by Thomas Laird
That attitude of the younger Parisi was what Tony feared the most. He’d keep coming after Ben Rossi until Benny Bats fucked up and got himself entangled in the snare Parisi would set for him. It was just a matter of time because this Homicide dick was a fucking bulldog. He just kept coming. There were several members of Tony C’s crew who were doing stretches because of this stubborn young prick. And you really didn’t want the heat that came with knocking off a detective in Chicago. All the cash in the world wouldn’t make that nightmare go away.
No, Calabrese would have to get Rossi out of the way before Parisi did. So far there was nothing that connected his Cicero capo to David Johansen, but there was the talk that his brother was the guy who lit up Cabretta and Fortunato. They’d been two tough soldiers, so this ex-Green Beret was probably still out in the bushes waiting for a shot at Benny Bats. But he was taking his fucking sweet time about it, and time was something the Boss of Bosses didn’t have left in any large dosage.
*
The two young girls couldn’t be older than thirteen or fourteen, but they behaved as if they were well beyond their actual ages. They were still in the budding stage, and that was the way Calabrese enjoyed it. He had them in his den. It was sound-proofed and locked so that his wife couldn’t accidentally stumble in, but she was out like a light after all her high blood pressure pills and the double shot of tequila she liked to wash down the meds with. She tried to hide the bottles from him, but he could smell the shit as he walked past their bedroom. They’d slept in separate bedrooms ever since he’d gone soft below his waist.
The two pre-teens were done, and so was Tony C. They’d both taken turns on him after they’d sufficiently got him worked up. Then he paid them and called a cab, and after the taxi took them away, he poured himself a double shot of gin. He threw in a faint dose of vermouth, and Calabrese deemed the concoction a martini, very dry.
When he drained the glass, hot tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Motherfucker,” he wept.
He choked on the one obscenity. Then he repeated it, collapsed into his massive swivel, leather office chair, dropped his face to the blotter on the table top, and cried like a child who’d been denied his heart’s Christmas desire.
*
Harold Gibron was a writer. He had the greatest of aspirations to write the Great American Novel, but he was more at ease writing short fiction. Several of his stories had been published in academic quarterlies, including the famous one at his alma mater, Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois. The magazine’s name was Triquarterly. It amazed Doc that he had overcome the good ole boy fraternity attitude of the editors for the periodical because Doc was a cop who also had a master’s and a doctorate at the prestigious college but he never really seemed to have the right pedigree to get published in the world of academia.
But published he had been, and then he landed a few other credits. Gibron had dreams of working at NU, but he was always drawn back to the CPD. He thought of himself as a Twain-like writer who downplayed that “literary bosh” that Clemens had vilified in his life. The famous author from Missouri had been famous for wishing that he had taken up the life of a riverboat captain on the Mississippi.
For Gibron the literary life somehow never worked out. He was compelled to sift through a caseload of unsolved murders in order to satisfy a need to bring some sort of rectitude to his life. He was crazy enough to believe that justice was required for those who’d met their demise unnaturally.
Still, it was a pretty thought to indulge himself in:
Harold Gibron, author.
*
The February Presidents’ days were history and the freezer was still running in Chicago. There were three dead Outfit savages on a slab in the morgue, and there was no solution in sight for any of the trio.
Jimmy sat alone in his office while Doc tried to coax his prostate into submission by taking a piss in the head down the hall. Gibron returned after twenty minutes.
“Everything all right?” Parisi smiled when Doc came into Jimmy’s cubicle.
“Swell. I did a liter or two.”
“Maybe you should see a urologist.”
“Maybe my goddam bladder ought to cooperate.”
“It maybe isn’t the bladder.”
“Please, James. No tales of terror. Fortunately, I’m still capable of lighting up some female’s life.”
“Really?”
“I still have illusions. Let me be.”
Parisi laughed and then peered out his window. There was nothing to see because the sun had descended two hours previous.
