The Vendetta

by Thomas Laird

  There were six punks standing outside the door. There would be after someone took a pop at the Boss of Bosses. Parisi was surprised it wasn’t a division of Marines. Apparently, Calabrese didn’t rate that high a pull. But the punks had pump shotguns, and they were elevated about waist-high at Jimmy and Dani.

  Parisi flashed the ID and shield and so did his partner.

  “Lower them, gentlemen. And then one of you go tell Calabrese that one of his fondest friends from the CPD would like to be granted an audience.”

  The group of six mulled the announcement for a few moments, and then a single gangster was dispatched inside.

  The punk who went inside returned in a few minutes, and he waved the two detectives inside.

  “You need to hand over your pieces,” the black-haired thug demanded.

  They were standing just inside the door.

  “Only if I shoot you first,” Parisi said to him without a grin or shred of good humor.

  “It’s all right, Sal. Let them in.”

  Calabrese stood at the top of the stairs in front of them. There was a spacious foyer between the doorway and the flight of stairs where Tony C had hailed them.

  The greaseball walked back outside after he gave Jimmy and Dani his hard-assed look.

  “Come on in the den. We’ve met before, no?” he aimed at Parisi.

  He stood at the bottom of the tall stairs. The foyer’s floor shone with white marble.

  Calabrese directed them to his right, and they followed him into the den.

  There were dozens of oak bookcases loaded with hard cover volumes that covered various subjects, Jimmy noticed. Then they were directed to tall, straight-backed plush chairs that faced each other in an intimate circle. There were five seats, but Calabrese sat across from the two detectives.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said with a smile to Dani Hawke.

  She told him her name.

  He smiled again.

  “Why are two of Chicago’s finest here?” he grinned.

  “We’re interested in you and your family, Mr. Calabrese,” Jimmy told him.

  “But this isn’t the city, and I haven’t killed anyone since yesterday at lunch.”

  Parisi and Hawke didn’t return his pleasant smile.

  “We’re interested in the murder of David Johansen and in the killing of Vince Cabretta. Both were in our jurisdiction.”

  “I still don’t see what all of that has to do with me.”

  “You know Ben Rossi.”

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  Dani sat quiet. But then she couldn’t hold back.

  “He’s one of your captains. They call them capos, correct?” she queried.

  “You’ve seen too many gangster movies. Contrary to what you read in the papers, there is no Mafia or Outfit in Chicago, and there’s certainly nothing of the sort in Lake Forest. You’ve seen the grounds here and the neighborhood. You don’t suppose I’m some sort of gangster, do you?” he laughed.

  “Yes. I know you’re mobbed up. But I thought you might like Ben Rossi off the playing field. We can do that with a little cooperation from you,” Dani replied.

  “Your partner is very up-front, Detective,” he said to Parisi. “I think I like that in a woman.”

  “She’s right. We know you think Rossi ordered the shot that killed your bodyguard, your bulldog, so you can play it as cute as you like. But if you hadn’t hopped in your limo as spryly as you did a little while ago, that would’ve been your kisser all over your finely manicured lawn. Maybe next time you won’t be so quick to duck.”

  “I’m not an informant, Detective. I’ve got nothing to inform. You drove all the way out here for nothing, it seems.”

  Calabrese stood. The two cops stood, as well.

  “Rossi’s always been a renegade, hasn’t he,” Jimmy offered.

  “I barely know the man.”

  “He wants your house. He wants this place. He wants your job, Boss of Bosses. He’ll keep trying. The two Sicilians were fuckups. Someone should’ve spent a few more dollars and come up with a pair of winners. Rossi brushed them aside like flies. Thirty years ago, you would’ve shot Rossi yourself. You wouldn’t let one of your capos intercede. You would’ve done the job right and done it yourself.

