House Revenge

by Mike Lawson

  Two hours after DeMarco entered the Park Plaza, the McNultys were still parked near the hotel, and Ray and Roy, both being alcoholics, desperately needed a drink.

  “How long are we going to keep this up?” Roy said.

  “Until we get him,” Ray said. “And it’s not like we got anything better to do. If we could find out what room he’s in, maybe we could knock on the door, say we’re room service, and when he opens the door . . .”

  “He’s a pretty good-sized guy. I mean, the two of us can take him but he’d probably put up a fight and someone in the next room might hear. No, we have to get him alone someplace.”

  “Then maybe when he goes out to dinner. We wait until he comes out of the restaurant, get up on either side of him, stick a knife in his ribs, and force him into the car. Then we take him someplace and . . .”

  “You think he’s just going to let us walk up next to him? And at this time of the year, it’s light out until after nine and there’re people everywhere.”

  “Hey! Do you have any ideas of your own or you just going to keep shitting on my ideas?”

  A couple hours later when DeMarco still hadn’t left the hotel, they decided to call it a day and go back to their bar. They were going to die if they didn’t get some alcohol into their bloodstreams soon. As they were driving toward Revere, Roy said, “We oughta call up a couple of broads. We’re gonna be without pussy for a long time, so we better stock up now.”

  They didn’t have girlfriends; the only women they could call to have sex with were hookers. But that was actually okay with them.

  Ray had been married once for about a year. He met the woman while Roy was doing a six-month stretch. Maybe if Roy had been around, Ray never would have hooked up with her but Roy hated the woman the moment he met her. Her name was Colleen, and she was this chunky blonde who never stopped talking. At the wedding—Roy had been the best man, of course—Roy met the bride’s mother, who was the size of a house, and he had no doubt Colleen would eventually be just as big.

  Roy had hated living by himself—and hated that Ray was close to anyone other than him. Fortunately, for Roy that is, about eight months after the wedding—and by then Roy could tell that Ray was already getting tired of Colleen—she gave him a bunch of lip one night. Roy and Ray had gone to a Celtics game, done some serious drinking afterward, and Ray didn’t get home until four in the morning—and Colleen jumped all over his ass about it. So Ray popped her in the mouth. She called the cops, they arrested Ray, he spent a little more time inside, and by the time he got out, Colleen had gone back to her fat mama and divorced Ray. Thank God.

  Now, whenever they got the urge, they called an escort service. That night the service sent two gals over to their apartment, both ladies in their twenties, both sounding like they’d been raised in Southie. The hefty one—the one Ray got—said her name was Heather and the skinny one with bad teeth was Tiffany. Yeah, right. More likely they’d been baptized with names like Mary and Margaret, not that Ray or Roy cared. The brothers paid them, Heather and Tiffany serviced them professionally and efficiently, and left forty minutes after they arrived. Roy then opened a bottle of Jameson’s, and he and his brother watched pro wrestling and drank until they passed out, side by side in their matching recliners, the kind that have a cup holder in the armrest sized for a can of beer.

  20

  DeMarco had set the radio alarm in his hotel room for five a.m. and when it went off, he jerked up in bed, totally disoriented, wondering where in the hell he was and who was yelling about tornadoes in Oklahoma. Whoever had used the radio alarm last must have been almost deaf, and had set the volume as high as it would go. DeMarco slapped blindly at the radio until he finally hit the right button, then just lay there, trying to force himself out of bed. He hated to get up anytime before eight, and he knew from past experience that he’d be dragging the entire day as a result of rising at such a god-awful hour.

  Yesterday, sitting in the Park Plaza’s bar, he came up with a way to get the McNultys’ bail revoked and in such a way that it would add to the time they spent in prison. But he had only a rough idea of what he was going to do, and needed to flesh out the details. First, he needed to make sure the McNultys didn’t follow him today—which was why he’d woken up at five. The McNultys didn’t strike him as early risers. Second, he needed to find a location tailor-made for what he had in mind, and this spot needed to be outside the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If the McNultys were caught out of state, their bail should be revoked; if they were caught doing something illegal out of state, their bail would definitely be revoked.

