by Lawson, Mike
“Show me,” Fairchild said.
Rate reached down with his right hand and picked up a cane lying on the floor next to his chair. Fairchild hadn’t seen the cane either.
Rate rose from the chair without any apparent difficulty, and using the cane, walked over to a nearby china cabinet. When he walked, his left arm hung limply at his side, but then he used his left hand to open a drawer in the cabinet and took a short-barreled .38 revolver from the drawer. He turned slowly and pointed the gun at Fairchild’s head.
“I can pull a trigger just fine, Bob.”
56
Preston Whitman lived in a redbrick town house on Capitol Hill. As Delray and Billy approached the door, Delray said, “Stand where he can’t see you through the peephole.”
Delray figured that as long as he kept his sunglasses on, he could probably pass for a cop. But Billy, with his greasy blond hair falling to his collar . . . Well, he just looked like the dangerous hood that he was.
Delray rang the bell. He waited a moment, then just leaned on it. “Police,” he said. “Open the door.” He knew the guy was inside; they’d seen him come home just five minutes ago.
He saw the peephole darken.
“Police,” he said again. “Open up.”
The door opened and Preston Whitman said, “What’s this about?”
Delray hit the door hard with the palm of his right hand and it slammed into Whitman, knocking him backward, and he and Billy walked into the house.
Whitman, clearly frightened, but still thinking he was dealing with cops, said, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t . . .”
Delray took out his .45 and placed the muzzle against the end of Whitman’s big nose. “Shut up.”
Billy ignored Whitman and walked around the house a little. He noticed the big television set that was tuned to a political talk show. “Hey, is that one of them new 3D TVs?”
“What?” Whitman said.
“I asked if your TV . . .”
“Billy,” Delray said. Then looking at Whitman, the gun still pointed at Whitman’s face, he said, “We’re going to leave here together like we’re all friends. If you yell to anybody, or try to take off, or give me any kind of problem, I’m gonna shoot you in the spine. You understand?”
“Who are you men? Why are . . .”
Delray had really fast hands. He hit Whitman just above his left ear with the barrel of the .45.
“Do you understand?” Delray asked again.
* * *
“Where to?” Billy asked.
Billy was driving. Delray was sitting in the rear seat with Preston Whitman. Whitman was weeping and a rivulet of blood was trickling down the side of his head from where Delray had hit him with the gun. Delray took out a handkerchief and gave it to Whitman. “Press that against your head.” Delray didn’t want Whitman’s blood ending up in the car.
To Billy, Delray said, “Get on 395, then work your way over to 50 going west. If I remember right, it’s kinda farmy out there. We’ll find a place.”
“Please. If you’d just tell me . . . ,” Whitman said.
“Shut up,” Delray said.
“Have we got time to drive by the White House, Del?” Billy said. “I’ve never seen the White House before.”
“No,” Delray said.
“Whitman,” Billy said, “have you ever been inside the White House?”
“What?”
“I asked if you’ve ever been to the White House?”
“For God’s sake! Just tell me what you want,” Whitman said.
Forty-five minutes later, Delray said, “Billy, see those trees over there? Go that way.”
Billy stopped the car at edge of what appeared to be a small patch of forest, large deciduous trees, not too close together and not that much brush on the ground. It would be easy walking. Delray couldn’t tell how deep the woods were, but they went back far enough. Nobody would be able to see them from the road.
“This’ll do,” Delray said.
“Please. I’m begging you,” Whitman said. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to get out of the car,” Delray said.
The three men exited the car. “Get the shovel, Billy,” Delray said.
“Oh, God,” Whitman moaned.
They walked fifty yards into the woods before Delray said, “This is good.”
“Look, I have money,” Whitman said. “I’ll . . .”
“Take off your clothes,” Delray said. “You can leave your underpants on.”
“Please. I know there must be some way to work this out.”
Billy, who was carrying the shovel, swung it and the handle cracked into the back of Whitman’s knees. “I’m getting hungry,” he said. “So hurry up and do what you’re told.”
Whitman started to take off his clothes. As he was doing this, Billy handed the shovel to Delray and gathered up a few small stones, each stone nice and round, just about the size of a golf ball.
“Toss your shirt over here,” Billy said to Whitman.
Whitman did and Billy spread it on the ground, underneath a nearby tree, and sat down on it. “Thanks,” he said. “Don’t want to get the seat of m’pants all dirty. You gotta dry-clean these pants.”
“Hurry up,” Delray said to Whitman.
“Are you working for . . .”
Billy flung one of the stones at Whitman, hitting him in the back. Billy had pitched in high school.
“Shit!” Whitman said, the blow stinging.
“Speed it up, Slick,” Billy said. “I told you I’m hungry, and I get cranky when I’m hungry.”
When Whitman was standing there in his underpants and socks, Delray said, “The socks, too.”
Whitman stripped off his socks, and Billy laughed and said, “Man, you gotta have the biggest feet I’ve ever seen. Jesus, Del, look at those fuckin’ things. What size shoe do you wear?”
Whitman was crying again and he didn’t answer, so Billy flung another rock at him, hitting him in the thigh this time.
