by Robin Yocum
He exited at Logan Avenue, one of the most precipitous roads in the valley, extending from Commercial Street to the west side of Mingo Junction. As he climbed the hillside toward the west, Duke assumed that ice water, brain matter, and other bodily fluids were slopping all over the back of the Jeep. It was only then that a plan formulated in his racing brain. He circled around the hilltop and drove down the alley behind his house, nosing the Jeep to the front of the garage. He went inside and rummaged through the rafters for a fishing pole and his dad’s old tackle box. He had fishing gear at the cabin, but he didn’t have a spade, which he would need in order to bury what was left of the Troll. As he was sliding the fishing gear and spade into the back of the Jeep, Nina walked out on the back porch, her left eye squinting. The interrogation was about to begin.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her arms folded over her chest.
“I’m going fishing.”
“This late?”
“They bite at night, Nina.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the cabin.”
“Where have you been?”
“I went to see Timmy.”
“All day?”
“Then I stopped at the park to shoot some hoops.” Duke shut the hatch of the Jeep. “I’ll be back later.”
“Why are you taking a shovel?”
“To dig for night crawlers.”
Her eyes turned to slits as thin as dimes. “You’re not going fishing,” she said, her arms still crossed over her ample breasts, and her mouth puckering up as though she was preparing to cough a vile mass from her throat. “You’re going to see her, aren’t you?”
Duke slowly shook his head. He wished he was going to see Cara instead of carrying out his obligation to Moonie. “Give it a rest, Nina. I’m not going to see anyone. I’m going to the cabin to go fishing.”
“Don’t you lie to me. You’re meeting her at the cabin, aren’t you?”
“I’m not meeting anyone, except a few unsuspecting bass, hopefully. I’m going fishing, that’s all, and I’m going alone.”
“You stay away from that filthy whore.”
“I’ll let you know if they’re biting, Nina,” he said, sliding into the Jeep. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She turned and went back into the house, slamming the door behind her so hard the entire jamb shook.
Tucked between the frame and the glass of Duke’s dresser mirror was a black-and-white photograph, faintly yellowed and creased across one corner. The two men in the photo are in their early twenties and are standing in front of a massive black-walnut tree that had broken the soil long before the first white man ventured into Ohio. Both men have thick forearms crossed over broad and bare chests. They are pinching cigarettes between their fingers. The taller man, the one with the close-cropped hair, has an index finger down the opening of a Black Label longneck, and his face reflects the seriousness of his life, the sadness that tormented him after Duke’s mother died. The face of the shorter one, Duke’s Uncle Mel, is dominated by a lopsided grin and the whiskered outline of a heavy beard. A pair of fishing rods are propped against the tree trunk, the lines taut, hooks anchored in the cork handles. A tackle box—the very one that was in the back of Duke’s Jeep—rests near their feet.
The photo was taken in the late fifties or early sixties at the family fishing cabin at the Jefferson County Rod & Reel Club near Bloomingdale. Duke’s grandfather Ducheski was a charter member of the club and built the cabin in 1935. Uncle Mel died of leukemia two years after the photo was taken, and Duke inherited the cabin—pitiful as it was—after his father died. He had rehabbed it, and Nina and he had spent many happy weekends there early in their marriage. She had a garden out back where she grew tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers, the vines of which snaked along the hillside. It was a reminder to Duke that she had once been happy. The club had dissolved decades earlier, and most of the other cabins, like the black-walnut tree, had been reclaimed by the earth. The bass lake remained, though it was now rimmed by cattails and uncontrolled brush; a film of moss the color of limes floated in the shoals. A spillway, situated on the northeast rim of the lake, guided the overflow into Cross Creek through a hundred acres of marsh.
It was in this vernal pool that Duke planned to bury the head of Frankie “the Troll” Silvestri. He would bury it deep and hope that he was two millennia in his grave before some archaeologist uncovered the grotesque thing. He would park at the cabin, which would raise no suspicions, then head into the marsh with his fishing gear and the cooler.
