Deadly Game

by R. B. Conroy

  “The l…little dog ran a…fter S…Sam.”

  “That’s better Sarah, much better.”

  Gus heard the classroom door open behind him. “Excuse me, Mr. Clemente, but Sarah has to take a reading test now with the other children so that will be all for today. Thank you so much for coming. See you next week.”

  Gus smiled at the pretty, young teacher. “Okay, Mrs. Owen.”

  “Bye, Mr. Gus.”

  “Good-bye, Sarah.”

  “Oh….and Mr. Gus, you can leave the desks in the hall. We will need them for this afternoon.

  “Sure, Mrs. Owen.” Gus stood and watched as the heavy door banged shut and the hall fell silent. This had been a different kind of day for Gus and the kids—it had been a difficult one. The recent visit from Butch Ferinni was weighing heavily on him. He was terribly conflicted. Working with the children over the years and sharing a close relationship with Trudy had softened the hardened gunman. For the first time in his adult life, he was starting to feel like a human being. It had been a wonderful and unexpected metamorphosis for someone with such a violent past.

  Gus’s soft tennis shoes glided gently over the cement floor as he walked quietly down the hall toward the front door. Inside the glassed-in office area, the busy principal looked up from her work and smiled at Gus as he walked past. He lifted his hand nervously in response. The friendly administrator had no idea of the battle that was raging inside of her popular volunteer as he walked nervously past the office area.

  Gus hurried over and pushed through the front doors; tears were streaming down his face. He dropped his head to hide his red eyes from passer-bys and started down the wide front walkway toward the visitor parking lot. Sarah and the other children’s faces kept flashing through his mind. He loved them and they trusted him completely. How could he possibly kill again? How could he betray the trust of those children? But his daughter, Darcy, needed that money desperately for her operation and Ferinni’s offer would pay for it. He thought his head was going to explode as he crawled into his car and drove away.

  ………

  The sun felt warm on Gus’s protruding elbow as he turned down the alley toward his apartment. He loved the sound of the gravel crunching beneath the car’s tires—it reminded him of his childhood days in Elmwood Park where all of the alleys were gravel. He could hear the birds chirping in the quiet neighborhood as he pulled into the back parking area. The calming scene was quickly interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing. He slid the cell from his pocket and flipped it open.

  “Hello, honey.”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “How are you?”

  There was a hesitation; he could tell she was fighting back the tears. “Not so good, Dad.”

  Gus killed the engine. “What’s the matter, honey? Has something happened?”

  “I’ve been getting weaker and weaker lately. I missed a couple of days of work last week. I don’t have any energy. I called the doctor a few days ago and he got me into the hospital for tests today.”

  “And?”

  “I’m getting worse Dad, my disease is progressing. The doctor says I will have to have surgery soon.” She began sobbing. “I d…don’t have any insurance and I don’t have the money. I’m gonna die, Dad!”

  “No, no you won’t. You’re not going to die. I have the money for the surgery. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Dad! It’s two hundred thousand dollars! You don’t have that kind of money.”

  “You’re not going to believe what happened, Darcy—I was just about to call you.”

  “What Dad? What happened?”

  “Last night, at the casino, I felt lucky. So I started playing the ten dollar slots after my shift was over. I hit it big, honey! It was the second biggest payoff in the boat’s history! Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars!”

  “Oh, my gosh! Just last night? Dad, that’s wonderful!” The phone went silent for a second, “But that’s your money Dad, you should keep it.”

  “No honey, don’t be silly. That why I was playing the slots, to try and win the money for your surgery. I have all I want here, I don’t need any money.”

  “Thank you, Dad, thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. Now call that doctor and tell him to schedule that operation. Your old man will pay for it.”

  “Are you sure, Dad?”

  “Darcy!”

  “Okay, okay. God bless you, Dad. I love you!”

  “I love you too, baby.”

  “Bye, Dad.”

  “Bye, honey.”

  Gus quickly punched in another number.

  “Hello, Doc.”

  “Butch, I want to do the hit now—right away!

  “Alright. Let me check out a few things and get back with you.”

  “Okay Butch, but don’t waste any time. I want to get this thing over with.”

  “I’ll call you back yet today.”

  “You better.”

  “I will.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Chapter 37

  Butch stumbled down the cobblestone walkway that led to a little cedar-sided building that was tucked neatly into the side of the hill next to his mansion. His hip was killing him. He pushed open the door to the small house and swiped away the thick cobwebs. He rubbed the inside wall in the darkened room, searching for the light switch. Bumping into the elusive switch, he flipped it on. The old bulb barely illuminated the musty room.

  Back in his glory days, this had been the home of Butch’s head gardener. Unfortunately, after years of pressure from law enforcement and increasing com-petition from the Black and Latino gangs, the lucrative drug business had more or less been taken over and he could no longer afford such a luxury. He looked around the room. There was an old black phone covered with dust sitting on a small table next to a worn out sofa. Butch had used the phone back to take calls that he didn’t want traced back to him. The phone was still registered to the former gardener, Claude Evans. Since the bill was only nineteen dollars a month, Butch had kept the phone active over the years just in case he needed it. Or, as Maria so delicately put it, “You loved that old fart so much, you can’t bring yourself to disconnect his phone.”

