Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy)

by T. V. LoCicero

  Inside a guy with long greasy black hair was washing his hands meticulously at a sink. There was no one else in sight. Monelli moved for the stalls and found only one door closed, naturally the one to the stall he wanted. Moving to a sink, he washed his hands as the greasy guy dried his with paper toweling, once again taking great care, using several sheets of paper. Finally he left.

  Monelli glanced back to the stall with the door closed. He grabbed some toweling and, while using it, leaned low enough to note two feet in battered old gym shoes below the closed stall door. He waited a few more seconds, then walked to the stall door and knocked with force.

  “Hey, pal, you gonna be much longer?”

  There was no answer. After a few seconds he heard something that sounded like glass bounce on the tile floor. A hypodermic syringe rolled out from under the stall door. He kicked it across the room and moved quickly into the adjacent stall, pulling the automatic and stepping up on the toilet seat. Looking over the top of the wall, he saw a scrawny white guy in his thirties with stringy brown hair nodding on the toilet. His frayed jeans were in place, but his belt was wrapped tightly around his thin upper arm.

  Shoving the automatic over the stall wall at the fellow’s head, Monelli spoke forcefully, his words bouncing off the tile. “Okay, pal, I want you outta there. Open up!”

  The guy looked up slowly, his bloodshot eyes blankly unconcerned.

  “Move your junky ass outta there,” he barked, “or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off. Move!”

  The man continued to gaze up with dull, red eyes but finally leaned forward and, with considerable effort, unlatched the door.

  Quickly into the stall, Monelli grabbed the fellow’s thin arm and yanked him off the john. Jamming the automatic’s barrel into the guy’s ribs, he again growled, “Move!” and ripped him out of the stall, dragged him across the room and shoved him under a sink.

  Back in the stall, he closed the door, then reached behind the toilet. It took a few seconds of groping to locate the audio cassette and pull it away from the adhesive tape on the back of the toilet. Staring at the cassette, he felt his heart pound with rage and fear. Taped to its red label was the sapphire ring he gave Megan for her last birthday. Shoving the cassette and the ring into his coat pocket, he headed out of the men’s room.

  Monelli was half-running as he moved past several people sitting in the waiting area of the terminal. John stared boldly now with the newspaper in his lap.

  At the doubled-parked Cadillac, Monelli grabbed a ticket off the windshield and dropped it in the street. Sliding behind the wheel, he moved the big sedan away quickly. On the I-94 entrance ramp he took the cassette from his pocket, removed the ring and slipped the cassette into a tape player on the dashboard. Looking closely at the ring for a few seconds, he placed it in the breast pocket of his white dress shirt, as John’s disguised voice began to come from the tape player.

  “Listen to this carefully, because these are the conditions for your daughter’s safe return.

  “Number 1: You will write out in longhand a detailed confession outlining your own involvement in the importation and sale of illicit narcotics.

  “Number 2: You will also name all of your major associates, both in your importation of drugs, including your suppliers in Sicily and elsewhere, and in your distribution chain locally.

  “Number 3: You will then sign this confession and bring it along with a kilo of high-grade cocaine to the local office of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration. There you will ask for and accept the stiffest punishment permitted under the law governing your crimes. And you will supply your full cooperation in the agency’s prosecution of your major associates.

  “Number 4: Before turning yourself into the authorities, however, you will arrange to appear live this Friday evening with Frank DeFauw on the Channel 5 five o’clock news. On TV you will describe your own role in making narcotics a fucking plague on this city. You will also display your kilo of cocaine and announce that you will immediately turn yourself in to Drug Enforcement agents. All of this you will do precisely as I’ve outlined here, and you’ll make absolutely certain that none of these demands ever reaches the public, or you will never see your daughter alive again.

  “Not until you’ve been appropriately sentenced and until it’s clear that you are cooperating fully in the prosecution of your associates will your daughter be released. Now in closing a few words from your daughter.”

