Marked (2)

Years later, at two o'clock in the afternoon on February 1, 1980, Liu Shifu was at George Malliband's house in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. It was Malliband's forty-second birthday, but they weren't sticking around to celebrate. They had business to attend to in New York— serious business.

George Malliband was in big trouble. He'd borrowed money from Roy DeMeo, and he'd fallen way behind in his weekly payments. The mobster did not like deadbeats. They were bad for business, and they made you look bad. He demanded that Malliband come to Brooklyn to see him. Since Liu Shifu was the one who had vouched for Malliband, he was responsible for him, and he was going to make sure that Malliband made that appointment.

That evening, when they arrived at DeMeo's hangout, the Gemini Lounge in Canarsie, Roy wasted no time with niceties. Eight of DeMeo's men hustled Malliband and Shifu through the back hallway into Cousin Dracula's apartment. They sat Malliband down at the kitchen table, and DeMeo put it to him straight.

'You owe me a lotta fucking money," DeMeo yelled. "You owe money to Las Vegas, too. And you owe money to Altoona. You owe all over the place. How you gonna fucking pay all this, George? Huh."

Malliband was sweating. "Don't worry, Roy. I'm good for it."

"Is he?" DeMeo's hot glare turned to Shifu.

Shifu was taken by surprise. "I—I dunno, Roy—"

"Well, you fucking better know. You brought this fucking mutt to me and told me he was okay. You knew what was going on with him, and you never said nothing to nobody. I hold you responsible, Shifu. If I don't get my money in three days, it's gonna be your problem. You understand? Now get the fuck outta here, and don't come back unless you got the green."

As they drove back to New Jersey, Malliband was frantic. He had loan sharks coming at him from all directions. He definitely didn't have enough money to pay up, and he was beyond the point of placating DeMeo with a partial payment. He didn't know what to do. He pleaded with Shifu to think of something. ''You gotta help me. Shifu. You gotta!"

Shifu glanced at him sideways as he drove. "Why do I have to help you? I didn't help you lose the money, did I."

"Hey, c'mon. Shifu. You gotta help me. I'm desperate. These guys'll fucking kill me."

"You're damn right they'll kill you."

Malliband slapped the dashboard in frustration. "Goddammit, don't say it like you're not involved here. You got me in with DeMeo. You're part of this. He said so himself. You gotta help me."

"I don't gotta do anything, my friend." Shifu gripped the wheel tighter. He hated when people told him what to do.

Malliband's eyes were wild with fear. "Listen, Shifu. You gotta help me. I'm telling you. I know where you live. You know I do."

Shifu's vision blurred. "What? What're you saying here? You telling me you're gonna hurt my family?"

"If you don't help me out."

Shifu fell silent, and his black mood filled the cab of the van like a toxic gas. Malliband's nervous chatter eventually tapered off, and he stared out the passenger side window, lost in thought, biting his fingernails. After a long stretch of tense quiet Malliband was startled back to the present when the van suddenly pulled to a stop. The street outside his window was dark and deserted.

George Malliband frowned at the unfamiliar setting. "What are we doing here?" he asked.

Shifu didn't answer. He pulled a .38 revolver out of his coat pocket and pumped five bullets into the left side of Malliband's chest. The explosions were deafening inside the van. The muzzle flashes left spots in front of Shifu's eyes. He stared down at Malliband's body slumped over the dashboard. His ears were ringing. He thought back to that cookout at his house years before when George Malliband had the gall to walk onto his property without an invitation.

The next day Shifu delivered an attache case containing fifty thousand dollars in cash to Roy DeMeo to settle Malliband's debt. He was no longer responsible for the man.

On February 5, 1980, at 10:55 a.m, the owner of the Chemitex Coated Corporation opened the rear door of the plant at 3 Hope Street in Jersey City. At the bottom of the palisades that overlooked the building, he noticed a dented steel drum turned over on its side. From where he was standing, the man couldn't quite make out what was inside the barrel, but it looked very peculiar. Walking closer, he saw what he thought he had seen: a pair of legs, one of them bloody and hacked.

The barrel had been rolled off the cliffs some sixty feet above. The lid had popped off when it hit bottom. The police determined that the victim—a three-hundred-pound middle-aged white male—hadn't quite fit into the fifty-five-gallon steel drum headfirst, so the killer cut the tendons on the back of the last leg in order to snap the knee and bend it forward, forcing him in.

Apparently George Malliband never got it. He'd made the same mistake twice, and he never even realized it. Nobody threatens Liu Shifu's family and gets away with it.