The guard forced Victor out of the room and locked the door behind them. Angry tears streamed down Victor’s face as he suddenly felt responsible for everything that had happened. It was exactly the way Frank intended it to be.
~ THE END ~
One Dead Politician
Nick Myers series – Book Two
Tanya R. Taylor
ONE
Carlos Frank pulled into the service station at 12:30 p.m. As he headed for a vacant pump, a young lady in a shiny, red, Chevy convertible caught his eye. She was parked at the pump parallel to where he’d pulled up and just collected her change from the attendant.
Peering over in her direction and towards the back seats, he smiled when he saw that she was alone. Carlos was every young girl’s dream – the hazel eyes, killer smile, undisputed image of perfection straight from his mother’s womb. To top it all off was that hunky, ripped body, especially the chest and arms. He reminded his stalker ex-girlfriend, Donna, of the former wrestler Dwayne Johnson; that’s why she fell so hard.
“Hey, sexy lady.” He lowered his shades slightly. Those alluring eyes of his could now be clearly seen by Amber Rose, the twenty-year-old red-haired bank teller who had just started living on her own, against her mother’s most ardent wishes. “It’s a dangerous city out there and no place for a girl like you to be on your own,” she recalled her saying. But Amber wanted freedom — a place she could call her own and invite a gentleman friend over whenever she liked. A place where the rules were her own.
“Hi,” she answered shyly.
Indeed, he was the best looking specimen she’d ever seen and the late model BMW he drove certainly made him even more attractive, if that were at all possible.
“Haven’t seen you around.” His stare was fixated on her as he handed the pump attendant a fifty dollar bill. “Fill her up, will ya?” He paid the teenager who had just opened the tank a quick glance, before looking Amber’s way again.
She silently looked ahead. He could tell she was a bit uncomfortable, but in a good way.
“Hey, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Amber.”
“Amber, what?”
She grimaced. “Why do you ask?”
“Guess I always like to know who I’m talking to; that’s all.”
Amber knew Carlos much better than he realized. She’d seen him around town and got his name from a friend whose uncle personally knew the people he hung around with.
“Rose,” she told him.
“What?”
“Last name’s Rose.”
“Do you have a phone number, Amber Rose?”
She looked ahead again, wondering if resisting her best judgment would turn out to be one huge mistake. But he was too good-looking for her to turn down. She’d been secretly admiring the guy for the longest time, and he hadn’t the slightest clue. Now was her opportunity — the first time he’d ever taken the time to actually notice her. “643-7913.” It rolled right off her tongue.
Carlos quickly locked the number into his cell. “I’ll give you a shout.” He winked, adjusting his shades again.
She smiled, started her engine and they both pulled off at the same time.
Amber felt shivers throughout her body as she drove back to work. It was completely unforeseeable that the Carlos Frank would actually give her the time of day - a man most girls would sell their own mothers for. Her heart was racing slightly as she imagined being with him in the most intimate way. What she didn’t know was that her number was only one of many he’d locked away in his phone and most of them he’d never call.
TWO
Carlos pulled into the yard of the colossal mansion on Cedar Boulevard. The name Cedar Falls was prominently engraved on the tall, white wall out front. A heavily guarded residence and with the very best in man-made security, at least ten cars were parked in the yard there at any given time. Carlos walked past two large men in black stationed at both sides of the front door, and entered the house. Soft music oozed from hidden speakers between dozens of bright, recessed lights and Carlos felt at home.
The great room was triple the size of the house he grew up in as a boy and the dining room alone stretched out to a full forty by twenty-nine feet, mirroring the size of one of the smallest bedrooms in the entire house. Breathtaking Italian architecture graced every room of the immaculate mini-palace and out back was a large patio that had seen many gatherings. Uniformed maids took intimate care of the house, and sometimes of the owner, and three gardeners maintained the grounds from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily.
