Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  Dino turned. “I’m going to take off the tape in a little while, Mrs. Babe. Before I do, you’ll need to know the situation. We know all about your husband. We know where his room is. We know that right now he’s in bed after having had a trying day. When things get back to normal you’ll be able to go to him. He needs you, Mrs. Babe. Our man on the inside said he was distraught today. Perhaps you don’t re alize just how much he needs you.

  “We’ve done our research. We know, for instance, that at times you and your husband have closed the door to his room in order to have privacy. Since the police found your car in the lot with its win dow broken, I’m sure they’ll want to find you to let you know it’s been broken into. I think you can see we have very little time to chat.

  “What will happen now, Mrs. Babe, is that I will take off the tape and you will tell me where we should go with our keys. When you tell me, we will take you to your husband, and sometime later this evening, after being unable to reach you at your home number, the police will eventually make some connections and go to your husband’s room and discover you decided to spend the night with him. They’ll tell you that your car has been broken into, you’ll go out with them to see, and that will be the end of it. Very simple, very clean, no more trouble.

  “However, if you do not tell me where we should go with our keys, I’m afraid the police will find something entirely different in your husband’s room. They’ll probably call it a mercy killing—slash —suicide.

  “So, that’s it. I’ll even take the tape off more gently this time.”

  When the tape was off, she cleared her throat, coughed, swallowed the phlegm that had accumulated, and said, “My ankle. That bastard broke my ankle.”

  Dino did not respond, but she could tell by the shadowed shape of his head that he still faced her. She knew he was considering the difficulty of her being found with a broken ankle. Dino had given her a scenario to think about. Years earlier Steve had told her of the method. Describe a scene in which everything comes out all right. Just like good-cop-bad-cop. One harangues the prisoner, while the other paints pictures in which the prisoner sees a light at the end of the tunnel. In this case Dino was playing both the good cop and the bad cop. Except he was no cop, and she was no ordinary prisoner. No ordinary prisoner because she knew there was no light at the end of the tunnel if she cooperated. And she had a strong feeling Dino knew that she knew.

  Dino’s phone beeped and he took it out of his inside pocket. Instead of turning away from her as he had last time he was on the phone, he con tinued facing her when he spoke. She kept her mouth shut and listened.

  “Nothing except some story.”

  “Health care, insurance brokers, all that.”

  “Nothing’s out of hand. What makes you say that?”

  “Okay, okay. But for someone who wants the old days back, you sure don’t talk like it.”

  “Well, fuck you, too.”

  After folding the phone and putting it back inside his coat, Dino turned from her and stared out the side window.

  From Dino’s side of the conversation it seemed they might be get ting desperate. Of course, what good did that do her? Desperate was something she’d been as soon as one of those cars came up alongside and rammed her, forcing her off the road. So desperate she had taken to throwing magazines out the window. And now here she was out in the dark employee lot between shift changes where no one would hear her even if she did scream.

  Dino turned toward her again.

  “I think you might want to talk to me, Mrs. Babe. You’ll have to talk eventually. I guarantee it.”

  “Put it in writing.”

  “Don’t fuck with me.”

  He had not changed his tone when he said this, and it frightened her more than if he had shouted it.

  He drew in a breath, as if about to say something more. But be fore he spoke, a car pulled up very close and a door slammed. As she watched him, Dino turned slowly to look toward the front of the van. Now she could see his profile against a light coming through the side window. Where before, when she saw his profile, his mouth had been active, either talking or cleaning his teeth with his tongue, now his mouth was tightly closed. Perhaps he was wondering, like her, if this arrival would put an end to it. A quick and violent end.

  When he exited the Stevenson Expressway and the car ahead slammed on its brakes—skidding to a stop on the wet pavement instead of going through a yellow like any normal Chicago driver—Steve’s brain tried to send the emergency signal to his right leg instead of his left leg. But his left foot was on the brake and before he had a chance to compen sate for the error, before he had a chance to press down hard on the brake pedal with his left foot, the signal got through, somehow by passing the blown circuits, and the big thigh muscle lifted his right leg and swung it over, knocking his left foot off the pedal. Suddenly his feet were in a tangle and the uncontrolled pressure on the brake pedal applied by good foot and bad foot fighting it out was not enough to keep him from hitting the car in front.

  Two teenaged boys with haircuts from another planet jumped out of a Honda Accord. There would be an argument. His inability to converse normally would be mistaken for drunkenness. Even if he were able to get through to the two boys that he had an emergency to deal with, they might overpower him, make him stay in order to jus tify the damage to a parent’s car borrowed for the night. He could see the terror of teenaged boys in their body language, the driver of the car actually holding his hands to his face because of the horror caused by seeing the smashed taillights.

  There was no choice in the matter. They’d live. It might be hard for them when they got home, but they’d live.

  He put the Lincoln in reverse and backed off to the side of the ramp, motioning them to do the same. And when the driver got back into the Honda and pulled to the side, Steve shut off the lights so the license plate light would go out making it more difficult to read the plate. Then, looking both ways, he sped around the Honda, saw his opening and fishtailed the Lincoln through the red light and into traf fic northbound on Harlem.

