I drive the Focus into town, intending to head for the hotel to check in, recuperate and change into some different shoes. But after zoning out for a while, lost in my thoughts, I suddenly realize with a startle that I’m not driving toward the hotel. In fact, I’m on the other side of town entirely, en route to a destination I can find on autopilot, even after all these years.
My dad’s old place. My childhood home.
I haven’t been back there since my father’s death. The funeral was held a few days ago, in a church just outside of town. Even after the service, I returned to my hotel room in Newark, not wanting to commit to a night in Bayonne just yet. It was too close. I couldn’t take it.
But today I’m supposed to check into an inn on the west side of town. After all, I didn’t leave New York just to hide out in Newark while the mystery of my father’s death festers and runs cold in my hometown. I force myself to rip my gaze off the road for a second to check the time. Just after half-past-two. Still early in the afternoon. I suppose since my automatic instincts have guided me back toward home — my old home — I might as well oblige them and go ahead.
Driving down the familiar streets, I’m struck by just how little has changed in the time I’ve been away. The same mailbox on the hairpin bend is crooked, leaning at a forty-five degree angle like it always has. I swallow back a lump in my throat when I drive past the tall, majestic silver maple in a vacant, overgrown lot I used to climb as a child. Seeing the lacy white undersides of the leaves triggers instant memories in my head, reminding me of how I used to collect the fallen leaves in early autumn into my pockets and dump them into a massive pile in my front yard, poring over the pretty foliage for hours.
When I drive down the road I lived on with my father, I can’t stop the tears from burning in my eyes. I don’t let them fall just yet, but the urge is definitely building. I haven’t cried at all yet. Not even at the funeral. I think the day of the service, I was still in a state of profound shock. Straight off the train from New York City, I was dressed in my sleekest, slinky black dress and a designer blazer. I was in stark contrast to the working-class attendees, my father’s friends from the industrial side of town, dressed in shabby suits and well-worn shoes. The older women wore outdated, moth-eaten dresses that probably hadn’t seen the light of day since 1995. My professional-grade makeup job made me look like a total fish out of water in comparison to the mostly bare faces filling the pews. Everyone else mourned loudly, unabashedly, unafraid to release their grief and pay their respects, displaying a kind of vulnerability New Yorkers don’t dare embrace.
Meanwhile, I sat in the front pew alone, unaccompanied, looking more like a character from a Lifetime movie about a funeral than an actual mourner in real life. I was cordial and responsive to the other funeral-goers when it was required of me, but I didn’t say much. I mostly sat quietly and kept to myself until it was over, when I returned to my Newark hotel room.
Even then, alone in my hotel bathtub that night, I did not cry. I wanted to. I tried to. But the tears just sat stubbornly behind my eyes, burning and threatening but never quite spilling free. I suppose I was simply too numb to fully embrace my devastation yet. And then, deciding to visit the warehouse in which he died was more of a whim than anything else. I didn’t think it through. I certainly didn’t plan it very well.
I realize now, pulling my car into the gravel driveway, that perhaps I was acting recklessly because I didn’t have anyone left in the world to tell me not to. My mother disappeared from my life when I was a child, and my father was the only one who ever successfully kept me in line. To be fair, I wasn’t a terribly misbehaved little girl — but I have always been obstinate and willful, causing some trouble for my teachers and babysitters growing up. But my dad… my dear, patient, honest father, all he ever had to do was give me a disappointed look and I immediately shaped up. He never raised his voice or lifted a hand in anger, never did anything to clip my wings or tether me down to earth.
He simply loved me, so deeply and unconditionally, that I could not bear the thought of disappointing or hurting him. It was the way I wanted to raise my own children someday. A very distant someday, I think sadly, as I have never even had a serious relationship that lasted more than six or seven months. I was a serial dater, not a serious dater.