  “But you know where we live. You can still call us. Or have one of your intermediaries do the job for you. But if you wait too long…What are the odds, Tony C? One day you will duck too late and they’ll be shouting God save the Boss for somebody else…

  “Getting cold out there. First thing you know, it’ll be winter.”

  Parisi walked out of the den and out the door with Dani Hawke right behind him.

  *

  “I don’t know where you get the balls,” she laughed.

  “For what?”

  They were naked under the comforter on her bed in the apartment on the Near North Side.

  “To talk to a killer the way you did,” she said.

  “I’m very democratic that way. All of them give me a pain in the ass. They’re not big on doing policemen, Dani. I thought I was very polite to the old bag of shit.”

  “He’s like…He’s like history, in this city.”

  “Yeah. He came up with Capone and Humphreys and Nitti and those assholes.”

  “They were men I read about in my criminology classes at the University of Illinois Chicago.”

  “So you’re impressed with him?”

  “How can you not be, in a negative way.”

  “A monkey in a tuxedo is still a fucking monkey.”

  She laughed again, and then she pressed toward him and kissed him.

  “Ohhh, mama,” he moaned.

  “Trouble?”

  “You have a way of putting me in sweet pain.”

  She kissed him and nipped at his throat.

  “Now you’re being cruel,” he admonished.

  She flattened him against the mattress, and then she submerged.

  “Uh oh.”

  She looked up from his lower body.

  “That’s all you got?” she taunted.

  He pulled her up and crawled aboard.

  “Uh oh,” she giggled.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The car pulled into the empty lot of the JC Penney’s in Oak Park. It was after three in the morning. The Buick pulled next to the Camaro, and it sat waiting for the other driver. After a lag of about two minutes, the motor of the hotrod Camaro was turned off. There were no balloons of exhaust billowing from its tailpipes.

  The driver of the fancy Chevy got out of his ride and walked over to the long black Buick. He opened the passenger’s door and got inside and sat next to the driver.

  The young man was just the other side of twenty. He had long, dark blond hair and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. The stubble was turning into a beard.

  “You know who I am?”

  He nodded.

  “So you also know you’re dead if you ever talk about it.”

  He nodded again.

  “Did you get rid of the rifle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Where it won’t be found, and if it is, it’s in too many pieces to do the cops or anybody else any good.”

  “You work for Bertelli a lot?”

  “All the time,” he answered.

  “How many buttons have you pushed?”

  “Maybe a dozen. I was never good at math in school.”

  “And you didn’t tell Joe about this job, however.”

  “It’s between you and me.”

  “It better stay that way.”

  “You don’t need to keep reminding me. I’m not Bertelli’s bitch. I do freelance work all the time, and he doesn’t know about the other jobs and neither will you. It’s case by case, you know?”

  The driver might have smiled, but he couldn’t tell.

  “How do I get a hold of you if I need you again?” the driver asked.

  “The same way you did the first time
. But here’s my number anyway.”

  He handed the driver his card with his name printed on it in ballpoint pen.

  “So I can depend on you.”

  “You got what you wanted, no?” he answered.

  “We’ll see how things work out. But you do know who I am?”

  “Yeah, I already told you.”

  “Then you know what happens if you tell Bertelli or Tony C.”

  “Are we done here?”

  The driver handed him the envelope. He pulled it open and saw that the count was correct.

  “You’re good,” he said.

  “Remember what I told you.”

  “I got one of those photographic fucking memories.”

  He got out of the Buick, returned to his Camaro, started up the motor with an unnecessary roar, pealed his tires, and took off.

  *

  “How does this asshole miss?” Ben mused.

  He was sitting with Manny at The Green Room. Manny had the pump shotgun resting against his knee under the table, and two other soldiers were sitting by the front door.

  “It don’t seem likely, does it,” Fortunato said. “Unless he was a very shitty shot. He must’ve used some scope rifle rig. Tony doesn’t move all that fast anymore. He could’ve taken him on the way out his front door.”

  “Unless.”

  “What?” Manny demanded.

