Invasion of Privacy

toward the telephone. “Do it.”

    From the floor of the Lincoln’s backseat, I could hear Primo Zuppone say, “Mr. Ianella, I don’t think—”
    “You don’t got to think.” Junior was in the front, on the passenger’s side. “You just got to find us a place, so’s we can have a talk with dickhead here.”
    Cocozzo sat on the leather upholstery above me, one shoe resting lightly on the back of my neck, the muzzle of his weapon just under my earlobe. He said, “A quiet place, Primo.”
    We were in the car for about half an hour before I could feel the suspension leaving a good road for a potholed one, my nose bouncing off the floor mat, the transmission hump compressing my ribs. Then Zuppone braked very gradually, killing the engine.
    Junior said, “This looks good. Your people control it?”
    “Yes, Mr. Ianella. But—”
    “Let’s go.”
    I heard and felt the doors of the Lincoln open.
    Primo pulled on my right shoe. “All right, Cuddy. Back out, real slow.”
    Once my feet were on the ground, Cocozzo said, “Hands behind your neck.”
    With Zuppone leading, the others trailed me toward a derelict industrial building, windowpanes rock-broken on the first two floors. At the main entrance, Primo keyed a huge padlock, the door swinging inward, the way they were built before the Coconut Grove fire in 1942. A wave of dank air greeted us as we moved inside, the pang of old blood hanging heavy between the stone walls and above the stone floor.
    Junior said, “Fucking place smells like a slaughterhouse.”
    Primo shrugged. “That’s what it was, Mr. Ianella.” Cocozzo said, “Lights work?”
    “We got a utility thing, down the hall.”
    “Why don’t you go put it on,” said the balding man. Zuppone faded into the darkness, his steps even, like a sentry marching along his castle’s battlement. At the end of the hall, one of those hooked and caged lamps with a rubber handle came on. Hanging from a nail in the crossbeam, it spotlighted Primo’s head and torso.
    Cocozzo nudged me between the shoulder blades, but with the off-hand, not the gun one. A careful guy, Coco . Not exactly a good sign for my future.
    I walked toward Zuppone, Ianella saying behind me, “Fucking slimy stones, gonna ruin these loafers.”
    Primo said, “Hey-ey-ey, I’m sorry, but this was the best place I could—”
    “Shut up and let’s get to it.”
    I could see Zuppone’s cheeks whiten in anger around his acne scars as he unhooked the light from its nail, giving himself plenty of slack in the long extension cord. We moved down the corridor, almost a torch-lit processional. Primo stopped at a solid oak door with an oversized, icebox handle. He yanked on it, and the door groaned on rusty hinges. A while since anyone else had been through it.
    “Hey,” said Ianella, “we gonna find a guy wearing a hockey mask in there?”
    Cocozzo said, “With a chainsaw, maybe.”
    “No, Coco . You’re thinking of a different fucking movie altogether,” said Junior.
    “Actually, Boss, I was thinking of Cuddy here.”
    Ianella grinned and nodded. “That’s good, Coco . I like that, yeah.”
    The interior of the locker spread before us, twenty feet square, the big meat hooks still embedded in reinforced beams running the width of the room. A couple of gouged and stained oak benches occupied the center of the space, some cobwebbed cutlery like cleavers and long-handled knives on an old oak stand against one wall.
    Junior looked around once, returning to the old cutlery. “Perfect.” Then, to Primo, “Pull one of those fucking benches over here.”
    Zuppone hung the lamp from one of the meat hooks, then did what he was told.
    Ianella put his right foot atop the bench, a football coach about to diagram a play for the defense. “Cuddy, you go sit on the other one.”
    I went over to it, turning and lowering myself, the old oak feeling as cold as the old stone had looked in the corridor.
    Cocozzo picked a wall and tested it with the pads of his fingers before deciding not to lean against it. Primo moved to the other side of where I was sitting. If you’d had a compass, Junior and I would have been north and south, Cocozzo and Zuppone east and west.
    Ianella spoke to me from ten feet. “Okay, dickhead, we did this like you wanted. Now talk to us.”
    “Can I put my hands down?”
    He looked at Cocozzo, who said, “Yeah.”
    I brought them to my lap. “Here’s what happened, as straight as I know it. A woman comes to me,