A Knife in the Back

The Unholy Triumvirate

The Unholy TriumvirateJust . . . just get your leg up there and . . . whoa, whoa! Got a kicker here! Maybe you should just calm down and listen to the story, huh? Okay? Hold on, hold on. I gotta feed the kitties.

Okay I’m back. Let’s start from the start, huh?

See, Frankie was this guy, he was like . . . he was this tough guy in the neighborhood. Lived around the corner with his Pop what ran the newsstand, you know, where you can buy gum and smokes and, uh, newspapers, right? That kinda stuff. His pop’s name was Giuseppe. Real old school old like. Real old country. Come over here in what? ‘96, ‘97? Been here forever. When the Hindenburg went down? And when they lost that Lindbergh baby? Tragic, tragic. And this Frankie was a big guy, you know, no slouch. Told everyone he got them bulging biceps hauling around all them crates of merchandise and stacks of papers for his old man, who was a boozer by the way, and he’d racked up some pretty big debts playing the ponies, playing the boxers, playing the pretty much anything what could be played. And the guys he owed? Bad news.

And Frankie? He loved his pop and all, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Probably because he had his own problems to worry, especially them rumors. What kinda rumors? I dunno. I mean, you know, it was just . . . kinda personal rumors about the guy and, well. . . some people thought he was a . . . that he preferred . . . .

Well . . . I’ll tell you later.

So look, the day he disappeared, it was like what, three, four in the afternoon? And little Ronnie Resnick was messing around in the street, chucking a baseball at the steps of that old abandoned townhouse, and . . . What? No, it wasn’t little Ronnie what disappeared. Frankie did. Pay attention.

Little Ronnie came up to Frankie at Frankie’s pop’s newsstand with tears just streaming down his face, a freakin’ busted fire hydrant this kid. Frankie looked around to see if his Pop was anywhere in sight, and he wasn’t, so he said, “Hey kid. Whatsamatta?” And the kid, Ronnie, he just kept on crying and crying, I mean who would have thought such a scrawny little kid had so much water in him? Don’t they fast for Hanukkah or something? Anyway, Frankie said, “Hey, you want some candy?” I mean, really, but the kid fell for it, and Frankie snuck a Hershey from the stand and handed it over to little Ronnie, who was sitting on The Widow Mrs. Feldman’s front stoop now.

So Frankie sat down next to him and kinda looked around real quick. One of them cats that was always around in the neighborhood came sauntering over and rubbed up against his leg, and Frankie just pet it a little. And then he licked his lips and he put his arm around the kid. Ronnie didn’t even notice. He just chomped away on his Hershey’s, chocolate smeared all over his mouth like a, like a, like a kid . . . eating a big chocolate bar. You know, getting it all over his face. Then The Widow Mrs. Feldman opened up her window and stuck her head out and Frankie’s arm whipped off the kid’s shoulder like a snake bit him.

“What’dja do, Frankie?” The Widow Mrs. Feldman asked, kinda shocked. “What’dja do?”

“Nothin’, I-I didn’t do nothin’. He just come here like this.”

“What, with his face all swole up and cryin’? You beat that kid up? He steal somethin’ from you?”

“Nah, nah, he didn’t . . . hey, Ronnie. Why you crying like this?”

So the kid told him. He was over there throwing the ball against the stoop when some big goombahs came riding through and took the ball and when he put up a stink they threw the thing through the window of the old abandoned house.

Oh, look! It’s widdle schnookums. See this little kitty? Started hanging round lately. Can’t blame him. Got about ten out there. They like to prowl around the back yard.

So at this point in the narrative, it becomes necessary to describe our old abandoned townhouse. It looked like any other townhouse on the block except for the fact that it was “empty”. And that emptiness weighed on it like, uh, like eating too much hamburger lasagna on a hot summer day.

No. That’s an awful comparison.

How about, “it weighed on the house like a wet, wool straightjacket?”

Eh, not perfect, but better.

It was just, I dunno, it was just the fact that the windows was all the time dark, you know? And not just your ‘the lights is out and it’s midnight on Halloween’ dark, but black. Pure black. Opaque. Is that the right word? Just nod if it’s—oh, that’s right you can’t. Just blink your eyes twice if it’s—yeah, I thought I’d heard that word before. Opaque. The windows was opaque. Blacker’n asphalt, deader’n lead.

