Oblivion - Debt Collector 13 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  “Remember. If I see police, you are getting out,” Jack told Dalton. “Can’t have Karen on my back.”

  “Too late.”

  “Oh shit,” Jack muttered.

  Before they peeled away, Dalton said, “You might find this useful.” He handed him a Glock. Jack took it and turned it from side to side.

  “I never took you for a gun owner, Dalton.”

  “It’s not mine. It belonged to your attorney — Sanders.”

  “Sanders?”

  It was then Dalton informed him of what had happened to the doc, the confession of Sanders and his release. “We let him go,” he said it in a way as if he knew Jack would be disappointed.

  Jack offered back a smile. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because we’re not killers and he has family,” Kelly added.

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded. “After today, he won’t. And trust me, they’ll be better off without a man like him around.” Jack pointed to the serial number on the side of the gun. The weapon was registered in Sanders’ name. After what Jack had planned, the only evidence they’d find in the bloody carnage would be one gun registered to Sanders. He’d have a lot of explaining to do after that. Jack checked the magazine before palming it and tucking it into his jeans. He honked the horn, stuck his thumb out at Boone and gave it some gas. Although he didn’t know if Boone could be trusted to not tell the police, Dalton was sure, and that was enough for Jack.

  The sight of the concrete jungle rising up like fingers to the sky was a welcome relief. For the first three hours of the journey, his nerves had been on edge. He kept looking down at his speedometer, convinced he was going too fast and it would attract the attention of state patrol. Every few seconds Jack glanced in his rearview mirror expecting to see the flash of lights but there were none.

  “Will you know where to find him?” Dalton asked.

  “I have a good idea.” The first stop was at Romano’s Pizzeria, a little corner joint in Bergen County, not far from the site of the Pig’s Ear that was no longer standing. It had been a long time since his shadow had darkened its grimy doorstep. His old stomping ground brought back a flood of memories, mostly brutality, pain and anguish.

  Jack pulled to the side of the road and looked at the brown building crouched on the corner. It looked different to what he remembered. The sickly yellow neon sign had been replaced by a modern, more aesthetically pleasing logo. The sidewalk had been upgraded with garbage cans outside, and an artistic black lamppost flying the American flag. In this neighborhood, buildings might change but the people didn’t.

  “Well, this is the end of the road. Time to get out,” Jack said turning to the two of them.

  Kelly’s brow furrowed; her jaw dropped. “But what about my story?”

  “I have a better one for you.”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Speak to Nurse Hanna Cross from Holbrook.”

  “But what about you, Dana and…”

  “Kelly. You seem like a real nice girl.” He smiled. “Hell, if I was twenty years younger I would chase you around the block, but this is the end of the road. For your safety, for your career, for your future... put me in your rearview mirror and don’t ever look back. Those who don’t are changed forever.” He got this pained expression on his face as he glanced at Dalton. “Tell Karen I’m sorry. After tonight you won’t have to worry. Trust me on that.”

  “What? You can tell her yourself.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve been a good friend, Dalton.” Jack extended a hand and Dalton looked down at it and slapped it away.

  “No. No you don’t. After this, you, me, God and Karen are going to have a little talk.”

  Jack smiled. “All right. Go on now.”

  “Um. Just one thing,” Kelly said opening the door. “How do I get home?”’

  “Uber. I hear it’s all the rage now.”

  “And the SUV?”

  “It’s in good hands,” Jack replied.

  Dalton snorted as he got out. Before he closed the door he looked back at Jack. “I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

  Jack didn’t respond; his mind was already shifting gears. Like a light switch being turned on, it always happened before the violence began.

  “Bye, Jack.”

  Dalton closed the door. He turned to Kelly and they took off up the street. Jack waited until they were out of sight before he climbed out. The night offered cover as he made his way over and saw four workers inside. Someone was paying for pizza, and another customer was sitting at a table waiting for an order. The place was a far cry from his childhood days. Back then it was nothing more than a hole in the wall, a family-owned business with strong connections to Gafino.

