by Robin Yocum
“Go ahead, motherfucker, give me just one more reason to kill you. It’s not like I don’t have enough already.”
“Is that what you’re going to do, Tony? Kill me, too? Want to make it a clean sweep?”
Tony pushed forward with his forearm, shoving it hard against Duke’s jaw and neck, forcing his head up and to the left, pushing so hard that Duke thought his spine would separate from the base of his skull. “You shut your mouth and listen to me, mister fuckin’ washed-up basketball star. I am so fuckin’ tired of your disrespect. Maybe once you’re not family no more, I’ll kill you just to watch you die.” He was talking in the heavy Brooklyn accent.
“What do you want?” Duke eked out.
“What do I want? What the fuck do you think I want, you moron? I want to know what your idiot friend did with my money.”
“What money?”
Tony yelled and pushed harder, this time nearly lifting Duke off the ground. “You’re fuckin’ trying my patience, junior. My money, where is it?”
“I told you before, Moonie didn’t take your money.”
Tony showed clenched teeth through a smile of frustration. “I know he took the money. You know he took the money. So let’s make life easy for both of us, huh? Where . . . is . . . the . . . money?”
Duke slowly shook his head. “He never had your money. He never did. If he had it, don’t you think he would have told you after you blew off the first kneecap?”
“He paid two grand to Carmine and blew town for a week, and I’m supposed to believe he didn’t steal the money from the Troll?”
“He won that money at Mountaineer,” Duke squeaked out. “He hit the trifecta.”
“Really?” He relaxed his arm and pulled away. Duke cupped his jaw in his right hand and worked it back into place. This made Tony grin. “That’s too bad, huh? That means I killed that poor bastard for nothin’.” He paused a moment, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come. “Let me tell you something, Ducheski. You’re not dealing with an amateur. I know he didn’t hit the trifecta. The most the trifecta paid that night was $1,200. I got connections at Mountaineer, and I checked it out. That dumb-shit friend of yours told me he hit for eight grand. He was a fuckin’ liar. He looked me right in the eye and told me he hit the trifecta and had enough money to pay off his debt. No way. You don’t lie to Tony DeMarco.”
“So, you had to kill him? You don’t know that was your money.”
“You know, a stupid Polack like you wouldn’t understand this, but I got a reputation to maintain. Word gets out that Moonie clipped Tony DeMarco for sixty large and I don’t do nothin’, people might start to think I’m getting a little soft, you know? I don’t want that to happen. Sometimes you have to put a little blood on the floor, so to speak.” Tony picked his gloves off the bar. “I’m going to leave now, Duke. But I want to tell you something, and for your sake I hope you’re listening. If I find out that you know where he stashed the money, you’re next, brother-in-law or not. I’ll cut out your heart while it still beats.”
He turned and started toward the kitchen, snagging the pizza box on the way out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was still an hour or more before dawn. Duke was stretched out on his back, eyes closed, with the soft sound of Cara’s breath in his ear and the softness of her hair and breasts on his arm. Her left hand, open and relaxed, rested across his chest. He hadn’t slept well—a few fitful hours at best. Even after they had made love, a time when Duke always dozed against her naked body, he fought sleep and twisted in the bed. His heart thumped and he pounded out short, staccato breaths, unable to get that full, cleansing breath, the relaxing sort that would help ease him into sleep. His brain would not shut down. It raced along. Moonie was lying in a pool of his own blood. Tony was smugly grinning as he shoveled a piece of pizza into his mouth. The images would not quit playing over and over in his brain. Three times that night, Cara had awakened and asked, “Are you okay?” Each time he nodded and stroked her hair until she drifted back to sleep.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, rousing her. “I’ve got some business to take care of.”
She grabbed his bicep with both hands and pulled him close. “No. Please, stay.”
“I’ll be back tonight. Promise. I’ve got to go.” He kissed her on the cheek and quickly dressed. Under the cover of a moonless night, he slipped out the back door, pulling it gently tight, before walking into the woods behind her house.
