Sons and Princes

by James Lepore

  Chris made his way through the service area, past the busy car parking lot, past a herd of behemoth tractor trailers, past the Dempsey dumpsters, to a desolate area where the blacktop was crumbling and the marshland confronted him like a wall. Directed to the left by Dolan, who intermittently jabbed him with the barrel of his gun, Chris edged along this wall of reeds until he found and entered the narrow dirt road, and followed it into the marshes. Someone, probably a hundred years before, had found the hard ground and beaten a snaking, now long forgotten path through the wetlands. The feathery tops of the reeds and bulrushes on either side reached delicately toward a very pretty blue sky, but they were so thick and high and still that, driving carefully through them, Chris realized that civilization was behind them, and that dead bodies, left here to mingle with the garbage, whether fifty feet or a mile from a road or a parking lot, could go undetected for eternity.

  The road ended at a cul-de-sac on which sat a weathered plank shack, no more than fifteen-by-fifteen feet square, with a sagging pitched roof and sunlight gleaming through chinks on all sides. Behind it was a pond formed by the elbow of a stream that had been dammed up by garbage at both ends. Rusted metal drums and a dozen charred tires were strewn along the far bank. The rotting carcass of a once white heron was floating on the viscous petroleum-like scum that covered the pond’s surface. The sun, rising to the east over Manhattan, beat down on this scene of desolation without mercy.

  “Park there,” Dolan said, nodding toward a bare patch of ground to the right of the shack.

  Chris did as he was told. As he was turning the car off, he watched out of the corner of his eye as his boyhood friend took what looked like a camera in a leather case out of his jacket pocket. Using his left hand – the gun was still in his right hand pointing at Chris’ stomach – the prosecutor unsnapped the leather case and drew the cattle prod out. In an instant, Dolan was jabbing the prod’s metal ends into Chris’ right arm, up near the shoulder. Reflexively, Chris struck out at the prosecutor, shoving him in the chest, but the prod had done its work, burning two holes through the sleeve of his navy blue polo shirt, and hissing though his skin and muscle before the force of his shove forced Dolan to pull it away. The smell of his burning flesh reached his nostrils at the same time as the pain reached his brain. Although he was in shock, he managed to take another backhanded swing at Dolan with his burnt arm, but the prosecutor easily warded it off with his gun hand, and then quickly opened the car door and got out, dragging Chris with him by the front of his shirt.

  Outside, he pushed Chris through the stifling heat into the cabin, where he forced him into a battered chrome chair next to a table made of two saw horses and three planks. Chris, nauseous, about to pass out, slumped forward, hoping to get some blood back into his brain. Dolan let him stay that way for a second, then pulled him up by his collar and gazed with demented pleasure at Chris, who stared back through eyes cloudy with pain.

  “That was in case you were thinking of trying something,” Dolan said, placing the prod on the table and taking the handcuffs out his pocket. “Put your hands behind your back.”

  Chris complied, and Dolan snapped the cuffs onto Chris’ wrists. He threw the key onto the table, then resumed his one-sided conversation. “If I poke that thing in your heart, you’re dead, massive heart attack; in your balls, instant sterilization, not to mention the pain. Are you following me? I want the original tape and any copies you have. If you hold one back and try to hurt me with it, then this is what I’ll do: I’ll hunt down your children and I’ll torture and kill them. I won’t go to jail behind the tape, Chris. It’s too ambiguous. And if I do, it won’t be forever. When I get out, your kids are dead. Then they can put me away again, or maybe I’ll kill myself, or maybe I won’t get caught. I’m free as a bird right now, and I’ve been a bad boy.”

  “The tape’s at the apartment,” Chris said. “Let’s go get it.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous. Your friend Vinnie might be there. Anything can happen. Whose apartment is it? Your junkie girlfriend’s? Michele Mathias? Is that her name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she home?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Does she have a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “In my front pocket.”

  Dolan fished the phone out of Chris’ jeans and flipped it open, keeping the .38 pointed at his chest with his other hand.

