Murder by Magic (7 page)
So we did. And what these guys told me about Danny Bardozzi’s death got my full attention.
“He said
what
?”
Tony said, “Danny came into the shop that day and said he’d just seen his perfect double, his spitting image.”
“His doppelgänger?” said Father Michael.
“Yeah, his doppelgangster,” said Carmine. “He was fucking freaking out. In a cold sweat, shaking like a virgin in a whorehouse, babbling like a snitch with the feds. Scared out of his mind.”
“Because he’d seen this doppelgangster?” I said.
“Yeah. He said it meant he was gonna die.”
“He was right,” I said. “But how did he know?”
“Perhaps,” said Father Michael, “he knew that, traditionally, seeing your doppelgänger portends your own death.”
“No shit?” said Carmine.
“No sh—um, yes, really,” said Father Michael.
“But we got more than people
pretending
their deaths here, Father,” I said.
“No,
portending,
” the priest said. “Seeing your doppelgänger is, in popular folklore, a sure sign that you’re going to die.”
“Weird shit,” said Carmine.
“Even weirder,” I said, “Danny ain’t the only one around here who’s seen a doppelgangster.” I told them about Skinny Vinny telling Connie he’d seen his own perfect double the day before he died.
“Johnny Gambone did, too!” said Father Michael, swaying a little. “My God! I didn’t realize . . .” He wiped his brow. “Just a few days before his body was found, Johnny told me after Mass that he’d seen a man who looked very much like himself, dressed the same, even bearing the same tattoo—but nowhere near as handsome.”
“He always was a vain son of a bitch,” said Carmine.
“So he saw his double, too, then,” I said. “All three of these guys died after seeing their doubles.”
“And died in such strange ways,” Tony added.
“Yes,” said Father Michael. “Almost as if meeting the doppelgänger doesn’t just presage death, it actually curses the victim, making him utterly defenseless against death when it comes for him.”
“So once you see this fucking thing, that’s it?” said Carmine. “You’re as good as whacked?”
“That would explain how bullets somehow got past or around Vinny’s vest,” I said.
“And how someone walked past all of us without being seen,” said Tony, “and got through a locked door to kill Danny.”
“So we’re dealing with what?” I said. “Witchcraft? Some kind of curse? The evil eye?”
“It’s some weird fucking shit,” said Carmine.
Father Michael fumbled behind the skirts of the shrine of the Virgin and pulled out a bottle of wine. He uncorked it, gulped some down, and then said, “Black magic. What else could it be?”
“Fucking creepy.”
“And whoever is doing it is damn good,” I said. “I had dinner with Johnny Gambone’s doppelgangster and didn’t even know it wasn’t the real guy.”
“But no one has seen Vinny, Johnny, and Danny since they were found dead, right?” said Father Michael. “I mean, no one has seen their doubles since then?”
I hadn’t even thought about that. “No,” I said. “That’s right. The last time I saw Johnny’s double—the last time anyone saw it, as far as I know—was before his body was found.”
“So . . .” Father Michael took another swig. “So whoever is doing this sends a doppelgangst—doppelgänger after the victim to curse him with inevitable death. And then, after the victim is dead, the perfect double continues carrying on the victim’s normal life until the death is discovered.”
“And then what?”
“Then it . . .” Father Michael shrugged. “It probably disintegrates into whatever elemental ingredients it was originally fashioned from.”
“So if you hid the fucking body well enough, it would be years before anyone even knew you’d made the hit. Hey, this black magic is some fucking great stuff! If I could learn to do it—”
“Whoever
has
learned to do it,” I said, “is out to kill all of us. Get it? We’ve got to stop him before we’re all dead!”
“Vito’s right,” said Joey. “We’re all in danger.”
My cell phone suddenly rang, making us all jump a little. (Hey, if you thought someone was about to kill you that way, wouldn’t you be a little jumpy, too?) I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “Hello?”
“Vito?” said Joey at the other end. “I’m coming from my mother’s, and I’m still in Brooklyn. Stuck in traffic. You’d better start the sit-down without me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
My blood ran cold as I stared at the Joey sitting here with me, absently stroking his chin the way the real one often did. Choosing my words carefully, I said to the Joey on the phone, “Seen anything strange lately?”
