Scarlet Fever

by David Stever

  “Hell, no. Why would I?”

  “Joseph Aletto is how.”

  “Aletto? Jesus, Johnny. You’re going back some years, now.”

  “Aletto, you, Donny Dixon.”

  The door opened and a customer came in. Tony nodded toward the door and we moved outside to the parking lot.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “My client is looking for some old money. She gave us your name. I asked a few questions and we come up with Aletto and a couple of goons. Dixon and some guy, Jimmy Rosso.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “They’re both long gone. Congratulations. You uncovered an old rumor.”

  “What happened to Dixon?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “You guys were all partners, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “C’mon Tony. I know who ran the book. Good cash rolling in. Dixon help himself to a bit of the cut?”

  “If he did, I didn’t see him.”

  “You guys weren’t taking a little slice off the top and Dixon couldn’t keep his mouth shut?”

  “Like I said, rumors.”

  “Why did you ask about my client’s age the other day?”

  He shook his head. “Why you doing this?”

  “Tony—I’m not a cop. Client hired me to dig around in some family lore. I don’t know if it goes anywhere.”

  “Man, I haven’t thought about this stuff in years.”

  I let him ponder the past for a second.

  “Why’d you ask about her age?”

  Tony drew in off the cigar and then slowly blew the smoke up to the sky. “This is irritating. And I don’t want you talking to Sammy.” He pointed the cigar at me to emphasize his order.

  “Deal,” I said. “Entertain me a bit and I leave Sammy out of it.”

  He shook his head. Scuffed at the dirt with his sneaker. “Donny was married to Aletto’s daughter. Jackie. They had this cute little girl. Redhead. I guess five at the time. It’s got to be her.”

  “Is there long-lost money buried somewhere?”

  “What do you think?”

  “My client thinks there is.”

  “Aletto got it into his head we were skimming and wouldn’t let it go. Me and Jimmy took a beating, but Donny ended up in the harbor. We were made guys after that, but Aletto kept taking work away from us. When he got whacked, the new guys pushed us out.”

  “Where’s Rosso?”

  “No idea. Skipped town.”

  “And if there was money, it went down with Dixon?”

  “It sure didn’t come my way.”

  “Bocci had an interesting reaction.”

  “He felt guilty.” Tony jabbed a finger at me, then smirked. “You pushed him over the edge.”

  “Ever deal with him?” I asked.

  “Let’s say I never made it to the corporate office.”

  “Well, I got to admit, I was skeptical at first. Then Bocci blew his brains out. Now I’m real curious.”

  “Johnny.” He took a step closer to me. “Do you think if Aletto thought I took two million of his money that I’d be standing here?”

  “Good point.”

  “I got work to do.” He walked back into his shop.

  I opened my car door thinking he shed some light on the past but hadn’t really given me anything—I guess I never really expected him too.

  Chapter

  11

  It was time to create a file for Ms. Claire Dixon. I sat in my office-booth with a corned beef sandwich and a beer and put the facts on paper. I made a list of the players. The breathing ones: Claire, Tony the Scar, his brother Sammy, and Elena Garver. The dead ones: Carlo Bocci, Jackie Aletto Dixon, Donny Dixon, and mob boss Joseph Aletto. The unknown: one Jimmy Rosso who blew town years ago. What tied them together? The alleged two million. What ties me to this? The twenty grand dropped on me as a retainer—and my client.

  We also had the ten-digit number Bocci left. Ten digits said phone number, but Mike tried every variation and came up with nothing. A bank account, maybe—but which bank? Or a corporate tax ID. But when Junior searched the state records he came up empty. I thought of asking Marco for access to Bocci’s files, but it was useless. I was convinced Bocci had the answers—all buried now and waiting to be unearthed.

  I finished the beer and grabbed my keys. No case ever got solved sitting in a bar booth.

  The McDonald’s parking lot on Harbor Boulevard took on a different personality at ten o’clock at night. Two homeless men sat next to the door of the restaurant with a paper cup proffered to any customer brave enough to go inside. Three drug buys went down twenty feet from my car. Suburban white guys in expensive cars coming in for their fix. I watched a tall, skinny hooker—a black chick with a pink Afro wig, a pink bikini top, a white micro-miniskirt, and six-inch stilettos—get picked up and dropped off twice within thirty minutes. Either she knew what she was doing or the johns were quick on the trigger. She came up to my window insisting I needed a date. Twenty dollars for a trip around the world. I told her I wasn’t in the mood to travel. Then the drug dealer slithered over to my car. I shook my head. He shrugged and wandered off. Twenty minutes later a group of five teenagers, mostly Latinos, appeared from an alley. Gang-banger wannabes. They weren’t doing anything but hanging around in the lot bothering the hooker. She told them no matter how much money they had it would never be enough. Then they spotted my LaSabre. My surveillance car.

  All five came to the car. “White dude. Sharp ride.” They snickered and surrounded the car as I inched the Beretta out of its holster. “How about we cruise for a little?” I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an old police badge I kept handy for occasions like this. The lone girl in the group hopped up and sat on the hood of the car. A tall, stocky, black kid with long dreads and a New York Yankees ball cap came up to the window. “Must be here for Pinky. She only like white dudes.”

