characterdialogue

Character and Dialogue:

Matt mounted the ten-speed and pedaled toward his studio, enjoying the privacy
of the night. Harrison Street was dimly lit so he decided to take it. Considering his
mood, it seemed a more appropriate route, even though it was the long way around
his block. The only working light on the narrow street flickered on and off like a last
gasp SOS to Con Edison.
He thought of his empty bed waiting for him and posed a hypothetical question:
if Laura Bowden were at his door waiting for him, would he have the strength to
make love to her? He laughed. The answer was a no-brainer; even the fantasy of it
had already awoken his pride.
Behind him, a car with its lights off curved slowly onto the darkened street. It
continued to creep forward, gaining quietly on Matt, who sensed something and
turned as the high-beams flared and blinded him. The tires screeched, spreading
rubber, and the car accelerated toward him. Matt drove the pedals forward and
twisted the handlebars to the left, but he ran over a broken bottle and the front wheel
slid on the glass. He went down directly in the path of the onrushing car.
Certain that Nails was behind the wheel, Matt screamed, “Fuck you, asshole!”
The car suddenly swerved and came to a stop alongside Matt, who looked up
and saw it was a late model Cadillac. Not the type of ride Nails could afford. The
driver-side window powered down, and a glowing cigarette revealed a vaguely
familiar smirk.
The mystery man, hidden in shadow, exhaled a stream of smoke. “There’re a
lot of sick bastards in this city just looking for a victim.” It was Frankie Mazzarino,
Matt’s one-time, best friend.
More surprised than angry, Matt said, “Frankie. . . you son of a bitch.”
Frankie leaned into the flickering light, leering like a gargoyle at a Paris disco.
“You’re lucky we go way back. No one calls me names to my face.”
Matt lifted himself from the ground and brushed dirt from his pants. “Yeah, I
hear you’re a made guy, now.”
Frankie turned off the engine, got out, and grinned at his old friend. Frankie was
a menacing figure. His smile did little to warm his cold, dark eyes or cover the ferocity
etched in his thick face. His neck and shoulders were huge, either from lifting weights or
from regularly throwing guys through windows, and the expensive, dark blue silk suit
was appropriate attire for attending the funerals of rubbed-out mobsters. He was the
same age as Matt, but looked older, and his post-summer tan would add more lines to
his already tough hide.
Frankie tossed his cigarette before he reached out and wrapped his arms around
Matt. “How you doing, Matty. Long time no see.”
Matt waited for the powerful hug to subside so he could take a breath and reply.
“I’m doing good, Frankie.”
Frankie let go and stepped back for another look. It was obvious Matt didn’t
appreciate the prank. Frankie shrugged. “Sorry about the tumble. Just trying to
show you how vulnerable you were.”
Matt wasn’t ready to warm up yet. “Unusual teaching technique.” He bent
down and picked up his bike.
There’d be no further apologies. “A guy shits his pants, he’s gonna learn the
lesson.”
Frankie spit the words out as if they were his own creation. But Matt remembered the
day they first heard Tony Cova, a Mafia underboss, come up with it. Frankie had
idolized Tony. Now, he was still honoring his fallen hero by quoting him. A wild
thought crossed Matt’s mind. Was Frankie the hit-man who had whacked Tony and
taken possession of his words like spoils of war?
“How long you been following me?”
Frankie removed a pair of calfskin gloves from his inside jacket pocket and
slipped them on. “Since you left your father’s. I heard about the incident in the
hallway. Let me know if you need help with this guy.”
“Nails is a punk. I can handle him.”
“You sure? I heard he threatened to kill you.”
Matt smiled, amused that modern technology with portable phones, beepers,
and call-waiting had made the neighborhood grapevine work even faster.
Frankie continued with his offer. “You’re not the same tough kid you used to be.
You’ve gotten soft. Me. . . I’m in training every minute of my life.”
“I’m not so soft, Frankie.”
Frankie turned left and right, eyeing the darkened street. He flashed Matt a
warm grin. “You know, when we were kids, you were the only guy I was ever afraid
to fuck with. You had that look. That look that you’d do anything to win.” Frankie’s