During the day they seemed to stare at you, them windows. And the door was all stripped and gray, and there was moss and vines all creeping all over the stoop like friggin’ snakes. It was like the house’d been transported all the way from a swamp or something. Real ju-ju Louisiana stuff, you know? And all kinds of rumors spun around about the place, too. Blood oozing out the walls, knives slicing through the air. Friggin’ nightmare.

Well, back to Frankie. He was sitting there with that poor kid just bawling and bawling about the ball. Said his dad gave it to him, and the old bastard kicked the bucket in the war. And Frankie was sitting there, and all the old pluggers on the block what hung around his Pop’s newsstand all day started to show up, shuffling around with their canes and such, and they was looking at him all funny, and so finally he said, “Alright, alright I’ll go an get it.”

Thing was, it was getting dark all the sudden. The setting sun cast shadows of the houses on the street, and the old townhouse was all covered in them. And there Frankie stood at the stoop, lookin’ up at the windows, and them windows was just staring right back at him. He folded his arms across his chest, not ‘cause he was trying to look tough, though looking tough was exactly how he was trying to look, but more cause he was cold, standing there in his white tee shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his brown trousers and his newsboy’s hat. And them windows was just daring him to come in. “Yeah, that’s right,” they whispered. “Put your foot on my stoop. Lay your hand on my door. Come on in, Frankie. Come on in.”

What? What happened to him? Whaddaya think happened to him? He never come back out, that’s what. They never found his body. Never found his clothes. Not a peep. Nothing. His pop raised a ruckus with the peelers, but this place was well-known to anyone with half a brain, and most of the coppers grew up around here, so there was no way any of them was gonna set foot in it.

Hold on a minute. Gotta get this thing rolling here. It’s pretty heavy, you know, and if I don’t keep the stainless steel bleached and shining it craps out on me. Believe you me, it’s no picnic.

Anyway, about a month later there was these guys, right? Couple of thugs in real nice suits. Herringbone. Italian leather shoes.

“Hey,” the tall one said. Gray, wool long coat. “Look who it is. Giuseppe Malone!” He kinda held out his arms, palms up, expecting a hug or something.

The other one was as short and squat as the first one was tall. Wore a wool long coat, too, but it was black. His fedora was black, too, just like the other one was gray. Couple of fancy dressers, them two. The fat one didn’t say nothing, just grabbed a Hershey’s off the stand, unwrapped it, and chucked the trash on the street.

“What’s this?” The Widow Mrs. Feldman said, leaning out her window. “Ain’t you got enough sense to find a trash can?”

The tall one eyeballed her out of the corner of his eye, kinda like this. He didn’t say nothing for a second, and the fat one just looked at him like a dog waiting for directions. Finally the tall one hissed something in Italian at his partner, and the little one said, “What? What’d I do?”

“Just pick up the wrapper, huh?”

Frankie’s pop just stood there, and he looked a billion years old since Frankie’s went missing. Sure he was bald before, but now his skin was all . . . chalky? Is that the right word? Jus blink if . . . yeah, chalky. And his wrinkles’d grown wrinkles, and he had a hitch in his step where there wasn’t one before, and he was all the time sighing and breathing heavy for no reason at all. A real Job.

The tall thug tried again.

“Giuseppe! Haven’t heard from you in a long time, huh?”

Giuseppe gave him this withering glare, you know, like he didn’t really care. Then he leaned on the stacks of newspapers on his counter and said, “Che cifai qui, Basilio? Te l’ho detto prima, non ho nulla per te.”

The smile on Basilio’s face fell just a little, but his hands stayed up.

“Nothing?” He made this grand display, like he’s—oh don’t mind this, it’s a little cold—like he was just seeing the newsstand for the first time. He peered at the rows a Hershey’s, ogled the newspapers all bundled up in brown paper, squinted at the boxes a smokes. “Nothing? What’s all this, then? Peanuts?”

Meanwhile, the short little guy came back from the trashcan clapping his hands like he just built the pyramids or something, and Basilio said, “Arko, you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Giuseppe. He says he ain’t got nothing for us today.”

Suddenly Arko was all concerned. His eyebrows bounced up, and his mouth dropped open a little. “Vincent’s gonna be pissed.”

Then Giuseppe did something really stupid. He waved his hands at them like they was one of them urchin’s come begging for candy.

And then he turned his back.

