Loud grunts came from both men as their backs slammed against the steps. That was followed by a shout of pain as the man wearing the spats broke a bone in his wrist. The gun he’d been holding in his other hand tumbled away, and the weapon clunked along on the wooden boards.
O’Connell released his own grunt as they hit bottom, for he had fallen backwards, upon losing his grip on the men’s ties.
His abductors moaned before him from their various aches and wounds, with one man, the huge man, developing an egg-sized lump on the top of his forehead.
After grabbing up the weapon Spats had dropped, O’Connell searched the man with the lump and took his gun as well.
A doorway opened from somewhere above, and a woman’s voice yelled down to them.
“You children stop playing on those stairs!”
The door slammed shut, and O’Connell smiled down at the two men.
“Let’s go see this Frank Recti.”
Frank Recti was seated in the back seat of a new Model T. The vehicle was parked behind a fence which surrounded a construction site where an office building was going up.
Spats was driving, while the other man was seated beside him in a passenger seat that faced the rear, where O’Connell held their guns pointed at them below the level of the window. Spats’ car was an electric model, a Detroit Electric, and O’Connell was surprised by how quiet the machine was.
As they drove through a gate and behind the fence, O’Connell instructed Spats to pull up beside Recti’s car.
Once they were parked, O’Connell shoved open the door, knocking Spats to the ground, to then point his weapon at Frank Recti. He had seen a picture of the man in the morning paper and wondered if it had been taken after a windstorm. But no, apparently, Frank Recti’s hair always looked that wild.
“You and your driver get out of the car.”
“Your name is Tanner?” Recti asked, in his hoarse voice.
“Out of the car, or I start shooting.”
Recti let loose a long sigh, then stepped from the car while instructing his driver to do the same. When the driver’s hand drifted toward the holstered gun beneath his jacket, it was Recti who told him to relax.
“Tanner just wants to talk, otherwise I’d be dead by now.”
“Why did you want to see me?”
“You killed four men by yourself. I wanted to know if that was luck or skill. Now I know it was skill.”
“The papers wrote that the police were blaming you for the murders. Were you planning to hand me over to the police?”
“I’d sooner shoot myself than help the coppers. Besides, I had an alibi for last night.”
O’Connell lowered the gun he was still holding.
“Now that you know I can handle myself, what now?”
“I can use a man like you, only thing is, you’re a damn Mick, so I can’t make you a part of my gang. We’re all Italians.”
“I wouldn’t join anyway, but if you ever need someone killed, I’m handy to have around.”
Recti gestured about at his men.
“They’ll kill anyone I want dead.”
“If they don’t get killed first,” O’Connell said.
Recti laughed.
“Here’s what we’ll do, come by my office sometime and we’ll talk. It’s Recti Construction, down on State Street, near Grand Avenue.”
O’Connell climbed into Spat’s electric car.
“I’ll leave this car on State Street, so you can find it.”
“And what about my men’s weapons?” Recti asked.
“I’ll keep those,” O’Connell said. “But if your men come after me again I’ll give them back their bullets.”
“You’re one tough Mick, Tanner,” Recti said.
“Tough enough,” O’Connell agreed. He drove back through the gate and was gone.
10
Busted By The Law
Keane O’Connell began working for Frank Recti, but under his own terms.
The terms were simple. If he were offered a contract he didn’t want to take, he could refuse it without any consequences.
However, if he agreed to take a contract, he was on his own and Recti’s people stayed out of it.
Payment was always up front, and with O’Connell as his secret weapon, Frank Recti’s fortunes rose in the circles of Chicago’s organized crime.
The job of assassin left O’Connell with plenty of free time. He filled it by reading, and, in particular, by studying history, a subject that had always fascinated him.
His adopted country, although young, had a vibrant past, and O’Connell thought the American West was intriguing.
He found it easy to imagine himself as an old west gunslinger, and took a train trip west to Arizona, where he traveled about as a tourist visiting famous sites.
In Tombstone, Arizona, he came across an old man who had witnessed the final moments of the shootout at the O.K. Corral.
From the old man, O’Connell learned that there had been further violence between the Earps and the group of outlaws called The Cowboys.
Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt, while Morgan Earp was murdered.
O’Connell learned a lesson by studying the events at the O.K. Corral. Never leave an enemy alive. If you believe a man has reason to harm you, then kill him.
It was a lesson that would become a tenet of each future Tanner’s training.
Frank Recti and his men knew O’Connell by the name of Tanner, but O’Connell was in America under his own name and not an alias. As himself, O’Connell obeyed all the rules. He rented a secluded home in an area which would one day be annexed by landfill and become Montrose Beach.
The company of women was an infrequent pleasure, and O’Connell’s sex life mainly consisted of trysts with a librarian whose husband was a career military man.
O’Connell’s late wife had meant the world to him and no other woman ever made him feel the way she had.
Given his illegal profession, he doubted he would ever be close to anyone, much less marry again.
