The Vendetta

by Thomas Laird

  “So?” Calabrese directed at the two detectives.

  “You going to wait until Benny finally braces you in your bathroom upstairs?” Gibron grinned.

  “When I need your fucking help, I’ll let you know.”

  “He sent the last one to nail you, but your driver wound up being lucky Pierre. You can get him off your back, Tony. All you have to do is tell us some tales about your out of control capo from Cicero. Help us get him for David Johansen. Give us something to work with. You can’t keep ducking every time you go outside, can you?”

  “Your concern for me, Parisi, is touching. Go fuck yourself.”

  “What kind of manners is that, Tony? Sounds like your kingdom is crumbling, around here,” Doc added.

  “What else you want to ask?”

  “I imagine your funeral will be well-attended. We haven’t had a big one really since the ‘30s.”

  “If you’re finished…”

  “And there’s the ex-Green Beret. He’s likely still on the path to take Benny Bats out, but maybe he wants to go for the big parlay and cut off the head of the dragon. That would be you, Calabrese.”

  “That guy’s dead, Parisi. Haven’t you heard?”

  “For a corpse he sure creates a lot of other stiffs. He’s been quiet, lately, but I have to believe he’ll surface. He’s really expert at long distance pops, so I wouldn’t pull up your shades, especially at night.

  “See you again soon, Anthony,” Jimmy told him.

  The two Homicides went out the door of the den and then out to the circle drive, and finally they got back into the Crown Vic and headed back for their home territory, the Loop.

  *

  They drove over to Rossi’s place in Cicero. There were goons out front here, as well, but the IDs got them inside.

  They encountered Rossi’s better half, Carmen. She invited them to come downstairs to the family room. There were lush couches and chairs and a color TV and a wet bar. She offered them liquor or beer, but they refused the libations politely.

  “We were looking for your husband,” Jimmy explained.

  “Him? I don’t know where the hell he is. He’s always out. Can I help you?”

  Gibron remained mute. He was absorbing the lavish side of Rossi’s otherwise unremarkable home. The inside was expensive, tasteful. Outside it was a typical brick bungalow in Cicero.

  “There was an incident in Lake Forest,” Jimmy went on.

  “Why would you two care about that rich bitch neighborhood?”

  “Because the guy who owns it is connected to Ben, your husband. Calabrese is the Boss of Bosses. But we’re mostly interested in what happened to one of your neighbors, a few months back,” Jimmy told her.

  “Ben had nothing to do with it. I would’ve known if he had.”

  She was a stunning middle-aged woman, Jimmy observed. Doc had given her a careful appraisal, as well. Sometimes the job entailed a little voyeurism. She didn’t seem to think their stares were a threat to her. She looked comfortable with her lush, ripe appearance. Parisi was impressed with Carmen Rossi.

  “Ben never mentioned what a good-looking guy you were,” she smiled at Parisi.

  “Am I in the way, here?” Doc laughed with a snort.

  “No. I mean your partner sorta looks like Al Pacino, you know, the guy in The Godfather movies.”

  “He gets that all the time,” Doc countered.

  “You must have the girls all over you.”

  She had a flirt in her eyes, in her body language, all over her.

  Jimmy didn’t take the bait.

  “Your husband made the order on David Johansen. He’s got Johansen’s brother after him. We think he’s the guy who took out Cabretta and Fortunato. He’s likely thinking about finishing the task with Benny Bats, your beloved husband.”

  “My beloved husband… that’s very amusing.”

  There was light in her eyes, something Parisi didn’t expect that she’d aim at him. He thought it might have only been in his mind. She was borderline coy, but there was method in her flirtation.

  “Tell Ben we were here. Tell him we’ll be back.”

  “I look forward to it. I look forward to seeing you both again soon.”

  They were dismissed and Parisi knew it. She walked them back upstairs, and then she let them out the front door.

  “I think she likes you, James.”

