Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy

by R. E. Schobernd

  Most days, except in the dead of winter, Tony and a contingent of his pal’s and associates could usually be found outside in front of the bar in the morning and on the shady side of the building in the afternoon. Inside the place was dark and dingy with more than a few cobwebs in the corners. The flooring was three-inch wide bare oak board, colored by tobacco spit and tracked in rainwater and dirt. The once cream-colored plaster walls were now brownish mustard yellow from the years of dense smoke emitted by cigarette and cigar smokers. Except for calendars, and a few pictures of great Cubs baseball players, the walls were mostly bare. A Wurlitzer jukebox with 45 RPM records sat in the back at the end of the oak booths on the Gerson Street wall. The ceiling was at least fourteen feet high, covered in the square pressed tin decorative panels popular at the turn of the century. The light fixtures with white globes hanging down were original as were the eight ceiling fans with the old flat circular motors with exposed windings inside the vented motor frames; they were always running, summer or winter.

  And then there was the BAR! What a bar! It was built of solid red oak with ornately carved trim and rounded corners. It covered thirty five feet of the inside wall and still had the original brass foot rail. The back bar was at least twelve feet high and had six large sections of plate mirror with beveled edges, set in between large tapered oak columns. On each end of the bar there were always one gallon jars of pickled pigs feet, and pickled boiled eggs in purple brine. There was hardly any meat on the pig’s feet, mostly fat and bone, but the old guys would reach in with a long handled fork, pull out their catch and chew away. Monday through Saturday daily specials were served. Dishes like navy beans and ham with cornbread, beef stew or goulash were tasty, filling and cheap.

  During the work week, Mickey, the day bartender would be on his stool at the far end talking to the regulars seated around the bar. Since it was Sunday, John was manning the bar. He was one of several part-timers who worked emergencies, weekends and vacations.

  Jimmy G. was at the bar too, so they talked awhile, mostly Jimmy talking about how sick the Cubs were playing and how they needed to trade up to some better players. They shot a couple of games of eight ball on the pool table toward the back of the room and talked about their siblings. Both of them had an older brother and sister. Jimmy’s brother, John Anthony had graduated from an Ivy League law school, and his sister Adrianna was finishing a post grad degree in economics..

  Even though he and Jimmy were best friends Clay decided not to mention the problem he’d had the previous night. There would be plenty of times later when they were alone to discuss it. But it sure felt good to be with his best friend to keep his mind occupied for a while.

  Looking at their reflections in the back bar mirror Clay subconsciously compared the two of them. He was about twenty pounds lighter than Jimmy, weighing in at two hundred. They were both stocky and had muscular frames, thanks to their jobs and occasional sports. Jimmy was six feet two while he was six feet even. They were even similar in facial features, although Jimmy had his mom’s darker Sicilian complexion.

  Both of them were working full time as union laborers on construction, but on different jobs. Jimmy’s job was running behind schedule so the crew was working ten-hour shifts, six days a week to catch up; they hadn’t seen much of each other the past week which was unusual. Jimmy remarked he had been having some trouble at work with a loudmouth “Mick” from up on the North Side.

  “You know me, Clay, I pretty much get along with everybody. But this guy has been going out of his way to be an asshole. We’ve had several minor run ins and then this moron tries to intimidate me in front of the other guys.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Yesterday he’d been putting the shit on for me all morning, so during lunch break we got into it and I knocked him on his ass in front of the whole crew.”

  Clay started laughing, “Damn it Jimmy, I leave you alone for a little while and look what happens. What am I going to do with you?”

  They both laughed and Clay continued, “Do you think it’s over? Will he back off?”

  “Yeah, it’s over. The guy hasn’t got the guts to push it, he’s just a loudmouth.”

  They made their way back to the big round oak table with claw feet near the back wall. Tony and a couple of the Sunday regulars were playing a friendly game of poker. The games at this table were for the dollar a hand crowd and were mostly attended by men who liked the game, but didn’t have the money for the games held upstairs.

