by Frank Zafiro
Joe took a step forward, but Bracco stayed him with a wave of his hand.
“Just a second.” He stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t think you quite grasp the situation.” He pointed at Beth. “Your little wife here is going to get fucked eight ways from Sunday. Then she gets a bullet, just like this cocksucker here.” He pointed at Reggie.
I swallowed, but said nothing.
Bracco pointed at me next. “Then you’re next. By the time we’re through with you, you’ll be begging for that bullet, believe me.”
I shook my head. “That’s not how it’s going to happen.”
Bracco stared at me, amused. Then he laughed out loud. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”
“Because I have something you want.”
“What’s that?”
“The money. And not just my cut, but the whole wad Oleg had at that house.”
Bracco’s eyes narrowed.
“At least two hundred large,” I told him.
Bracco glanced sidelong at Bassen for confirmation. The ex-boxer gave him a reluctant nod of affirmation.
“Fine,” Bracco said. “Where is it?”
“Someplace safe.”
Bracco snorted and waved at Bassen. “Check him.”
Bassen stepped forward and roughly frisked me. I held my arms out to the side and allowed him. There was nothing else I could do. Not with that kid pointing the pistol at the back of Beth’s head.
Bassen ran his hand over the hard lump in the small of my back. He reached under my sweatshirt, grasped the butt of his gun and jerked it free with a glare. Then he continued his search. Once he finished checking, he drove a hard right into my stomach. Air whooshed out of my lungs and I collapsed to my knees, struggling to breathe.
“Nothing,” Bassen reported, holding up the gun. “’Cept this.”
“Check his car,” Bracco ordered him.
Bassen slipped the gun into his belt and stalked out the front door.
I slowly caught my breath. “You think I’m stupid enough to bring it with me?” I wheezed at Bracco.
He shrugged. “Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said. “Especially when it comes to how stupid people can be.”
I rose to my feet. Beth had opened her eyes and now stared at me. Fear and panic radiated from her almost like sound waves that were deafening. I forced a little smile. “It’ll be all right, babe,” I whispered to her.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Bracco said matter-of-factly.
Bassen returned and shook his head. “Just a couple of suitcases and the bitch’s purse.”
Bracco turned his gaze back to me. “Where is it?”
“Somewhere safe, like I said. Now, you want to hear my offer?”
Bracco paused. He studied me carefully, as if he were deciding whether to call a poker hand or raise it. For a guy like him, there was no such thing as folding. And that’s what I was counting on.
Finally he nodded. “Okay. What’s your offer?”
“We go free,” I said. “Unharmed. I buy our freedom with Oleg’s money. Her and I go far away from here. No one ever hears from us again and you get rich.”
“That’s it?”
I nodded.
Bracco considered for a long minute. I could almost hear the argument going on inside his head. Anger versus greed, battling it out.
Greed won. It usually does.
“All right,” he said. “Now where’s the money?”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh.” I pointed at Beth. “She leaves first, free and clear. After she’s gone, I’ll take you to the money. Once you have the money, I go free. That’s the deal.”
Bracco thought about it for another few moments. “All right,” he said. “All right.” He motioned to the kid with the gun. “Cut her loose.”
The kid snapped open a knife and cut through her bindings. As soon as her hands were free, she tore the tape from her mouth, scrambled to her feet and threw herself into my embrace. I held her close, breathing in the smell of her hair and skin.
“I love you, baby,” I whispered.
She sobbed, unable to speak.
“Head south,” I breathed into her ear and she stiffened. Then I added, “I’ll find you,” and she melted against me again.
“Enough harlequin shit already,” Bracco said.
I pulled her away from me and held her at an arm’s length. “See you soon, okay?”
She nodded through her tears.
I kissed her softly on the corner of her mouth. “Now, go.” I pressed the keys into her hand.
She took the keys and brushed past me. I closed my eyes and listened to her go, smelling the remnants of her presence. I saw her warm and safe on that sliver of beach.
“Okay, she’s gone,” Bracco said. “Now where’s my money?”
I didn’t answer until I heard the Honda engine come to life and then fade away. I opened my eyes and stared at Bracco.
“You’re never going to let me go, are you?”
“Sure I am,” he said. “Once I get the money.”
I snorted and jerked a thumb toward Bassen. “I may be a fighter, but I’m not as stupid as him.”
Bassen tensed, but Bracco held up his hand again.
“As soon as you get the money,” I told him, “I’m as good as dead.”
“That’s not true. I’m a man of my word.”
“Fuck your word,” I told him, and spat on the floor near his feet. “And fuck you.”
I expected rage from him, but what came across his face was something closer to disappointment. “You don’t have the money, do you?”
“I’ve got it. But I’m not giving it to you. You’ll just kill me anyway.”
“I let your woman go,” Bracco said.
I shrugged. “Small price to pay.”
He held his hands out to me, palms up. “What can I do to convince you?”
“You can get on your knees and blow me.”
Anger flashed across his face. There was no going back now. Not after I said that to him in front of his crew. He sighed.
“Get on your knees,” Bracco said, his voice low and dangerous.
I didn’t move.
“Isaac,” Bracco said.