“Nobody in the Outfit will talk to me because there’s going to be a war. They’re all afraid that Calabrese is going to hit Rossi, and no one knows where Bonadura and Carbone are going to align themselves. If I were a betting man, I’d say the two capos will back Tony Calabrese’s play. What do you think, Doc?”
“I think I have to take another piss.”
Gibron left for round two in the john, but this time he came back in only ten minutes.
“Better, this time?” Jimmy smiled.
“Your time will come, youngster.”
“What do I need that thing for, anyway?”
“You’ll find someone worthy of your attentions…No word from the Indian princess?”
“You better not let her hear you doing your politically incorrect shit, Doctor.”
“I’m trying to do no harm…why isn’t this brother surfacing? What happened to the Green Beret?”
“Maybe Fortunato stuck him or shot him. Who knows?”
“Where’s his brother’s wife and daughters?”
“You think he escorted them out of harm’s way? It’s the romantic in you, Harold.”
“I don’t think the guy leaves them around for Rossi to deal with.”
“We tried the real estate guy who sold the house in Cicero for them. The forwarding address was bogus. Whoever bought something new for them to live in must have used another wrong name. If it’s Mark Johansen, he’s covering his tracks the way you’d expect. Rossi wants his vitals on a bed of lettuce.”
“Someone’s gotta know where they’ve gone. We need to keep on making inquiries. Someone’s got to have sighted that woman and her kids. They have to be in school, unless she’s hiding them. I can’t believe she’d do that to two little kids.”
“She might be using a phony ID, too. She sure doesn’t want to be found…You really think he’s with them? Doc, he hasn’t shown any social tendencies in his life to date. He’s always played the lone lobo. He can’t make attachments.”
“Shit happens, the philosopher insists. Everybody gets tangled up, eventually.”
“Let’s go eat,” Parisi concluded.
*
Dani Hawke sat in a booth about midway from the entrance at Sal’s Pizza on 87th and Kedzie. It was Parisi’s idea to try something besides sliders at the Castle.
“Oh, my,” Doc laughed as they saw her and her new partner Jerry Jones sitting in the booth as the two detectives passed them.
Dani smiled at Parisi and raised her right hand in greeting, but she didn’t say anything and Jimmy and Doc found a booth farther back.
When they sat down, a waitress laid two menus on the red and white checkerboard table covering.
The waitress was dainty but top heavy. Gibron smiled widely at her. She had platinum blonde hair and a big grin to go along with her natural charms.
“Two Old Styles,” Doc told her.
She showed her ivories and took off for the bar at the front.
“You could’ve said hello, dummy,” Gibron offered.
“She has company.”
“Yeah, her partner, Jerry Jones. That guy’s been divorced three times, and he pays so much alimony that she’s probably paying the tab, Jimmy.”
“We’re history, Doc. End of story.”
“Then adapt. The waitress has a thing for you.”
“Yeah. They do work on tips.”
“I’ll bet you t
he price of pizza and beer that she’ll give you her number. No balls if you don’t ask.”
“This is a working dinner…how’re we going to find Johansen?”
“One of them’s dead.”
The waitress returned with the pitcher.
“We want a large sausage with extra cheese,” Gibron told her.
She was tiny, maybe only five feet two.
“And my man here is too shy to ask you for your number,” Doc told her.
“Jesus Christ…I’m sorry,” Parisi apologized.
She took out her ballpoint and wrote seven digits on Jimmy’s paper napkin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She ignored him all week in the bedroom. It wasn’t like Carmen to be indifferent to him. They had fights, but they were quickly forgotten. She really was acting strangely. It wasn’t a matter of hot or cold. There was always a chill in the bedroom, lately.
He went outside and told Paulie Columbo to get the car ready. Ben didn’t go anywhere unattended. After Bertelli caught it, he was escorted whenever he left the house. There were always a half dozen soldiers surrounding the house regardless of what the weather was like. They worked four hour shifts around the clock.