  Clay hung around until five thirty and then left. Later he would cling to the memory of that casual afternoon conversation with Jimmy.

  The next day he bought a morning paper on his way to work. An article reported the death of a patron of the bar he had stopped at the previous Saturday night. The account gave the man’s name and a short paragraph of the known details. It also stated the police had no suspects and no immediate leads. He read the notice for the man’s burial in the obituary section and learned his attacker was unmarried and had few close relatives. At the job site he tossed the paper in a trash container, brassed in for work, and vowed to put the episode behind him and not mention it to anyone.

  Chapter 4

  Nineteen days later on Friday, June 12, 1970 shortly after six o’clock in the evening, Clay received a phone call from a Giliano relative relaying some shocking news; Jimmy had died late in the afternoon in an accident at work. Clay told his parents what had happened and went directly to Tony’s house. It was the worst night of his life; worse even than his incident with the drunk just three weeks previously.

  Tony owned a large three story yellow brick home with a clay tile roof. Built in the thirties, the house was in one of the best neighborhoods south west of Chicago. The house sat on a large estate size lot with a tall wrought iron fence surrounding the entire three acres of beautifully manicured landscaping. A stone guardhouse behind the huge double entrance gate was manned to keep media and gawkers away. The circular driveway was full of cars when Clay arrived, so he parked on the street and walked up the winding concrete drive to the house.

  Losing his best friend was hard, but sharing the grief of his loss with Tony and his wife Anna was the most upsetting event of his young life. They had both always been like a second set of parents to him. From the time Jimmy and he had met they had been inseparable and Anna had treated Clay as if he was another son instead of just a friend. She bandaged their cuts and kissed their bruises, and didn’t tell Tony about many of the things they did. Tony would have yelled at both of them and probably would have punished Jimmy for doing a lot of the actions they got by with. And again she was the strong one, consoling both Tony and Clay, even though he knew she had to be suffering even more than they were. Relatives of both parents were at the house; Clay knew he must have talked to most of them, but later didn’t remember much of what was said.

  When Anna left the room Clay learned details of the accident. Jimmy’s crew was working on a multi story office building, and the major erection of the walls and concrete floors was complete. The design called for a large open space in the center of the building in both the second and third floors. The open area between vertical columns on each floor would provide an unobstructed view of the first floor lobby area. The railings between the columns had not been installed and the openings were identified only by yellow caution tape. On the first floor, at each of the four corners under the center opening, large granite columns would be placed on raised concrete pedestals. Forms had been built where reinforcing bars stuck up out of the first floor and additional rebar was to be tied to them to strengthen the base for the stone columns. Somehow Jimmy had fallen from the third floor onto the vertical rebar and was impaled on them. His face had hit the edge of the wood form and his teeth and jaws were badly damaged. He was still alive when the emergency medical team arrived, and was in terrible agony while they attempted to free him. But, due to the number of steel reinforcing rods piercing his torso, he died before he could be freed.
>
  The obituary announcement was in the paper Saturday morning. A closed casket visitation at the funeral home was conducted Sunday afternoon, and Monday evening. The funeral service was held the following Tuesday morning with a full Catholic Mass. Clay thought more people attended Jimmy’s funeral than any other in the history of the city. Tony’s peers in the mob all attended whether they liked each other or not, and behaved themselves simply out of respect for Tony and Anna. Jimmy’s brother and sister had flown in for the funeral, but Clay didn’t get to speak to them at length, other than to give cursory condolences. John and his wife left as soon as the funeral was over, but Adrianna was planning to stay the rest of the week to visit with her parents. Clay observed she was certainly growing up and looking good.

  After the funeral Clay planned to take at least a week off work because he wasn’t ready to be around people making stupid remarks, and didn’t want to carry on meaningless conversations.