Basilio’s bemused smile quickly dropped into a snarl, and with a grunt and a growl he lunged over the counter, and he grabbed the old man by the collar, pulled him back over, threw him on the street and . . . well, you get the picture.

When they was done, Basilio, and he was breathing all heavy, and his coat was all ruffled and his hat lay in the gutter, Basilio screamed, “That’s right! You got nothing! And you better have all that nothing by the end a the week or you’ll have even more nothing than you already ain’t got!”

Arko leveled a kick right at the old man’s ribs, just to rub it in, like a rim shot at the follies, right, ‘cept there wasn’t no minstrels, there wasn’t no go-go girls shaking their cans, and there wasn’t nobody laughing.

And then they just left him there, newspapers soaking up the rain in the gutter, his teeth all bashed in and bloody, jagged gashes crisscrossing his face from where Basilio’s rings cut him, and now in addition to not having his son Frankie no more, he lost the sight in his left eye, not that he’d notice on account of his eye was swole up to the size of a grapefruit: big, black, purple, and yellow.

Monday came and went, and Giuseppe didn’t do nothing. He set up his stand, he sold his newspapers, he made jokes with The Widow Mrs. Feldman, but he didn’t do nothing else. If he got a gun he wasn’t showing it around. If he planned on skipping town, nobody seen no suitcases. Other’n that pumpkin for an eye, you wouldn’t have known anything happened.

‘Cept this.

Every night he just stood there on the sidewalk outside the old abandoned town house, looking up at it. It was creepy, just him and the house, staring at each other. Some people thought they seen his lips moving, like he was talking to it or something, hands hanging by his sides, the full moon hanging in the sky like a fat spider sack, casting his black shadow on the street.

Then it was Wednesday, then it was Thursday, and Friday morning rolled around cold and clear. You could see your breath fogging the air. Dew froze on windows in leopard spots, and the puddles of muck was skimmed over with a stained glass layer of ice. Fall in the big city. Basilio and Arko showed up right after sunrise, and Giuseppe was the only one out on the street. The Widow Mrs. Feldman’s curtains twitched, and little Ronnie Resnick’s ma paced by her window. Even the peelers, strolling by at the top of the street, hands clasped behind their backs, disappeared as soon as them two goombahs showed up.

Giuseppe didn’t say a word, just stood there when they walked up. Basilio said, “You got your nothing for us today, Giuseppe? Or we gonna have to wipe the gutter with your face again?”

“My son, Frankie.”

Giuseppe’s good eye wandered over to the townhouse.

Basilio and Arko exchanged a look.

“Your son Frankie what?” Arko spat. “That fruitcake?” He slapped the back of his gloved hand on Basilio’s chest. “I hear he hangs out down the docks during fleet week.”

Giuseppe’s face went dark, and a sneer swiped across it.

“He won’t let you do somethin’ like this. He won’t let this happen maggio le vostre anima per sempre camminano la terra nel dolore.”

Them two guys just burst out into laughter. And not just a few giggles neither, but full-on belly laughs. Basilio hit Arko in the shoulder with his gloves again. Giuseppe remained stone-faced and cold. Then without warning, Basilio slapped him across the face three times real quick, like a machine gun that one, and grabbed him by the back a the neck and slammed his face into the stack of newspapers on the counter. Poor old Giuseppe cried out something horrible, but there wasn’t much he could do except flail his arms. Arko pressed his thumb into the old man’s grapefruit eye.

“Frankie ain’t here no more, is he? That friggin’ homo’s burning in hell now. It’s you you should be worried about. Now you gonna give us your nothing or what?”

“Yes, yes,” Giuseppe whispered. He’s got their money. And so they let him go and said, “Where?” and he said, “Follow me.”

And where did he lead them? You guessed it. Right over to the old abandoned townhouse. He slogged up the stairs to the door, but Basilio and Arko didn’t go no farther than the sidewalk, staring at the place like the whole thing was a joke.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Basilio said. “You think this is funny? Come here. I’m gonna close your other eye.”

Giuseppe put his hand on the door.

“You want your money, you come in here.”

The other two didn’t say nothing. Basilio nodded, grimacing. Arko frowned, confused. “All right, old man,” Basilio finally said. “But if there’s anything—”

Giuseppe didn’t let him finish. He opened the door, went inside, and gently shut it behind him.

