Three "Mob" Crime Stories
All three stories take place in the mid-sixties in New York City. The principal character is Eddie Montefusco, a gun dealer to the Abruzzi Crime Family.
Piece Work was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in November 2004. Length 5,370 words.
Click Here to jump to Piece Work.
Willie Bats was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in March 2005. Length 4,300 words.
Click Here to jump to Willie Bats
A Shot In Time has not been previously published. Length 2,530 words.
Click Here to jump to A Shot In Time
Total Length of document is approximately 12,200 words
Click Here to jump to the Table Of Contents.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT: WWW.DavidGraceAuthor.COM
Copyright David Alexander writing as David Grace 2009
Smashwords Edition
These stories are works of fiction. All of the people, places, businesses, and events portrayed in this novel are either based on the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Even though the names of real locations may be used in certain parts of this book, none of the people, places, businesses, or events referred to in any of those locales are intended to represent any relationship with any real events. Any and all occurrences in this book are completely unrelated to the actions of any real persons, places, businesses, or events and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real businesses or institutions, or to any actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
By David Grace
It was a late December night, bitter and black, when Eddie Montefusco made his last transaction of the dying year. Joe "The Crow" DiSalvo was the boss of a crew that specialized in hijacking trucks leaving the Jersey City piers. A few days before they had grabbed a semi that contained two crates of H&K nine millimeter semi-autos, a total of 48 pieces, and a box of extra clips.
Eddie loved guns. He loved the feel of them, the way the steel slid under his palm, the faint smell of lubricating oil, the refined "snick-snick" when the mechanism was engaged. In another time and place Eddie might have been have been a gunsmith or an armorer, but in the middle twentieth century in the New York City he had found his niche as the principal supplier of weapons to the Abruzzi Family and their favored associates.
Now Eddie crouched behind the wheel of his midnight blue DeVille and watched the distant lights of the Brooklyn Bridge blur into yellow smears as the windshield fogged with his exhalations. Air tinged with the scent of rusty iron crept in past the closed doors. The Caddy was parked behind a sagging five story brick and wood factory that had made sewing machine parts sometime around the turn of the century and now was the partitioned headquarters of a number of marginal enterprises -- an importer and distributor of Taiwanese toys; a wholesale meat packer; a bootleg tape and record duplicator; a fake charity boiler-room, and half a dozen more.
A little after nine DiSalvo arrived in his old Buick and pulled up pointing the other way, driver's window to driver's window. Motors hummed as both men rolled down the glass. The moonless sky made Joe's dark skin even duskier, his eyes barely more than round black disks.
"Any problems?" Joe asked, glancing around the deserted lot.
"Only that I'm gonna freeze my ass off if we don't do this thing."
Joe took another quick look into the corners of the lot. "Right," he grunted, then pulled forward until the two trunks were side by side with the cars pointed in opposite directions. They called him Joe The Crow because of his dark skin, blacker even that lots of colored people. Eddie thought of that actor, George Hamilton, and smiled. Joe would have been happy if they had called him "Joe the Actor" instead of "Joe the Crow." All those jokes, "Hey, Joe, you sure your family didn't take a detour to Africa on the way over from Sicily?" drove him nuts, and after a lifetime of fighting, rage now simmered in Joe's heart at a constant low boil. It was something that made him a good guy to boss a crew.
Nobody was going to cross Joe the Crow or hold out on his share. No trucker with a wife and a couple of kids was going to say no to him or disbelieve him when Joe said that if the truck wasn't parked at a certain place at a certain time that the guy was going to have a really painful accident. But one of these days Joe was going to go off on a made guy or a guy with connections, or he'd be on the wrong side of a war, and the cops were going to find Joe the Crow with his brains on his shoes.
The Crow had removed the pistols from their original shipping containers and re-packed them in two Ken-L-Ration dog food cartons, six flat boxes per layer, four layers per carton. The clips were stashed inside a couple of boxes labeled "Milk Bone Dog Biscuits - Large." Eddie checked a couple of the pieces, verified that they were brand new in their original plastic wrapping, and nodded to The Crow as he handed over an envelope containing twenty-five hundred dollars, fifty per gun and an extra hundred for the clips.
"You know, you're gettin' a hell of deal on these," The Crow complained as he dropped the boxes into the DeVille's big trunk.
"Yeah, they look like they're in good shape," Eddie said in a flat voice, directing his breath into his cupped hands.
"Good shape? These pieces are brand new! They're worth two, three hundred easy."
Eddie breathed into his palms again then closed the trunk with a solid thunk.
"If it wasn't for Jimmy D standin' up for ya, I'd take these to Brooklyn and sell 'em myself to the Spics, get a hundred, hundred fifty a piece for 'em, no sweat." Joe the Crow glared at Eddie, daring him to disagree. It was all bullshit, Eddie knew. Joe might have a line into a freight forwarder who tipped him off about shipments. He might know how to bribe a teamster to give up his load, but he didn't know shit about selling guns, who wanted them, what they would pay, who would turn you in and who wouldn't, who you could trust to take them five at time and not roll over on you and who you couldn't. Three days after Joe sold his first piece to some junkie asshole, the guy would be rolling around in his cell, screaming out Joe's name for a little rhythm and a dose of Methadone.
