Sweeney on the Rocks Read online

  But Sweeney’s got the gun. So, you know, we’re even.

  The driver, by the fact that he doesn’t have a gun directly in his ear, he’s got some latitude for some attitude (an Eddie saying). He twists around all of a piece, like his neck is fused. He’s jowly, florid. A white guy in khakis and a polo, sweated through at the armpits. An accountant on the back nine. Sweeney’s hit first by the incongruity of it all—Hispanic gangbanger on a stakeout with Greg Norman—but then he recognizes the driver.

  The guy’s eyes protrude like a thyroid case, Marty Feldman on a bad day. He whispers, a tremble in his voice, “Shakespeare?”

  Fuck me. Fuck, fuck,fuck me. “Heya Jimmy.”

  “Shakespeare!” Louder.

  Sweeney lowers the pistol. “Jimmy Rug.”

  ~

  Sweeney and Jimmy Ruggino go back. Not as far back as Sweeney and Eddie, understand, but back.

  During Sweeney’s matriculations in the tire shop—bag runner to driver to trigger—Jimmy had been two years behind, the next little grommet in the chain. Some part of Sweeney always wanted to be a mentor, so he took an interest.

  Good kid, Jimmy. Jug-eared and anxious, crooked teeth and a rotating series of bruises (his old man was a mean drunk), but between those unfortunate ears, the kid had a head for numbers. And thanks to growing up in Corona, he could speak Spanish. Not many people remember how Corona used to be Italian before it went Dominican. Anyway, Nose liked kids with a brain.

  The first few days, Sweeney pegged Jimmy for slow. He spoke with the rhythm of a guy who’s overcome a stutter. “That hatchback iinnn pod three. We rohhhtating the tires, too?” He had a hard time looking anyone in the eye, and when he drew any sort of inadvertent attention—when the Nose called out his name across the bays—he froze like he’d just stepped in dog shit. His expression one of resigned fatalism.

  Three days into it, Sweeney took him aside, said, “Hey kid, you drink beer?”

  Sure he did. Fourteen years old, hundred and twenty pounds if you put your thumb on the scale, but Jimmy could down Budweiser like a meatpacker.

  Sweeney and Eddie were sharing a basement apartment over in Midwood. One of Sweeney’s paternal uncles kept these row houses. No love lost between Dad and brother—blood feud kind of thing—so Sweeney got a rate, just to piss off the old man. Couple mattresses on the floor, some Penthouse centerfolds, a PVC bong in the corner. A not-bad shelf of vinyl, Sherwood receiver, Akai speakers, turntable. First generation Nintendo. A thirty-two inch color TV rough on the corners where it fell off the truck. “You guys live here?” Jimmy, awed. “And these’re your books?” Ignoring the video games in favor of Sweeney’s paperbacks.

  This was Sweeney’s Russian phase. Six months ago he’d read Notes from Underground. A book that made you sit and blink at the wall for a while. Dostoyevsky. In the biopic of his life, this page of the script would read, “Sweeney Gets Smart: Montage.” A series of fade-tos. Sweeney in the library slipping a hardbound Turgenev under his jacket. Sweeney at home, dropping Anna Karenina flat on the kitchen table. Sweeney under a tree in Prospect Park, eating a slice over Brothers Karamazov.

  Jimmy Rug tilted his head sideways to read the spines, “No Crime and Punishment?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Youuuu haven’t…? I mean, that’s the best one. Raskolnikov, hey.”

  Knock on a guy’s melon with curiosity but little hope, sometimes you get surprised.

  A few months later, trying to do the kid a favor, Sweeney brought him to his gym, put him in a boxing ring. Pipe cleaner arms swinging heavy gloves, a pale, concave stomach and ugly, marbled pox of cigar burns on his back. An hour later, and by way of consolation, Sweeney said, “Some guys, they’re born to use their heads instead of their hands.”

  Jimmy had paper towels twisted up both nostrils. “I think he punched a few points offff my I.Q., too.”

  When Eddie and Sweeney started messing around with Bytchkov, Sweeney put some distance between him and Jimmy. For Jimmy’s own good. As a consequence, the friendship never went south, never got contaminated by the paranoia endemic to this thing of ours, never got smeared with the monkey feces of friends fucking over friends.

  And now Jimmy Rug is beside himself. Half climbs over the front seat to hug Sweeney around the neck. “Cosmo? But you’re dead, man! I went to your fuuuneral, man. Those fucking Russians, I mean, Russians right? Cosmo, Jesus.”

