Forced Out

by Stephen Frey

  The boy had been the victim of a hit-and-run right in front of the row house while he was riding his bike in the street just after dark. Right about this time of the evening. Marconi had rushed outside when he heard yelling and cradled the battered little boy in his arms until he died. The ambulance had screamed to a stop at the scene a few seconds later, but there was nothing the EMTs could do. Nothing Marconi could do, either. All he’d been left with was revenge.

  “What was the guy’s name?” Johnny asked. “The guy who did that thing?”

  “Kyle McLean.”

  “Yeah, right, Kyle McLean. Well, I thought that had been taken care of.” Johnny was certain he’d heard McLean was dead. Certain he’d heard that McLean had died in a car accident the next night. Figured the real story was that some of Marconi’s men had taken McLean out and made it look like an accident. “I thought it had kinda taken care of itself.”

  Marconi shook his head. “Turns out it hasn’t. At least there’s a chance it hasn’t. A good chance.” He pointed at Johnny. “I want you to find out for sure. And if it hasn’t, take care of it for me once and for all. Make sure McLean gets what’s coming. I’ll pay you a million bucks for this one thing, Deuce. You’ll do it as a personal favor to me.”

  So this wasn’t something that had been sanctioned by the council—which all killings related to family business had to be. This job was outside that. A job Johnny had to do out of respect for the man who’d made him a millionaire. Even more important, a man who’d picked him up when he was on his ass and helped him climb out of the depths of despair. A job that would be ten times harder to refuse than any family contract.

  “I know you want your marks to deserve what they got coming,” Marconi said evenly. “I know about the research you do,” he continued, “and the judgments you make in each case. I know about your code of honor.”

  Johnny pursed his lips. He’d never had any idea Marconi was aware of all that. Now he understood why the man was so powerful, what set him apart from the other wiseguys. He saw all the things they did—and all the things they didn’t.

  “Johnny.”

  Johnny’s eyes rose slowly to Marconi’s. He couldn’t remember the last time the old man had called him anything but Deuce. “Yes, sir?” And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d called Marconi sir.

  “I just want you doing what I say. I just want you to kill Kyle McLean. You got that?”

  Johnny had been told from the beginning that sooner or later this moment would come. A moment when he’d have to compromise his code of honor. When he would have no choice. But he’d always believed he could keep the relationship on his terms. Always felt like he’d be able to make the ultimate decision. Now he realized how naive he’d been. The people who’d warned him were exactly right. Everything would always be on Angelo Marconi’s terms.

  “Yeah,” he finally said, his voice barely audible, “I got it.”

  Marconi hesitated a few moments, then nodded. “Good man.”

  “You got somewhere for me to start?” Suddenly Johnny felt like he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. “Some way for me to pick up the trail?”

  “Yeah. There’s an ex-cop named Stephen Casey, who I hear may have some information on McLean. It won’t be easy to get it out of him, but you’re good at that. Getting dirt out of people.” Marconi snickered. “You know, you’re good at putting people in the dirt, too. Funny how that goes, huh?”

  “Uh-huh.” It wasn’t funny at all.

  Marconi reached into his pocket and handed Johnny a crinkled piece of lined yellow paper. “That’s Casey’s address down in Brooklyn. I want to hear back from you by tomorrow noon. No later than that, and the earlier the better.”

  Stephen Casey might be on vacation, might be staying at a girlfriend’s house, might be working the graveyard shift at whatever job he was doing now that he’d quit the NYPD. But none of those things mattered to Marconi, not in the slightest. The old man had achieved a position in life few men did but all aspired to. He didn’t accept excuses from anyone—even if they were legit. Because he didn’t have to.

  “Deuce?”

  “Yeah, okay.” At least Marconi was calling him Deuce again.

