Gone Bamboo

  "Richie," said Jimmy. "You getting this?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I got it," said Richie.

  "We can do that?"

  "Yeah. Pain in the ass, but we can do that."

  "You don't want cash?" said Jimmy, disappointed.

  Henry shook his head. "I'm not going through customs with that. No way."

  Richie and Paulie began to put the money back in a gym bag.

  "And of course, I'll be calling the banks Friday . . . just to see everything arrived okay," said Henry. "No offense."

  "That's a lot of fuckin' money," said Jimmy.

  "It's enough."

  "So, you sure you got no problem doin' this without permission?" said Jimmy, trying to reassure himself. "I ain't gonna hear about you goin' cryin' to some other boss, sayin' what a terrible thing I axed you to do? I mean, I know you worked for other people . . ."

  "Jimmy," said Henry. "I don't give a flying fuck about permission. Understand that about me. I'm not a member of your fraternal order. I don't know the secret handshakes, I don't want to know. I'm not looking for promotion. You get the money in those accounts there by Friday end of business and you'll get an honest day's work out of me. No money - I get on the next plane and go home. That simple. I mean, if some of your lodge brothers want to get pissed off about any bylaws getting violated, hey, that's tough shit as far as I'm concerned. You guys can work that out amongst yourselves. None of my business. Couldn't care less."

  "I was thinking," said Jimmy. "When you do it. Maybe you better put a couple a' extra shots over the other fellas' heads or somethin' . . . Make it look good."

  "I wanna see Jerry's face, he's lyin' inna snow, thinkin' it's him's gonna get clipped," said Richie, laughing.

  "Yeah! Me too." Jimmy guffawed. "I wanna see that."

  "No, no, no," said Henry. "You gentlemen want to play practical jokes on each other, buy a fuckin' whoopee cushion. I don't do that. I don't play around when I work, alright? You ever hear about me chopping anybody's hands off, jamming money up their ass, yankin' out tongues or any of that shit? No. You know why? 'Cause I don't do that. No jokes. No messages."

  "Awwww," said Jimmy. "Just a couple a' extra shots to make it look good . . ."

  "Nope. That's not the way it gets done. There's going to be a lot of noise. There's probably going to be a lot of people around, a weekend at a ski resort. First shot, all hell is gonna break loose. I'm not going to find myself sitting around in an orange jumpsuit because somebody thought a few extra rounds would be good for a laugh. I don't think I'd like prison. I'd lose my tan."

  "Suit yourself," grumbled Jimmy. "You know your business. Least I hope you do." He stood up and walked into the bathroom to change clothes, Richie hurrying after him with a wine-colored double-breasted man's suit. Just outside the bathroom door, Jimmy caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. "You sure you like this color? I think it makes me look fat. I look fat to you?"

  "You look radiant," said Henry.

  2

  On Thursday, Henry rented a four-wheel-drive Toyota from an Avis in Paterson. He took Route 80 across the George Washington Bridge, ate lunch by himself at the Second Avenue Deli, then drove out to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

  Sammy Avakian's stamp and coin shop was on the boardwalk, sandwiched between a coin-operated laundry and the A&B Dairy Restaurant. A bell rang when Henry opened the door to the shop, and Sammy, a shriveled little man in a dirty shirt with a face like a rhesus monkey, looked up from his Russian newspaper.

  "Hey, Sammy. How's tricks?" said Henry.

  Sammy scowled, exchanged his reading glasses for a pair of horn-rims, and hopped down from his stool.

  "You again," he said. "I should have known you'd be around. Nice tan. Florida?"

  Henry shook his head.

  "Nice if you have the time," said Sammy. "So what is it? What do you need?"

  Henry showed him a piece of paper, gave him a minute to read it, then put it back in his pocket. "Can you fill it?" he asked.

  "Sure, sure," said Sammy. "I got just the item you want. Gimme a second." He came out from behind the counter, limping in elevator shoes, and hung a sign in the front door that said, BACK IN FIVE MINUTES. He locked the door, turned to put on an overcoat from a peg on the wall, and led Henry through the dusty stockroom to the rear parking lot.

  "That your car over there?" he asked Henry.

  "Yeah."

  "Thought so. I haven't seen it before. We'll take mine," said Sammy. "It's not far where we gotta go."

