Mickey's Wars

by Dave McDonald

  “They’re dead,” Sara said, standing by the front door with a bag in one hand and her gun in the other. “Come on. I’ll follow you to Columbia. We’ll stay overnight there, and hopefully you’ll help me figure out what to do and where to hide. I’ll explain why I had to lie to you in the past. And after we find a car dealer so I can trade-in the Packard, you can leave. That damned red convertible may as well have my name and picture painted all over it.”

  Sara walked out of the motel room, and I trotted after her into the dimly lit parking lot.

  She threw the bag in the back seat of the top down convertible and opened the Packard’s door.

  I grabbed her arm. “What the fuck is going on?” I whispered harshly. “Jesus Christ, you just killed two men, and you act as if it meant nothing!”

  Sara tip-toed up to me. “Those two hoods were here for me.” Her lips were nearly touching my ear. “They would have killed both of us, Mick.”

  I eased my grip on her arm. She probably saved my life. We stood there for a second, staring at each other.

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  “Please, I’ll explain everything later.” She pulled her arm free. “I’ll follow you.”

  I needed answers. “Columbia.”

  The high-pitched sirens were getting closer as I drove out of the motel’s parking lot. The red Packard followed within a couple of car-lengths.

  Kate could be on duty. My first thought was how would I ever explain this to her? Then I glanced into the mirror and shuddered. If the police caught us, Sara would probably kill them too.

  I floored the old Hudson.

  Chapter Ninety

  I’d prayed the long drive would’ve relieved the ache in my stomach and the throbbing in my head. But it hadn’t.

  It was close to two a.m. when I steered the old Hudson into the parking lot of a motel with a vacancy sign on the north side of Columbia. Rolling my head, I rubbed the back of my neck.

  Sara backed the Packard alongside my Hudson, driver’s side to driver’s side. She pulled what had to be an inch or two stack of money out of her purse, slid out a fifty-dollar-bill, and handed it to me. ”You get us a room, while I hide this thug-magnet.”

  “Who were those men back there?”

  “They were a mob hit team; probably local. That’s how they got there so fast.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  “I’ll be fine. Get a room.”

  I nodded, and she drove away. After what I had witnessed earlier, no doubt she’d be fine by herself.

  But I wasn’t sure I would be. What if the Forrest Manor Motel night clerk recognized me, or someone in Asheville had seen me or my car? My face had been in print numerous times since receiving the Medal. Now I was an accomplice to a double murder.

  Was this why Sara had come after me, she needed another gunman, someone to watch her back? Or did she need a Medal of Honor scapegoat?

  Hell, she didn’t need me, she was a cold-blooded murderer. After all the men I had killed in Korea, I had never been as calm and collected afterward as Sara was tonight. How many other people had she eliminated to become so desensitized?

  For some reason, there was a contract on her. She was being hunted by professionals, and, if what little I knew about the mob were true, more would come until the job was done.

  There was no future for us.

  I didn’t want any part of her life, constantly looking over my shoulder.

  And how could I ever touch her or kiss her again without thinking of her as she was tonight; a killer without a conscience?

  I’d get a room. Hopefully, I’d learn the truth.

  She had enough money to live on for a long time. We’d sell the Packard, and I’d take her to another dealer to buy a car. Maybe that would make it harder for someone trying to find her; which I was sure would be happening, if it weren’t already. Then I would’ve given her the help she’d solicited. I could leave with minimum guilt, and Sara and her bloody world would be out of my life forever.

  I parked near the motel office and tried to gather my wits as I walked inside. I rang a bell as a yawn escaped.

  Ten minutes later, after giving a false name and bogus address, I escorted my nerves back to the Hudson with a room key in hand. This was crazy. I didn’t want to be a part of her plan. I didn’t want to know where she was hiding. I could be putting my family at risk again.

  She’d warned me how powerful and ruthless the mob was. It was just a matter of time until they found her again. The longer I stayed with her the more risk I took. Sara’s truth confession wasn’t worth my life or any of my family’s lives.