  3

  AS MIKEY CLEMANTS ambled toward the plate—a forty-ounce ash bat slung over his right shoulder—a few faint cheers rose from the crowd. But they were quickly smothered by a chorus of enthusiastic boos and a loud chant of “You suck, Mikey” rising from several rows directly behind Jack. Growing in intensity as more people joined in with each chorus. The beer taps didn’t close after the sixth inning here, the way they did in a lot of major-league stadiums, and the fans had turned rowdy since the seventh-inning stretch. For the owner of the Sarasota Tarpons every day was a financial struggle, Jack assumed. It was for most of the Single-A independents, he knew. The guy needed to make money any way he could, despite only paying his players $1,500 a month on average. So he kept the beer taps wide open until the last fan was gone.

  “Clemants is gonna ground into a double play,” Bobby predicted, nodding at the kid, then at the runner who was creeping off first to a short lead. “Betcha.”

  Maybe Bobby had been right about the kid after all, Jack realized. Maybe Mikey Clemants wasn’t a diamond in the rough, wasn’t the next Single-A prospect about to burst onto the major-league stage like a fiery meteor out of the night sky. Which was difficult for Jack to admit. He’d been so sure watching the kid head out to center for the top of the first that he was the real deal. Even more convinced after the circus catch a few moments later. But since that first inning Clemants had done exactly as Bobby had predicted: played like crap. He’d grounded out to short, been called out on strikes, and hit into a force play in his three at-bats. And he’d turned a single into a triple for the visiting team by botching a routine line drive over the second-base bag in the fifth. Thanks to which the Tarpons were now down a run with one out in the bottom of the ninth. It looked like they were going to hang a big “L” on the broad shoulders of Jack’s can’t-miss kid.

  “Betcha,” Bobby repeated. “Come on.”

  Jack would have taken the other side of that one in a heartbeat after the catch in the first. Not now. “Nope.”

  The kid popped the first pitch up. A moon shot that rocketed into the darkness above the stadium lights for a few moments, then came screaming back to earth and caromed off the yellow railing in front of a gang of young boys who’d raced out of the stands to shag it. The ball nailed the railing right beside the cowering old usher, glanced off one of the boys’ arms, bounced on the fourth step, and smacked into Jack’s outstretched palm. The crowd roared its approval at his barehanded catch. It was the loudest cheer of the night.

  “Nice catch, Pop.” Bobby patted Jack’s shoulder. “Take a bow, old man.”

  Jack hated attention. “Nah.” A second later the boys were in his face, begging and shouting for the ball. “Get out of here,” he said with a hiss. “All of you.”

  “Please, mister,” one of the boys yelled, lunging for the ball. “Please!”

  Jack yanked the ball away from the boy’s mustard-covered fingers. “No! Go on, get! I said, get!”

  The cheers turned quickly to boos as the boys sulked away empty-handed.

  Bobby patted Jack’s shoulder again. “Nice going. Good luck getting out of here alive now. And don’t expect me to save you, Pop.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” Jack muttered as the pitcher wound up for his next delivery. “Believe me.”

  The second the kid swung, Jack knew it was gone. From the distinctive smack of bat slamming ball. From the way the opposing pitcher hung his head and started for the dugout without even looking at where the ball was going. From the way Clemants flipped the bat playfully in the air as he started his home-run trot. It was a herculean blast that seemed like it was still climbing as it sailed over the center fielder’s head, then landed somewhere out in the pasture, startling one of the cows grazing at the edge of the stadium lights. A fi
ve-hundred-foot blast. At least. And it didn’t even look like the kid had swung that hard.

  “Incredible,” Jack whispered, feeling vindicated as the kid circled the bases. Clemants had made two of the greatest plays Jack had ever seen on a baseball field in one night, and he’d done it in a Single-A stadium. Admittedly book-ending an otherwise bush-league performance, but still. “He’s got so much talent.”

  It was strange, though. The kid had just smashed a walk-off home run—the most dramatic play in baseball—but there was no one at the plate to congratulate him. No teammates, no coaches, not even the guy he’d batted in. Just the umpire standing by with his mask off and his hands on his hips, waiting to make sure the kid touched the plate. The fans were finally whooping it up, but Clemants’s teammates didn’t seem to care at all. Typically, the whole team would have been there. In fact, most of them had already exited the dugout and were heading to the locker room.

