Lawless Measures_Vigilante_The Fight Continues

by Lyle O'Connor

  “I checked for signs of life, but there wasn’t any left in him.”

  —Walter

  My cell phone rang. I looked at the clock, it was eleven-thirty. It seemed late in the morning to still be sprawled on the couch, but in fairness, Bludd and I hadn’t made it back to sanctuary until the wee hours of the morning. Nevertheless, it was time to roll out or at least answer the phone.

  “Yeah.”

  “I have information for you.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Talbot.”

  “Hang on a minute; I was up late last night taking out the trash.”

  It was no secret; I hated being awakened from any level of sleep by a phone call. I liked it even less when it was a lawyer on the other end of the line. Max said Talbot was one of the good guys, but how could that be? He was a lawyer. Marvels never cease, or so they say. I’ve never met a lawyer worth a hill of beans; maybe Talbot would be the exception to my rule.

  “Okay, what do you have for me?”

  “Names and pictures of police officers that we believe are on the crime family payroll.”

  That was viable Intel. A guy armed with this information could cut the legs out from under the entire Machine.

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  “I have family property in the Village of Gowanda, New York. Drive west from the Village toward Highway 90. There’ll be a sharp right hand corner at Stafford Road. Keep an eye out for the sign, Gnarly Oaks. There will be a road to the left just after the sign. Follow it to the end; you’ll see a one-story farm house. You can’t miss it; it’s the only house on that road. Seven o’clock sharp this evening.”

  “What do we need to bring?”

  “I don’t want to see any guns. You have no use for them here. Keep them in your car when you arrive.”

  His directions sounded simple enough. I placed a call to Max with the update. I gave him the meeting location and what his source stated he had. Max felt the Intel would be very beneficial to disrupt the Mob’s illegal immigration racket. I was glad he had reminded me. I had momentarily lost sight of our goal, the Palatini goal. Annihilation had become mine.

  Bludd and I hadn’t discussed our expectations for the meeting, but I had a niggling perception of how it was going down, and it was beginning to get the best of me. I kept pondering the logical question. Why would a confidential informant put himself under a spotlight the way Pembroke had done? Did he see fame and fortune in this move? Were we his tools to get something done he otherwise was unable to get done. His stated motive for cooperating with, as far as he knew, a couple of ragtag killers taking revenge on the mob, was stuck in my craw and difficult to swallow. Finally I blurted out: “I don’t like the set-up, Brother. He’s not an anonymous CI anymore, he’s made himself the center of the stage and directly involved in calling the shots on this operation. Supposedly he doesn’t know we have a project. At least that’s the word I got. I smell bogus.”

  “You’re letting your imagination get the best of you, mate.”

  “Maybe so. This out-of-the-way meeting and no-guns bit have given me a bad feeling, and I can’t shake it.”

  Bludd shook his head side to side but held his tongue.

  “Listen to me, and think about it, I feel as if we’ve been baited.” I let that sink in for a minute. “Look, it’s exactly the way I would bait prey. Pembroke has offered us information that we didn’t ask for and that we don’t need. Why would he give up cops’ names to a pair of guys he doesn’t know? Supposedly, he thinks we’re here for revenge on a couple mobsters over a dead friend or two? It’s bait.”

  Bludd looked puzzled, but agreed, something didn’t feel right. “You think it’s a set up then do you mate?”

  “Pembroke’s a lawyer, I think we’ll have to slap him around for a while then he’ll fess up to what he’s really up to.”

  “You might as well get that idea out of your mind. You can’t slap a CI around. It’s no wonder you haven’t developed any CIs of your own with that sort of attitude.” Bludd jokingly continued, “I may not want to be your friend anymore either if you act like that.”

  “Remember, he’s not a CI anymore.”

