When the short one had finished looking through the house, he stood over her, too, then pointed a threatening finger at her and said, “This shit you and your ex pulled today isn’t going away until the money turns up.”
She had been too scared to reply. She was thinking she had nodded and might’ve said, “Okay.”
Then the short one had kneeled down alongside her and reached a hand up her skirt and grabbed her there hard and she gasped again.
“I’ll pull them out one a time, your cunt hairs, I have to come back,” he had said.
After they left, Nancy had managed to crawl to the kitchen and use a chair to stand up again. She glanced at her reflection in the small mirror alongside the wall phone and could see the right side of her face was puffy.
Then she was sick and had to use the toilet. She was still dry-heaving when she heard the phone ring. Her ribs hurt too much to move. She ignored the call.
A few minutes later the phone rang again. Nancy had managed to make it back to the kitchen. She answered the phone in a weak, cracked voice.
“Hello?”
“Nan?”
She couldn’t speak.
“It’s John.”
“Oh, God!” she cried. “What have I done?”
* * * *
John’s emotions ran the gamut from guilt to rage after Nancy told him what had happened. As much as she deserved the trouble she had brought on herself, he couldn’t deal with a woman being slapped around. He did his best to calm her down and walk her through what she had to do, but it wasn’t easy. Now that she was finally remorseful, it was getting in the way.
He told her to go upstairs and turn on the lights in her bathroom and bedroom and to try and peek out a window to see if the two goons that had been inside the house were gone. He was guessing they weren’t, and when she returned to the phone downstairs a few minutes later crying hysterically again, she confirmed his suspicion.
The next part was tougher. He had her go down to the basement and then out through the cellar stairs to the backyard. Then she was to climb the fence to their neighbor’s yard and walk out the driveway on the next street where he would pick her up. If she met anybody along the way, if one of the neighbors saw her or walked into her or whatever, she was to keep going until he picked her up.
He’d made the call from a telephone booth on Cross Bay Boulevard, close enough to be there in a few minutes, but also exposed enough to be seen from a passing car. “Don’t say anything to anybody,” he’d told her. “Just get out of that driveway and head up toward the far end of the block. We don’t want anyone spotting the car or they’ll give a description.”
“I won’t,” Nancy told him.
Five minutes later he positioned himself low behind the steering wheel of Melinda’s Valiant. He had parked half a block from the house directly around the block from Nancy’s. Six minutes later he spotted her in the middle of the street, not where he had told her to go. If one of Vento’s men were circling the block, they would spot her.
So would anybody looking out their windows.
He pulled away from the curb and raced up the block. He was waving at her to get in when she screamed about as loud as a woman could.
“Jesus Christ,” he said once she was inside the car.
He could see the windows of the nearby houses light up as he pulled away.
“I’m sorry, John,” Nancy said. “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”
“Okay, calm down,” he told her as he sped through the neighborhood toward the highway.
“You get their names, the guys hit you?” he asked.
“No, but it was just one guy hit me,” Nancy said. “And he grabbed me, too. Down there.”
John felt his teeth clenching.
“Where can I take you is safe?” he said.
“I don’t know. Nathan’s, I guess. His sister.”
“Did you call him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He left me, John. I told you.”
“He’s still your husband.”
“What could he do?”
He knew she was right. It wasn’t Nathan’s problem to start with and shouldn’t become his now.
“What about your boyfriend? You call him yet?”
She was sniffling again. “I don’t have his number.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have it?”
“He’s not home. I don’t know where he is.”
“It was him, though, right? Louis took the money.”
She began to cry again.
“Son of a bitch,” John said.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I really am.”
As soon as John had figured out she was still screwing her first husband, he’d started divorce proceedings and moved out. The marriage had been a mistake, but they’d had a child together. He could live with his bruised ego, but there was no way he’d walk away from his son.
He had never confronted her about Louis when he found out because it didn’t matter. He and Nancy weren’t happy together and it wasn’t Louis’s fault. John had done what he had to do instead of making a bigger drama than was necessary. He’d moved out and filed divorce papers and seen his kid whenever he wanted until she’d started dating Nathan Ackerman and instituted new visitation rules.
Then when he’d lost his union job, John was too busy hustling odd jobs for an income to support his son and himself. The biggest mistake had turned out to be taking the weekend job Eddie Vento had offered him at the bar in Williamsburg. The way John saw it, even though Nancy had set him up so Louis could rob him, at least some of the responsibility was his own for getting involved with people he knew he shouldn’t have.
Those people.
It was the only reason he didn’t throw her out of Melinda’s car right then instead of pulling into a hotel parking lot on Conduit Boulevard near JFK and helping her hide from the people who were really after him. He escorted her up to a room on the third floor overlooking the Belt Parkway and sat her down on the bed while he dialed Nathan’s sister’s house. The phone rang three times before a woman picked up.
