Moonlight Dance Academy (Hotshot Book 5)

by Mike Faricy

  Gina Abruzzi had come down with the first wave of escapees from the northeastern winter. Val had pointed her out to Hub a few weeks back. She was neither loud nor obnoxious, speaking quietly with a hard New York accent. She was nicely shaped, with striking black hair, exquisite clothing, a taste for expensive gold jewelry, and they guessed there might well be thousands of dollars tied up in some plastic surgery.

  She was in her mid-sixties, well kept, usually wearing close to three pounds of gold between the chains, earrings, bracelets, and diamond rings. She listed herself as single, living alone, with no children or pets. In other words, a prime candidate for Hub’s evening acquisitions. Val figured she was probably some Wall Street guy’s ex-trophy wife. She had a moneyed look but, at the same time conveyed a possibly rough background.

  Hub had just stepped inside Gina’s home and was straining his ears for any sound. The house was comfortable compared with the night’s heavy humidity, cool but not too cold. There was the faintest hint of a perfume, a nice scent, subtle, with maybe a hint of sexy refinement.

  After a full three minutes standing inside her front door, he went to work. It took him longer in the dining room than the two previous homes, but only because there was so much. The home was neat, elegant, almost ostentatious, but not quite. In short order, his boxes were nearly full, and he thought he might just skip the bedroom. But, since the dining room had been this good, the odds were any jewelry he found in the bedroom might be even better.

  He wasn’t disappointed. Inside a garish, heavily carved chest of drawers, he found two diamond tennis bracelets. There were a couple of rings holding stones so large you could almost skate on them, pendants, necklaces, and earrings, a veritable jewelry store spread out in front of him, available just for the taking.

  After gathering everything up, he turned and jumped when he saw his reflection in a wall of mirrors. He was about to leave the bedroom when he noticed the chest against the wall. In a bedroom of thick carpet, silk pillows, and heavily carved, polished wood, the chest didn’t fit. It was a simple pinewood chest that looked like a child’s large toy box. It appeared out of place amongst all the expensive bedroom furniture.

  A simple chest of unfinished pine, with four balloons painted on the top. Its placement made him all the more curious. He opened it, lifted up a couple of sweaters, and stared, dumbstruck. There, neatly arranged were stacks of currency. Shrink-wrapped packages of hundred-dollar bills stared back at him.

  He knelt down on the floor, too shocked to move. He stared, unable to think for a couple of minutes.

  He tossed the sweaters onto the floor and remembered the old adage, never count your winnings at the table. He pulled out two packages of currency, revealing another layer beneath them. He thought, the hell with it, take the damn chest. It took him three or four minutes to wheel the chest to the front door. Racing through the dining room, he tipped over a box of silver trays, sending them crashing across the floor. He was completely focused on two things and two things only, getting the chest into his pickup, and then driving away as quickly as possible.

  He wheeled the chest out to his pickup, trying to appear calm. He manhandled the thing up into the back of his pickup. Then forced himself to walk, not run, to the driver’s door. He looked nonchalantly up and down the street before slipping behind the wheel, fastening his seat belt, and pretending to adjust his sideview mirror. He turned his lights on, signaled, then took a couple of deep breaths before carefully pulling away from the curb and around the first corner he came to.

  He turned on his police band radio, wondering if he had even bothered to shut the front door to the house. He kept looking in the rearview mirror at the pine chest, crammed full of shrink-wrapped cash in the back of his pickup.

  He wasn’t going to tell Val anything, not a damn thing, at least not yet. Play this just like any other night. He drove to the rear door of the Moonlight, unloaded everything but the chest of cash, and changed his outfit. He had slipped into his casual clothes and was almost out the door before he realized he was still wearing the surgical gloves and tossed them into a wastebasket. He drove around the block to the front, parked, and pulled a dark-colored drop cloth over the chest. Even though you couldn’t tell anything was in the back of the truck, it did absolutely nothing to put his mind at ease.

