A Perfect Shot

by Robin Yocum

  “Please let me up. I’ll buy some nice shoes after I get you paid, but I don’t have no money right now.”

  “Pinky, there’s booze on your breath. You’ve got money for booze, but no money to repay your debt to Mr. Antonelli?” He adjusted his grip on Pinky’s ankles. “Goddammit, quit squirming or I’m gonna drop your ass,” he yelled. “Do you know what you’re doing to my reputation by not paying your bills?”

  Pinky was bawling. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you trying to insult me, Pinky? Is that what you’re trying to do—insult me and Mr. Salvatore Antonelli?”

  “No, God, no. I’ll pay. I’ll pay tonight. I swear.”

  “You’ll pay me tonight?”

  “Yes, oh sweet Jesus, yes. Just let me up.”

  “Where are you going to find the money?”

  “I’ll find it somewhere. I’ll ask my sister. She’s got money. I promise.”

  “Do you swear, Pinky? Tonight? You promise you’ll pay? You swear to God?”

  Pinky’s tears mixed with urine and the blood from his nose and ran down his inverted forehead, dripping off his bald pate. “Yes. I swear to God. Tonight! I’ll pay you tonight!”

  “Promise me on your mother’s grave.”

  “I promise. I promise on the grave of my dear mother.”

  “I don’t know, Pinky. I just got this really bad feeling that you’re lying to me again.”

  “No, Mr. DeMarco, I’m not. I swear to Jesus.”

  “I’m really sorry, Pinky, but I think you’re lyin’.”

  Tony released his grip, and Pinky Carey screamed and flailed his arms and legs until the timely drop sent him through the passenger-side windshield of a north-bound Peterbilt. Pinky never saw the truck. The windshield exploded and his neck snapped. He was dead before he bounced off the seat on the passenger side and fell to the floor, his legs and now shoeless feet draped across the arms of the stricken driver, who screamed and stood on his brakes, bringing a load of canned dog food to a stop in an ear-piercing squeal and a plume of white smoke as rubber burned against asphalt.

  Tony calmly walked back to the car and climbed into the back seat. “Did you boys hear about Pinky Carey? Committed suicide tonight. The poor little guy jumped off the bridge onto Route 7.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to be able to pay up, now,” one of the lieutenants said.

  “Consider it an investment, of sorts,” Tony said. “Sometimes, you’ve got to put a little blood on the floor to make people know you mean business. The cops will rule it a suicide, but word will get out how he really died, and why. And, when it does, everyone else will be a little more conscientious about making good on their debts.”

  This was the kind of efficiency that had so ingratiated Tony to Salvatore “Il Tigre” Antonelli, crime lord and don of the most powerful la Cosa Nostra family between New York and Chicago. Il Tigre controlled organized crime in the tristate area of Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, and the panhandle of Northern West Virginia. Tony was his most trusted capo, an enforcer without peer and of unquestioned loyalty.

  Tony and Salvatore had met in the parking lot of the Oasis, a dive bar and front for one of Antonelli’s gambling operations in the shadows of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel plant in Mingo Junction. Antonelli had business inside. Sitting on one of the dried-out railroad ties that rimmed the gravel parking lot, Tony DeMarco was busy waiting for trouble to find him. It was early afternoon when Antonelli pulled into the parking lot and stepped out of his Cadillac. He took a moment to adjust the cuffs of a gray suit with thin, safflower pinstripes. His black Italian loafers were buffed to a high gloss, and the drab strip of Commercial Street reflected in his aviator sunglasses. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back with not a strand out of place. He pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket, peeled off a twenty-dollar bill, and pushed it into Tony’s palm. “Hey, kid, how ’bout makin’ sure no one messes with my ride?”

  When Antonelli returned fifteen minutes later, two men with tin lunch pails and yellow hardhats were sprawled on the gravel—one on all fours, throwing up, the other unconscious, with blood streaming from his smashed nose and mouth. Antonelli took a minute to survey the carnage, then said, “Christ almighty, kid, all I wanted you to do was watch the Caddy.”

  Tony nodded. “Yeah, but some guys . . . you know, they just don’t want to listen.”