“I’m very sorry to trouble you at this time, but is Nathan there?”
“He’s sleeping. Who is this?”
“My name is John Albano. I’m Nathan’s wife’s ex-husband, one of them.”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s an emergency. Can you please put Nathan on?”
There was a pause on the line John assumed was the woman waiting for more of an explanation. Then she said, “Hold.”
John tried to hand the phone off to Nancy, but she waved him away.
“He won’t talk to me,” she said. “Please, John.”
“Hello?”
It was Nathan.
“It’s John, Nathan. I’m very sorry to bother you.”
“What’s wrong?”
John gave him an abbreviated version of the story, then asked if he would help Nancy.
“Is your son okay?” Nathan asked first.
“Jack’s fine, Nathan. He’s with my mother.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Can you help Nancy in the meantime?”
“I was supposed to travel to Boston in the morning, but I already canceled. I told them it was a family emergency. It is, I suppose. I was planning on getting my things from the house. Where is she?”
“Right here at the hotel. She just checked in. I have to get going soon, though. I can’t stay.”
“Her first husband used her to rob her second husband and now her third husband is going to hide her from the mob,” Nathan said. “Is that about it?”
John couldn’t help chuckling. “It’s almost funny, you put it that way,” he said.
“You’re a better man than me, John.”
“Not in a million years, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved.”
“Give me the address,” Nathan said. “I’ll come by but not tonight. I’ll pass by
in the morning. I can’t make any promises after that.”
“Understood,” John said. He gave Nathan the hotel address and said goodnight.
“Good night,” Nathan said.
John hung up and turned to Nancy.
“Is he coming?” she asked.
“You don’t deserve his help, but he’s coming tomorrow. Try not to blow it when he gets here.”
“He wants me back?”
“Jesus, Nan, no. I doubt it. Just try not chasing him away before this is over.”
Nancy started to cry again, then noticed the bruise on his forehead for the first time and pointed at it. “What happened?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Oh, my God. Now you, too.”
“Save it,” John said. “There’ll be plenty more to be sorry about if we don’t get that money.”
“They said they’d come back.”
“And they will. You can bet your ass on that.”
“Can’t you stay?”
“No.”
She covered her face with both hands.
“You should’ve thought about this before you helped that asshole rob me,” John said. “He’s probably in Vegas gambling it away while you were getting slapped around, your hero.”
“I hate him!” Nancy yelled.
“Yeah, for now,” John said. He got up and headed for the door.
“John!”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” he said. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
“Please,” Nancy said.
John left.
Chapter 43
“The man tells me I have to stay, I have to stay,” Nick told his wife over the phone. “I can’t come home yet.”
“Are you in trouble?” she asked.
“No, but I would be if I left, so I’m staying.”
He saw Eddie Vento leave earlier and although it didn’t look like he was coming back, Nick wasn’t sure he could take the chance and leave. That had been a few hours ago. Now it was after one in the morning and none of Vento’s crew was there.
To top it off, word was they were out searching for John Albano.
“It’s not fair you have to stay,” Angela said. “Nick, I mean it. You’re always the one getting stuck. I wish he’d find himself another driver.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” he said. “I can’t leave yet and you’re starting to talk stupid. I’ll be home soon as I can, but don’t forget I don’t have the car. I’ll have to take a cab.”
She was saying something else when he hung up.
Nick wound up staying until closing. At three o’clock he called a local car service. He waited outside where he lit a cigarette at the curb. He was alone on the street and anxious to get home. He leaned against a car and took a nervous drag on his cigarette. Headlights turned onto the street at the corner and got his attention.
He assumed it was his cab and tossed the cigarette as the car pulled into a space alongside the fire hydrant about five yards from where he was standing.
Nick put his arms out. “What the fuck?” he said.
The car’s brights flashed, blinding Nick. He shielded his eyes and didn’t see it was John Albano until it was too late.
He took the first punch to his gut and doubled over. He was gasping for air when a knee smashed his face. Nick dropped to his knees first, then the rest of the way face-first against the pavement.
He lay there unconscious a good fifteen minutes before the local car service driver woke him.
* * * *
John had called his mother again from the lobby of the hotel when he left Nancy. Marie Albano had been asleep but still managed to answer on the second ring. She said she’d gotten a phone call from his ex-wife earlier, something about the mob wanting their money back. It took John ten minutes to calm his mother. When she was listening again, he told her to take his son someplace safe the next day and not to tell Nancy or anybody else where they were.
It took him another few minutes to reassure his mother that Nancy had been lying. When Marie Albano finally let her son hang up, John rushed to get to the bar in Williamsburg. He hoped for an opportunity to talk with Eddie Vento alone.
