Dawn seated at a table with Mr. Y. In front of them was a full table of delicious-smelling food. Dawn was digging in; she had a sample of everything on her plate.

With a thick accent, Mr. Y said, “Please, sit and eat!” When she saw her brother, Dawn ran up to him and hugged him tightly. The guard was about to stop her, but Mr. Y held his hand up and stopped the man.

“So, here we have
borscht
; it’s how Americans would call soup. We have
varenyky
; it is like dumpling and is very good. Here we have
salo
. And, ah, my favorite:
holubtsi
; it is stuffed cabbage.”

Spazo looked at him. Ghetto was looking at the food. “Shit, I don’t mind if I do,” he said, taking a plate and piling it high with scrumptious food.

Spazo said, “So, what can I do for you, Mr. Y?”

“I like! Right to business. Please, have seat.” Mr. Y was cordial. “Here it is. We have figured it all out. We understand that you have maybe found this guy for us. Good. Very good. But now, you see, we have new problem.” Then the men had shotguns put in their faces.

They threw their hands in the air. “What the fuck?”

Mr. Y walked around the table. “You see, I know it was you who went to the guy’s house, and it was you who stole all my money and my guns!”

“Wait! What? Oh shit! We didn’t know it was your shit! I swear we didn’t. Fuck!” Spazo said, not with fear, but with confidence and smugness, as if to say, “So what the fuck about it?” Ghetto just kept on eating. “You know what? Fuck this! You got us. You gon’ take us out? Hurry the fuck up and get it done, but let my sister get the fuck out of here!” Spazo said, pushing the man’s shotgun out of his face. “Because I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

“Relax!” Mr. Y said, ordering his men to lower their weapons. “You’re all free to go, but I need you to finish up something for me. I need you and your friend here to take three of my men with you to find this man. He is the one I am looking for.”

When Spazo saw the picture, he froze. “Wait, this is the motherfucker that was with Frankie!” He looked at his sister. “You were with this motherfucker? He had just bought, like, five grand worth of shit from me. So, wait…he was with Frankie! Oh shit!
Gotdamn!
A lot of shit is starting to come together.”

“And they knew each other, the Spanish guy and this guy,” Mr. Y explained. “This why I know you didn’t mean to take my things. In fact, you made it more interesting, to say the least. All I ask is that you return the weapons and the money, then that matter will be no more. But what I really need is…” He put his arm around Spazo and walked just a bit farther from the table. Ghetto was acutely aware, even from his seated position. With fork in hand, he managed to slip the hidden .38 into his hand.

He continued. “My people don’t know English too well,” Mr. Y said. “I need you to take a few of my men with you. My nephew Ivan will let me know when all the pieces have come together. Until then, I need you to look out for him. When you return, I believe we can sit and discuss business. As a good gesture, your little sister is free to go with you.”

Spazo, with his new suit on, looked real smooth. He laughed and pushed Mr. Y’s hand off of his shoulder. “Let me get this straight, man. You held my sister all this time, against her
gotdamn
will, no less, and now you want me to fuckin’ come and work for you?!
Shiit!
Look here. Number one: I work for no fuckin’ body! The man you see right there is my partner, and we run our own fuckin’ thing! We don’t need any fuckin’ foreigners invading our fuckin’ space! And number two: You got your guns, but the money, I don’t fuckin’ know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Then he laughed.

One of Mr. Y’s guards pulled his gun and put it in Dawn’s face. Ghetto knew what was about to go down, and he reacted quickly. In a matter of seconds, he was on his feet, threw a knife to Spazo, and put the gun in the bodyguard’s mouth. Spazo snatched the knife out of midair, put Mr. Y in a chokehold, and held the sharp knife to his throat.

Dawn, quick to follow suit, grabbed the assault rifle from the guard that Ghetto had. They had them dead to rights or at least they thought.

“Ha-ha, bravo!” Mr. Y laughed loudly as he put his hands together and applauded.

