When they came to the spot where the stream flowed downward from a steep incline, they crested the small hill, walked through a narrow band of trees, and stepped into a clearing, where a building stood, and which had only been half completed.
The structure was three stories high with a steel frame. The concrete floors were laid in, along with the walls and roof, but it had no doors or windows. Pipes were visible that would have been the plumbing system, but the aborted building had never been connected to the well water on the property.
The structure was one reason that the land had been inexpensive. In 2008, the farm had been sold to a developer who had inside information that the surrounding area would be part of a new East-West highway that would stretch from Southern New Jersey to Ohio.
The developer reasoned that the value of the land would skyrocket, and managed to get a vast portion of the farmland rezoned for commercial use.
If all had gone as expected, millions would have been made, but as is often the case, things changed for the worse.
The economy tanked as they broke ground for what was to be the first of four office buildings, unfortunate, but easily handled by delaying completion of the other buildings. However, when the word came out of Washington DC that the highway project had been cancelled, the developer found himself the owner of a half-completed office building, even as his existing buildings lost tenants at an alarming rate, due to the downturn in the economy.
The project was abandoned, the property put up for sale, and after spending years as an eyesore on the developer’s balance sheet, it was sold to Tim for pennies on the dollar.
In the years the farm sat abandoned, the locals gave the place a name. They called it Forgotten Farm.
The office building saw use at night as a make-out spot for local teens, who used its third floor as a sort of lookout point, to view the nearby stream and dormant fields.
Tanner investigated the building when they first arrived and discovered food wrappers, used condoms, and remnants of marijuana cigarettes, along with a stack of beer cans in one corner that was three feet high.
It also appeared as if the teens were using the different sized, empty wooden wire reels left behind as tables and chairs.
The kids never came near the farmhouse, so Tanner left them alone to have their fun, and Tim and Madison agreed with the decision.
Madison reached down and picked up a piece of rusted rebar, one of the many pieces of scrap left behind when the project ended.
“I don’t want to do it. I want Al to go to prison. It’s what he deserves for murdering my mom.”
Tim sighed.
“Then that’s it, we won’t do it, and I guess we’ll go back to Tanner’s plan, infiltrating the upcoming meeting of The Conglomerate’s big shots, but Tanner, how are you going to do it?”
“I’m not sure yet, which is why ‘Romeo’ needs to go back and gather more info.”
Madison stared at him with a concerned expression.
“Everyone thinks you’re dead, why not just walk away and let things be?”
“I can’t. There are loose ends that need tying up, and this was never about running; this was about winning. The men who control The Conglomerate think that they can either own me or kill me, but I’m going to make them see that they can’t do either one, and that I’m nobody’s puppet.”
Madison kissed Tanner on the cheek.
“Please be careful.”
A sound came from their right and Tim pointed at a group of trees.
“Your friend is back, Madison.”
It was a dog, a female, with some German shepherd in her. She was so skinny her ribs showed. Madison had been leaving food for the dog recently, by the rear porch steps at night, and had watched her eat from the window. The dog would follow them, but she never came near and Tanner suspected that she had made a home inside the incomplete structure.
Madison called to the dog. The hound moved closer, and then sat.
“She still doesn’t trust me.”
“It’s a hard thing to earn,” Tanner said.
They began the trek back towards the farmhouse and Tanner asked them about their plans.
“What about you two? Where do you go from here?”
“We’re thinking of heading south,” Tim said. “Madison and I like the farm and we’ll either keep it as a safe house or put it up for sale, but it’s too rural for my tastes in the long run, and we’ll probably head to Atlanta, or maybe Miami.”
“One way or another, things will change at this meeting on Sunday,” Tanner said. “And your theft of Conglomerate funds will be at the bottom of their things to worry about. With your new ID’s, you should be safe.”
Madison looked past Tim to speak to Tanner.
“If you’re going to play Romeo, we’ll have to dye your hair again and apply the tattoos.”
Tanner nodded.
“Romeo needs to head back to Manhattan.”
“And back into the lions’ den?” Tim said.
Tanner smiled.
“I’ll feel right at home there.”
CHAPTER 7 - The ghost and the wicked witch
“What are you gawking at, Joey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Those words were spoken by eighty-six-year-old Sam Giacconi. Giacconi had never been a large man and age had shrunken him. He was lined with wrinkles and his flesh was mottled by age, but his eyes held a fierceness that could rival the fire in Tanner’s gaze.
Johnny had given Joe directions to a long care facility, and as they drove, he filled him in on Sam Giacconi’s condition.
Giacconi had been part of an experimental treatment to cure Alzheimer’s, and of the fifty-six patients receiving the treatment, Giacconi was one of the forty-seven patients who responded to the protocol, which included drugs, memory drills, and physical exercise. Giacconi’s memory wasn’t perfect, but it was better than many his age, and the researchers were hopeful that it was a permanent cure.
Sam Giacconi was in a wheelchair. He had a bad hip before succumbing to Alzheimer’s and the subsequent inactivity only aggravated the condition.
