He didn’t see where the guy was going to find much cover in there, unless he had planned to jump out of the window. Because all he could see was a small bedroom, with a bed, a nightstand, and a chest of drawers. The room was too small for a dresser.
“You okay?”
Charles turned to the sound of Mick’s voice. Mick was back, and was staring at the dead man.
“Anzino, I take it?” Charles asked.
“That’s that motherfucker,” Mick said.
“You think his assailant followed us here?”
Mick nodded and looked at his brother. “That’s what I’m thinking, yeah. We went in through the front. He went in through the back.”
“And that poor guy,” Charles said, “didn’t see any of us coming.”
“That’s what he gets for two-timing his boss,” Mick said. “Poor guy my ass. But fuck it. Let’s get out of here. He’s no help to us now.”
“Why do you think he did it?” Charles asked as he began walking back across the room.
“Money,” Mick said, glancing back at Charles. “What the fuck else?”
Charles knew Mick had the hardest edge of any man he’d ever met hands down. Even when he was a kid there was something unfeeling about Mick. But it still unnerved him when he saw it. Was he this way with his children? With his wife?
And it was then, as Charles was leaving, did he glance at the pictures on the wall of the bedroom. It looked like family pictures. Pictures of ladies, of children, of a dog. But it was one picture that caught Charles’s eye. A familiar looking face.
Mick saw his sudden shift in interest. “What?” he asked him.
Charles moved up to the picture, and when he saw it closer, he knew he was right. “Gotdamn,” he said.
“What?” Mick asked, walking over to the picture too. All Mick saw was a picture of some short, stocky man with blotchy pink skin.
“Do you know this guy?” Charles asked.
Mick looked closer. “No. Why?”
Charles grabbed the picture off of the wall and turned it over. Gooch DeCarlo was written on the back. August 3, 2010.
“What of it, Charles?” Mick asked. “What does that ugly fuck have to do with anything?”
“He was younger here. But he’s the guy.”
“What guy?”
“This ugly fuck is the political agitator who called himself Abe Norris. This ugly fuck is the fucker who shot my wife.”
Mick looked at Charles, stunned. Charles looked at Mick. “This is the guy we need to find.”
“Don’t worry,” Mick said. “We’re find him.”
Sirens could be heard in the distance. Charles kept the photograph, as he and Mick hurried away from the scene.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Over the next several weeks, life settled back down and they all attempted to resume their normal lives. Mick returned to Philadelphia and his massive corporation. Charles and Jenay returned to Jericho and their business obligations. And all the speculation that once swirled around the discovery of Ethan Campbell’s body began to ebb even in Boston. The police determined that his body had been moved from a different location, an outdoors location, and planted at Carly’s former house. They concluded he had not been killed in that house, and the person who once lived there, Carly Sinatra, was not involved in the crime.
Although Trevor went back to Boston the same night he had dinner with Carly, to Carly’s pleasant surprise, he stayed in touch with her. He stayed in touch practically every single night. Their conversations began with him attempting to get her back on his payroll, but over time devolved into more personal discussions. They talked about their likes and dislikes. They talked about their dreams. They talked about irrelevant things. They enjoyed each other’s conversation.
And despite her family’s doubts about Trevor, and her father still had many, Carly quickly lost all doubt. Mainly because she knew Trevor before that night with Ethan, but also because, during all of their daily conversations, Trevor never once mentioned anything about Ethan’s death or her involvement in it. Life was changing for Carly. She felt as if she had passed some grand test and was now on her way. Life was good.
And then they found Gooch DeCarlo, and everything changed again.
It was almost a month after Carly’s arrest. Charles and Jenay were sitting out on the patio, seated side by side on the lounger, when the call came in. Charles was leaned back asleep, his sunglasses covering his eyes, while Jenay was sitting up polishing her toenails.
Robert came out from inside the house carrying an IPhone. “Dad,” he said as he entered talking, “you left this on the table.” Then he saw the state of his father. “He’s sleep?”
