Homicide: Party of Twelve
by
Michael Bronte
Chapter One
New York Harbor
Tuesday, July 2nd,
1:02 a.m.
“Quẻ hora es?”
Alfredo asked.
Manuel
Rojas looked at his watch in the muted light penetrating upper New York Harbor
from the Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey shorelines. “Es la una de la
madrugada,” he replied. “One o’clock in the morning,” he repeated in English
because Jocko wasn’t good with Spanish, despite having grown up in Union City. Rojas
took a moment to roust the rest of his crew.
“Hey,
pendejos, are you awake?” he barked
at Niño and Adeliño.
“We’re
here, jefe,” Niño replied. “How much
longer is this gonna take, man? I gotta get home to my old lady.”
“It’s
gonna take as long as it’s gonna take,” Rojas said. “Chill out.”
“Yeah,
easy for you. I’m sweatin’ like a pig, and I think I’m gonna puke.”
Easy
for him—right. Rojas had been rocking and sweating on the same bucket of a boat
for as long as they had. It was still close to ninety degrees on the water, and
the breeze was nonexistent. As a cover, they had half a dozen lines in the
water in case they had to pose as five guys night fishing for bluefish.
“If
nothing happens in the next half hour, we’ll take one more run around the
island in case we missed them.” Rojas knew he hadn’t missed them, but it would
keep everyone’s mouth shut. Traveling New York Harbor at night with no running
lights was risky, and being detained and boarded by one of the various police
patrols covering the harbor with an arsenal of illegally purchased weapons on
board would make for a bad night at the office. Rojas looked up at the Statue
of Liberty, awash in light and not far away. If this rendezvous didn’t happen,
Molina was going to be pissed.
At
1:35 a.m, just as Rojas was about to take his promised lap around Liberty
Island, his cell phone went off.
“Dónde
estás?” the voice said when Rojas answered. Where
are you?
“Two
hundred yards east of the Statue of Liberty island,” he replied in English, as Honduran
Spanish was as hard for him to understand as language. This was not the time to
be unclear about things. “Can you see the statue?”
“Yes.
We are about half a mile southeast of it,” the voice replied with a heavy
accent.
“Watch,
now. In five seconds, I will flash twice and no more.” Rojas pointed the
flashlight over the open water. The US Park Police, the Coast Guard, and New
Jersey State Police Marine Units all had a regular presence in the harbor. The
last thing he wanted was to attract their attention.
“Did
you see it?” Rojas asked.
“Yes.
We are coming.”
Rojas
ended the call. “It’s time. Alfredo, they will be coming from that direction.”
Alfredo
revved the motor to keep the boat steady in the water. The other three men took
their posts. Jocko’s eyes would be on the Hondurans, and while he wouldn’t be
blatant about it, his 9mm silenced Uzi would be ready at all times. Niño and
Adeliño would be doing the physical work of moving the shipment from boat to
boat. Tonight, it was supposed to be two hundred assorted untraceable handguns in
9mm, .380, and .40 calibers, twenty-five each of AK-47 and AR-15 assault
rifles, half a dozen Soviet RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with one
hundred grenades, and a dozen M60 machine guns.
The
price for the load was $1,080,000, a premium price, but buying a few pieces at
a time on the black market would take forever, and the Hondurans were in a
hurry. Undoubtedly they had customers waiting. Cartels, human traffickers,
private security forces, these entities and others had a never-ending appetite
for weapons—thousands of them—and they would pay the going rate and more, no
questions asked. This was especially true in Mexico, where the legal purchase
of firearms was extremely difficult and could only be done through a single gun
shop in Mexico City, which was controlled by the army. More than a quarter-million
guns were smuggled into Mexico every year, and 90 percent of them were used for
criminal purposes. The overwhelming majority of these weapons came from the
United States, and a large number went through Honduras and Guatemala, where
controls and regulatory agencies were almost nonexistent. There was a price for
convenience, and the ultimate buyers had plenty of cash; $1,080,000 was chump
change to them.
