Jamie walked right up to Bill where he and Bobby were sitting at the bar. He looked Bill in the eyes. They were just about face to face with Bill sitting on the bar stool and Jamie standing next to him.
“Billy Boy, I thought I told you to keep your big mouth shut. I hear you been spoutin’ off about being a big-shot. You tryin’ to get yourself arrested or worse yet, me? I’m gonna tell you one more time, you shut the fuck up and we’ll get along fine. You’ll make lots of money and live to tell your grandkids about it.”
Bill stood and got his face closer to Jamie. Only about a foot separated the two and it appeared that they were itching to close that distance.
“You’re a fine one to talk, Jamie. You . . . you get in here and can’t stop yapping. I’m surprised the cops ain’t in here taping this place all the time. There’s probably a cop in here right now just waiting to see if you’re going be here like usual, flapping your gums like some little school girl.”
“About two more words out of your mouth and I’m gonna seal it with my fist.”
Jamie inched ever closer. Finally, Bobby Acquino stood up and tried to get between the two. They both pushed Bobby away while still looking at each other. Eddie the bartender was getting a little nervous at this. He was about to lean over the bar when the bar room door opened and a guy shouted in, “Does anyone own a big suburban about the size of a house?”
“Yeah, that’s mine. Who’s asking?”
“Some guy just smashed your windshield with a ball bat and hauled ass.”
As Jamie and the others were running out of the bar he yelled to the stranger, “Did you see which way he went?”
“Yeah, he was heading into town up 441. I didn’t get the make . . . “
Jamie didn’t hear the last words but headed straight for his suburban. It looked fine except the spider-webbed windshield. Jamie was hot. He started to jump in and try to find the chicken punk who did this but when he did, he noticed the note on the wiper blade. He stopped, retrieved the note and read, Don’t bother to follow, just meet me at the vault in the morning at 11:00 AM. Jamie knew what this was all about. The McKinney brothers were back in town or they sent somebody to do their dirty work.
Bill yelled from his car, “Hey I got a note, too. It says Don’t bother to follow, just meet me at . . . “
“We know what it says, you fuckin’ moron. It says the same thing mine does.”
“Mine, too. We’re as good as dead,” Bobby chimed in.
“Shut up Bobby,” Jamie shouted. “Maybe your pussy ass is going to just roll over and die but not me. I’m going take care of business once and for all. No punk assed McKinney is going to get to me before I get to them. Both of you get over here. We’ve got to do some planning. They want to meet tomorrow, we’ll show them what they’re up against. We’re going to talk with Mr. Roberts. We’re going have some fun with those boys, just like we did with Mikey’s little bitch. Remember that Bobby?”
Bobby’s hair stood on the back of his neck. He hated Jamie worse now than ever, and he wasn’t going to be any part of any plan that Jamie came up with. His eyes watered from anger and his face was flush with heat. He was glad that the parking lot was dark because he didn’t want anyone to see the tears in his eyes. He turned, got into his car and sped off. As he sped away, Jamie hurled insults in the direction of his car. Jamie turned to Bill and said, “Well, are you going to put your panties on and join Bobby, or are you going to stand up and fight like a man?”
“I’m with you Jamie. Let’s do it. What do we do now?”
“Let’s take your car to Mr. Roberts place in the morning. You pick me up at 6:30 in the morning. We’ll tell ol’ Jason what happened here. We’ll leave out all the bragging and that shit. He doesn’t need to know any of that. Are you with me on that?”
“We’re good, Jamie. We’re good.” Bill went to his car. Just as he was about to get in the driver’s side, he yelled, “Hey, my back-pack’s gone! That son-of-a-bitch stole my backpack! It had all my money! Oh shit!”
“Shut up, Bill! You just don’t get it, do you? You have to stay cool even if bad shit happens. We’ll get your money back and even if we don’t there’s a hell of a lot more where that came from. Just cool it. We’ll see Jason in the morning and get everything back on track.”