  I parked in front of the room and doused my headlights as Sara stepped from the shadows. She seemed smaller, tiny; I facetiously thought my shadow outweighed her. Mom always said good things came in little packages, but this petite, seemingly vulnerable, little woman was venomous.

  Reflecting back, I couldn’t believe how badly I’d misjudged Sara. I’d been blinded by love. I wasn’t sure I knew her at all. If I stayed to hear her story, whatever she said, even if it were the truth, I wasn’t confident I would know who was talking. I was the problem. I wanted to believe her, and that was infinitely more dangerous.

  I got out, unlocked the room’s door, and handed Sara the key. “I’m not staying. I can’t.”

  “What?” She pulled me inside the room, shut the door, drew the curtains closed, and then flicked on the light.

  For the first time since meeting her tonight, she was in the light; I could see her. Her normally fabulous eyes were streaked with capillaries and hung with dark puffy skin. Her jaws seemed permanently flexed. And most of her red lipstick was gone, as if chewed off. Maybe her words of warning to me before going off to Korea had come back to haunt her and killing had taken a chunk of her soul.

  I stood, my back against the front door, and stared at her as if we had just met.

  “Well?” she asked. “Say something.”

  I took a deep breath. “Sara, I never loved anyone until I met you. But the woman I fell in love with wasn’t a mob killer. I came back for you, but you chose this life over me and left me. And I don’t want any part of it.” I jerked my gun out of my pants, removing and pocketing the clip. I cleared the chamber and stuffed the empty pistol into the waistline of my pants. “I’ve seen too much killing. And I don’t want any more involvement.”

  I shook my head. “Every second I’m with you not only puts me at more risk but also my family. I don’t want to know where you’re going or what you’re driving to get there. That could put my family in jeopardy, again. I want to have a normal, peaceful life for my parents and me.”

  I released a long sigh. “If I were you, I’d run and hide and try to start a new life. And tell the next Mickey the truth, all of it.” I turned to go, and she grabbed my arm.

  “I want to tell this Mickey the truth, all of it. I do want to start over . . . with you. And I want a normal life too, with you; more than anything. I want the life we had in Savannah before you enlisted. That’s why I came to see you. I love you, Mick.” She cleared her throat. “But let’s get something straight. I didn’t leave you; you left me. And I didn’t choose this life; I was coerced to become involved with the Venturini family long before I met you.”

  I looked down to avoid the intensity in her eyes; the truth. She was right; I had chosen to leave her back then. I had let my shock and anger over discovering she was married take charge. That topped by my guilt over Carl Henry’s death; I enlisted.

  In retrospect, I would’ve gladly traded the Medal and all of its perks for the lives Sara and I had before Korea.

  Except now she was implying she wasn’t who I thought she was then. All these games, the lies, made me wonder if she even knew who she was. I didn’t.

  Baffled, I blew out a long breath.

  Her ending words echoed in my head.

  “You said you were coerced. Why didn’t you tell me that and whatever you’re planning on telling me now when I
took you out of Youngstown? All that crying.”

  She averted her intense eyes.

  “At least now I understand why you kept insisting on going back to Youngstown.” I pushed off the door. “You’re the mob boss, or at least you were.”

  I shook my head. “And why, of all things, did you pretend to be pregnant when I was in Korea?”

  I half-turned and grabbed the door knob. “How do you expect me to believe anything you say?”

  She shook her head. “I . . . I know.” She stepped past me and peeked out the curtain into the parking lot. She turned back to me. “Please. Don’t leave. At least not until you hear the truth for a change.” She touched my hand on the door knob and looked up at me, her blue eyes pleading. “Please.”

  She was offering me what I had come to hear.

  Though, based upon her actions tonight, I wasn’t sure I knew her at all, or if I wanted to hear her so-called truth.

  But then again, she had probably saved my life tonight. She was left no recourse. She’d had to kill or be killed; I of all people understood that.

