The Vendetta

by Thomas Laird

  Mark didn’t attempt to shower, but he threw on clean clothes. His other ragged gear needed to be incinerated. It had Fortunato’s blood mingled with his own all over the shirt and pants. His jacket was smeared with gore, as well. All of it had to be burned. He told her to take it out back and light it up, before she fell asleep.

  He made it to his car and then he drove into Sawyer on the blacktop that led the way back to the woods and their cabin.

  *

  The ER doctor eyed Mark suspiciously.

  “You fell off a roof,” he smiled.

  “Yes. I was repairing it, and I fell about twenty-five feet. Fell right onto my daughter’s bicycle. Tore me all up.”

  “If this man had shot you, I’d have to report it.”

  Mark watched the physician’s face.

  “If my wife finds out I got into a fight at the tavern, I’ll be sleeping alone for two months.”

  “That roof must have had fists like anvils.”

  “Yeah, doc. He could hit pretty good.”

  “How’s he look?”

  “Not too good. He’ll be down for a while.”

  “I’m going to have to set that nose. It’s pointing away from your face like a hard-left turn.”

  “Do what you have to.”

  “You’ll want something to help with the pain.”

  “No. Let’s get it over with.”

  The ER man set his nose. Johansen never uttered a sound.

  “You have issues with pain? I mean, Christ, didn’t you feel that?”

  “I felt it.”

  There were reflexive tears in Johansen’s face.

  “You must be a very strong young man.”

  He began to treat the cuts and abrasions, but the antiseptic was pain-free, and he dabbed Mark’s face wherever the skin was broken.

  “The black eye will take some time to lose its color. I don’t know how you’ll explain that to her.”

  “I’ll think of something, don’t worry.”

  “I ought to keep you here for twenty-four hours for observation. That would be the prudent thing to do.”

  “I don’t want her to be alone with the kids, doc.”

  “You have children?”

  “Suddenly, I do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I inherited the kids. She had them in another marriage.”

  “I see.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d cut me loose as soon as possible.”

  “You’ll need to talk to billing. Paperwork.”

  “Am I good?”

  “Not really. You need at least a week’s rest before you do any roofing jobs again.”

  *

  When he returned to the cabin, the girls were awake and being readied to go to school. He insisted that he drive all four of them into Sawyer.

  So they piled into his car and drove on the blacktop that connected them to the small town by Lake Michigan.

  When the girls were inside the Catholic grade school, he drove her into town.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To the JP’s.”

  “Who?”

  “Justice of the peace.”

  *

  He used false identification, but it was the best that money could buy, and there were no problems with the documentation. Their married name was Swintek.

  “Good Polish name,” he told her.

  When they were out in the cold of the January day in southwestern Michigan, he kissed her as gently on the lips as he could handle. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders, and their frosted breaths rose above them.

  Then he took her to the local diner to celebrate their wedding breakfast. He was suddenly hungry even though he was almost too sore to chew the pancakes and eggs and bacon. His new bride had the veggie omelet.

  “I want to look thin and pretty for you,” she smiled as they ate in the booth by the window.

  “This isn’t a bad place for the real honeymoon,” he told her.

  “I don’t care where we are.”

  “I’ll have to finish it, Marilyn. I hope you know why, now.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it this second, do we?”

  “No, we don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t go for a while. You have to heal.”

  “I suppose. But if I wait too long, Rossi will find us. He’s figured out it’s me by now.”

  “You’re supposed to be dead, you told us.”

  “I am. But he knows I’m not. They’re about as good at finding people as intelligence is in the military. They’re like an army, or at least they used to be. Like the legions in Rome. Rossi’s a captain. They call them capos. The two I took out were soldiers. They just don’t do uniforms the way we did.”

  “How can you possibly get to him?”

  “I feel the same way about it as they do. You can kill anyone, Marilyn. From the President to my own brother. David sure as hell didn’t deserve it. He was no bigshot. Just a man who loved his wife and his two daughters.

  “But there’s always a way to find the target.”

  “There’s always a way for him to find us, too. You just said so.”

  “I’m better at it than Rossi is. Is this any way to show a little faith in your brand-new husband?”

  He tried to smile reassuringly at Marilyn, but his face hurt too badly, and he reached out for her hands, instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Hello, good lookin.’”

  Doc loomed in the doorway. He was back, and Dani was being hooked up with her new partner, Phil Carlson, whose office was on the floor beneath them.

  “How do you feel?” Parisi asked.

  “About as good as I’ll ever feel. I got my mind right, Luke.”

  “We’re in the middle of a budding war.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  Gibron took off his long overcoat and hung it on the hook on the back of Parisi’s door and then he sat opposite his partner.

  “You really ready to rock and roll, Doc?”

  “You gotta stop asking me that one. I spent months with a shrink, and he kept on asking me the same damn thing.”

  “Okay. Case closed.”

  “I’m fine, Jimmy. Maybe I had too long a vacation.”

  Parisi smiled at his oldest and best friend.“We’re the oddest couple I know,” he told the older detective.