  Sweeney finds himself awkwardly patting Jimmy’s fat back, cheek to sweaty, unshaven cheek. He smells body odor and farts and lunch meats. Last week’s spilled beer.

  When Jimmy pulls away, he’s touching the back of his hand to his eyes. “Cosmo. Jesus.”

  The Hispanic gangbanger has eased his hands off the dashboard. To Jimmy, says, “Quien es tu güey?”

  Sweeney has enough Spanish to catch the ambiguous subtext. “Me and Jimmy go back.”

  “Until the Russians ran you off the fucking road.”

  “Russians.” Studying Jimmy, Sweeney sees a tremor. A slight, Katherine Hepburn quaver in the cheeks. “You okay Rug? What’s with the…?” Sweeney raises his hand, lets it shake.

  “My Parkinson’s? Yeah, my damn Parkinson’s.”

  “Ah, shit. Jimmy.”

  “What it is.” He shrugs it off. “Now whhaat about the Russians?”

  So Sweeney gives him the sixty second soap opera of Bytchkov. Has the minimal caution to replace Rockjaw with, what? “So yeah, now I’m in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Out in the middle of nowhere.”

  Jimmy flickers commiseration and indignation. “Sounds like you did the ruhhight thing though, dawg.”

  Even while he’s been talking, Sweeney’s been going through a reluctant calculus. Cover’s blown. Cosmo’s done a Lazarus. Inside twenty-four hours, the news is all through Brooklyn. Thirty-six hours, Bytchkov gets a phone call. Forty-eight hours, Bytchkov and his murderous sense of justice are deciding the fate of Sweeney’s extended family.

  Or he could kill these two where they sit. Put a bullet in Jimmy Rug.

  But that’s not possible for any number of reasons, the condition of Sweeney’s own soul first among them.

  Okay, Sweeney. One catastrophe at a time. “I heard about Eddie.” Nods toward the house.

  “Yeah, ain’t that the shit. Poor guy. Never thought I’d say that about Eddie, but yeah, poor guy.”

  “Anybody know who did it?”

  Jimmy opens his mouth with a pleasurable anticipation, the delight of unlikely gossip. Then remembers Sweeney’s piece of ass on the side. Closes his mouth with an audible click. “Maybe somebody’s got some ideas somewhere.”

  “His wife, right? Tina.”

  “Yeah, well, she took off quick, man. Like that.” Jimmy snaps his fingers.

  “Which is why you guys are, I mean, you’re waiting for Tina a show up?”

  “She took suhhomething belonged to Donnie, is why.” Jimmy makes a regretful, what-can-you-do expression. “Business.”

  “I saw you guys, I thought you might be Russian. That’s why the pistol.”

  “Russians?” Jimmy blinks. “No, yeah, Donnie, he just said, guuhho find Eddie’s wife. Couple hundred bucks a day to sit in a car. Two hundred a day. Man.”

  “Hard to pass that up.” Rugg working for the Luccheses?

  “You ain’t kidding.”

  “So, Jimmy. Jesus. How you been? You’re still in the life?” Sweeney’s interested. Enough to give it five minutes of increasingly precious time.

  Turns out Jimmy got clipped for dealing not long after Cosmo died, spent his time in County. “Which is where me and Lucho met up.”

  “Who’s Lucho?”

  “I’m Lucho, dawg.” The gangbanger giving Sweeney attitude, a mix of bored-and-pissed.

  Turns out, Lucho’s married to Jimmy’s baby sister, Julietta. They got kids. Everybody goes to the same church. Jimmy works night security, picks up freelance jobs. “And I’m making it, ain’t we making it, dawg?” Fist bump. “Just doing whatever we can. I mean, thi
s? It’s a whole new world is what I’m saying. Everybody doing what they can. I’m still beholding to the Gambinos. Officially. But unofficially, here I am on the clock for Moretti. Whole new world, Shakespeare.”

  “Gambinos know about you freelancing?”

  Jimmy ignores the question. “Used to be five families? Now there’s six. Think about that for a suhhhecond. And nobody’s got the weight they used to. Everybody’s just trying to do what they can.”

  The gangbanger swats Jimmy on the shoulder. “Repartidor de pizza.”

  Balancing the pie in one hand, the delivery kid’s walking back to his sad little Fiesta, lifting the lid of the box, considering his useless pie.

