Scarlet Fever

by David Stever

  The hair stood up on my neck and my skin crawled. I looked behind me but only saw the dark field of rusted metal. I turned back to Tony and his eyes were open, gazing toward the yard. He stared a moment, then teary eyes came back to me. He didn’t say anything, or even try. He didn’t have to.

  At 1:15, tires crunched the gravel of the City Salvage parking lot. I had a view of the back door and Tony, still breathing, ten feet to the right of the door, from the backseat of a junked Plymouth SUV. The doors and the windshield had been removed, but it gave me a vantage point and an angle on Rosso. A few moments later, Claire came through the door, followed by Rosso and Mouse. The trio walked out of the light and toward Tony when a gasp came from Claire. Her hands covered her mouth and she turned away. Genuine?

  “What did you do?” she said to Rosso, backing away.

  “What had to be done.”

  Tony’s right hand was behind his back. He needed Rosso in front of him and I decided to help. Not my moral best, but forgiveness could come later. I had to pay for Sammy and Brindisi, and karma stood beside me with an invoice in hand.

  I got out of the SUV but kept it between me and the trio. “Rosso.” I shouted, with my gun leveled at them across the hood of the car. He pulled a handgun from his waistband as he pulled Claire in front of him as a shield. Mouse moved away from them and into the car yard. He had a shotgun and I had to be cautious he didn’t circle around behind me.

  “You have the money?”

  “I’m not happy about Tony.” The cars were organized in a grid of rows and aisles with each aisle marked with a sign on a pole. Mouse ran up one aisle to get a position on me. I moved to my right, parallel to the building, crouched low.

  “C’mon, Delarosa. We can end this as businessmen and go on our way.”

  The spotlight at the door only cast twenty feet or so. Enough for me to see them, but I was in the dark, a good thirty yards away. “Tell your trained gorilla to come out where I can see him.”

  Rosso swiveled around, following my voice.

  “He’s just making sure we have no surprises.”

  “Tony didn’t deserve that.”

  “He had a lot of enemies. Too bad. Have the money?”

  “Let her go. Then we can talk.” I scurried to my right, crouched below the tops of cars, staying concealed. A clink of metal came from my left. Mouse the goon wasn’t the stealthy type. Rosso waved his gun back and forth, scanning the dark junkyard, keeping an arm around Claire. “C’mon, Delarosa. You’re wasting time.”

  “Let her go.”

  “I need to see the money.”

  I made my way through the maze of cars to a point where Tony was now between me and Rosso. I walked out of the yard with my hands raised, my gun in my right hand and a white envelope in my left.

  “There you go.” I waved the envelope.

  “That supposed to be the money?”

  “A map to it. Two million in cash would be kind of bulky.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “How about you put the gun down?” I took a step closer to him, but his goon came out from the yard and came up behind Rosso and Claire. “Tell him to stay right where he is. I’m here alone. We can handle this.”

  Rosso took a quick glance behind him. “Hang back, Mouse.”

  Mouse kept the shotgun pointed at me but he stopped ten feet behind Rosso. I took another step forward with the envelope held high. “It’s all right here, but we’ll need to work together. The money belongs to Claire. Not you.”

  “That’s between me and Claire.”

  “Fair enough.” I laid the envelope on the dirt, five feet in front of Tony. “There you go. I’ll back off. Look for yourself.” I stepped back a few paces. “Put your guns down and I’ll do the same.” I set my gun on the ground; he nodded back to Mouse, who did the same. “No, have him move away.”

  “Do it,” Rosso said. Mouse slid away from the shotgun. Rosso put his pistol down.

  “Perfect. Nobody gets hurt. Money’s all yours.”

  A bead of sweat trickled down my spine. He held Claire’s arm and they came forward. Exactly what I didn’t want. As they got closer to the envelope and to Tony, Claire swiped Rosso’s hand from her arm and backed away from the horror scene. Perfect.

