When Joe Pullo walked in and took a table toward the back, Merle dragged his gaze away from the topless dancers and told the bartender to send Pullo a drink and ask if they could speak with him.
Once the drink was delivered, Pullo looked over at them with a quizzical expression, but then waved them over to the table.
Merle sat beside his brother and offered his hand. Joe Pullo left it unshaken and asked a question.
“What do you two want?”
“We want to find Tanner, you know, for the reward,” Merle said.
“You think you can kill Tanner?”
“We ain’t killers, Mr. Pullo, but we got lucky once back in Vegas and grabbed him after he killed a crew that was huntin’ him down.”
Pullo raised an eyebrow as he studied Merle and Earl. His eyebrows were bushy, but his hairline had receded a bit and it evened things out. If you didn’t know what he did for a living, you might guess he was a college professor, or maybe a doctor, because his eyes held the sharp gleam of high intelligence.
“You two grabbed Tanner out in Vegas and you’re still breathing? How did that happen?”
“We got lucky, but we were also at Al Rossetti’s house when Tanner hit him, and that time we got blown up.”
Pullo smiled. “Let me get this straight, you survived Tanner twice and you’re coming back for more? What, you two got a death wish?”
Earl shrugged. “He’s worth fifty G’s.”
“You boys got more guts than I’d have guessed, but why come to me? I don’t know where Tanner is.”
Merle leaned closer and spoke in a low voice.
“You run the best crew in the city. As soon as he knows where Tanner is, Johnny R will send you out to kill him. Why not let me and Earl tag along? Like I said before, we ain’t killers, but maybe we can sorta herd him your way. And if we help, then we’ll share the reward, whatever you think is fair.”
Pullo stared at them as he thought things over. “Give me your phone number and tell me where I can find you. Once I know where Tanner is, maybe I’ll call.”
Merle gave Pullo the information and stood, Earl followed suit and after they said goodbye, they drifted out of the bar.
They talked about Pullo as they ambled along in the gathering dusk and decided to walk through Central Park. With night approaching, people were leaving the park, but there were just as many entering, because there was a free concert going on at the Great Lawn.
The brothers skirted around it as they headed toward Columbus Avenue. When they saw there was no one around, Merle stopped and lit a cigarette. Once he had it going, he looked up to find his brother staring at him.
“Yeah, I know I said I quit smokin’, but with all the shit going on, they help me relax.”
Earl pointed behind him. “Them cigarettes might kill you someday, but I’m more worried about him.”
Merle turned, saw the big man in the shadows pointing a gun at them, and the cigarette fell from his lips.
“We ain’t got no money,” Merle said.
Rafe Green stepped out of the shadows, his gun held at the ready.
“I don’t want money. I want information, and you two are going to tell me everything you know.”
62
One Head Is Better Than None
Inside Johnny R’s strip club, scantily clad women danced to the beat of throbbing music, while the men around them leered.
Meanwhile, amidst them sat a man lost in memory, as Joe Pullo ordered another drink and thought about Tanner. Personally, he liked the man, and if men like he and Tanner could be said to have friends, then they were friends.
They had never gone to a ball game or shot a round of golf, but they had worked together several times, years ago, when Pullo was an up-and-coming button man for old Sam Giacconi. They had also saved each other’s lives.
Pullo still remembered the first time he’d heard Tanner’s name. That was when a snitch named Vincenzo Rigoletto began wearing a wire for the Feds.
One of the whores hired for a party felt the listening device on Vincenzo as she gave him a lap dance, and later told her pimp about it. Either Vincenzo got nervous or he saw someone looking at him the wrong way, but he shot the pimp and managed to escape.
Everyone thought he would run back to the Feds and enter the Witness Protection Program, but Vincenzo was so bold that he emptied the safe of a bookmaking operation and hit the road.
He had taken off with nearly two hundred Gs in cash. With that kind of money, he could go anywhere and hide for years.
Old Sam Giacconi wanted him bad, and instead of putting a price on his head, he said that whoever hit Vincenzo could keep the money he ripped off. That was a smart move by the old man, it made everyone not only want to track Vincenzo down, but to do it as quickly as possible. The longer the thieving snitch stayed free, the more money he’d burn through and the smaller would be the reward. Despite the motivation, no one had a clue where to find the man. He had no family and his wife had died the year before.
A week passed, then two, but in the middle of the third week, a guy showed up at the funeral parlor Sam Giacconi owned. The guy had a white box under his arm and he insisted that he had to give it to the old man.
That’s when they called Pullo.
Pullo sipped his drink and smiled as he remembered that call. It came from a punk named Al Abato. Abato told Pullo that he had a jerk at the funeral home that needed to be taught respect.
“Why don’t you teach him yourself?”
Pullo heard a pause on the line before Abato said, “He’s an asshole, but he ain’t no punk, you know, you can tell.”
“What’s his name?”
“He says his name is Tanner. You ever hear of him?”