  “What’s the number?”

  “It’s programmed. Push Speed Dial, then one.”

  Dolan pushed the two buttons on the phone, then placed it against the side of Chris’ face.

  “Tell her to bring the tape here. Something came up. You need it right away. She’ll be happy to do you the favor. She’ll give you great sex tonight, her hero.”

  After half of a ring, Michele picked up.

  “Michele,” Chris said into the phone, “it’s me, Chris. I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Jersey.”

  “I saw that guy take you away.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “There’s a plastic bag under the sink. The car keys are in it, and the garage ticket, and some other stuff, some tapes. I need you to bring everything to me.”

  “Where?”

  “Write this down.”

  He gave her the directions, which were pretty simple, and as soon as he was finished, Dolan yanked the phone away and threw it on the table. Picking up the cattle prod, he stood behind Chris and brushed the prongs lightly over the top of his head.

  “When she pulls up,” he said, “I’ll be standing behind you with the gun to your head. That should disabuse her of any funny ideas.”

  The shack’s front door had long since been removed, and the two of them were facing the rectangular open space where it once stood. Outside, they could see the marshes sitting stonily still in the day’s yellow heat, and, in the silence around them, they could hear the rumbling and whooshing of traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. In twenty minutes or so, they would hear Michele’s car as it came down the dirt road and then see it as it rounded the last bend on its approach to the shack.

  “There’s a copy of the tape in a safe deposit box.” Chris said. “If I die, my executor will give it to the police.”

  “Then I’ll go after your kids, like I said. But this isn’t really about the tape, Chris. It’s about us, you and me.”

  “All these years of hate, and for what? I didn’t kill your father. I couldn’t control what Joe Black did. I was fifteen years old.”

  “A cocky fifteen.”

  “You must have hated me before the killing.”

  “A little.”

  Chris’ arm was starting to get red and swollen, and to ooze something like pus, and the pain where the prongs of the cattle prod had come close to bone was coming in stronger and stronger waves. He was talking only to avoid thinking about it.

  “Don’t hurt the girl, Ed. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

  “So solicitous. Maybe I’ll poke her in the pussy with my cattle prod. No more orgasms for Michele.”

  “Christ.”

  “How are your legs, by the way? What a career you could have had. The third fastest high school miler ever.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “I think now’s a good time to tell you: I broke those legs.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. Your accident. I cut the brake lines on Brother Farrell’s car. The poor fuck helped me out by having his usual few beers.”

  Chris’ head slumped to his chest, the pain getting the better of him. Dolan stepped around to face him, and, lifting his face up by the chin, said, “Did you hear me? I broke your legs, and now your arm is a mess, and before I’m done, I’ll maim you some more.”

  Although the pain in Chris’ arm had if anything gotten worse since the initial burning, he was coming out of s
hock and finding that some of his natural reserve of strength was returning. He would have spit in Dolan’s face, but his mouth was too dry to generate any saliva, which was just as well, because it was obvious that Dolan needed little or no excuse to use the cattle prod again. The look in the prosecutor’s eyes was the look of a fanatic consumed by his cause. He was enraptured by his hate, and the only way Chris could think of to survive minute by minute was to continue talking, his words like lashes that Dolan hated and loved and somehow desperately needed.

  Michele, driving the Jeep Cherokee that Vinnie had bought for Chris just two days before, found the dirt road easily enough, but after traveling only fifty feet or so on it, she drove down a gully to her right directly into the high reeds and stopped after about twenty feet. Getting out and looking around, she saw that the car was completely concealed from the road, as she had hoped it would be. In her hand was a plastic bag containing two mini-cassettes and Joe Black Massi’s .44 Ruger with a clip inserted and the safety off. Sticking to the marshes, she followed the contour of the dirt road until she was at the right side of the shack, which she could clearly see through the reeds only twenty feet away. In front was the black car driven by the blond madman.