  With Jimmy G. gone forever a huge void was left in his life. Hardly a day had passed since they were seven years old when they hadn’t gotten together or at least talked on the phone. They had done so many things in unison Clay felt as if he had lost a physical part of himself with Jimmy’s death. It was unspoken but understood by both if a problem of any magnitude arose the other would be there to provide backing and support. The bond between them was so strong both felt they knew exactly how the other would react in all situations. They had dated together for years and had even shared the same girl friends occasionally when one or the other grew tired of a girl.

  On Thursday evening, two days after the funeral, he was in the kitchen getting a Coke when the phone rang.

  “Clay, you have a phone call,” his mother said from the living room.

  “O.K. mom, I’ll take it in my room.”

  “This is Clay.”

  “Clay. This is Dave Ulcak.

  “Dave! I haven’t seen you since graduation. What are you up to?”

  “Well, I’m working construction. I’ve been an iron worker apprentice for the last year. In fact, I’m working the same job Jimmy Giliano was on when he died last week.”

  “Jimmy and I were really tight; his accident sure knocked me for a loop.”

  “Yeah, I remember you two always running together. I also recall talk about his dad being connected to the mob. Is that right?”

  “Well, Tony probably has some ties. Why?” Clay had caught a note of apprehension in Dave’s voice and was curious.

  “The day Jimmy G. fell, I wanted to be alone after the job was shut down. Man, seeing him lying there with those re-bar poking up through him hit me hard. Me and the guy’s on my crew had installed and tied the steel he fell on. I wasn’t feeling like talking about it and needed to get away from the rest of the crew and be alone. So instead of going to our regular bar after work, I went to a little place over on Elliott Street. I got a beer and took a booth toward the back. As soon as I got settled in, three other guys from the job walked in and sat at the bar, up near the entrance. A guy Jimmy had been having problems with, Jerry O’Neil was drinking boilermakers; really throwing them down, one right after the other… Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, Jimmy told me about a guy he was having problems with. I’m listening, go on.”

  “Well, O’Neil is getting drunker, louder and nastier by the minute. He said ‘That damned Wop won’t be giving me any more trouble.’ And he made jokes about how Jimmy looked like a pin cushion and he hoped it hurt like hell. The two other guys with him aren’t on my good guys list either, but they had both listened to enough of his crap. They made excuses to leave, finished their beers, and hauled their worthless asses out the door. After they left O’Neil continued drinking and suddenly said to nobody in particular, ’Damn it, the look he had when he went over the edge and realized I had pushed him was great. I nailed him good and he knew it. He won’t fuck with me anymore.’ The bartender and the owner had heard enough and threw O’Neil out. I’m sure they didn’t know who got hurt and just didn’t want to be involved.”

  Clay silently held the phone in disbelief until Dave again queried him, “Clay?”

  “Yeah… Yeah, I’m still here. You’re real sure about what he said? You were close enough to hear it clearly?”

  “After he was thrown out I moved to the bar and talked with the owner and the bartender. They heard the same thing I did. Look Clay, O’Neil is bad news. He’s tough and he’s mean. He’s too bad for me to mess with. But I always got along with Jimmy G. and I thought maybe you could pass this information on to his dad. If he’s connected he’ll know how to settle the score.”

  “I’ll take care of it Dave. But, if this guy is as tough as you say, you should keep quiet about what you heard and don’t go telling anybody else for your own sake. Can you tell me anything else about him?”

  “He drives a two year old black Chevy pick up and lives in Des Plains. I followed him home last night and got his address and the truck's license number."

  “Great, give it to me and I’ll get the information to Jimmy’s dad. Jimmy and I were the closest of friends and I’ll see it gets passed on. Thanks a lot Dave; I owe you.”

  For a brief instant Clay thought of going to the police with the information. But, he recalled the many times he had followed public trials in which he was sure the accused was guilty, only to watch as a slick defense lawyer get him off by appealing to the jury’s sense of uncertainty. Also, as soon as the arrest was made public, Tony would probably charge the police station and kill the bastard in his cell, even if he got killed in the process. Calling the police was out.

