High Stakes

by John McEvoy

  After retrieving the cell phone that had fallen from his shirt pocket, he began walking up the side road to the highway. He took several deep breaths before Sheila picked up and he told her he’d “be a bit late. I’ll tell you why when I get there.” He cut off the connection before she could launch a question.

  Walking down the gravel-bordered coast road toward home, Hanratty thought, This was no feckin’ accident. Not with two blown tires.” Striding more quickly now, his jaw set, he called the cell phone of an old friend, Kinsale Garda Captain Dion Fryer. Filled him in on what Niall said were “recent happenings out here, my friend. When you dig my auto out of the rocks and sand, you’ll see what caused that mess. Call me when you know anything.”

  Only a few yards after Niall had turned onto the main road leading to his home, his neighbor Emma Morrissey pulled up beside him in her station wagon. “A lift, then, Niall?” she said, leaning across the passenger seat toward the door she’d opened. Emma took a long look at Hanratty’s scraped face and dusty clothes. He said, “Had an accident, Emma. Thanks for stopping.”

  When Niall walked in his door, Sheila looked up and frowned. “What happened to you? Was that Emma dropping you off?”

  Niall took off his jacket with its newly torn sleeves, put his cell phone on one of the front hall tables. “Tell you what. I’ll give you the whole story after I use the shower and change. Tell Moran’s we’ll be a bit late. We’ll have to take your SUV.” He gave her quick kiss and trotted up the stairs.

  Garda Captain Fryer called Hanratty just as he and his family were finishing their desserts at Moran’s. Neil excused himself and walked out onto the patio. “What is it, Dion?”

  “Niall, both your right tires were punctured. Not so that you’d feel it when you first started driving, but soon enough. Must have been done right before you got in the car. Actually, I’m surprised you drove as far as you did before those tires fully gave way. Obviously, the cuts were not from the tumble down the cliff, Niall. This was some mischief purposely done, and malicious mischief at that. You’re lucky you got out of the car in time.”

  Hanratty’s jaw tightened as he heard Fryer ask, “Any idea, now, Niall, who’d be doing something like this to you?”

  “No, Dion. There were a couple of other little incidents before this that I didn’t take too seriously. I see now that was a mistake. Some gombeen has surely got it in for me. I’ve got to find out who.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anyone bothering to watch as they took their slow-paced morning laps around the Lexford Federal Prison exercise yard would have considered them to be an unlikely pairing. The older, shorter, heavyset man was continually voluble, hands active as he slashed the air, emphasizing his talking points. Next to him, the somewhat younger, much taller, much slimmer man was mainly silent, bent forward to listen to his companion. He occasionally stopped to adjust the new hearing aid he’d received two days before.

  It was an overcast, unusually cool summer day in northwestern Wisconsin. Other prisoners perambulating inside the double-fenced perimeters wore windbreakers and caps. The Odd Couple strolled along unconcerned by matters farenheit, wearing their government-issued garb of khaki shirts tucked into khaki trousers, brown work boots. Harvey Rexroth was a large shirt, forty-inch waist, size nine footwear. Aldo Caveretta was medium shirt, thirty-three-inch waist, an eleven D.

  Rexroth had been born into wealth and raised and pampered from childhood. Caveretta was a middle-class product of a small Kansas City suburb populated by third-generation Italian-Americans, most of them upright and law-abiding citizens. He had been recruited by the minority as a bright teenager, his college and law school educations surreptitiously financed by it. On their prison yard strolls, the stocky, completely bald Rexroth, referred to as Daddy Warbucks by some of the inmates, had to look up at his lanky, composed companion.

  The Lexford Prison wardrobe was a continual irritant to Rexroth, a man previously accustomed to five thousand-dollar suits, imported handmade shirts, and custom-made ties, the cost of any one of which would feed an extended family in a Red Lobster Restaurant on any given night. Besides the expensive clothes, he missed the absence of servants, the expensive and nubile young women he retained for various entertainment purposes, the cadre of fawning order-takers that had surrounded him in each of his four luxurious U.S. residences and at his Bahamian estate, during his glorious dominating period when he headed his inherited media conglomerate. Though it had wound up putting him in Lexford, Rexroth even somewhat missed the less-than-successful thoroughbred racehorse operation he’d launched. That was it. He had no immediate family. His closest business cohort was tucked away in a different federal prison. But far outweighing all of this was Rexroth’s molten hatred for the man who helped the FBI put him in Lexford on charges of insurance fraud and racketeering.

