Keeplock: A Novel of Crime

by Stephen Solomita

  “Now look here, little monkeys. Listen real fuckin’ close. You don’t wanna try to get outta here and you don’t wanna make a sound. ’Cause if this door should happen to open before we’re finished, I’m gonna kill the both of you. I won’t give a shit about who done what. I’ll kill the both of you. Understand what I’m sayin’?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He backed out of the room, motioned for me to follow, then closed the door. We took up posts just inside the doorway leading to the outside platform. Lost in the shadows, we’d be invisible until the Chapman guards were right on top of us.

  “How ya feeling’, cuz?” Eddie was grinning like a circus clown.

  “Feelin’ strong, Eddie.” What I was actually feeling was disoriented. And what I needed to do was ground myself in the present. There was no point in trying to analyze the situation. Condon and Rico weren’t here, and “here” is where the action was. The man standing across from me was carrying a short-barreled Colt .45, an automatic with a special twelve-round clip. He wouldn’t hesitate to use it on me or anybody else who got between him and the sacks of money locked inside Chapman Security truck number 345. Plus, the Chapman guards, when they arrived, would be armed, including the one locked in the back of the truck and, worst of all, Tony Morasso had already loaded a sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun.

  I squeezed myself down, narrowing my focus until the universe shrunk to the size of a sun-drenched parking lot.

  We might have been standing there for two minutes or two hours. I had no sense of time. But the waiting didn’t bother me. I’d been there before and I knew what to expect. The Chapman truck, when it finally lumbered around the corner of the building, seemed as big as a battleship. I searched out the faces of the men in the cab, looking for Condon and Rico. They weren’t there. The truck was being operated by the same two men we’d been following all afternoon.

  The truck parked with the rear doors facing the platform. The guards stepped out, their weapons holstered, and strolled across the parking lot, chatting back and forth. We waited until they were on the stairs leading up to the dock before we stepped out into the light. They froze for a moment, then let their hands drop slightly. It was a reflex action, but Eddie took it badly.

  “Your hands touch them guns, you’re a couple of dead motherfuckers.”

  Eddie was in a semi-crouch, two hands supporting the Colt. The barrel was less than five feet from the closer of the two men. The guards hesitated, looked at each other, then gave it up. They went through the transitions so smoothly, I was sure that surrender had been part of their training.

  “Ya do this right, nobody gotta get hurt. You fuck it up, you’ll never see ya kids again. Put your hands on top of your head and turn the fuck around.”

  They complied without hesitation. Until Tony Morasso and the shotgun came into view. When they saw his swollen face, they stopped, realizing, maybe, that they’d made a mistake.

  “Keep movin’.”

  It was too late for them, too late to fix it up. With us behind and Tony in front and their hands on top of their heads, they had all the control of a pair of gnats in a hurricane. Both men were shaking.

  I disarmed the two of them, praying that Tony Morasso wouldn’t decide to pick this particular moment to lose control. I was right in the line of fire, as was Eddie. If Morasso let loose with that 12-gauge, he’d most likely kill everybody on the platform.

  Morasso advanced until he was right on top of the taller of the two guards. He yanked the man off the steps, kicked him as he went down, then kicked him again.

  Shepherding Tony through the job was my responsibility. I left Eddie with the second guard and jumped down off the platform. “Let him up. What the fuck is the matter with you?”

  I pulled the guard to his feet and shoved him toward the truck. Morasso accepted my direction, urging the guard forward by jabbing the shotgun into his back. When they were right up against the truck, he laid both barrels against the side of the guard’s head and pushed the man’s face against the bulletproof window.

  “Uhhhhhhhh,” he said. “Uhhhhhhhhhh.” It was as close as Tony could come to intelligible speech.

  I looked into the back of the truck. The guard inside was pressed against the rear wall, a shotgun in his hands. “Open the door and nobody gets hurt,” I shouted. He shook his head slowly. I could smell his fear through two inches of steel armor. “You don’t open it, your buddy’s gonna lose his fuckin’ head. Throw down the shotgun and open the door.”

