by Brian Drake
“My son. They got my son. Shot him dead, Wolf. Dead.”
Wolf locked the door. He found a beer for Gordy. They sat on the couch.
“I guess it happened last night,” Gordy said.
“Where?”
“His place.”
Wolf took a drink.
“I got another note, after--you know,” Gordy said. “Same as the first one.”
“The sister,” Wolf said. He watched his friend. The hand that held the beer bottle still shook.
“Wolf, are you still upset with me for what I did, or for not telling you the truth?”
“I’m not a hypocrite,” Wolf said. “But you should have told me the whole story. How much did you leave out?”
“I left out a lot.”
“So, tell me.”
Gordy sighed. He still held the beer but didn’t take a sip. He sat with hunched shoulders, his eyes on the spotted carpet. He said: “My brother Mickey shot Mona.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mickey was looking at life under three strikes if he got caught, so I covered it up and got him out of the city. He’s been hiding out ever since. I ain’t seen him in over a decade.”
“Why did he shoot her?”
“Some argument, I don’t remember now. Something stupid.”
“Your cronies didn’t cover for you,” Wolf said. “Why?”
“They weren’t involved. All they knew was the street talk. It was either Mickey or Gordy but nobody could ever prove it was either of us so the whole case went cold. But the statute never runs out on murder. Even now I gotta protect Mickey.”
“At what cost?”
Gordy finally lifted his head to make eye-contact with Wolf. His eyes had a pleading look. Their usual fire and confidence were long gone. “How was I to know this would happen?”
Wolf watched his friend a moment. The refrigerator clanked.
“You ever gonna fix that thing?” Gordy said, glancing back at the kitchen.
“What do you want from me, Gordy?”
“You know everything. Finish helping me.”
“Why didn’t you trust me?”
“I was mixed up, out of my head, nervous, can you blame me? I just wanted this to go away.”
“Gordy--”
“You can’t say no to me, Wolf! You don’t have to like me anymore, but you can’t say no. You still owe me. You said so yourself.”
Wolf stood up and crossed the room to a window. He looked out on the empty street. The stoplight at the corner went from red to yellow to green over and over but no cars were there to be bothered.
“What are you gonna do, Wolf?”
“I’ll start tomorrow.”
“No.” Gordy jumped up. “You need to start tonight. We don’t have time to waste.”
Wolf looked at Gordy. “I don’t have to care, Gordy.”
“You owe me.”
Gordy let himself out.
Wolf stared at the closed door for a long time.
If the opposition knew how to get to Gordy the way they did, that meant they had people all over. Having people all over meant that somebody would know. Wolf went to find somebody who knew.
He didn’t waste time with the usual informants or other connections; no sense in calling Callaway this time. He went right to the most obvious source, a local gunman named Vince Manning.
Manning worked for syndicate boss Carlo Gulino and had crossed paths with Wolf many times. Perhaps he’d even saved Wolf’s life on one or two occasions, but Wolf could say the same thing the other way around. They weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies.
Wolf checked the usual hang outs Manning frequented, and finally found him on the third try, at the Shipwreck Bar. Wolf wasn’t exactly welcome there, but the owner wasn’t about to roust him, either.
Vince Manning, with his thick gray hair and stocky build, wasn’t hard to spot amongst the rest of the thinning crowd. Two o’clock was near. Wolf dropped onto the stool next to Manning and said hello.
“You missed last call.” Manning drank some beer.
“I’m here for information,” Wolf said. “We have some players making moves and I need to find out what’s going on.”
“This has to do with Gordy?”
“How did you know?”
“He kicks back to Gulino, remember? Carlo always has at least an idea of what’s going on.”
“Protecting his investment or genuine concern?”
“Both. Carlo’s a kind-hearted man, deep down.”
Wolf laughed.
“It just so happens,” Manning said, “that you’ve caught me in the middle of watching some newcomers that I’ve been following for a few days.”
“Where?”
“Back booth, in the corner.”
