The Pips of Paradise Read online



  The Pips of Paradise

  By Michael Ciminera

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  Copyright © 2016 by Michael Ciminera

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author via the link above.

  ***

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Couple of Knockaround Guys

  Chapter 2: A Horse is a Horse, of Course, of Course...

  Chapter 3: A Simple Drop

  Chapter 4: Poor Zeek Zaro

  Chapter 5: That Kid’s Apple

  Chapter 6: The Man With The Plan

  Chapter 7: Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades...

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Couple of Knockaround Guys

  Otto and Mordy had finished digging the hole.

  They were covered in pig stinking mud and salted sweat but did the deed just before the sun checked out and the moon checked in. Otto was the taller of the two. He wore a two-inch pompadour flipped back knowing full well the style’s been out of vogue since the early eighties. He was a barrel chested brute in his late thirties, but had these small hands that didn’t match the rest of his built. Otto hated his hands. Mordy was smaller and younger and was wound so tight that Otto smoked more than usual when they were together. The kid meant well, is what Otto always told himself. Only tonight, Mordy had worked himself up into a frenzy and started to spitball. “The envelope said eight and the guy is late.” He said.

  Otto corrected him. “Envelope said around eight.”

  Mordy looked at his watch. Twice.

  “And now it’s eight-fifteen, which is around eight and the guy still ain’t here.”

  “Cool it Mordy, guy will be here when he’ll be here.”

  Otto produced a pack of smokes he had rolled in his left sleeve for safe keeping. He lit one and took a long, well needed drag and looked at the location of the hole they had just spent the last few hours digging. He tilted his head to the side to check, “Did we dig in the right spot?”

  “We followed those orders with a fine toothed comb.” Mordy said confidently.

  “Check again.”

  “I already checked Otto.”

  “You’re full of shit Mordy.”

  “How do you know I’m full of shit?”

  “Because your eyebrows always raise a little when you lie.”

  Mordy conceded and lowered the eyebrows he had waxed by the Asians twice a week. He was a hairy little guy and needed the maintenance. Then he pulled out a crumbled envelope from his pocket and kept on, “I don’t understand why we have to get our orders in these stupid envelopes. What happened to personal contact and the brotherhood of the thing?”

  Otto just pulled on his smoke and stared ahead, “Everybody gets envelopes now, even the guys at the top.”

  “Envelopes I don’t mind so much. It’s what’s inside them.” Mordy said.

  Otto played along. “What’s inside them?”

  “Cock nosed assignments.”

  Otto rolled his eyes. They’ve had this conversation before.

  “Cock nosed assignments is what’s in these envelopes.” Mordy said again. He took the card from the envelope and read it out loud with more attitude than the first time, “Dig a two and a half foot wide, eight foot long hole, next to the fourth gravestone on the right.” He counted the gravestones, one two, three and with a middle finger landed on four and shrugged back to Otto.

  “That ain’t a gravestone.” Otto said.

  “What do you mean it ain’t a gravestone?”

  “That’s a boulder, dummy.”

  Mordy looked again. Otto was right. It was a boulder.

  “We dug in the wrong spot for Christs sake, Mordy.” Otto said, shaking his head.

  “Shit.” Mordy stood confused. “How did we...”

  Otto turned to him. “This is why I should have initiated the dig.”

  “It’s only a few feet, maybe no one will notice.”

  Mordy averted his stare and went back to reading, “The guy will show with a package around eight. Collect the package. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t answer any questions. Don’t open the package. Bury the package. Burn after reading.”

  Otto tossed him the lighter and Mordy put a flame to the orders and watched them go up.

  “These entry level assignments are for gofers and golf caddy’s, Otto.”

  Otto was still pissed about the hole that was askew and tuned Mordy out like a husband did with a yapping wife. He wiped dry dirt from his perfectly squared forehead and hoped Mordy would just swallow his own tongue but he just kept going. The kid’s energy was boundless.

  “Dig this hole, dig that hole, blah blah blah... what’s next, laundry? I even got a few years of college. If I wanted to break my ass, I would’ve joined a union for Christ’s sake. At least you get medical and dental.”

  “You can’t even follow simple digging directions but you wonder why we don’t have a date to the prom.” Otto fired back.

  “I’m not talking about the prom. I’m talking about our future.” Mordy bellowed as he sat down on a headstone named “Kenigstein,” and took a cigarette from Otto even though he didn’t smoke.

  “I know Mordy, I know.” Otto said.

  He coughed between drags. Mordy always had bum lungs, even as a kid. “You know what happened to me the other day.”

  “No, what happened to you the other day?” Otto said monotone.

  “I had an epiphany. You know, like why I wanted to get mixed up in this business in the first place. I wondered, out of all the things in the world I could have done, why I choose to pursue this life?”

  “Yeah and what did you come up with?”

  “It all goes back to the rope.”

  “What rope?”

  “In elementary school. That fucking gym class rope. They had those long ropes that were hooked a mile up to the ceiling with little colored marks, says how high you were able to climb. Started with yellow then green then red and if you made it to the top of the ceiling, you were inducted into the Tarzan club.” Mordy paused and took three consecutive pulls as if he was smoking a cigar, then went back to his point, “Guess how far I got?”

