Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [100]
"I'm holdin', I'm holdin'," said Skinny, pulling back on the twisted metal wire around Harvey's neck. Harvey struggled to keep his mouth closed. Skinny raised the bat high up over his head and smashed it down against his collarbone. There was a sharp snap and Harvey passed out; his head fell forward onto his chest and his mouth opened, bloody spittle running onto his shirt.
Sally pulled his head up by the nose and crammed the cherry bombs into his open mouth, distending his cheeks. Two of the cherry bombs rolled out and fell on Harvey's lap. Skinny looked over at Danny, raising an eyebrow. Danny nodded at him. "Finish him," he said.
Skinny walked over to a shelf, reached behind a case of escarole, and removed a brown paper bag. He took a .22-caliber Colt Woodsman out of the bag.
Sally was on his knees, in front of Harvey, fumbling with a book of matches. The draft from the cooling-system compressor kept blowing them out. He tried to light one of the fuses in Harvey's mouth, but the blood and saliva extinguished it.
"Wait, wait," he said. "I almost got it lit."
"C'mon, Sally, we don't got time for this," said Danny. "We know what we gotta fuckin' know."
Skinny shook his head without expression.
"I almost got it that time," said Sally, lighting another match. "Fuckin fuses are fuckin' wet. Keep gettin' blown out . . ."
Danny looked at Skinny and nodded again. Skinny pressed the barrel of the .22 against the back of Harvey's head at an upward angle and squeezed the trigger. He moved the gun in a semicircle along the base of Harvey's skull, letting off round after round. The room filled with the smell of cordite, the smoke blowing quickly around in the draft from the compressor. When the hammer clicked on a spent cartridge, Skinny put the pistol back in the brown paper bag and took off his apron. He wrapped the bag in the apron and tied the strings neatly around the package with a bow.
"Go get Victor," said Danny. "Get Victor and them upstairs. Tell them they can take him out to the place and dump him."
Sally still crouched in front of Harvey with the matches.
"C'mon Sally," said Danny. "What's the point?"
A few sparks sputtered out of Harvey's mouth, followed by a plume of smoke. There was a loud hiss. Sally stepped back and covered his ears, and Harvey's cheeks blew apart, spraying bits of flesh and enamel around the room.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ!" said Danny, wiping the corner of his eye with his pinky. "I got fuckin' food in here!"
"The fuck," said Sally. "The fuck! . . . He really put me innit, didn't he?"
"What the fuck you do that for?" asked Danny. "You didn't hafta do that. It's a fuckin' mess in here. Look at this fuckin' place!"
"I hope he felt that," said Sally.
"He didn't feel nothin'," said Danny. "The fuckin' guy was dead."
"Maybe he felt it," said Sally. "You never know."
"You can be a real fuckin' asshole sometimes," said Danny. "Now go upstairs with Skinny and tell Victor, get a hose down here and clean this fuckin' place out. It's a fuckin' mess."
Thirty-Nine
AT THE LAW OFFICES of Benson, Richardson, Hale and Clawson, James Benson wiped a coffee ring off the heavy glass conference table and waved his hand disapprovingly in front of his face. "There's no smoking in here," he said.
Danny Testa, sitting in an upholstered chair at the table, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and stubbed out his cigarette in his empty coffee container. Benson, dressed in a white squash outfit, picked up the container with two buffed and manicured fingers and dropped it in a trash can next to his desk.
"So I guess you've been reading the papers? That's what this is about?" said Benson, sitting down at the head of the table.
Danny nodded. "Whaddaya think?" he asked.
"What I think," said Benson, "is the man is going to be having some problems. You too. And maybe some others as well."
"What do you hear?" asked Danny.
"What I hear," said Benson, "what I hear is