The woods were dark and covered in an icy sheen. The dead weeds and grass sagged under the weight of the glaze, causing them to droop over the path and brush against his pant legs as he walked. These were the same paths he, Angel, and Moonie had traversed as boys, and they were still familiar to him despite the darkness. The trail was covered in crystals of ice and slick under his soles. Rabbits moved under the briars. The blackbirds of winter cried out their warnings that an intruder was near.
As he crested the hill behind Cara’s and turned east, the faintest hint of morning was escaping from beyond the West Virginia hills. Duke picked up the pace, moving quickly to make the distance there and back before most of Mingo Junction awoke. Merely getting to the top of the hill had winded him, and he pulled hard for air. For a few minutes he stood at the crest, hands on hips, catching his breath. How many hours, he wondered, had a younger Duke Ducheski thoughtlessly and effortlessly run over those same paths? Now, simply making his way to the top of the hill had caused his hamstrings to tighten and his lungs to burn.
He ran the ridge of hills encircling Mingo Junction, and in another ten minutes, just as the first orange rays appeared over the blooming mill, Duke was standing amid the sad remains of Fort Logan. Time had taken its toll. A few honey-locust posts remained, but weeds and vines and dry rot had claimed much of the once-fine fort, and briars gnarled over ground that once had been beaten bare by their footfalls. Duke brushed the dirt from the corner of a car seat that was now little more than bare springs and a few scraps of cloth. He recalled that day long past when they had found the treasure in Andy Garfield’s trash. “Can we have this?” Duke had asked Andy, who hated kids and had the disposition of a badger.
“I don’t give a good goddamn what you do with it,” he growled. “Just don’t tromp over the flowers getting it out of here.”
Then Andy stood and watched to make sure that not a single marigold was squashed. They hauled it to the fort. The three best friends spent many nights on the seat, rocking back and staring at the river and the reflection of glowing molten steel being poured from the giant ladles inside Wheeling-Pitt.
They had been pubescent teens when they had finally abandoned Fort Logan. Duke couldn’t remember exactly when that had occurred. It had not been a conscious decision, like the formal closing of a military base, but rather a slow progression from childhood into an adolescence without forts and secret hideouts. One day, they left and never returned.
Until recently.
The car seat was wedged against a sandstone bluff. Beneath the seat was a two-foot square hole that the boys had dug and lined with plywood and No Parking signs they had taken from the junk heap behind the city street department garage. Inside the hole they had placed a safe that they’d rummaged from the dump. It no longer locked, but it was a wonderful addition to the fort—their secret compartment. They dropped it into the hole on its back so the door opened to the top. It was the ideal place to keep soda out of the heat and away from their predatory rivals, the South Side Commandos. When Fort Logan was still in active duty, the boys covered the opening with the sign, dirt, and the car seat. It was never disturbed or noticed. Over the years, the dirt had hardened atop the sign, and vines snaked across the ground so that no hint of a secret hiding place existed.
Duke nudged the seat forward. It was obvious that the ground beneath it had been disturbed recently. Working his fingers into the dirt, he found the edge of the No Parking sign and lifted. The dirt and stone slid off the metal. He pushed the sign to the side and found the safe r
emarkably clean, save for some rust around the edge of the door. After taking a steadying breath, he grabbed the handle and lifted.
Crammed inside the safe was the Troll’s blue canvas bag. Duke worked it back and forth, prying it free. Unzipping the bag, he took a breath and said, “Christ, Moonie.” The bag was stuffed full of bills, a patchwork of presidential green.
It was the first time he had cried since the night Moonie Collier died. Moonie’s instincts had been to run back to their childhood fort and hide the money like they had hidden their sodas. It forced Duke to remember just how childlike Moonie could be. The sadness overwhelmed him. He dabbed at his tears with the shoulder of his jacket, returned the bag, and re-covered the hole with the sign and the dirt and the skeleton of the seat. The sun was now completely above the West Virginia hills, burning the ice off the Ohio hillside as he began walking back to Cara’s.