Rojas
was concerned, as always. Niño and Adeliño would work quickly, but moving the
product was risky. Once the transaction began, they’d be sitting ducks for the
next twenty to thirty minutes. Why Molina had agreed to do the deal in New York
Harbor, Rojas didn’t know, but he and the crew would earn double the normal
rate for this one. In thinking about it now, however, it didn’t seem worth ten
years in a federal penitentiary if they were caught.
Rojas
checked the safety on his MP5 submachine gun. Between Jocko’s Uzi and the MP5,
they could fire over a thousand rounds a minute, which he figured would be
plenty of firepower against the probably lesser-experienced Hondurans.
“Jocko,
you set?” Rojas called as he took a knee on the bow deck in front of the cabin.
“Got
it covered, boss.”
Rojas’s
cell phone went off again. “Yeah.”
“I
think we’re coming up on you. We need another signal.”
Rojas
debated it for a second, but he hadn’t seen any patrol boats since they’d left
the marina in Jersey City. Reluctantly, he said lowly, “Two more flashes in
five seconds.” He counted down five, four, three… “Did you see it?”
“Sí. Three minutes.”
Rojas
clicked off. The harbor was quiet, and he heard the sound of another motor off
in the distance. Right on time, the Honduran boat pulled up and idled in the
water. “Niño, Adeliño,” he called out.
“Sí, jefe. We’re on it.” It would take
two of them to move the bundles and crates from below deck. They’d wait for
Rojas’s instructions before moving a single one of them.
The
shore lights reflecting off the water enabled Rojas to make out one of the
Hondurans standing at the bow of the other boat as it approached. Like him, the
man was armed, but he was much more blatant about it. He held his weapon—also fully
automatic, Rojas determined, simply by the way he was carrying it—pointed
downward, his hands positioned for quick action.
“I
don’t like this,” Jocko called from his post outside the cabin.
“Take
it easy,” Rojas responded. “And keep your voice down.”
Rojas
threw a line while the Honduran on the other side did the same. It took a
minute for the boat to hold steady in the strong undercurrent, and the Honduran
called out in a heavy accent, “You got the merchandise?”
And a cordial
hello to you too,
he thought. “My name is Rojas,” he
said amiably. “I’d like to know who I’m doing business with, brother man.”
“I
am not your brother,” the Honduran spat back. “My name is Javier.”
Okay,
so this was the way it was going to be, then. “It’s good to meet you, Javier. Of
course I have the merchandise.”
“Let
me see it.”
“It’s
below deck. I need to see the money first.”
“I
have it,” Javier snapped. “You get the money when the goods are on my boat.”
Rojas
paused, trying to get a look at Javier’s face in the darkness. “One million and
eighty thousand,” Rojas called out. “That’s the deal, right?”
“How
do I know you brought everything? Maybe we need to confirm it.” As soon as
Javier said we, two more men appeared
on the other side of the Honduran boat’s cabin.
“And
I need to confirm you have all the money,” Rojas said in return. “Maybe I need
to count it.” Counting was a show of distrust, but Rojas had been on runs where
everything was tallied before the product changed hands, especially when the
two parties had not done business before. Those situations were not in the
middle of New York Harbor, however.
Niño
and Adeliño swung a look at Rojas, and he heard Jocko mutter under his breath yet
again, “I don’t like this, boss.”
Rojas
spoke slowly. “Javier, my friend, under other circumstances, I would have no
problem with us going through this verification process, but it will take a long
time, and it is too dangerous for us to be found together like this. If there is
any problem with the shipment, let us know and we will make good on it.”
“We
will never see each other again,” said Javier. “If I can’t verify the shipment,
I can’t hand over the money. We have come a long way, and I need to make sure
we’re getting everything we paid for.”
Jocko
chuckled. By this time he was making no attempt to hide his Uzi, his index
finger resting on the trigger guard.
Rojas
said, “That’s not the way this works, mi
hermano. Nothing changes hands until I see the money.”
