A Perfect Shot

by Robin Yocum

  “Good. 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’? You mean hard cash, don’t you, Chief?”

  “Correct. Hard cash. That’s the language I understand.”

  Jaynes’s face burned crimson. “You fuckin’, double-crossing Dago bastard.”

  Tony shrugged, snorted a laugh, and held up both palms. “Of course I double-crossed you. That’s what I do.”

  Jaynes opened the recorder, jerked out the cassette, and threw it on the ground, stomping it several times, an action that left the overweight chief sucking for air.

  Tony didn’t flinch, but he watched in mild amusement as he worked over a piece of chewing gum. “Chief . . . it’s a copy. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to blackmail you with the original.”

  Chief Hinton Jaynes sat, nearly in tears, his guts on fire.

  “Don’t feel so bad, Chief. Every cop in the valley falls for it. We’ve got every dirty cop up and down the river on tape.” He took the chewing gum from his mouth and set the wad on the corner of the chief’s desk, for the first time showing his true contempt for the fat man. “Here’s the deal.” From inside his suit coat he pulled a brown lunch bag, folded down and taped shut, and tossed it on the chief’s desk. “The tape is an insurance policy, you know, in case you decide to find Jesus or you get a case of moral consciousness and try to drop the package on us, which I’m sure won’t happen. But, just in case . . .” Tony let the words hang for several seconds while the face of Hinton Jaynes burned like the open hearth. “You’ll get a regular package from me.” He pointed to the one he had just dropped on the chief’s desk. “In exchange, we—the Antonelli family—are to be the exclusive numbers game in Mingo Junction. We operate without restriction and we operate without competition. That’s very important, Chief. This is now our turf, exclusively. We won’t cause any problems, but you don’t give us any, either. Understand?”

  There was a roar in the chief’s ears that could drown out the one from the blast furnace at Wheeling-Pitt. Every nerve ending in his body was on fire. How stupid could he have been?

  “Chief!” Tony said, snapping Jaynes from his trance. “Do you understand?”

  Jaynes nodded. “Yeah . . . I understand.”

  Duke was not hesitant to approach Chief Jaynes. Over the years, the chief had been a constant verbal target of Tony DeMarco at the Sunday dinners. Because of this, Duke incorrectly assumed that Tony was able to sell drugs and run a gambling operation only because the chief, like most people, feared him and the Antonellis. He had given no thought to the possibility of blackmail and payoffs. Why pay off someone, Duke reasoned, when you were powerful enough to operate without their consent? In his naiveté, Duke believed that the chief’s desire to solve a homicide would outweigh his fear of Tony DeMarco.

  When Duke showed up at the police department and asked to see him, Chief Jaynes lumbered up from his office and greeted him like a lost war buddy, pumping his right hand and slapping his shoulder. “Duke Ducheski, good to see you, son. Come on back and sit down. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks, Chief,” he said.

  “It’s time for my refill,” he said, pouring the remainder of the morning brew into a Lions Club mug badly in need of scrubbing. Duke waited, then tagged along into the office, taking a seat in the metal chair in front of the chief’s desk.

  The room was not so much an office as it was a shrine to Chief Jaynes. The walls were covered with photos of the chief and anyone of any note who had ever wandered through Mingo Junction. There was one of Jaynes shaking hands with Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, who had gotten his first high school coaching job at Mingo High; Jaynes with his arm around the shoulders of actor Robert De Niro when he was in town filming The Deer Hunter; Jaynes and Mingo Junction’s Rob Parissi, lead singer for the disco group Wild Cherry, which had the mega hit, “Play That Funky Music.” There were numerous letters of commendation and certificates of completion for law enforcement classes.

  “I suppose you’re wanting to know how the investigation into Moonie Collier’s murder is coming,” the chief said, maneuvering behind his desk and snagging a manila folder from the credenza in the process. The tab on the folder read, “Collier, Theodore,” and it seemed woefully thin for the contents of a murder investigation.

