The Box

by Robert Swetz

  “They’re not looking for me anymore,” Brian told him. “They’re hoping to find me in the future some time, then they’ll kill me.”

  “Okay Brian. Like I said, get someplace safe and hide. Let us handle this. And Brian, as much as I hate to say this, don’t call for a while. I’m going to be too busy.”

  Brian put the cellphone away. Get someplace safe? He knew that’s what he should do, but it certainly wasn’t what he was going to do. He was going to go to the one place he knew that wasn’t safe. He went back to his bedroom and closed up the attic hatch. He put the stepstool back against the wall where it belonged. Then he left the apartment and went outside. He listened. All that shooting and still no cop cars yet. But in the distance, he could faintly hear a siren. Was it coming here?

  He didn’t go far, just to the building next door. To the Scorpions building. The glass in the door was shattered and much of it was in small pieces all over the sidewalk. When he opened the door, he could see that the entire doorjamb at the opening and the metal edge of the door were nearly destroyed. As far as he could guess, Michael’s men had held the door open just a little bit while they hid behind it and took shots at the Scorpions.

  He could hear the sirens coming closer now, and there were more than one. As fast as he could, he went inside to look around. Nobody was moving. He ran over to Frank. It was the first time in his life that he had seen a dead person up close. It wasn’t the blood. It wasn’t the hole in Frank’s head. It was just…Frank’s body looked and felt all wrong. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t sure. He checked Big Paul and Bella too, then Tank. Dead. All of them. Dead looked strange to him. It felt strange too. He was going to have to figure out exactly how and why it felt so strange. He just didn’t have the time.

  The sirens were closer now. Much closer. He couldn’t stay. He ran out and back up to his apartment. A minute later, the first of the police cars arrived at the Scorpion’s building, then more arrived. Five minutes later, the street was clogged with them. Then he saw someone he recognized, that cop he had talked to that had his box. He saw the cop go into the Scorpion’s building too.

  From his window, he watched all the commotion out in the street…the people going in and out of the building next door. He watched everything happening below him for a long time. One by one, he saw four body bags being carried out. After that, slowly, the police cars started to depart. The policeman he had talked to left. Then a little while later, all the police cars were gone and the street was empty. Not even any cars driving by.

  He left the apartment and went past the Scorpion’s door for a look. That yellow plastic tape was up all over the door again. He glanced inside through the broken glass, but he couldn’t see anything. He kept going, all the way down to Giovanni’s Market. He went inside.

  “Hi kid,” Mr. Giovanni said. “Did you see what happened?”

  “Yeah,” Brian told him. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry much about the Scorpions for a while. A few more of them are dead, including Frank.”

  “Dead? Including their leader?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  Brian shrugged. “I heard a lot of shooting, then there were a lot of cop cars.”

  “Did you see what gang they were fighting?”

  “I didn’t see much of anything,” Brain told him, even though he had seen everything anyone possibly could.

  “Hey kid, I still owe you. How about some ice cream? Would that be good?”

  “Ice cream?” Brian smiled. “Yeah. It’s hot out. That would be great.”

  “Good. Maybe we’ll both have one. And we can hope that those damn Scorpions will at least be a little less trouble for a while. I just wish they were gone – completely!”

  Brian tried to consider the ones that were left. There had been about fifteen Scorpions to begin with, now there were eight, and four of them were girls. Compared to the Scorpions who had been killed, the four guys who were left were inconsequential. They hardly mattered. Maybe, the Scorpions would be gone for good, or at least, they’d be close to that.

  Maybe.

  Chapter 14

  Being tied to the chairs and unable to move was torture. Knowing they were sitting there waiting to die was worse torture. Not knowing what had happened to their son made everything doubly so. One of Michael’s men sat in a chair on the far side of the basement staring into his cellphone. He rarely even looked up at them. Not that they cared or could do anything about it. Hour after hour they had been forced to sit there. They didn’t bother talking, not because they were worried about the man hearing, there was just nothing for either of them to say.

  A faint noise caught their ears, and they noticed the man turning his head toward the stairs. They saw him get up and pull his gun as he looked toward where the sound had come from. Had someone come to rescue them? But they saw him put his gun away just before Michael came into view down the steps. But this time, Michael wasn’t with his usual two friends, he had three other men and a woman with him instead. It was a moment before they could see the woman clearly. She looked familiar to Vince, but Francesca recognized her immediately.

  “You!” Francesca said angrily.

  “Where’s Brian?” Vince demanded.

  But nobody answered his question, and the woman did nothing but glance at Francesca and smirk. They watched as she opened her bag and pulled out a hypodermic needle. Even though they knew they were going to die, the fear both Vincent and Francesca felt turned to panic. Before Vince knew it, the woman had plunged the needle into the side of his neck and was squeezing the drug into his system. Despite himself, Vincent cried out at the pain from the needle. In seconds he felt himself growing woozy. He looked over at his wife. “I love you Fran,” he said. The last words he heard was her saying she loved him too. As his head lolled down and consciousness left him, Iris plunged the same needle into the side of Francesca’s neck and squeezed out the rest of the contents. In moments, she too was unconscious.