  “How old are you, kid?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “DeMarco. Tony DeMarco.”

  Antonelli smiled. “Italian. Nice.”

  Tony was physically mature beyond his years, with thick pads of muscle covering his neck, shoulders, and chest, an outline of a full beard on his olive face. Antonelli took the kid’s hands and studied them. They were huge, with white scars and a thin smear of steelworker blood racing across the knuckles. “You pretty good with these?” Antonelli asked, still examining the hands.

  Tony nodded toward the two steelworkers. “Ask them,” he said.

  A slight smile pursed the lips of the old man. “You want a job, Tony?”

  “Maybe. What kind of a job?”

  Antonelli lit the cigar he had been carrying between his fingers and used it to point to the front door of the sedan. “Step into my office, son. Let’s talk.” Tony let himself into the passenger seat; Antonelli slid in behind the wheel and asked, “Do you know who I am?”

  Tony nodded. “Sure. You’re Il Tigre.”

  The older man nodded. “I like your style, Tony. But, if you want to work for me, you need to remember this: We don’t take care of business in a parking lot in the middle of the day. Someone gives you some grief in public, you just smile and let it go. Then, you wait. You wait until you find them alone in an empty room or a dark alley, then you beat them so that their own mothers won’t recognize them. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Very good.”

  School had never been a priority for Tony, and what little interest he’d had totally disappeared after he met Salvatore Antonelli in the parking lot of the Oasis. He never again set foot in Mingo High School. The next morning, he began working at the bar. He started out running errands and bouncing drunks, and eventually he moved up to bagman. Occasionally he paid visits to those who were late in paying their gambling debts or bar tabs. This was his favorite task, as well as the one at which he excelled. “You must respect Mr. Antonelli, but you had better fear me,” he was fond of telling debtors before cracking a handful of fingers or dislocating an elbow.

  Tony emulated the old man in every way—dress, style, speech. He worked handfuls of pomade into his hair, attempting to adopt the slicked-back look of the boss. His relationship with Antonelli also gave Tony the material trappings he had always craved. He had fine, tailored suits, silk ties, gold jewelry, a new car, and a wad of cash in his pocket. He loved making purchases where he could make a show of peeling off hundred-dollar bills. To complete the look, he bought a Rottweiler and named him The Great Zeus. The dog had a spiked collar, and Tony liked walking him down the sidewalks of downtown Mingo Junction, the beast growling, straining against the leash, and covering the concrete in slobber.

  Tony DeMarco was the only son of an uneducated, semiliterate railroader. Until he went to work for Antonelli, Tony was just another Dago living in one of the shabby houses that lined the flood-plain side of the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks that dissected Mingo Junction. Salvatore Antonelli had provided him with a new life and a degree of respect, and for that Tony was outwardly grateful and fiercely loyal.

  Antonelli loved the boy. He was, in fact, the very image of the son Antonelli had always wanted. His own boy, Joseph “Joey” Alphonse Antonelli, was the disappointment of his life. Il Tigre had hoped to someday hand over his organization to Joey, but the boy lacked the discipline for such a post. He had been coddled by his mother and was interested only in parties, women, and spending his father’s money. The younger Antonelli resented Ton
y, who basked in Il Tigre’s affection and worked hard to please the old man.

  With Tony collecting Il Tigre’s debts, there were few problems with late payments. And when there were, Tony quickly handled the situation. When broken bones didn’t properly encourage a gambler to pay his bills, like with Pinky, Tony made him a sacrificial lamb. When Mafia families from Youngstown or Cleveland or Detroit attempted to muscle into Antonelli’s territory, Tony was the one who quietly made the problem disappear.

  To show his appreciation for this loyalty, Il Tigre gave Tony oversight of the gambling and prostitution trade for the entire Upper Ohio River Valley. Antonelli understood gambling and prostitution. There was a demand for such vices, and, since they were victimless crimes, the local authorities could be easily bought off. Antonelli had long shied away from the drug trade, as it drew too much attention from law enforcement. However, Tony insisted that by cornering the cocaine and marijuana trade in the region, Antonelli could reap tens of millions of dollars annually. Antonelli concurred, allowing Tony to organize the operation in exchange for 15 percent of the gross, but with a simple operating directive: “Make sure my name never gets mentioned.”