To complete the deception, he swung past Paddy’s Diner in Georges Run for bait. The truck stop sat in the shadows of the old Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse, and except for an occasional slathering of white paint, the building and the menu had not changed in sixty years. Melba Mae Morgan was working her usual shift behind the counter. She cracked her gum as she set his check and two foam cups on the counter, one holding his coffee, the other his night crawlers. On his way out, he dropped a five-dollar bill on the glass candy case next to the cash register.
Duke drove north to Steubenville and caught Route 22, then headed west toward Bloomingdale. Even then, Duke realized he was overthinking his mission. Why did he think he needed night crawlers? On the remote possibility that he ran into someone, he could have said he was fishing the reeds with a crankbait. It would have been that easy. But his thought process was scrambled. A centrifugal force pushed out from inside his skull, and shafts of white light escaped through his eyes. The crackling in his ears sounded like frying bacon. His heart thumped on his rib cage. For a guy who never got rattled on a basketball court, Duke Ducheski certainly wasn’t handling the pressure well. However, there was more at stake here than any high school basketball game. As he drove, he fumbled with the plastic lid on the coffee cup and took a sip, though the last thing he needed at that moment was a dose of caffeine to further fuel the internal fire.
He turned off Seminary Road and onto the gravel drive that encircled the lake. A few lights were on in cabins across the water. He pulled in behind his cabin, parked under the gnarled branches of an ancient Australian pine and cut the motor. He sat alone for several minutes, listening to the exhaust of his own breath and the droning of the distant traffic on Route 22. When he was convinced that his arrival had gone unnoticed by any of his neighbors, Duke exited the Jeep, fetched the cooler and the spade out of the back, and dashed several hundred yards to the marsh and the thicket of briar bushes, poison ivy, and prickly honey-locust trees. He could have run deeper into the thicket, but it was a swamp full of coyotes and snakes, which terrified him more than an angry Tony DeMarco. It was the ideal place to bury a head, if such a place actually existed. The marsh was illuminated by the light of an unfortunate full moon, and Duke felt as though he was performing on stage and under the lone spotlight.
After dropping the cooler and the spade, Duke returned to the Jeep, collected his fishing gear, then set the tackle box and pole on the bank of the lake, using a small, Y-shaped stick to prop up the rod. It would be his decoy if another fisherman happened upon the site. He ran back to where he had left the spade and cooler, and started digging between two sprawling briar bushes. He had sunk the spade twice when he heard the sound of a passing car. The crunching of gravel under the moving tires was amplified in the quiet night and within the tight confines of the hills that surrounded the lake. Duke stopped digging and listened, measuring each breath. He couldn’t judge the direction, but he listened until the sound disappeared in the night. Most likely it was just someone circling the edge of the lake on the gravel road, heading toward a cabin on the far banks.
It had rained three times the previous week; the ground was soft and came up in thick chunks, and clods of dirt clung to the spade. The hole Duke made was two feet in diameter, wider than necessary for the head, but big enough to give him room to work, which he did at a furious pace. In ten minutes, he had gotten down nearly three feet. Sweat stains swelled under his arms, a
nd his shirt matted to his back and chest. He was on the far side of four feet inside of twenty minutes. Fear and adrenaline kept him working at a torrid pace. Rivulets of sweat rolled down his face; droplets ran off the tip of his nose in rapid succession, disappearing into the hole.
It was going as smoothly as he could have hoped. Four and a half feet—deep enough that raccoons or feral hogs could not dig it up. He unlatched the cooler and turned his head as the soured mix of ice, mobster head, and rancid, death-stained water spilled into the hole. The water and ice fell first, followed by the splut of the Troll’s head.
“Goddammit, Moonie,” Duke said.
Duke couldn’t not look. He shined his flashlight into the hole. The head had landed faceup. One eye was wide open, the other half closed. The eyeballs had receded deep into the sockets. His mouth was open, the lips had rolled back and were a grotesque, dark purple, his rotten teeth an extension of the black gums. Using the spade like a rake, Duke began scraping the dirt back into the hole, covering the head, then he threw in a layer of rocks to further deter any varmints.
