Wiseguys: Blast From the Past Page 4

  "This can't be about us, not the way we thought," Tony said. "This is something else."

  Carter grunted his agreement. "So what do we do about it?"

  Tony thought for a minute. He'd been approaching this like they were about to meet an equal. Some wiseguy whose business it was busting heads and taking care of his family's business. That was the guy Tony had seen last night.

  But this? The whole snatch and grab with Bess, the ransom note that wasn't a ransom note, just an invitation -- all along, Tony had thought it felt like amateur night. He looked at the pickup through a pair of binoculars, and the last piece fell into place.

  It was amateur night. There was only one way to deal with amateurs. Tony needed to quit reacting and go do what he and Carter did best.

  "We got an invitation," Tony said. "I say we take them up on it."

  Carter put the van in gear. They drove the remaining quarter mile, van bouncing over the ruts and clumps of grass, tires kicking up a cloud of dusty, dry dirt. Tony didn't care if the guys in the farmhouse saw them coming. All the better if they did.

  Tony and Carter both had handguns when they got out of the van. Tony's was in the pocket of his jacket; Carter had his nestled in the hollow of his back beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  Insects buzzed out in the tall grass beyond the pasture fence. There were no horses here, only sheep in the nearest field and cattle in the field beyond. The sun was high overhead. Tony had no intention of waiting until six, and now he was glad he hadn't. Fucking amateurs. They didn't know who they were messing with.

  An old golden retriever lay on the covered porch off to the left of the door. It thumped its tail at them as they approached.

  "Hey, fella," Carter said. He stooped to scratch the retriever behind one ear, and the dog's tail thumped harder. "You better get out of here," Carter said to the dog. "Ain't gonna be pretty."

  No, it probably wasn't. When people didn't know what they were doing, like whoever was inside the house, things always got messy.

  The front door was solid wood, closed and probably locked. The screen door was closed, too, and the drapes were pulled shut on the windows to each side of the door. The drapes had been open when Tony had looked at the place through the binoculars.

  "Guess they know we're here," Carter said.

  Tony nodded at the door. "Then let's introduce ourselves."

  The screen door wasn't locked. Carter opened it, but instead of knocking on the front door, he took a deep breath, seemed to center himself, and then exploded with a hard kick that sent the solid wooden door swinging inward with a crash. Not many people could do that -- kick a door open on the first try. Tony had seen Carter do it more times than he could remember.

  Someone inside the house shouted, and someone else screamed.

  No matter what the amateurs inside were expecting, anticipating what Carter might do and seeing him in action were two different things. By kicking open a door the bad guys thought wouldn't budge, Carter had given himself and Tony a split-second advantage before the bad guys regrouped. Tony didn't intend to waste it.

  He had the gun out of his pocket by the time the door bounced back off the interior wall, shuddering on its hinges. Tony strode through the door like he owned the place.

  The door opened on a front room, dark and dingy as a cave with the drapes shut. One low wattage floor lamp was lit off in a corner behind a recliner to the right of the door. The coffee table in front of the recliner was littered with beer cans and takeout bags from McDonald's, and the whole place smelled like rancid grease and old sweat.

  Three people were in the room. Two men, burly in a gone-to-seed way, dressed in worn jeans and flannel shirts with the sleeves ripped out. Their arms and faces were tan, their small eyes wide in surprise. The third person was the one who'd screamed -- Bess, held immobile with an arm around her body and a knife to her throat.

  "You didn't knock," said the guy holding Bess. He was Tony's height but outweighed him by a good forty pounds, none of it muscle. He stood in front of a wood-paneled wall, Bess held tight in front of him like a living shield. "I guess faggots don't knock."

  His buddy was sitting in a recliner in front of the floor lamp. He held a shotgun aimed at the doorway where Tony stood. "That's downright rude, don't you think?"

  Bess was a sturdy woman in her early sixties. Her face was pale now, and she looked scared, but she didn't look incapacitated by her fear. Good. Things were going to happen fast, and they weren't going to be pretty.

