His shoulders slumped. “It was a mistake. I didn’t know it was a DeMarco game.”
Frankie leapt from her hiding place behind the bar, the shotgun gripped in her arms. “Oh, Mickey.” She rushed to him, running her hands over the black and blue marks covering his handsome face. At first glance, you knew Frankie and Mickey were related. They both had bright red hair, intense blue eyes, and sculpted Irish features. The family definitely had good genes, even if brains had skipped a generation.
“So what the fuck happened?” I headed to the bar and poured two shots of amber whiskey. I handed one to Mickey and swallowed the other without pause.
“It was a setup.” Mickey pulled from Frankie and threw back his drink. “Campbell invited me into the game, said it was on the level.” Mitch Campbell was a local club owner and a decent card player. Until tonight, I’d thought he was a friend but things change. He’d chosen his side in this war and would pay the price.
“Campbell huh?” I cracked my knuckles.
Mickey nodded. “I was up, maybe two hundred grand. Then my streak went cold.” It always did. That was the problem with living by the whim of the cards. Fate was a fickle bitch. Mickey continued, “The last hand I drew four queens. Four queens.” He gestured with disbelief. “This other guy, a young guy, bets into them. I raised.”
I shrugged, knowing I would have done the same.
“Soon the pot has half a million.” Mickey’s eyes glazed over with greed. “Campbell offered a house loan.”
“Nice of him,” I said with sarcasm.
“Stupid, I know.” He shook his head. “But there was no way I going to lose. The bastard had a straight flush. A fucking straight flush. What are the odds?”
Pretty fucking good with DeMarco in the game. “So now you owe Sal five hundred thousand.” I frowned. “In two weeks’ time.” Nick had lied. His father used Mickey to make a move on me. I wasn’t surprised. I’d known it was only a matter of time.
“What am I going to do?” Anxiety laced Mickey’s words. Sal’s threat had left him shaken, and Mickey wasn’t the type of guy that was afraid of much. I didn’t blame him. The DeMarco family shared a sadistic streak.
“We’ll figure it out,” Frankie said. “I have some money saved, and we can sell momma’s engagement ring.” She twisted a small diamond ring around her finger. It wouldn’t nearly be enough to keep the hounds at bay.
“I’ll deal with Sal,” I said, ignoring Frankie’s sharp, indrawn breath.
“No.” Mickey shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. You’ve given up enough already. I’ll find a way to get the money.” Frankie flinched, and quickly turned away.
“We’ll figure something out together,” I vowed. “Go home to Beth and get some sleep.”
Mickey slapped me on the back. “She’s going to kill me.”
Frankie nodded. “Yeah, and I can’t blame her. She married a moron.”
Mickey laughed, and the tension in his shoulders eased. Beth and Mickey were high school sweethearts. After graduation, Beth went off to college to become a teacher and Mickey stayed behind. Time passed and their long distance relationship grew cold. Beth met someone else, and Mickey healed his broken heart in the arms of every available girl in town. Two years ago, Beth moved back to the city and into Mickey’s heart. They’d been married for seven months now. Mickey walked to the door, the smile leaving his face. “Be careful.” He looked to Frankie. “Ian isn’t the only one Sal has it in for.”
She hoisted the shotgun. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Can’t help it.” Mickey closed the door behind him.
Chapter 7
“I need a drink.” Frankie poured herself a tumbler of Jameson over ice, her pale face glowing in the dark bar. “Want one?” She motioned to the bottle of whiskey as she plucked a rusty brown ice cube from her glass. I shook my head. The silence between us lengthened. I was standing a few feet away, but it might as well have been miles. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if her thin arms could keep the bad things at bay.
I broke the stillness. “I don’t regret it, not for a second.”
She defiantly threw the whiskey back. Her cheeks turned red from the liquid heat. “Five wasted years,” she whispered.
“They weren’t wasted.”
She jumped off the barstool and grabbed the front of my shirt, her fingers burrowing into the fabric. “You spent five years in prison because of me. Five fucking years. Why don’t you hate me?”
