How about another mob story to go with your healthy lunch? This one is as yet unpublished but slated for publication in an anthology to be published early next year. This story is based on a character Sid Bifulco from my novel “Sleep with the Fishes” and takes place in the town of Hellbender Eddy. It involves fishing, and fish are healthy, right? Don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll have you drinking bourbon for lunch. Hopefully this story will hold you over until then
Granite Hat
“So let me get this straight…” Sid swirled a glass of VO thoughtfully. “You want I should fit you for a hat?”
Leon stopped pacing at the far end of the cabin, an eyebrow raised at Sid. “Hat?”
“It’s what you call and expression.” Sid was perched on a red tartan sofa nursing an impish grin. “You want I should kill you, fit you for a granite hat, like a tombstone.”
“Then it is true?” Leonran a trembling hand over his thin blond hair. “What they say down at the diner is true, that you were a hit man?”
Sid stood and turned to the bar cart. Were. Was. Had been. No so much hit man as a soldier, an enforcer, though he guessed that sometimes that amounted to the same thing. Those days were behind him. He had retired after prison. Why else would he be living in Hellbender Eddy? Sid lifted out a bottle, popped the cork and splashed some more vodka into
Leon’s glass. “Lemme ask you, Leo. Can I call you Leo?”
Leon gulped some vodka and pulled on his tie. “Leon.”
“Why do you want to die so bad, Leo?”
“I have my reasons.”
“That palace you have up river makes this log cabin look like an outhouse. That’s your Bentley sports car parked in my driveway. Those are thousand dollar shoes on your feet.” Sid cocked his head. “Looks to me like you’ve already died and gone to heaven.”
Leon turned toward the wall, eye to eye with a mounted carp. “How much will it cost? It has to look like an accident.”
“You like that fish? I caught that. Right here in Hellbender Eddy.”
“In the Delaware River?”
Leon blinked rapidly. “I didn’t know there were big fish like that in the river. So will you do it?”
Sid rattled the ice in his glass. “You don’t fish, do you, Leo?”
“If you won’t kill me, then can you refer me to someone who will?”
“So let me guess.” Sid couldn’t help himself and began to chuckle. “You’d kill yourself only you’re afraid you’ll botch it. And because you don’t have the nerve. That about the size of it?”
“I don’t see the humor in my predicament.”
Leon wandered away from the fish, his eyes red and his lip trembling. “When you want something done right the first time you don’t do it yourself. You hire a professional. If you’re not that professional I don’t see any reason to torment me.”
Sid put a hand on Leon’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I apologize. Here, siddown.” He guided Leon onto the sofa next to the floor lamp, handing him the refilled glass of vodka.
“Leo, I only laugh because you’re going to get arrested going around asking for referrals for a hitter. To tell you the truth, I should do you and your family a favor. I should put the cops on you and get you onto a shrink. Suicide means you’re mental.”
Leon buried his face in his hands. “This is a last resort. This is what’s best for my family. This is what’s best for me.”
Sid splashed some more VO in his glass.
It wasn’t hard for Sid to see what was troubling Leon. He needed his murder to look like it was an accident for the life insurance, and to save face. The reason he needed the money could be any number of things, but probably one of the usual reasons. Bankruptcy, financial ruin, gambling debts, investments zeroed out, business belly-up. There was a lot of that going around. And that Bentley in the driveway? It had dealer plates. Sid recognized Leon. He owned a string of dealerships. His flashy smile, blond eyebrows and buttery tan was on billboards all over that part of Pennsylvania boasting zero percent financing for cars: Leon’s got your number: zero!
Seeing the way cars weren’t selling at that time it was easy to see how Leon could have gotten in a jam. And the way he played with his wedding ring – sliding it on and off his finger – could have meant he had practice taking it off. Most devoted husbands had trouble getting their rings off.
It was enough to know the basics. The combinations of the usual details weren’t important.
“You sure?” Sid swirled his VO.
Leon lifted his face from his hands and fixed eyes of resolve on Sid.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
“Because once you’re dead, there’s no changing your mind.”
“I’m positive.”
“One way ticket.”
“I have no reservations about this--”
“That last second before you go you may wish you were staying.”
“No hesitation.”
Sid squinted down at the broken man.
“Where would the money come from to pay me?”
Leon’s eyes were alight with the flicker of grim hope.
“I can raise sixty thousand, cash. There are assets. Either you or the bank would get them.”
Sid turned to the taxidermied carp on the wall, admiring its golden girth.
“One condition.”
“Name it.”
“You have to go fishing with me.”
“What?”
Sid turned and pointed his glass at Leon.
“You have to go fishing with me three times.”
“Fishing? But I don’t see what—“
“Of course you don’t see. That’s why I’m the professional and you’re hiring me, because you trust me to do it right, to know how to make this go down to your satisfaction.”
