“Listen, mister. If Maria wanted you to know about what we did, she would’ve told you herself. You should probably know that she wasn’t too fond of your behavior lately and that you upset her quite a bit. I can see why, since you’re nothing more than a rude, invasive man. You’re no better than the man who married my sister.”
“She told me about it,” Cal interrupted. He knew he wasn’t winning any points with the woman, but he didn’t care at this point. He had to see if she knew anything more than what Maria had already told him. Was there something that Maria had left out that could tell him exactly who was behind this?
“Maria said she was meeting some public figure for lunch. Who was she was really meeting? You have to know that Mayor Caruso was murdered there around the same time. You’re sure she couldn’t have been meeting someone else?”
Reema’s face was firm and unchanging. It seemed that she was finding her strength in Cal’s desperation.
“Yes, I’m sure. She showed me the guy’s picture. He was cute. Cuter than you.”
Cal shook his head. “Was anyone following you on Michigan? Has she talked to you since then and mentioned anyone following her home from the pub?”
“No, no, no. None of that. No one was following her.” Reema paused. “But you know what? She told me she thought someone was following her home from class one day. She was going to the bus stop when she tripped. She said someone had a gun and was going to shoot her.”
Cal remembered it well. The phone calls from the police officer while he was with Fonzie in the holding cell, deciding to spare Tony’s life. He remembered the constant calls and his feeling of hopelessness as he let his girlfriend suffer while he saved his young friend’s life.
“I was there in the hospital with her after it happened. The cops insisted it was nothing and she’d only hit her head. She seemed unsure of it when I was there with her. Did she tell you anything different?”
Reema laughed. “Of course she didn’t want to tell you. You’re her big, scary boyfriend who would’ve gone after revenge if she confirmed it was true. I’ll tell you what she told me a few days ago when I talked to her. It was true. There really was a man there.”
“Did she say what he looked like? C’mon, Reema, this is a matter of life or death.”
Reema frowned and shook her head. “No, she couldn’t remember. First, she described a Hispanic man; the next time she described a black guy. It’s hard for her to remember, she was hurt pretty bad.”
Cal knew he wasn’t going to get any more information out of Reema. She’d been helpful enough, given the trouble he’d caused her. There was only one way he knew he could find answers. He’d have to use everything he could from his hit man bag of tricks.
“Thank you, Reema. I’ll leave now.”
Cal removed his hand from hers and allowed her to open the door. His mind raced with hundreds of thoughts, but he only had one destination in mind. There was only one place he could go to find out who had taken Maria. Only then could he get her back.
46
Cal had to get answers. From the moment he’d found an unlocked car parked near Reema’s apartment, to the instant he’d highjacked it and made his way to the Petrocelli compound in Evanston, Cal knew he’d have to do whatever it took to get Maria back.
He was certain Alfredo, Susan, and Vinnie would be home. It was a Saturday evening, which was usually reserved for family dinners. Only close friends of the family were ever invited to the dinners. Now that Frankie Ramone had been killed, only the likes of Al Meransky and other higher-level associates in the mob would be invited. It would make it easy for Cal to get the answers he needed.
Cal remained astonishingly calm as he rehearsed his plan in his head on the drive over. There was no question that his days with the mafia were over. If he threatened Alfredo, or fired on any of the associates guarding the property, he knew he’d no longer be viewed as a cherished member of the family. Instead, he’d become public enemy number one. That status meant certain death. Even Mayor Caruso’s security team hadn’t been able to prevent his assassination. Cal knew he couldn’t avoid a similar fate.
That didn’t stop him from wanting to try, to prove to Maria that he could be a changed man and live a legitimate life, one that allowed both of them to be happy.
Cal pulled up to the street where the house was located. Darkness had enveloped the entire neighborhood and only a few street lights lit the space.
The exterior lights of the Petrocelli compound were on. Cal could see three men in dark jackets and matching slacks standing on the front lawn, right behind the circular drive where dinner guests would park.
