Lola on Fire Read online

  “Prob’ly the fuel pump,” Mort said.

  “Yup,” Silas agreed soberly. “The fuel pump.”

  They had arrived at this diagnosis without popping the hood. They simply circled the car, rubbing their whiskery throats, frowning.

  “How much?” Brody asked.

  “Shoot,” Mort said. He leaned his narrow frame across the hood, looked at the VIN stenciled at the bottom of the dash. “She’s a ’99. Old.”

  “Old,” Silas echoed.

  “We can check Timmy’s Salvage—might get lucky and pull a halfway decent replacement from a junker. That’ll save you heartily. Otherwise, we’ll have to call our supplier, see if we can get something reconditioned.”

  “Cheaper than new,” Silas said. “A mite, at any rate.”

  “A mite. Yup. And besides, new won’t matter much.” Mort’s Adam’s apple yo-yoed as he spoke. “That’d be sorta like giving a new hip to a man with terminal cancer. If you follow me.”

  “I follow you. But how much?” Brody spread his hands. “Can you ballpark it?”

  “Nope. Too many variables.” Mort touched the wheel arch with the tip of his steel toe cap and rust sifted down. “Leave a number and we’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I’m paying cash,” Brody said.

  “All to the good, but that don’t make us work no faster.” Mort stepped around the hood and clapped an oil-dark hand on Brody’s shoulder. “We’ll get you moving as soon as. In the meanwhile”—he pointed south—“if you’re looking for a place to rest your head, Katie’s Motel has beds. Go five blocks on Main, then hang a right on Biloxi. She’s across from the flea market.”

  Molly had absented herself from this conversation, and Brody wished he could have done the same. She stood to one side, shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sunlight. With business concluded, at least for now, the brothers turned their attention her way. They nodded curiously, scratched their bristly faces, and didn’t quite whisper.

  “Crutches, huh?”

  “Yup. Crutches.”

  * * *

  Katie’s was of marginally higher quality than the Stardust Motel. There were no used condoms under the bed, no rat turds in the back corner of the closet. It was also more expensive: $69 a night. Katie—in her late fifties, but with the cut biceps of a professional arm wrestler—asked for a credit card to cover incidentals.

  “What incidentals?” Brody asked. “Minibar? Valet parking?”

  “We got cable.” She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Adult entertainment.”

  She settled for an extra $20 cash, which put the room a buck shy of $90. Added to Mr. Happy’s tow charge, Brody’s bag of cash was $200 lighter than when he’d set out that morning. It was worrisome, not least because he still had to pay for repairs on the car, and they were still a long way from the Oklahoma Panhandle.

  “How much cash do you have left?” Molly had always been able to tune in to his concerns. “You know . . . your winnings.”

  “Enough,” Brody replied. “Don’t sweat it.”

  He ordered pizza that night and they wolfed it down watching Happy Days reruns on TBS. They didn’t laugh often, but when they did it was from deep down and wonderful. Several times, Molly started to say something to him, then stopped herself, at least until she’d taken her medication and pulled herself into bed.

  “I know what it is.” She looked at the ceiling, painted the same drab tan as the walls. “You know . . . the reason you’re in trouble.”

  “You think you do,” Brody said. “But believe me—”

  “You didn’t win at poker. You cheated. I don’t know how, but you did. And the people you cheated . . . they’re heavy guys. Mobsters, maybe.”

  Brody stripped to his boxers, climbed into his own bed. The sheets were cold, clean. They felt good.

  “You fucked with the wrong people, Brody.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The police can help. Think about it.” Molly puffed up her pillow and lay down with her back to him. Brody sat against the headboard, knees drawn. He had to tell Molly everything, and soon. It wasn’t fair to have dragged her into this without telling her why. But doing so meant confessing to robbing Buddy’s Convenience Store, an act he was desperately ashamed of. Molly would be disappointed in him. Heartbroken, even. On top of everything else, he wasn’t ready for that.

  He flicked the TV off. Motel ambience filled the air: a shower running in a nearby room, a car pulling into the lot and idling, muffled voices from behind thin walls. Soon Molly’s light snoring joined the chorus. Her body barely moved beneath the sheets.

