CHAPTER 41

A sap--a flat, black, beaver-tailed leather weapon approximately eight inches long, also known as a black-jack--sat on the table beside the rocking chair in which Puddy’s mother rocked to and fro slowly, a menacing, satisfied smile on her face. Another sap, me, stood before her, a gift-wrapped bottle of Powers in a bright silver bag tied with a purple string in my hands, staring at her with must have been one the dumbest looks she’d ever seen on anyone’s face. And that said a lot considering she’d raised Puddy.

“I, um, I hope you just use that thing to open walnuts,” I said, nodding in the direction of the sap.

She picked it up in her right hand and admired it.

“Beautiful, ain’t it? It was ma grandadda’s. Took it offa a police who tried ta subdue ’im.” She cackled. “I used ta use it on Puddy when he was a young’un, when he started actin’ up. Didn’t do much good. Us Salvatores got hard heads.”

“You know, I don’t think now’s a good time for us to have our chat. Perhaps I should come back some other time,” I said, slowly backing my way toward the front door.

“Actually, now’s probably the perfect time.”

The voice came from my left, from the doorway to the kitchen. I turned and saw Bones coming out of that room, where he must have been lurking. There was a long, slender-bladed knife in his right hand. He was also smiling and his eyes were two slits just opened wide enough for some of the evil in them to leak through. I turned my head to look back at Puddy’s mother. She was patting the palm of her left hand with the sap.

“Can’t believe ya was actually stupid enough to think I’da wanna sit down with ya and talk to ya about ma dear, departed Puddy. You, who as good as put the knife inna his belly.”

“Mrs. Salvatore.” I stopped to gulp. “I had nothing to do with Puddy’s death. Someone else killed him before we found his body.” My voice was a little shaky and I could feel the perspiration forming in my armpits. It wasn’t from the humidity.

Her black eyes hardened. “Ya know, ma people goes back a long way in this county--a long way. And one thing that could always be said about us is we take care of our own. An eye for an eye, like the Bible says. Ain’t that right, Ricky?”

“That’s right, ma’am,” Bones answered. I turned my head slowly and saw him moving farther into the room to stand behind me. It was really hard for me to imagine this very threatening person could be a “Ricky.”

“Now I don’t know who stuck that knife in ma boy. He shouldna run--we coulda worked something out with the powers that be--but his runnin’ made people nervous. He set his self on that path. But I do know that if you and that bitch Tina--” She turned her head and spat on the floor as she said her name “--hadna started messin’ with ’im, he’d still be alive today.”

“But I didn’t even know him, only met him that one time, and he left me hogtied with duct tape.” I turned to look at Bones standing behind me. “He didn’t tell me anything, just took my money and left.” I looked back at Mrs. Salvatore. She seemed unmoved. “I--I even offered to help him carry stuff to his truck.”

“Well, that was mighty kind of ya,” she said, rising slowly with a bit of effort from her chair. “But what’s gotta be done has gotta be done. It’s a matter of Salvatore pride. I couldn’t face him or his Pappy in heaven if I didn’t do some settlin’ up. Now turn around and get on your knees.”

“But--please listen to me--” I pleaded.

“You heard the lady, turn around and face me and get on your knees,” Bones said from behind in a voice that wasn’t the sort one quarreled with.

I turned and faced him. He had a mean grin on his face and was rolling the handle of his knife around in his hand.

I kneeled slowly, first onto the right knee then the left. I still held the neck of bottle of Powers I’d brought with me in my right hand. I gripped the barrel of the bottle with my left hand, tightly. It seemed to help keep me from shaking. I stared at the twirling knife in Bones’s hand.

Then I heard Mrs. Salvatore scuffling toward me from behind.

“You summabitch,” she said.

I heard a dull thump and it took a moment to realize it was the sound of the sap crashing into the back of my head, then another moment for a searing pain to begin where the sap had hit its mark. Next thing I saw was the floor rushing up to meet my face. Then nothing.

***

It hurt at first to open my eyes. I did so one at a time. My head was lowered, chin on my chest, and I was staring down at a concrete floor with a few uneven splotches of oil stains here and there. I raised my head slowly. I was someplace that wasn’t particularly well lit, but what light there was brought on a feeling of nausea as it flooded into my eyes. I took a large gulp of air. It seemed to help.

