House Reckoning

by Mike Lawson

  “All clear,” Mike called out.

  DeMarco fast-walked toward the bathroom—to discover the door closed and Mike inside the room.

  43

  Oskar Pankov looked outside his hotel room window. It was almost dark and it would be completely dark by the time he arrived at the vacant house in Georgetown. He hoped he could finish the job tonight and wouldn’t have to hang around any longer. He hated to sleep in any bed other than his own.

  He dressed all in black—black baseball cap, black shirt, black Windbreaker, black jeans, black Reeboks. Even his socks were black. Lastly, he put on black leather shooting gloves; to keep from leaving fingerprints on his weapons or in his rental car, he wouldn’t take them off until the job was finished. That afternoon, he’d wiped down the rental car and both his weapons—the rifle and the pistol—as well as all the ammunition. He knew he was going to have leave the rifle after he made the shot and he might have to leave the rental car as well if something went wrong. He’d used a fake ID and credit card to rent the car, so he wasn’t worried about anyone tracing him through the car.

  He took one last look around the hotel room to see if he’d forgotten anything, then took a piss. Experience had shown, particularly as he’d grown older, that it was always prudent to take a piss before a job.

  Oskar parked his car in front of the house that abutted the back of the for-sale house. From the backseat of his car, he took a canvas shopping bag that contained his short stepladder and a rectangular case that looked like it might contain a musical instrument such as a saxophone. He walked around the block until he reached the front of the for-sale house and looked casually around. There was no one on the street that he could see.

  Moving swiftly—not like someone sneaking around—he walked directly up to the gate on the west side of the house, opened the gate, and passed through it. He acted like a man who belonged. He walked to the backyard fence, placed the stepladder at the base of the fence, then walked to the east side of the house. Going down on his belly, he crawled into the space between the house and the rhododendron bushes on that side of the house.

  He opened the case, took out the rifle parts, attached the barrel to the stock, and attached the scope. Now, if someone had seen him and called the police, he might be arrested for trespassing and for having a rifle and an unregistered pistol. Of course, if the cops arrived, he would leave the weapons in the bushes and stand up to greet them, hands in the air, and hopefully they wouldn’t find the weapons. If they did, they’d still have to prove they belonged to him. What he would not do was shoot the policemen.

  Lights were on in the house across the street but Oskar didn’t see anybody in the house. Fifteen minutes passed; the cops had not arrived and he still hadn’t seen anyone in the house. Thirty minutes later, a man walked into a room and picked up the phone. The man was perfectly framed by the window and clearly visible through the scope on the rifle.

  Oskar smiled. He’d be sleeping in his own bed tomorrow night, next to his warm, fat wife.

  DeMarco dialed his Aunt Connie’s phone number. He was going to ask her to go visit his mom tomorrow, so she’d be there when he told his mom about Quinn. As he waited for her to answer—he hoped she was home—he stood in front of the window, looking at the house across the street.

  Oskar Pankov pulled the trigger.

  44

  The doorbell woke him at 6 A.M. Although his bodyguards had left the night before, he really wasn’t worried about his safety. Nonetheless he looked through the peephole before he opened the door, and saw a man and woman standing there, both wearing suits.

  He thought about going back to his bedroom and putting on some pants, but said: screw it. They woke him up. Wearing only boxer shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, he opened the door partway and said, “What do you want?”

  “FBI,” the woman said. “We’re here to talk to you about the assassination of Brian Quinn.”

  “What!” DeMarco said.

  DeMarco excused himself and went to put on some pants. The male FBI agent accompanied him.

  The agents were named Crawford and Blanchard, Crawford being the female, and they were polite and formal and as serious as a couple of heart attacks. They informed him that Brian Quinn had been killed the night before, about 8 P.M. He’d been standing in the den of the house in Georgetown where he’d been staying, talking to a big-shot New York lawyer on the phone, and someone shot him through the heart. He died before the medics arrived and his two security people, New York cops named Hanley and Grimes, hadn’t been able to find the shooter in the dark. This morning the FBI found a rifle in the bushes in the house across the street from where Quinn and his wife had been staying.

  They pissed DeMarco off immediately when they said they wanted to talk to him about Quinn’s assassination—the word making it sound like Brian Quinn had been a head of state as opposed to the cold-blooded killer he was. They pissed him off a second time when they said they were there because they’d been informed that Quinn had allegedly killed DeMarco’s father. They knew this because Stephanie Hernandez had talked to the acting director of the FBI the day before and had shown him the pictures of Quinn killing his dad.

  “There’s nothing alleged about it,” DeMarco said. “Quinn killed my dad.”

  “Be that as it may, Mr. DeMarco,” Crawford said, “can you tell us where you were at eight P.M. last night?”

  Fortunately for DeMarco, he had not one but two alibis, Mike and Dave, decorated military veterans. Thank God Emma had insisted that they escort DeMarco home the evening Quinn was killed, and then hung around to drink the last four beers in his refrigerator.