  DeMarco finally, reluctantly, rolled out of bed and took a quick shower. He glanced in the mirror. The skin below his right eye was still discolored, but the bruise had faded considerably. He wasn’t worried about how he looked, however. He was worried about being physically fit enough to do what he planned. He put on his boxers, but before he got completely dressed, he did some pushups. His ribs were still tender but he decided the pushups didn’t hurt that much.

  At five thirty he left the Park Plaza, and got his car from a valet who looked as sleepy as DeMarco felt. His first stop was a Dunkin’ Donuts, and he drank his coffee as he drove through downtown Boston. He made the mistake of buying donuts with those little sprinkles on top, and half the sprinkles ended up in his lap.

  He took I-95 south, then 295 south, and about forty minutes later, crossed the border into Rhode Island near the city of Pawtucket. He decided it was too congested near Pawtucket, so he arbitrarily took an exit and headed northwest on Highway 15 toward the town of Smithfield. He passed through Smithfield but still didn’t see what he was looking for.

  He started taking random turns, having no idea where he was going, and ended up near the town of Chepachet. At the edge of the town was a large abandoned factory that might do in a pinch, but he kept going. He ended up on a road called Putnam Pike—completely lost at this point—and again, arbitrarily turned onto a narrow, winding road called Pine Orchard. On Pine Orchard Road the houses were spaced farther apart and he saw signs for a couple of small farms. And then he rounded a curve and saw exactly what he was looking for. He pulled the car to the side of the road.

  There was an abandoned building—actually more shed than ­building—that at one time might have been a fruit or fresh produce stand. It was constructed of warped gray wooden slats, with a tin roof and an opening that could be covered by a piece of plywood that folded down from the roof. The building was wide enough and tall enough that a man could hide behind it and not be seen from the road.

  Looking directly at the shed from where he’d parked, he could see a small farmhouse to the left, up on a slight hill. There were no neighboring houses that he could see. The house appeared to be vacant—most of the windows had been broken by rock-slinging kids—and the front door was hanging on by a single hinge. To the right of the shed was at least an acre of small trees that DeMarco thought might be apple trees, but now looked too old and withered to bear fruit. He suspected the farm, the orchard, and the shed—he’d now concluded the shed was a roadside fruit stand—had all been part of the same piece of property, but for whatever reason had been abandoned. Farming was a tough business and foreclosures weren’t uncommon.

  DeMarco got out of his car and walked behind the fruit stand and found what he wanted: a fork in the road. That is, when he stood behind the fruit stand there was a gravel road going left to the abandoned house and a beaten-down trail in the weeds heading right, toward the orchard. During daylight hours, if DeMarco took either fork—the one to the house or the one to the orchard—he would be clearly visible from the highway. But at night, he’d be hard to spot. Out here in the countryside, it would be darker than the inside of the devil’s bunghole when the sun went down.

  DeMarco took out his iPhone. It informed him there was no moon that night and the weather was supposed to be cloudy. It appeared as if God had decided to help
out with his plan. Well, okay, maybe He wasn’t helping, but at least He wasn’t interfering.

  He spent the next half hour studying the area. Or maybe, considering what he was planning, reconnoitering would be a better word. The abandoned farmhouse was about a quarter mile away from the fruit stand. He figured if he ran as fast as he could—considering his age and the fact that he’d be running uphill—it would take him at least a minute and a half to reach the house, which was way too long. Then he noticed, about halfway up the road to the farmhouse, there was another small wooden structure that was only about five feet high and surrounded by weeds. He suspected it might be a well house, or maybe a toolshed. DeMarco figured he could run from the fruit stand to the toolshed in under a minute.

