by E. R. Fallon
“Yeah, but Vito’s gotta be armed,” Camille said. “And he’s gonna be on edge if he’s got Phoebe in there with them.”
“I won’t give him a chance to react,” Billy replied calmly.
After some more deliberating, Camille agreed to his plan, and Billy exited the car with his gun tactfully hidden. Camille watched from the car as he approached the house, opened the little front gate, then walked up the steps and knocked on the door.
“I gotta say,” Johnny told Camille. “I don’t like this plan.”
“Then why didn’t you say something before?” she asked, passing him his gun.
“Because I can’t think of anything else we can do that doesn’t involve blowing a hole through that fucker’s door. I thought about doing that, you know, but it’d attract too much attention.”
Camille knew he wasn’t joking. But no matter the circumstances, they couldn’t kill a member of the Italian mob without causing a lot of problems.
She watched as someone who looked like Vito, although older and heavier than she remembered him, opened the door and spoke to Billy.
Camille and Johnny prepared to exit the car, as Vito hugged Billy and welcomed him inside. They dashed out of the car and hurried to where Billy stood in the doorway with Vito at the other side. Billy removed his gun and pointed it at Vito, who unsuccessfully tried to draw his own weapon, but Billy wouldn’t allow it. Camille and Johnny appeared from behind Billy, and Johnny aimed his gun at Vito. Then a woman, around Camille’s age, stood behind Vito. Marie, Camille thought. And what did she have in her hand?
A gun pointed at them.
Camille tried to remain calm, but she couldn’t control herself. “Where’s my daughter, you fucking bitch?” she screamed at Marie over Billy’s shoulder.
“Camille, what are you doing here?” Vito said to her with a slight sneer, and she wanted to punch him in the face.
“You fucking know why we’re here, you fuck,” Johnny said to him, in a surprisingly even tone.
Billy tried to force Vito to go inside the house, but Marie, a tall, pretty, dark-haired woman, kept waving her gun at him.
“I’ll shoot you, you bastard,” she told him.
“Where is she?” Camille yelled. “I want to see my daughter!”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch, or you’re gonna wake up the whole fucking neighborhood,” Vito said in a harsh whisper.
“Don’t talk that way to my wife, you bastard!” Johnny shouted, lunging toward Vito.
Vito gestured at Camille’s cane. “I heard you got injured. Now get the fuck away from my house.”
She didn’t feel like discussing her accident with this bastard, so she ignored him. “We’re not going anywhere. I want to see my daughter. Now!” Camille told Vito and Marie. “I know you took her.”
It was three against two, and Camille contemplated pushing her way inside, but Marie seemed willing to shoot. Then Phoebe’s voice cried out, “Ma, help me!”
“Phoebe!” Camille and Johnny screamed at the same time.
“We’re coming, baby,” Johnny told the girl.
“Vito, let us come inside. Let’s talk,” Billy said. “None of us want things to escalate. This has already gone too far. Camille’s daughter is innocent.”
“But she isn’t!” Marie said, glaring at Camille. “You and your bitch of a mother ruined my father’s life! He started drinking, and he fucked some things up because of it. Then he got demoted, and it’s all because of the two of you. And you’ve never shown any remorse, either of you. I’ve been watching you; you just go about your life like you’re fucking invincible after the lies you told about my father.”
“Vito knows what he did,” Camille said, coolly, staring at her former step-father.
She’d never told anyone, not even her mother, or Johnny—though he was one of the few people she felt comfortable being vulnerable around—about how far it went. Not because she felt they wouldn’t support her if she told them, but because she felt ashamed.
“You’re the person who’s been parked outside our house,” she said to Marie. Then she looked at Vito again. “What are you planning to do to my Phoebe? The same that you did to me?” She sneered in disgust.
“You little bitch!” Vito yelled, jabbing his fat finger at her.
“Vito, let us in,” Billy said, gesturing for the man to remain calm. “Let’s talk.”
“Daddy!” Phoebe screamed from inside.
