by Dave Daren
“Tommaso,” I called as I hurried into the kitchen.
My paralegal had taken to cooking lunch for us. He usually experimented with whatever Youtube recipe that he’d come across during his late-night binges, and so far they had all turned out delicious.
“What’s wrong?” the young Italian man said as he looked up from slicing a beefsteak tomato.
His eyebrows crashed together when he saw the panicked look on my face and the way that I stuffed my feet into my wingtip shoes without untying them first.
“Gulia said they’re under attack,” I panted. “Leave that shit where it is. Let’s go.”
“Do you have your gun?” Jovanni’s nephew asked as he hurried to grab his backpack from the office.
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard gunshots before the line went dead.”
“Fuck,” the curly-haired man said. “I’ll call my uncle.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll call Anthony.”
I dialed my client’s number, but it went to voicemail like his mother’s had. Frustrated, I ran into the garage and climbed into the driver’s seat with my paralegal just a few steps behind me. I almost forgot to put the garage door up, and only a squawk from Tommaso kept me from crashing into the thing.
I knew I had to calm down, but it seemed impossible. I forced myself to sit still for a moment, and then I opened the garage door and threw my car into reverse while I was still buckling my seat belt. I glanced over at my paralegal as he talked to his uncle on the phone, and then tore down my quiet suburban street for what I was sure was a gunfight.
My pulse raced, and my heart beat so hard that I could hear it as we raced between cars on the expressway. I had no idea what I was about to find, and images of the last shoot-out I’d seen flashed in my memory. I didn’t want to picture the matriarch lying in a pool of her own blood, but the image came unbidden.
I spotted a cop car near one of the exits, but I zipped by and put plenty of cars between us while the driver was still getting his own car up to speed. The towns sped by as we swerved around the slower-moving traffic, though I barely registered the now familiar names. I dodged around mini-vans and nearly swerved beneath a semi until finally, I saw the exit I wanted.
The tires squealed as I peeled off the expressway, and Tommaso made some sort of gurgling noise as the car started to drift into oncoming traffic as I tried to take the turn much too fast. Somehow, amidst a barrage of honking horns and angry shouts, I pulled the Mercedes back into the lane and shot past the rest of the cars.
“Shit,” Tommaso muttered as I cut around a slow-moving tractor in the face of an oncoming SUV.
But I pulled the Mercedes back into the right lane with inches to spare, and I heard Tommaso mutter something in Italian. At last, I made the turn onto the long driveway, and I felt the gravel shift under my car’s tires. Tiny pieces of gray stone shot out toward the tree line as I gunned the engine and barreled toward the house.
“Shit,” I whispered when the grand house came into view.
There were bullet holes everywhere.
They riddled the walls, the terra cotta roof shingles, and they’d broken out most of the windows in the front of the house. The fountain and statue of the naked woman in the middle of the driveway had been shot to pieces, and the water burbled up from the broken limbs as if she was bleeding.
Cop cars were spread out where the line of black Chrysler 300s were normally parked, and two ambulances swung into place behind us as I parked. The red and blue lights of the police cars flashed across the torn-up bushes, but the sirens had already been silenced.
“My uncle said he’d be here soon,” Tommaso said as he stared at the chaos in front of us.
“Good,” I said while I threw the car in park and jumped out without bothering to shut off the engine.
I looked around for any signs of the Febbos, and I kept my hand on my gun just in case the cops were involved in the attack. I gulped hard when I saw the curly black toupee that Michael had taken to wearing lately, but I couldn’t see any blood nearby. I hoped that meant he’d simply lost his hair as he ran for cover, but I needed to be sure.
Our arrival had finally drawn the attention of the police on the scene, and I could see two of the local cops heading toward us, no doubt to tell us we couldn’t enter the house because it was an active crime scene. I didn’t give them a chance to stop us as I sprinted across the drive, up the stairs, past the bullet-ridden front door, and threw myself across the threshold.
There was debris everywhere, from broken glass to bits of plaster, and everything was riddled with signs of the attack. I forced myself to ignore the fallen paintings with gaping holes, the men in uniforms who trampled everything in their path, and the puddles of dark red liquid on the floor. Instead, I looked between the kitchen and the stairs as I tried to decide who to check on first.
Gulia appeared before I could make my decision. The auburn-haired woman had plaster in her hair, and there were small smudges under her eyes like she’d wiped away mascara-stained tears. She had her hands on her shapely hips as she snapped at a uniformed officer that had stepped on the remains of a vase.
“Gulia,” I said with a sigh of relief. “You’re alive.”
“No thanks to those stronzos,” she huffed before she forced a smile and came over to give me a hug. “I’m glad that you were able to get here so fast. Anthony was in the office the last time that I saw him.”
“Have you let the EMTs take a look at you?” I asked.
I had to see my client and find out what the hell had happened, but neither of the Febbo men would last long if something happened to the matriarch. I knew who was the real glue that held the family together, and even though she had a brave face on, she still shivered as she looked around her once beautiful home.