Cedar Falls was the largest residence in Haston, a small Caribbean country. The Prime Minister’s house paled in beauty, size and architectural structure to that of Cedar Falls’ wealthy owner, Shalo “Nineteen coffs” Alba. Shalo got that nickname pinned on him when he was just twenty years old. Born and raised in a poor town in Italy, it was rumored that after joining the mob there when he was only thirteen, in seven years, he had nineteen slayings under his belt. They called them “hits”. Nineteen coffs was representative of nineteen coffins.
Shalo was sitting in the dining room finishing up a sandwich when Carlos walked in.
“Hey, boss,” Carlos said, slumping onto the nearby sofa. No one – absolutely no one – sat at the table with Shalo under any circumstances, unless he was invited. A slip up could be deadly and everyone that worked for Shalo knew that. He was fifty-nine years old, slim and stood at five feet, eleven inches tall. His facial skin was rough, with large pores primarily on both cheeks. Black, thinning slicked back hair always glistened and unlike his physical stature, Shalo had a commanding presence.
“Hey,” he answered back as Carlos dialed an associate on his cell.
A few minutes later, Carlos was still on his phone, when Shalo wiped his mouth with a napkin, slid the chair back against the emerald green marble tiles beneath and left the table. Carlos glanced up at him as he left the room.
Shalo twisted the knots out of his neck as he worked a tiny piece of ham from between his teeth. Walking down the long, wide hallway on plushy tan-colored carpet, he stopped at the very last door on the far right. Turning the knob, he entered the sound-proofed room where two armed men, Bruno and Delgado, were standing in front of a single steel chair that a clearly terrified man was bound to. The man’s bruised and battered face was covered in blood and an old rag shoved inside his mouth with duct tape tied over it, extending around the back of his neck. His ankles were tied tightly against the legs of the chair and his wrists on the arm. The steel chair was the only furniture inside the room and the porcelain floor was completely hidden by large black tarps. Shalo calmly walked up to the three, then stood directly in front of the man with terror in his eyes, who was now pleading for his life by means of muffled sounds behind the gag. His palpable fear of the inevitable came the moment Shalo had entered the room, as if it wasn’t enough already that the two brutes who’d tied him up had cut off four of his fingers with a pair of rusty pliers - two on each hand. Just before Shalo showed up, they’d opened the zipper of his trousers and threatened to deprive him of his treasured manhood. As horrifying as that was, it was nothing compared to seeing Shalo standing there in front of him: His boss of eighteen years who’d entrusted him with the secrets of his underground operation, and also with an easy hundred grand he was supposed to have personally hand delivered to his ally in Cuba. The stash of cash suddenly disappeared, according to Jimmy “Bull dog” Banderas, after he arrived at his hotel room. He knew Shalo would not take the news lightly, but figured their years of friendship would count for something, and perhaps he could’ve paid him back over time for his perceived carelessness. But nothing turned out the way Jimmy had thought. Shalo had sent his goons for him in the middle of the night while he slept next to his wife. Though terrified as he was escorted out of the house, he pleaded that Deanna keep her mouth shut about everything, since he knew without a shred of uncertainty that if she squealed, her and their two teenage children’s lifeless bodies wo
uld be discovered on a deserted tract of land somewhere in Haston. Deanna knew what she was getting into when she married him fifteen years earlier.
Nothing, except fury and disappointment consumed Shalo when he looked into the eyes of the man he once considered his friend. “You son of a bitch,” he evenly said as he slid his 357 Magnum out of his pants pocket. Positioning it firmly against Jimmy’s skull and ignoring the man’s pleas, he pulled the trigger. Blood spewed out from the wound onto Shalo’s face and shirt, and Jimmy’s head fell limply forward.
Shalo retrieved a white handkerchief from his other pocket, wiped his face and dabbed his shirt. “You know what to do,” he told the men who were not surprised in the least by their boss’s decision to end it once and for all.
Shalo walked out and left the men to their work.
