A Perfect Shot

by Robin Yocum

  ALSO BY ROBIN YOCUM

  A Welcome Murder

  A Brilliant Death

  Published 2018 by Seventh Street Books®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  A Perfect Shot. Copyright © 2018 by Robin Yocum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Cover photo © Rick Gershon / Getty Images

  Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht

  Cover design © Prometheus Books

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Yocum, Robin, author.

  Title: A perfect shot / by Robin Yocum.

  Description: Amherst, New York : Seventh Street Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017048140 (print) | LCCN 2017052139 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633884182 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633884175 (paperback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | FICTION / Suspense. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3625.O29 (ebook) | LCC PS3625.O29 P47 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017048140

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Frances Kennedy

  The Irish Rose

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Robin Yocum

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  On May 24, 1994, a warm, clear Tuesday in which the Ohio River Valley was finally shaking off the gray doldrums of a cold and damp spring, the most popular man in the history of Mingo Junction, Ohio, dropped off the face of the earth.

  Not a single person in that gritty little steel town could explain his disappearance. There were no signs of foul play. No notes or clues were left behind. It was as though the earth had opened up and swallowed Duke Ducheski alive, classic Buick and all. In the months and years that were to follow, there was never one credible reported sighting. His credit cards were never again used; his bank account remained untouched.

  Simply, he had vanished, and all that remained were unanswered questions.

  The people in Mingo Junction were heartbroken at their loss. For weeks, that’s all they talked about at Wheeling-Pitt, the VFW, Isaly’s, Carmine’s Lounge, and, of course, Duke’s Place, each taking a turn to tell about the last time they saw him. They offered theory after theory, but not one mother’s son of them had a substantial clue as to his whereabouts. Everybody had an opinion, but nobody had an answer. The last man known to have seen him alive was the overnight employee at the crematorium. While he enjoyed a brief period of local celebrity, interviewing for the newspapers and the lone television station in Steubenville, he could offer nothing beyond wild speculation.

  No one wanted to believe what they all were thinking and feared, that the great Nicholas “Duke” Ducheski was dead. How else could it be explained? His prized automobile was gone. He might have left his troubled wife, but he certainly wouldn’t have just walked away from his thriving, namesake business. Then came the rumors, ugly and whispered. He had angered the mob that controlled the vice in the Upper Ohio River Valley. There was talk of missing gambling receipts—tens of thousands of dollars. It was the only logical explanation, most agreed. The Buick had been fed into a shredder, probably with Duke still behind the wheel.

  Nothing made sense.

  As a journalist, I was fascinated by the story.

  As a blood relative, I was devastated.

  Duke and I had practically grown up together, and I had long treated him more like my hero than my cousin. Although I was older by just twenty-three days, he was always bigger, stronger, faster, and a better athlete; and he seemed infinitely more mature. People were drawn to Duke Ducheski. When you were in a room with him, he made you feel like you were the most important person there. He was the kind of guy you wanted to be around. His good friend, Moonie Collier, often called him “Bo-Peep,” because, he said, everyone followed him around like a flock of lambs.

  His personality had nothing to do with his popularity, though. My cousin was known throughout the Ohio Valley for “the shot.” On March 20, 1971, Duke Ducheski made the most memorable shot in the storied history of the Ohio High School Basketball Tournament. Capping a miracle come-from-behind flurry, Duke launched a shot from the corner that gave the Mingo Indians a victory in the state championship game in Columbus.

  If he had never done another thing in his life, that would have been enough for the people of Mingo Junction. On the streets of that eastern Ohio community, Duke Ducheski could do no wrong. He was a living, breathing legend.

  And then, he was gone.

  I found out that Duke had disappeared in the most embarrassing way a journalist can learn of a big story: I read about it in a competing newspaper, the Steubenville Herald-Star.

  On the morning of Sunday, May 29, 1994, two days after he was reported missing by his wife, the Herald-Star ran a terse, four-paragraph story on page five of the local news section under the headline:

  MINGO JUNCTION MAN LISTED AS MISSING

  A Mingo Junction man has been reported missing by his wife.

  According to a report filed Friday with the Mingo Junction Police Department, the missing man is Nicholas Ducheski, 41, of Frank Avenue.

  Ducheski is 6-foot-3, approximately 210 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes.

  According to the report, Ducheski’s wife, Nina, said she last saw her husband late Monday afternoon. Anyone with information on the missing man is asked to contact the Mingo Junction Police Department.

  Whoever had written the story clearly did not understand the significance of this man’s di
sappearance.

