Forced Out

by Stephen Frey

  Cheryl sank slowly back down onto the bed. “What do you mean?”

  “I told him I thought he was the real deal, then he told me to get out of his face. Basically told me if he ever saw me again he’d kill me.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Jesus, Daddy, you ought to call the—”

  “I’m kidding,” Jack said with a wave. “He was actually very polite. But he did tell me never to come up to him again.” Jack held up his hand to show her the World Series ring. “I even wore this. You think he would have been impressed.”

  “That is weird,” she agreed. “I mean, some guy wearing a World Series ring comes up to me and tells me he was a Yankee scout for thirty-four years and that he thinks I’m the real deal. I’d be pretty excited if I’m a minor leaguer.”

  “Yeah, exactly. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was like I was the last person in the world he wanted to see.”

  “Where did you talk to him?” she asked. “At the stadium?”

  “No; the head groundskeeper told me where the kid usually hangs out after games. It’s this bar called the Dugout. By the way, the groundskeeper backed up what Bobby said about Clemant, too. That nobody likes him.” Jack gazed at the ring for a few moments. He hadn’t been able to get it off last night because his fingers were too swollen from the alcohol. He tried again for a few moments but still couldn’t pull the thing over his knuckle. “Anyway, the kid came into the bar about an hour after the game. By himself, too. The bartender wouldn’t say much about him, but he did say he’d never seen him come in with anyone else. He’s always alone. Kind of weird.” Jack shook his head. “So I told the kid I’d been to the game the other night. Told him I thought the catch and the home run were two of the greatest plays I’d ever seen. Then he asked me if I was at last night’s game. I told him I was, and it was strange how he reacted. He smiled when he admitted that he’d stunk up the joint. Like he was proud of himself for playing bad.”

  “What do you think’s going on?”

  Jack hesitated, replaying the brief conversation in his head. “I don’t know. But he’s got all the physical tools, let me tell you. He’s a big boy, bigger in person than he even looks on the field. I shook his hand. It was so damn strong. Like Thurman Munson’s used to be.” He suddenly noticed the red blotches on her neck. “Hey, what happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” she said, standing up and heading straight for the door.

  “Cheryl, come back here. Hey! Cheryl!”

  Bobby jogged down the sidewalk in front of the apartment building toward his SUV. He was on his way to an appointment with the head buyer of a sporting goods chain based in Tampa. If everything went right, he was going to make a big sale today and earn a nice commission.

  He’d raced back here from Cheryl’s place a little while ago, zigzagging through rush-hour traffic. Then showered and shaved in record time—he had a couple of nicks on his face to show for it. Despite all the dashing around, he’d still be half an hour late for the appointment, and the buyer was going to be pissed—he was a cranky old son of a bitch. But what the hell? He’d promise the guy World Series or Super Bowl tickets—which his company could easily get—and everything would be fine. It would be a pain to kiss the guy’s ass for the first few minutes, but it would be worth it. He’d make some nice money on the deal and, besides, that last time he and Cheryl had sex this morning had been incredible. Best of the night. Worth a little ass-kissing.

  He grinned as he aimed his keys at the Explorer and pressed the unlock button, thinking about last night. He’d finally slept with her, and, after a little prodding, she’d done it the way he liked—rough. Not real rough, just a little. Just a preview of what was to come. Which was why he was paying attention to her at all. He’d sensed that once she had sex with him, she’d do whatever he wanted. That she was one of those clingy girls who’d please a man any way he demanded after she’d given herself up. His instincts had been exactly right. She’d done exactly as she’d been told without any complaining.

  He took a deep, satisfied breath. He’d dial the volume up on her a little at a time over the next few weeks. Get her to start sleeping at his apartment so he wouldn’t have to worry about Jack hearing them. This was going to be fun, really fun.

  He was about to hop in behind the wheel when he remembered that his briefcase was in the back. He wanted to go over some notes while he drove to Tampa, and they were in the briefcase. He hurried to the back of the truck, lifted the door, and started to reach inside.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, stumbling backward, his heart suddenly in his throat. He stared at the tan briefcase for a few moments, then realized that the coiled-up snake lying on top of it was fake. He leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing hard. “You suck, Jack Barrett. You suck.”

