The Ortega Gambit: A classic crime thriller

by J. Palma

  Fat Mikey said, "I'll bite. Was he lying?"

  "No, of course not. He thought we were going to let him live. It took the goat only another hour to reach the man's knee. He was begging for us to shoot him."

  Fat Mikey said, "That's some biblical shit."

  "In the end, when he gave all he could give, we shot him three times." He held up three fingers.

  Fat Mikey asked, "Why'd you shoot him three times? Jesus Christ."

  "Habit. In Naples, when we really want to send a message, we use three shots. Chest, mouth and the top of the head, slightly above the forehead." Like a macabre sign of the cross, Vincenzo’s fingers touched each area as he listed them. "We do it this way so there can be no open casket. Killing is not indiscriminate. We get close to see the whites of their eyes. When we kill it is not for sport or enjoyment. It is always a message. You understand? His killing warned any other snitch of what awaits them. We don't fire at random from a passing car at a party where the target may or may not be. That is for cowards."

  Fat Mikey, half-smiling, made a low grunt.

  Vincenzo said, "This man, this snitch, his death was already decreed. We were, as we say, squeezing blood from fleas. He violated what was sacred to our family and his death had to be appropriate. What he did was an unpardonable sin. And the message was clear."

  A smile spread across Tony Pipes face exposing small teeth unevenly spaced apart. He grumbled something, his eyes stretched wide with excitement as he spoke. Fat Mikey translated, "He said he'd kill that boy for free. With a knife, watching him bleed. Like a pig."

  "Where I come from, we do not kill children. This is different."

  Dinner arrived. Fat Mikey had ordered two steaks well done, with garlic-mashed potatoes. Tony Pipes had ordered a ribeye, rare, and onion rings. He put mustard on both. Vincenzo had roasted chicken with a salad.

  Fat Mikey, tipsy enough to be belligerent, pointed his steak knife at Vincenzo and said, "Why you come to a steakhouse and order the fucking chicken? The steak not good enough for you here? Man, I'm gonna keep it real here. I'm tired of you old world guineas looking down on me and Tony. Like you better than us. In your designer suit, you look like a faggala if you ask me. But over here—you just like me—a dumb guinea. A solidati. You just down in the shit like the rest of us. No one gives a shit about you. You're not special. If you so special why you here chasing down a kid and a crazy bitch? You talk about your code. Your honor. Don't give me that shit about your code. I don't care about your stories and your little stupid ceremonies. You're doing what you're doing for the paper. Do you understand that? It means money. It's always about the money. Don't fucking forget that. If your code of honor is how you have to rationalize what you do so you can sleep better at night, that's fine. That's your fucking deal. But don't act like you better for it. You didn't say no when they gave you that photo with the kid and told you he's the fuckin' target, did ya? Man, you don't know nuthin’.”

  "What do you have me say?" Vincenzo wanted to shout something like, "I did not have the luxury of choice." But for what? That's what they wanted, to provoke him. Indeed, he was upset at his brother's indignant death. But somehow he kept his cool and continued eating his chicken. Of course he blamed the nanny. He vowed he would kill her at his first chance. He didn't care about the kid. What would Fat Mikey say? Vincenzo didn't care about that either. Anyone who interfered would reach a similar fate. In his mind, she was the reason Nino was in a shallow, unmarked grave. Whenever Vincenzo closed his eyes, there it was. The red Chevy slamming into his brother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  AFTER BEAR MOUNTAIN, Lucina and Charles crossed the Hudson River and drove north. They didn't travel far, as the little MG ran out of gas just outside of nearby Beacon. The car rolled to a stop on the edge of a small park separated into two baseball diamonds opposite each other. A pair of streetlights cast the parking lot in an amber aura. With Charles steering, Lucina had little trouble pushing the small car a short distance into the gravel lot. Noiselessly, she raised the rag top and they slept in the car. But with every passing car she stirred awake and checked her rear-view mirror, expecting to see someone creeping towards them.