Jenay looked at Charles, and then at Robert. “Seems that way to me,” she said, and then continued to do her toenails.
“What do I tell Uncle Mick?” Robert asked.
Jenay looked up again. “Mick is on the phone?”
“Yeah. He wants to speak to Dad.”
Jenay reached for the phone. Robert handed it over. “Hello, Mick?”
“Jenay, hey. Is Charles there?”
“Yes. But he’s asleep. Is it urgent?”
Mick didn’t mince words. “Yes,” he said.
Jenay knew Mick was not a frivolous man. If he said it was urgent, then she knew it was urgent. She leaned back and shook Charles. “Babe,” she said. “Babe!”
Charles opened his eyes quickly, let her words digest, and then looked at her.
“Telephone,” she said.
Charles frowned. She woke him up to take a phone call?
“It’s Mick,” she quickly added, before he jumped on her case.
Charles, knowing Mick did not call to chew the fat, accepted his cell phone from her. “What’s up?” he asked.
“I have your agitator.”
“Where? In Philly?”
“Boston. He finally came out of his cave when he thought the heat was off. Want me to fly up and get you?”
“That’ll be faster,” Charles said.
“I’m on my way,” Mick said, and they ended the call.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” Robert asked.
“Just a situation,” Charles said, and looked at Jenay.
“You’ve got to go?” Jenay asked.
“Yup.”
“They found him?”
Charles nodded. “Yup,” he said. Then he leaned against Jenay, which she knew meant he was still tired, and kissed her on the lips. Then he got up.
“Can I go with you, Dad?” Robert asked. He was out of the loop, and badly wanted in.
Charles looked at Robert. He hated that his oldest boy Brent was involved in this mess. Not Bobby too. “No,” he said firmly, as he made his way into the house.
Gooch DeCarlo sat in the chair against the wall. Three men guarded him, and one stood at the window. But all were heavily armed.
“They’re here,” said one, as he left the window and walked over to the door. He waited to hear a knock, and then opened the door.
Mick and Charles walked in like two well-dressed enforcers from way back. Already Charles knew this wasn’t going to be as simple as interrogating the guy and letting him go. The guy, this Gooch, had already been worked over royally. He was so badly beaten that his forehead had a tennis ball-size hickie on it, and his left eye was swollen shut.
Mick stood in front of Gooch, and then knelt down. Gooch leaned back reflexively when he realized Mick the Tick was in front of him. Charles stood behind his younger brother. This was not his element, he was no gangster, but he had Mick’s back.
“My driver betrayed me,” Mick said. “My question is why?”
Gooch knew he was already dead. Mick the Tick didn’t come to these hellholes to show mercy. Gooch wasn’t going to feign ignorance the way he knew most men in a tough spot like his would do. He was going to show something he knew Mick hated: disrespect. “Do I know you?” he asked him.
“You stupid fuck!” one of Mick’s men said to Gooch.
>
“Want me to show him how well he knows you, boss?” another one of Mick’s men asked.
“Is that necessary, Gooch?” Mick asked. When Gooch didn’t respond, Mick reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a hand-sized grabber. But instead of hitting the guy, Mick took the grabber and latched it onto Gooch’s crotch. He squeezed. Gooch screamed. “Is it necessary, Gooch?” he asked again.
Even Mick’s men looked away when that grabber latched onto the man’s balls. Charles wanted to look away too, but he knew Mick was pumping the guy for information, and he was doing it for Carly’s sake. For Charles’s daughter’s sake. He wasn’t about to look away.
Gooch didn’t look away either. He was too busy screaming out in agony and pain.
“You still haven’t answered my questions, Gooch,” Mick said as he continued to squeeze. “You still haven’t told me if I should put my boys on you again.” Mick squeezed harder. “You still haven’t told me why my pea brain of a motherfucking driver thought it made sense to betray me.”