Javier
bristled, his resentment evident at being addressed as mi hermano. “So, you don’t trust me, but I have to trust you. I am
not a fool, mi hermano.”
“I
am not saying that,” Rojas shot back. “But maybe you don’t understand the
danger of our boats coming together in these waters.” He couldn’t tell if
Javier got it or not. “Hey, mi amigo,
if you don’t want to do the deal this way, we’ll go back where we came from,
and you can go back to where you came from—all the way to Honduras,” he added
with emphasis.
“You
insult me,” Javier shouted.
Rojas
gnashed his teeth. “I’m not trying to insult you, Javier, but we have not done
business before. If you don’t want to play by my rules, we have other customers
who are willing to pay top dollar. This is how we do business here. Take it or
leave it.”
Javier
looked back at his two men, who were still standing near the cabin. One of them
nodded. “Send your man over,” he called.
“Adeliño,”
said Rojas. “Bring me the money.”
Adeliño
grabbed the line and pulled the idling boats closer together so he could make
the leap to the Honduran boat.
Javier
kept his weapon on him the whole time. Things were getting hairy.
“There
is no need for that,” Rojas said angrily. “He is unarmed. Lower your weapon.”
Javier
shot him a glare, the whites of his eyes showing in the darkness. Adeliño
grabbed a line and looked at Rojas, who nodded his go-ahead. Adeliño made the
leap, but Javier made no attempt to point his weapon in another direction as he
indicated for one of his men to frisk him. Rojas felt himself flush with anger.
Adeliño stood there with his arms up, staring fiercely at the Honduran who was patting
him down.
“Dónde
está el dinero?” Adeliño asked resentfully. Where
is the money?
Javier
indicated a pair of live wells at the stern of the boat on both sides of the
aft deck. “Para allá,” he said to Adeliño. Over there. Adeliño shook his head. It
was one of the first places DEA agents or police would look for contraband. His
new Honduran friend lifted the lid on one of the live wells, and Adeliño spotted
a large, hard-sided aluminum suitcase inside.
“Necesito
abrirlo,” Adeliño said bravely. I need to open it.
“You
doubt us?” Javier shouted at Rojas. “You think we are…” He stumbled for the
word. “…embusteros?” Liars?
Adeliño
froze, not even looking a Rojas.
Jocko
stiffened, his finger moving to the trigger of the Uzi. Rojas glanced at him
for a split second but issued no admonition for Jocko to take it easy this
time. Rojas noted the driver of the Honduran boat was in the cabin keeping his
boat steady, and it was impossible to tell if he was armed. The Honduran who
frisked Adeliño was looking at Javier, and it was suddenly deathly silent, the
only sounds being the up-and-down idle of the motors and the slap, slap, slap of the water. The smell
of diesel exhaust wafted in the barely moving air.
Breaking
the thickening tension, Rojas said to Javier, “Do you have children? I have
three, and I’d like to see them again.”
Javier
motioned toward Rojas’s boat. “I need to see the merchandise. He stays here,”
he said, indicating Adeliño.
Furious
with himself for letting Adeliño get trapped on the Honduran boat, Rojas glanced
to the stern of his own boat and called, “Niño, bring up one of the bundles.”
With
rivulets of sweat rolling off his forehead, Niño went below deck and lugged a
heavy bundle wrapped in heavy polyethylene and thick nylon strapping up onto
the deck. Holding a small flashlight in his teeth, he pulled a heavy snap-open
knife from his belt, the blade springing open with a resounding click. Cutting
one of the straps, he pulled one of the boxes from the bundle and opened it,
revealing a brand-new Chinese-made Norinco MAK 90 AK-47 wrapped in soft foam
sheeting. Niño tore off the wrapping and held the AK-47 aloft so Javier could
see it clearly from the other boat.
“Okay,
Javier,” called Rojas. “We’re happy if you’re happy, but we need to move
quickly. We have already spent too much time on this.”
“I
will be happy when I see the rest of the merchandise,” Javier said indignantly.