  “Get them out of here,” Michael told the men. “Make sure they’re in the back seat and not the trunk. I’ll see you at the airport.” He turned to his half-sister. “Which way are you going?”

  “Back to the house,” she told him. “I have no interest in watching someone’s little toy airplane blow up.”

  Half an hour later, three cars pulled up next to Vincent’s jet. The pilot saw them coming and hurried out of the jet. Michael left one of the cars and hurried to meet him. “Someone drugged Vincent and his wife a little while ago,” he told the pilot urgently. “We’re sure they’ll be alright, but we’ve got to get them out of here immediately. Is the jet fueled?”

  “Yes,” the pilot told him. “Just like you passed on from Mr. Bianchi. We’re ready to go.”

  “Good. My men will get them on the plane. Just get them out of here and home as fast as you can.”

  “That’s my job,” the pilot told them.

  “Good. I’ll call Vince tonight when he’s able to talk again.”

  The pilot noticed the men carrying his boss out of the car. He was totally unconscious. “Oh my God,” the pilot said.

  “Yeah. The drug just knocked him out. His wife too.”

  “How about their son?”

  “We don’t know where he is. We’ll find him and take care of him. Just get them home.”

  The pilot went back into the plane to supervise getting his boss and his wife strapped into the seats. He didn’t see the five cars driving across the pavement far faster than they should have. With his boss strapped into his usual seat, the two men who had carried him left the tight confines of the small jet and the other two came in and put his wife into the seat right across from him. They had just finished strapping her to the seat when the loud sound of screeching tires caught their attention, but before the screeching stopped, gunshots sounded from just outside the jet. The two men ran for the door, pulling their own guns.

  The pilot ran f
or the cockpit where he could see out better. The first thing he noticed was all the cars parked around them, one of them had pulled up right in front of the jet, blocking him from moving it anywhere. Men were shooting at each other everywhere. He noticed one other thing too, one of the original cars that had come with his boss, was now driving away as fast as possible. Just then, he wished he was in that car with them.

  As far as he could see, someone had tried to kill his boss earlier, and now those same people were back to finish the job. The man who had arrived with his boss had been right, he needed to get them out of here as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the man had brought them to the plane too late. If they had gotten them here five minutes sooner, he could have been in the air and gone. Now, he could do nothing.

  From a box in the cockpit, he pulled out a gun and ran back toward where his boss and his wife were still completely unconscious. He shook each of them, but neither of them seemed to notice. He had no choice but to protect Vincent and his wife the best he could.

  The firefight didn’t last long. Within minutes, all four of Michael’s men were dead. Two of Gerald’s men headed up into the plane, only to have to duck back out again as two shots came in their direction.

  Gerald looked around at the dead men. He checked the car, but he didn’t see Michael, which meant that Michael had to be still in the jet. He could hear police sirens in the distance. He called his men down off the steps leading up to the jet and went up himself. He stopped at the doorway but went no further. “Michael!” he called. “You’re not getting out of here. Let Vince and my sister go.”

  “I’m not Michael,” the pilot yelled back. “And you’re not getting my boss or his wife!”

  “You’re the pilot?”

  “Yes. And I can shoot as well as I can fly!”

  “I’m Gerald Giordano,” Gerald told him. “Francesca is my sister!”

  “How am I supposed to know if she’s your sister or not?” the pilot yelled back. “I can’t see who you are.”

  “Do you remember what I look like? It’s been a long time now since I flew anywhere with Vince.”

  “Come in slowly,” the Pilot replied. “And remember, I’ve got a gun aimed right at you.”

  Gerald could hear the police getting closer. Slowly, he raised his hands and went into the small jet. He noticed Vincent slumped in his seat.

  The pilot looked at him, then lowered his weapon. “I recognize you. You came and talked with Mr. Bianchi when we first got here, and you were there a few times when I used to fly Mrs. Bianchi out to L.A.”

  “That’s right,” Gerald told him.

  “So why did that guy tell me I needed to get Mr. Bianchi out of here as soon as I can. I thought it was because you were coming to kill him.”

  “Not me, the man that dropped them off. Where is he?”

  “Last I saw, I’m pretty sure he was the one driving away from here as fast as he could.”

  “Shit!” Gerald swore. “We’ve got to get them out of here as fast as possible,” he said as he hurried to the seats. He could hear the police sirens in the distance growing louder. He had no doubt it would be mere moments before they would be outside the little jet.

  “What’s going on?” the pilot asked.

  “They put a bomb on the plane,” Gerald told him as he hurried toward Vincent’s unconscious body. “It’s rigged to your fuel line. And I’m betting that Michael Scuderi is trying to get to the detonator to set it off right now!”

  “Oh shit!” the pilot replied.

