The Jack Hammer

by Derek Ciccone

  But when Geoff focused on the carnage, his stomach tightened. It wasn’t his father standing before him, but the already dead body of Teo Stepania, which had been propped up in front of the door.

  He felt the strong hand grab him around the throat. “Didn’t anyone teach you to never lie to your father?”

  Chapter 57

  Following his fight with Geoff, Cam had gone straight to his rental car and started to drive back home. He could have used his return ticket to New York and made it in two hours by plane, but driving always cleared his head, and after the latest back-stab, he really needed to think.

  He stopped in Myrtle Beach for the night. He needed to talk to someone, and when he couldn’t get in touch with his mother, he called Salvino.

  He expected a big ‘I told you so’—Geoff was just being Geoff, and he should never have ever believed he could change … and he certainly shouldn’t have gone to Florida. The tone would then turn supportive, reminding Cam that he could take some solace in that he’d given his brother one last shot. He’d done all he could.

  But Salvino surprised him, encouraging him to turn around and go back to Miami. And reminded him that the last time he split with Geoff he carried it around like an anchor, and it almost pulled Cam down with him. It was probably not the best idea to work together, but this time they needed to break up on the proper terms. He reluctantly admitted that Salvino was right.

  It was well past midnight when Cam arrived at the quiet apartment complex. He got out of his rented car on the sticky Florida night—the humidity was tough to take and mosquitoes were attacking from all angles. He hated Florida.

  The first surprise was that his paranoid brother had left the front door unlocked, and there wasn’t a bodyguard in sight. The only thing he could think of was that Geoff had abandoned the apartment and stashed Teo in a new location, due to some perceived threat.

  He stepped inside. The apartment appeared empty, except for a television tuned to a re-run of Everybody Loves Raymond. It was really late—or early—and Cam knew Geoff rarely slept. “Hello … is there anybody here?”

  The kitchen light was turned off, but the television was discharging a dim hue, acting like a nightlight. It provided enough light for Cam to see Teo lying in a pool of blood.

  Cam felt nauseous. Teo’s chest looked as if had been painted red, his leather jacket riddled with bullet holes.

  His chest tightened in fear—Geoff! He ran frantically from room to room shouting his brother’s name at the top of his lungs, until he arrived in the bathroom. That’s where he found him.

  He was submerged in the bathtub. He was still wearing his suit pants and Italian loafers, but no shirt. He pulled him out, and it felt like he’d removed his body from a freezer.

  “No! Please no,” he screamed out, but he was gone. “We were supposed to make this work, Geoff. That’s why I came back.”

  He curled up on the bathroom floor clutching his lifeless brother. It was the only thing that felt right at this moment.

  He didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed, but he eventually wrapped his brother in towels, as if he might still catch cold. Cam stood on shaky legs, and viewed the room. There was a syringe and cocaine by the sink, right next to a suicide note. The handwriting was Geoff’s, but the words seemed foreign—not the way his brother would talk. And while he wasn’t naïve enough to think Geoff would never have a relapse, this just felt wrong.

  When the police arrived, they also had suspicions, but for more tangible reasons. Due to the amount of cocaine in the body, the lead investigator doubted the plausibility that Geoff injected himself. And when Cam detailed their strained history, including their latest fight, he became the top suspect.

  When his Myrtle Beach alibi checked out, they moved on to other possible suspects. When Cam was asked if his brother had any enemies, he almost laughed out loud. He had nothing but enemies … and a lot of them.

  When Teo’s identity came to light, the police began to focus on the Cuban connection, and the possibility that Teo was the main target. But the investigator thought it appeared to be more of an amateur job, perhaps the work of a drug deal gone bad, especially since there appeared to be no forced entry.

  The neighbors didn’t see anything, or so they claimed, but did admit to hearing some yelling and fighting earlier in the night. But said that stuff was normal in this neighborhood. As the night crawled toward morning, Rafael and the bodyguards went to the top of the suspect list. They were nowhere to be found, and an APB was put out.

  Cam was finally released around three in the morning. He wished they would have locked him up and thrown away the key. Because that way he wouldn’t have to do what he had to do next. Call his mother.

  ****

  Katie Barrett had just returned home from New York. It was four o’clock, that strange time caught between night and day, but the hours were not out of the ordinary for the workaholic.

  She put on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and began to draw a warm bath.

  The phone rang. It had a bad ring to it. Most calls did at this time of the morning.

  On the other end was Cam. “Mom?”

  “What is it?” she asked, feeling her breath being stolen away.

  “I have really bad news and I didn’t want you to hear it from the press.”

  He didn’t need to tell her—she knew.

  Chapter 58

  The funeral of Geoffrey Arthur Myles was held on a sunny afternoon at Saint Theresa’s Church on E. 82nd Street in bustling Manhattan, which barely slowed down to notice.

  The church was old and creaky, but somehow seemed stylish in a New York kind of way. They weren’t Catholic, but Cam’s mother was a close confidante of Father Jacobs, going back to when they were college classmates at the University of Virginia. Over the years, he was the person she’d often turn to for advice and comfort in her most tumultuous times. She decided that is what they needed most on this day.

