Ultimate Betrayal

by Joseph Badal

  “I’m sorry, Gino. This is something I have to do myself.” David cut the connection. He stared at Ramsey and saw the shocked look on her face. “When we get to the bank,” he told her, “you stay with the car. You understand?”

  Ramsey’s protest was cut short by David’s unflinching look.

  Gino thought about calling Joey Cataldo. Have him send some of his New York City men to the bank to intercept David. But those men might not know what David looked like. He could call the cops, but some trigger-happy cop might shoot if he saw Bishop, and hit David by mistake. Besides, he thought he could get to the bank by the time it opened. Gino pulled clothes from the small closet in his hospital room and dressed. Although he was slightly less robust and definitely paler than he’d been before his heart attack, he still looked impressive in the dark blue suit. He put on the fedora and sunglasses Paulie had brought him. When he walked out of the hospital room, Rizzo jumped to attention and blurted, “Don Bartolucci, you should be in bed.”

  Gino gave him a dirty look. “Whatsa matter, you want me to stay in this place forever? You’d be happy if I died in this place?”

  “No, no, Don Bartolucci,” Rizzo said, his face flushed with embarrassment. “Of course I’m very happy you’re ready to get out of here.”

  “Good,” Gino said. “Now I want you to take me for a little ride.”

  On the ride into Manhattan, Gino used Paulie’s smart phone to check on the bank’s address. He was relieved to discover Manhattan Merchants Bank had only one location.

  “I got a quick appointment here,” Gino said when they arrived at the bank at 9:05 a.m. “Paulie, drop me off. I should be back out in five or ten minutes.”

  Paulie looked anxious. “I should go with you,” he said.

  “You’ll make someone a great mother some day.” Then he casually added, “You have an extra pistol? I feel naked without one.”

  “Since when do you carry, boss?” Paulie said as he double parked the car fifty feet from the bank entrance and turned on the emergency flashers.

  Gino glared back at Paulie.

  “Look in the glove compartment.”

  Gino took out a pistol, checked the safety, ejected the magazine, and replaced it.

  Gino hadn’t carried a pistol in decades. Even when he ran the Philadelphia organization, he never needed a pistol. His bodyguards handled the weaponry. But he knew guns. “Nine millimeter Beretta Ninety-two,” he said. “Fifteen rounds in the magazine?”

  “That’s right,” Paulie said.

  Gino suspected if Bishop did show up at the bank he would be armed and ready to kill anyone who got in his way. He fondled the pistol as though it was something animate, got acquainted with its heft and balance.

  The clock mounted on the bank’s exterior wall now showed 9:07. He checked for security cameras and noted one each mounted twenty feet above the sidewalk on the two front corners of the building.

  “Stay with the car,” Gino said. Then he pulled the front of the fedora down, left the car, and entered through a bank revolving door that delivered him into a lobby with a twenty-five-foot ceiling, marble floors, and dark-mahogany counters. He carefully surveyed the expansive lobby, but saw neither David nor Bishop. Then he spotted a sign with a down arrow: Safe Deposit Vault.

  David had arrived at the bank just a few minutes after 9 a.m. He’d turned a chair in the waiting area so he could see Bishop if he came down the stairway from the lobby. In the seven or eight minutes he’d been in the safety deposit area, no one had come down the stairs. Then, at a bit past 9:10, David was surprised to see Gino come down the steps. David immediately got out of his chair. Gino was still about fifteen feet away when a man bellowed “You!”

  The one word expressed volumes of rage. David and Gino turned toward the safety deposit vault. A man stood in front of a metal barred gate which separated the vault from the lobby. He wore a plaid cap and a mustache and goatee. But David saw through the disguise. It was Rolf Bishop.

  David couldn’t believe it. Bishop must have arrived at the bank just a couple of minutes before he did and had been in the vault since then with the female safety deposit clerk who now stood beside him.

  Bishop pulled a pistol from under his suit coat, dropped the large leather valise he held with his left hand, and grabbed the safety deposit clerk by the neck.

  When David reached toward his jacket pocket, Bishop extended his arm and rasped, “You don’t want to do that. If I have to shoot one of you, then I’ll shoot both of you.”

  David raised his hands.

  “Now take that pistol out of your jacket and put it on the floor.”

  David obeyed.

  Bishop stared hard at Gino. “Now you, Goombah, put your weapon on the floor.”

  Gino spread his arms. “I’m not armed.”

  Bishop was inclined to kill both men and the clerk, as well. He especially wanted to kill Hood. But he knew his unsilenced pistol would sound like an explosion in the confined space. People up in the lobby would surely hear gunshots. He didn’t want anyone to set off an alarm. He ordered the men into the safety deposit vault. Once they were inside, Bishop shoved the clerk at them, shut and locked the vault’s metal gate, and extracted the key. He tossed the key across the room, picked up his leather bag, and limped up the stairs. His artificial leg clicked with each step.

  David was so exasperated he wanted to scream. He knew Bishop would be gone before anyone could come to their assistance. He looked at the clerk and, without much enthusiasm, asked, “Is there a way out of here?”

  The woman whimpered and shook like a frightened puppy.