He was only thirty-three, and yet, there were days he felt like an old man inside. He missed Ireland, he missed his brother, and he still ached for the touch of his late wife. Often, upon seeing a young boy, he would have to fight back tears while thinking of his dead son. While it was true the child had survived outside the womb for only a few precious days, O’Connell had loved him fiercely.
O’Connell traveled to Washington D.C. in the spring of 1918.
The history buff had enjoyed a wonderful time exploring the city and had watched construction take place on the Lincoln Memorial. He planned to return to Washington a few years later, when the monument was scheduled to be completed.
Prior to taking the trip, O’Connell had killed three men for Frank Recti. The men were from a rival gang that had intruded into Recti’s territory. Their deaths were a lesson to any others who might attempt to do the same.
O’Connell was always watchful of retribution by friends of the men he killed, but as Tanner, he was essentially a non-entity among the mob of Chicago.
While there was no shortage of killers, the others all belonged to gangs. Tanner had worked solely for Recti, but he was not a member of the Black Hand, the criminal organization with which Recti was affiliated.
The Black Hand was dying anyway, as a new group, The Chicago Outfit began gaining in dominance. As Tanner, O’Connell had begun to reach out to members of The Chicago Outfit, and let it be known that he was a gun for hire.
When he returned from a swim one day and saw the police on his doorstep, O’Connell let the gun he had hidden behind his back slip into the grass.
A smart man didn’t fight coppers with guns. A smart man fought the police with lawyers.
One cop was older than him, while the other was younger, and it was the older cop who spoke.
“Keane O’Connell?”
“Yes?”
The cop handed him a slip of paper.
“Wh
at’s this?” O’Connell asked.
“That’s a notice from a judge that you’re to be at the induction center on Grant Street within the next three days. You’ve been drafted, O’Connell. Haven’t you been reading your mail?”
In truth, he hadn’t, and it had piled up while he was on his trip to Washington.
“I’ve been away on holiday. Besides, my application for citizenship hasn’t been approved yet.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Are you saying that I have to join the army?”
The cop smiled.
“You’re already in the army, but if you don’t show up for your induction we’ll be back to take you to jail.”
The cops walked over to their vehicle and drove off.
O’Connell went inside and found two letters from the army.
Yes, he had been drafted, and he realized that there was a good chance that he’d be shipped off to Europe to fight in what was being called the Great War.
O’Connell considered packing up and going away, but that would mean leaving Chicago, and Chicago had become his home.
Two months later, Private Keane O’Connell was on the Western Front in France.
11
Stone Cold
After getting Florentina to sleep, Nadya came downstairs holding a baby monitor receiver and found Sara and Amy sitting apart in the living room. Sara was reading a book, while Amy was playing a game on the computer.
“I want to watch a movie,” Nadya said. “It’s that new one with Drake Diamond.”
At the mention of the name, Drake Diamond, both Sara and Amy stopped what they were doing.
“There’s a new Drake Diamond movie?” Sara asked.
Nadya grinned.
“There is, and he plays a male stripper in it.”
“Oh my God,” Amy said, as Sara tossed her eReader aside, the book forgotten.
Sara settled on Nadya’s left, as Amy sat on Nadya’s right.
“You’re a Drake Diamond fan too, Amy?” Sara asked.
“Stalker might be more accurate. I once sat in front of a movie theater all night to see a sneak preview of one of his movies.”
“So did I,” Sara said. “It was Roman Gladiator.”
Amy nodded.
“That’s the one, and when he did that nude scene I almost fainted.”
“I still watch that sometimes,” Sara said. “And I own the movie.”
“I own every Drake Diamond movie,” Amy said, while laughing.
Sara smiled at her, and the earlier tension they felt evaporated under the heat of mutual interest.
Tricks protested as Spenser dragged him along by his hair to the spot at the rear of the trailer, where a shovel and pick had been discarded.
After tripping him to the ground, Spenser pointed at Tricks.
“Understand something. You’re not running away this time. This time you’re going to face the consequences.”
“They want to kill me, man. I can’t believe they only got five years.”
“They were released early because the prisons are overcrowded, but that’s what happens when a legal system decides to dispense soft cots instead of justice.”
Tricks stood, and Spenser could tell by his body language that he was thinking of making a run for his car.
“If you try to run, I’ll shoot you in the leg.”
“That could kill me.”
“Accidents happen.”
Tricks looked down at the shovel.
“Why did you drag me out here?”
“I want you to dig two graves.”
Tricks shook his head.
“I tried digging back here. I was going to grow a few plants, you know, just some weed for personal use, but there’s too many rocks.”
“We’ll still need somewhere to bury the Greene brothers.”
“Let me run. They won’t find me. I’ll hide in Denver. I got a cousin there.”
“Listen, Tricks, I’m here to help you. If the Greene brothers try to kill you, I’ll stop them.”
“How?”
“That depends. I’ll give the trailer a good looking over. Maybe I’ll come up with a plan.”
