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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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This book is dedicated to my giggling kids and beautiful wife, Cynthia, as well as my writing instructors—Elmore Leonard, Dennis Lehane, Patricia Highsmith, George V. Higgins, and John D. MacDonald.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Okay, let’s do this:
To my professional team—Kirby Kim, Michael Homler, India Cooper, Lauren Jablonski, and Mythology Entertainment, which optioned the movie/television rights. Any writer would be blessed to have your support and confidence.
To my dog Jasper, in case she reads while we’re asleep or not home. Good dog, Jasper.
To my sisters, Ann and Jenny—loyal, loving, and badass. Give this book a shaky review and they’ll find you. I’m not joking even a little. Best sisters ever.
To my poker group, fly fishing crew, high school friends, college buddies, law school mates, and brothers-in-law Chris, Patrick, and Todd. You did absolutely nothing to help me with this book except unknowingly lend your names, but the anticipated issues for not including you isn’t worth the agitation. So, “thanks.”
To my nieces and nephews, Anthony, Meagan, Lizzy, Brandon, Caitlyn, Callie, Christian, Cameron, Christian, Meredith, and Allison. Because sometimes it’s just nice to see your name in print.
To my parents, Ken and Sue. Nobody is born into this world with a library card and books. You guys always made sure I had both. And in separate ways, you exhibited the daily benefits of hard work and perseverance. A book doesn’t get published in today’s market without a little of those trickling down.
To Nicholas Clemente, William Brennan, Nicholas Fausto, and Mike Wallace. Four classics who showed me every day what it takes to be a Philadelphia lawyer—bold, fearless, independent, forgiving, and funny as hell. I owe you all a night at the bar.
To Don “Sonny” Wellington. The ultimate hustler, in the best sense.
To Lisa Joy Gubser, the Washington University graduate assistant in my ’89 Western Civilization class who wrote Your writing style leaves something to be desired on my very first college paper and then worked all year helping me improve. You changed my trajectory and are the perfect example why we need great teachers. Thank you.
To my mother-in-law, Flo, and sisters-in-law, Courtney and Carrie, who all share my love for the written word. Thanks for the support. And the meat loaf. And the cookies. Love those cookies.
To my wife, Cynthia, and little monkeys, Lyla and Campbell. I can’t imagine another husband or daddy receiving more love and encouragement. I hope I’ve made you proud. It’s all that matters.
And finally, to my mom, who as I write this is fighting leukemia. I hope you get to see your boy’s first book on the shelf. I really, really do. Growing up, how many times did we have this conversation?
Mom: “Robert, turn off your light. Time for bed.”
Me: “But I’m reading a good part.”
Mom: “Okay, ten more minutes.”
Thanks, Mom. I love you.
1.
CORRAL A HUNDRED LITTLE KIDS and announce Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy do not exist. Not dead, not gone. Just not real.
Of the hundred, fifteen never believed. They’re above the fray, like birds watching a car crash from some distant tree. Three dozen go Code Red, their bodies overwhelmed by the desire to fight, run, or both. Twenty obsess over missed clues. Another twenty-five reject the new reality. They cry.
The remaining four are the cynics. Their zombie eyes hold fast as the conspiracy confirms what they’ve suspected all along—lies trump truth when people want to believe. Bow-tied rabbits hiding chocolate? Fairies trading cash for human teeth? What a bunch of suckers, ripe for the picking and deserving, too. A cold-blooded takeaway, sure, but it’s how these future grifters and televangelists filter the world.
Now take these same one hundred kids and gift them a gun. Pistol, rifle, or shotgun—doesn’t matter as long as it’s designed to stop a human heart. Unlike in the Santa/Bunny/Fairy experiment, the shorties cluster. Is that a real gun? Yeah, I’ll hold it. No crossroads here.
Little Bernie Jaracz of Port Richmond wasn’t any different. Since watching a teenager hypnotize a pubescent cabal with a chrome revolver, he’d wanted a gun. Not to hurt a rival or pursue revenge—he wasn’t that kind of kid. Holding a piece just seemed natural, like jumping puddles or peeing in the grass. Gun. Hand. Gun. Hand. A pairing meant to be. Look, right there, a special grip for my fingers. Awesome.
The boy’s wish came true in his grandfather’s basement a few weeks shy of his seventh birthday. Without introduction or warning, Big Bern Jaracz withdrew a .38 caliber pistol from his workbench and handed it over. Given the similarity in personalities, the old man would have been surprised if the kid flinched. He didn’t. Just something in the blood, Big Bern figured. Stiff as a glass rod.
Left eye squinting, Little Bernie aimed at a spiderweb pulled taut between the overhead joists. Half a dozen hammer falls against an empty chamber had him clearing imaginary barrel smoke and asking if they could go outside. “I want to shoot bullets. Like, for real.”
His grandfather shook off the query and snatched the gun, restocking it behind a small wall of coffee cans filled with washers, bolts, and nails. The spot hid another six handguns of various specialties. Two were part of his personal collection; the rest circulated based on market demand.
“Stay out of there,” warned the old man, his fist shoulder high. “Your future doesn’t happen today. We’re in for the long play.”