“No, but I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
When Pullo arrived, he found Tanner standing outside the office doorway with a white box under his arm. When he looked in the young man’s intense eyes, Pullo knew that Abato had been right in calling him. If Abato had treated Tanner as a punk, he would have been damn sorry he had.
“I’m Joe Pullo, why do you want to see Mr. Giacconi?”
“A bit of business.”
“This business, does it have anything to do with that box?”
Tanner had stared at Pullo for long moments before handing the box over. “You’ll do.”
Pullo took the box. When he eased up a corner of one flap, he saw the pale, white face of Vincenzo Rigoletto staring up at him through plastic and surrounded by dry ice. Tanner had delivered Rigoletto’s head in a box.
“Tell the old man I’ll be around if he needs any other work done.”
Pullo stared into the box for so long that he hadn’t noticed Tanner walk away, but when he caught up to him near the front doors, he called to him.
“Hey! How much was left?”
Tanner hesitated, but then answered. “A little over a hundred grand, Rigoletto used the rest to buy a boat, an old cabin cruiser.”
“A boat? Hell, he could have lived on that forever.”
“No one lives forever,” Tanner had said and then he left Pullo holding the white box with the head inside.
Pullo emptied his drink and sat the glass atop the table with a sigh.
“No Tanner, no one lives forever, buddy. And it looks like your time has come.”
63
Say Cheese
Rafe Green was still holding the gun as he talked to Merle and Earl, but he kept it pointed downward.
The two brothers weren’t the hard cases he thought they were, which was lucky for them, because if they had been a part of Pullo’s crew, as he first believed, he would have killed them for hurting his brother.
“Who is Tanner and why does Pullo want him dead?”
“Tanner is a hit man,” Merle said. “And Pullo don’t really want him dead, he’ll just kill him because that’s what Johnny R wants.”
“Johnny R is Pullo’s boss?” Rafe said.
“Yeah, if Pullo does anythin’ it’s be
cause Johnny R told him to. But who are you? You sure ain’t no Italian.”
Rafe smiled, he liked the two brothers for some reason. “Where are you boys from?”
“Earl and I travel around a lot, but we’re from Arkansas, a little town called Sawyer’s Creek.”
“I know where it is. I used to see road signs for it when I was stationed at Fort Chaffee.”
Earl and Merle broke out in huge grins.
“Hell, you’re the only one we ever met who’s heard of Sawyer’s Creek,” Merle said, but then his eyes fell to the gun in Rafe’s hand and he stiffened.
Rafe noticed his reaction and slid the gun into the holster on his belt.
“Tell me more about this man, Tanner.”
“He’s a bad dude,” Earl said. “He shot Richie Sullivan this mornin’ and says he’s gonna kill Johnny R.”
“Why?”
“He’s crazy, that’s why. Tanner thinks he can beat an organization as big as the Conglomerate all by himself.”
“The Conglomerate? I thought that was just talk, a conspiracy theory.”
“Un-uh,” Earl said. “It’s real and they got more power than the Mafia ever had.”
Rafe began walking while beckoning Merle and Earl to follow.
“Let’s go have a beer and you can tell me everything you know about Tanner. I think he and I may have something in common.”
Tim Jackson stood at the curb outside the MegaZenith building, as he tried to get up the nerve to enter.
He was going undercover as part of the cleaning crew. He would be one of over a dozen men and women assigned by the cleaning services company, Tri-State Janitorial Services, to clean and vacuum MegaZenith’s offices, which occupied the top five floors of the building.
Tim Jackson was using the name, Tim Dyer, after he hacked into the cleaning services computer and created two false identities. He had created two identities because he thought that Tanner would be joining him, but Tanner told him he was on his own.
Ferreting out information and breaking into others’ files was Tim’s forte, but Tanner assured him he would be busy using his own skills while Tim cracked open MegaZenith’s computers.
Tanner’s words made Tim shiver, because it meant that someone was going to die, likely many, but then again, if the Conglomerate was hunting for Tanner, it left them little time to search for him.
After taking a deep breath, Tim entered the lobby and walked toward the security desk. He kept telling himself that no one would recognize him and that the MegaZenith building was the last place the Conglomerate would search for him. Tanner had said that, and he was right, at least Tim hoped he was.
The guard at the reception desk paid him no attention as he entered, because the man was busy talking to a young woman with dark curly hair. Tim could only see the girl in profile, but it was enough to take his breath away.
She’s so beautiful…. and familiar too, where do I know her from?
The woman kept telling the guard she was a part of the cleaning crew and that she had been assigned to clean the penthouse offices.
The guard told her he couldn’t let her go up without a badge and swipe card, such as the type that Tim had forged for himself.
She’s up to something, but what? If she’s a corporate spy, she sucks at it.
Tim slipped back outside to wait for the woman to leave, while watching her through the glass walls of the lobby. As he watched her argue with the guard, he remembered where he’d seen her before.
That’s Frank Richards’ daughter. Mallory? Melissa? Something like that, but what is she up to?
Tim had researched Richards thoroughly, because it was his computer he was going to hack into. The more he knew about the man, the easier it would be to break his passwords.
