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If you carry your own punishment around with you, can you carry your own salvation?
A hard man like Lee Scarpetta expected to die hard. But he didn't expect to be around afterwards to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman like Noel. Her assignment, she explained, was to be his friend, his mistress, his genie—and Lee could have everything he could wish for. Up to and including eternity—enough time to figure out what he really wanted in the Afterlife.
Copyright 1996
Revised 2014, 2018
Lee "Dandyman" Scarp studied the fat man across the table like his life depended on it -- and maybe it did. Somebody'd squealed; Guido Gurina, the boss of Kansas City's rackets, had found out that some of Scarp's boys were dealing in joy powder -- and so now here was Gurina's underboss, "Joe Jelly" Madagino, wanting to "talk."
But ever since the obese mobster had opened his mouth, Scarp had mostly just sat and listened. "If you deal, you die," Joe was saying. A simple rule, that; Guido Gurina liked simple rules. Numbers were okay, juice, too. Hijacking, gambling, labor extortion -- that was just business. But drugs made the soldiers too rich too quickly and a man with money in the bank is a man "without respect," as the old guys put it. Worse, too many of the mugs dealing in hocus started using it themselves, which made for even worse problems.
"Your boys who've done this," the fat man said in the patois of the Italian ghetto, "they're as good as dead men, right."
Scarp knew that was a statement, not a question. "Right, Mr. Madagino," the young capo said with a nod, his mien as cold as the ice floating in his water glass. Scarp had an accent, too, but it was the dialect of Kansas City's roughneck neighborhoods, the lingo of the gin joints and pool halls, not Sicily.
"You'll give them up, then? Just like that? No lip, no trouble?" Joe Jelly was asking, his watery eyes slitted and suspicious.
"They knew the rule."
Joe nodded. "You are being reasonable. Good. You will take care of it yourself."
Again, Joe wasn't asking, he was telling. "I always take care of my own business," Scarp promised. "You can count on it."
"Benny, he is your cousin, I know. It is hard to kill family."
Scarp bit his thumb, an Old World gesture that the old Eyties still used. "If he's done wrong, if he's broken the rules, I'll kill him myself."
"You are one mean son of a bitch, Dandyman," Madagino laughed, his soft, repulsive body jiggling as he mimicked the clipped speech of the younger men.
Scarp would have promised the underboss anything just then, but his mind was already racing ahead. These worn-out geezers with their worn out ideas were beginning to crowd his style. The day was fast coming when he would have to take out the fat man, and Guido, too -- just like Luciano had done in New York. Even before this crisis, the don had only been waiting for the right moment to ice them. Earlier on, it might have been tricky finding enough hard men with the motivation to do it, but not now. The old guys had just supplied all the motivation that anyone would need. Cousin Benny and his pals in the dope trade would be glad to handle the job; they'd better be, if they wanted to live.
"Ughh!" grunted the fat man, gripping his spare tire with both hands.
"Indigestion, sir?" Scarp asked politely.
"Si!" laughed Joe Jelly, "I feel like I've been poisoned. Maybe we should hit Strollo!"
Scarp laughed, too. "That would be a shame. The old man makes the best ravioli in Kansas City."
Madagino heaved his gelatinous bulk up from his bench. "I got to take a crap!" he muttered. "I will be right back."
Scarp was left sitting alone at the table; he glanced absently across the room. The Christmas decorations were up -- big phony candy canes and rubber holly. Of more interest to the gangster was the cute number sitting at a corner table holding hands with a pasty faced accountant-type. Normally Scarp would have been over there in a flash, pushing the maggot out the door and muscling in on the frail, but this was no time for fun and games. There were funerals to think about.
He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Lee Scarp, born Leon Scarpatto, was an up and comer in Midwestern crime; everyone knew it, and all the smart guys were watching him. He'd been giving Guido a case of the creeps -- and that was why the old man was riding him so hard lately. No soldier since Bugsy Siegel had risen to capo as quickly as Scarp. And why not? Scarp was at the top of his game, quick to see the smart dodges -- like the murder for hire he'd gotten into, like the narcotics. It was just too bad if Guido Gurina had rules that got in the way, because Scarp had rules of his own, and Rule Number One was that you don't get into Scarp's way with any of your rules. Not even a Guido Gurina got a pass from the up and coming future boss of Kansas City -- not for long, anyway.
The mobster idly studied the ruby sparkle in his wine glass, under the tacky chandelier reminded him of a cheap stage version of the Star of Bethlehem. He took that for a lucky sign, an omen that he was following his own star. He had ambition, Scarp did, and he'd been cutting deals big, sweet, under-the-table deals with the top bosses in some of the most powerful families as far away as Detroit. If he took out Guido and his lieutenant now, the other gangs would do squat. The Kansas City territory would fall into his lap like a bunch of grapes. It wouldn't be war; this was 1947, not 1929.
Comments
Finally!!!!!
Waaaaaaay! Had to be published decades ago!... Now, the world is able to read and enjoy!