Leon stood, his trembling hands making the ice in his glass chatter. “I understand that you used to kill people….quietly. I mean, no blood or shooting or…”
“Wouldn’t look much like an accident if you were shot, would it? Unless we staged a hunting accident. But we’re not going hunting. We’re going fishing.” Sid grinned. “Leave it to me. Be back at your palace day after tomorrow, five in the morning. Tell your family that you’re going up to your river place alone to take up a new hobby, fishing. And bring the first twenty grand, and don’t tell anybody, and I mean nobody, that we ever met. Otherwise, when you’re dead, and they get back to me, the whole thing will come out that it was no accident.”
“Yes, OK, perfect.”
Leon went to the bar cart, glugged more vodka into his glass and drained it. He picked up his blazer and put out a hand to Sid. “Then it’s deal?”
“Never shake hands with death, Leo.” Sid winked. “Punch him in the face, if you dare, but never shake his hand.”
Two days later Sid drove the foggy, winding road to the turn off for
Leon’s palace. The sign on the gate read: Riverview Manor.
The driveway curved gently down to the white columns of a Georgian mansion, the brick façade covered in ivy. He parked his late-model Mercury next to the Bentley sports car, and when he got out he found Leon approaching from the house, a cigarette in his hand. It looked like he’d had a shopping spree at LL Bean for the occasion, the outdoor clothes new, plaid shirt still with creases.
“I was afraid you might have changed your mind,” Leon tried a smile.
“I was afraid you might have changed your mind. Money?”
Leon lifted a thick envelope from his vest pocket and handed it to Sid, who flipped through the contents. He knew how twenty grand in twenties should be – about two inches, used. He tossed the envelope into the open window of his Mercury. “Ready to fish?”
“If I have to.”
“You have to. Ever cast a fly rod?”
“No.”
“Spinning rod?” Sid opened his trunk, which looked to Leon like it contained an entire tackle shop. Sid held up a rod – in two pieces – and pointed to the reel. “This is a spinning reel.”
Leon tried to contain his exasperation. It seemed pointless to learn anything new, much less fishing, just before dying. But as Sid said, Leon had hired a professional, so this exercise must have some purpose. “Maybe once when the kids were little, I dunno. Snoopy rod.”
“Shoe size?”
“Ten. Why?”
“Me too. Here.”
Leon took the waders Sid extracted from the trunk. “They look like rubber pants.”
“Don’t worry. I have rubber pants for me, too.”
A half hour later the two men in rubber pants descended the grassy embankment in front of Leon’s palace to the stony shores of the Delaware River. The fog had lifted some, but still shrouded the tops of the trees and diffused the sun’s early light. Sid had a tackle pack and a net. Leon held the spinning rod, a flashy metal lure dancing at the end as he tromped down the shore.
Sid began walking into the river.
Leon stopped. “You’re not going to drown me are you?”
Knee deep, Sid looked back at his uncertain client. “We’re going fishing three times. Come on.”
Leon gingerly followed Sid out to the middle of the river. The current wasn’t fast, and only came a little over Leon’s knees. Sid stopped upstream of some large boulders. The guide waved his hand, asking for Leon to hand over the rod. Sid demonstrated how to cast, then Leon took the rod, and after only a few minutes practice, found he was able to flip the silver lure almost as handily as his guide.
Leon grinned. “That’s kind of fun all by itself.”
Sid waved Leon to follow him downstream closer to the boulders. The guide put a hand on the client’s should and pointed at the rocks. Leon sent the silver lure sailing through the air and it splashed down within a few feet of the boulders.
“Reel faster,” Sid said, rolling a hand in the air.
“Maybe I should practice some more?”
“We’re fishing, not practicing. Cast again.”
Fifteen minutes and four boulders later, Leon was wondering what Sid expected to happen.
Then it stopped.
Halfway back to the rod tip from the boulder, the lure just stopped.
“Rod tip up!” Sid shouted. “Up!”
Leon lifted the rod and felt whatever he was stuck on move, and then wobble. The water burst and a small brown fish leapt from the river.
“Reel!” Sid shouted.
The little brown fish sailed through the air again, and Leon laughed with surprise.
The fog parted upriver, and a ray of sun made the little fish look yellow when Sid netted it.
“I caught a fish.” Leon was amazed. “I caught a fish.”
Sid smiled. “You did. You caught a fish, Leo.”
That day Leon caught twenty smallmouth bass, none much larger than a drumstick. But each astounded Leon as much as the first with the force of their resistance, their refusal to give up. Many escaped and were not caught at all. All those landed went back into the river. As Sid explained: It doesn’t seem right to kill these little guys when they want so badly to live, does it?
When the sun arced over the river and went down over Little Hound Mountain, Leon invited Sid into his palace, where they drank expensive scotch and ate sandwiches. Leon wanted to know everything about fishing. After a few hours discourse on the merits of various fish and techniques in front of a fieldstone fire place, Sid excused himself to drive home.
“Thanks for the cocktails. See you again tomorrow, at five thirty.”