  He cocked his head from side to side and it let out a crack before he entered through the main door. He glanced up at the menu as if he was planning on ordering. One of the staff looked at him and squinted as if trying to place his face but they would have been hard-pressed to recognize him. The original owner no longer worked behind the counter, back then it had been him and his wife. After paying for a pizza the customer walked out and Jack looked over at the female sitting at the table, holding a receipt in one hand and a phone in the other. He didn’t want her calling the cops so he walked over and pulled the gun from the small of his back and flashed it. Her eyes widened and he took the phone out of her hand. There was no resistance. He jerked his head and she exited quickly. The jangle of the bell above the door caught the staff’s attention. He walked over and locked it, then turned and before anyone had a chance to react, he catapulted over the counter, his butt sliding before he landed on two feet.

  Keeping the gun raised, he asked, “Angelo Gafino. Where is he?”

  Frozen in place, one of them was still holding a wide steel board used for inserting pizza into an oven. Another had pastry in his hand, it drooped over his forearms like putty. The other two had a deer in the headlights look.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” a middle-aged man with a thick beard standing nearest to Jack said. “If you want money. The machine is there.”

  Jack reeled off the number Sanders had given Dalton. “That’s this place, is it not?”

  They nodded.

  “You the owner?” Jack asked.

  “I am,” said a man at the rear of the store with a gut that billowed out from his white T-shirt.

  Jack jerked his gun towards him in. “I have no problem with you. Just tell me where he is.”

  The owner shrugged. “I have no idea who you’re referring to.”

  Lies. Jack was used to them. After years of collecting debts, he could see the telltale signs. Hands shaking, diverting eyes, wetting the lips repeatedly because of a dry mouth, elevated pulse in the neck. The list went on. Jack nodded. “This your son?” he asked jerking his head towards a guy no older than twenty-one. The man didn’t reply, and yet he had. In an instant, Jack fired a round into the kid’s knee, dropping him.

  His father rushed forward to help his son. “Carlos.”

  Jack pointed the barrel at his son. “Last chance. Where is he?”

  He caved. They always did. The oversized man lifted his hands. “All right. All right. I’ll get him on the phone.”

  “No. Tell me where he is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  This time he fired another round into his son’s other leg. All the while he kept his eyes on the other two shifty-looking fellas who looked as if they were ready to make a move. He could see the staff wanted a piece of him. One guy was eyeing a wheeled, steel pizza cutter on the counter, the other something behind the oven. The owner’s son was writhing in agony, blood smearing the floor. It hadn’t been the first time blood had been spilled under that roof. The owner held his son, tears running down his face, a mix of anger and pain.

  “The next one goes in his skull.”

  Through gritted teeth the owner spoke, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  Jack
cocked his head, frowning.

  “The Butcher.” His words came out almost as a whisper before he said, “Jack Winchester. I heard you were dead.”

  He hadn’t heard anyone from New Jersey call him the Butcher in a long time. Jack squinted, trying to place his face, wondering if he knew the man. Then it hit him. “Tommy Riggs?”

  He remembered him as a young kid but he was thin then, well dressed, nothing like this bulbous guy before him. They were never at odds with one another, hell, he’d always liked his father. Jack nodded. “Your father. Francesco. Still alive?”

  He shook his head. “Died six years ago. I run this place now.” He looked at his son Carlos and ran a hand over his face. “Please. Let me call an ambulance. He’s all I’ve got.”

  In days gone by Jack would have felt empathy but it was gone. She was gone. And with it what little good remained. He couldn’t feel it. That nagging pull towards mercy. All he felt now was rage and hate, and all he wanted was vengeance.

  Stabbing his gun forward he bellowed, “Where is he?”

  “Port of Newark,” Tommy spat out. “The tank terminal.”

  “Cocaine,” Jack muttered. “He’s transporting it out using fuel tanks?”