  After a few seconds he heard his daughter’s stiff, careful, child’s voice. “Daddy, this is Megan. I’m all right. He’s treating me well. But please do what he says to get me back, because he’s desperate. I love you and Mom. Bye.”

  The tape continued with only a quiet hiss. His whole body was tense, his hands gripping the steering wheel, his face feeling flushed as the full grim import of the totally unexpected message sank in. Finally, he reached to push the rewind button on the dash. Just then he glimpsed a car cutting in front of him on the freeway, and he slammed on his breaks. The Cadillac swerved badly before he could get it back under control. Shaken, he decelerated and again heard Megan’s voice: “...is treating me well. But please do what he says to get me back, because he’s desperate. I love you and Mom. Bye.”

  Chapter 46

  The large digital clock over Cindy’s desk showed 4:27 when he burst into the deserted reception area. Crossing quickly to the open door of his office, he found Robert, Marco and Albert lounging there on the couch and a chair facing the desk. They promptly straightened up as he entered with hardly glance at them, moved directly to his desk and picked up the phone to check for messages. There were none.

  Finally, sitting down, he looked up and stared at them. With these three he was not looking for his brightest counsel. He could have called the two Tonys, senior and junior, for that, his father and son attorneys. He definitely didn’t want his smartest people involved in this. At least not yet.

  “What’s up, boss?” said Marco in that high-pitched voice so weird for a tough-looking fat man. Still the only staff member who can’t remember to call him sir, but there was an animal cunning about the guy that made him valuable.

  Monelli eyed him squarely and said, “My daughter’s been kidnapped.”

  The younger, well-muscled Albert, who never looked comfortable in the required suit and tie, stirred in the chair. “Megan, sir?”

  And Robert sounded stunned. “She’s been kidnapped?”

  Marco piped, “Boss, sir, you sure she’s been kidnapped? You know, kids these days...”

  Monelli slammed a palm on the desk. “Marco, fuck your insights on the younger generation. Just shut up and listen.”

  The guy looked at his large, pudgy hands. “Sorry, sir.”

  “She was kidnapped this afternoon apparently from someplace in or around the Bayview Yacht Club. She was there with her mother and went off with some friends. Usually, when she does that they stick around the pool, but when her mother was ready to leave, she was gone.”

  “Any witnesses?” asked Robert.

  “I have no idea. This just happened. So that’s what I want you two, Marco and Albert to check on. Take your people and canvas that neighborhood around the club, all those residential streets that end at Lake Shore Drive. See if anybody saw anything.”

  Marco: “The cops know about this?”

  “No, and they’re not going to. Understood?

  Albert nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “You know what she looks like.” Monelli turned a gold frame on the corner of the desk toward them. Three different candids of Megan shot by the pro he hired last month to come to the house. “Dark hair, slim, very pretty. She’s twelve, going on thirteen.”

  Albert picked up the frame and looked at the photos more closely. “Can we take the pictures along, though? It might help.”

  Monelli frowned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Marco: “How about what she was wearing?”

  “Not sure. I’ll check with her mother.”

&nbs
p; Albert got up from the chair. “So we’ll get right on it, sir.”

  Along with Robert, Marco didn’t move. “What about her friends and people at the club? Somebody musta seen something.”

  “I’ll check the club and her friends myself.” Monelli paused. Driving back here, he had thought only briefly about just how much he could tell these three. “The thing is, we all gotta be very careful. Discreet. Don’t mention any names. I mean no names, not mine, not Megan’s. And don’t say anything about a kidnapping. One of the kidnapper’s demands is that none of this gets into the papers or on TV, or else Megan’s dead. So be smart and be careful.”

  Marco shifted his bulk on the couch. “You heard from this guy?”

  “Yeah, he called a while ago.”

  Marco waited, then finally asked, “So what does he want?”

  Ready for this, Monelli answered quickly. “He wants one mil in cash and a kilo of uncut coke.”

