Translations (in order):

niente = nothing

Sì = yes

Chapter 3

Lucille

Jake sat motionless in his seat, mesmerized, as the passenger's door was pushed shut. Once Ramona was out of his view in her house, he licked his lips which were glazed with her cherry gloss. On his drive home, he reran the peck she gave in his mind. He could still smell the remnants of her very girly fragrance and taste the subtle Cajun pasta spice of her mouth.

When he brought her home, she thanked him for the "swell dinner" and then got out, only to climb back in and thank him furthermore with an ephemeral kiss, pulling away before he could reciprocate ravenously. He saw the rosy embarrassment on her face, and it was a damn gorgeous sight.

"Guess we'll meet again soon," she murmured, moving out quicker and clumsier than she had the first time.

"Christ, yes," the felon muttered to himself upon reaching the shack and parking in the space they used as a garage. He moseyed up to the porch aroused, his feelings for this girl unusually developed and intense, though this could have been because she was the first in years to pay him affection free of charge.

"How'd it go?" Mama asked from the threshold to their dilapidated living room. "She pregnant yet?"

"Uh, no, Ma. But we had a grand time," he replied, hurrying for his bedroom. In his privacy, he stripped and dove under the covers to masturbate like he was once more a boy of fifteen, mind cleared of all but sexual images of a nude Ramona.

"Mona, Mona, Mona," he groaned, nearly starving for her caress.

Once a month, Jake and Francis would travel out at least a couple hours from Astoria to rob convenience stores and gas stations. They wore ski masks and gloves, just as skilled burglars should have, and were armed with their handguns, though they normally didn't even have to cock them. What they'd make away with was their main source of income. Any spare money depended on those they'd murder on occasion, and Mama gambled, earning approximately a hundred bucks for a round, but for many sessions, quite less than that wound up in her purse.

On this day, the brothers hit the road before the birds were chirping. Jake had slept well and was in a fairly joyous mood, whereas Francis was pouting and disgruntled because Lucille wouldn't bat a lash at him in any of the stare-downs he'd give her. Jake, pompous in his bragging about how his objective had already smooched him, was inspiring Francis to officially ask out his crush. Hell, why not that night, he decided.

"Whenever I compliment the bitch, she returns the silent treatment," Francis groused as he entered the shack with the other, their pockets and pillowcases stuffed with stolen cash.

"You ever consider maybe she's a lesbian? It's sensible. She works around exotic dancers, and she isn't one herself."

"If she is, I'm determined to change that."

Jake chuckled, dumping his load onto a clear tabletop with Francis. They'd pooled in so much that morning that bills were cascading off the sides. It was a glorious sight for Mama to behold upon tromping in, fresh from feeding Sloth his breakfast.

"Well done, boys!" she congratulated, smacking her hands together enthusiastically.

Either smirked. Striking the woman's chords was always rewarding. They stepped back as she pawed at the pile of greens, sitting down to count and sort it all out between them. As per routine she would split the total three ways, just as she'd done since they were kids, and let them have the most while she kept what she made gambling for herself.

"There's three-fifty for ya, Francis, and...let's see here...three-thirty for ya, Jake."

"Thanks, Ma," Francis chirped.

"Why does he get more?" Jake whined, reverting to his old pubescent mindset. France had been granted the bigger share all their lives.

"Because I'm her favorite, numbnuts," Francis snickered.

"You fellas be productive with that now," Mama said, her eyes steely and her index finger wagging. "Jake, sometime within the next few weeks, I'd like to meet this Ramona gal. See if she's suitable enough for ya, and me."

"You'll love her, Ma. She's real peachy and agreeable," Jake said confidently, pocketing his allowance.

"She Italian?" Mama asked with crossed arms.

"I, uh, don't think so."

"I'd prefer to keep our line pure, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. S'long as she's up my alley behavior-wise."

He nodded uneasily. Mama could be very picky. She hadn't gotten along with many of the girls he'd introduced her to in the past. Ramona contrasted from Jake in likely every aspect, and she also highly likely did with Mama, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. Generally, what Mama said went; her word was final, but now Jake wouldn't be ridding himself of his new girlfriend just like that, whether his boss wished for such or not.

"I'll see you later, Mama. I'm going third-rate apartment hunting," Jake said, waving her off.

"Why? What's wrong with this place?" she spat.

"Oh, niente, Mama. It's just that I ought to have my own residence since I now have a girlfriend, y'know?"

"Yeah, you're right. But be alert out there, and remember that even if and when you live elsewhere, I still get to meet this girl."

"Sì, Ma." He kissed her goodbye, and then was off to look into the city's cheapest living quarters.

