Wiseguys: Blast From the Past

by Aaron Michaels

  "You okay to handle things out here?" Tony asked Julie.

  "Yeah, sure, Tony." Julie looked at the two of them with big eyes. "Everything okay?"

  "Just fine," Tony told her. "You've been a big help today. I won't forget that."

  Julie was a smart kid. All of seventeen, and she worked harder than most adults. She never talked about her home life, but Norman had told Tony once on the sly that Julie's father was long gone and her brother was doing time for boosting a car. The money Julie earned at the deli helped support herself and her mom. The only time she'd ever asked Tony for anything non-work related, it hadn't been for herself but for her cousin, Jason, and it had been a favor Tony and Carter both were happy to provide.

  He felt her gaze follow them into the kitchen.

  Carter took a soda out of the fridge, popped the top and took a long drink. Tony kept walking through the kitchen and out the back door. He didn't want to take a chance that Julie could hear whatever Carter had to say.

  A single-lane driveway ran behind the deli. On the other side of the driveway, the ground sloped down to a small marina tucked into a narrow channel leading to the lake. The channel was too small for sailboats. Only rowboats and the occasional power boat tied up at these docks.

  People were starting to come back from a day on the water. Tony watched as a power boat idled on low, barely enough forward momentum to push the boat toward its tie down. The guy with his hand on the motor was bare-chested and sun burnt a nice, deep red. What skin wasn't burnt was fish belly white. He'd be in a world of hurt tomorrow.

  "What'd you find out?" Tony asked Carter, keeping his voice low.

  "Not much, and nothing good." Carter took another drink from the can, eyes on the guy with the sunburn. "She's still not back. Yesterday's deposit was in the strong box, ready for the bank. Jewelry's still there. So's her car."

  "Sheriff catch any of that?"

  Carter shrugged. "I didn't hang around to find out."

  "He gonna figure out you were there?"

  The look Carter gave him was amused. "I'm not that rusty."

  That was one less worry. If Carter got his ass thrown in jail, it would make them all that much easier to pick off, one at a time.

  "This ain't right," Tony said. "We never went sideways at somebody like this."

  "Could have nothing to do with us." Carter took another long drink from the can. "She could have something going on nobody here knows about."

  "Not even Norman?"

  "Especially not Norman. You ever know anybody who tells somebody else everything about themselves?"

  True. Tony figured he knew Carter about as well as anybody, but there were things about Carter, especially about his childhood, that Carter never talked about. Like his old man. Tony had seen the bruises when they were little kids. Carter's old man was probably the only one who'd ever laid a hand his kid and not come out the worse for it. Tony used to wonder if Carter ever turned the tables on his old man, but he never asked. Some things you just didn't talk about.

  From where they were standing, Tony could see the access road to and from the public park on the lakeshore. This time of day, traffic was bumper to bumper leaving the park. Just as many people were leaving on foot, crossing over the bridge that spanned the narrow channel. Most of the people leaving the lake were families with kids, the guys toting coolers, their wives toting diaper bags and towels and blankets, the kids worn out from a day of family fun. Tony didn't see anyone who looked out of place.

  The land fronting this side of the lake was flat. The park was little more than public parking, a big grassy area with volleyball nets and shade trees, and a cinder block concession stand. On the other side of the lake, miles away, the land rose sharply from the water. The hills were steep and thickly forested and dotted with expensive homes on private roads. That made for a whole lot of wild area to hide one elderly woman.

  "We're not gonna find her unless they want us to," Tony said.

  "Yeah." Carter finished his soda and tossed the empty can into a recycle bin. "If it's got to do with us."

  If. It was one big If.

  "If it does," Carter said, looking Tony in the eye. "I'm gonna kill the bastard."

  He said it like he thought Tony would argue the point. Tony had kept Carter from busting people up, like the homophobic asshole who threw a rock through the deli's front window. Then it had been about disrespect and intolerance, and there would have been no upside to Carter using his fists to settle the score. One lesson Tony had learned from Uncle Sid was to pick his battles. This though? This was different.

