Sympathy For the Devil

by Terrence McCauley

  There were no other heat signatures in the rest of the house, except for the heat signature of a cat in the upstairs bathroom. And, from what Hicks could see, Tabby had gotten into the laundry.

  Hicks could’ve called Russo or emailed him, but chose not to. Because some conversations were better face-to-face.

  He pulled his coat from the hook and went outside.

  THE DRIVE out to Russo’s place took just over an hour, which wasn’t bad considering it was seven o’clock at night. A lot of companies had closed because of the blizzard, so rush hour traffic was much lighter than normal.

  Russo’s street house looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The colors of the Christmas lights along the eaves and roofs gave the snow a multicolored glow. Someone had even made a snowman complete with a carrot nose and raisins for the eyes and mouth.

  Hicks would’ve thought the scene was damned near wholesome if it hadn’t been all so contrived. Because in the course of his research on Russo, he’d also done research on the people in his immediate circle. Neighbors, friends from church, and people in the contacts folder of his phone. It paid to be thorough. After all, blackmailing a guy whose brother-in-law was an FBI agent could make things more difficult than they needed to be without proper preparation.

  That’s why he resented the Rockwellian facade of Russo’s street because it was just a facade. Russo’s neighbors were tax cheats and embezzlers, adulterers, and prescription pill addicts. Two had done time for vehicular manslaughter and one of them had been a coke dealer in college before she changed her name and moved to New York. Some of them voted Republican but paid illegal aliens to shovel their driveways and mow their lawns. Some of them were vocal Democrats who drove Mercedes and gave nothing to charity. They celebrated holidays, but left their religion at the front door of whatever church or synagogue they attended, if they attended at all.

  Russo’s street wasn’t all that different than any of the other streets in the rest of the neighborhood or in the rest of the country for that matter. Human frailty was everywhere. Human frailty was Hicks’ stock and trade. Frailty was the grease that made the wheels of the University turn. Frailty justified its existence and kept its coffers filled.

  There was a part of Hicks that knew his choice of professions should make him regret what he’d done with his life; for living off other people’s misery. But he didn’t feel an ounce of regret for anything he’d done because what he did served a higher purpose.

  Hicks parked his Buick on the street a few houses away from Russo’s house. He pulled up the OMNI feed on his car’s dashboard screen and saw that Russo hadn’t moved from the den. In fact, it looked like he was more slumped at his desk than before. He looked well on his way to getting quietly drunk. Alone.

  Hicks figured this was a result of their conversation. He’d seen this happen to new Assets before. Russo was no longer the head of the pack; the master of his own universe. None of his many secrets were his alone anymore. A stranger now had a knife to his throat and access into every unsavory aspect of his life.

  Normally, Hicks could work up some sympathy for an Asset while he or she adjusted to the yoke, but he couldn’t work up a lot of sympathy for Russo. Not since the Madoff mess. Russo had gotten greedy and careless with the wrong people and would’ve gotten himself killed if Hicks hadn’t stepped in when he did. Men like Vladic always found out when someone was stealing from them, and when they did, the thief and his family took a long time to die badly.

  Hicks didn’t have the time to accommodate Russo’s acceptance of his new reality. He needed the hundred grand Russo had in his safe and he needed it fast.

  Hicks walked up the shoveled brick path to the front door. He knew the Russos always entered the house through the garage, but he wasn’t supposed to know that. He could’ve easily popped the lock and gone in that way, but with Mrs. Russo around, there was no need to cause a scene. He rang the front doorbell instead.

  A string of gentle chimes rang somewhere deep within the house. The sound had just died away when Marie Russo answered the door.

  According to Hicks’ surveillance of her husband, Vinny complained to his mistress that his wife had begun to lose her looks. Hicks’ file on her showed she’d certainly been prettier when she was younger—the years and children and a marriage to Vinny had certainly taken their toll—but she still looked pretty despite everything. Her eyes were sunken and harder than they’d been in their wedding photos. Her face thinner, but surprisingly free of wrinkles.

  Judging by the emails Hicks knew she’d sent and the websites he knew she’d visited, Hicks knew she was overly conscious of the weight she’d been unable to lose after giving birth to her daughter twenty three years before, but she carried it much better than most.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  Hicks flashed his best weary smile and used a name he knew she’d heard—one of Vinny’s employees—but had never met. “I’m Jerry Parsons from the office. Vince asked me to drop off something for him on my way home.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said, remembering his name. She opened the door a bit more as she stepped back. “He’s in the study just down the hall.”

  Hicks thanked her, but he already knew where it was. He’d already been in the house twice before when no one was home. Tapping into security cameras and reading emails and phone calls could only tell so much of the story. Technology couldn’t completely replace seeing something with his own two eyes.

  That’s why he knew the door to the den didn’t have a lock, so he walked right in without knocking.

  He found Russo sitting in the same position that Hicks had seen from the thermal image—at the desk with a glass of scotch in a rock glass in front of him. The TV was off and so was the radio. Even the computer screen on the desk was dark. Vincent Russo was just a man in a wood-paneled man cave, with only his trouble and his booze to keep him company.