  At dawn she stood beside the car and stretched. Remembering the maps in her shoulder bag, she spread them out on the hood. The town of Beacon, New York, was just a little over a mile ahead. She lifted her head, suddenly transfixed on the field in front of her. Early morning sunlight shimmered in the field, captured in a web of morning dew. The moment lasted for a few seconds, the sun climbed, the angle changed, and the field returned to the unspectacular.

  She dumped the contents of her bag on top of the map: uncharged smartphone, lipstick, leather wallet, three comic books, a corkscrew, beret, headband, sunglasses, Tic Tacs, chocolate bar, and a Batman mask.

  She ate half the chocolate and pulled the beret snug over her head. What was of importance was what was missing. She’d left behind Nino's pistol in their room at the Bear Mountain Inn. She sat against the door of the MG with her knees drawn close to her chest, unsurprised by her odor. She lifted the dead smartphone between her thumb and index finger like she was holding a dead rat by the tail, unsure if the assassins were using it to follow her every move. But she had a plan to find out.

  Charles awoke at nearly 7 a.m. Grouchy, hungry, and, much like Lucina, in dire need of a bath. He devoured the remaining half of the chocolate bar. After they used a porta-john at the far end of the lot, they cleaned the MG of any trace that they had been in it. Then they walked single file along the dusty shoulder of Route 9 into downtown Beacon.

  On the edge of the town, they stopped half way across a short bridge with a rushing creek below. Her eyes moved from the water to smooth giant rocks lining the water's edge, some as wide as a hippo's back. Dense thickets of trees crowded both shores of the creek. Behind the trees, an Industrial Revolution-era brick building, once abandoned, seemingly in the midst of a massive renovation. She heard a lawn mower somewhere in the distance.

  In downtown Beacon, she bought a smartphone charger with cash from a Rite-Aid, but had nowhere to plug it in.

  They ate at the first restaurant they encountered—a breakfast and lunch joint three blocks from the creek. They sat in the corner. A few TVs hung overhead with the morning news with the volume muted. The daily weather report came on. A computer graphic promised sunny skies and few clouds. Another graphic warned about the current ragweed season.

  A waitress with brown hair, tawny skin, green eyes and a sharp thin nose, took their order. Charles ordered pancakes with extra butter and bacon. Lucina ordered toast and coffee. Before the waitress left, Lucina asked, "Do you have some place where I can charge my phone? I'm in a hurry and my car, its old, it doesn't have a, oh, what is it? A connector?"

  "Behind the counter we got a place where all the girls plug their phones. Just don't forget." She took the phone and the charger without smiling.

  The food came and they devoured their meals without looking up.

  "Would you like me to top you off?" The waitress returned to the table with a pot of coffee.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Do you want me to top you off?"

  "She wants to know if you want more coffee," Charles explained.

  "Please." Lucina pushed her mug closer to the waitress.

  Charles ordered another two pancakes. Lucina offered no protest, her mind elsewhere.

  "I want to go home," he said, after he finished his second plate.

  Lucina didn't hear his plea.

  In no rush to leave, her mind cleared with each cup of coffee but she still felt tired. She had barely slept the previous night and fought a strong urge to put her head down on the table and close her eyes.

  In the booth diagonal to them, a pair of elderly women talked about how their friend added avocado to her tuna.

  One of them said, "Well, she always did eat healthy."

  Seated beside Lucina and Charles, a mother and a small child ate breakfast. The mother fed
the child, who looked much too old to be fed. The child smiled and the mother smiled back. The affection annoyed Lucina. Turning to Charles, she wondered how to comfort him. What to do or what to say eluded her just as it had eluded her own parents.

  Charles said, "I wish Darlene was here."

  "What did you say?"

  Charles didn't repeat himself, sensing the rising tide of her anger.

  Her eyes drifted to the TV and almost instantly, Lucina's face tightened into a scowl. Lucina paused, her mind not processing the images displayed on the screen. A missing person's alert with a reward came on TV. Charles looked different than the photo, and for a moment she thought the boy on the screen was someone else. Now he was sun-burnt, thinner, and his hair was unkempt and nearly blonde.