Spazo and Ghetto looked at each other. “What the fuck are you clapping for? Stop fuckin’ clapping, man!” Spazo demanded.

Mr. Y snapped his fingers and, in less than a second, more than ten mercenaries showed up from nowhere, carrying assault rifles. They easily disarmed the trio.

“Fuck!” Ghetto said. “Oh well.” Then he sat back down and continued to eat.

Mr. Y called out to the man at the door in Ukrainian, telling him to come over. “Please, have seat now. Please,” Mr. Y demanded to Spazo and Dawn. “You know, I have to admire a man such as yourself, Mr. Spazo. Even after all of the things you have seen us do, you still managed to get the drop on me. I must say, bravo!” He applauded again. The guard who stood at the door came in. “Did you search this man?” Mr. Y asked the guard, pointing to Ghetto, who was swallowing the stuffed cabbage.

In his language, the guard screamed “Yes!” and stood at attention.

Mr. Y was surrounded by his men. They had their guns pointed at Spazo and Ghetto. He uttered one word in his language, and his men stood at attention, their guns down by their sides. He walked over to the man who had frisked Ghetto.

“You see, the difference between you and I, Mr. Spazo, is this…” He took the side arm from the guard. “…when people in my organization screw up, they must pay a price. What that price depends on, um, how you say…how bad they fuck up?” He smiled at them. Ghetto, still eating, wiped his face and reached for something else on the table. Mr. Y looked at him and shook his head. He smiled at Ghetto. “’Tis good food, no?”

“It’s cool. I just smoked a fat-ass blunt, and I’m hungry as a motherfucker! And it’s here.”

“Anyway, back to the matter at hand?” Mr. Y asked jokingly, as if to ask Ghetto for permission to return to what he was doing.

“Oh yeah, my bad.” He took a swig of the drink that he’d poured. “Proceed, big man.”

Mr. Y continued. “As I was saying, the price of this one here I feel is most extreme.” He turned to speak to his man. “You allowed a man with a gun to gain access to my establishment.” Then he stood in front of the man and raised his gun to his head. The guard stood taller as Mr. Y said in Ukrainian, “Thank you for nothing.”
Boom!
He was shot dead. Mr. Y handed the gun to one of the other men, then sat back down in front of Spazo. He picked up his fork and began to eat. His nephew Ivan walked in and whispered something in his ear. The Ukrainian said, “We must finish. I have other business to attend.”

Spazo laughed.
If only this motherfucker knew how many bodies I have under me.

He continued. “Now, Ivan will be going with you. I need some company. Miss Dawn, can you please join me?” He stood and held his arm out to Dawn.

“Wait! What the fuck, man? You said she could come with me!”

“Yes, that was before you put a knife to my neck! Please, go with Boris.” One of the guards grabbed Dawn. Mr. Y got right in Spazo’s face. “Somebody like you is just a stain in my underwear, you black nigger! If I didn’t need you, I would have had you chopped up into pieces a long time ago! If not for your little sister… Now, you will go find these motherfuckers, and you will eliminate them! Maybe, just maybe, I will let her go.” Ghetto stood up, along with Spazo. When they rose up, so did the guns. “Now get the fuck out of here before I change my mind!”

The mercenaries shoved them outside. “Motherfuckers!” Spazo said.

“Let’s head on down to the airport. Cool?” They jumped into the car and pulled off. He picked his phone up, “Hey, Sasha, we’re on our way.”

CHAPTER 11

• • •

Paulie sat in his house
alone. All he’d done over the past few months was drink day and night. Every once in a while, somebody stopped in to check on him.

Mrs. Santoro came knocking on his door, a plate of food in hand. As he opened the door, he realized he hadn’t seen his surrogate mother in a long time, ever since all that shit went down. He didn’t know how he should feel about her, even though she never did anything but feed his sister and him. But she was also the woman who spawned the demon who destroyed his little sister’s life.