  “You’re a featherweight, I gotta guess green.”

  “I couldn’t even get up to yellow! I was the only one. Kids were flying up those ropes like fucking Spiderman on coke. I felt like an asshole.”

  “So what’s the point?” Otto said.

  “The point is traumatic events like this shape a guy.”

  Otto shook his head, “I couldn’t climb the rope neither and it don’t mean shit either way.”

  “I know you couldn’t climb no rope otherwise you wouldn’t be hanging out with me. Like how you never see a girl who’s a five being best friends with a ten. Unless the ten wants to feel better about herself.”

  Mordy flicked his ashes purposely on top of the gravestone. Even he wasn’t sure why. “The rope represents recogn
ition. Recognition we thought we’d get in this business and didn’t.”

  Otto stood quiet.

  He turned to Otto. “We need an envelope filled with a man’s assignment that will push us up that pyramid.” Mordy concluded.

  Otto looked at him. “You see the sign out in front of this place? What’s it say?”

  Mordy just shrugged. “Paradise Grave and Gravestone.”

  “And who owns Paradise Grave and Gravestone?”

  “Sallie The Horse.”

  “And who is Sallie The Horse?”

  “Our boss.”

  “Correct. And since he is our boss, he decides who gets what and when,” Otto said giving his final answer on the topic.

  “Well if that’s true then we are truly fucked.”

  “Why?”

  “The guy hates us.”

  “The guy hates you, Mordy.”

  “Guy gives me the creeps.”

  “He gives everybody the creeps. That’s how he keeps people in line.”

  “The one-eyed bastard. Waddling around, looking like a demented horse with one blinder.”

  “He’s handicapped, give him a break.”

  “What about that deranged pet guinea pig he keeps in his office? Pippy. Is he handicapped too?”

  “Pippy is a trained killer so don’t fuck with him.”

  Mordy held up his hands in complete innocence.

  “You threw veal at him when The Horse was taking a shit. I saw you Mordy.”

  “He likes veal.”

  “Those things aren’t built to digest meat and you knew that. You’re lucky you didn’t kill him.”

  “I’m frustrated, okay Otto. This whole situation sucks my cock. Nobody respects us. We ain’t got no money. At this age we should be drinking expensive wine and getting our toes licked by...”

  “... a pack of Scandinavian skanks. I know Mordy, you told me a thousand times.” Otto said, cutting in.

  “We’re better than this is all I’m saying.”

  “Listen to me, we gotta respect The Horse whether he respects us or not, understand? That’s how this works.” Mordy just scoffed. “You act like he’s the be all, end all of it.”

  “The guy’s our boss, end of story.”

  “He was big in the eighties, he ain’t got no pull no more. Not the pull we need.” Mordy fired back.

  “You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Sallie The Horse reports directly to The Man With The Plan. In our circle it don’t get much bigger than that.”

  “Bullshit he reports to The Man With The Plan.” Mordy said defiantly. Otto just shrugged and didn’t care if he believed him but it was Mordy who wanted more. “How do you know this?”

  “I hear things Mordy.”

  “How come you never said anything before?”

  “You never me asked before.”

  Mordy was intrigued now. He knew The Man With The Plan was the one boss rumored to run things on the down low. After the take down in the early eighties he was the one who created a new system of doing business through the little envelopes. Minimal personal contact. The number of indictments went down and other crews adopted the practice. The Man With The Plan was respected as an innovative genius who changed the face of the South Philly mob.

  “Nobody’s even seen The Man With The Plan, who knows if he even exists.” Mordy said, trying not to get his hopes up.

  “He exists.” Otto confirmed.

  “But who is he then?”

  “No one really knows.”

  “You could be The Man With The Plan for all we know.” Mordy said.

  “If I was, I wouldn’t be digging no ditches.”

  “Tell me what else you’ve been holding back.”

  “They say he started out as an expert in the collection side of things and was good with his hands. Real mean son of a bitch, worse than Carl Burrow, The Meat Grinder during his worst hangover. They say he single handedly killed four guys once with his thumb.”

  “You’re playing with me.”

  Otto made the sign of the cross.

  “They say that’s how Sallie The Horse lost his eye.”

  “I thought he had shingles.” Mordy said matter of factly.

  “That was just a cover story.”

  Mordy thought about this carefully, “You’re saying that The Man With The Plan plucked out The Horse’s eye with his thumb?”

  “I’m not saying anything, just telling you what I heard.”

  “What did he do to deserve that? Did he disobey orders?”

  “Worse.”

  “He messed around with his wife?”

  “The Man With The Plan ain’t married you dope. You can’t have any attachments at that level. Like those Yogis in India.”

  “What then?”

  Otto hesitated, but since he opened this clam he couldn’t hold back, “He wished him a happy birthday.”

  Mordy exploded, “I got no time to be jerked off by you in this shit stinking graveyard Otto. I ain’t got the patience.”

  “I’m telling you the truth Mordy.”