I was inside a large empty garage, sitting in a wooden chair with my hands tied to the stiles. Actually, the garage wasn’t empty. Bones and Puddy’s mother were standing in front of me, about three feet away. In a corner was a Harley Davidson Superlow motorcycle. I guessed it belonged to Bones. I hadn’t seen a motorcycle when I arrived earlier, so he must have parked it here, out of sight.

“Well, boy. You certainly don’t have a Salvatore noggin’, that’s fer sure. Thought maybe I hit ya a might too hard, way ya crumbled like a sack of taters--sure was one heckuva load for Ricky to drag out here,” Puddy’s mother said when she saw I had regained consciousness.

“Where’s here?” I asked.

“Why this here’s ma garage. Know it don’t look like much right now, but back when bizness was good, we were turning over pretty much a car a day. Ain’t that right, Ricky?”

“That’s right, ma’am. Things were good,” Ricky--er--Bones replied.

She turned to look at Bones and there was a trace of anger in her voice.

“Yeah, until ya let ma boy get that damned bitch involved. Told ya she was bad news right from the beginnin’.”

“Aw, you know Puddy had a thing for her. I just thought...well, he thought...that she might be impressed if she saw how things were, change the way she looked at him. I didn’t see the harm,” Bones said sheepishly.

She turned fully to face him, her body tense.

“No, ya didn’t see the harm. Well, ya also didn’t see that way she wrapped him around her fingers, how he was spendin’ good money to buy her ’spensive things.”

“But Puddy was right. His plan actually worked out pretty good,” replied Bones, pleading his case. “He’d spot a model of a car we wanted, follow it, and, if it parked downtown, he’d send Tina in to keep the owner busy while he boosted the car. Worked like a charm. I mean, she was pretty good at it, and we got us some real fine vehicles right in broad daylight.”

Puddy’s mother took a step toward Bones, her hands clenching. For a little lady, she could give off a powerful sense of terror. Bones actually took a step back.

“I tol’ that boy--I tol’ you--that bitch was not to be trusted,” she growled. “Ya shoulda seen her, the way she come runnin’ in here after they stole this here ’uns car--all hysterical that we’d stolen some hot shot reporter’s car and that he’d find out all about us, send us all to jail, and demandin’ we give the car back. I woulda killed her right there, swear to God I shoulda, but Puddy said he could talk some sense to her. I blame myself for leavin’ them alone. He warn’t no match for her and her female wiles.”

She seemed to soften a bit at the memory of her son. Her hands relaxed, her head dropped a little and she shook it slightly left to right.

I sensed an opportunity to get a little information. Not that it was going to do me any good most likely. I just the longer I kept them talking the longer I might live.

“But how did you find us, how’d you know we’d be at the hotel?” I asked.

Puddy’s mother turned and looked at me like I was a three-year old.

“Oh that warn’t hard. Bitch said she heard ya tell the police were ya was stayin’, knew she’d go runnin’ to ya. I called Ricky here and tol’ him where to go--knew Puddy warn’t capable of doin’ what had to be done--but Ricky--” She turned her head and looked at him admiringly. “--he’s a good boy, knows how to take care of bizness.”

I looked at Bones. He seemed genuinely touched by Mrs. Salvatore’s compliment.

“So you killed Tina?” I said to him.

He just smiled at me.

“Why didn’t you kill me too?” I asked.

“Why, killin’ that bitch was within our rights. She worked for us, but ya--we didn’t have permission to kill no stranger and there’s rules that have to be followed, what ya’d call protocols.” She seemed pleased to be able to use such a big word.

“Whose rules? Somebody else is calling the shots?”

Puddy’s mother walked over to me, a gentle look on her face.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said. She pulled her right hand back and then came forward with it, slapping me hard across the face. Then she wagged at finger at me. “That ain’t for ya to know. But if it’s important to ya, ya should know we’re making an exemption for ya, ’cause like I said, this is personal and sometimes rules just don’t apply.”

She walked over to where my gift of Powers sat on a work bench that ran along a wall of the garage. She picked it up, untied the ribbon, and slid the gift bag off, her back to me.

“’Course, we gotta make this look like an accident...can’t just come right out and kill ya. ’Cause there are consequences for breakin’ the rules. We’re takin’ a mighty big risk.”

She tried to unscrew the top off the bottle but wasn’t able to. She held out the bottle to Bones.

“Here, ya do it. My arthritis is actin’ up a bit.”

Bones handed his knife to her and took the bottle from her. He easily screwed off the top.

“Nice of ya to bring your own likker...that way I don’t have to waste none of mine,” Puddy’s mother said.

