by Thomas Laird
He thought he might just play defense until the heat with the city and the cops had passed. Everybody had short memories. This kind of thing had blown over before, so he’d just have to gut it out and ride the storm as if it were some hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast. But there were no hurricanes by Lake Michigan, maybe an occasional tornado. All the big winds blew out eventually. Then the skies cleared.
By that time, perhaps his capo in Cicero would be relaxed enough to lower his guard.
When that time came, Tony Calabrese was going to pull the trigger on Rossi and his old lady, both. It had become personal. The raids on his property, Carmen Rossi trying to hit him in his own home. This was no job for outsiders. He wasn’t that ancient yet. He hadn’t forgotten how to press the button. When he came up with Capone and Nitti and Humphreys he’d popped his share in order to make his bones. It was like muscle memory. You do a thing often enough, it becomes unconscious.
Maybe he was getting soft over all these years by letting others do his wet work. Doing the Rossis would be his swan song. His legacy. It was time to put the fear of God back into these cocksuckers. There was only one thing they understood. The Vendetta. The Vengeance. It was an unforgiving world with unforgiving creatures in it. That chain of big fishes eating smaller fishes all the way down the line.
No, he hadn’t forgotten how. It was simply a matter of waiting for the right time. It was true, in the bible: Everything comes to he who waits. Tony wasn’t a bible scholar, but he knew that familiar bromide. It was just a matter of waiting for things to cool off. Then the newspapers would have new stories to tell. People tired of the same old shit day after day. Their attention spans were like a small child’s.
Tony C was still alive, still on his feet, and he would most certainly be the last man standing. He hadn’t lost his touch quite yet.
Carbone and Bertelli had both gone down, but Tony C and Carlo Bonadura were still alive. The Rossis couldn’t handle Bonadura and him together, united. They were outnumbered, after all.
The winds of this war would calm, and then the time would be right to walk right up to Benedetto Rossi and his beautiful wife, Carmen. The guy holding the gun would be none other than the Boss of Bosses, and Tony Calabrese would have the last word and he’d write their final chapter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It was the latest spring snow southwest Utah had ever recorded. Thirty-seven inches and low 20s temperatures. It would be three days before the mercury rose and this yard-plus of snow began to melt.
The roads were impassable, and Johansen had no idea when the plows would be out here. The plow drivers were likely unable to drive to the shed where the snowplows were housed, so it was anyone’s guess when Mark would be able to head east in the Voyager van.
Marilyn was happy to see him still here, but she knew the moment the ice was gone he’d be headed toward Chicago. She understood why it was necessary, finally. The animals from the city were never going to leave the killings of the two gangsters unanswered. It wasn’t in their genetic code. They had to have revenge, and the only way to stop them from coming here was to kill them. They were like cancer. They had to be eradicated.
Marilyn was uncomfortable thinking that way. It wasn’t the way she was raised, certainly, but Mark had lived and survived a world vastly different from hers. He was a warrior, even though his wars were over. At least the ones in which he wore a uniform.
He showed her his medals. They were stored in a suitcase along with his extra clothing, the garments he wore when he was doing his mercenary business in far distant countries. But the medals were from the Vietnam War. There was a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, three Purple Hearts, and a variety of other gaudy ribbons he’d been given for fighting in a war he almost never talked about. The only reason she’d seen the medals is because she was storing their luggage in the Utah home. She had opened it and found his honors stored inside, with his fatigues and camouflage clothes.
He didn’t want to tell her about them, but she begged him and he gave in.
“They give you these for killing and for not getting killed,” he’d said.
“It’s more than that, Mark.”
They were in the bedroom and the girls were in school. Her pooch was just beginning to show. It was a week before the snows came. The girls were home today. School had been canceled, of course. It had already been shut down until next week, Monday. Today was Wednesday. They had a long weekend to develop cabin fever.
A week ago, when she found his military accolades, it had been sunny and seventy.
“It’s nothing. Really. Nothing.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
He smiled at her.
“That’s because you’re you.”
And then he’d kissed her.
She was glad to have him here, especially in the middle of a snow storm. The electricity was still on, miraculously, and they had a full stock of food to eat. The kids were home, so their presence would inhibit any romantic notions they had until it was bedtime.
The passion had gotten hotter ever since he told her he was going back to settle things in Chicago with Ben Rossi. She wanted to know if killing Rossi would really make them stop coming. He told her he didn’t know how else to make them cease and desist.
“There’s only the one thing to do. I’m tired of running around, Marilyn. But I promise I’ll never go back after I’m done with him.”
Marilyn believed him. She had no other choice.
*
The snows were melting on Saturday, and the news on their TV said that the trucks would begin plowing on Sunday. By then the temperatures would rise into the middle thirties, and it would improve to the mid-fifties by Monday.
“I’m leaving early Monday. With any luck I’ll be back by the weekend.”
“And then what?” she asked.
“Then we’ll pack up and move again. I’m hoping we can stay at the next stop a lot longer.”
“Where are we headed next?”
“I know a place up by Vancouver.”
“Canada?”
He smiled.
“That’s where they keep Vancouver.”
