Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [88]
"Looks like they used a fuckin howitzer . . . They're still sponging bits a this one out of his car. Found a right incisor stuck into a telephone pole, fifteen feet away, if you can believe that."
"You wanna make me throw up in your nice car?" said Tommy. "Keep it up . . . I don't like this. I dont know why you want to do this to me. Enough, alright? . . . Enough."
"We don't know for sure your uncle did this," said Al. "I'm not making any allegations, here . . . Not now, anyway . . . I'm just tellin' you, man to man—we have reason to believe your Uncle Sally was angry at these two men. We know he was angry. Let's just say, we think he had a compelling reason. We know that . . . So, what we think has happened, is that one day, Sally gets angry. The next day, they turn up like this."
It was another close-up. A dead man's face, white and wet, a tire track running diagonally across broken cheekbones. "Whoever done this is a terrible driver You know if Sally's got his license?"
"Alright!" shouted Tommy angrily. He reached for the door. "Stop it, or I'm getting outta the fuckin' car. I'll take a cab."
Al dangled a last picture in front of his face. It was an old mug shot of Freddy Manso. Instead of the corpulent alcohol-ravaged face Tommy had seen at the Dreadnaught, the face in the photo was of a young man, smooth-complected, almost feminine, with dark eyes, carefully combed ducktail, and a hint of baby fat around the cheeks and jaw. Freddy looked defiantly at the camera, holding up his name and number with a casual tilt of the head. But there was a softness, even fear, in the face, too . . . Tommy turned away and looked out the window.
"Okay, Tommy, here's how it is," said Al. He put the pictures back in the manila envelope and put the envelope back under his seat. "Here's how it is . . . No bullshit, alright? I'm gonna drop you off downtown . . . You go home and think about things for a few days. You think hard for a day or two or three, and then we'll have another talk. It's time to shit or get off the pot . . . I had a nice lunch with you today. I enjoyed it. I think you're a nice kid. I had fun. But I don't want to be lookin' at a picture of you lookin' like that one of these days . . . You talked to Michael. You know what the score is . . . Things are gonna be getting pretty bad for the people around you in the next few weeks. People you know are gonna start getting subpoenas. They're gonna have to go to a grand jury where other people are gonna be asking them questions. And some of these people, the people that are getting asked the questions . . . they're gonna start worrying about who else but them knows the answers to those questions.
"We have reason, good reason, to believe that your uncle, Sally, is gonna be worried about you. About something that happened to this man, Freddy Manso. I know you've met Freddy . . . Sally is gonna be worried. His friend Skinny is gonna be worried. Their friends are gonna be worried. And me and the people in my office are gonna be givin them a lot to worry about. I think they're gonna start worrying about you.
"When we start asking these people about what happened to Freddy Manso in front of a grand jury, what do you think is gonna be runnin' through their minds? What do you think Skinny's gonna be thinking about when he's up there on the stand, committing all kindsa perjury? They're gonna be thinkin' about Tommy Pagano. I think they're gonna be sayin' to each other, 'Hey, is Tommy gonna stand up when they haul his ass up here, give him limited-use immunity, direct him to testify?'
"You know what, Tommy? I think they're gonna say, 'Hey, Tommy's got this cookin' thing he's got goin'. He's got a girlfriend . . . Maybe, maybe we don't know what's in Tommy's mind Sure, sure . . . Sally's your uncle, he's blood and all that. . . But you know what? I seen a lotta guys get clipped over the fuckin' years, Tommy . . . Blood doesn't seem to count for all that much anymore . . . You know what I'm talkin' 'bout? It happens . . . " Al let it all hang in