“I asked you . . .”
“Size fifteen,” Whitman said.
“Fifteen! You gotta special order your shoes?”
“No, I . . .”
Delray tossed the shovel at Whitman. Whitman wasn’t expecting it, and the shovel bounced off his chest, the handle hitting him in the nose.
“Start digging,” Delray said.
“Please. Don’t do this,” Whitman said.
Billy threw another rock as hard as he could from his sitting position, again hitting Whitman in the back.
Whitman started digging. While he dug, Billy closed his eyes, like he was napping, although Delray knew he wasn’t sleeping, and except for Whitman’s sniffling, it was actually quite peaceful there in the woods. He was reminded of a forest in North Carolina where he and his older brother used to play when they were kids. His brother had died in prison; Delray hadn’t thought of him in years.
When the grave was two feet deep and Whitman’s feet and bare calves were covered with black soil, and his face was shiny with sweat and stained by tears, Delray said, “Now you see how easy this was? We stop by your house, pick you up, and make you dig your own grave. Then we shoot you a couple times in the head. It’s not any work for us at all. We’re leaving now, but hopefully you got the message.”
“What mes—”
“You’re never to talk to anybody, ever, as long as you live, about Ted Allen and his connection to Molly Mahoney. If you do, we’ll be back and we’ll do this again, except next time we’ll finish the job. And if my boss ever thinks he needs a lobbyist, you’re the guy. You understand?”
That was the only reason they weren’t killing him: Al Castiglia liked the idea of having his own lobbyist. He
’d never had one before.
“Yes,” Whitman said. “I swear to God, I understand.”
“Good. Let’s go, Billy.”
Whitman’s legs gave way and he collapsed into the bottom of the grave, in a sitting position, and began to sob.
57
Delray had told DeMarco to meet him for breakfast at the Howard Johnson’s in Crystal City on Highway 1. Sitting with Delray was a cheerful-looking, overweight man with long blond hair who was mopping up a plate of French toast and sausage. Delray was just drinking coffee.
“Who’s this?” DeMarco said, chin-pointing at the blond guy. Delray didn’t answer and the blond guy just smiled at him.
The waitress came to the table and asked what DeMarco wanted. “Just water,” he said. “And don’t put ice in it and make sure it’s not too cold.” Seeing the look everyone gave him, he added, “Cracked tooth. I can’t get an appointment to get it fixed to save my life.”
“He oughta go see your nephew,” Billy said to Delray, his mouth full of French toast.
“Aw, that’s okay,” DeMarco said, imagining Delray’s nephew: a trembling junkie with scabby needle tracks running up and down his arms.
As if he knew what DeMarco was thinking, Delray said, “Most my family, they turned out like me. But not my sister, and definitely not her kid. He’s smarter than anybody you know and he’s good and he’s just getting his practice started.” Then Delray said, “Look”—and he smiled. DeMarco had never seen the guy smile before; he should have been doing Colgate commercials instead of breaking heads for Al Castiglia. “The kid takes care of me, and I drive down from Philly to see him.”
What the hell, DeMarco figured, and he wrote down the dentist’s name. Then they talked about the plan, making sure they were all clear on what they were going to do.
“The guy’s out of town for the next couple days,” DeMarco said. “But his secretary told me he’s getting back Friday night. So we’ll do it Saturday, around noon.”
“Okay,” Delray said.
DeMarco didn’t like any of this but he was just going to have to trust that these guys wouldn’t let things get out of hand. He wasn’t too worried about Delray. Delray was a pro, but this other guy . . . He had loose-cannon written all over him.
But those were the risks you took when you became business partners with mobsters.
* * *
DeMarco spent Saturday morning puttering around his house, just killing time until his appointment with Delray, although the word appointment didn’t seem quite right. Assignation? Rendezvous? Whatever.
He had one pair of underwear left so he decided that maybe he should wash some clothes while he waited. He was just cramming all the dirty clothes he had into the washing machine, wondering if maybe he should wash two loads instead of one, when his cell phone rang. It was Alice.
“Tina says you haven’t called her since you had dinner at her place.”
“Well, uh . . .”
“It’s the girls, right? They scared you.”
“They didn’t . . .”
“I want you to imagine your future, DeMarco. You’re in your seventies. Your prostate’s the size of a basketball. You need a hip replacement, and the way you drink, maybe a new liver, too. But you’re all alone. There’s no one to drive you to your doctor appointments, no one to push your wrinkled old ass around in a wheelchair.”
“Jesus,” DeMarco muttered.
“No, Jesus won’t be there either. So you think about that, Joe. There are a lot things in this world that are worse than being hooked up with a nice woman with two smart young daughters.”
On that cheery note, Alice hung up and DeMarco went back to stuffing clothes in the washer, and the phone rang again. He checked the caller ID, making sure it wasn’t Alice calling back to depress him some more, and saw it was Neil.
“You know that woman Melinda Stowe?” Neil said.
“Yeah?”
“Well, I set up Google Alert to let me know if she popped up in the news and I saw this morning that she’s dead.”
“What happened? Did she have a heart attack?” The woman had been overweight but she’d seemed healthy to DeMarco.