  Cars honked and tires screeched, but when he turned the lights back on and floored the Lincoln, other drivers seemed to sense his des peration and moved out of his way.

  The boys did not follow. In his mirror he could see them standing outside the car jumping into the air and shouting. No guns came out. They did not chase him. They would wait for the police. Good kids. Thinking of these poor boys he had encountered so briefly conjured up elusive boyhood memories, memories the stroke had somehow left him with, thoughts of times when he’d been treated unfairly, and he was momentarily brought to tears.

  But there was no time for tears. Jan was in trouble. According to the police radio her car was at Hell in the Woods. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and drove on, honking when a cab got in his way.

  After they landed at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, Valdez drove the rental car while Hanley fiddled with the GPS. It was wet and windy, the reflections off the pavement and the buffeting of the wind making it necessary that Valdez concentrate on his driving.

  Valdez drove out of the rental car agency and onto the south bound expressway. He exited within a mile to a warehouse district near the airport. It was a familiar drive Valdez had taken many times during visits to Chicago.

  Both Valdez and Hanley went inside a small office attached to one of the warehouses and showed their credentials to a young man. The man photocopied their credentials, compared their fingerprints to those on file, had them each sign a form, then opened a locked cabinet and brought out two briefcases. The young man handed a briefcase to each and they left. The only words spoken were the greetings. Back in the car, they put their briefcases in the back seat, Valdez drove toward the expressway, and Hanley went back to the GPS.

  “I can never figure these things out,” said Hanley. “First it asks me for a street address, then it asks for a city. You’d think it would be the other way around.”

  “Did you try points o
f interest?” asked Valdez.

  “Points of interest? We’re not on a tour. Maybe we should be, though. A motor coach tour like you see old folks on. One of those reclining seats wouldn’t feel so bad right now. I hear that on some of those tours the seats are heated. Good for the arthritis.”

  “Not tourist points of interest. I mean on this GPS system if you select points of interest it gives you category choices.” Valdez glanced toward the GPS. “You’ll be given categories like hospitals or health care facilities along with all the restaurants and things.”

  “Give me back the old days,” said Hanley.

  After a bit more fiddling, Hanley said, “Ah, here it is.”

  The smooth sexy voice of the GPS lady came through the car’s speakers. Valdez had gotten back on the expressway southbound and now the woman said to stay on the current road and that the exit would be on the left in seven miles.

  “Can we get back to our plan now?” asked Valdez.

  “First I’d better try our contact again,” said Hanley, taking out his phone.

  Hanley punched in a number and spoke quietly on the phone. With the road noise and the hiss of tires on wet pavement, Valdez could hear only a couple words. The conversation was short. Hanley closed his phone and looked out the windshield.

  “Well?” asked Valdez.

  “I think they’d better upgrade their recruiting tactics,” said Han-ley. “She’s not back to the rehab facility yet. I told her she might as well take her time and we’ll meet her. She said when we get there we should look for a side road that goes around back. There’s an entrance at the loading dock. She’ll probably get there first and she can watch to see if anyone else is around. I told her to stay on the side road and watch for us from there.”

  “Does her voice sound like hers?” asked Valdez.

  “Who?” asked Hanley.

  “The GPS lady.”

  “Oh, yes, young and sexy with a slight Hispanic accent.”

  “So the plan,” said Valdez, “is that the three of us go into the place and find the detective?”

  “Right,” said Hanley. “Assuming no one else has gotten to him.”

  “You think Lamberti and his men might have grabbed him?”

  “It’s possible,” said Hanley. “If they think he knows something, they’ll probably question him there. I doubt if they’ll take him any where because there’d be no need. They’ll figure they have the upper hand being the guy’s had a stroke.”

  “Why are you so sure they’ll go to the rehab facility?” asked Valdez.

  “It’s where our contact thinks they’ll go. Before she lost them they were after the guy’s wife. Whether or not they’ve got her, whether or not they get something out of her, they’ll want to verify their findings at the source.”

  “So we’re trusting the instincts of a rookie?”

  “Not totally,” said Hanley. “She’s made calls to other Chicago con tacts. We’ve got word that Lamberti is on the move, and the direction he’s moving will put him at the rehab facility a short time from now.”

  Valdez glanced in his mirror at a tailgating semi and moved over one lane to let it pass before speaking. “Finally, I’ve got to ask this.”

  “What is it?” asked Hanley.

  “If there’s an indication that this whole thing is going to blow up, what then?”

  “No choice,” said Hanley. “If so, we’ll have to open our briefcases.”

  “It could be messy,” said Valdez.

  “I know. But look at it this way. When it’s finished we’ll simply be two old farts in a panic with all the other old farts.”

  “I didn’t mean we’d have trouble getting away,” said Valdez. “I meant it could be messy eliminating everyone involved.”

  Hanley leaned to the side and stared at the GPS map where the little arrow made its way along the expressway. “Yes, I’m sure it will be messy.”

  “And all because back then some other old farts wanted to guar antee an election victory.”