  "Yeah," Tony said. "If I don't get to him first."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They took turns sleeping that night, one on watch with a gun, one asleep.

  Carter took the first watch. He sat in the big armchair in their living room, lights off, just a dark, deadly bulk in the corner, gun in his lap. Tony knew from experience that Carter could sit unmoving for hours, alert and ready for anything that came at him.

  Tony didn't think he'd be able to sleep. He had a gun on the night stand next to the bed, but the bed felt empty and foreign without Carter next to him. Finally, he did manage to catch a couple of hours sleep before he went out to the living room to relieve Carter.

  "Anything?" Tony asked while he was still in the dark hall, just to let Carter know it was him. He kept his voice low, but it still sounded loud in the dark house in the middle of the night.

  "Not a peep." The armchair creaked as Carter got up. He made a couple of soft grunts as he stretched out stiff muscles, and Tony heard his jaw pop as he yawned. "Even after all these months, I forget how quiet nights are out here."

  Back in Jersey, in the city, it had never been quiet, not even in the middle of the night. There was always traffic, and guys hanging out on the streets, and somebody playing their music too loud, and somebody else yelling about it. Tony supposed things would have been different if they'd lived in the suburbs, but Uncle Sid wanted his family in the city, and he wanted them close. After Tony had gotten old enough to live on his own, he had an apartment in the same building his uncle lived in. Tony's apartment had been a one bedroom. Uncle Sid's apartment had taken up an entire floor.

  "Something to aspire to, kid," Uncle Sid used to tell him.

  He never knew that Tony didn't care about the apartment. Or the power that came with being the head of a family. What Tony wanted was the freedom to live his own kind of life. The kind of life he had here with Carter.

  He kissed Carter lightly on the lips before he took Carter's spot in the chair and Carter padded down the hallway to the bedroom. Tony had brought the gun from the bedroom. It was a solid, cold weight in his lap.

  Carter had left the blinds on the front window slitted half-open. There was a street light half a block down from their house. It was enough to throw faint light on the yard, but not enough to illuminate inside the house. If whoever was after them had night vision equipment, they'd be able to see Tony sitting in his darkened living room, but if they didn't, all they'd see was the street light reflecting off the metal slats of the blinds.

  Tony'd gotten used to waiting back when he worked for his uncle. Most days he was nothing but a glorified errand boy. Go here and get this. Bring that to someone else. Tony wasn't stupid. He knew what he was doing was picking up his uncle's share of somebody else's business.

  Protection money. It had become so ingrained in Tony's way of life that he'd half expected someone to try to shake them down when he and Carter opened the deli. It hadn't happened. So far the only attempt at intimidation had been the rock through the deli's front window, but that had been a hate crime against gays, not the start of a turf war, wiseguy against wiseguy.

  Somewhere out in the dark, a dog started barking. Tony's eyes narrowed, and he strained to hear anything else. Dogs were a good alarm system. The dog could have been barking at a stray cat. Then again, it could be barking at someone walking through the neighborhood. Someone who wasn't supposed to be
there.

  A couple of minutes later, Tony thought he saw a shadow moving across the street at the very edge of the view afforded by his front window. He stayed very still and waited, and sure enough, part of the shadows moved against the darker shadows created by shrubs and hedges and parked cars.

  Somebody was across the street, moving slowly and quietly through the night.

  There's a way a professional enforcer moves. Someone like Carter, even though he was big and muscular, still walked with self-confident grace. A fluidity and ease of motion that comes from long years of being the top dog in any room. Even though the shadow across the street moved slowly, Tony thought he saw the same kind of fluidity and grace.

  This wasn't some homeless guy stumbling down an unfamiliar neighborhood. It wasn't a drunken husband shuffling home after too much beer.

  No, this was someone deliberate. Someone who was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Watching Tony's house from the shadows across the street.

