Forced Out

by Stephen Frey

  “At least you could have pulled up to the door!” MJ shouted as he neared the Citation.

  “I would have, but the damn thing won’t start.” Jack was laughing so hard he could barely stand up. “And I don’t care. I don’t give a rat’s ass that I’m standing here soaking wet and stranded.”

  MJ started laughing, too. A little at first, then uncontrollably, like Jack.

  “Could you believe it?” Jack shouted, looking heavenward and spreading his arms wide. “Could you believe it?”

  They high-fived twice, then embraced. It was the first time they ever had, but neither one of them hesitated for a second.

  When they pulled back, MJ gazed up into the darkness and spread his arms, too. “It was amazing!” he yelled. “Amazing! Do you know what I felt like, Jack? Do you know what I felt like?”

  “What?” Raindrops trickled down Jack’s face. “What?”

  “Like God!” MJ clenched his hands. “Every time the Kid went to bat he winked at me. As he was climbing the steps out of the dugout each time, he’d wink at me with this sly little grin. He freaking winked, Jack. I knew what was going to happen before it happened four times.”

  Jack nodded. It had been one thing to understand that the Kid was copying Mickey Mantle game for game after going on the Internet and matching Tarpon box scores with Mantle’s 1968 box scores. But it was a whole different deal to tell the Kid what to do and then see him do it.

  “I mean,” MJ continued, “we told him to go one-for-four tonight. A pop-up, double, flyout, groundout. In that order.”

  “And he did it.” Jack spotted the Kid emerging from the clubhouse door and starting to jog toward them. “In that exact order. You’re right. It was incredible.” He shook his head. “Here’s the man of the hour now,” he called when the Kid reached the car, clapping loudly. “You were unbelievable tonight, Kyle. We were just talking about how amazing it was to know what was going to happen before it happened.”

  The Kid grinned. “Yeah, it worked out pretty well, didn’t it? Black Maple was on fire.”

  “On fuego,” MJ echoed.

  Jack was about to say something when he noticed a dark figure move out of the trees at the edge of the lot. “Hey, what the hell?” he said, pointing.

  As Kyle and MJ turned to see what Jack was pointing at, the figure drew a gun from inside his coat, aimed, and fired.

  As the young black kid fell to the gravel, Johnny swung the pistol at the old man. He hadn’t wanted there to be any ancillary killings, but he had no choice. There could be no witnesses, and he needed a head start out of here. If he didn’t kill these other guys, they’d call the cops right away. Unfortunately for the black kid, he was the closest and therefore the most dangerous. So he’d been first to go.

  “Jesus!” the old man shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s the mob!” Kyle shouted. “They never stopped!”

  “That’s right, McLean,” Johnny said with a hiss. “We finally got you after all this time.” He was about to fire again, about to get it all over with.

  When there was a voice behind him.

  “Don’t shoot, Deuce. Just drop the gun and turn around real slow.”

  After the initial shock wave raced through him, Johnny did as he was told. He tossed the gun to the ground, then turned around slowly. And came face-to-face with Tony Treviso.

  “I wanted to see your face before you died,” Treviso said coldly, leveling a revolver at Johnny. “And I wanted you to see mine.”

  “Karen,” Johnny said softly. He’d figured it out instantly, figured out that he’d been played the whole time. “Karen told you everything.”

  “You didn’t really think my wife cared about you, did you, Deuce?” A mean smile crept across Treviso’s face. “But look at it this way. At least I ain’t gonna have the chance to chop your head off and send it to your mother, like I wanted to. At least it’s gonna be quick.”

  Johnny gazed at Treviso. His dream girl had been a traitor all along. Everything he’d hoped to have, hoped to get back, hoped to live. It had all disintegrated in a few horrible seconds. “What do you think, Tony?” Johnny growled. “You think you’re gonna get money outta this guy? He’s broke. There’s no money to get.”

  “Maybe not. But it really doesn’t matter, does it? Because when Marconi finds out I killed Kyle McLean and I tell him you were gonna let him go, the old man’ll let me off the hook. Hell, he might even give me my own crew. He might even—”

  Treviso never finished. The bullet slammed through his right eye and out the back of his skull, sending a crimson spray arcing into the night. He toppled backward, dead before he hit the ground.