  Tommy nodded. “He showed up here a few months ago. He’s been doing the rounds, picking up where his old man left off. Said he’s gonna change things. Rebuild. He used the phone here a few times. We took messages for him. That’s all. I swear, Jack.” He looked back at his son and for a second Jack felt a twinge of regret. It vanished in an instant as one of the staff went for whatever was behind the oven. He shot out of view and Jack pushed forward, firing two rounds, one of which killed the guy who went for the cutter, before Jack dropped and shot the second guy in the leg beneath the raised oven. The man collapsed with a shotgun in hand.

  Tommy bounced up but Jack was too fast. He fired two shots into his back before he could go for a weapon. Tommy collapsed a few feet from his son. No father would sit by and do nothing, especially not a New Jersey boy. Getting up, Jack walked over to the guy writhing on the floor behind the oven, gripping his mangled leg. “No. No.” Jack squeezed the trigger and a round exited his skull.

  The only one alive was Tommy’s son. Two injured kneecaps. A witness to murder. He walked over and looked at him. Jack thought back to Vincent, the son of the first man he’d ever killed. It came back to haunt him. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again. The kid revealed in his stare the same grit, defiance and acceptance he expected in the face of death. “Sorry, kid. Maybe in another life.”

  A flash from the muzzle. One more round echoed before Jack scooped up the sawed-off shotgun, yanked the security footage and exited to the sound of a distant siren.

  21

  The ports of New York and Newark had long served as the backdrop for mob activity. Port workers were easy to shake down and extort through fear and intimidation, and many a supervisor found their way onto the payroll of Gafino. For years cocaine arrived in shipping containers before it hit the streets. It seemed fitting after all this time that Angelo would begin there. He knew that whoever controlled the port, controlled the bulk of street narcotics. It was fast, easy money, and the quickest way to re-establish his name.

  The familiar sight of sidewalk steam swirling into the air, pastrami delis and the steel of a busy port made him feel comfortable, like slipping into a warm bath. The underbelly of New Jersey was like revisiting an addiction, the honking of horns got under his skin and the smog stuck to him like filthy grime. Before he left the city he had grown to hate it, but time had given him a new appreciation.

  Jack breathed in the salty air, his pulse beating steady and strong as he parked the SUV in a separate parking lot across the street. He tucked the shotgun under his jacket, keeping a firm grip on it through the pocket as he jogged across the street, down a narrow alley that brought him around to the front. Stopping at the corner he observed a crew of three men milling around a filling station where a large tanker was being filled.

  The weather had taken a turn for the worse with a light rain beginning to fall. Seagulls squawked as they wheeled over a yard of shipping containers. Large floodlights lit up areas of the yard, and the front of a large warehouse. Tanker trucks drove between the facility and an international cargo ship.

  “Where are you?” Jack muttered under his breath.

  One of them waved in the next fuel tanker.

  “Take this one down to the ship,” one of the men said. “Then get the next three ready. Speed it up. He wants this out tonight.” Jack pulled the sawed-off shotgun and held it low as he pressed his back to the building and stayed in the darkness.

  Flashes of memories from the past rushed in, the words of Gafino, the men he’d beaten, murdered and dumped. Everything he’d walked away from, and said he wouldn’t return to, came back. At one time it tortured him, not anymore. He was numb to it. Driven by nothing more than vengeance.

  As the crew connected large hoses to the tanker on one side, he darted out from the shadows on the other.

  “Open the valves,” a man yelled.

  He heard the sound of fluid being pumped into the tanker. The smell of gasoline was unmistakable. If they were filling it with gas, where was the cocaine being stored? In his time, crates of cocaine would enter inside cargo containers and then be loaded into the back of trucks and stored in suburban homes.