“Huh?”
“Anyone familiar?”
“Well . . . my mother, obviously.”
“No one else?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Okay, good,” I said with relief. I like Joey. I’d miss him if he was the next one to die. “Listen to me very carefully.
Stay right where you are.
Call me back in an hour.”
“But, Vito—”
“Just do it!” I hung up.
“Who was that?” asked Joey.
I jumped him, took him to the floor, and started banging his head against the stone. “Vito!” he screamed. “Vito!
Stop!
What are you doing?
Ow!
”
“Vito!” cried Father Michael. “Stop!”
“Fucking maniac,” said Carmine.
“Thought you’d get Joey Mannino, did you?” I shouted at the doppelgangster. “Well, think again, you bastard!”
“This is one of them?” the priest shrieked.
“Yes!” I kept banging its head against the floor. “And it’s gonna tell me who’s behind these hits!”
Its eyes rolled back into its head, it convulsed a few times, and then its head shattered like dry plaster.
“Whoa!” said Tony.
I looked down at the mess. Nothing but crumbled dust, lumps of dirt, and feathers where the thing’s head had been. Then its body started disintegrating, too.
“I think you whacked it, Vito,” said Tony.
Father Michael poured the whole rest of the bottle of wine down his throat before he spoke. “Well . . . I guess this means that Joey is safe now?”
“Not for long,” I said. “Whoever did this will make another one the moment he knows this one has been—wait a minute!”
“Vito? What is it?” said Tony.
“Maybe it’s not a
he,
” I said.
“Huh?”
“Think about it! Who would hit the Berninis
and
the Gambones? Who hates
both
families that much? Who wants all of us dead?”
“You saying the fucking feds are behind this?”
“No, you asshole! I’m saying the one person who hates both families equally is behind this!” I grabbed a handful of the crap that had been Joey’s doppelgangster a minute ago and waved it at these guys.
“Feathers!”
“Vito, this is a very serious accusation,” said Father Michael, slurring his words a little. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Huh?” said Tony.
“Just fucking follow him,” said Carmine as I ran for the same exit that the Widow Butera had taken.
I kicked in the door of her apartment without knocking. I’d figured out her scam by now, so I expected the feathers, the blood sacrifices, the candles, the chanting, and the photos of Bernini and Gambone family members.
I just didn’t expect to see my own perfect double rising out of her magic fire like a genie coming out of a lantern. I pulled out my piece and fired at it.
“Noooo!”
screamed the Widow Butera. She leaped at me, knocked my gun aside, and started clawing at my face.
“Kill it! Kill it!” I shouted at the others.
Carmine said, “I always wanted to do this to you, Vito,” and started pumping bullets into my doppelgangster while I fought the Widow. Father Michael ran around the room praying loudly and drenching things in holy water. Tony took a baseball bat—don’t ask me where he got it—and started destroying everything in sight: the amulets and charms hanging everywhere, the jars of powders and potions stacked on shelves, the cages containing live chickens, and the bottles of blood. My perfect double shattered into a million pieces in the hail of Carmine’s bullets, and the pieces fell smoldering into the fire. Then Tony kicked at the fire until it was scattered all over the living room and started dying.
“It’s a fucking shame about the carpet,” Carmine said as chickens escaped the shattered cages and started running all over the room.
“. . . blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . .” Father Michael was chanting.
“What else can I break? What else can I break?” Tony shouted.
“I’ll kill you all!” the Widow screamed. “You’re all dead!”
“Too late, sister, we’re onto you now. You’ve whacked your last wiseguy,” I said as she struggled in my grip.
“Three husbands I lost in your damned wars!” she screamed. “I told them to get out of organized crime and into something secure, like accounting or the restaurant business, but would they listen?
Noooo!
”
“Secure? The fucking restaurant business? Are you kidding me?”
“The Berninis and Gambones ruined my life!” the Widow Butera shrieked. “I will have vengeance on you all!”
“Repent! Repent!” Father Michael cried. Then he doused her with a whole bottle of holy water.
“Eeeeeeeeeee!”
She screamed something awful . . . and then started smoking like she was on fire.
