Bronx Requiem(72)

He headed out of the bar, feeling the effects of the whiskey and beer. He hadn’t thrown the booze down quickly. He was fine. Time to get some dinner and figure out his next move.

He wore an old denim work jacket he’d brought with him along with jeans, a khaki shirt, and sturdy lace-up shoes. Clothes that not only made him look like a local, but were also suited to the chill air settling in. Even in May the nights in upstate New York were dipping into the fifties.

Both hands were shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He absentmindedly slipped his fingers into the brass knuckles in his left pocket as he felt around for the truck key in his right.

Despite trying to put everything out of his mind, Beck kept thinking about Oswald Remsen. Trying to make the connections between Remsen, Packy, his daughter, prostitutes, and the Watkins brothers. Brothers. Dammit. Beck cursed, shaking his head at how long it at taken him to put the last part of it together. Rita had given him everything he needed. The third Remsen son working at Sing Sing. He had to be the link. Plenty of men from the Bronx connected to the Watkins’s must have filtered in and out of Sing Sing.

Between the booze and being preoccupied by his sudden insight, Beck didn’t hear the footsteps behind him soon enough. He didn’t turn in time to avoid the baseball bat, only enough so that the bat hit him behind his right shoulder instead of squarely in the middle of his back where it might have shattered his vertebrae.

The wallop knocked Beck to the ground. With both hands in his jacket pockets, he landed awkwardly, but rolled onto his feet quickly, before the next blow from the bat put him on the ground permanently.

On his feet but off balance, Beck staggered back and ducked as the end of the bat whipped past the top of his head.

He continued backpedaling, the adrenaline, panic, and pain burning away the effects of the whiskey and beer. In the dim light of the parking area, Beck saw the man wielding the bat stood at least six six, and well over two fifty. There were two more men advancing along with him, staying back a pace, letting the hulk do the hard work. It was only a matter of time before one of the swings put him down and they all moved in for the kill.

Beck managed to get his hands out of his pockets, but only the left hand held a weapon. He ignored the other two attackers and focused on the one with the bat. He advanced on Beck, the bat held over his head like an axe. Beck knew whatever the bat hit, would break: skull, collarbone, shoulder, or an arm raised to block it.

He couldn’t keep dodging the bat. He had to take it away, but how? His attacker was too big, too strong. Was this it? After all he’d been through was he going to end up beaten to death in a dirt parking lot outside a shit bar?

The blow came down at him, hard and fast. Beck changed direction and lunged forward, aiming his left hand, timing his one chance with absolute commitment, ignoring the ridiculous odds, and going for it with everything he had.

The brass knuckles smacked into the aluminum bat with a metallic thunk that surprised everybody, including Beck. The impact nearly buckled Beck’s wrist. It reverberated all the way through his arm to his shoulder. Beck’s brass-knuckled fist hit the bat squarely, but he only managed to deflect it.

The end of the bat pounded onto the ground. Beck stomped on the handle, forcing the bat out of the bigger man’s hands, then he whipped a brass-knuckled backhand at his attacker that missed.

The big man let out a snarling growl, grabbed Beck, and threw him to the ground.

Before Beck could get to his feet, the other two were on him like jackals. The kicks rained down fast and hard, hitting his chest, ribs, back. One kick hit his right elbow. Another, the side of his head. Beck saw flashes of light in a field of black, and swung his knuckled fist blindly, feeling the brass connect with one of his attacker’s legs. He immediately threw himself in that direction, rolling into a pair of legs, taking one of them to the ground.

Beck’s head cleared as another boot caught him in the back, but he didn’t care, he was on top of one of the attackers and landed two brass-knuckled punches as a body dived into him, driving him off the man under him.

Beck shoved off the third attacker as a huge boot hit him in his left side, paralyzing him with pain. Another kick clipped the side of his head and neck, and another his shoulder. There were more of them now. Beck lashed out with his own kick then rolled into a fetal position, hands and arms trying to protect the sides and back of his head. He wondered how many of them there were. He felt himself losing consciousness, thinking I’m going to die, but finding comfort knowing that Manny Guzman, Demarco Jones, and Ciro Baldassare would hunt down every one of these bastards and kill them, too.

And then he heard a gunshot, and everything went black.





46

Amelia walked around Tyrell’s neighborhood for thirty minutes looking for his green Malibu. The balls of her feet began to hurt. She felt drained from the fight with Darlene and the shooting at Hoe Avenue. Her reaction to Darlene calling her a bitch had unleashed something in her that had shocked her as much as it had made her feel liberated.

After another five minutes without success, she decided the hell with Tyrell’s car. Just get back in Derrick’s Jeep and drive away. By now Darlene had probably made ten phone calls ratting her out.

Amelia turned a corner to head back to where she’d parked Derrick’s Jeep, and there it was, Tyrell’s green Chevy. She looked around. Nobody on the street. She quickly unlocked the car and turned the engine over. She navigated over to Crotona Parkway and drove north on the wide boulevard past East Tremont Avenue looking for a place to pull over.