  Taking the gun, a compact canon, from the bag, and holding it in front of her with both hands, Michele made her way silently to the shack. Once there, trying to breathe without sound, she squatted and looked through a chink to where the blond fanatic was standing in front of a slumping and very pale Chris, pointing a gun at his head. Kneeling on all fours, she crept to the front, peeked her head in the opening and found them in the same position. Without thinking, she brought herself to one knee in the doorway, aimed the Ruger at the blond man’s back and pulled the trigger. The gun’s powerful kick flung her hand upward as she fired, causing her to miss high, knocking her onto her back at the same time. Dolan, his eyes bulging, whirled when he heard the blast of the .44 and fired point blank at the doorway, missing Michele, who was lying prone on the ground.

  Dolan, seeing Michele scrambling to get to her feet, was taking careful aim at her when Chris leaped at him, dragging the chair with him, head-butting the prosecutor into the door post, the chair slipping away from him from behind on impact. Keeping his balance, Chris then lunged again, aiming his head at the slumping Dolan’s face, catching him on the bridge of his nose. Dolan crumpled to the floor, moaning, blood pouring down the sides of his nose and into his mouth. In an instant, Michele was over him pointing the Ruger at his head.

  “Don’t kill him,” Chris shouted. “Pick up his gun. It’s right there. Keep your gun on him.”

  Doing as she was told, Michele backed up slowly and retrieved Dolan’s .38 from the floor.

  “Unlock these handcuffs,” Chris said. “The key’s on the table.”

  Chris was facing Dolan, who had managed to get himself to a sitting position against the wall next to the doorway. Michele put the .38 in the belt of her jeans, then, keeping the Ruger on the prosecutor, found the key and unlocked the cuffs.

  “Give me the Ruger,” Chris said, and Michele handed it to him.

  Dolan was still dazed, but his eyes, rimmed with blood, were open and focusing on Chris, and his hands were braced on the floor on either side of him, as if he was preparing to pounce. Without hesitation, Chris covered the few feet between him and Dolan and swung the barrel of the .44 into the side of the prosecutor’s face, absorbing with great satisfaction the unmistakable sound and feel of the crunch of bone breaking on impact.

  Michele, Dolan’s revolver in her hand, walked over to stand beside Chris. Breathing heavily, they stared down at Dolan, who had slumped to his side on the floor, out cold.

  “Who is he?” Michele asked.

  “I’ll explain later. First, we have work to do.”

  Then, noticing Chris’ arm for the first time, Michele said, “What happened? Did he burn you? I thought I smelled something burning.”

  “He did,” Chris answered, “but we can’t talk now. Help me get him in the chair.”

  Michele set the chair upright, then helped Chris pull and push the inert Dolan onto it.

  “Put his hands behind his back, through the slats of the chair, then cuff them,” Chris said. “Give me the revolver.”

  Michele handed him the .38 and set about her task. While she was doing this, Chris picked up his cell phone and the cattle prod from the table and went outside. In Dolan’s car he found the cattle prod’s leather cover, which he slipped over it, and, in the glove compartment, Dolan’s cell phone. He threw the prod into the oily pond and watched it sink. Then, using Dolan’s phone, he dialed Rocco Stabile’s number.

  “Rocco,” he said when Stabile answered. “It’s me, Chris.”

  “Hello.”

  “It’s time for your two guys to make their bones.”

  “Where are you?”

  Chris gave him directions to the shack, then added, “I won’t be here.”

  “What about the other guy?”

  “They’ll find it easy to close the deal.”

  “It’s not closed yet?”

  “No, I saved the last part for them.”

  “You still want them to bring this other shit.”

  “Yes. They just have to spread it around.”

  “They’re on their way.”

  Chris put the phone back into the glove box after clicking it off, then went into the shack to check on Dolan, who was still out cold, his hands intertwined through the back of the chair and cuffed tightly together. Picking up the key, making sure he had both guns, Chris took a last look around the shack, then led Michele into the high reeds to wait.