  He met Macey just inside the door. It was almost as if she’d been hovering, waiting for him to arrive. Over the course of the next hour and a half, he managed to stomp on her feet close to a half-dozen times.

  “Earth to Hub,” Macey said. “Come in, Hub, you’re miles away, honey. Are you okay? You seem really wound up. Something on your mind tonight?”

  He smiled, knew he wasn’t focused on dancing, knew his mind was racing a million miles a minute. Or was that a million dollars a minute? He was ready for the question.

  “Oh, sorry. I spilled some paint thinner on a wood floor this morning, ate the damn finish right off. I’m going to have to pay to have the floor redone. My insurance will cover the damage, but I don’t like doing a poor job for my customer. What’s worse is, I’m the guy who made the mistake. I can’t even blame someone else for this one.”

  “Well,” said Macey, moving closer, rubbing against him seductively, “I wonder if there’s something we could do to take your mind off that wood floor?” She looked up at him, gave a not so innocent smile, and purred, “hmm-mmm.”

  “Sorry, it just bothers me,” he said, doing his best to look downcast. “I’m probably not the best of company tonight. Mind if maybe I take a rain check? I’m just feeling sort of queasy, I guess.”

  “That’s okay. I guess I understand,” she replied, not at all sure she did. “You gonna be all right?”

  Instead of answering, he stepped on her foot, this time purposely, as they continued to circle around the dance floor. When the music finally stopped, he looked at Macey. “Hey Macey, I think I’m going to head home. It’s been a very long day, and I have to go back to that place tomorrow. It’s probably a good idea if I just hit the sack. Is that okay? I gotta sort this out in my head,” he said in response to the question forming on her lips.

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek, then pulled back and looked at him, genuinely concerned. “Give me a call tomorrow. Let me know you’re all right, will you?”

  She watched him head out the door. The poor guy, she thought, he really feels bad. Or?

  He took the back streets home, afraid if he passed a patrol car, the cops might stop him for going a mile over the speed limit. Something crazy could happen. Some other idiot on the road could run a stoplight, swerve into him, and cause an accident. He wanted to avoid the police and everyone else on the way home. He drove cautiously, listening to the police band, wondering when he would hear the first calls regarding the night’s burglaries, and in particular, the reports of a stolen pine chest with balloons painted on the lid. His rambling route took him twice as long to drive home.

  Once he finally arrived, he wheeled the chest up to his apartment, ran back down to the parking lot, grabbed his scanner, then ran back up to the apartment. He locked the front door then pushed the living room couch in front of the door before turning off the light and peeking cautiously out the drapes.

  There was nothing moving outside for the four or five minutes he stood quietly in the dark and watched. Finally, satisfied there wasn’t a SWAT team assembling to storm his front door, he wheeled the chest into his bedroom. He closed the bedroom door, and wished he had a gun for protection. He never noticed Macey’s car parked in the darkest corner of the lot.

  He sat on the bedroom floor, staring at the stacks of shrink-wrapped $100 bills. He had opened one of the three-inch thick bundles and counted it. Sixty thousand dollars. Each layer had forty-two bundles, and there were five layers. He turned the calculator on in his phone. Five layers meant there were two hundred and ten bundles. At sixty grand a bundle, he was content with the simple knowledge this was more money than he had ever been close to in his life.

/>   After two more hours, he began to think about the type of person who would have this sort of money. The odds were it was about 100% illegal, maybe drug money, embezzlement, perhaps some sort of stock scam, or maybe stolen outright from a bank. He kept coming back to his starting point. No matter how much, no matter where it came from, the money was in his bedroom now, and there was a lot of it. He guessed Gina Abruzzi had found it missing by now and called the police, although he hadn’t heard anything on his police scanner.

  Then he thought, she can’t call the police because it’s all illegal in the first place. He sat up through the remainder of the night, sure in the knowledge his apartment wasn’t a safe place for this money. Nor was his storage unit. In fact, he had been planning to remove his little nest egg from the storage unit tomorrow and begin to cash it in. Sitting there, he came up with a pretty simple idea where he could hide it, so simple he had to laugh. Once he had the money hidden, he would tell Val he was finished for good.