  Brody closed his eyes. He slept, but only for a moment. He awoke with his knees still drawn, his gaze fixed on the window. The aqua neon of Katie’s sign showed through the curtains. He rolled his head, looked at Molly. She hadn’t moved.

  Five hundred miles from Rebel Point. Not enough distance. But perhaps enough to dig a little deeper into Jimmy Latzo’s infamy. If Brody had any hope of getting out of this, he needed to do his homework.

  He picked up his phone.

  * * *

  While the Gambino family—with John Gotti at the helm—called the shots in New York City, Don Esposito held sway over western Pennsylvania. This was in the mid- to late 1980s. Jimmy Latzo was, at that time, a young soldier with Rudy Tucoletti’s crew, who controlled the action in Carver City, a remodeled commuter town south of Pittsburgh. Even then, Latzo was known for his short fuse. He once ran three teenagers through an industrial meat grinder for vandalizing a hardware store on Tucoletti’s turf.

  Allegedly.

  In those early days, Latzo’s reputation gave pause to anybody who thought to challenge him. A soldier from Nicky Scarfo’s South Philly Mob had suggested that Latzo’s methods lacked finesse, and that he brought shame to La Cosa Nostra. Soon afterward, this soldier was found strangled by his own large intestine, his mouth crammed with bull feces.

  Jimmy Latzo feared no recriminations. Thirty years old, stylish, ostensibly untouchable. He was one of Tucoletti’s big earners.

  “This fucking kid didn’t like to lose,” Michael DeCicco wrote in his controversial memoir Point Blank: A Keystone State Mob Story. “And I mean at anything—business, gambling, women. I once saw him shoot some chick in the kneecap after she refused to dance with him. Boom. Down she went. And everybody turned a blind eye because of who Jimmy was, and what he might do. I swear to God, the kid was a fucking powder keg.”

  The consensus was that Latzo would blow himself up. It was simply a matter of when. In 1989, Rudy Tucoletti got himself whacked with the cancer stick and was dead within months. His cousin Frankie—“A fucking gutless pussy bitch,” according to Michael DeCicco in the same tell-all—took the reins in Carver City. He didn’t last long. Frankie was gunned down on the eleventh hole at Pin High Country Club, by order of Don Esposito’s consigliere, Alfonso Monte, who’d heard that Frankie was in bed with the Feds. Jimmy Latzo—reckless, yes, but his ambition couldn’t be questioned—was promoted to caporegime and given control of Carver City.

  He was thirty-three years old. A 1990 article in the Carver City Herald referred to Latzo as “the Prince of Pennsylvania.” Other monikers included “Chainsaw Jimmy” and “the Italian Cat,” this latter on account of him always getting the cream. Certainly he lived the high life for the next few years. Fast cars, beautiful women, associating with celebrities and politicians. Carver City officials—those with enough clout to matter—ate from the palm of his hand. Not out of hunger, but fear.

  Most of the legends regarding Latzo stemmed from the three years he presided over Carver City. They were many and colorful. Among them: setting fire to a restaurant in Greensburg that had refused him entry to a private function; the beheading of an associate who’d ill-advisedly described Latzo as having “little legs, even for a wop”; tying an alleged informant to the back of his Caddy and driving him through Carver City until only “rat scraps” remained (Bla
ir had said she didn’t believe this particular story, but Brody wasn’t so sure). It was the suggestion of violence, too—the countless threats and intimidation. Several sources claimed Latzo occasionally wore a World War II–era flamethrower to business meetings to ensure proceedings went the way he wanted them to.

  Such violence and arrogance garnered a multitude of enemies, some of whom tried to take him down. There were several failed hits, apparently, and a year-long racketeering trial that went quickly south following the apparent suicide of an FBI informant.

  But no one is truly untouchable.

  Accounts of what happened in 1993 were varied and unreliable. The authorities suspected gang warfare—Latzo had, on numerous occasions, overstepped the mark with the Russian mob and the tongs, and his actions may have caught up to him. Other sources claimed it was dissent in the ranks; with both Little Nicky and John Gotti behind bars, the East Coast families were in disarray. Folks were squealing left and right, trying to cut deals. There was inevitably bloodshed. Another theory—favored among those on the inside—suggested it was the work of one person. An unnamed soldier with an ax to grind.

