by Stephen Frey
Yeah, she was petrified of Treviso finding out the diary was gone, all right. But she claimed she was even more petrified of him cutting her head off one day if she looked at some guy the wrong way. She wanted out of her marriage yesterday now that she was sure the story about the severed head and the rat in the mouth was true. Yeah, Tony had bragged to her about doing it, but she’d dismissed it as just another of his wild attempts to impress her. Now that she knew he hadn’t been lying, she wanted Johnny’s help. And she wanted it now. He’d told her his plan, and she’d agreed immediately to help him in any way she could. She’d told him she’d never fallen for someone this way before, either. He’d felt his heart warm like it hadn’t in so long because he felt the same way about her. It was beginning to feel like fate, and it was familiar because it was the second time he’d experienced it.
Karen had mentioned the diary on the phone the other night, and Johnny had jumped at the chance to look at it. It hadn’t taken long to find what he was looking for thanks to the fact that Treviso kept such meticulous records written in beautiful, tiny print. Days were clearly marked on the tops of pages so Johnny had been able to thumb right to the date in question. He’d called a few people and confirmed the date Marconi’s grandson had been killed, then scanned that page in the diary. It was a perfect match.
Johnny knew how loan sharks often bartered with made-up fees supposedly associated with the loan. He was familiar with how they’d tell a mark after the fact, after the loan was made, that there was a processing or administrative fee that had to be paid along with the principal and the VIG, but that the mark could pay the fees off in services. That way the bosses could never accuse anyone of skimming. The VIG on each loan had to be specifically approved by the bosses before the loan was made and had to be completely covered in cash. That way the bosses knew they weren’t getting ripped off. But everybody down the line understood that the loan shark was entitled to get what he could in barter off whatever fees he could convince the mark were also owed. Which was why Johnny had come to this body shop today. To see if Treviso had done just that.
“Hey, you,” Johnny said brusquely. The young man kneeling in front of him was busy removing a smashed fender panel from the right front side of a Chrysler LeBaron. “Where’s Mr. Gates?” According to Treviso’s black book, Gates was the owner of the body shop. At least, he had been two years ago. And his name was still on the front door.
The guy nodded over the hood of the LeBaron without taking his eyes off what he was doing. “In the back. Third office on the left.” He smiled lewdly. “Miss April’s hanging on the door. You can’t miss her.”
Johnny headed in the direction the guy had indicated, working his way around cars in different states of repair, around hoses hanging from the ceiling, around heavy equipment and tools scattered about the floor. He’d always liked body shops, especially the way they smelled—fresh paint, old grease, burning metal. He hesitated a moment in front of Miss April, admiring what God had given her. Finally he rapped twice on the door.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Gates?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to talk to you.” Johnny heard what sounded like someone getting up out of a creaky chair. A moment later the door opened.
“Who the hell are you?” Gates demanded.
Gates was average height, heavyset, and thinning on top. He reminded Johnny of a larger version of Angelo Marconi, except that Gates had a graying mustache. “Name’s Barton,” Johnny answered calmly, subtly pulling his jacket back just enough for Gates to spot the pistol handle protruding from his belt. “I need a few minutes.” Gates did a not-so-subtle double take. “Don’t worry,” Johnny assured him, “this won’t take long.”
Gates gestured back at his desk. The receiver of the phone was lying on it. “A friend of mine’s on the line,” he said in a shaky voice, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “You do anything to me, Barton, and he’ll—”
“Relax, Mr. Gates. I’m not here to start trouble. I just wanna ask you a few questions.”
Gates gazed at Johnny for a few moments, then finally nodded. “Okay.” He stepped to the side to let Johnny in, then made sure the door stayed wide open.
“Close it,” Johnny called over his shoulder.
“But I—”
“Now.”
Gates reluctantly did as he was told.
Johnny walked directly to Gates’s desk, knelt down, and checked the cubbyhole for a weapon. A pistol taped to the inside of the desk that Gates could subtly reach down and fire. But it was clean. He stood up, grabbed the telephone receiver off the desk, and put it down on its base, ending the call. Then he moved in front of the desk, and dragged one of the two chairs to the side, to a position where he could better keep an eye on Gates and didn’t have to worry that he’d missed anything in the cubbyhole. He nodded to the big man. “Okay, sit down. And do me a favor.”
“What?” Gates asked as he sat in the wide leather chair behind the desk.
“Keep your hands on the desk. I want to see all ten fingers the whole time I’m here.”
“Jesus, what’s this about?”
This was about Tony Treviso getting his car repaired fast two years ago in exchange for Gates not having to pay some made-up fee associated with the Lucchesi family loan.
Johnny eased into his chair. “You ever borrow money from the Lucchesi family?” He knew instantly he had the right man. Fear spread across Gates’s face like coffee spilling on a diner counter. “It’s okay, pal. I know you paid it off. I know you’re square.”
Gates let out a visible sigh of relief. “If you know I’m square, what are you doing here?”
“The guy who loaned you the money. You remember him?”