  Russo didn’t even bother to look up when he heard the door close. “Marie, how many times have I told you not to bother me when…”

  And when he did look up, he saw Hicks standing on the other side of the desk. “Hello, Vince.”

  Russo’s eyes went wide. “You? How did you… how did…”

  “Marie let me in,” Hicks explained. “She’s not as run down as you tell people she is. You should do yourself a favor and compliment her more often. I know you’ve got Inez on the side, but you still live here, so…”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He made a move for his desk drawer—the same drawer where Hicks knew he kept a nine millimeter Glock.

  That’s why Hicks had his gun out first. He pointed the .454 Ruger at Russo’s head more for effect than intent. “Leave the nine where it is, Vinny. No need to get killed over an empty gun.”

  Russo looked down at the drawer, then at Hicks. “How do you know it’s not loaded?”

  “Because I unloaded it when I did a final sweep last week and you haven’t touched the drawer since. If you do now, I’ll shoot you in the knee just to prove a point.”

  Russo sank back into his chair and dropped his head in his hand. It was a similar pose to the one he had in his office, but much more resigned. “Yesterday, you punch me in the face and hit me in the balls with a stapler in my office. Today, you just stroll into my house and pull a gun on me. What’ll you do to me tomorrow?”

  “Nothing I don’t have to.” Hicks could see he already had Russo cowed, so he lowered the gun. “It’s time to start being part of the team, Vinny. I need you to do something for me, and I need you to do it tonight.”

  “So this is how it’s going to be, isn’t it? Never knowing when you’re going to call or show up with some fucking request? From now until the day I die, I’ll always have to worry about you buzzing in my ear like a fucking gnat?”

  “I already told you that you’ll hardly even know I’m around so long as you do exactly what I tell you to do. I won’t ask much, and I won’t ask often, and I’ll n
ever ask you to deliver the impossible. And that’s why I’m here now.”

  “I don’t care why you’re here now,” Russo said. “I don’t care what you do to me or to Vladic or to my family, because I don’t give a shit about anything anymore. Go ahead and shoot me. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  Hicks didn’t like his tone. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “You’re so fucking plugged into my life, so why don’t you tell me?” Russo pounded the desktop with the heel of his hand. “Do you honestly think I’m worried about some fucking lunatic four thousand miles away who might get around to killing me in a couple of days on the off chance him or any of the other fucking illiterate peasants who work for him can figure out that I skimmed from him? Why do you think they hired me in the first place? Because I’m their money guy. I’m the one who handles all the financials for them so they don’t have to worry about it. He even said he expects me to steal, so long as I don’t get crazy about it.”

  Hicks smiled. “A psychopath’s sense of crazy changes from day to day.”

  “It would still take you a week to teach that ignorant fuck how to open his email and another week to explain what the spreadsheets mean. You want to send it? Be my guest. Because by the time he does get someone on a plane to come over here and wack me, I won’t give a shit anymore.”

  Hicks realized there was more behind this than just bravado. “What happened?”

  Russo rubbed the sore hand he’d just pounded on the desk. “What do you care?”

  “When we were in your office, I told you that your problems are my problems, so if something’s bothering you, I want to know what it is.”

  “My junkie son is what’s bothering me. That’s what you called him yesterday, isn’t it?”

  Hicks didn’t bother apologizing because he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. “What about him?”

  “He’s back to putting shit in his arm again. Or smoking it. Whatever the hell he’s decided to do, the effects are still the same.”

  Hicks had been afraid of that. His son was Russo’s one weakness. “What is it this time? Heroin?”

  Russo nodded. “For the amount of money I’ve spent trying to get that kid clean, I could’ve bought a small island in the Caribbean. I came home last night after making your miserable fucking acquaintance and he flat out hits me up for money. No explanation, just sticks out his hand and demands it. I was in no mood for his bullshit, so I told him to leave me alone. What does he do? He goes up to my room, steals a handful of my gold cufflinks and my Rolex before he tears ass out of here. I didn’t know he’d taken anything until later that night, and I haven’t seen him since. He won’t pick up his phone, and he’s not with any of the scum he usually hangs out with. None of the ones I know, anyway.”

  Hicks didn’t want the answer to the next question but he had to ask. “How do you know?”

  “You’re not the only one with connections here. I have my ways.”

  Hicks didn’t pretend to be impressed. “You’ve got an uncle who’s retired NYPD and a few friends who are lieutenants on the Nassau PD. Which one did you call?”

  Russo shook his head. “Jesus, you really do know everything, don’t you?”

  Hicks didn’t like Russo going outside the circle. He didn’t like him asking people to look into his family problems. He might get the idea to tell them about Hicks and, if that happened, it could become a problem. Not an unsolvable problem, but messier than Hicks wanted. “Answer the fucking question.”

  “My uncle worked narcotics and still has some friends who work the streets. He called around but no one knows of anyone trading Rolexes for dope. Not in the last few days, anyway.”

  “You tell your uncle anything about me?”

  “No, darling. No one knows about us.”

