The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart

by Remington Kane

  “And you’re Joseph Pullo, a high-ranking member of the Giacconi Crime Family.”

  “My name is Joseph Pullo, but I’m just an assistant manager of this bar.”

  Jade laughed, and the sound was musical to Pullo. Had he not been involved with Laurel, he would have been tempted to find out whether he and Jade Taylor were playing on the same team, Fed or not.

  “How many men have you killed, Pullo?”

  Pullo ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Are you here about the mileage deductions I took on my Hummer? I assure you they were all legit.”

  Jade’s eyes burned into his. “I’m here because Michelle Geary was a friend of mine. That’s FBI Special Agent Michelle Geary, a woman who was killed by your man, Mario Petrocelli.”

  Pullo placed his beer mug on the bar and stared at her. “You have a vendetta against us and you’re planning on using your IRS muscle to settle the score. Go right ahead, like I said, I’m just an assistant manager and I didn’t even know your friend. What happened with Mario was a tragedy all the way around.”

  “Is Johnny Rossetti here?”

  “He’s under the weather.”

  Jade stood and tossed a business card onto the bar. “Let Rossetti know that I’m coming for him. Before I’m through, I’ll see both of you behind bars for tax evasion. It’s not the murder charge you deserve, but it will have to do. Goodnight, Mr. Pullo.”

  Pullo watched Jade walk out of the bar, and afterwards, his eyes fell on Merle and Earl again. They were the weakest links in a chain that, if broken, could land him in a jail cell for decades. Had Michelle Geary gone after them instead of Mario, Pullo had no doubt the brothers would have folded, worn wires, and sold anyone they could down the river to save themselves.

  There was war brewing, and a Fed was gunning for them as well. Weak links were either strengthened or replaced, but you didn’t wait until they broke.

  Merle and Earl had to go.

  241

  Give Him My Regards

  On Monday morning, Sophia was at the kitchen sink filling the coffee pot with water when she spotted the girl in her backyard. The girl was seated at her patio table, near the red brick grill.

  “Who is that?” Sophia muttered to herself.

  She couldn’t see the girl’s face, but from the size and shape of her, Sophia guessed the girl was in her teens. From the way her shoulders shook, Sophia could tell she was crying.

  Sophia yawned. She and Tanner had taken turns keeping watch overnight in case Victor returned with the men from the cars. She hadn’t gone to bed until two a.m., when Tanner took over for her.

  She could hear him moving around upstairs after getting out of the shower and figured he would be down shortly.

  The girl in the yard let out a sob and Sophia went out her back door to see what was what. She was thinking it was probably one of the neighbors’ kids who was looking for a place to go after fighting with her parents, or judging by the sobs, after breaking up with a boyfriend.

  “Hey honey, what’s wrong?”

  The girl peeked over her shoulder at Sophia and she got a glimpse of one blue eye through the strands of blonde hair.

  She moved closer. “My name is Sophia. Do you live around here?”

  No answer, but when Sophia moved close enough to touch her, the girl turned, and Sophia saw the gun.

  “Shit!”

  “That’s right,” the woman said, and there was the trace of a German accent in her voice.

  While petite and slim, a good look at her face told Sophia that the “girl” was at least thirty. Before she could move away, the woman had the gun pressed beneath Sophia’s chin.

  “Call Tanner and get him out here.”

  Sophia was about to tell the woman what she thought of that idea when Tanner stepped out the back door and headed toward them. He was holding a gun and had it aimed at the woman.

  “Shoot me and she dies,” the woman said, while pressing her gun harder into the soft flesh beneath Sophia’s jawline.

  “What do you want?” Tanner asked her.

  “There’s a phone on the table. See it?”

  Tanner picked up the cheap phone that was lying beside an ashtray.

  “There is a number built in, call it, and that asshole Victor will have instructions for you.”

  Tanner did as she said, and heard Victor answer the call.

  “Ah, good morning, Tanner. As you can see, I am a firm believer that sometimes less is more. If I had sent a dozen men to Miss Verona’s home, you might have fled, or given your skills, killed them. But a mere slip of a woman like Gerda has bested you with ease.”

  “I asked her and now I’ll ask you, what do you want?”

  “I want you, Tanner. You will leave and drive toward the main road, once there, turn right and travel past four traffic lights. You will find me and my men waiting for you in the parking lot of a boarded-up building that was once a retail establishment.”

  “I know it. It’s one light past the diner.”

  “Yes, excellent, now come quickly. If I do not see you in fifteen minutes, I will call Gerda and tell her to kill Miss Verona. Don’t doubt that she will do it. Gerda is not a very nice person.”

  “And you’ll also harm Sophia if I don’t agree to work for you, correct?”

  “Yes, she will be our guest until you perform a task for us.”

  “What task?”

  “Johnny Rossetti, he has become a problem. But enough talk, you have fourteen minutes left.”

  The call ended, and Tanner threw the phone on the table.

  Gerda smiled at him. “You should hurry, Tanner, but know this, when Victor no longer needs you, I will kill you with pleasure.”

  “Why?”

  “Lars Gruber was my cousin.”