  We both had become different people than who we were in Savannah.

  “Are you staying or . . . or leaving?” she asked, her initially elevated tone sliding downward from pleading to desperation.

  I scanned this rumpled, obviously scared woman, the woman claiming to want the same things I wanted, the woman I still loved despite all the mystery. I let go of the door knob, walked across the room, and sat down in a chair.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  The night’s darkness lay beyond the curtained windows of the Columbia motel room. Sara sat on the bed, chewing on what was left of the spotty lipstick on her mouth. I sat in a chair facing her.

  She wore a tight black skirt, hiked above her crossed-knee, and a white silk blouse with a scooped neckline. Her long black hair framed her make-up free face. And those bluest of blue eyes were in need of a good night’s rest.

  Physically she was the Sara from Savannah who I loved. But seeing her exhausted and yet raw beauty in the light of the room still couldn’t offset the ugliness that had happened in Asheville just hours ago.

  I pigeon-holed my thoughts and tried to repress my fatigue.

  “So talk.” I said.

  Sara fumbled with her lighter until she lit a cigarette, blowing smoke over her shoulder. “Remember when I told you I met Johnny in med school?”

  I nodded.

  “That wasn’t happenstance. Unbeknownst to Johnny, the meeting had been arranged, set-up, by an FBI agent, a man named Ben Parsons.” She paused to take a drag, letting her information sink in. “You met Ben.”

  I shook my head.

  “That morning when I saw you at the gas station. Ben was the man in the back seat of my car.”

  Ben. The name sounded familiar. Then I remembered Frieda telling me about Sara meeting an older man named Ben at Goodman’s. I swallowed, and I somehow knew she was telling the truth this time. I shifted. I wasn’t leaving until I knew everything.

  “I’m getting ahead of myself,” Sara said, ringing her words with smoke. “When I was a freshman in high school, my mother and father were killed in a car wreck.”

  I wanted to react, but was afraid to derail her decision to tell me everything, so I remained silent.

  “My mother’s brother, took me in and became my guardian; eventually becoming a father to me. I hate to admit this, but I’d never known my real father as well as I got to know and love my uncle. By the time I left for college, he had become my dad.”

  She hesitated as if caught up in memories.

  “My father, do you know who he is?”

  “Which one? The mathematics professor at Wilmington College or John Sebastian LaRocca, the mob boss of Pittsburgh?” My cynicism broke its months-long bondage before my good sense could stop it.

  She gazed at the floor for a long moment. Then she took a deep inhale of her cigarette, and blew it out at me.

  “Like I’d told you before, I was in pre-med at Wilmington College. I was young and worked hard, making the Dean’s list every semester. I had been shielded from my dad’s business. I was naive with big dreams. Until one day during my sophomore year, Ben Parsons arrived exposing me to the ugliness of my reality.” She hesitated, rolling her cigarette between her fingers.

  “Like a lot of gangsters trying to hide their income, Dad, or my uncle to you, had failed to pay all of the income taxes he owed. And Ben, and only Ben, had the data. Dad was facing jail time, years of jail time.” She sucked in some more nicotine and then crushed the stub in the ashtray on the bed next to her, as if the smoldering butt were the bad memory.

  “Ben told me he had a plan; a plan that would keep my father out of jail. All his plan required was for me to ruin my life.” She lit another cigarette and then stared at the glowing tip for a moment.

  “Parsons wanted me to get close with Johnny Venturini, real close, like take-his-last-name close, inside the family. Ben wanted me to feed him anything I could get to bring down the Venturini family. But even more so, he wanted to get enough information to arrest Johnny’s uncle, Santo Trafficante, the mob boss of Tampa and a friend of my father’s. Parsons had his own agenda, Director of the FBI or at least assistant to Hoover.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned back on her elbows and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

  Sara had prostituted herself to save her step-father, her uncle. Had I ever really known this woman? She had used Johnny. Had she used me to? Had she really loved me, or had I just been entertainment while Johnny healed?

