“Any details?”
“No, but he’s been very hands-on with that project and he’s normally a man who likes to delegate, which tells me he’s hiding something.”
“I’ll have that coffee waiting for you the next time you drop by, along with an envelope filled with appreciation.”
Vance nodded without looking back and then closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 17 - Talent will out
On Wall Street, inside a building named, The Partners Building, Frank Richards was meeting with Saul Adamo’s right-hand man, Santino.
They were inside the conference room, where The Conglomerate’s ruling council was scheduled to gather on Sunday. The room was on the top floor of a ten-story building that had been renovated from the walls out. The building belonged to Richards, but his ownership was obscured behind so many layers of dummy corporations and shell companies, that it would take a miracle to discover that fact without knowing the trail to it.
Santino was the bearded man who had been with Adamo in the restaurant when Sophia and Tanner attacked.
“Where’s Adamo?” Richards said.
“He couldn’t make it. Jackie Verona’s daughter tried to kill him.”
“Was he injured?”
“No, but he had to stay and handle the situation.”
Richards noticed the bandage at Santino’s temple.
“Were you injured?”
“I got hit on the side of the head by Vic Conti, the bastard.”
Richards looked about the room in an effort to spot anything out of place, but could discern nothing except the odor of new materials, as everything in the huge room had recently been installed.
The wall-to wall carpet was a dark blue and matched the thick curtains, which were spread open to reveal the floor to ceiling windows, which illuminated the massive round conference table, a table that could seat forty. The ceiling was covered in white stucco, which was only a shade darker than the stark white walls, and the black leather chairs all looked the same, because like the round table, they were chosen to keep anyone from feeling slighted, or privileged.
“How are things coming along here?”
Santino grinned.
“Everything is in place, we just have to put in the new doors and test the sound-proofing.”
“When you do those tests, remember that not a whisper of sound can escape this room.”
“I understand.”
“Excellent and since no one will be expecting trouble, things should go smoothly.”
Santino laughed.
“They’ll never know what hit them.”
***
On Staten Island, Vic Conti herded everyone out of the office. They went down a long set of wooden steps, and along a wide aisle, to greet his men as they arrived back from Jersey City.
A man got out of the driver’s seat and walked over to Vic. There was a strong resemblance to Conti in the other man’s features and Tanner assumed that he was Conti’s younger brother.
“They were just getting in the car when we showed up, and the second I said Jackie’s name, they both turned white.”
“Good work, Mikey, now let’s see them.”
The two bound punks were dragged from the back of a small truck which was normally used to transport car parts, and Tanner saw that they had been worked over, as their faces were bruised, while one of them had three broken fingers on his right hand, apparently, they hadn’t come quietly.
They were the ones, the punks that had delivered Jackie Verona to that abandoned box factory, so that he could be slain by Lars Gruber.
“What did they tell you?” Conti said to his brother.
“They wouldn’t talk, except to call us names.”
Conti snapped his fingers in front of the punks’ faces and then pointed at Adamo.
“Do you know this guy?”
The two punks stayed silent, but both sets of eyes widened in recognition.
“Look at them, they know him,” Sophia said.
“What? You can read minds now,” Adamo said.
One of the punks spoke up.
“Mr. Trent, that’s what the German man called the guy who paid us, Mr. Trent.”
“German man?” Vic said. “Are you talking about Lars Gruber?”
“I guess, but I never heard his name.”
“This guy, Trent, what’s he look like?”
“Young dude like me, but dressed like an old dude in a suit, and he wears glasses too.”
“That’s what I thought, he’s Richards’ assistant,” Conti said.
Sophia stepped close to the men on the floor and studied them with eyes of ice.
“My father was Jackie Verona, did you kill him?”
The other punk spoke up this time and his voice was deep.
“The German dude killed him; we were just paid to help.”
“But you’re the ones that grab him off the street, right?”
“It wasn’t a street, it was a restaurant.”
The instant the punk mentioned a restaurant, everyone turned towards Adamo, who was pulling a gun free from the holster on his hip.
Still unarmed, Tanner grabbed Sophia around the waist, hit the ground, and rolled beneath the truck.
A second later, Vic Conti fell to the floor with a fatal head wound and Tanner reached out and grabbed the gun from Conti’s shoulder holster. Once armed, he fired at a man he knew was one of Adamo’s men.
The place was chaos, and other than Adamo, Tanner couldn’t be sure who was on what side, as Conti and Adamo’s men battled each other, and so he stayed beneath the truck and guarded Sophia.
At least, that was his plan, but Sophia slid out and grabbed a gun from one of the fallen men, to then blast at Adamo’s soldiers. Tanner stood by her side and shot anyone who tried to shoot her, but when he heard the truck’s engine start and the back up alarm sound off, he grabbed Sophia’s waist again and pulled her towards the stairs.
It was Adamo behind the wheel and he sped backwards towards them along a wide aisle with metal shelving on both sides, in an effort to run them down, but Tanner and Sophia made it halfway up the wooden steps before the van crashed into them.