  Sammy drove a '78 LTD, his head barely able to look out over the dashboard. The back seat was filled with what seemed to be a lifetime's accumulated junk - newspapers, magazines, cartons of bric-a-brac that looked like they'd been picked up at a yard sale. It smelled of moist cardboard, cigarette smoke, and dust. Two pale orange car fresheners hung from the rearview mirror exuding papaya.

  They drove to the Kwik 'N' EZ Storage Depot in a nearby industrial area, and Sammy parked in front of a lockup. It took him a while to find the right key among the scores on the chain at his hip, but he managed eventually to open the heavy padlock, and Henry helped him raise the steel shutter enough for the two of them to duck inside. They closed the shutter behind them and stood in darkness for a moment while Sammy searched for the light switch.

  It was a small cinder-block room, stacked floor to ceiling with wooden crates and tarpaulin-covered objects. It smelled of Cosmoline and cat piss. Sammy scurried about the room, searching under the tarps and moving things around until he found what he was looking for. He dragged a long crate into the center of the floor and pried it open with a crowbar, making little grunts of satisfaction in the back of his throat.

  "Galil 7.62 semiautomatic sniper's rifle," he announced, "got your bipod, folding stock, flash suppressor. It's got your range finder, telescopic sight . . . everything you need right inna box. Good enough for the IDF, it's good enough for you. How much ammunition you need?"

  "Two clips," said Henry.

  "Two?" said Sammy. "You ain't gonna test-fire the thing?"

  "I'll need one clip for that, the other for the work," said Henry, holding the weapon in his arms and peering down the barrel.

  "How many fuckin' Turks you gonna get with one clip?" complained Sammy. "It's not enough!"

  "No Turks, Sammy. Not this time around. Sorry. Maybe one of these days I'll throw you a freebie."

  "Sonofabitch! When you gonna shoot some bastard Turks? What are you waitin' for? How about I throw in the ammo for free? No, you can have the whole thing, gratis. All ya gotta do is, on the way back to the City, let off a few clips. I know where the bastards live. I got plenty a' addresses. I got names—"

  "Sorry, Sammy," said Henry.

  Sammy spat on the floor. "You prolly gonna shoot some more fuckin' guineas," he said sadly. "Guineas, guineas, guineas, nothin' but fuckin' guineas. Where's the good? They kill each other, you leave 'em alone in a fuckin' room long enough. You . . . you really gotta give somethin' back one a' these days, Henry. Really."

  "Just two clips."

  "You want somethin' special? I got these flechette rounds. When they hit the bone, they break up into splinters. Even the guy lives, they gotta do exploratory to find 'em all. They don't show up on the X ray . . ."

  "Sounds like a delightful product, but no."

  Sammy limped disconsolately off to a dark corner to find cartridges, returning with two boxes and an extra empty clip for the Galil. "How about a LAWS? I got one back there. Just in. You know what that is? Light antitank weapons system. You can mess up a whole lotta people with that. Take out an armored car you want. You wanna see it? Just to look?"

  "No, no really. This is all I need here," said Henry, smiling. "I will need a bag or something for the Galil. You have something?"

  "Yeah, sure," said Sammy. He reached into a trash-filled fifty-five-gallon drum and removed a Bloomingdale's shopping bag. "Here," he said. "What sticks out, you can cover with a coat or something."

  Henr
y packed his purchases into the bag and stood by the door.

  "How about—" Sammy started to say.

  "I'm fine as is," said Henry. "Really."

  3

  Henry, wrapped in his space blanket in his hidey-hole halfway up Curleigh Mountain, watched through his high-powered field glasses as five sets of headlights bounced through the darkness. The sodium lights that illuminated the ski trails had been switched off hours ago, as had the snow-making machinery and lifts. The mountain was black and quiet; he lay in silence under a stretched bedsheet covered with snow and twigs and dead leaves, his nose growing numb, craving coffee and cigarettes.

