The Vendetta

by Thomas Laird

  They hadn’t ditched the vehicle because the twins figured they might use the car again.

  There were the capo named Bonadura and the Boss of Bosses still on the playing field, the young men reasoned.

  *

  Parisi and Gibron got the call around 3:10 in the morning. They were midway through their midnights’ shift.

  “There goes dinner,” Doc grumped.

  The floor was a mess at Sal’s Tap. The bartender was stretched out on the floor behind the long slab of wood, and there were plenty of shards scattered back there with him. The red blood dotted the sparkling glass all around him.

  DeBrizzo and Salvatore had pools beneath them, as well, and then they walked out and saw Carbone’s body lying in the alley. Parisi saw the ruined skull of the Outfit capo when he flashed his light on him.

  “They made certain,” Doc added.

  “They caught him in the back, too,” Jimmy said. “See the holes? I think it might have been a heavy-duty caliber to make apertures that big. Maybe a .357 or a .44. Maybe even a .45. Had to be multiple shooters. Three guys and the bartender. This wasn’t solo.”

  The ME showed up a half hour later, and the two Homicides were on scene until dawn.

  They finally made breakfast at a McDonald’s when their shift was officially over. There were quite a few patrons at the fast food place. Most were probably on their ways to their jobs. People were wolfing their food.

  Doc and Jimmy ate slowly since they were headed home in a short time. The shootings would hold until they were back on duty, this time from 3:00 P.M. to midnight. The victims weren’t going anywhere, and the scene had been thoroughly scoured by forensics.

  “We won’t get prints,” Doc said as they sat with their drinks in a booth.

  There was plenty of noise about them, so their conversation was private. All the white noise was their ally.

  “No. It’s Rossi’s people. I hear he’s got two punks, two twins, he uses for wet work now with the demise of Manny and Vince, courtesy of Johansen’s still-phantom brother, Mark.”

  “This is getting swampier as we speak, James.”

  “You didn’t really think these assholes were going to make a lasting peace, did you?” Parisi grinned.

  “I had hopes.”

  “It was as inevitable as the turning of this planet, Doc.”

  “Why can’t they give peace a chance?”

  “Ask the Beatles. The Outfit don’t work that way.”

  “Your boys aren’t known for diplomacy, Jimmy.”

  “They’re not my boys. I keep telling you.”

  Gibron drank from his glass of Coke.

  “I like the Castle better than McDonald’s,” the taller cop stated.

  “Can’t hack sliders for breakfast. Every time we eat there early, I get fierce heartburn.”

  The sun made entry through the window next to them. A brilliant ray struck their table top, but neither man seemed to mind the glare. Easter had passed. The tomb was empty, Parisi mused. Darkness into light. But it was hard to see how all that worked in his profession.

  “The old lady did Bertelli,” he told Gibron.

  “So you’ve said before.”

  “It just fits. She was balling the guy and setting him up, with or without her husband’s consent.”

  “You don’t think Benny Bats was in on that one?”

  “No. He’s too prideful. He wouldn’t let Carmen bump uglies, especially with a competitor. He would’ve shot her if he’d found out. That’s why she came downtown alone. She can’t have him finding out about her liaison with the capo. But from what we’ve heard, she was doing him for some time before she took him down. I wonder why it lasted as long as it did.”

  “Maybe he tickled her fancy, Jimmy.”

  “Perhaps Benny Bats wasn’t paying her the proper attention a spouse deserves…Or maybe Carmen wants to be a player in the Outfit. She might not like the role of house frau. She lost the kid. Some women turn to booze when the nest becomes empty.”

  “You think she sees herself as Mafia Princess, James?”

  “Why not? Women’s lib, Doctor. The times they have already changed. When I went into the Army in the early ‘70s, it was already changing. Women were getting degrees, getting careers. Why not Carmen? She got sick of the woman’s place in a male dominated scenario. What’s more chauvinistic than the Outfit, Doc?”