Ramona went shopping with her mom after church let out on Sundays. In their aisle cruising, Ramona spoke of her job, her largest tips, the customers in general, waitress gossip, and as of late, Jake Fralo. Last night, carried away, she'd kissed him, and she wasn't one for that sort of gesture on first dates, normally. She could say she was attracted to him by an expanding degree. He was somehow behaviorally unique from other men, but she couldn't put her finger on how; it was just a hunch.

"This guy only popped into your life, what, five days ago," Dana scolded. "Well, while we're here, go grab some Trojans and throw them in the cart."

"God, Mom, stop it!" Ramona giggled, a pink tinge creeping up in her skin. "He's hot, and he's a gentleman. I couldn't really help myself. If I do sleep with him, it won't be for a while."

"I don't exactly want you losing your virginity to somebody fifteen years older than you, darling."

"Fourteen, actually...and, hey! I hate that word! Can you keep it down?" she asked, shading puce. Her friends had all done the deed by their late teens, whereas she hadn't mustered the confidence nor comfort to venture past first base with the two boys she'd ever been with. She was partly ashamed of her insecurity and chastity, especially when her own grandma would sometimes tease her about it.

"You've grown into a pretty, personable woman, hon. Older, experienced men like him are bent on tearing up your kind."

"Hypocrite. Dad has thirteen years on you," she quipped.

"And I was almost twenty-seven when I met him."

Ramona scanned a row of Stouffer's frozen meals, shaking her head lightly. "The chemistry in our kiss...it was like this little zap of electricity. It was splendid, and I was so okay. I just hope I didn't offend him."

"Oh, I seriously doubt you offended him, but I fear you might've egged him on, given him false expectations. If he starts fondling you against your assent, you know when to say no, hm?"

Ramona's eyes rolled towards the ceiling. "Yes. That shouldn't happen, though. He's not a pervert. I'm sure he'll comply to slowness and actually letting our relationship build."

The elder curly brunette held in her disagreement. Seeing her daughter so excited about this man was cute but also worrying because she was in danger of getting her heart broken. Ramona had inherited the emotional and sensitive tendencies of her mom, thus, Jake had evidence to present that he was good, and not just some sleazy charmer. To obtain this evidence, Dana would be inviting him over for a proper home dinner in the near future.

Skittering roaches. Splotches of mold on the walls. A faint, lingering bodily stink to the halls. Stained carpet. Flickering lights. It was no wonder there was plentiful availability. Jake shrugged. This would do.

"What's the rent?"

"Two-sixty a month," said the stouter, heavy-set, droopy-lidded landlord Mike. "Basic amenities include water, heating, cable-"

"Can I check out a suite?"

"A couple of college kids just moved out of 32 on the third floor. You can have a look around, but it won't be ready to move into for two weeks or so."

"Yeah, alright." Jake followed Mike to the staircase, the elevator, quintessentially, out of use.

Francis, the exemplary stalker he was, had Lucille's shift memorized. She served tables from five to one a.m., Tuesday through Saturday at The Dollhouse, a strip joint on the same street as an adult video shop and tattoo parlor. Her legs were long and toned; she stood about an inch shorter than him. It was a bummer, not topping out at six-foot-two like Jake, or Sloth's monstrous six-eight, but Francis accepted his height as he believed a man should. He was a menacing brute nonetheless. He could have the nation slave over him if he craved that sort of power. Since he didn't, he shed away hours working up the nerve to ask the barmaid to be his.

"Don't be such a wussy!" Mama would growl if she'd seen him now, so lousy. Like his younger brother, he hadn't formerly been one to date, but instead, screw the odd easy lady, no strings attached. He didn't comprehend relationships, but was schooled in lust, just as he was for murdering, crafting woodwork and writing poetry. This woman had been the bullseye of his obsession for thirty-three days, and she took note, he surmised, judging her glares.

"Lucille..." He drawled her name after purposefully glancing at her name tag, where it was penned out in cursive. "A feminine and classy name for a woman of the like."

"Yeah, yeah, you're only the billionth sap to flirt with me up in here," she scoffed, combing and tucking her side-swept blonde bangs behind her right ear, his tab in her left hand. "Why don't you go talk to Shimmer up there, the slut with the fattest, albeit fake knockers."

"Those are stunning, but I've more interest in yours."

"I have a boyfriend," she said flatly.

"Cut me a break, babe! Can't ya tell I have a crush on ya?" he blurted. "Nowadays, I only hang around here to gaze at you."

Her blue eyes piercing, she slapped his due amount down before him and snarled, "He's not worth losing to an affair with some lanky, four-eyed dork. If you'll excuse me, he's picking me up in six minutes. Solely by our policy regulations do I bid you a nice night."