She slapped him playfully. They were watching the ten o’clock news, waiting to hear the weather report again. Morgan and Elizabeth had been in bed for a half hour.
He laid his head on her belly. He listened for the heartbeat.
“He’s in there.”
“You’re still certain it’s a boy.”
“Yeah. He’ll be mean, a warrior like his old man.”
“I hope not, Mark.”
“He won’t be. He’ll favor his momma. He’ll be gentle. Christ, maybe he’ll grow up and become a priest.”
“I’d rather he didn’t. I really would like grandchildren, some day.”
Then she began to cry. It was soundless, but the tears meandered down both her cheeks.
“There’s nothing to cry about,” he told her.
“Yes, there is.”
“Cut it out, Marilyn. It doesn’t help anything. We’ve been over this too many times.”
She buried her wet face in his chest.
“Don’t go. They’ll never find us up north. They can’t want anything to do with you anymore. We read the papers, remember? They’re killing each other. You don’t need to go there. They’re doing it to themselves.”
They read the Chicago papers. The drug store in Bannon carried out of town newspapers on Sundays. They saw the pieces in the Tribune. There was a mob war happening in Chicago.
But there was no mention of Ben Rossi being one of its casualties.
“We can’t take the chance. I told you how it works.”
She sat up.
“You told me this would be the last time. I hope you meant it, because I can’t take all this running. You know how to live like this, but the girls and I don’t, and we can’t do it anymore. You have to mean what you said. If there’s another time, you’ll have to do it on your own.”
“
I told you the way it’s going to be. I haven’t lied to you yet, have I, Marilyn?”
She looked at him and he dabbed away the droplets that remained on the porches of her cheeks.
*
She was awake when he left. He had packed the Plymouth for the trip. A week and a half ago, he’d bought her a used Ford so that she would have transportation for her and the girls when he wasn’t around. He took the van because he needed the space for the equipment he was bringing with him. The weapons were hidden in the suitcases underneath his clothing and his toiletries. But he hoped he wouldn’t get stopped on the way to Chicago by some inquisitive state trooper or local cop.
He ate breakfast with her and with the girls. Elizabeth and Morgan were going back to school today. The extra break, the snow days, were over. Mark regretted knowing they wouldn’t be attending the consolidated elementary school for much longer. She’d been right. It wasn’t good for them, all this running around, pulling up stakes and living a gypsy life on the road.
Canada, Vancouver, would be their permanent stop, their lifetime residence.
He kissed her after he’d finished breakfast, and then he kissed the girls.
They called him ‘Mark,’ not Dad or Daddy. It suited him.
“Why are you leaving?” Morgan asked.
“Just business.”
“What kind of business?” Morgan insisted.
Elizabeth wasn’t the talker of the two, but she was now in full weep mode.
“I’ll be back by next weekend. You won’t even know I’m gone,” he told the three of them.
Marilyn walked him out to the van. The blue Ford was parked next to the Plymouth, and her car would need to have the remaining ice removed from the windows.
He kissed her once more, got in the Voyager, and then he was out on the freshly plowed blacktop road.
*
The city had gone quiet. It felt like the cliché in the old westerns, to Jimmy Parisi—it was too quiet. There were no shootings or stabbings or stranglings going on, at least with the Outfit. Murder continued as usual for everybody else, but the Chicago Sicilians went mute.
Parisi and Gibron made drive-bys with Rossi and Calabrese and Bonadura, but everything was all quiet. Vice was still clamping down tightly on all their endeavors, and the wiseguys looked like they were trying to weather the storm.
The actual weather deteriorated and a cold rain fell in this last part of April, but it didn’t turn to ice, thankfully. The Cubs had played a game in a 37- degree chill, just yesterday. But there were warmer temperatures in the near future, the weather guy promised.
Jimmy and Doc took lunch around two at the Comeback Inn in Melrose Park. The burgers were outstanding, and they gave you salted peanuts in the shell free. There were shells all over the floor and you crunched as you made your way to your table. They had a guy carding at the door because a lot of punks with false IDs tried to crash the joint, but the carder was an off-duty Chicago cop, moonlighting. It was pretty much adults only inside.
“We can’t afford this joint very often,” Doc groused.
“No shit,” Parisi admitted as he perused the menu and the prices.
“Who told you about this place?”
“Eddie O’Brien,” Jimmy answered.
“Yeah. A Mick on the take. That explains why he can afford this dump.”
“It isn’t a dump,” Jimmy laughed.
It was located in a middle- class hood. It was a favorite of the yuppies in Chicago and in the ‘burbs. The food received four-star ratings in all the Chicago papers.
“We need a break from sliders, remember?” Jimmy grinned.
“We’re going Dutch, right?” Gibron said.
“Yes, darling.”
“I might spend a few bucks on a babe who’s highly equipped if I wanted to impress her, I suppose.”
“That’s why you’re alone, Doc. You’re a misogynist, a chauvinist pig.”
“Guilty.”
The place was packed on a Friday afternoon. It wasn’t even a holiday.
“Don’t these fucking people have gainful employment?” Gibron proffered.