With only one car parked in the drive, Cal realized there weren’t many guests at all. He’d never considered the possibility that Alfredo wasn’t home. As long as someone opened their lips to tell him where Maria was, he would take the information.
Cal parked on the street, not bothering with the driveway. One of the men gazed at him and motioned to the others. Bruno stared back at him, the man whose voice Cal suspected he’d heard on the phone telling him Maria had been taken.
Cal had his hand atop his holster from the outside of his sweatshirt. He didn’t plan to go in with guns blazing; rather, firing the weapon would be a last resort. When Cal saw the two men flanking Bruno reach for their belts and shout orders, Cal knew it wasn’t time for games. He would have to fight.
“Boyle, you made a mistake showing up here,” Bruno said while motioning for the men to hold back their reach toward the guns. “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”
Cal walked closer, not concerned that he was outnumbered as he reached the spot where the curb and the circle drive met. While Bruno was relatively new, he had experience helping guys at Fonzie’s level out on the streets, except his forte was gambling and working with a family bookie. The two guys standing behind Bruno were so fresh that Cal had never seen them before. They didn’t appear very confident, being approached by a known hit man such as Cal.
“You and your boys aren’t going to do shit, Bruno. I’m going to go inside and say hello to my mother. I want nothing to do with Alfredo.”
“Mother,” Bruno joked. “Since when did you start calling Susan your mother? Didn’t your mother get cooked in some car crash? Probably got made uglier than she already was.”
Bruno turned back to the men and let out a loud laugh. His two companions responded with nervous laughter of their own, one of them pulling down on his long brown hair.
Cal felt the blood boil inside his veins. The muscles in his arms and legs tremored. He didn’t have time for games. Bruno had made a big mistake disparaging his mother.
He used Bruno’s diverted attention to his advantage, whipping out the Beretta from his holster and holding it firm in both hands in front of the three men. He knew if he shot them, a flurry of men would come running outside and it would be that much trickier to get Alfredo to tell him where Maria was.
It took all of his willpower to not fire the gun. The smile on Bruno’s face vanished immediately once he turned back to Cal. The nervous men behind him couldn’t decide if they should reach for their guns or run off. Long Hair took off, heading for the street.
Cal trained his gun on the escapee before deciding it wasn’t worth wasting bullets on him. As close to the mafia’s power structure as he was, he knew men like Long Hair would leave and never come back. Most of them didn’t have the guts to face the violent nature of the profession.
Bruno appeared less confident now that one of his men had deserted him. The man to his right kept acting fidgety, and Cal noticed that he had withdrawn his gun.
He fired at the man’s hand, leaving him howling in pain. Bruno reached inside his jacket pocket. Cal pulled the trigger of the Beretta once again, sending a sharp bullet exploding into Bruno’s heart, jets of crimson pouring through his shirt.
Bruno’s face slackened and he slumped to the ground before his head landed on the cement. Cal’s eyes darted t
o the front door of the house, expecting more men to flood the yard, but there was no movement.
Smart decision. Anyone coming out of the house would be easy pickings for a master marksman like Cal. He would have to go to them.
The first man Cal shot was slumped on the ground, howling in pain from the gunshot wound to his hand. The shot was fired at such range that the hand was practically smoking and covered with blood. Cal walked over to the man and removed his gun from his holster.
“Let’s make this easy because I’m pretty sure you know damned well who I am. Tell me if Alfredo is in there.”
“Fuck you,” the man spat, turning his back to Cal and making his best effort to crouch against the tall pine in the center of the yard.
Cal walked to him and pressed the barrel of his gun against the young man’s temple. His anger was driving his decisions now. He couldn’t care less if anyone heard the shots.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t answer me,” Cal warned. “There’s a woman’s life at stake. More importantly, there’s your own. Don’t make the mistakes I did, kid. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You get that shit bandaged up, get a good job, and you can walk away with your integrity intact. You got it?”
