One Last Kill

by Spenser Warren

  Instead of a postcoital nap, Cal sprung from his bed and into the kitchen. He felt like whipping up a gourmet meal for his girlfriend, to be enjoyed with wine and good conversation. He planned to tell her all the painful stories he’d hidden from her, to show her how much he wanted to change and how much their relationship meant to him.

  Cal prepared a wooden cutting board and one of his sharpest knives to slice carrots, celery, and onion for a minestrone soup. Shortcuts like food processors weren’t allowed in his kitchen. Chopping each vegetable allowed him to focus on the importance of each ingredient.

  Once the vegetables were chopped, he put them in a pan to heat before adding garlic, canned tomatoes, yellow potatoes, fennel, parsley, and basil. He took some presoaked fava beans, chickpeas, and cranberry beans from the refrigerator and added them to the pot before covering the vegetables and beans in water to cook.

  He’d first learned how to make the minestrone from Frankie Ramone during a Sunday dinner at the Petrocellis’. Frankie regularly boasted of his cooking prowess and how he’d taught Susan many of the recipes she was famously credited for.

  While Cal waited for the soup to cook, he went back to the refrigerator and grabbed a cold Dos Equis. Cal thought of Frankie again and wondered why he hadn’t responded to his calls following his escape from O’Dooley’s Pub. Surely the Petrocellis received word that Mayor Caruso was dead by now. But why hadn’t Frankie checked in with him?

  Cal’s thoughts shifted to what he would do now that Caruso was dead. Maria was correct that Cal wouldn’t be able to afford his current lifestyle without the Petrocellis paying him a handsome sum of money. He’d have to move to a cheaper place. He still had no clue what he would do in order to earn a living, but he wanted it to be honest work and something that Maria could be proud of.

  Cal downed the rest of his Dos Equis and opened another beer as he sat in the living room and allowed Maria to sleep. The minestrone had simmered for an hour and a half by that point, so Cal added some couscous and salt to the dish and let it cook for another twenty minutes. He put fresh bread in the oven to warm and pulled a bottle of cabernet out of the wine fridge to warm to a proper serving temperature.

  Cal made his way to the bedroom to find his Latina beauty queen had already awoken and was slowly putting on her T-shirt, covering up her supple breasts.

  Maria’s shirt fell softly around her slender torso. She smiled as she ruffled her long black hair behind her and gathered it into a ponytail. Her smile was infectious. Cal wanted to press her body back down onto the mattress and ravage her one more time. Only his hunger for the minestrone, its delicious smell wafting through the apartment, stopped him.

  “Did you have a nice nap? I’ve got dinner waiting.”

  Maria smiled and smoothed out her shirt after finishing with her hair tie. Only a thin cotton triangle covered her lower half.

  “It was lovely. I can’t remember the last time I had a proper nap.”

  “That’s because you study too hard. C’mon, let’s eat.”

  Cal grabbed her hand and led her to the kitchen, where he’d already filled two bowls full of the delicious soup. He set separate dishes of freshly chopped Italian parsley and Romano cheese out for them to garnish the soup with. Helping herself to only the cheese, Maria headed straight for the refrigerator and pulled out cilantro.

  “You know it doesn’t taste right if you substitute cilantro for the parsley?” Cal said. He actually preferred cilantro, but the bitterness of the parsley balanced the slightly nutty flavors of the beans and the richness of the tomatoes. He thought adding cilantro caused the soup to resemble salsa.

  “You obviously don’t know me that well.” Maria stuck out her tongue for Cal’s benefit. “I love my cilantro over any kind of parsley.”

  “If you wanted hot salsa, you could have said so,” Cal replied with a laugh.

  Maria broke a piece of the bread off into her soup. Cal was already halfway through a glass of the wine and had a feeling he would need to prepare a second bottle with the way the night was shaping up.

  The ambiance of the food, his girlfriend sans pants, the lushness of the fruity wine, and the allure of having time to make love to Maria all night long would be a cause for celebration for most men. It should’ve been for Cal. Yet a hint of nervousness made his heart queasy. He’d heard nothing further about Tony’s condition and hadn’t been in contact with anyone from the mafia ever since Caruso’s murder.

