“Everything! Tanner I’ll give you everything I have just don’t pull that—”
The impact of the bullet made Recti’s head bounce off the oil-stained concrete floor, and the gun slipped from Tanner’s grasp.
Tanner felt weak, exhausted. He had just leaned against a wall when he heard footsteps coming from outside.
There was another man left.
Tanner bent down to pick up the gun again, but kept going. He hit the floor and landed beside Frank Recti.
He was spent and lacked even the energy to turn his head to view the man who would kill him.
Keane O’Connell closed his eyes, and as he did so, he remembered the words of his brother.
“One good thing about dying,” Davin had said. “I’ll soon be with those who went before me.”
O’Connell held on to that thought as he felt himself slipping away.
22
Smoke And Mirrors
Sara, Amy, and Nadya took a break from their movie marathon to play with Florentina.
The baby loved the attention from her “aunts” and stayed awake longer than usual before succumbing to sleep.
With her daughter asleep once more, Nadya put on another movie, while Sara made popcorn and Amy brought out a second bottle of wine.
When Drake Diamond came on screen again, this time playing an undercover cop working on a nude beach, the women stared at the screen with rapt attention.
“Um-um-umm,” Amy said, and Sara and Nadya laughed.
Two hundred yards behind Tricks’ trailer, faces that had been twisted by hate scrunched up in befuddlement.
Daryl and Kevin Greene had fired a barrage of shots at Tricks, while meaning to kill him. Instead, they made Tricks disappear amid the sound of glass breaking.
Their shots had shattered the large mirror that had previously been suspended over Tricks’ bed, and in which they had viewed his reflection standing within a haze of smoke.
Before the men could puzzle out what had happened, a shotgun roared and ripped them apart with 00 buckshot.
The Greene brothers fell to the ground and writhed in agony. Their pain was short-lived, as two more blasts from Spenser’s shotgun ended their lives, and the threat they had posed.
Tricks let out a hoot of triumph, before walking over and staring down with a solemn expression at the ravaged and unmoving bodies.
“Damn. When you’re dead, you’re really dead.”
“That’s how it works,” Spenser agreed.
He told Tricks to go inside and put on some clothes, then to come back out so that they could bury the bodies beneath the rocks.
“When you say that we’ll bury them, you really mean just me, right?” Tricks asked.
Spenser answered while putting on gloves.
“I’ll drag them over to the hole and you can cover them with stones.”
Tricks sighed as he looked down at his hands, which were already blistered and sore.
“I think I’ll get some gloves too.”
Tricks went limping off toward the trailer, as behind him, Spenser grabbed the ankles of Daryl Greene and dragged him toward the hole that would be the man’s grave.
When Tricks returned wearing fresh clothes and a pair of cotton gloves, Spenser saw that his mood had lifted. An illegal pharmaceutical was no doubt responsible for his mood change, but Spenser suspected that there was another contributing factor.
His suspicion was confirmed after the bodies had been buried, when Tricks waved off Spenser’s warning to stay away from Andrea and the children.
“That’s my family, Spenser.”
“You lost the right to call them that when you ran off leaving them to die. Even your children don’t want anything to do with you.”
Tricks shook his head as he grinned.
“I know Andrea inside and out. Once I turn on the charm, she’ll let me back into her bed.”
“If that happens, you’ll receive a visit from me.”
“You don’t scare me, man. Andrea sent you here to save me from the Greene brothers. She’s not going to turn around and let you hurt me.”
“I don’t have to lay a finger on you, but you will stay away from Andrea, or else.”
“Or else what?”
Spenser brought out a cheap phone, then cued up a video. Once the film was playing, he turned it around to let Tricks look at it.
The video showed Tricks hard at work, as he piled rocks over the bloody bodies of Daryl and Kevin Greene. Lying nearby was a shotgun.
“Bother Andrea again and the cops get this video,” Spenser said.
Tricks was mumbling curses and looked mad enough to kill Spenser.