Hearing Jamie tell someone to keep quiet was the most ironic thing Ray Krebs had ever heard. He could only shake his head in amazement. These two had to be the loudest, most obnoxious people he’d ever heard in his life and now they were a team. He thought to himself that Mr. Roberts would do well to dump these two in the St. Johns River and start from scratch. If they had to go up against this Radar character, they’d probably lose. But who the hell was this guy? I better get to the station and do a little research. It would have to be in the morning. This day had already gone on far too long. He went to the pay phone and made his report to Phil Daniels who said he’d relay the information to Mr. Roberts first thing in the morning. When Ray said the name Radar, nothing clicked. But when he said that Jamie was yelling about the McKinney brothers, Phil said he remembered something. The light bulb in Phil’s brain went on. That’s what this all is about. The McKinney’s are back. Phil said to Ray, “Do you remember the Julie McKinney murder?”
At the other end of the phone, Ray cringed. He said, “Yeah, I think I remember it. Is this the same McKinneys?”
Phil confirmed that it was. But he didn’t need to say a word. Ray already knew.
Chapter 32
Joe reached for her hand but he just couldn’t quite reach her. He kept stretching and straining and he barely had a grip on the rail, he wasn’t even sure what the rail was for or where he was. The area around him was misty; a blue haze. The smell in the air was burnt wood, metal and flesh. He couldn’t hear her voice but he could read her lips, “help me, please, help me.” The look on her face was sheer terror as she reached out trying to grab Joe’s outstretched hand. He was looking beyond her now and he saw hands gripping her ankles, dragging her down into what looked like the trap door to a huge furnace. They were trying to drag her into hell, Joe thought. Why can’t I reach her? It was Lisa! Then her face changed to Diane, finally to Mike’s wife, Julie. Then Julie let out a blood curdling scream and plunged towards the fire. As she descended, her faced changed again to the other two women, over and over again.
Joe bolted to a sitting position as he awoke from the worst nightmare he’d had in ages. He rubbed his eyes and looked around his bedroom to orient himself. Everything was in order. He could calm down now. Where had he seen this door before? He closed his eyes again and tried hard to concentrate to bring back that image but all he could imagine was fire and the horrified look on his late sister-in-law’s face. He hadn’t been there for her and Mike, and for this he cursed himself every day. It was 5:25 AM, five minutes before his alarm clock would have sounded. He was always up before the thing went off, but he normally didn’t go through the mental torment of a nightmare first. He’d had bad dreams, but this one caused him to grit his teeth until his jaw was sore. His whole body was tense.
He hopped out of bed, stretched and headed for the shower to try to wash the demons from his mind. He took a quick shower, dressed in running sweats and shoes, and headed out the door. He ran for ten miles on his usual route. When he got back to the apartment, he stretched, showered again, dressed and headed back out for a nice breakfast at a Crackers Diner. ‘Good food at good prices’ the sign read. As he entered the diner, he picked up the Sentinel Star and leafed through it to the sports. He read as he ate. Nothing too shocking there. But when he got to local law enforcement section, he put his fork down. The story line that caught his eye was ‘Man Shot in His Home’ with a sub line that read ‘Donnie Lester Dead from Gunshot.’ No coincidence here. Someone was executing their plan without them. He had to call Pat right away. No, it was too early. Pat had some making up to do. No matter how serious this was, it had to wait.
He had another thought. What if Mike couldn’t
stand it anymore and decided to do this himself? Did he know the plan? He was at the vault when he and Pat were first walking through the steps. But Mike left before the details were complete. Had they left details of the plan lying around? They couldn’t have. They didn’t write anything down except some ideas, none of which resembled the final plan. So far, the plan was being executed just as he and Pat detailed. He knew Pat had initiated the plan by hitting Danny, but what about the other two? Well there were only four left. Maybe we should just sit back and watch the plan execute itself the rest of the way?