  The hit man in him had to wonder. What was next? Was he out just like that? Was it that easy?

  “Alright, mister, what do you want to share with me first?” Maria asked. “I thought you were prepared to tell all.”

  Cal swallowed a spoonful of the hot soup, savoring the feeling of the warm cranberry beans as they slid down his throat. They were cooked just perfectly—not too long that they were rubbery, but just enough to give them a meaty texture.

  “Padre, I promised to give my confession. Let me drink some more wine first.”

  Maria rolled her eyes and didn’t laugh.

  “C’mon, I’m serious. Tell me something I don’t know about you. Not some throwaway story either. I want to go deep into the mind of Callahan Boyle. What scares you? What gives you nightmares?”

  Cal recalled one of the most painful memories from his youth. He saw a flash of anger and heard the grinding of his father’s teeth. It was a scene that often repeated itself through his childhood and became progressively worse as the years marched closer to his father’s death. One evening, his parents were in a deep argument about how often Cal’s mother went shopping.

  Cal told the story of his father, half drunk after only an hour at home from his workday at the warehouse, yelling at Cal’s mother at the top of his lungs. His mother took the verbal abuse for what seemed like hours before taking Cal to the pantry in the kitchen and telling him to be quiet. She promised to retrieve him later when his father had calmed down.

  Cal’s father became extremely violent. Cal heard the crash of a beer bottle outside the pantry door. He heard his mother’s screams only a few feet farther away. His father growled and Cal heard a loud clap before something was shoved against the wall.

  His mother’s loud wail forced young Cal to open the pantry door, exposing him to his crazed father. He couldn’t believe his father was acting this way toward his mother. Cal wondered if it was something he’d done that caused his parents to fight. He remembered his arms trembling in fear, wondering if his mother would die at the hands of his father.

  “Whatcha doin’ in there, boy? I saw you lookin’ at what I been doin’ to your momma. You don’t listen to me, that’s whatcha gonna get. You hear me?”

  Cal heard his father loud and clear. Something told him that his father would get drunker and the assault on his mother would intensify. He may have only been eleven years old at the time, but he felt his courage spring him into action to stand up to his drunk father. His abuse had persisted long enough.

  Cal stepped out of the pantry and walked toward his father. His mother saw the blank, faraway look in Cal’s eyes, the same look she often saw in her husband before he struck her night after night. She was still crying, her arm streaked in blood. It looked like her face was starting to bruise.

  “You tryin’ to get tough with me, kid? I’m your father. You will respect me, damnit.”

  Cal’s father staggered toward him as his mother screamed out and cowered farther down the wall, collapsing to the floor.

  “Cal, don’t. Run, Cal, run.”

  “Shut up, whore,” his father yelled. He pointed a grimy, stubby finger back toward his fallen wife.

  Cal’s mother tried to get to her feet, only to fall again. A deep heat spread throughout his chest. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. His body shook uncontrollably.

  Violence was not a part of his plan. His only intention was to stand up to his abusive father. They stood in front of each other, separated only by the invisible fog of their breath.

 
; “You got somethin’ you wanna say to me?”

  His dad leaned down and growled at him. Fear joined the anger that was coursing through Cal’s body. Without thinking, he blurted out words that would change his appearance forever.

  “Real men don’t hurt women like that. If you want to hit someone, hit me.”

  “No, Cal, don’t. Get out of here!”

  Cal heard the growl emanate from his father’s jowls but couldn’t brace himself for the impact of the punch that landed against his cheek, sending three teeth flying out of his mouth. The force of the blow was so strong that Cal nearly teetered back far enough to fall on the ground where his mother lay.

  Despite the pain, he regained his position and stayed on his feet. His father rocked back his fist, ready to deliver another blow. Cal flinched and saw his father reach instead for something buried in his pocket. It was a jackknife, the same jackknife Cal would later use as a hit man.