Gooch was still screaming and his face was fire red as he lifted in his seat and tried with every muscle in his body to break away from Mick’s grasp. Mick’s men had to look then, when they saw Gooch’s attempts at freedom. But it was still painful to see.
“Why, Gooch?” Mick asked again, as he squeezed again and then twisted.
“Damn!” one of Mick’s men said and completely backed up. He touched his own balls, as if by abstention Gooch’s troubles spelled trouble for him.
“Money,” Gooch finally said, breathlessly, and Charles, pleased that he was now willing to talk, unfolded his big arms.
Mick released the grabber. “Money?” Mick asked him.
Gooch let out a sharp exhale when Mick released him. “Money. He wanted money.”
“Why?”
Gooch knew he was a dead man talking, but he couldn’t take the kind of torture Mick was putting him through. And with the pain came a grappling at straws. He was irrational now. He actually thought, by talking, he could somehow prolong his life. Or at least give him time to come up with another implausible way out. “I do jobs,” he said. “That’s how I make my living. No matter how big or small, I do jobs. So I was asked to keep an eye on Carly Sinatra.”
Charles’s jaw tightened. Mick’s did too. “Who asked you?” Mick asked.
“Don’t know. It was a blind run. All bank transactions. They paid like they were supposed to pay, and I did what I was supposed to do. I kept an eye on her. When she went home for the night, that was the end of my day.”
He paused, as the pain continued to inflict him. “Then Ethan Campbell went missing. Word around the Boston underworld was that Mick the Tick had been in town the night Ethan disappeared. But nobody knew anything conclusive. I was paid to get one of your men to flip, to give me intel on what you were up to that night. But I got nothing. I couldn’t even get those fuckers to confirm if you were even in town. I got no takers. So they sent me to Jericho, to volunteer for the Cruikshank campaign.”
“Cruikshank’s involved?” Charles asked.
“Hell no. He was just a way in. My job was to agitate, to incite the locals to turn against you, same as Cruikshank was preaching in his campaign. It was all about bringing you down,” Gooch said, looking at Charles. “It was all about destroying you.”
He paused again, as the pain continued to rip through his body. “Then I get this call from Anzino. He says he was your driver the night Ethan went missing. He said he not only knew where the body was, but where they took the body from. I should have contacted my employer. They had a contact I was supposed to check in with in Jericho, and I should have done so. Their mission for being in Jericho was the same as mine: to get intel that could destroy you too. But I didn’t go that route. I saw Anzino’s call as my chance. He wanted five mill and a ticket out of the country, so I would ask for ten mill. Five apiece. Only person I knew could get that kind of money was you.” He was nodding toward Mick. “But it wasn’t enough for me to just tell you I knew where the body was buried. I needed a weapon against you.”
“What kind of weapon?” Mick asked.
“Carly,” Gooch said. “So me and Anzino and a few good men I paid, went and dug up that body and put it right back where Anzino said your men got it from: Carly’s house. We had already found out the house was still empty. We already knew nobody, after Carly left those weeks earlier, had rented it out.”
“What was the plan?” Mick asked.
“The plan was to put the body there and then call you and tell you, for ten mill, we wouldn’t go to the cops and implicate your cute little black niece. But as we were leaving Carly’s house that night, we weren’t a good four blocks away, there was an ambush. Every last one of my men were killed. I got away. That’s what I do. Anzino did too.”
Gooch frowned. “I had this safe house nobody knew about, that I went too whenever I was in trouble and needed to hide out. So I went there. Me and Anzino. We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t call you. We didn’t know if you were the one who ambushed us. We wasn’t going to call the cops. What good would that do us? But then the owner of Carly’s old rent house, a house that hadn’t been rented out, went to the house that next day. Found the body before anybody could do anything about it. And he called the cops. Then the next thing I know your men are on my street scoping out my house. I call for one of my men to meet me on the backstreet, I kill Anzino because I couldn’t leave witnesses, and then I took off. I was running out of the back door just as you and your brother were breaking down my front door. And I got away. That’s what I do. Until now.”