“Bah,” the tough woman said with a wave of a hand. “Those idioti couldn’t hit the broad sign of a barn. I’m fine. I need to make sure these elefanti don’t break anything else. Go.”
She shooed me away when I remained in the same place to study her. She didn’t have any blood on her, but I still looked over to Tommaso to give him a silent order not to leave her side. She rolled her eyes as the young man strolled over with his bright smile, but she put him to work while she went back to giving the cops directions and telling them not to step on the broken pottery.
“Sir,” a young man with a thin moustache said as I started up the stairs. “Excuse me, sir, but everyone is supposed to go outside. We have to take your statements and have the EMTs check you out.”
“I need to check with my client,” I said.
“If you’re talking about Mr. Febbo,” the cop said as he glanced out of the open doorway. “He’s already outside.”
I narrowed my eyes as I tried to decide if he was lying or not, but the guy rolled his eyes and pointed to the ambulance where I could just barely make out my client. I nodded my head and then trotted out to where Anthony sat on a bumper with a pretty EMT.
“I told you that I’m fine,” the mafioso growled.
The paramedic had her wavy blonde hair braided and spun into a bun. She had bandages in her hand as she tried to cover the cut on Anthony’s bicep from what I assumed was a bullet. She seemed unphased by the grouchy man in front of her as she continued to work despite his protests.
Anthony’s face was red with rage all the way up his neck and into his hairline. He’d never reminded me so much of his father, even on one of his recent tirades, but the resemblance was uncanny. He gripped the bumper of the ambulance until his knuckles turned white, and he ground his teeth together to keep his temper in check.
“Mr. Febbo?” an older officer with a toothpick in his mouth asked.
He was in the same uniform that everyone else had, but he had the air of someone in charge. His dark brown hair was dusted with gray, and his chin was covered with a five o’clock shadow despite it being a little after noon. He had narrow hips that bulged out around the middle and up to broad shoulders.
> “My client’s name is Anthony Lamon,” I said as I stepped between the two men.
I knew Anthony well enough to know that he was barely holding onto his tongue, and if the cop said the wrong thing, then my client would spend the night in lockup for disorderly conduct. I put on my best smile as the man’s hazel eyes shifted to me.
He looked me up and down with disdain, snorted, and then removed the toothpick from his mouth and stuffed it into his pocket.
“You must be a lawyer,” he sneered.
“I am,” I said. “My name is Hunter Morgan. I assume you’ve already interviewed everyone you could? How many people were taken to the hospital?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the older man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I know to do my due diligence. We got three people on the way to the ER, and my men are right behind them.”
“Were there any fatalities?” I asked.
I held my breath as I waited for the answer. I hadn’t seen Michael, Annie, or even Sal, though if one of them had been hurt, then Anthony wouldn’t be nearly as quiet as he was at the moment.
“They were lucky,” the cop said with a one-shoulder shrug. “Only a few gunshot wounds, but nothing that’s going to put anyone in the morgue.”
“Lucky?” Anthony whispered.
“That’s a poor choice of words,” I warned as I glanced behind me.
The younger Febbo stood with his lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed at the officer in front of me. His chest heaved up and down as he balled his hands into fists, and the vein in his forehead looked like it might burst.
“Sorry,” the man said without any feeling. “What started all of this?”
“This is all your fault!” Sal shouted from the top of the stairs. “If you had actually followed up after the attack on my life, then the same people wouldn’t have tried to kill my son.”
The head of the Febbo estate was framed in the doorway of his home with his beautiful wife at his elbow. He didn’t have a gun on him, but the way he looked at the officer made me think he didn’t need one. He looked like he could snap the man’s neck with his bare hands, and as he started toward the steps, I thought that was about to happen. But Gulia put her hand on his arm to keep him from rushing down the slick marble, and though he almost pulled away from her, he seemed to rethink his decision and took a slow pace to us.
“We did what we could,” the cop said. “But there’s not much we can do in these mob wars. Especially since no one ever gives us all the information.”
The salt and pepper-haired man pulled the toothpick back out of his pocket and stuck it into his mouth. He was smart enough to take two steps back so he could look at each of us without having his back to anyone. He pulled the toothpick from his mouth again, held it between his fingers with one hand, and rested the other on his sidepiece.
“I gave you plenty,” Sal snarled.
“You have had months,” Anthony huffed. “And you haven’t made one arrest. If you had, maybe whoever tried to kill him wouldn’t have rolled up and peppered my car with bullets.”
I kept my face neutral as I glanced over at the Chrysler 300 that was riddled with holes, and then I looked back over at my client as I checked him again for wounds. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to only have the one cut on his arm.
“If my son had died,” the head of the Febbo family said in a low voice. “There would’ve been consequences.”
“Listen,” the cop grumbled. “There’s no chance that we can arrest anyone. Everything is a dead-end. Unless you all want to tell us more than, and I quote, ‘they were in black cars with automatic rifles.’”
“That is a very good place to start,” I said.