  Chapter 45

  After dancing at the Moonlight for the better part of the night, Gina Abruzzi met her friends for coffee. She was home by 11:30, humming that Dean Martin number, Memories Are Made Of This. She couldn’t remember all the words, so she silently hummed the chorus, hearing the smooth, olive-oil voice in her head.

  Walking toward the bathroom, she kicked something on the floor that clattered. She reached over to the wall, turned on the light, and stared at all her silver trays, or a good number of them, scattered across the floor.

  She did two things quickly. She ran into the bedroom, opened up the drawer next to her bed, and pulled out a shiny little pistol. Then she turned to check the toy chest, stopping when she saw her three sweaters on the floor. All that remained of the chest was an imprint in the thick carpet indicating where it had been.

  She sat down on the edge of her bed and noticed her jewelry box was missing off the top of her bureau. “Ahhh, my God in heaven!” she said out loud, thinking for half a moment it might be better just to blow her brains out, all the while knowing there was only one thing she could do, call Bobby.

  She dialed his number, left her message, and waited for his call back. He never answered his phone, but being his mother, Gina never had to wait long for his return call. She was in the kitchen, washing her trays after having poured herself the rare glass of wine. The wine sat untouched as she washed the silver, carefully cleaning it after some animal had violated the sanctity of her home.

  The phone rang, and she knew it was Bobby. She took a deep breath and let the phone ring once more before answering.

  “Hello.”

  “Ma, Bobby. You okay?”

  “Robert, thank you for calling. Yes, I’m okay. I’m just missing something. I thought you should know.”

  “Missing something? I’m the lost and found now? Ma, what do you need?”

  “Robert, I need you down here as soon as possible. Just come and visit your mother.”

  “Is this a big something or a little something you’re missing, Ma?” Bobby asked hesitatingly.

  “It’s a big something. Someone left all my silver trays on the floor, but they’ve taken the chest, my jewelry.” Gina could feel herself beginning to lose it. “Honey, I don’t know what to do. I thought…”

  “Ma, don’t say another word. Don’t say anything, okay? Now, I’ll be down as soon as I can. I’ll call you when I land. Now, Ma, give me one-word answers here, okay? Ma, okay?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” Gina said, swallowing a sob.

  “Ma, did you call anyone else?”

  “No.” She sniffled into the phone.

  “Okay, Ma,” Bobby calmed her, “that’s good. You hurt in any way? You all right?”

  “No,” she said, her voice regaining some of its strength.

  “Which one is it? Hurt or alright?” frustration beginning to creep into Bobby’s voice.

  “I’m alright. I’m fine. I was out, Robert.” She held back a crack in her voice, didn’t want him to hear her fear.

  “Did ya see anyone?” Bobby asked.

  “Robert, if I saw…”

  “Ma, just answer the friggin’ question. Did ya see anyone?”

  “No, Robert, I did not. And don’t you use that sort of language around…”

  “Ma, Ma, I just said…” He felt exasperated after being on the phone with his mother for maybe a minute. “Okay, now I want you to go to Aunt Rosa’s. Please, do not argue, just don’t. I’m going to make some phone calls. I’ll arrange to have some guys over to your place tonight, just to watch things. I’m going to send someone to make sure you're safe at Rosa’s, too. I’ll be down as soon as possible, and I’ll call you at Rosa’s. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Robert, but I think…”

  “Ma,” Bobby said, “we’re wasting time here. You can help me best if you do as I say, I mean, ask. Go to Rosa’s. I’ll call you as soon as I’m in town. Okay?”

  “Yes, Robert,” she replied. No son she carried for nine months and changed diapers all those years was going to limit her to a one-word answer.

  “Okay, Ma, I love you. I’ll get this taken care of. Bye-bye.”