“Because it wasn’t your fault.” I lifted her hands away. “I made the choice.” Good or bad, the decision had been made and nothing could change it. I was a free man now, paroled six months ago by commonwealth of the State of New York after serving half of a ten-year stint.
Frankie began to cry. “I should have…”
I pulled her into my arms, giving her an awkward hug. “It wouldn’t have mattered. The outcome would be the same.” I nodded to the door. “Chris DeMarco would still be dead, and Nick and Sal would still be out for blood. Yours or mine. It doesn’t matter.”
“They’re going to kill Mickey.” Her voice trembled, teeth chattering with desperation.
“I won’t let that happen.” I lifted her chin with a calloused thumb and forefinger. “I swear it.”
She nodded as if she wanted to believe me. “But how are we gonna come up with that kind of cash in two weeks?”
A slow smile spread over my face. “I might know a way.”
******
The next day I called in the crew. It wasn’t much of one—just some guys from the neighborhood, guys I’d grown up with, trusted with my life, and would die to protect. There were five of us in all: Mickey, Andy, Drew O’Dell, and Neil Patrick. Since getting out of the joint, I hadn’t talked to Drew or Neil, but when I called them last night, they’d agreed to meet without hesitation. The ties that bound us were thicker than blood.
It was hard growing up in Hell’s Kitchen especially for outsiders. And we were outsiders, each of us in our own way. Like Andy, a seven-foot genius, or Neil, a kid with a flair for the dramatic and a lisp to match, we were misfits in a neighborhood that respected conformity—good Irish Catholic conformity. Different made people nervous. For me it was a hard lesson to learn. I’d taken beating after beating and still it has never quite stuck.
My misfortune was in the form of my father, Billy. He was a legend in the neighborhood. People spoke of him in hushed whispers reserved for pedophiles and wise guys. He had a hand in every nefarious deed in the Kitchen—guns, prostitution, numbers—if you should feel guilty doing it, Billy was behind it.
At the tender ago of five, Billy took me collecting protection money from local business owners. By the time I was thirteen, I was running numbers from the back of his Ford Bronco. Every now and then, I still did a little side work for him, but those jobs were rare. He hated the fact his only son was a con. Said it gave the family a bad name.
I glanced around the backroom and smiled. The crew, or most of it, sat around while we waited for Neil. Andy slouched on the couch, popping peanuts into his wide mouth as he watched a Ranger’s game. The team was up by two in the third. Mickey, looking like he hadn’t slept a wink, paced in front of the television screen.
“Sit down.” Andy threw a peanut at Mickey’s head. “I’ve got twenty bucks on this game.” Mickey did as he was asked, slumping down in a beat-up armchair. Drew sat across from me, mindlessly shuffling a deck of cards. A pair of expensive Ray Bans covered his chemically enhanced pupils. His fingers twitched uncontrollably, jerking the cards every few minutes. “Where the fuck is he?” Drew asked, rubbing his slightly crooked nose.
I took the cards from his twitching hands, and dealt them to kill time. “He’ll be here.” Neil was coming from 42nd Street where he was a highly sought after stage director. He’d been the only one of us to escape the Kitchen, only to find life outside the block wasn’t much easier. Even the world of theater had their share of crooks and cons.
The
tension rose in the room as each minute past. We weren’t that good at waiting. Born into the instant gratification generation, we spent our lives searching for happiness within a commercial break.
Frankie entered, and took a seat next to Drew at the table. I dealt her in. With a smile, she said, “Meeting of the brain trust I see.” She scooted a cup of coffee to me and handed Drew a beer. Settling in, she picked up the cards and frowned.
“Bless you.” Drew chugged the beer like water. “Marry me?”
She rubbed her chin and threw a twenty in the pot. “As much as I’d like nothing better than to become the sixth Mrs. O’Dell…”
“String of bad luck, that’s all,” Drew shot back, throwing in his own cash.
I followed suit, and placed three additional cards on the board. The flop didn’t help me. It came jack, king, and eight. Frankie must have hit something because she put another twenty in the pot.