  A large group of people came in and sat at a large table, everyone talking at once, but no one paid any attention to the TVs. Lucina jerked upright when the report focused on her passport photo. Who gave the station her photo? How long had her photo and name been broadcasted? She wondered if she could ask the waitress to turn up the volume without drawing attention to herself. By the time the report concluded, Lucina had hunched forward on her elbows and gritted her teeth, confident neither she nor Charles resembled their photos. This detail alone prevented Lucina from a nervous breakdown.

  Lucina paid in cash without handing the waitress the check. Spooked, she realized that not only would the police be looking for her and Charles, but so would strangers wishing to collect the fifty-thousand-dollar reward. Before she left, she scanned the restaurant. People ignored the TV, content with staring into their smart phones, at risk of ignoring their dining companions.

  "What are we going to do now?" he asked as they walked Main Street, returning the way they came.

  "Just walk."

  After a block, her composure returned, until a voice from behind yelled, "Miss! Miss!"

  Lucina froze, then turned and watched the waitress from the restaurant sprinting after them. Lucina fought her instinct to run.

  "Miss!" The waitress waved something at them. Out of breath, she said, "I've been chasing after you for over a block now. You two walk fast. Well, here's your phone and charger. I told you, don't forget, and what did you do? You forgot." The waitress was flushed from effort.

  Lucina smiled weakly, uncertain how to respond. She took the phone and charger from the waitress and thanked her.

  The phone now charged to thirty percent, brought a deep sense of dread over her. How long had it been on? How long had they been sitting while the device broadcast their exact latitude and longitude? Lucina decided they didn't have much time. She assumed the assassins were near. She grabbed hold of Charles' hand and raced to the brick building near the creek they passed earlier.

  Construction had been halted for some reason or another. Debris piled along the building's perimeter. It was ordinary, and like much of the surrounding buildings, was all brick and only a few stories high. All the windows were boarded up and scaffolding flanked one side. What kind of business had it once housed? She didn't care. She just needed a place to hide. After searching through the rubble, she hid the phone in the first place she considered. Near the entrance, beneath pieces of broken brick. Every aspect of her situation hinged on the events that would follow.

  With nothing else to do but wait, Lucina and Charles retreated to the creek bed and stayed out of view.

  Lucina expected the men to instantly roar into the lot, jump out and surround the phone, confirming her suspicions once and for all. But after an hour of sitting still, she tired and grew bored. She allowed herself near the water and felt better, the moving water having a magical effect on her nerves.

  Squatting at the water's edge, she saw her reflection and touched her face, her hair. She looked dreadful. The creek was deeper near the bank and moved swiftly. In some places, the water was spread thin over a sandy bottom. Beneath the bridge they crossed earlier, the creek water appeared black and smooth like glass. Upstream and on the other side of the bridge, she glimpsed a small waterfall. She washed her t-shirt and, spread it out on a large rock positioned well in the sun. After, she splashed water on her face and then her hair.

  Charles clambered over rocks, chasing after crawfish in the deeper channels. He didn't seem bothered by the thought of the approaching assassins. She told him to be quiet and stay close. She fell asleep against the side of a sloping boulder, the sound of the rushing water hypnotic and serene. When she awoke, she panicked at first, but when she located Charles about a hundred yards downstream, jumping from rock to rock with the agility of a goat, her mind relaxed. Her t-shirt had dried enough and she put it back on.

  A truck pulled in and she felt her heart pound. Clouds of dust rose up, awakening a metallic taste in her mouth. But when the dust settled, a man in a yellow hard hat unloaded eight-foot sections of rebar from the back of his truck. After fifteen minutes, the truck exited, taking its sweet time through a gate in the chain link fencing. She sighed deeply and her hands trembled.

  Still hungry, she managed a smile, and knew that food must wait. For now, Charles seemed happy attempting to skip rocks in the slow parts of the creek. Her sense of satisfaction that somehow she continued to protect him, however, was short-lived.