The impact destroyed the bottom part of the staircase and collapsed the handrail.
Sophia cried out in fright as she teetered at the edge, but Tanner took hold of her wrist and pulled her back onto the shuddering remains of the stairway, before she could fall backwards atop the concrete floor.
“We’re trapped up here,” Sophia said, as the van shifted into drive and headed for the open garage door.
“We go up,” Tanner said and once they reached the top, he stepped over the landing’s balustrade and climbed onto the side of a metal shelf. Sophia followed his lead and the two of them climbed down the side of the metal rack, where they were met by men who had been loyal to her father.
One of them walked over with glistening eyes and a bullet wound in his arm. It was Mike, Vic Conti’s brother.
“Vic’s dead, Sophia. That son of a bitch Saul killed him and you were right, he set up Jackie too.”
“Did Saul get away?”
“Yeah, honey, I’m sorry, but this shit isn’t over and he can’t run far enough.”
“He won’t run far,” Tanner said. “He’ll go to Richards for protection.”
Mike sighed.
“Damn, you’re right, and Richards will back his play.”
Sophia checked out Mike’s arm wound.
“Get that fixed and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Mike stared at her. “We?”
“Yes we, or are you going to pull some macho sexist shit and pat me on the head and send me home?”
Mike studied her while he thought things over, and then gave a slight shake of his head.
“Nah, woman or not, you earned a place at the table and I’ll back you on that.”
“Thank you, now go see to that arm and I’ll take care of the mess we have here.”
/> “It’s a mess alright, those two punks we grabbed, Saul ran them over on his way out.”
“To keep them from saying any more than they did, but it won’t work, and Frank Richards or not, Saul Adamo is a dead man.”
Mike shook his head.
“I hate to say it, but if Richards is protecting him, Saul will be damn hard to kill.”
“I can take care of that for you,” Tanner said and Mike gazed his way.
“What? Are you a hit man now, Romeo?”
Tanner smiled.
“You never know, I might just have a talent for it.”
CHAPTER 18 - Job perks
“You two got family around here, or is everyone else back in Arkansas?” Burns asked Merle and Earl, as they sat around his living room drinking whiskey.
There was a baseball game on, but the sound was muted on the huge flat screen TV.
While the outside of the home was middle-class, the furnishings were all expensive, and Merle and Earl were content in a plush blue loveseat, while Burns sat across from them on a matching sofa.
“It’s just me and Earl. We got a baby sister from when our daddy remarried, but we ain’t seen her since she was just a little thing. She probably don’t even remember us.”
Earl shook his head in disagreement.
“She’d remember us, she wasn’t that young, but after Daddy died, her mama married again and moved up north here.”
Burns pointed at them. He was drunk and his nose had reddened so much that it could double as a stop light.
“You boys should be glad that you got each other, it’s been just me since my wife died years ago.”
“Earl and I ain’t never been married, but we both want to someday.”
“Good luck with that, it’s hard to find a real woman these days. They all want to be men.”
“Some of them are all woman,” Earl said with a grin, and then he told Burns about the hookers, whose services he and Merle had been gifted by Johnny.
“Where do I find this Johnny? He sounds like my kind of friend.”
“He’s our boss,” Earl said, and the smile left his face, as he remembered why they were there.
“Your boss gives you hookers? Hell, you dudes must sell a shitload of policies, but forget work and I’ll go fire up that grill.”
Burns rose from his seat and walked down the hall towards the rear of the house. As they followed along behind, Earl whispered to his brother.
“I can’t hurt him, we’re buddies now.”
“I know, but shit, we’re gonna have to do some fancy talking when we get back.”
“Do you think Johnny will kill us?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t kill Matt, like you said, he’s a friend.”
Burns turned around and waved them on as he entered the kitchen.
“What are you boys doing back there? Hey, grab the patties out of the fridge there, Merle, and Earl, you bring out some beer. Now, speaking of hookers, let me tell you about the time I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, you talk about hookers, you should have seen the one I had that day.”
Burns headed out into his backyard to fire up the grill and the boys followed along happily.
***
Mario woke in the hospital emergency room and found Pullo staring down at him.
Pullo’s arm was in a sling from the gunshot wound he previously suffered, but he looked to be uninjured from the crash.
“What happened?” Mario said.
“You ran a light and we got T-boned by a truck.”
“Oh no, was anybody hurt?”
“Just you,”
Mario tried to sit up, but the intense ache in his skull made him change his mind.
Pullo placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Lie still and I’ll go get the nurse.”
Pullo returned with a nurse and a doctor. After the doctor checked Mario’s pupils, she smiled.
“You’ve suffered a concussion, but you’ll be good as new soon. I also want to run a few tests and so you’ll be staying overnight.”
Once the doctor and nurse left, Mario apologized to Pullo.
“I’m sorry as shit, Joe, and I don’t know what happened. Before this, I never ran a red light in my life.”
“The limo is toast; I doubt we’ll even get it fixed.”