Duke Ducheski was consumed with renewed anger. As he walked, he plotted: How would he murder Tony DeMarco? It could be quite simple, actually. He played it out in his mind: He would simply renew his love for Nina and re-ingratiate himself with her family. He would dutifully attend the Sunday dinners, but this time he would laugh and smile when Tony laughed and smiled, and scowl when Tony scowled. He would act the part of the little lapdog, the role that Tony demanded from his friends. When the wine flowed, he would plead for a slightly drunken Tony to tell more stories. Oh, and what wonderful stories they would be. He would laugh and pat Tony on the back, and they would be great paisanos, confidants.
Then, one night several months later, Duke would be closing up the bar and Tony would stop by, and once again he would start badgering Duke about allowing gambling in the restaurant. Duke would wince and hesitate and say, “I don’t know.” Tony would drape a friendly arm around Duke’s back and squeeze—not a friendly squeeze, but a strong, meaningful squeeze, a signal that he was tired of Duke dragging his feet. “I guess we can talk about it,” Duke would say.
Tony, sensing that his brother-in-law was weakening, would say in his mock Brooklyn-Italian accent, “Sure, what the hell, it don’t cost nothin’ to talk, right?” He would laugh.
“Let’s go back to my office,” Duke would say.
And that’s where it would happen. When the office door clicked shut and Tony turned to discuss business, Duke would have a pistol pointing right at his nose. Duke would let Tony get a good look at his eyes and understand the deadly seriousness of the moment. When that occurred, when Duke saw the terrified recognition on Tony’s face, Duke would back him into the hallway, shoot him twice in the knees and twice in the chest, and let him die on Moonie’s bloodstain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chief Hinton Jaynes was a caricature for every stereotypical, corrupt, small-town cop in America. He sipped cheap gin throughout the day from a pint bottle that he kept hidden in his bottom desk drawer, and he had been a two-way tackle for the Mingo High Indians in the days before facemasks. Those two separate but related facts had left his ample nose twisted and rutted, bright red, and lined with a road map of deep-blue veins. His jaw jutted out so far that his lower lip was always sucking in the upper and hiding it from view. The cigarettes he chain-smoked—nonfiltered Camels—stuck out from the lower lip like tiny erections, dancing when he spoke and coming dangerously close to igniting the tiny hairs that sprouted from his nostrils. The buttons of his always neatly pressed white shirts strained to constrain the belly, which had so devoured his gun belt that the handle of his revolver dug into his side each time he sat down. He was a monument to what excessive smoking, drinking, and a daily lunch of sausage gravy over biscuits at Paddy’s Diner could do to a person.
Jaynes loved being the chief of police of Mingo Junction, Ohio. He particularly enjoyed leading the parades, getting out in front of the American Legion honor guard in his cruiser, red-and-blue lights flashing, waving and tossing bubble gum to the kids, all the while checking out their moms from behind his reflective sunglasses. He had coveted the job for as long as he could remember, although never for the right reasons. As a youth, he fantasized about using his authority to blow away the classmates who made cruel remarks about his weight or his pronounced under bite, which had earned him the nickname “Four-by,” because it looked like someone had smashed him in the mouth with the end of a four-by-four.
The badge on his chest earned Jaynes a grudging respect in Mingo Junction. Or, at least that is how he saw it. What the chief interpreted as respect was actually abject fear. He had a long memory, a gun, authority, and a mean streak as wide as the Ohio River. It didn’t matter to Chief Hinton Jaynes whether you respected him or simply feared him; he made no distinction between the two. The law in Mingo Junction was whatever he decided it would be. If you didn’t like that, too bad for you.
Jaynes joined the police department after a hitch in the army. His climb through the ranks of the department had been less than meteoric, and the more he was passed over for promotions, the more disgruntled he became. He was once suspended after roughing up a sixteen-year-old during a routine traffic stop. He was twice accused of, though never charged with, offering women the opportunity to avoid speeding tickets in exchange for blow jobs. He was the only suspect when eight hundred dollars in cash and a gold wristwatch disappeared from the evidence safe. He languished as a patrolman for years before making sergeant, and he was passed over for the chief’s job three times before council finally gave him the position in 1978. There were no external candidates, and he had more years of service than any of the other internal candidates. Perhaps, city council rationalized, Jaynes would rise to the challenge.