And Ben had his heavier weapons scattered throughout his home, each of them in reaching distance no matter where he was inside.
Carmen didn’t seem to notice or care that they were under siege. She came and went as she pleased, and she wouldn’t let her husband send bodyguards with her to the grocery store or the tanning salon or the hairdresser’s. They got into a big fight about it, but Carmen won.
“I’m a civilian. Calabrese and the rest of them wouldn’t dare.”
And that was the end of the argument. She did as she damned well pleased.
Benny Bats rode with Paulie Columbo and Terry Marcotti and Jimmy Petrelli. Rossi rode in the back with Petrelli. They each had shotguns, except for Marcotti who sported an M-16.
They were headed for The Green Door, and when they turned onto the boulevard where it was located, Paulie spotted a pickup truck tailing them. Columbo kept staring into his sideview mirror.
“What?” Ben demanded.
“A guy in a blue Ford pickup. He’s been with us for three blocks.”
There was fresh snow on the ground, and Paulie couldn’t accelerate the Lincoln Town Car without fishtailing out of control. He goosed it a little, and they slid sideways for about thirty feet. So he laid off the gas pedal, and he got the limo under control.
“Is this guy still back there?” Rossi wanted to know.
“Yeah, but there’s another guy sitting shotgun.”
“Keep going.”
The other two associates remained silent.
Then they hit a red light on Dover Street.
The pickup lay back about thirty yards in the left lane. There were three cars ahead of them.
It wasn’t a long drive to The Green Door, but it felt very much elongated from the usual trips to the capo’s hangout. After another fifteen minutes of crawl-like driving, they were coming to the corner where the Door was located.
The pickup roared as the driver hit hard on the accelerator, and as Paulie pulled to the curb, the pickup screeched its tires as it tried to slow down in the slush. But the driver came up next to them, and the business end of an M-60 was aimed at the Lincoln.
The first burst tore out the windshield, and then Petrelli booted out the back window and cut loose with a spray of slugs from the M-16. The fusillade exploded the back window of the pickup, and the second volley from Petrelli caught the shotgun side occupant in the melon. The splatter covered the driver’s face.
The four in the Lincoln clambered out of the Town Car and ran for cover behind their ride at the curb. The street was deserted, so there were no pain in the ass bystanders.
Apparently the Ford wheelman had been blinded by the gore that used to be his partner’s face, and Rossi took the opportunity to rush the pickup and started blasted with his own shotgun, a twelve gauge. There were shards flying everywhere, but there suddenly wasn’t much left of the truck driver.
Silence ensued, and the whole battle took less than two minutes.
Another pickup rushed toward the gutted Ford. They crashed into the back end of the other vehicle, and three new gunmen emerged. Rossi’s crew ran around to the front of the Lincoln and hid in front of the grill. The new arrivals had some kind of automatic rifle because they made a mess of the Town Car from their position at its ass end.
Rossi stood up and began pumping shots at them as fast as he could squeeze them off and then reload. Petrelli emerged with the M-16 and peppered the two shooters with a fully automatic spray that caught one of the trigger men in the throat. A geyser sprang from his neck, and he clutched it and suddenly went down. His partner dropped his Thompson, relic that it was, and he dropped to his knees.
Ben Rossi strode toward the begging, kneeling adversary, and Benny Bats exploded a round into the guy’s groin. There was a scream, and then he flopped onto his side.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rossi told his men, and they piled back into the Town Car. Luckily all the damage had been done to the trunk and the back window, and they were able to get the Lincoln headed awayfrom where the inhabitants knew that it wasn’t wise to run out and see what the fuck was going on in the street. They all knew what gunfire sounded like.
*
They managed to get the Lincoln to a chop shop on the north side of Chicago, by the lake. These people worked for Ben, and he told them to strip the Lincoln into parts and scattered the pieces all over Cook County.