Spenser didn’t care. Over the years, better men than Tricks had tried their damnedest to kill him and failed. A hard look from a scumbag like Tricks didn’t matter at all.
As Spenser walked off toward the vehicle he had hidden out of sight, Tricks called to him.
“What do I do with the car the Greene Brothers arrived in?”
“That’s not my problem,” Spenser said, and he meant it.
He was putting Tricks out of his mind and thinking about how good it would be to get back home and enjoy being around his family and friends.
It was a pleasure that Tricks’ cowardice and abandonment of his own family had cost him forever.
23
The Rules Of Tanner
NEAR CHICAGO, 1938
While seated outside the home of Keane O’Connell, Michael Waller read the newspaper accounts of what reporters were calling a “mob war”, while trying to wrap his head around the revelations he had discovered about his friend.
He knew Keane O’Connell was adept at killing, having fought beside him in the Great War, but an assassin for hire? It didn’t seem to fit the gentle and scholarly man he had broken bread with recently.
O’Connell had killed fourteen men while wounding nine others.
It was no wonder the police thought the men had been attacked by a group. Two of the wounded were talking, telling tales of an assassin named Tanner who attacked their boss Frank Recti, after Recti had killed a friend of Tanner’s.
The police superintendent told newspaper reporters that Tanner was a mob myth, nothing more than a hoax to keep the young mobsters in line.
“I would say that Recti and his gang had been attacked by no less than two dozen men,” the superintendent stated. “Although we’ve yet to identify which rival gang was to blame.”
When he was questioned about the fact that no members of a rival gang were found at the scene, the superintendent ended the interview.
Michael Waller set the newspaper down and stared out across a green field awash in sunlight as he pondered what it must have been like for O’Connell to go up against so many men alone.
Waller was also a warrior at heart, and a smile crossed his lips as he thought about O’Connell’s sheer audacity and daring.
“Glorious, it must have been glorious.”
Keane O’Connell awoke to a vision of the sun filling his bedroom window, then found that he couldn’t decipher whether the sun was rising or setting.
He felt groggy until the pain on his left side came to his attention, and he released a moan.
Someone stirred in a chair beside him. It was Eloise. Her face was alight with joy at seeing him awake. After kissing him on his dry, chapped lips, she spoke.
“Thank the Lord you’re awake, Keane. How do you feel?”
O’Connell attempted to speak, but only a croaking sound came out. After moving his tongue around a bit and clearing his throat, he could speak.
“My left side aches. I was shot there.”
Tears ran down Eloise’s face.
“It was a bad wound and you lost so much blood, but Michael saved you.”
“Michael? You mean Waller brought me here?”
“I know you told me not to do it, but I called him anyway. When he went to Frank Recti’s place of business he said he found a scene of destruction and a blaz
e, then he heard gunfire in the distance and followed the sounds. Michael said he managed to get you inside his car and drive off right before the police showed up.”
“So, he knows I’m Tanner?”
“Yes, and he saved your life. He broke into a clinic to get the supplies he needed, then he stitched your wounds. When I first saw you I… oh, you were so pale, Keane. I begged Michael to take you to a hospital, but he refused. He said that other mobsters would try to kill you there, and that even if you lived, you’d be locked up for life.”
“He was right, and I’d rather be dead than imprisoned.”
“After Michael gave you his own blood, your color improved, but you slept away the day.”
O’Connell looked out the window and saw that the world looked less bright than it had.
“Where is Michael now?”
“He’s out sitting on the porch… with a bottle of whisky.”
“Is he drunk? He shouldn’t be drinking if he gave me his blood.”
“No, he’s far from drunk, but I think he’s been unsettled by everything that’s happened.”
“Send him in here please.”
Eloise leaned over the bed and kissed O’Connell again.
“I love you, Keane. Please don’t do anything so foolish again.”
“I likely won’t have to. After what happened to Recti and his minions, many will think twice before crossing Tanner again.”
A few minutes later, Michael Waller entered the bedroom and sat where Eloise had been. He shook his head in wonder as he stared at Keane O’Connell.