  Caveretta was in residence as a result of a multi-charge racketeering conviction. It stemmed from his longtime role as legal advisor to Marco Scaravilli, Jr., veteran head of the Kansas City Outfit. Neither the attorney nor the media mogul ever mentioned the chain of events that had landed them in Lexford, though each man was well aware of the other’s background.

  The regular morning exercise the chunky media baron and the lanky lawyer engaged in was mandatory at Lexford, one of the so-called country club prisons in the federal penal chain. It featured minimum-security, healthy and not unappetizing menus, psychological counseling, tennis and bocce courts (in deference to high-ranking Outfit members, primarily from Chicago and Cleveland), horseshoe pits, convenient phone access, and a softball diamond that was seldom used since most of the potential players were middle-aged or older, well past even sixteen-inch slow pitch days.

  Behind Lexford’s double-fenced boundaries there lived in modest, but quite comfortable, cubicle housing some five hundred convicted white collar criminals who had dirtied their pinkies in physically non-violent ways. Among them were two ex-governors of a Midwestern state notable for producing such offenders, two former U.S. Congressmen, a scattering of various states’ legislators. The majority of the population was comprised of felonious investment experts and banking executives, thieving businessmen, and corrupted attorneys. Among the latter was Rexroth’s companion, Caveretta, on enforced sabbatical from his post as consigliorie for the Scaravilli Family.

  This was at least the fifth time that the persistent Rexroth had questioned Caveretta about the progress, or lack of it, of their current project, which was arranging for someone to murder Rexroth’s nemesis, Jack Doyle. It was Doyle, posing as a veteran horseman and working at Rexroth’s huge Kentucky breeding farm, who had come up with the evidence of the cold-blooded killings of heavily insured stallions that eventually led to Rexroth’s conviction.

  Toward the end of their first year at Lexford, Rexroth and Caveretta found themselves sharing the same psychiatric counselor, Dr. Patricia Hough. Even this practiced practitioner marveled at the two men’s shared ignorance of, or outright contempt for, morality. Rexroth enthusiastically regaled the stunned doctor with tales of his lifelong ethical duplicity. Caveretta was far less forthcoming, but the similarities between his life views regarding people who for some reason “owed,” and those of Rexroth, stunned Dr. Hough. She considered it not surprising that these two men bonded while waiting for their appointments in their uneasy counselor’s outer office.

  So, when Rexroth asked his new friend during one of their spring morning walks if he could arrange to have someone killed, the response was a simple “Who?”

  “A sneaky bastard named Jack Doyle. A Chicago guy.”

  Caveretta stopped. “Not, I presume, mobbed up in any way.”

  Rexroth said, “Of course not. The man is a tool of our repressive federal government.” He took a couple of steps and deep breaths. No time to engage in another right-wing rant. “I don’t know any Mafia people.”

  Caveretta smiled as he walked forward. “You must think yo
u do now. Or you wouldn’t be bringing this up, Harvey.”

  A tennis ball flew over the nearby court fence toward them, its propellant cursing at its flight. Caveretta reached up a big hand and snatched it out of the air. Tossed it back over the fence.

  Caveretta said, “I’m not going to ask you why you want this guy killed. My question, Harvey, is this. How much will you pay? You want it done soon, it’ll cost you. I’d put it at fifty grand before I even talk to my people. That would be wired to a bank routing number. All in advance. Capice?”

  Rexroth shrugged. “Piffle.”

  Caveretta stopped walking. “Did you say cripple? You want a crippled hit man?”

  “I said, ‘piffle.’ You know, a mere bagatelle.”

  Caveretta leaned toward Rexroth, puzzlement evident on his long, sallow face. “A dear rag and bell? What the hell are you talking about?” Irritated, he fiddled with his hearing aide, muttering, “Fuckin’ government-issue.”