  Tony DeMarco became a feared man, the despotic drug lord of the Upper Ohio River Valley, an expanse of bottom land and continuous steel mills and factories stretching from East Liverpool, Ohio, to Wheeling, West Virginia. He was arrogant, malevolent, mercurial, and ruthless. While they are not traits that would make a mother proud, they went a long way toward making him a drug dealer and mob enforcer without peer. The drug trade was highly lucrative for Tony, whose hub of operations was the turn-of-the-century limestone manse atop Granite Hill that had been built by the founder of the Mingo Iron Works. Tony had purchased the home with cash and had restored it with expensive granite, imported marble, and hardwoods. For Anthony Dominic DeMarco, it was all about the money. As vices went, he had few. Only a small portion of the cocaine went up his own nose. He drank in moderation and didn’t chase women. “Filthy twats. They want too much of my money and not enough of this,” he was fond of saying, grabbing at his crotch.

  At age thirty-four, Tony was about to become a made member of the Antonelli crime family. He had a fabulous income and power. He was disliked by nearly everyone in the family except Il Tigre, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t a goddamn popularity contest. As far as he was concerned, the old man was the only one who mattered.

  Two weeks after Pinky Carey did a header through the windshield of the Peterbilt, Tony DeMarco was in the back room of the Italian-American Club in Steubenville, meeting with three of his lieutenants, when the bartender knocked and poked his head inside. “Tony, phone.”

  He had never before received a phone call at the club. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, but he says it’s urgent.”

  Tony followed the bartender behind the bar and grabbed the receiver off the counter. “Yeah.”

  “Jesus Christ, where in the fuck have you been?”

  Tony’s eyes widened. He was not accustomed to hearing such a question directed at him. “Who is this?”

  “Chachi, goddammit. I’ve been trying to track you down all night.”

  “What’s up?”

  There was a pause on the phone. “It’s the old man. He’s had a stroke. It’s bad, Tony, really bad. We’re at Allegheny General. You better get up here, and fast.”

  He ran straight for his car and was at the hospital in less than an hour. Chachi was waiting for him in the lobby. “Come on. I’ll take you up.” Chachi was Il Tigre’s nephew—his sister’s son. He was one of the few members of the family below Il Tigre who liked Tony. No one else would have even called. “He said he wasn’t feeling good this afternoon—said he thought it was indigestion, or something. He felt dizzy and went upstairs to take a nap. They found him a couple of hours later.”

  By the time Tony got to the intensive-care unit, it was too late. The old guard, their eyes red and moist, huddled around Il Tigre’s wife. Joey Antonelli, now the heir to the throne, stood to the side. When he saw Tony come out of the elevator, he took a step and used both hands to shake Tony’s one. “I’m sorry, Tony, but he’s gone,” said Joey, his eyes falling. “He loved you very much. I’ve always felt of you like a brother, because he loved you like his other son.”

  Tony DeMarco’s eyes uncharacteristically filled with tears. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes, embarrassed at his display of emotion. Joey draped an arm around Tony’s thick shoulders and led him back down the hall, the slightest of smirks creasing his lips. When they were clear of the family, Joey whispered to Tony, “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it? The old man croaks just before you’re a made man. That’s a ballbuster, huh, motherfucker?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  September 1993—Duke Ducheski loved walking to the steel mill on damp mornings after a heavy fog had rolled off the Ohio River and covered Mingo Junction in an opaque mist. The solitude was soothing, walking in a world where he could see no more than a few feet ahead, yet one where he was keenly aware of the industrial rhythm and grind of the Ohio Valley—the clacking of rail wheels over a weak joint, the continual din of the steel mill, the window-rattling vibrations of a passing barge, the echo of a Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad diesel, the guttural groan of a loaded coal truck straining up the grade from Deandale on Ohio Route 7. It was not unlike a blind man whose loss of sight enhances his other senses.