  DeMarco suggested to Crawford and Blanchard that they might want to talk to Tony Benedetto. Benedetto would confirm that Quinn had killed Gino DeMarco and would also be able to give them the backstory on why his father was killed.

  In response, Crawford said, “We’re not investigating the death of your father, Mr. DeMarco. We’re investigating the death of Commissioner Quinn.”

  And DeMarco realized at that moment that Quinn would never be exposed publicly for what he’d done and would go to his grave as some sort of hero.

  Tony asked one of the nurses to turn on the television and put on the news. He was too weak to pick up the remote or even punch the button to turn the TV on. He was almost too weak to smile when he saw the news; he’d never imagined that one day he’d be so weak he couldn’t move his lips.

  The guys on CNN were going on and on about Brian Quinn. He’d been assassinated in Washington, D.C., last night. The FBI claimed they had no leads except for a rifle that had been found. The White House refused to tell the media why the president had decided to withdraw his nomination of Brian Quinn; the president’s press secretary just said that the president had been given some information regarding Quinn that had caused him to reconsider the appointment. And now that the commissioner had been killed, the president saw no reason to share that information with the media because the information had not been substantiated and could possibly damage the reputation of a man who had served the city of New York in an extraordinary manner. The only thing the president cared about was that whoever was responsible for Quinn’s death be found and brought to justice.

  “Well, that ain’t going to happen, bozo,” Tony said out loud to the president’s press secretary. “Not unless God decides to let me live.”

  In a way, Quinn was dead because of God. Tony, a lifelong Catholic who rarely attended church, had never believed that you could make a confession at the last minute and God would forgive a lifetime’s worth of mortal sins. God would never make things that easy. But Tony decided that before he croaked, he was going to do one last thing that was good instead of bad: he decided to spare DeMarco and have Oskar Pankov kill Brian Quinn instead. He’d always liked DeMarco—and he’d never liked Brian Quinn.

  It had been easy to find out where Quinn was staying in D.C. Tony still had connections in the NYPD, connections he’d inherited from Carmi
ne Taliaferro. However, it had cost him a hell of a lot more to have Quinn killed because Oskar knew that the FBI and the entire New York Police Department were going to hunt for Quinn’s killer forever, so Tony had to pay him enough to make the risk worthwhile.

  But now he could die in peace and with almost a clean conscience—and at that moment, and for once with perfect timing, Anthony Jr. walked into the room with Father Mazzini, the pastor of St. Sebastian’s. Although Tony still didn’t think a last confession would save his old ass from hell, what did he have to lose?

  Agents Crawford and Blanchard did decide to visit Tony Benedetto, but the reason had nothing to do with the death of Gino DeMarco. One of Quinn’s security people, the cop named Hanley, informed them that the commissioner had made a call from a public pay phone the afternoon he was killed—and this was strange since Quinn had a cell phone. Crawford and Blanchard checked outgoing calls from the pay phone and saw one call was to a hospital room where an old mobster named Tony Benedetto was staying, and they decided to ask Tony about the call.

  However, when the agents entered Benedetto’s hospital room, they found out that Tony Benedetto had died a short time before they arrived. His son, Anthony Benedetto Jr., was in the room weeping quietly, clutching his dead father’s hand. The agents tried to question Anthony Jr., but he was so distraught it was impossible.

  Anthony Jr. didn’t know why the goddamn FBIs had come to see his dad; he was just glad when they finally left. Still squeezing his father’s bony hand, he said, “I’m sorry, Pop. I’m sorry I was always such a fuckup.”

  Anthony Jr. was scared. His dad had always been there for him and had always protected him as best he could. He hadn’t realized until after the old man died how much comfort he’d taken in knowing he could go to him if he had a problem.

  He’d been a great father—and fuck the FBI.

  Although she didn’t let her friends see it, Barbara Quinn was surprised to find that she wasn’t really grief-stricken that her husband was dead. She was sorry, of course, and shocked by the way he’d been killed, but she wasn’t . . . well, she wasn’t crushed by his death. In an odd way, and she knew this was somewhat ghoulish, she was actually looking forward to his funeral. She knew it would be a grand event, block after block of blue-clad policemen marching in his honor, the bagpipes playing as they marched. Her husband deserved that honor and she, as his wife, deserved it, too.

  The thing was, although she’d never admit it to anyone, her marriage had been over for years. For the last three years, she’d been having an affair with an architect she’d used several times when she’d remodeled the cottage in the Hamptons. She didn’t know if she would marry him or not, but she did know he was the kind of man she needed: someone warm and artistic and spontaneous. Someone who could make her laugh.

  Brian had always been so cold and calculating, it had been like living with an android.

  But God rest his soul, and she hoped they put his assassin to death.

  Pamela Weinman was inconsolable. She hadn’t left her apartment or stopped crying since Brian was killed. She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to carry on without him. She didn’t want to carry on without him.