The kid raised his pistol and fired a shot into my leg. I cried out in pain and fell to the floor. I heard the chair scrape against linoleum and Bracco’s stylish shoes appeared next to my face. “Stupid fuck,” he muttered. “Get him up.”
Bassen jerked me to my knees. I looked up at Bracco, who now held the kid’s silenced pistol in his right hand. He stared at me coldly and raised it. I took a deep breath and considered praying again. Instead, I thought of Beth. Alive. Safe.
“You shoulda just taken the dive, like I offered you,” Bracco told me again.
“I know,” I tried to say, but my throat and mouth was too dry. I stared at the end of the barrel, looking deep, deep into that darkness until it swallowed me up.
Some sins you have to pay for, eventually.
Rescuing Isaac
“So your guy got pinched. So what?” Angelo’s voice coming out of the telephone receiver was thick with New Jersey accent. “Everybody gets pinched.”
Dominic Bracco lowered the payphone receiver away from his mouth and rubbed his eyes. “I’m worried.”
“What’s to worry about? Get a lawyer. He gets off or he does a little stretch. No big deal.”
“It won’t be a little stretch. It’ll be a dime.”
“Ten years for theft? You’re kiddin’ me, right? And speak up, I can barely hear ya.”
Dom moved the receiver closer to his mouth. “The charge isn’t theft. It’s robbery.”
“Don’t tell me your guy flashed a gun.”
“No, he had it covered with a paper bag. But it doesn’t matter. In the state of Washington, all you have to do is act like you got a piece and if the other guy believes it, it’s robbery.”
“Yeah, sure, it’s like that most places,” Angelo said. His tone took on that of a tea
cher whose patience was wearing thin with a slow student. “But that’s the letter of the law, not how they charge it. As long as he didn’t actually show them the gun—”
“That’s how they charge it here.” Dom didn’t like his uncle’s tone. He lived here in River City. He knew the score. Angelo didn’t. All his uncle did was get a little taste of everything he did. And for that little taste, he was supposed to help out in situations like this one.
“Okay,” Angelo said, “if that’s the way they do it, that’s the way they do it. Get the kid a good lawyer.”
“He’s got a good lawyer.” Dom scratched his hairy forearm.
“And?”
“The lawyer says he’s fucked.”
Angelo chuckled. “The lawyer actually said that?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Why’s he so sure?”
Dom suppressed a sigh. He shouldn’t have to explain. Angelo was supposed to help, no questions asked. “They caught him in the hijacked truck, with the gun in the cab. The driver picked him out of the lineup. Then instead of clamming up and waiting for the attorney, which is what I told him to always do no matter what, he goes and lies to the cops instead.”
“Stupid,” Angelo observed. “How about the judge?”
“No chance.”
Angelo whistled. “He is fucked.”
“Like I said.”
“So he does some time.”
Dom could almost hear the shrug that accompanied Angelo’s words. He gritted his teeth. “He might not do the time. That’s why I’m worried.”
“You think he’ll turn state’s witness?”
“I don’t know. He might.”
“I told you to only hire Italians,” Angelo admonished.
Dom rolled his eyes. As if Italians never turned on each other. “Uncle Angelo, there are no paisan out here, you know? It’s not like Jersey. Any Italians in this town, they shop at The Gap.”
“Whatever. Look, if he rolls, this guy, what can he give the government?”
“A lot,” Dom conceded. “Too much.”
“Too many eggs in one basket, Dommie,” Angelo said. “What did I tell you about that, huh? You don’t trust no one guy with too much.”
“I know.”
“You say you know, but now this guy is in jail and you’re calling me, shitting water about it.” Angelo sighed. “Can you get to him while he’s in jail?”
Dom hesitated. Traffic whizzed by behind him. He’d never used this payphone to call Uncle Angelo before, so he knew it was safe. But Angelo—
“Is this line okay?” he asked.
“New cell phone,” Angelo told him. “Out of the box this morning. Now answer the question.”
“The answer is no. I’ve got no people inside and the jail security is tight, too.”
Angelo was silent for a while. Finally, he said, “I guess your only option is to break him out.”
“Break him…what?” Dom sputtered.
Angelo didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll send two guys. They’re gonna need a wheel man. You got a wheel man?”
Dom shook off his surprise. “Yeah. But who are you going to send?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’ll be a coupla guys from Kansas City. You can call them Mr. Johnson and Mr. Peterson. They’ll take care of the details.”
Dom gritted his teeth. Kansas City? Compared to Jersey, that was the minor leagues. And River City was even lower than KC on the pecking order. By sending troops from there, Angelo made a clear statement: Dom’s problem wasn’t that important.
“Thanks,” he managed to say. “I’d use my own people, but—”
“But they gotta disappear after. I know. Don’t worry. Time will come I need your guys for something out this way. Just tell them not to wear no flannel shirts.” Angelo laughed at his own joke. The laughter dissolved into a hacking cough.
Dom pulled the phone from his ear and waited.
Angelo finished clearing his lungs and grunted. “How’s my restaurant doin’?” he asked.
“Fine. It’s a hot spot in town. How’s things in Jersey?”