  As the man fell to the ground, Jack swung the pistol at the other guy. It was the pistol the first shooter had tossed to the ground a few moments ago. He’d always heard so many people say it was hard to kill a man, even when that man was threatening your life. He’d always heard it was hard to make that ultimate decision to end someone’s life, to pull the trigger when you were aiming at human flesh. Even that crusty old army drill sergeant had said it so long ago in basic training. Well, they’d all been wrong. It hadn’t been hard at all. Not after he’d watched MJ tumble to the ground.

  The guy had never noticed him crawling toward the gun. Or, if he had, must have assumed he was crawling across the gravel to comfort a wounded friend.

  Jack glanced at MJ’s motionless body and felt tears coming on. MJ was the best friend he’d ever had, he realized, allowing the barrel of the gun to fall slightly.

  In that split second, the man who’d shot MJ bolted for the trees.

  Jack brought the pistol up again and fired—as many times as the gun would let him.

  Johnny raced through the Tampa airport. He had five minutes to get to the gate to catch the last plane out to New York City. He hadn’t even bothered to stop off at the condo to drop off the guns he had in the back, just tossed them out the window and into deep water far below the towering bridge at the west end of Tampa Bay as he was speeding to the airport. He had to get back to New York as fast as possible if anything good was to come of all this.

  Jack knocked on the door, barely able to hold back his tears. It was almost midnight, and he was emotionally drained. But he had to do this.

  The guy who’d shot MJ was gone. Jack had fired eleven times, but all eleven bullets had missed. Moving targets were so much harder to hit.

  The Kid had given chase, but the shooter had too big a lead, and he’d disappeared into the night. Jack had spent an hour with the police, and he’d have to go into the precinct tomorrow to work through some administrative details. But the detectives at the scene had agreed—when they’d heard the Kid’s story—that Jack didn’t have anything to worry about. It was a clear-cut case of self-defense.

  The door opened a crack, and Yolanda Billups peered out. “Mr. Barrett? Is that you?”

  Jack swallowed hard, trying to figure out where to start. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  She swung the door open. Two toddlers huddled at her knees. “What is it?” she asked, her voice rising. “What’s wrong? Where’s Curtis?”

  Jack felt himself choking up, and his eyes dropped to the porch floor. “He’s gone.” It was all he could say.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  Jack was sitting in The Dugout, on the same stool he’d been sitting on the first time the Kid walked into the place. He glanced up from his glass of scotch at Howard Olsen. He hadn’t expected Fin to come, but maybe he’d overestimated his old friend. Maybe he should have expected Fin to come. Not to make peace—to gloat.

  “Sit down.” Jack gestured at the stool next to his. “Please,” he said contritely when Fin didn’t move. “Just a few minutes. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “This better be good.” Olsen eased onto the stool. “It’s one-thirty in the morning, Jack. I oughta be doing something a lot more useful than talking to you. Something like sleeping.”
<
br />   “We’ve known each other for forty years.” Jack waved at the bartender, indicating that Fin would have the same thing he was having. “We should try to work this out, try to talk through it.”

  It didn’t take Fin long to get his scotch. There were only two other people in the bar. After he’d taken a long guzzle, he nodded. “Okay, talk.”

  Jack took a few moments to collect his thoughts. He thought about telling Fin what had happened tonight. About the shootings, about MJ. Then decided against it. It was none of Fin’s business, and it didn’t seem like he was going to be much of a shoulder to lean on. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Kyle McLean. Sorry I didn’t tell you I was close to him.” He exhaled heavily. Why was apologizing always so hard? Even when he was actually wrong. “It was because the Kid is my ticket back to the Show, back to the Yankees.”

  “And you couldn’t trust me with that?”

  “I didn’t want the word getting out on him.”

  “No. You thought I’d steal him.”

  “That’s crazy, Fin. What I did was wrong, but I didn’t think you’d take it so personally. I was gonna tell you.” The apology wasn’t going over as well as he’d hoped. “It was really wrong, but I—”

  “Well, I hope you don’t take this personally,” Fin interrupted, finishing what was left of the scotch in two huge gulps. “I had a little talk with Kyle tonight, right before the game. I told him about you and what you did to the Yankees four years ago. About how much of a traitor you are. The kind of man you really are.”