  A yellow Ford Bronco raced into the work site, spraying rocks and dust in its wake, skidding to a stop directly across from Lucina. Tony Pipes jumped out, slammed the door, and took a few steps towards the woods, looking. Only a narrow section of woods and a few gray boulders separated him from the nanny. He wore black basketball shorts and a gray hooded sweatshirt. His hand dipped into a fanny pack slung low across his hips and removed a pack of smokes and a lighter. He lit a cigarette and waited.

  Charles continued skipping rocks, unaware of their new visitor.

  Lucina frantically waved at Charles and when she finally had his attention, she gestured for him to hide. He ducked behind a boulder, half in the water.

  With his smart phone extended like a divining rod, Tony Pipes circled the building, but soon returned to where he parked, sweeping the section of wall near his parked Bronco. A moment later he zeroed in on the hidden device and fished it from the rubble.

  Leaning against the hood of the Bronco, he dropped both phones into his fanny pack and smoked another cigarette. Looking at him, she became fearful, worried. Suddenly his eyes glanced up to her hiding spot.

  She thought she felt his dark eyes on her and she withdrew completely behind a large boulder. After a few minutes she raised her head and he was no longer there. Looking around, she saw him standing further down the parking lot, about twenty yards beyond the Bronco.

  Lucina watched Charles rush out of the woods. He seemed to move so slowly and was carelessly unaware just how close Tony Pipes stood to him. When he saw Tony Pipes, it was too late.

  Pipes grabbed him by a handful of hair and brought him close to his face. She heard muffled shouts and watched Charles squirm. She imagined Pipes was asking in his broken voice where Lucina was. When Charles didn't answer, unable to comprehend the words leaking from Tony’s lips, Tony repeatedly slapped the boy about the face. Lucina could no longer suffer through the scene and emerged from her hiding spot, her hands bunched into tight fists.

  When Tony Pipes saw the nanny approach, he yanked the boy's hair harder and twisted the boy's neck until Lucina and Charles faced each other.

  "Let him go," Lucina said as she neared. The emotion she had developed for the child was strong. She knew whatever would happen to him would befall her as well.

  Tony Pipes released his grip on Charles' hair but retained the boy by his shoulder.

  The three of them stood close in the middle of the parking lot. Over Tony Pipes' shoulder, she saw a man approach. He wore tan overalls and a yellow hard hat.

  "You're trespassing. You gonna have to leave." His tone changed from annoyance to alarm as he neared the trio. "What's going on here?"

  "This man is trying to take the little boy. I saw from the bridge."
>
  Tony Pipes' eyes darkened on Lucina. His hand disappeared into his fanny pack and he stepped closer to the construction worker who had his hard hat under the crook of his arm.

  The man squared off with Tony Pipes, who had released Charles. "What are you doing here? We get all kinds of yahoos and crackheads coming in here. Is that what you are? Why don't you leave these good people alone? I'm not afraid to call the police."

  Lucina grabbed Charles' hand. Blood oozed from his nose and bottom lip.

  There was a dark blur as Tony's hand emerged from his fanny pack holding a telescopic baton. In mid swing, the baton expanded to its full length and crashed into the man’s head. The man held his face, now creased with a bloody gash. Tony slammed the baton against the man's right knee. The man toppled over and Tony obliged him with kick after kick.

  Instinctively, Lucina pulled Charles away and said, "I have an idea." They ran towards the abandoned building.

  Standing across the street, vigilant as a ghost, Vincenzo saw everything. Dressed in his black suit and polished shoes, he looked like a lost young business executive. The construction worker staggered to his feet, shook his head, and dusted himself off. He collected his hard hat and trudged away, stumbling as though drunk. When the parking lot cleared, Vincenzo moved to the boarded entrance to the building. Here, the girl and boy had slipped through a narrow gap beneath the plywood paneling. Tony Pipes had used a knife to remove a section so he could pass.

  Before proceeding, Vincenzo halted and listened. Tree branches rattled against each other in a faint summer breeze. A dog barked. Cars passed nearby on Main Street. He rubbed at his eyes with gloved fingertips. He looked around. He unholstered his MK 23 and entered the building.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN