He studied fear. Learned how to be afraid. No one expected him to be brave; even so, fear required strategies.
He went by the tag name Willy. He thought it would suit him, but the name never fit right. It didn’t help him become the guy he imagined. He held out hope that the boys would give him a nickname as they did one another. No such luck. Which indicated that he was useful enough to keep around, but still not one of them.
He studied fear.
First thing to know: everybody dies. Get used to the idea. Pack it away. Grow accustomed to a reality where you’re already dead. When a bullet slams through the back of your brain, it’s done. Nothing to worry about then. The trick is not to worry when you see it coming. Such as when your ears pick up the click of a gun cocked behind your cranium.
Way easier said than done.
Then don’t say it.
Step forward with the notion that it’s over. No bones to protect. No life to save. No breath to take that hasn’t already expired. Ashes to ashes. As the fear rushes in, work it, knead it, dust to dust, massage it through your limbs. Diffuse it. Make fear your next of kin. Use it like a hit of adrenalin. All time is borrowed. All payments are past due. There’s nothing to lose that hasn’t been lost already.
He gave up his life decades ago to take up a separate existence.
What was gone was not worth mourning.
Yet he remained on the shelf, long past his expiry date.
He’d learned to live with the irony that thinking himself dead kept him alive.
Teddy cruised by to pick him up. Lucien was sitting in the front. That was usually Willy’s seat, but this time he sat in back. No great inconvenience, although a degree of caution was warranted. Lucien Grenier was known as Le Gris. For a living, he killed people.
He never really got along with Lucien.
‘Heading out,’ Le Gris said. He wore an overcoat when on a kill to keep his pistol or sawed-off concealed. Wearing it today. ‘Bumped into Teddy. I ask him, “Teddy, my main man, where you going?” Turns out, he’s going to the same place I am. I ask him, “Why two cars?”’
‘You don’t need a car,’ Willy pointed out. ‘You’re practically next door.’
‘Next door? What you talking—? Oh. You don’t know. It’s moved, the meeting. You don’t keep up? On account of the bomb, the Dime blown out of his shoes. The boss wants better security. A meeting like this, somebody might get an idea. Who, we don’t know.’
‘Where we going?’ Willy inquired. He feared a change in venue. He’d been targeted. The change of venue could be related. Or not. Nothing he hadn’t experienced before. Or not. The key was to stay calm. Show nothing, as if you trust your fellow man to the bitter edge of time.
‘Joe’s place. Meeting’s still there, in a way.’
‘In a way?’
‘His country place now. For the security.’
Security. Not necessarily his own. Change the subject. ‘How you doing, Teds?’
He and The Bear were the best of buds. Obese, The Bear’s name was in deference to his size. Over the years he was considered a Teddy Bear more than a grizzly. His nickname evolved to comply with his personality. His real name was Piergiorgio Giordano. These days only his banker and his doctor called him that. Even his accountant called him Teddy. His bookie. His physical therapist. She smiled when she did so; it gave her a kick. Teddy Bear.
Teds apparently was doing fine. He had no complaints.
‘Going to the country, huh?’
‘All that fresh air, I dunno.’
‘Don’t know fresh. I prefer pollution. Fumes.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Teds said.
He stayed worried. ‘Why not, right? Fresh air. It’s not poison.’
Like they say, a good day to die. He had to wonder why him, why now. He wasn’t going to bring it up. He wasn’t going to betray himself by suggesting that somebody might have a legitimate reason to off him, or that he was asking only because he was curious about which thing it was that he did wrong. A guy should never ask that. Basic. In no circumstance does wanting to know why you were going to be whacked help you not be whacked. It only helped the guy doing the job. The one thing worse was to plead for your life. The one thing worse than that was to cry. The one thing worse than that was to piss your pants. The one thing worse than that was to lose control of your bowels. The key was not to get started on a downhill run. Don’t ask why you had to die. Just die. You were dead already.
He’d been through one assassination attempt lately. Maybe he’d survive another.
This time, he knew who wanted him dead.
He’d called Teddy, who’d passed on the message. The boss wanted him in.
They talked baseball, him and the other two in the car. The Expos.
In the West Island, Teddy turned off the expressway onto Boulevard St Jean. Willy commented, ‘You call this the country?’
They were in the suburbs. Malls, single-family dwellings, car dealerships and restaurants.
Teddy said, ‘You know Massimo.’
‘Sure. Met him a bunch of times. Massimo The Coat.’
‘We’re picking him up.’
He wanted to ask, How many Italian mobsters does it take to whack a guy? He didn’t. Still, four in the car. Three killers. One victim. Why?
Teddy went up the walkway to Massimo’s door. The two men who remained in the car talked about the Expos. Specifically, the pitching. Massimo answered the door while he was on the phone at the same time. A long cord and he brought the phone onto his stoop. Then he went back inside. Teddy waited. Then Massimo came back to the door and invited Teddy in, as if he’d forgotten him the first time. Teddy went in. This whole thing was strange. Then Teddy came out and called to Lucien. He’d had his nickname since forever, not only Le Gris, but also, in English, The Gray. He looked like a corpse. Gaunt and narrow – and gray – as if perpetually taking chemo. Not necessarily his skin tone, more like a general demeanor, as though he slept in a coffin at night yet lacked the vampire’s allure. He possessed none of the gumption, none of the sex appeal. He just happened to look three-quarters dead on a good day. Le Gris. As if he’d been labeled a boring corpse. He came alive talking about the Expos, he had opinions, but otherwise a dull talker. He spoke as if behind a curtain and never pointed his mouth to the person he addressed.
Teddy asked him inside.
Le Gris went to the door. Teddy followed him inside, leaving Willy alone in the car. A funny way to be assassinated, sitting by himself in the backseat of a car in the goddamn suburbs. Undignified. He could flee but didn’t. That would be worse than his bowels running loose. He stayed put. Stayed calm. Waited for the bomb in the trunk to blow his ass off.
The first rule of survival: understand you won’t. You can’t.
Teddy came out of the house with Massimo. The garage door opened. Le Gris climbed into the driver’s seat of Massimo’s car. A Pontiac. A muscle car. Massimo got into the front seat of Teddy’s car where Le Gris had sat on the ride over. Squeezed behind the wheel, Teddy announced, ‘Change of plan.’
He wanted to ask, What? I’m not whacked today? Instead, he asked, ‘What change?’
‘They want The Gray in town,’ Teddy explained. ‘Massi in the meeting instead. So it’s us. We’re going to the country without him.’
‘Le Gris is pissed,’ Massimo said. ‘He was looking forward. Like a little kid, excited. He wanted to be in the country at the big house.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. He wanted to visit the barn, pat the horses’ butts. Or what they call them? Flanks. Trip a pig, see if he could. Strange guy. Don’t you think so?’
Willy knew better than to express an opinion. An opinion could get you killed on a good day. No telling what it might do for you on a bad day.
In the backseat, Willy knew for sure that he was going to die. This was an old ploy. The Gray was a killer who left the city with a man destined to be a corpse. He would now go back to the city and make certain that he could account for his whereabouts. If he’d been seen in a car with the future corpse, he could prove he was elsewhere at the eventual time of death. The new guy in the car – Massimo Sanna, The Coat – wasn’t seen with him when he left downtown, and out in the suburbs nobody saw anybody. Massimo was not a guy people thought about as killing people in his spare time.
Willy knew better. Massi killed people. Not casually. Only when the situation warranted.
They traversed a bridge off the island. Drove west from Montreal into the countryside. Turned onto a back road. Then onto an unmarked trail. Peaceful there. Like a cemetery.
‘You been out here before?’ he asked his old friend. Teddy was driving slowly and cautiously, as if looking for a sign.
‘A few times.’
That many? he wanted to ask, except that he was being calm and polite today, and he might lose it if he asked How many guys you whacked out here? More than, I dunno, seven? He wanted to know, Why here? But he knew why. This was a lonely old road. Well treed. Out of sight. They would walk into the woods where nobody ever walked without a no-good reason. The only no-good reason for a walk in the woods was to shoot somebody.
They stopped off at the side of the road and Massimo climbed out first. Teddy stalled getting out long enough to say, ‘Be cool, Wills.’
Willy got out and asked, ‘Why here?’
‘You fucking idiot,’ Massimo said.
‘Why am I a fucking idiot?’
‘Because we dug the hole here, you fucking idiot.’
‘That much I figured.’
Held low at his hip, Massimo was pointing a pistol at his chest. A Glock. Willy was thinking that he might have sold him that gun. He should’ve asked more for it. If only he’d known. His heart was pounding in his chest right where the gun was pointing.
‘Walk,’ Massimo said.
‘Maybe I’ll ask you to drag me. Shoot me here. Drag me there.’ He never understood why any man cooperated with his assassin. His chance to do things differently. He felt his bowels loosening. Damn.
Massimo lowered the aim of the pistol. ‘I’ll shoot your nuts off first. One at a time if my aim is that good. I think it is. Then I drag you. Screaming and wailing away. Next, blow off your kneecaps. I hear that hurts. Then I stick one in your armpit. Then bury you alive. Do it slow. Sing you a lullaby before saying bye-bye, nighty-night.’
Willy didn’t know why they called him The Coat. All he had on was a jacket.
‘I’ll walk,’ Willy said.
‘Thought so. Hey, so you know. This ain’t personal. I don’t know the reason.’
‘There is none. Remember that for yourself. Whatever it is it ain’t worth shit to me.’
They walked on through the woods. Teddy in the lead. Massimo behind. Willy in the middle. His legs felt like Jell-O that hadn’t set right. His toes were marshmallows. He didn’t let on. He thought about it but had no hope of jumping them. He could try. Either way, he’d end up in the ground.
‘You’re not pissing your pants,’ Massimo said. ‘I’ll let people know.’
‘Sure. But I wouldn’t mind one. A piss. Can we stop here?’
That seemed a reasonable request, and they stopped. It took a while. Willy’s stream gave Teddy the same idea and then Massimo unzipped also. Then they zipped up one by one and walked on.
They went over a knoll through leaves that fell a year ago, surviving the winter, and at the bottom of the slope the gravesite had been dug. The rains would pour down the slope onto his final resting place. Muddy. Could be worse, he thought. He said it out loud. ‘Could be worse.’
He wasn’t that calm. His belly was twisted, his heart hammering in his chest. A heart attack might come first. His blood in his veins felt like sludge. His skin was lifting off the surface of the earth. If he gave in a tiny bit, he would bluster and moan, cry out and beg. If he let himself go just a speck. He held onto himself instead.
Right to the end.
He stood over the grave and two quick shots blasted through the woods and across the sky. He heard the shots. Two of them. Rapid. Urgent. Like air punching through tin. That wasn’t his body falling into the grave. Massimo ‘The Coat’ Sanna – his body fell. Not into, but alongside, the grave.
Teddy holstered his gun.
This was harder, to recover from a near death. Worse than dying, maybe. He went to a knee. Tried to control his breathing. He was at risk of hyperventilating, and while that was not a story, it was an embarrassment on one level.
Eventually, he pulled it together. He stood up. Teddy watched. Big grin.
He tried to breathe more calmly. ‘What happened? Christ!’
‘You saw.’
‘Always him? Or is this a change of heart? I hope not. Because then we’re both in shit.’
‘Always him. Never you. We had to get Massimo out here without he suspects. Made him think it was you. Couldn’t tell you ahead of time in case you start playacting. Tip him off if you did. Wanted you to be yourself. You got balls, I’ll say that. You got stones. Willy stones.’
‘Jesus, Teddy.’
‘Yeah, you could’ve been shot with that “shoot me here, drag me there” horseshit.’
‘Now what?’
‘Roll him in the hole. We bury him.’
‘He might’ve whacked me, you bastard, you take too long.’
‘Could’ve. Would’ve. Life’s a risky business. It’s all about timing.’
‘We’re having this out, you and me.’
‘Don’t bother. I’m bigger than you.’
‘I’m smarter than you.’
‘Just remember, I’m bigger than you. Roll him in, smart boy.’
He was on the same side of the grave as the dead man. The bullet holes had gone through Massimo’s forehead and below his throat. He started rolling the body and Teddy turned to take off his jacket and that’s when Willy made his move. Fast and slick. Then back to the body and another big heave and it fell into the hole and the dead man’s limbs lay akimbo.
Teddy gazed at the dead man, at Massi The Coat.
Willy asked if they shouldn’t step down into the grave and straighten him out. Put him on his back. Cross his hands over his chest. ‘It’ll be more dignified.’
‘We’re not here for his fucking dignity.’
‘You’re right. This way he can see where he’s going.’
He had landed face down.
Teddy grunted and commenced shoveling him in. ‘Two shovels,’ he mentioned. ‘They don’t dig by themselves.’
Willy pitched in with the shoveling. One man on one side, one on the other. They got Massimo covered, with another five feet of backfill to go. Graves weren’t usually dug this deep by killers. He knew why this time was different.
‘Hot,’ he said. He went over to where Teddy had dropped his jacket on a rock and removed his own due to his exertion. When he returned, he aimed Massimo’s pistol at the back of Teddy’s head. He had confiscated the gun when Teddy took his jacket off. He’d stuck it under his belt and the flap of his own jacket. Something The Coat would do, only he wasn’t Massimo The Coat. He did it anyway. He aimed. He hesitated. He fired. He didn’t say anything. He knew why the grave had been dug so deep. He blew off the back of Teddy’s head and then he shot him once in the spine for good measure. That was not necessary. He just did it.
He wouldn’t have to roll the big man into the grave. Teddy The Bear fell in on his own. He didn’t land in a dignified position, either. But he wasn’t here for Teddy’s dignity. He had to finish shoveling him into the ground, though.
The work was strenuous for just one man. Whoever had planned this had planned on two diggers for part of the time. Willy dug and contemplated what came next. Twice, he’d been set up to vanish. Twice, he’d escaped. This time, no doubting who the killers were. The mob. His own people. His own crew.
Willy was now, officially, on the run.
Too late to change sides. The other side would never trust him. They might pump him for information, then he was a dead man. They might call a meeting to decide that he was better off dead.
He might not disagree.
The backfill took over an hour. He was worn out when he was done, and hungry. Adrenalin kept him upright. He walked out of the woods to the car. He felt as though he was on the verge of suffering whiplash, like he’d need to put his neck in a brace. But he could still think. He picked out a tall birch. One of rare size along that road. He tore two strips off the bark. That old signal, once used for him by a cop. Reused recently. Not an X, which was too overt. Twin strips to mark the spot. If he had to, he could find this tree again. He could show people the bodies if he had a reason for that.
He’d use the car to get away, then ditch it. The number one objective was to get away.
He executed a three-point turn before he changed his mind.
Wait.
A different thought.
He should get the hell away from the gravesite. First, he had to figure this out. This new thought might be his only option. Trouble was, he’d need what Teddy The Bear called his Willy stones. Still. A plan.
Anyhow, wasn’t he dead already?
What the hell did he have to lose?