I’m not dumb. I let go of her and backed away.
The room filled with smoke, and the Widow’s screams got louder, until they echoed so hard they made my teeth hurt . . . then faded. There was a dark scorch mark on the floor where she’d been standing.
“Where’d she go?” I said.
“She’ll never get her fucking security deposit back now,” said Carmine, looking at the floor.
Tony added, “No amount of buffing will get that out.”
“What the hell happened?” I said, looking around the room. The Widow had vanished.
Father Michael fell to his knees and crossed himself. “I don’t think she was completely human. At least, not anymore. She had become Satan’s minion.”
“Huh. I wondered how she kept her good looks for so fucking long.”
“That’s it?” I asked Father Michael. “She’s just . . . gone?”
He nodded. “In hell, where she belongs.” After a moment he added, “Mind you, that’s only a theory.”
“Either way,” I said, “I’m kinda relieved. I know we couldn’t just let her go. Not after she’d hit three guys and tried to hit me and Joey, too. But I really didn’t want to whack a broad.”
“What a fucking pussy you are, Vito.”
“Carmine, you asshole,” I said, “the sit-down was successful. We found out who’s behind these hits, we put a stop to it, and there ain’t gonna be no new war. So now get outta my sight before I forget my manners and whack you just for the hell of it.”
“Did I mention how much fun it was pumping a whole clip into your fucking doppelgangster?”
My cell phone rang, making Father Michael jump.
“Damn.” I knew who it was even before I answered it. “Hello?”
“Vito,” said Joey, “I’ve been sitting here in my car, not going anywhere, just like you said, for a whole hour. Now, do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
I looked at the scorched spot the Widow had left in the floor and tried to think of the best way to break the news to him. “So, Joey . . . would you still want to marry the Widow Butera if you knew she’d been trying to whack you and everyone you know?”
Will Graham
Will Graham is the pseudonym of a private investigator in Texas specializing in computer forensics and electronic evidence. This is his first short-story sale.
I
looked at my cigarette as the flame caught, while the coffee finished brewing. It was an old trick, but still a fun one, and I liked being able to do it after all these years. Another beautiful day. Leaning against the counter in the kitchen, I glanced out the tinted window to see the city before me. Critics be damned, San Francisco had a magic all its own. We’d been here for many years, and it still struck me that some cities can truly hold you in their spell. The faint streaks of predawn were appearing. I fought a yawn.
A noise behind me made me turn. Emma came in from the living room, her white fur robe belted tightly around her, auburn hair spilling loosely around her shoulders. “Darling,” she said. “Must you?”
I smiled at her. “It keeps me human. So to speak.”
She wrinkled her pretty nose and looked at me with a combination of irritation and fondness. She doesn’t like my smoking, she never did, but as I’ve pointed out to her, I smoked when she married me, so she has no real grounds to complain. It’s a game, an old one, a familiar one, the type that people who have been together forever and a day can play with each other.
I turned, reached into the cabinet, and got her favorite cup. Precisely one spoon of sugar (raw, imported from Jamaica), mixed well. Her newest fad was heavy cream, delivered every morning. A heaping splash of that, again mixed well until blended into the coffee. When it was ready, I put the cup on a saucer and presented it to her with a flourish. I could see into the living room, the heavy curtains moving as a breeze came in from the open window.
She took a sip, smiled, and said, “You’ll do. I think I’ll keep you.”
“I certainly hope so.” I took my own coffee to the table and joined her. If it matters, I like mine black, no sugar, but I’m not fanatical about it. Over the years, I’ve had everything from nectar of the gods to stuff that tasted like it leaked from a broken crankcase in a truck from Kentucky. Coffee is coffee is coffee, and I’ve loved it from the first time I ever had it.
“Well,” she said in a teasing tone, “there are things you are good for.” Her smile widened. “Such as the other night . . .”
“That’s enough about ‘the other night,’” I said in reply. Her smile grew even brighter, and it amazed me, as it always does, that she could still take my breath away, to use a cliché.
She looked over my shoulder at the sun rising. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It always is. But then, it’s not the only beautiful thing I see.” I gave her my own version of a sex-crazed leer.