  “What are you doing, Tom? What are you doing? Put it away, Tom. Put it away!”

  Tom looked at his wife with utter disgust. “Keep it zipped. I’m gonna teach your son a real lesson.”

  Without warning, he opened the blade and staggered toward Cal. For some reason, Cal didn’t think to run. He was paralyzed by fear but ready to show his father that his mother shouldn’t be pushed around. Serving as a sacrificial lamb to prevent her suffering was worth it to him in that moment.

  “Cal, run!”

  Immediately after his mother screamed, Cal felt the blade slice beneath his right ear. Pretending to be tough wasn’t enough as the pain from the wound became unbearable. He wailed as the pain from the punch and his father’s cut blended into a cocktail of agony.

  His father’s eyes signaled no remorse. He dropped the knife and stormed out of the house, presumably to walk the few blocks to the neighborhood bar. Cal remembered the frightened expression on his mother’s face as they tried to heal each other’s wounds. He begged her to call the police, but she refused, saying that it wouldn’t be right to ruin their marriage and that deep down his father was a good guy.

  Had the beatings continued for much longer, Cal would have grown up resenting both of his parents. Six months later, his father was killed.

  Maria’s eyes were glazed in sadness as Cal finished telling her about his traumatic childhood experience. Her body shook and Cal could almost see her heart thumping out of her chest as her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath her shirt.

  “So that’s how you got that scar.”

  Cal nodded and touched the red scar that ran two inches across his right cheekbone, just below his ear. The scar had barely faded in the eighteen years since the incident.

  “I rarely think about it these days. I try to put it behind me, in the past.”

  Maria got up from her seat, walked to Cal, and embraced him. Cal was surprised at the emotional display and wrapped his arms around her, if only to reassure her that he was alright.

  “I can’t believe your father would do something so terrible. I guess I can see why telling Alfredo you’re leaving his family business behind is really hard for you. He gave you a home, he was a much better influence than your own father.”

  Cal rubbed her back and realized she was right. He wanted to make her happy and leave the mafia behind, yet he felt some apprehension at the thought of disappointing a man he respected. Despite Alfredo’s faults, he’d always treated Cal well. Vinnie had been his best friend growing up, and the two were still close. Susan was practically his mother. It would be tough for him to disappoint them and actually leave the mafia behind.

  “I know, but letting go is for the best. Even if they’re the only real family I have.”

  34

  The next morning, Cal sat on a sticky vinyl-covered seat at the Walker Brothers Pancake House. He was looking forward to some delicious apple-cinnamon pancakes, though his stomach was twisted in so many knots that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to enjoy the food.

  He’d received a call from Alfredo to meet him and Vinnie for breakfast at the restaurant in Wilmette, the next suburb over from Evanston. It was the first time Cal had heard from anyone in the mafia since the Caruso murder the previous day. The worst news of all was that Frankie had been found murdered near the scene. Cal wasn’t an emotional man, but hearing the news was a major blow.

  “I’m glad you finally got here,” Alfredo started. “I’m absolutely starving. Susan usually has breakfast on the table at seven thirty. This is really late for me.”

  Cal didn’t smile, but he could relate. He remembered his days as a starving teenager, back when he and Vinnie could both eat Susan’s homemade pancake stacks up to ten cakes high, with plenty of room for sausage and bacon on the side. It made getting up early for Sunday-morning Mass worth it.

  “Cal, I want you to tell me everything that happened yesterday, every little detail. This is a father and his two boys getting together for a Monday-morning breakfast. Nothing more, nothing less. We’ll never discuss what we spoke about here again. Capisce?”

  Cal and Vinnie glanced at each other and nodded at Alfredo.

  “Can I get you gentlemen anything to drink?” asked a nondescript waitress.

  Alfredo rolled his eyes and slammed his fist on the table in anger. Cal assumed he wanted to get right to his food order.

  “Yeah, I’ll have a black coffee, decaf. You think we can order our food too? I’m starving.”