Every man I meet seems to want to tie me down and keep me from flying away, even if at first they pretend to be fine with my career ambitions. I suppose my image and reputation precedes me and damns me in this regard. Cherry LaBeau the puff-piece writer doesn’t have big dreams beyond attending New York Fashion Week and landing a Tiffany diamond someday. But the real Cherry LaBeau — the real me that nobody sees reflected in my flimsy, gossipy published pieces — wants something more meaningful, more real. When it comes down to it, when the ditzy pretty-girl image is ripped away, no man ever wants to stick around.
But I know my father would never want his only daughter to be anyone’s trophy wife. He wanted so much more for me, and he believed in me when nobody else did. I just need to find a guy who will have my back, who can keep up with me.
Someone strong and commanding, but mischievous and adventurous…
Instantly and inexplicably, Leon pops into my head. Sitting in the front seat of my car, idling in the driveway of my late father’s house, I snort out loud. What is wrong with me? Is there a “temporary insanity” step to the phases of grief I don’t know about? Why the hell am I fantasizing about a guy who chased me for miles and pinned me to a crooked cop’s car and threatened my life? I watched him torture a guy chained to a warehouse floor, for God’s sake! Obviously my father’s death is sending me into some kind of bizarre crazy-person spiral.
Morbidly, I hesitate over the ignition, almost afraid to cut the engine. As long as I’m idling, it’s like I’m not really here. Like this is all a bad dream, and I’m going to wake up any moment now. Biting my lip, I close my eyes and turn the key. The gentle vibrations of the engine cut out, leaving me in the still silence of a dead man’s driveway.
I don’t know why I’m here, but I tell myself that it’s to gather more information about how my dad might have died. I convince myself that there’s a good reason for me to get out of my car, climb the front steps to the screened-in porch, and fumble for the key in my pocket. The house was left to me, along with everything else my dad had to his name. Which wasn’t much.
I unlock the door and walk into the front foyer, glancing around. The electricity and air conditioning are still running, as his death is so recent. Everything looks pretty much the same way it always did. The house is only about 1,400 square feet, with two bedrooms and one cramped little bathroom. The living room coffee table is covered in papers. I cock my head at this odd sight; my father was always shockingly neat and organized. He never left documents just lying around, whether they were important or not. I wonder, with a pang of guilt, if maybe he just got a little messier over the years, without me around to help out. Not that he was even that old when he passed. He and my mother got together in their teens — they were highschool sweethearts. My parents were only in their early twenties when I was born, so my dad was just shy of his forty-eighth birthday when he died.
It hits me now, again, just how strange his death is. He wasn’t even fifty yet. What kind of physically active, religiously healthy forty-seven-year-old just drops dead out of nowhere? Sure, the police told me it was an industrial accident — that he was simply killed doing the same kind of thing he did every day of his life for over twenty years. A freak incident. A moment’s slip. A little mistake with a massive cost. Simply in the right place at the wrong time.
I knew, though, that something wasn’t right about it. That there’s no way this was an accident. And in school, they always told me to trust my gut. That it would lead to the truth.
“He was a hardworking, honest man right down to the very last,” one of his coworkers told me at the funeral, clasping my hand in both of his. There were tears shining in his eyes, a frown o
n his weathered face. I vaguely recalled him from my childhood as one of my dad’s friends — a man named Chuck, I think. His wife used to bring over casseroles on Sundays every once in awhile. I remember they tasted like salt and sawdust, but she was so sweet that we ate the whole thing every damn time anyway.
I sit down on the sunken-in, decades-old couch and tuck my curly red hair behind my ear to look over the papers on the coffee table. I can’t resist. And this makes me feel like I’m doing something, like I’ve got a reason to be here snooping around. It’s business.
I scoop up a stack of papers and lean back on the couch to look them over, only to hear a strange crinkling noise from underneath me. I wriggle to the side and reach inside the cushions, my fingertips coming in contact with what feels like more papers. But smoother. Slick. Glossy.
Photographs.
