by M. M. Cox
* * * *
The night is extremely hot and sticky as I wait at the bus stop, drenched in sweat, my palms soaked. I am dressed in dark jeans and a black hoodie, both throwbacks to my Ridley days, which means neither item of clothing could have cost more than ten dollars. But I am now wishing I had chosen something less cozy. The hoodie is suffocating me. Ten minutes pass, and I begin to feel a little nervous. Did Reggie forget, or worse, has he blown me off? I have already put so much work into tonight’s plan—I put Baxter in my room early (to ward off any suspicion from Julia), and I told Ronnie that I was going to bed early because of a stomachache. That should keep everyone away for a while. After stashing some money in my pocket, I jogged down to the corner gas station, where I used the pay phone to call a taxi to take me to the nearest bus station, which was over by the high school. The taxi driver was not thrilled with the short ride and cheap fare, but I tipped him enough to lessen his disappointment. From there, I rode the bus to Old Newcastle, along with a strange assortment of people typical of the late hour. After so much effort to get here, I can’t walk away from my plan now. But without a car, I can’t do anything. Where is Reggie?
The beetle finally pulls to the curb at nine-thirty, fifteen minutes late. But my “where were you?” is cut off by the look on Reggie’s face.
“Hey, man, sorry I’m late. One of the Newcastle cops thought I was up to no good. Took me a little while to get him off my back.”
I nod, briefly imagining how a Newcastle cop might see Reggie. My friend’s dark complexion sometimes makes people respond unfairly to him. “Don’t worry about it,” I offer as I climb into the passenger seat. “But we’ve got to get rolling. The meeting I heard about is supposed to be taking place now.”
I can sense that Reggie wants to ask questions, but instead he listens quietly as I give him directions to the diner. I bring us around the back of the building and have Reggie kill his headlights. I hope we can arrive undiscovered, but I’m not yet familiar with the area, so we are taking a chance no matter how careful we are. Despite the danger, I can’t help but be excited.
As we pull next to a dumpster sitting up against the building that’s adjacent to the diner, I try not to feel disappointed by the lack of activity in the parking lot. The buildings appear deserted, and not a single vehicle sits in the lot. I hate to have my plans come to nothing, especially because I brought Reggie all the way out here to help me. Reggie is scanning the area. “What are we looking for?” he asks, sounding puzzled. I shake my head, feeling frustration build inside me. “I’m not sure exactly.”
“You’re not sure?” Reggie asks with an edge of irritation in his voice.
“No, not positive. But something should be going on in that parking lot,” I say and point at the diner, as though Reggie has not already figured out that this is the object of our surveillance.
“Great!” Reggie’s sarcasm is unmistakable. “I drive all the way out here for you, and all you can do is—”
“Shut up, Reggie,” I interrupt. “There’s someone there.”
Sure enough, two men have come around the side of the diner. Reggie and I fall silent and shrink down into our seats. The beetle is well hidden by the dumpster, and I know the men probably won’t see it—but I’m nervous anyway. I have no idea how these guys will react if they realize they are being watched, but I have a suspicion that they will not be happy. Reggie and I must be invisible for our own safety.
The two men seem to be arguing, and I wonder whether this might end in violence, just like my unplanned ride in the Lexus two nights before. The argument carries on for several minutes before both men disappear once more around the side of the building. I put my hand on the car door handle and start to open the door as quietly as possible.
“What’s going on, Danny?” Reggie demands in a harsh whisper.
I pause. I know that Reggie has a right to know what he is getting into. He has followed me blindly until now, and that shows a great deal of trust.
“I think my godfather, Gino, is in the Mafia,” I reply.
Reggie rolls his eyes. “Duh! I think I figured that one out by now. How do you know?
What’s happened?”
“Well, I don’t know anything for sure. But I did hear Gino talking about someone trying to kill somebody, and then I saw him and another man beat up the would-be killer and put a gun in his face. And Gino talked about using some person in power—someone named Capriotti.”