smile flattened. “If you hadn’t gone off to college thinking you were smarter than
the rest of us, who knows? Us two together. . . We could’ve had our own family by
now.”
“Gee, Frankie, I didn’t know you had such fond memories of me.”
“Still the wise-ass.”
“I haven’t seen you in years. It’s a little hard to digest this nostalgic affection.”
“I guess I’m getting old. I think more and more about the good old days. Me,
you, Lou, and Eddie. . . We did some crazy fucking things.”
Matt cracked a smile. “You ever see Lou?”
“Matter of fact, we had a long talk some six months ago.”
“Oh, yeah? What about?”
“The demise of Mikey Tan.”
Matt narrowed his eyes.
“He brought me in for questioning.”
Matt stopped himself from asking, but Frankie read his mind. “The answer is
no. I had a solid gold alibi.”
Frankie grabbed the bike from Matt and looked it over. “Where’d you get this?”
“Bought it from my assistant.”
“I can get you anything swag. What’d you pay?”
“Too much. He’s moving to Idaho. I wanted to help him out. He’s a good kid.”
“Idaho. . .? Who’s he gonna see, Mr. Potato Head?”
“He’s got a sister out there.”
Frankie mounted the bike and reacted to the narrow seat, rising from it quickly.
“Whoa! That’s a hell of an intrusive saddle.”
Matt laughed.
Frankie eased back down onto the seat and started to pedal away, wobbly at
first, then got the hang of it and circled back toward Matt.
“How far you live?”
“You make a left, another left, half-way down the block, you’re there.”
Frankie fished his car keys from his side pocket and tossed them to Matt. “Keep
an eye on my back.”
Matt watched Frankie steer his way up the street. He grinned at the sight of the
burly mobster, in a fifteen-hundred-dollar Armani, planted atop the thin frame of an
old ten-speed.
Frankie led the way, occasionally looking back at Matt for pointed directions. It
didn’t take them long to get to the studio’s fenced parking lot, where they settled in
front of the red-brick, four-car garage, now used as a workshop and storage space.
Frankie straddled the bike, leaned his weight against the handlebars, and reminisced
with Matt, who sat behind the wheel of the Cadillac.
It amazed Matt how quickly and easily they connected to one another. Their
twenty-seven years of separation didn’t matter any more. They were kids again,
staying up late, swapping stories into the night.
They covered much ground, beginning with polite questions about each other’s
families. Frankie nodded sympathetically when Matt spoke of his father’s failing
health, and Matt smiled when he heard about Frankie’s wife and three kids. They
had reached the subject of girls they each dated and were comparing notes on how
far they had gotten with them, when Frankie mentioned one of his teenage fantasies
had recently come true. He told Matt he had run into Maria Santos, one of Matt’s
old girlfriends, and had a one-night affair with her.
“So who’d she marry?” Matt asked.
“She married this loser. Some Greek guy from Brooklyn. The only Greek I
know who can’t open a successful restaurant.”
“She was a knockout.”
“I wanted her bad back then. But us being best friends, I never made a move on
her.”
“I hope it was worth the wait?”
Frankie snorted, “It didn’t come cheap, that’s for sure.”
Matt was eager for the details. “What?”
“After the one-night stand, I found out who she was married to. Her Greek
husband was into me for two large, and he’d been missing payments.” Frankie
shook his head. “I felt too guilty to go after him for the loan. So like it cost me two Gs
for a fucking quickie. And on top of that, she threw me a bum lay.”
The sorry look on Frankie’s face got Matt to chuckle. He opened the car door.
“Could’ve been a setup.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it was worth the two grand and no broken bones to have his wife screw
you?”
Frankie looked sorrier than before. “That rat bastard pimp. I got fucked coming
and going.”
Matt laughed again, but his fun was interrupted by a loud noise. Something had
crashed into the parking lot’s chain-link fence. A big beefy guy, who had fallen
against the fence, picked himself up and scrambled away. When the man passed
under a street lamp, Matt got a good look at him. “Nails!”
“That’s the punk?”
Matt and Frankie ran toward the fence. They got to the street just as Nails
turned north at Washington and disappeared. Matt thought about giving chase until
he noticed the front door to his studio was open.

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