I extract them and look through them with a dubious expression. They’re pictures of equipment from his workplace, with names, dates, and notes scribbled on the back. The documents look like health code violation notices, employee complaints, and some handwritten letters. Some of them are in my father’s signature left-handed scrawl, while others I don’t recognize at all.
“What the hell was he doing with all this?” I mumble aloud, shaking my head.
Just then, I hear a strange rumble from outside. I look up in confusion, thinking at first that someone must have pulled into the driveway. But then I realize it’s the combined sounds of several smaller, louder engines. My heart stops for a moment and I jump to my feet, the papers and photographs falling in disarray on the floor.
Motorcycles.
5
Leon
“Mickey Lamar,” I say as I pace around the bar, addressing the gathered men and women. “We owe that son of a bitch a visit. For those of you just getting here, yeah, you heard right,” I state firmly, looking each and every one of them in the eye as I come to a stop in the center of the room, arms crossed. “The FBI is back in town. Eva says intel is still shaky, but if I know the FBI, they’ve sent Doyle and his boys down after us again.”
There’s a general murmur around the bar, and I can tell that some of the newer blood look uneasy, while most of the older patch-members have knit their brows and wear bitter grimaces. Us veterans have sour memories about Agent Charles Doyle and the FBI in general, and I suspect there’ve been rumors trickle down over the years.
That makes today’s visit to Mickey all the more important. A morale booster.
“Alright, none of you get any assumptions in your heads, alright? Stick together and keep your nose out of the dirt, and whatever happens, never talk to any cops if you don’t know where their paycheck is coming from. Got it?”
There’s a shout of agreement from the club, and I give a curt nod.
“Good. Now who knows about this fucker Mickey?”
Lukas, our treasurer, speaks up first. “That the guy who owns Mickey’s North Liquors?”
“You got it,” I say, cracking my knuckles. “Mickey’s an older guy, been running that shithole of his for decades. Never met an employee who’s come out of there without getting burned bad. There’ve been rumors about this bastard getting away with anything with his employees. Seventy-hour work weeks, no overtime, weaseling his way out of sick leave. Word through the grapevine at the unemployment office is that Mickey just laid off two of his workers with no notice, no severance, and no prospects. Incidentally, one of ‘em just found out she’s pregnant.”
There’s a chorus of outraged shouts from the club.
“Piece of shit!”
“Typical, fuckin’ fat-cats.”
I wave my hand at all of them to get them to settle down. “Alright, alright. Let’s take that enthusiasm where it matters, alright? Now I don’t know about you, but I think Mickey pulling this shit is a little too well timed to be a coincidence. Are we gonna let the FBI be what sends us running when the worker folks need us?”
There’s a shout to the effect of “Fuck no!”
“I didn’t think so,” I say, striding towards the door. “Now let’s ride.”
Minutes later, the wind whips across my face as our bikes tear through the streets of the city, our line of roaring engines announcing us as we made our way to the outskirts of town, a good ways from The Glass.
The FBI may be in town, but I won’t let that get in the way of business. After all, how can the workers of the city feel protected if we take to the hills the second the suits from Washington show up? The people need someone who will do what needs to be done through thick and thin.
It doesn’t take us long to get to the liquor store. There aren’t many customers around at this time of day, but it’s getting later, and the after-work crowd will roll through before long.
I don’t mind that. It won’t take long to get our message across to Mickey.
Our bikes take up most of the run-down parking lot. It’s a shoddy looking place with a burned-out letter in the grungy sign. Mickey cuts corners wherever he can, either in the employee’s paychecks or the building’s upkeep.
I stride up to the building and see a young man, presumably an employee refilling an ice machine out front. He glances up at me as I approach, then does a double-take as he notices the rest of the club behind me, looking alarmed.
“C-can I help you?” says the man in a thickly accented voice.
“I don’t know,” I say, “you a new hire here?”
“Hire? Uh, yes sir.”
“How much is the old man paying you?”