  Twenty minutes later, a black BMW pulled up and parked behind Dolan’s sedan. Labrutto and Rodriguez emerged from it with silencer-tipped guns drawn and, from opposite sides, slowly approached the open doorway. Labrutto peeked in, smiled and entered, motioning Rodriguez to follow. The sound of two muted shots could be heard, followed immediately by a thud and some indistinct conversation. As the porn/snuff film producer and the albino were returning, side-by-side, to their car, Chris stepped out from the reeds and shot them both with Dolan’s gun, aiming and firmly but calmly squeezing the trigger the way Joe Black had taught him almost thirty years ago.

  Labrutto, shot in the head, was killed instantly. Mickey, hit in the arm, was reaching wildly for his gun when Chris approached him and shot him at close range in the chest. This was followed almost immediately by another shot from another gun, this one hitting Rodriguez in the stomach. Chris had told Michele to stay in the reeds, but, turning, he saw she was standing behind him to his right, breathing softly, with the Ruger still aimed straight at Rodriguez.

  “You can put the gun down,” Chris said. “He’s dead.”

  Only when Chris spoke did Michele tear her eyes away from the albino, whose lifeless body lay on its side, blood from all three wounds oozing onto the dusty hardpan.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “The bodies go in the shack.”

  After this was accomplished, Chris unlocked Dolan’s handcuffs and threw him to the ground. He had been shot twice in the head. His brains were sticking to the back wall of the shack. The faux snuff films and numerous fifty and hundred dollar bills were scattered around the floor. Chris wiped his prints off of Dolan’s .38 with his shirt and placed the small gun into the prosecutor’s limp hand, pressing his fingers around the barrel and leaving it in plain sight on the floor next to the body. Using his shirttail, he delicately drew Labrutto’s and Mickey’s guns from their belts and placed them on the ground near their bodies.

  Outside, he threw the handcuffs, the key and the Ruger into the pond, then yanked out some reeds and brushed away his and Michele’s footprints from the hardpan around the cabin and at the edge of the pond. They then entered the marsh and followed the road back to the Cherokee. Chris’ arm was on fire and getting to be useless. He might lose it, but Dolan was dead, and Nick Scarpa, Allison McRae and Heather Jansen had been avenged. Only Joseph�
��s score needed to be settled, but he could kill Anthony DiGiglio with his left arm, or no arms, if he had to.

  9.

  “That’s the next thing you have to quit,” John Farrell said to Michele, who was having her second pre-dinner cigarette. “Take it from me.”

  “One thing at a time,” Michele answered. She was relaxed and happy – or as close to those two states as she felt she could get given the recent events of her life – and did not want to think about breaking another habit. She did not know that Farrell, a smoker for fifty years, was dying of lung cancer, although it had not escaped her that something was wrong. The white-haired cleric’s usually lively eyes seemed dull, his civilian clothes were hanging loose and there was a slight but noticeable effort that preceded his speech and movement. Her heart went out to this gentle old man who had been unstintingly helpful and kind to both her and Chris these past few weeks. It occurred to her to ask after him in a pointed way, but something stopped her, possibly her fear that the truth would be more than she could handle at the moment.

  She and Chris were sitting on the couch, facing Farrell in the rattan chair. They were drinking scotch from a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet, a gift from Farrell, who had a glass of club soda in front of him. The noise in the kitchen stopped and they looked up to see Vinnie carrying in a bottle of chilled champagne and four fluted glasses. He popped the cork expertly and poured each of them a glassful, then raised his glass, and said,

  “To Karen Pierce.”

  “To Allison,” Michele said.

  “To Nick,” Chris said. “And Joseph.”

  “Here, here,” Farrell said.

  They touched glasses all around and drank.

  On their return to Suffolk Street from the Meadowlands, Chris had used the last of his throw-away cell phones to call the New Jersey State Police to report hearing shots while changing a tire at the back of the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the Turnpike. That night, the TV news was full of the bizarre triple slaying in the Meadowlands. The next morning, the Post’s front page headline, run over a black-and-white photograph of the blood-stained bodies surrounded by hundred dollar bills on the floor of the hut, said, Shack Attack! G-Man, Two Others Dead.