Reggie’s eyes narrow. “Capriotti? I wonder if he meant the district attorney.”
I am surprised by Reggie’s knowledge. “How do you know who the district attorney is?”
“’Cause I had a run-in with him just last year.”
My eyes widen. “You were in trouble?” I ask, but then I smile. “You’re messing with me.”
Reggie grins. “Yeah. Actually, I met him when I was on the debate team.” He pauses thoughtfully. “I don’t know quite how to describe him, but he’s not the kind of guy you feel like trusting. He’s very slick.”
“Well, that would make sense, especially if he’s working with the Mafia.”
Reggie grabs his own car door handle. “So, what’s the plan?”
I feel embarrassed. “I really thought any action would take place in the parking lot. But maybe everyone’s inside. I’m going to get out and try to look through a window or sneak in the door.”
“Let’s go,” Reggie says, and before I can consider the consequences of walking toward a building that might be full of violent, angry men, we are creeping across the dusty lot toward what might become an extremely dangerous situation.
Within minutes, I realize that the building doesn’t have windows. The only way we are going to be able to find out what is going on is to go inside the diner itself. I know I can’t take a chance of going in the front door, and I am at a disadvantage because I have no idea what the layout is inside the building. But the only other option is to turn around and go home, and I just can’t do that, not when I am already here. Reggie points to a door on the far right side of the diner, and I nod. It is the only other door we have seen other than the front door. But when I try the handle, it’s locked.
“Do you have anything we can use to pick it?” I ask.
“Hey, it’s not like I carry a lock picking kit around with me. Isn’t that racial profiling?”
Reggie jokes, but I’m not in the mood for humor. I roll my eyes, frustrated. I may have been able to pick the lock—Mom habitually locked us out of the house, and I was good at tricking the lock with her bobby pin, which usually made me feel sure that our house was vulnerable to the most inexperienced of burglars.
But without any tool to pick the lock, our investigation is at a standstill. After a few more minutes of trying to come up with a solution, we decide to walk back to the car to wait a little longer. Just as we start back, however, the door opens. I grab Reggie’s shirt and we smash ourselves up against the wall. A man emerges from the diner, props the door open with a nearby rock, and walks a small distance from the diner while unzipping his pants to take a pee in the lot next door.
I cannot believe how lucky this is. I know my idea is foolish, but this is our one chance to get inside the diner. I pick up a small stone next to my foot and toss it as far as I can in the opposite direction of the diner. The man flinches when he hears it land, and not knowing what it is, zips up his pants and starts toward the noise, away from the diner. Reggie and I take a few quick steps around the side of the diner and through the propped door. If it is dark outside, the blackness that greets us inside the door is worse. Reggie bumps into me as I stop, unsure of where to go or even what is on the floor in front of me. I know we must move quickly—the man outside will not be distracted for long. I put my hand out in front of me. Nothing is there. I shuffle a few steps forward, and my hand finally reaches the wall, but I don’t know which direction to turn. We hear footsteps on the gravel outside—the man is returning. I take a few steps backward and bump into Reg
gie.
“We’ve got to get out!” I whisper, panicked by the crunching steps behind us. I can barely see the way out.
“No, it’s too late,” Reggie answers. He grabs my arm and pushes me to the left. I muffle my own cry of pain as a wooden crate smashes into my shin, and Reggie almost topples over another crate as we hurry to get out of the man’s path. I think we will run into a wall very quickly, but instead, we manage to stumble through a narrow doorway and into a very small bathroom, as I find out when my hip bumps a sink. Reggie starts to close the door, but stops when it lets out a high-pitched squeak. We stand motionless in the bathroom, waiting for the man to enter and hoping that, somehow, he will not see us standing here.