Tim took out his phone and pulled up the PDF of the notes he’d jotted down.
One child, Madison Richards, age twenty-two.
Afterwards, he Googled her picture and saw that he was correct.
Madison emerged from the building a few minutes later, looking angry and frustrated.
Tim followed her, but then paused. If he didn’t get inside soon he’d be late for his first shift.
He stood unmoving for several seconds and then chased after her.
“Madison!”
Madison Richards turned at the sound of her name, but when she saw Tim, she gazed at him in confusion.
“Hi, do I know you?”
“What were you up to in there?”
“Do you work for my father? Are you following me?”
“No. I just—”
“Stay away from me!”
Tim called out to her as she hurried away. “I can get you inside the building.”
Madison stopped walking and turned her head to look at him. “How?”
Tim took out his phone and pointed it at her. “Say cheese.”
64
Now You See It, Now You Don’t
Richie Sullivan dropped his phone for the second time and cursed in frustration.
His encounter with Tanner had left him without a thumb on his thickly bandaged right hand. He was just going to have to get used to doing things with his left hand, like picking up phones, which is what he did on his third attempt to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Richie, it’s Tommy, man, and I know where you can find that dude Tanner.”
Richie was home at his apartment in the East Village. He was sitting on his couch in a daze of painkillers and beer, but Tommy’s words roused him to full alertness.
“Where is he, Tommy? I’m going to slice off his fingers and make him eat them.”
“I’m over in Brooklyn, man, at that sports bar in Greenpoint. Tanner walked in there just as bold as you please, bought a pack of cigarettes, then left, but I followed him, and I know where he’s holed up.”
Richie held the phone to his ear as he struggled to put on his sneakers with his thumbless hand.
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure, at least he looks like the guy in those mugshots Johnny showed us, from when Tanner did time in Mexico.”
“Okay, but a lot of guys could match his description.”
“I know, man, but this dude…”
“What?”
“When I looked at him, looked him in the eye… he gave me the creeps.”
“That’s him. I’ll be there as quick as I can with Eddie, but you call the rest of the guys and have them meet us there.”
“All right, but shouldn’t we call Johnny R?”
“Screw Johnny R, Tanner is mine. Johnny R can have what’s left when I’m done with him.”
Thirty-two minutes later, Richie Sullivan was looking at an abandoned apartment building in Brooklyn, which decades earlier housed scores of low-income families.
Richie studied the building as the five members of his crew gathered around him. He thought the place might as well be on the moon for all the signs of life it showed.
The building sat surrounded by vacant lots and the remains of burnt homes. A fire swept through the neighborhood several years back on a windy day. Anything that wasn’t made of brick had burned to ashes.
“Are you sure he’s in there, Tommy? That place isn’t fit to be a crack house.”
“He’s in there. I followed him and—look! Did you see that light on the fifth floor? That’s Tanner.”
Richie held a shotgun in his left hand. He gripped it clumsily with his right and chambered a shell. “Let’s go get that bastard.”
They entered the building with no difficulty because the front doors were missing. They tried to be quiet, but soon gave it up. The stairs, although made of concrete, were so covered in fallen plaster and other debris that every step crunched, and sounds echoed loudly in the tomb-like building.
There was no possibility that Tanner wouldn’t hear them coming. With Richie leading the way, they bounded up the stairs with shouts of war cries, scaring the rats, which could be seen scurry
ing about wherever you looked.
Richie wanted Tanner to run, with the knowledge that there was nowhere he could hide. Richie felt invincible by the superior numbers around him.
“There he is!” Tommy said, even as Richie spotted Tanner at the other end of the fifth-floor hallway, a shadowy figure dressed in jeans and a hoodie. Just about every window was devoid of glass and the moonlight gave enough illumination to see by.
Tanner turned left, then right, seemingly a study in fear and confusion, and finally he rounded a corner and ran down another corridor.
Tanner was moving fast, but Richie and his crew ran faster, as their young legs propelled them through the decaying structure at high speed.
When Tanner passed through a doorway, they were only fifteen yards behind and shortening the divide with every second.
A door slammed to the right, the sound taking them down another corridor and they reached the end of it just in time to see Tanner pass through another doorway, as he attempted to double back toward where the chase began.
They were twenty feet away from Tanner when Richie sent a wild blast from his sawed-off shotgun, which blew holes in a door Tanner had just slammed shut.
The blast sent the door swinging open and as they passed through it, and they caught sight of Tanner just before he made a hobbling right turn.
“He’s limping!” Richie cried out. “Did you see that? The bastard’s limping. He must have been hit by some of the buckshot.”
Had that been true, there would have also been blood, but Richie and his boys were so hyped up by the chase that the thought Tanner could be faking an injury or laying a trap never occurred to them.
They plowed on like hounds in a fox hunt, their myopic vision focused on their weakening prey. And as they turned the corner in a single mass, they found themselves running out into empty space.
Tanner hung from the rope he had earlier secured to the side of the building and watched as Richie and his crew ran straight out into nothingness, their screams filling the night.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 19