One Last Kill

by Spenser Warren

  They knew where Caruso lived, but that did them little good—he likely wouldn’t be hanging out at home until he was in the good graces of the Commission, leaving Alfredo, Vinnie, and Cal as hit targets themselves.

  As the leading public official in Chicago, Caruso often mentioned his Catholic values. Vinnie decided to head for the churches in the Old Town neighborhood.

  He knew Cal was likely staking out at least one of the Catholic churches as well. He didn’t mind if Cal did the legwork in finding Caruso, but he swore to himself that he would be the one to make the kill.

  He’d be the one to save his father from all the trouble Caruso was causing them and extinguish any threat of his father’s awful secret hit being revealed to the Commission.

  Maybe then he’d earn his due respect.

  25

  Cal watched from Doc Parker’s Jeep Cherokee as the first wave of parishioners made their way out of St. Michael’s following the conclusion of eleven-o’clock Mass. He was too busy scanning for Caruso to gaze up at the spectacular views of the cathedral that loomed over him.

  The church was a historic landmark in the city, predating the infamous Chicago Fire of 1871. A good portion of the building had perished in the fire, but the walls were mostly intact and the church had been rebuilt using some of the existing structure. Cal had never been inside the church, though he had to admit the architecture of the building was impressive from what he could see.

  Parishioners continued to spill out of the three large front doors and onto the sidewalk. Most of them gathered to chat around the trees perfectly centered across from each door.

  At last, he saw the tall mayor and his beautiful raven-haired wife exit the church. His wife’s hands were atop the shoulders of their middle-school-aged son. Caruso was talking excitedly to the priest, perhaps recapping the break-in at his home yesterday.

  After a moment, the boy pointed to a group of kids hanging out by one of the trees. Mrs. Caruso patted him on the shoulder and watched him meander over to the other preteens while she waited for her husband’s conversation with the priest to finish.

  Cal’s eyes followed the boy. He felt a pang of discomfort at what he was about to do. If Cal went through with killing Caruso to ensure his own safety and escape from the mob, he knew the boy would become fatherless. He was probably the same age Cal had been when he’d lost his own father.

  What kind of impact would that have on the boy’s life? Would Alfredo eventually ask Cal to kill the boy’s mother for good measure and then adopt Caruso’s son like he’d adopted Cal? Would he make him an emotionless killer in the mold of Cal? These questions clouded Cal’s mind and filled him with doubt.

  Caruso finally left the father’s side and gestured for his boy to follow him and his wife to the black Lincoln that had pulled up to the curb. It was the same black Lincoln Cal had been in pursuit of the past few days.

  Cal saw the trademark phony smile plastered on Caruso’s face and thought back to his phone conversation with Maria. She was meeting a “very successful public figure” that afternoon for lunch. If Caruso was the bastard she was meeting, he’d be sure to end his life right in front of her and put any thoughts of the boy losing his father out of his mind.

  Cal glanced at his cell phone lying on the passenger seat of the car. He’d called Tony at least ten times on his way to the church while waiting for Caruso. With Fonzie injured, he needed someone else to help with the surveillance.

  He hated asking Tony to partake in the endeavor, especially with a mission as dangerous as this, but the kid had proven himself back in the alley, saving Cal’s life and helping Cal eliminate one of the mayor’s goons in the process. Cal hit the call button one more time.

  “Pick up the damn phone, kid.”

  Cal watched Caruso and family enter the car and pull away from the curb. He was going to follow them as long as he could. He hoped the family left Caruso alone at some point. He didn’t want to take them out too. If his hunch was correct, Caruso would be heading downtown to meet with Maria.

  After getting Tony’s voice mail again, Cal turned the Beretta back and forth in his hand and then extended the weapon as he would if he planned to fire, pointing it below the steering column. This time, he wouldn’t be befuddled by the safety switch.

  If he saw his lover and the mayor together for lunch, he’d make sure the only thing Caruso ate were his own brains.