  I lowered my window. The big kid said, “Yo, dude. You lost?” I held the gun in my right hand and the badge in my left and brought them into view. “Shit, dude. You undercover. Our bad. We just lookin’ out for our neighborhood. We’re the neighborhood watch. Keeping the streets clean, know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Go home.”

  “Yeah, man. No problem. We cool.” They all moved back from the car. He yelled to Pinky, “Yo, dude’s bad. Undercover.” They backtracked with speed, eyeballing me as they left.

  I focused back on the motel and the Audi was now in front of Room 112. I wanted to keep an eye on the client, and so far I’d missed her coming in. I was beyond annoyed with myself, letting upstanding teenagers distract me. A light was on in Room 112, but the shades were drawn.

  Half an hour went by when a Toyota compact pulled into the motel lot and stopped in front of Claire’s room. A small Asian guy jumped out. Chinese food delivery. He rapped on the door and Claire answered. I wanted a glimpse into the room but she stayed in the doorway and paid the driver as he handed in two bags of food. She closed the door, and he hurried off.

  We all have cravings for Chinese late at night, and I can do some serious damage to General Tso’s chicken and a couple of egg rolls during a late-night binge, but Claire received two bags of food. To me, two bags said two people. Who else was in the room with her? I waited another hour, but the door never opened. Shit.

  I lowered my window and called to Pinky. She came over. “I knew you couldn’t resist for long. What’ll it be, baby?”

  I handed her two twenties. “Get something to eat.”

  “Huh?” I put the window up and started the car. “Hey, no date?”

  I checked my rear-view mirror as I pulled away and caught Pinky blowing me kisses.

  Chapter

  12

  I slid open my balcony door to let in the cool night breeze. The clean, cri
sp air came in off the ocean and chased the stale air out of my condo. I grabbed a four-year-old cabernet and a glass.

  My thinking spot. Late at night with a glass of wine. I stretched out on the balcony chaise. My way to wind down to solve the problems of the day. Or the problems of the case. I filled the glass, took a sip, allowed the wine to work. I let the facts settle, trying not to overthink it.

  Follow the money. Working backward was the smart tack to take. Where did the money end up? The money started with the guys on the street. Guys running numbers and taking bets. From there, the cash flowed to Tony, Dixon, and Rosso. They set the odds, ran the book, collected—and then what? The cash went from those three to where? Aletto? Who handled the cash for Aletto? Bocci was Aletto’s accountant, but did he ever handle the cash?

  The less people who touched the cash meant less opportunity for sticky fingers. Aletto was as smart and ruthless as they came. His reputation was legendary: a man who ran an efficient, organized business based upon rigorous structure, absolute loyalty, and family—and a firm commitment to punishing anyone who didn’t play by his rules. With no exceptions.

  Example number one: his son-in-law, Donny Dixon. The Aletto family lived by omertá—the code of silence. Anyone who broke the rules, talked, got greedy, or thought he could do better on his own by running his own game and competing with Aletto, would find himself at the bottom of the bay in cement boots. Aletto was the last of the old-school Mafioso. It would take brains and balls to steal from him and get away with it. If Tony, Dixon, and the boys had such a good thing going, why take the chance?

  I got a blanket from the bedroom and went back to my chaise and my balcony haven. The night air was too good to waste.

  At three o’clock in the morning, the shatter of glass and squealing tires jerked me from my sound sleep. I got up and looked over the balcony. Nothing—nobody below. I decided my bed would be a better option at this point. I picked up the wine bottle and glass when I got a whiff of the smoke. I looked over the railing again; heavy smoke billowed up the outside of the building.

  My phone rang—it was the alarm company.

  “Hello?” I said as I searched for my shoes.

  “The sensor reported a glass breakage on the front window of McNally’s Irish Bar and Grill—”

  “There’s a fire. Call it in.”

  “Are you at the location?”

  “Yes.” I closed my phone, closed the balcony door, and pulled on my shoes all at the same time. I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter and hurried out and down the steps.

  I got to the street to find the front window of McNally’s broken and flames curling up along the outside of the building. I dashed back inside and pulled the fire alarm to alert the other occupants. Next, I ran into the bar to see if the fire was inside the building, but most of the flames were on the outside at this point.

  I went back outside, and the older hippie couple from the condo on the third floor were on the sidewalk.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Not sure. Stay back. Fire department is on its way.”

  He ushered his wife across the street and I went back inside the bar. Some flames now flicked in through the broken plate glass and tickled the wood work inside. This was an old building with a brick façade, and my fear was if the fire got inside, the entire structure would go up in seconds. I grabbed a bucket from under the bar and splashed some water on the wood frame around the window, not that it did much good.

  I hustled back outside to the street as sirens approached. The fire had spread out on the sidewalk. Did someone firebomb my building? Were they aiming for my window?

  Residents of the adjacent building were now on the street and everyone was asking what happened. The heat pushed us all to the corner; people kept speculating on what happened, so I told them it was probably someone upset with their meal from earlier that night. Nobody laughed.