“Yeah, sure,” the older man said. “I’ll get back to the station and start going through the red light photos. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and they’ll have run a redlight.”
“Thank you,” Gulia said before either of the men could respond. “We’ll call you if we can remember anything else.”
The cop gave the matriarch a smile before he strolled toward one of the vehicles. He waved his hands to the others around the driveway, and soon the lingering officers and ambulances were ready to go. They drove out without another word, and the Febbo men watched them leave as if they were debating shooting someone themselves.
“Bullshit,” Anthony growled. “They haven’t done anything. They’re completely useless.”
“This is something that we have to handle on our own,” Sal said.
“I need to make some calls,” the beautiful matriarch said as she brushed some of the plaster off of her blouse. “I’ll have someone here to work on the house by the end of the day.”
She looked between her husband and her son before she drifted back into the house like she was being carried by a breeze.
“We need to go after them,” my client said as he started to pace.
“Of course, we do,” his father said with a nod. “We can’t let them get away with this. It’ll make us look weak.”
“It’s one thing for them to come after you and me, but ma could’ve been hurt,” the younger Febbo huffed. “Thank God Michael realized what the hell was happening and sounded the alarm.”
I looked back and forth between the two men. I didn’t like the crazed look in Anthony’s eyes, or the eager look Sal had in his, but they were thinking as one at the moment. I needed to figure out a way to calm them down so that I could propose a less lethal plan, preferably one that wouldn’t give the mayor any more reason to focus on us.
The sound of gravel crunching had all three of us spinning and reaching for the guns on our hips. A beathup Crown Vic rolled toward us, navigated around the broken pieces of stone from the fountain, and came to a stop a few feet away from us.
“Good afternoon, gentleman,” Hisashi said as he stepped out of his car.
“Who the hell are you?” Sal growled.
“Feds,” Anthony said.
“Get the hell out of here,” the head of the Febbo family said.
The bald agent put his hands up in the air as he walked over to us, and sent a warning look back to his young partner.
“We come in peace,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Monroe or Sal, but neither of them looked like they believed him.
“We heard about the shoot-out and wanted to make sure everyone is okay,” the federal agent continued.
“We’re as good as we can be,” I hedged. “We’d be better if we’d heard about some arrests.”
The older FBI agent nodded his head as he stopped a foot away from me.
“The investigation is doing better since our anonymous friend gave us some information,” Hisashi said. “But, it might be a little faster if we could add attempted murder.”
“We’re not rats,” Sal warned.
“No, you’re crooks,” Monroe said.
“What did you just--” the angry mafioso snarled as he puffed out his chest.
“Excuse my partner,” the bald agent said as he moved between the two. “He’s young and an idiot.”
“I’m not-” the younger agent started but snapped his mouth shut when Hisashi glared at him until he was silent.
“Pops,” Anthony said as he put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go check on mom? She looked pretty shaken up.”
The older Febbo looked like he wanted to curse or scream at his son, but he managed to nod his head and then walked inside with only a slight limp.
I took that as a good sign, though there was still a dark look in my client’s eyes that told me the talk about retribution was only on hold. I hoped that Hisashi could give us some more information about the investigation so that Anthony would see that progress was being made and that he didn’t have to resort to violence, but considering how scared Gulia had sounded, even I was leaning toward spilling blood.
“So,” Hisashi said after Sal was inside. “What happened?”
Anthony looked around at the bullet
holes in his cars and in the front windows, let out a long sigh, and ran a hand through his short curls. His shoulders were still tense, and his head was held high, but there were heavy bags under his eyes, and plaster on one of his cheeks.
“I had just come home from a meeting,” my client started.
“A meeting?” Monroe asked with a smirk. “Is that what you call it?”
“Careful,” I said as I narrowed my eyes at the younger man. “You don’t have to be here.”
The fed rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest while he pressed his lips together dramatically.
“Like I said,” Anthony said with a glower at Monroe. “I’d just come home when a couple of black cars came up the driveway. I knew they weren’t ours because we only drive the Chrysler 300s. Anyways, they opened fire, and I had just enough time to jump into the back seat before they turned the side of my car into Swiss cheese.”
“Was it the Serbians?” Monroe asked with a hopeful glance to his partner.
“Who else?” my client asked.
Hisashi nodded his head and tapped his foot.
I could see the wheels in his mind start to turn, and I wondered what connections he was making. I knew without a doubt that it was the Serbians, and that they must’ve figured out that we’d taken a copy of the server’s data. But there hadn’t been any arrests, so it wasn’t like it had hurt them. So was it simply a way to make their own statement about not stealing from them?
“How close are you to making the arrests?” I asked.
“Well,” the bald agent hedged. “This is a pretty huge case. I can’t go into all the details, but the corruption and RICO cases are going to be a big deal. We need to make sure that everything is in order before we can start arresting people, or we’ll lose some of them.”
“What else do you need?” the young mafioso next to me huffed. “You have the server and the laptop. That should be enough.”