He drove to the bar using the Belt Parkway and BQE, speeding the entire way. He parked off the corner of South Second and Hooper Streets, less than a block from the bar. John figured it was the last place Eddie’s crew would look for him.
He waited until the place emptied out, but still there was no sign of Eddie Vento.
He waited another half hour and was about to leave when he spotted Nick Santorra. The punk had stepped into the street with a cigarette and seemed to be waiting for somebody. All the bullshit Santorra had pulled over the last week ran through John’s head; the verbal abuse, the fifty bucks it had cost him for knocking the punk out, the flat tires and the windshield. It was like that last poke in the chest the first time John had hit him.
He drove and parked alongside a fire hydrant. Santorra approached the car with his hands out wide and was shooting his mouth off about something when John turned on the brights. Then he got out and did a quick number on the punk. A few minutes later he saw he had blood on his pants. He stopped for a red light about three blocks from where he’d left Santorra in the street. He found a packet of tissues in Melinda’s glove compartment and wiped his pants as best he could.
On his way back to her place he took a slight detour to see if the Buick had been found yet. He saw a police car double-parked alongside it and kept driving. He figured Eddie Vento already had somebody in the police department looking for him or why else would they stop to search a car with a broken windshield in the middle of the night?
When he got to her place, Melinda was waiting up for him. She looked exhausted and angry when she answered the door, but then she kissed him long and hard on the mouth.
“I was so worried,” she said when their mouths separated. “I want you to leave phone numbers where I can reach you. I can’t stand waiting around like this. I didn’t know where you were or what was happening.”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Everything is okay.”
“I mean it, damn it. I want phone numbers there on the fridge so I can call someone. This was horrible waiting here like this.”
John kissed her. She kissed him back, this time getting more involved. He used his foot to shut the door behind him as she squeezed him tight against her. They were still kissing when Melinda locked the door.
* * * *
It was a simple note, but telltale nonetheless.
I’ll call you.
—K
It had not been easy for him to kill his wife. He had loved Kathleen and had hoped they would last, but the brief note she had left on their refrigerator door back at the house and how she’d seemed to try and trap him over the phone afterward told him it was over.
He had used a credit card to break into her hotel room and was waiting for her outside the bathroom while she showered. She had just stepped out of the bathroom and was turning toward the bed when he shot her in the stomach. The force of the bullet knocked her to the floor flat on her back.
The shock registered in her eyes. She was gasping for air as Billy took one of her hands.
“It’s okay,” he’d told her. “Lay quiet.”
Her arms had started to twitch when she tried to sit up. Blood spurted from her mouth. Billy felt a tear run down one side of his face when she began to choke.
He squeezed her hand tight as she tried to speak. She could only manage to say part of his name.
“Illy... Illy.”
After she’d passed, Billy dragged her body inside the bathroom. He left the Do Not Disturb sign on the motel room doorknob. It would probably be maid service that discovered Kathleen when they went to clean the room later in the morning. Then Billy took his wife’s Karmann Ghia from the motel parking lot just to delay the inevitability of the police looking for and finding it. He had figured he would use Ka
thleen’s car rather than his own and then dump it when he was finished with John Albano. He could always steal something off the street to escape with afterward.
Now that he could focus on Albano alone, he headed east on the Belt Parkway toward Canarsie. Unless he had spent the night with his girlfriend at her place in Queens, Albano would have to return home for work Monday morning.
He’d made it to Canarsie within fifteen minutes of leaving the motel. He was careful with the lights on Rockaway Parkway, making sure to stop well in advance of them rather than take the chance on running one and being stopped. He drove past the firehouse and then the building where Albano lived and saw the old man was sitting on the stoop again.
He parked the Karmann Ghia on the next block and took his time walking back. He hoped the old man would go inside so he wouldn’t have to pass him, but the guy was still sitting there when Billy crossed the street.
“Who you are?” the geezer asked.
“I’m looking for a friend,” Billy said.
“Who?”
“John Albano.”
“He’s not home.”
“You sure?”
“I doesn’t see him.”
“I’ll try his door. Excuse me.”
The old man wouldn’t move. Billy stepped around him.
* * * *
Nearly fifteen minutes had passed and the guy that had gone upstairs to look for John wasn’t back yet. Alexis Elias hadn’t seen where the man had parked, but he’d recognized the sports car when it passed in front of the building earlier. It looked like the one that had nearly hit John Albano a week ago.
Unless he’d gone out through the back, the man was still upstairs. Elias decided to go see. He climbed the two flights of stairs, then stopped to remove his shoes when he reached the third-floor landing. John’s apartment was off to the right. Elias shuffled to the door and listened. He heard a chair being dragged along the floor and quickly knocked on the door.
There was no answer. Elias knocked again, then put his ear to the door, but the movement inside the apartment had stopped.
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