The Vendetta

by Thomas Laird

  “The guy said he was pretty sure it was the ex-Greenie, Captain,” Parisi pled.

  “Okay. What have we got to lose at this point anyway?” the Captain told them.

  “We tried Oliver Wendell for a search warrant and a tap. He wasn’t having it,” Jimmy explained.

  “I wouldn’t have it, either. Ain’t no stupid in that man,” the Boss remarked. “All right, we give it a shot. But Nebraska is still a fur piece away. He won’t be arriving all that soon. And you two both know that he’ll ditch the ride that the cop got a look at, and that will further delay his arrival.”

  “But at least we know he’s on his way and it gives us time, too.”

  The weary boss looked at his underlings.

  “Make the arrangements. Put a ring around Rossi’s place. Any unusual traffic gets stopped. Shouldn’t be too difficult. He’ll be alone.”

  “He wouldn’t bring his brother’s family, no,” Doc concluded.

  “No, this is no Bonnie and Clyde thing. They’ll be out there in the West, somewhere.”

  “I think he’s coming back to stop Rossi from sending pros out after them. Rossi wants the wife and the kids dead, too. He thinks his son was worth all of them getting shot,” Jimmy added.

  “Jesus,” the Captain lamented. “What kind of a fucking business are we in? What kind of creatures are they, Rossi and his old lady?”

  The two detectives offered no reply.

  “Get it going. I’ll leave the details up to you two…But you know I was jesting when I suggested you let this lean, mean killing machine do his thing, of course. Right?”

  They remained mute again.

  “Don’t fuck with me, gentlemen. I know you will comply with my true intent. You will arrest this veteran of our lost war and we will help him get prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

  “Of course. There’s no other option, Captain,” Jimmy answered.

  “What he said,” Doc threw in.

  *

  There were eight cruisers, two men each, assigned to the surveillance. Parisi and Gibron were included in the mini task force. Four squads were always in the vicinity of the Cicero home of Benny Bats, and they took twelve hour shifts. Manpower wouldn’t allow for shorter tours, but the detectives and the uniforms understood that their target was on his way and that this assignment was certainly not indefinite. It wouldn’t be long until Mark Johansen made his appearance.

  At least that was the way it was supposed to turn out, Parisi and Gibron figured.

  The weather was cooperating, at least. It was early May and the chill of the previous days had departed and it felt like spring. The temperature was in the mid-sixties in daylight, and the bottom didn’t drop out drastically at sundown, maybe the mid-forties as a low reading. The cops were able to leave their car windows open until it approached midnight, and then they had to run the motor for a few hours and use their heaters.

  Doc brought his jazz tapes. He had a cassette player that ran on batteries, and the music occupied the long hours they were stuck in their Ford in the dark after the sun went out in the west. Gibron played his top picks: Ahmad Jamal, Cannonball Adderley, Thelonious Monk, Ramsay Lewis, and Dave Brubeck. He preferred the trios and the quartets, but he’d bring Ellington and the Count, too, once in a while on extended surveillances.

  They were allowed piss breaks every hour or so, but there were always three cars up and down the side street where Nick Rossi had been accidentally killed.

  “Seems like everybody forgets about that kid,” Doc said as they were listening to Thelonious Monk.

  “Benny Bats never forgot him. Or his killer wife with the equally killer body.”

  “She seemed quite the Mafia princess, and I think she took a shine to you, James.”

  “I’d be waiting for her to come at me with a knitting needle in the middle of the night, if I were Ben Rossi.”

  “More likely with a piece with a silencer, a suppressor, attached at the end,” Doc said.

  “What a wonderful family, Benny and Carmen. The Outfit’s version of The Brady Bunch.”

  “More like the fucking Adams Family without Uncle Fester and Thing.”

  “You’re a laugh riot, Doc.”

  “I got a million of these things.”

  It was 10:45 P.M. They would take a quick break and hit one of their meal time fast food haunts in about a quarter hour. It was time for Parisi to relieve his bladder, also.

