House of the Rising Sun (29 page)

“Sorry. Sometimes I've got to make a joke to keep from crying. Besides, I said my
old job
.”

Tony had to give the old guy credit. He was tough. The Rabbit had been watching TV while Mrs. Rabbit cleaned up the kitchen. Charlie had answered the door, surprise showing on his face when he'd seen Tony. He must have known it wasn't a social call because he tried to slam the door, but Tony stiff-armed
it open and rushed inside, Joey and the freshly bandaged Rocco following behind.

Now Charlie sat in a dining room chair, wrists and ankles taped to the armrests and legs, a dishrag jammed in his mouth. Mrs. Liuzza was on the kitchen floor, dead, a lamp cord looped around her neck.

Tony hit Charlie again. More blood from the Rabbit's already pulverized face spewed onto Tony's shirt.

After they were inside the house and had gotten everyone settled down, Tony had hung his jacket and silk tie on the coat rack by the door, but his starched white shirt with the French cuffs was ruined. His knuckles were sore and he needed a break, so he said again, “Tell me what you were doing at Hobnobber's with Ray Shane.”

Charlie's eyes were a sea of blood from the burst capillaries, but still the answer in them was clear. He wasn't going to talk.

Tony slugged him once more, this time an uppercut to the body, and was rewarded with the unmistakable feel of bone on bone as Charlie's cracked ribs grated against each other. The Rabbit groaned through the rag and slumped forward.

They had started out easy. After they got the Rabbit tied into the chair, Joey had dragged his wife into the dining room, and Tony had smacked Charlie a couple of times. He asked him why he had been with Shane and where Shane was now. But the old guy wouldn't talk, so Tony had to get rougher, laying in solid punches, splitting an eyebrow and knocking out two teeth.

Still the Rabbit wouldn't say anything. A nod from Tony, and Joey pushed Mrs. Rabbit down on top of the dinner table. Shoving his hand up her dress had got her screaming. It also got Charlie screaming. He was threatening and cursing so loudly that Tony had to stuff a rag into his mouth to keep the neighbors from hearing him.

Joey wound some duct tape around the old girl's head to shut her up, then pulled her off the table and dragged her into the
kitchen. The Rabbit wrenched his arms and legs, trying to tear himself loose from the chair. Tears streamed down his face as the sounds came out of the kitchen, bodies flopping on the linoleum floor, fabric tearing, heavy grunting.

Through the five minutes that it lasted, Tony kept saying that Charlie could stop it all with one word. All he had to do was tell Tony where Shane was hiding. But Charlie didn't tell. He just cried and tore at his bonds. Then there were new sounds from the kitchen, a dish shattering, muffled screams, feet kicking at the floor. Then silence.

Joey walked back in with his clothes all fucked up and blood splattered across the front of his pants. Tony hadn't known the muscle head was such a freak. Mrs. Rabbit had to be at least sixty.

When he saw Joey, Charlie started sobbing so much that Tony had to thumb the rag deeper into his mouth. Tony could see that the Rabbit was a broken man. Now he would talk.

Only he wasn't broken and he didn't talk. No matter how much Tony pounded on him, Charlie would not say a thing. All Tony could figure was that as soon as Charlie saw who it was at the door, he knew both he and his wife were dead. And when Joey took his wife into the kitchen, the only thing the Rabbit had left was his pride, that and his iron toughness.

The old bastard was hard as nails. Tony massaged the knuckles of his right hand and looked up at Rocco. “Give me something to hit him with.”

“Like what?” Rocco asked.

“I don't know, a table leg, anything.”

Rocco scanned the room, then his gaze settled on the fireplace. He hobbled over to it and grabbed a poker from a small rack. “How about this?”

Tony nodded.

Holding the charred, pointed end of the fireplace tool inches from Charlie's eyes, Tony said, “Tell me where Shane is and I'll
make it fast, old man, or I'll heat this up and shove it up your ass.”

Tony stared at the Rabbit for a long time; then Charlie's bloody eyes blinked and he nodded. Relieved that he could end this soon, Tony said, “You'll tell me?”

Charlie nodded again.

Tony yanked the dishrag out of Charlie's mouth. The old-timer said something but it came out as just a dry croak. “What?” Tony said, proud he'd finally broken the legendary killer.

Charlie's voice sounded like sandpaper scraped against rough wood. “Shane . . .” He tilted his head back and made a painful sound in his throat.

“Speak up, goddamn it.” Tony leaned over, putting his ear next to the Rabbit's lips. “Where is Shane?”

Charlie “The Rabbit” Liuzza leaned forward and chomped down on Tony's ear.

