5 Bad Moon
Anthony Bruno
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1992, 2008 by Anthony Bruno
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
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First Diversion Books edition January 2014
ISBN:
978-1-62681-232-1
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Sabatini Mistretta felt bad. Here he was sitting with Sal Immordino’s own sister Cil, eating her cookies and drinking her awful coffee, and just the other day he’d given the okay for a hit on her brother. And what was worse, Cil was a nun, for chrissake. The old mob boss pressed his lips together. It just didn’t seem right.
Mistretta took another pignoli cookie off the plate that was balanced on the arm of the sofa. The cookies were good, but he shouldn’t eat so many. But with Cil’s coffee you needed something to kill the taste.
“Would you like some more coffee, Mr. Mistretta?” Cil tilted her head and smiled like a saint, those big eyeglasses of hers flashing in the light.
Mistretta laid a hand on his belly and made a face. “No thanks, Cil. I’ll be up all night as it is.”
“How about you, Jerry?”
Jerry Rella, Mistretta’s bodyguard and driver, shrugged and nodded. “Sure, Cil. Just half a cup.” Jerry had a nice smile. He had the kind of rubbery face people trusted. Very kind watery blue eyes. And he actually was a nice guy if you didn’t cross him.
Cil stood up from the other sofa and reached over for Jerry’s cup and saucer. “I’ll be right back.” She turned and sailed back toward the kitchen, which was in the rear of this run-down browns tone—the Mary Magdalene Home for Unwed Mothers.
Mistretta glanced up at the water stains on the ceiling. The roof leaked. The whole place was a disaster. Even Goodwill wouldn’t take furniture like she had in this parlor. He was surprised Cil hadn’t hit him up for some money. She usually did, even though he always said no. The Church has plenty of money, he’d told her before. Look at the Vatican, for chrissake. Take a little gold outta that place and put the money into the Mary Magdalene Home, he’d told her. But she had a head as hard as her brother Sal. She didn’t want to take money from the diocese. She wanted to remain independent, she said. And that’s why she and all these poor girls with their babies had to live in this dump stuck in the ass-end of Jersey City. But Mistretta felt bad now, considering her brother was gonna die and all. Maybe he oughta give her a couple of thou. Just to fix the roof, at least.
Jerry reached over from the third couch and snatched a cookie from the plate. Mistretta watched him as he bit into it and got powdered sugar on the lapel of his suit jacket. He wondered whether Jerry was the guy who got the contract. Jerry used to do a lot of those jobs before he became Mistretta’s bodyguard. He was good with a gun.
Who knows? They could’ve picked Jerry for the job. It’d be good if they did, but Mistretta wasn’t gonna get involved. He was getting tired of all this shit. He was ready to take it easy, let the others take care of the day-to-day bullshit. But if Jerry does whack Sal Immordino, that’ll put him in good with Juicy Vacarini, and then Juicy’ll take care of him when he starts taking over some of Mistretta’s duties. That’ll be nice. If it’s Jerry.
But Mistretta told Juicy at the meet the other day—he didn’t wanna know nothing about the details of this thing. He agreed with them, that Sal was dangerous where he was now, locked up in the nuthouse down in Trenton. Sal had a big beef with Frank Bartolo because Mistretta gave him Sal’s crew after they took Sal to the loony bin. Sal felt Frank owed him money for deals he put together for that crew, profits that came in after Sal was put away. But Frank had a big beef with Sal too. He said Sal was making bad blood between him and the guys in the crew. Loopy Lou, Gyp, Angie, Phil, Jimmy T.—they were all very loyal to Sal, and they stayed in touch with Sal, visited him at the bin. The way Frank Bartolo figured it, these guys would never earn for him the way they did for Sal as long as Sal was still around making them think he’d be back someday.
But it was Juicy who came up with the best reason for whacking Sal. The guy’s miserable down there in Trenton, and there’s no way he can get out. If he admits he’s not nuts so he can get outta there, they’ll try him on all his old murder and racketeering charges and throw him in jail, maybe even put him on death row. After all, they’re always looking for white guys they can execute. So what’s the only thing left for Sal to do? Sing, that’s what. He talks to the state in exchange for a change in life-style. They’ll put him in one of those nice country-club facilities if he starts ratting on the family. He names enough fucking names, they’ll get him into witness protection, get him a place out in Kansas and make him a real fucking American. Juicy was right. Nothing against Sal, but he was too vulnerable where he was. The guy was ripe for the picking. He was too much of a risk. He had to go.
