The Last Don - Mario Puzo [116]
“No Tim, listen to me,” Pippi shouted. He wanted to spare the man unnecessary suffering. Also, he did not want to be the shooter, that was not part of the plan. But Big Tim was rushing toward the door, ready to do battle.
Then suddenly Dante was slipping inside Big Tim’s arms, nestled against his huge body. They broke apart and Big Tim sagged to his knees. It was a frightening sight. Half his shirt had been sliced away and where once his hairy right breast had been there was just a huge red patch from which an enormous gush of blood poured, staining half the table.
In Dante’s hand was the knife he had used, the blood crimson on its broad blade up to the hilt.
“Put him in a chair,” Dante said to the guards, and then he took the cloth off the table to staunch Big Tim’s bleeding. Big Tim was nearly unconscious with shock.
Pippi said, “You could have waited.”
“No,” Dante said. “He’s a tough guy. Let’s see how tough.”
“I’ll get things ready on the deck,” Pippi said. He didn’t want to watch. He had never done torture. There were really no secrets so important that justified that kind of work. When you killed a man, you merely separated him from this world so that he could do you no harm.
Up on the deck he saw that two of his men had already prepared. The steel cage was ready on its hook, the slatted bars closed. The deck was covered with a plastic sheet.
He felt the balmy air fragrant with salt, the night ocean purple and still. The yacht was slowing down and then it stopped.
Pippi gazed down at the ocean for a full fifteen minutes before the two men who had stood guard at the door appeared, carrying Big Tim’s body. It was so terrible a sight that Pippi averted his eyes.
The four men put Big Tim’s body into the cage and then lowered it over the water. One of the men adjusted the slats so that the cage was open for the denizens of the ocean deep to slide between the bars and feast on the body. Then the hook was released and the cage plunged to the bottom of the sea.
Before the sun rose, there would be only the skeleton of Big Tim’s body swimming eternally in its cage on the ocean floor.
Dante came up on deck. He had obviously taken a shower and changed his clothes. Underneath the Renaissance hat his hair was slick and wet. There was no trace of blood.
“So he already made his Communion,” Dante said. “You could have waited for me.”
Pippi said, “Did he talk?”
“Oh yeah,” Dante said. “The fix was really simple. Except maybe he was full of shit right up to the end.”
The next day Pippi flew East to give the Don and Giorgio a full report. “Big Tim was crazy,” he said. “He bribed the caterer who supplies the food and drink to the teams in the Super Bowl. They were going to use drugs to make the team they bet against weaker as the game went on. The coaches and players would notice even if the fans didn’t, and the FBI, too. You were right, Uncle, the scandal would have set back our program maybe forever.”
“Was he an idiot?” Giorgio asked.
“I think he wanted to be famous,” Pippi said. “Rich wasn’t enough.”
“What about the others involved in the scheme?” the Don asked.
“When they don’t hear from the Rustler, they’ll be scared off,” Pippi said.
Giorgio said, “I agree.”
“Very good,” the Don said. “And my grandson, did he perform well?”
It seemed an offhand remark, but Pippi knew the Don well enough to understand that this was a very serious question. He answered as carefully as he could but with a certain purpose.
“I told him not to wear his hat on this operation in Vegas and L.A. He did anyway. Then he didn’t follow the script of the operation. We could have got the information with more talk but he wanted blood. He cut the guy to pieces. He cut off his cock and nuts and breasts. That wasn’t necessary. He enjoys doing it and that is very dangerous for the Family. Somebody really has got to talk to him.”
“It will have to be you,” Giorgio said to the Don. “He doesn’t listen to me.”
Don Domenico pondered this a long time. “He’s young, he