The man muttered something under his breath before putting his damaged hand into his tie, doing his best to construct a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding.
“I’ve got no clue if the boss is in there. I ain’t never seen him before. I know Meransky’s in there. He knows where your lady is.”
Cal kept holding the gun against the young man’s head before deciding he would have to trust the information. He would let him go, confident he would make the right decision for his future while Cal’s own efforts to leave the mob proved to be too late.
“Get out of here, kid. Don’t come back.”
Cal kept one eye on him as he stormed toward the front door. The kid ran off in the same direction as his long-haired friend before him. Cal focused his attention on whomever might be at the door. It was locked, but that was no problem for him. Using a copy of the house key he had on his key chain, he opened the door, stepping back as he did so in case a volley of gunshots came spewing from the entry.
The hit man stepped inside, glancing to his left, then his right, and to the stairwell in front of him. Each direction was empty. The only sound of movement in the house was the sound of Cal’s boots against the floor. It was eerily quiet for a Saturday night at the Petrocelli household. Too quiet.
Cal walked through the foyer and into the sitting room directly off of Alfredo’s study. Still no movement.
He glanced from the sitting room to the large living room immediately to the right, then to the door of the chef’s kitchen straight ahead. No sound emanated from any of the rooms.
Cal contemplated the best possible way for them to set him up, if he was being set up at all. Someone had to be in the house waiting to confront him. Someone had to have heard the multiple gunshots outside. Yet the house was uncomfortably tranquil.
Cal nudged the Beretta forward and opened the study door, expecting a horde of men to have assault-grade weapons pointed at him, finally ready to gun him down before ordering Maria’s death too. Instead, only one man sat in the room, at Alfredo’s desk. From the back of the man’s head, Cal could tell it was Al Meransky. Given the sound of the ass-kissing performance Meransky was giving on the phone, it wasn’t likely he’d heard Cal come in.
“Absolutely, sir. The instructions have been given… Yes, sir, I’m certain he’ll show up tomorrow once we tell him where she is… Okay, sir. Good night.”
Al removed the phone from his ear and spun around in the chair to hang it up. The moment his eyes fell upon Cal, the phone dropped with a clang on top of the desk.
“Not expecting me, Al?”
The capo’s eyes widened. Cal thought he heard a mumbled “shit” come out of the man’s mouth. Perhaps Meransky really hadn’t heard the commotion outside.
“Alfredo would be really mad to see you sitting in that chair,” Cal said. The way he saw it, he had plenty of privacy for interrogation. There was no one else in the house to stop him.
“What are you doing here, Cal?” Al asked, the bouncing of his knee giving away his nerves. There was no question that the entire mafia was behind Maria’s kidnapping.
“Next time, put some better men outside.”
Meransky raised his brow and stammered a response. “You waste them all?”
“Maybe I showed some mercy for once.”
Cal walked toward the desk, glancing intently at Meransky to see if the capo had any sign of a weapon on his person. Meransky’s hands were resting neatly on the desk. No bulges under his shirt. If he made any effort to reach below his waist, Cal would blow him away.
“I never wanted this to happen, Cal, any of it. You know the saying ‘it’s not personal, it’s just business’?”
“I’m only going to ask once,” Cal threatened, his eyes cutting through Meransky like glass. “Where is Maria? I heard everything you said on the phone. I’m not waiting until tomorrow. You can call Alfredo and tell him I’m going to get her back now.”
Al sighed and shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? The whole Caruso thing? It wasn’t only about Caruso. But I’m sure you know that.”
In that moment, it all made sense. Cal silenced Alfredo’s secrets only to later be punished for knowing himself. It was nothing more than a fucking death trap.
Cal pointed the gun at Meransky’s head, prepared to shoot. He would ask one more time.
“Where is she, Al? I know you have kids. They’d hate to see their dad’s brains all over his face at the funeral.”
