High Stakes

by John McEvoy

  Leon had started his workday right before four in the darkness of a Nebraska morning in North Platte and hauled a truck load of persistently groaning beef cattle six hours to Des Moines, which was supposed to be it for him that day. But at the Des Moines delivery point, he’d been offered an opportunity to hook up an eighteen-wheel oil tanker to his cab and go another 365 miles to Northbrook, Illinois. Some driver hadn’t shown up as scheduled. And there was Leon, a prime candidate for overtime, he and his wife as usual struggling to make this month’s mortgage payment for their already vastly undervalued tract house on the outskirts of Kankakee, Illinois. It was a property their lender had notified them had gone “under water.” Which is where Leon liked to think of putting that smooth talking crook who had led them into this shit deal. Leon didn’t even live next to the often flood-swollen Kankakee River!

  This was a full tanker of oil riding behind him. Leon hadn’t before hauled a load this heavy, his previous trips over the more than two decades of his trucker career involving dry goods, furniture, livestock, sand, street salt, wholesale grocery, and some wide-load trailer homes. This tanker job meant premium pay. He blinked again. Reached down to the small cooler on the floor for a caffeine-infused Mountain Dew. The cooler rattled with those empty cans.

  Two blocks from the intersection of Willow and Forest, Leon tightened his grip on the steering wheel as a small, red convertible driven by a ponytailed blond woman wearing sunglasses threatened to cross the center line directly in front of him and veer over into his lane. He blared his big truck horn as he stomped the brake pedal. That shook her up. She dropped her cell phone and momentarily lost control of her steering.

  Leon yanked his steering wheel to the right to avoid the convertible. At once, he felt the heavy oil tanker begin to start swinging behind him. He heard one of any trucker’s greatest fears, the bang sound of a tire blowing as one of the large left tanker tires smashed against the lane median. The tanker and the cab pulling it started to tilt over rapidly to the right side of Willow.

  It was getting away from Leon, the whole deal. Panicked now, Leon felt the entire fucking trucking apparatus, cab and tanker, tipping slowly, inexorably, to the right before slamming down sideways and covering almost all of these two lanes. Stunned, lying sideways in his battered cab, head ringing from where it had hit the console beside him, Leon struggled to kick open the driver’s door. He smelled the oil that was beginning to spurt from the ruptured tanker. Leon managed to pull himself up and out of the overturned cab. He landed shakily on his feet and, horrified, watched as oil spillage spread across Willow Road East.

  ***

  Ninety-four seconds earlier, two miles back, W. D. Wiems revved up his Harley Iron 883 and quickly passed the three cars between him and Doyle’s Accord. He was smirking behind the plastic tinted shield of his full-face cyclist’s helmet. The hunt was not only on, it was about to start. And finish. Closing in on the Accord, Wiems approached what he had chosen to be the killing ground. He moved up to get just behind and to the left of the gray Accord. The closest car in the left lane before him was at least three blocks ahead. Perfect. The rain had even stopped.

  ***

  Wiems’ computer research had led him to conclude that the best way to hit the Target was in the half-mile stretch on Willow Road leading to Elmhurst Road. That intersection would be perfect for his escape. The two miles north on Elmhurst Road could be covered quickly in case anyone had observed him leaving the scene. Then a westward turn onto Dundee Road toward his carefully calculated escape route. Minutes later, a quick change of clothes in the Bixby Forest Preserve from the black jacket into a tan windbreaker with Lake County Bikers emblazoned in red letters on its back. All part of his brilliantly detailed planning. After that, Westward Ho, Kansas City here he comes, ready to collect the rest of his money.

  ***

  Doyle’s Accord was the third car approaching the Willow-Elmhurst Intersection light. Two blocks before it, Doyle glanced in his left mirror. A black-clad and helmeted motorcyclist had pulled out from behind trailing right lane cars, its driver jerking it into the left lane to zoom forward. “Idiot,” Doyle said to himself. “Another cycle cowboy.”