“Bring up the rest and show it to me.” His weapon was still trained on Adeliño.
Rojas
had had about enough, but he held his temper. Normally, there was some honor
among criminals, so to speak, but something told him this wasn’t going to end
well. “I’ve held up my end of the deal,” he said icily. “It’s as far as I’m
going to go until we have the money and my man is back on board our boat. Why
don’t you and your men talk it over and figure out what you want to do?” He could
feel Jocko’s resentment bubbling.
Javier
speared him with a glare and repositioned his hands on his weapon.
Rojas
glared back and put his hands in the air. Slowly, he reached down and undid one
of the lines keeping the boats together. “Adeliño,” he called out. “Come back
to the boat.”
Nervously,
Adeliño did so, keeping his eye on Javier the whole time.
Rojas
undid the second line and called up to the cabin, “Alfredo, take us out of
here. These people don’t want to do business.” Molina wouldn’t be happy, but
there was no way he was going to hand over the shipment without having secured every
penny of the $1,080,000 not with this guy. Moments later, he felt the boat jerk
backward as Alfredo revved the engine.
“Wait,”
Javier called urgently.
Rojas
lifted his hand toward the cabin. “Alfredo, stop.” As soon as he did, the boats
began drifting apart.
“We
had an agreement,” Javier called out angrily.
“Not
anymore,” Rojas called back. “We’re done.” He was convinced now that giving in
to this bastard would be a mistake. Rojas picked up his MP5 from where it was
lying near his feet, making no attempt to hide it. The air reeked of distrust.
Javier
looked like he was about to explode. “Sucio bastardo!” he screamed from the bow
of his boat. You dirty bastard! “Eres
un perro sucio!” You are a filthy dog!
“Mateo!”
As
soon as Javier screamed the name Mateo, one of the men on the other side of the
Hondurans’ cabin pulled an automatic weapon, while the one next to him raised a
pistol he’d obviously been holding the whole time. Seeing this, Rojas dropped down
below the gunwales while Jocko’s silenced Uzi coughed twice, each burst sending
fourteen rounds per second toward his targets. The two Hondurans by the cabin
were dead before they got their weapons into position. Rojas went to grab his
MP5 as a dozen bullets from Javier’s weapon blasted through the side of the
boat barely above his head. Crawling away from the spot, he fired blindly at
Javier while at the same time hearing Jocko’s Uzi spit out more death. The barrage
ripped through Javier from his neck to his crotch.
Feeling
the burn in his leg, Rojas knew he’d not evaded Javier’s bullets entirely. There
was blood on his pant leg, and it looked like a round had gone through his left
calf muscle. He made it to his knees in time to see the driver of the Honduran
boat step out of the cabin with his hands up. “No dispares! No dispares!” he
screamed. Don’t shoot! A second later,
Jocko’s bullets tore into the Honduran and dropped him where he stood.
All
went silent as Rojas and his crew looked at each other, dazed from the deadly
attack they’d just lived through.
With
his heart beating powerfully, as his blood puddled on the deck beneath his leg,
Rojas called, “Alfredo.”
“Sí,
jefe.”
“Get
us back over there. Jocko, make sure no one else with a gun pops up from that
piece-of-shit boat.”
“Got
it, boss.”
Alfredo
maneuvered so that the boats were touching in the water. Rojas picked up his
MP5, but he knew no one else was on the other boat, and the Hondurans were all
on their way to hell. “Adeliño,” he called out. “Get back on that boat and get
what we came for.”
Chapter Two
Frankie Takes Gas
Wednesday, July 3rd,
7:23 p.m.
Business at Chez
Alain restaurant was light, probably because half the working population of
Jersey City had taken the day off to stretch out the July 4th
holiday, which happened to be in the middle of the week this year. Frankie
wasn’t happy. “And don’t you dare do anything to that steak, Rafael!” he yelled
above the constant din of the kitchen.
“Mais, what d’you think, I don’t know how
to cook steak au poivre? I be
make it for ’a thirty years, nom de Dieu!”