  He never saw the gray Porsche in the rearview mirror behind him.

  26

  Cal followed the black Lincoln until he reached Polk Street, where the car idled in front of a small clinic. The two bodyguards Cal had seen earlier, when the driver had dropped off Caruso’s wife and son at Ogilvie train station, got out of the car and entered the building. Presumably, that left only the driver and Caruso himself inside of the car.

  Cal pulled ahead and entered the medical facility’s employee parking lot, thinking the move would convince Caruso’s driver that he hadn’t been following them and had disappeared from sight.

  If they’d recognized Cal following them in the Jeep Cherokee, they didn’t seem too concerned about a possible hit on Caruso while he sat not far from where the car was parked. It would be a relatively easy job to walk up to the car and take out the driver and Caruso in one fell swoop—if Cal had someone with him to deal with the two bodyguards inside the clinic.

  Cal shot a text to Tony, telling him that he thought Caruso would be staying put for a while. O’Dooley’s Pub was up ahead, and Cal hoped Tony could come down to help out if Caruso stopped for drinks.

  While Cal was waiting for Tony to respond, he fired off another text to Maria. His heart thumped with pain like a hammer driving a nail when she told him she had lunch plans with another man. The nail tore deeper when Cal suspected Caruso was the man she was seeing.

  He wanted her to know that he cared about her and that he was ready to change. At the same time, he didn’t want her to think he was stalking her and trying to intimidate her lunch date. If she was meeting Caruso, she’d probably have little incentive to forgive him. If Cal’s anger resulted in murderous gunfire, any tenderness Maria had seen shining forth would be futile. He couldn’t kill Caruso in front of her, not if he wanted to win back her love.

  His jaw tightened as he pushed send on the text asking her where she was going. He hoped his mind would be at ease when she told him she was going to a different restaurant, a different bar.

  Cal drummed the steering wheel, waiting for the bodyguards to return to the vehicle. The longer they took inside, the more Cal thought about crossing the street and blowing a bullet hole through the driver’s window and following up with the shocked mayor inside. Instead, Cal opened the glove compartment to see if the doc had any useful weapons to add to his own collection.

  He didn’t see anything exciting inside, only the maintenance manual for the vehicle, a tire gauge, several expired auto insurance cards, and a fresh Gala apple tucked in the back corner. The doc must have been saving himself a snack.

  Cal shrugged and promised he’d buy the doc another one before he returned the car. Peeling fruit calmed him. His confidence that he could successfully take care of Caruso grew as he rubbed his thumb over the red apple skin.

  He watched the street as he slowly peeled the apple with his jackknife, allowing the red skin to pool on his lap and the floor mat below him. He heard the phone on the passenger seat buzz, announcing a new text message. A quick glance at the screen told Cal it was Tony. He was on his way.

  Cal blocked all other thoughts from his mind as he finished peeling the apple and prepared for his first bite. Tony and Fonzie often joked about Cal’s peculiarity with fruit peeling and the explanation Cal gave for his behavior. The careful focus he displayed when peeling the fruit was just as precise as the details of each kill. Cal’s meditative state continued as he neatly corralled the skin from his lap and the floor for disposal later.

  Cal bit into the apple, savoring the rich sweetness of nature’s candy w
hile closing his eyes. He slowly chewed each bite, trying to burn the sensation of the taste into his tongue in case this was the last thing he ever ate. While he was certain it would all be over in a matter of minutes—there was no longer any time for games—he felt a deep sense of uncertainty over what he was about to do.

  He’d rarely considered the impact of killing someone before he completed the job. Each mark was nothing more than assignments passed down from on high; he performed his duty as a hit man and made the kill. If he succeeded, his boss’s problems were solved, and he walked away with the cash that enabled him to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle that he couldn’t have dreamt of as a kid.

  From the thought of Caruso’s son growing up an orphan, to the expectation that he would extinguish yet another human life, Cal began to grasp what he really had become. Maria’s fear and hesitation to keep seeing him began to make perfect sense. It was as if he hadn’t been able to process simple emotions like uncertainty and doubt and the concepts of right and wrong. The recognition of his lack of self-knowledge scared him.