Wolf didn’t make an effort to look. He knew where the booth was, and he didn’t want the targets spooked.
“I’ve been wondering if I should take them aside for a chat,” Manning said. “See what they have in mind. Now that you’re interested, I think I’ll do that.”
“I’ll join you.”
“Always a pleasure to have the Big Bad Wolf with me,” Manning said. He grinned.
Wolf shook his head.
Manning sat behind the wheel of his Lincoln Town Car. They watched the two newbies leave the bar. Both were younger, hair trimmed close to their skulls, latest fashions via GQ. The driver had an unsteady walk. They climbed into a VW parked on the curb.
“I think he’s too drunk to drive,” Manning said, following the VW as it left the curb. He dodged other cars to get closer to the VW.
The light up ahead changed to red. The VW stopped. Manning stopped behind the VW. Wolf scanned the street out of habit but found nobody paying them any mind. The back of his neck itched.
Presently the light turned green and the VW moved through the intersection.
As Manning accelerated, Wolf glanced out his window; as Manning reached the center of the intersection, Wolf shouted: “Watch it!”
The van waiting at the opposite light lurched forward, tires spewing smoke, and raced toward the Lincoln. The front of the van smashed into the back quarter panel of the Lincoln, spinning it in a circle. The impact rocked Wolf back and forth; he slammed against the door. The car stopped. Wolf’s head spun. He hauled out the .45.
Automatic weapons fire filled the air, the Lincoln rocking with hits. Wolf ripped off his seatbelt and hit the carpet. Manning screamed but Wolf couldn’t see if he’d been hit. Glass popped, rained down; as Wolf reached for the door handle, somebody else opened it and grabbed his outstretched hand.
Three gunmen stood in the intersection. The one grabbing at Wolf pulled him onto the pavement. The impact sent the .45 flying. Wolf jumped up and swung a fist at the gunman’s face, but the shooter sidestepped and bashed Wolf in the face with the butt of his weapon. Wolf fell back against the car, striking his head, and crumpled onto the pavement.
The ache in Wolf’s shoulders finally roused him, and the first thing he did was vomit down the front of his clothes. Wolf spat several times to clear his mouth. He dangled above the concrete floor in a room inside a warehouse; his hands were cuffed and hooked over a pipe.
“Wolf?”
He looked to the right. “Oh, no.”
Gordy hung there too.
“They got me as soon as I left your place,” Gordy said. “You?”
“While I was following two guys who may or may not have been part of the Frye gang,” Wolf said. “Vince Manning got hurt. If we get out of this there’ll be trouble over that.”
The woman who entered the room had dark hair, wore clothes that fit tight against her trim body. She had skin as pale as her sister and dark brown eyes.
“Comfortable up there?” she said.
Gordy let out a low groan and his head sagged.
“I think Gordy is out of gas,” Ava Frye said. “What about you, Wolf? Can you keep up?”
“I’m busy plotting my escape as we speak.”
&nb
sp; Ava Frye laughed. “How entertaining.” Two gunmen entered behind her, the pair Wolf and Manning had followed. “Won’t be long now,” the woman continued. “I had a huge argument with my sister about how to do this. She had to get fancy.”
Gordy raised his head. “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t!”
Ava Frye folded her arms and shrugged. “And I should believe you?”
“My brother Mickey. He did it. He had an argument with your mother and it ended bad.”
Wolf said: “Zip it, Gordy.”
“I helped get him out of town, but he’s the one you want.”
Wolf said: “Gordy.”
“So that means I should let you go?”
“I didn’t kill your mother!”
“But you killed my sister. And you helped the man who killed my mother get away. Is that right?”
Wolf said: “Told you, Gordy.”
“Wolf has a point,” she said. “You really should keep your mouth shut. Won’t matter in a minute.”
“Get it over with!” Gordy shouted. His voice echoed throughout the warehouse. He struggled against his restraints. “Get it over with!”
“Oh, Gordy,” she said.
“You killed my son. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
“If you kill me, you’ll never find Mickey.”