  “Yes, sir, that’s exactly why I stopped by,” Duke said.

  The chief slipped a cigarette into the corner of his mouth, a conductor’s wand that kept time as he spoke. “The first thing you should know is that I’ve personally taken control of the investigation.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I heard. That’s why I thought I’d stop by. I thought it was a little strange that I was the one who found Moonie shot in my restaurant, but no one has interviewed me yet.”

  The chief sat up a little straighter in his chair, his brow furrowed, and three distinct ridges stretched across his forehead. Duke’s comment implied ineptitude, and that had riled him. After a calming breath, he leaned into the flame of his Zippo. “I’ve been meaning to get to you, Duke, but we’ve been so busy tracking down other leads that we just haven’t had the chance to give you a call.” He forced a smile. “I mean, after all, better to be tracking down real suspects, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so. Do you have any leads?” Duke asked.

  “As of yet, nothing solid, but we’re working on it. I can tell you this much, it looks like a robbery gone bad—probably done by professionals. They didn’t leave any fingerprints—not a goddamn one. It was a tidy little job, I can tell you that.”

  “‘Tidy’? Did you go into my restaurant after the murder? There was blood everywhere. Those bastards tortured Moonie before they killed him. Who shoots someone in the knees before robbing them? No way that was a robbery.”

  “They cleaned out your cash register. What else could it be?”

  “That was just a cover.”

  Hinton Jaynes arched his brows. “Really? A cover, huh?” He leaned forward and put both elbows on the desk, his fat fingers interlocked, a gold wedding band strangling a ring finger. “A cover for what?”

  Duke took a breath and exhaled slowly. “It was a professional hit.”

  The chief’s frown slowly dissolved into a grin. “You’re kidding me, right? Why in the devil would you think that? Who would want to kill a good ol’ boy like Moonie Collier?”

  “Joseph Antonelli and Tony DeMarco.”

  The chief shifted in his seat, a line of red creeping up around his shirt collar. He didn’t want to hear the name Tony DeMarco spoken in his presence. The fact that Duke mentioned it in connection with a murder made it even worse. The chief took a nervous drag on his cigarette. “How do you know that? Well, how do you think you know that?”

  “Tony thought Moonie had something to do with the disappearance of Frankie Silvestri and the stolen gambling receipts back in September.”

  “Frankie Silvestri? You mean that little crippled-up fella I used to see down around Carmine’s Lounge? What do they call him, the Troll? That fella?”

  Now Duke could feel the heat creeping up his neck. Jaynes was such a horrible liar. “Yeah, that little crippled-up fella, that’s him.”

  “He disappeared? I didn’t know that. When? And what are you talking about—gambling receipts?”

  “You didn’t know that the Troll disappeared with about sixty thousand dollars in gambling receipts in September?”

  The chief shook his head and took a long hit off his Camel. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “How could you not know? You’re the goddamn chief of police.”

  “Well, son, let me tell you a few things. First of all, I don’t know where he would get gambling receipts in Mingo Junction.
I don’t tolerate gambling in my city. Secondly, no one’s reported this Troll fella missing. Maybe he just went on a little vacation. And, lastly, if you call me the goddamn chief of police again, I’ll wrap my nightstick around your skull.”

  The fire that exploded in Duke’s belly was not an unfamiliar one. It was the same as getting kicked in the balls, an immediate ignition that burned every nerve from his testicles to his heart. Hinton Jaynes knew who killed Moonie; he just didn’t care.

  Duke stood and leaned over the chief’s desk, teeth clenched beneath a curled upper lip. “I’ll tell you what, Chief, how about giving me a nice, big, wet kiss on the lips? If you’re going to fuck me, the least you can do is kiss me.”

  The gloves were off. The chief’s eyes squeezed down to hateful slits. “You better watch your mouth, boy.”

  “Really? You think because your fat ass is parked behind that badge that I’m forced to show you respect?”