“What?”
“Steer wide of my workbench, boy.”
Retired with a city pension, Big Bern Jaracz spent the summer of ’97 babysitting Little Bernie because the kid’s dad violated probation and his mom was back at the wire factory. “Family takes care of family. He’s with me.” Truth was, there wasn’t anyone else.
So each morning since school let out, Little Bernie washed his face, kissed his mom good-bye, ran past a dozen stoops, and burst through his grandfather’s front door without ringing the bell. Never occurred to him why the door was unlocked. Security in the boy’s home was a different matter. His mom slapped his cheek if he forgot the dead bolt. After suffering his third red face in as many weeks, he argued Big Bern left his door open, so what’s the big deal?
“Because,” she said, “no one’s stupid enough to wander in with that bear.”
When Little Bernie pushed the point, she balanced the coloring in his face. Welcome to Port Richmond.
Inside his grandfather’s house, the two bachelors had a routine. The kid made buttered toast while the old man read The Philadelphia Inquirer and sipped Sanka. After two cups, Big Bern cleared the dishes, glanced at the phone as though he needed a reminder of its location, and told his grandson they should go downstairs. Time to work.
In the basement—surrounded by the heavy-handed tools of a previous generation—Little Bernie watched Big Bern do his magic. On any given morni
ng, his grandfather might fix a wristwatch dropped off by a neighbor, a shorted-out hair dryer, or a fan with a frayed electrical cord. After puttering a few hours, they returned upstairs for bologna and pickles on Wonder Bread. The meat wasn’t the pink loaf the rest of America ate. Big Bern sneered at that mess, calling it dyed baby shit. He purchased handmade bologna from the neighborhood sausage maker, one pound a week since before Kennedy was elected.
Little Bernie made the sandwiches while his partner tuned the radio and boiled water for instant coffee. After each plate was topped with chips, they sat at a wooden table pressed against the back wall, listening to local news or a Phillies ball game. An oil painting of God floating atop gravy-brown clouds looked down in approval. Conversation might brush against a starting pitcher or the next day’s project, though more often they settled into the easy quiet reserved for old men and small boys.
During Little Bernie’s last week of summer vacation, a historic August heat wave dominated news radio. With the East Coast sitting on a hot plate, broadcasts flip-flopped between weather forecasts and strategies for keeping cool. The routine lasted until Friday, when news broke of an explosion in South Philadelphia. A breathless reporter said a bomb had detonated beneath a man’s front stoop, covering the street in brick and body parts. Several names were listed in quick order—too fast for Little Bernie to make sense of who did what—but Anticcio was repeated most often. The boy liked how the name’s first part was a bug. Made him wonder if the man was teased as a kid. He’d have teased him, that’s for sure. Anticcio the Ant.
Event coverage lasted long enough for him to finish his sandwich and eyeball his grandfather’s untouched plate. Repeating the highlights a third time, the reporter promised updates as police released additional information. Little Bernie wasn’t swallowing the hook. He didn’t need to know any more about the blasted-to-bits insect guy on the other side of town.
The old man had a different take. As the newscast signed off, he rotated his chin toward the wall-mounted phone. A stranger might have interpreted the behavior as a prediction, like he was expecting a call. Anyone familiar with Jaracz knew better. It was a show of will.
When the phone rang, Big Bern pounced before the caller could change his mind.
Staring at his grandfather’s back, Little Bernie strained to hear a few hushed words in Polish and a closing grunt.
Hanging the phone up, Big Bern crossed the room in three steps, the subfloor flexing beneath his boots. “Listen now,” he said, a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “There’s work to do. A job that will push us.”
The boy raised his eyes. His grandfather’s head seemed to threaten the plaster ceiling.
“I’ve been given a few hours. What you see today—what we do—you must never speak of. Not to me, not to anyone. But never forget. Over your life, much will change. Remember the old ways. That’s how we’ve survived, how you’ll survive when I’m gone.” He motioned to the radio. “The bombs in their own neighborhood, with children looking on, that’s the new way. Don’t yield to that.”
The boy’s stomach churned. He licked his lips.
“You and me are doing good. We’re protecting our family, our friends—shielding what we love.”
The boy was fine until the last word. Hearing love rattled him. He couldn’t recall his grandfather saying it before. Not one time. Emotional markers like hate, love, sad, and happy weren’t compatible with the old man’s vocabulary.
Big Bern turned for the sink. “We need to wash our hands before leaving. Use extra soap, scrub hard with the brush, and drink up. We must be careful of the heat. Can’t let it distract us.” He downed two glasses of water, picked up his car keys plus a second ring, and told the boy to hurry.
With the car radio tuned to news, Big Bern navigated the tight Port Richmond one-ways until they were driving north on I-95, away from the city. Despite the August heat, he kept the air off, thinking maybe he could prep the boy. Working a lifetime outdoors had conditioned him for extreme temperatures, but he worried his grandson would struggle with what was waiting. Not because he was soft. Just not enough time to cure. Yet.
Twenty miles up the interstate, a mile off the exit, they stopped at a dated storage facility wrapped in chain link and razor wire. To one side was a boarded-up adult video store, to the other a stucco warehouse with a four-foot bluebird painted near the front entrance. Dead trees backdropped the buildings.