  Tony stayed where he was. It did no good to start shooting at shadows, not in a neighborhood this quiet. So Tony watched the watcher.

  The guy stopped walking and stood still for a long time. If Tony hadn't seen him moving a minute ago, he wouldn't have spotted him now. The guy just blended too well with the shadowy street.

  Tony almost stopped blinking, intent on not losing sight of the guy. If the guy came across the street and got close to their front yard, Tony would have to rethink his decision about not shooting first. He didn't want to get caught flat footed and a split second too late in reacting, like his uncle did when shooters came through the restaurant doors.

  But the guy didn't come close to the house. He stood in the shadows, unmoving, for a good five minutes. When he finally did move, it was to back away.

  Tony got up from his chair and approached his front window at an angle, both so the watcher wouldn't see him and so he could see where the guy was going. He watched the guy walk to the end of the street, where he was illuminated beneath a street lamp. The guy was too far away for Tony to get a good look at his face, but he could tell the guy wasn't a bodybuilder like Carter. He was average. Average height, average build, average dark hair of average length, and wearing a dark jacket and blue jeans. If the guy had a gun, it was tucked in the waistband of his jeans at the hollow of his back. Tony didn't see a gun in the guy's hand.

  Was he being paranoid? Making up shit about a guy who what -- got mixed up where he was supposed to be?

  Tony didn't think so.

  This guy had been sent to check them out. Maybe to take them out, but for some reason, he'd gone away tonight instead.

  Tony wasn't sure he'd recognize the guy in daylight. All he really knew was that the guy wasn't Carter's size and he had dark hair. Not that there were many people Carter's size.

  At least now they knew. Luciano had sent an enforcer to take care of them.

  And he could be any one of a hundred average looking guys they saw every day, and they'd never know it was him until it was too late.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning when she came into work, Julie handed Tony an envelope.

  "Where'd you get this?" Tony asked. The envelope was plain white, business size, with his name typed on the front in some old style typewriter print.

  "It was in my mailbox this morning." She bit down on her lower lip and looked at Tony like she was wondering if she'd done something wrong. "I check for the mail before I leave for work, kind of a habit, and the only thing inside was this envelope."

  Tony turned the envelope over. It was sealed, no writing on the back.

  "I didn't look inside," Julie said, her words rushed. "I mean, if that's what you're wondering. That's the way I found it."

  Tony frowned. Another sideways move. That didn't jibe with the enforcer he'd seen last night. That guy had been studying them like a pro. Tony had half expected gunfire when they left their house this morning in Carter's van, but the neighborhood was its normal weekday morning summer self.

  "Thanks," he told Julie. "You did good." She stood there like she was expecting something else, and Tony realized the envelope had spooked her. "Seriously, you did good."

  "Okay, Tony." He saw her make an effort to quit chewing on her lip. "You want me to get the tables set up?"

  Setting up the tables meant making sure the napkin holders had napkins and the salt and pepper shakers weren't empty. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Just do your normal stuff. This is nothing to worry about."

  He didn't quite force a smile, but he made himself take the intensity down a notch. Julie gave him a tentative smile in return.

  He left her checking the tables and took the envelope back into the kitchen, closing the door Carter had left open. "We got something."

  Carter dried his hands on the towel that hung from a belt loop.

  Tony slit the envelope open with one of Carter's sharp kitchen knives. Inside was a piece of lined paper torn from a spiral notebook. The torn edge was frayed, one corner ripped off, and the paper was folded into thirds like a business letter. When Tony unfolded the paper, a lock of gray hair fell out of the paper and onto the kitchen floor.

  Bess had gray hair that hung down to her waist. Tony couldn't tell if this was hers or not. The lock on his floor wasn't long, but that didn't mean it hadn't come from Bess.

  "Son of a bitch," Carter muttered. He bent down and picked up the hair, put it in a baggie. "The bastard say anything, or he just sending us hair?"

  "Yeah, he told us something."