  Anger flared in the eyes of Hinton Jaynes, his cheeks glowing to the color of boiled crab. Then, slowly, the eyelids relaxed, the cheeks cooled, and a conniving smile crossed his lips. “Maybe I should do a little more work on this. In fact, Mr. Ducheski, I think interviewing you would be a fine place to start. Moonie was killed in your restaurant, and where exactly were you that morning?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “This is an active murder case, Mr. Ducheski. No one has been eliminated as a suspect.”

  “That’s total bullshit. You know I didn’t kill Moonie.”

  “Maybe you staged it for insurance purposes? Sure would make a good newspaper story if you were under investigation, wouldn’t it—former basketball hero being investigated for murder of lifelong friend? That would make for some nice headlines. Probably wouldn’t do your business any good, would it?”

  The message was clear, and, with the possible exception of the time Tony DeMarco had a pistol jammed in his mouth, Duke Ducheski had never felt so powerless. Without another word, he turned and left, the heat from his belly rolling clear up into his throat. He was angry at his own stupidity. Pissing off the chief was bad enough, but as he walked out of the police station, he realized he had just spoken into the ears of Tony DeMarco.

  When Chief Hinton Jaynes suffered those rare pangs of consciousness about accepting the monthly bribes from Tony DeMarco, he found it easy to place blame. How could anyone expect him to survive on that piddly-ass salary the city paid him? Why, if the city had paid him what he was worth, he would have had no reason to start accepting the cash.

  Besides, the people of Mingo Junction had no reason to complain. Their community was a safe place to live. He didn’t tolerate loud car stereos or mufflers, or kids ramming their cars up and down the streets or squealing their tires. And if any of those peckerheads from Brilliant came up to raise a little hell, didn’t he run their asses right out of town? Goddamn right, he did. Granted, he now had a messy, unsolved homicide on the books, but, truth be known, most people were more concerned about kids squealing tires than they were the death of Moonie Collier.

  He was only giving them what they wanted. The mill rats loved to gamble. It was a part of their culture and their pathetic lives. He would have a riot on his hands if he tried to take away their football spot sheets. How else would they be able to fritter away their paychecks? Even without the payoffs from Antonelli, he would have made no attempt to kill the gambling. So, was it really a bribe?

  Those were the thoughts running through his head earlier that afternoon when the DeMarco henchman they called Rhino stopped by the office. The receptionist had recognized Rhino, and she said only, “He’s alone.” Rhino walked into the office and tossed Jaynes the brown paper sack. “Enjoy your lunch,” he said.

  Jaynes held the money in his right hand and flipped the edges of the wad with his left thumb like a blackjack dealer with a fresh deck. The bag contained the regular thousand-dollar payoff, plus an additional five grand.

  “There’s a little bonus there for not getting too excited about Moonie Collier,” Rhino said.

  As he turned and headed out the door, Jaynes said, “Hold up a minute. I want to tell you about a conversation I had the other day.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The work schedule was wearing him down. Monday through Friday, Duke worked the daylight shift at Wheeling-Pitt, reporting to work at 8:00 in the morning and getting off at 4:00 in the afternoon. As soon as the whistle sounded, he ran across the street and showered in the apartment upstairs, then went right down to work behind the bar, his hair still sopping. Duke’s Place closed at 1:00 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday nights. By the time he cleaned up and stocked for the next day, made beer orders, and dropped the cash in the night deposit, it was never any earlier than 2:30, and usually after 3:00. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the bar was open until 2:00 a.m., so he was there even later.

  Some nights after closing, he visited Cara. Most of the time he crashed on the couch in his office or the blow-up mattress in the apartment. He napped during his lunch break at the mill, and sometimes caught a little sleep in the early evenings before the heavy crowds arrived. Duke couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t feel like taking a nap.

  On Sunday nights, he always closed the restaurant himself. Angel would stop by in the early evening, and they would pay bills and review the week’s financials.