“I’m coming, baby!” Johnny yelled.
Camille could feel him moving next to her, then the next few seconds were a blur, as he pushed his way forward, charging into the house, but Marie’s gun went off first.
Johnny landed on the ground, between the front step and the doorway, bleeding from the chest.
Billy took the opportunity to tackle Marie and grab her gun. He stood there, pointing his gun at Marie and Vito.
“Don’t you fucking move,” he shouted at them.
Then he went inside the house and reappeared with Phoebe. Tears streamed down the girl’s face, and her hands were tied, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. She screamed in horror when she saw Johnny on the ground, and Camille kneeling next to him, trying to stop the blood seeping from his chest and forming a vivid pool at his side.
Afterwards, Camille never could remember what happened next exactly. All she remembered was seeing Billy pick Johnny up from the ground and carry him to the car, as she and Phoebe followed him. Then Billy drove them all to the hospital.
28
Tommy knew he was fucked, that he would lose his job, as soon as Lieutenant Andrews exited the room Tommy had been waiting outside of during his hearing. The pale, furrowed look on his boss’s face said it all.
“I’m sorry, Tommy,” Andrews told him solemnly outside the room, as Tommy rose from his chair to speak with him. “They want you gone. I’ve told them I disagree, but they won’t change their minds.”
He was no longer a police officer and would never be one again. In a few moments, he saw his dream disappear.
“They won’t reconsider?” he asked Andrews, trying not to sound desperate, although he was.
Andrews shook his head. “I tried telling them that you made a mistake, but were a good officer.”
How his boss referred to his career in the past tense wasn’t lost on Tommy.
Tommy didn’t want to stand there and hear any more of it. What was the point? There was no going back.
He thanked Andrews. “Goodbye, sir.”
Tommy loosened his necktie and exited the office building. He could feel the Lieutenant watching him leave. The suit he’d worn to the hearing seemed to confine him and make him feel sweltering and uncomfortable. He still couldn’t really believe what had just unfolded. He would never see his badge again, and that kept playing through his mind.
His hearing had been in the late morning, but the first place he went afterwards was the pub across the street. What would he do next if he wasn’t a cop? He had rent and bills to pay so he had to start thinking fast.
A taxicab beeped at him as he crossed the street, even though he had the right of way, and his blood boiled. Why did people have to be such assholes?
As Tommy sat at the bar, drinking overpriced whiskey and eating the stale snacks they provided, he thought about his future. What would he do now that he’d never work in law enforcement again? His mother would probably offer him a job at her pub, but he couldn’t imagine himself working alongside Sam every day.
His mother. She was all he had left now. Now that he’d lost his job and Dana. And if Tommy didn’t do something about Sam, then Sam could send his mother to prison for a very long time, like had been done to Tommy’s grandmother. The world was full of cheaters and liars, of those who betrayed you in the end. Tommy had tried to be a decent man, but it hadn’t worked out for him in the long run. He, too, had been a betrayer. He had betrayed his legacy by becoming a cop. And what did he have to show for it now? Nothing. How had they rewarded him? By telling him
to get lost. Tommy grasped his drink in his hand so tightly that he thought he felt the glass give. He knew what he had to do next. He couldn’t let his mother be betrayed like he had been.
Getting Sam to the warehouse his mother owned in an isolated industrial area was easy. He simply called him up and told him he needed his help moving some stereo equipment that his mother needed from the warehouse to the pub. They arranged to meet at the warehouse later that night.
Tommy had parked in a secluded area outside the warehouse, and he waited in the shadows for Sam to arrive. He tensed when he saw Sam’s car pull up, guided by the moonlight. He carried a crowbar in his hand, which he planned to use to hit Sam over the head with. Then he’d use the hacksaw he had inside the warehouse to dismember the body and put it in the old oil barrels that were inside the place.