  “But it don’t make no sense. You know what it takes to pluck an eye out? They don’t just pop out, you gotta get in there and fiddle around then clip the chord and that’s where it gets messy. You gotta be really pissed off at the person you’re plucking. Now you’re telling me The Man With The Plan took The Horse’s eye just because he wished him happy birthday?”

  Otto just shrugged. “Apparently it’s a sensitive subject. Guy was an orphan or something. Mother abandoned him right after she shit him out in a Duncan Donuts’ commode. Cops found him in a plastic to-go bag out back in the dumpster covered with afterbirth, the poor fucker.”

  Mordy started buying it. “So he never knew who his parents were?”

  “The cops suspected them to be this husband and wife serial killer combo. Real twisted family. Killer genes. Was related to that guy who took out a US president.”

  “Oswald?”

  “No, the other guy. The actor. John Wilkes Booth.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The guy that whacked Lincoln while he was eating joo joo bees in that movie theater. He was The Man With The Plan’s great, great uncle they say.”

  “They had movies back then?”

  “Yeah, black and white.”

  “Jeez.”

  Mordy started to fidget, “You see this is what I mean... I want people to tell stories about us some day. The guys who couldn’t climb the rope. The guys everybody thought were losers but one day they got confirmed and were inducted into the Tarzan club.”

  “You’re not a loser Mordy. You’re just an asshole.”

  Mordy’s fidget turned into a pace, “So The Horse is more connected than I thought.” Otto could see his hamster wheel was turning. Mordy continued, “The package that’s on the way, who knows what could be in it, maybe it’s something important. We could be part of something big right now and not even know it.”

  “You gotta curb expectations Mordy, it’s the only way to survive.”

  “That kind of thinking will get us nowhere Otto.”

  Otto turned away. Maybe it will, maybe it wouldn’t but that was how he lived in the world. How he survived.

  An hour or so later it was Otto who first noticed the guy they were waiting for enter the graveyard. Mordy turned stiff as a hardon and watched him slowly walk toward them with a limp. He looked like a mechanic and was wearing some kind of blue uniform like a bus driver. His hands and forearms were full of grease and he was holding a medium sized cardboard box.

  By the time the guy had reached them he was out of breath and just stood there saying nothing. His face was busted up, like he just had a fight with someone and lost. He turned his attention to the hole in the ground they had dug.

  “That hole is in the wrong fucking place.” The guy said as Otto swallowed and shot Mordy a look.

  “Yeah, we realized that but we were hoping you didn’t.” Otto said with a laugh.

&nb
sp; The guy shook his head, dropped the box on the ground and solemnly left the same way he came, one limp at a time.

  The box just stood there. A cardboard enigma not quite sealed, but with the flaps shut closed.

  “Now we bury it and get the hell out of here before it rains.” Otto said.

  Mordy couldn’t take his eyes off the box. “I wonder what’s in it.”

  Otto picked his shovel off the ground. “Let’s open it.” Mordy said suddenly.

  “Are you nuts, Mordy? The Horse will have our head.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s inside, a head,” Mordy said enthusiastically.

  “Why would they make us bury just a head?” Otto asked.

  “Could have been taken off a rival boss. Someone important, like The Meat Grinder.”

  “If The Meat Grinder’s head is in that box then that means we are at war. Which means we are fucked because the Mattituck gang are nothing but a bunch of savages who mail scalps to relatives.”

  Mordy pressed, “Come on, no one is looking, let’s sneak a peek and find out. I got a feeling there’s something very important in this box which is why The Horse chose us to bury it. Whatever it is, it will show how much The Horse really values us.”

  Otto was tempted.

  “And if we don’t open it, we’ll never know where we really stand. We need this Otto. At our age we should know at the very least where we stand.” Mordy added.

  Otto looked around, there was not a soul in sight. “Open the fucking thing and do it fast.” He said. He kept watch as Mordy opened each fold slowly, like he was unwrapping a Wonka Bar that had a golden ticket stuffed inside. He stuck his fury hand inside the box and pulled out a shoe box. Then lifted the lid and looked inside.

  “Jesus.” Mordy said.

  Otto leaned over. “What is it?”

  “You better see for yourself.”

  Otto took a few steps and peered into the box. It was The Horse’s guinea pig.

  “It’s that prick, Pippy.” Mordy quipped, “He’s dead as fuck.”

  “From the veal you fed him, I bet you a sawbuck.” Otto said.

  “I guess that’s how important we are to The Horse. Tasking us to bury his fucking rodent pets. Next week it will be a canary in a cigar box,” Mordy said, as he threw the dead guinea pig into the hole they had dug. He looked up at Otto, who was already shoveling dirt into the hole fit for a person not pet. They locked eyes. On some level Otto hoped Mordy was right and this assignment was of more value. Time was moving like a freight train but their progress in life remained stagnant like those love handles he could never get rid of.

  Mordy stuck his shovel into the mound of worm filled dirt beside the hole and stopped suddenly, “All because I couldn’t climb that fucking rope.”

  Otto turned to him and smiled. “Don’t worry Mordy, you might not be able to climb the rope but if things don’t change for us fast, you can always hang yourself with it.”