  After the kid crossed home plate, Jack stood up stiffly, pulled his ticket from his shirt pocket, smiled at it again, stowed it in his wallet, then started limping up the stairs. He’d never seen anything like it on a baseball field before. Hell, Ty Cobb’s teammates still congratulated him when he made a great play—even though they hated him.

  “Hey, Pop!” Bobby yelled. “Where you going? Game’s over. Let’s get out of here!”

  Jack kept going, ignoring Griffin. God, his knees ached. Elbows, too, all of a sudden. Old age was nothing but a legalized form of torture.

  The little boy was sitting in the aisle outside the top row of seats in a wheelchair. Which, from the looks of his misshapen, gnarled legs, he’d never get out of. He was ten or eleven years old, twelve at most, but he looked like an old man sitting there between the chrome armrests. God, it was terrible.

  “Here, son,” Jack said softly, leaning down and handing over the ball he’d snagged a few minutes ago. He’d noticed the boy as he was climbing the stairs to his seat with Cheryl before the game. Felt terrible about the little guy’s situation for nine innings—until he’d caught that foul ball. He’d known from the second it smacked his outstretched palm what he was going to do with it. He’d thought about coming up here as soon as he made the catch—which probably would have made him more popular with the fans—but he didn’t want to embarrass the boy by making a big deal out of it in front of everybody. So he’d waited until the game was over. “Enjoy.”

  “Gee, thanks, mister.”

  “You’re welcome.” As Jack smiled at the boy’s mother and straightened up, he rubbed his left arm, then his chest. Then he sank to his knees and toppled over, his head coming to rest against a cement step.

  4

  JOHNNY HESITATED ON the stoop outside Marconi’s front door, checking up and down the street, trying to remember which cars had been here and which ones hadn’t when he went inside. It was tough to tell much in the dim light coming from the old streetlamps, but he had a feeling something was wrong. He’d always had a sixth sense for imminent danger. A premonition of peril, he called it. And it had saved his life more than once.

  He moved deliberately down the steps, then down the sidewalk toward the Seville, constantly looking around, his neck like a swivel on a stick as he walked. As he pressed the unlock button and the Seville chirped, he hesitated, wondering if someone had rigged the car to explode when the door opened. The meeting with Marconi still seemed strange to him; something wasn’t quite right about it. But thinking Marconi had rigged the car to explode was stupid. The old man would never order so over-the-top an execution directly in front of his house. Would he? Maybe that would be the beauty of it. Completely unexpected, completely irrational. When they really thought about it, the cops would have to figure Marconi had nothing to do with it.

  Johnny reached for the door, then pulled back quickly, like a flash of electricity had arced from the car handle to his fingers. This could be a rival family hit. He’d killed a captain in the Capelletti mob last year down in Staten Island. The Capelletti family was the second most powerful mob in the city, and they would undoubtedly take revenge if they found out who’d put a bullet through their man’s head from across the street as he was headed into his favorite restaurant. But Marconi had sworn he was the only member of the Lucchesi family who knew Johnny was the killer, and Johnny was sure Marconi would never violate that confidence. If only because the old man considered Johnny the best hit man around and didn’t want to lose the talent.

  He grimaced as he reached for the door handle again. This was the life he’d chosen—and one hell of a life it was. Full of great things, including financial security, which he’d never known growing up. Then there were times like this.

  But nothing happened when he jerked the door open. He bent down quickly and grabbed the Baretta 9mm he kept hidden beneath the front seat. He’d filed down the trigger mechanism so it fired almost like an automatic. It was his favorite gun of the fifteen he owned.

  As he rose and slipped the pistol into his belt, he noticed a dark sedan at the edge of the glow from a streetlamp five cars up. His eyes narrowed. That car hadn’t been there when he’d gone into Marconi’s place. He pulled the pistol from his belt and took a step up the street. Instantly the sedan squealed out of the spot and roared off. He was tempted to jump into the Seville and chase whoever it was, but they had too big a lead. He’d never catch them.

  Besides, the eerie premonition of peril had passed. Suddenly he wasn’t worried about slipping the key in the ignition and turning it.