“She was shot. It happened the night before last, but nothing was posted online until today.”
“Shot? What the hell happened? Was it a robbery?”
“The article didn’t say. All it said was that whoever did it didn’t break into her trailer and most likely talked his way in, and they’re giving folks the usual warnings about being careful about opening your door to strangers.”
DeMarco remembered that when he visited Melinda, she opened her door without asking who was there. And he could picture her clearly: her broad, cheerful face, her cobalt-blue toenails. What he couldn’t do was picture her dead. He supposed some random lunatic could have killed her, some wacko targeting women who lived alone in trailer parks, but it was also possible that she was killed because of what he’d learned about her and Bob Fairchild. This, of course, made Fairchild the obvious suspect but it was hard to imagine him killing the woman. You didn’t kill people like Melinda Stowe—you bribed them, you intimidated them, you discredited them—but you didn’t kill them unless you were a total fool.
But he couldn’t deal with Melinda Stowe right now.
He had to get to Douglas Campbell’s house.
* * *
“Son, could you help an old fella out?” The voice had a strong southwestern accent, what DeMarco thought of as a Texas twang.
He turned and saw a man in his sixties or seventies coming toward him, walking with a cane. His first thought was that the old guy was a hard-looking bastard even with the cane.
“What do you need?” DeMarco said.
The man continued to walk toward DeMarco. When he was about a foot away, he pointed with his cane and said, “That’s my car over there and . . .”
DeMarco turned to look where the man was pointing, and when he did, he felt something jam into his rib cage.
“Son,” the man said softly, “that’s a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver you’re feelin’. It’s loaded with hollow points, and it’ll make a real mess out of your insides if I shoot you.”
“My wallet’s in my back pocket,” DeMarco said. He couldn’t believe it. He was being robbed by a senior citizen.
“I don’t want your money, son,” the man said. “What you’re gonna do is walk, real slow, over to my car. We’re gonna take a ride together, have a little talk, that’s all. I’m gonna let you drive.”
“Talk about what?”
“Don’t worry about that right now. But you got my word, son. If you talk to me, answer all my questions, I’ll let you go. I got no reason to hurt you.”
Bullshit.
“Now, let’s go. Mosey on over to the car. And not too fast. I’m not as quick as I used to be.”
DeMarco hesitated for a moment, and the man prodded him with the gun barrel. He looked around. Not a neighbor in sight. He stepped off the curb and started toward the car across the street.
The old man stepped off the curb after him and the tip of his cane slipped, just a bit, not enough to make the man fall, but enough to make him stagger and momentarily lose his balance. It all happened very fast after that: the man stumbled and DeMarco pivoted and hit him in the throat with his elbow which caused the older man to fall to the ground. As he was falling, he fired the gun, the bullet missing DeMarco by inches, passing under his left arm, and hitting the driver’s side window of the old man’s car. Before he could fire again, DeMarco was on top of him, grabbing the wrist of the hand holding the gun, then ripping the gun out of his hand—something that wasn’t all that hard to do considering the man was over sixty, walked with a cane, and was practically choking to death.
While waiting for the cops to arrive, DeMarco called
Delray and told him they’d have to postpone the meeting with Campbell until tomorrow.
58
Delray was annoyed. He had tickets for the Phillies, a seat right behind home plate, but he was going to miss the game because DeMarco had delayed the job on Campbell. He was going to take out his annoyance on Douglas Campbell.
He glanced at his watch. Noon. “Let’s go,” he said to Billy. They exited the car and rang the Campbells’ front doorbell. No one answered. Delray knew Campbell was home because he’d seen the guy just an hour ago and knew he hadn’t left, so he and Billy walked around the house and into the backyard.
Campbell and his wife were sitting in Adirondack chairs, near a gigantic barbecue, drinking from tall glasses—and arguing about something. Delray could hear the woman bitching about them never going anywhere fun and how she was sick of it. The couple didn’t see him and Billy until they were practically standing next to them.
The woman saw them first. “Who are you?” she said. When Delray didn’t answer, he could see the fear grow in her eyes. She looked over at her husband and said, “Doug!” Just “Doug,” but like Doug! Do something!
Delray glanced over at the barbecue. They were cooking steaks, big thick ones, and the idiot had the heat up way too high. That was okay, though; a hot grill could be useful.
He took off his sunglasses so the Campbells could see his eye. He knew the effect his eye had on people, particularly people like this, people who thought they were immune from violence. And that wasn’t the only reason he took off the glasses. They were Ray-Bans with special lenses and he didn’t want to get them broken.
Campbell got up from his chair with some effort. He was wearing shorts—his legs pasty white—and a baby-blue T-shirt that exposed the underside of his flabby gut. “What I can do for you, gentlemen?” he said, trying to sound confident.
Gentlemen. Like he could bullshit his way out of this, acting polite.
Delray and Billy both ignored him. Billy smiled at Kathy Campbell, not his friendly good-old-boy smile but his see-what-a-fuckin’-lunatic-I-am smile. Delray walked over to the barbecue and picked up the barbecue tongs. He liked the heft of them in his hand.