Joe figured that if Mike were the man behind the killings, he had to be close. One way to eliminate him as a suspect was to call him. He couldn’t possibly make it all the way in from Vegas, do the deed and get home. He decided to call Mike at 9:00 AM. That way, it wouldn’t be too early out there and he could be relatively sure that he couldn’t have hopped a flight back. Then Joe wondered if Pat was really implementing the plan, but was just playing dumb. But why would he. This is exactly what they planned to do. He’d have nothing to hide. Besides, about the time of the hit on Donnie Lee, Pat was at his apartment.
Joe looked back down at what was left of his scrambled eggs and toast and decided he didn’t have any appetite left. He dropped $6.00 on the table for his $3.50 breakfast and headed back to his apartment. Things were getting weird. Joe didn’t like weird.
* * *
Pat awoke to an empty bed. He looked around the room and didn’t see Diane anywhere. But he did catch the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen and he heard her rooting around in the refrigerator. He was home and he felt great. He hopped out of bed, threw on his robe, and headed down the long hall towards the kitchen. On the way through, he stopped by Anna’s room and looked in at his still sleeping daughter. He opened the door across the hall and peered in at Sean. He was rolling over onto his side, eyes still shut. So Pat continued to the end of the hall and paused. He watched his beautiful wife, hard at work making a great breakfast. She had eggs and bacon, grits, pancakes, coffee and juice. She turned slowly as if she could sense him there.
“Are the kids still asleep?”
“Yes they are.”
“Good.” With that she walked slowly towards him and undid her robe as she moved closer. When she was within arm’s reach, she opened the robe to show Pat a full frontal, eye-popping view. Pat looked her up and down and up again.
“Wow! That is one fine wake up call.”
“Take a good look. If you thought last night was good, think about what tonight will bring. Maybe we can take the Redi-Whip to bed with us.”
“Oh my! I can’t wait for dessert.”
“Diane heard stirring from the hall and quickly closed and tied her robe. Anna was coming down the hall, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Daddy!”
She ran to his arms and he scooped his daughter up, gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “How’s my little girl doing? I missed you.”
“I missed you, too Daddy. You aren’t going to leave any more are you?”
Pat’s choked up response almost got caught in his throat, but he managed to clear his voice and say with a smile, “No sweetheart. I’m not leaving you anymore. When I have to go to work I’ll be with you right here in your heart. But I’m always going to come home to my little girl. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep there, cowboy,” Diane whispered in his ear. Pat turned and looked at her and said with conviction, “I can and will keep this promise.”
Sean was up now, hearing all the commotion in the kitchen. “Good morning Dad, Good morning Mom.” He, too, wiped sleep from his eyes. “I want pancakes for breakfast and lots of bacon.”
“Well you’re in luck, we have lots of both.” With that, the McKinney family sat down to a normal family breakfast. A few minutes later Pat flipped through the pages of the Sentinel Star and came upon a story on page three of the police locals. He nearly choked on a sip of coffee.
“Are you alright, dear? You look pale.”
* * *
Pat finished breakfast, then went to his study and closed the door behind him. The story about Donnie Lee Lester being shot and killed was like a real live ghost story. It’s like he planned it, and did it, but didn’t remember doing it. It had been done according to plan, but he wasn’t executing the plan. This is why Joe had recommended holding off on continuing with the plan. He had an idea that this was happening. Who knew about it though? Only he and Joe should have had any knowledge of the details. Mike knew some of the early ideas, but none of these killings to date showed signs of those early wild schemes. Had Joe spilled his guts to someone? That just wasn’t realistic. Joe was much more private than even Pat. Could I have slipped up somewhere along the way? He did do some writing on the boat about the plans, but he shredded all those papers. Could someone have gotten hold of them? If they had, more likely they’d have laughed it off or taken them to the captain to see if he could have this lunatic Electrician’s Mate taken off the ship. They didn’t like crazies on the sub.