He could see Sam’s outline and heard him shut his car door. Then the sound of Sam approaching the warehouse, a place Tommy’s soon-to-be victim was familiar with. Tommy felt a bit nervous and uncertain, and as he shifted, his foot moved a little gravel and made a noise.
“Hello?” Sam whispered in the dark. “Tommy?” Sam had always been a bit gullible, and lacked the street smarts that both Tommy and his mother had, and in the end, that had been what did him in.
Tommy ran out and smashed the shorter Sam in the back of the head with the crowbar. Sam cried out and tumbled to the ground, using his hands to shield his face. The first hit had been easy. Beating a man to death was a lot harder.
“No!” Sam screamed into the night, as Tommy stood over him with the blunt instrument, ready to smash his face in. “Tommy, why?”
“It’s nothing personal, Sam. I can’t let you send my mother to prison,” Tommy replied. Could he complete the final act, the actual killing? Yet, nothing unpleasant raced through his mind. He didn’t even consider he could get caught and sent to jail. Tommy had a lot of rage bottled up because of what had happened to him over the past few weeks. And the way he saw it, Sam was to his mother what Dana had been to him. A betrayer. To the McCarthy family that was the ultimate sin.
Tommy raised the crowbar high in the air and with all the force he had, came down on Sam’s face again and again, smashing his mother’s lover into an unrecognizable red pulp. Wincing as his eyeballs exploded from the pressure. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Sam or Dana Tommy was angry with, but everything. His jobless future. His father’s abandonment. That his life hasn’t worked out the way he’d planned.
Sam made a choking sound and blood dribbled from his mouth, and Tommy stopped beating him, and took a step back, shocked at what he’d just done. He knew he didn’t have the time to stand there contemplating, so he acted fast. He waited until Sam stilled. Then he checked his pulse, which he knew how to do from work. Seeing Sam was dead, he kicked open the warehouse door, and dragged Sam’s body inside. A sweaty task, even for a big man like Tommy. He paused when he heard a sound in the distance, listened for a moment and then continued on when it dissipated. After the day he’d had, the last thing he needed was to get caught with a dead body.
Inside the warehouse, Tommy turned on the floodlight and shut the door. Then he took off all his clothes and set them aside. He didn’t know how he would wash off afterwards, as the warehouse had no running water. But he’d think of something.
For a moment, Tommy stood with the hacksaw in his hand, thinking. Killing Sam had been surprisingly easy. Getting rid of the body… not so easy. He planned to dismember the corpse and put the pieces into two barrels, which he then would drag into a side room in the warehouse, which he could bolt securely. What he would do after that would come to him over time. But, for now, the body should be safely hidden inside the warehouse. The only thing he would have to worry about was the stench, but he planned to move the barrels before that happened.
Tommy put down a tarp then rolled the body onto it. He removed Sam’s clothes, pocketed his car keys, and tossed the clothes aside. He knelt on the hard floor of the dirty warehouse and proceeded to remove Sam’s head with the hacksaw. Blood spurted out of the man’s neck as he cut, landing over Tommy’s naked chest.
“Fuck,” Tommy muttered, wiping at his chest, but merely smearing the blood over his skin, instead of cleaning it.
Eventually, he removed the head, and set it aside on the tarp. He dealt with the arms next, and struggled to cut through the bone properly but did after a few attempts.
When Sam’s body was in pieces, neatly laid out on the tarp, Tommy rose and stretched his muscles, sore from all the hard work. He went to get the barrels and slid them into the room.
Through the room’s sole window, he could see a light in the distance, very far away, and felt he must hurry. Quickly, he placed the body parts into the two barrels, then rolled up the tarp and shoved it into one of the barrels, shutting it closed. Moving the barrels into the side room took a lot of effort as they were considerably heavier. He grunted as he slid them across the floor, then once both were secured inside, he locked the room’s door with the key his mother had given him.
The sobs gradually came afterwards. How had he gone from being a police officer who upheld the law, to this? But he did what he felt he had to do to protect his family, and there was nothing more important than family.