Pullo grabbed Giacconi’s offered hand, then leaned down and embraced him gently about the shoulders, when he released the old man, he shook his head in wonder.
“It’s a miracle.”
“You’re telling me, until two weeks ago, I was lost in the past, locked away inside my own head. Hell, Joey, when the docs asked what year it was, I said it was 2012, because that was the last year I remembered.”
Pullo shook his head again.
“It’s a goddamn miracle, the last time I visited you, you thought I was my grandfather.”
Giacconi looked over at Johnny.
“Does he know?”
“Yeah, Sam, Richards told Joe that he’s in charge, and when I told Joe, he pledged to keep following me, because it’s what you wanted. That’s why I brought him here.”
Giacconi looked at Pullo with pride shining in his eyes.
“I knew you were a stand-up guy, Joey, but to just give up your power that way, that’s above and beyond.”
“I take orders from you, Sam, and the last thing you said to me was to protect Johnny and to treat him as if he were you, and that’s all I did, but what I want to know is, what are we going to do about this Conglomerate thing? It’s getting out of hand.”
Giacconi rolled his wheelchair over to a table, which was in the kitchen area of his spacious private room.
“You two sit and I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do.”
“You’ve got a plan?” Johnny asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” Giacconi said, “And it’s gonna put us back in charge like we should be.”
***
Mario arrived at Starbucks early and found his daughter sitting with a man and a woman, and the two of them had Fed written all over them.
It was Jake Garner, along with his new partner, Special Agent Michelle Geary, a woman in her early-forties with blond hair and a
shapely figure.
Maria looked up at her father with wet eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
Mario sat beside her and took her hand.
“It’s okay, baby. I’ll straighten this out.”
“Mr. Petrocelli, I’m Special Agent Michelle Geary and this is my partner, Special Agent Jake Garner, we have evidence that your daughter was trafficking in drugs and we will arrest her for it... if necessary.”
Mario was sweating even though his hands felt like ice. He was scared to death for his daughter, whose dream was to become a lawyer. Something that wouldn’t happen if she were convicted of trafficking in drugs,
“What evidence do you have?”
Geary opened a laptop, hit a few buttons, and spun the machine around so that Mario could see the screen. It took a second for the video to load, but when it did, it showed his daughter in a setting that appeared to be a park.
A hidden camera and microphone followed Maria as she walked to a bench and handed the lone man sitting there a shopping bag, the man thanked her, and then passed her a white envelope. Within seconds after the exchange, several men and women in suits and uniforms were yelling at Maria to get on the ground. The video ended, with a confused and terrified Maria being knocked off her feet and shoved face first into the grass.
Maria grabbed her father’s arm. She was a cute girl of nineteen with dark hair and dark eyes.
“I’m not selling drugs. A friend of mine from school, Kimberly, she handed me that bag and asked me to take it to her brother, the man on the bench. I didn’t know there were drugs in there and I don’t know where the marijuana came from either.”
“What marijuana?”
Maria wiped tears away as she talked.
“They found marijuana in my purse and they say there was cocaine in that bag. Daddy, I swear on Mama’s memory that I’m innocent. Kimberly must have set me up.”
“I believe you, baby,” Mario said, as he stared across at the two FBI agents.
The woman had an evil little smirk on her face, while the man looked confused, and Mario briefly wondered if he hadn’t been in on the set-up. If not, it didn’t matter, cops were all the same, and he’d back up his partner’s play even if he didn’t agree with her tactics.
Mario wasn’t the brightest man, but he knew a frame when he saw one and he also knew his daughter. Maria was innocent.
After taking a deep breath in order to calm himself, he spoke to the woman.
“My daughter leaves here now, never sees you again, and we have a deal.”
“You understand what we’re asking?”
“Yeah, and we have a deal, but my daughter goes free.”
Geary smiled.
“Evidence goes missing all the time.”
“No evidence, no trial, not even an arrest. She leaves here and goes back to her life.”
“Agreed, but you’ll have to deliver.”
Maria was looking back and forth at them.
“What’s going on?”
Mario smiled at her.
“Everything’s good, you just go home and I’ll be there later.”
“What do they want you to do?”
“We’re just going to talk. Now leave and I’ll see you later.”
“Daddy?”
Mario kissed her on the forehead.
“Go baby, and don’t worry about a thing.”
Maria rose from the table hesitantly, and after another assurance by her father, she drifted out onto the street and disappeared among the crowd.
Mario glared at the two FBI agents.
“You bastards play hardball, I’ll give you that.”
Geary leaned across the table.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to give us; you’re going to give us Johnny Rossetti and the rest of your scumbag friends on a platter, because if you don’t, I’ll personally see to it that your daughter does hard time.”
Mario swallowed a cold lump down his throat as he looked into Geary’s eyes, and knew that he was in a world of shit.
CHAPTER 8 - Romeo returns
Tanner, in the guise of Romeo, returned to New York City and was standing on the corner of East 38th and looking across the street at Laurel Ivy’s townhouse.