  “The boy dies first. Then David Johansen. He gets tossed into the lake, suffocated first. Then the two goons for our favorite capo get shredded like carrots. We have ambushes in Lake Forest, of all fucking places, and attempted whacks on Ben Rossi at his favorite hangout, The Green Door. What am I leaving out?”

  Doc peered over at his partner and his best friend.

  “Just the denouement of all this happy horseshit, Jimmy. That’s all. Just the bloody bleeding end.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “There are cops up and down the goddam block,” he told Carmen.

  “Yeah? What’d you do now?”

  “It ain’t humorous, Carmen.”

  “They’ve been out there before.”

  “One of our guys said he counted three squads, and those are the ones he can see.”

  “Don’t get paranoid on me, husband of mine.”

  “Paranoid? That’s when you’re imagining shit, ain’t it?”

  “You’re in the life, Ben. There will be cops hanging around you.”

  “You don’t need to crack wise. Not right now,” he retorted.

  “There’s nothing you can do. They’re not on our property.”

  “One of the guys said he saw that Parisi cop out there in one of the cars, and his buddy Gibron, the big one was with him.”

  “And that means what?”

  “Are they outside because of you, maybe?”

  “They never called me back. It was only the one time with Parisi, like I told you. They’re just trying to get us all agitated. Relax.”

  He stood in front of the front window, peering out into the street. There were two of his men in the front and two in the back. Now that Bonadura was dead, it was just Rossi and Calabrese.

  “What if it’s that looney fucking ex-soldier they’re waiting on,” he posed to his wife.

  “Why now? The guy’s been gone for months.”

  She was reading TV Guide, not looking up at her husband. Carmen sat on the couch, her back to the window Ben was staring out as if he were waiting for that sniper to show up on the front porch.

  “The guy gave it up, Ben. You keep worrying and it’ll make you freaking looney.”

  “You seem awful calm. We’re in the middle of a war, and now we got a battalion of coppers out on the lawn, damn near, and you’re telling me to fucking relax.”

  “We could go upstairs and I could take your edge off, baby.”

  “It ain’t funny, Carmen.”

  “I wasn’t joking. Maybe if you redirected all that anxiety elsewhere you wouldn’t have a hardon for that killer who’s most likely running away from you just as fast as he can. I think he took off with Johansen’s wife and kids, and maybe he’s playing house with that Marilyn. Who knows?”

  “No, they’re out there because they’re waiting on something or someone.”

  She tossed the TV Guide face down on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Why don’t you take your little army and go down to The Green Door before you make me nuts, too.”

  “Yeah. I think I will. We’ll see if they tail me.”

  “It’s already a lock that they will. They’re not babysitting the neighbors, Ben. You’re the headline maker. If I were you, I’d be looking over my shoulder for that goddam old man from the ‘burbs. He’s the prick you should be worrying about. And nobody even knows for sure that it was Johansen’s brother who did Vince and Manny.”

  “I know it.”

  “Yeah?

  “How?”

  “Here.”

 
; He pointed to his stomach.“That’s where the truth usually is.”

  “Okay. So what’re you going to do? Stomp around here all day and night waiting for the booger man to show up at our door? Christ, Ben, do like I said. Go out for a while.”

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Good. Then you can take my edge off. I live here, too, husband of mine.”

  He opened the front door and walked out without looking at her.

  “Let’s go. Get the car,” he told Andy Romano.

  Phil Cordero was his partner at the front of the house. They were packing legally. They had to. The cops were still applying pressure, watching everything they did. They hadn’t checked firearms licenses lately, but Benny Bats didn’t need the hassle. He made sure everyone in his crew was legitimate when it came to bearing arms.

  Romano got the Caddie, and Phil sat in the back with the capo. Rossi was carrying a .45 auto in his waistband, and it was legal, as well.