It
wasn’t good when Rafael started cursing in French. “Rafael, if I lose this tip
because you’re too stubborn to make the steak well done, I’m going to come back
there and choke you.”
Rafael glared as he took the plate off the
service shelf. Muttering more curse words under his breath, he put the steak under
the salamander while Frankie stood there to make sure he didn’t do anything
disgusting to it.
“Don’t
screw with me, Rafael. We’ve hardly had any customers, and I’m barely gonna
make enough to pay for my parking tonight.” He looked at the plate. “The sauce
is dry now. Put some butter on it.” Rafael just walked away, so Frankie did it
himself. Rafael could be a real ass. I
don’t need this aggravation, thought Frankie. Then he thought, Yes, I do.
He
took the plate back to the table, apologizing profusely for Rafael being
Rafael. Teddy was the manager. It should have been him apologizing, thought Frankie
as he brought the lady another glass of wine—which he wasn’t going to put on
the check—but it was just as well that Teddy was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t
want that jackass anywhere near his customers. He’d never seen Teddy save a
check the whole time he’d worked there, which was going on two years for
Frankie, two years of Teddy treating him like a second-class citizen.
Why do I do it? Frankie had asked
himself more times than he could count. He was the one who always came in early
to make sure the setups were done. He was the one who always stayed late when a
party ran long. And, almost exclusively, he made a point of pushing Rafael’s
specials. Specials… right. It was their way of getting rid of food which would
otherwise go into the dumpster. He didn’t get paid for any of those things, and
he vowed to himself that he was going to start being like everyone else who
worked at Chez Alain and only do what put money in his pocket. Even the Mexican
guys in the kitchen shook their heads when they saw him doing things Teddy
should have been doing. “Hey, Mr. Frankie,” they would say. “Let the jefe take care of it.” Then they would chuckle
because they knew the jefe never
really took care of anything.
Gabby
came up to him at the server station and filled a couple of water glasses. “Is
Rafael giving you a hard time again? I could hear you two yelling from across
the dining room.”
Gabby
was Gabriella D’Angelo, and she was one of the few people at Chez Alain with
whom Frankie was friendly. They’d even gone out a couple of times after work to
an after-hours place called the Lucky 7 Tavern. Frankie said it was an omen
since his last name, Fortunato, meant lucky. The last time they went, they played
darts and did alternate shots of beer and tequila, then tried to soak it up
with tater tots and fried pickles. That wasn’t a good night for Gabby, and
Frankie ended up almost carrying her into the apartment she shared with two
other roommates. She would have done anything that night. She’d even told him
that she hadn’t been laid in months and was horny as a toad. As much as he was
tempted to take advantage of the situation, he couldn’t do it. She’d made the
mistake of telling him she was still woozy the next morning, and he never let
her hear the end of it, teasing her mercilessly about the horny thing.
“I
did not say that,” she said.
“You
certainly did,” Frankie taunted. “As a
toad, you said.”
“No
way. You’re making it up.”
Frankie
smiled and walked away. It had the desired effect, as evidenced by the deep
flush of her cheeks. Those nights with her after work weren’t dates exactly, but
he thought about her constantly and wondered if she’d say yes if he asked her
out in a more formal way.
He
checked her out now, and she was looking good: tight, starched white cotton
shirt, tight black slacks, lip gloss… Ouch.
“He’s being a real jerk tonight,” he said, answering her question about Rafael.
“You better check your orders before you take them out. I think maybe he’s been
hitting the sauce again.”
“Let
me guess,” she said sarcastically, “Teddy isn’t going to do anything about it.”
Frankie
waved off the comment. “Please. The man is a total waste, costing me a lot of
money. My tip total is going down with every shift.”
“I
know what you mean. And it isn’t going to be any better today. A lot of people took
the day off and headed for the shore.”
“Please
don’t make me more depressed than I already am. Is Teddy even here today?”