  Tony continued to grunt. Sooner or later he was going to pull those triggers, and the only thing I could do about it was get that door opened in a hurry.

  “You, inside the truck,” I screamed, “you’re not gonna get another chance. You wanna let your buddy die to protect Chapman Security’s money? What does Chapman Security mean to you, anyway? A paycheck? A pension? Open the door and nobody gets hurt.”

  Eddie came up behind me. Without speaking, he pushed the second guard’s head against the glass.

  “Think about it,” I continued. “These guys are your pals. You’re together five days a week. You know the names of their children, their wives. Can you let them die and live with it? Open the door and we’ll be out of here in five minutes. Don’t be a fool.”

  I saw him hesitate, his eyes flicking from Tony’s face to the faces of his co-workers. There was no way he could look at Tony and still think we might be bluffing. On the other hand, he could easily believe that opening the door would result in a bloodbath.

  “You’re not gonna get hurt. Just open it. All we want is the money. If you don’t open, we’ll burn this fucking truck with you inside it. Open the fucking door.”

  Something clicked. Maybe he finally realized that opening the door was his only chance to survive. Maybe he was acting out of loyalty, putting himself at risk to protect his buddies. Whatever the reason, he dropped his weapon, walked to the front of the truck, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. Tony Morasso rewarded him by jamming the shotgun into his belly and pulling both triggers.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE GUARD’S BODY JACKKNIFED as he flew into the back of the van. One of his companions, the one Tony was holding, shouted, “Chuck, Chuck, Chuck.” The last guard turned and started to run. I grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him down on the asphalt.

  “Just stay there, motherfucker. If you wanna live, stay on the ground.” I wasn’t worried about Tony. With no more shells for the shotgun, he was just another defanged snake. Eddie, on the other hand, would have killed the man before he got fifteen feet.

  “Get in the truck, Tony,” Eddie said. His voice was calm and steady. “Toss out the bags.”

  If Eddie had ever meant to carry out his threat to kill Morasso on the spot, the sight of those canvas bags washed his resolution away. I stood over the two guards, keeping them quiet, while Morasso threw bags of money to Eddie, who threw them to Parker in the back of the van. Several of the canvas bags were covered with blood.

  Five minutes later, Eddie slammed the van into gear and we tore up the ramp. He slowed it down once we were on the street, following the light traffic over the Expressway and onto the Cross Island Parkway. Nobody said a word until he passed through the toll on the Bronx end of the Throgs Neck Bridge.

  “I fucked it up, didn’t I?” Morasso said.

  “It don’t matter,” Eddie declared. “One more body ain’t gonna mean shit. We’re in the clear. There ain’t no way they can find us now.”

  “But I fucked it up.”

  I think Tony finally realized that he was the only one in the van without a weapon. Not that I gave a shit. I was thinking about the guard in the back of the truck, of the astonishing quantity of blood pumping from his gut, of the two cops who were supposed to prevent his death.

  “Well, John,” Eddie said, “whatta ya think? Did we do it or what?”

  Parker was sitting on top of a small mountain of canvas bags. He looked stunned, like a high-diver coming down on an empty swimming pool. �
��Why did Tony shoot that man? What was point of that?”

  “Bad things happen to good people, cuz.” Eddie grinned. “I want you and Tony to combine those bags. Break the contents down, toss out the checks. And don’t get any blood on ya clothes if ya can help it.”

  Tony lifted up his hands. They were covered with rapidly drying blood. “I already got it on me,” he said.

  “C’mon, Pete,” Eddie said, “give us a smile. Ya gonna be a rich man.”

  I managed a weak grimace. Despite the fact that I knew Condon and Rico were going to be waiting in the garage. They’d arrested Avi, then decided to take us when we made the split. There was no other explanation, outside of two unexpected heart attacks, that made any sense. I didn’t know why they’d decided to wait or how they’d explain it to their superiors. I just knew they’d be waiting.