He picked up the phone, had it half way to his ear and stopped. He thought for a moment about what he should say to Joe but his mind was racing, and he couldn’t get his thoughts together. He put the receiver back down and sat down in his cushioned office chair. Diane was in the kitchen cleaning up and the kids were in their rooms getting ready for a tough day of playing with their toys. Diane had said that the kids were going over to friends’ houses later in the morning so the house was all theirs. Diane had said, ‘We can have a warm up session for this evening.’ That thought crossed Pat’s mind as well, throwing another monkey wrench into the mix. He sat quietly with his eyes closed and imagined that he was in front of the Electric Plant Control Panel on the USS Alabama. He imagined that they were steady state, all ahead one third, the ocean calm, the boat cutting through the ocean so smooth that you thought you were on dry land. He had 8000 kilowatts of power at his command, though both generators were never fully loaded at the same time. But he was in control. He knew that he could handle any real or contrived emergency that was thrown his way. What a confidence builder that was, sitting there, almost in a dream-like state. When he opened his eyes, he knew what to do next.
Pat picked up the phone, and instead of calling Joe McKinney, he dialed a number that rang in downtown Orlando. The receiver was picked up and a voice said, “Detective Poleirmo.”
Chapter 33
It was 9:00 AM in Pine Hills, Florida. Joe McKinney dialed the number of his younger brother, Mike in Las Vegas, Nevada. He couldn’t wait any longer to see if Mike was still in Vegas or if he was roaming the central Florida area in a crazed state, seeking revenge for his wife’s murder. He was pretty sure that he knew the answer, but he wanted to be certain. On the third ring, Mike McKinney answered in an unsteady voice, “Hello?”
Joe could tell just by the way Mike answered that he had no part in the killings. The voice was like that of a scared child. Joe figured that Mike probably lived his days and nights in fear of another violation of his life. They did it that easily the first time, why not a second or even a third.
“Hi Mike. It’s Joe.”
“Joe. Hey.”
Nothing further. No, how are you or how’s Pat? Nothing. He was a beaten man.
“Mike, I just called to say hi and see how you were doing. Have you talked with Mom and Dad recently?” It was a tough question to ask, because Joe, himself hadn’t talked to their parents in quite some time. That was unusual and he felt a twinge of guilt as he asked.
“No. I want to, but I don’t know what to say. I want them to know I’m sorry about Julie.” Joe could hear Mike start to falter. His heart skipped a beat in his chest and he began to wish that he hadn’t called.
“Mike, two of the guys who hurt Julie are dead. Someone killed them. It’s getting safer out there for you. Would you like for Pat and me to come see you?”
“Yeah.” A few sniffles came across the line. “I’d like t
hat. When can you come?”
“I’m not positive, Mike, but soon. I’ll call you again when we make the arrangements. It’ll be soon. Okay Mikey?”
“Okay.”
“We love you Mike.”
The click at the other end of the phone was like a knife to the heart. Joe was nearly brought to tears by his brother’s pain and suffering. Not only did the four assailants take away his wife, they took away his life. He was reduced to a shadow of a man. Joe knew without a doubt that Mike McKinney was unable to kill anyone . . .except maybe himself. The thought hurt Joe even more. He looked around his apartment in frustration and anger. He yelled at God through the ceiling, “Why won’t you let us get the revenge that we need?”
God gave no reply.
* * *
Brian and Ginny were just waking. The room at the Gaylord Palms was fabulous with all the extras any guest would ever want. Brian looked at the clock; 9:45 AM. What a night. Ginny was stirring but not opening her eyes yet. She did have a grin on her lovely, but sleepy face. Brian leaned over and gave her a very light kiss on the cheek, then let his lips linger there. He slowly moved down to her neck, then to her left shoulder. Her smile was more pronounced now, as she responded to Brian’s teasing.
A Lifetime of Vengeance Page 22