  Marco’s small dark eyes widened. He whistled.

  “By when? Albert was back in the chair.

  “Two days.”

  Robert asked, “By Friday?”

  “Yeah, Friday night.”

  A shrug from Marco’s sloping shoulders. “Well, if you gotta pay, the snow won’t be no problem. We got a load comin’ tomorrow night.”

  Monelli nodded. “Put a key aside just in case.”

  “What kinda asshole wants coke along with a million,” asked Albert.

  “Some jive-ass junky asshole,” said Marco. “You talked to him, boss, he sound like a shine?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. He sounded like maybe it was a put-on voice.”

  Albert leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. “This is the lowest kinda scum, messin’ with kids.”

  “Look,” said Monelli, “we can’t afford to make any assumptions about who it might be. Anybody’s a possibility. That’s why I want you, Marco, and Robert, to kinda check with the people you know with Carolla and Gigante. See about any kidnap talk, or wanting in on our business or anything that sounds suspicious like that.”

  Robert nodded, but Marco shook his big head with impatience. “Okay, right, but what about the niggers? This sounds like some nigger thing to me. They’re always fuckin’ with each other, and them assholes don’t give a shit about nothin’. Kids, nobody.”

  Monelli thought for a moment. “I’ll get somebody else to look into that. So anyway, get on it. And keep me posted, like constantly. I’ll be home shortly.”

  Robert and Marco got to their feet. The fat man said, “Okay, boss, hang in there.”

  Albert was up also, holding Megan’s photos in the gold frame. “Don’t worry, everybody’ll work their ass off on this. We’ll find Megan and then hang that fuck by the balls.”

  “Just remember,” said Monelli, and they paused going out the door. “No names and stay quiet about this.”

  “You got it, boss,” said Marco as they left.

  Once they were gone, Monelli leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a few seconds he opened them, gazed at the corner of the desk where the gold frame had been and tried to visualize the pictures of Megan in her three different poses. Leaning forward he covered his face with his hands. After a while he picked up the phone and pushed a speed dial button.

  He waited briefly. “Pa, how you doin’?”

  He looked at his watch. 4:44. “We’re fine. How’s Mom?”

  He moved a pad of engraved notepaper closer to him and picked up a pen. “Good, good. Ah, listen, Pa, I got a situation here I can’t really talk about on the phone. But I need your advice and good counsel.”

  He drew a box on the note pad. “Well, it’s about Megan.” Inside the box he put a circle. “Yeah, but, you know, I can’t talk about it here. There any chance, you could fly up tonight?”

  He outlined a heart inside the circle.

  “That would be great.”

  Monelli looked at his watch again. “Yeah, the one gets here at 9. I’ll have Robert there to pick you up.”

  Around the box, circle and heart he drew another circle. “All right, good. Thanks, Pa. I’ll see you then. Yeah, bye.”

  Putting the receiver down, Monelli gazed at the note pad. But within a few seconds the phone murmured, and he grabbed the receiver again quickly.

  “Monelli.”

  Chapter 47

  At a gas station pay phone he once again used his drawl.

  “Mr. Monelli, I assume by now you’ve listened to the tape and understand the demands. Is that true?”

  Monelli worked his mouth and then said, “Yeah, it’s true. What I don’t understand is how you think you can possibly get away with this kind of shit. We’ll find you, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  “With your daughter in my custody, Mr. Monelli, your threats seem foolish.”

  “You even touch my daughter...”

  John cut him off. “I’ll do a lot more than touch her if you don’t do exactly as you’re told. I’d suggest you call Channel 5 News and confirm the appearance I just arranged for you with Frank DeFauw on Friday night. They jumped at the chance, and I’ll be watching. See you then.”

  He hung up and walked to the Ford.

  “Wait a goddamn minute!” screamed Monelli. He listened for a few moments, then threw the receiver at the phone and knocked it off the desk.

