by Robin Yocum
Carmine didn’t know if he was strong enough to resist him. And if he refused such an offer, he always risked having what they referred to in Tony’s world as “an unfortunate accident.” Tony would then produce some bogus contract, and one of the corrupt judges in Antonelli’s pocket would give him the lounge as payment due.
His fears were not without merit. Over and again, Tony DeMarco had proved himself to be unpredictable. It was sad, he thought, that a man couldn’t feel safe in a place that was his own. At least it had been his before the Antonellis got involved. He hurriedly wiped down the table, scooped up the pile of twenties left for him, and turned off the single light inside the green, leaded glass shade hanging over the table.
Carmine checked up and down Commercial Street, then stepped out and locked the door behind him. His Chevy was parked just around the corner in the gravel lot, covered with a thin veil of fly ash from the mill. He looked around the lot, convinced he was being overly paranoid. Why, he reasoned, would Tony want to kill him? He wouldn’t be able to run the lounge for much longer, anyway. The monthly debt to Antonelli consumed enough of his income that he was going to lose the place. He didn’t know if he could keep the payments up for another year.
It was just before two o’clock in the morning when Carmine eased his Chevy over the lip of the gravel parking lot and onto Commercial Street. He drove through the empty streets to Logan Avenue and started up the hill, the orange glow of the mill lighting the sky behind him. He cut across on Kensington, near the Knights of Columbus Hall, and on to Bricker Avenue.
There were no streetlights at the end of Bricker, where the street dead-ended into the right-field fence of the ball diamond at Mt. Vernon Park. Carmine’s house was the last one on the left. The house was dark except for a single light burning over the sink in the kitchen. Carmine hit the button on the garage-door opener, and the door started its slow ascent. He nosed to the entrance and started in before the door had completely cleared the header. As he pulled the car forward, Carmine never saw the solitary figure emerge from the thicket of rosebushes and slip just inside the garage.
The man was dressed in a dark sweatshirt and jeans, a cap pulled hard against his brow. He pressed himself against the inside wall, hidden in the shadows, and held his breath. The car door opened, and the dome light came on as the garage door began to drop. Carmine grunted and lifted himself out of the car. He never looked into the darkened corner. He slammed the car door shut and had taken only two steps toward the kitchen door when a hand came down on his shoulder. A bolt of adrenaline surged through Carmine’s chest as he jumped and a pint of piss ran down his legs. He grasped for the .22-caliber revolver he kept tucked in his belt.
Duke knew he kept the gun in his belt, and he grabbed Carmine’s wrist before he could get his fingers on the grip. “Carmine, it’s me, Duke.” Carmine continued to fight—his seventieth birthday was in his rearview mirror, but he worked out regularly with dumbbells and a speed bag and was surprisingly strong—and Duke struggled to shove him spread-eagle over the hood of the Chevy. “It’s me. Relax.”
Carmine quit twisting; Duke’s weight pinned him to the car.
“Relax, Carmine, it’s me, Duke. Duke Ducheski.”
He slid Carmine off the hood, into a standing position. “It’s me, Duke,” he repeated.
The older man trembled like a cold puppy. His lungs ached from the shock, and tears welled in each eye. He sucked for air, dropping his palms to his knees.
“Carmine . . . Jesus, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .” His words were cut short when the left hook of Carmine’s youth lashed out and caught Duke flush on the cheek. The jolt sent Duke reeling back two steps and over the hood of the riding mower.
“You dumb sonofabitch, what the fuck are you doin’, tryin’ to get yourself killed? You scared me half to death,” Carmine snarled. “Look at this. You made me piss my goddamn pants.”
As Duke pulled a shovel out from under the small of his back and struggled to get up, he rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth and spat a glob of fresh blood onto the garage floor. Already, his jaw was swelling under his right eye. “Damn, Carmine. I didn’t know you had that much punch left in you.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
“I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t want anyone to see me.” Duke worked his jaw around and spat again. “I thought this was the best way to do it.”