  When I asked the slob of a police chief in Mingo Junction about Duke, he shrugged and said, “Maybe he went on vacation.” I had inside information that I could not, and would not, share with the police. However, I knew, without question, that Duke Ducheski was not on vacation.

  Years passed.

  Still, nothing.

  And then, out of the blue, a gift dropped into my lap.

  Finally, I controlled the narrative.

  This is the final chapter.

  They had a fort—Angel, Moonie, and Duke. I guess that’s where this story really begins.

  It was as fine a fort as ever had been built in Mingo Junction, Ohio, by three boys who had just graduated from the fifth grade. Pressed hard against the base of the sandstone cliffs north of town, and overlooking the Ohio River beyond the soaking pits at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, Fort Logan was made of honey-locust posts that were cut from the hillside with dull axes and determination.

  It was 1964 and the best summer of their youth.

  They drank orange Nehis, played baseball, fished in the old stone quarry, swam naked in Goulds Creek—an action that would have earned them the beatings of their young lives—and built a most magnificent fort.

  They cemented their friendship that summer, the bonds of which were stronger than any I-beam rolling out of the mill below. This is a story about that friendship, loyalty, and doing what is right.

  CHAPTER ONE

  September 18, 1988—Tony DeMarco made a handsome living selling drugs, breaking bones, and, when the opportunity presented itself, sending a .22-caliber bullet ricocheting off the inside of a mark’s skull. As an overlord for the Antonelli crime family, Tony was proficient at dispatching those who displeased his boss.

  The fact that he thoroughly enjoyed his work was simply a bonus.

  Thus, under a darkened Ohio Valley sky, it was with great and perverse pleasure that he held Pinky Carey by the ankles and dangled him over the side of the Pennsylvania Railroad trestle just north of downtown Steubenville, sixty feet above the northbound lanes of Ohio Route 7. Pinky’s jacket and shirt had fallen down over his head; his arms, one of which was wrapped in a dirty plaster cast, swung in the wild panic of a poor swimmer fighting the current. The inverted view of the asphalt below had so terrified him that he had pissed himself, and urine was streaming down over his chest, dribbling in pellets onto the creases of his terrified face.

  Tony DeMarco had killed ten men on behalf of Salvatore Antonelli. Six of those had been rivals who had encroached on Antonelli’s turf. One had been an Antonelli capo whom the boss suspected of spying for a rival family. Another, a Weirton, West Virginia, produce distributor, made the mistake of disrespecting Tony when he was in a foul mood. The other two he had killed for repeatedly failing to pay their gambling debts.

  Pinky Carey was perilously close to becoming number three.

  Two weeks earlier, Tony had grabbed a handful of Pinky’s collar and yanked him off a barstool at Hollywood Lanes. Pinky was crying and pleading for mercy as Tony pushed him through the swinging doors to the kitchen and into the darkened parking lot behind the building. Pinky was long overdue on a $1,500 gambling debt and knew what was coming. The meeting was brief. Tony took his powerful right hand and interlocked his fingers with Pinky’s left. The grip was crocodilian, and the prey was helpless to escape. Tony snatched Pinky’s index finger and snapped it sideways, popping a jagged bone through the skin. He twisted and pulled the middle finger, yanking it out of the socket. Pinky screamed and cried and begged for mercy. All the while, Tony chided his victim in a calm voice.

  “Pinky, I don’t understand why you insist on ignoring your financial obligations to Mr. Salvatore Antonelli.”

  The ring finger snapped backward. “This is not a good thing, Pinky. Your account is badly in arrears.” The little finger went south with a snap, leaving the hand in a grotesque gnarl—four dirty birthday candles dying in the noonday sun. When Tony released his grip, the pain dropped Pinky to his knees. He cradled his left hand and sobbed.

  “You have seventy-two hours to get me the money, Pinky,” Tony said, sliding behind the wheel of his still-running car. “Seventy-two hours. Don’t be late, and don’t make me come looking for you again.”

  A rational human being couldn’t possibly forget such an encounter or dismiss the threat as idle. But Pinky Carey was such a pitiful drunk that soon after leaving the emergency room, his hand stitched and wrapped in a cast that covered his fingers, his overriding concern was to get another drink. Rather than beg and borrow from family and friends to repay his debt, Pinky elected to hide from Tony, a tactic that worked until thirty minutes before he found himself dangling over the side of the railroad trestle.

  Tony caught Pinky slipping out the back door of the Elks Club. As soon as he saw Tony, Pinky started crying.

  “Get in the car, Pinky. For God’s sake, be a man.” Tony reached around Pinky, clamped hold of his neck, and shoved him into the back seat.

  “Go,” Tony said to the driver.