  Next he walked toward the orchard. The beginning of the orchard was only about fifty yards from the fruit stand, but the only thing to use for cover inside the orchard was a bunch of spindly, gnarled trees, the trunks less than eight inches in diameter. A guy his size wasn’t going to be able to hide behind an apple tree trunk. He walked deeper into the orchard, looking for a better place, and about a quarter mile later came to a pile of old wooden crates. The crates were made of thin slats of wood, about two feet square and six inches deep; they had probably been used for transporting the apples after they’d been picked. All the crates—there were at least two hundred of them—had been tossed into a stack that would make an impressive bonfire. DeMarco studied the pile of crates for a moment and decided they would do—but not located where they were.

  It took him almost an hour to lug about a hundred of the apple crates closer to the fruit stand. He then arranged the crates into another disorganized pile similar to the one he’d seen deeper in the orchard. By the time he finished, he had constructed a barrier that was about six feet high and six feet long—in other words, a little wall that didn’t look like a wall that he could hide behind.

  Lastly, he looked around for something he could use for a weapon. Up near the abandoned farmhouse, he found a rusty rake that someone had discarded or forgotten. He broke the rake off the handle, leaving himself with a wooden pole about four feet long. He hoped he didn’t have to use the rake handle—he was planning to obtain another weapon—but in case that one didn’t do the job, the handle would do. He hoped. He placed the rake handle behind the apple crates he’d moved.

  He walked back to his car and took one more look at the place he’d selected. It was perfect: it was remote, it would be dark at night, and it wasn’t in the state of Massachusetts. He consulted the GPS in his rental car, and although he’d spent more than two hours driving around, he was only an hour and twenty minutes from Boston.

  He drove back to Smithfield and found a diner. He was starving and needed a real breakfast. After he washed his hands, which were grimy from moving the apple crates, he ordered eggs, sausage links, and hash browns. As he was waiting for his breakfast to arrive, it occurred to him that because he’d risen at such an early hour, it wasn’t that late; it was only ten thirty. Maybe he could accomplish one other thing today, and still have time to deal with the McNultys that night.

  He called Maggie Dolan and asked her to use the Harvard interns to find him an address for the second Mrs. Callahan, first name Adele. He told Maggie that according to Carl Rosenberg, Adele had a condo in Boston and a place on Cape Cod, but that’s all he knew. By the time he finished his lunch, a young lady called him—at least she sounded young—and gave him Adele’s phone number, her address on Cape Cod, and said that Adele now used her maiden name, which was Tomlin.

  “I called her house on the Cape and asked for her,” the girl said. “Said I was doing a poll, and she hung up on me. So that’s where she is, or at least where she was five minutes ago.”

  DeMarco didn’t bother to ask how the intern had obtained Adele’s phone number; he was just grateful that Maggie only hired kids who had IQs that were bigger than his and Mahoney’s combined. He also wondered what sort of hours the interns put in working for Mahoney and why anyone would want such a job. He certainly wouldn’t have worked for Mahoney if he wasn’t getting paid.

  On the way to Cape Cod, he pulled into a shopping mall outside of Pawtucket to get the other items he would need for the night to come. At a JCPenney, he bought a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and black tennis shoes. He would be one with the night. His next stop was a hardware store where he bought a small pocketknife and a package of eighteen-inch-long zip ties, like cops sometimes use for makeshift handcuffs. His final stop was a supermarket where he bought the biggest Idaho potato he could find. He didn’t care if it was organically grown or not.

  Now ready for combat, he continued on his way to the Cape.

  Around noon, about the time DeMarco left the Pawtucket shopping mall, the McNultys were just getting out of bed. They were hungover and depressed. The only food they had in their apartment was a box of Cheerios—but they had no milk—and a frozen pepperoni pizza. Ray put the pizza in the oven, then sat down across the kitchen table from his red-eyed, unshaven, stubbly-headed brother. He thought Roy looked like death warmed over—and imagined he looked the same way. They were both wearing white wifebeater T-shirts and boxer shorts.

  “Maybe we outta go to Mexico,” Roy said.

  “Mexico? What would we do in Mexico?” Ray said. “We don’t speak Spanish and even spics can’t get work in Mexico. Why do you think they sneak into the U.S. to steal American jobs?”