  “Keep it that way.” In all of his surveillance of the Russo’s family, Hicks hadn’t really focused on the son, Vincent Russo, Junior. But with a little research, Hicks figured he could find him if he had to. Junkies were like rats, often taking the same paths to the same places to get their fix. He hoped he wouldn’t have to look too hard.

  “I’ll make a deal with you. I know you keep a hundred grand in cash in your safe. Don’t bother lying about it because I know it’s there. You hand it over and I’ll see what I can do about finding your kid.”

  “No.”

  “That’s not a word you say to me. Give me the money, and I promise I’ll help you find Junior.”

  “I said no. Want me to spell it out for you? N-O and here’s why: I don’t care what you do to me or how you’ve screwed over people like me in the past. Because you’re not the only one here who can put things together. If you’re coming in here unannounced like this, I’ll bet it’s because you need that money pretty damned quick. That’s good, because I need my son back pretty damned quick, too.”

  “We can talk about that after you hand me the money.”

  “No, we’ll talk about it now because he doesn’t have that kind of time. This is the third time he’s come out of rehab and if it doesn’t take now, I don’t know if it ever will. I don’t even know if he’ll survive the treatment and if he doesn’t survive it, neither will I.”

  Talk like that was a bad thing for an Asset. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth. As God is my witness. You want to threaten my wife and daughter? Knock yourself out. They’re two of the most ungrateful, greedy little bitches in the world. Neither of them has had any use for me for years and the second I die, I don’t know who’d be the first to call the lawyer. Vladic can gut both of them as far as I’m concerned, if it would bring my son back.”

  Russo paled and sagged back in his chair. He looked at the bottle of scotch and his empty glass, but made no attempt to reach either. “He’s a sweet kid when he’s clean. Nice. Respectful. Creative as hell.” His eyes began to water. “I know he can make something of himself if he can just kick this shit once and for all. He’s only twenty years old, for Christ’s sake. But he’s my whole world and everything I’ve built is to give him some kind of chance, so if he’s dead, I might as well be, too because I’ve got no reason to live.”

  When Russo looked up at him, Hicks saw no trace of hate or anger, just flat resentment in his eyes. “I got home early this afternoon and moved the money. I put it in one of the safe deposit boxes I’ve got all over the island. You say you know everything there is about me, so you know I’m right. I split the money up so none of it is all in one place, and you don’t know which banks I put it in because I stopped at all of them for exactly the same amount of time.”

  Hicks felt his temper beginning to spiral again. The Ruger was beginning to become a viable option. “Don’t do this, Vinny. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

  “You’ll probably be able to pull whatever computer voodoo bullshit you do to get your way into some of the boxes,” Russo went on, “but probably not all of them in time before you need the money. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take the same resources you used to dig up shit on me and you’re going to use them to find my son and bring him back home where he belongs. Dead or alive, I don’t care. I just need him here with me so I know where he is, not lying dead in some crack den with the rats…” He choked off his words and looked away. “And don’t bother telling me you can’t do it because I know goddamned well you can. People like you can do anything they want when the price is right, and it’s right now. I’ve worked with people like you before.”

  Hicks gripped the Ruger tighter. “You’ve never met anyone like me. So how about you open the safe, so I know you’re not bullshitting me.”

  “You know so damned much, how about you open it yourself?”

  He snatched Russo by the hair and pulled him up out of the chair. He had good balance for a man so drunk and Hicks pushed him over to the picture that hid the wall safe. “Open it yourself and show me it’s really empty.”

  Hicks stepped back as Russo slid the picture aside, revealing th
e gun-metal wall safe behind it. He spun the dial and pulled the safe door open. It was as empty as he’d said it was, except for the safe deposit keys.

  “You don’t bullshit me, and I don’t bullshit you,” Russo said as he stumbled back to the chair behind his desk. “Get me back my son, and you get all hundred grand. You don’t, I don’t care what happens next.”

  Hicks stood there, staring into the gaping maw of the empty safe as if it was mocking him. Emptying the Ruger into it would’ve made him feel better, but it wouldn’t have accomplished a damned thing.

  Only getting Junior back would get him the hundred grand he needed.

  Hicks turned away from the safe. “Do you have any idea where I can find him?”

  “No,” Russo admitted. “I already told you he’s not where he normally goes, and I don’t know where he could be. You’ve got fingers in so many pies, you can figure it out for yourself.”

  “You’re about to cross a dangerous line here, Vinny,” Hicks said. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  “Fuck you and your line. Just get my boy back.”

  Russo reached for the bottle of scotch, but Hicks snatched it from him before he reached it. “I’ll find your son, but you I need you sober. As soon as the banks open tomorrow, you get into those boxes and gather up the money. You’d better have it stacked and ready for me by noon when I pull in the driveway because, if you don’t, I put a bullet in Junior’s head before I put one in your belly.”

  “I’ll have the money, don’t worry about that,” Russo sneered. “Let’s just hope you’re as good as you say you are.”

  Hicks tucked the Ruger back in his waistband before he decided to shoot this son of a bitch. He pulled Russo’s glass toward him and poured himself three fingers of scotch. A drink before the war.

  “Tell me where your son usually goes to get high.”