Mario looked at Pullo as he started to sweat.
“Johnny is going to kill me... or are you going to beat him to it?”
“Yeah Mario, I’m gonna whack you because you had an accident. Relax, and whatever the hell it is that’s eating you, deal with it, because you can’t drive in this crazy city with your mind somewhere else.”
“I’ll... I’ll deal with it Joe, I promise.”
“Good and get better quick.”
Pullo left and Mario began obsessing about his predicament again.
It would have been better if I had died in the crash.
CHAPTER 19 - Easy payment plan
Romeo wasn’t acting like Romeo and Tanner knew it, but he didn’t want to play the fool in front of Sophia Verona.
One of the crew went out and bought clean-up supplies, and Tanner wore a set of white coveralls, as he helped load the bodies into the rear of a truck.
After the police failed to show, they figured that no one reported hearing gunfire and it was safe to move the bodies.
Sophia hated that they would all be buried without ceremony, but their deaths had taken place inside a warehouse stuffed with parts from the Calvino’s chop shops, and on top of a murder investigation, the cops would have a field day with the thousands of stolen car parts.
Mike had taken Vic’s body with him, and Sophia assumed that his family would soon have a private ceremony with the help of bribed cemetery workers.
With the grisly work done, the truck was moved, and would travel later under cover of darkness to a place where the bodies would be either incinerated or buried.
Tanner took off the blood-streaked coveralls and work gloves and tossed them in with the rest of the things burning in a trashcan fire outside.
One of the men had climbed the shelving and retrieved their things from the office, and as Tanner strapped the holster on his ankle, Sophia touched him on the shoulder.
“Take me home, Romeo.”
Tanner stood, nodded, and followed her out of the warehouse.
Twenty minutes later, they were parked in front of the two-story home she once lived in with her brother and father, but which now was hers alone.
Once inside, Sophia turned and hugged Tanner.
“I’d be dead if not for you.”
“Can’t have that,” Tanner said and Sophia kissed him on the lips.
When they separated, Sophia reached up and removed the mirrored sunglasses, then gazed into his eyes.
“I know why you wear these now. They hide the real you.”
Tanner ran a hand through her long red hair.
“Do you like what you see?” Tanner asked, and Sophia smiled and nodded.
“I think I promised you something for killing Adamo.”
“You did, but the bastard is still alive.”
Sophia took his hand and led him towards the stairs, where her bedroom was.
“We’ll just have to consider this an installment then.”
***
At that moment, Adamo was meeting with Richards inside a limousine traveling along the West Side Highway, and Richards was not a happy man.
“I told you not to make any moves before the meeting, and now I learn that you not only attempted to rob that strip club, but you also bungled an attempt to kill Verona’s daughter.”
“The bitch was riling people up; she kept claiming that I had her father killed.”
“You did.”
Adamo shrugged.
“Yeah, but she needed to shut up about it.”
Richards let out a sigh and gazed out at the gray water of the Hudson River, when he looked back at Adamo, he had calmed down.
“You need to hide until this meeting takes place; afterwards, I’ll appoint you leader of your family, then later, I’ll place you in charge of all the families, but from what I’m hearing, you have a civil war on your hands.”
“Sophia Verona needs to die.”
“What about your man, Santino, why not send him to kill her?”
“That’s a good idea, but he’ll need backup, Sophia has found herself a bodyguard named Romeo, he’s also the same asshole that screwed up the robbery of the club last night.”
“Not that I condone it, but the robbery of the club did have merit, and the fact that it went bad was unfortunate, after the money and guns were planted in his apartment, it would have been a perfect way to not only place Johnny Rossetti in legal difficulty, but it also would have turned his own people against him.”
“It won’t matter once the meeting is over, but Romeo has to go down for interfering in my business.”
“Romeo? That can’t be his real name, can it?”
“I don’t know. He looks like a clown, but he’s a stone-cold killer.”
“Why do you say he looks like a clown?”
“He’s got tattoos up and down both arms, spiky blond hair, and wears a leather vest with these tinted, or I guess you’d call them mirrored, sunglasses.”
“He sounds charming, but send Santino alone, if he succeeds, that’s fine, and if he fails, well then, we’ve one less person that knows our plans.”
Adamo laughed.
“Richards, you were born on the wrong side of the tracks. You look WASP, but you would have felt right at home in the Bronx, where I grew up.”
“You’re correct; I would thrive in any environment.”
They arrived back at the truck Adamo had taken from the warehouse during his escape. He stepped from the limo and leaned back in, to speak to Richards.
“I have a place to lie low and I’m not coming out until after the meeting.”
“We’re very close to getting what we want, so be careful.”
Adamo sent Richards a wink and then climbed back into the truck. On the seat beside him was a hastily packed suitcase.
Richards’ limo headed off towards Midtown and Adamo soon followed the same path, however, he was headed for the Holland Tunnel and his safe house in New Jersey.
The TANNER Series - Books 1-3 (Tanner Box Set) Page 36
