House Reckoning: A Joe DeMarco Thriller

by Mike Lawson

  But no matter what people said about Taliaferro, Joe couldn’t picture his father smacking around some little shopkeeper for protection money or beating up some guy who owed Taliaferro’s sharks. He couldn’t imagine him sneaking into some place and ripping stuff off. If anyone had ever said to his face that his dad was a thief or a drug dealer, Joe would have taken the guy’s head off.

  He eventually developed his own theory about what his father did. He didn’t have any facts to back up this theory, but it was one that fit his perception of the man he knew. He decided his dad probably provided protection for Taliaferro. Taliaferro had to have enemies, and his dad made sure they didn’t kill him. He could see his father’s broad form, like in a movie, standing in the shadows behind Taliaferro, silent and unmoving, arms crossed over his chest, being Taliaferro’s bodyguard. He probably also made sure that Taliaferro’s men—who really were thieves—didn’t steal from their boss. Plus Taliaferro, as everyone knew, had a lot of legitimate businesses: an auto body place, a company that painted houses, and half a dozen others. He had property all over the five boroughs. Joe could imagine his dad involved in some hazy way in those businesses, taking care of things, managing things, doing like his mom had told him when he was little: fixing things that were broken.

  Joe knew that his perception of what his father did for Taliaferro might be wrong and some might even consider him naïve, but he knew one thing for sure: Gino DeMarco was, and always had been, a great father to him. Gino didn’t just love him—he cherished him, he doted on him, he was always there for him—and Joe had never lacked for anything important. He knew one other thing about his dad that was hard for him to articulate but that he knew to be true: his father might do things that were illegal, but he’d never do something that was dishonorable.

  Joe really had only one complaint about his dad, and it was the same complaint his mother had: Gino DeMarco was a man who never opened up to anyone. Joe had tried countless times to get him to talk about what he did for a living—or if not what he did, then just how he felt about what he did. He just wanted to understand why a man like him would be associated with Carmine Taliaferro.

  But every time he tried to draw his father out, all he usually got in the way of a response was a head shake. The most his dad ever said to him was “Look, Joe, you need to quit asking me about what I do because I can’t tell you. All you need to know is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I didn’t even graduate from high school. I ended up where I am now because I’m stupid and because I thought I didn’t have a lot of other choices.”

  Joe knew his father wasn’t stupid but he could tell he was ashamed about what he did.

  “The main thing is, you stay away from the people I work with. You don’t go near them. You get an education, then you move away from here, and you make your mother proud.”

  He had no idea, not then, that his father was a killer.

  Maureen DeMarco smiled as she watched her son eat a meatball sandwich. She had a secret recipe for her meatballs she wouldn’t share with anyone, not even her sisters. She laughed when he said, with his mouth full, “God, Ma, this is delicious.” It felt good to laugh.

  She was always amazed how much he looked like Gino, particularly now that he was a young man. He had the same powerful build, the same dark hair, the prominent nose, the cleft in his chin. The only difference between him and Gino was his eyes. They were blue like hers instead of brown like Gino’s. His eyes, as near as she could tell, were the only physical characteristics he’d inherited from her.

  When it came to his personality, he wasn’t much like either her or Gino. He wasn’t serious about much of anything—especially school—and was usually easygoing and in a good mood, although God help you if you made him mad. But with sports, he was different. He was very competitive when he played in high school and had been an outstanding catcher; he hated to lose. Gino said that if Joe had been able to hit a curve, he could have a gotten a scholarship to college.

  She liked that he was nice to people, too, and he’d never been cruel to the type of kids other kids were cruel to when he was in school. She remembered his sophomore year in high school, how he went to a dance with this incredibly homely girl because she asked him and he couldn’t bring himself to say no and hurt her feelings. She loved that he had the courage to do that.

  There was one thing he had in common with her husband beside his looks, however: he never confided in anyone when something was bothering him—and just like with Gino, that pissed her off.