  “All because of that,” said Hanley. “Even though half of them are dead now, they’ve passed down the legacy. Not only that, this thing was carried on after the election.”

  “How so?” asked Valdez.

  “They needed to make sure that neither Carter, nor anyone like him, ever tried to run for President again. And that, my friend, leaves a hell of a lot of worry in DC about this thing ever blowing up.”

  “How far up the ladder does it go?” asked Valdez.

  “Between you and me?” said Hanley.

  “Between you and me,” said Valdez.

  Hanley turned from the glow of the GPS screen and stared at Val dez. “All the way to the top.”

  “I wondered if it did,” said Valdez.

  “That’s why we can’t bring anyone else in,” said Hanley. “That’s why it’s up to you and me. It’s got to be closed for the sake of future generations.”

  The GPS lady chimed in, “In two miles, prepare to exit on the left.”

  Valdez put on his signal to start moving over. In his side mir ror the spray from the car lifted into the headlights of cars and trucks bearing down. Although the speed limit was fifty-five, everyone was going seventy.

  Dino held his hand over her mouth so she could not scream while the door was open. Even if she could have screamed it would not have

  mattered because, while the door was open, a jet was taking off over head, its deep rumble accompanying the visitor inside.

  The visitor was Max Lamberti. She recognized him when he opened the front door and climbed into the passenger seat. Although the interior lights in the van were disabled, enough light filtered in for her to recognize Max’s mustached face, despite the fact he wasn’t wear ing the hairpiece he’d worn at the funeral. Max glanced into the back seat before closing the door, rubbing his bald head with one hand.

  After Dino took his hand from her mouth, Max said, “What? No screams?”

  “It’s taken care of,” said Dino. “I laid it out for her.”

  “Laid what out?”

  Max was turned, facing her and Dino. Dino did not answer.

  “Mrs. Babe, Mrs. Babe,” said Max, obviously faking solicitude. “We meet again like old friends. That’s the best thing there is in this world. Old friends. I’ll get right to the point, Mrs. Babe. My old friend by the name of Tony Gianetti, God rest his soul, gave a lot of responsibility to me when he passed. Unfortunately, when he went kind of sudden-like, he was unable to tell me some things he was sup posed to. And now we find out his wife knew these things all along. But unfortunately, as you know, she had a stroke.

  “Mrs. Babe. We know Tony Senior opened safe deposit boxes be fore he died, quite a long time before he died. We also know that you and your husband know where these safe deposit boxes are located. We have the keys, the contents of the boxes belong to us. We’re a fam ily, and families like to keep what belongs to them in the family.

  “And so, Mrs. Babe, here it is. You tell us where the boxes are, and we’ll be off to O’Hare Airport booking flights. We’ll be too busy to worry ourselves about you or your husband because we’ll be on our way to getting what’s rightfully ours.

  “We’re more like a business these days, Mrs. Babe. No, better than a business. We’re like the military, lean and mean. Every busi ness has to be lean and mean to survive financially these days. Even the church has to be lean and mean despite its call for mercy.

  “Did I tell you I was in the military? Served in the all American 82nd Airborne. And I’m also a regular member of the church. The diocese counts on my weekly offering, I can tell you that. So anyway, what will it be, Mrs. Babe? Make an offering to the church?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Max turned back to the front of the van and his voice went hard. “Fuck it. We got to do this fast, Dino. No fuckin’ slip-ups. Jimmy told me about the cops findin’ her car.”

  “We’ll do it fast,” said Dino.

  “Let�
�s go.”

  “Where?”

  The van rocked as Max made his way quickly to the back seat, stooping down in front of her, his face close so he could spit the words at her.

  “We fuckin’ bring him out here! That way time’s on our side. And it won’t hurt to let them fuckin’ see one another fuckin’ die if we don’t find out what we need to find out! I saw the two of them at the funeral, the way they fuckin’ looked at us! And now she tries some bullshit about insurance brokers! That was on the east coast. I fuckin’ watch television, too!”

  Max reached out and grasped her hair, pulling her head violently against the side window, then he spoke harshly into her ear. “That’s right! I saw you and you saw me! We met at a funeral, of all things! How fuckin’ appropriate!”

  He pulled her hair harder. “Appropriate because a bitch like you always talks in the end! Unless she wants to attend a quick and dirty double funeral!”

  She cleared her throat. “I … I’ll talk now.”

  “Go ahead,” said Dino, moving in closer to her side.

  But Max pulled even harder on her hair. “Yeah, you’ll talk all right! You’ll talk enough to get us out of here! No way, bitch! No more bullshit! We get him and you together and we go somewhere else and you’ll talk all right! Only then it won’t be bullshit!”

  She shouted, “I’ll tell you! Just take me somewhere and I’ll tell you!”

  Max put his hand over her mouth until Dino got the tape back on. She tried to get a scream out while the tape was going on, but Max’s other hand clasped her neck.

  “What now?” asked Dino.

  “Same,” said Max. “No fuckin’ stall, no fuckin’ time wasted. We bring him the fuck out here, we take them somewhere, and she’ll talk all right.”

  “But if someone sees us …”