“I
haven’t seen him,” Gabby replied, “but that doesn’t mean he’s not here. He’s
probably back in his office playing video games.”
“Or
snorting coke and watching porn, more likely,” Frankie remarked. “Maybe we
should talk to one of the partners about how he’s driving this place into the
ground.”
“It
couldn’t hurt,” Gabby said as she pulled a couple of menus and inserted the
specials list. “Customers aren’t going to put up with lousy drinks and
overpriced entrées for long. Have you been by the Orleans House lately? The
place is always packed while we’re….” She made a crude gesture.
“I
believe it. Last week two of Teddy’s obnoxious girlfriends were at the bar, and
they proceeded to piss off everyone in the place. I think they were hookers. Camila
was working that night and Teddy told her he’d take care of the tab, but he
never did, of course.”
“So
Camila got stiffed?”
“Oh,
for sure, and she wasn’t happy about it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her
quit as soon as she finds something else—and she will. She’s a good bartender.”
Stepping away, Frankie said, “Gotta go. One of my customers is giving me the
wave.”
Frankie
weaved his way between the tightly packed tables and acknowledged his customer
in the snug suit and skinny tie. “Another martini, sir?”
“Sure,”
said the snug suit. “Does anyone want another drink?”
One
of the women held up her glass, and Frankie said, “Pinot grigio, right?” The
lady nodded. “Anyone else?” He took two more drink orders and asked if anyone
cared for any appetizers.
“We’ll
look over the menu while you’re getting the drinks,” the suit said.
“Absolutely,”
Frankie responded, reaching down to pick up a couple of empty glasses. As he
did so, he overheard some of the conversation from the other side of the table.
“I
wonder who’s going to catch the case,” a portly gentleman was saying to the
well-put-together lady sitting next to him. “Four guys shot dead on a fishing
boat in the middle of New York Harbor? The press will be all over it. Mason is
positioning himself to take it if it comes our way, and he’s already salivating.”
Frankie
spotted a binder on the table and noted the words Hudson County District Attorney etched into the leather. These guys
were lawyers, evidently, prosecutors probably, having a couple of pops and
doing a little shoptalking after work, it looked like. Him being a law student
made the conversation quite interesting, and Frankie did his best to eavesdrop
without being obvious about it. He recalled seeing the headline about the
murders on the cover of the Daily News
earlier in the day as he rode the PATH train.
He
brought the four drinks and some bread back to the table. Listening to the conversation
again, his curiosity mounted quickly. “Is this a special occasion?” he asked.
“Retirement
party,” one of the women said cheerfully. “Our man Charles is retiring at the
end of the week.” She pointed to the portly guy.
“Well
then, I guess congratulations are in order.”
“I
guess,” the portly guy said. “After prosecuting cases for thirty-five years, I
hope I can find something else to keep me busy.”
Frankie
noted the apprehension in the man’s voice.
“You
will,” said the lady with the pinot grigio. “It’ll be hard to replace you.”
“If
you can hold on for a couple of years, maybe I can put in an application,”
Frankie said through a very obvious smile to let everyone know he was joking. “I’m
in my second year at NYU Law.”
“Go
into contract law,” the portly guy said. “You’ll make five times the money,
kid.”
Okay,
thought Frankie. He’d established rapport, but knowing there was nothing worse
than a chatty waiter, he asked, “Did anyone decide on appetizers? The mini crab
cakes are good tonight.” At least he hoped they were, and that Rafael hadn’t screwed
them up somehow.
All
six people ordered, and Frankie was already doing the calculations in his head.
If they did the whole enchilada and ordered drinks, appetizers, entrées, and
dessert, the tab would be somewhere above $350. Maybe the night would be worthwhile
after all.
He
stepped over to one of the point-of sale stations and began punching in the
appetizer orders. Out of nowhere, Teddy came up behind him and stood close so
that his bad breath filled the air. Not surprisingly, it smelled like bourbon. “What
the fuck was all that with the law school shit?” he asked belligerently.
Teddy
was playing sneak attack again. “Calm down, Teddy. I was only making small
talk.”