Thank you for the wonderful, amazing, incredible story, Chris! It would be among the best even for a writer of the magnitude of Heinlein or Silverberg. Thank you - and keep up the good work!
Revisions?
What was revised since the original?
Small changes
Mostly typos and punctuation and one or two fixes on who was speaking.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Even if nothing was revised...
... it would still be worth re-reading, I'd say! :-)
A must read!
This is probably the most creative story I’ve ever read. Thought-provocating. Makes one wonder about the underlying nature of reality. Glad to see it available to a wider audience.
Suzij
kindling yet teasing my interests
I have never understood just why it is that these stories never show up for me.
Is it something my browser doesn't support?
???
I'm not sure what the question is. This is a teaser for a DopplerPress book available through KIndle.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
About how you depicted women's sexual experience
So, I know the story was published in 96, times were different. But I was in principle disappointed by how you only allowed Lee Scarp to feel sexually vulnerable and receptive in a woman's body. Nowadays it's known men can easily achieve full body multiple orgasms through the prostate or separating their orgasms from ejaculation. Which made me wonder if the audience you were targetting also influenced such decision in portraying a straight couple, but then there was another issue: most of the time, when provider sex (usually from Lee) was described, you reinforced the objectifying aspect of it - comparing his pumping with 'pistons' and the cassino waiter's ejaculation to a dessert. But with Lee as a woman it was all about the feelings.
Now, that definitely fits the plot of him realizing that openness and receptivity *as concepts* are important to act upon the world and change people - after all, condemnation of imperfection without dealing with said imperfection is in itself imperfect, and you may find a unicorn along the trash who really matters; Lee just ditched women and only felt a short rush.
However, the fact he could only achieve that in such idealized feminine experience furthers a long-lasting perception that a) men are supposed to be the providers and b) providing to someone means drainage rather than multiplication. It *seems* like a progressive viewpoint towards women, but actually reinforces their passive position while dehumanizing men as sex machines. Even if it was true that women's experience was overall better, one should already suspect why people are okay with it when reciprocity is the whole reason of a relationship... then enters circumcision culture which is its own level of evil, but I digress.
In conclusion, I was left wondering if your worldview changed throughout the years, and if/how you would change the story today or that was the way it's intended. Because if Noel was really targetting straight people or the masses to convince them of the aforementioned perspective without going full progressive gay, which would steer away the very people who need that message the most, then it was a genius move.
An answer to Unearly Powers
I answered this letter earlier, but I see that posting has not shown up. That's frustrating, because it was a long letter. I'll try to answer again, but this time maybe not go on for so long.
One can't treat Lee Scarp as a typical man. As men go, in feelings or otherwise, he is a terrible example. It is like trying to relate the mad dog to the healthy dog. I chose to make the hero a gangster so that he would be very extreme in his negativity. I wrote it inspired by the Film Noir tradition of the late 1940's. Lee is a gangster, a predator. He is predatory in everything he does. Not surprisingly, he uses his women in a predatory manner.
Lee as a woman was all about feelings. But Lee the gangster and Lee the woman were centuries apart. Lee was the slag at the foundry, while Noel was the refined metal. The raw material that was Lee had to be heated and pounded for a long time to get the impurities out of it. I don't see any big deal in Lee being a man and Noel being a woman. A virtuous male and a deprave female is also possible.
The theme of the story is similar to the common concept of reincarnation. Is is widely assumed that the spirit in man and in woman is the same spirit in different material guises. A very evil person has to be refined through many lives of trouble before he can rise up pure and become part of the god head. We see Lee in all his corruption, and we see Lee as Noel after centuries of enlightenment and purification.
I took the idea that Purgatory's punishment is boredom from a novel by Taylor Cauldwell. It is commonplace that if one gets all he wants, he becomes sickened by it and doesn't want it anymore. Ironically, Lee has lived strictly for self love. But ultimately it becomes his love for Noel, also himself, that saves him. Noel is strongly motivated. She can only save herself by saving Lee, just like an earlier Noel saved her when she was Lee. To become Noel, Lee has to live the lives of literally every one of the hundreds or thousands of other characters in the city. He ultimately saves himself by reaching out to receive the pure love of the only person who had ever loved him -- himself.
I don't see that my world view has changed over the years. The concepts I explore go back to early Middle Eastern and Far Eastern religious principles. The counter ideas that have become current in the last generation, particularly in the West, are not in the least appealing and serve for an object lesson on how not to live one's life.
The story targets not just straight people, but all people, because the lesson is universal and good for all. Self-love is a dead end. It will never make one happy. I knew a person who ate and drank and traveled, chasing after such things in the expectation that sensual stimulation or entertainment would make him happy. It never did, because he was a sour man who spoiled every personal relationship he ever had. All I would say about his ending was that it was a sad one. What enriches a person's life comes from helping and defending others, not satiating oneself. It is the difference between the material and the spiritual. All the sages have known that the one is valueless, and the other is pure gold.