Death Wish by Iceberg Slim
Collucci did not know that a Tonelli bodyguard, clearing his head of too much vino on a bench near the bungalow, spotted him and rushed to notify Joe Tonelli.
Five minutes later Olivia grunted naked joy under Collucci’s sweet punishment. Soon, under Collucci’s deep strokings, Olivia’s pleasure yowled the dog-fashioned shadows.
And seeing and hearing all through a tear in a drawn shade was Joe Tonelli. He waggled his head, and his three button men followed him down the walk away from the peephole.
Collucci at that moment climaxed. After a moment he went to the bathroom. He stood relieving himself, and that’s where he heard muffled voices beneath the partially open bathroom window. He peered out and saw Joe Tonelli’s handsome features contorted into a mask of rage and hurt.
Collucci noticed two of the button men were the two young guys he had seen in the root cellar chopping up and packaging the body of grocer Tarantino.
Tonelli whispered in hoarse Sicilian, “That criminal raper of children must be punished for his crime against my daughter’s innocence. You, Antonio, give me five minutes. Knock hard on the front door like a big emergency. You say I got a bad attack, big pain in my chest. She’s got to come right away to my bedroom. I will be very sick. She will not be allowed to come back here to him.
“Emilio, Mario, Antonio, conceal yourselves and get him when he leaves.”
One of the root cellar pair said, “Mr. Tonelli, should we . . . ?”
Tonelli waved his hands in disgust that Antonio had no perception of the need for less than fatal chastisement in the case at hand. “Antonio, we must not be too extreme in this matter.”
He shrugged. “But she must be protected against her weakness for his filthy abuse. Break him up. You know, stomp his face and his private parts to jelly. Change him so all young girls will scream and flee at his approach.
“There is no trouble for me from my daughter. I knew nothing of the burglar discovered on my property. We must be very careful that no suspicion of me will shock her soft loving heart and harden it against me. Understand?”
Tonelli went down the walk and the others faded into the shadows. Collucci heard his heart pounding as he went and lay beside Olivia. He made his decision quickly. He wouldn’t hide behind Olivia’s skirt for safe conduct out of Tonelli’s trap. He would say nothing about her father to hurt her.
He wasn’t afraid of the button men because he knew he had a vital edge on them. They were handicapped. They had orders only to disfigure and cripple him.
But young Collucci’s decision to ambush the ambushers rather than use Olivia to shield him from harm was really influenced by a deeply rooted terror of personal cowardice. Deadly danger always generated his reflex ferocity to attack, maim, and destroy the enemy.
His fear of cowardice was tied in with his poisonous hatred for his father. Collucci lay embracing Olivia, waiting for Antonio to bang on the door.
As they lay there waiting for the knock, he trembled with emotion. As always in situations of personal danger, he remembered the awful cowardice of his father. His father’s face, dripping sweat. He remembered the terror stink of his father’s breath behind a barricaded door in the attic of the Collucci home.
His father held him in a death grip and muzzled his mouth. They listened to his mother and sister begging for mercy. Then he heard them screaming for help. The sex murderer hatcheted them into silence. And then worst of all, after their voices stilled, he heard the fiend grunting joy as he violated the dead. He saw his father feel his way down the attic stairs with his arms locked across his eyes against the carnage. He saw his father go out the front door and disappear forever.
He thought about his first foster home where he was burned with cigarettes and locked in the pitch-black basement for two days because he ate a sausage from the icebox without permission.
Antonio knocked. Collucci patted Olivia to calm her.
She said in a sharp voice, “Who is it?”
Antonio said loudly, “Antonio, Miss Tonelli, your father fights for breath in his bedroom and calls you.”
Olivia went to the door and told Antonio she would come in a minute or two. She kissed Collucci good-bye with a promise they would meet at a downtown theater the next day.
Collucci was a blur of silent motion. He speed-dressed and chain-bolted front and back doors, then he drew a giant kettle of scalding water. He found a nearly full half-gallon container of bleach and quickly emptied the bleach into the kettle with the water. Next, he found a heavy industrial wrench under the kitchen sink.
He eased the front door open and stepped out on the front porch with the kettle. He threaded the end of a bath towel through one of the holes in the latticed walls enclosing the porch, then he tied the kettle by its wire handle near the top of the porch roof.
