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Luca Brazzi Sleeps With The Fishes
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When a character has been abducted and/or murdered by the villains, they may then taunt the surviving characters with some message (often ambiguous) indicating the victim's fate. ID cards, favorite jewelry, or other personal items of the victim may be used, or it could instead be in a 'code' whose meaning the recipient is expected to understand.
For two particularly gruesome variants of this, see Stuffed Into The Fridge and Mary Kellys Kidney. Not to be confused with Cement Shoes, despite it being the Trope Namer.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In the Rurouni Kenshin manga, Enishi Yukishiro pulls a specially cruel one. Because he can't bring himself to kill Kenshin's girlfriend Kaoru Kamiya because she reminds him of his dead sister Tomoe, he kidnaps Kaoru and leaves a VERY realistically-done mannequin made of flesh posing as her corpse, blood-splattered kendo clothes and bloody katana piercing said doll's chest included. No wonder poor Kenshin had a huge Heroic BSOD at the sight of that.
Film
- In The Big Lebowski, the title character's wife Bunny appears to have been kidnapped by thugs, and they send him a severed little toe. It ain't Bunny's.
- This is parodied in Homestar Runner, when Strong Bad's Lappy 486 computer is lappynapped, and the lappynappers send SB her little toe. Actually, her comma key.
- In Clean Slate, Dana Carvey is supposed to testify against a criminal who is missing his thumb, because he was kidnapped as a child and his father refused to give in to the kidnappers' demands.
- In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Kadaj taunts Rufus Shinra with the blood-splattered ID cards of Rufus' personal bodyguards. Granted, they were only Left For Dead, but we don't know that in the movie (yet). Rufus barely reacts, but that's because he's Rufus.
- Named for a scene in The Film Of The Book The Godfather, in which the Corleones receive a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest which belonged to Luca Brasi (one of Don Corleone's enforcers). One of the older capos explains to Sonny, the temporary head of the family, that it means that Brasi has been killed and dumped in the river.
- The sausages in Prime Cut.
- In ''The Scorpion King', Memnon gets a message by carrier bird, and everyone thinks the Akkadian is dead. When he opens the message, he instead discovers that it contains Thorak's amulet instead.
- The word "touchable" written in the murdered Wallace's blood in The Untouchables.
- I also read somewhere that in Real Life, when Capone sent an assassin after Ness whose nickname was 'fingers', Ness sent back a package containing two of them.
- The scene with the heart in Blair Witch Project. *Shiver*
Literature
- The Dale Brown novel Storming Heaven has A skimming Minion of Henri Cazaux get his heart cut. The Dragon's holding it (in the plastic bag) in his hand, examining and squeezing is enough to make one guy not only lose his lunch, but later go to the authorities.
- Forgotten Realms:
- In one novel, Entreri had stolen the statue that allowed Driz'zt to summon Guenhwyvar, and let Drizzt see it just long enough for him to figure out what the small object was...
- In The Simbul's Gift when her lover Lailomun "mysteriously disappeared", Alassra Shentrantra aka "The Simbul" got a rose stem with thorns but no bloom as a mocking "gift" from Lailomun's Evil Mentor Mythrell'aa, the zulkir of Illusion. She kept the stem in her chambers. It helped her to bear the seething hatred for Mythrell'aa personally and Red Wizards in general. For centuries.
- Doesn't Frodo's mithril vest from The Lord Of The Rings count?
Live Action TV
- In CSI one of the team members recognizes a message from a hitman on one of their cases: a quarter over the gunshot wound in his head, translated roughly as, "Call someone who cares."
- In the KateModern episode "The Killer is Dead", Charlie receives a phonecall which turns out to consist of her friend Kate's dying screams. Furthermore, the call is from Kate's phone.
- In the Scrubs episode "My White Whale", Dr. Cox steals the puppet Mr. Cookiepants from an uncooperative pediatrician and later sends a severed puppet hand. Later, Dr. Cox reveals that he had used a different puppet for the hand, and he returns Mr. Cookiepants safe and whole.
- In one episode of TheGoldenGirls, Blanche accidentally gives Rose's childhood teddy bear to their young neighbor, Daisy, who holds it for ransom. When Blanche refuses to pay, Daisy sends one of the bear's ears in the mail.
- In Oz, African-American inmate Johnny Post kills Italian inmate Dino Ortolani on the orders of Homeboys leader Jefferson Keane. In retaliation, the Italians dismember Post and send Keane his penis in a box.
Newspaper Comics
- In the Finnish comic Fingerpori, a character is informed by the mob about someone he knows having been given Cement Shoes with the exact wording "sleeps with the fishes". He misunderstands, however: "He's a zoophile?"
Real Life
- This Troper's mother grew up in town full of gangs. If a body was found with a bird stuffed in its mouth, that meant he was a "stool pigeon".
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Naturally, The Simpsons spoofed this: A member of the Springfield "Legitimate Businessman's Club" was under the mistaken impression that Troy McClure was dead: he'd been told that he "Sleeps with the fishes," which was actually a report on the disgraced actor's sexual predilections.
- In The Simpsons Comics, Krusty gets a can of tuna in the mail and is somehow able to decipher that it's a complex mafia threat. AT A CURSORY GLANCE.
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