“Yeah,
well, maybe you should keep that crap to yourself. Nobody likes a nosy waiter.”
“Take
a pill, Teddy. Why don’t you lay off me and go into the kitchen and do
something about Rafael?”
“You
can stop with the smart mouth,” Teddy fired back. “I’m the boss around here,
and maybe that’s something you should remember.”
Frankie
turned away and bit his tongue before he said something stupid. “Yeah, Teddy. I
got it, okay?”
Besides
the party of six from the DA’s office, he had two more parties of four that
night and four parties of two, and it didn’t turn out to be so bad in the tip
department. Teddy scowled at him and the other servers all night, and Frankie
thought he heard Gabby tell him to shove it. Felipe was on the bar, and he
didn’t look happy either. Despite having pulled in over two hundred bucks in
tips on a slow night, it wasn’t going to be enough for him to pay his rent to
his parents—on which he was late—and still be able to put something aside for
books for the upcoming fall semester. That was going to be a pretty big number
this time around. He needed more shifts, though he wondered if he dared talk to
Teddy about it, seeing as the man had been a dick to everyone the entire night.
When he spotted Teddy at a back table filling out the schedule for the coming
week, he looked and saw that Teddy was only scheduling him for two nights.
“What
the hell, Teddy? Two shifts? That’s all?”
“Yeah,
well, maybe you shouldn’t be such a fucking smart mouth.”
Frankie
felt his face heat up. “Teddy, I can’t cover my expenses on two shifts. I need more
hours.”
“You
should have thought of that before you started talking about me behind my
back.”
“I
wasn’t talking about you behind your back.”
“No?
What about the conversation you had with Miss Tight Ass earlier, and talking
about going to the partners to bitch me out? What the fuck was that all about?”
Frankie
felt his face get even hotter. “It was just shoptalk, Teddy. You know how it
is.”
“Is
that an apology?”
Now
Frankie thought his face was going to self-combust. “I… I guess it is. Sorry,
Teddy. It won’t happen again.” The last thing he needed right now was to lose
this job without having something else lined up. “C’mon, Teddy, I’ve always
come in when someone called out and you needed me to cover. What’s with the
cutback?”
Teddy
leaned back and put his hands behind his head like he was really enjoying himself.
“I’ll give you more shifts, if you want, but there’s two conditions.”
Frankie
caught his own reflection in the bar mirror. His face was tight, his jaw was
set, and it wasn’t a good look on him. He looked at Teddy and wanted to knock
the smarmy half smile right off his face. “Go on,” he said, trying to keep
himself from reaching over and giving Teddy a slap.
“One
of the lunch crew quit this morning.”
And pretty soon, so
will just about everyone else in the place, thought Frankie.
“I’ll
give you your regular four shifts at the dinner seating, but you have to pick
up three more shifts for lunch until I can get someone else hired and trained.”
“That
could take the rest of the summer,” Frankie protested, getting more than he
bargained for. “I’m still taking two courses this summer, and I’m going to need
time to talk to my professors about my coursework for the fall semester.”
“That’s
your problem, and I don’t give a fuck. You want more shifts, those are my
conditions.”
Frankie
swallowed hard. “Teddy, three lunch shifts and four dinner shifts might be more
than I can handle right now.”
Teddy
put his head down and went back to the schedule. “Not my problem. You can take
it or fucking leave it, in which case I’ll cut you down to Monday and Tuesday
nights. I’d guess that would put a hurtin’ on the old wallet, wouldn’t it,
Frankie?”
Monday
and Tuesday nights were the slowest nights of the week. Frankie stared at him,
and he could tell Teddy was waiting for him to go off. “That’s only one,” he
said, keeping his voice low and even.
“What’s
only one?”
The
dumb shit. “Condition,” Frankie replied. “The three added lunch shifts is only
one condition. You said you had two.”
“Oh,
right. The second is if you talk to any of the partners about anything that’s
going on at this restaurant, you’re history. You comprende? No matter how bad I
need servers.”
