But Nobody Wants To Die Read online

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  BUT NOBODY WANTS TO DIE

  By

  David M. George

  Copyright 2018 by David M. George

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use — other than for “fair use” as brief quotations — without prior written permission.

  CONTENTS

  FORWARD

  PROLOGUE

  BLUE VOLKSWAGEN

  CARLOS CATCHES A BREAK

  BLUE CROSS

  MIKEY MAKES THE CALL

  THE LONG MARCH

  MERCY GENERAL

  ER

  MACY’S SPRING SALE

  JAMIE

  CARLOS AND THE LAW OF THREES

  DAD

  THE MARINES HAVE LANDED

  INVENTORY

  THE SKINNY

  CARLOS TAKES THE PLUNGE

  MOVING DAY

  PHYLLOBATES TERRIBILIS

  VISITING DAY

  BIG EARS

  WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

  MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH

  CARLOS SIGNS UP

  TRUE CONFESSIONS

  FUN AT HOWARD JOHNSON’S

  DENNY’S

  CHATTY CATHY

  THE E-MAIL MYSTERY

  THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM

  THE PUNCH IN THE FACE

  DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE

  CARLOS FIVE YEARS LATER

  MIKEY ROUND TWO

  CHECKING OUT

  CLOSING THE SALE

  SADDLE UP

  ACME CASKET COMPANY

  COVER AND CONCEALMENT

  J. PAUL GETTY

  CARLOS GOES TO CHURCH

  BREAKING AND ENTERING

  KENO ANYONE?

  NOT SO FAST GRINGA

  CARLOS SAVES THE DAY

  DAD GOES M.I.A.

  PRETTY IN NOT PINK

  LA CASA DE CARLOS

  WE’LL PICK YOU UP

  JIAN LUNG AND HUANG FU TSANG

  THE STAKE OUT

  PLAN B

  THE BUY IN

  PREMIER HEATING AND COOLING

  COLONEL YEUNG, PLA 61398

  THE ARCTIC SPRINGS WAREHOUSE

  WHERE DO YOU HIDE A FIRETRUCK?

  STATION #13

  CALL ME

  SGT. WU GOES TO THE BANK

  HOUSE CALL

  THE GENERAL MAKES A CALL

  WE RAISE HELL BITCH

  LET HIM EAT PIZZA

  PING CHOU, DEPUTY COUNSEL-GENERAL, CHINESE CONSULATE, SAN FRANCISCO

  FAY

  FULL NINJA

  FAY, PART II

  HIGH NOON

  TIFFANY AND SAM COOK BRING IT ON HOME

  FAY KNOWS THINGS

  FAGAMO HAS A VISITOR

  THE DUNGEON

  STORMING THE BASTILLE

  PING DROPS A DIME

  LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

  MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER

  STONE COLD

  THE CHINESE ARRIVE

  INTO THE DEVIL’S DEN

  THE GLOBAL HOTEL AND CASINO

  JIMMY V.

  JIAN AND ALPHONSO GET ACQUAINTED

  DAD

  JUST WHEN YOU THINK ITS SAFE

  JIAN COUNTERMANDS AN ORDER

  SHEN

  CARLOS AND KATRINA

  EPILOGUE

  FORWARD

  Joseph Louis Barrow, aka, Joe Louis, nicknamed the, “Brown Bomber,” was the Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1937 to 1949, and is still considered one of the best boxers of all time. In his later years, starting in 1970, he worked as a greeter at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. After he died in 1981, a marble statue of Joe was erected outside of the Race & Sports Book at Caesar’s Palace. Joe was quoted as famously saying, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” from whence comes the title of this book.

  PROLOGUE

  Some legal scholars believe that the introduction of the RICO Act* in late 1970, which gave tremendous power to law enforcement, was the beginning of the end for the Mafia in America. Enforcement of RICO, coupled with the increased sophistication of electronic surveillance and an expanded Federal witness protection program, badly damaged their power, and severely diminished the size and scope of the Cosa Nostra to the extent that some say that they are now largely a footnote in history and no longer a threat to ordinary law-abiding citizens. But since the Mafia tried to kill me, my opinion, is based on personal experience, not on a textbook or stacks of legal documents. I believe that the Mafia is not dead, merely wounded, attempting to heal while it camouflages its activities behind dummy corporations and seemingly legitimate business enterprises, waiting like a lion lying in wait for its prey. Despite RICO, the Mafia is still a force to be reckoned with, more than capable of regaining its strength and once again extending its tentacles into gambling, loansharking, drug trafficking, prostitution and more, in almost every major city in America. That I survived is not proof that the Cosa Nostra is merely a shadow of its former self, evidence that all that remains is just the dying embers of this once feared criminal organization. I believe I’m still alive only because I was willing to meet them on their terms, to wage war in a language they understood; occhio per occhio, Italian for an eye for an eye. But the Mafia believes that I was just lucky. This is my story, and once you read it, you can decide which one of us is right.

  *Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

  CHAPTER ONE

  BLUE VOLKSWAGEN

  D eath was a blue Volkswagen searching for me in the darkness. I was hiding with only the palest sliver of moon and the sporadic flash of the car’s headlights to illuminate the desert landscape.