“Hi, Mrs. Santoro. How can I help you?” he asked as he opened the door, allowing her entry.

“Paulie, I haven’t seen or heard from you in a while. I saw you when you came in this house, and you never left. All I see is those guys bringing you bottles of liquor, and never once did I see someone bring you a burger or anything. So, here, I bought you some spaghetti and meatballs. You have to eat something, Paulie.”

He smiled as he accepted the plate. “Thank you, Mrs. Santoro.”

“Now, what are you gonna do about your sister? Are you gonna sit here and do nothing, or are you gonna act.?”

He looked at her and rose to his feet. A thought popped in his head, he decided to jump in his car and handle it.

Mrs. Santoro was happy that she lit a fire under him and walked into his kitchen to put the plate in the microwave.

Paulie drove around Morningside Park, thinking of anything he could to try and find his sister, It was early in the day, so he thought it might be a waste of time, but gave it a shot. He saw a couple of people sitting in the park and talking. He walked over to them and pulled out his phone. He pulled up a picture of his sister and started showing it to people,

“Has anybody seen this girl around anywhere? I’m giving a thousand dollars to anybody who can give me some info.” Nobody knew anything.

Just as he was about to give up and look elsewhere, he saw one more girl walking toward him. “Excuse me, I need your help. I’m looking for my sister.” Paulie pulled up the picture and showed it to the girl. “Have you seen her anywhere?” The girl looked at the picture and froze. She didn’t know if she should say anything. Paulie saw the look in her eyes. “Wait, you
did
see her!” He grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Where the fuck did you see her at? Tell me!”

“Ow,” the girl hollered, “you’re hurting me!”

“Sorry,” he said sincerely. He let her go, then reached into his pocket and pulled out $1000. “Give me any information that might help me find her.” He shoved the money into her hand.

She dug into her pocketbook and handed him the piece of paper. On it was scribbled:
Black Civic
and a license plate number. She said, “I seen a creepy-ass man put her in that car. She was high and I had just had a fight in the park. I tried to fuckin’ catch up to her, but I caught up too fuckin’ late.”

Paulie looked at her. “How long ago was that?”

“It was a while ago, but I can’t exactly remember.”

“Thanks,” he said. He went to his car and took off. He called Don Veto. “I got a lead on Sherry. Don Veto, I need you to help trace a plate number.”

Don Veto called another one of his sources in the police department and got an address, and then called Paulie back. “Hey, Paulie, meet me and Sal over at the restaurant. Let’s go over this.”

Paulie responded, “On my way, Don Veto.”

The Den of Horror

It was a modest house out in the suburbs of Queens. If you looked outside, you would have thought it a nice neighborhood, but what the residents didn’t know was that one particular house was filled with horror,

Under his house, the man built a concrete fortress, and in that fortress were six cages. Next to the cages was another room where he did all his “artwork.”

His name was John Smith, one of the most common names you could ever come up with. He was an accountant for a major firm in Manhattan, which is where he first got the itch to kill. It was about 20 years ago when he went out on break from his job and decided to walk around Central Park.

He saw the little hookers running through the park. One day, one of them asked him if he wanted a blow job. “Sure,” he said. While she was sucking his dick, another hooker came up behind him, put a knife to his back, and the pair robbed him. They chose the perfect day because he had just cashed his check and was going to pay his mortgage.

Well, they had gotten away with $1500, and all he had was a hard dick. He went back every day after that and looked for the pair but could never find them. Rage grew inside and he began to pray and ask for assistance from evil spirits. He felt, for some reason, that he was told to build a secret room.

And now here he was, 20 years later and ten bodies in. He became progressively worse, now feeling as if he needed to heal them, and the only way to do that was to plant the seed in them while chanting and branding. He would kidnap the women and hold them for at least four months before he performed his ritual.

He fed them every day but never said a word to them. Chained to small cages on the wall were four women,

“Please, can you please let us go?” was all you heard on a daily basis, their cries going unheard and their fat uncertain. All they heard was screaming pain coming from the other room.