  The vehicles came to a halt, and there was the sound of car doors slamming. The headlights were shut off, replaced by wobbling beams from handheld flashlights a few hundred yards below. Henry could hear cursing and laughter as five bosses and their attendants stumbled blindly through the snow in their dress shoes. A few moments later, the lights inside the rented chalets were turned on, one after the other. He saw dark silhouettes of large men through the curtains, watched as a few hapless lieutenants were dispatched for firewood on the icy outer decks. There was more cursing and laughter as one man slipped and fell on his ass in front of an open door. Henry heard Richie Tic's voice, complaining, "They oughta put salt onnis fuckin' deck for fuck's sake! It's like a fuckin' skatin' rink . . . I should sue these pricks! I coulda been kilt!" There was more laughing. Dark figures holding stacks of firewood moved into the light from the open doors, came back for more, calling to each other, their voices reverberating up and down the rocky slope.

  "Hey, Mags! Mags! You woulda been a good Boy Scout!"

  "Ask him rub two sticks together!"

  "Yeah? Rub this!"

  "Where's Richie? Youse better keep an eye on Richie . . . Somethin' brush up against your ass you better hope it's only a fuckin' bear!"

  "Hey, lookit Donuts! Yo, Donuts! You supposedta burn the wood, not look at it!"

  "There's somethin' movin' in there! There's a rat or somethin'."

  "There ain't no fuckin' rats here! It's prolly a snake!"

  "A killer squirrel! You watch out. You gonna have some rabid fuckin' squirrel nibblin' on yer fuckin' nuts tonight!"

  "Fuck you! Fuck alia youse! It's a chipmunk or somethin'!"

  "That's cute . . . Donuts gotta new friend! Why don't you take him back the house, adopt him!"

  "Fuck you! You better sleep on yer fuckin' back tonight, you prick, you gotta bunk with Richie! I'll take the fuckin' squirrel any day!"

  "Minchia al culo . . . motherfucker."

  Finally, the doors slammed shut, and in a little while there was the smell of woodsmoke.

  Henry pulled the space blanket up over his head and fell asleep.

  The sound of the giant compressors that drove the snow-making machinery woke him with a start. It was six-thirty in the morning under a steel gray sky. Soon the loud hiss from the spray nozzles was everywhere. Henry pulled back further from the narrow opening of his hole, wishing he could crawl out for just a minute to take a piss. The first snowmobiles began to move up the trails; maintenance workers and ski patrol checking conditions. Henry smelled bacon and home fries cooking in the kitchens at the main lodge, then the even more tantalizing scent of coffee.

  He picked up his field glasses and looked down at the cluster of chalets, watched as a single mobster moved from house to house, taking breakfast orders. The man started up a gray Cutlass, tires spinning at first in the snow, finally managing to fishtail down the unpaved, icy road. A half hour later he returned, bearing parcels. When the man knocked on the door of the largest chalet, Henry was gratified to get a glimpse of Charlie Wagons and Danny Testa. Charlie looked older than the last time Henry had seen him. Still in his bathrobe, he took his breakfast from the man and moved quickly away from the door without comment or expression. Danny lingered for a moment, checking his bag to see that the other man had got it right.

  At nine, the chairlifts ground into motion, squeaking and clanking up the mountain with the first loads of chattering skiers. Soon Henry could hear them on the nearby trails, their skis crunching on the ice under the newly made powder as they whipped past his position.

  He set up the Galil on its bipod. He'd spray-painted it in a black and white camouflage pattern, and he positioned it so the flash suppressor was a few inches back from the opening of his hole. When Henry peered down through the telescopic sight, he was looking right at Charlie Wagons's front door. His fingers growing numb in the cold, he chambered a round and removed the condom stretched over the muzzle before putting his mittens back on.

  At eleven o'clock, there had been no further movement in the chalets. The slopes were getting crowded. Henry could see long lines forming by the chairlifts at the base of the mountain, the whoops and shouts of skiers growing louder and more frequent around and above him. He was no longer able to look left or right for fear of giving away his position. He could only lie motionless, deep in his hunter's blind, and wait.

  At least the wind was light. At the distance he'd have to shoot, it could have been a major, even prohibitive factor. He looked nervously at the sky as it grew later, aware that in a few hours the sun would pass overhead, threatening to reflect on the lenses of his field glasses or the telescopic sight. He checked his watch again, anxious that the scheduled meeting begin.