  From Buffalo, it was about forty miles to the farmhouse outside the village. With the snowy road conditions, I assumed it would make travel slow. Even so, by my calculations, we’d still arrive before the meeting time. Bludd and I loaded our bug-out bags and strapped on our weapons and backups. Pembroke hadn’t convinced us he was calling the shots. I holstered my .40-caliber and tucked my 9mm Sig Sauer into my ankle holster. I didn’t worry about a silencer for the Nine if a situation escalated to the point where I had to pull my backup, I wouldn’t need a silencer. I would need to survive. Bludd’s backup handgun was the same type as his primary weapon, a .44-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. He had a pair of shoulder holsters he’d strapped on to allow each revolver to be concealed on either side. I nicknamed him, Doc Holiday, after the infamous western gunslinger that was known to strap on four or five pistols for a gun fight. If Bludd had known who Holiday was, it would have been funnier. Western folklore evidently wasn’t taught in Australia.

  I cranked up the Avenger, and when it had warmed up, we headed south toward the township of Gowanda.

  “Gowanda,” Bludd laughed, “Sounds like Africa.”

  The drive seemed longer than expected, but it wasn’t. It was one of those psychological experiences that threw a guy’s perception of reality off. The distance to a place and return were the same distances, and took the same amount of time, but sometimes it seemed longer to get there than the trip back felt. That was all it was, but it could fool the wisest. Consequently, I almost missed the sign to Gnarly Oaks. I thought I’d travelled too far by the time we reached it. I noticed someone had taken the time to brush the snow off and make it more visible. The turn off appeared almost out of thin air, and I reacted. I slammed on my brakes, fishtailed the Avenger onto the side road as if I were “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. Bludd didn’t know who “Big Daddy” was either. I concluded Bludd didn’t know who many people were, at least not in America.

  The dirt road was blanketed with snow. I stopped the car and got out. Bludd watched as I got down on my knees and looked at the tire imprints. More than a single vehicle had traversed this fresh snow. Why or how many, I couldn’t be sure, but notably two or more different vehicles had driven the road. The area was remote with plenty of trees along both sides of the road. It looked like a good place for an ambush. I drove slowly.

  “Bludd put a gun in your hand, just in case.” He didn’t ask me why. He drew his .44-caliber five-shot belly gun from under his jacket with his right hand and held it low against his right leg.

  We pulled up toward the house and stopped fifty yards out. A man appeared on the rickety looking front porch and motioned for us to come closer. We inched forward and kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

  “He’s only one man,” Bludd said.

  “You mean one man is all you can see.”

  As we pulled closer, our host neither smiled nor waved or made any friendly gesture. He only motioned us forward. I surmised he was all business. We stopped behind a silvery two-door coupe with a round BMW emblem and a Canadian license plate. It didn’t take an Einstein to figure the Beemer was Pembroke’s ride; it looked like something a lawyer would drive.

  “Don’t let him see our guns and be careful of hidden recording devices, something’s rotten in Denmark.”

  “You mean in Gowanda don’t you mate?”

  “Let’s go with that.”

  Bludd stayed by the car, acting as if he had something to get out while I made the approach. “Pembroke?” I asked.

  “Attorney Talbot Pembroke.”

  Well that was matter-of-factly to the point, and without a handshake. Not only did I not like the set-up, I didn’t like Pembroke. In all fairness, I didn’t like him before I met him. He’d made a bad first impression, but then again, he was a lawyer. What could I have
expected differently?

  “I have prepared a cursory review of materials. The packets are on the kitchen table.”

  Pembroke led the way through the front room which had an old paisley-print couch with two matching easy-chairs, the type of décor that had to have been bought as a set, and probably a long time ago. I can’t imagine they sold many of these sets, but it was New York.

  Pembroke and I walked past a large wooden coffee table that sat center of the couch, with the chairs on either end. Bludd purposely lagged behind. We continued through the kitchen area to a breakfast bar nestled against the back corner of the house. A small bay window in front of the breakfast nook overlooked a pole-barn behind the house. I’ve seen farm houses like this before; the bay window was useful to a farmer but had little value for our needs. My hackles rose. I tried not to show my reaction. The front room with the couch and chairs looked to be more comfortable and well-lit to facilitate the meeting. Bludd’s eyebrows pinched together, and one side of his lip clenched tightly. I could tell he wasn’t happy with the arrangements either.