  This stretch of desert was flat, and there was no way of going someplace the Volkswagen could not. Dad always said that in a street fight, the bigger, stronger guy is not always going to win, but that’s how you bet.

  I needed something to change the odds, tilt them my way. I was in good shape and could out run him, but not him and the car. Sand, I needed lots of sand. If his car got stuck in a wash, it would come down to a footrace.

  I never did find lots of sand. What I did find was a rock. A rock I could hold with one hand. But if I kept tiring myself out in the prelims, I’d have nothing left for the main event. Soon the imaginary grid he was patrolling would get smaller and smaller until it shrunk to just the two of us. And if I had to fight, I wanted it to be on my terms.

  I decided to trade the creosote bushes that sheltered me for a nearby tree. Now I had a rock, a tree, and a plan; it wasn’t much, but it just might be enough.

  In the ring, rage was fuel, a seemingly endless source of power that I could call on at will, a way to gather all that anger and hate and pour it like gasoline on the fire burning inside; the fire I used to destroy whoever they put in front of me. If ever I needed rage, I needed it now. I clenched my fists and summoned the demons within as the car came closer, the engine much louder now.

  The headlights caught me in their glare as I stood alongside the Palo Verde tree and he braked hard, coming to a stop maybe ten feet from me. I slid my left hand down the back of my leg, hiding the rock and stepped out from the behind the branches. He got out, leaving the door open, the engine running; the car’s lights struggling to penetrate the black, almost moonless night surrounding us.

  “You give up sweetheart?” he said, walking towards me.

  I felt the odds shift slightly, he was now on foot, and the darkness became my ally.

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” I said. “Please don’t hurt me; I’ll do whatever you want if you
promise not to hurt me.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, reaching for me, “much.”

  I hit him flush in the face with a hard right, a good solid, no pretense straight right. Well, other than the sniveling, pleading with him not to hurt me so he thought I was just your every day, about to become a statistic female. His head snapped back and when he grunted in pain, I gave him the rock filled left.

  It was a big roundhouse left a five-year-old could have seen coming, unless it’s dark as a coffin and your eyes are filled with tears, your nose a faucet, the blood streaming down your face. The rock stunned him, but didn’t drop him to his knees, so I re-loaded and did it again.

  He staggered, but managed to grab my arm and yanked it hard, the rock falling from my fingers as he threw a big left hand. I ducked the first one and even slipped the second, but he was too strong and I couldn’t free my arm, and with nowhere to go he caught me with the next punch and things got hazy. I managed to connect with another right, but then he hit me hard just over the eye and I went down.

  “You…stupid…bitch,” he said, kicking me hard in the ribs after each word for emphasis. When I looked up I saw he was panting from the exertion, holding his head as the blood dripped between his fingers. When he turned and lurched unsteadily back to the car, I rolled towards the Palo Verde tree, thinking he’s going to get the gun, the one he should have used in the first place. But winding up on the wrong end of a bullet would cancel out my being ahead on the judge’s scorecard and I shuffled away holding my ribs, staying low, wanting only to disappear into the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CARLOS CATCHES A BREAK

  W e were poor, bone poor, the time between our last meal and the next usually measured in days, not hours. Our town hung on the side of a mountain by its coal blackened fingernails and we lived the same way, not knowing when the next gust of bad luck would loosen our feeble grip and drop us into the abyss. Money did not mean we could pay the long overdue rent, turn the lights back on or finally fix the old clunker. That was for people tiers above us, the temporarily poor, the ones whose husbands were laid off at the mine, the wives cancer stricken, the ones struggling with bills, trying to get back on their feet.

  We were born cut off at the knees and money only meant we could eat. The wolf wasn’t at the door; he was standing on our chests, his hot breath searing our faces, his teeth searching for the soft flesh of our throats.

  And we would have continued to drift from one church basement to another, dependent on tins of government surplus peanut butter and the weary compassion of others if it hadn’t been for the lottery ticket that blew against my pant leg one cold winter afternoon. It didn’t look like much, and I only grabbed it through force of habit. It was dirty, but still readable, and sometimes if somebody is drinking, hung-over, or just plain stupid, which, not surprisingly, in West by God Virginia, happens every damn day, they might overlook a number or two and throw away a ticket worth a couple of bucks. Call it fate, karma, or just plain destiny, what it really turned out to be was our salvation, just enough to get us and a couple of Goodwill suitcases from Coalville, West Virginia to our Uncle’s house in Las Vegas.

  Why him and not a less distant relative fortunate enough to have escaped Coalville years ago? Easy answer; he owned a bakery, and we thought that meant we could go to bed without counting our ribs ever again. But people are funny, when one hunger is appeased another takes its place. And even if you’re Superman, or my hero, Julio Cesar Chavez, just because you trade Smallville for Metropolis, or Coalville for just about anywhere, doesn’t mean you’re not still always on the outside looking in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BLUE CROSS

  I was alive, but broken. I opened my left eye; the sun was up, but barely, just now peeking over the range of mountains lying in the distance. I couldn’t open my right eye, my searching fingers revealing it was swollen shut because of the tender gash just above my eyebrow.