  Butch slid a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, bent over and carefully lifted the receiver, wiping off the thick dust. He then wrapped the handkerchief around the receiver and pressed it to his ear. His broad face broke into a smile at the distinct sound of a dial tone. He punched in the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah Vito, it’s me—Butch, and I got good news.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Gus is in; he’s going to do the job.”

  “That’s good, he’s the best.” He grunted out a laugh. “He must really love that kid of his.”

  “Guess so. Gus said he wants to do it right away.”

  “How about this weekend?”

  “That’s good, but why this weekend?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this and I have a plan.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Butch waited while Vito blew his nose into the receiver. “Damn it, Vito, turn the receiver away when you blow your nose.”

  “If you gotta blow, you gotta blow!”

  Annoyed, Butch continued, “So what’s this plan?”

  “My uncle has a small cottage on Lake Wawasee—the same lake Alex and Nicky go to every weekend in the summer. When I was a kid growing up in the Chicago area, we used to go to the lake and spend the whole summer with my uncle, fishing and swimming and goofing around—it’s only a two hour drive from Chicago. My uncle is almost ninety now, but he still has that place up at the lake. We still go up there once in awhile. He lets everybody in the family use his cottage. Also, over the years, Alex has invited my wife and me up to his place several times.”

  “Okay, good, but so what?”

  “Alex has a habit—one he seldom breaks. They arrive at the lake on Friday evening and Alex gets up the next morning at
the crack of dawn and takes target practice at a nearby shooting range. It’s in the Tri-County Game Preserve. He says he gets his aggressions out by blasting away at that target.”

  Dust plumed as Butch’s full backside fell against the arm of the old sofa. “And?”

  “Well, like I said, I’ve spent a lot of time up there. I know that area very well. That game preserve is huge and the shooting range is right in the middle of it and far away from everything. And there’s a back way to the range. I found it when I was a kid.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Think about it, Butch. Gus and I can come in the back way to the preserve. It’s very rural, very isolated and Alex should be alone that early in the morning. There’s a high bluff behind the range near a stand of evergreens. Gus could sit up on that bluff and have a clear shot. Alex would have his back to us—he would never know what hit him. And better yet, the sound of a rifle going off would be very normal—it’s squirrel season in Indiana.”

  Butch’s forefinger scraped across stubble on his chin, “Sounds like you might be on to something there.”

  “But there’s one thing, Butch.”

  “What?”

  “Can Gus shoot a rifle?”

  Butch grunted, “Gus can shoot anything. He’s got a gun cabinet like you wouldn’t believe. He took out Jo Jo Marcella up in Wisconsin with a rifle from three hundred yards. He prefers his .38 revolver, but he can shoot anything.”

  “Great.”

  Butch shook his head. “Don’t you feel a little funny about this, Vito? This guy Alex, is a friend of yours.”

  “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Vito laughed crudely.

  “Maybe you ought to shoot Crane and take Gus off the hook.”

  “I could never do that.”

  Butch placed his hand over the phone and whispered, “Weasel.”

  “Did you say something, Butch?”

  “No. no.”

  “I can’t think of anything else. Can you?” Vito queried.

  “Yes, be sure you have the money with you because Gus wants paid in cash.”

  “I’ll have the cash with me—a quarter mil.”

  “I know. Where are you getting that kind of cash?”

  “Ramsey told me once that the Feds have all kinds of money lying around in a well-secured building near the FBI office in Chicago. It’s the money that they confiscate from drug runners.”

  Butch paused briefly and then spoke, “Alright, but there’s one more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You haven’t told a soul about this, right? ‘Cause if Gus finds out that you have, he says he’s going to take you out.”

  “I’m a businessman, Butch. Do you really think I’m going to tell anybody? Who does Gus think I would tell? My wife? The President of the Chamber of Commerce? Come on!”

  “Alright, alright. Listen, I’ll give you Gus’s cell number, better give him a call and get everything worked out.”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter 38

  “Mission accomplished, Mr. Ramsey.” Hawk tossed a wadded-up expense voucher at the nearby wastebasket.

  “Good. Did everything go according to plan?’

  “Yes, exactly as planned. We had a couple of handsome young gentlemen dressed in Century Link uniforms pull up to Crane’s house this morning in a green van with the Century Link logo on the side. The men told Mrs. Crane that they were installing a new fiber optic line that would replace her existing phone line and provide her with better service. She gladly let the men in and then hurried off to do her grocery shopping. Once inside, the men installed a bug on Mr. Crane’s phone in the den and on the wall phone in the kitchen. She asked the men to lock up when they left. She’s the trusting sort.”

  “Amazing. Now let’s hope Alex uses one of those phones. He has an iPhone you know.”

  “I know, but according to our information, he uses his den phone almost exclusively for business calls.”

