Four

by Dustin Stevens

  I paused another few seconds to make sure she was out before easing over to examine the window lock.

  Basic swing piece, standing wide open.

  Christ, these people didn’t learn anything.

  Tugging the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my hand, I pressed it up under the top sill of the window and pushed. It sighed a tiny bit as it released, sliding upward without resistance.

  Once it was open more than a foot, I reached down and moved the small bench covered in stuffed animals from beneath it. Leading with my left leg, I eased myself into the room and replaced the bench back to where it was.

  In three short steps I arrived at the bed of Cynthia Mavetti. A flash of Liz played before my eyes, forcing me to blink the thought away before it affected my judgment.

  I had a job to do.

  Without waiting, I pushed the heavy comforter back from the girl’s body and put a bullet into the left side of her chest. I angled the gun down to ensure the bullet passed into the mattress beneath her and cupped my left hand over her mouth in case she made a sound.

  There was no need. Her body went limp without a noise.

  Pulling the comforter back up over her, I encircled the bed and picked up a figurine from the nightstand. .45s in hand, I seated myself out of sight on the floor and hurled the polished glass votive against the opposite wall, shattering it into a thousand iridescent slivers.

  The response took no more than twenty seconds.

  “Miss Mavetti, is everything alright in here?” a husky voice barked through the darkness.

  Obviously there was no response, drawing him further into the room.

  “Miss Mavetti? Are you alright?”

  I waited two more footsteps before extending the guns and firing. They bucked lightly against my palms as the smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils, two low pops sounding out in the room.

  Two crimson splashes extended down the man’s shirt, his body toppling back against the wall. He remained fixed there for several seconds before sliding to the ground, twin streaks of blood left behind him.

  On the opposite side of the bed I rose, my guns at the ready, content to let him fall.

  “Yo Tony, what the hell’s going on over there?” a second voice barked, drawing my attention into the hall. I remained where I was with guns extended, waiting until his silhouette appeared in the doorway before firing twice more.

  He didn’t even have time to register a look of surprise, let alone get a shot off in return.

  I left the guard lying in the doorway, stepping over his body and heading for the master bedroom. I didn’t bother to knock or announce myself, instead kicking in the door and striding through, guns extended in either hand.

  Unlike her daughter, Bianca Mavetti was upright and awake in bed. She had the same face and hair of her daughter, a look of fear and confusion in her eyes.

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Please, take anything you want.”

  “Oh, I intend to,” I replied, smiling.

  “Please,” she repeated. “My husband will be home soon.”

  “Yeah, he’ll be joining you shortly,” I agreed, sending two bullets into her chest as well.

  Beside her on the table was a cell phone, so I took it up and thumbed it on. I scrolled to the recent call logs and saw a collection of expected names.

  Theo. Mommy. Cynthia.

  Three calls, two outgoing and one incoming from a nameless number in the last few hours, all with a Boston area code.

  Unless she was ordering a late night pizza, I had found what I was looking for.

  “What the hell?” a voice said from behind me and I whirled with both guns out. Another man in a dark suit came into view in the hallway, his attention aimed on the guard laying face up on the carpet. “Oh Jesus, Marty.”

  Cocking the guns, I moved forward out of the bedroom behind him and said, “Take off the suit and step away.”

  A look of shock on his face, the man raised his hands and took a single step backward.

  “No, no. Take off the suit, then back away.”

  It took a full minute for understanding to creep in. With slow and deliberate movements he started with the tie. “Okay, okay. Just take it easy. There’s no need to do anything foolish.”

  Christ, not that same old shit.

  “Should have told that to your boss.”

  The man peeled off his jacket and shirt, followed by his shoes and slacks, letting them fall to the floor.

  “Now step back,” I ordered, moving in to pick the clothes up and toss them across the banister of the staircase. “Now, where can I find Teddy?”

  The man’s eyes grew wide. “I don’t know where he is, I really don’t.”

  I extended the gun a little further, just a couple feet from his chest. “Don’t know or can’t say?”

  He shook his head a time or two, mouthing words that never came out.

  “Alright, let’s start with an easier question. How many guards are stationed here?”

  His mouth sagged for another second or two. Sick of the hassle, I put two bullets through his chest.

  I didn’t have time for that all night.

  Leaving the clothes on the banister I moved down to the first floor and checked the place over, stopping in the surveillance room to scour the camera feeds. After a full ten minutes of motionless monitors and a silent house, I was convinced the place was clear.

  I went back up the stairs and grabbed the clothes, bringing them down along with my bag and the cell phone. I changed into my new gear in the front parlor, then snapped a leg off a dining room chair and wrapped the scrub pants around it.

  Taking the can of gas from the bag I doused the front foyer and door, saving the last few drops for my homemade torch. I went to the surveillance room and opened the front gate, then took all the car keys they had.

  A side door opened from the surveillance room into a large garage, several expensive cars lining it. The most indiscrete in the room was a plain black BMW 300i, so I fired it up and pulled around to the front of the house.