  Rosso bent over and picked up the envelope. “Rosso,” Tony said, in a raspy whisper. Rosso flinched, turned to Tony, and stepped back just as Tony’s arm came up. He squeezed the trigger with what had to be the final bit of strength left in his body.

  Rosso went down and Claire froze in place. Mouse, stunned to see a dead man blast his boss, hesitated long enough for me to dive for my gun and fire past Claire and into the dirt beside his shotgun. That backed him off. As I scrambled to my feet, he bolted through the door. The car squealed out of the lot. So much for loyalty. PCPD will snatch him up within an hour. I picked up Mouse’s shotgun and then checked Rosso. Dead, bleeding a little river in the gravel.

  I called Mike and told him it was over and to go back to the bar. No sense in having both of us answering questions. I dialed Marco. “Two dead. Plus, one took off. An old Mercedes.” I closed the phone and went to Claire, who hadn’t moved. “The envelope,” I said. She hesitated, and then slowly walked over to Rosso and pulled the envelope from his fingers.

  She came to me and a noise—a thud—made us react. We turned to Tony; the gun had fallen from his hand.

  “I didn’t think this would…” She couldn’t finish her thought. She seemed as stunned as Mouse the goon.

  “Open it,” I said.

  Her hands trembled as she slid a finger under the flap and opened the envelope. She pulled out a card on which I had Mrs. Finley’s name, the bank, and the number broken down into the safe deposit box number and the pass code.

  “You found the money?”

  “Bocci set up the box, and there’s a good chance you’re authorized. I have no idea what’s in it. You’re on your own from here.”

  Claire read the card again. “I can’t believe you even got this far.”

  “We did—but we also racked up five dead bodies. Not exactly my style. Did you enlist Rosso or did he find you?”

  She didn’t say a word. She folded the envelope and stuck it in a back pocket of her jeans and sat down on the steps below the door. Something about her had gone cold, like a sheet had slipped off of her. Or a mask. I felt my stomach twist. “They’re going to take you in,” I told her.

  She shrugged and leaned back against the door and folded her arms across her chest. “All I did was hire you to do a job. I never dreamed all this would happen.” Calm, cool, and cocky, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She returned my gaze, and I stood there while she read my mind.

  “Not what you think,” she said. “Never what you think.”

  Sirens approached and within a few minutes, the place swarmed with blue uniforms. Marco arrived and took charge, thank God. Claire didn’t say much, only that she hired me and was abducted by Rosso. Two young male ambulance techs were on the scene and fell over each other making sure she wasn’t injured.

  After securing the area and calling for a coroner, Marco came to me with his palms turned up. “What the hell?”

  “I got a call to meet them here. He wanted the money in exchange for Claire. I found Tony pinned to the building; they showed up and Tony got the last word.”

  “You’re telling me they ran the sword through Tony but he held onto his gun?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me. Just when you thought you saw it all, huh?”

  His face was red and his neck bulged against his collar. I thought his head was about to explode. “How many bodies you collect on this case? Four?”

  “Five.”

  “Damn, Johnny. Hope you can explain all this.”

  I jerked a thumb toward Claire. “Ask her. I’m out.”
<
br />   He watched the EMTs fawn over her as she played the victim. She wasn’t a victim any more than I was the Pope. “She doesn’t look too bothered. Ever find out if her long lost money was real?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re telling me all this was for nothing?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly.”

  He scanned around. “Jesus. Sammy and Tony both gone. The city will get its way now. This place will be shitty affordable housing within a year. You got to come down and make a statement.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m taking your girl’s statement personally. I can’t wait to hear this.”

  He took Claire out by the arm. Two more ambulance techs arrived, along with the coroner. After declaring him positively, absolutely dead, the four techs went to work removing Tony’s sword. I couldn’t watch but I heard the jokes. Guess he got the point. Wonder if he squealed.

  “Delarosa.” It was an older veteran officer who I worked with years ago. “Gotta go.”

  He was waiting to take me to the station. “Okay.”