As he started filling in the remainder of the hole, with the moon high overhead, Duke heard the sound of footfalls on the leaf-covered carpet of the woods between the makeshift grave and the cabin. It emanated from deep in the thicket, near the hunting path. He froze, each heartbeat reverberating in his ears. He suppressed an adrenaline rush that sent pinpricks of chills racing up his spine before fanning out over his shoulders and neck. Tony DeMarco, he thought. The bastard had tailed him.
Duke squeezed the spade and brought the metal end shoulder-high as though it were a battle axe. He crouched, motionless, peering through the moonlight that filtered through the pines and the arching maples, oaks, and cottonwoods that canopied the swamp. He tried to slow his breathing and gain his composure.
Behind the thicket, Duke thought he saw movement, a slow combination of sound and swaying brush making its way from the edge of the lake and crossing directly in front of him. At least, Duke thought he saw movement. Maybe it was a deer or a coyote, or maybe just the wind, but he could have sworn he saw a human form. He squinted and tried to blink the image into focus. Nothing moved. Was it the wind and his overworked imagination? Probably his imagination. Still, his thumping heart rattled his ribs, and he pushed a palm against his chest in a vain attempt to slow the beat.
Why, Duke reasoned in a moment of logical thought, would Tony DeMarco be hiding in the brush? He wouldn’t. He would walk up to Duke and stick a gun in his mouth. This he knew for a fact.
Still, Duke squatted motionless behind the pile of dirt, watching and listening for movement. Minutes passed—five, then ten. The woods remained quiet except for the wind, the slap of the branches, and the rustle of the leaves. He eased back on his rear and pushed the remaining dirt into the hole with his feet. The falling earth barely made a noise, though in his mind each falling clump was a cymbal clash. Out of the corner of Duke’s eye, he again believed he saw movement. His imagination was at full gallop, a mustang with steam pouring from its nostrils as it thundered across the plains. He furiously moved the rest of the dirt into the hole. Once it was full, he stomped on it for several minutes, working it nearly flat. He used the spade to rake some brush over the broken ground. Another car passed, this one quickly. He took a flat rock that he had dug up and slid it atop the grave with his foot. If for some reason he ever needed to find the location, which at the moment he couldn’t fathom, the flat stone would serve as a marker.
He grabbed the spade and the empty cooler and ran back toward the cabin.
It was after midnight, and the full moon was high overhead when he grabbed several large stones from the bank of the lake, put them into the cooler, opened the valve, and heaved it into the water. He heard the splash but didn’t stay to watch it sink. He picked up the fishing tackle and tossed it and the spade into the back of the Jeep. Before leaving, he dashed into the cabin and cleaned the mud off his shoes in the kitchen sink, washed his hands and arms, and mopped his sweaty hairline with paper towels. A tremendous pressure in his chest released as he slid the key into the ignition, fired the engine, and headed for home.
When he pulled the Jeep into the alley, Duke could see the television flickering in the living room. They rarely slept in the same bed anymore; Nina fell asleep on the couch in front of the television nearly every night. Duke unloaded the gear and put it back in the garage, then snagged the foam cup of night crawlers from the front seat and went in through the back door. Nina had been lying in wait, and she came into the kitchen as Duke was putting the night crawlers in the refrigerator. He had been anticipating another assault, but it didn’t come.
“You’re back already?” she asked in a calm voice.
“I could tell they weren’t going to be biting, so I packed it in.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the cup.
“Night crawlers.”
“Worms?”
“I bought them at Paddy’s before I went to the cabin. The cup has a lid on it. They won’t hurt anything.”
She frowned, as though confused. “I thought you were going to dig for worms. Isn’t that why you took the shovel?”
Duke swallowed hard. “I changed my mind. It was easier to buy them.”