  Assembled on the table were two small piles of papers. Pembroke invited us to have a seat and take our time reviewing the paperwork. Our host was nervous, and he had good reason to be. If he had the goods on bad cops, he was in danger. I continued to be bugged by whys. Why the meeting and why in the back of the house. If we met out front our backs would be against a solid wall, and we’d have a terrific view of the road. Too many whys didn’t add up? There was a reason for every detail and purpose. I’d bet my lucky stars on it. I picked up a stack of paper and walked out of the breakfast nook and into the kitchen area where I had partial visual of the front room and my Avenger through the window.

  Pembroke, an athletic looking fellow of six-foot plus, seemed rattled by my actions, and came unglued.

  “We can start as soon as you are seated,” he snapped.

  “Go ahead and start,” I said passively.

  “You are disrupting this meeting. Now have a seat so we can start,” he demanded.

  Bludd caught the drift. “Mr. Pembroke, why don’t we move into the front room where the light is better?”

  Furious, Pembroke’s anger burst forth, “I’m wasting my time with people like you. I was given the impression you men were serious. You wanted revenge for two of your friends. I agreed to help. If you’re not interested in cooperating, I have better things to do with my time than babysit.” He opened his briefcase and picked up one set of the files that lay on the breakfast nook.

  “Put the papers down mate; put the papers down on the table,” Bludd ordered.

  Pembroke spun around as if he was a real tough guy, and discovered he wasn’t tough at all. Maybe he thought he’d put Bludd in his place, but he ran into a problem, a .44-caliber problem. Bludd snatched the attorney by the collar, pulled him nice and close, and dusted both sides of his face with the back and palm of his hand. Holding him close, Bludd stuck the barrel of his Smith & Wesson against his cheek and flashed a cheesy smile in my direction.

  “What happened to not slapping him around?

  Bludd shrugged his shoulders, “It just happened.” Bludd turned his attention back to Pembroke, “What’s going on here?”

  “You were told no guns at this meeting,” Pembroke barked.

  Bludd drug our host to the front room and tossed him on the floor. I looked over the packets briefly.

  “Who are these people?”

  “I told you, cops.”

  “You’re a liar, Pembroke. You have rap sheets on criminals; none of these felons are cops.”

  Bludd put pressure on Talbot’s face with his gun.

  “So why’d you bring us out here, Pembroke,” I asked.

  Pembroke was a punk, a scared punk. His plan had backfired, and the meeting had spiraled out of his control.

  “I’ve never seen a lawyer that didn’t sing like a canary,” Bludd said.

  I opened the files again and read to him. “Here are the names, mug shots, and rap sheets that all go together. It looks as if they’re all criminals that are affiliated with street gangs in Ontario, not the mobsters we’re after, and not a single Toronto cop in the group. Before we leave here today, you’re going to explain this real clearly.”

  “Should we call Maximillian and let him know about Pembroke?” Bludd asked.

  “We have plenty of time to make phone calls later when we are finished here.”

  Pembroke laughed, “You think you’re leaving here alive? You better make me a deal, and I mean real soon. You are in over your head. You’re involved with something that’s bigger than the two of you.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what we’ve gotten into?” I said.

  “You don’t understand, I’m giving you a chance to get out alive, and you better take it.”

  “Sounds like a plea deal to me. Is that your offer, a plea deal? I’ve never known a plea deal to work out for anyone other than the criminals and their lawyers, and since you’re both, I’ll have to decline, disrespectfully,” I said.

  Bludd snatched our host by the collar, and made an indention into Pembroke’s cheek with the muzzle of his gun. “I’d talk if I were you, mate, you’re time is running out.”

  I went to the window to watch for movement. Pembroke had made a threat. The only way he could carry it out was with help. Bludd smacked Pembroke on the head with his pistol, which dropped him onto the floor. Bludd quickly ran a sweep of the house. We didn’t need a surprise waiting for us in one of the rooms.

  “Clear,” Bludd yelled from a back bedroom.

  I stayed at the corner of the front window while Bludd continued his unorthodox interview techniques. I overheard Pembroke invoke the Fifth. To Bludd, being an Australian, a Fifth was a bottle of hooch, not a Constitutional courtroom plea. I explained to Bludd that our host had no intention of incriminating himself by saying anything. Bludd laughed as he continued his interrogation. “I’m reasonably sure mate, the Fifth doesn’t apply to a Canuck in the USA,” he said. I had to agree; besides it sounded like Pembroke was giving us attitude when he’d spoken.