  Jack’s eyes widened. “You what?”

  “Yeah, I told him everything. And Kyle’s listening to me now. He’s done with you. He was coming out to tell you that after the game when everything went crazy. That it’s finished between you and him. I’m just glad you didn’t get him killed.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jack whispered. “All this because I didn’t tell you who he was right away?” It didn’t make sense. A piece of the puzzle was missing. A big piece. “You’d throw away our friendship over this?”

  “You’re damn right I would,” Fin said firmly, standing up. Not bothering to pull his wallet out to pay for his drink. “Hell, I should have thrown our friendship away a long time ago, Jack. A long time ago. But better late than never.”

  What was missing suddenly became crystal clear. “O my God.” Jack’s hands began to tremble. “You found my letters to Doris.”

  “I sure as hell did, you son of a bitch. I found them four years ago in a box in the attic.” Fin’s face turned bright red as his fury boiled over. “My best friend and my wife.” He gritted his teeth. “I almost killed both of you.” He managed a wry chuckle. “But I didn’t. I figured out a better way to get back at you.”

  “You!” Jack shouted. “It was you!” He stood up so fast the stool he’d been sitting on fell backward and crashed to the floor. “You were the one who sent the e-mail to the Red Sox from my computer. You knew about Jeter’s wrist, too. And I’d told you all about David’s drug problem. You knew everything.” The explanation had been staring him in the face for four years, but he’d never figured it out. Probably, he realized, because he hadn’t wanted to figure it out. “My best friend screwed me out of everything.” He could barely breathe. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Because my best friend was having an affair with my wife behind my back for forty years!”

  Jack shook his head. “No, Fin. I never touched Doris, even when we went out in college. We wondered what it would be like all these years. Yeah, we were guilty of that. But we never did anything. We could never do that to you.”

  Olsen leaned in close. “It doesn’t matter now, Fast Jack. Whether you did or you didn’t. What’s done is done. The only thing that matters is that Kyle McLean is working with me now. You’re out of the picture, pal. He’s mine.”

  44

  PAULIE THE MOON lay on his back wearing just his white briefs, suspended from the ceiling of the seafood warehouse on a splintered plywood board. His feet were eighteen inches above his bulbous head, which was level with Johnny’s knees. His hands and ankles were secured together by ropes knotted tightly beneath the board. And there was a chain double-looped around his neck. The ropes and the chain were stronger than the ones Johnny had used on Stephen Casey, and the board was another eighth of an inch thicker. Paulie was huge, powerful, and ax-murderer-crazy when he was furious or caged, and everybody here was worried he might bust through the bindings after the first bucket of water went gushing down his nose. Then it would be every man for himself, and that wouldn’t be pretty. Nobody wanted to play sharks and minnows with Paulie the Moon playing the shark.

  Johnny had already waterboarded the man who owned the body shop Treviso had taken his car to after killing Marconi’s grandson, and the wimp had confirmed the whole story after just one bucket. Yelling at the top of his lungs about how this strange-looking little man with a disgusting mole on his neck had brought the car in and that there’d been a lot of dried blood underneath the bumper and the crumpled fender. The guy had been convincing, but Marconi wanted more. Wanted to hear straight from Paulie’s mouth about how Tony Treviso had killed his grandson.

  Paulie the Moon wouldn’t be as easy to break as the wimp owner of the body shop. In fact, Paulie might not break at all. He was shivering like he was buried naked in a snowdrift, and parts of his body already seemed to be turning blue. But he hadn’t bitched once. Hadn’t pleaded for any kind of mercy. You had to give him credit for that, damn it.

  It didn’t seem like the first bucket even affected Paulie. Or the second one. But the third one started to rattle him. Johnny could see it in the way the big man’s body tensed. The fourth bucket caused the awful panic Johnny was used to seeing in his victims after the first bucket—the body trying to move any muscle it could any way it could to escape. And after the fifth bucket washed over his face, Paulie was screaming like a baby. Admitting that Treviso had run the little boy down.