Bones approached me.

“What are you going to do? People know I came out here,” I lied. I’d told no one. “They’ll suspect you right away.”

“And I’ll just tell them the truth. Ya came out here, we had a nice chat about ma boy--just like lots of witnesses heard you ask for at ma son’s funeral, only ya was drinking a bit heavy and even tho’ I tol’ ya not go driving off, ya insisted. What could I do to stop ya? I’m just a little ol’ lady.” She chuckled. “So when they find your car where it run off the road and inna the river, it’ll look like ya were drunk and missed a turn. Why, what else coulda it been but a tragic accident?”

“Bottoms up,” Bones said as he grabbed the back of my head by my hair.

I tried to protest but he forced the bottle into my mouth. The whiskey began flowing freely. I had no choice but to swallow a good quantity of it, although some of it spilled out of my mouth, down my chin and over the front of my shirt. Oddly enough, considering the situation, all I could think at the moment was Slow down, you’re wasting some of it. I started gagging. I felt like I was drowning. Bones paused for a moment, smiled at me with a sick grin, then pushed the bottle back into my mouth.

Suddenly, a door next to the larger garage door at the far end of garage burst open and sunlight flooded into the room.

“Stop right there. Put the bottle down and step away from the chair.”

Bones pulled the bottle from my mouth. I looked around his body to see three state troopers, each standing with their feet shoulder width apart, each holding a Glock 22 with both hands, pointing it at Bones. They all wore bullet proof vests and appeared to mean business.

Bones turned slowly to face them. “Or what? You going to shoot me. I’m unarmed,” he said.

“Just step away from the chair, put the bottle down, and get down on your knees. I’m not going to tell you again,” the trooper in the middle answered, his voice firm and in control.

“Big man with that gun in your hand. Why don’t you put it down and we settle this man to man?” Bones said, taking a slow step forward.

The trooper raised the gun slightly. He jaw tightened. “I will shoot you if you don’t stop right there,” he said.

The scene was tense, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement to my left. I turned my head to see Puddy’s mother, about twenty feet away, holding Bones’s knife, and beginning to move in my direction. There was a crazed look in her eyes.

I looked back at the troopers but their attention was focused on Bones.

“Hey,” I yelled out to them.

I looked over and saw that Puddy’s mother was shuffling my way a little faster. They didn’t seem to take notice. I rocked forward a little bit and straightened my legs. I was able to stand up. Probably not the best idea, because although I was ambulatory, I was still tied to the chair and was bent over at a angle, my face now just about at the level with the approaching knife Mrs. Salvatore held out in front of her. I was also feeling the effects of the Powers and was unsteady on my feet, staggering forward, even closer to Puddy’s mother.

“You summabitch!” she screamed as she shuffled toward me at a faster pace, swinging the knife wildly back and forth.

“Hey, help!” I screamed as I began backpedaling as fast as could, bent over as I was.

Puddy’s mother continued to come at me, closing the ground between us, and the knife passed within inches of my face. I had no idea where I was going, but just kept moving back and away from her attack.

I glanced over quickly at the troopers. They were just standing there, mouths agape in disbelief, watching the scene. Bones, who had turned around, had the same look on his face. No one moved as she chased me around the room.

“Do something!” I screamed as the knife made another pass close to my face.

I knew I had to be running out of room and she was going to get me. I pivoted on my left leg, bringing the chair around like a tail. Its legs crashed into Puddy’s mother, knocking her off-balance and the knife out of her hand.

The move seemed to wake the troopers out of their stupors. Two rushed forward and tackled Bones from behind, sending him crashing down onto the garage’s concrete floor. He struggled with them but they were able to cuff him. The third came to my rescue, kicking the knife out of her reach and wrapping his arms around Puddy’s mother from behind. He lifted her up off the ground. She struggled to get out of his grasp, but he had a good hold of her.

“You summabitch. This ain’t over. I’ll get you someday. A Salvatore never forgets. You’ll see,” she screamed at me, spit flying from between her gums.

One of the other troopers came over and helped put cuffs on her. He led her away and followed the trooper with the shackled Bones toward the door.

“He killed ma boy, that summabitch killed ma boy,” she hollered at the trooper as they went out of the garage.

The trooper who had come to my rescue went over and picked up the knife and came to stand before me. I could only see as far up as his chest in my bent over condition. He twirled the knife much as Bones had.

“Captain Winters wants to see you--and he’s a not happy man,” he said.