Big Bern parked a few spaces from the office and nodded to the half-stoned attendant seated behind bulletproof glass. The man stiffened before returning the courtesy. Wasn’t often the Polack visited, and any less was fine. Among men with poisonous looks, the one-eyed giant would have been a leader.
Bern kicked the storage door before unlocking it to scatter any mice, pulled it up hard, and waved for the boy to join him. Inside—with the door closed and Third World heat pressing down—he pointed out five black footlockers marked with the same slash of white chalk. Another dozen of different colors and markings were stacked against the wall. Big Bern ordered the black ones dragged beneath the overhead light. Using a second set of keys, he unlocked and flipped the lids in quick succession, telling his grandson to keep his mouth shut and pay attention. No time to baby-step. Be a man.
For the next hour, kneeling side by side with sweat raining off their heads, they unpacked, prepped, and loaded twenty-five pump-action Remington 12-gauge shotguns.
Setting the last firearm aside, Big Bern sent the boy to reopen the door while he reviewed the order and scanned the room. Did they have everything they needed? Think, think, think. He cursed his age and what it’d done to his confidence, even wondering if it was God’s way of retiring him.
The building’s front side was now shaded from the afternoon sun, and a slight breeze danced the skinnier weeds. Stretching his arms and shoulders, Big Bern said to stay clear so he could back the car in tight. Six minutes later the shotguns were loaded in the trunk and tucked beneath a heavy wool blanket. Big Bern’s last to-do was circling the car, looking for any telltale indicators that might catch a trained eye. “The suspension is holding fine. That’s why I bought this car. Stiff Detroit steel,” he said, proving his point by pushing on the rear quarter-panel. “Low-riders make the highway cops suspicious.”
Exiting the fenced lot, every stitch of clothing soaked through, Little Bernie still couldn’t connect the dots. He had no clue where the guns came from, why they were fetching twenty-five, or who was receiving so much firepower. Truth was, that kind of question-and-answer didn’t much factor in his moment. All Little Bernie cared about—same as most boys—was holding the guns and impressing the man-in-charge. Did he seize the opportunity and step up in weight class? Be a man. By his appraisal, he’d succeeded.
Big Bern agreed, giving him his due before noticing smudges of gun oil on his own hands. How could I forget cleanup towels? Most important day in a decade and I forget towels? The details, he chided himself, pay attention to the details. Don’t trip up on the easy stuff. The kid needed an example, not some lesson in seat-of-your-pants planning. With the violence coming, and the number of men they’d face, strength wasn’t enough. To win, accountability was demanded from each component. Be a man.
“I’m taking you home,” he said, minding his speed on 95. “I can handle the rest alone. People are preparing to push us. And now we’ll be ready to push back. It’s the old way.”
2.
“THIS IS JUNIOR DAVIS.”
One syllable was enough for Sonny to know. The investigator’s voice—choked off with a vocal tourniquet effect he claimed came from training amateur boxers—was a dead giveaway. Thing was, Sonny had met the man’s people, and they all sounded the same. “Hold on, let me get organized.”
“Call back. I don’t mind. Wife’s at choir.”
“No. Stay on the line.” Sonny had been rereading a postcard in his building’s lobby when Junior called. The postcard’s front side was a typical Florida beach scene—honeys in neon string bikini
s strolling the white sands. The back side was handwriting small enough to pack four lies into three inches. Dad, still making my meetings. Thirty-six days and counting … all different this time … God bless sobriety! Love, Michael.
Pushing through the high-rise’s front door, Sonny spit gum onto the postcard, folded it in half, and tossed the mess into the trash. Wish you luck, son, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Sonny’s destination was a shaded bench beneath a palm tree. A pinkie-sized lizard posed strong before scrambling over the back support. “Okay, buddy, I’m alone. What’d you find?”
“Before I get started, they got Anticcio. Didn’t know if you’d heard.”
Sonny’s mileage with the man warranted a grimace. “I was rooting for him. Old age must have shortened his arms.”
Junior’s two cents was Anticcio got arrogant, an analysis supported by fifty years of watching Philadelphia hoods murder each other. “Rea taking shots at his car on the Schuylkill showed he was serious. I said at the time, Anticcio can’t play this too cute. The kid is going for it. Ask Cheeky, he heard me. Judge bangs the gavel on Monte’s twenty-year turn and boom, put two in Rea’s head that afternoon. Just like that. Don’t let the wiseass start hearing the cheers. Hindsight, now.”
Other than the personal loss, the change in South Philly leadership didn’t mean much for Sonny’s business interests. Since buying the sailboat and moving to Florida, he’d unwound, sold off, or walked away from most of his Northeast positions. The same couldn’t be said of Bielakowski.
“What about our thing?” asked Sonny. “Any progress?”
“I mailed a report. Invoice included.”
“Call to soften the blow? Nice of you.”
“Long shot all the way. We talked about this.”
Sitting alone didn’t stop Sonny from raising a dramatic hand. “There’s got to be some part of a story.”
The Friendship of Criminals Page 1