  On the first warm Sunday of March 1994, a larger-than-usual crowd had gathered to toast the divorce of Pee-Wee Tomasi. Pee-Wee was falling-down drunk when Duke took his car keys and made his brother promise to take him home.

  When Pee-Wee and his friends left, Duke made up the cash drawer for the next day and hurriedly mopped the floor. It was Cara’s birthday, and he hadn’t seen her all weekend. Saturday, he had gone to Steubenville and bought her a cake and an opal necklace for her present. He was anxious to give it to her. With the front of the restaurant locked tight, he backed out the kitchen door into the alley, cradling the cake he bought her in one hand and fumbling with his keys in the other. Duke had just inserted the key into the lock of the steel security door when out of the corner of his eye he saw the looming shadow of a man. By then, it was too late to react.

  The thump to the back of his head sent the world into slow motion. He staggered and tried to stay upright, but the alley swirled, a burst of white light flashed across his eyes and frontal lobe, and his knees buckled. The cake slid within the box, like a deck chair in rough seas, and fell from his hands. Darkness closed in from the corners of his eyes, and he felt as though his torso was draped in a vest of lead. The bricks of the building and the gravel of the alley blurred, but only for an instant. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Consciousness returned before his vision. Men were talking, but the voices were garbled, and he could not dissect the words from the sentences. It was as though he was under light anesthetic—aware that there was a world beyond the haze, but not conscious enough to make sense of his environment. He was lying on a floor, that much he knew, and there was a fierce pounding in his head. It was that pain that had awakened Duke before he could open his eyes.

  When finally he could lift his eyelids, light entered his pupils like hot blades. He could not regain his focus. The room was a swirl of sepia. A light burned overhead; it created a fuzzy, yellow glow that seemed to pulse with each beat of his heart; a misty outline of a figure loomed before him. Duke closed his eyes again, squeezing the lids in a vain attempt to ward off the pain. The voices in the room remained nonsensical, floating overhead like so much gibberish. Occasionally, he could discern the laughter. The pain in his head made him nauseated, and the pressure pushed up through his chest, leaving an acidic venom percolating in his throat. He wanted to vomit.

  Duke was not sure how much time passed before his vision returned. It could have been minutes or hours. When the room started narrowing into focus, he saw the blurred figure before him in duplicate. Gradually, it melded into a single Tony DeMarco. It was only then th
at he remembered the shadowy figure in the alley and the thump to the back of his head. It stood to reason that Tony was involved.

  “How’s your head, Duke?” he asked. The words seemed to flow out of his mouth like sap from a maple.

  Duke reached behind his head and ran his fingertips over a knot the size of half a tennis ball. The light from the room danced like smoke. He pinched his temples between his middle finger and thumb, and again fought back the bile that filled his throat.

  Several minutes passed. Duke blinked his surroundings into focus. He recognized it as the rec room on the third floor of Tony’s Victorian home. When the house had been owned by the Carothers family in the early days of the twentieth century, the room had been used for entertaining the executives of the steel mills. Tony had converted it to a party room with a big-screen television, a pool table, and a wet bar. One end was dedicated to fitness equipment. Duke sat up and then leaned against the cool stainless steel of Tony’s universal gym. When he squinted across the room, he saw Tony standing behind the bar, grinning, and still waiting for an answer. It didn’t come, so he posed his question again. “Your head, Ducheski? How’s your head?”

  “Hurts,” Duke mumbled.

  “Want some ice? That’ll keep the swelling down,” Tony said.

  “Maybe not getting hit with a club would have helped keep the swelling down.”

  “See, that’s what I like about you, Duke. You’ve always got something cute to say, no matter how bad the situation.” Tony walked around and took a seat on one of the oak stools fronting the bar. Duke slowly turned toward the couch. Sitting there were two smiling thugs. “You’ve met Rhino,” Tony said. “This other gentleman is a business associate of mine, Emilio.” Neither man moved from the couch. Duke recalled Carmine telling him how Emilio something-or-other had roughed him up at the lounge.