Heading down the hallway, Carlos nodded to Shalo as he passed by with the bloody handkerchief in his hand. When Carlos entered the room, he was welcomed by clear evidence of his boss’s wrath. Jimmy was a complete mess and Bruno and Delgado had a good clean-up on their hands. But this was nothing new for them; they’d done it countless times before.
Though not shocked in any way by how Jimmy ended up, Carlos couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for the guy whose life was ended in the very place he considered his “second home”. He’d come to respect Jimmy for being like a father figure to him, but the minute he’d heard about the missing cash, he knew he’d crossed the line and there was no way Shalo would turn a blind eye to someone he felt had double-crossed him. Carlos wondered why Jimmy hadn’t simply asked Shalo for a loan if he and his family had fallen on hard times due to the extravagant lifestyle everyone knew they lived. He realized the moment he and the others had brought Jimmy in the night before on Shalo’s orders, it was all over for the “Bull dog” and indeed that very day, it was.
THREE
Kevin Clarke stepped into the bedroom with a large bath towel wrapped around his waist. His wife, Sheri, was sitting in bed folding clothes she had just brought in out of the dryer.
With their son, Mark’s, blue shirt in hand, she looked at her husband as he started to get dressed. “Why are you going there again, Kevin? This doesn’t make any sense at all.”
He turned her way as he threw his shirt over his shoulders. “We already discussed this, Sheri.”
“They’re just using you. They used you to get in — to campaign for them day after day, depriving your one and only son who needs you of valuable time for an entire year leading up to the general elections. Now look at you. They got in, won the government and three years later, you can barely keep the lights on in this house or feed your family. I don’t even know the last time I went to the store and had a cart full of groceries to bring home. Instead, I can only afford to get the absolute necessities and many days, as you know, I can barely afford them. If we don’t borrow from family month after month, we can’t survive. Yet, you devoted all your time to get these people in the top positions they’re in and they look at you as nothing!” She shook her head in disgust.
“Not these people, Sheri. Say what you mean!” Kevin returned. “It’s not like I don’t know.”
She dropped the shirt in her lap. “Okay, I’ll say it! Jackson Cunningham, your Prime Minister! You campaigned for him the entire time and he made lots of promises to you, his so-called ‘right hand man’. Yet, for the longest time since he took office, you can barely get to see him. You go to these stupid party meetings and the man ignores you, and you just stand there and take it. What a coward!”
Kevin felt the anger steadily rising inside of him, but not towards Sheri as much as toward himself. He knew she was right, but hated to admit that he felt like a complete fool.
“I’m not gonna argue with you tonight,” he said, zipping his trousers. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Sheri quietly and angrily resumed her folding.
In the hallway, Kevin cracked the door open and peeped into Mark’s room. The child was fast asleep. Seeing that wheelchair on the side of the bed often caused a sinking feeling in Kevin’s chest.
Ten-year-old Mark suffered from Cerebral Palsy, a neurological disorder he was born with that affected his movement, muscle tone and motor skills. He’d also, within the past year and a half, suffered two asthmatic attacks. Kevin could not afford private insurance for his boy, as much as he wished he could. He was sure if he had insurance, Mark’s overall condition would improve, despite what physicians at the local hospital had to say.
Kevin quietly pulled the room door shut and proceeded to the front door. He grabbed his hat from the rack nearby and headed outside to his car. The Oldsmobile was old faithful, though it was in desperate need of a full service and had been banged up a couple of times. Two dents were left along the right passenger side door and to date, had never been repaired. Behind the steering wheel, Kevin looked at his house. He and Sheri had fallen behind on their mortgage payments and she was left to handle the collectors month after month. He felt badly about this, but knew his hands were tied. There was only so much he could earn as a mason on the construction site when, from time to time, he was sent home when things got slow.