  There was only one line of printing on the notebook paper. An address and a time. Nothing else. No demand for money.

  "This is fucking stupid," Tony said.

  He read the address and time to Carter. Carter's eyes went flat, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  "It's a fucking trap," Carter said.

  "Yeah." It couldn't be anything else. The address was for a place a good twenty miles to the south. Tony'd have to look it up on a map to be sure, but it was a good bet the place was well off the beaten path.

  Bess was the bait to lure them away from town and off by themselves.

  The smart thing would be to turn the note over to the sheriff, but the sheriff would have a whole lot of questions Tony didn't want to answer. Like why them. And who was behind it. The sheriff wasn't dumb. He'd figure things out, and then they'd have to leave and start over somewhere else. Tony wasn't ready to do that. He liked it right where they were.

  That left only one alternative.

  Tony folded up the note and put it in his pocket. Carter put the baggie with the lock of hair in the back pocket of his jeans. Their eyes met. Tony saw the same thing in Carter's eyes that he knew was in his own, only in Carter's case there was a good deal of banked, smoldering anger behind his flat stare.

  "What time we leaving?" Carter asked.

  The note said 6:00 p.m. It was a little after eleven in the morning.

  "Soon as we can get the place shut down."

  He'd pay Julie for the day, tell her they decided to take a drive being it was such a nice day. She might not believe him, but she was a good kid. She'd keep her mouth shut. It was one of the reasons Tony hired her out of all the high school girls who had answered his ad for part-time help.

  After Carter got the food put away, they'd go home and get their guns. They'd drive out early, find the place, and do a little reconnaissance of their own. The enforcer had checked them out good, probably more than just last night. He didn't think he could get at them on their home turf without drawing more attention than he wanted, so he set up this little kidnapping drama to lure them out to the sticks where a little gunfire was no big deal.

  They might well be walking into a trap, but they'd survived traps before. They'd survive this one too. They'd get Bess back to Norman, and with any luck, they'd send a message back to Luciano. Maybe next time, he'd think twice about sending some goon out to finish off the rest of Uncle Sid's family.

  ∗ ∗ ∗r />
  The address on the notepaper turned out to be a farmhouse on the east side of the two-lane highway that ran from Coeur d'Alene all the way north to the Canadian border.

  Carter drove. Tony sat in the front seat of the van and studied the land.

  The farmhouse was a good couple of miles off the highway at the back edge of a flat meadow. The meadow was sectioned into grazing pastures for cattle and sheep. The same kind of thick pine forest that surrounded the east side of the lake where Tony and Carter lived hugged the back of the farmhouse.

  Carter had the window down on his side of the van. The air smelled thick and musty, choked with the odor of manure and the hot, green smell of the fields mixed with the dry dust of the road.

  It was an odd place for an enforcer to set up a confrontation.

  "Something's not right here," Carter said as he brought the van to a stop on the rutted feeder road a quarter mile away from the farmhouse.

  From here, they had a good view of the place. The single-lane feeder road, little more than a long driveway, widened into a parking area in front of the house. The fields butted up against the road, green infiltrating the hard-packed dirt in stubborn clumps. The farmhouse was a one story, white-washed number with a covered porch in front. It looked like something out of a forties black and white movie.

  The only cars in front of the farmhouse were an old El Rancho and a battered pickup truck. No rentals. An enforcer from back home would have rented a car from the airport, just like a hundred other tourists. He wouldn't have boosted a car unless he had to, and then he'd make sure it was a car that wouldn't break down first chance it got. Carter's van could have outrun either of these two vehicles.

  The guy Tony had seen last night wouldn't be caught dead in either of the dilapidated wrecks in the driveway. If he was the pro Tony thought he was, the guy from last night would have made them go to any one of fifty different rental cabins up in the woods or a motel room in some rundown dump where truckers wouldn't even spend the night. He wouldn't take over some working farm. Too many variables. Too many things that could go wrong.