  That's what people who weren't in the life failed to understand. Wiseguys, especially guys like Carter, got to be tough guys because they didn't hesitate. They accepted that they could and probably would get hurt. Might even get killed. They didn't let the fear of getting hurt slow them down. Pain -- and death -- were just occupational hazards.

  These two good old boys, forty and fat and no doubt used to being top dog in their own little world, probably didn't spend a whole lot of time contemplating their own deaths. They set up their little ambush, sure that they'd have the upper hand. They probably expected Tony and Carter to hand over their weapons so Bess wouldn't get hurt. They might even let her go, although Tony doubted it. They certainly wouldn't let Tony and Carter go, but Tony had known that the minute he spotted the license plate on their truck.

  These were the two bastards who'd thrown a rock though the deli's front window just because they didn't like the fact that Tony and Carter were a couple. These bastards had gone from throwing rocks to kidnapping. They didn't plan to stop there, not with a couple of fags who refused to turn tail and run.

  Too bad Tony and Carter weren't going to let them.

  Chapter Five

  Tony didn't have time to warn Bess. He had to trust that she'd keep her head and know what to do when the time came.

  The guy in the chair with the shotgun aimed at the front door where Tony stood probably thought he had the upper hand. He did, right up until Tony dropped to the ground. While Tony was still falling, he brought his gun around and fired at the guy. It wasn't a great shot, but in such close quarters, it didn't have to be.

  The shot took the guy in the gut. He made a small oof of surprise, and blood started to blossom on the plaid of his shirt. The shotgun he held went off; whether the guy meant to fire or his finger just jerked on the trigger, the effect was the same. The blast took out a foot wide section of the front door. Tony got hit with shrapnel and probably a couple of pellets, but the focus of the blast missed him.

  The shotgun blast missed Carter, too. He'd never stopped moving. While Tony had taken a split second to size up the situation, Carter never broke stride. He walked through the front door like the shotgun and the knife didn't exist.

  Before the guy holding Bess knew what was happening, Carter had clamped down on the guy's wrist and twisted his arm and the knife up and backwards. Bess, like the trooper she was, dropped and rolled out of the way, and Carter hit the guy with an upper cut to the bridge of his nose and another beneath his ribs. One more punch to the face, and the guy was out like a light. Carter never even drew his gun.

  Before the guy with the shotgun could fire again, Tony shot him in the shoulder. The guy's hand went slack, and the shotgun dropped onto his lap.

  Still on the floor, Tony took aim at the guy's head. "Don't make me kill you," he said. "You know I won't lose sleep over it."

  The guy had two holes in him. They weren't huge holes, but he was bleeding pretty freely from both. The guy's face was shocky and pale, and he looked like he was about to throw up. He pushed at the shotgun with his good hand, and it fell onto the blood-splattered floor.

  The other guy was still out, his nose a ruined, bloody pulp.

  Tony took his finger off the trigger and lowered his gun. His side ached where he'd been hit, but it could have been worse. A shotgun and a knife to Bess' throat -- it could have been a lot worse.

  Bess lay on the floor, shivering.

  "You okay?" Carter asked. He crouched down next t
o her, holding out his left hand. The knuckles of his right were covered with blood that wasn't Carter's own. "That asshole cut you?"

  Bess put a hand to her neck. Her fingers came away wet, but only a little. "Bastard," she said, her voice shaky. "Billy Munroe, you little shit." She sat up, looked at Carter's hand, and before she took it, she punched the guy on the floor -- Billy Monroe, apparently -- with a pretty decent right to the belly.

  Carter grinned at her. "Always knew there was a reason I liked you."

  "You're good boys," she said, and finally she took Carter's hand so he could help her to her feet.

  "Fucking faggots," said the guy bleeding in the chair.

  Tony pushed himself to his feet and kicked the shotgun out of the guy's reach. Not that he looked like he could bend over to get it. If anything, he looked like he was about to join his buddy in dreamland.

  "Watch your mouth," Tony said. "Carter doesn't like that word. I don't, either."