Tony dropped the fire poker and screamed as he tried to jerk his head away, but the old man wouldn't let go. His teeth were locked down like a pit bull's. Tony's feet got tangled and he fell backward, pulling Charlie and the chair down on top of him.

“Pull over right here,” Ray said. This time he rode shotgun in Jenny's Firebird. She had driven him to the 3600 block of Delaware Avenue in Kenner, a suburb five miles outside New Orleans. Kenner's twin claims to fame were being home to the New Orleans International Airport and a riverboat casino. It was also a popular home for New Orleans mobsters.

“Is this it?” Jenny asked.

“Just stop.”

She pulled the car against the curb. “Where's he live?”

“Not far.” Charlie's house was two blocks up, but Ray didn't want Jenny or her car anywhere near the house.

“Then why are we stopping?”

“I'm walking the rest of the way,” Ray said. “You wait here.”

He could tell by her face that she was going to argue, but she must have changed her mind at the last minute. Instead she said, “You got a pen?”

“Why?”

She shifted the car into park, then reached down between her feet and slipped a hand into her purse lying on the floorboard. She pulled out a cell phone and laid it on the console. “Write down my number. When you're done talking to Charlie, call me and I'll pick you up.”

“My phone—”

“Oh, shit, I forgot. It's ruined.”

Ray smiled. “I don't have a pen anyway.”

She dug in her purse until she found one. “Ask Charlie if you can use his phone.”

“How about I just step outside and wave at you?”

Jenny grabbed Ray's hand and scrawled her number on his palm. “Just in case.”

He nodded. Then he pulled Dylan Sylvester's .40-caliber Smith & Wesson out from under the passenger seat.

“What's that?” Jenny asked as Ray slipped the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and covered it with his shirt.

He turned to her. “What's it look like?”

“Why do you have a gun?” She looked scared.

“Charlie's a killer,” he said. “As far as I know he's trying to help me, but like you said, he's one of them. If this is some kind of setup, I don't want to go in empty-handed.”

“If you think this is a setup, then let's just leave.” She dropped her hand to the gearshift.

Ray shook his head. “It'll be all right.”

“You sure?”

He just nodded as he opened the door.

The fire poker made a wet THUNK as it caved in Charlie Liuzza's skull. He lay on his side on the floor, still taped to the chair, a hunk of Tony's ear clamped between his teeth.

After Charlie bit Tony's ear and the two of them toppled to the floor, Tony had scrambled out from under Charlie and the chair. He snatched up the poker. Charlie was helpless. Tony loomed over him, screaming, “Fuck you!” as he brought the fire poker down onto the side of the older man's head.

Tony dropped the poker and ran into the bathroom. He looked at the side of his head in the mirror. A piece of his fucking right ear was gone. Blood streamed down the side of his face, soaking his shoulder. He jerked a hand towel from a ring mounted to the wall and pressed it to his shredded ear.

“What do we do now, Tony?” Rocco stood in the bathroom doorway. “The old guy didn't tell us shit.”

Tony spun on him. “How the fuck do I know?” With both hands jamming the towel against his head, Tony started kicking the bathroom door and shouting, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Rocco just backed away.

After Tony's tantrum subsided, he walked back into the living room, still holding the towel against his ear, and looked at the overturned chair and at Charlie's bloody body. He was going to have to answer for this. The Rabbit was the boss's man—his fixer—and Tony had just killed him. Beaten him to death with a fire poker after Joey raped and strangled his sixtysomething-year-old wife.

How the fuck am I going to explain this?

Old Man Carlos had said to do whatever he had to do, but Tony was pretty sure he hadn't meant it was okay to kill Charlie. And Tony was positive the boss hadn't meant Joey could rape and strangle Charlie's wife.

Tony stepped into the kitchen doorway. Mrs. Liuzza's body
lay on the linoleum floor. The floor was smeared with her blood. The old lady's face was blue and her eyes bulged from their sockets. Around her neck were bright red ligature marks from the lamp cord. The blue print dress she wore was bunched around her hips, and a pair of ripped cotton panties lay three feet away. Her crotch was smeared with blood.

This was going to get Tony killed.

He had no idea what to do.

Someone knocked on the front door.

Tony spun and stared at the door. The pain he felt from his torn ear was instantly washed away by another feeling—panic.

Ray saw two cars in the driveway, a black Cadillac—mob guys love their Cadillacs—and a Toyota Camry that probably belonged to Charlie's wife. As he passed between them he touched the front grille on each. Both were cool.

The Rabbit's house was a 1970s ranch-style with a two-car garage. The garage door was closed so Ray couldn't see what the Rabbit kept inside that was so important he kept his cars outside. Probably set up as a workshop; old-timers loved their woodworking.