  5

  JACK OPENED HIS eyes slowly. He was lying flat on his back on the cement step—which seemed only slightly less comfortable than the cheap mattress on his narrow, single bed at home. Two EMTs in white shirts and dark green polyester pants were squatting beside him, pulling instruments out of bags. He squinted up against the bright stadium lights blazing down at him from over one guy’s shoulders, then against the glare of the small flashlight the other guy started shining directly into his pupils. A stretcher lay on the next step down, and there was a small but growing crowd milling around, even though the game was over. They were sneaking glances, filled with morbid curiosity. Trying to seem like they weren’t fascinated by what was going on. But Jack knew they were. People were always fascinated with pain and death—as long as it wasn’t theirs.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Jack mumbled to the EMT who’d been blinding him with the flashlight. His name was Biff. The letters were sewn onto his shirt with thick blue thread. The other guy’s name was Harry. “What are you guys doing?”

  “You had a heart attack, Daddy,” Cheryl said anxiously, her voice trembling with emotion. “At least, that’s what they think right now.” She was kneeling between Biff and Harry, tears balanced precariously on her lower lids. “They’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “The hell they are,” Jack muttered, pulling himself up onto one elbow with a groan.

  “Easy, sir,” Harry said soothingly, doing his best to check Jack’s blood pressure. “We’re just trying to make you feel better. We’re just trying to help you.”

  The fingertips of Jack’s left hand suddenly felt like they were going to burst. “I don’t need any help,” he growled back. Harry was overweight and had sad, sympathetic eyes. “Just leave me alone so I can—”

  “Hey, why don’t you just lay down and shut up,” Biff interrupted, stowing the small flashlight back into his belt with an angry thrust. “Christ, some of these old guys really piss me off,” he complained. “Why don’t you just let us do our jobs.”

  “Why don’t you go play in traffic, you punk!” Jack snapped. Biff was thin, with beady eyes. Red and road-mapped, too. Like he was hung over. Jack could tell Harry cared about what he was doing, even if he was a pain in the ass. But for Biff this was simply a paycheck. “That would make me feel a lot better.” Jack spotted the pointed end of a knife tattoo on Biff’s upper arm, sneaking out from beneath his shirtsleeve. He’d never liked tattoos. “A hell of a lot better.” He reached for the bla
ck Velcro strip noosed tightly around his upper arm and tore it off.

  “Daddy,” Cheryl cried. “My God, what are you doing?”

  “Princess, I’m—”

  “Come on, Pop,” Bobby cut in, “listen to them. Don’t give them such a hard time.”

  Bobby was towering over Jack, silhouetted by the stadium lights. An irritated, this-could-really-screw-up-my-plans-for-the-night expression on his face. “Don’t tell me what to do, young man.”

  “It’s stupid not to take their advice, Pop.”

  “Don’t ever call me stupid again,” Jack warned, making it to his knees with a moan.

  “I didn’t call you stupid. I said it was stupid not to—”

  “Not if you want to keep dating my daughter,” Jack growled, brushing grit and a piece of old bubble gum off his palms. Harry tried to keep him down, but Jack pushed the EMT’s hands away and rose unsteadily to his feet. “Are we clear on that?”

  Bobby glanced at Biff and rolled his eyes, then turned and headed down the stairs.

  “Don’t do this, Daddy,” Cheryl begged. “Please.”

  “Princess, these guys are gonna rush me to a hospital like it’s a real emergency, then hand me over to some people in pale green outfits who’ll run a hundred different tests on me. But they won’t tell me anything while they’re running them. Finally, around one o’clock this morning, I’ll get a piece of paper with some meaningful information on it. It’ll be the bill, and it’ll be about two thousand bucks. After they stick me with it, they’ll shrug their shoulders, tell me they can’t find anything really wrong with me, and recommend that I stop drinking scotch and eat more greens.” Jack shook his head. “Nope, I’m not going anywhere with them.”

  “I know you don’t have health insurance,” she whispered. “I know that’s the problem. I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry.”