  The guy kept his mouth shut, but his eyes burned with pain and hatred. He was beat, but that fact hadn't made it to his brain yet. Tony sighed. With a guy like that, they might need to beat him again until it sunk in it would be smarter for him to just leave them alone.

  "Think we ought to call an ambulance?" Carter said.

  He was just giving the guy shit, but Bess answered him. "You should let him sit there and bleed," she said. "Harold's got no more sense than his brother."

  Brothers. Tony could see the resemblance now. Sort of. Billy's face was smeared with blood from his broken nose, and the flesh around his eyes had begun to swell, making his features hard to see.

  "They hurt you?" Tony asked Bess. "Before we got here?"

  She shook her head. "They wouldn't let me go home, kept that shotgun out and at the ready just so I knew they were serious. But they didn't hurt me."

  That was good. Tony didn't want to have to convince Carter not to kill them.

  "If we call the sheriff," Tony said to her, "what are you gonna tell him about what happened here?"

  Bess looked him in the eye. She knew what he was asking.

  "You shot him in self-defense," she said. "He shot at you, and you shot back."

  "That's not what happened!" Harold's voice didn't have much strength to it, if it ever did. He sounded more like a petulant little boy than a hate-filled man. "He shot me! I didn't do nothing to him, and he shot me."

  Tony wiped his hand over his side. He was bleeding, but not so much he needed to worry about it.

  "You didn't do nothing?" Tony said to Harold. "Then how come I got buckshot in me?"

  "You got shot?" Bess bustled over to Tony and took a good look at him. Tony winced as she prodded at his side. "Sit down," she said, all business and no longer shivering. "Over there."

  She pointed him at a rickety, stained kitchen table surrounded by three cheap chairs to the left of the front door in what was no doubt originally designed to be a dining room. Given the stacks of crap on the table, Tony doubted anyone actually ate there.

  "I'm all right," Tony said.

  Bess glared at him. "Sit."

  Tony sat. He kept his eyes on the guy in the chair, but he sat.

  Carter pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to the sheriff. The guy on the floor -- Billy -- stirred and moaned, but he didn't try to get up. Bess brought hot water from the kitchen, along with a roll of paper towels, and proceeded to clean Tony up. Carter stood in the living room, keeping watch over the two brothers while everyone waited for the sheriff.

  Tony kept his gun in his lap until they heard the sheriff's car roll down the dirt driveway, then he laid his gun on the kitchen table. Carter had pulled his shirt out to cover the gun at his back. Unless the cops patted Carter down, they wouldn't see his gun. No need for the sheriff to find out both of them had unregistered weapons.

  This part was over. Bess was safe. Tony was ready to get the hell out of here.

  If the sheriff let him.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Bess made Tony go to the hospital where a pretty emergency room doctor removed four shotgun pellets from Tony's side along with a few pieces of splintered wood from the door.

  Considering how things could have gone, a few pellets and some wood wasn't a bad outcome. Fucking amateurs always complicated things. At least Bess was safe.

  Back in Jersey, he would have been treated by a doctor on his uncle's payroll. Hospitals had to report gunshot wounds to the police, so back home, the only time someone in the family went to the hospital was when the injury was life threatening. But this time the sheriff already knew what had happened at the Munroe farm. Tony had no need to keep his injuries secret.

  Bess had told the sheriff exactly what she told Tony and Carter she would. The sheriff had looked skeptical, but Bess stuck to her story with the same backbone that let her sucker punch her kidnapper. Whether the sheriff believed her or not, he didn't attempt to discredit her version of events.

  "You doing okay?" Carter asked him when they both made it back to Carter's van.

  Tony relaxed against the passenger seat. The doctor had a light touch, but the local anesthetic was beginning to wear off. He felt the sting from where she'd poked around getting the pellets out. If the sheriff hadn't insisted on talking to Tony while he was still on the emergency room bed, a thin curtain all that separated him from the next bed over, he'd be home already.

  "Yeah," he told Carter. "I'll live."