  Biff and Harry—the EMTs who’d raced to the stadium to help Jack—sat in the front seat of the ambulance, air-conditioning turned on full blast. It was still early in the day, but the temperature had already reached ninety. They were parked in a rest stop off Interstate 75 well east of downtown Sarasota. During their shift they didn’t bother going back to base. Rescue calls came in fast, and this was a more central location from which to cover their territory. There were so many old people down here the heart attack calls never seemed to stop.

  Biff yawned and stretched. He’d been out late last night, and there’d already been three calls since the shift had started at six this morning, two of which had required trips to the hospital. One old guy had already flat-lined by the time they got to him, but they’d made the trip to Sarasota General anyway. For nothing, of course.

  Harry sat behind the steering wheel. “How long you think it’ll be before the next call?”

  Biff shut his eyes and nestled into the corner formed by the passenger seat and the door. Maybe if he got lucky he could snag a little shut-eye. “Seven minutes, Harry, seven minutes. Now how about some peace and quiet? I’m gonna try to catch a few Z’s. Okay? I’m beat.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Harry picked at his cuticles. “I’ll take the under on that. I say it’ll be less than seven minutes.”

  “Fine, damn it.” Being tired and hung over had Biff in a cranky mood. That and being four months behind on his mortgage and two months behind on his credit cards, with no apparent way of bringing them current. The collection departments were starting to hound him, and he could only avoid them for so long. “How much?”

  “A buck.”

  “You got it. Now shut the hell up.”

  “Okay, okay. Jeez. What crawled up your ass?”

  Biff said a quick prayer, begging for help from above.

  “So,” Harry started up again, “how far you think the Yankees’ll go this year?”

  Well, he should have figured that would happen, Biff thought. He hadn’t been to church in more than six months. “Jesus Christ, will you please—”

  “All right,” Harry interrupted.

  Maybe now he’d shut up.

  But another thirty seconds later, Harry was at it again. “I hope that guy we helped at the stadium the other night is okay.”

  Biff sneered. “I hope he’s dead.”

  “The whole reason he didn’t go to the hospital was because he didn’t have insurance. I heard his daughter say it. She was trying to keep it quiet, but I heard her. Poor guy must be broke.”

  “He’ll be happier dead,” Biff snapped. Being broke was no fun. He knew from experience. “Now, for the love of God, will you please give me some damn peace and—”

  “Life Ride 7, LF 7,” blared a female voice through the radio speaker. “Do you copy, LF 7?”

  Harry grabbed the microphone off the dash. “We copy, we copy. What you got?”

  “Heart attack at the Pelican Condos out on SR 91. The address is 11239 Atoll Road. It’s the second left after you go through the front gate. Got it?”

  “Yup!” Harry flipped on the siren and slammed the ambulance into gear. “Here we go, partner.”

  Biff groaned as he sna
pped his seat belt buckle together. There had to be a better way. There just had to be.

  14

  DEUCE.DEUCE.”

  Johnny checked the hallway again, hoping Karen would still be there. Praying Treviso hadn’t noticed his subtle glance. “I, I want your help.” But she was gone. “And I’m gonna get it,” he continued, his voice growing stronger as he was able to refocus.

  “I’ll do whatever I gotta do,” Treviso agreed. “Just tell me why you and Marconi are so fat on McLean. It’s weird, you know? I mean, he’s been dead a coupla years. He died in that damn car accident before I could squeeze the jingle juice out of him. I was out a hundred grand, for Christ’s sake. It was the worst bang I ever took.” He hesitated. “So what’s up?”

  There was no way around it. He had to explain what was going on. “There’s a chance McLean isn’t dead. Yeah, maybe he faked that accident after all.”

  Treviso’s eyes opened wide. “Huh?”