The parking lot at the CPP Headquarters was crowded as it normally was every first Thursday of the month. Kevin had been paying his small financial dues to the organization for years since he held the title as Stalwart Counsellor. In the Common People’s Party, Stalwart Counsellors held voting rights for offices within the party, and were relied upon as the backbone of the organization. Kevin took pride in that appointment he received two decades earlier and was one of the CPP’s most loyal supporters. His party had finally won the government after two previous losses at the polls to the giant National Democratic Party, the NDP. However, in spite of all the promises he’d been made by the current Prime Minister and other members of Parliament, he remained loyal, but alone.
“Kev, it’s good to see you!” Deputy Prime Minister Thaddeus Sherman gave him a firm handshake. An Attorney-at-Law and proprietor of the most prestigious Law Firm in Haston, Thaddeus, six feet tall and handsome, was the portrait of affluence. He was approaching sixty, but kept himself in great physical shape. Despite his bald spot, his smooth brown complexion defied the aging process to the effect that he didn’t look a day over fifty.
“Good seeing you too, Minister,” Kevin replied, before Sherman went over to speak with one of his colleagues.
“Uh, Minister...” he called behind him.
Thaddeus raised a finger indicating he’d be right with him, and as Kevin stood there waiting in the corridor which was adjacent to their meeting room, he soon saw Thaddeus walk away with the colleague, not paying him a second glance.
Sighing, Kevin proceeded to the meeting room. It was almost packed to capacity. He took a seat next to his long-time friend and fellow avid CPP supporter, Freddie Pascalo. Since the last general elections, Freddie had been doing very well for himself. He was able to land a number of lucrative government contracts for maintenance of beaches and parks across the capital city. Before that, his life was a lot like Kevin’s. But Jane Furlow, now Minister of Public Works, had made good on her promise of looking out for Freddie after all his hard work campaigning had helped her win the favor of her constituents. Freddie had lived in Mays Town Constituency for fifty-two years and had a good rapport with many of the residents. Word spread of Freddie’s recommendation and it seemed as if he almost single-handedly caused the victory for Jane, hands down.
“How you doing, old buddy?” Freddie patted Kevin on the back.
Kevin’s demeanor was clearly not as exuberant as his. He’d rested his hands on his lap and interlaced his fingers. “Okay, I guess,” he said.
“You don’t seem okay to me.”
Kevin didn’t respond.
“Things still tough for you at home?” Freddie pried. “If they are, you know I can always lend you something to carry you through for a while.”
Kevin quickly shook his head. “I couldn’t ta
ke another penny from you, Freddie, no matter how tough things got. Sheri and I are really grateful, but I already owe you so much. My conscience won’t allow it.”
“Your conscience or your pride?” Freddie stared.
“Well, since you put it that way, maybe a little of both.”
“Nonsense, Kev! Look, you’ve been there for me and my family when times were rough for us. I want you to know you can come to me anytime. As long as I have it to give and you need it, it’s yours.”
Kevin nodded. “I don’t doubt that, Freddie. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Okay.” Freddie arched his eyebrows and sat back comfortably. He knew what the situation was with Kevin and couldn’t fathom how the Prime Minister could’ve handled one of his staunchest supporters so carelessly. Now that Jackson Cunningham was Chief of Haston, he seemed to have changed. He was no longer accessible to many of the locals — even the Stalwart Counsellors who got to sit in the same room with him month after month. His bodyguards made sure he wasn’t bothered, and oftentimes people he chose to interact with after the meetings before he hurried off to his parked limo, prevented him from being approached by others like Kevin who desperately needed his help.
Freddie leaned forward again. “How about you speak with Thaddeus and see if he can hook you up with a couple of contracts in his Ministry? Business places and especially government buildings can always use skilled masons.”
“I’ve sat in pretty much all of their offices, except for one or two. Who says there are no contracts giving out right now, just put me right there in the promised land, then duck my calls when I try to follow up. They’re a bunch of liars,” Kevin evenly blurted, much to Freddie’s surprise. It was the first time he’d ever heard Kevin say anything derogatory about any seated official of their party.
Dangerous & Deadly- The Nick Myers Series Page 18