  Rexroth, trying to tamp down the level of his irritation, said, louder, “Never mind. Can you get this done, Aldo? Every day that conniving bastard keeps breathing makes me seethe. I need him gone.” Another right-handed chopping of the air for emphasis.

  Caveretta glanced behind him before saying, “Look, Harvey, this kind of project cannot be carried out in days. I have to talk to people. Not just over the phones here with the fed ears stuck to the line. I have to use other methods of communication. It’ll take some time.”

  They walked to the northwest corner of the fence before turning back. Rexroth was trying to contain his exuberance as they passed under a guard tower, ignoring one of the resident Prairie State ex-governors also walking beneath it who strode past, smiling and waving at them.

  “Stupid bastard must think he’s running for office,” Rexroth snorted. “To think I shoveled major money to that nitwit’s campaign. I thought he was a cleverer crook than he turned out to be.” Rexroth shook his head in disgust. “You just can’t count on a lot of those thieving bastards.”

  They turned left at the southern barrier, heading back toward the entrance, before Rexroth suddenly stopped and grabbed Aldo’s elbow. “My friend, who do you think would carry out this, uh, assignment? I’ve heard about guys like Slicer Sam, Golf Bag, Stan Hunt, Jimmy Nibbles. Will you get somebody like that for this?” Rexroth said eagerly. He frowned before adding, “Especially for this kind of money?”

  “Jimmy What?” Caveretta said. Agitated, he took another try at properly adjusting the beige item in his right ear. “Harvey, those are all bullshit names. People see them in movies, TV, and think that’s what our guys are called. Our people have regular names. None of which,” he said, opening the door for Rexroth, “you will ever know.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  One of the names that would never be given to Rexroth was that of W.D. Wiems of Lawrence, Kansas, a graduate student in computer science at the state university where he had met the well-known campus figure Marco Scaravilli the Third, the youngest son of Kansas City Outfit boss Marco Scaravilli, Jr. Young Scaravilli was in his first year of graduate school in business. A gun nut from boyhood when he would join his cousins to blast away at targets on the back acreage of his grandfather’s secluded rural estate, Marco Three, as he was known to his relatives, maintained that interest at Cartridge Central Shooting Range on the southwest edge of his university city. He did it for pleasure, not vocational preparation. Like most fourth- or fifth-generation descendants of this country’s Mafia pioneers, he had been guided from youth to be far away from the family business and into the legitimate side of American commerce. Marco Three was on track for an MBA and eventual management of his father’s extremely private hedge fund. His only brother, Dario, had been steered by his shrewd, demanding parent into the study of law, not breaking it. Several other professional people were leaves on the now nearly legitimatized Scaravilli family tree.

  One late Friday night, Benny LaPier, owner of Cartridge Central Range, accepted Marco Three’s Remington .44 and state-of-the-art stereo earmuffs, for placement in the building’s locker section. “Hey, Marco,” he said. “Take a look at that skinny redheaded kid at the end station on the right. He can shoot the lights, and everything else, out.” They watched a ten-minute display of gold medal quality shooting from this unlikely looking marksman. With his tall, slim frame, long pale face, head of unkempt bright, orange-red hair, he looked completely out of place in this locale. As the bull’s-eyed targets were returned on the wire to the shooter, LaPier said, “Damn! How about that kind of shooting!”

  Marco Three said, “Fucking amazing. And he’s left-handed.”

  “So what? So was Billy the Kid.”

  The redhead approached the counter with his weapon and gear. Marco Three stepped toward him, saying, “Hey, some fantastic shooting, dude.” He extended his hand. “My name is Marco. Can I buy you a beer across the street at Shorty and Lammy’s? I’d like to learn who taught you to shoot like that.”

  Awkward silence before the redhead muttered, “W.D. Wiems.” He quickly looked Marco Three up and down, glanced at the range owner, then shrugged and said, “See you over there.”