She strutted away, leaving him to shred up his bill and swat his batch of empty shot glasses off the table. He sprung from his chair when he saw her pull her jacket on by the entrance five minutes later, and he tailed her outside, staying a distance back.

The snubbing gal wasn't bluffing, he deduced, spying ahead in jealousy as she got into a silver Chevy, buckling in and paying her apparent lover a doting kiss. Nausea coiling in his gut, Francis grumbled out a slew of curses. He knew how ridiculous it was to be this hurt over somebody he'd known, and barely at that, for a measly five weeks, but in spite of the absurdity, he darted for the jeep and continued to trail his token of infatuation and obsession.

Francis snorted and shook his head in derision upon checking out his crush's home of a trailer park. Him, Mama and Jake weren't living a stretch fancier, it appeared, as he cruised into the zone of Astoria's utmost white trash. Fast-food wrappers and broken bottles littered the roadside, and the clotheslines planted on each brief patch of property hinted that washing machines were scanty in this hole. A number of lawns were patched with brownish dying grass, but that was as bad as it got on the surface. Being a poor felon, Francis was no one to rate this area anything lower than six out of ten stars.

The Chevy, rumbly and dated, stopped alongside a mobile home which strongly resembled the surrounding ones in structure but was distinctive for the turquoise tinge of its shingles and the eggshell-white of the roof, and a rusty lawn mower sat against the picket fencing. As the lovebirds sauntered in, arm-in-arm, Francis went to war in an effort not to retch at the probability that they were going to be naked and banging their brains out in seconds to come. He glued his attention to the address and filed it away in his mind with intent to return in hours. For now, he had a grave to prepare.

"You've gotta be shitting me," Jake said at the wild news his brother had just unleashed. "You're really gonna kill this guy just to get his girl?"

"Yup," Francis replied, reviewing their selection of butcher knives; he was itching to maim this man of Lucille's. The unsuspecting victim's demise would strike following much bloodshed and pain, Francis would ensure. This Fratelli's hot temper and grisly nature did surpass the younger's in intensity, and had from their youth.

"There are plenty of other chicks in the coop...So she gave ya the cold shoulder, so what? Move on. We could go without handling another stiff for awhile, eh?"

"Shut the hell up, Jake! You can't tell me what to do, damn you." He took a deep, cleansing breath in, then out. "The mere thought of slaughtering this bastard makes my dick twitch in delight."

"Aye, aye, whatever floats your twisted boat," Jake chuckled with a wave of his hand. "See you've already dug up his final resting place, you sick fucker."

Indeed, Francis' earlier pursuit was blatant by the smears of dirt on his tank top and filth in his fingernails, the visible sweat stains under his armpits, his toupee also dampened and mussed with the sweat of his exertion.

"I was so adrenalized the hole was through with in less than thirty." He freed the cork from a bottle of gin with his teeth and chugged ferociously. "Shit, am I hyped for this!"

"How are you going about this? Gonna patrol their place till he comes out alone, then you're gonna jump him?"

"I wouldn't balk like that." The gin was set down firmly, knocking against the aged wood of the counter, then Francis' glazed-over drunkenness hardened momentarily so as to reshape his brother's 'yeah, right' attitude a bit. "Lucille's mine once this douchebag is outta the picture. I got it all mapped out. I drive back to the park and attack when he's solo, then I bury him in the woods someplace by the carcasses of Wart Face, Cocksuckers' One, Two, Three and Four, Monobrow, Bucktooth and Prim."

"What's your dub for this guy?"

Francis took another swig, reflecting. "Hindrance," he said. "He's what's blocking my reach to her." He snickered insensitively, and picked the knife with the longest blade from the row. "The path's about to be cleared, though."

In the dim moonlight shining in through the Jeep's windshield, Francis' wristwatch read quarter to eleven when Lucille's lover, a late twenty-something brunet man of an average build, emerged from the trailer. He'd been lounging out here for the past two hours, grudgingly reckoning Hindrance wouldn't be out in the open until dawn, and with his dollface right there at his side. However, it appeared the stalking Italian was up on luck.

Wielding his weapons of choice, the butcher and handgun, Francis opened the car door slightly, leaving it ajar as he slunk forth towards the man who'd just slung a bag of garbage into the bin at the edge of his driveway. Furtively, he jogged up to the residence that was mostly dead for the night minus an uncurtained window's cast of an unseen television's flickering glow. Awe, the lady was probably cozy on the couch with popcorn, awaiting Hindrance from his quick duty of taking out the trash as he did routinely, both blissfully unaware that tonight his heart would stop for good, his becomings an eternal mystery.