Mistretta looked sideways at Jerry brushing the powdered sugar off his lapel. Jerry was a nice guy, got along pretty good with everybody. Still, he was never bosom buddies with Sal, so Sal would know something was up if he showed up down at the bin. Maybe he wasn’t the hit man.
Mistretta thought about it. Bartolo’s kid, Frank Junior, he was a possibility. Violent son of a bitch, and almost as big as Sal. Would be a nice way to get the kid some respect in the family if he did Sal. Frank Junior wasn’t too bright, though. Maybe he could sneak in dressed like another nut. The kid was a big jooch, he’d look the part.
Then there was always Joey D’Amico with that big ugly wart on the side of his nose. Mistretta never understood why the guy never went to a doctor and got rid of that thing. D’Amico was a pretty good earner, but he was a little ass-licker. Soon as Sal got put away, he started sucking up to his new boss, badmouthing Sal, talking about all the other guys in the crew. He’d do Sal just to earn a few brownie points with Bartolo, the sneaky little bastard.
Cil came back into the parlor, carrying the cup and saucer in front her. She floated like a ghost, it seemed, because you couldn’t see her legs under the long habit. She set down Jerry’s cup on the end table, then went back to her couch, folding her hands in her lap, smiling nicely for no particular reason. Mistretta figured she was getting ready to ask him for money again. She was gonna drop dead when he said yes this time.
“I have a little surprise for you, Mr. Mistretta.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
She had this funny little smile. “It’s in the basement.”
“The basement?” Mistretta furrowed his brow and tugged on the flesh under his chin.
She smiled wider. “Yes. In the basement.”
He looked at Jerry, who shrugged as he sipped his coffee. “What’s down there, Cil?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.” The glare was in her glasses. Mistretta wished he could see her eyes.
She stood up and pointed to the door under the staircase, the door to the basement. Mistretta looked over his shoulder, out the bay windows at the dark street. This was a bad neighborhood. You never knew who could be down there, for crying out loud.
“Why don’t you just tell me what you got down there, Cil? You must have cock-a-roaches down there. I don’t like cock-a-roaches.”
“There are no cockroaches down there. Promise.” She still had that giddy little smile on, like the Blessed Mother just came down and told her a joke.
Jerry was looking at him with his elbows on his knees, waiting for him to decide what they were gonna do.
Mistretta shrugged. “Awright, let’s go down and see what you got.” He got up off the couch, wincing as he put weight on his knees. Arthritis. It was a bitch getting old. Jerry followed him over to the basement door. He figured the girls who lived here must’ve made something. Last time he was here one of the pregnant girls gave him a bird feeder she made. Cil was trying to raise money having these kids make bird feeders. How many bird feeders you gonna sell in this neighborhood? People don’t wanna live here, why should the birds want to? Cil was a nice girl, but she’s the one who’s the real loony tune in the Immordino family.
Jerry opened the door and started to go down. Mistretta waited for Cil to go next, but she started heading back for the kitchen. “Where ya going, Cil? I thought you had a surprise for me.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “It’s down there. You’ll find it.” She shrugged, and her eyebrows rose over the tops of her big designer glasses. She bit her bottom lip, still with that smile. “I have to go turn off the kettle. I’m making more tea for myself.”
She disappeared through the doorway again in a flutter of black fabric.
He sighed, looked at Jerry, and tapped his temple. “The lights aren’t always on upstairs, Jer. Go ’head down. Let’s see what she’s got these kids doing now.”
Jerry nodded and flipped the light switch on the wall. A dim, naked bulb at the top of the stairs went on. It must’ve been a twenty-five-watter. Mistretta felt bad again. Cil was always trying to save money any way she could.
The staircase was narrow, and Jerry slid his hand against the wall as he went down. There was a light on down there, and Mistretta could hear a TV set going. It sounded like that game show that’s on Channel 7, the one where the blonde turns over the letters—what’s it called?—
Wheels of Fortune.