  Eleven forty-five, and the doors of the chalets swung open. Henry got into firing position and removed his mittens. He looked down through the scope, breath held, ready . . . then watched in horror as instead of a delegation of bosses marching in a neat line over to Charlie's chalet, he saw an unruly cluster of hilariously dressed first-time skiers, each ludicrously attired figure indistinguishable from the next in their ski caps, goggles, ballooning down parkas, and ski boots. Flunkie, lieutenant, boss, they all looked like multicolored Michelin tire men, or overweight Smurfs, staggering anonymously about with their rented skis and poles. Henry recognized Jimmy, unmistakable in a huge, shimmering green snowsuit, a knit cap with pom-pom bobbing atop his Everest-size body. He thought he saw him look up the mountain for a second, an expression on his face that might have said, "Who knew?"

  Henry could only watch Charlie's door, waiting and hoping. He saw Danny emerge, like the others, dressed to hit the slopes, but he waited in vain for Charlie. The door closed without the old man setting foot outside. It was Danny alone who led the procession of corpulent mafiosi to the bunny slope. Henry put down the rifle and watched through his field glasses as they charged down the wooded slope like drunken bison, hurling snowballs at each other and laughing loudly. He kept looking hopefully back at Charlie's door. The possibility that Charlie Wagons, a man who hadn't left his one block of Lower Manhattan in twenty years, would suddenly appear and join his subjects on the bunny slope seemed remote in the extreme. Still, Henry, his bladder nearly bursting, kept looking back and hoping.

  If things had not already reached the point of cruel and absurd fuckup, it was the spectacle of thirteen mobsters clinging awkwardly to the rope tow that did the trick. Henry watched Paulie Brown lose his balance and fall onto his belly. A man who could have been Jerry Dogs stumbled over his legs, entangling his skis but refusing to let go of the rope; he was dragged the rest of the way up, his skis banging loosely behind on their safety straps. Six hundred yards away, Henry could hear them shrieking and hooting and hurling taunts at each other.

  Apparently, Charlie Wagons heard them too. Henry saw a single figure step out onto the deck of the largest chalet. The old man was still in his bedroom slippers, an overcoat thrown over his pajamas. He moved slowly and carefully across the icy deck. On the bunny slope, a ski instructor was offering a few tips to a group of men who were not used to being told how to do anything. The instructor was forced to retreat by a barrage of snowballs and the shouted jeers and insults of mobsters uninterested in correct snow-plowing technique. Henry saw Richie move forward clumsily and whack the man's rear with a ski pole, causing more whoops and laughter.


  Henry removed his mittens and steadied the rifle. This was as good as it was going to get. He wasn't going to wait for the sun to give away his position. He wasn't going to piss in his pants and then lie in it all day waiting for a better shot. He was going to do it now, get on a plane and go home, where it was warm, and count his money.

  Danny Testa was the first one down the bunny slope. He wasn't doing too badly either, managing to stay on his feet, whereas Jimmy and Jerry, a few yards back, stumbled and fell before they got five feet. Danny's poles were held straight out from his hips, his knees together, ankles apart, in a fair approximation of a snowplow. From the corner of his eye, Henry thought he saw Charlie clap his hands on the chalet's deck.

  Henry held his breath, got Danny in the crosshairs, led him just a little, and letting his breath out slowly, squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp crack that echoed over the mountain and the valley below. A long, long second later, Danny Testa's head exploded into fine pink mist. He dropped back onto his skis, feet still in his bindings, his body continuing at a brisk clip down the slope. A bright red trail appeared in the snow behind him. He came out of his snowplow, kept going until he ran right off the edge of the trail into a snow fence and lay there, dead.

  There was screaming from the bunny slope. A young girl, her canary yellow ski suit showered with Danny's brain matter, was wailing at the top of her lungs, swatting frantically at her face to remove bits of blood and hair. The other mobsters lay on their bellies, hugging the ground, afraid to look up. Some skiers, however, unused to being shot at, were already pointing at various spots up the mountain, shouting to each other.

  Henry quickly swung the Galil over in Charlie's direction. There was no time to set the range finder. Charlie was already making for the open door across the icy wooden deck. Henry nearly emptied the magazine, firing for the doorway, intending Charlie to find his way into the bullets' path. A shell exploded into the doorframe. Another disappeared into the interior of the chalet, breaking glass somewhere. Another hit nothing. The fourth and fifth hit Charlie in the abdomen as his feet went out from under him. A single bedroom slipper went flying as he crashed onto the deck, a wet, red stain growing large on his overcoat. He lay there without moving.