  I was more a fan of American muscle myself, but it would do.

  I left the engine running and climbed out, throwing the remaining keys in various directions across the yard. Taking the chair leg up from beside the front door, I lit the scrub pants and tossed the torch into the foyer.

  The fire spread fast across the polished wood floor, the gas carried blue flame through the empty house in just seconds. I stood and watched as it began licking at the walls before returning to the car and climbing inside.

  My deference towards guns was always that they were messy, too unpredictable. Any common gangbanger could grab a gun and start mowing people down, but it took a real craftsman to kill without leaving behind a trace.

  As I drove away, I glanced in the rearview mirror to see a glow of orange rising above the trees.

  Of course, sometimes I needed to leave behind a trace to prove a point.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Hello, operator.”

  “Yeah, can I get an address for a Daniel Reed at 617-550-9173?”

  I figured if the cars were in Reed’s name, the properties probably were too.

  “One moment, please.”

  The line clicked over to bad elevator music as I sped back towards Boston, Mavetti’s home being reduced to rubble and growing smaller in my rearview as I went.

  Why did I take the suit and the car?

  Places like wherever Mavetti was holed up were predicated entirely on appearance. If I showed up in muddy scrubs and a black sweatshirt, they would smell me out in no time.

  If I rolled up in one of their own BMW’s wearing sunglasses and a suit, nobody was going to look twice.

  Sometimes the best way to sneak in was right in front of them.

  “Thank you sir,” the operator said, followed by an automated voice giving me an address on Atlantic, not far from where we met the other day.

  Another gangster holed up in a wareho
use by the docks.

  How predictable.

  The sun was starting to peek above the horizon as I turned onto the interstate bisecting town and headed towards Atlantic. Another hour and the place would be complete gridlock, but for the time being it wasn’t too bad.

  I didn’t care if it was heavy, as long as it was moving.

  Fifteen minutes later I took the same Charlestown exit I had just a few hours before, knowing somewhere nearby Daniel Reed and his wife were being unwrapped by their daughter.

  Pulling up to a red light, I placed one of the .45s on my lap and the other on the seat beside me. Both had fresh clips in them and a round chambered, ready to be fired.

  Starting on the north end of Atlantic, I picked out a building number and start rolling forward, searching for the right address. Six blocks went by before I found what I was looking for, a decrepit warehouse looking even worse than I expected.

  Looming by the river, it stood two stories high and spanned half a city block, painted a faded dark red. The windows all had chicken wire imbedded in them, the glass painted white.

  The building sat a couple hundred feet back off the street, the only road in manned by a small outhouse with a single guard in it. I rolled up the driveway and on past him, throwing a perfunctory wave his direction and nothing more.

  He saw the car and the clothes and did the same in return. Never even a second glance.

  Don’t tell me I don’t know how these people operated.

  I pushed the car on around to the back and parked beside a pair of dark sedans that matched the one I was in. A small fishing boat and a jet boat were both tied up nearby, but nobody was around.

  Pushing the Uzi and a .45 into the black bag, I zipped it closed, slung the shoulder strap across my chest and stepped out into the early morning light.

  In my right hand was one of the .45s, the barrel slid inside the sleeve of my jacket with the handle resting in my palm. In the left was the tire iron, positioned in exactly the same manner.

  I started with the boats, finding them loaded with unmarked boxes but void of any activity. Running right up against them is an opened roll top door, the entrance to a direct tunnel from the boats to the warehouse.

  Without pause I descended to the boats and slipped inside the tunnel, slowing long enough to let my eyes adjust before moving on inside.

  Two men approached as I went, neither one giving me more than a once over as we passed. I kept walking for three seconds to let them get further down the path and into the shadows, then slid the .45 from my sleeve and fired two rounds into each of their backs.

  They fell without a sound.

  I replaced the gun and continued towards the warehouse. The smell of gunpowder was heavy in the air, and there was no way to hide the two bodies sprawled behind me.

  There was no turning back now.

  The light of the warehouse grew brighter as I approached, the opening from the tunnel almost ten feet square. Inside, I could see stacks of the same unmarked boxes from the boats, a couple of men loading them.

  Pressing myself against the wall just inside the opening I did a quick scan of what I was walking into.

  The room was a large open square, boxes of various sizes piled in every direction. A staircase climbed the back wall to an office overlooking the entire place. The lights were on in there and I could see a couple of shadows, but nothing definitive.

  By my count there were seven men on the floor, almost all of them in suits. A couple were moving boxes around, but the majority were grouped up in idle chit-chat.

  Content with the situation as it presented itself, I jogged back down the hall, careful to keep my footsteps quiet. The two men were lying face down just as I had left them, large circles of blood pooling out from their bodies.

  Using one corner of my jacket, I dipped it in the blood and smeared it across the front of my shirt. I unslung the bag and placed it between them, opened with the handles of the weapons right on top.

  Back towards the warehouse I went, stopping just long enough to make sure the bag was concealed between their bodies. Unable to see anything suspicious, I turned and ran towards the warehouse, stopping just inside the door.