He knew that she must believe him to be dead, but he also knew that when he revealed to her that he was alive, that she would keep his secret for as long as he asked her to.
He was about to cross the street when he recognized a man coming from the other way, and he moved back beneath the shadows of the tree he had been standing under.
The man was Joe Pullo.
Pullo climbed the steps of Laurel’s townhouse and rang the doorbell. When Laurel appeared in the doorway, Tanner felt his heart beat faster, and for the thousandth time he wondered what it was about her that affected him like no one else.
Laurel greeted Pullo with a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek.
When Tanner saw that Pullo only rated the cheek and not the lips, he smiled without knowing it. Still, it appeared that Pullo and Laurel were friends, and possibly dating, and that meant that more than kissing could soon follow.
Tanner turned away, perplexed to no end by the emotions frothing inside him, and as he had done for years, he struggled to push Laurel Ivy from his mind.
***
He arrived at the strip club a short time later, knowing that he need not be concerned about running into Pullo.
He had traveled by subway and walked to the club. When he neared the entrance, he saw four masked men rushing towards the door with their guns drawn.
One of the men shot the bouncer who was standing outside smoking, while another man caught sight of Tanner, who was dressed in Romeo’s signature leather vest, bolo tie, and tight black jeans.
As the man took aim, Tanner whipped out his gun and shot the man twice in the chest. The man fell and his three friends turned on Tanner, but Tanner was already firing on them and hit a second man in the leg, which caused the thug to fall to the ground and lose his weapon.
Of the two men left, one went down from a fatal shot to the neck delivered by the club’s wounded bouncer. Upon seeing this, the last man grabbed up his friend with the wounded leg and dragged him back towards their car, where a driver waited behind the wheel, and the car sped off just as two more bouncers ran out of the club.
The wounded bouncer shouted to his partners.
“Don’t shoot the blond dude; he saved my ass.”
Tanner approached the group slowly, with his gun held loose at his side, and one of the bouncers pointed at him.
“Yeah, that’s Romeo; he was here last week when Tanner got wasted.”
The wounded bouncer spoke again.
“You saved me, dude, the fuckers were about to shoot me again.”
Tanner answered as Romeo.
“Man, I just came here to look at some ass and have a drink, and that’s when everything went all World War III and shit.”
The wounded bouncer had been hit in the side. The wound was dripping blood, but didn’t look to be serious, as the bullet had passed through one of the man’s love handles.
When the senior bouncer told one of the other men to take the wounded man to see a doctor, Tanner figured they were probably talking about Laurel Ivy. He smiled as he realized it would interrupt her date with Pullo.
“Romeo?”
His name was called by the senior bouncer, a man named Bull who was nearly the size of his namesake and had a scar on his left cheek.
“Yeah, Boss?” Tanner said.
“Hear those sirens? That means it’s time for you to hide. Go inside and stay in the office, I’m sure Johnny will want to talk to you.”
“Him and the cops both,”
“No, we’ll make a few calls and keep the club out of this. Now give me your gun and I’ll hide it with the others.”
After taking Tanner’s gun, Bull reached down and pulled the masks off the dead men. When he pulled the mask off the man Tanner had killed,
he straightened abruptly.
“Son of a bitch, that’s Sammy Vega, he’s a member of the Calvino Family.”
Tanner stared down at the man.
He thought he had stopped a robbery, but it appeared that he might have interrupted something more serious.
Bull handed him the masks and tossed his head towards the door.
“Get inside and wait in the office.”
Tanner did as he was told and found the club looking normal, as music blared and men hooted at near-naked women.
Outside, the shots had seemed like thunder, but apparently, they couldn’t compete with the throb of the music and the raucous crowd.
Carl was behind the bar, but paid no attention to Tanner because he was busy mixing drinks.
Tanner went inside the office, hid the bloody masks in the base of a fake plant that was sitting in a corner, and took a seat on the sofa to think.
He thought he had stopped a heist, but he had stopped an act of aggression by The Calvino Crime Family, a Family whose Underboss had been Jackie Verona.
With Verona gone, someone was looking to take over, and that someone was making a move on the Giacconi Family while they were still weakened from their war with him.
Tanner smirked.
It was a smart move, start a war, which would be blamed on the Calvino’s boss, Vic Conti, only Tanner had never heard Conti described as a warmonger.
With Jackie Verona missing and assumed dead, someone else in The Calvino Family was making a power grab, and only days before the upcoming council meeting, a bold move, and they wouldn’t be very happy with Romeo when they learned he had interfered.
Tanner touched the R clasp hanging from the bolo tie.
“Romeo, I think you stumbled into a mess.”
***
Johnny returned to the club around midnight, after the police had left and the bodies had been toted away.
Tanner was sitting in the office with Bull, who had brought him his weapon, along with a beer and cheeseburger from the bar. When Johnny walked in, Bull stood and told him what had happened, including the fact that one of the dead men was from the Calvino Family.
Johnny shook his head.
The TANNER Series - Books 1-3 (Tanner Box Set) Page 32