  Sweeney checks his watch. “Listen, hey, I’m gonna go ahead and pay this kid. But give me your number, yeah? We’ll grab lunch.”

  The Park County undersheriff is a guy named Gary Kertan (pronounced Curtain). A military haircut and aviator sunglasses hanging out of his shirt pocket. One of those cops who you suspect of manufactured evidence and spousal abuse. A secret drinking problem. Arrogant enough, you keep looking for mistakes, hope he’ll slam his own fingers in a car door. He swaggers toward Marilyn through the takeout lot. “What we got? A floater?” Maybe he heard the word on “CSI Miami” once.

  She gestures toward the river, a search and rescue diver in tanks and mask, a scuba suit, duckwalking toward the water. “Yeah, we…”

  “I’ll take it from here.” Kertan puts his glasses on, tilts the mirrors her way. “Why don’t you work crowd control.” Kertan’s done the contextual math. Drowning vic? They haven’t seen any reports for a few months weeks. Missing persons? Ditto, not much. Possible murder then. And they only get one or two of those a year. Make the most of it.

  This is the downside of her job. She’s got to bite her tongue. Chauvinistic cocksucker. When she makes sheriff, you’re back to bagging groceries, asshole. But for now, he’s senior. She turns away from the diver (already up to his knees) to eye the small crowd gathering.

  It’s turned into quite a day for the Rockjaw gossips and gawkers, the police-scanner junkies. In the barrow ditch of the Interstate, a small flock of magpies bicker over recent roadkill. Given the proximity, perhaps Marilyn can be forgiven for drawing a parallel: squawking magpies and John Q. Public. The retiree with a digital camera and two-foot lens; the young couple in shorts and flipflops; a family with dad holding up his kid for a better look. Thank you, Apple, for police scanner apps. Half the time, these people arrive at a crime scene before she does.

  She considers her own cell phone, still picking up a charge. Maybe it’s time to check messages.

  She’s turning back to her cruiser just as another sedan pulls into the lot. Spotlessly clean four-door Taurus. Rental car from a mile away. Passengers in all four seats. Four white males. Maybe it’s a return-to-the-scene scenarios you read about. Unlikely, but.

  The Taurus parks close to the water, just far enough away not to be hassled by Kertan. The heads inside tilt toward each other, conferring. She walks toward them.

  Twenty steps away, fifteen, ten. The driver catches movement, glances up with a double take. Attention from the local fuzz, not something he digs.

  She’s up on the balls of her feet, getting ready to speed up to a quick jog, when she recognizes the driver. Pulls a name out from under the neglected couch of her subconscious. Among the dust bunnies of New York, the forgotten quarters of Brooklyn: Lukey Ray.

  He’s still got that little mustache he was always playing with. Ten years ago, it was blond and meager, thin like lint from a clothes dryer. Her husband, with the carnivore’s instinct for a soft spot, had teased him: “Be sure not to get any cream on that, Lukey. Cat might lick it off.” Now the mustache is thicker but still blond. This guy’s been in her home. Sat at her table. She cooked chicken tetrazzini.

  In the half second it takes her to put on the brakes, turn on her heel…does he recognize her? His eyes go first to the badge, then the pistol. Then they’re on the way to her face.

  She turns quick, feigning forgetfulness. Walks back to her cruiser.

  Lukey Ray. Is this the guy dumping bodies on Sweeney? Involved somehow. But to her memory, he was an awkward thug, smart like a door mat. He just did his job. Sending those photos around? Too subtle. He wouldn’t see the point in it. There’d have to be somebody else offering the orders. Somebody up the ladder, somebody who wouldn’t be seen dead in a rental sedan with three soldiers.

  Plus, Lukey answers to the Luccheses. What kind of beef would the Luccheses have with Sweeney?

  Think about it later, Marilyn. File it away, compartmentalize.

  Right, okay. Where was she? Cell phone. Messages. Pick up your messages.

  And then, off her right shoulder, a shout. “Hey, Marilyn!” The scuba diver, Jay Sutton, whom she knows from CPR certification, stands hip deep in the river, leaning against the current, holding his mouthpiece away from his face. “We got another one down here.”

  “What’s that?” Marilyn walks toward the river, keeping her face tilted away from the rental car. Kertan stands, hands on hips, staring down at the river. With not a little satisfaction, Marilyn pushes past him. “Say again?”