The man is visibly shaking now, and the fear in his eyes tells me everything I need to know even before he begins shaking his head and feigning not being able to understand my question. He’s clearly an immigrant being paid under the table.
“The answer is ‘not fairly,’” I say to him, giving the terrified man a pat on the back as I nod for the rest of the club to follow me inside. Some of the boys give him an encouraging nod as they file in after me, but the man is too terrified to react.
As we slowly flood the entrance to the shady liquor store, Mickey Lamar himself raises his head from behind the counter, a perpetual scowl on his face. He’s a wiry guy in his fifties, thin from doing nothing but working the shop his whole life and blessed with a kindly, elderly face. But the moment his eyes fall on all of us, his whiskery face blanches behind his thick-framed glasses.
“Fucking shit,” I hear him whisper as he starts to fumble at the counter, but before he can do anything, I hold out a hand to him while the other goes instinctively to the pistol tucked in my back.
“Hold up there, Mickey,” I say as I circle around the counter before tilting my head towards the club. “Fellas, mind tellin’ Mickey’s treasured customers that he’ll be closing shop early today?”
The club obliges, and the few customers in the shop are politely asked to make their way out while Mickey and I glare each other down over the counter. My hand is still at my gun. I don’t think Mickey has it in him to try anything stupid, but I know there’s a shotgun behind that counter, and I’m not taking any chances.
“What the fuck do you thugs want, barging into my store like this? I’m an honest man, I pay my taxes! Isn’t that what you jobless fucks tout about defending all the time? Get the fuck out of here!”
“Come on, Mickey,” I say, the world’s fakest smile on my face. “We haven’t paid a visit in a long time, and that’s how you’re gonna say ‘hello’? We just thought we’d stop in and check in with you and your valued employees since we’ve got nothing else to do today, isn’t that right, Eva?”
“That’s right,” my Vice concurs, “I hear one of them has a bun in the oven, is that right? Thought we’d congratulate the expectant mother.”
“Funny thing is, Mickey,” I say, “I didn’t see her on the way in, but I did see a new face at the ice machine. His English isn’t too good, but I’m sure you’re helping him out with that, aren’t you? After all, everyone knows you’re a generous kinda guy.”
The look
in Mickey’s eyes is positively glowing with fire.
“Alright alright, get off my ass, shithead,” he snarls. “I know what the fuck this is about, so cut the bullshit.”
“You want me to cut the bullshit?” I laugh while some of the club checks through the bottles on the shelves idly, but I know it’s a ruse—their eyes are watching the entrance and the employee doors for signs of trouble.
“That’s rich, Mickey, real rich. Alright, so if you wanna cut the bullshit, let’s cut the bullshit.” I step towards the counter, taking my hand off my gun and resting both palms on the surface in front of me, my face about a foot away from Mickey’s scowl.
“Why don’t you explain to me why, the second the suits from Washington start cropping up in town, you think your ass can get away with firing a couple of honest employees and hiring a couple of immigrants you pay a third of a living wage in their place? Why don’t you start with that, huh?”
“I ain’t gotta say shit to any of you Russkys.”
There’s a quiet confidence in his eyes, like a smug, petulant child who knows he has the teacher on his side in the middle of a playground scrap. I know it’s because he feels safe with the FBI around town. And I know that to some degree, he’s right in that security. One fed happens to be driving by the shop right about now, and we’d all be in the slammer before sundown.
But I’m not going to let that threat stop me. Not when there are folks’ livelihoods at stake.
“Look, Mickey,” I say, my voice becoming deadly serious, “let me put it this way. Now, I know you think you’ve got your ass covered with the big boys from out of state coming around town to clean out thugs like us, but it isn’t gonna work that way. Unless you like the idea of having trouble with the club,” I give a sharp nod towards me crew, “then you’re gonna give those two employees you just laid off their jobs back. And they’re gonna have the exact same pay as they had when your slimy ass kicked them out.”
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 23