  She sat up.

  “I know how much you love your parents. I’ve seen it. I know you’d do anything for them. And I’m no different. I feel the same way about mine. And even though he’s a crook, and actually my uncle, I still love him like he’s my dad.” She stared at me, her eyebrows raised seeking agreement.

  I understood protective love between parents and children, and respected it, but I held my tongue.

  She flicked her eyes away from me as if she realized I wasn’t going to jump in with assurances and platitudes.

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “Johnny Venturini was enrolled in Ohio University majoring in partying. So I transferred to OU. The rest is history. And yes, I did take over the Youngstown mob. I had no choice.”

  “You had no choice because Johnny got TB which advanced to the point that he had to go into an iron lung.” I said facetiously.

  She gave me a look I’d never seen before, like she was looking at green, rancid meat in her refrigerator. “No.” She took a drag off her hardly smoked cigarette and put it out. “There was a gang war going on in Youngstown; that’s why we moved there; to take control. I know I told you before that Johnny was picked by his uncle to run the Youngstown mob.” She glanced away. “That was another lie. I was trying to scare you. To keep you out of harm’s way.” Her gaze returned to me. “If the Venturini and LaRocca families wanted to control the city, they would need a strong leader. And both Johnny’s father and mine knew that Johnny wasn’t that person. And of course, Parsons loved the idea.”

  “So you were the strong leader,” I stated the obvious. The sweet woman I fell in love with in Savannah seemed to be sliding further and further away with each sentence in her story.

  She tamped a fresh cigarette against the back of her hand.

  “It took me months to build trust, get organized, and to have a sustained revenue stream in the city. I solicited both Johnny’s uncle and his father to provide me with breakdowns of their operations in Miami and other cities to aid my success. And I fed the information directly to Parsons.”

  She inspected the cigarette and then continued tapping it against her hand.

  “Parsons had more than enough information to bag the Venturini family when dumbass Johnny, who didn’t do much but play with his toys, decided to take my car for a spin one day. That bomb was meant for me. We were warring with a gang from Cleveland, who were also trying to take over Youngstown. My father had order
ed me to, ah, to . . .” Her hand covered her mouth.

  Her words seemed emotionally stuck. But I wanted to hear her say what really happened, so I waited.

  Her head bowed, and she gazed at the floor. “I met with the young Cleveland-raised gang boss, the one competing with us to take over Youngstown. Despite my father’s orders, I tried to reach some kind of settlement with him. However, his negotiation strategy was to kill me. But I . . . I killed him instead; only after he shot at me.” She shook her head and blew out a breath. “He was not only the the first person I killed, he was the first living thing I‘d ever killed. I wanted to puke right then, but I didn’t get a chance, I had to kill three of his thugs before they killed me. I got home and puked and cried for eight hours straight. To this day, it’s still a reoccurring nightmare.” Her eyes met mine. “You can relate to that, can’t you?”

  Sure, I could relate, but I was in a government-initiated war, not a gang war. I sat there, unmoving and unresponsive.

  She looked away. “Then his ol’ man, the head of the Cleveland gang, wanted me dead, despite whose kid I was.” Her blank gaze was seeing nothing but the past. “Johnny and his family thought I took them to Okatie to hide from the Cleveland gang and to get him the surgery he needed. That was a ruse. I knew Daddy would take care of the small-potatoes Cleveland bunch. And he did. I came to Okatie because I wanted out, out of the mob, away from the killing, and also away from Parsons. I was done.” She stuck the packed cigarette into the corner of her mouth and flipped her lighter open.

  “In my judgment, I had done more than enough, and I told Parsons I was done before we left Youngstown.”

  She lit the tightly packed smoke. “As soon as I had enough money stashed, I was going to leave and lose myself in rural America. But then I met you.” Her blue eyes met mine. “And yes, at first you were just entertainment, something to do in Nowheresville, South Carolina, while I prepared to jump ship. But then the last thing I wanted or expected happened, I fell in love.”