  Gino pushed his way through the others and looked at the gate lock. “You all back up,” he ordered. He removed a pistol from the back of his waistband, pointed it at the lock, and fired.

  The report of the pistol in the small vault with its metal surfaces sounded to David like a cannon shot. He felt as though someone had punched him in the head. He moved around Gino, raised his leg, and kicked the gate open, breaking the remnant of the lock.

  David rushed from the vault, scooped up O’Neil’s pistol from the floor, and ran to the stairs. He took the steps two at a time to the main level and paid no attention to the frenzied people there. He sprinted out the front door.

  Pedestrians moved in a slow, shoulder-to-shoulder, lava-like mass on 5th Avenue; vehicle traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Emergency flashers at the end of the block had slowed traffic to almost a standstill. David saw a fire engine parked in the middle of the street about fifty yards away. He quickly scanned the area immediately in front of the bank, but saw no sign of Bishop. He turned to his right and to his left. Still no Bishop. Then he heard Ramsey shout his name. She stood on the front bumper of the Mitsubishi SUV about twenty yards away and pointed farther down the street.

  David looked in the direction Ramsey indicated, but didn’t see Bishop. He raised his arms in frustration.

  Ramsey yelled, “In the street, in the middle of the street.” Then David spotted Bishop’s cap as the man moved between gridlocked cars on 5th Avenue. He fast-walked in a jerky motion, almost skipping. Bishop headed toward the opposite side of the broad boulevard.

  Bishop saw a mounted cop stare at him. He had no way to know if the cop recognized him with his disguise, but he knew his face had been plastered on every television screen in the country since the previous evening. He had to assume the officer was a potential barrier to escape. On the move, Bishop smoothly raised his pistol from where he held it along his thigh and slowed his pace just enough to steady his aim. He fired and sent a hollow-point round into the cop’s chest. The bullet’s impact knocked the officer off his horse. The sound of the shot echoed off the walls of the concrete canyon and the voices and movement on the sidewalks and street abruptly halted for a fraction of a second. Then pandemonium erupted. The wounded policeman’s left foot caught in a stirrup. The pistol
report, the uneven weight of its rider hanging from the stirrup, and pedestrians’ screams, seemed to frighten the animal. It bolted and dragged its rider down the crowded sidewalk.

  The panicked crowd surged in one direction until it met resistance and then surged back the other way. The crazed horse knocked down and trampled people while it tried to escape the bedlam.

  Bishop saw a mob of people attempt to avoid the animal and then turn and come directly toward him. He pivoted and moved back up the sidewalk ahead of them, only to realize he was about to collide with another mass of hysterical people. He stepped back into 5th Avenue, raised his pistol over his head, and fired three times. The crowd in front of him parted like the Red Sea and he moved through the void.

  Ramsey jumped to the street from the car’s bumper. She removed her service revolver from the holster strapped to her ankle beneath her slacks. She spotted Bishop’s hat bob amidst the crowd and moved toward it.

  David watched Bishop cross the street, but he couldn’t reach him through the crush of cars and people. He’d been carried by the crowd’s surge twenty-five yards away from the bank when Bishop reached the sidewalk twenty yards from the bank’s entrance, almost back where he’d started.

  Just then, David saw Gino walk out of the bank, right into the middle of the madness. David’s heart caught in his throat. He yelled to warn Gino, but his voice couldn’t compete with the screams, shouts, and blaring horns. David focused on Gino’s face in the hope he’d seen Bishop. But all David saw there was confusion. David yelled again, but his words were smothered by the crowd noise.

  Gino suddenly saw the devil incarnate come toward him; the man who’d murdered his beloved daughter and grandchildren. He jerked the Beretta from his suit jacket pocket and watched Bishop move closer while the man looked over his shoulder at someone or something behind him. Then Gino saw, even in the undulating sea of humanity, what Bishop looked at: David, who slowly moved toward Bishop, as though he was walking through molasses. David pushed people out of his way, but couldn’t make much progress. Then he suddenly broke through the crowd. Bishop turned and aimed his pistol at David.

  Gino was about to shout at David when he saw Jennifer Ramsey launch herself in front of David, just as Bishop fired his pistol. She collapsed to the sidewalk.

  Bishop turned back toward the bank. He was only ten feet from the entrance when he looked into Gino’s eyes, then looked down at the pistol in Gino’s right hand, pointed directly at him. Bishop raised his own pistol.

  Gino fired a round at Bishop, who spun around and dropped to his knees. His pistol clattered to the pavement. He didn’t know where the bullet he’d fired had hit Bishop, but he sensed it hadn’t been a kill shot. He advanced on Bishop, whose left hand still clutched the handle of his leather valise. Gino crouched over and, in a husky whisper, said, “That was for Carmela.” He put a round into Bishop’s stomach. The man sagged and screamed. “That was for Heather.” Then Gino grabbed Bishop’s chin with his left hand and placed the barrel of the pistol against the man’s forehead. “And this is for Kyle.” He pulled the trigger.