The old trailer was a pigsty. Spenser had given it a quick check for other occupants before dragging Tricks off to dig, but after returning to it, he gazed about while thinking strategically.
Despite the filth and discarded liquor bottles, Tricks had a new flat screen TV that must have cost over a grand. A large mirror was suspended above the bed, and on the side table was a rolled dollar bill and traces of what Spenser took to be cocaine, but there was nowhere to take cover while opening fire.
Spenser decided that any action should take place outside. That was when he remembered a hill he had passed.
The area must have flooded at some point, causing a mudslide. The water left a pile of small boulders in its wake at the base of the hill.
He walked out with Tricks to the area and gestured around.
“This is still your land, right?”
“Yeah, my great-grandfather Calvin left it to me in his will. I was named after him. The guy lived to be ninety-eight, do you believe that?”
“If those rocks were cleared away from that depression in the earth, we’d have a natural grave to place the bodies in,” Spenser said.
Tricks had been taking gulps of bourbon as Spenser spoke, and appeared disheartened. Spenser wondered if Tricks was sickened by the thought of having to kill men he had at one time considered friends.
But no, the weasel was just upset by the prospect of having to perform physical labor.
“Move all those damn rocks? That could take us hours, and some of them look heavy as shit.”
“Not us, just you. While you’re moving the rocks, I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Greene brothers.”
“Why do I have to do all the work?”
“Because I said so, and it’s your ass we’re saving.”
“Let me get some gloves first. I have a pair in my car. I’ll be right back.”
“Nice try, now start moving those rocks.”
Tricks looked down at the rocks then back up at Spenser.
“You’re just going to shoot two men and dump them in a hole?”
“If they force my hand by trying to kill you, yes.”
Tricks looked Spenser over, as if seeing him, really seeing him for the first time.
“You’re one badass dude.”
“Remember that, and get to work.”
With a sigh, Tricks bent down and grabbed the first of many stones.
Tanner placed his back against the wall and aimed upward after reaching the landing on Andrea Jackson’s stairway.
Below him, Romeo was rushing Andrea and her children outside, where he would place them in Tanner’s rental and be ready to drive them away to safety.
Once the sounds of their departure faded, Tanner listened for other sounds. The boy, Ethan, had said that two men with guns were in the house. It was not a new house, and so the floorboards creaked. And yet, Tanner heard no sounds coming from upstairs, nor saw any shadows moving.
He ran up three steps, paused, and listened again. Nothing. There was only the quiet steady hiss of the central air unit as it sent cool air throughout the house.
Tanner raised the barrel of his gun above the level of the stairs on the left. If anyone were lying in wait and looking for something to shoot at, he had just grabbed their attention. While his opponents’ eyes were drawn to the left, Tanner shot his head up and snuck a quick glance.
He saw nothing but two open doorways leading into separate rooms. Even from the brief view he had, he could see that one room was a girl’s, while the other belonged to the boy.
Again, there was no sound of movement. Tanner decided that the men must be hiding and waiting for him to come to them.
He would do so, and then he would kill them.
Once he was at the top of the stairs, Tanner moved toward the room belonging to the boy. That was where
Ethan reported seeing the two men.
A thought kept nagging at Tanner. He was wondering why the men would break into a home and then not attempt to take Andrea and her children hostage. If they were looking for Andrea’s ex-husband, they would have harmed her or the children until they talked and told them what they wanted to know.
Strangers on the second floor of a home in the daytime sounded more like a pair of teenage druggies acting as second-story men, while searching for electronics or jewelry to sell.
The only thing was, once discovered, teenagers would have scrambled back out the window they came in through without shutting it behind them, and all the windows appeared to be closed.
Tanner was about to continue his search when he heard someone enter the home from downstairs. Then, Romeo called to him.
“Yo, Cody. Chill, man, it’s a false alarm. The kid was messing with us.”
Tanner lowered his weapon, then placed it back in its holster, as he went down the stairs, to where Romeo stood alone in the hallway.
“The kid was playing a game?”
“Yeah, funny, hmm?”
Andrea joined them inside. Jasmine was staring at Tanner with a smile on her face, as Andrea dragged Ethan along by the arm. If the boy was sorry for his prank it didn’t show, as a smirk was on his lips.
“Apologize to Tanner and Romeo,” Andrea told her son.
“Why? I was just testing them,” Ethan said.
Tanner leaned down to stare Ethan in the eye.
Ethan’s cocky smile vanished. He tried to maintain eye contact but couldn’t bear the fierceness emanating from Tanner’s intense gaze. A soft whine escaped, as the boy’s knees weakened, and after gripping his mother’s hand, Ethan moved behind her.
“I’ll be good,” he whispered.
Standing beside Ethan, his sister giggled, while Andrea gave Tanner a worried look.
“That’s some set of eyes you have there, Tanner,” Andrea said.
Tanner ignored her and headed toward the kitchen.
One Hundred Years Of Tanner Page 5