He chinned himself to the roof and reached down and got the kettle. Then he went silently across the roof to the rear of the bungalow. He got on his belly and peered over the rim of the roof at the three button men. They crouched among lilac bushes on both sides of the steps leading from the back porch. All three had baseball bats.
Mario, a muscular giant, on one side, Antonio and Emilio on the other side. He stood and hurled the scalding contents of the kettle down in a sweeping motion. The trio’s screeches of pain reverberated in the night like mass murder.
In one motion he slipped the wrench from his belt and plunged down. Emilio and Antonio were screaming and scrambling out of the bushes. Emilio, fleeing the bushes behind Antonio, stumbled and fell on his knees on the lawn.
Collucci’s rage was at its uncontrolled peak. He gripped the wrench with both hands, raised it high above his head, and sighted for the top of Emilio’s shiny skullcap of hair. Then he growled for velocity and whistled the wrench down. Emilio’s eyes were phosphorescent. He rolled to his side and flung his arm up to shield his head.
His elbow took the crunch of the steel blow, and the arm burst blood and shards of bone. Collucci swung the wrench rapidly, breaking Emilio’s wrist on his other arm and his right ankle.
Collucci saw Antonio fifteen feet away with a wicked-looking forty-five automatic in his hand. He waved it aimlessly as he frantically wiped the back of his other hand across his eyes to clear them of the scalding bleached water.
The stench of Emilio’s loosened bowels pulled a spurt of vomit from Collucci’s guts. He leaped across the unconscious Emilio toward Antonio. But, too late, he saw the shadow of Mario on his right swinging the baseball bat. The blow struck the wrench upraised at the side of Collucci’s head.
The bat splintered and banged the wrench against the side of Collucci’s head. His legs went rubbery for a moment. He viciously backhanded the wrench at Mario’s throat and busted his jaw instead. Mario fell and rolled into the lilac bushes in agony.
Collucci smashed down Antonio’s gun arm as he was leveling it. The automatic skittered across the grass. Antonio, dangling his useless arm, bombed his foot at Collucci’s crotch. The toe of his shoe sank into Collucci’s navel and doubled him into a knot on the grass. Antonio rushed and snatched up the wrench with his good arm. He grunted as he brought it down. Collucci turned a saving fraction in time. He heard the whoosh and dull impact of the wrench against the grass.
Collucci reached up and seized Antonio’s broken wrist. He twisted it and wrung it like a chicken’s neck. Antonio’s hand hung crookedly on tendons and skin. He whimpered and staggered away toward the main house. Collucci got to his feet. He gripped the wrench and went in pursuit. Antonio screamed for help.
Olivia sat on the side of Joe Tonelli’s bed stroking his temple. She heard the scream above the bedlam singing of an old Italian Army marching song.
She flipped the floodlight switch and saw the scene. Collucci was wild-eyed, chasing Antonio. Mario pussyfooted thirty feet behind Collucci, gripping a length of lead pipe. Olivia screamed the house quiet. Tonelli’s guests followed her to the yard.
Collucci knocked Antonio senseless. Mario was swinging the pi
Collucci threw himself forward, and the pipe struck only a glancing blow. Collucci whirled and grappled with Mario. Mario fell and pinned Collucci to the ground with his great weight. He fumbled a stiletto from his pocket and stabbed down at Collucci’s throat. But the point missed and sank into the flesh above Collucci’s collarbone.
Olivia flung herself over Collucci’s face and chest and screamed, “Stop it, Mario! I love him! I love him!”
Louis Bellini snapped his fingers and a gang of his button men and bodyguards pulled Mario away. Joe Tonelli came slowly on a cane to the scene. He held his hand over his heart.
Olivia ran to him with tears flowing and sobbed, “Papa, they were trying to kill Jimmy Collucci. I love him. Papa, we’re going to be married!”
Tonelli embraced her and patted her back. He released her and went, with a furious face, to Mario cowering in bewilderment.
Mario mumbled, “Mr. Tonelli, we thought he was a thief.”
Tonelli flailed Mario’s head and shoulders with the cane and shouted, “Stupido! You have hurt my daughter’s innocent fiancé.”