  They drove in silence to the north end of Steubenville and parked behind the abandoned Ohio Valley Tire warehouse.

  “You boys wait here,” Tony told his two lieutenants in the front seat. “Me and Pinky, we’re going to go have a little talk.”

  Tony was dressed in his usual attire of all black: loose-fitting slacks, a knit shirt that fit tight around his muscular chest and revealed a gleaming gold crucifix atop tufts of black chest hair, and boots that had been buffed to a high sheen. He led Pinky down a narrow path where foxtails and thistles leaned over and scraped at their pants. Pinky followed, dutifully, like a sullen third-grader trailing a teacher to the principal’s office. There was no escape. Why attempt it? Tony was a beast, thick through the arms and chest, and a full two heads taller than Pinky, who was a shuffling, puny, seventy-year-old with rheumy eyes and an alcoholic’s nose—bulbous, cratered, and lined with dark-blue veins.

  “Please don’t hurt me, Mr. DeMarco. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten you the money,” Pinky said.

  There was no response. Tony just kept walking, stepping off the path and onto the siding of the railroad trestle. The grating rattled under his feet; the diesel exhaust of the semis passing beneath on Route 7 hung in the air.

  “Mr. DeMarco, please . . .”

  “Just keep up, Pinky.”

  Pinky knew he was in deep trouble. He knew how the Antonellis operated. Fingers were broken in a public display, but worse things happened in private. Pinky assumed there was a fierce beating coming, and he would have no choice but to take it. “I’ll get you your money, Mr. DeMarco. I promise, I will. Please, just don’t hurt me no more.”

  “What do you know about respect, Pinky?” Tony asked, continuing to walk.

  “I respect you, Mr. DeMarco.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  They crossed to the middle of the trestle. The clouds and billowing smoke from the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel plant to the south melded over the West Virginia hills, blocking the light from the rising moon. The lights and fire of the Weirton Steel plant to the north reflected off the water of the Ohio River. The grind of the valley echoed through the hills, and the air burned with the tang of sulfur and fly ash. When Tony stopped walking, the two men were virtually invisible in the darkness. “You say you respect me, Pinky, but I don’t think that is so. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be out here, would we? You see, in my line of business, my reputation is very important. Do you understand that, Pinky?”

  The old man kept his head lowered and nodded.

  “Answer me, goddammit.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “I gave you a break, and you repay me by hiding? Do you know how that makes me look? I’ll tell you, Pinky, it makes me look weak. And, when people think you’re weak, they take advantage of you.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Mr. DeMarco. I really am. I didn’t want to cause you no problems, but I didn’t have the money.” />
  There is, within the brain of every predator, a neurological switch. The hair trigger for that switch could be hunger, fear, or anger. Regardless of the genesis, the switch also removes emotion from the situation, leaving the predator both cold and fearless. There is no sense of conscience, no empathy for the prey. Like the summer wind dies, the eyes of Tony DeMarco narrowed and the skin stretched taut over his chin and jaws. In that instant, a rage swelled in his chest, and he lashed out with a vicious right hook, splitting Pinky’s nose like a ripe melon. The skin tore nearly to his eye sockets, and blood and bits of cartilage splattered over his face. Pinky dropped on his back to the grated walkway, his ample nose an amorphous blob.

  The predator was upon his prey.

  Tony snatched the little man by the ankles and jerked him upward, lifting him over the walkway railing. He looked down to see two holes, each the size of a silver dollar, in the soles of Pinky’s shoes. “Christ, Pinky, why don’t you buy yourself a decent pair of shoes?”

  He didn’t answer. He was barely conscious, his world a swirl of gray, his own heartbeat thumping in his ears. When his feeble, alcohol-saturated brain regained its focus, Pinky was staring at the asphalt. “Oh, God, please, Mr. DeMarco. Bring me back, bring me back.”

  “I asked you, why don’t you buy yourself a decent pair of shoes?”

  “I can’t, Mr. DeMarco, I ain’t got no money,” he wailed, loose change falling from his pockets and bouncing on the blacktop as his bladder released. “That’s why I ain’t paid you yet. I don’t have no money. Oh, please let me up.”

  “Pinky, you should always wear nice shoes. Shoes help make the man. You know who taught me that?” Again, Pinky didn’t answer. He could hardly hear Tony over the passing semis and his own wailing. This angered Tony, who shook the little man’s legs. “Pinky, goddammit, I asked you a question. Do you know who taught me to always wear nice shoes and keep them polished?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Salvatore Antonelli. ‘Always,’ he said, ‘always buy good shoes and keep them nice. People respect that.’”