  Whatever the cause, it resulted in Jimmy Latzo’s downfall. Most of his crew was wiped out, and his luxury house in Carver City was burned to the ground. Firefighters pulled Latzo from the flames. He suffered second-and third-degree burns to thirty percent of his body. He’d also been shot three times.

  There followed a long process of surgeries, reconstructions, and convalescence. Latzo was rarely seen. Brody found one picture of him at a hospital in New York City, hooked up to numerous machines, wrapped almost entirely in bandages. It was haunting. Several cases were brought against him during this time, but all collapsed due to lack of evidence. No one turned on him, probably because he still had protection from Don Esposito, and there were bigger fish—and better deals to be cut—in Jersey and New York City.

  Latzo wasn’t finished, though. He was back on his feet by the late nineties, a “legitimate businessman” with interests in commercial real estate and property development. Over the next two decades his name was linked to multiple misdeeds, including insurance fraud scams, a counterfeit money operation, illegal gambling, and the murders of several high-profile businesspeople, with Art Binkle (his severed head spinning at 45 rpm) being the most gruesome and well-known case.

  Latzo maintained his innocence, and always managed to slip the noose. He claimed he was being victimized because of previous and deeply naïve business dealings, and had worked to counter this with his “openhearted community efforts” and donations to local charities. According to the last article Brody read, Latzo continued to operate out of Carver City, but had homes across the United States.

  “A lot of guys got away with shit back then,” Michael DeCicco wrote at the end of his chapter on the Carver City mob. “But Jimmy wasn’t one of them. The kid answered for his crimes, and he’s got the scars to prove it. Okay, maybe he isn’t at the bottom of the Ohio River or pulling laundry shifts in Marion with the Teflon Don, but he still has to look at his burned-up face every day, and I know that fucking kills him.”

  * * *

  They ate breakfast at a family restaurant called Missy Lean’s. It was southern home style—biscuits and gravy, country-fried steak and eggs, everything served with a generous helping of “God Bless America.” Molly ate like she hadn’t seen food in a week. Brody, quite the opposite. His appetite was history. He nudged his food around the plate and glanced out the window every time a car pulled into the lot.

  “You going to eat that?” Molly pointed at his cheese grits.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Most of the vehicles were Buicks or Chryslers driven by octogenarians wearing plaid shirts and baseball caps. Some were pickup trucks with either a rebel flag on the tailgate or a shotgun racked on the back glass. Occasionally a late-model Toyota or a loaded SUV pulled into one of Missy Lean’s parking spaces, and that was when Brody clenched inside. He expected all four doors to open and the cast of The Sopranos to roll out. His late-night reading had influenced his imagination, hence the loss of appetite.

  He hadn’t slept much.

  Reading about Jimmy Latzo was one thing, but knowing what to do with that information was another. The dude wasn’t simply a corrupt businessman, he was a mobster, a fully fledged omertà-swearing-hanging-out-with-John-fucking-Gotti wise guy. How could he, Brody, neutralize that? Hide in Oklahoma and hope for the best? Informants went into witness protection to escape the mob. New towns, new identities, new lives. They had a practiced team behind them, and a shitload of money to set them up. All Brody had was a movie-prop handgun and a crapped-out Pontiac.

  “Hey, remember that guy who used to visit when we were younger? A friend of Dad’s, I think.” Brody raised a hand above his head, indicating a greater height. “Tall. Six-three, maybe. Boston accent.”

  “Bawston,” Molly said, and smiled. “Yeah. Karl somebody. Janko, maybe? Or Jankowski?”

  “Karl Janko.” Brody snapped his fingers. “That’s him.”

  “Always wore tight T-shirts.” Molly wiped cheese grits from her chin. “He was Mom’s friend, not Dad’s.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Options, I guess. Keeping them open.” Brody picked up a piece of toast, considered it, then dropped it back on the plate. “I’m putting together a mental list of people we know.”

  “In case we need a favor?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, but there are people we know, and people who, maybe, would help us. Not too many names on that second list.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “And Janko is a bad dude. I remember Dad telling me he’d been to jail a couple of times.”