  Johnny glanced over as Marconi emerged from the shadows, just as he was about to pour a sixth bucket down Paulie’s nose. The old man nodded, then gave the slash sign. Johnny nodded back, pulled out a pistol, and shot Paulie in the temple. Paulie’s body trembled for a few seconds, then went still. And everyone in the room breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  Johnny put the pistol slowly down on Paulie’s chest. At least some good had finally come of all this. At least Kyle McLean would be able to follow his dream. It was the least Johnny could do for the Kid after killing his mother.

  45

  HOWARD OLSEN GLANCED at his watch, then across his desk. Kyle McLean sat in a big leather chair in the corner of Olsen’s Yankee Stadium office, madly pushing buttons on his Game Boy. “I’d say don’t be nervous,” Olsen spoke up, “but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate.” The Kid’s tryout was less than an hour away. Right downstairs on the Yankee Stadium field.

  “It’ll be fine,” Kyle said calmly, still pushing buttons, faster and faster. “Don’t sweat it. I got my bats in the bag right over there.” He motioned at a canvas bag in one corner of the room, then refocused on the video game. “They’re all I need.”

  “You wanna change?” The Kid was wearing a ragged T-shirt, sweatpants, and high-top sneakers.

  “Nah.”

  “They’re gonna use Kenny Palmer to pitch to you,” Olsen warned. “He’s seven-and-one so far this season. With a 1.78 earned-run average.”

  “And he won the Cy Young Award last season,” Kyle said as if by rote, rolling his eyes. “Won twenty-four and lost only six. He’s got a ninety-seven-mile-an-hour fastball, a slider that changes directions like an F-16, and a curve that falls off a table six feet high. I know, I know. You told me twenty times. Don’t worry.”

  “He’s a vet,” Olsen pushed. “He hates young guys.”

  “Of course he does. Tell you what: I’ll smile at him real nice from the batter’s box right before he throws me that first pitch.”

  “Don’t take this
so lightly, Kid.”

  Kyle ended the game. “It’s okay, Fin, I’m not taking it lightly. I’m really not. Look, you have your way of focusing, I have mine. Okay?”

  “Okay, okay.” Olsen could feel his palms sweating. Everything important in life came down to a few precious moments. Wasn’t that the old adage? Well, this was surely one of them. “And what are you gonna say when the tryout’s over?”

  Kyle cursed and tossed the Game Boy toward his bag of bats. “I’m gonna walk over to the dugout where everybody’s standing, point at you, and tell the suits that if they want me to sign a contract with the New York Yankees, they gotta go through you.” He hesitated. “Satisfied?”

  Olsen broke into a broad smile. “Yeah, I’m satisfied.”

  Johnny knelt down and laid five dozen roses on the gravestone, then ran his fingertips across the chiseled letters. Karen Nicole Robinson. He missed her more than he ever had. He’d cheated on her and he’d broken his code of honor. There wasn’t much left to do wrong. At least he’d done the right thing in the end.

  When he’d kissed the creased two of hearts one last time, he pulled out the pistol he’d shot Paulie with and pressed the barrel to his chin. Then he looked up into the trees and waited for a sign, waited for the wind to blow. But it didn’t. Everything stayed deathly still.

  So he pulled the trigger.

  The last thing he ever saw was the two of hearts lying beside him. Then everything went dark. And for the first time in many years, Johnny Bondano was at peace.

  46

  THE KID SAUNTERED toward the plate, still wearing his tattered T-shirt, sweatpants, and high-tops. It was three-thirty in the afternoon, less than four hours before the start of tonight’s game against the Red Sox. Yankee Stadium was still quiet and peaceful beneath a partly cloudy late June sky. Six front-office suits, several coaches, and a couple of players milled around the dugout, making small talk while they waited for what they assumed would be a train wreck of cataclysmic proportions. Still, it was always fascinating to see someone crash and burn like this. It was like watching that terrible NASCAR wreck on television. Awful to watch the cars tumble over and over and burst into flames, but you couldn’t pry your eyes from the screen even if you tried. The human struggle to survive was simply too compelling. Just like it would be here.