“Are you a cop?” Gates asked. “Is this about me testifying or something? ’Cause I won’t do it. I’d never testify against those people. I don’t care if you throw me in jail for the rest of my life, I won’t do it.” An involuntary shiver shook his body. “I saw what they do to people who squeal on them. They showed me pictures.”
“I’m not a cop.”
Gates turned his head to the side. “Then who are you?”
“Just answer my question. Do you remember the guy who loaned you the money?”
Gates nodded grudgingly. “I’ll never forget him. He’s one of the strangest-looking guys I’ve ever seen. It was like he just got out of a concentration camp or something.”
Euphoria surged through Johnny’s body. Gates had to be talking about Tony Treviso. “Ever do any work on his car?”
Gates hesitated. “Why?”
Johnny glanced down for a few moments, letting Gates know in no uncertain terms that the stonewalling needed to cease immediately or there would be consequences. When he looked up, he made sure his eyes were mere slits. “If you remember the guy who loaned you the money so well, I’m sure you remember working on his car.”
Gates swallowed hard, twice.
“Right?”
“Maybe…ahhh…no, no, I don’t remember. I told you, I’m not squealing on anybody.” Gates started to stand up.
But Johnny beat him to it. He was up on his feet in a flash, before Gates’s ass was six inches off the seat, with the gun out aimed directly at Gates’s fat chest. Being lightning quick had always come naturally to Johnny. Thing was, he could draw fast and hit people. That was the key. A lot of men could draw fast, but then they shot wildly. Could barely hit a barn door from a few feet away. Not Johnny. His aim was true.
“Listen, fat man,” Johnny snapped, “I ain’t putting up with this crap for another second.” The barrel was perfectly still, wasn’t moving at all, and Johnny could tell that that fact wasn’t lost on Gates. “Live or die. It’s your choice.”
“Okay.”
Johnny pulled the top of the Glock smoothly back, chambering the first round. “Now, did you work on his car?”
“Yeah,” Gates answered meekly. “We did.”
“What’d you do to it?”
<
br /> “The front was all smashed up. We replaced the whole front end. I’ll never forget. He wanted it done fast, too. We did the whole job in two days.”
Johnny lifted the gun so it was pointed at Gates’s face. “Anything else?”
“There was dried blood on the inside of the front end,” Gates replied hoarsely. “Lots of it.”
Johnny lowered the gun slowly. Now he had the proof, at least, enough proof for him. Tony Treviso had killed Angelo Marconi’s grandson. Not Kyle McLean. There could be no doubt. “Good man. See how easy that was?” He slid the gun back into his belt without popping the round from the chamber. “I was never here, Mr. Gates. If I find out you ever told anyone I was, you’ll be dead within twenty-four hours. You understand me?”
Gates nodded slowly.
As Johnny slipped out through the office door, Gates’s eyes fluttered shut and he slumped forward onto his desk with a loud thump.
33
YOUR MOM’S A piece of work, MJ.” He’d meant it as a compliment, but now that he’d said it, he was worried the young man might take it wrong. “You know?”
“Now, there’s a hot story, Captain Ahab. I’ll alert the media.”
MJ was a great kid heading the right way down a highway going in the right direction—thanks in no small part to his mother. But he had a sarcastic lane to him, too. Hopefully he’d lose that cynical side as he got older. Or at least learn to control it. It was the only unattractive thing about him. Of course, that was the pot blatantly calling the kettle black, Jack realized. So it wouldn’t do any good for him to say anything to MJ about it. Maybe he should have an off-line chat with Yolanda.
“I meant that I liked her style,” Jack said quietly. “After I was honest with her, after I told her why I was so interested in the Kid, she let you come with me. She appreciates when people are candid. I like that. She probably likes baseball, too.”
MJ shook his head. “It had nothing to do with your Mikey Clemant story. And she doesn’t give a lick about baseball. In fact, she hates it, thinks it’s a waste of time. Thinks all professional sports are a waste of time. Just grown men and women playing children’s games. She thinks adults ought to be looking for cancer cures or the next great technology instead of trying to hit a ball over a fence or throw it in a hoop.”
“She might have a point.” Pretty good one at that.
“Of course she does. She’s always right.” MJ flashed that charismatic smile. “That’s why I love her so much. That and the fact that she’s never let me down. And she never will.”
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Jack had wanted to ask MJ that question for a while. Now seemed a good time to get a straight answer because the young man was pretty animated. For him, anyway.
“I’m already grown up,” MJ answered right away.
Like he’d known the question was coming. Maybe MJ had some sort of gift. He always seemed to have exactly the right answer ready to go right away. Maybe he could read minds. Maybe that was what made him so smooth. Things like that seemed more possible to Jack as he was getting older. Strange gifts, aliens, the Loch Ness monster, a shooter behind the fence on the grassy knoll, otherworld existences. Maybe because he’d always hoped there was a heaven, and now that he was sixty-three, he really hoped there was a heaven.
“I meant, what do you want to do for a career?” MJ didn’t say anything right away. Maybe he’d been wrong about MJ having a gift after all. “Haven’t decided yet, huh?”
“Oh, I’ve decided. I just haven’t decided if I should tell you.”
That hurt a little. “Why not?”