  Cam stared straight ahead as he sat in the cramped wooden pew with a suit and tie he borrowed from his brother’s closet. It didn’t fit, but he thought it was fitting. He held his mother’s hand and she forced a smile at him.

  The room was high on statues and candles, but low on lighting. And today, it was filled with a who’s-who of the baseball, political and journalism worlds. Unfortunately, it seemed to Cam as if more people came for him and his mother, or to mourn his father again, than to honor his brother.

  The days between Geoff’s death and the funeral alternated between the hectic planning of funeral arrangements, and long moments of sad reflection. The one positive was that the police had moved away from the initial murder/suicide theory. Having come in this world wearing the Scarlet Letter in his father’s death, at least he wasn’t going out with the label of murderer, if that was any consolation.

  Father Jacobs delivered a touching eulogy about a man trying to find his way in the world. Given tough obstacles from the moment of his first breath, he accepted the battle of life and fought with determination and grit. It wasn’t always pretty, but he fought on because he knew if he quit he would never get to go home. And now that his battle had ended, Geoff was finally home.

  Cam’s mother openly wept. He remembered reading a newspaper account of his father’s funeral, which described her as “eerily calm”. And it would have been impossible for him to avoid the iconic photo of her standing sturdy in that black dress, her hands cupping her pregnant belly as if to protect her unborn son from the horrors of life. In the end, she wasn’t able to.

  But like Geoff, she always fought to the end. The hours in the hospital when they thought he wouldn’t make it through another night, the frustrating hours as he re-learned to walk with his new leg, and then the descent into drugs, which almost killed both of them. She wouldn’t be eerily calm today; she would keep fighting until her son got justice.

  After the service, a greeting line was formed at the back of the church. It was too much for his mother, so Cam
represented the family. He kept it together pretty well, until Mark Salvino met him with a big bear hug. “You knew I thought your brother was a real asshole, and there were times I wished bad things on him, but he still deserved better.”

  “Thanks, Sal—that might be the first honest thing I’ve heard all day.”

  “It doesn’t matter what other people say or think—it only matters what you think. Nobody knew him like you did.”

  “Which is why I should never have left.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this. There was nothing you could have done. The only person responsible for this is the one who did it.”

  “Do you think it was this Rafael Fuentes character?”

  “In my professional prosecutor opinion—not a snowball’s chance in hell. My father met him when he was down there, and said he was a two-bit conman. And what was his motive to kill his golden goose? He was already in on the money. I would much more believe the murder/suicide theory.”

  Cam was taken aback. “I know you had issues with Geoff, but I can’t believe you think he’d be capable of something like that.”

  “I didn’t say he was, but as a prosecutor there’s more to work with there. A desperate man with a history of drugs and enemies. It was his handwriting in the note, which basically was a confession. Sure, there are things that don’t add up, which is why they brought in Fuentes and are tracking other leads, but I could probably get around that.”

  “The part you could never get around is that my brother was the most fearless person I’ve ever met. If he was going to go down, he was going to do it in a blaze of glory.”

  “I agree, but drugs can make the mind do crazy things. Who knows what was in his head, or if he was even in control of his mind at that point.”

  “When I said he was fearless, I meant I never saw him afraid of anything in his life … except one thing. Needles. I don’t doubt he was capable of an overdose, but he never would have used a needle to inject the drugs. Snort it, smoke it … but never a needle.”

  “A Myles death clouded in mystery. Where have I heard that one before?” Salvino’s eyes traveled across the dark church. “But now that I think of it, I do remember.”

  Cam followed his gaze, and noticed a serious looking man with salt and pepper hair enter Saint Theresa’s and head straight to his mother.

  “What the hell is Henson doing here?” Cam asked with annoyance.

  “I’m sure he came to pay his respects.”

  “Or use Geoff’s death as an excuse to dig up the past once again. He had a hard enough time in life, he should be allowed to rest in death.”

  Salvino patted him on the back. “That’s a battle for another day. Today is not the day to settle old scores.”

  As usual, it was good advice.

  The stream of people continued to approach Cam. After a while the faces began to blur together. But one stood out.

  It was a young woman in the typical black funeral dress, her face hidden behind a veil. He recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. Her tone stood out from the others who were paying their respects. While most of the mourners had sorrow and regret in their voices, her words took on a different emotion.

  She was scared.

  Chapter 59

  “My name is Anna. I was your waitress at Nellie’s last week,” she said, her volume one octave above a whisper.

  Her presence surprised him. “It is very nice of you to come. You barely knew Geoff, and if I remember correctly, he wasn’t especially nice to you.”

  She moved even closer to Cam. “I had to come. My full name is Anna Stepania … Teo was my brother.”

  Cam felt like he just got clocked in the head by a small world. He remembered Anna mentioning a brother who pitched in Cuba—he hadn’t made the connection. He didn’t know what to say, so he repeated what everyone had been telling him all day, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She appeared in a rush. “I am hurting for my brother, just as you are hurting for your brothers.”