“Quit complaining. It ain’t that expensive.”
“It’s your Italian buddies that have me on edge waiting for the other boot to drop.”
There were a lot of twenty-something and thirty-something males and females in this over-priced burger establishment. There were some interesting female forms gliding past Parisi and his partner, and both detectives weren’t missing any of the action.
“Now I know why this place is packed,” Doc said.
“It doesn’t hurt. It’s an improvement from the Garv Inn, barflies and all.”
The Garv was their favorite neighborhood saloon in Berwyn, just west of the city.
“So who hits who first?” Doc asked.
“They’re just waiting for the boil to cool off. They’re only doing this because Vice has their pocketbooks in a pinch. Nobody can get laid or get lucky on a bet. When Vice backs off and the papers find something else to editorialize about, we’ll be back in business…where the fuck is our waitress?”
“Can I help you, gentlemen?”
The cute redhead was standing right behind Parisi’s side of the booth. Doc was ear-to-ear with a grin. He’d seen the little babe approach and had allowed Parisi to embarrass himself.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy apologized.
She smiled. Her teeth were white and straight, just like in Hollywood.
She couldn’t have been much older than the legal twenty-one.
They ordered Cokes and Yukon Burgers, the specialty of the house. Fries were a la carte but they ordered some anyway.
The redhead scampered away and Parisi eyed her.
“Maron,” he groaned.
“Indeed,” Doc agreed. “Now you know why you’re single. It’s all got to do with timing, James.”
“Where’s the ex-Beret?” Jimmy shot back at his partner.
“What brought him on?”
“He’s still out there. I don’t like this many players on the board. The juggling act can’t be accomplished.”
“He’s probably dead.”
“Then where are his sister-in-law and her kids? Why haven’t they surfaced?”
“No one cares about this phantom because we still don’t know that he actually exists. Secondly nobody cares because he did a great public service to the city for eliminating those two Outfit turds, Cabretta and Fortunato.”
“We’re not a judge or a jury, Doc.”
“Don’t give me the company man bullshit. He relieved us of two great chunks of offal. We should erect a monument to Mark Johansen. And neither of us brought justice for his brother David.”
The burgers, fries, and Cokes arrived along with the piece of pulchritude who delivered them.
“Are you married?” Doc asked the waitress.
They were all dressed in Comeback Inn white tee shirts with red lettering and tight blue jeans. They wore tennies, too.
“No.”
The kid actually blushed.
“My man here is available. Do you ever date older men?”
She laughed.
“Can’t he talk?”
Parisi turned crimson, or perhaps it was just a darker brown to an already swarthy complexion.
“I’m so sorry,” Jimmy blurted.
“It’s okay. You’re cute enough to get away with it. And you’re not too old, I don’t think, but your partner, here, might be a bit on the borderline.”
“Hey! Don’t forget you’re working on tips, young lady!”
She laughed again.
“What do you two do?” she asked.
Doc flashed her his badge and ID.
“You’re under arrest,” Gibron smiled.
“You really looking to arrest me?”
She was looking right at Jimmy Parisi when she said it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When they were younger, in their early teens, the Balboas tried to st
ay apart from each other as much as they could. They were identical twins, and their mother, who raised them as a single woman, doted on them and dressed them identically, and the kids at school literally could not tell them apart. But it got old, the clothes business, and Charlie and Chris rebelled by the time they were in the fifth grade, and from then on they never appeared wearing the same clothing. The colors never matched and they did what they could to make separate friends. It continued on in high school, but by that time their mother had married again—the father of the twins took off when they were toddlers—and their old lady was focused on the new spouse and the twins were learning how to steal during the ninth grade.
By sophomore year in secondary they’d boosted their first car. They dropped out of high school in their junior year, which was the time the step-father kicked them out of the house. Charlie and Chris moved in with an uncle who was an associate in the Outfit himself, and from then on they climbed the ladder in their Uncle Vince’s crew on the northwest side.
They made their bones by popping a guy when they were seventeen, and when Uncle Vince died of diabetes complications, they hooked up with Ben Rossi’s gang.
The course of their young lives forced them to be always together, and they didn’t fight fate any longer. It was pointless to try. They’d always be ‘the twins.’ Everyone called them that, from grade school up until the present day.
They’d ascended quickly after their first hit, and now that they’d done Vito Carbone, bigger and better things were right around the corner.
They sat in Rossi’s office, one more time. They knew what Benny Bats was going to require of them before Rossi ever opened his mouth.
It was strange how their capo had gone from the gloom into the sun. It was apparent on his face, lately. He didn’t seem as morose as he had recently, Chris and Charlie thought. He was more upbeat, as if some fucking anvil had been thrown off his shoulders.
Whatever it was, Rossi looked invigorated, renewed. The weight of his gangster world had been cast off. He didn’t snap at the punks who hung around The Green Door, the wannabe tough guys who were in love with the idea of becoming associates, soldiers, in Benny Bats’ crew. It wasn’t that he was all that outwardly soft, however. It was just that he didn’t snarl as often. He didn’t snap at guys for the most minor kind of thing.