  Marco Three had never considered himself a talent scout, per se. But he knew that his father’s reduced, though still potent, organization had for several years been without what for many previous decades was a farm system of eager brutes. There was a late night when Marco Three and his father had shared grappas in the mansion’s kitchen, Marco Jr. as serious as his favorite son had ever seen him. Marco Jr. leaned forward, his hairy, bowling pin-sized forearms on the oak table, pensive look on his lined face. “See, it’s a problem we’d never thought we’d see. Guys my age, guys who came up like me, Feef in Chicago, Bruno in Jersey, other top guys, we all steered our sons away from Our Thing. Then, one day, we look around and we got nobody coming up we can trust to do things. Our made guys, merde, they’re about down to handfuls. Old, fat, and lazy. Pass the biscotti.”

  Marco Three said, “Papa, how many of these, like, experts, lethal-wise, do you need?”

  His father emptied his glass of grappa and re-filled it. “Not that many. It’s all changed. The hitters we used to need, we don’t need that many anymore. Some muscle still for bookmaker clients, loan sharking, although that’s way down what with all those fucking Cash Caller Quickest Money or whatever they call them shylock stores, not so much anymore. But, every now and then, you need somebody who can take care of business in the old way of taking care of business.” He stopped to dip an almond biscotti into his glass of grappa. “My problem is the, you know, what do you call it?”

  “Scarcity,” Marco Third said. “Lack of talent.”

  ***

  Marco Three had that conversation in mind as he bought W.D. Wiems his second Miller Lite, himself another Crown Royal rocks to nurse. He’d tried to talk a little sports with Wiems. Asked him about school, how he liked being a KU grad. Was he getting “any pussy here in Lawrencetown?” Wiems showed no interest in any of these subjects. Then Marco said, “Hey, dude, I never saw anybody shoot like you did over there tonight. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  Wiems slowly shifted his eyes from the TV screen with its Ultimate Fighting Championship match that was entrancing most of the bar patrons. “My step-father taught me. He was a Marine sniper in ’Nam, he said. I believed him. Saw him shoot like a laser beam on our farm property. That’s when he wasn’t falling down drunk, or taking swipes at me and my Mama, who kept putting up with it. And him.”

  Wiems took a swig of beer. He turned away from the television screen to look directly at Marco Three, eyes bright behind his tinted, nerdy, black-framed glasses. “I had to finally get around to stopping that shit, you know? Both of them died ‘accidental deaths.’ They had to if I was going to get my life going. So, I inherited some money. Step-daddy’s life insurance policy was a good one. The old bastard aimed it down at Mama, that stupid bitch, then dow
n to their only child. Me.” A hint of what Marco Three thought might be a rare visible expression flickered across Wiems’ narrow, normally impassive face. Wiems smiled before adding, “Dude,” and turning to look back up at the television screen.

  Marco Three winced as he processed that matter-of-fact statement. He distractedly waved away the bartender’s offer of “Another round for you fellas?”

  “Guy runs the range told me you’re majoring in what, computer science?”

  Silence. Marco Three took a deep breath, tried again. “You from around here?” he said, lightly touching Wiems’ arm for an answer. Mistake.

  Wiems pivoted to shake off Marco Three’s hand. Eyes a cold blue, color of an Arctic sea, unwavering. boring into his inquisitor. The answer was so quietly said it might have been “Topeka” or “Tupelo.”

  Marco Three said, “Hey, I was only asking. You know?”

  He backed off as they both listened to calls coming from a newly arrived set of customers now seated down the bar, loud drunken demands for a television switch to an NHL hockey retrospective of the Stanley Cup Finals. The bartender obliged, ignoring protests from the now out-ranked UFC faction, figuring more spending would be coming from this freshly arrived and thirsty-looking group. He summoned a waitress to help him fill the newcomers’ loud orders. The hockey contest was halted by a mid-ice scrum involving a half-dozen enthusiastic combatants all of whom had wisely removed their upper dental plates before the game’s start.

  Wiems ignored this. Started to slide off his stool. Marco Three quickly got up, saying, “I have to go. I’ll walk out with you. Let me pay.” He made sure Wiems saw him lay a fifty-dollar bill down on the damp bar.

  In the drizzling rain of that Kansas night, he paused, buying a little time as he lit a Marlboro. Offered the package to Wiems, who shook his head. “I need to ask you something, Wiems. I heard what you said tonight. But I got to know, just between you and me, and just to get this straight, does the idea of killing bother you? People, that is.”