  Johnny grimaced. Treviso suddenly figured he had a shot at recovering the dough. A shot at climbing out of the bottomless pit he’d tumbled into after losing the hundred grand.

  “How’d you find out?” Treviso demanded, rising from his chair.

  “Easy, Tony.”

  “Easy? McLean cost me a hundred freaking grand, Deuce. I figured Marconi was gonna have me popped when he found out the guy croaked. If you know where McLean is, you better tell me.”

  Johnny’s body tensed instantly. Nobody talked at him like that. Except Marconi. “Better? I better tell you?”

  Treviso held out his hands apologetically, sinking back into his chair. “Sorry, Deuce. I, I didn’t mean it like that. But you gotta understand,” he continued quickly, “that was a big-ass loss for me. If you know where McLean is, please tell me. Gimme a shot at getting the money back before you ice him.” Treviso took a deep breath. “I mean, I get it now. That’s why Marconi’s so interested, that’s why you’re on the case. The old man found out the guy who smacked his grandson might still be breathing, and he wants to take him down. Right?”

  Johnny leaned back and lifted both hands above his head, like he was stretching. But he was really checking the hallway again, using his arms to disguise his true intent. She wasn’t there, and he could feel disappointment tugging at his heart. How stupid was that? He’d met only her a few minutes ago. But he couldn’t deny it. Besides, that’s how it had been with his first Karen, too. Right away. As soon as he saw her. “Of course.”

  “He must want this guy bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Treviso pointed at Johnny. “He put his top dog on the trail. He knows you’ll finish it. You always do.”

  Johnny shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, uh-huh.” He’d never taken compliments very well. “And you’re right, Marconi does want this guy bad. Real bad.”

  Treviso clasped his hands together. “Can you help me on this, Deuce?” he begged. “Give me a chance to get the money before you kill him. Please.”

  “No way, Tony. But don’t sweat it. Marconi doesn’t care about the dough no more.”

  Treviso’s face contorted into an expression of utter disbelief. “Really?”

  Of course Marconi still cared about the money. But Johnny was willing to say anything to keep Treviso on the sidelines. Even a blatant lie. “That’s right.”

  “But he’s still docking me, so he must—”

  “Look,” Johnny interrupted loudly, “the boss is just out for blood. It’s a revenge thing sweet and simple.”

  Treviso gazed out through the dirty windowpanes.

  Clearly not convinced, Johnny could tell.

  “If you say so,” Treviso finally mumbled.

  “I do say so. Now, you gonna answer my questions?”

  Treviso nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”

  “So tell me about this Kyle McLean guy.” Johnny eased back in his chair.

  So did Treviso. “He was already a hotshot high school baseball player outta Queens when I first heard about him. Had pro scouts drooling all over him after his junior year. He was a big kid. Tall, huge shoulders, even at seventeen.” Treviso spread his arms wide. “He was a man among boys, Deuce. I saw a coupla games, and he was amazing. He’d crush the ball, a home run at least once a game. A lot of teams ended up intentionally walking him after a while. They said he was going to be the greatest high school player to ever come out of New York. And there’s been some pretty fine talent to come out of here, let me tell you. He probably coulda played pro ball even at that point because he was—”

  “I get the picture,” Johnny said tersely. He wasn’t into baseball, wasn’t into sports in general. “Get on with it.”

  “Sorry, sorry. So anyway, it turns out his mother has cancer or something. I don’t know the specifics. I never asked because I didn’t care. All I knew was it was real bad and they were dirt poor and they didn’t have health insurance because the kid’s father had been outta work for a while. The father was sick, too. I think it was his liver.” Treviso scrunched up his face, like it was painful for him to think back that far. “Anyway, they didn’t have the money for the operation, and the kid was going nuts because if they didn’t operate on her fast she was gonna croak. The kid and his parents were real close.” Treviso grinned slyly. “I heard about the situation through my network, so I went up to him after a game one day. We talked a coupla times, and we worked out a deal.” His expression soured. “At least I thought we did. See, I figured he’d be able to pay me back from some big signing bonus he got from a pro team right after he finished his senior year. It was perfect. It was a lot of money to ask Marconi for, but there was a clear way out of it. There usually isn’t, you know? And I woulda made a lot a money if that thing had come through.”