  At long last, Caruso’s men exited the clinic, scanned the area, and entered the vehicle. A few minutes passed, during which only a man in a fedora entered the nearby pub, before the bodyguards exited the vehicle again. This time, Ross Caruso got out with them. They were heading for the pub.

  Cal disengaged the Beretta’s safety switch and made sure the magazine was full. Judgment day had arrived for Mayor Caruso.

  27

  Ross Caruso smiled and took a hearty gulp from his Goose Island Pale Ale. His good friend State’s Attorney Pete Rogers had just walked into O’Dooley’s Pub.

  The mayor hadn’t expected to see Pete. He thought the attorney would be out on a date with the young Latina that he’d set him up with. Caruso would’ve loved to go on a date with the girl he’d met while shopping for a new handbag for his wife himself. Yet, the infidelity risk wasn’t worth it, given all that was at stake.

  He was all in on his political future, hoping his next move would take him to greater heights. He’d be mayor and mafia chieftain for a few years. After that, perhaps the family leaders would put him up for a US Senate bid. Then, maybe a decade from now, back him for the presidency.

  Once he met with the Commission and told them how awful Alfredo Petrocelli was for ordering the murder of his father and the last boss of the Chicago family, the Commission would ensure both Alfredo and his kid were dead. If Callahan Boyle reformed his allegiance with his adopted family, Caruso would ensure he was implicated as the man who’d executed the evil deed.

  Rogers walked up to the bar and removed his fedora. He was the second such man in the last five minutes to enter wearing a fedora. Caruso shot a quick glance at Bernie, who was keeping an eye on things nearby. While the second man wearing a fedora seemed suspicious, he ended up settling in at the bar like an Average Joe.

  “Hey, Mayor, how are ya?”

  Rogers had worked his way next to the mayor without him realizing it. He had to be more mindful of his surroundings in case Boyle or some other trained killer tried to knife him without warning.

  “Pete, what happened with that young gal I told you about?”

  Rogers chuckled. “This isn’t exactly the classiest joint for a first date, huh? I figured it would be casual enough for a first meeting, to see what the girl is like, you know?”

  Caruso nodded. He made a gesture to the bartender for a refill of his draft. Rogers ordered a pint of Coors Light, glanced back toward the door, and took the seat next to Caruso. Caruso nodded to Bernie that Rogers was alright.

  “What brings you out today? I heard about the break-in at your house. That must have been quite a scare.”

  “It was. My wife and boy were pretty shocked by it. I’ve got them staying with her sister in the suburbs for now. I dropped them off at the train station after church.”

  “I see. So why are you out, then? Beer usually take the edge off for you?”

  Caruso considered that. He wasn’t sure why he’d decided to come out for drinks. He knew that there was nothing more important than getting to the meeting with the head of the Commission alive. He wanted one last moment of fun and relaxation before that fateful meeting occurred.

  The very best of his security team was with him in the pub at that moment. Bernie and his associate Gorgi were the real top dogs, far more skilled than anyone Boyle and his posse had slain up to that point. Two more men, dressed as ordinary folks sitting in the back corner of the bar, were also on Caruso’s payroll, constantly scoping out each person who came into the bar for any suspicious activity. There was no reason for the mayor to feel unsafe. Even the car that had tailed him from Old Town had pulled past the Lincoln when it’d stopped outside the clinic. That was one less thing to fear.

  “Right now, I’m feeling pretty good. Sometimes, even in the darkest times, you want to keep riding the good times. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “Here, here,” Rogers said. Both men lifted their glasses and clinked them in a celebratory toast. Rogers only sipped at his beer while Caruso downed his quickly.

  His drinking pace caught up to his bladder. Caruso rose from his chair and staggered down the narrow pathway between the barstools and the tables lining the wall, squeezing past a waitress carrying food to the front of the bar as he went.