  She was also angry. No explanation was ever given as to why the president had withdrawn his nomination and, in spite of all his accomplishments and the good things Brian had done, he died with his reputation somewhat tarnished.

  A great man like Brian Quinn didn’t deserve that.

  Agents Blanchard and Crawford sat in a room with thirty other agents poring over the files of people Brian Quinn had arrested in a twenty-five-year career in law enforcement. It was going to take them months to review all the files.

  The FBI had only four pieces of evidence regarding Brian Quinn’s assassin: a partial footprint from a Reebok tennis shoe, a shell casing that had no fingerprints on it, and an old Remington hunting rifle that could have been purchased at a yard sale, a gun show, or any one of a million stores; the serial numbers had been obliterated. Lastly, they had an eighteen-inch stepladder that, just like the rifle, could have been bought anywhere.

  Crawford and Blanchard really wished they could have talked to Tony Benedetto before he died because of four phone calls that couldn’t be explained. First was the call Quinn had made from a pay phone to Tony’s hospital room the day Quinn was killed; why would Quinn call a retired, dying mobster? To gloat? Second, Tony had made a call to One Police Plaza, but the call went to a multiline phone in a room where twenty detectives sat, and all the detectives denied speaking to Tony. Third was a call to an untraceable cell phone, another dead end. Finally there was a call Tony had made to a Russian lunch counter in Brighton Beach a few days before he died. Brighton Beach was infested with Russian hoods.

  When they talked to the owner of the restaurant, who was also the cook, he said he didn’t remember the call. He said maybe it was a wrong number, and Crawford and Blanchard figured it could have been a wrong-number call, as the call was less than thirty seconds long. Nonetheless, they checked out the cook at the restaurant, a guy named Oskar Pankov, and as near as they could tell he was just a cook. He certainly looked like a cook.

  Oskar had been in the Russian army when he was practically a kid, then immigrated to the United States and became a citizen. He didn’t have a record in Russia or in the United States, and NYPD’s organized crime guys had never heard of him. When they asked Oskar where he was the night Quinn was killed, he said he was at home. Where else would he be? His wife, his brother-in-law, and an old babushka who lived in Oskar’s building—a woman who barely spoke English and might have dementia—all backed up his story.

  They’d keep digging into Oskar’s background—maybe talk to some retired organized crime cops who were around when Oskar first came to this country—but Blanchard was about 90 percent certain he was clean and Crawford was ready to agree with him.

  Oskar Pankov placed the tongue sandwich on the counter in front of the old man, one of his regulars, a guy who came in three, four times a week for lunch. The old man’s name was Sergei and it looked as if a strong wind could blow him away, but Oskar knew Sergei had survived one of the worst gulags in Siberia for sixteen years, which meant he was tougher than a wrecking ball.

  “How you feeling, Oskar?” Sergei asked in Russian. “You weren’t here the last time I came in and your wife said you had a cold.”

  “I’m doing better,” Oskar said. “By the way, I wanted to tell you since you come in so often, that I’m thinking about closing the restaurant in November and going down to Mexico to catch some sun, maybe do a little fishing. Martina keeps complaining we never go anywhere.”

  “You’re going to be gone a month?” Sergei said. He said this like a child who was being abandoned and would have to fend for himself.

  “Yeah, I came into a little money recently.” Oskar winked and added, “Made a long-shot bet, something I don’t usually do.”

  “You’re not thinking about closing the restaurant, are you?”

  “Oh, no, I’d never do that. All I know how to do is cook.”

  DeMarco had wanted to take his mother out to a nice place to eat but she didn’t want to go. She said she didn’t feel like getting dressed up, plus she had a lasagna she’d made just the day before and it was going to go to waste if they didn’t eat it. His mother’s lasagna was to die for.

  DeMarco didn’t know why, but he just had the urge to see his mom. He’d decided he wasn’t going to tell her about Brian Quinn—there was no point opening up all those old wounds. Her husband’s life had been a mystery to her, as was his death, and he’d decided to just leave things the way they were. But he wanted to see her; he just wanted to spend a little time with her.

  She was at the stove putting a pie into the oven; she’d started making the pie five minutes after he arrived. He looked around the kitchen. She hadn’t changed a thing in it—not even the appliances—since his father had remodeled the room twenty-five years ago. There was a little nick in the
countertop Joe could barely see from where he was sitting because when his dad installed the countertop his router had slipped as he was trimming the Formica. The little nick drove his mother crazy—she’d complained to Joe about it dozens of times—but she’d never said anything to Gino, because if she had, he would have replaced the whole sheet of Formica, which cost a fortune back then.

  “You remember when Dad remodeled this kitchen?” DeMarco said.

  “Oh my God! I’ll never forget it. I was cooking on a propane camp stove for three months down in the basement. I tried to get him to hire a professional to help him but I couldn’t get him to do it. Talking to that man was like talking to a rock.”

  But she was smiling when she said this.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  House Reckoning

  Also by Mike Lawson

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART II

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31