Strega - Andrew H. Vachss [1]
I had never spoken to the woman. I got the story from an old man I did time with years ago. Julio called me at Mama Wong's restaurant and left a message to meet at a gas station he owns over in Brooklyn. "Tell him to bring the dog," he told Mama.
Julio loves my dog. Her name is Pansy and she's a Neapolitan mastiff—about 140 pounds of vicious muscle and dumb as a brick. If her entire brain was high–quality cocaine, it wouldn't retail for enough cash to buy a decent meal. But she knows how to do her work, which is more than you can say for a lot of fools who went to Harvard.
Back when I did my last long stretch, the prison yard was divided into little courts—every clique had one, the Italians, the blacks, the Latins. But it didn't just break down to race—bank robbers hung out together, con men had their own spot, the iron–freaks didn't mix with the basketball junkies…like that. If you stepped on a stranger's court, you did it the same way you'd come into his cell without an invite—with a shank in your hand. People who don't have much get ugly about giving up the little they have left.
Julio's court was the biggest one on the yard. He had tomato plants growing there, and even some decent chairs and a table someone made for him in the wood shop. He used to make book at the same stand every day—cons are all gamblers, otherwise they'd work for a living. Every morning he'd be out there on his court, sitting on a box near his tomato plants, surrounded by muscle. He was an old man even then, and he carried a lot of respect. One day I was talking to him about dogs, and he started in about Neapolitans.
"When I was a young boy, in my country, they had a fucking statue of that dog right in the middle of the village," he told me. "Neapolitan mastiffs, Burke—the same dogs what came over the Alps with Hannibal. I get out of this place, the first thing I do is get one of those dogs."
He was a better salesman than he was a buyer—Julio never got a Neapolitan, but I did. I bought Pansy when she was a puppy and now she's a full–grown monster. Every time Julio sees her, tears come into his eyes. I guess the idea of a cold–blooded killer who can never inform on the contractor makes him sentimental.
I drove my Plymouth into the gas station, got the eye from the attendant, and pulled into the garage. The old man came out of the darkness and Pansy growled—it sounded like a diesel truck downshifting. As soon as she recognized Julio's voice her ears went back just a fraction of an inch, but she was still ready to bite.
"Pansy! Mother of God, Burke–she's the size of a fucking house! What a beauty!"
Pansy purred under the praise, knowing there were better things coming. Sure enough, the old man reached in a coat pocket and came out with a slab of milk–white cheese and held it out to her.
"So, baby—you like what Uncle Julio has for you, huh?"
Before Julio could get close enough, I snapped "Speak!" at Pansy. She let the old man pat her massive head as the cheese quickly disappeared. Julio thought "Speak!" meant she should make noises—actually, it was the word I taught her that meant it was okay to take food. To Julio, it looked like a dog doing a trick. The key to survival in this world is to have people think you're doing tricks for them. Nobody was going to poison my dog.
Pansy growled again, this time in anticipation. "Pansy, jump!" I barked at her, and she lay down in the back seat without another sound.
I got out of the car and lit a cigarette—Julio wouldn't call me out to Brooklyn just to give Pansy some cheese.
"Burke, an old friend of mine comes to me last week. He says this freak is doing something to his daughter, making her crazy—scared all the time. And he don't know what to do. He tries to talk to her and she won't tell him what's wrong. And the daughter—she's married to a citizen, you know? Nice guy, treats her good and everything. He earns good, but he's not one of us. We can't bring him in on this."
I just watched the old man. He was so shook he was trembling. Julio had killed two