The next morning, Sid had Leon drive to a small lake, where they waded the weedy shores catching pickerel under cloudy skies. The green barracuda-like fish attacked the twirling surface plug viciously.
“I’ve never heard of these fish before,” Leon gaped at the prickly jaws of a pickerel in Sid’s hand. “Why are they so, so…”
“Ballsy?”
“This fish must be starving to attack the lure so violently.”
“Not starving. And the reason they’re not starving is because they don’t let opportunities escape.” Sid let the fish slide into the lake, and it flashed off into some nearby lily pads.
The afternoon was spent in a cool mossy creek under a canopy of trees. It was such a small trickle Leon had a hard time believing that it could contain a fish larger than a minnow. Sid had him cast with a tiny rod not much bigger than the Snoopy rod from all those years ago. At the end of the wispy line was a small gold lure with a spinning blade and a tail of feathers.
Sid pointed to a deeper pool under an overhanging pine.
Leon cast.
As the lure came toward him, a bulge in the water did, too.
“Keep reeling!” Sid rasped.
The creek surface boiled, and a foot-long trout shot out of the water, the lure on its lip.
The fish raced around Leon’s feet when Sid tried to net it, and before the fish could be captured the lure spat out of the water.
The trout was gone. Escaped.
“Where’ he go?” Leon squinted at the water in disbelief. “We had him.”
Sid sighed, patting Leon on the shoulder. “You don’t have a fish until you have him.”
“How could there even be a fish like that in such a small slip of water as this?”
“Just when you think you know where all the good fish are, and aren’t…” Sid winked, “… the fish prove you wrong.”
“Can we get him again?”
Sid was already headed to shore. “You get one shot at some fish.”
That evening Leon made martinis and grilled steaks for Sid, who told stories of arctic red salmon, great silver tropic tarpon and beefy Amazon bass the colors of the rainbow.
As Sid headed to his car, Leon followed. “So what are we going to catch tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we fish the Big D.”
“For what?”
“Big fish.”
“What big fish?”
“The big fish. See you at five.”
More than the martinis tingled Leon as the Mercury’s taillights disappeared up the driveway, another twenty grand on the seat next to Sid.
It was drizzling the next morning. Standing up to their waists in swirling current, Sid positioned them in front of a bend in the river where a rock wall ascended hundreds of feet. The pool before them was deep and dark, murky as a smoky cave. A large, almost circular hook was at the end of a stout rod that seemed to Leon like it was made to catch whales. A few feet above the hook was a lead weight the size of his thumb.
Sid skewered a piece of garlicky liver onto the hook, and pointed at the pool.
Leon hesitated. “What’s in there?”
“Let’s find out.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“All kinds of things might be in there. But we won’t know exactly what until you chuck that in there.”
Leon was afraid.
But he did as he was told, and the liver and the hook and the weight splashed down in the pool and vanished into the cave.
“Do I reel it in?”
Sid shook his head. “We wait.”
The sound of the river swirling around his waist seemed to get louder and louder as Leon blinked at the dark recess of unknown.
“Rod tip up!” Sid shouted.
Leon didn’t see anything move, didn’t feel anything, but the shout made him obey.
The line was tight. The line was unmoving. The line seemed stuck.
Then Leon looked at the rod tip. It began to bend.
“What is it?” Leon shouted.
Sid’s hand shot out and grabbed Leon by the back of the collar.
Leon found himself underwater, but still holding onto the rod as he struggled to get free of Sid’s grasp. Then he felt the rod yanked from his hands. Had the fish taken it? Or Sid?
Then Leon swallowed some water. His lungs felt like they were turned inside out, and he couldn’t get a hand around behind him to free himself from Sid’s grasp. Leon could hear himself squealing with panic under water.
His vision began to flicker.
Brightness. And air. Sid had yanked him back to his feet. Water vomited from Leon’s mouth as Sid grabbed his arm to keep him from falling.
Then the rod was shoved back in his hands.
Leon couldn’t speak, exhausted from having almost drowned. He could barely still stand, though he found strength in his rage over what had happened and swatted Sid’s supporting hands away.
And Leon found strength in that rod.
After a twenty minutes battle, Leon was on his knees in the shallows at a gravel bar, wheezing. Before him, corralled into a shallow pool, was a muddy catfish the size of a small dog. Barbels splayed like slick worms from the fish’s flat, gasping lips. The eyes we smaller than shirt buttons, black. Man and fish: subdued.
Sid waded ashore and picked up the fishing rod from the gravel bar. He thought about saying something but instead walked back to his car and drove home. To his way of thinking, the sixty grand had come honestly. He had killed Leo. The Leo who had asked to die, who wanted to die, was gone.
Leon went bankrupt. Leon got divorced. Leon moved to Myrtle Beach where he managed his cousin’s gift shop and sold driftwood sculptures he made in his spare time.
He never picked up a fishing rod again.
Only in his dreams.
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