  Vinnie sent Cal a knowing glance. They’d shared many meals where Alfredo exhibited worse patience toward the waitstaff.

  They finished ordering. Cal wondered how long it would take for his pancakes to arrive. The sooner they were all eating, the happier Alfredo would be. It would also save Cal from talking too much.

  Alfredo again asked Cal to recount the circumstances of the events yesterday. Cal started with mentioning following Caruso to church. He’d gotten lucky that he’d picked the right church and Mass time, thanks to Al Meransky’s hunch that the mayor’s wife sang in the choir at St. Michael’s. From there, he’d followed Caruso to the pub, where he explained he’d stayed in his car in the parking lot across the street until he heard gunshots.

  Throughout his explanation, Cal couldn’t help but notice Vinnie stare at his fingers as if they were overly dirty and needed to be washed. His complete lack of interest in the events of the day was uncharacteristic of someone in his position. It signaled to Cal that Vinnie was already well aware of what had happened.

  Alfredo took a sip of his steaming-hot decaf.

  “What did you see once you got back there?”

  Cal didn’t want to waste any unnecessary words in the restaurant. He thought Alfredo was speaking a little too loudly given the information they were discussing.

  “I saw two of Caruso’s guys shooting at Tony. I had no clue he was there. They shot him in the back before I took them out. I stayed with him until the owner of the bar came out. Then I left.”

  Alfredo nodded and held the coffee mug in a death grip, yet his face indicated he was pleased with what Cal had said. Cal still had more he wanted to know.

  “Are you gonna tell me who fired the shots at Caruso and the two dudes in the back doorway?” Cal didn’t believe Tony was responsible for all of the deaths.

  “It was Tony,” Vinnie said. “It was all Tony. The cop we got on our payroll says the bullets in the two men and Caruso were most likely from the same gun, the weapon the boy left at the scene. It’s only the two guys you whacked that are different.”

  Cal stared hard at Vinnie and searched for the hint of a lie written on his face. He sensed a slight shaking of his facial muscles, his eyebrows quivering slightly. As he spoke, his forehead wrinkled inward. Cal knew a liar when he saw one and could tell something else was going on.

  “If the cops already know that, then it’s only a matter of time before they try to get him to talk and charge him.”

  Alfredo nodded. “I talked to our cop an hour ago. Says the kid’s starting to regain consciousness. That’
s bad news, because he doesn’t think he can hold off some of these cops from asking the kid questions. A lot of guys on the force are pretty upset that Caruso is dead. He and Walker had a lot planned to clean up the city.”

  “Yeah, and clean our clocks,” Vinnie said. “I’m glad we got rid of that fucker.”

  “We have to get to Tony before he talks to any cops,” Alfredo continued. “At one point, I thought he might be a valuable asset for us. Now we’ve got no choice but to take him out. He’s too young to appreciate the power of omertà.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cal said. His voice was rising higher than he wanted it to. He couldn’t let Tony be killed. The kid had a bright future if he stayed away from the wrong people.

  “I know Tony. I can get through to him and make sure he doesn’t implicate anyone else. He doesn’t know I was involved. As long as no one else was at the scene, there’s no reason to think he’ll blab that it was a mob hit, and it won’t get tied back to anyone.”

  Alfredo and Vinnie turned toward each other. Alfredo was ready to speak again when the waitress returned to the table with several large plates of food.

  “Look at that, Dad. We can finally eat,” Vinnie said.

  “Amen to that.”

  They dug in to their food. Cal struggled to enjoy the sugary sweetness of his pancakes while he wondered how Alfredo would proceed with Tony. He hoped the mob boss would show mercy and let Cal talk to the boy before he placed a hit on him.

  After a long glance out of the window, Alfredo spoke again.

  “Cal, I know you’re close with the boy. But we can’t take any chances whatsoever. I’m sure if I sweet-talk Captain Blutarski enough, he’ll let the boy have visitors at the hospital. You’ll have to kill him, Cal. You’re the only one who can do it discreetly enough. You’re the best killer I’ve got.”