"Yeah, Joe, it's a good deal. I'll tell Jimmy D. we did some good business."
"Fuckin' A!" Joe swore as Eddie got back behind the wheel.
As Eddie drifted the big Caddy silently out of the lot, Joe, hands on his hips, glared after him, as if Eddie had just cheated him of his life savings. Eddie turned left on Sprague and headed toward the bridge with Joe a diminishing silhouette in the mirror. But even Joe the Crow wouldn't screw with Eddie. Eddie was useful, necessary, and protected. Anyone who screwed with Eddie would have Jimmy D and the Old Man himself on his ass and Joe knew it. Still, he was still half a whack job and Eddie was careful to treat him with respect. People acted stupid, after all, and they did things that got themselves killed all the time.
Only one light was on when Eddie pulled into his garage, a big one, two cars wide, unusual in Brooklyn, not like the fancy houses in Connecticut or on the Island. This was an old house from the turn or the century or before. Eddie had bought it cheap and spend a fortune fixing it up, tearing out walls, demolishing the old single car garage, adding extra features no normal house would have, like the hidden room between the garage wall and the back of the kitchen.
Eddie unlocked the tool cabinet and turned a couple of ordinary looking screws to the three and twelve o'clock positions. A sharp snap sounded as a bolt withdrew and Eddie swung a section of the wall back on concealed hinges. The H&K's soon joined the model 1911 .45s, the Ruger .22's, the sawed off twelve gauges, even a couple of old Thompson machine guns and some newer Sten guns with the crazy clip coming out the side. Eddie closed the door, turned the screws back to their original two and eleven o'clock positions, then let himself into the house through the kitchen door.
Elaine was in the bedroom her face washed in flickering light.
"Objection -- incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial."
"Sustained. Mr. Mason, please confine your questions to the witness's direct knowledge."
That DA was always making those same stupid objections, but Mason would still get the killer to confess on the stand by the end of the show. Shit, Eddie thought, as if that ever happened. Eddie frowned but didn't say anything aloud. Elaine loved that dumb show.
"The kids give you any trouble?" he asked automatically as he unbuttoned his shirt.
"They're fine," Elaine said in a rush that made it clear she didn't want to miss Mason's cross examination. "Oh," she said a few moments later when the commercials came on, "you got a call. I wrote it down on the pad."
"Only Kent has the Micronite Filter," The man on the TV said.
"Paulie," the note said in Elaine's precise hand, followed by a Manhattan number. Eddie didn't ask what Paulie wanted. No one ever discussed business with wives.
"Yeah, this is Eddie," he said when the phone picked up. "I'm at home. You called me?"
"Eddie, listen we need--"
"I said I was at home!" Eddie repeated harshly. Jeeze, the feds tapped phones all the time.
"Yeah, sure. Willie wants to talk to you -- now. He'll expect you at the Top in half an hour."
The Top was the Tip Top Lounge on 25th in the City, one of half a dozen places the guys hung out where they figured they would know if the Feds tried to put in any mikes.
"Tell him it'll be forty-five minutes in case there's some tie-up on the bridge." Eddie hung up and turned to Elaine. "I've got to go out. Business."
"But you didn't know about the second will, did you Mr. Jenkins?" Mason's voice called from the TV. "That's why you lured Robert Martell to the stables. That's why you picked up that pitchfork. That's why you killed him, isn't it Mr. Jenkins!"
"I didn't mean to kill him. It was an accident," Jenkins whined.
Eddie couldn't see the TV, just the wash of light across Elaine's face, the tilt of her head, the soft smile on her lips as the villain confessed his crime, the swell of her breasts within her silk pajamas, the dimples her nipples made in the fabric, how young she still looked even after having two kids, his kids, sleeping peacefully down the hall in their big, comfortable, paid-for house. Eddie marveled how good his life was and how lucky he was. Hurriedly, he walked over to the bed, bent, and kissed Elaine passionately. After an instant's surprise she relaxed and opened her mouth. Eddie cupped her breast and felt her nipple harden against his palm.
"Wow, what's gotten into you?" she asked softly after he had pulled away, his hand still messaging her breast.
"Nothing," Eddie said, "just thinking . . . nothing." He removed his palm and stepped back. "I don't know how long this will take." Elaine didn't have to speak. Her face displayed her thoughts as if printed on a page. "Nothing like that," Eddie said, more harshly than he had intended. "It's just business," he continued in a softer tone. "I've got to meet a guy, a guy Elaine. . . . Can I wake you up when I get back?" Slowly, the doubt slipped from her face.
"You know, Eddie, I wasn't--"
"When I get back." Eddie kissed her again, grabbed his overcoat from the straight-backed chair by the door, and hurried down the stairs.