  Jack rounded the tanker, coming face to face with one of them who was cranking a valve while the other two were working on the tanker. His eyes dropped to the shotgun. Before he could react, one of the other guys looked over. Jack didn’t hesitate, he unloaded a round into the guy’s chest knocking him back a foot, then rushed forward to take out the second. None of them were armed. This was unlike any operation he’d seen before — then again the feds had been cracking down on the import of drugs — they couldn’t exactly carry around assault rifles. The third guy tried to run but Jack shot him in the leg. He dropped, writhing in agony. Jack ambled over and pressed his foot down on the bloody portion, holding the barrel up to his face.

  “Angelo. Where is he?”

  His eyes darted to the building nearby. “In the warehouse.” His hands came up. “Please. Don’t…”

  Another muzzle flash, and Jack put the guy out of his misery.

  He glanced over to the warehouse. Lights flickered; the silhouettes of figures passed by the windows. Aware that time was ticking, he shut off the valve and disconnected the hose, then climbed up onto the tanker trailer. Staying low, he moved to the middle where there was a large manhole hatch. After opening it, he peered inside. Under the bright floodlights it was clear what Angelo was doing. He reached in and retrieved a brick of cocaine. They were using customized tankers, filling the lower half with gasoline and the upper half with cocaine. If stopped, it would be fairly easy to prove it was nothing more than gasoline. They wouldn’t even need to open the hatch on top, one of the side valves would offer ample proof, and the stench, well that offered the perfect cover. None of the men loading were carrying weapons so unless the cops had been tipped off, they wouldn’t even bat an eye. He had to admit, Angelo was ahead of the game.

  After shutting the hatch he climbed down and got into the cab, and fired up the engine.

  Jack was just about to pull out when he saw headlights wash over the warehouse from an approaching SUV. It pulled up, and three hulking guys hopped out. The rear door was pulled open and his stomach dropped. Dalton and Kelly were dragged from the vehicle, their hands in restraints. Two of the men shoved them forward while the third guy pulled wide a set of doors. Light split the darkness as the glow from inside illuminated them all.

  “No. No!” he gritted his teeth and slammed a fist against the steering wheel. “Shit.”

  The steady flutter of machines counting banknotes rang out a sweet chorus. Angelo stood on a steel catwalk high up in the warehouse overlooking a crew of underpaid immigrants. The warehouse was full of Chinese women and men in nothing more than underwear to reduc
e the likelihood of anyone stealing. In addition to this, armed men posted around the catwalk walked back and forth keeping tabs on the operation. The enterprise had been easy to set up. They were wrapping hundred dollar bills and inserting them into duffel bags. Those bags would then be taken to safe houses throughout the city. Fear of theft didn’t register in his mind. Unlike his father, he paid his guys handsomely to ensure their trust.

  After dealing with Winchester, he’d returned to the city with the purpose of rebuilding his father’s empire and restoring the Gafino name to its rightful place — a family to be feared. Within weeks, word spread that Angelo was alive, and from that alone he caught the attention of those loyal to his father, but it was when he took over the Port of Newark that other five major crime families took notice.

  He’d been in talks with the head of the Genovese family when word reached him of Winchester’s escape. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d considered it a possibility. Jack had nothing to lose. He’d stripped him of all that mattered. And, if anyone could escape, it would be him — but they had reassured him that wouldn’t happen.

  He shouldn’t have trusted them.

  Others might have fled, vanished from the city, but not him. Not anymore.

  He hadn’t come this far to walk away now. And besides, Jack was nothing but a pawn to be toyed with; the man that once struck fear in the hearts of New Yorkers was a shell of his former self. He’d proven that.

  Still, within hours of the news he’d arranged to get this last shipment of cocaine in before he dealt with the matter. That was before Romano’s Pizzeria. A nearby business owner had alerted him. Told him the cops had sealed off the place. That it was a bloodbath. It had all the marks of Jack. That was only confirmed when surveillance footage from a nearby business showed Jack arriving with two passengers. They were seen walking away moments before he attacked.

  Angelo had his guys swoop in and pick them up.

  They’d found them five blocks from the pizzeria, trying to hail a cab.