  “How’s school going?” she asked.

  “Great,” Joe said.

  Maureen DeMarco rarely swore out loud; she thought women who cursed were cheap and tacky. So all she said was “Well, that’s good to hear.” But she was thinking: Bullshit.

  He looked tired, with dark smudges under his eyes, and she knew what was going on. He was cramming like crazy to pass his final exams, trying to make up for goofing off when he should have been studying. He’d been like that as an undergrad, and would never have come close to getting into law school if it hadn’t been for Gino. His junior year, Gino sat him down and told him that if his grades didn’t improve, he was going to stop paying his tuition and make him enlist in the army. She didn’t think Gino was serious about making him enlist—Gino loved him too much to ever put his life at risk—but Joe believed him and finally knuckled down. Or maybe he just grew up and realized if he wanted a good life he needed to apply himself. Whatever the case, he was now paying the price, having to study his butt off.

  “You decided yet what kind of law you want to practice?”

  The only lawyer she knew personally was Mr. Clemente, down the block. He made up wills and sued people whenever he could, but his family didn’t live any better than the DeMarcos. Clemente’s wife was always complaining about how little money they had.

  “I’m going to apply to prosecutors’ and public defenders’ offices in cities near D.C. You know, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, places like that. I have to pass the bar first, but I’m hoping to land a job with some prosecutor’s office. I’d rater prosecute than defend; it’s like playing offense instead of defense.”

  She wanted to say, You gotta be shittin’ me! What she said instead was, “You’re kidding.”

  “No. What’s wrong with that?”

  What’s wrong with that? Your father’s a gangster, for cryin’ out loud! You should become a defense lawyer so you can defend him when he winds up in jail. And what happens when the prosecutor’s office finds out who your father is?

  Instead of saying what she was thinking, she said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, a good city job, but is that where the money is?”

  “No. The money is in tax law or corporate law or with big firms that represent white-collar crooks. But the truth is, I don’t have the grades to land those kinds of jobs right out of school. I’m thinking if I do well in a city or a state job, then maybe I can get something better.”

  “You want to stay down there in Washington, and not come back to New York so you’re closer to home?”

  “Yeah, I like it there.”

  But there was this flicker in his eyes when he said this, and she knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that in D.C. they might not know who his father was, but here in New York, they’d find out for sure.

  “D.C.’s not that far away, you know. It’s not like I’m moving to California.”

  California. God forbid! Fruitcakes live in California. And what if he gets married and has kids? How will I ever see my grandchildren if they live out west? Which reminded her. “I suppose you’re gonna see Marie while you’re here.” She tried not to sound disapproving.

  “Yeah, maybe, if I got the time. I have to do some studying while I’m here.”

  Bullshit, again. She knew the real reason he’d come up from D.C. for a visit was to see Marie, not her or his father.

  He’d been dating Marie off and on since high school and he was hooked on her. An
d she couldn’t blame him, in a way. The woman was gorgeous, had a body like a movie star. But she wasn’t all that bright and would probably end up working in a beauty salon, if she worked at all. The other thing was, Maureen had never trusted Marie. She seemed like the type who wouldn’t remain faithful if times got tough. She knew, however, there was no point telling her son that.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Your Aunt Connie will be coming for dinner tomorrow.”

  Connie wasn’t really his aunt; she was his godmother. She was also Maureen DeMarco’s oldest friend. She lived up in Albany now, had a state government job up there. When she was younger, she’d worked in D.C. for a congressman from Boston and in those days, Connie had looked like a movie star, too. She’d looked like Sophia Loren. She didn’t look like Sophia anymore, though. She’d gotten fat as she’d aged but it didn’t seem to bother her. And in spite of her size she always seemed to have a boyfriend. She loved Joe like he was her own son.

  “You should tell her about wanting to get on with some prosecutor’s office. She might be able to help.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that,” Joe said.