  “But she’s such a choice piece, Jimmy. I’d hate to have to arrest her sweet ass. And the rest of her is quite succulent, too.”

  “You really are a pig, aren’t you.”

  “I’ve got my porcine traits, I suppose.”

  Jimmy drank the remainder of his soft drink. The sun still glared on their table top. The light put Gibron in an almost supernatural glow.

  “We going to talk to the Balboas?” Doc asked his partner.

  “This very afternoon. Yes.”

  The Balboas were at The Green Door because Rossi was there. They were his personal bodyguards, now, Jimmy and Gibron saw.

  There was some other soldier at the front door of the mob hangout, however. He glared at the two Homicides, but he didn’t ask for ID.

  “Do I know you?” Parisi asked the doorman.

  “No. But I know you.”

  “From where?”

  “The papers.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! He can read!” Doc exclaimed.

  The young guy at the entry colored a bit red, but he let them go on their way to the back where Rossi and the twins sat.

  “Don’t ask us to sit down,” Parisi told Benny Bats.

  “Have it your way,” Rossi smirked.

  The twins were expressionless, but they were watching the two detectives intently.

  Jimmy grabbed two chairs from a neighboring table and slid one to his partner. They sat down in front of Benny Bats’ table.

  “We’re really here to talk to them,” Jimmy told the capo.

  “Do you want me to leave, Parisi?” Rossi smiled.

  “Nah, you’re always welcome, around us,” Gibron grinned back.

  “That’s comforting,” Rossi answered.

  “You heard that Vito Carbone, Petey they called him, died of lead poisoning last night.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Tragic,” Rossi said.

  “Where were your two errand boys about eleven last night?” Jimmy posed to Ben Rossi.

  “I don’t know. Ask them,” the capo returned.

  “Well?” Jimmy shot toward Chris Balboa. “Which one are you? All you guys look alike to me.”

  “I’m Christopher Balboa.”

  “So you must be Charlie.”

  Charlie nodded.

  They both gave out blank stares.

  “You must not be used to talking to cops. Detectives, specifically.”

  They didn’t answer, and Rossi sat mute.

  “How do you think Bonadura and Calabrese will react to these murders?” Jimmy asked the twins’ boss.

  Again, they remained silent.

  “What makes you two think I give a shit?” Rossi finally commented.

  “Oh, by the way, Ben. I had a nice chat with your wife, Carmen.”

  Rossi’s eyes widened perceptibly.

  “Interesting woman. We talked about your old friend, Joe Bertelli.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Sun Times and the Tribune raised holy hell, and so the whirlwind landed on the Outfit. Chicago Vice went nuclear on the mob’s holdings in the city—prostitutes were rousted and gambling operations were shut down. Anyone carrying a gun who was associated with the wiseguys was brought in and shaken down until they could produce licenses, and those who weren’t carrying paper were jailed until their mouthpieces bailed them out.

  Everywhere in the city the Outfit was persona non grata, and Calabrese was a very unhappy man. He was unhappy with Ben Rossi most of all. Carbone was in the obituaries along with two of his best men and earners, Manny DeBrizzo and Freddy Salvatore. Business had been brought to a thudding stop a
nd money was not coming in. And the cash flow was the most grievous part of the Boss of Bosses’ woes. No one could get laid or lay a bet. Bookies were broke and there was no joy in the whore houses because the girls were on a merry-go-round with the Vice dicks who were transporting them back to the lockup as soon as they tried to turn a trick on the streets.

  It was affecting Calabrese’s vested interests in the fancier bars in the Loop and on Rush Street and in Old Town, as well.

  And Calabrese had a long memory about Rossi’s wife, that cunt. What a prick-teaser she’d been. At the moment of truth the bitch develops a goddam conscience, a sense of morality or some shit, and she runs out his front door, right past the male stripper with the ruler sized pole waiting for fulfillment.

  The strange thing was that Tony C really wanted her to come back for an encore. But he didn’t think it was likely.