Tonelli went and put an arm around Collucci. He turned to several of his men and said, “Take this boy to the finest hospital. He must have the best of everything. He’s going to be my son-in-law. Understand?”
Louis Bellini chuckled and said, “That skinny kid has the balls to be important. Tonelli’s guys look like a whole mob worked them over.”
Then moments later Bellini stuck his head into the limousine about to pull away for the hospital and said softly to Collucci, “Jimmy Collucci . . . I like you. Are you Sicilian?”
Collucci nodded.
“What is your mother’s maiden name?”
Collucci said, “Why?”
Bellini frowned and said, “I’ll overlook your ignorance this time. But never ask Louis Bellini why again.”
Collucci said, “I’m sorry. Her maiden name was Saietta.”
The limousine pulled away. Collucci stayed in the hospital for a week.
On the sixth day Frank Cocio came into his room and said, “Congratulations, you are to marry Olivia Tonelli thirty days from today.”
Then Cocio smiled. “Mr. Bellini wants you to join the Family. He told me to see that you make your bones. I have the guy you need in mind already.”
Collucci said, “Who do I . . . ?”
Cocio grinned and said, “Bobo Librizzi,” and went through the door.
Collucci lay in shock. His joy at the prospect of becoming a Mafioso wiped out as he wondered how he would manage to kill his friend.
And now, the recollection fading, Collucci glided the Caddie into Chicago’s exclusive Gold Coast section. Refuge of the rich and the powerful.
Collucci sighed as he gazed up at Joe Tonelli’s fifty-story apartment building. The crown jewel of his vast real estate holdings.
He swung the Caddie off the street to halt before the eye of an infrared TV monitor. The monitor swept above a wide steel door at a ramp leading into Joe Tonnelli’s private underground garage and elevator.
The steel door rolled up and the Caddie’s headlamps spat light into the ramp’s inky mouth. Shadows darted and leaped as the Caddie crooned down the ramp and into the tunnel. He drove into the brightly lit garage and parked.
Two guards in shirtsleeves waved from their gin rummy on the rear seat of a Tonelli limousine. He went across the concrete to the self-service elevator in the rear of the garage and glanced up at the bulletproof dome jutting out above the elevator and nodded to the machine gunner, who waved.
He reached to punch the “up” button. The cage opened, and out stepped Lieutenant Paul Porta. He was commander of the special gang squad headquartered at Eleventh Street Central Station.
The chunky cop shook Collucci’s hand warmly and said, “Maybe you’re lucky I preceded you up there.”
Collucci said, “Why, Paul?”
Porta said, “A half-hour ago, Taylor’s Warriors hit Mullins’ policy bank check-in station and safe for seventy-five grand.”
Collucci said, “Uh-uh, maybe I better go up another time.”
Porta leaned close and said seriously, “Jimmy, I think I’ve finally done it. In fact, I am almost certain that within twenty-four hours I will have a dependable undercover agent infiltrated into Tit for Tat Taylor’s Warriors. I will learn all the secrets of their tunnel and defense systems they have under their so-called Free Zone. Arrangements are being made to impeach and force that spade governor out of office. Our man goes in and the National Guard will crush the Warriors.”
Collucci said, “Is how you planted the pigeon classified?”
Porta laughed and said, “Jimmy, if you’re going to tip them off, it is. It wasn’t difficult really. A black con just released from Joliet Penitentiary has a Warrior pal out here who had been his cell mate. I filed a detainer warrant for stickup, murder against him on his release date. He agreed to help me bust up the Warriors. I arranged to have the beef withdrawn, with privilege to reinstate against him at any time, of course.”
Collucci banged him on the shoulder and said, “Congratulations, Paul. And good luck!”
They shook hands.
Just before they parted, Collucci said, “Paul, your agent anybody I know?”
Porta said, “I doubt it. He’s just an ordinary young spade whose street moniker is Rapping Roscoe. He’s full of shit alright, but I’ve got him, as they say down in Texas, between a rock and a hard place.”
They laughed together, and Collucci stepped into the elevator.
And on the far Southside, Rapping Roscoe rode in a battered black Pontiac with his ex-cell mate, Bumpy Lewis, and several other Warriors that Roscoe did not know were Warriors. They all were observing him closely for his fitness to become a Warrior.