The Humvee was parked where it usually was. It was a real military vehicle with armor on all sides and bulletproof glass in all the windows. It had been custom made for Rossi a few years back by the owner of the chop shop which doubled as a garage during working hours. The Humvee came equipped with two Uzi submachine guns and four M-16s. There was enough ammo inside it to wage war for a week.
“Where’re we going, Boss?” Petrelli asked.
“You know exactly where the fuck we’re headed.”
“He’s gonna be heavily guarded.”
“No shit. You think?”
There was no arguing with his capo.
They were on their way to Lake Forest.
*
There was a car parked in front of Calabrese’s six foot wrought iron fence. Ben didn’t wait. He ordered the four of them to engage. As they emerged out of the Humvee, popping noises came in clusters, and the two guards who were huddling behind the Caddie that was parked as an obstacle at the entrance decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and they ran for the woods behind Tony C’s estate.
The poor bastard on the left never made it because a burst from Petrelli cut him in half, and down he went. His partner was luckier because he finally disappeared into the tall oaks.
Ben shot the padlock off the entrance fence, and the four men headed right for the front entry of Calabrese’s mansion.
Three new additions appeared at the door, and they fired without waiting for an invitation, and Petrelli spun around and went flying onto his back. Even in the dark you could see the yawning holes on the front of his leather coat.
Rossi and the remaining pair of associates fell to the ground and returned fire.
But in another few minutes, they could hear the sirens. It was time for a tactical retreat, and Ben Rossi knew they couldn’t proceed and gut the old man who lived inside. They ran back toward the gate and the Humvee, and there a few sporadic shots flying over their heads, but the remaining gunman at Calabrese’s door was a poor shot, and no one got tapped on his backside.
They scurried past the opened entryway, got into the combat vehicle, and pulled away from the Lake Forest address of Anthony Calabrese, Boss of Bosses.
They had to leave Petrelli behind, but Ben knew the old man would have all the bodies disposed of before the cops finally made their way through the quagmire of gray slush on the roads. There had t
o be more guys on the inside, back there, he understood, and Calabrese wouldn’t be thrilled to explain why his home was a battle ground again. The cops might have arrived in time to find all the carnage, though. Benny Bats would have to wait and see.
*
The story made the headlines in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times and the Daily News.
The Boss of Bosses’ bodyguards or soldiers or whatever they were were not able to grab the bodies and hide them before the gendarmes arrived. There was going to be a holy stink about a new gang war, and Calabrese resorted to hiding behind his legal mouthpieces when he was asked to come to the Lake Forest Police Department and explain just what the hell brought all that on.
But it appeared that his bodyguards were licensed to carry firearms, and it became clear that Calabrese’s men had not instigated the exchange of fire. The cops made it clear that it was an ongoing investigation. Two men were dead, and one of them was a known associate of Ben Rossi, alias Benny Bats, Outfit capo.
*
Jimmy and Doc were apprised of the situation by the Lake Forest PD, so it was time to intrude at the extravaganza in the ritzy ‘burb by Lake Michigan.
The new set of security men allowed Parisi and Gibron to enter after they checked with the Boss. Calabrese knew they might come back with a warrant, and Tony C hadn’t slept at all last night, and he was bone weary.
“Let the fucks in,” he told the security man on the intercom.
Jimmy and Doc drove to the circular driveway in front of the elegant dwelling.
They got out of the Crown Vic, and the door was already opened. A security employee directed the two to the den, and then he closed the door behind them.
“I’m seeing way too much of you two. “
“Yeah, Anthony. Too much of a good thing,” Gibron smirked.
“You two are out of your ‘hood one more time. It’s getting old. Do I need to get legal on your asses?”
“We’re here at the cooperation of the Lake Forest PD,” Jimmy smiled.
“Christ knows they need all the help they can get…You might as well plant your asses.”
“We’re not going to be here that long. Relax.”