To Have and to Heist(109)

“Where’s the necklace?” Virgil kicks you in the ribs. After so many years of chase-catch-beat-shoot and chase again, you and your thickly mustached friend are on a first-name basis. After all, his bullets have been inside you.

“Angelini’s daughter took it.” You try to breathe through the pain but your lungs aren’t obeying commands. “She’s at a warehouse in Hanover Park with a buyer on the way. You’d better hurry or you’re going to lose out. If you’d just asked me instead of throwing a bag over my head, we could have been there by now.” You have always believed the best defense is offense.

“What the fuck were you doing in Naperville if the necklace was in Hanover Park?” Virgil kicks you again. He’s bought some new steel-toed boots and he’s trying to break them in.

“My friend’s mother invited me for dinner. I thought it would be impolite to refuse. She makes wonderful pakoras.” You wish you’d had a chance to taste them because they smelled amazing, but when you saw the hench people through the window, you had to act quickly to save Anil’s family. Henches don’t care who they hurt when they are doing Mr. X’s bidding, unless of course it’s someone you love. You and Mr. X have a professional understanding. Family, partners, even pets are off-limits. Break that rule and there will be hell to pay.

Virgil wraps a chain around his fist and punches you in the gut. The chain is new for Virgil. Usually, he uses his bare hands. He throws a few more practice punches, hitting your ribs and kidneys before he tires of his new toy and grabs a thick metal pole to beat you with instead. Over and over again, until the world becomes a haze of pain.

“Don’t kill him yet,” Rusty says. You don’t call this henchman “Rusty” to his face because he’s sensitive about his red hair. His real name is Andrew.

“Too bad, Virgil.” You heave in a breath. Some part of your brain screams at you to shut your big mouth, but you have a habit of not listening. “I know it’s how you get your kicks.”

Virgil gets his kicks with a well-aimed blow to your head.

You black out.

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

?A bang. A blaze of light. Footsteps. You feel fire on your cheek and cold deep in your bones. Your hands are chained over your head and your feet dangle, barely touching the floor. You open your eyes and wish you hadn’t.

“I thought you’d be dead by now,” Mr. X says from the door of the meat freezer.

“Give me a little credit,” you say. “I grew up in Chicago. Have you lived through a Chicago winter? My grandmother made me play outside when it was so cold my eyelashes froze together.”

“And you had to walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm to get to school?”

“I didn’t go to school. I couldn’t see.”

“Funny. You’re a funny guy.” Mr. X walks into the freezer flanked by two extra hench people. You are flattered that he needs four henches to protect himself from you, considering you’ve been badly beaten and you are chained up in a meat freezer, well on your way to hypothermia.

Mr. X has a cane, but no limp. A head, but no hair. He is tall enough not to be short, but too short to be considered tall. His face is as round and red as an overripe plum, and his lips are so thin, they beg for Botox. Taking a page from the Villains-R-Us manual, he has a thin mustache and a thick goatee. The last time you met, he had a thick mustache and a thin goatee. The new look is an improvement.

“Funny enough for you to let me off the hook?” Mr. X hates it when you joke around. Torture time is supposed to be serious.

“Where’s the necklace?” He leans so close, you can smell his fetid breath. Someone didn’t brush his teeth this morning—maybe ever. If you purse your lips, you could spit in his face. Not that you ever would. Your grandmother taught you that a gentleman never spits.

“I told your hench people, Angelini’s daughter took it.” You study the face that has haunted your dreams for over ten years—the face of an enemy who was once a mentor and friend. Over the years he’s had you beaten, whipped, buried—that’s another story—and shot. And then there was that time in the desert with the honey and the ants, and the night he caught you in bed with his sister . . . although to be fair, you’d just pushed him over a waterfall and thought he was dead. But you digress. There is a word for men like Mr. X: nemesis.

Mr. X has aged since your last encounter. His facial hair is graying and he has crow’s feet at the corners of his soulless black eyes. His gray suit has lost the fight against business casual, with a baggy eighties silhouette minus a sense of purpose. His pants are pleated for comfort and wide down the leg, pooling around box-toed shoes. A double-width Mickey Mouse tie is attached to a billowing silky mauve dress shirt, and his belt has a shiny gold buckle engraved with a big X to mark the spot. Villainy might pay, but it can’t buy a sense of fashion.

“That necklace was a fake,” Mr. X says.

“No. Really?” You feign as much shock and surprise as your frozen face can muster, although your primary concern is down below. Your balls are so cold, you can’t feel them. Your only chance of continuing the family line is soon going to be limited to special snowflakes and talking snowmen in funny hats.

“You knew that.” Mr. X sips coffee from a cup with the name Susan scrawled across it in black pen. He’s never told you his real name, and you are excited at the little glimpse into his true self. He doesn’t look like a “Susan” to you, but you don’t like to judge.