A Mighty Fortress

by S. D. Thames

  He was struggling to breathe. “I’ll kill you, Porter. Get your goddamn foot off me. I’ll kill her, too.”

  I slugged him on his cheek, thinking back to the beating he and Scalzo had given me Sunday night. I slugged him again. He was conscious, but the fight was knocked clear out of him. I tied him up again, as tight as I could. Then I rolled him over on his stomach again.

  “What are you doing, Milo?” Val was angrier now than she was afraid.

  “I’m going to finish this job.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” I rolled him onto his back and then on his stomach again. “What do you think he weighs? Three hundred?”

  “What?” she said.

  “Never mind. Let’s find out.” I bent down, grabbed his belt with my left hand and his collar with my right hand, and squeezed tight like I was taking the slack out of the bar. Good thing he wore those thick woven shirts like all mobster wannabes wear. “You listen to me, you piece of shit. You know I had nothing to do with Scalzo’s death. You tell his dad otherwise, it’ll be the last thing you do.” I pulled and lifted him quick. Then I struggled to clean him. Before I knew it, he was over my head, and I was running from the momentum and we were both headed for the barbed wire fence in front of us. Val shrieked my name again, but I managed to clear Kiki over the fence. I hit a post and rested there for a minute, staring at Kiki on the other side. He was writhing in pain. Then, I hopped the fencepost and stood next to him.

  “Milo!” Val yelled in the distance. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I said I’m going to finish this,” I mumbled, not nearly loud enough for her to hear me; just enough to scare Kiki. Doubting I could clean him again, I grabbed him by the belt again and dragged him. It was like pulling a sled back at UConn, only I was old now and easily winded. It felt like we’d sprinted a hundred yards, and countless piles of dung, before we reached what I was looking for. I’d seen the pond from the car. Now I was glad it wasn’t a moon mirage. It was real water, where the bony cattle surrounding us would rest from the sun. A few of them were standing in it under the moonlight. One of them mooed, and seemed to suggest I was a crazy son of a bitch.

  “Sorry to interrupt your evening,” I told them.

  I gave Kiki another heave and threw him into the water. It wasn’t deep. But I was sure it was the nastiest water he’d ever been in. “I hope I read about a farmer who finds a mobster in his pond,” I told him. “You tell Art Scalzo he comes after me, it’ll be the last thing he ever does, too.”

  I could see that Kiki was breathing. When I turned and started walking, he told me I was a dead man.

  Val was waiting in the car, and had it running.

  I peeled out, turning the car around. “You didn’t really think I’d kill him, did you?” I asked.

  I was glad she didn’t answer.

  The drive back to Tampa was quiet. Val sat in the passenger seat with her heard against the window. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. I turned on some Johnny Cash, figuring it would annoy her into talking. But it didn’t.

  When I reached the parking lot to Four Green Fields, it had cleared out; only about a dozen cars remained. I found her Jetta in the last row. Then I remembered what she’d done earlier in the night for me, and what I’d forgotten to say. “Thanks, Val. You really came through for me tonight.”

  She finally turned and looked at me. I could see she was fighting back tears. A mixture of emotions came over me. She really cared for me, and it hurt to see her hurting.

  “Please, Milo. Just go to the police.”

  I wanted to tell her all the reasons that I couldn’t, but that would only give her more reason to be afraid. “I will, Val. I will.”

  She looked like she wanted to believe me but couldn’t. “You promise?”

  “I’ll go to them tomorrow morning.” I thought of my meeting with McSwain. “I have a quick meeting in the morning, which could take care of a lot of this. Then I’ll go right to the police.”

  “And you promise you’ll tell them everything?”

  I wasn’t about to lie to her, so I shook my head. “This is a complicated case, Val. I don’t know what everything is.”

  She raised her hand and shook her head. “You sound like a lawyer, Milo. Will you at least tell them about the mobsters?”

  “I’ll sleep on it.”

  “Good night,” she said and slammed the door. She wasted no time getting in her car. I waited to make sure it started for her. Then she darted out of the parking lot and disappeared.

  I wanted to follow her, take her home and hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. I wanted to promise her that she had nothing to worry about; that I knew what I was doing, and that this would all be over soon.

  But I couldn’t lie to her like that.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Blackmail and a Funeral

  Until I viewed the video of him and Angie, I’d imagined McSwain as being more in the respectable businessman mold, at least compared to Vinnie Pilka. After all, he was a real estate mogul who lived on Bayshore Boulevard, and as far as I could tell, owned about a quarter of Tampa’s commercial properties outside of downtown, South Tampa, and Westshore. But while waiting in his office lobby Tuesday, I began to suspect that maybe I’d been wrong about McSwain, or had given him too much benefit of the doubt.

  For starters, his receptionist looked like she was pulled from one of Pilka’s shops, though she dressed and carried herself more elegantly and confidently. Once I arrived, introduced myself, and confirmed that I had no appointment, she had taken my name and called him. A moment later, she inquired about the reason for my visit.

  “I have some information about his lawsuit with Vinnie Pilka,” I told her.

