Читать книгу Cruel - Jacob Stone - Страница 21

Chapter 13

Scalise was doing the chauffeuring. He explained earlier that night that he loved driving. “It don’t matter to me whether I’m stuck in traffic or cruising the freeway at eighty,” he had told Chandler, “where else am I going to be that’s as comfortable as the front seat of my Lincoln?”

Chandler didn’t share Scalise’s appreciation for driving around Los Angeles, but he tactfully agreed with him. What the hell, it meant he didn’t have to drive.

Soon after leaving Palace 21, Scalise’s mood darkened. It came quickly, like a thunderstorm blowing in, and as the gangster sat brooding behind the wheel, the tension seemed to roll off him in waves. It became suffocating, and Chandler almost asked to get out of the car, but he was curious about what was behind this change. What held him back even more was that filming for his new gangster movie started Monday, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to channel the necessary bravado on set if he chickened out now. He tried to ignore his growing unease, but after several minutes he couldn’t help himself from nervously asking Scalise if something was wrong.

Scalise gave the actor a quick sideways glance, a glint showing in his dark eyes. “Why should something be wrong?” he asked in a soft, menacing voice.

The implied violence in Scalice’s tone was unmistakable. “I don’t know,” Chandler stammered, his voice dropping to a whisper. It wasn’t just a single butterfly fluttering around in his stomach but a whole swarm of them now. “I just thought you looked worried, that’s all.”

“What was it you said? I couldn’t hear you with the way you’re mumbling under your breath.”

Reluctantly the actor repeated himself.

“So you’re telling me you can just look at me and know that, huh? Or are you saying you’re a mind reader?”

“Neither,” Chandler said.

“You’re sure you can’t tell what I’m thinking right now?”

“That I should keep my mouth shut.”

“What do you know, you can read minds after all.”

Scalise’s brooding continued until he stopped the Lincoln in front of a shuttered warehouse advertising that it was available for rent. As quickly as someone snapping his fingers, his moodiness lifted and he returned to his earlier buoyant self. He gave Chandler what appeared to be a playful punch in the shoulder, but the pain from the blow radiated all the way down to the actor’s wrist.

A grin cracked Scalise’s face. “Benny boy, you look like you’re about to get sick. What’s wrong, you can’t take a joke?”

Confused, Chandler asked, “What was the joke?”

“The way you’ve been acting like I’m some sort of mob guy, I thought I’d play the part and give you my best Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. Look, I’m no gangster, I just know a few people from the old neighborhood, that’s all. This errand shouldn’t take no more than five minutes, and afterward we’ll go to the poker game I’ve been telling you about. While I’m busy, I need you to stay in the car.” Scalise’s eyes dimmed as a thought came to him. He added, “If you see some clown sneaking up on me, hit the horn. You got it?”

If you see some clown sneaking up on me… The actor didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew his voice would crack if he said anything, so instead he bit his bottom lip to keep his emotions in check. This had long ago stopped being fun and games, but now this? What had he gotten himself into?

Scalise slapped him playfully twice on the jaw, both slaps making Chandler wince. A deadly smile froze the gangster’s lips as he pulled the car away from the curb and drove onto the shuttered warehouse’s driveway and continued to a parking lot in back. A man was leaning against a car parked along the far end of the lot. The headlights hit his face, and Chandler recognized him. Bobby Gallo, Big Joe Penza’s right-hand man. He had the reputation of being a full-blown psycho. His friend Billy Dunn had promised him that while Vincent Scalise was colorful and an evening with him would be memorable, Chandler would walk away with at worst a few scrapes as long as he behaved himself. That promise was the only thing that had kept Chandler from jumping out of the car earlier. He knew the same wasn’t true of Bobby Gallo. But both men worked for the same boss. This was just a quick errand. There was no reason for Chandler to be feeling cold sweat dripping down his back.

Scalise stopped the car fifty feet from Gallo. The keys were left in the ignition with the engine running and the car in neutral. A growing sense of terror took hold as Chandler realized this meant Scalise thought there might be a need for a quick getaway. His nerves weren’t helped any when he saw Gallo looking past Scalise so he could stare right at him. He thought about opening the door and running, but his leg muscles had turned to jelly and he knew he wouldn’t get far if he tried. Instead he watched Scalise approach Gallo and then the two men engaging in what looked like an amicable conversation. When a third man emerged from the shadows behind Scalise, the actor froze. Before he remembered the horn, the man grabbed Scalise in a bear hug. Gallo stepped forward and pulled a switchblade from Scalise’s pocket. The Lincoln’s headlights glimmered off the steel blade as it sprung open. Chandler watched as the blade was plunged into Scalise’s stomach and then as it sliced upward. He stared dumbfounded as Gallo pulled a big-ass gun from a shoulder holster and started moving in his direction.

Chandler woke up from whatever stupor he had drifted into and dropped so he was out of sight. In one of his movies, the character he played found himself in a similar situation. What his character did when the bad guy came running at him spitting bullets from an Uzi was reach across the driver’s seat and push down on the gas pedal with one hand while using the other to shift the car into reverse so he could drive away. In the movie, this was done by a stuntman. This time Chandler did it, and the car shot backward like a rocket until it slammed into a retaining wall.

The crash jolted him, but he was otherwise unhurt. He looked up enough to see Gallo was still chasing him, but he had put more distance between them. Whatever damage he had done to the car, it wasn’t enough to keep it from driving. While still lying across the driver’s seat, he spun the steering wheel enough so he could maneuver the car out of the parking lot and onto the street. Only then did he risk putting the car in park and climbing onto the driver’s seat. He floored the gas pedal and ran red lights after that.

He had spent weeks researching his upcoming role, reading everything he could about Big Joe Penza and his organization. The one recurring theme he kept coming across was that anyone who came forward to testify against Big Joe or his top guns ended up dead well before trial.

He had no idea where it would be safe for him to go. All he knew for certain was that he was in big trouble.