6
The drama for Rapping Roscoe and the occupants of the battered black Pontiac started to unfold when Lotsa Black Hayes, the massive driver, glanced up at the rearview mirror and said raggedly, “Ivory, we got two black rollers on our ass.”
Ivory Jones, the squad leader, leaned forward toward Dew Drop Allen, the tiny white Warrior on the front seat beside the driver, and said casually, “Drop, you know what to do and when if necessary.”
Dew Drop nodded, and Ivory said, “Lotsa, do the thing now.”
Lotsa Black stomped on the gas pedal. The finely tuned race-car engine booted the Pontiac forward with a roar. Rapping Roscoe, Lieutenant Porta’s tool, turned jerkily and looked through the rear window at the fading headlamps of the blue Plymouth sedan.
Bumpy Lewis glanced at Roscoe and said, “Roscoe, be cool, my man. Ain’t no reason now to keep it from you. You are with members of them bad muthafuckuhs, Warriors For Willie Poe. Them black rollers back there are lucky they ain’t gonna get a chance to hit on us. No roller fuckin’ with us is gonna get anything but offed.”
Roscoe smiled weakly and mumbled, “I’m together, brother. You dudes are Warriors? Ain’t that a bitch?”
A half mile from the safety of the Zone the Pontiac suddenly started to lose and regain speed in alarming heavings and jerks.
Ivory Jones looked back at the pinpoint headlamps of the blue Plymouth and commanded, “Lotsa, take the next corner and cut into the first alley and kill your lights. Drop, get out the muscle.”
Dew Drop leaned forward and rapidly punched at the car’s radio pushbutton selectors, which if done in a precisely coded release pattern would pop up the top of the dashboard. This top was really the lid for a long, shallow steel box which contained several preloaded Magnum pistols, a high-powered automatic rifle, a sawed-off shotgun, grenades, and ammunition in the miniarsenal.
The lid did not pop up! Dew Drop twice again carefully punched the pushbuttons as Lotsa Black turned a corner and drove a half block north down an alley and snuffed the Pontiac’s lights and ailing engine.
The alley was dark and quiet except for the profane voice of an u
Ivory Jones said harshly, “Drop, the guns, pass out the goddamn guns!”
Dew Drop stopped fumbling with the radio buttons. He turned his face toward the rear of the car and opened his mouth to speak. But no sound came out. His blue eyes stared through the rear window as if he was hypnotized.
He pointed and said in a hoarse whisper, “Ivory, the release gizmo, the switch to open the box, must be out. I can’t get to the guns, and I think I see them rollers coming down the alley with lights out.”
Everybody in the Pontiac looked out the rear window. There was the dark hump of a car outlined against the glow of street lamps at the mouth of the alley.
Ivory flung open the heavy door next to him. He leaped to the alley floor and shouted, “Drop, get under the wheel and talk shit to them. Lotsa, get out and fade with me until we can maneuver from the rear and bust those rollers’ heads with a brick or something.”
Lotsa Black had gotten one gigantic leg out of the Pontiac when the Pontiac and Ivory were blasted by a bright white light.
“Police!” a bass voice shouted. “Nigger, put your hands on the top of the car or get your head blown off.”
Ivory spat in the direction of the voice and slowly placed his palms on the roof of the Pontiac. Roscoe’s knee beat a frantic tattoo against Bumpy’s thigh inside the Pontiac.
The tires on the blue Plymouth hissed like tomcats against the gritty alley floor as the eye of the spotlight moved forward to stop two feet behind the Pontiac. Two hard-faced men sprang from the Plymouth. The slim one stood at the rear of the Pontiac. He switched and aimed a shotgun at Ivory Jones and the frozen figures inside the Pontiac.
Slim commanded Ivory, “Now, you bad motherfucker, raise your arms high. Back up past this shotgun and put your hands on the top of the car at the rear.”
Ivory followed the order, but spat again as he backed past the shotgun.
Thick Set went past Ivory to the driver’s side with a thirty-eight snub-nose pointed at Lotsa Black’s head and said, in a soft, almost sweet, voice, “Alright, nigger, haul that fat ass out here slowly and stand beside that bastard at the rear with your hands on the top.”