Debt Collector - Vengeance (Book 2 of a Jack Winchester Organized Crime Action Thriller) (Jack Winchester Vigilante Justice Thriller Series)

by Jon Mills

  “I don’t know, Jack.”

  “Look. If this thing between you and me isn’t what you want. If you are set on moving away, then okay. But give me one more chance to…” he paused. “Give us one more chance.”

  She studied his face. It was strange how a year could change things between two people. The honeymoon period soon vanishes. That sense of what is new and untainted soon becomes old. The reality of who you are with dawns on you. He never expected it to be easy. It was probably the reason why no relationship of his had ever lasted. It was easier to sleep with women and move on. But this was meant to be different. He had tried to give it his best shot. And for a short while it had gone well.

  When Leo’s men had shown up, though, it had confirmed his own fears. The past was not behind him. Walking away from the Mafia wasn’t easy. Most entered witness protection or put a bullet in themselves before anyone else did. You cut ties with everyone. But Jack still had ties. Someone who they could use against him. He had considered bringing his sister up to Rockland Cove but that wouldn’t have worked either. He had enough on his plate. At least where she was, she could get treatment and Eddie checked in from time to time. He was glad she was getting better. That some smidgen of who she was before the damage was returning. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be long before she was ready to come out.

  As much as Eddie had convinced him that he needed to come down and see her for himself, he was worried that by seeing her again, that his face alone might trigger repressed memories from their childhood. The beatings that both of them received, the times he couldn’t protect his sister from his father, and the trauma of losing their mother.

  “Why does everything go to shit?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, Dana. Really,” he replied.

  He didn’t want to be a thorn in her side. She had enough to deal with, with Jason.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Jack. It can’t be easy trying to walk away from all that you’ve ever known. And well, I thought I had brought Jason up to know better.” She let out a long breath. “If his father had stayed clear of the drugs, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

  It was tough walking into someone else’s life. Everyone had baggage, history, and people that had affected them.

  “Look, I’m going to head out tomorrow morning. If you want to come to New York, give me a call.”

  She nodded, briefly biting gently down on her lower lip.

  Around one that afternoon, Jack met up with Keith and Carlos in the local bar down at the marina. Keith owned the place. When he walked in, they were already in the thick of conversation over a Celtics game playing on the TV.

  “Hey Jack.” Keith waved him over.

  They had several pitchers of beer and had ordered a variety of chicken wings. The place smelled like fried chicken and peanuts. Staff were circling tables. The clink of cutlery could be heard. A glass smashed in the kitchen.

  He took a seat.

  “So any word on Danny moving out?” Jack asked.

  “I swung by there this morning. Nothing yet. Looks like we are going to have to call the police in,” Keith said.

  “No. Leave it to me.”

  “Jack, what did you do before this?” Carlos asked.

  He’d always kept quiet. He didn’t want to raise any questions or put anyone in a position where they would have to lie. Instead he had told them that Rockland Cove was a new start, a means to escape a life that wasn’t good for him. They had simply notched it up to a bad marriage. He’d told Keith if anyone came asking for him to say he wasn’t around. At first Keith had badgered him about that but eventually he let it go.

  “So? What did you do?” Carlos asked again.

  “You don’t want to know, I’d have to kill you,” Jack replied. The others started laughing.

  4

  When Dominick and Anthony returned to the treatment center that evening, it was quiet. They had a large security guy on site but nothing that they couldn’t handle. It was your usual overweight and aging guy, the type who couldn’t get into the police so he was forced to take a job working for some shitty security company. Tonight would be his unlucky night.

  When they approached the front desk a different person was manning the phones. They asked again to see Milly Winchester.

  “Unfortunately, visiting hours are over. You will need to come back in the morning.”

  Dominick cast a glance at Anthony and smiled.

  “That’s going to be a problem. You see, we’re only in town for a short while.”

  “Sorry. Nothing I can do, guys.”

  “Can we speak to your supervisor?”

  The woman immediately frowned. A look of disgust crossed her face as she rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. Dominick could tell she wasn’t in the mood for anyone’s crap tonight. But neither was he. No doubt she had planned on having a quiet evening. She was about to get it. The moment she turned her back, Dominick pulled out a Walther P22 with suppressor and fired a round into her head. The woman dropped like a sack of potatoes. A pool of blood began forming around her hair. As cool as ice, Anthony went around to where she was as Dominick turned his attention on the security guard who had witnessed it and was scrambling to get out of his chair. He’d obviously eaten one too many donuts.

  Two more shots and he dropped as well. While Anthony pulled Milly Winchester’s file, Dominick went searching for the security room where the recording equipment was kept. It didn’t take him long to find it. He entered the small room using a keycard that was on the dead security guy. He was expecting to find another security officer but it was empty.

  When he returned from destroying the equipment, he found Anthony wrestling with an orderly.

  “He says she left for the weekend.”

  “And the address of Jack?”

  “They don’t have it on file. They just have a number for an answering service.”

  Dominick watched Anthony choke the guy to death before they left with the number. They left behind them a trail of blood.