  “I think she likes to draw flies to her web.”

  “You mean like one of those deadly spiders?”

  “Yeah, I guess, Doc.”

  They ducked into the Crown Vic.

  “I rather thought she reminded me of Lady Macbeth,” Gibron quipped.

  “We never read that one in school.”

  Doc pulled them away from Rossi’s house and headed the Ford back east.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Serpella heard from Jackie Gloucester not long after David threatened to blow Rossi’s manhood off under the table at The Green Door. Jackie had solid sources in the Army, and he found out that Mark Johansen was tight with only one man, back in his Green Beret days.

  That single trooper’s name was Dan Tobin. Gloucester heard from his reliable informant that special forces were notorious for being lone wolves, but, apparently, a Sergeant Daniel Tobin had saved Johansen’s life in a skirmish near a hell hole called Bong Son in Vietnam. The details weren’t all that clear, but Gloucester learned that Tobin had dragged Johansen for the better part of a mile until a chopper could light and carry the two of them to a medical detachment. Johansen would have bled to death if not for this man, this Tobin.

  Locating Tobin wasn’t nearly as difficult as trying to get a fix on the dead man, Mark Johansen. Dan Tobin had mustered out of the Army in an honorable fashion, and now he owned a hardware store in Beaumont, Wisconsin, in the southeastern part of the Dairy State.

  Serpella drove his Jeep all the way, a three-hour trip from his northern Indiana base. Serpella lived out in the boonies. There was only a rural address attached to the place, and he never received mail. It was really out in the country, and its remoteness served Serpella well.

  When he found the hardware store in Wisconsin, it was a half hour until closing. It was easy to spot Tobin. He was the standard height for a Greenie, about an inch under six-feet. The haircut was GI. Old habits obviously died hard for the ex-sergeant.

  Tobin had some gray hair interspersed with the brush of dark brown that covered his top knot, but it was merely a stubble. Serpella didn’t imagine Tobin allowed his hair to grow more than a half inch. Again, very government issue.

  There were no customers in the shop. Serpella walked up to the counter at the front.

  “Can I help you?” Dan Tobin said.

  There was no cheery look on his face, however. Serpella figured he might be in a hurry to get home at the close of another business day.

  “I’m looking for an old buddy of mine from the Army. His name is Mark Johansen.”

  Tobin didn’t answer, at first.

  “You’ll have a helluva task finding him. He’s dead. Been dead for quite some time.”

  Tobin seemed to be a stern and serious man. There was no appearance of the hale and hearty owner of a small hardware business on his face.

  “I heard he wasn’t dead, after all,” Serpella told Tobin.

  David attempted something like a warm-spirited grin.

  It didn’t work. Tobin remained stony-faced.

  “It’s really important that I find him.”

  Serpella took out the .45 from his back waistband.

  “Go lock the front door, and then turn out all the lights except whatever you leave on for closing.”

  “It’s not time to close, yet.”

  “Mr. Tobin, this is closing time. Take my word for it.”

  He walked the store owner to the front and watched Tobin carefully as he locked up and turned off all the lights except for a single fluorescent up by the checkout counter. Then he herded Dan Tobin back to the front.

/>   “I don’t want to kill you, sarge, but I will if you don’t help me out. I know you were very tight with this guy Johansen, and I know you likely keep in touch with him. Maybe it’s because he owes you his life.”

  “Who’ve you been talking to?” Tobin demanded.

  Serpella cocked the hammer on the .45.

  “You know what these things can do up close and personal, Sergeant.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “So where is he?”

  “I haven’t heard from him in three years, and that’s the truth.”

  “Then you know where he is.”

  “I know where he was. Last I heard from him, Mark was in Copenhagen. But he’s still a ghost. He moves about constantly. I have no clue where he roosts presently, and if you want to shoot me, okay, I’m insured. My old lady’s taken care of. But I haven’t got shit for you, pardner. So how about going away, now.”