Mistretta leaned heavily on the railing as he started down. He grit his teeth. Stairs were a bitch on his knees.
“So what’s she got down there, Jer? Just tell me so I don’t have to go all the way down.”
Jerry was just getting to the bottom of the staircase. “I don’t see nothing, Mr. Mis—”
Pfittt, pfittt!
Jerry spun around on his toe as he came off the last step, and started to fall over like a tree. One hand was inside his jacket where he kept his gun, the other was holding the lapel. He landed hard on his side, like a side of beef hitting the slab.
“Jer!” Mistretta’s chest was pounding. He stooped down on the steps and saw his bodyguard sprawled out on the black-and-white linoleum squares. His watery blue eyes were glassy. The only thing moving was the bloodstain spreading out on his shirtfront like a disease.
“How ya doin’, Mr. Mistretta?”
The old boss jumped. “Who’s that?” He squinted in the dim light. He could only hear the voice. He clenched his jaw because his knees were screaming with pain.
“You forgot me already? It hasn’t even been two years. Why don’t you come on down? We’ll have a little talk, get reacquainted.”
Mistretta spotted the long barrel peeking through the gloom at the edge of the stairs. It was a gun fitted with a friggin’ silencer. The damn thing was looking him right in the eye. Mistretta winced. He couldn’t even stand up straight, his knees hurt so bad. Even if he had the chance, he couldn’t run upstairs to save himself.
“C’mon down, Mistretta. Let’s catch up on old times. C’mon.”
Mistretta struggled down to the next step. He could see the face behind the goddamn gun now. He couldn’t believe it. It was Sal Immordino, Cil’s brother.
“What the fuck you doing here? You’re s’posed to be in the nuthouse!”
The big mameluke just smiled and shrugged, smiled like his goddamn sister. Mistretta glanced back up the stairs. “She set me up, goddamn it. A nun, for chrissake. That ain’t right.”
Sal shook his big fleshy face. “Cil didn’t set you up. I told her I wanted to surprise you. And she believes everything I tell her. Christ, she still believes we’re independent businessmen. I told her to get you here because I knew you’d be real happy to see me, Mistretta. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Mistretta was too angry to answer. Sal must’ve been hiding under the stairs, waiting for him and Jerry to come down. The big jerk looked like he’d gained even more weight since Mistretta last saw him. He must’ve been at least 270 now. Six foot five and 270. A big fucking bag of shit.
The old boss glared at the muzzle of the gun. “How the hell’d you get out of the bin, Sal? You flipped, didn’t you? You made a deal with the state. You’re gonna rat on me, ain’tcha?”
Sal stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head. “C’mon down. We’ll talk about it.”
“Talk my ass.”
Mistretta heard footsteps behind him at the top of the stairs.
“Everything all right down there?”
It was Cil.
“N—” The silencer flew into Mistretta’s mouth, banging into his front teeth and pressing against the back of his throat. The oily metal tasted worse than Cil’s coffee, and it made him gag.
“Everything’s fine, Cil,” Sal said. “Go to bed.”
“Okay, Sal. Good night, Mr. Mistretta. Good night, Jerry.”
“Good night.” Sal had a big grin on his puss.
The door at the top of the stairs closed.
Sal’s grin turned mean. “I asked you to come down off those fucking steps, didn’t I? Whattaya waiting for?”
Mistretta jerked his head back to get the gun out of his mouth. Who the hell did this guy think he was talking to? He fished around in his mouth with his finger. “You broke my fucking tooth, you big fucking jooch.”
“You left me high and dry in the nuthouse for a year and a half. We s’posed to be even now?”
“You don’t understand, Sal.”
“Oh, I understand plenty. I understand that you okayed the contract Juicy and Bartolo put out on me.”
Mistretta’s heart started to pound. “Who told you that? That’s bullshit.”
“Never mind who told me. And don’t say it’s bullshit, because I know it ain’t.”
“You’re all mixed up, Sal. You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you gave away my crew to Bartolo and let him keep a lotta goddamn money that’s mine by rights, money that I coulda used for a good lawyer.”