  They drove to The Green Door, and there was a caravan of Chicago’s finest behind them, but Ben never caught sight of Parisi and Gibron in any of the copper rides. He figured those two dicks must have been off shift.

  When they got inside, Romano and Cordero waited at the door after they grabbed the pump shotguns from behind the door. The back entry was padlocked, illegally, according to the fire department, but no one seemed to call them to task on that fire code infraction.

  They brought him his tiny cup of espresso, and Ben Rossi occupied his usual back table. He was seated with the wall at his back and his eyes at the front where his two guys held the luparas, the shotguns.

  Then he began to worry about Carmen. He’d only left the two guys in the backyard to guard his wife. She was technically a civilian, but these days it seemed as if all bets were off, regarding the customary rules in The Outfit.

  Times were changing for the worse, Rossi thought. It wasn’t the forties or fifties when there were still boundaries about what you could get away with.

  It was either Calabrese or Johansen’s brother. Had to be. They were waiting on a move directed at his place in Cicero. They must have heard something. But they weren’t sharing it with the capo. They probably figured on sweating him, hoping that he’d make a mistake, lash out the way they knew he would eventually when someone put him up against the wall. This Parisi figured he was predictable. Carmen thought that way and Calabrese probably did, too.

  Fuck them and their ‘predictable.’

  He’d sit here and have a few espressos, and maybe later he’d go over to Maureen’s. He hadn’t plumbed her depths in quite a while, and he’d have to keep the bitch happy or she’d go rabbit on him. She’d take off for a better offer. All women had some kind of line of demarcation. Cross that line, and they’d take off on you. Ben didn’t trust anyone, really. Everyone in his trade was up to business, and loyalty was old fashioned. Dead. Ancient. No one gave a shit about their word, anymore. It was history, back to the Roman legions and the Greeks, three thousand years ago.

  You had to be what they called pragmatic, practical. You did what you needed to do.

  The front door burst open, and Andy and Phil leveled the shotguns in the direction of two punks who were trying to make their bones in the crew. They were new guys. Punks. Trying to make a big impression on the capo. He couldn’t remember either of their names.

  “You trying to knock that fucking door down?” he yelled at the two. “You coulda got yourselves blown in half, assholes!”

  They began to apologize profusely.

  “Go the fuck somewhere else and leave me in peace.”

  The two young men departed as commanded. There was no argument. The shotguns might have had something to do with it.

  “Whattayougonnado?” Romano laughed.

  Rossi ignored him, also. Andy and his partner turned away and kept the watch on the front door. Ben motioned for the old bald bartender to bring him another espresso. The sixty-something barman hopped to it and brought another miniature cup and saucer over with what looked like molten tar inside the cup.

  Ben couldn’t help thinking about his son. He was hurting over Nick more painfully than ever. Carmen suggested a shrink, but he shrugged her off after he started talking about how much he missed the kid the other night.

  He was still waiting for an apparition to inhabit the house, but the ghost never materialized. The place seemed empty, even though his relationship with his wife seemed more solid than it had only just a little while before. She still craved hot sex with him, and it was all good, but there was always something missing in their home. He knew what it was. There was no family without Nick. A husband and a wife were not enough. It was as if he’d been sterilized when he lost his boy out in that street.

  What brought all this on? Was it the host of policemen hanging around his street? Was he afraid of Calabrese or that army cocksucker who might be returning for some kind of final goddam act in which Ben was the prime player in that final scene?

  He could handle action, but all this inaction was killing him. The cops had put the screws to everyone’s business. Money wasn’t coming in. People were flying out to Vegas just to gamble or get laid out in one of those chicken ranches on the periphery of the desert town. Nothing was going on in the city or the ‘burbs and nothing would until there was some kind of closure on this gang war with Calabrese.

  There’d be no more peace talks or reconciliation. Calabrese went down or Benny Bats did. Nothing else would suffice. To the death. Just like gladiators in the old days. It was all that was left of the past. Everything else was pragmatic, practical shit. It was the way business was done, now. You couldn’t trust any goddam body.

