He turned on the downstairs lights and they all moved toward the front of the shop. Gus Stavros had no idea what was going on, but he knew it could have been a great deal worse. If these men had come merely to rob him, they could have cleaned out the pawn shop and been gone by now. It seemed they were only interested in one piece of merchandise. He wondered how they had circumvented the elaborate new alarms on the doors and windows, but he decided not to ask.
“Move your ass,” Joseph Colella said.
Gus looked at the pawn ticket number again and began to sort through his files. He found what he was looking for, nodded in satisfaction, and went to the large walk-in strong room and opened it, the two men close behind him. Stavros searched along a shelf until he found a small envelope. Turning to the two men, he opened the envelope and took out a large diamond ring that sparkled in the overhead lights.
“This is it,” Gus Stavros said. “I gave him five hundred for it.” The ring was worth at least twenty thousand dollars.
“You gave five hundred to who?” little Salvatore Fiore asked.
Gus Stavros shrugged. “A hundred customers a day come in here. The name on the envelope is John Doe.”
Fiore pulled a piece of lead pipe out of nowhere and smashed it savagely against Gus Stavros’ nose. He fell to the floor screaming with pain, drowning in his own blood.
Fiore asked quietly, “Who did you say brought it in?”
Fighting for breath, Gus Stavros gasped, “I don’t know his name. He didn’t tell me. I swear to God!”
“What did he look like?”
The blood was flowing into Gus Stavros’ throat so fast he could hardly speak. He was beginning to faint, but he knew if he passed out before he talked he would never wake up.
“Let me think,” he pleaded.
Stavros tried to focus, but he was so dizzy from the pain that it was difficult. He forced himself to remember the customer walking in, taking the ring out of a box and showing it to him. It was coming back to him.
“He—he was kind of blond and skinny—” He choked on some blood. “Help me up.”
Salvatore Fiore kicked him in the ribs. “Keep talkin’.”
“He had a beard, a blond beard…”
“Tell us about the rock. Where did it come from?”
Even in his extreme pain, Gus Stavros hesitated. If he talked, he would be a dead man later. If he did not, he would die now. He decided to postpone his death as long as possible.
“It came from the Tiffany job.”
“Who was in on the job with the blond guy?”
Gus Stavros was finding it harder to breathe. “Mickey Nicola.”
“Where can we find Nicola?”
“I don’t know. He—he shacks up with some girl in Brooklyn.”
Fiore lifted a foot and nudged Stavros’ nose. Gus Stavros screamed with pain.
Joseph Colella asked, “What’s the broad’s name?”
“Jackson. Blanche Jackson.”
4:30 A.M.
The house was set back from the street, surrounded by a small white picket fence with a carefully tended garden in front. Salvatore Fiore and Joseph Colella tramped through the flowers and made their way to the back door. It took them less than five seconds to open it. They stepped inside and moved toward the stairs. From a bedroom above they could hear the sounds of a bed creaking and the voices of a man and a woman. The two men pulled out their guns and started to move quietly up the stairs.
The woman’s voice was saying, “Oh, Christ! You’re wonderful, Mickey! Give it to me harder, baby.”
“It’s all for you, honey, every bit of it. Don’t come yet.”
“Oh, I won’t,” the woman moaned. “Let’s come to—”
She looked up and screamed. The man whirled around. He started to reach under the pillow but decided against it.
“Okay,” he said. “My wallet’s in my pants on the chair. Take it and get the hell out of here. I’m busy.”
Salvatore Fiore said, “We don’t want your wallet, Mickey.”
The anger on Mickey Nicola’s face turned to something else. He sat up in bed, moving cautiously, trying to figure out the situation. The woman had pulled the sheets up over her breasts, her face a combination of anger and fright.
Nicola carefully swung his feet over the side of the bed, sitting on the edge, ready to spring. His penis had gone limp. He was watching both men, waiting for an opportunity.
“What do you want?”
“Do you work with Frank Jackson?”
“Go fuck yourselves.”
Joseph Colella turned to his companion. “Shoot his balls off.”
Salvatore Fiore raised his gun and aimed.
Mickey Nicola screamed, “Wait a minute! You guys must be crazy!” He looked into the little man’s eyes and said quickly, “Yeah. I’ve worked with Jackson.”
The woman cried out angrily, “Mickey!”
He turned on her savagely. “Shut up! You think I want to be a fuckin’ eunuch?”
Salvatore Fiore turned to the woman and said, “You’re Jackson’s sister, ain’t you?”
Her face was filled with fury. “I never heard of him.”
Fiore raised his gun and moved closer to the bed. “You got two seconds to talk to me or you two are gonna be splashed all over the wall.”
There was something in his voice that chilled her. He raised his gun and the blood began to drain from the woman’s face.
“Tell them what they want to know,” Mickey Nicola cried.
The gun moved up to press against the woman’s breast.