  She relayed the message with her hand covering the mouthpiece of her phone as she spoke. After listening for a few seconds, she told me that he’d see me in ten minutes.

  So I took my seat. Truth be told, I was already on edge that morning. I wore my only and therefore best suit. It fit snugly, a reminder that I’d probably put on ten pounds in the last two years. I hadn’t slept well the night before. I’d had the usual array of dreams—and if there was any silver lining to them, it was that I again realized I was dreaming as the various scenes of horror replayed themselves in front of me. Still, I felt like a victim, forced to lie with my hands tied behind my back and watch a horrible movie. Then I woke up shaky. Skipped breakfast. Dressed, picked up a coffee en route to McSwain’s office near International Town Center, and here I was.

  I’d probably been sitting there five minutes, maybe a little longer, when I made a mistake. I looked down. Looked at the morning paper, to be exact. I’d avoided the news all day. I rarely turned on the radio, and when I first arrived in the office, I told myself I didn’t want to read the paper, because I was on edge. It was almost as if I knew better. There’s nothing worth seeing there, Milo. But I grew weary and bored that morning, and I looked down—and there it was, on the front page of the paper. Block letters.

  Girl, 5, dead after father drops her from Sunshine Skyway

  I looked at the headline three or four times. Told myself I had to be reading it wrong. Maybe my eyes were still crusty. Maybe I was still dreaming, and the nightmare hadn’t ended.

  The headline didn’t change, though.

  Then I made another mistake: I started reading the article. The night before, right around the time I was dragging Kiki through Pasco County’s finest cow shit, some twisted asshole who was mad at his ex-wife drove over the Sunshine Skyway and threw his five-year old daughter off the bridge. A police officer chasing the asshole watched it happen. As I read, my blood sugar dropped, my blood pressure rose, and my stomach burned. So did the back of my neck. I wanted to break something. In all honesty, I wanted to hurt someone. I was ready to leave the office and drive right to Dr. J’s office. I stood to leave.

  And that was precisely when the receptionist told me
that Mr. McSwain would see me now.

  I guess I thought she was talking to someone else, because I stood there looking at the headline. I heard her voice but I didn’t move.

  “Mr. Porter?” Hearing my name jarred me out of it a little, but not all the way. “Are you okay? Would you like something to drink?”

  I looked at the envelope in my hand. I could barely remember what it was or why I was there.

  “Something to drink?”

  I was thirsty, but I didn’t want caffeine. Water. I thought it but didn’t say it.

  I heard her mumbling into the phone. It was probably about me.

  I tried to pull it together. “Water, please.”

  She set the phone down and started talking to me like a preschool teacher. “You would like some water, Mr. Porter?”

  “Yes, please.”

  It took her no time to put a tiny bottle of water in my hand. It turned to vapor in my mouth. She handed me another one. It did the same.

  “Are you ready to see Mr. McSwain? He’s waiting.”

  “Tim McSwain.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  She stopped me, like she wanted to talk off the record. “Are you sure you’re okay? Would you like to reschedule?”

  I nodded again. “Let’s do this.”

  I could feel sweat gushing from every pore on my forehead and neck. I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my suit and pulled it away, drenched.

  We reached the office. His door was open. He sat at a sleek, wide desk, where he was jotting something down, looking busy and professional.

  She introduced me. “Mr. Porter to see you.”

  He stood and greeted me with a respectable handshake. “Mr. Porter, please have a seat. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  I sat in the seat. As he did the same, I noticed his chair: oversized, leather, with brass studs around the edge. It was an antique and didn’t go with the rest of the office, which was minimalist and postmodern.

  She was still in the doorway. Probably waiting to see if I passed out. Or pulled a gun on her boss. He waved her off. “Thank you, Margery.”

  I could feel her making a face, exaggerating her concern. But he waved her away again. He wasted no time and bored his eyes into me. “It belonged to Churchill.” I sat still. “I noticed you admiring my chair. It belonged to Winston Churchill. My wife bought it for me for my fiftieth birthday. I cherish it.”

  “That was very nice of her.”

  “Do you cherish anything, Mr. Porter?” He was smooth. His hair was thick and gray for the most part, with a black crown. His eyes were slanted and fit his muscular face. He wore a humble demeanor that hid cunning.

  “I cherish every day I’m alive,” I said. And curse it too, I thought.

  He nodded. “You must have seen combat.”

  Combat. The elephant in the room that is my mind. Always there, playing like background music. I nodded along.

  He was still nodding. “I did two tours in ’Nam.”

  I struggled to catch my breath.

  He sighed, not hiding his frustration. “Something tells me Vincent Pilka sent you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Just a hunch. I trust my hunches.” The cunning steered his smile, warm but dangerous.

  I was running out of time to figure out how to do this, whether to do this. I could care less about Vinnie Pilka. At the time, all I wanted to know about was Tim McSwain. I thought I’d test him first. “You read the paper today?”