  Treviso was looking off into the distance again. Undoubtedly thinking about how much better life would have been if the McLean loan had cashed out. “So what happened?” Johnny asked.

  “The first time I hit McLean up for the VIG he jumps all big and bad with me. It was a month after I made the loan, and he tells me to screw myself right in front of one of my guys. Totally disrespects me.”

  “Who was the other guy?”

  “Paulie the Moon.”

  Paulie the Moon was a Lucchesi soldier who worked in one of the Bronx gangs terrifying union officials and carrying out Marconi’s run-of-the-mill hits. The rumor was he’d killed at least fifty people over the years, maybe more. Paulie got his nickname because his face was round as a full moon. He seemed like a gentle giant when you first met him, but he was a mean son of a bitch.

  “McLean says I told him he didn’t have to pay me anything for a year,” Treviso continued angrily. “Which is ridiculous. I’d never say that.”

  Which made sense. No loan shark would ever let a mark go a whole year without at least paying the VIG. That would be stupid. But the kid might really have heard the deal differently. Might have thought when Treviso said he didn’t have to pay the money back for a year it meant he didn’t have to pay anything for a year. The VIG on a hundred thousand would be more than three grand a month, and it would be tough for a seventeen-year-old kid to nut that. Which Tony would have known. Which meant the deal would get renegotiated time and time again. Stretched out with more fees added and interest piled onto interest. So in the end the mark paid way more then he’d first thought he was going to. Sometimes loan sharks didn’t explain everything very well—for obvious reasons. Especially an even slipperier-than-usual one like Tony Treviso.

  “Yeah, okay, I get it,” Johnny said. Now things were falling into place. There’d been a misunderstanding, which happened sometimes. Of course, when there was a misunderstanding, the other side never got any sympathy from the Lucchesi family. They always assumed the misunderstanding was just a mark’s way of trying to wriggle out of the deal. That he was having selective memory about the terms of the transaction. Which was often the case, actually. “So what happens then?”

  “So I start banging on him, I start getting tou
gh. I tell him things are gonna happen if he doesn’t start paying me something. Paulie helped me. He likes that kind of stuff.”

  Paulie loved that kind of stuff, Johnny knew. “You tell the kid you were gonna chop his mother’s head off?”

  Treviso grinned smugly. “Hey, why not? I’m supposed to be good at that, right?”

  Johnny hesitated. There was one part of that story that had never made sense. “That guy paid you back. Right?” he asked. “All fifty grand.”

  Treviso looked up. “Huh?”

  Timid Tony was playing stupid, but Johnny could tell he understood the question. “If he paid you back, why’d you still kill him? Why’d you send his wife the head with the rat in the mouth?”

  Treviso fiddled with the mole on his neck. “You tell me why you always carry that two of hearts, and maybe I’ll tell you about that thing.”

  The mole looked like it was hanging by a thread. Like it was going to fall off in Treviso’s fingers in the next few seconds. “Did you and Paulie kill the kid’s girlfriend?” Johnny would never tell anyone why he carried that two of hearts in his pocket. Or what it signified.

  “What?” Treviso’s face twisted in shock. “No way.”

  Johnny pursed his lips. Treviso’s words told one story, but his expression told quite another. “The truth, Tony. So help me God, I want the truth. Believe me, I’ll know if you’re lying.”

  “Look, Deuce, Paulie’s got a mind of his own. Maybe he did something without telling me. I never asked. I don’t really care, either.” Treviso shrugged. “Maybe you should go talk to Paulie yourself.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Sure, sure, go ahead.” Treviso reached, then hesitated, his fingers half an inch from the cigarettes. “Can I have just one?”

  “When I’m gone.”

  Treviso’s hand retreated slowly from the pack.

  “So your story is,” Johnny continued, “that McLean ran over Marconi’s grandson after you met with him that night in front of the row house. Right?”