Drew grinned. “Are you messing with me, girl?”
“Put your money in to find out,” she replied, smiling as the devil would.
“You’re bluffing.” Drew tossed his money in.
“She’s not.” I threw my cards down and winked at her. Dealing another card, the king of diamonds, I listened to Frankie play Drew like a well-strung instrument. He bet into her hand and waited for the final card—the jack of hearts.
“How about we make this interesting?” Drew leered.
Frankie laughed. “What do you have in mind?”
“Stop hitting on my sister,” Mickey ordered from the armchair.
Drew winked, probably more to annoy Mickey then to seduce Frankie. “We can discuss terms when it’s not so crowded.”
“Deal.” She winked and flipped over her cards. “Full house.”
“Fuck.” Drew threw his cards down.
Neil chose that moment to walk through the door. Good timing too since Drew was glaring at Frankie and her cards. I jumped up, and gave Neil a quick hug. He looked thin and pale with sunken eyes, but his smile was full of life. Disease stole Neil’s dreams of a future, but he made use of the present like no man I’d ever met.
“You look like shit,” he said, watching me look him over.
I laughed. “A little thing like a bullet hole will do that to you.”
“Yeah, Frankie told me you got shot by a girl.” His face lit with a teasing smile. My eyes swung to Frankie and she grinned. I shook my head, and started toward her. She sidestepped, but I caught her before she escaped. I grabbed her arm, hustling her to the door. “Guy talk,” I said, giving her a push out the door.
“If this is about Mickey I want in.” Her eyes locked onto mine, green and blue waging war. “I mean it, Ian, no secrets. I won’t let you gamble on my brother’s life.”
I tried for a hurt expression. “I never gamble--”
She finished my sentence. “You win, I know. You sound more like Billy each day.” That stung, but I ignored it, and closed the door in her face.
Chapter 8
“Here’s the deal,” I explained Mickey’s situation to the men I’d known for most of my life. The crew reacted as expected, insulting, and angry. Mickey took their slurs against his mental ability in stride, agreeing with each assessment no matter how harsh. His face gradually lost its edge as brotherhood replaced the fear.
“So what’s the plan?” Andy looked at me, as did the others. Ian Wilde. Unofficial leader. More often than not I’d faked my way through. But my plans had a way of falling apart at the last minute. It was amazing that I was the only one with a rap sheet.
“There’s twelve million dollars sitting in a bank on Grand Cayman.” I stopped and looked at each of them. Timing meant everything. “Money that can’t be traced.” I knew what they were thinking: What kind of toys could I buy with that much cash? A beach paradise with sunbaked blonds on each arm flashed across my mind. Maybe a boat.
Drew frowned. “So what’s the catch?” Because there was always a catch.
“Only one person has access to the cash.” I paused letting my words sink in. “And she’s indisposed for the next two lifetimes.”
Neil added in a teasing tone, “The lady who shot you, right? What was her name?”
“First off, she didn’t fucking shoot me.” I glared at him. “Her name’s Bev and she was married to Colin’s manager, who made the money peddling dope and banked it on the island.”
“So where do we come in?” Mickey looked uncertain. “How are we going to get the cash?”
“We need two things.” I paused and looked at Andy. “The account number.”
Andy nodded. “Easy enough.” In a former life, Andy was a computer whiz, recruited by M.I.T. He dropped out after two semesters, bored by the lack of imagination of his fellow classmates. Three years later, the government charged him with violating federal privacy laws claiming he’d hacked into a Federal Reserve. On the opening day of his trial, a small explosion at the FBI destroyed all the evidence against him. The charges were quickly dropped and Andy semi-retired from a life of computer crime.
“What’s the other thing?” Drew stroked his chin and the growth of black stubble decorating it.
I grinned. “A five foot seven, classy blonde.”
“Tall order,” Andy joked, causing eye rolls from the rest of guys.
“Even more important,” I winced, “we need a blonde we can trust with twelve million in cash.”