  I guess you could say I have this habit of testing people—or testing their characters, to be more specific. You might even say I’m self-righteous that way. Take the morning of 9/11, for instance. My second year of law school was just underway. My coaches in undergrad school always ribbed me about being the first football player they’d known to major in philosophy, but it seemed to have paid off when I scored high enough on the LSAT to get into a few Ivy League schools. After finishing my first year with decent grades, I’d spent the summer doing an internship in Manhattan. It was just enough exposure to law-firm life to wonder if that really was my calling.

  We’d just returned to class a few weeks earlier, and I remember it had started out as a beautiful morning, one of summer’s last stands. I was walking across the quad when I saw a large group assembled in the student union. It was clear they were watching the TV, which was unusual for that time in the morning. When I saw a girl run away crying, I knew something wasn’t right.

  I went in the union, heard a collective gasp and pushed my way through to catch a glimpse of the screen. The South Tower had just fallen. I stood there, paralyzed, for another thirty minutes and watched the North Tower crumble. Peter Jennings kept talking about the danger the NYPD and NYFD were facing in the area, and how public servants had been flooding in from all the boroughs. I thought about Gus Porter, who was two months away from retirement, and lost my footing.

  I had to go somewhere. Anywhere but there. I don’t know why, but I walked to the Dean’s office. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I didn’t know it then, but I wanted to test him. I found him scampering around his office in a frenzied mess, as if he were running late and still needed to pack for a trip. That was when I heard him say to his secretary, “Guess I can kiss my flight to Miami goodbye.”

  And that was it. He’d failed the test. Failed miserably.

  “What did you say?” I said.

  He jumped at the sound of my voice. He looked across the office, startled and now embarrassed. “Myles, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Did you just say you could kiss your flight to Miami goodbye? Thousands of people could be dead, and that’s what you’re worried about?”

  “I’m supposed to be attending a conference this week.” He wrung his hands and grinned uneasily. “I’m sure all flights will be cancelled, with these nuts on the loose.”

  I nodded with a smug, sanctimonious smile on my face. I slid over the swinging door. Grabbed the Dean by the collar.

  I released all my frustration into his gut.

  And I left.

  I left his office.

  I left campus.

  I left law school.

  For good.

  Later that day, I learned that Gus Porter had entered the North Tower earlier that morning. And never left. I spent a month to mourn with my mother, and then I enlisted on Wednesday, October 16, 2001.

  And never looked back. At least for several years.

  Now I glared at McSwain across the table, and I saw my law school dean sitting across the desk from me. I asked the question again, just to make sure he’d heard me. “Did you read the news today?”

  He studied me for a moment, and it looked like he had to think about it for a while. He probably read the news most mornings. Maybe he didn’t remember whether he had today. Regardless, he seemed aware that this was a loaded question. He played it safe. “Not today. Why do you ask?”

  I started to speak but was a little short of breath. I thought about the video I was holding, and everything that had happened since Mattie hired me to serve Scalzo two days before. “It’s a sick world,” I muttered.

  “Oh, are you talking about the sick fuck who threw his kid off the bridge?” I must have nodded. “No, I didn’t read about it, but I heard it on the way in.”

  I waited, just to see what else he said.

  “That fucker should be hung from that bridge, dangled there for a week. By his nuts.”

  “Would that be justice?” I asked.

  McSwain shrugged. “Who said anything about justice?”

  My chest filled with air, and I realized something. What McSwain had said about stringing the guy up by his nuts—that had actually calmed me down. I was breathing easier. My forehead might even have dried.

  And McSwain seemed to realize it, too. He reclined a bit and looked at me as though he wanted to change the topic. “So let’s talk about Vincent Pilka.”

  “Let’s do that.”
/>   “You work for him?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “You mind elaborating on that?”

  I kept my eyes locked on his. “I’ve been hired to investigate the murder of Chad Scalzo.”

  He tried his damnedest, but there was no question: his eyes flickered at that name. “And how is that going?”

  “Well, it’s brought me here.”

  “You think I had something to do with his murder?”

  “I’m not one to jump to conclusions, Mr. McSwain. I guess I should back up, though. Before I was hired to investigate his murder, I was hired to serve him with a trial subpoena. You see, Mr. Scalzo was planning on going out of town yesterday and missing the trial. So it’s kind of strange that the same day we serve him, he takes a bullet to the head. It might suggest that someone didn’t want him to testify at this trial.”

  “You ever consider your own client?”

  Probably more than he’d ever know. “Why would he hire me to serve him if he didn’t want him to testify?”

  “It could be that wasn’t why he was served.”

  I nodded. “All possibilities. I give you that.” I raised the envelope and slid it across the desk. “But then, you see, Mr. Pilka’s lawyer received a copy of this yesterday.”

  He picked it up and opened it. Slid out the case with the disc. “I’m supposed to know what this is?”

  I was pretty sure he had his suspicions because his forehead had already turned a few shades redder. “Suffice it to say, it’s a video.”

  He took a deep breath. Then he gave me his best cynical glare. I nodded, and he got the point and popped open the DVD drive on his computer and dropped the disc in. He clicked his mouse. I couldn’t see the screen, but he covered his mouth, and anger burned in his eyes.

  His voice cracked the instant he opened his mouth. “I paid that son-of-a-bitch everything he asked for.”

  “What’s that?”