  There was no one he could even call upon to discuss the problem. No one in his circle of acquaintances, other than Tony’s bunch, had ever killed anyone, at least not to his knowledge. Since he had recently been involved in the accidental death of another man he knew firsthand what emotional trauma an average person would feel after killing someone; anyone. The only people Clay knew who were capable of killing someone like O’Neil were associates of Tony. They would have to inform Tony as soon as they learned the identity of Jimmy’s murderer. This O’Neil character apparently didn’t know about Tony’s connection, or was too arrogant to be concerned. But O’Neil would have to be dealt with and Tony was the logical person to handle it. He would talk to Tony and… Sitting on his bed, he was suddenly overcome with emotion and began to sob. How could he expect someone else to perform an act he was shirking His best friend had been killed by a coward and he was thinking of passing the problem to somebody else? What would Jimmy have done? If Clay had been killed would Jimmy have gone to Tony and said, Daddy, daddy, please fix this for me. Hell no he wouldn’t. He would have told Tony to stay out of his way while he took care of the asshole himself.

  But Clay had never killed anyone. Well, not intentionally. And this wouldn’t be the same; this would be stone cold premeditated murder. There was no other way to think about it, because it could get very ugly emotionally. But maybe a lone avenger would stand a better chance of extracting revenge.

  Two days later he grew weary of trying to find excuses for not dealing with O’Neil directly and finally accepted the responsibility of handling it himself. The fact it was Jimmy’s killer made it his problem. He would do the job alone, and then tell Tony.

  His first step was to create a plan. The method and location for the hit had to be determined and he would need to know, where O'Neil hung out, as well as his normal routes to and from work. He thought back to the times he and Jimmy had secretly listened in awe to the stories recounted by some of Tony’s acquaintances when they were drinking heavily and swapping stories with each other. He had suspected Jimmy would someday use some fragments of the accounts they listened to after he took his place in the family business; but never did he believe he would use the information. He had always managed to stay on the fringe of trouble. He had never been involved in any of the street gang action or committed any serious crime. On the few occasions he and Jimmy had been stopped and qu
estioned by the local cops they had never even filled out a report of the incidents. Jimmy had purposely kept his record clean so when the time came for him to work under Tony he would be an unknown quantity to law enforcement with no history of criminal involvement, other than obvious ties to his immediate family.

  The next morning Clay drove to the house Jimmy had been renting. He was positive Jimmy’s belongings wouldn’t be disposed of for at least a month. He let himself in the back door with the key hanging on a nail under the wooden porch. Several guns were kept in a closet and they had taken them target shooting many times. He was familiar with all of them and knew where they were kept. The .38 caliber Colt Cobra revolver and a twelve gauge Remington pump shotgun with a sawed off barrel were his final choices. The thought of using Jimmy’s guns to avenge the murder gave him a feeling that his friend was participating and involved in extracting revenge against his killer. Along with the guns, he took a box of .38 cal. hollow point bullets and a box of five slugs for the shotgun. He checked out the basement and garage where a lot of miscellaneous items were stored. Some of the things he took note of were an assortment of fireworks, rope, wire, and hand tools.

  Since it was still early he drove to the address Dave had given him. It was just inside the north east corner of Des Plains. The house was a four or five room single story bungalow with white aluminum siding and a small brick porch up to the front door. A small single car detached garage was located on the right side behind the house with driveway access from the street. This was a working class neighborhood. It had been built in the twenty’s and thirty’s when poor peoples houses were small. Some of the homes were well cared for and others, like O’Neil’s, were run down and needed major repair. Clay guessed the house was rental property and O’Neil didn’t own it. The black pickup wasn't in sight. In another hour it would be supper time. Earlier he had passed a shopping mall about ten minutes away. He could spend a couple of hours there and get something to eat.