  This was one of those mornings. He walked into a fog so thick and wet that the air smelled and tasted of sulfur, and the gritty fly ash that floated in the mist collected on his teeth and in the corners of his mouth. An outsider’s face would pinch up at the odor. But in the Ohio Valley, people called it the smell of money, a sign that men had good work and all was well in Mingo Junction, Ohio. The pollution was the price they paid for the privilege of making steel and putting bread on the table. A man could wash his car at night and write his name through a patina of fly ash on the hood the next morning. After getting their men off to the mill each day, women—dressed in slippers and housecoats, their hair wrapped tight in pink curlers—could be seen on their front porches, sweeping plumes of grit into the yard. When Duke played football at Mingo High School, summer practices would begin at 7:30 each morning, a time when the fog sometimes covered the field and the dew always covered the grass. When they finished calisthenics and grass drills, their uniforms would be damp and black, covered with acidic fly-ash particles that collected in the dew and were absorbed by the cotton. The fly ash got into cuts and scrapes and burned like iodine. As the sun broke through the fog and the morning heated up, the uniforms dried and the coating of fly ash could be brushed away like dried oatmeal. Little thought was given to what was collecting in their lungs.

  On these foggy mornings, Duke always took a minute to stand on the St. Clair Avenue overpass at Ohio Route 7, listening to the coal trucks groan against the grade and watching as their headlights suddenly materialized out of the mist. Occasionally, Virgil Coffman passed beneath, saw the shadowy outline of a solitary figure on the overpass, and ripped the air horn in his twin-axle dump truck; it happened on this particular morning. Duke waved and smiled. The wipers swatted at the fog and grit, and Duke was unable to see inside the cab, but he knew that his high school classmate was behind the wheel.

  Duke continued along St. Clair Avenue, which cuts east and west through the center of Mingo Junction, starting high atop Granite Hill and dropping precipitously onto Commercial Street, near the historical marker noting that George Washington surveyed the area in 1770. The hillside is so steep that walking down St. Clair Avenue required a reverse angle of the upper torso. As he passed St. Agnes Elementary, the lights were on and the nuns already at their desks. The buses had yet to arrive; it was eerily quiet except for the hollow ping of the flagpole rope slapping against steel.

  Just east of the high school, St. Clair Avenue bends hard to the left and is the bane of drivers unfamiliar with the curve, as the guard rail will attest. It
is a palette of auto-body colors. From the curve, it is just a few feet to Commercial Street. Behind Commercial Street to the east, towering over downtown’s patchwork of both frame and brick buildings, was the smoldering behemoth—the Mingo Junction plant of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation. It was the lifeblood of Mingo Junction, the single engine that drove the entire economy. On clear mornings, it was the view of stacks and flames and billowing smoke that unfolded before Duke as he rounded the bend on St. Clair, lunch pail and folded Ohio Valley Morning Journal in one hand, yellow hardhat and safety glasses in the other. On this day, however, all that penetrated the dense fog was the incessant din of the mill.

  Duke crossed Commercial Street and pushed open the door to a nondescript, one-story brick building known as Carmine’s Lounge. As a youngster, Duke had marveled at how Carmine DiBassio made a living selling only cigars, chewing gum, and newspapers. This was long before he understood the intricacies of running an illegal gambling operation. Taking bets on the ponies, sporting events, and a daily number was apparently infinitely more profitable than chewing-gum sales.

  The odor of stale cigar smoke greeted Duke at the door. The regular gin rummy foursome was already at its table in the rear, the cloud of blue smoke floating over the table illuminated by the fluorescent light. Carmine leaned on the front counter, blankets of silver hair curling on his forearms, and a steaming cup of coffee and a half-eaten glazed donut on a paper napkin resting on a glass top scratched dull by decades of transactions. On the end of his nose rested a pair of dime-store reading glasses, and he held the daily horse-race handicapping sheet at arm’s length, squinting at the fine print.

  “I think you need an eye exam, Carmine,” Duke said. The door skidded on the linoleum as he pushed it closed. “You’re going to have to start tacking that racing sheet on the far wall to read it.”

  Carmine folded the paper and set it on the counter before reaching into a glass case for a pack of spearmint chewing gum. He slid it across the counter and said, “Maybe if you bought something besides chewing gum, I could afford a new pair of glasses.” Duke slid a dime back at him.