  Tanner lowered his gun, while tilting it at an upward angle.

  “Tell him Romeo says hello.”

  The round hit Gerda in the throat, passed through and destroyed her brainstem. She was dead before hitting the ground.

  Sophia staggered, and then she fell on the grass beside her.

  “Jesus! Tanner, that was risky, wasn’t it? What if her finger twitched?”

  Tanner knelt beside her. “They weren’t going to let either of us live. They just want to use me to kill Rossetti.”

  Sophia stood. “Heinz really wants Johnny dead. But what do we do now?”

  Tanner looked around. The yard was surrounded by an eight-foot-high wooden privacy fence on three sides and couldn’t be glimpsed from the street because of an equally high gate. He pointed at the body.

  “Can you get rid of her?”

  “Yeah, I know people. And don’t worry about the neighbors calling anyone because they heard a shot. My father was as much a hard case as you are. The neighbors know better than to call the cops.”

  “Good, and I’ll be back soon.”

  Tanner was at the gate when Sophia caught up to him.

  “You’re going to kill Victor and those men, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She kissed him, while being careful not to get Gerda’s blood on him.

  “I’ll be waiting for you to get back.”

  Tanner nodded, opened the gate, and went off to kill eight men.

  242

  Confit?

  Reuben Smith hated Mondays.

  And to make matters worse, he had the new guy riding along with him. The boss said the kid was old enough and had just gotten his CDL, his commercial driver’s license, but the thin man named Julian looked like a teenager to Reuben’s fifty-year-old eyes.

  Reuben drove a dump truck, one of the huge Caterpillar models, and today he was hauling over twenty tons of gravel to a construction site in Brooklyn. But first, he had to have his coffee. After parking the truck in the rear of the diner, he turned to the new guy.

  “I’ll be right back, Julian; I’m just running in for a coffee and a cheese Danish. Do you want anything? It’ll be my treat.”

  “No
thanks, I eat Paleo.”

  “You eat what?”

  “Paleolithic, it’s a diet.”

  “Diet? Kid, my dick weighs more than you.”

  “It’s not that kind of—I’m good, but thanks anyway.”

  Reuben grunted. “All right, I’ll be back in a minute. And don’t change my radio station.”

  Reuben left the rumbling truck and headed inside, where he was pleased to see that the cute waitress was working the counter. The woman was not only good-looking, but also a flirt. He’d never cheat on his wife, but Reuben loved to flirt with the cute ones.

  He was smiling at something the waitress was saying, while trying not to get caught looking down the gap in her blouse, when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  It was Julian.

  The smile left Reuben’s face immediately.

  “What are you doing in here? And please tell me you have the keys with you.”

  “He took it,” Julian said, and at that same moment, Reuben caught the scent of urine wafting off Julian. He looked down and saw that the kid had wet himself.

  “What happened? Are you sick?”

  “A man, he had a gun… told me to get out of the truck.”

  “What man?”

  Tanner was going over thirty miles an hour when he rammed the rear of the two cars containing Victor and his men.

  Along with the twenty plus tons of gravel the dump truck held, its own weight and that of its fuel added twelve more tons to the mix.

  The cars were parked in front of an old Blockbuster Video with boarded-up windows and had been facing a cinder block wall full of graffiti.

  The force of the impact plowed the rear car into its companion, then the front car rocketed toward the wall and hit it with enough force to push several blocks inward.

  The driver of the first car had taken off his seat belt as he waited. He and his front passenger went through the windshield and splattered against the wall. Their heads hit the cement blocks with enough force to shatter their skulls like eggshells, and their brains slid out and down into the weeds.

  Tanner kept pushing after impact and soon the front car was half its normal length, as it crumpled in on itself like an accordion. Then, the tires of the dump truck rolled on top of the rear vehicle and began crushing it.

  An arm brandishing a gun jutted out from a side window and pointed the weapon toward Tanner, but the limb was severed as the window frame collapsed.

  Four distinct screams could be heard, but they died along with the men who made them as the truck advanced, crushed the passenger compartment, and settled atop the flattened rear car.

  Tanner exited the truck from the passenger side, while inadvertently stepping on Julian’s brown bag lunch of roasted bone marrow and carrot confit.

  Traffic had all but stopped out on the highway as everyone took in the carnage, but Tanner still had a bit of work to do before fleeing the scene.

  He had a hood pulled up and wore the set of sunglasses that Reuben had left on the dash, so very little of his features showed.

  Victor was still alive in the rear seat of the first car, alive, but judging by the way the seat back had him pinned against the splintered dashboard, Tanner knew the man would not survive. And, of course, there was the matter of the fire burning under the car’s hood, a fire that was spreading.

  There was another survivor as well, a huge man with a piece of jagged metal through one cheek, which exited out of the top of his head. There was no indication that the big man was in any pain, but his lips moved soundlessly, as his eyes blinked non-stop and he waved bye-bye with one hand.

  Tanner reached in with his knife to cut the man’s jugular and end the show.

  “Helfen Sie mir,” Victor gasped out in a weak voice. It was German for “Help me.”

  “Wo kann ich Heinz finden?” Tanner said, as he asked for Heinz’s whereabouts.