  ***

  Wiems figured he had sixty quick yards to go. Beautiful. He reached his left hand into his jacket holster and extracted the Glock. Steered the cycle slightly closer to the Accord’s lane. His rearview mirror showed no trailing vehicle within three blocks. His silenced shots would take just seconds before the Glock went back into his jacket. He mentally congratulated himself on preparing for just this situation where he’d have to control his cycle speed with his right hand and shoot across his body with his left. Deft, was what he had become at that as a result of many nighttime Kansas practice sessions.

  Doyle cleared the small rise leading to the upcoming intersection and slowed, leaning slightly forward over the steering wheel, foot poised above the brake pedal. Looked to him like some kind of vehicular chaos a few blocks ahead. Several cars had pulled over to the right shoulder. What the hell was this? Carefully driving forward, Doyle could see that his two lanes were blocked by an overturned tanker, its oil a thick menace spreading across the roadway. What the hell?

  ***

  “Concentrate. Concentrate.” Wiems’ mantra. Tunnel vision aimed only at the Target’s Accord. Wiems sped closer to Doyle’s car, then braked sharply to keep his Target in focus. For a second, he looked in the driver’s window at Doyle’s startled face and smiled. He pointed the Glock at Doyle’s head. Doyle, too occupied in slamming on his brakes to avoid the mess ahead, didn’t turn and see Wiems.

  Wiems pulled the Glock’s trigger just as his bike’s front tire crossed the border of the oil spill. Shit. He’d missed the driver’s window, his two rapid shots shattering Doyle’s left rear passenger window.

  Doyle’s head snapped forward. He quickly grabbed its left side that had been laced with tiny glass fragments. Sudden pain, sudden panic as he felt the Accord skid across the black liquid layer covering the roadway.

  W. D. Wiems, fighting his Harley’s slow slide, cried out “Shit” when he saw his first shots had not stopped the Target. Concentrate. Once again momentarily able to again pull alongside the Accord’s driver’s side window, Wiems grinned as he saw the wide-eyed Doyle stare out at him and at his Glock. Eyes riveted on Doyle, Wiems slowed the Harley with his right hand and steadied his gun hand. Concentrate.

  Wiems did not look ahead east on Willow. Never had the chance to factor in the extent of the slick pool of oil emanating from Leon Haukedahl’s overturned tanker. The spreading black pool that had now captured Wiems’ Harley’s tires. He snapped off another two desperate shots as the Harley surfed the oil slick. Both went over the roof of the Accord.

  Doyle didn’t hear those shots, just as he hadn’t heard the silenced shots that had pierced his backseat window behind him. But he could see a helmeted man on a black cycle first next to him on his left, then in front, pistol waving in the air in his gloved hand as he fought for control of his bike.

  “What the fuck is this?” Doyle shouted.

  Wiems cursed and dropped the Glock to use both hands as he struggled to control the cycle. He’d never missed a Target before. But he had missed this one. Hadn’t nailed the twenty-thousand-dollar prize. He fought to wrench up the Harley’s front wheel. No go. He felt his right leg scraping across the concrete road, his jeans tearing as well as the skin underneath. He had no control of the bike. Could do nothing, now, to stop his twenty-eight-foot skid directly toward the tanker’s large steel back frame.

  The Harley smashed into the bottom of the steel frame head on. As his bike slid underneath it, Wiems tried to duck. No luck. His plastic visor shattered on impact, a sharp piece of it going directly into his right eye and three inches farther into his brain.

  ***

  With traffic now completely blocked on both sides of Willow, Doyle got out of his car and st
ood on the shoulder, shaken. His head hurt. He began to slowly walk forward toward the tanker and the mangled cycle and its rider whose feet protruded from beneath the tanker’s rear section. In only minutes, a stream of Cook County Sheriff’s Department vehicles roared up followed by two ambulances. Doyle waved down the second patrol car. Sergeant Wayne Monroe got out and hurried to him.

  “My name is Jack Doyle. That crazy cyclist underneath that tanker up there tried to kill me. Look, here, at my car. He took some shots that blew out my window before he hit that oil slick. Last I saw of him the son of a bitch was heading straight into the back of that tanker.”

  Sergeant Monroe said, “That’s the report we got. A motorist west-bound saw the cycle rider pointing a pistol at a gray car. Yours, obviously. You know any reason why that happened?”