  My left arm felt like a ten ton saguaro fell on it and I was relieved to discover no splintered bones protruding from the skin. Good news, it’s a simple fracture. Simple that is, if you’re standing at Mercy General with your Blue Cross card held firmly in your one good hand. Not so simple if you were lying in the middle of the desert, miles from civilization, surrounded by creosote and prickly pear.

  If I ever go to another costume party I’m going as Uma Thurman in, “Kill Bill” with a real Samurai sword and live ammunition. Who was I supposed to be anyway, Cat Woman? All I could recall was the black costume, some mascara whiskers, and not much else. Gazing at my torn costume and imagining what my face looked like, I felt like a one woman freak show.

  The creosote bushes waved gently in the early morning breeze. It was cold in the desert, even in summer, and the thought that I could still die after surviving last night made me shiver.

  No use waiting for the ambulance, as there would be no flashing lights, no wailing siren, and no long ride to the hospital. But what there would be was a long walk and when I struggled to my feet, I discovered that breathing, let alone standing, was difficult.

  The pain in my side worse than the days following the Zembrewski fight. Dorota Zembrewski being a big corn fed Polish girl with the manos de piedras Roberto Duran wished he had, who hit me in the ribs so hard she made my eyes water.

  I slowly pivoted until the sun was behind me, thinking I could only find help by heading west. As the sun rose and the temperature increased, I was soon sweating like I’d gone ten hard rounds, the morning’s chill only a distant memory.

  I knew I was only alive because of the countless rounds in the ring, the willingness to embrace a Spartan lifestyle, and endure the endless days of training. When most girls were hitting the mall, I was hitting the heavy bag. When they were running from one party to another, I was running inclines on the treadmill. When they were rolling in the hay with their significant other, I was home alone, rolling from side to side, trying to get the necessary eight hours sleep so I could do it all again the next day.

  Launching a pre-emptive strike may have saved me, but it was going to be a long day at the office, and the Arizona desert in July is no place for a Sunday stroll. Even for Cat Woman, or whoever in the hell I was. Maybe it’s time to drop her from the payroll. I was going to need someone who struck fear into the hearts of my enemies.

  Since Katrina, “Hurricane” Johnson was my ring name, the name I took as a tribute to the boxer, Rubin, “Hurricane” Carter, why not become a hurricane outside the ring? Bellona, the Ancient Roman goddess of war, was usually depicted riding into battle in a four horse chariot, carrying a sword. But I’m riding into battle on the back of a hurricane, carrying a whirlwind. So no matter who you are, or where you are, I’m coming for you. And I promise to wreak havoc once I find you.

  What do you think Dad, does that work for you? It works for me just fine. And one more thing, you don’t always bet on the bigger, stronger guy, you bet on the person that has the most to lose, the one that has to win. So you were wrong Dad, just like you were wrong about me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MIKEY MAKES THE CALL

  W hat hurt Mikey most, even more than his throbbing head, was making the call to Big Ears. He stared at the blood stained towel and watched as his last best chance to make amends for a long ledger of false starts, failed accomplishments and plain bad judgment dripped slowly into the bathroom sink. The ice filled towel pressed against his head slowed the bleeding, but looking at his head in the mirror only made it worse. He knew he needed a doctor but also knew that thumbing through the Yellow Pages was not an option.

  As much as he dreaded calling Big Ears, he knew there was no other choice. He could put a bow around it and dress it up, but the bottom line was he screwed the pooch once again. He shook his head and peeled off his costume. He should have remembered that Power Rangers can only be a force for good, not for evil.

  The story on Big Ears, as passed down from Mikey’s Dad, Tony Battaglia, was that Alpho
nso, “Big Ears,” Vietri was a stone cold killer with a precise logical mind, a head for numbers, who bet on the outcome based solely on the laws of probability. He would have made an excellent accountant except there was no way he’d ever settle for the old 8 to 5 and a corner office.

  He’d come up through the ranks, making his bones first as a foot soldier for Tony and later as a Capo, a lieutenant. His unsolicited advice to Tony as to where to employ their assets, where to invest the flood of cash coming in from prostitution, drugs and gambling turned out to be spot on.

  At first Big Ears was treated with open skepticism if not condescension. After all, money laundering was something they had done for decades, something they had people for. But his suggestions on which land to buy, which builders to use, and even which sub-contractors to employ for the electrical, plumbing and painting proved to be better advice than they were getting from the so-called experts on the payroll. So good in fact that they eventually fired them and promoted Big Ears.

  His nickname not homage to the size of his ears, which were only slightly larger than average, but to the belief he kept them close to the ground, heard things, knew things no one else seemed to know. The book on Big Ears was if you wanted to keep a secret, you didn’t tell the priest at confession, your wife in the kitchen or your mistress in bed, because if you did Big Ears would find out.

  He reached Big Ears on his second try. Mikey told him that he had run into a little trouble.

  “So, what happened?” Big Ears said.

  “Well I met her at a party and got her to leave with me. I wanted to take her out in the desert and do it there.”

  “I’m listening,” Big Ears said.