  The McNultys were adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants coming across the border and taking jobs from Americans. It didn’t matter if the Mexicans were doing work like mowing lawns and picking fruit, jobs they wouldn’t have done if they’d been starving. It also pissed them off that American tax dollars were being used in one way or another to support the illegals, like when they sent their kids to American schools. The fact that the McNultys didn’t pay taxes because they lied on their tax returns was irrelevant. It was the principle that mattered.

  Roy, however, looked confused. So Ray said, “Roy, I’m saying, how would we live down there? We wouldn’t be able to find work, and I doubt they got some kind of food stamp program for Americans. We’re going to jail, Roy. You might as well get used to the idea. But we’re going to settle the score with that prick DeMarco first.”

  “You want to head over to his hotel after we eat?” Roy said. Ray could tell his brother wasn’t enthused by the idea, and neither was he.

  “Nah, there’s no point in going over there during the day. Let’s wait until this evening, like around six or so. Maybe he’ll head out to dinner and after it gets dark, go someplace where we can get him.”

  They finished the pizza, thought about taking showers, then said screw the showers, put on cargo shorts and tennis shoes, and headed over to their bar. They were overdue for an alcoholic eye-opener.

  As they were having their first drink of the day, hoping the booze would make their hangovers less painful, Doreen walked up to the table where they were sitting.

  Doreen, like them, was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt—the front wet from sweat—baggy shorts, and high-top tennis shoes without socks. Ray was always amazed at how big her flabby upper arms were. One of these days he was going to get one of those cloth tape measures like tailors use, and see how much bigger her arms were than his.

  “I need to find out what’s going to happen if you guys go to jail,” she said. “I mean, if you sell the bar, I’m—”

  “We ain’t selling the bar,” Ray said.

  “But if you do, I mean if you’re forced to, I have to find a job and another place to live.”

  “I’m telling you, we ain’t sellin’ the fuckin’ bar,” Ray said. “You’re gonna run it for us until we get paroled.” Then something occurred to him. “You go get a lawyer to draw up some papers that says you got power of attorney or whatever it’s called.”

  “Are you going to pay for the lawyer?”

  “Hell, no,” Roy s
aid. “We’re doing you a favor letting you live here and run the place for us while we’re gone. Now quit bugging us. We got things to figure out.”

  “And we’ll need your car again later,” Ray said. “In fact, we’re gonna need it until they release our van.”

  “But what if I need my car?”

  “You don’t need your car. And if you do need a car, call your mom and borrow hers. Your mom’s too old to be driving anyway. Now get back behind the bar and do your job. That old broad with the stocking cap is waving at you to get her another beer.”

  After they had three beers apiece—and a couple of those ham and cheese sandwiches that could be heated up in the microwave—they drove to a Dick’s Sporting Goods in Saugus.

  “We want a couple of those little bats you use for smacking fish,” Ray said to the clerk. “What do you call those things?”

  “I don’t know,” the clerk said. “Fish bats, I guess. They’re on that wall over there.”

  They discovered they had a choice of bats made out of wood or polypropylene. One of the bats had a label on it calling it a Fish Tamer, like if you whacked the fish you could make it sit up and beg. They chose two wooden ones, about twelve inches long with a good grip on the handle and a leather lanyard you could loop over your wrist. Walking back to their car, Roy smacked his palm a couple of times with his new fish bat. “Yep, this’ll do the trick.”

  They decided to go back to their apartment and take a nap until six and then head on over to the Park Plaza.

  “Pray to God,” Ray said, “that son of a bitch goes someplace tonight where we can get him.”

  21

  Adele Tomlin’s place on Cape Cod was near the town of Truro. It was on the waterfront, nestled among sandy dunes covered with beach heather, and it overlooked the bay in the direction of Boston. The siding was painted white, it had hurricane shutters and a weathered cedar shake roof with two chimneys, and DeMarco figured the house was about three thousand square feet—a rich man’s definition of a “cottage.” It probably cost two or three million. DeMarco could imagine himself sitting inside in the winter, snug and warm in front of a roaring fire, sipping brandy while reading a book, as a cold wind blew off the Atlantic. Since he’d never be able to afford a place like this all he could do was imagine.