  The melee outside the bank deteriorated into mass hysteria. People screamed and shouted, pushed, and ran like stampeded cattle. Gino calmly pulled Bishop’s valise from his hand and walked away. He looked for Paulie and saw his car was blocked by the jam of vehicles backed up because of the accident at the end of the block. He walked down the block and turned the corner. Out of sight of the bank’s security cameras, he stepped into an alley, took off his hat, and dropped it into a trash bin. He used a handkerchief to wipe down the Beretta and dumped it in the bin, too.

  After he walked away from the alley, Gino called Paulie on his cellphone. “I’ll meet you on 42nd Street, around the corner from 5th Avenue.”

  “We going home?”

  “Back to the hospital,” Gino said. “We just went out for a walk.”

  At Gold’s place out on Long Island, O’Neil and Peter raptly watched the Action News helicopter coverage of the aftereffects of a shooting that had occurred outside the Manhattan Merchants Bank. The telephone rang. Peter answered it, and was relieved to hear David’s voice.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m in an ambulance with Jennifer. Bishop shot her.”

  CHAPTER 56

  It took three hours of surgery to remove the bullet from Jennifer’s chest. The round had just missed her aorta, but had collapsed a lung. When she awoke in recovery, still groggy from anesthesia, she saw a hazy image in front of her. It took a minute for her vision to clear enough to recognize David seated at the foot of her bed.

  “I know I’m not in heaven,” she rasped. “You’re here.”

  “Ha-ha,” David said. “Glad you still have a sense of humor.”

  “What happened?” Jennifer asked.

  “Bishop shot you. Someone shot Bishop. Killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “No one knows. TV news says witnesses claim it was either a man or a woman, somewhere between five feet and six feet tall, weighing between one-fifty and two-fifty.”

  Jennifer saw nothing but a blank expression on David’s face. Then, for a beat, she noticed a glint in his eyes and knew in that instant that David knew who had killed Bishop.

  Paulie returned Gino to St. Joseph’s Hospital by 11 a.m. He went into the hospital and stole a gown and slippers. Gino changed clothes in the back seat of his car and then leaned on Paulie as he returned to his room.

  “Where have you been, Mr. Bartolucci?” a nurse demanded.

  “Outside getting some air. Did you miss me?”

  The nurse glared at Gino. “Did you unplug yourself from the IV?”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t drag the damn thing around with me.”

  “You need to get back into bed. It’s almost time for lunch. I’ll come in a second and hook you up.”

  Gino rubbed his hands together. “Oh good,” he said. “I can’t wait.”

  MAY 1-JUNE 10

  CHAPTER 57

  The next morning, Paulie Rizzo drove Gino home to his wife in South Philadelphia. Gino had been so focused on his quest for revenge that he’d ignored her since Carmela’s death. Now they would mourn the loss of their daughter and grandchildren together.

  Dennis O’Neil caught a flight from New York to Chicago. He drove directly to his office, went to his desk, and typed a letter of resignation. He walked into the Chief of Detectives’ office and laid the letter, his department-issued sidearm, and his badge on the man’s desk. Then he cleaned out his own desk and made a list of the things he had to do before he moved to Bethesda, Maryland. The job David Hood had offered him with Security Systems, Ltd. was just too good to pass up. He took a cab to his house in Brookfield, greeted only by a small antique clock striking 6 p.m. That night. he slept like a baby.

  Peter spent a couple days in New York, spelling David at the hospital where he watched over Jennifer Ramsey. But he soon felt like he was intruding and informed his son he would return to Philadelphia.

  Jennifer was in the hospital for eight days before the doctors were satisfied infection was no longer a big concern. David visited her every day, although his visits were frequently interrupted by representatives of the NYPD, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Everyone wanted to know who had killed Rolf Bishop. David’s standard reply was, “I would love to have killed the bastard if I’d had the chance. But someone beat me to it. I heard the shots, but because of the crowd of people between Bishop and me, I couldn’t see a thing. After Bishop shot Detective Ramsey I gave her first aid. I didn’t have time to notice anything else.”

  David explained how he received information from a Swiss banker about Bishop’s New York bank.

  “Who else came to the bank with you?” an FBI agent asked.

  “Just Detective Ramsey. She thought I was on a wild goose chase, but wanted to ride a
long for the hell of it.”

  A New York City investigator asked, “Mr. Hood, were you armed?”

  “Of course not,” David lied. “That would be a violation of New York City law.”

  Day after day, the various investigators questioned David, but couldn’t uncover a thing that helped them in their investigation. They finally departed with promises to be back in touch. David wasn’t worried.

  After the hospital released Jennifer, David returned Irving Gold’s SUV to his Long Island home and rented a car. He drove Jennifer to his father’s house in Philadelphia where he and Peter helped nurse her back to health over the next few weeks.

  Despite hundreds of man-hours put in by the police and the Feds, not one witness to Bishop’s murder could give a clear description of the shooter or a coherent account of what had happened. One witness swore she’d seen a man wearing a hat and a suit stand over the dead man and appeared to talk to him. But she couldn’t give a good description of that man.

  The only pieces of hard evidence the authorities had were the bullets in Bishop’s body, Bishop’s pistol found on the sidewalk next to his body, and the bullet in the female cop’s chest.