“How thoughtful,” Al quipped. “But it’s not my business to say. My loyalty is to the familia first, even before my own family. That’s the way it is. You seem to have forgotten that.”
“Only one problem with that, Al. I’m not made. Last chance. Where is she?”
Meransky chuckled as Cal clicked the trigger. He saw a furtive movement in the capo’s eyes. He was delaying for a reason. Cal saw a presence in his peripheral vision. He wouldn’t have time to startle the person by turning around with the gun. That would set up Al for an easy chance to blast Cal if he indeed had a gun below the belt.
The only chance Cal had was if he used the jackknife. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed the knife and in a swift motion, threw it diagonally over his shoulder.
A click of a trigger and the ripping of flesh rang in the air at once. Meransky had risen from the chair and was preparing to fire. Only Cal’s trigger clicked first, sending a bullet careening into the capo’s skull.
The clunk of two bodies falling was the next thing Cal heard. Meransky had fallen back into Alfredo’s chair. Cal had to turn to see Long Hair, who’d decided to return to the house. His body slid down the doorframe, the blade of Cal’s jackknife firmly lodged in his throat.
Cal walked over to Meransky. The man he’d known for so long was breathing jagged breaths in Alfredo’s precious seat. He needed the dying man to give him something, anything, to help him find Maria.
“Make sure you don’t die in vain, Al. You can save Maria’s life. Tell me where she is. Please tell me where she is.”
Al’s eyes blinked once before rolling into the back of his head.
Cal shook his head in disbelief. He’d come to the house for a single purpose—to find out where Maria was being held. Instead, he’d killed three men and seriously injured another, with no information to show for it. He wasn’t any closer to saving his girlfriend’s life.
Turning away from Meransky, a tiny piece of paper on Alfredo’s desk caught his eye. On it was an address. The old warehouse where his father had worked. It appeared it would all end in the same place the killing had started for Cal.
47
Cal stormed out of his childhood home, Meransky’s piece of paper in hand. The young man with the wounded hand had left the property, but Bruno’s dead carcass was still evide
nce that there had been a disturbance at the house. Porch lights glowed across the street, and Cal thought he heard nearby whispers, perhaps wondering if their mafia neighbors were up to no good again.
He considered moving Bruno behind a tree but didn’t want to give anyone watching across the street the idea that he was moving a dead body. He saw an old man walking his dog approaching the Petrocelli compound from just down the road, which caused his heart to thump. It was best he kept on the move before anyone asked questions.
He got into the stolen car, fired it up, and headed back to the city and his apartment in Hyde Park. It was time to gear up to get Maria back. He placed a final call to Fonzie to see if he could count on his old friend for help.
“Cal, what’s up? I was waiting at that chick’s apartment, and you weren’t there.”
“I know. A lot of shit’s gone down. I’m not sure if you want to hear about this.”
“Hear about what? If shit’s going down, I want to be there. I’ve always had your back, man.”
Cal sighed. Things had gotten so bad that he didn’t know who to trust. Fonzie was his best friend, but now that his family had turned on him and taken his love away, he wasn’t sure if he could stomach Fonzie getting caught up in this mess too. He wondered if it was his battle to fight alone.
“Maria’s been kidnapped. Somehow they think she was the witness I was supposed to go after. I have no idea how.”
An audible gasp sounded across the other line. When Fonzie didn’t follow with a comment, Cal pushed the pedal closer to the floor, not caring how fast he was driving.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Cal said. “I have to go and find her. They said they’d kill her tomorrow if I didn’t give them something they wanted. They didn’t say what.”
Fonzie remained quiet. That meant he was thinking. A thinking Fonzie was a dangerous Fonzie. Whatever gears were churning in his brain, Cal wanted them to be the right ones.
“I don’t know, Cal. It sounds like it could be a death trap,” he said finally. A trap it surely was. Cal didn’t give a shit about much in life, but he gave a lot of shits about Maria. He was going to do anything he could to get her back, whether Fonzie would help him or not.
One Last Kill Page 23