  I called Mike as a Port City fire engine pulled in front of the building. The guys were out of the truck with water on the flames in seconds, but this only spread the flames along the concrete walk. So the bastards had used an accelerant. The firemen doused the flames with a chemical mixture, which extinguished it within seconds, leaving a charred window frame and scorched bricks.

  Twenty minutes later, Mike arrived. I was inside assessing damage and sweeping up glass and bits of wood and ash.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” He stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips. “Fire-bomb?”

  “Would you believe a good ol’ Molotov cocktail? That’s my guess. It broke on the sidewalk—most of the fire stayed outside. Different story if that bottle came through the window.”

  “Jesus.” He came over to what was left of the window. “How bad?”

  “All things considered, not too terrible. We’ll get insurance out later today but we can board this up and open by evening. I’ll find a fan to blow out the smoke.”

  “This could have been a disaster. Did you give a statement?”

  “Told them the glass breaking woke me up. I didn’t see anyone. Heard a car.”

  “What do you think? Warning shot?” He picked up a broom and began sweeping.

  “Yep. Or somebody we put away and now they’re out.” My cell rang. “Unknown Caller” appeared on the screen. I answered.

  “You’ve been warned, Delarosa.” A male voice I did not recognize.

  “Who is this?” Some breathing, and then the line went dead. I looked at Mike. “And there’s our second warning.”

  “Well, isn’t that interesting,” he said.

  “I’ve only talked to Tony and Sammy. You think they would do this?”

  “Two million dollars will make people do crazy things.”

  “Like throw fire-bombs?”

  I looked back at the broken window and the blackened concrete walk. “Yeah,” I said. “Like throw fire-bombs.”

  The insurance adjuster arrived at ten and set to work. He confirmed what I suspected—the fire could have been much worse. He didn’t find any structural damage, classified it as an act of vandalism, reminded me of our deductible, and said we had our choice of contractors to do the repairs. He agreed that we could open today, even suggested we advertise a fire-themed happy hour. He also commented that what we served last night should be removed from the menu if we got that type of reaction. This time I did not laugh.

  I thanked him, and as he left, Marco walked in. “Boy, you sure like to attract attention. I’m having my morning coffee and there you are, on TV again. You’re getting to be a celebrity.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yeah, I think.”

  “Good. How about finding out who did this?”

  “Already started. Nearest camera is at the intersection two blocks west. Couldn’t see anything. Forensics said they couldn’t lift any prints off the broken glass, either. Your arsonist wore gloves. Any disgruntled customers? Employees?”

  “Only me and Mike. And we’re pretty gruntled.”

  “You stir up the Mafioso?”

  “Maybe.” My phone rang. The screen had “Unknown Caller” again. I pointed it out to Mike and then answered. “Hello?” The phone clicked off. “Third time since this morning. I don’t think it’s a telemarketer, either.”

  He shook his head. “Be careful, that’s all I can say at this point. You talk to Tony the Scar?”

  “Yes, and only him. I don’t think he would send a message like this, though.”

  “Well, somebody sent it. And it wasn’t that the front window needed a wash.”

  “Everyone’s a comedian.”

  Mike pulled up in front of the bar and a truck pulled up behind him. Two workers unloaded a sheet of plywood and began boarding up the window.

  “Adjuster didn’t object to us opening.”

  “Good,” Mike said. “Need to get the smel
l of smoke out of here. The guys will grab a couple of fans.” He looked at Marco. “Anything?”

  “I think Johnny’s made some new friends,” Marco said. “Ones who don’t play nice. Call you if I get anything.”

  “Marco, wait,” I said. “The guy Rosso, remember anything on him?”

  “Like I said before, he disappeared after Dixon got whacked. Word at the time was he took off.”

  “Did Aletto think he had the money?”

  “Nah—Rosso wasn’t smart enough to pull that off. They all thought he got scared and ran.”

  “Hey, ever work with a cop named Worthington?” I asked. “On the docks?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Big guy, right?”

  “Even bigger than you.”

  “He was before me. He was stand-up. Seemed okay. Beer taps work?”

  “Help yourself.” He went around the bar, drew off a half a glass and drank it down.

  “All right, back to work. Good luck here. I’ll be in touch.”

  I went back to sweeping and wiping down the tables. Mike went out front to help the two workers. My phone rang again. This time it was:

  “Claire.”

  “Johnny. I’m so sorry. I saw this morning about your bar. Do you think this has anything to do with my case?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Oh God, I feel responsible. First Mr. Bocci, then…”

  “Stop by. We need to talk.”

  “I don’t know if I can…”

  “Tonight at seven. Or I’m off the case.” I ended the call.

  Chapter

  13

  Mike and I got the bar swept and cleaned as best we could. The workers boarded up the window and fans were blowing to clean out the smoke. Then I headed to City Salvage. As I got close, I spotted Tony next to his car. He was on his cell phone. He always parked his car next to the fence that borders his property. I pulled my car behind his at an angle and blocked him. I had questions and needed answers. He closed his phone and put his hands on his hips.