Frankie
choked back what he really wanted to say. “Yeah, Teddy, I comprende.”
Silver Dagger Guest Post Topics from Michael Bronte
How did you come up with the name of this book?
The common theme throughout all of my books is that the
heroes are just everyday people. As such, I thought writing a book about people
who work in a restaurant would be an interesting story with characters who have
a lot of side interests. We all know of servers who want to be actors, or
writers, or are working their way through school, etc. The intent was to have
characters with a lot of depth that the reader could identify with, and
certainly there are thousands, or maybe millions of people who could identify
with working is a restaurant. And certainly nearly everyone could identify with
the words a hostess or maitre d’ announces when a
table is ready: “Smith, party of four, right this way.” Thus came the title of
the book, except that instead of a person’s name, it’s the crime of murder
that’s referenced, and “Party of Twelve” is the number of bodies that fall in
during the course of the story. I wanted to use “Party of four,” but the body
count just kept increasing!
How long have you been
writing?
I’ve been writing for about
twenty-five years on and off, and I started writing when I got a job with an
advertising agency writing copy for radio commercials. This was before the time
when everyone had a computer in their home, and long before email, so my
employer gave me a computer to use so we could “telefax” copy back and forth to
each other due to the fact that we lived far apart. “Here’s a computer. Learn
how to use the word processing program so that we can telefax the radio copy,”
were my instructions. So, I asked myself, what do I write in order to learn
this word processing program? I decided to write a story about some of my
college experiences, and six months later I had written my first book.
What advice would I give
to new authors?
The only advice I would give
is to be dedicated. Whether you study creative writing, or do it as a hobby,
you have to have the dedication to learn what makes good writing. That’s a
monumental task on its own. Then come the publicizing of the work, which even
harder. There are a zillion books out there, and no one will buy or read your
work if they don’t know about you. As a writer, if you don’t have the
dedication to learn the craft and overcome the difficulty of creating an
awareness of you and your work, you’ll be writing only for yourself.
What is your writing
process?
For me, it starts with a
story idea, which I get from many places: from friends, my kids, the news,
daydreaming in church—the story ideas literally come to me out of the blue
sometimes. The idea also has to reflect the ending. If I don’t have the ending
in mind, I don’t start writing until I do. Otherwise, the writing will
directionless, and you have to have direction in order to devise the
scene-and-sequel chain of events that make the story coherent. Once I have the
ending in mind, I conceive the geographic setting, the characters names (I find
that conceiving the names helps me to build the personalities and qualities of
the characters), and then finally the plot which is aimed at the end I already
have in mind. From there a proceed to write the first scene, and continue with
the scene-and-sequel process (if you don’t know what that is, don’t start
writing; do your research). Every scene, every sequel, every line of dialogue,
every turn of the plot has to come together at the end of the book. It’s like a
big funnel where all the action, incidents, and dialogue all come together at
the bottom of the funnel at the end with all questions resolved.
Do you believe in writer’s
block?
No. I believe in being
afraid. I think writers freeze when they don’t have a “perfect” idea in their
heads as to how to proceed with a piece of work. I say, “Force yourself. Write
something, anything you consider as the best idea at that point in time. Often,
ideas will come to you once you overcome the lack of writing inertia, and
thought start to flow. If something isn’t right, you can always go back and
edit, rewrite, eliminate, or add to what you’ve written to make it work. Unless
you force yourself to get some words down, you’re dead meat.
Do you prefer to write in
silence or with noise?
For me, it’s relative
silence, meaning with no TV blaring, or jackhammers going off outside my
window, or mindless blithering from the radio or some other source. In
addition, I find that I work much better if I’m in my “writing spot” where I
have everything in reach: my computer, my thesaurus (online in this day and
age), my Chicago Manual of Style, etc. I also find that writing at the
same time of day is helpful. Usually for me, it’s first thing in the morning.
I’m too old to be writing in the middle of the night. I need my beauty sleep.
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