  There was no fear in Tobin’s eyes. Serpella knew when it was genuine. The Greenies didn’t care about death; it was their constant companion. And this ex-sergeant wasn’t about to betray any confidences. Serpella didn’t like to kill when there was no profit involved, and killing Tobin wasn’t going to find Johansen. Ben Rossi wanted the ex-Beret alive, so there was no need to shoot this vet in the face. And if the sergeant called the police, David Serpella would be long gone, and he was sure the hardware guy hadn’t seen his vehicle, parked a half-block down the street.

  “Get some rope,” he told the store owner.

  Tobin went to aisle number 3. He tore off a length and handed it to the man with the .45.

  “Get on the floor,” he told the ex-sergeant.

  When Tobin was stretched out, Serpella hog tied him at the hands and feet, but he left it loose enough so Tobin could wriggle free in perhaps a half hour. David located some duct tape and then fastened a strip over the bound man’s mouth.

  He walked out of the hardware store quickly, but he didn’t run.

  *

  One of the skills that Serpella took from his time in the military was surveillance. He was expert at following his targets, and he was equally adept at wire-tapping. Intelligence was all about acquisitions.

  Tobin wasn’t aware of the tail behind him as he drove home. Serpella remained far enough back that the man in the Chevy Blazer had no idea of who was behind him. David always allowed one or two other vehicles to separate him from Tobin. All he needed was the address, and once he saw him pull into the driveway, Serpella took off until nightfall.

  David wondered why the ex-sergeant hadn’t called the police, but he hadn’t. Perhaps Tobin was in a hurry.

  Two hours later it was dark enough to climb the pole and do his thing with the tap. All Serpella needed was the numbers of the outgoing call that David was certain Mark’s savior would make. About a half hour after the tap, Serpella had the number and the area code. Tobin had reached out long distance only once.

  *

  He found the address attached to the phone number. It had a name other than Johansen connected to it. But Serpella knew that Johansen wasn’t sloppy. He had to have a phone book full of aliases in order to stay unscathed as long as he had.

  He had to locate Sawyer on a map of Michigan at the library near his location in northern Indiana. There it was, right near the waters of Lake Michigan. He looked up further information about the small town near a Great Lake. It was perfect. It was nowhere and it was everywhere. No wonder no one could locate the son of a bitch before.

  *

  He called Rossi on Ben’s home phone.

  “I need to meet you,” he told the capo.

  “Any good news?” Rossi inquired.

  “Nothing to speak of here.”

  “Where, then?” Rossi asked.

  “Leave your house at 8:30 tonight. Follow my Jeep and we’ll talk somewhere.”

  “Can I bring anyone?”

  “You do, and I’ll be gone. Then you’ll never know what it was all about.”

  “Don’t disappoint me,” Rossi threatened.

  “Remember the last time you spoke rudely to me?”

  “All right. I’ll look out for you.”

  “I’ll be there. And I’ll make sure no one is watching where we’re headed. I mean your people or the police.”

  Then he hung up.

  Serpella would find out soon enough if Rossi’s phone was tapped.

  *

  At 8:30 on the button David drove past the capo’s house in Cicero. Lights flicked on in a Cadillac, and then the black limo pulled out from the curb and followed the Jeep. David saw no other headlights on the street behind the black car.

  Serpella drove a quarter mile to the first fast food joint he saw. It was a White Castle. He hated the food there, but the place looked deserted. He pulled into the lot, and the black Caddie was right behind him.

  He went inside, and Rossi soon followed. They sat in a booth, across from each other.

  “So?”

  “I found him,” David said.

  “Why aren’t you bagging him, then?”

  “I wanted to make certain you wanted him alive.”

  “Yeah, I want him alive. So how ‘bout it?”

  “What about the woman and the children?”

  “Are they there with Johansen?” Rossi wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet.”

  “Where is Johansen, goddammit!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Serpella replied.