“What the fuck do you want with us?” Sherry screamed out to the man as he walked in with four bowls of broth and two small crackers on a plate.

He slid them in front of each cage, then stepped out the room. When he did, a small door opened on each cage that was big enough for the girls to grab their food.

Over the past few months, the girls had been getting to know each other. There were Sherry, Melissa, Lori, and Patricia. Just like the others, when she’d first arrived, Sherry had to kick the drugs without any help. Each girl had gotten sick inside the cages. They were not allowed to use the bathroom, so when they pissed or shitted, they did it on themselves, and if they did, he wouldn’t clean them until it was time for the ritual, so it smelled horrible down there.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” one girl asked fearfully.

“Stop asking that damn question!” Lori, the other white girl, said. “What the fuck do you think he’s gonna do with us? We’re locked in a fucking dungeon, and every few weeks we hear screams, and then a new person shows up.”

“Shut the fuck up” Sherry and Melissa say in unison.

“Yeah, shut the fuck up. I think we can get the fuck outta here,” Melissa says. “Lori, if you feel like crying, go right ahead and do it. Shit, we all fucked up.”

It got quiet, then Sherry threw up again and again.

“Damn, girl, you are pregnant,” Melissa said to her,

Shit
, she thought to herself. She prayed and hoped it was Tony’s, but she knew those guys had raped her when she was high, and she didn’t know how long that shit was going on. And now she was in a fucking dungeon about to die.

“Fuck, I know,” Sherry says, spitting, “and we are gonna get the fuck out of here. I’m not having my baby in no fuckin’ dungeon.”

The girls sat in silence and sipped on their broth as the hours passed.

Then he came in, mask on his face, and walked over to Lori’s cage. She began to scream. “No, no! Please leave me alone!” She tried her best to move, to no avail.

He walked right up to her cage and stuck a needle in her thigh; she fell fast asleep.

“Leave her alone, godammit!”

“Stop!”

Each girl screamed out, attempting to stop the man. Their screams fell on deaf ears. He acted as if no one was there except for him and his new girl. He carried her into his den and placed her on a cold, steel table.

“Oh man, you stink!” he said, removing the hair from the comatose woman’s face. He leaned in and took a stronger sniff of the girl’s pungent odor. “Ah,” he said as he gently peeled her clothes from her body. “Wow!” He lifted her leg, then said, “It appears when I was coming to get you, you had a little accident. Aw!”

He used her torn and tattered dress to clean her. Her blonde hair was now brown from months of lying in the dirt. When he finished, he gently took her clothes over to a giant tub. When he opened the tub, the foulest stench polluted the air. Every time he removed a girl’s months-old clothing, he would toss them into a tub that was filled with feces and blood. It had been marinating for years.

Now it was time. He strapped the girl to the table, removed his pants, shirt, and underwear, and then sat in the vat of vile fluid. There was everything from body parts to piles of human feces and gallons of urine and blood. The smell would make the most seasoned medical examiner vomit. This was his calling, however. As he soaked his body in the vat, he chanted, calling for the strength to make his next sacrifice worthy of the master. “Now that you’ve sent me this angel, I feel worthy. Master, I thank you!”

He removed himself from the tub, dripping and smelly. The man walked up to the table and mounted the girl. He looked down and saw that his equipment was ready. He inserted himself into the young girl while chanting. Then he inserted a needle into her, and she slowly came to. As she awakened, she looked up and saw him. The smell hit her and she screamed and threw up all over them.

“Ahh!” He thrust himself deeper into her while reaching for his pen.
“Doo doo waa doo waa hee,”
he chanted. With his pen, he burned the words into her flesh in giant letters.

“Ahhh!” she screamed loudly, which made him thrust harder.

He continued.
“Eeee wan shoooon do boty she neeeeee!”
As he chanted each satanic verse, he wrote it in big letters all over her body. The blood was evaporated by the heat. The pain was so intense that she passed out.