  “Which one of us is Felix?”

  Parisi grinned sadly.

  “Your lady friend has a new partner. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t think it’s got much more mileage in it.”

  “What happened?” Gibron queried.

  “She’s young. Too young. Last time we were together she said something like that, in no uncertain terms. Started in on how we needed to explore relationships with people more age appropriate for both of us.”

  “Jesus. Did she ask if she could still be friends?”

  “No. She was gentler than that, but I received the message. Maybe it’s really for the best, Doc. I’m hitting middle age. Maybe I should begin a cougar hunt.”

  “You’re not going to wallow in self-pity, are you?”

  “You’d never let me get away with it.”

  “Damn right…back to cases.”

  “There’s really only the one that keeps barking at me, at us.”

  “Our friends from Cicero.”

  “Rossi and company. Naturally. There will be blood, looks like. They went after Calabrese. Someone took out Rossi’s gunsels.”

  “You think it was the MIA or KIA Green Beret brother, no?”

  “If I could locate him, he’d be a prime person of interest, yes.”

  “Pretty hard to come up with a guy who’s been listed as dead for about a decade. There’s no one else on the playing field for the two Outfit slugs that belonged to Benny Bats?”

  Parisi shook his head.“If you have a better theory, I’m listening, Doc.”

  “Who made the order on the Calabrese attempted
hit?”

  “I figure it was Rossi.”

  “Can’t tell the players without a scorecard, Jimmy. This is getting all very Machiavellian.”

  “Too academic for me, Doctor.”

  “The simplest answer is usually the right one.”

  “Tell me the simple answer.”

  “It’s a power play between the capo in Cicero and Calabrese. If I were to pick a knight from the chess board it would be Bertelli. I think he might be aligned with the Boss of Bosses in order to take Rossi out of the picture. Rossi takes too many chances. So I’d say the sword has two edges. I think you might be right about the Green Beret. Vengeance is always a solid motive for the extremely prejudicial killings of Cabretta and Fortunato. The Outfit would simply take them out quietly. They’ve been playing under the radar since the late ‘50s. They don’t like the limelight, lately. Too much light kills the vampires.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you’ve been gone, Doc.”

  “I’ve had plenty of free time.”

  “So let’s go with all that as a starting point. If we don’t make some arrests in a timely manner, there’s going to be a mess on these streets. All that positioning and plotting only goes so far, and then the hardware comes out and we’ve got even more bodies piling up.”

  Doc stared out at the grey-blue lake that lay outside Jimmy’s window to the world. It was late January, and the thaw didn’t even seem possible in the grip of the coldest, snowiest winter in almost a decade.

  “How’s your love life, old guy?” Parisi smiled.

  “About as shitty and in the sewer as yours. And my ex-wife has been calling me.”

  “She wants you back?”

  “She wants the three alimony checks I missed…How are Mike and Mary and your mother?”

  “I could fix you up with Eleanor.”

  “She’d shoot me before she’d let me in the door. Christ, she’s a little too close to family for me.”

  “You really ready to come back?”

  “You won’t believe this, Jimmy, but I was ready about a week into that rehab.”

  “Okay, then. We need to assert ourselves with our favorite hoods in Cicero and Berwyn and Lake Forest, all out of our jurisdiction, technically. But the Johansen murder was in our territory, so we have the cooperation of the suburban cops, at least.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I need some really cold air.”

  *

  They drove to Cicero, first. Doc drove with Parisi’s blessing. They rode by Rossi’s brick abode in Cicero first, and they observed new faces outside Rossi’s dwelling.

  They pulled up at the curb a half block down from Rossi’s address.

  “Did you bring any jazz tapes?” Jimmy asked.

  “Now it feels like old times,” Gibron chuckled.

  *

  The guy’s name was David Serpella. He had all the right credentials from one of Manny Fortunato’s military connections. The guy was special forces, just like Johansen’s brother, but he was part of an outfit called Delta Force. It went by other names, but Delta Force was the most popular appellation for a very ghostly crew of killers. They didn’t wear uniforms, Fortunato’s source explained to Ben Rossi one evening at The Green Door. They weren’t military in any way except for their lethal behavior in what were called ‘black ops.’ Secretive shit that took people out with no muss or fuss or fanfare or publicity.

  The source’s name was Cliff Regalio, and he was still on active duty, but Rossi reached out to him after Manny’s demise and they met up at The Green Door and Benny Bats liked everything he heard about this Serpella fellow.

  Rossi contacted Serpella a few nights later, and Benny Bats and he met at the Outfit capo’s favorite haunts.

  The ex-GI was about five-eleven and weighed in at middle-weight, Rossi guessed. Maybe 150-160 pounds. He appeared put together, but he wasn’t a weight-lifter type. Serpella was stringy-looking, but not muscle-bound. The type that these special forces crews recruited. They appeared almost average until you looked into their eyes, Regalio told the capo those few nights previous.

  “What is it that you’re looking for?” David Serpella asked Rossi as they sat across from each other at the table furthest from the entrance.

