Death Wish by Iceberg Slim Page B

wrench against the grass.
    Collucci reached up and seized Antonio’s broken wrist. He twisted it and wrung it like a chicken’s neck. Antonio’s hand hung crookedly on tendons and skin. He whimpered and staggered away toward the main house. Collucci got to his feet. He gripped the wrench and went in pursuit. Antonio screamed for help.
    Olivia sat on the side of Joe Tonelli’s bed stroking his temple. She heard the scream above the bedlam singing of an old Italian Army marching song.
    She flipped the floodlight switch and saw the scene. Collucci was wild-eyed, chasing Antonio. Mario pussyfooted thirty feet behind Collucci, gripping a length of lead pipe. Olivia screamed the house quiet. Tonelli’s guests followed her to the yard.
    Collucci knocked Antonio senseless. Mario was swinging the pipe down on Collucci’s head when Olivia screamed, “Jimmy, behind you!”
    Collucci threw himself forward, and the pipe struck only a glancing blow. Collucci whirled and grappled with Mario. Mario fell and pinned Collucci to the ground with his great weight. He fumbled a stiletto from his pocket and stabbed down at Collucci’s throat. But the point missed and sank into the flesh above Collucci’s collarbone.
    Olivia flung herself over Collucci’s face and chest and screamed, “Stop it, Mario! I love him! I love him!”
    Louis Bellini snapped his fingers and a gang of his button men and bodyguards pulled Mario away. Joe Tonelli came slowly on a cane to the scene. He held his hand over his heart.
    Olivia ran to him with tears flowing and sobbed, “Papa, they were trying to kill Jimmy Collucci. I love him. Papa, we’re going to be married!”
    Tonelli embraced her and patted her back. He released her and went, with a furious face, to Mario cowering in bewilderment.
    Mario mumbled, “Mr. Tonelli, we thought he was a thief.”
    Tonelli flailed Mario’s head and shoulders with the cane and shouted, “ Stupido! You have hurt my daughter’s innocent fiancé.”
    Tonelli went and put an arm around Collucci. He turned to several of his men and said, “Take this boy to the finest hospital. He must have the best of everything. He’s going to be my son-in-law. Understand?”
    Louis Bellini chuckled and said, “That skinny kid has the balls to be important. Tonelli’s guys look like a whole mob worked them over.”
    Then moments later Bellini stuck his head into the limousine about to pull away for the hospital and said softly to Collucci, “Jimmy Collucci . . . I like you. Are you Sicilian?”
    Collucci nodded.
    â€œWhat is your mother’s maiden name?”
    Collucci said, “Why?”
    Bellini frowned and said, “I’ll overlook your ignorance this time. But never ask Louis Bellini why again.”
    Collucci said, “I’m sorry. Her maiden name was Saietta.”
    The limousine pulled away. Collucci stayed in the hospital for a week.
    On the sixth day Frank Cocio came into his room and said, “Congratulations, you are to marry Olivia Tonelli thirty days from today.”
    Then Cocio smiled. “Mr. Bellini wants you to join the Family. He told me to see that you make your bones. I have the guy you need in mind already.”
    Collucci said, “Who do I . . . ?”
    Cocio grinned and said, “Bobo Librizzi,” and went through the door.
    Collucci lay in shock. His joy at the prospect of becoming a Mafioso wiped out as he wondered how he would manage to kill his friend.
    And now, the recollection fading, Collucci glided the Caddie into Chicago’s exclusive Gold Coast section. Refuge of the rich and the powerful.
    Collucci sighed as he gazed up at Joe Tonelli’s fifty-story apartment building. The crown jewel of his vast real estate holdings.
    He swung the Caddie off the street to halt before the eye of an infrared TV monitor. The monitor swept above a wide steel door at a