  “Unless the target wasn’t Calabrese in the first place.”

  “Who wants to pop a bodyguard?”

  “Maybe he pissed the wrong guy off.”

  “He would’ve got to him in a fuckin’ alley or someplace isolated. Why do it in front of the old bastard’s house?”

  “Maybe we’re supposed to think Tony was the target.”

  “Ben, you got too many wheels turning in your skull. Maybe you’re getting’ paranoid after those two Sicilians took a whack at you.”

  Manny took a drink of his espresso.

  “You think I’m nuts?” Benny Bats smiled maliciously.

  “I always thought you were pazzo, Boss.”

  “It was Bertelli. Bonaduro and Carbone don’t have the balls or brains to come after me or Calabrese. It was Bertelli all along.”

  “What’s he got to gain with you and Calabrese going under? You’re saying he wants to take over the whole goddam Outfit?”

  “You just answered your own fucking question.”

  “And if it’s true, Ben? What’re we gonna do about this cocksucker Bertelli?”

  “Kill him. And Calabrese. What else did you suppose?”

  Fortunato stared down at his tiny espresso cup. It was empty.

  “We can probably outgun them both,” Manny offered.

  “We’re not going to do it with an all-out war. Not now. We need to recruit. But not just bodies. We need to buy some of these ex-military types. We don’t need any more punks. We need guys with experience in real wars, like in the jungles or over in the Middle East. We can’t go cheap on this kind of help. We don’t need a hundred more button-pushers. We could use ten or twelve specialists, you know, guys who were snipers in Vietnam or guys who were professional shooters who worked in Europe and in the rest of the world. They don’t have to be Italians to pull a fucking trigger as long as they hit their marks.

  “You know somebody who fought in that goddam war back in the seventies or sixties?”

  “I think I might. I’ll look into it.”

  “Make it a priority, Manny. They’re not done coming at me. That was just a warning shot or whatever.”

  Manny got up and went to the bar for another espresso. He carried the shotgun under his arm.

  *

  He didn’t understand the new heat. She came at him as if she were caged up as a nun in a cloister for twenty years. Her fingernails drew blood on his back. She bit him on the left ear, and he’d raised his hand as if to slap her, but Carmen only smiled at him and gripped him so strong he thought she would literally break his dick.

  “C’mon, Benny Bats! You got a full-fledged little bat that I’m holding. Don’t you want to hurt me? Don’t you want to stab me deep?”

  She laughed and flopped onto her back. Ben mounted her and came at her hard, hard enough for her wolf’s eyes to explode wide open and hard enough for her to cry out in pain.

  “That deep enough for you, Carmen?”

  She composed herself. She nipped at his throat and left bite marks on his neck.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” he laughed nervously.

  “That all you got?” she taunted.

  He arched his back and flung himself at her. She cried out again, this time more loudly, and he knew he’d hurt her with this lunge.

  But she laughed at him once more.

  “C’mon, Benny Bats! You got that weapon. Time you really let it loose.”

  He came at her in a flurry and in a fury.

  She bleated in pain, and he couldn’t tell if it were pleasure or pain. But he kept ramming it into her until he couldn’t hold back. She clamped down tight on him when she knew he was coming, and she didn’t let go when he became flaccid.

  Finally, he rolled off Carmen and lay exhausted next to her.

  When he got his breath back, he turned toward her. They were back in their marital bed. She had surprised Ben by sleeping in their old room with him.

  “You got any brains left?” she teased.

  “A few, maybe. This is a little confusing, Carmen. First you go nuts and spend a few months at Lake Vista. And then when you return home it’s like I’m living with one of the sisters from St. Mark’s, down the street. Now you’re in heat like some wild bitch off the streets, and I don’t know what to think. What the hell’s got into you?”

  “It was always hot before, wasn’t it?”

  “Before what?”

  She stared at him.

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess it used to be that way. Yeah.”

  “Do you think I ever really gave you up?”