  Well, if he didn’t tell Connie, she would. The thing about Connie was she had connections. Connections from when she worked in Congress and more connections now, working for the state of New York. Joe didn’t know it, but it was Connie who had really gotten him into law school. He never would have been admitted with his grades if she hadn’t pulled a few strings.

  “Tomorrow, you go down to the florist and buy her some flowers.”

  “Yeah, good idea,” Joe said.

  She knew he’d forget by tomorrow and she’d have to tell him again.

  She heard the front door shut. Gino was home. When he walked into the kitchen and saw Joe his eyes lit up, and Joe stood up and they hugged.

  Gino DeMarco wasn’t a hugger. Italians, they were almost always huggers, Maureen had noticed, always hugging and kissing each other on the cheek. Not Gino. And not Joe, either. The only men those two hugged were each other.

  “So how you doin’, hotshot?” Gino asked, a smile on his face. He smiled so infrequently that when he did it always reminded Maureen of the sun coming out after a storm.

  “Great,” her lying son said.

  7

  Carmine needed to talk to Quinn but he wasn’t going to talk to him on his own phone.

  The young cop had assured him that nobody was tapping his phone, but Carmine wasn’t sure Quinn would know, particularly if the feds were the ones doing the tapping. And after Jerry Kennedy was killed, Carmine figured the feds must be taking a hard look at him, figuring he might have ordered the hit on Kennedy. For all he knew, those sneaky sons-a-bitches could be following him, so now he was even afraid to meet with Quinn.

  Finally, he gave Enzo a note in a sealed envelope and told him, “Find a kid and give him a few bucks to take the note to the doorman in Quinn’s apartment building. Deliver it before Quinn goes to work.” The note told Quinn, no matter what he was doing, to be at a pay phone on a certain corner at eight o’clock that night. Carmine would call him from another pay phone.

  “DeMarco knows who you are,” Carmine said as soon as Quinn answered the phone.

  Carmine figured Quinn would curse, say shit, son of a bitch, goddamnit, something like that. But he didn’t say anything at all for a moment, and when he did speak his voice was calm. “Do you think he might tell the FBI that I killed Kennedy?”

  Carmine laughed. “He’s not going to talk to the FBI, Quinn. I already told you what he’s going to do. He’s going to kill you because Jerry Kennedy was his best friend.”

  “Can’t you stop him?”

  “Nope. But maybe what I can do is set him up for you. That is, assuming you got the balls to take him out yourself. But I gotta warn you. He’s good.”

  “Why don’t you have one of your people take care of him?”

  “Why the hell would I do that? Why would I risk one of my guys? And like I said, DeMarco’s good. If my guy missed, DeMarco would kill me. You got yourself into this shit. You need to get yourself out of it.”

  Again there was a long pause. “So what’s your idea?” Quinn said, no emotion in his voice at all.

  It was kind of funny, Carmine thought. Here was this cop, this college-educated cop, who’d probably always thought of himself as one of the good guys. But he’d killed one innocent man and lied about it, killed Kennedy to get out from under Carmine, and now he was considering killing DeMarco. The way he sounded, it was like he was looking at a chessboard, trying to decide if he should castle his rook. If Quinn stayed this cold and ruthless, he was definitely going places.

  Carmine called Gino next and said, “We need to talk. Where we met last time. Make damn sure nobody follows you.”

  As he waited for Gino to arrive, he looked up at Sinatra’s autographed picture behind the bar. Carmine couldn’t figure it out. The fucking guy was from New Jersey, then he sings “New York, New York” and everybody acts like he’s the king of Manhattan.

  Gino sat down across from him.

  “You wanna drink?”

  Gino shook his head.

  Those were two more things that Carmine was going to miss about him: he didn’t talk except when he had to and he wasn’t a drunk like that bum Kennedy, whose fault it was that everyone was in this mess.

  Carmine took a sip of his drink, then started lying.