  I said a quick prayer of thanks for Simon Cooper. There was an awful lot of blood in the back of that armored car. The media would cover it, even on an afternoon when the Pope was in town. Condon and Rico would be tempted to invent a scenario which included no prior knowledge of the crime. Maybe they’d resurrect the proverbial “anonymous informant.”

  Acting on information received from an anonymous source, Detectives Rico and Condon proceeded to a schoolyard in Bay side where they apprehended one Avraham Stern. After waiving his rights, Avraham Stern led Detectives Rico and Condon to a garage in the Throgs Neck Section of the Bronx where four other suspects were placed under arrest.

  They couldn’t very well play that game now. Not without my cooperation. The only question for me was how I was going to react when they made their appearance. The garage had a small room in the back. I suppose it’d once been used as a work space, but now it was empty except for a kitchen table. The plan called for us to divide the money on the table where everyone could see what was happening. Except for Tony, of course. I was supposed to kill him as soon as we got inside the garage.

  I screwed the silencer into the 9mm while Parker and Tony were busy with the money. Eddie gave me a slight nod of encouragement.

  “How’s it look back there?” he asked. “We rich, or what?”

  “Some of this money has blood on it,” Parker replied.

  “We’ll wash it, cuz. We got plenty of time.”

  He turned the van into a short driveway and stopped in front of the garage. I got out, opened the garage door for the van, followed it inside, then closed the door. When I turned around, Avi was standing at the far end of the room.

  I wasn’t surprised to see him there. I wasn’t surprised when Condon and Rico stepped out of the back room, either. What shocked me were the stockings the two cops had pulled down over their faces. And the military-style weapons they carried. I’d missed the street upscale from Saturday night specials to 9mm automatics and assault rifles. I didn’t know what Condon and Rico were pointing at us—Uzis, Ml6s, AK47s—but the long banana clips just in front of the trigger guards told the whole story.

  “Who are you?” Parker asked.

  “You sure you wanna know?” Condon asked. His lips curled into a grin beneath the sheer fabric of the stocking. Lacking a Tony Morasso, he was doing his best to fill the part. “Nobody has to get hurt. But that don’t mean nobody will get hurt. If we have to kill one of you, we might as well kill all of you. Now, I want you to drop them weapons. One at a time. You first, Eddie.”

  Eddie’s head jerked when he heard Condon use his name, but he wasn’t stupid enough to try anything. He took the automatic out of his belt, handling it with two fingers, and dropped it on the concrete floor.

  “Awright, you next, Tony.”

  “I don’t got nothin’,” Tony said. “The shotgun ain’t loaded. I left it in the truck.”

  “Pete, go pat him down. Then take all the weapons and put them in the trunk.”

  Eddie’s eyes snapped over to meet mine. Avi’s followed an instant later. Now it made sense to everybody. Condon and Rico had been after the money from the beginning. They used me to set up the job and now they were setting me up to take the fall. Eddie and the boys would come after me, but they wouldn’t find me unless they happened to look in the East River. With me out of the picture, there’d be no way for Eddie to link Condon and Rico to the rip-off. They could look forever, grab and kill every ex-con I’d run with in Cortlandt, but they’d never find the two cops.

  I suppose I should have felt something, anger or betrayal or fear, but I was functioning on a different level. The only emotion still operating was the will to survive. Simon Cooper’s face swam into what was left of my mind. Condon and Rico must have found a way to eliminate him as a factor in the equation. I didn’t know how and I didn’t care. That was for later, that was for after I survived.

  Morasso began to shake as I approached him and my boyish smile only added to his agitation.

  “What’s the matter, Tony. You cold or somethin’?”

  I came up behind him and ran my hands over his ribs, then let them slide forward to gently pinch his nipples. “I ever tell you that you’re my kinda guy?” I let my hand slide down his belly to cup his balls. “Yeah, you are, Tony. You’re my kinda guy. That’s why I’m fucking you.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Pete,” Condon ordered.