He didn’t.
A week after his swearing in, Jaynes held a press conference to announce the formation of a special anti-vice unit that would focus on illegal drugs and gambling operations. “I’m putting the owners of these operations on notice. These elements are not welcome in Mingo Junction, Ohio,” he was quoted in the Steubenville Herald-Star. “Anyone who thinks they’re going to operate here is going to have to deal with me.”
The message was crystalline.
The youthful fantasies of wanting to be the chief of police to exact revenge on his tormentors had long since been replaced by the financially advantageous realities of being a dishonest cop in the Ohio Valley.
The week after the article appeared in the newspaper, Tony DeMarco showed up unannounced at the chief’s office.
Jaynes beamed at the sight of the young Italian, who was wearing a finely tailored suit and carrying a black attaché case. “Mr. DeMarco, how good to see you. Come in, come in,” he said, rising from his seat to shake hands. Tony pulled the door closed behind him and was all smiles, though he keenly remembered how then patrolman Jaynes had called him a wop and jabbed him in the kidneys with a nightstick in the days when he was just a punk thug hanging around Isaly’s. This, however, was not the time or place to relive those days.
“Congratulations on your new position, Chief Jaynes,” Tony said. “It should have happened years ago.”
“I appreciate your sentiments,” Jaynes said.
Tony was playing him. They sat and exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before Tony lifted the black attaché case off the floor.
“What’s in there?” Jaynes asked.
“In here?” Tony asked. “Oh, just some of my business papers. You keep your business papers in file cabinets; I keep mine in my briefcase.” He leaned toward the chief, one brow dipping low, and in a hushed tone asked, “Would you like to inspect my business papers, Chief Jaynes?”
The chief put his fingertips together, spread them, and then pressed his thumbs to his flat chin. “Well, as chief of police of Mingo Junction, I think it’s only fitting that I be kept apprised of all the business dealings going on in my city. Sure, why don’t you let me have a look?”
Tony stood before the chief and set the briefcase on the desk, clasps toward the lawman. He released the clasps one at a time, then slowly lifted the lid, revealing twenty neatly wrapped stack
s of crisp, new, ten-dollar bills. The chief looked for a long moment, then fingered one of the stacks, flipping through it bill by bill. Tony had deliberately used tens to fill the attaché case.
“My associates asked me to deliver this as a token of their respect for you as an individual and an officer of the law,” Tony said. He leaned across the desk and said in a hushed tone, “Ten thousand dollars, Chief, and it’s all yours. Can I assume that you find this satisfactory?”
Still holding a stack of cash, almost in a trance, Jaynes jerked his head up and said, “Oh, yes. Yes, most assuredly. It’s most satisfactory.”
“Good.” He gently lowered the lid on the attaché case and pushed the snaps closed. “Then, I can tell my superiors that you accept this small, what shall we call it, gift? A token of our appreciation?”
“You can tell them I accept their most generous gift, and with future considerations they can expect to continue doing business in Mingo Junction without interference from the police department.”
“‘Future considerations’?” Tony laughed. He whispered, “You mean hard cash, don’t you, Chief?”
Jaynes smiled. “Correct. Hard cash. That’s the language I understand.”
Tony winked. “It’s clearly understood, Chief Jaynes. Keep the attaché. The next time I or one of my associates visits, we’ll be carrying an identical attaché. We’ll walk in with your, what did you call them, ‘future considerations,’ in one attaché. We’ll walk out of here with the empty. That way, no one suspects you’re on the take.”
Jaynes bristled at Tony’s phrase, “on the take,” but decided to let it pass. “Understood,” he said.
Tony smiled. “Enjoy, Chief.”
A month later, Tony was back in the chief’s office with an identical attaché. The chief grinned as he opened it. The grin, however, faded quickly when inside he found only a small tape recorder. He looked at Tony, his lower lip stiff and engulfing the upper clear to his nose. Tony reached down and hit the play button.