“Who was your Jericho contact?” Charles asked. “You said there was somebody in Jericho you were supposed to answer to. Who was he?”
“A she,” Gooch said. “Gilda Lane.”
Charles knew that name. “Gilda Lane? The biker chick?”
“Her job was to get cozy with Donnie Sinatra. He was considered the weakest link of your children, the one easiest to con. Her job was to pump him for information, stay close to him, and use him to whatever benefit we needed. She didn’t know the big plan either, but she knew more than I did.”
Charles was ready. They had what they needed to get to the bottom of this. But Mick had unfinished business. He walked with Charles outside of the front door, and even closed the door, but then he stood still. “Wait in the car,” he said to his brother. “I’ll be there.”
Charles looked Mick in the eyes. He knew what he meant. “He placed that body back in Carly’s house. He placed her, my child, in a freedom-threatening situation. It used to be my belief that the law should handle it. I gave up that right when we buried that body. But it will never end, Charles, if we keep burying more bodies.”
“That is not true,” Mick said. “It never ends the moment you bury your first body. It doesn’t matter if you do another one or not. It is hellish, and it never ends. But it will for you, and for your family. I’ll see to that.”
Charles stared at his brother. Mick was younger, but in a lot of ways, even when he was a kid, he was never young. “Is that why you have to go back in?” he asked him.
Mick nodded. “That’s exactly why. Going back in is the only way out.”
Charles swallowed hard, and nodded. Mick didn’t need his permission, but he appreciated it. He squeezed his big brother’s shoulder, and went back inside. Charles knew he could have gone to the car and pretended it wasn’t happening. But he was not that kind of man. He stood there and waited. It didn’t take long. He expected one gunshot. One should have been enough. He heard five. It reminded him of when Mick was a kid, and the neighborhood children would always complain that he played too rough. That he took it too far. Other men killed. Mick overkilled.
Charles walked away from the house, and got in the car. But it didn’t feel triumphant in the least. It didn’t feel like a climb to the top, but like a race to the bottom. It felt like another nail banging in another one of his children’s coffins.
>
But if they thought Gilda Lane would roll over like Gooch DeCarlo and tell all she knew, they had another thought coming. As soon as her front door was kicked in, she wasn’t running out of any back doors. She ran to her room, grabbed her always loaded, semiautomatic rifle from behind her door, and ran out shooting.
Mick and Charles took cover, but she was no match for either one of them. Mick was about to fire, but Charles took her out with a single bullet through the eye. She stood there momentarily, her rifle still aimed and ready to fire, as if her stubbornness alone would get her out of the jam she found herself in, and then fell backwards.
Mick and Charles stood up again. Mick, upset that Charles didn’t let him take the shot instead, exhaled. Mick didn’t want his brother to have that death on his conscience. But Charles didn’t want it on Mick’s either. Charles won out.
But as Mick stared at him, Charles didn’t even look his way. He continued to stare at Gilda Lane. “Don’t you worry about me, Michello,” he said. “I do what I have to do too.”
Then Charles looked at his brother. And Mick nodded. For once in his life, he felt as if he and his brother were equals on his terrain.
But when the dust cleared and they cleared out of that house, the fact remained: they were no closer to figuring out who attempted to take Charles down, and Carly and Jenay along with him. Gilda wouldn’t let them take her alive. They were back to square one.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A week after Gilda’s death, Donald Sinatra was still in shock. Not just because she died. That was bad enough. But because, according to his father and Brent, she was using him for some bigger, political purpose.
“What kind of bigger purpose?” he remembered asking his father.
“She wanted to destroy me,” Charles had responded. “She was working for my enemies, and she was out to destroy me.”
Donald remembered frowning. “What enemies?” he asked. “You mean like Cruikshank? Why he’s just a pompous blowhard!”
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Page 15