  “Aw shit! Come quick! Ah Jesus!”

  Several heads turned in my direction, all of them seeing me panting, the blood smeared across my shirt.

  “Jesus, what the hell happened?” one of them yelled.

  “Hell I don’t know! I just found them in the hallway! Jesus it’s awful, get down here!” I screamed before turning and running back down the tunnel.

  Sprinting as hard as I could, I reached the bodies and slid to a stop. I rolled one of the men over onto his back and began CPR as the others arrived.

  “What the hell?” one muttered.

  “Who did this?” another asked.

  “Shit, I don’t know, get down here and help me!” I yelled, counting the men around me while pumping on the chest of a dead man.

  Once all seven arrived, I grabbed the Uzi from the bag and unloaded the clip into the crowd.

  The men didn’t stand a chance.

  One by one I mowed them down, the sound deafening in the tunnel as they fell like dominos in order. Once all seven were on the ground, I dropped the gun into the bag and took up my .45s.

  The tire iron I left lodged inside my sleeve as I took up a gun in each hand and jogged towards the warehouse. Two men appeared at the mouth of the tunnel as I approached, their eyes unaccustomed to the darkness.

  Using both guns, I unloaded a handful of bullets into them before they even saw me.

  I paused long enough to hoist the smaller man onto my shoulder, carrying him the last twenty yards or so as a shield. Two bullets ripped into him as I emerged from the tunnel, the .45 chopping down their shooter for his effort.

  Standing just inside the room, I spun several revolutions looking for other assailants. Sure that nobody else was around, I dropped the body and headed for the stairwell.

  Leaping onto the third step I took the stairs two at a time. I could feel adrenaline surging through me, and for the first time in years, I did nothing to fight it off.

  I was going to enjoy this.

  The door above me burst open and I barely aimed before firing two bullets from each gun into the emerging man’s chest. With a guttural moan his body goes limp and tumbles down the stairs.

  I didn’t even pause while ducking out of the way.

  The door behind him started to swing shut, stopped by my foot as I kicked it open and stepped inside. Holding both guns at arm’s length I entered, staring straight at Mavetti seated behind his desk.

  It was no more than eight o’clock in the morning, but a half full scotch already sat on the antique oak. A burning Cuban rested in his fat paws.

  If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it.

  I took two more steps into the room as Mavetti began to reach under the desk. A well placed bullet into the wooden surface threw splinters onto his shirt, stopping his movement cold.

  “Keep your dick beaters where I can see them.”

  Mavetti ignored the comment, rubbing the bullet hole with his greasy fingers. “You know how much this damn desk cost?”

  “Probably not near as much as you paid me to be the bag man on my own hit.”

  Mavetti took a pull on the cigar, looking up at me with smug righteousness. “It was the only chance I had. There was no way we could track you on our own. We figured, give you a target we could follow, then let you come to us.”

  His words made sense, but his delivery was wrong. He was too smug for a man with two .45s aimed at him.

  The reason why came less than a second later.

  The sound of a hammer locking back behind me.

  “Drop it, asshole.”

  I didn’t know the voice, but I knew the tone. He meant what he said.

  I watched a smile spread across Mavetti’s face as I lowered my guns and let them drop to the floor.

  “I don’t know who y
ou are, but I’ve got no problems with you. My problem is with this man right here. I finish him, you can take over his operation for all I care.”

  I could hear him smirk as he stepped closer, tapping my skull behind the ear with his gun. “This guy’s kind of funny, huh boss?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mavetti said. “Guy just mowed down most of my crew, he’s a regular riot.”

  “Actually, Teddy,” I said, swinging my right hand up and slamming it into the man’s forearm. His hand shot up into the air, a shot pinging against the ceiling as I slid the tire iron from my sleeve and jammed the screw driver straight through his left eye.

  His right eye froze open, staring at nothing, as he fell back. Grabbing the Glock from his hand, I wheeled and pointed it at Mavetti.

  “That makes your whole crew.”

  Reaching into my pocket, I tossed his wife’s cell phone onto the table. “And your family.”

  The smug arrogance slid from his face, the cigar dropping onto the desk in front of him. “You son of a bitch...”

  “No, you’re the son of a bitch here Teddy. You got greedy. I did what you wanted and was on my way out, but you thought you could come after me.

  “You forgot the fourth rule.”

  For the first time ever, I saw an emotion that wasn’t arrogance on the face of Theodore Mavetti.

  “Bianca? Cynthia?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll see them both soon.”

  Mavetti reached forward and grabbed the phone, sliding it over to himself and cradling it with both hands.

  “Was it worth it Teddy? Was protecting your little drug business here worth taking down half a dozen people and getting yourself and your family killed in the process?”

  Tears pooled on the underside of his eyes. “When you called and asked to meet that day, I knew you wanted out. I couldn’t let that happen. You knew too much, what the connections were. I couldn’t take that chance.”

  “I’ve also known where your daughter slept and the layout of your house for ten years, but you didn’t bother to do anything about that.”