  Bobby Falconi turned off the burner phone. He couldn’t believe someone hit his mother’s place. They must have had some inside information, known who and where she was, despite how careful they had both been. Whoever it was, they were dead, that was for damn sure. Get the God damn money back first. Then, they’re dead!

  He was known as Crazy Bobby Falconi. The psychopathic mob enforcer for what was left of the New Jersey mob.

  Twenty years of Federal Organized Crime Force, DEA and RICO investigations had taken their toll on the New York and the Jersey mob. Trusted people turned informants, talking to the Feds just to save their own skins. Everyone knew of a couple guys hiding in witness protection, and something had to be done to start setting an example. Something had to be done to remind guys what happens to you or your family if you go over to that side.

  The mob had needed someone who would work for all the families, be above personal vendettas. It would take a man who was cold-blooded enough not to care or fear. Someone who could operate independently but still take orders. Someone with a strong psychopathic bent, someone who had the mind-set to do the dirty work and not really give a damn. The sort of man who knew a lot of people but whom no one really knew. A man who could become a ruthless animal when necessary, but content to lay dormant, waiting just below the surface until called upon. Oddly enough, there was such a man not yet institutionalized, Crazy Bobby Falconi.

  At the behest of the New York and Jersey families, he carried out his marching orders with a ruthlessness never seen before. The old taboo of leaving a man’s family unharmed was done away with. Once Crazy Bobby Falconi was involved, if you turned state’s evidence, a witness for the Feds, you and your family were as good as dead.

  That pretty much put a halt to guys turning the Fed’s way. Bobby then turned his attention to gangland rivals. He carried out a series of sanctioned hits to regain family control over the Northeast operations. Everything from wayward made guys to Jamaican, Chinese, and Russian thugs. Over the course of five years, he was largely responsible for the emergence of a rebuilt, powerful, underworld force.

  And now, someone had robbed his mother. It could be a sign that whoever did this was on to him, but Bobby didn’t think so. More than likely, some stupid prick who, right now, couldn’t believe his dumb luck. Some idiot sitting there, looking at the stacks of money, thinking he’s never, ever seen that much cash.

  ‘Take a good look,’ thought Bobby.

  He made a phone call to Miami. He needed someone he could trust. He didn’t know anyone in Tampa, which was one of the reasons he thought the place would have been safe for his mother. She went back to her maiden name, Abruzzi, so she could enjoy twenty-five years in peace and quiet.

  Someone just ruined all that. Ruined all he had set up for his mother and himself. First, he was going to get the money back. Then he wa
s going to kill whoever did this, kill them very slowly and very, very painfully.

  Chapter 46

  J.W., Todd, and Cyril had checked into their rooms the night before. They had planned on getting an early breakfast. After what seemed like an eternity, with J.W. complaining all the while, they left separately to watch for Val and Hub. J.W. was sitting across the street from Val’s, watching Val’s car and apartment, when he received Todd’s first phone call.

  “J.W., it looks like he must have got up and out early this morning. His pickup truck ain’t here. Maybe he just never came home last night or something.” Todd pulled his cellphone from his ear in anticipation of J.W.’s reaction.

  “Damn it!” J.W. shouted. “I told you I wanted an eye on that old boy today. Not tomorrow. Today. You dragged your ass getting over there, feeding your damn face with biscuits and gravy, and now he’s gone. Stay put, see if he shows up. Check-in with me every damn hour.” He disconnected, not waiting for a reply.

  Todd called three more times. J.W. became more disgusted with each call, finally screaming at Todd, “For Lord’s sake, stay put, damn it, and wait patiently. Now Todd, I want you to listen to this very carefully.” With that, J.W. disconnected.

  Todd sat in the front seat of J.W.’s Coupe de Ville, directly across the street from Hub’s apartment. He was already feeling drowsy from the rising humidity on what promised to be another stifling day. His shirt was glued to his back with sweat. Cyril’s head bobbed up and down in the warm car as he fought unsuccessfully to keep his heavy eyes open. The morning’s heat took control, and he began to doze off, snoring lightly in the front seat.