You never seen two old garlic cloves move so friggin’ fast! They charged up them steps and burst into the house like a herd of elephants. You could see them standing there, looking around for the old man, then a shadow passed by the door and slammed it close.

For a minute there was nothing. Then the heaters started firing like lightning through the windows. It went on and on, then the door flew open and fat little Arko fell out. Didn’t run, didn’t walk, but fell out, flat on his face. He was covered in blood, and his hat was gone, and you couldn’t tell if the blood was his or not. He just lay there for a second, and then he started to crawl forward, pulling himself along with his pudgy fingers, inch by inch, trying to make it to the steps.

What’s he gonna do once he gets there nobody knows. Blood dripped off his face, and his greasy hair fell in his eyes. He opened his mouth to cry for help, but he was only able to gurgle a little. Then something pulled him back a foot, almost all the way into the house. Arko dug his nails into the concrete, leaving red marks and skin. He stopped long enough to let out a broken sob, and then whatever was on the other side of that door pulled him all the way back in and slammed it shut.

A few minutes later the peelers strolled by and waited for a while next to Giuseppe’s newsstand. Then The Widow Mrs. Feldman came out of her house, picked up some of the papers that’d blown into the gutter. When one of the cops puts a nickel down on the stack, she handed him one.

Here. Raise your head. There you go. Just a sip, okay? Don’t want to choke it all back up.

So that’s the way it stood for a while. The house was like the, uh . . . the whatchamacallit? The monkey in the oven. You know, everyone went about their business, going to school, going to work, and everybody knew it was there but nobody wanted to admit it. Politicians lied and paid the rich; businessmen lied and paid the lobbyists, lobbyists lied and paid the politicians. Nothing ever changes, and nothing ever will. Only thing different on the street was who was screwing who. And there sat the old abandoned house in the middle of it all, black eyed and dirty and covered in moss, daring anybody to come near.

What? What’s that? Yeah! The elephant in the room. That’s what I meant.

Huh. “Monkey in the oven.”

Anyway, then the kids started disappearing and everything went to hell.

Someone set fire to the place, but the flames didn’t do nothing more than blacken the foundation, burn away some of the moss and clear the weeds. The funniest thing was when the guy who did it was standing there, watching it burn, and wouldn’t you know it? A window fell out of the top floor and impaled the jerk right through the head, like a spear, killed him dead on the spot.

And after that, they called you.

You.

A priest.

They sent a priest.

In here.

With me.

It’d be funny if it wasn’t so stupid.

‘Cause, I mean, take it from my perspective. There you was in your vestal robes and your funny hat and your holy water and your silly little book. And you’re chanting and reading in the living room, sprinkling water all over the brown stains on the carpet, your feet crunching on all the dirt and stuff, and you’re trying to ignore that stench floating up from down here in the basement. I could see it in your face, you was thinking, “What does that smell like?”

That’s when I sent widdle schnookims here at you, and while you was distracted by the sight of this perfect little kitty cat in all this filth, you didn’t even hear the whisper of my footsteps coming up behind, did you? Didn’t know there was anybody there till the cloth was over your mouth and nose, huh?

What’s that, pop? Wha . . . hold on a minute. I’ll be done down here soon.

That’s my pop, he don’t hear so good since them goons did a number on his ears. Looks like he won’t have to worry about them no more, huh? And pretty soon I won’t have to worry about you. Nobody’ll ever have to worry about you again, huh father? You remember me yet? Huh? Yeah, I bet you don’t. But I remember you. And here we are. I wish I had someone like me around when I was a kid.

The three biggest scourges of the Earth is violence, vice, and veneration. All three of them in some way responsible for all the wrongs done to all the people in all the world. Think of all the brutality done to poor children by the people who should have been taking care of them, and the stupid church that said it was okay.

Well, look up there on the wall. See that? Good old Arko. Well. Just his head. He was the first one so it was a little rough going on the skull there. Had to do some patching up in those bare spots. Next to him you got your standard goon, Basilio. His face got a little . . . how to say this . . . exploded? Don’t blame the artist.

And in about a minute or two you’re gonna join them there, father. The Unholy Triumvirate. A masterpiece, complete at last.

Whaddaya think? Oh that’s right. You should be losing feeling in most of your face right about now.

Anyway, this won’t hurt a bit. Just a little pinch in the arm and . . . no, no, don’t worry about those.

I sharpened them up nice just this morning.