  When he got to the back where the bathrooms were situated, he noticed a line of four people all waiting outside of the women’s restroom. There was an “Out of Order” sign on the door of the men’s restroom.

  “What’s going on here?” Caruso barked.

  One of the bartenders, a gruff, balding man with curly black hair and a matching beard, stepped from behind the bar and glared at the mayor as he walked back to the nearby kitchen.

  “Some guy clogged the men’s toilet,” he said. “I called a plumber to come in and work on it. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”

  “Christ Almighty,” Caruso mumbled. He’d only been standing there for a few moments but was starting to become impatient. The mayor was used to everything going his way, each pawn on the chessboard easily maneuverable based on his desires. He didn’t want to wait.

  “You can go out back if you’re desperate. I won’t mind,” the bartender said, meandering through the open doorway to the kitchen.

  Caruso saw the exit leading out to what had to be an alley behind the bar. He glanced back at Bernie and over to the two men sitting at the back table and proceeded to walk into the kitchen.

  “Wait, boss, you want one of us back there?” Bernie called out.

  Caruso waved him off, the alcohol leaving him feeling more secure than he should have been. “I don’t need someone to hold it for me. I’ll be right back.”

  28

  Vinnie recalled a time when he went off of caffeine for several months. The next sip of coffee he took had sent a jolt of adrenaline straight to his heart, caused him to sweat profusely, and made him think he was going to die if he took another drink. That was exactly how he was feeling at the moment, his heart aflutter with activity.

  He was going to finally prove to his father that he could be more than just the brains of the Chicago mafia. Brawn and the ability to perform calculated kills weren’t exactly his forte, but he would find a way to prove both momentarily. He’d set his bait. With a smattering of luck, Ross Caruso would walk right into the trap and squeal like a wounded rat knowing its last piece of cheese was right in front of it.

  He’d arrived at O’Dooley’s Pub with a purpose. Disguised under a fedora hat, Vinnie slipped into the pub, careful not to attract attention as he made his way to the end of the bar closest to the restrooms. He felt a few pairs of eyes watch him closely—eyes he assumed belonged to the mayor’s men—before he settled onto the last stool and grabbed a beer.

  After several minutes and a quick downing of the beer to give him the liquid courage he knew he’d need, he went into the men’s restroom, opened the paper towel holder, and threw as many as he poss
ibly could into the toilet. For good measure, he took some change he had in the bottom of his pocket and added it to the bowl. He attempted a flush and smiled in satisfaction when the toilet began to clog.

  Returning to the bar, he told the bartender what had happened to the toilet, and suggested a sign be placed on the door indicating the restroom was out of order. The overworked bartender obliged, and Vinnie slipped quietly out of the back door, hoping he wouldn’t have to wait too long for Caruso to get desperate enough to urinate in the rear of the building rather than wait for the women’s.

  Vinnie had since removed his hat and clutched his gun, a Smith & Wesson 19, alongside his thigh. He stared intently at the door and waited, knowing that his plan would work. The clanging of someone inside the bar trying to open the door alerted him to the immediacy of his plan. It took several powerful pushes before it burst open, but it finally did.

  Vinnie held his weapon high in his hands and hid behind the nearby green metal trash receptacle, allowing the individual exiting the bar to step outside.

  The tall figure who exited the pub was none other than Mayor Caruso. Vinnie remained still; he didn’t want the mayor to hear even the faint sound of his breath. He watched as Caruso took a few steps away from the bar and stared blankly ahead. After a shake of the head, he turned toward the building. Vinnie heard him unfastening his belt. His heart pounded as he knew what he needed to do.

  Time to shine.

  Vinnie jumped out from behind the dumpster with his gun pointed in front of him. The movement startled the mayor and sent his hands flying up in surrender. A trace of a smile faded quickly from the man’s face.

  “I wasn’t expecting the boss to send his own son to kill me,” Caruso said, his voice quivering.