  Ben’s back was to the wall, in the rear of the establishment.

  “I’m looking for the guy who did my two best associates,” Ben Rossi replied.

  “There something extraordinary about him?”

  “Yeah. I think he was in the same line of work you’re in.”

  “Military?”

  “Green Beret.”

  “What’s the difficulty in locating him?” Serpella inquired.

  “The motherfucker’s dead.”

  Serpella grinned.

  “Not an unusual move for someone who’s doing very illegal deeds. So he’s out of bounds. Off the record books.”

  “His name was Mark Johansen. The brother of a guy who got waxed. The brother seems to think I had something to do with it, and he’s working his way right at me.”

  “And he took out your two men first.”

  “Like I said, he erroneously thinks I was the cause of his brother’s demise.”

  “I’m not a cop and I’m not wired, Mr. Rossi.”

  “I didn’t think you were. If I did you’d be dead already and in a body bag headed for the fuckin’ lake.”

  Rossi smiled. There was no facial expression on Serpella’s countenance other than mild interest.

  “I’m very expensive,” he told the capo.

  Their espressos were getting cold on the table between them.

  “You catch this prick and bring him to me and you can name that tune when it comes to how much.”

  “You want him alive?”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “It costs extra for a live body. I usually just eliminate them.”

  “Can you handle this task?”

  “If, as I say, the price is agreed upon.”

  Serpella’s eyes were cobalt grey, almost black. It should have frightened Rossi, but the captain from Cicero had his own dark, lifeless orbs. They were a match for each other.

  The ex-military operative named a number.

  “Agreed,” Benny Bats replied without hesitation.

  “You must really want this guy dead.”

  “It isn’t likely he’ll be easy to locate.”

  “I have connections, too, Mr. Rossi.”

  “Can they find dead men?”

  “Guys I know deal almost exclusively in corpses.”

  “Do you have a starting place?”

  “I’ll get back to you in forty-eight hours. The military knows where all its former players are roosting, if they’re still alive. It’ll be difficult, but it’ll cost you expenses. The Army is like any other big organization. Hands get greased up and down the line. Just like in Chicago and New York and any other place in the world. If you pay you get to play. But you’re going to have to be all in.”

  “He left Vince Cabretta on my fucking couch in my fucking living room with his eyes plucked out and with his dick and balls cleaved away. Yeah, I’m very serious about you finding him.”

  “You’re certain this Johansen’s the right bell to ring.”

  “I wouldn’t spend the cash if I didn’t think so.”

  Serpella stared at his cup of espresso.

  “Forty-eight hours.”

  “Where will we meet?” Rossi asked.

  “Not here. Not again. I’ll be in touch.”

  He rose, and then Ben Rossi got to his feet.

  They shook hands across the red and white table cloth on top of the table.

  Serpella walked quickly away and never turned back.

  *

  “Do we really need all these men around the house?” Carmen asked him.

  She was under the covers and waiting, and Ben was taking off his pants at bedside.

  “Only if we want to keep breathing. We got Calabrese and his messeng
er boy Bertelli on one front and this fucking phantom special forces asshole on the other. I feel like the fucking Germans at the end of the Second World War. An Eastern Front and a Western Front.”

  “Take it easy, Ben. You’re covered pretty well, around here.”

  “Yeah? You think I want to hole up here the rest of our lives and live like a goddam hermit?”

  “What’s the problem? Aren’t you getting enough right here at home? You miss that little bitch Maureen?”

  “You know about Maureen?”

  “I know everything about you, husband mine.”

  “Yeah? Then how come you don’t know that it’s over with her and me?”

  “Really?”

  “Really, Carmen.”

  “So who’s next in line?”

  “There is no next in line. When do I have the opportunity to go on a strange hunt? I’m either with you or I’m out doing business.”

  “I’ll know if you’re fucking someone else, Benny Bats.”

  “Maybe you’re the one doing someone strange.”

  Her eyes flickered in recognition, but her husband wasn’t looking at her face. He got in bed with her. He stared up at the ceiling as if he were enraged with her, but she moved closer and did her sleight of hand with him, and soon he had caved in to his desire and Carmen turned off the bedside lamp.

  *

  Serpella met Jackie Gloucester at a bar on Wolf Road, out in the sticks in a ‘burb called Mokena. It was run by Carlo Bonadura, and Gloucester was an associate of Carlo’s. But Gloucester didn’t report to the Outfit captain, and Serpella had done business with him before.

  Gloucester was an Irishman with a droopy right eye and a red nose that made him look like a poster boy caricature of a drunken Mick. But Gloucester was a teetotaler. He’d been on the wagon for a decade. His habits ran from under-aged girls to under-aged boys. Jackie had to pay his way out of a sex rap several times, but his information had always been sterling.

  They sat at a booth next to the jukebox that was never plugged in here at The Gold Tap.

  There were perhaps a half dozen denizens of this tap present. It was quiet to the point of solemn. The men had to talk in a hush.