  --- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

  Where had all those men come from? How could anyone know what they were doing? Michael fumed over those questions as he headed for the parking lot just outside the small commuter airport. Someone was leaking information, and he was going to personally kill that someone just as soon as he found him. Because of it, everything was suddenly falling apart. But maybe not.

  He pulled his car into the parking lot and spotted the man he had been looking for. He was standing outside of his car waiting for him. Michael pulled up right behind his car.

  “What’s going on?” Pinky asked desperately. “I heard all the guns.”

  Michael ignored his question. “Where’s the detonator?”

  “Right here,” Pinky replied. He ducked back into his car to get it. He came back a moment later with a small box. He handed it over, just flip that switch there to arm it and….

  Michael didn’t wait for the instructions. He flipped the switch and pushed the button. The huge explosion coming from the other side of the small airport was a relief.

  --- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

  The windows blew out of the car and the entire car was rolled over onto its side. Everyone in it tumbled all over each other. It was a moment before any of them could move.

  Gerald couldn’t believe it. He was still alive. The car was on its side, and he was now lying directly on top of Vincent and his wife. His face stung like crazy. Reaching up, he felt bits of glass imbedded in his skin. His fingers came away bloody. He looked into the front seat and saw two of his men stirring. One of them pushed the front door straight up and got it open. He looked out, then ducked his head back in. “Not good,” he said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Gerald nodded and pushed open the rear door that was now on top of the car. He quickly looked around. Most of the cars that had been closest to the jet were either rolled on their sides or destroyed to the point where he doubted they’d ever be used again. But that wasn’t the biggest thing he noticed. There were bodies all over the place. His men, Michael’s men, and the police. They had just managed to get Vincent and Francesca into the car when the police had arrived, screaming at them and pointing guns. He had pointed at the plane and yelled one word at them, “Bomb!” Then he had gotten in his car and had just closed the door when the explosion had occurred. As far as he could see, none of the policemen had survived the blast. If he had closed the car door two seconds later, he and everyone else in the car would have been dead too.

  He heard a noise and turned. He saw the doors opening on another of the cars. One of the ones with his own men, but one that had parked further away from the jet. He saw two men get out of it. They appeared to be a bit shaken and were bleeding from a few places, but they were moving. He didn’t miss that the side windows on the car had been blown out. All the blood on the men was from the broken glass flying at them.

  “Get us out of here!” he ordered as they ran towards him. It took some doing, but they got Vincent and Francesca out of the disabled car. With five men and two unconscious people…and only one car, they quickly decided to put Vince and his wife in the trunk while the rest of them got inside the car. The driver put his foot all the way down on the gas pedal to get them out of there. He didn’t slow down until he got to the parking lot in front of the small terminal. There, he started driving slowly and carefully. He pulled to the side of the road and stopped as a number of police cars came past them heading into the airport, but seconds later, they were back on the road heading away.

  “Where to?” the driver finally asked Gerald.

  “Someplace where nobody will find us.”

  “We’ve got two unconscious people in the trunk. You want to chance going back to the hotel?”

  “Better not,” Gerald told him. “And we have no idea how long it will be before they wake up…if they wake up.”

  “So where to?” the man asked.

  Gerald thought about it, but in the heat of the situation, there was only one answer. And in more ways than one, it was the last place he would ever want to go.

  Chapter 15

  Francesca’s head was swimming in something too thick for her to get through. She was hot too. Very hot. It was a few moments before she was able to open her eyes. She closed them a moment later. It had all been a dream. Just a dream. Just a really, really bad dream. She sighed, hoping to go back to sleep again, but the drug was beginning to wear off now and something demanded that she
pull herself out of it and wake up. She opened her eyes. Yes, it had all been nothing but a bad dream. She was in her own bed, in her own lousy apartment. And she was sure that Brian was probably asleep in his own bed in the next room. Except…it was daylight.

  She started to roll over when she realized she wasn’t alone in the bed. She turned and found the body of a man lying right next to her. She recognized the sleeping face of her husband, Vincent. It hadn’t been a bad dream after all, it had all been real!

  So what was she doing back in her own bed again? Her foggy mind remembered the woman plunging the needle painfully into her neck. The same damn woman that had caused all the trouble in the first place. The woman who used to be one of her maids. She remembered being drugged, but nothing else…until now, waking up to find herself right back in her own room, in her own bed. What kind of game was Michael Scuderi playing with them?

  The body next to her stirred. She rolled over onto her side to watch as her husband woke up. He was older than she was by a few years. There was a touch of grey coming to his temples now. She had always thought he had looked distinguished before, but now he looked even more so. And just the sight of him brought back all those feelings she had run from for eight long years. She loved him. Despite everything that had happened, despite everything that would happen in the future, she still loved him. She would never deny that.

  He moved again, then a little more. Eventually, she saw him open his eyes. She saw him looking around, then his head turned and he looked at her.

  “I expected to find myself in your bed one day, not you in mine,” she told him.

  “Your bed?” he asked.

  “Believe it or not, this is my room. This is where I’ve been living for the last five years.”

  Vince grunted. “Why is it so hot?”