Avenue Of Sins

part nine

He was in his loft leaned back with his feet propped up on the corner of his desk stress smoking through his pack of Marlboro's. Bill had received Joey Russo's page just before he went to bed. He was alone the night before which he didn't like a first but later was grateful Alma had decided to sleep in her own bed while his head stewed with anxiety. Lighting his seventh cigarette, he pinched the phone's receiver up, the dial tone sounding off as it hovered for only a moment before letting go of it. He was stalling, wasting time as the phone rest atop his desk taunting and mocking him. He knew time was ticking, the Russo's were waiting for his phone call, they were getting as antsy as he was to get rid of Craig but they had the easy end of that deal.

Taking a deep lung burning puff of his cigarette as he slid his legs off the desk and reluctantly began to dial Joey Russo. It rang and rang, each piercing ring making his nerves shot right after the next.

"Joey?" He said after the line picked up but there was a moment of dead air and then all he could hear was the cacophony of trumpeting jazz, laughing girls, clinking glasses, and fast Italian conversation.

"Hey, hey!" The voice on the other end finally answered. "Give me a minute will ya? I gotta take this call in my office."

There was no time to respond before he was put on hold. "Jesus fucking Christ..." he breathed as his leg bobbed nervously under his desk while he waited.

The phone finally picked up again. "Is this who I think it is?" Joey finally said his voice clearer than before.

"What? Are your fuckin' wires tapped or something? Who else could I be?"

Joey chuckled. "Well, you never know? But I've been waiting on your call all day. I was getting worried you tucked your tail and left the city."

"Anyway–"

"Anyway!" Joey said cutting him off. "I kept my part of the deal – a deal I didn't have to make mind you – I expect you to keep yours."

"Right... Could I ask, what happened?"

"Does it matter?"

"I'm just curious?"

"We sent her backpacking, how 'bout we go with that? I think my cousin would like to see the scenery soon? Don't you think it's time? Get his backpack ready tonight." Click.

Bill swallowed what little saliva he had left in his dry mouth and slowly set the receiver down on the telephone. For a moment his heart felt heavy for Blondie realizing what he really asked of his enemy and picturing her cold lifeless body, blue-lipped and alone in a remote area of some undisclosed forest upstate. The fact that she was no longer breathing because of him when all she wanted was to be seen by him and that was all he had to offer her in the end.

He produced a tiny, rainy-day bag of coke stashed in his desk as he thought on to his inevitable murder plot. Taking the switchblade from his back pocket which he bumped a tall pile of cocaine on the sharp tip of his blade four separate times until there was the only residue of white powder left in the little pink bag. Feeling that familiar tingle go up his neck, his heartbeat ramping up, he tore the bag open resting it residue side down on his tongue causing it to go numb instantly. He stood up, spitting out the used up coke bag from his mouth as he made his way to look out the loft windows and down to the strip floor.