  Carter didn't push it. There'd been too many times when Carter was the one with a bullet hole or knuckles so busted up he had to ice his hand just so he could make a fist. He knew what it took to get through the pain. He'd let Tony deal with it in his own way.

  Carter stopped for a red light three blocks from the deli. It was full night now. The sun had set while the pretty emergency room doctor had been digging out the pellets. The daytime tourists, the ones who spent their time sailing on the lake or lounging on shore, had gone back to their motel rooms to nurse their sunburns and watch cable TV. The retail shops on the main drag were closed for the night, their storefronts shuttered or closed off with heavy metal gates and padlocks.

  The people on the street now were the partiers. The bars were still open, lounges with karaoke machines and small raised stages and pubs with a baseball game on the television behind the bar and pretty bartenders to sling drinks and keep the customers happy. The people out on the streets now -- tourists and locals alike -- had a harder edge. They were out for booze or drugs or sex, and even behind their smiles, Tony could see the kind of need that had kept Uncle Sid's family in business for decades.

  A group of people crossed the street in front of the van. Most of them were the kind of party people Tony would have expected. Three of them weren't.

  "Think Sewell bought our story?" Tony asked.

  "What we told him?" Carter asked.

  "Or what he's been told."

  Tony watched the three guys. All were in their mid to late thirties, all trying very hard to blend in but not doing that great of a job. It was like watching a panther at the zoo trying to blend in with a bunch of flamingos.

  "Bess sticks to what she said, then yeah, the sheriff don't have a choice," Carter said. "Unless he comes up with something on his own, and not something from Frick and Frack back there."

  The Munroe brothers didn't strike Tony as the most reliable witnesses, but he wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating the sheriff. Clifford Sewell was far from a local yokel just barely doing his job. He knew Carter and Tony were more than they appeared, he just couldn't prove it. Both of them had been vigilant about keeping their noses clean. This was the first time they'd been compelled to do something that wasn't strictly legal. Tony hoped that the fact they actually rescued Bess would go a long ways toward making the sheriff focus his attention elsewhere, like on the idiots who kidnapped her.

  The three men had reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street. The one Tony pegged as the leader moved with a quiet kind of menace. He had dark hair that wou
ld have been slicked straight back from his forehead in Jersey, but here he'd parted it neatly on the side with just an attempt to comb it away from his face. He was clean shaven, his dark slacks pressed, and the silk tee-shirt he wore under his sports jacket was just a cut above high-class tourist. He didn't look directly at the van, but Tony was pretty sure the guy had seen them just the same.

  More importantly, Tony had seen him.

  The light turned green, and Carter made a left turn. They were about a half mile from their house. After a block, they left the bars and lounges of the main drag behind. Houses took the place of stores, most of them single family homes more than fifty years old. Thirty foot, forty foot pines crowded front yards strewn with bicycles and swing sets and abandoned dolls and soccer balls. The cars here had seen better days, just like the old guy sitting in a wife beater and shorts on his front porch, illuminated only by the pale light from a television in his living room. Ten years ago the old guy and the cars and even the houses would have been something to see.

  "They did it, didn't they?" Carter said. It wasn't really a question.

  Tony looked at him.

  "Those guys," Carter said. "They're the assholes who busted the window."

  Tony didn't need to answer, but he said yeah anyway.

  Earlier in the year, the Munroe brothers had thrown a rock through the front window of the deli. At the time, Tony didn't know it was them. He'd had only seen the back end of a pickup truck speeding away and caught a part of the license plate number. He'd recognized the truck parked in the Munroe's driveway.

  "You shoulda let me take care of them back then," Carter said. "Would've saved everyone the trouble this time around."

  Carter had wanted to bust heads when their window had been broken. He'd wanted to treat the busted window like he would have any other insult against the family, which meant he wanted to take care of things the way Uncle Sid used to have him take care of things. Tony had said no. They weren't the same people here that they'd been back in Jersey, and besides, the busted window had been personal, not business. It had been a hate crime done by cowards. Carter had let the subject drop.