  He was confused. “Geoff was my only brother.”

  Her look was intense, different from their first meeting. “Cam, I do not have much time. To make a long story short, you and Teo shared the same father … he was your half brother.”

  Cam felt disappointed—she’d seemed so smart and normal when they talked at Nellie’s. But it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to deal with a fan that was a “little off”. And he began to wonder if Teo was really her brother at all. “You must be mistaken. My father died before Geoff was born, and Teo is younger than him. It would be impossible,” he said, and couldn’t believe he was even responding to such a crazed claim.

  “I wish that were the case. But your father … my father … is still very much alive. And that is not a good thing.”

  “That is a serious charge. I think you need to leave.”

  “You are right, I must go. I know it must sound crazy, and I don’t expect you to just believe me.” She handed him a business card. “This is where you’ll find the truth, and please do not mention a word of this discussion to anyone.”

  He scanned the card … Sam O’Connell. Office Manager. O’Connell Investigators.

  “Someone blew up my apartment building in the Bronx last Sunday, and many people are dead. You can look it up. I am listed as dead, which I need to remain, but I risked it to warn you that you could be in danger.”

  Cam remembered hearing about an explosion, but the past week seemed like a big hazy nightmare to him. He was filled with a million questions. But when he looked up, Anna was heading toward the church exit. She slipped into the crowd of mourners, and she was gone.

  Chapter 60

  “Miss, could you please turn off your electronic device?”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” the beautiful blonde replied. She was dressed in a pair of leather pants and a T-shirt two sizes too small, featuring a photo of herself. Humility wasn’t really her thing

  “I’m sorry, miss. No electronic equipment can be used during takeoff. The captain will indicate to you when it is safe to resume use of your iPod,” the flight attendant replied politely.

  “It’s not an iPod—the iPod is so yesterday,” Natasha fired back. She then looked dismissively away, resuming her stare out at the runway of Las Vegas International Airport.

  The flight attendant turned out to be a tougher opponent than Natasha expected. “If you’d like to discuss it with a federal air marshal, I can have that arranged.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, I can see it on your shirt. But unfortunately, the FAA doesn’t distinguish between the awesomeness of our passengers when it comes to electronic devices.”

  Irina inhaled deeply. Being the single mother of a spoiled, millionaire brat wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But it was an art, and Irina had become quite an accomplished artist. She would wait until the exact right moment, before jumping in firm. It was no wonder they couldn’t get a coach to work with one of the top ranked players in the world.

  “Natasha! Stop being such a baby—put the device away. Now!”

  Mother and daughter exchanged icy glances. The stare-down seemed like an eternity, but Irina won out. Another missile crisis had been averted.

  Following the takeoff, Irina took a peek at the brooding Natasha. She was again staring helplessly out the window, as if she were contemplating jumping out. She was not happy with Irina’s decision to return to Russia, and flying commercial no less. The official reason for the trip was to get Natasha away from the pressures of tennis for a week, and perhaps a return to her roots would be good for her mental well-being. But the early returns were not promising, and having to change planes in New York, and then fly all night to Moscow, was going to test their relationship like never before. Which was saying a lot.

  The Tim O’Connell debacle was a PR nightmare. Despite a public announcement by the police that she wasn’t a suspect, Natasha was caught up in the guilt-by-association wind that could huff
and puff and knock her empire down if it wasn’t handled the right way. And her public proclamation of loving the dead PI didn’t help things—all it did was create some racy tabloid headlines.

  But the real reason for the trip had everything to do with the phone call Natasha received from a sports agent named Geoff Myles. She hadn’t mentioned it, and likely didn’t understand the implications, which confirmed Irina’s decision to bug her daughter’s phone as a smart one. It wasn’t about spying—it was about protecting an important asset from her own self-destructive nature. And in this case, from her father.

  When Alex had miraculously returned to Russia, he never discussed what occurred during his time away, working for the Soviet KGB. And she knew that all digging would do was put her last chance of happiness at risk. But after Agent Henson’s “visit,” in which he revealed Alex’s American identity of Jack Myles, she became obsessed with researching the American sports star.

  Since Alex was the greatest athlete she’d ever come across, his success in sport was no surprise. But what did surprise her was the way he looked at his American wife in the photos she’d come across on the internet. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised—she’d felt since his return that his heart belonged to someone else. From that moment on, she’d blamed Katie Barrett for stealing him away, but it was impossible for her to feel anything but empathy for her today. She couldn’t even fathom losing a child in such a manner, and this trip was to ensure that it would stay that way. She would do whatever it took to protect Natasha.

  The last time she and Alex had made love was still fresh in her mind. He hadn’t wanted her for so long, but he came to her the night before he left for good. It was his way of saying goodbye—one final salute to the past. But the man in her bed was not the same man she’d fallen in love with. His touch was as cold as a Russian winter—not the warmth of the Alex she’d first met when they were but children. The sensitive idealist with the big dreams. The one she didn’t want to let go of at that train station.