  Victor appeared startled by Tanner’s fluent use of German, and yet, after craning his neck to view the growing fire, he spoke in English.

  “Please, Tanner, I do not want to burn to death.”

  “You won’t, not if you give me Heinz’s location.”

  “I want your word that you won’t leave me to suffer.”

  Tanner lowered the sunglasses and locked eyes with Victor.

  “You have my word. I won’t let you suffer.”

  “Thank you,” Victor said, then he looked down at himself. “The odd thing is that I feel no pain, but I suppose my spine is severed down below.”

  “Heinz, where is he?”

  “In the city, at the Hotel Rutherford, on Randall Street.”

  Tanner raised his gun.

  “Wait! Gerda, is she dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, I never liked that little bitch.”

  Tanner shot Victor twice in the head. Three men had parked and left their vehicles to walk toward the crash. At the sound of the gunshot, they turned and rushed back to their cars.

  Tanner took off and reached the rear right corner of the property. A rusted chain-link fence separated the lot from the row of homes behind it, where several residents were just emerging onto their porches to see what all the noise was about.

  He had just made it over the fence when a police car sped into the lot. It was followed by a motorcycle cop.

  The cop on the Harley spotted Tanner leaving the scene and rode over to the fence. “Get back here!”

  Tanner ignored him and kept running. To his surprise, the cop left his bike, tossed off his helmet, and sprang over the fence as if it wasn’t there.

  The man was fit, fast, and wore a determined expression.

  Tanner sighed inwardly.

  The chase was on.

  243

  Rumors Of War

  Johnny chewed on his lower lip as he studied Jade Taylor’s card.

  “This is not what we needed right now.”

  He was inside his office at the club, sitting at his desk, and Joe Pullo was seated across from him.

  The door that had been shredded by gunfire was gone, but a new one was being installed the next day, while the holes in the walls had already been patched, with new carpet put down.

  The desk bore three distinct bullet holes. Johnny had yet to replace it, while saying that they gave the desk character.

  The new door would be set in a steel frame and made of bullet-resistant glass. Anyone in the office would be able to look out into the hallway, while the other side would be mirrored. A twin of the door would also be replacing the door that led to the alley.

  Pullo made a sweeping gesture with his left hand. “My guess is that she’ll start by auditing the club here. Will that be a problem?”

  “Not at all; I keep the club clean. I’ve never laundered a penny through it and we follow every law that concerns hiring and firing. You’re right, though, she will start here, so I’ll call the accountants and give them a heads-up.”

  “After the club, she’ll come for you personally with that forensic accounting voodoo. If you’ve spent a dime more than you’ve declared on your taxes, she’ll nail you for it.”

  Johnny chuckled. “You know what’s funny? I make millions every year, but the only money I spend is what I make here. It’s really all I need. The rest just sits in offshore accounts earning interest under a slew of phony names.”

  Pullo shrugged. “It’s the same with me. Hell, my wild days are behind me. The Hummer is my only luxury and both it and the townhouse are paid from my salary here, along with the two laundromats I own. Still, this IRS Fed will keep digging until she hits oil. That’s why we need to think ahead.”

  Johnny tossed the business card onto the desk. “Think ahead how?”

  “The Feds love using snitches, and those two chauffeurs of yours are ripe for the picking. She’ll try to use them the same way Geary tried to turn Mario, because she’ll think they know more than they do, believing they overheard things while driving you around.”

  “You’re talking about i
cing them again? Why do you have such a hard-on for those two? They’re harmless.”

  “They’re weak, and the weak are trouble. Look, personally, I can take them or leave them, but they knew that Tanner was alive and said nothing. What if Tanner had still wanted to kill you? You’d have never seen it coming.”

  Johnny gazed out the open doorway. At the other end of the hall, he could see Merle and Earl seated at a table and playing cards. The bar wasn’t open for business yet and the boys were just hanging out in case Johnny needed them.

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long, or Jade Taylor might get her hooks into them. Now tell me, what’s the story with Tanner? Are you still trying to make peace between him and Sara?”

  “Yeah, Tanner is coming by later.”

  “He called you?”

  “No, Sophia called me last night to see how I was doing and Tanner is staying with her. Apparently, those two have a thing going.”

  “What time is he coming by?”

  “Around six, and Sophia wants to sit in, so you might as well too.”

  “Good, but Sara doesn’t know that he’ll be here, does she?”

  “No, but she’s meeting me here so that we can go out to dinner together. When she shows, I’ll try to make peace.”

  “If she won’t let her vendetta go, things are not going to end well.”

  “Maybe, or maybe she’ll kill Tanner.”

  “Even if she did, we’d be in trouble. We could use Tanner if a war broke out.”

  Johnny grimaced.

  “What’s that face for?” Pullo asked.

  “Sophia said a guy named Victor came to see Tanner yesterday. It looks like Heinz wants to recruit him. What do you think, would Tanner switch sides?”

  Pullo laughed. “Tanner doesn’t have a side. He just kills who he’s paid to kill.”

  “Like my uncle?”

  “That still burns you, doesn’t it, that he killed Al?”