  Later that evening Detective Frank Banfield of the New York Police Department sat looking over photos that he’d gone over countless times. A convenience store’s surveillance camera located across from the Pig’s Ear had caught a vehicle pulling away after the explosion. The photos were grainy at best even with the technology they had used to clean them up. It had been dark that night and the camera had never got a clear shot of the plate, nor the figure.

  He’d been told through the grapevine after coming down heavy on some of the local crime families that they believed Jack Winchester was responsible for the explosion. He kind of hoped that wasn’t the case. His gut told him it was Jack, but logic said that it had to be a rival crime family. They were forever doing these kinds of things. Usually it was fighting over territory. He couldn’t wrap his head around why Jack would turn on the hand that fed him.

  On the surface most might have assumed it would have been easy to track him down and pull him in for questioning. But the man was a ghost. Frank Banfield had grown up with Jack. They had been friends from the age of nine until Jack fell in with Gafino’s men. It was tough to think that they had gone in such opposite directions. He knew Jack had a rough family life. He’d seen the bruises on him at school. But they were from opposite sides of the tracks. They may have never met if Jack hadn’t stuck up for him.

  At the age of nine he’d been bullied by a group of kids on the way home from school. They had taken his bag, given him a black eye, and taken turns laying into him. Frank Banfield was from a Jewish background. The boys taunted him about wearing a yarmulke. It was a skullcap that had to be worn while praying, eating, or studying as a sign of respect. Though most of the time he removed his and hid it in his bag to avoid the constant bullying.

  Jack didn’t have to intervene that day. He could have walked on by and avoided getting a cut lip, but he didn’t. They might have been outnumbered but he made them think twice about laying into Frank in the future. That was eno
ugh. From then on, they walked home together. Exchanged baseball cards and occasionally hung out when Frank could sneak out. Frank would never forget that. But things were different now. This was murder and no matter what he had done as a kid, he had a job to do.

  Over the years, they had passed each other on the streets. There was a mutual respect for each other. Frank knew that Jack had killed people. But he couldn’t prove it. Jack was clean. He didn’t leave a trace of his involvement in a crime. So to catch him on video, or at least the silhouette of someone that could have been him, was a sign of sloppiness. It wasn’t the way he usually worked. At least from what Frank had learned. Over his career he had been called out to numerous murder scenes. Most of the bodies had their teeth removed. That was common. The ones that pointed to Jack were the bodies that had been frozen. This was done to obscure the time of death. Though more times than not, the bodies were never found. Word soon spread on the streets. Jack’s reputation grew. As did Frank’s but for very different reasons. People learned to fear Jack because he showed no mercy. Frank was the same, however he didn’t kill them, he just locked them up.

  Only once did he ever speak to Jack beyond a head nod or a passing glance. Even then it was barely a conversation. He had found Jack inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral one Christmas. Frank’s partner at the time was a Catholic. It had become routine to go to the cathedral and light a candle. Many times Frank would wait outside for his partner, but that evening he’d gone in to keep out of the cold. There were very few people there. Ten at the most, in a cathedral that size, meant it looked empty. Near the back he spotted Jack. He wasn’t praying. He didn’t have his head down. He just sat quietly staring forward.

  Frank took a seat beside him.

  “Come to arrest me, Frank?”

  He chuckled. “Soon, Jack. Not today.”

  “It’s relaxing, isn’t it?” He looked around. “This place.”

  “I never thought you were religious?” Frank asked.

  “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think there is something out there that guides our path.”

  He cast him a sideways glance. “You want to make God responsible for your path, Jack?”

  “Do you think he guides you, Frank? To catch criminals?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why not just stop them before they do it?”

  Frank breathed in deeply. “Perhaps he has a strange sense of humor.”

  Jack snorted. “Maybe.”

  Jack rose to his feet.

  “I’ll see you around, Frank.”

  “Not if I see you first.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Frank nodded.

  He drifted back to the present as a phone call came in. On the other end was another detective.

  “Seems we’ve got a triple homicide down at the East Star Behavioral Treatment Center.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Eddie Carmine had grown up on the streets of Brooklyn. He’d watched countless kids get caught up in crime. He had been tempted to get involved and for a short while he had run errands, until a friend of his was shot. That changed everything. Unlike others who would have overlooked it, continued on, and notched it up to life in the Mafia, he couldn’t.

  His father had been a blue-collar worker who was involved in construction. He’d learned a lot from his old man. It might not have been as easy as running with the mob, but it was honest. And that mattered to him. By the age of eighteen he had enlisted in the military at the prompting of his father. He knew that his father really didn’t want him in it, but the alternative was getting caught up in a life of crime. He was grateful for that decision. It was what made him who he was today.

  He learned to live by rules. He put in years of regular service before being asked to be a part of the Marine Corps Special Operations division. They were the elite. Few were asked. Most of his missions were special reconnaissance or direct action.

  By the time he came out of the military he was thirty-one. He had gained a skillset that was geared for killing people. However, there were very few jobs that let you do that unless you got involved with the Mafia. Which wasn’t an option for him.