“Oh, he’ll be around when he hears about you,” Ava Frye said. “Won’t be too hard to find him.”
She snapped her fingers and the two gunmen took pistols from under their coats. One of them handed his gun to Ava. The other aimed at Wolf. Ava Frye stepped toward Gordy.
“I’m going to pull the trigger myself for you, Gordy,” she said.
The shots startled them all. They came from elsewhere in the building. Men screamed; more shots cut off the screams; finally, only the echo of the blasts remained. Ava’s two goons took cover in the doorway. The one who still held his pistol fired twice at somebody; return fire took off his head. His partner tried to grab the still-smoking pistol, but then the phantom shooter blasted him too.
Ava Frye raised the gun and froze as the new arrival entered and stepped over the bodies of the two gunmen. He was older, hair gray, but still trim. He wore a dark leather coat over a gray shirt, and black slacks.
Ava Frye tightened her finger on the trigger. The man shot her in the left eye. The bullet punched through the back of her head and decorated the wall behind her with blood spatter, bits of bone, and parts of her brain. She fell over and landed beneath Gordy’s feet.
The man said: “Gordo. I’m sorry I’m late. I’ve been tracking this gang for weeks, but I know I didn’t get here in time.”
“I’ve never been happier to see you!” Gordy said. “She probably has the key to these things.”
The man went to Ava Frye’s body and searched her pockets, the bloody mess of her head no bother at all.
Wolf frowned at Gordy.
Gordy said: “Wolf, meet my brother Mickey!”
1
Ben Regan said, “I need somebody who can peel a box.”
Jimmy O’Shea’s large gray eyes stood out the most in his small face. The eyes belonged to a larger man. He looked at Regan over the rim of his full glass of dark Guinness, took a drink, rolling the liquid over his tongue before swallowing. Regan sat across from O’Shea with an untouched scotch. O’Shea let out a satisfied sigh. “Mmmmm. Nothing beats Guinness.”
“Am I talking to myself, Jimmy?”
They sat at a corner table in a quiet bar. Light music and voices covered their low tones. The narrow room and wood-paneled walls gave the bar a cramped feel, at least to O’Shea, but the other pressed-together customers didn’t seem to mind. He liked how the wood motif gave the place the illusion of having been slapped together. He ran his hand over the wood table they occupied, admiring the raw feel of the smooth but unpolished top.
“I heard you,” O’Shea said. He looked up and studied Regan’s smooth face and wondered why he didn’t darken or shave the graying mustache. The gold chain on Regan’s right wrist made him smile. The chain displayed a small rectangular plate reading Love Thy Neighbor. “Why do you want local talent,” O’Shea said, “when you have all your contacts back home?”
“Because I’m not back home.”
“Call somebody.”
“Are you trying to chase away business?”
“It’s a little hot right now,” O’Shea said. “Somebody broke into the Grady Mansion last week and looted their safe. You know how much influence Grady has? Cops are shakin’ me and my guys down every hour. Who did it? Where’s the loot? You’d think they wanted the stuff, the way they come off.”
“I don’t have time to fool around.”
“You ever gonna taste that scotch?”
“Can you get me somebody or not?”
O’Shea drank some more Guinness. The Guinness turned sour as O’Shea swallowed. He set the glass down. “I know one guy. Peel any box. He’s out of the business, though. Settled down with a wife and all that. I’m not sure I can get him to work again.”
Regan brushed his mustache with the index finger of his right hand. The overhead light made his chain sparkle. “No box-breaker walks away forever.”
“How much?”
Regan put his hand down. “Plenty.”
“Come on, how much?”
“Fifteen grand. That’ll make a man pick up his tools again.”
O’Shea whistled. “Something’s really burning a hole in your belly.”
“Can you get him?”
“I’ll need a couple of days.”
“A couple is two.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You have two days.”
O’Shea laughed. “Burnin’ real deep,” he said. “What are you after?”