  “Yeah, no shit, we got two bodies down here.”

  Sweeney’s alone in the alley, forehead on the steering wheel, door open, leg out on the street. Reassessing. His conclusions? It’s shit. All of it.

  Aggie and Elizabeth kidnapped.

  Bernie, Marco, Clara, maybe they’re already being discussed. Should he call them? He can’t imagine that conversation. “Yeah, hey, this is Cosmo your dead brother. Sorry about the funeral thing. And uh yeah, you guys need to move down to Florida for, like, the rest of your lives.”

  Eddie’s dead and buried. Or at least dead. Jimmy Rug’s gotten fat, and picked up a pretty good case of Parkinson’s. And Sweeney? What’s he got? A pizza box taking up half the back seat. And self-pity. Loads of that shit.

  What’s his next move? What does he do now?

  The sound of an engine rumbles at him down the alley. Sweeney opens his eyes. Sees an early model Crown Vic, tricked out with spinners and a lift kit, coming up fast then breaking hard off Sweeney’s bumper, skidding enough to leave rubber. A bare arm emerges, waving a finger. “Close a fuckin’ door man.”

  Not the right time, man.

  Sweeney’s rages have rarely been blind, though it’s true things go dim for a while. And they’re not senseless, though they never ask much permission. Rather, they’re more like nausea. Pushing up from the gut. Sepia and slow-mo. Amygdala to the hypothalamus to the adrenal gland. Cortisol spritzed through his carburetor. There’s something called the Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Anger arises from pain, they say.

  No shit, Sweeney says.

  He’s already up close and personal. The kid in a black leather vest over a bare torso. And Jesus, the smell out the window. Body odor and bong water. Kid’s Caucasian but going for black. Wearing a spotless Yankees cap, the brim flat and unbent, price tag dangling and stickers still in place. Under the cap, a mat of pale dreadlocks.

  “What a fuck you staring at, old man?”

  Last week’s Sweeney, version 2.0, would have felt a paralyzing sympathy. This poor, lost soul. We’re all of us searching. But for what? A tribe. Love. Companionship. And nobody’s finding them. Nobody. Saddest thing in the world.

  But this most recent Sweeney? The one at the end of his rope and the bottom of the barrel, sleepless and frantic? This Sweeney? Well, here…

  There’s a reason Roman generals, when Rome was in its ascent, cropped their hair short. If you’re in combat, you don’t want to give your enemy something else to hold onto.

  Case in point: Sweeney’s already got his fingers wrapped through the guy’s dreads.

  The kid doesn’t weigh much. It’s no great effort to drag him out through the window. Five frames a second, the only punch the kid manages to throw, Sweeney slips it easily. Lets it float right on past.

  Sweeney
steps away from himself, glances at his watch, considers the weather. Meanwhile, Shakespeare is punching the kid into the ground. Breaking the greasy nose at the bridge, cracking the skin like cheap binding, knocking teeth loose. Blood trickles down the corners of the kid’s mouth.

  Shakespeare breathes deep, and straightens. Cracks at his neck. Glances down.

  Poor kid, Sweeney thinks. Scorn always camouflages insecurity. Always.

  Sweeney takes a toe and turns the kid’s mouth to one side. Don’t puke while you’re unconscious there, buddy.

  The Crown Vic idles away, rudderless, open door waving. Fifty yards down the alley, it eases with a soft crunch into a phone pole.

  First rage, then regret. This endless ocean of regret.

  ~

  From what Sweeney knows about the universe, his phone call’s coming any second now. Before he can compose himself, before he can find his breath. Just give it a second to catch up.

  In the front seat, he works to find a Zen place. Studies the blood trickling between his fingers, the according scroll of skin on his first two knuckles. He flexes the fingers. Rookie mistake. Punching with his fist. All these little finger bones, fragile as Crayons. Better to use your elbow, your knee, your boot.

  And yeah, sonofabitch. Here’s his phone with the vibration and chirp, startling him.

  Sweeney flips it open. “Yeah.”

  “You have the diamonds?” That voice again, run through a digital blender.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, yes, good, now here is what you must do, yes, you go…”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “No. Go fuck yourself.”

  Nothing but a digital void by way of reply.

  Sweeney waits him out.

  “No,” the voice finally says, patient through the distortion. “You do not understand. Your little farm woman, she will die, you do not do what I say.”