  Why had she made the move toward him in the first place? There had to be a good reason. The broad was no simple piece of ass. She had to have a reason for coming over to his home.

  It had to be her old man, Benny Bats. Why else would she take that kind of chance? He put her up to it…but what was the play? She didn’t have a weapon on her, at least none that she pulled on him. All they had was that drink of champagne, and then he dropped the flute onto the tile and spilled a lousy drink and then she could hardly wait to hit the exit.

  The drink. The champagne. But it was Tony C’s bottle. It couldn’t be the drink.

  He had never left the room.

  Then he remembered the knock on the door, the telephone call from one of his idiots at a casino on the north side. He’d been out of the room long enough. Long enough for her to load up his glass of bubbly.

  There was no way to see if there was anything bogus in that flute. The glass was in tiny pieces, and the mess was cleaned up long ago.

  It had to be something in his glass. Had to be. Carmen Rossi was there to do him. That was why she came onto him at the Russian tea house.

  Christ, how stupid could he be! He was an old man with a useless dick, and she’d come on to him and played on his fucking vanity and he was too senile to realize what she was up to, what his capo in Cicero was up to. When you got old you got slow on the trigger, mentally and physically.

  If it hadn’t been for his clumsiness he’d be dead already, and it would have been his brainlessness that cost him life and his home and his business and everything he’d ever acquired and accomplished.

  He couldn’t let it stand. Benny Bats and his bitch had to go together. There was only one loyal capo left, and Bonadura was no genius.

  The newspapers and all the media had helped paralyze his operations. The grand jury was meeting to see if they had anything that was sticky enough to slap onto the entire Outfit. All this because Rossi had broken the truce with his thing with Carbone and his two bodyguards.

  It was the twins, those two Balboa punks. They were the young Turks who took the place of Fortunato and Cabretta.

  What had brought all this on? The accidental killing of Rossi’s son by that goddam nobody baker, David Johansen. Rossi has this poor slob waxed, and now Tony C and his whole crew were going to pay for it.

  There was nothing going on, nothing coming in, but Calabrese was goddamned if he was going to let Benny Bats get away with all this. Him and his cunt wife. If Tony C had to sink with the ship, all the rats were going down with him.

  *

  Carmen sat across from him at the kitchen table. She was wearing a robe and nothing underneath it. She was letting him see most of her lush breasts. But it wasn’t going to sway him.

  “I hear you had a talk with Parisi,” he said.

  He put down his white coffee mug.

  She looked up at him, but there was no surprise on her face.

  “I talked to him, yeah.”

  “You never told me. I had to get it from the goddam Homicide detective. Why’s that?”

  “Because it was nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Bertelli was nothing to be concerned about, Carmen?”

  She took a sip out of her own white mug.

  “There was a woman in Bertelli’s room the night he got shot.”

  “So why does Parisi and that Gibron throw all this in your direction?”

  “Because he thought I might’ve been the woman. Why else?”

  Rossi looked aghast at her calm demeanor.

  “Were you that fucking woman?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be stupid, Ben.”

  “Now I’m stupid? Maybe you were there. You don’t think I ever heard the rumors, Carmen?”

  “If you think I was fucking Joe Bertelli then you must be dumb.”

  “There are a lot of people who think you’ve been balling him for years. I’m not deaf, either.”

  “You should stop listening to idiots, Benny Bats.”

  He swept up the mug and threw it at her face, but she dodged it and the coffee cup exploded against the dishwasher.

  “You can clean that up,” she told him. “And this, too.”

  She grabbed her own mug and tossed it at his head. He slapped it away with his right hand.

  “I’ll kill you!” he yelled.

  “That’s all you know how to do, isn’t it.”

  He came charging around the table and grabbed her by the throat. She flailed away at him and one of her fingers caught him in the eye and it caused him to bend over in pain. She ran to the counter and tore the toaster out of the wall and crowned him on the back of the head with the red appliance, and he grunted in agony.