  Brody shrugged vaguely, as if he’d forgotten this detail, when in fact it was at the forefront of his mind. A man like Karl Janko might know a place they could lie low for a while. He might even know someone who could hook them up with false papers. It was a long shot, no doubt, but maybe their best, if not only, shot.

  Molly finished her breakfast, then swiped the toast from Brody’s plate and finished that, too. Brody looked out the window. A truck pulled in, USA flag rippling from the antenna, country music making its panels quake. Right behind it, a tar-black Yukon with tinted glass. A stone dropped into the pool of Brody’s gut and sent unpleasant ripples through his body. He watched the Yukon muscle into a tight space, then the driver and passenger doors opened. The passenger was thirty-something, tan, dressed in an open-throat shirt and mirrored aviators.

  Oh fuck.

  The driver was older, in his fifties, silver-haired.

  Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

  “Brody? You okay?”

  The rear doors opened. Brody waited for more wise guys to spill out, smoking Padróns, shooters wedged into the waistbands of their slacks. It was two women, though, the same age as the men, dressed more casually. The older woman wore an Ole Miss Rebels sweatshirt. They joined their men and the two couples walked hand in hand toward the restaurant.

  “Brody?”

  A sweet, relieved sigh escaped him, and he cursed himself for being so damned paranoid.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  He got the check.

  * * *

  Mort Kane called a touch before ten with good news, he said, and not so good.

  “We’ll get you on the road by midafternoon. Say, three. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, we couldn’t yank the parts at Timmy’s, and our supplier can only get his hands on aftermarket.”

  “Aftermarket,” Silas said in the background.

  “You’re looking at six hundred bones, parts and labor. If you’re still paying cash, we can bring that down a mite.”

  Brody closed his eyes, imagining his dwindling bag of cash. He’d been thrifty since emptying the register at Buddy’s, but there’d been expenses: food, gas, motels, Molly’s medication, paying Tyrese. He’d have to count, but he guessed this repa
ir bill would drop him to below a grand. And that was it. All they had left.

  “How much would you give me for the car?” he asked Mort. “You know . . . take it off my hands.”

  Mort laughed. “Shit, son, you dropped a ton and a half of garbage onto our lot. You’d have to pay us to make it go away.”

  “Pay you?”

  “Hundred should do it.”

  Silas: “Hundred.”

  “But you could fix it up,” Brody said. “Sell it for a profit. Easy money.”

  “Nothing easy, son. We’d spend a grand fixing her up and sell her for five hundred. That’s all she’s worth, running smooth-like.”

  “Shit,” Brody said, thinking that the six hundred bucks he was faced with spending was too much for a five-hundred-dollar boneshaker, but that the Pontiac Motel might be their go-to domicile in the weeks to come.

  “What you wanna do?” Mort asked.

  “Fix her up,” Brody said.

  Checkout was midday, but Molly, leaning heavily on her crutches, persuaded Katie to extend it to three—no additional charge. At 2:40, Brody covertly took six hundred bucks from his haul, pulled on his jacket, and started for the door.

  “I’m going to get the car.”

  “Okay,” Molly said.

  “I’ll be twenty minutes, give or take, then we’re getting out of this shithole.” He ran his hand along an imaginary highway. “Next stop: Oklahoma.”

  “I’m not going,” Molly said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  Molly sat on her bed, hair strung across her face, one hand scrunching the sheets. Her crutches leaned against the nightstand. She grabbed one of them and threw it on the floor at his feet.

  “I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what’s going on.” Spots of color found her cheeks. “Fuck you, Brody. I’ve got a right to know.”

  He picked up Molly’s crutch, placed it on the bed next to his bag, neatly packed, ready to go. Molly’s stuff was still dotted around the room.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You do.”

  “So?”

  He ran a hand down his face, shook his head, and sighed. “Okay, listen, sis.” He didn’t know where to begin. What he did know was that he wasn’t having this conversation now, in the motel room. “We’ve got six hours until we hit the Oklahoma state line. That’s a long time, and a lot of highway. I’ll tell you everything while we’re driving. Everything. You have my word. But please, let’s just get the hell out of here.”