  I turned around to take in the scene one more time. They had the sword out and Tony on a stretcher.

  Chapter

  50

  Omertà?”

  “Code of silence.”

  “Oh, cool. Message job?”

  “When you shoot someone in a specific part of the body to send a message. If I shoot you in the eye, that tells your crew we are watching.”

  She wrote on her notepad. “Damn. Harsh. How about goombah?”

  “Crony or pal.”

  “Then what’s a goomah?”

  “Mistress.”

  “Does every mobster have a mistress?”

  “Katie…”

  “Well, do they?”

  “Yes, every one. Mandatory.”

  “Do you have a mistress?”

  “Too many to count.”

  “Mandy would be your mistress.”

  “When do I get to meet Mandy?”

  “Never. I’m protecting you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Three days had passed since the showdown at City Salvage. The police and the DA questioned me for three hours, and questioned Claire for a day and a half. She hadn’t called me and would not answer her phone. The DA flirted with charging her with accessory to murder but she played the innocent victim and blamed everything on Rosso.

  “Okay, a couple more,” she said.

  “Why are we doing this again?”

  “I want to be familiar with the language before our next job comes along.”

  “All our jobs don’t involve old wiseguys.”

  “Well, just in case. One more…jamook.” We were in the back booth of McNally’s and both on our second pre-lunch drink. Katie noticed her as she came through the door. “Damn. Show time, boss.”

  I turned around. Claire was headed our way. She wore a low-cut, black dress that accented her slim waist and stopped a few inches above her knees; black heels; and a black beaded necklace with matching earrings. The long, auburn hair flowed behind her.

  “Wow, she knows how to make an entrance.”

  Well, I’ll be damned. “Yep, she sure does.” Claire came to the booth and Katie stood; the two eyed each other for a second. “Claire, this is Katie. Does research for me.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Katie said.

  Claire nodded at her dismissively. Katie brushed past her, and Claire sat. She pulled an envelope from her purse and slid it across the table.

  “Thank you,” she said. I opened it. This is the way Claire and I started—me opening an envelope full of cash. “One hundred and eighty thousand. The balance I owe you.”

  “Well. What do ya know. Bocci came through.”

  “Safe deposit box. Had four hundred thousand in cash and an account number and passwords for a bank in the Cayman Islands. One point five in there. Not quite two million, but close enough. You did a good job.”

  “You have Katie to thank for that. She must have called fifty banks and brokers within three states.”

  “I will.”

  I sipped my bourbon to pave the way for what should be an interesting visit. “I have a lot of questions.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she said. There it was again—that maskless face. Same emerald eyes, but the sparkle was gone from them.

  “Did you know Bocci had the money?”

  “Suspected.”

  “I don’t understand. Why not go to Bocci yourself?”

  Her mouth turned up in a devilish smile. “You still don’t understand? After everything that happened?”

  “No guessing games. Tell me the truth.”

  “Can I get a glass of wine, please?”

  “No. Start talking.”

  She bristled as she leaned back in the booth and folded her hands in her lap. “Mother and I knew Mr. Bocci had the money. Never thought he would kill himself, though. That surprised me. Also made a lot more work for you. Or her.” She nodded at Katie, who now sat at the end of the bar.

  “Why did he do it?”

  “He knew that when somebody came around asking about the money, it meant my mother was dead. She forbade me to go myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Bocci was in love with her. Since they were teenagers. My mother hated him because he’s the one who had my father killed. He wanted Donny out of the way, wanted my mother for himself. Nothing but a troubled, weak, selfish, cold-hearted bastard who obsessed over my mother. When my mother rejected him, he decided to hold the money and give it to me when he died. But my mother did not want to give him the satisfaction of meeting me in person. He behaved selfishly after that—which you saw.”

  “He said to me, tell her I kept my promise.”

  “He always told my mother he would take care of me. Damn, he actually kept the promise.”

  “So he skimmed the money?”