  But he straightened up suddenly and came at her and knocked her on the wet kitchen floor by the sink. He tore at her robe and it came off in the struggle. He slapped her hard three times, but she kept swinging at him all the time, and one or two of her blows caught him on the sides of his head.

  Her lips were bloodied, and there was some red dripping from his left nostril.

  He pinned her hands to the floor with his own, and he burrowed between her legs while she tried to kick him off.

  “No!” she shrieked.

  She could feel him prodding her between her legs. He was biting her left shoulder and his teeth broke skin.

  She found a way to turn him on his side and then she sent her right knee to his groin.

  The struggle was finished. He doubled up in pain and some of his breakfast came back up on the kitchen floor. She ran out of the kitchen naked, and she flew up the stairs to their bedroom. She locked the door from the inside, piled two chairs against the door, and then she got the .357 out of the bedside table. She threw the gun on the bed, found her clothes in the closet and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

  Then she sat on the middle of the bed with the .357 in her hand, the barrel aimed at the door with the chairs in front of it.

  There was no noise from downstairs. It was eerily quiet in the house. Tears blurred her eyes and her pulse was racing out of control. She thought she might be hyperventilating. She cupped her hand over her mouth, and in a moment she was breathing normally again.

  “I’ll kill you, Ben. I swear to God I’ll kill you if you come through that door.”

  She thought about calling the police, but she’d had enough contact with them, lately. She could handle this herself. She didn’t need the cops. They were part of the problem. He’d either calm down or she’d kill him. Carmen would call it self-defense. Her face was full of blood, her lips split. Who wouldn’t believe her?

  Nick came to her, but it wasn’t in any vision. He was in her mind’s eye only. But she remembered him jumping on that bicycle and hurling himself out into the street. Then there was the horror of the sound of the impact, the scream, the high-pitched scream, and the screech of the skidding tires just feet away from their house.

  She could barely recall her time in the mental institution. She’d done her best to blot it out, and only flashes of remembrance remained. There was some memory of her arrival and of her departure, but very little in bet
ween.

  She heard heavy footsteps coming up the staircase toward the bedroom.

  “I’ll kill you if you come in here, Ben.”

  There was no answer, but she could hear a hoarse breathing outside the door with the barricade.

  “I mean it, Ben, I’ll shoot you.”

  “Let me in, Carmen.”

  “No.”

  “Please. Let me in. I won’t hurt you. I believe you. You couldn’t have done anything like that. I know you couldn’t. Let me in.”

  She stood up and then walked over and cleared the two chairs away. Then she slowly unlocked and opened the bedroom door.

  He was standing there in his bathrobe. His face was empty. He looked defeated.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Not again. Not ever again.”

  She raised the .357 to his forehead. She cocked the piece.

  “It’s all right,” he told her. “Go ahead.”

  He could see the pressure she put on the trigger. He was done. Finished.

  “Go ahead. It’s all right. I don’t care anymore. You’d be doing me a favor. I want to be with Nick. Go ahead and do it.”

  She lowered the gun. She waited for him to attack her, but he stood in the doorway.

  Carmen released the hammer slowly and then turned and threw the weapon on the bed.

  She took hold of her husband by the hand and led him to their bed. She removed the .357 and put it back in the nightstand, and then she helped Ben onto the bed.

  “I want to be with Nick. You should’ve done it.”

  “Be quiet, Ben. Lie down with me.”

  She kept her sweatshirt and jeans on and he remained in the bathrobe. They were facing each other atop the queen-sized mattress. The sheets were cool. She could feel them on her feet.

  “It’s all right, baby. It’s fine.”

  She stroked his hair.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, Carmen. I’ve never wanted to hurt you, or Nick. I miss Nick.”

  “I miss him, too, baby. I miss him, too.”

  *

  Every attempt ended in failure so far, Calabrese understood. His guys had blown it with Rossi, and the ex-Green Beret seemed out of the picture. Rossi led a charmed life to date, and Calabrese wondered what his next move would be.