  He removed the .45 from his waistband and placed it next to his cup and saucer.

  This was what you could put your faith in, anymore. He couldn’t trust his wife. More and more he believed it was she who topped Bertelli, and Ben thought she killed him because they were doing each other, just like the rumors. Carmen wanted Ben to take over, sure, but she wanted to be the heir apparent, some goddam Mafia royalty. She saw herself as the first female Boss of Bosses in the city’s history. She had what they called ‘delusions of grandeur’ or some shit.

  This hot, passionate sex lately had to come from somewhere. She was setting him up for something, and it had to be about a takeover. You didn’t get all this sudden lavish attention without a price tag.

  How long had they been together? He couldn’t remember which anniversary was coming up. That was her thing, knowing the exact number. Then she could bitch at him when there was no gift, no fancy dinner somewhere in the Loop at prime buck.

  Carmen saw herself without Ben. She saw herself getting a better deal when she was the master, the mistress, of Benny Bats’ crew and house. It wasn’t unreasonable to be wary of her. You always had to think like the assholes around you thought. Wasn’t that the lesson in that gangster movie, the one with Brando and all those Hollywood faggots? You put yourself in everyone else’s skull, and that way you never got caught off guard.

  Go to a fucking shrink! Anybody in the crew heard her suggestion and they’d all be coming at Ben Rossi. If being nuts wasn’t the greatest sign of weakness and vulnerability, what was?

  This joint was his only fortress of solitude, like the guy with the red cape. But Ben Rossi was only flesh and blood, so he couldn’t rely on some cartoon super powers that made him invulnerable. Of course Superman had to fear kryptonite or some shit. Everybody had an Achilles heel. The old Greek warrior went down in flames, finally, too.

  It was Nick’s death that led him to this place, and he didn’t mean The Green Door. He was at a precipice, looking down into the void. There was nothing but darkness there. One more inch forward and he’d be at the bottom of that endless emptiness.

  He couldn’t feature ‘endless’ or ‘void’ in his head. It made his brain hurt, literally.

  Maybe it was all the goddam caffeine in the espresso. He wasn’t sure.

  The sniper from that
Vietnam War was headed his way. Or Calabrese was. Or maybe it really was Carmen, waiting for him to stumble just a little. Ben didn’t like the way she blew him off back at the house a little while ago. Wives were supposed to comfort their husbands, not stick a fork in their asses.

  Something happened to her at the booby hatch, that asylum or whatever the fuck it was. She came back too much in control, like a tautly wound mainspring. She had to explode sooner or later. Sure, she whacked Bertelli. She’d say it was because she was protecting her old man, but Ben knew better. Everybody’s true business was taking care of their own goddam selves.

  He got up from the table.

  “Let’s go,” he told Romano and Cordero.

  “Where to, Boss?” Andy asked.

  “Maureen’s.”

  *

  He came at her like he hadn’t been laid in months, years. She liked the rough house at first, but then she looked scared in the eyes.

  “Are you gonna hurt me, Ben?”

  “Hurt? The fuck you talking about? You like it down and dirty and hard, don’t you, Maureen?”

  She lay on the center of the bed and he had her legs hoisted up in a painful position.

  “You still want to have a kid?”

  He plunged down at her, and she was breathless and unable to respond.

  Rossi recoiled and hung above her, just barely still inside her.

  “Yeah, sure. What brought all this on?”

  He came down at her violently, more so than his last descent.

  “God, Ben! You’re gonna make me bleed! You’re going to tear me all up inside!”

  “Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what all of you cunts really want?”

  He put his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t respond. Then he went up and came down again and again and he muted her cries with that same palm over her lips.

  He finally came to the end, and he collapsed atop her. She whimpered piteously.

  “You’re all right. Shut up.”

  Bulbous tears streamed down her cheeks, but she silenced herself.

  “I didn’t hurt you that goddam bad…you still on those pills?”