  “Sure. He was in the perfect position. All the cash that came in off the street went through him. He betrayed my grandfather but made sure to cast blame on others. My mother held him and the other goons responsible for the attack on her.

  “Tony and Rosso.”

  “Yep. They thought Donny had the money and hid it with her. Since Donny was dead, they didn’t care what they did to her.”

  “Why involve Rosso at all? Or Tony? We found the money, that’s all you needed.”

  “Still don’t get it?” she said. My mind raced to link all this together but it didn’t make sense for her to involve the goons to complicate things. Her hard, green eyes focused on me as if she was controlling my mind.

  Then it hit me. “Revenge.”

  “Of course. My mother was loaded. I don’t need the money. She made me promise to exact vengeance on the scumbags who broke her legs. And I was happy to do it. I saw what they did to her.”

  “So you got Rosso to scare up Tony?”

  “I prayed they’d kill each other.”

  My drink needed a refresh after that. I got up and poured another for me and a glass of Chardonnay for her and came back to the booth.

  “Rosso went along? The lure of the money?” I asked.

  “Rosso was a pathetic waste of human cells. I gave him a little treat one night. He would’ve followed me to hell.”

  “Why Sammy?”

  “Collateral damage.”

  Cold-hearted bitch. “The argument with Elena Garver at the Marquis? What was that about?”

  “You saw that? I’m impressed.” She held the wine glass up to me in a salute and then took a sip. “Old Aunt Elena wanted me to forget the entire thing and not get her stepson involved. She knew Little Jimmy was out of his league and was afraid he’d get himself killed. God bless her, the old bag was right.”

  “So now what? You got what you wan
ted—your plan worked.”

  “Not entirely. I wanted to sleep with you. I’m tired of men who want to make love, then talk about our feelings. With you there would be no talking. Just good hard sex. Can you understand that?” She gulped down the rest of her wine. “Not too late, you know. I’m in town one more night.”

  I shook my head and raised my glass to her. “Our business is finished.”

  She reached across and grabbed my hand. “Too bad.” She winked at me, got up from the booth and went to Katie, thanked her, and walked out.

  Katie came back and sat down. “Tell me, tell me. What did she say?”

  “Moron or idiot.”

  “What?”

  “Your last question. A jamook? It’s a moron or an idiot.”

  “Oh, okay.” She jotted it down on her pad.

  Jamook. Noun. Mob slang. See “Johnny Delarosa.”

  Chapter

  51

  St. Anthony’s Catholic Church was on 24th Street two blocks from my boyhood home. It was a large parish that served the Italian neighborhood. It had an elementary school, an adjacent hall for bingo, socials, and every other type of event imaginable, a separate basketball gym, offices, and a rectory for the pastor and his two associate priests. Growing up in an Italian family meant our entire life centered around the church. From elementary school, to being an altar boy, to playing basketball in the Catholic Youth League, to helping with food drives, drinking beer—and trying to kiss girls—behind the gym, fund-raising dinners, and even the annual spring dance. The church was our life.

  I parked in the church lot and found Father Franco Azzolino on his knees, tending to a flower garden in back of the rectory. “You missed a weed over here,” I said. Frankie shaded his eyes as he looked up at me.

  “Confessions are Saturday at four.”

  “Well, you better block out a couple of hours for me.”

  He got up and put his hands on his hips. “How long has it been?”

  “What? I go to Mass every Sunday.”

  “Like I said, confessions on Saturday.” He came over and we hugged.

  “You look good, Frankie.” We were the same height but he packed on a few pounds around the middle and lost more than a few hairs on his head. He was destined for the priesthood from high school. He loved being an altar boy, he loved the history of the church, and he loved the Mass. We went to Central Catholic together and after graduation, he went directly to the seminary, was ordained eight years later, spent six years doing missionary work in Haiti and Honduras, came back to the States and somehow finagled his way back to St. Anthony’s as an associate pastor, and then was appointed pastor four years ago. He was a good priest, respected by both the diocese and his congregation. “How are things around here?”