  “I was gonna have Enzo tell you I didn’t want the cop killed, that I didn’t want the heat that would follow, and I especially didn’t want to lose you if you got arrested. But I understand how you feel about Jerry, so I did some checking on the cop.

  “I told you I thought maybe he worked for the guy whose dope Jerry lost, the guy down in Trenton. Well, I was wrong. He’s connected to the bookie in Atlantic City, the one Jerry owed money to. The bookie knew he was never going to get his money back from Jerry, so he wanted an example made of him, and he made the cop kill him. You see, the cop owes the bookie, too; he owes him a lot. He’s a degenerate gambler and Internal Affairs has been looking at him, too.”

  Carmine hoped he wasn’t laying it on too thick.

  “Anyway, what I’m saying is, this is a dirty cop, and if something was to happen to him, nobody’s gonna give a shit. I mean, they’ll give him the usual funeral, bagpipes and bullshit, but they’re not gonna go to war over him.”

  Gino just sat there, his face like one of them Easter Island statues. Carmine could tell he didn’t care how hard the NYPD would try to find the cop’s killer.

  “The thing is, and the reason I wanted to see you tonight, is I found out the cop is playing poker Saturday night at a warehouse down on the waterfront in Red Hook. It’s a high-stakes game and he plays almost every Saturday, even though he loses almost every time. The warehouse will be the perfect place to take him out.”

  “I’m not going to kill him with half a dozen people around,” Gino said, looking at Carmine like Carmine was nuts.

  Carmine knew that Gino always worked alone and always picked a spot where there wouldn’t be witnesses. He would plan a hit for days, sometimes weeks, to make sure the setup was right.

  “You don’t understand,” Carmine said. “I know the guy who owns the warehouse. He’s one of my connections for bringing dope into the country and he stores the dope in the warehouse before we move it out. I already called him and told him I don’t want them playing the game there this week.”

  Carmine really did know the guy who owned the warehouse and he really was one of his dope connections, but the warehouse was never used for poker games.

  “I also told him,” Carmine continued, “that I don’t want anyone to call the cop to tell him the game’s been canceled. So Saturday night, about ten, the cop’s going to walk into this big warehouse, then walk down to the office in the back, and there won’t be anyone else there. You get there first and when he walks in, you take care of him.”

  Before Gino could object, Carmine went on: “
The other thing is, it’ll be noisy down there. They’re offloading a ship and there’ll be trucks driving around, forklifts, cranes, all that shit. This is good because nobody will hear a shot. But that means, of course, you have to make sure nobody sees you going into the warehouse.”

  When DeMarco just sat there staring at him, looking skeptical, like he wasn’t enthused by Carmine’s idea, Carmine said, “Hey, you got two days to check the place out. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it there. I’m just trying to help you out here, but do what you want.”

  8

  Joe met Marie at a bar near her mom’s house. She was wearing a red sleeveless blouse—she always looked good in red—and white shorts and sandals. Her lipstick was bloody red to match her blouse. She had laughing dark eyes, incredible legs, and her dark hair was longer than when he’d last seen her; he liked it when she wore her hair long. He couldn’t help but notice the top two buttons of the blouse were unbuttoned and showed off a little cleavage. The first time he’d touched her breasts, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

  He was hoping that after he bought her a drink or two, they could go back to her house and have sex. Her mother was usually out in the afternoon, shopping or playing canasta with her girlfriends. But wouldn’t you know? Not this afternoon.

  As they sat there, he was seriously thinking about proposing to her but decided that this wasn’t the sort of place where you proposed, not to mention that he didn’t have a ring. Also, maybe it would be good if he had a job before he proposed. Instead of proposing, he just talked about the future, which he hoped would be their future.

  “I’ll be graduating in another couple of weeks, then I’ll have to spend the summer cramming for the bar exam, but I’m hoping come fall I’ll have a job down there in D.C. Virginia, actually.”