Chapter 9
My eyes adjust to the darkness just as the man reenters the building. He flips the light switch and closes the door, and I know that Reggie and I are completely visible now, even though the bathroom is to the side of what I can see is a half-empty storage room. But the man must have had a little too much to drink, because he stumbles over the same crate that I struck with my shin only a few seconds before. The man swears and continues to the next door, which creaks with age as he opens it and exits the storage room, killing the lights behind him.
I stand still while my eyes readjust to the darkness. Reggie is moving around beside me.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, trying to decide whether we should attempt to follow the man through the next door.
“Look!” Reggie whispers, while climbing onto the toilet lid. I follow his pointing finger upward, where a small grated window is letting in a few pinpricks of light. I return to the storage room and feel around for the crate that injured me a few minutes before. I drag it to the toilet and stand next to Reggie, our heads practically touching as we peer through the tiny slits into the lighted room beyond.
I know immediately that I am lucky not to have followed the man through the other door, because it leads directly into a large room filled with men. Reggie takes a sharp breath, even as my own body tenses with fear at having only a wall between us and what probably is a room packed with Mafia wiseguys. They are counting money and are arranged in a loose circle around a large, imposing man with a bald head and horn-rimmed glasses, seated at the center of the activity. The room is smoky, and I’m having trouble getting a good view from between the slats.
I scan the room for Gino, hoping that maybe I’m wrong and Gino isn’t associated with these men.
Reggie elbows me. “Which one is Gino?” he asks so softly that I can barely hear him. I shake my head. “I can’t find him.”
“So should we stay put or get out of here?”
I can hear the anxiousness in Reggie’s voice, but I’m reluctant to leave. I’ve been lucky to get this far without being discovered and am curious about what is going on in this diner. I have a pretty good idea that these men are not doing good things, but I don’t know that for sure. The only act of violence I’ve witnessed so far was from Frank the other night. I stay rooted to my crate, and Reggie waits silently beside me.
I struggle to pick out any specific words from the various conversations flowing around the room. Reggie shifts uneasily, so I am just about to step off the crate and tell him we can go when the front door of the diner opens. Standing in the door frame are Frank and Gino, and between them they hold a thin, older Asian man, who appears terrified, yet defiant, as he is held captive.
The hefty bald man turns in his seat as Gino and Frank enter. The frown spanning his thick facial features deepens as he sees their hostage. The room falls silent; Reggie and I barely breathe.
“Ray, this is Chen,” Gino tells the bald man as he pulls the older man toward him. Ray sits quietly for several long moments staring at Chen, who glares boldly back.
“I am tired of your threats,” Chen says, a slight tremor in his voice. “I don’t want you involved in my business! I won’t pay your outrageous extortion, Mister Gallo!”
Gino shoves Chen down into a chair. “Shut up!”
I’m surprised by the name Chen just said. That name is all too familiar to me now. I study Ray Gallo closely, looking for any resemblance to Tommy Gallo. With Ray Gallo’s heavy features, I have trouble seeing much similarity, and yet, Ray and Tommy definitely possess the same cruel twist to their mouths.
“Who is this again?” Ray asks Gino in a deep, gravelly voice, motioning to Frank.
“Frank Moretti, a friend of mine, ” Gino says meaningfully. “He’s been working in the area for a while now. He’s got some connections that have been really helpful.”
Ray nods and turns his attention back to Chen. Chen continues to sit still, but as I watch him more closely, I notice a trickle of blood coming from Chen’s upper lip. I don’t want to think that Gino may have beaten this man or even allowed Frank to do it. I still can’t believe that Gino, the man who has been so kind to me in my hour of need, the man who rescued me from the clutches of Barb Kluwer, could treat others so brutally. Surely this man Chen must have done something awful, right? Hadn’t Iggy been about to kill someone else? Perhaps Gino simply keeps bad men from doing bad things. If so, Gino’s rough treatment of Iggy, and now Chen, would be justified.
Reggie tugs on my sleeve and points at Gino. I nod, knowing my friend is trying to identify my godfather.