  Doyle plucked a few more tiny pieces of glass from the back of his head. “No, officer, I do not.”

  An excited Sheriff’s deputy trotted up to them from where the tanker lay. “Cycle guy’s dead and gone, Sergeant,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to look at what happened to that poor bastard,” he added, shaking his head. “Even one of the veteran paramedics took a look and threw up.”

  “Any ID on the dead man?” Monroe said.

  “Yeah, a license anyway. A young guy named Wiems. From Lawrence, Kansas.”

  Sergeant Monroe turned to Doyle. “That name mean anything to you?”

  “Only in welcome memorium,” Doyle spat. “Bastard tried to kill me.”

  ***

  Nearly two hours later, after leaving the Sheriff’s Department, Doyle parked in the garage beneath his condo building. A helpful maintenance man at the Sheriff’s Palatine headquarters had helped him vacuum the glass out of the Accord and tape a temporary plastic covering over the empty window frame. This was done after he’d given his statement to Sergeant Monroe and an un-introduced female deputy in charge of the tape recorder.

  He felt drained, puzzled, very relieved, and horrified by his nearly fatal Willow Road experience. Finally back in his condo Doyle showered, dressed, poured himself a large Jameson’s on the rocks and he picked up his phone.

  “Moe, it’s me. You and Leah want to have dinner tonight? I know this is short notice. But could you two make it to Dino’s at seven?”

  “Okay, Jack. Short notice but, okay, fine with us. Something on your mind?”

  “Oh, yeah, Moesy. Oh, yeah. Some bastard I never heard of tried to kill me late this afternoon.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  “You’ve had a setback,” Aldo Caveretta said softly as he and Harvey Rexroth began their early morning walking tour of the Lexford Prison recreation yard. It was one of the two days per week that the inmates were allowed to have a full hour each of such outdoor exercise. The two wore their yellow, hooded rain jackets against the drizzle of this late summer day. More than half of the usual contingent of a.m. exercisers had opted to remain inside.

  Rexroth stopped in his tracks. He grabbed Caveretta’s elbow. “Setback?” he howled. “What do you mean, setback?” Rexroth’s broad face reddened and spittle formed at the edges of his large mouth.

  Caveretta angrily shook off Rexroth’s grip. “Keep it down, Harvey. There’s hardly anybody out here now. Still, in this joint, everybody listens to what everybody says if they can. Always looking for an angle. Information is currency here, my friend. You should know that. So, for godsakes, keep it down.”

  Rexroth snorted in disgust but resumed walking slowly aside the lanky lawyer who, after another dozen yards, stopped, looked behind them, then whispered, “Our hit man didn’t make the hit. Not only did he not make it, he got himself killed in the process. An ugly death, I’m told.”

  Rexroth’s big jaw dropped. He stood in stunned silence for a few moments that preceded an explosive response. “You mean that cocksucker Doyle is still alive? Your killer got killed! What the…” He interrupted his tirade to spit angrily onto the rubberized track. Two joggers sidestepped him as they passed, looking back in disgust.

  His large chest pushing against the front of his jumpsuit, Rexroth said, “Okay. First question. Do I get my fifty thousand back? Second question. Can you find somebody more capable out there who can take on this job and kill this fucking Doyle with my fifty grand rebate? Honest to God, I thought your people were supposed to be good at this!” Rexroth’s voice had risen in the course of these questions. Caveretta looked cautiously front and back before saying, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The drizzle now was replaced by an increasingly steady rain. Caveretta waited as his infuriated companion resumed his stomping, and frothing, and arm-waving. Another two fellow inmates strode rapidly past, looking inquisitive. Aldo waved them off. “No problem,” he said to them.

  It took another three minutes for the imperious media mogul to finish acting out. Like the spoiled rich bastard he is, Caveretta thought. I can’t take any more of this super jerk. And I won’t. By the time their morning exercise was over, Caveretta had mentally charted his course. Back inside their building, he walked away from the still complaining Rexroth and went to arrange for the phone call he would be allowed later that day. He passed up lunch. When it was time for his call, Caveretta dialed the private number in Kansas City of attorney Paul Trombino. A first cousin on his mother’s side, Trombino had unsuccessfully defended Caveretta in the federal trial that saw him winding up in Lexford, eating primarily mediocre-at-best food and dealing with dickheads like Rexroth.