She stared at Duke for a long minute, nodded, and said, “I see,” then turned and walked away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tony recruited Donald “Donnie Sweets” Staffilino to help him search for the Troll. Donnie was a muscular 6’3”, had no discernible conscience, and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Tony and Donnie scoured the Upper Ohio Valley, wrinkling lapels and tossing around underpaid bartenders in every beer joint along the river, searching for some trace of their missing courier, and, more importantly, their missing cash. Their tactics were rarely gentle.
They traced the Troll’s path and knew he had not been seen after he left the Oasis. There were no signs of the Lincoln, the money, or the enormous head of Frankie Silvestri. He had simply vanished. Antonelli had every cop that was in his pocket in the tristate area looking for the car, and they had the passenger lists checked for all flights leaving Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Columbus within forty-eight hours of Saturday night. Nothing.
Antonelli was irate. One minute, he was screaming for Tony to find out who had killed the Troll and stolen the money. The next minute, he was convinced that the Troll had skipped town with the loot. But Tony DeMarco knew otherwise. The Troll would never have abandoned Antonelli. The Troll had an acute sense of self-importance that was tied directly to his job as a trusted bagman for the Antonellis. It was how he identified himself. It made him somebody. He had a modest lifestyle, and money was unimportant to him. The Troll’s reputation as a member of the Antonelli crime family meant too much to him to jeopardize. Without that, he had nothing. Without that, he was just a misshapen freak.
Tony was convinced that someone had killed the Troll, but who? Who would have the balls—or the lack of common sense—to mess with an Antonelli courier? The Carlucci family from Youngstown had been trying to worm their way back into the valley’s gambling business for years. Even so, knocking off a deformed bagman seemed an unlikely approach. Tony still wondered how Moonie Collier had gotten the money to pay off his debt. He didn’t seriously think the big dumb-ass was responsible for the Troll’s disappearance. He wasn’t that desperate. Or, maybe he was.
While Antonelli fumed and DeMarco pondered, Moonie returned to work at the steel mill on Wednesday, his leg heavily bandaged under his work denims. The leg was still tender, but he was able to walk without a noticeable limp. After work, Moonie sat in a chair at Duke’s Place while Duke assembled the bar and drilled him on what he was to say when he was questioned by Tony DeMarco. Yes, I was in the Oasis last Saturday. Yes, I saw the Troll come in and I saw him leave. No, I never saw the Troll after that.
“What if he wants to know where you got the money to pay Carmine?” Duke asked.
“I’ll tell him to go fuck him
self.”
“Moonie!”
“Fine. I’ll tell him I hit the trifecta—I wheeled the eight horse for five bucks. He went off at 25-to-1, and a couple of long shots placed and showed.”
“Is that true?”
“Yeah. It’s the race I lost.”
“If you had won, that would have given you enough to pay off your debt and still go to Vegas?”
“If I’d hit it, I’d still be in Vegas.”
“Okay, and the answer to any other question is . . .”
“I don’t know.”
“Good boy.”
Satisfied that his pupil was properly prepared, Duke sent Moonie to find and confront Tony DeMarco. Duke knew that Tony had been looking for Moonie, and the best defense was a frontal assault. Tony’s car was at Carmine’s, and Moonie was back in fifteen minutes.
“He asked me everything you said he’d ask me, including where I got the dough. I said, ‘If it’s any of your goddamn business, I hit the trifecta at Mountaineer.’”
“What’d Tony say?”
“He said, ‘Get the fuck outta my face.’ I blew him a kiss and left.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Duke was at the restaurant at 6:00 a.m. the day it was to open. He made a pot of coffee and toasted two pieces of wheat bread, which he ate dry, and sat at the table nearest the kitchen. It was quiet and dark, with the only light being cast from the hazy fluorescent tubes burning under the mahogany bar. Duke Ducheski took a few minutes to drink in the quiet and the solitude. The restaurant was filled with the scents of a spit-shined and renovated building—fresh paint, wood stain, varnish, and ammonia.
It was finally going to happen.