He slowly pushed the needle again to awaken her. “Ah! Ouch!
Help
meee!!
Oh God!!” She screamed for 15 minutes as he thrust and writhed, eventually releasing his load. He took the hot pen, having timed it perfectly with his ejaculation, and pushed it straight down into her heart. He uttered the final chant.
“Shontoooo! Veeveeeeee!”
Then he collapsed on top of the girl and fell asleep inside of her. He took his nasty thumb and stuck it right in his mouth, sucking it as if he was a baby.

Inside the dungeon, Sherry and the two other girls were losing hope that they would ever be found. All three frightened and exhausted women cried together in their cages of horror, waiting and wondering who would be next.

The Next Night

The girls were awakened by the man, and for the first time he spoke. “My gift from the master. The master tells me it is your turn to stand before him.” The man rushed in and stuck Sherry with the needle—or at least he thought he did. He actually stuck the needle right inside her pants, but she played like she was sleeping,

As he carried her to the room and placed her on the table, he said, “My, my, you are beautiful, but, boy, do you stink! The master has requested a special ceremony for you.” Believing that she was asleep, he turned to walk into a closet.

She reached over, grabbed what looked like a knife, and ran full speed toward the open door. To her dismay, it was locked. “No!” She screamed as he caught up to her.

“Oh, the master was right. You are special,” he said.

Sherry stabbed at him with the knife. He laughed, then shut the power off. Only a blue light shone from the back. The echo of the other girls’ screams was chilling. Sherry had never been so terrified in her life. She had made up her mind that if she survived, she would never do drugs again. She felt her way along the walls but didn’t know what room she was in. Then she opened a door, and Lori fell from the ceiling. Although she no longer looked like Lori, Sherry knew that it was her. She screamed hysterically; that’s when he came up behind her. John covered her face with a chloroform-soaked rag. Luckily, she was able to stab him a few times with the knife.

“Ahh!” he screamed, as she poked him once in his face. Then she got him in the shoulder before she passed out.

• • •

Sal, Paulie, and a couple of goons were outside of a house in Queens. “Do you think she’s in there, Sal?” Paulie asked.

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

They looked around the neighborhood. “This is like one of them areas where old people live. I think an aunt of mine has a house a couple fuckin’ blocks from here,” Sal replied.

“So what do we do?” Paulie asked.

“Fuck, let’s do it!” Sal said, cocking his favorite shotgun. They exited the car and Sal directed Paulie and one of his goons to go around the back. “Get in as fuckin’ soundlessly as possible! Be quiet as fuck, you hear me?”

They made their way to the back, with Sal up front, guiding the men. They searched the place as if they were the police. They explored room to room, from the top floor down to the lower level.

John Smith heard footsteps upstairs. Something was going on in his house. “Shh!” he instructed an unconscious Sherry. “I think the master has made his presence known. Oh joy!” he said, beginning to prepare for the ritual. “The master will want me to do this in front of him.”

He stripped his clothes off and dove headfirst into the vat. He stood and said, “This one is for you, Master!” He dipped his head into the swill and swallowed. He got a bucket and dipped it into the putrid liquid and walked over to the table where Sherry lay.

Meanwhile, Paulie and the men had entered the house. “There’s nothing upstairs,” Paulie said.

“Yeah, down here is empty too,” Sal replied. He motioned toward the basement door. Sal opened the door and they raised their guns.

The smell that emanated was just awful. It hit their nostrils and made each man dry heave. “What the
fuck
is that?” Paulie asked, pulling his shirt up above his nose.

The men crept downstairs, where it was dank and dark but for one light in a room.

“Von teeee boon neeee!”
John chanted.

“Hey, there’s someone back there!” Sal said.

“I must enter you for the master.” John mounted Sherry. He inserted himself into her and then poured the contents of the bucket onto her. She awoke on her own and screamed. The more she screamed, the harder he thrust.