Ray turns slowly to Gino, ignoring the rebellious glare of his captive. “Where’s Capriotti?” Ray asks. He points at a large man standing nearby. “Donny there said you told him nine-thirty.”
Yes, you did say nine-thirty, I think, giving myself credit for being right about that. I want to see if this Capriotti guy is actually the district attorney that Reggie had mentioned. Gino shakes his head. “Frank said Capriotti won’t be coming. Apparently Capriotti thinks it is too ‘compromising.’ His words, not mine. I think he’s just a chicken.”
Ray nods and again eyes Chen like cornered prey. “So you bring me this bony, washedup businessman instead? Why the hell would you expose me to this riffraff? You need the underboss to help you do your job or something?”
Gino scowls. “He hasn’t paid in three weeks. But he said he might bargain with you.”
Ray glares at Chen. “The bargain is this – if you don’t pay, we’ll let our virus wreak havoc on your computers.”
Chen smirks. “That’s the point. I’m not afraid of your weak, ineffective viruses. I only said I would bargain so I could tell this to your face!”
Ray’s eyes narrow, and he turns to Gino. “This fool is playing you. Is he really immune to the virus?”
“Yes, last week we breached his firewall but were unable to release the virus onto his system. He’s got someone at his company who knows this thing better than our guys. I don’t know how, but his system is stronger than our virus.”
“That so?” Ray asks, not particularly interested in a reply. He strokes his wide chin with thick fingers. “So Mister Chen believes he is invincible.”
Chen lifts his head proudly. “My system is very strong, perhaps indestructible! I do not need to pay your outrageous price to maintain my network. You cannot touch it!”
Ray doesn’t reply, but he nods to two men beside him. Gino and Frank take a step back as Donny and another man pick Chen up out of his chair and throw him to the floor. They proceed to kick him, then they lift him from the floor, and Donny holds Chen as the other man punches him twice. Chen is on the verge of passing out, his face bloody. He is still gasping from the violent kicks that were delivered to his stomach. Reggie glances at me helplessly, but we can’t do anything to stop the violence. Or can we? I can’t think of anything that would not put our lives in danger. I glance at Gino, willing my godfather to put an end to the undeserved beating. I think Gino looks uncomfortable, but he does nothing. However, Gino’s associate Frank seems even more upset, and he finally says, “Look, if you guys beat him to death, we’ll never get our money!”
Ray glares at Frank for questioning his authority, but he finally motions for his men to stop beating Che
n. “See, Mister Chen,” Ray says, chuckling at the man’s misfortune. “We may not be able to touch your network, but we can touch you. And we can get to your family too. You have kids, yes?”
Chen is conscious, but barely. Yet, his eyes widen at the mention of his family.
“Well,” Ray continues, “I would recommend that you pay your fees, or your children may get a taste of the fun you’re having this evening.”
Donny starts to again pummel Chen, and I don’t think the older man can stay conscious much longer. Why won’t they stop? How can they continue to beat this frail man without killing him? Frank moves forward as if to say something, but another guy holds him back. I look at Reggie again. We must do something. “Go to the car and get out of here,” I whisper.
“You want to leave now? While they’re distracted? What about that man?”
“No, I want you to go get in your car and get out of here now. Make as much noise as you can. Just don’t let them see you or your license plate.”
Reggie doesn’t budge. “By myself? No! What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stop that beating and then hide. So I need them to think that anyone who was here is getting away in your car. You’ll keep them from looking for me.”
“No way. It’s too dangerous for you to stay!”
“I have to, Reggie. The best way to protect both of us is for you to go and for me to hide. I can get home once they all leave.” I glance through the slats at the beating still taking place—was Chen even conscious now? “Otherwise, they may kill him.”
Reggie nods. “Okay.”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Now!” I say, almost too loudly.
Reggie scrambles off the crate, trying to make as little noise as possible. I know the men in the diner are distracted and have little chance of hearing Reggie’s movement. Reggie pauses before he leaves the bathroom. “Do you want me to call the police?”