He glanced out the window where raindrops cascaded down the grimy, smudged glass, and didn’t see anyone outside before turning off the floodlight.
Tommy opened the door and stepped outside into the cold rain, washing the blood off his body. He stood there for a moment, completely still, and then he fell to his knees on the uncomfortable, rocky ground, cleaning his hands as the rain pounded his skin.
Afterwards, he dressed his damp body in his clothes, moved Sam’s car into the garage attached to the warehouse, then left. On his way home, he ventured into a neighborhood he knew well from his work as a policeman, the kind of neighborhood where it was easy to score drugs. He knew just the dealer, too.
The young man seemed surprised to see his face and brushed him off.
“I ain’t stupid enough to sell to a cop,” he sneered as Tommy rolled down his window.
“I’m not here as a cop; I’m here as a customer,” Tommy replied, shoving a wad of money into the guy’s hand.
“Get lost,” he told him.
Tommy shook his head. “If you don’t give me what I came for, then I’ll call some guys I know in narcotics and tell them you’re out here on the street corner tonight dealing.”
Tommy needed something to take the edge off, fast and felt that the drink wouldn’t cut it tonight. He needed something to make it all disappear for a while.
“You’re fucking serious?” the guy replied.
Tommy nodded, and the guy passed him a small bag.
“You got a needle?” the dealer asked him.
Tommy shook his head.
“Here,” the guy said, giving him one.
“How do I know it’s clean?” Tommy asked him.
“You don’t.”
Desperate, Tommy took the needle then slowly drove off, heading to his apartment.
29
Camille stood outside Johnny’s hospital room, watching him through the large window. Sheila waited at her side, touching her daughter’s shoulder. Johnny had IVs and tubes connected to his body, but the doctors said he would live. Camille had refused to say who shot Johnny, and the hospital had to treat him regardless. A friend had driven to the hospital to take Phoebe home. Billy had stayed until Camille’s mother arrived, and then they had parted ways with a promise to keep in touch. He had Pillow now, and Camille had seen firsthand the love they had for one another. Pillow was the right woman for Billy, and if she couldn’t save him, then no one could.
“You should have told me about Phoebe,” Sheila said to Camille.
“I knew we could handle it.”
“And if you hadn’t been able to?”
“Then we would’ve gone to you.”
“That bastard,” Sheila said of Vito. “I could strangle him
with my bare hands.”
“He got what he wanted—to scare me. I don’t think he’ll be back,” Camille replied.
“Don’t be so sure. Have you thought about what you’re going do with the other situation?” Sheila knew about the issue with Violet’s supplier. “You can’t just wait for him to come around and hope he’ll listen to you. What if he doesn’t?”
“What would you do?” Camille asked her in exasperation at her mother’s constant need to guide her.
“I’ve thought about it really hard over the past few days. Honestly? After all the shit she’s caused you over the years, I’d have some of your guys get rid of the bitch. Once and for all. If she’s gone, then her supplier won’t have a choice, he’ll have to work with you.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
When Sam Paul went missing for a few days, Dana sought out his whereabouts with urgency. She needed Sam’s cooperation for her investigation. She couldn’t demand answers from Violet McCarthy outright, so in desperation, she found herself drawn to Tommy’s apartment. Tommy knew how much the investigation meant to her, and maybe he could provide her with answers. She knew Tommy had been fired and didn’t know how he could react to her presence, but she had to try.
Dana parked outside Tommy’s building and went inside. The hallway smelled of cooking. She paused before she knocked on Tommy’s door. When she finally did knock, he didn’t answer for a while, and she wondered if he was even home. Then she heard him coming to the door.
“Who is it?” Tommy asked through the door. He sounded groggy, which was strange considering it was the middle of the afternoon, and Tommy was an early riser.
“Tommy?” she said quietly. She felt she didn’t need to say who she was, that he would recognize her voice.
“What do you want?” he said, rather sternly.
Her heart sank, but what had she expected him to do after what she’d done? Welcome her with open arms?