“Yeah, well, you were wrong about that.” The old man leaned back against the car and took a few moments to catch his breath. “Come on inside, goddamn you.”
The door at the back of the garage led into the kitchen, where Carmine dropped his cash bag on the Formica counter and opened the cabinet above the stove, removing a bottle of bourbon that was more empty than full. He poured a drink in a juice glass and tossed it down. He poured a second and walked down the back hallway and disappeared into his bedroom, returning several minutes later wearing clean pants and bedroom slippers, and carrying the empty glass.
“So, what’s so damned important that you had to ’bout give me a heart attack?”
“I need a favor.”
“I assumed that.” He pointed to a kitchen chair. “Sit down.” When Duke had taken a seat, Carmine said, “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“Carm, you did time in prison for safecracking, right?”
“That’s ancient history. What of it?”
“Do you think you could still open a safe?”
Carmine flashed a look of disgust. “Of course I could. Why would I want to?”
“I need you to get into one for me.”
“Uh-huh. And can I safely assume that it’s not your safe?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then I’m not interested. I’m too old to go back to prison.” He walked over to the table and sat down. “How much is the haul?”
Duke shook his head. “No money.”
“Jewelry?”
“No.”
“What is this, some kind of fuckin’ riddle? You want me to crack a safe, but there’s no reward?”
“Oh, there would be a reward, Carmine . . . a huge reward.”
“You’re talkin’ nonsense. You sneak into my garage, scare the wits outta me, and now you’re talkin’ gibberish. Are you on drugs or something?”
“No, I just need your help.”
Carmine looked hard at the younger man. It had been weeks since he had seen Duke, who had been too embarrassed to come into the lounge since DeMarco had set up shop at Duke’s Place. “I told you not to let ’em in the door.”
“I know. I didn’t have a choice. Tony’s blackmailing me for the murder of Frankie Silvestri.”
“Really? You’re the one who killed that ugly little shit?”
Duke shook his head. “No. Moonie did.”
Carmine raised an index finger and slowly nodded his head. “I knew that dumb bastard would end up getting you in the trick box.”
“I got myself in the trick box, Carmine. And I’m trying to get out. That’s why I need your help.”
“Well, I’m not particularly anxious to go back to the joint. I’ve been there. And, believe this, it’s not a nice place.”
“What if I could guarantee that under no circumstances, even if we got caught, dead to rights, would we never go to prison?”
“How could you guarantee that?”
“Because if we get caught, they’ll find us floating in the Ohio River.”
“Man, you’re just making this more enticing with every passing minute. Get the fuck out of here.”
“What if I guarantee that it could give you something better than money?”
“And what might that be?”
Duke waited a minute, knowing that he finally had the old man’s attention. “The ultimate revenge on Tony DeMarco and Joey Antonelli.”
Carmine stared across the table for a long minute, then two. He got up, poured himself another drink, then sat down. “So, what’s the deal?”
&nbs
p; CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Duke knew Tony had a safe. While most people would try to keep something like that a secret, Tony DeMarco liked to brag about the fact that he “needed” a safe. During a family Christmas party at Tony’s—during a stretch when they had been “paisanos”—he had opened the basement door and escorted Duke to the dank bowels of the old house. Tony had again been hitting the wine hard, and with a slurred tongue said, “You get out of that steel mill and come work for me, you’ll have so much money you’ll need one of these, too.”
Duke didn’t take Tony up on the offer, but he did take note of the safe.
Duke and Carmine’s first attempt was aborted and nearly fatal.
Duke had gotten on his belly and slipped backward through the old coal chute at the side of the house and was in the basement in seconds. Carmine, however, surveyed the chute and balked at climbing through. With his arthritic hips, gravity might take care of getting him in, but he was positive he could never get back out.
“Come on, Carmine, you can do it,” Duke said. “I’ll help you.”
“I’ll never make it. Go unlock the back door,” Carmine whispered into the chute.