“Well, now that you and Momma are getting along so well, I don’t want you telling her what I tell you because you think that’ll create an even stronger bond between you two. I mean, I’ve told her what I want to do, but she doesn’t take me seriously. She might if she heard it coming from you, though, and I don’t want that.”
“I won’t tell her,” Jack promised, gazing out the Citation window at the brown landscape racing past. South Florida had gotten only a couple of inches of rain in the past few months. In a week or two the afternoon thunderstorms would start firing up and come every day until August and they’d have more rain than they could handle. But right now there were brush fires popping up all over the place because people were such lazy pricks. Throwing lighted cigarette butts out their car windows into the tinder. “I swear.”
“Yeah, as long as you’re sober.”
“I won’t tell her,” Jack repeated firmly. “And I don’t appreciate that. I’ve never let that affect—”
“Okay, okay. Look, I want to own a professional baseball team. I’ve always wanted to do that. I’ll probably have to be a doctor or a lawyer for a while before I can afford it, but I’ll get there. I love baseball. And by the way,” MJ continued, his voice rising, “I’ve already told her that. But I don’t want you saying anything to her about it. If she hears I told you, she might actually start to think I’m serious. Right now she thinks it’s just a joke.”
“I won’t tell her. I promise.”
“Good.”
“Maybe you’ll give me a job on the scouting side when you buy your team.”
MJ grinned. “I doubt it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not if you keep thinking Mikey Clemant is so good.”
Jack wanted like hell to tell MJ about everything he’d dug up on the Retrosheet website last night, but he didn’t want to seem like a little kid who couldn’t keep a secret, either. In fact, he’d found himself respecting MJ’s demeanor more and more. It seemed like the young man was in control of himself and the situation all the time. Jack rolled his eyes but made sure MJ couldn’t see him do it. Jesus, a sixty-three-year-old man wanting to be like a sixteen-year-old boy. How embarrassing was that? “So then why did she let you come today if she hates sports so much?” he asked, putting off the bring-the-house-down story about Mikey Clemant a little while longer. Prouder of himself every second he was able to hold off shouting the incredible news.
“Because she likes you.”
That came as a shock. “Really?”
“She doesn’t like many people, either,” MJ continued, “but she definitely took a shine to you, Ahab. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Why not?”
“There isn’t much to like about you.”
Jack caught a gleam in MJ’s eyes. “There sure is. I’m cute. Damn cute.”
“You’re an old grouch.”
“Maybe. But people can like old grouches. Especially ones like me.”
MJ pointed at the Publix store where they’d worked as they passed it. “Ned Anderson sure doesn’t.”
“Ned Anderson isn’t human,” Jack retorted, thinking about how much he hated the store manager. “When I said everyone likes me, I meant everyone human. Ned turned into an alien when they made him a store manager.”
MJ snickered. “You might be right. I thought I noticed a couple of bumps on his head one time. Maybe they were his antennae.”
They shared a long, loud laugh.
Jack shook his head as the laughter subsided. “Your mom’s a tough love. A couple of times I thought she was gonna pull a shotgun out from underneath that skirt and blow some buckshot in my ass while I was hightailing it for my car. The way she was carrying on and waving her finger at me about getting you fired and then convincing you to be a batboy.” MJ was howling with laughter again. “Especially after I told her I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to pay you.” Laughing harder than Jack had ever seen him laugh. Out of control for the first time. “What is it? What’s so funny?”
“She did that to Daddy once,” MJ explained, wiping moisture from the corners of his eyes. “She chased him out of the house and nailed him in the butt from the front porch. Shot off half a cheek. Almost got his, well, you know. Which was what I think she was really aiming at. The doc in the emergency room said it was a heck of a shot. D
addy had to sleep on his stomach for a month.”
“She go to jail?”
“Nah. The cops thought it was hilarious. They told her she’d shown a lot of restraint not shooting him somewhere else more important. They wrote up their report like it was self-defense. Like he’d been hitting her. They didn’t like him much. Daddy didn’t fight it, either.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” MJ answered evasively. “He just didn’t.”
“Why’d she shoot him?” Right away Jack was sorry he’d asked. A dark cloud covered the kid’s face, and his chin dropped. “My bad,” he said apologetically. “It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked, son.” It was the first time he’d ever called MJ, son. But it felt right. “Hey, I got something I gotta tell you about—”
“It’s okay,” MJ interrupted. “She shot him ’cause she caught him in bed with another woman. With a friend of hers from down the lane.”
Jack winced. “That sucks.”
“She caught him doing it again a few months later with another woman, after his ass had healed. Caught him in their bed. He thought she wasn’t gonna be back for a while, thought she was gonna be at a church picnic until sunset. But she came home early because Vanessa got stung by a bee. He got out of the house diving through the bedroom window, straight through the glass and all. But Momma trapped the woman in the bathroom until the cops got there. After they convinced her to let the woman out, they told Momma that Daddy was alley-catting around all over the place. She would have shot him for sure if he’d shown up at the house again.” MJ hesitated. “But he never did. That was a year ago. I haven’t seen him since.” He shrugged. “I don’t even know if he’s alive.”