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was staring into the barrel of Condon’s rifle, I think Tony would have gone off on the spot. Of course, I was staring into the barrel of the same rifle, so what I did was obey. I gathered Parker and Eddie’s weapons, carefully added my own, then dumped them in the rear of a 1991 Ford Crown Victoria. It was supposed to have been Eddie’s getaway car. The other cars were parked in the street.

  “Real good, Pete. Now empty the van.”

  I dragged the two full bags out of the van and heaved them into the Ford’s trunk. On the way, I grinned at Morasso. “Easy come, easy go. Right, cutie?”

  “That’s it? That’s all you got?” Rico sounded like he was going to cry.

  “Don’t worry, Rico, we combined the bags as we drove up here. There’s enough in there to keep you in pig feed for the rest of your life.”

  Rico’s head jerked when I said his name. The barrel of his rifle swung around until it was pointed at my chest.

  “Don’t do it,” Condon ordered. “And you, Pete, don’t fuck up again. Now let’s get out of here.”

  “Take the keys first,” I said. “They’ve got four cars parked outside. Take the keys.”

  Condon looked at me for a minute. He couldn’t have cared less about Eddie’s cars. They wouldn’t be pursuing him, because they had no idea who he was. They’d be coming after me. And they’d begin their search at my last known address: Ginny’s apartment on Cherry Avenue.

  “Cough ’em up,” he ordered. “Throw ’em over to Pete.”

  As I picked the keys off the floor, Condon and Rico walked over to the Ford, drew automatic pistols, then calmly tossed the rifles into the trunk.

  “Whatta ya say we get the show on the road, Pete?” Rico opened the rear door and waved me inside.

  I was close enough to see his features through the stocking as I stepped past him. He was so nervous, his eyeballs were shaking.

  “You really oughta let the safety off,” I said. “If you plan to use that piece.”

  His eyes snapped down involuntarily, then snapped back up to meet mine. If I’d had any doubt about his intentions, which I didn’t, that look would have erased them.

  “Still the tough guy,” he muttered, jamming the gun barrel into my ribs.

  “What could I say, Rico? I guess I’m just the kinda guy who likes his work.”

  He wanted to kill me in the worst way, but didn’t. Lacking Tony Morasso’s spontaneous charm, he would follow through on whatever plan he and Condon had concocted. I suppose that his control gave him confidence, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a rank amateur at the art of kidnapping and murder. A pro would have killed the four of us as soon as the garage door was closed.

  Rico pushed me across th
e backseat, then got in after me. That was his first mistake. He should have gotten in from the other side, where he could keep an eye on Eddie and the boys, especially Tony Morasso. I leaned forward, pressing my back against the front seat and waved at Tony. He was right on the edge.

  Condon opened the garage door, then got into the Ford and put it in gear. I took the opportunity to blow Tony a kiss. Maybe that’s what set him off. Or maybe it was the thought of all that money rolling out the door. I’ll never know, because what Tony did was scream and charge the car. Rico turned at the sound and discovered Tony almost at the window. I would have loved to see Rico’s face at that moment, but I had to content myself with the back of his head. Rico fired three times and Tony Morasso flew backward, imitating the security guard he’d blown apart half an hour before.

  Condon had no choice except to drive out of the garage. Despite the fact that I was on top of Rico. Despite the fact that I held Rico’s gun with my left hand while I smashed my right fist into his face. Again and again and again. I didn’t expect Rico to offer much resistance and he didn’t. He made a feeble attempt to grab me with his free hand, but my body was above his and I was forcing him against the door while keeping my own back wedged against the front seat.

  When Condon finally slammed on the brakes, I didn’t miss a beat. I continued to pound Rico’s face until his eyes closed and his fingers relaxed on the gun. Condon was struggling to pull his own piece, but his fat gut was pressed against the steering wheel and he couldn’t manage to free the automatic and turn to face me at the same time.

  “If you’re still holding that weapon two seconds from now, what I’m gonna do is surrender to my base instincts. You won’t like my base instincts.” I pressed the gun barrel into his temple.

  “Whatta ya doin’, Pete? It’s yours, too. You’re in on it.” He dropped the pistol on the floor.