“Getting dark, Dommie. But there’s money to be made. Always money to be made.”
For the thousandth time, Dom thought about asking to come back, but he held his tongue. Now wasn’t the time. Not when he was asking for help instead of solving his own problem in the piss-ant city he’d been sent to work.
Instead, he listened carefully while Angelo told him what to do.
Isaac looked thinner to him. Dom wondered if he’d eaten since the arrest. The young man’s usually perfectly gelled hair was a tangled mess. His eyes darted warily left and right as he sat down on the other side of the thick Plexiglas window and picked up the phone receiver.
Dom did the same. “You know they tape these?” he asked, pointing to the phone.
Isaac nodded.
“Don’t ever say nothing to anybody except your lawyer,” Dom told him. “And him only what he needs to know.”
Isaac hung his head. The act made him look much younger than his twenty-three years. “I’m sorry, boss.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Dom said. “Be smart.”
Isaac bobbed his head, not meeting Dom’s eyes.
“Look at me,” the older man said.
Isaac looked up. His eyes brimmed with tears.
Christ, you’d think he’d never gone to jail before. No way will he do the dime without rolling over.
“Listen, kid, I’m going to take care of you.”
Isaac’s eyes brightened. “How?”
“Never mind how. You just worry about what I need you to do.”
“Sure, boss, whatever you need.”
“Tomorrow, you call your lawyer and tell him you want to petition the court for new counsel. You want a hearing, understand?”
“Yeah. I want a new lawyer.”
“No. You want a hearing.”
Isaac squinted. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
Isaac Rainey sat on his jail bunk, his knees drawn to his chest. He thought about everything Dom had told him, running it through his mind over and over so he got it right. Relief had washed over him as soon as he realized that Dom was going to bust him out.
Dom had been his second visitor that day.
The first was the bitch detective again, the one working his case. MacLeod was her name. She laid it all out for him on the table. All the evidence. Him in the cab, the gun, the witness, his own stupid fucking lies. All of it was worth ten years in Walla Walla State Penitentiary, she said.
When she was done, she put all her papers back into a file and said she could help him out. Dom’s contacts went all the way back to the East Coast. She could call in someone from the FBI who worked organized crime and they could work some sort of deal. He refused her, but after the long walk back to his cell and the hard, leering stares from the other inmates, he’d wondered if maybe that was his best option.
When Dom came to see him and told him he’d get him out, it made him feel guiltier than hell for even thinking about turning on the man. Dom had given him a job, trusted him, been like a father to him. You don’t repay that kind of loyalty by rolling over.
Isaac allowed himself a smile. Everything was going to be all right.
In the small office at the rear of Angelo’s Restaurant, Dom counted out the contents of the envelope and cursed. He began counting again. Joe Bassen stood in front of his desk, rocking from foot to foot.
When he’d finished counting the second time, Dom cursed again. Ever since Isaac got popped, earnings were down. Some of it was because Bassen didn’t have a partner to work with him. Isaac was a sharp worker, and productive. He did Dom no good sitting in jail. He needed him back on the streets.
He glanced up at Bassen. The former boxer swayed and waited, probably replaying a fight from the past in his head. Was he skimming? Naw, Bassen was loyal. Not as smart as Isaac, but loyal.
“You hit the auto body shop out east yet?”
<
br /> Bassen broke his reverie and nodded. “Yeah. They didn’t have it.”
“None of it?”
“Not even the vig.”
Dom swore. Missing a payment was one thing, but not even paying interest? “What’d you do?”
Bassen blinked. “Gave the foreman a little reminder. And said I’d be back tomorrow.”
Dom nodded. Collecting was Bassen’s forte and he did it well. The bigger operations, that’s where Isaac came in.
Trish knocked at the door and poked her head in. The numerous bracelets on her wrists clinked with each motion. “Coupla guys to see you. Said they’re from out of town.”
Dom slipped the envelope into his desk. “Sure, Trish. Send ’em in.”
When the pair ambled into the office, Dom raised his eyebrows. Both of them were smaller than he was and neither one looked Italian.
“Peterson,” said the first, a wiry man with muddy brown hair. He held out his hand and Dom took it. The grip was firm.
“I’m Johnson,” the second man said. His frame was well muscled and his grip even firmer. He wore his hair gelled like Isaac.
“Dominic Bracco,” he told them both, then motioned to Bassen. “That’s Joe. He’ll be your wheel man.”
Johnson nodded to him, then turned back to Dom.
“When’s the hearing?”
“Ten tomorrow.”
“Courthouse security?”
“It’s tight. Ever since 9/11, they’ve got just one entrance.”
“Metal detectors?”
Dom nodded.
“How about in the courthouse halls?”
Dom shook his head. “They’ve got security guards at the entrance and a couple that I think are on call, but no roving patrols.”
“And in the courtroom? Bailiffs?”
Dom grinned. “Not like back east. Bailiffs are nothing more than secretaries. Most of them are women in their forties or fifties.”
Peterson and Johnson exchanged a glance. Johnson raised his eyebrows slightly. Peterson shook his head. “Too many witnesses in the courtroom.”
Johnson shrugged and turned back to Dom. “How about transport from the jail?” he asked.