“I’ll be in touch.” Regan pushed back his chair, starting to rise. He snatched up the scotch and drank it down “You were right, Jimmy. That’s good stuff.”
Regan walked away from the little gray-eyed man.
O’Shea shook his head and looked up. A painting on the wall behind where Regan had sat showed a naked man running from a fire-breathing dragon. The poor guy must have started out a slayer, as the burning remnants of sword and armor between man and dragon indicated, but the bearded warrior had taken on a task he wasn’t ready for. The dragon had been just a little faster. Now, stripped of clothes and weapons, the slayer only wanted to survive. The dragon gave him the creeps. Jimmy O’Shea shivered and left a $20 bill and his unfinished Guinness on the table. He left the table and went out to his car, where he sat and made phone calls for a half-hour.
Freddie Webster wheeled the tall donut rack to the front counter of the bakery and helped two colleagues fill the space under the glass. They worked without talking, an oiled machine, snatching donuts from the rack with plastic-gloved hands and moving them to desired spots. Glazed together, chocolate together, all had their home and the dull monotony contributed to Freddie’s stray thoughts.
Sheila, his wife, had brought home the first ultrasound photo of their child the previous evening. Freddie stared, transfixed, but the happy moment vanished once he remembered that providing for the three of them was going to get tougher. He and Sheila struggled enough taking care of themselves.
Once the counter shelves were partially loaded (an hour before the 5:30 a.m. opening so they were right on time), Freddie pushed the rickety rack back to the kitchen for the next batch. The other five members of the night crew hustled before stainless countertops preparing dough and icing finished items.
Freddie stopped the rack in front of a tall double-decker oven. Everybody sweated in the kitchen area. Hairnets and bandannas, standard equipment, kept sweat and hair out of eyes but nothing stopped the down-the-neck-to-the-back trickles and shirt-collar wetness that made the cool air of morning a relief. The wetness of his hands, under the plastic gloves, made the plastic cling. Freddie ripped off the gloves, dried his hands on the apron he wore, and grabbed a set of thick mit
ts. He opened the lower half of the oven and removed a tray full of fresh pastries, and set the tray on free counter space. The noise in the kitchen kept his thoughts at bay. Voices jumbled, water hissed, laughter followed a now-and-then joke. With tongs Freddie picked up the pastries and deposited them on the rack. After removing the other three trays in the lower half, he opened the top section. The exiting oven heat brushed his skin like a hot breeze. Again, thoughts drifted to Sheila and a possible second job and--
Part of his left wrist not covered by his mitt touched the edge of the rack. Skin seared. Freddie screamed. The pan of pastries, already halfway out, crashed at his feet and spilled across the rubber floormat. Part of the hot pan struck his ankle and he felt another sharp burn through his jeans.
Freddie shed his mitts as his buddy Chad raced to a deep sink and turned on the cold water. Freddie put his wrist under the spray. A third co-worker, Barbara, rushed over with a first aid kit.
Freddie closed his eyes while Barbara wrapped his wrist. He let off a string of curses.
The burn stung under the bandage. Freddie cursed every few minutes as he steered the old Ford Escort home. The car, with its whining engine and jolting ride, always seemed on the verge of disintegration. He gripped the wheel with calloused fingers and rough, hairy hands.
He pulled into the apartment complex and parked in an open space. As he pulled his too-tall body out of the too-small car, a black cat, the upstairs neighbor’s ragdoll, who liked to sit on the Websters’ deck rail, darted between the two neighboring cars. A woman in a sweat suit jogged by. The day had begun for most; for him, it had come to an end. The morning chill felt good after the sweat box of the bakery, but his sticky skin and matted hair begged for a shower.
He left the parking lot and crossed the grounds to his building. All the buildings in the complex shared the same storm gray color. Only numbers up to five posted here and there distinguished them.
Freddie yawned and stretched, the veiny muscles on his toned arms flaring before he relaxed. He hustled up a flight of concrete steps to the second floor of building three. Through a door, down a quiet hallway with brown carpeting; finally, he reached 305 and put a key in the lock.