“The plan was to never go in the house, remember?”
“Plans change. You’re the one who recruited an old man to help you, and I can’t go down that chute.”
Duke went quietly up the basement stairs and opened the door leading into Tony DeMarco’s kitchen, where he came face-to-face with The Great Zeus, Tony’s slobbering, vicious Rottweiler. As he had been trained to do, the dog had quietly listened as Duke climbed the stairs. When the door opened, the beast leapt from the floor in one furious movement, growling, an open maw with dozens of sharp teeth and slobber flying everywhere. Duke jumped back and tried to slam the door, but The Great Zeus had gotten his snout just inside the jamb. The growl turned to an uncharacteristic yip, and The Great Zeus jumped away long enough for Duke to slam the door. The entire doorframe shook as the dog snarled and clawed at the door. For several moments Duke stood frozen, holding the doorknob tight, fearing the enraged dog could somehow manipulate it open.
Through the keyhole he could see The Great Zeus, emanating a growl from deep in his guts and standing with his nose inches from the doorknob. It was another several minutes before Duke released the knob and ran back down the stairs. When he pushed the door to the coal chute open, he saw Carmine leaning down with his hands on his knees.
“What the hell’s going on?” Carmine asked.
“I forgot about The Great Zeus.”
“That dog?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is he?”
“In the kitchen. I’m lucky to be alive. No way can I get past him.”
“Shit.”
Duke climbed out the chute and sprinted into the woods with Carmine hobbling along behind.
Two nights later, the second attempt was postponed because of rain. “It’s got to be a neat operation,” Carmine insisted.
The third attempt was planned for an overcast Saturday night when, from a conversation Carmine had overheard at the lounge, he knew Tony would be in Pittsburgh. As with the first attempt, Duke picked up Carmine and drove out Banyon Road, which ran between Goulds Creek and the Indian Hill & Iron Rail railroad branch that stretched between Mingo Junction and Broadway Station. Beyond the crest of Granite Hill, and just before the slag piles, a gravel road partially overgrown with bramble slipped off to the right. In the early part of the century, it had been the access road to the now-defunct Wednesday Creek Coal Company’s No. 9 mine. Now, the road was used only by hunters and lovers, and on rare occasions, safecrackers.
It was at the end of this road that Duke parked the Jeep, and he and Carmine headed up over the steep backside of Granite Hill, a mile beyond which was the home of Tony DeMarco. As was the case during the previous trip, the walk on the soft, leaf-covered ground played havoc on Carmine’s hips. By the time they arrived at the clearing behind DeMarco’s house, Carmine was exhausted and eased himself down on a maple stump. “Let’s get this done tonight,” he said, puffing for air. “My hips can’t take much more of this.”
There was a single lamp burning in the living room, a light on in the upstairs, and a streetlight illuminating the front of the house. Duke slipped out of the woods and peeked into the window; no one was inside except for The Great Zeus, who was lying on his rug in front of the oven. With his grandfather’s Colt pistol tucked in his belt and a flashlight in his hip pocket, Duke again opened the steel door of the coal chute and slid backward into the basement on his belly. As he did so, the cast-iron door closed over his face and then his arms. He went directly for the steps, making no effort to hide his presence. Why bother? The Great Zeus knew he was there before he entered the chute. Again, he peeked through the keyhole, and there the beast stood, mouth closed, shoulders tensed, leaning forward, listening. When Duke turned the doorknob slightly, The Great Zeus took one quick, silent step toward the door; the only noise was the faint scratch of his claws on the wood floor.
“Smart dog,” Duke muttered.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag containing ground beef mixed with a powder that Carmine called, simply, “Sleep-tight medicine.” Duke scooped the mixture out in his left hand, and jiggled the doorknob with his right. As The Great Zeus edged even closer, Duke pushed the door hard, catching the dog square on the snout. The impact knocked The Great Zeus back and sent him scrambling on the polished wood for a brief second, which was all the time Duke needed to throw the glob of beef on the floor and slam the door closed. The splat of the snack snagged The Great Zeus’s attention, and Duke could hear him swallow the meat in three snorts.