  “Good Barger, good job.” There was a pause on the line. “Just curious Barger—how are you going to get those bugs out of there after we’re finished?”

  “No problem, we will just send the same two guys out and explain to her that our very sensitive equipment at our electronics center is noticing a slight glitch on the recent installation and we just need to take a quick look at it. The job will only take a minute.”

  Ramsey laughed out loud. “You guys are diabolical!”

  “That’s our job.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Good day, Mr. Ramsey.”

  ………

  Alex stepped through the half-open door from the garage and ducked into the kitchen. He yawned and dropped his leather briefcase on the counter. He scanned the counter for any notes from Nicky. Seeing none, he pulled open the cabinet door above the sink and searched the cluttered shelf for a bottle of Tylenol. Pushing several other meds aside, he grabbed the small bottle and popped the lid off. He poured a glass of water, shook a couple of tabs into his hand and quickly washed then down. “This one’s a doozy,” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead.

  As usual, Alex and Nicky were planning to spend the weekend at their lake home. After the vote at the board meeting earlier in the week, it would be a good place for a quiet celebration by the Cranes. But he also knew that he was now more of a target than ever. He had been extra cautious all week. And since the vote, Barnes had almost vanished from sight—no phone calls, no visits to the office. He was worried; things were too quiet. He knew that Barnes and company would not take this latest defeat lying down. He also knew that they had some suspicions about Josh Dulin’s surprise audit at Louie’s office last week. He set the glass on the counter and hurried to his den to dial up Josh.

  “Hello?”

  “Josh, I’m glad I caught you. I thought you might have already left for the day.”

  Josh muttered a chuckle “Hardly, we’ve been short-handed all week. The flu went through this office like the plague. I’ll probably be here until after nine.”

  Alex began to perspire; Nicky always set the air at 78 to save on utilities. “Listen Josh, I’m a little concerned. Things have been too quiet around the office the past several days. It doesn’t seem right to me. I’m worried about the audit at Louie’s. With all the resources they have at their disposal, I’m afraid they might try to break into your office and confiscate that file. I think it would be advisable for you to take the file out of your office and put it in your safety deposit box at my bank. I will instruct the tellers not to let anyone into your box unless I personally approve. The file will be safe at the bank.”

  “I agree, Alex. I’ll take the file with me tonight and drop it by your office first thing in the morning.”

  “Thanks, Josh.”

  “No problem.”

  Chapter 39

  There was a knock on the door. Louie, happily reminiscing about the pretty lady he met at the annual Kiwanis Fish Fry the night before, was shaken out of his trance. He quickly shoved the empty Payday wrapper into his desk drawer and shouted “Come in!”

  The door swung open. “Louie, how good to see you!”

  “Good morning, Butch. Have a seat.” Louie gestured toward one of the two leather chairs in front of his desk.

  “Thank you so much, Louie, for coming in early on Saturday.”

  “No problem. Ava typed all the docs last evening and we’re all ready to go.”

  Butch slowly dropped in the seat, grimacing in pain.

  “Hip bothering you?” Louie looked concerned.

  “A little bit.”

  Louie flipped open the file and spread the papers on his desk. “Ready to sign?”

  Butch leaned up in the chair. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Let me go over the documents with you.”

  “Cut the crap, Louie. I trust you with my life. Where do I sign?”

  Louie’s face broke into a smile, “Next to the big red X’s.”

  Butch laughed, “Ava knows me—she m
ade it easy.”

  “I have a voice mail message from my friend Alex Crane. Mind if I listen to it while you’re signing?”

  A stunned Butch glanced at a smiling Louie. “W…who did you say you’re friend was?”

  “My boss—Alex Crane. Do you mind?”

  “Why…uh no, go right ahead.”

  A short time later, Louie hung up the phone. The signing completed, Butch tossed the pen on the desk and fell back in his chair. “You say this Crane fellow is a friend of yours?”

  “Oh yes, Alex is the best. I’m afraid old Louie wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for Alex. He’s saved my bacon time and again. The big guys in the bank think I’m a buffoon. They want me fired, but Alex won’t have any part of it—I love the guy. He called to invite me over to his lake home this weekend for a little get-together with his family.”

  Butch felt like someone had punched him in the gut. It bothered Butch to think that somewhere, near a lake in Indiana, right at this very moment, that Alex Crane was being stalked by Gus Clemente, who was trying to put a bullet in his head. Midwest has hundreds of branches and branch managers. What are the odds that Crane and Louie would be such good friends? Butch was a hard man, a man who had ordered several killings in his career, but those “hits” were always against bad men—men who would kill at the drop of a hat. Not against a good man, a decent man, like Louie had just described. He was angry at Vito Taglioni for drawing him into this mess. He wished now he had never agreed to this killing. Butch’s face drained white and he struggled for words. “Is…uh this all we have to sign.”

  “I think we’ve covered everything. Here’s your check.” Louie handed him a check for $200,000. “Are you alright, Butch?”

  Butch smiled wryly, “Oh yeah, must have been something I ate. I best be going. Thanks for everything, Louie.”