  By that time, Roy Gafino had been making waves in Manhattan. He was younger back then. Roy was an up-and-coming kid who Eddie knew. They had run together. It wasn’t strange to think that he ended up becoming a boss in the Mafia. But the truth was you either joined the mob, became a cop, or wound up paying protection money. There were few other options that made sense. Those who knew him in the neighborhood welcomed Eddie back with open arms; Roy Gafino was one of the few who didn’t.

  Perhaps he thought Eddie had chosen a path that was better than his. Maybe he thought Eddie looked down on him. He was never really sure why they became at odds with one another. They were friends when they were youngsters but then they led very different lives. Roy had tried numerous times to get Eddie to leave his job at the factory. He flashed money, gave extravagant gifts, and told him about the perks of his trade.

  But Eddie knew better. He watched as friend after friend either died or wound up serving time. That was the risk. Instead he chose to live beneath the surface. He kept his nose clean, showed up for work on time, and went about leading a quiet life.

  He practiced martial arts daily. Ate well, never drove a vehicle, and continued to rise early. It was consistency that the military had drilled into him. That was what made you good at anything. Showing up before you were meant to. Being the last one to leave. Dedication to the mind and body and always being prepared to fight. These were the same attributes and principles that he had tried to instill in Jack.

  He knew what people were saying about him. He’d met Jack’s mother before he went into the military. They had been with each other. There was a good chance Jack was his. The likeness was similar but not enough that it was clear. By the time he got out of the military she was no longer around. Word had it that she died in childbirth. But he knew that wasn’t true. He’d asked around. Spoken to a few people down at the local hospital. They all said she went missing a few weeks after Milly was born. Eddie figured Jack’s father had killed her. He was a drunk and was known for beating on her. The hospital had a long record of the number of times she had shown up with black eyes and split lips.

  At first, Eddie never enquired if Jack was his own. With his mother gone it would have stirred up more trouble than he wanted. He later learned the truth. From that day on, he chose to look out for him whenever he could. The first time he knew things were bad was when he found him at Tommy’s Café in the early hours of the morning. That was the beginning of the relationship he formed with him.

  He soon learned that every time his father got drunk, Jack would sleep on the streets. He would find anywhere he could lay his head down. Sometimes it was in the church, most of the time he just went from café to café until the owners booted him out. That morning in Tommy’s Café he was huddled in a booth.

  It was a little after five. Eddie was on his way to work when he spotted him through the window. To say that Jack was cautious would have been an understatement. He was eleven years of age back then. All Eddie could see was the look in the kid’s eyes. Anger. Fear. No child should have had to go through that. But there was something he saw. Strength. The kid had it. He didn’t ask for handouts and it took a week before he would let Eddie buy him a meal.

  Eventually he offered him a bed at his place. At first Jack thought he was a pervert. He even challenged him on it. Eddie laughed.

  “Listen, kid. You want to sleep out here. That’s fine by me. I’m just telling you there is a warm bed and food in the cupboard. Take it or leave it. I’m not always home. In fact, I leave early in the morning and return by evening. You decide.” Eddie handed him a key. He knew he was taking a risk. Kids were known for stealing in this neighborhood. But he knew Jack was different. He’d seen him stick up for a friend of his. There was a moral compass in him that wanted to do what was right, even if eventually Roy Gaf
ino distorted it.

  A week or two went past before Eddie noticed a few cans of beans and peach chunks were gone from his cupboard. That was followed by bread. He never took much. Just enough.

  Then one morning Eddie awoke and came out to find Jack on the sofa. Jack bolted and Eddie laughed. Over time he became more accustomed to seeing him there. Eventually Jack wouldn’t stir when he got ready for work.

  Trying to get past his rough exterior was tough though. He had built up a wall. It was a means to protect himself. If he kept people at a distance, they wouldn’t hurt him. When he finally got Jack to talk about his father, he learned about the beatings and his sister.

  Eddie wanted to report it to Child Protective Services but Jack insisted that he didn’t say a word. He believed that his father would just take it out on them even further. He was scared. More so for his sister.

  For the longest time he didn’t do anything and the beatings continued. And though Jack had become better at avoiding them before they happened, his sister was still getting them.

  Once he’d reached the age of sixteen, things took a turn for the worse. Eddie noticed Jack’s interest in Gafino. He was drawn to the boxing down at the Pig’s Ear. The kid had a natural talent for whopping ass. He had a drive within him that few others had. Perhaps it came from the hate he had toward his father or that he was born with it. But he had a killer instinct that made him win fights. That’s what caught the attention of Gafino.

  By the time Eddie found out that he was doing errands for money, it was too late. Gafino had hooked him in. It was the only time that Eddie had raised his voice to Jack. He told Jack it was stupid to get involved with Gafino. That he wasn’t helping him because he cared. It was all part of building his empire.

  Jack wouldn’t listen. He was stubborn.

  Now he wasn’t only getting beaten by his father but he was fighting with kids in the streets. Eddie had a good mind to give him an ultimatum. Walk away from Gafino or he would close his door to him.