Drew laughed. “That does limit the options.”
“On top of that. She’s got to be one hell of an actress.” I frowned, considering what I was saying. “We need her to walk in the bank and pick up the cash and walk back out without batting an eye. Mickey, we’ll need Jack’s death certificate and some fake id’s for our bogus Bev.”
“I can get the ids.” Mickey had connections all over the city. Associates willing to do anything for a couple of hundred bucks.
“And I can get the girl,” Drew said, and we all laughed. Drew’s taste in women was legendary. Women loved him and left him at a regular pace. After a while, it had become a running joke. He’d meet a woman and we’d take bets on how long she’d stick.
“No offense, Drew.” Mickey smirked. “But it’s my ass on the line, and I ain’t trusting it to one of your women.”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged and added slyly, “Got a better idea? If I remember, Beth’s short and brunette.”
“I might know someone.” I thought of Clair’s lethal body and golden hair. I turned to Neil, asking, “If I find the girl, can you help her into the role?” If anyone could teach a bogus Bev the right moves, he could. After all, he’d directed some of the most talented actresses on Broadway.
“I guess.” Neil tapped his forehead, considering. “But she’d better have talent. Two weeks isn’t a lot of time.” Clair had talents all right, but I had no idea if she could act. I frowned. Two weeks. Actually less since Clair was at rehab and wouldn’t be out for two more days. I didn’t even know if she’d agree. After all, we hardly knew each other outside the bedroom.
“What can I do?” Drew asked, not one to be left out.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “What you do best, my friend.”
His face clouded. “What’s that?”
“Hustle some cash,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “We need at least fifty thousand to pull this off.”
Chapter 9
Coming up with fifty thousand dollars in cash felt like an overwhelming task, but not when I had Drew. He had the Midas touch, as long as he kept his eye on the prize. The problem: Drew had a weird sort of ADD when it came to women and gambling. A perfect example. A year ago, he went to Vegas to play cards. He was up a hundred grand and feeling no pain when a stage show dancer caught his attention. Two hours later, he was down thirty and getting the shit beat out of him in an alley.
But my plan was simple. We’d take the seventeen grand I’d won off Dumb and Dumber, and head to Atlantic City. Once there, we’d weasel our way into a high stakes game. After we’d gotte
n the cash, I’d swing by the clinic in D.C. and pick Clair up, and convince her to risk everything to follow me to a far off island to pilfer twelve million from a high security bank. Simple. The crew and I discussed the finer points. “This is not going to work,” Mickey said, shaking his head.
“It will,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “When has one of my plans not worked?”
“Remember that time…,” Drew started.
“Buffalo,” Andy recalled with a grin.
Neil added, “Seventh grade….The nuns…”
“I still haven’t recovered all the feeling in my right foot from…,” Mickey was saying.
I held up my hand for quiet. “Fine, but this one’s foolproof.” They finally agreed after a few minor revisions, one of which included a .50 caliber Desert Eagle. In a few hours, Drew and I would head to Atlantic City while Andy checked on the bank and specifically, the account with the cash. Neil wanted to get a taste for Bev. Get to know her mannerisms, see how she walked, and talked. To do that he needed to go online and see what tidbits cyberspace held. Mickey looked relived, even cracking a smile or two. We had a plan, a purpose, and a goal. Now all I had to do was keep from fucking it up.
Before we went our separate ways, I gestured to Mickey. “We’ll need passports.” This created a problem. First off, I was a felon and leaving the country wasn’t going to be easy. But more importantly, the bogus Bev would need official documentation to show the bank bureaucrats, namely, a real passport.
“No problem,” he said, full of confidence. “What name do you want on your passport?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just make sure it looks real enough to get me back into the country. I don’t want to get stuck in paradise.” As corrupt as the Kitchen was, Grand Cayman was far worse. The bankers there made crack dealers here look like Mother Theresa. “Okay, I guess we’re on then.” The crew nodded in agreement.
“What’s on?” Frankie stood in the doorway.
SHANK (A Wilde Crime Series) Page 3