It was 11:22.
Duke held on to the doorknob for several minutes, then peeked through the keyhole again. The Great Zeus was back at his station, shoulders tensed and ready for attack. Duke resealed the sandwich bag and slipped it into his back pocket, wiped his hands on his bandana, and waited.
At 11:35, he again peeked through the keyhole. The Great Zeus hadn’t moved from his post at the basement door, but the medication was working its magic. The dog was staggering like a newborn calf, wavering, overcompensating, and struggling to remain upright. His eyes were glassy; his eyelids, starting to fall. With what remaining strength he possessed, The Great Zeus moved across the kitchen, one halted step at a time, toward his sleeping rug in front of the oven.
Duke opened the door six inches; The Great Zeus stopped and looked back. An inner instinct told him to attack. Slowly, he tried to turn, but he collapsed in a heap a foot from the rug. Duke waited a few moments longer until the dog’s eyes closed and his breathing slowed to a steady rhythm. As Duke opened the back door, Carmine was already coming down from the woods.
“Lock the door,” Carmine said, quickly brushing past. “And wipe up that grease spot on the floor.”
“Good call, Carmine. I didn’t even see it.” Duke bent down and wiped it clean with his bandana. Carmine squinted at the sleeping dog. “I hate that mutt.”
“That’s your old buddy, isn’t it?” Duke said.
“Why do people have dogs like that?” Carmine asked. “You might as well have a pet bear.”
“It’s a power thing. Tony fancies himself as the most powerful man in the valley, so he’s got to have a dog that enhances the image.”
Carmine shook his head and continued down the stairs. He set his tool bag on the floor in front of the safe, which was pressed against the back wall of the basement. Tony had encased the six-foot-tall safe in cement block. “What an idiot,” Carmine said, running his hands over the front of the slick, black surface and sliding his fingers along the gap between the door and the edge of the safe. “Why did he bother to encase it in cement block? Did he think someone was going to throw it on their back and haul it out of here? Moron. He should have spent the money on a better safe.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s cheap. There’s a company in Chicago that
cranks these things out like candy. They sell them to chain stores that slap their names on them, but they’re all the same. It looks like a fortress, which attracts people who don’t know any better . . .” He smiled. “. . . like Tony DeMarco, for example. It’s a pretty simple mechanism. I’ll have it open in ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?”
“If that. A safe like this—all it does is keep an honest man honest,” he said, reaching into the tool bag and pulling out a stethoscope. “Ten minutes. Just stand there and try to be quiet.”
“How old is this safe?”
Carmine frowned and shrugged. “Looks new—five, maybe ten years old.”
“That’s interesting. Let me ask you this, Carmine. How is it you know so much about this safe if you haven’t busted one in fifty years?”
Carmine slipped the stethoscope ends into his ears, pulled a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, and said, “How about you zip it up and let the doctor work?”
Carmine put a tiny notepad and the nub of a pencil on the floor, then shoved a penlight into the corner of his mouth, keeping the thin bead of light on the dial. He squinted as he slowly turned the dial, stopping every few minutes to move the stethoscope to another part of the safe door and to jot down a number on the notepad. Three times he restarted, following the road map he was creating on the paper.
It took twelve minutes.
“Here you go, junior.” Carmine pulled down on the silver handle, and the door opened.
Duke pulled the flashlight from his hip pocket and shined it into the blackened shelves. As the beam of light brightened the inside of the safe, his eyes widened. “Jesus Christ, look at that! There must be . . .”
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Carmine said, completing the statement.
“At least.” Some bills were wrapped and neatly stacked against the walls. Some were wound into rolls and bound with rubber bands. Some were stacked thick and loose against the sides of the safe. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. “I’ve never seen this much money in one place in my life,” Duke said. “I never realized how lucrative being in the mob could be.”