  Aldo, ever the realist, had never held his conviction against attorney Trombino, since he had been found guilty primarily as a result of the damning testimony provided by traitorous nephew Rudy Randazzo. Little Rudy, his sister Angela’s firstborn, Aldo’s only godson, who grew up to be an Outfit button man, and who had been federally entrapped so that the little shit ratted out Uncle Aldo before disappearing into the Witness Protection Program. Such betrayal by a relative would never stop stinging.

  Aldo could picture himself thirty-two years earlier holding the blanketed infant Rudy over the Holy Rosary Church baptismal font, thinking to himself at the time this kid is so ugly the obstetrician shouldn’t have slapped him to start breathing, he should have slapped his mother for producing him. Aldo had come to often deeply regret during his tedious Lexford Prison days that he hadn’t “accidentally” dropped and drowned little Rudy in the baptismal water. He wouldn’t be here in with Rexroth, this human boil of irritation, had he done so.

  During his Lexford Prison phone call that day, Caveretta spoke to Trombino both in Italian and the coded English with which both men were very familiar. Even though Trombino was at first incredulous as he considered Aldo’s plan, and by no means certain it would work, he of course went along. An agreement was reached. Trombino could not refuse to carry out this plan since cousin Caveretta’s imprisonment had already lowered his grade in the extremely significant Scaravilli Family rating system. Any further decline was devoutly to be avoided.

  “Aldo,” Trombino finally said, “I will get started on this right away.”

  “Prego.” Caveretta inhaled, deeply relieved after he hung up the phone and walked back toward his cell, smiling to himself and thinking, not for the first time, about the wonderful variety of ways in which the mills of justice could be manipulated to grind.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Karen Engel and Damon Tirabassi walked out of their supervisor’s office in the FBI’s downtown Chicago headquarters. There was a spring in their steps despite the muggy August air.

  Their regular reporting meeting had not begun on a high note. They had to listen to a nine-minute, possibly scripted, oration from their boss about “the pressing need to find this dangerous, crazy, criminal horse killer. Not yesterday, mind you, the day before!”

  They were familiar with this career bureaucrat’s foibles and fantasies, most of them fed by his career spent behind a desk, far removed from the agency’s rea
l work. All they could do was listen, nod, and vow to “retriple” their efforts.

  Preparing to leave his office, they’d been startled to receive what the Director considered just “an ancillary piece of information.” It was that which had them smiling as they waited for the elevator.

  “What do you think, Damon? Should we tell Jack about this?” She and her partner were among seven people waiting for the elevator. The other five pricked up their ears at the possibility of overhearing something of use.

  Damon frowned at her. “Sotto voce. We’ll talk in the car.”

  They made quick purchases at the sandwich shop on the other side of Dearborn Street before walking to their car in the nearby underground garage. Once inside, doors closed, air conditioner cranked, Karen postponed opening her veggie wrap to say again, “What about letting Jack know?”

  Damon took a large bite out of his Italian beef sandwich before answering. “I don’t see any reason not to. Doyle probably needs a bit of a morale boost after the attempt on his life on Willow Road. He might even like to get an idea as to why that happened.” Damon frowned. “I told that server hot peppers, not sweet. Oh, well. Anyway, I’m glad the Harley shooter missed. Doyle’s never been a personal favorite person of mine, but…”

  “Oh, really,” Karen laughed.

  Damon said, “You know how I feel about him. A major pain in the posterior, but not somebody I’d like to lose.”

  “I do know. Let me call him.”

  ***

  Doyle was in Ralph Tenuta’s box at Heartland Downs. He’d hardly slept two nights earlier even after his dinner with Moe and Leah. He hadn’t had too much sleep last night, either. Too many questions on his mind. Some son of a bitch attempting to kill him on his way home from the racetrack? What the fuck was that about?

  He picked up his cell phone. “Hey, Karen.”