  Chapter 48

  Still dressed for the boat—white canvas shoes, a short yellow skirt and a matching sleeveless top—Catherine felt slightly dazed as she wandered out of her elaborately decorated master bedroom suite. All these beautiful things, assembled with such thoughtful care, suddenly meant nothing. From the long upstairs hall she entered Megan’s darkened bedroom and snapped on the carousel chandelier they had found at FAO Schwarz. An affluent 12-year-old’s fantasy, with a canopied four-posted bed, large stuffed animals, posters of rock and movie stars and lots of electronic equipment, CDs and tapes. Moving to a desk holding a large Sony tape player/recorder with two cassette doors, she pushed a button and listened to a few seconds of Dire Straits doing “Money for Nothing.” She turned it off and left the room.

  Descending a circular staircase to a large front hall, she moved into her cream-carpeted living room, peered out a front window both up and down the street, then left. She walked to her husband’s birch-paneled den and went for the phone on his large desk. Picking up the receiver, she dialed 911.

  “Yes, I want to report a missing child.”

  Feeling weak in the knees, she sat at the desk. “My name or her name?”

  She looked up to find her husband entering the room, carrying an attache case, just as she said, “My name is...”

  Monelli spoke sharply: “Catherine, who are you calling?”

  Stopped in mid-sentence, she lowered the receiver and put her hand over it. “Steven, where have you been? I’m calling the police. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  He moved quickly toward her, his face full of menace. “I told you not to call the police.”

  “But I couldn’t reach you, and I thought...”

  Leaning across the desk, he grabbed the receiver from her and rammed it down on the phone. “Just let me do the thinking!”

  Shaken by his rage and contempt, she got to her feet feeling weak. “But I finally reached the gate guard at home, and he said he remembers Megan walking out of the club just after noon. And then I talked with some of her friends again, and I got one of them to admit that Megan was at Danny Welland’s house for about an hour this afternoon. She left by herself at about one, and nobody’s seen her since.”

  “Where’s Danny Welland’s house?”

  “On Chalet, about two blocks from the club. Steven, I tried to reach you, but first your line was busy and then no answer. I tried calling you in the car, and there was no answer there either.” She started to weep, her tears only making her more frightened. “I didn’t know what to do. I just know something awful’s happened to Meggie.”

  Monelli moved aro
und his desk, pulled his wife into his arms and held her as she sobbed. He said softly, “Don’t worry about Megan. She’s all right. I’ve talked with her.”

  She leaned back to stare incredulously at her husband. “You talked to her?”

  “Well, I heard her voice, and she sounded okay.”

  “What do you mean you heard her voice? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know where she is. She’s been kidnapped.”

  Catherine screamed, “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!!”

  Monelli grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “Catherine, hold onto yourself! We don’t need your hysterics.”

  Still crying, she screamed again. “But tell me something! What’s happened to her? What’s happened to our baby?”

  “I told you, she’s been kidnapped. They called me this afternoon demanding a ransom, and they let her say a few words.”

  Regaining some control, she freed herself from his arms and lowered her voice. “What did she say? How did she sound?”

  “She said she was okay and that she loved us. She sounded scared but like she was holding up all right.”

  “But who’s they and what do they want? What kind of ransom?”

  Monelli looked steadily into his wife’s glassy, bloodshot eyes. “They want a million dollars cash by Friday night.”

  Catherine shrieked, “A million! Can you do that? How can you do that? By Friday?”

  “I’m sure I can. I’ve already started putting it together. But in the meantime I’ve got all my people working on this. And I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna turn something up.”

  “But, Steven, we need to call the police. They’re the experts at this kind of thing.”

  Moving in again, he held his wife by the shoulders and spoke with quiet force. “The police are not our friends. Don’t you understand? After all these years? The police won’t help us. Besides, the kidnapper told me, if any of this is made public, we’ll never see Megan again.”

  She buried her face in her husband’s chest. “Oh, my God. Meggie!”