  “It seemed like it, Carmen. I mean I understand. Anyone would go a little crazy after what happened. I know I did.”

  “Yeah, killing Johansen was a little too much.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “There are better choices you might’ve killed.”

  “Yeah? Who?”

  She laughed.

  “Who’s in your way, Benny Bats? Who’s always been a stone in your road?”

  “You trying to become my consigliere, Carmen?”

  “Yeah. I’m applying for the position.”

  “I’m not the Boss, baby. You gotta be the Boss to have one of those.”

  “Says who?”

  “Come on, Carmen.”

  “Why do you have to follow the rules? Why not make up your own? It’s going to be the twenty-first century in a few years. You got to let go, Ben. You got to change with the era. All that Mustache Pete shit has been gone for decades. You have to adapt or die, like that Darwin guy said.”

  “I flunked science, Carmen. I was out learning to be a thief.”

  “You don’t stop learning when you make your bones, do you?”

  He watched her eyes carefully. The grey color was startling, even when you’d seen it every day of your married life. They stopped you in your tracks when she slapped a look at you the way she was doing right now.

  “When you went off the deep end of the dock after Nick died, I thought you were gone for good. I really did. Then it was like you were pissed at me for our boy getting killed out in the street. I thought you might have been angry because I had Johansen disappeared. But that wasn’t it, was it.

  “You got ambition, Carmen. I think that’s what scared me the most. It wasn’t like you were ever a wallflower or some passive housewife. But now you’re trying on pants, and I don’t know whether I like it or whether it scares the shit out of me.”

  “Benny Bats is scared of nothing, of no one.”

  She reached down and clutched him firmly again. Then she leaned over and kissed him with genuine heat. Her lips
and tongue were genuinely ablaze. They almost scorched him.

  Carmen elevated herself onto him, and he was even deeper inside than he had been moments ago. She raced to the finish and brought him along with her.

  When it was done, she wrapped herself around him, arms and legs about him. He pulled her so close that he thought she had melted into him, and they remained in the embrace for a very long time.

  *

  Joe Bertelli’s wife Vivian got the bad news from her oncologist on the first Friday in December. It was level four. It was a death sentence. She had maybe four months, the physician told her. Vivian didn’t tell Joe about the appointment or about the symptoms she had, and she didn’t know if she wanted to tell him the bad news, either.

  The marriage had pretty much been in name only for the last ten years now that the two kids were grown, but he’d never talked about a divorce. She supposed it was because he was a slave to tradition. It was funny that a guy who had philandered the way her husband had all their wed years could be old fashioned about a thing like divorce, but he was. He was pretty much a conventional Catholic, except for the crimes he’d committed all his life. She knew he was a murderer and a thief, and she knew it right from the beginning, so she really didn’t think she had any moral high ground to retreat to.

  The life was glamorous. She went to the front of the line wherever she was—at the movies or at the grocery store or at the five star restaurants where they ate. She was Joe Bertelli’s wife, and everyone gave her a wide berth. And they’d gone everywhere in the world, Paris and Rome and London. He spent copious amounts on her jewelry and clothes and furs. All the stuff in the house from the appliances to the furniture were top of the line and state of the art.

  No, she’d lived well. Even if he’d fucked everything in this hemisphere with big tits and an abundant apple ass. It wasn’t like he’d left her out in the cold when it came to sex. About a year ago she started to hold him off because it was becoming painful to receive him the way he wanted her to receive him. She couldn’t get wet the way she used to, and she couldn’t get him off as often as he liked.

  Joe got the idea and began to take his attentions elsewhere, and there were plenty of elsewheres.

  Vivian had been a statuesque blonde, in her day, but her day was quickly receding. Her breasts began to sag and her ass wasn’t as pert and as firm as it once was. The cancer had been eating her up in secret because she hadn’t gone to a doctor in fifteen years, and now when she finally sought medical help, it was too late.