  The White Castle was populated only by the two men and the waitress behind the counter and whoever was making the sliders back in the kitchen.

  “If they’re with him, what do you want me to do with them?”

  “Kill them. Kill them all.”

  “It’s going to cost you extra.”

  “So does it look like I give a bat’s ass?”

  “Is it necessary, Rossi? Is it really that important? I’m not comfortable with killing the woman and the girls, if they’re there.”

  “Since when are you all heart? A while ago you were going to scatter my nuts with a fucking .45.”

  Serpella looked over at the waitress. She wasn’t much older than a high school kid. She was wiping the counter with a wet rag and she was paying absolutely no mind to the two men in the booth who weren’t drinking the coffees David had bought.

  “I killed lots of folks for our uncle. None of them were innocent children. It’s not that I won’t, but it’s going to cost you dearly.”

  “I said do it!”

  “All right, then. I’ll get in touch for the final payment. But I want thirty grand before I make the trip. And if you or any of your associates follows me where I’m going, I’ll kill you all.”

  “Then you won’t collect the cash, will you.”

  “It’ll pay off a premium in here,” Serpella said.He was pointing at the middle of his chest.

  “You better stop threatening me,” Rossi warned. “I’m not used to it.”

  “I don’t make threats idly.”

  He stood up.

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Make sure it doesn’t, Serpella. I’m tired of being cooped up in the house.”

  “You still have to take the ride back to your house. How do you know Johansen isn’t outside, waiting on you?”

  Serpella finally smiled widely and then left the fast food joint.

  *

  He packed everything he felt would be necessary. There was an assortment of knives and handguns. And he figured it wouldn’t hurt anything if he took his souvenir AK-47 with him. They were more reliable and deadly than the American M-16. The troopers he had known over in Southeast Asia always preferred the Russian assault rifle.

  It didn’t harm anything to be over-prepared. He threw his gear into the rear end of the Jeep.

  But before he left for Michigan, back home in the Hoosier state, he called Margaret. She lived in Indy, and Serpella hadn’t seen her in a month. She sounded surprised when she recognized his voice.r />
  “David? Oh my God! Where’ve you been all these weeks?”

  He gave her the requisite bullshit. Business, he said.

  “When am I going to see you again?”

  “As soon as I finish this one last thing. Then I’m coming to Indianapolis and I’ll make you sick of me.”

  “You know that can’t happen,” she told him.

  He pictured Margaret in his mind. Tall and lithe. Like some Russian ballet dancer. But she wasn’t Russian and she couldn’t dance worth a shit. He knew. He’d tried to drag her around the floor several times before. But it didn’t matter if she could dance. She had green eyes and a short haircut, like a man’s. And there was nothing faintly masculine about her.

  “I just have this last job to do and then I’m coming to Indy and I’m staying. I found a new line of work, and I’ll never have to travel around again.”

  “Do you mean it, David? Do you finally mean it this time?”

  “Watch me and see. Yeah, I really mean it, this time. You’ll see, soon enough.”

  “You keep saying you’ll stop all that running around. Don’t say it unless it’s true.”

  “It’s true. I’ve never lied to you, Margaret.”

  “Not that I’ve caught you at.”

  They both laughed.

  “We never do that,” she said. “We never laugh enough.”

  “I’ll change all that.”

  “You won’t tell me what it is that you really do.”

  “I’ve told you, Margaret. I locate people. People who are hard to find.”

  “I thought only the police did that.”

  “I never said I was looking for criminals.”

  “Are you, David? Is that what you do?”

  “People go missing, sometimes on purpose. Other people want to know where they’ve gone, and I find them.”

  “Now I think you’re telling me a story,” she said.

  “I don’t tell you tales, Margaret. I deal in reality. Sometimes it’s all a little too real.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “I miss you every bit as much. More, probably…I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. It might be less than that.”

  They talked about some other things, but there was no more talk about when he’d finally see her again.