  My partner, a brawny barrel-chested man of considerable girth, made Pembroke look tiny. Bludd wasn’t the shy type either; he had no problem with addressing business issues in a straightforward manner. He smacked Pembroke around some more until he coughed up a statement. Between gasping for air and spitting blood, he said one word, Omerta. Maybe he thought we were a couple country bumpkins, but I had news for him, I understood what he said, and I was going to stuff his code of silence where the sun didn’t shine.

  “Hey pal, you ever heard of a capo named Mostarda?” I asked.

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s dead,” I said, “I killed him last night, but that wouldn’t make any difference to you. It was slow and painful. Probably coincidentally, but at some point during our chat, he, too, uttered Omerta.”

  “You killed Carl?”

  “Is that what you called him…Carl? The guy you don’t know.”

  Pembroke’s lips loosened up, “I will not let you destroy what we have built to revenge your insignificant friends’ death. If they hadn’t meddled in other people’s business, they would still be alive.”

  “They got iced in your neighborhood; did you have anything to do with it?” I asked.

  Pembroke laughed, “You’ll never know.”

  “Who killed them?” I demanded. “You’re a big shot in the Mob. Why don’t you man up and tell me right to my face?” My voice quivered with anger, and a thirst for blood stirred. “You’re nothing but a clown, Pembroke. You’re just another pawn in the game.”

  “You don’t know me, and you don’t know who I am. Let me tell you, I’m the one who decides who gets what. I’m on the top rung, not the bottom rung. You’re the pawn, and you better wise up. You better wise up while you can.”

  It didn’t take me long to size up Pembroke. His narcissism stunk. He had the same problem politicians had, a delusion of royalty. They were ele
cted to be servants, but servitude was never their true goal. They wanted to be worshipped.

  “Do the names, Lippa, Santarossa, Pelosi, Surdo, Gallo, and Zambrotta mean anything to you?

  “Sure, I’ve heard the names, and I know some of them are dead, so what… do you think reciting names scares me?”

  “If it doesn’t, it should. When I met them, they were all alive. Now, none of them are alive.”

  Bludd chimed in, “We have a lot more to kill, mate, before we go anywhere.”

  “It was never about vengeance for your friends, was it? Pembroke asked. “That was only an excuse to get my help to destroy the family. It’s some kind of takeover of our area. You’re all in this together, Maximillian too. Why, what’s in it for you? What are you after?”

  “You’re going to die here tonight, right here, and I’m going to kill you slow and easy. Then I’m going to take down every one of your mobster pals and shut down your sex slavery racket.”

  Although Pembroke had my attention, I wasn’t distracted enough to miss the headlights that crept slowly toward the house. Novices, I thought. What fools would use lights. They were too lazy to hoof it in the snow, and now it was too late. They had sacrificed their biggest advantage, the element of surprise.

  “Bludd, we have company!”

  I saw Pembroke smile, “I told you, didn’t I?”

  I scanned for the best place to facilitate the expected intrusion. There wasn’t one to be found. We could improvise and make do, but there was no ‘best’ place in the house. Bludd released his grip on Pembroke, who fell backwards to the floor in a pool of his blood. We left him on the floor whimpering. He was a sad excuse for a man. He’d been a hired gun for the Crown and for the Mob, and now he wasn’t any good to either of them. He had used his ability to prosecute and inflict pain on the Mob’s competition. He’d no doubt beat a lot of people down with paper and pen, then walked away laughing. That’s the way I saw him, but the shoe was on the other foot now.

  The vehicle had stopped in the tree line along the roads edge, we doused the lights inside to get a better view outside. This, of course, tipped off our visitors to the fact we were on to them. The porch light illuminated the area outside the front room window and the snow added to our advantage. The brightness of the snow had made dark silhouettes more visible and the depth of the snow more difficult to move through. It was uncomfortably cold. I kept a keen eye out as my night vision improved. Soon, I saw shadows moving that weren’t shadows at all.