The soon-to-be-dead man's back turned, Francis sprung in for the kill, swiftly smothering the other's mouth with his palm to suppress any forming screams.

"Wha' va fffuck?!" Hindrance's gasp was muffled into his assailant's hand, the cold, thin sharpness of the blade prickling his neck.

"Be quiet, and come with me over here," Francis hissed, a stagger to his steps as he dragged the very reluctant victim around the fence, onward for the Jeep. "Don't fight me, and do as I say. I got a gun on me, too, so if you run, you get a bullet in ya."

Hindrance squirmed and groaned in his force down the road, his struggle easing none as he was rammed into the driver's side of the Jeep, the blade nicking him mildly in the process while Francis got in. The engine revved to life, they sped away from the park, Francis' knife kept at his hostage's temple, ready to slice prematurely if and when an escape was attempted or a maneuver of self-defense began to affect his driving.

"L-l-listen, I don't have a lotta money…" stammered Hindrance, who was quivering as though drenched in ice water in his seat in the middle.

"Why should I give two shits about that?" Francis asked.

"You're...you're mugging me, aren't you?"

"If I were mugging ya, I woulda done it then and there on your lawn."

"Then - then what the fuck are you-"

"Shut up!" Francis barked. He had his mother's short fuse. "I warned ya to keep your yap sealed."

Hindrance obeyed with chattering teeth, a sheet of sweat dampening his forehead in his maturing hyperventilation. He uttered not a word for two minutes before, "Please, what is it you want of me?" tumbled out in a whisper.

"That's to remain confidential till we're at our destination," Francis mumbled monotonously.

"...Look, my second cousin...he's - he's a homosexual. He goes to this - this popular gay bar; it's just outside of the city, called, um, Flames. There are p-plenty of dudes there that I'm sure would willingly-"

"GROSS!" Francis nearly lost control of the wheel in his shock and disgust. "I'm not a fag! That's not what I'm gonna…Ew!"

"Thank God," he heard The Problem sigh as he swerved left, dipping them into the woods. Hindrance's level of panic was ever rising, gravitating for outer space. "Where are we?"

"Where's it look like we are, you damn dummy? The only life around is trees, some wildlife, too. Critters and whatnot."

Hindrance growled, anger joining his horror. "Please, what are you doing to me?"

"Alright," Francis said, parking where he and Jake did whenever they'd come here with a fresh murder, "out with me. C'mon." He tugged Hindrance by his flannel jacket, the tip of the blade having lightly cut four areas of flesh. He walked him out ten yards, knife in one hand, flashlight in the other, and gun tucked into his pants' pocket.

The moment the beam of their light source showed Hindrance what was undoubtedly a shallow grave, he roared out hysterically, stomped on his captor's foot and elbowed his chest. Francis grunted, loosening his grip on Hindrance just enough for him to make a getaway. Francis wobbled after the distancing man, fumbling for his pistol. Hindrance was roughly thirty feet ahead when two bullets penetrated his left buttock—and down to the ground he crashed.

"That's what ya get! HAHAHA!" Francis' cackling rivaled that of a classical witch's. "I was gonna make this quick and simple for ya, but since you were so uncooperative-"

"PSYCHOPATH!" thundered a sobbing Hindrance, who was squeezing his bloody rear. "What in God's name is your—SHIT!"

Now he had his right thigh to grasp at and scream for. Once Francis approached him, he crushed his unharmed foot into Hindrance's groin, causing Hindrance to shriek himself hoarse. Then, all six inches of the blade were plunged into his stomach, just above his navel. Hindrance howled, his agony surreal.

An aggrieved, "Why?!" sliced into the sociopath's eardrums, loudly enough for them to adopt a slight ring afterwards. The sheer desperation of the man's plea had Francis wincing for all of a second.

"Your girl. I'm hot for her."

"Oh, motherfucker, you stay the fuck away from Lucy!" Hindrance coughed, droplets of blood spewing out.

"Hm, let me think about that—no." He stabbed the lain and profusely bleeding man's right shoulder twice in a fast up-down, up-down motion. Blood gushed up from the deep wound by tablespoons, too many for an easy recovery.

Francis, blank-faced, opted to finish off with a click and a bang, the whites of Hindrance's eyes and a convulsive dance followed by total immobility a strong indicator that death had taken course. The throes were nothing too special with anybody else, but with Hindrance, the view was entertaining in a sweetly morbid sense.

A coppery scent hung in the air while Francis dragged the newly deceased over to his man-made hollow. He dumped him in and unfastened his fly and urinated on Hindrance's stock-still head, before shoveling the mound of dirt in over his body, just as any proud serial killer.