“I never pegged you as an assassin.”
“Why not? It’s work like any other, Michael, and the killing is more honorable than the butchery we did during the war. In Chicago, I kill mobsters who deserve what they get. On the Western Front, we were killing shopkeepers, farmers, and clerks, men who had never harmed anyone, but just had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of the trenches.”
Waller sat in silence as he considered O’Connell’s words.
He then moved aside the blanket covering O’Connell to check on his wound. The bandage was wrapped around O’Connell’s waist. It was white, with only a spot of blood marring it at the rear.
“How much pain are you in?”
“It hurts like the dickens, and so does my back.”
“You were shot twice, but the bullet at your back did little damage. It’s a good thing for you I was an Army medic.”
“You saved my life, Michael, and you’ve kept me from going to jail. Thank you, lad.”
“You’re welcome, but what now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will men come after you?”
O’Connell considered the question, then smiled.
“The man I went after and killed, Frank Recti, he was what the mobsters call a Made Man. No one is supposed to kill a Made Man without being sanctioned by their commission. Oh, they’ll want my head for breaking their rules, but I’m not one of them. As Tanner, I’m an outsider.”
“Is there any way they can find you?”
“I don’t believe so. I used a go-between for years. Recti and a few of his men know me by sight, but most of them are dead, or possibly in prison. Unless I stick my head up, they’ll have no way to take revenge.”
“Still, I’d feel better staying close to you for a while.”
“What about your work with the Pinkerton Agency?”
“That’s over. The new man at the top wanted me to be strictly a trainer, which is fine, and came with more money, but it would bore me. I like working in the field, being undercover, where I’m essentially my own boss. After a short rest, I guess I’ll hook up with another agency.”
O’Connell stared at Waller.
“Now that you know about Tanner, do you think less of me?”
“That depends on who you’ve killed.”
O’Connell scowled.
“What do you think, boy, that I’d knock off some housewife for an unhappy husband?”
Waller sighed.
“I wondered, yeah.”
“As Tanner, I lived by a set of rules. I made money for killing, yes, and damn good money, but I never went against my code.”
Waller reached over and squeezed his friend’s shoulder.
“I should have known that. I apologize for thinking otherwise.”
Several days later, O’Connell was strong enough to go for a walk on his land.
Michael Waller accompanied him. It would not be the long stroll to the lake and back that O’Connell was accustomed to, but he still felt good being out of the house.
At one point, a strange sound was heard overhead. When they gazed skyward, O’Connell and Waller saw an object with wings that was about half the size of an automobile.
“What is that?” Waller asked. “Is that a plane?”
“They call them model airplanes,” O’Connell explained. “My neighbor on the other side of the lake flies them. That must be one of his. It’s controlled by radio waves and uses petrol like a car.”
“What does he do with it?”
“It’s just a hobby, an expensive one would be my guess. I’ve seen him crash two of the noisy buggers into the lake while I was out on walks.”
After traveling about a mile on their trek, Waller suggested that O’Connell rest before heading back. The exertion had caused O’Connell to sweat, even though it was a cool day.
They rested near a pond, and as the two men sat with their backs against a tree, Waller asked his friend a question.
“I remember you telling me that you lived by a set of rules when you acted as Tanner. What were those rules?”
O’Connell repositioned himself against the tree until he could look at Waller better. It also put less pressure on the small wound on his upper back.
“The first rule is to survive. If you think you can’t kill your target and still get away clean, then come up with another plan. I always wanted Tanner to be exactly what he’s become, part-ghost and part-myth.”
Waller smiled.
“You speak of Tanner as if he’s another man.”
“He is, Michael. Tanner is a creation, one that’s evolved over the years. As myself, Keane O’Connell, I never would have gone after Frank Recti, not given the odds I faced. But those men weren’t facing me, they were going up against Tanner, and they had all heard stories about him.”
“Still, you are Tanner, Keane, and his boldness and skill at killing come from you.”
“True, but it’s like it was in the army. The enemy didn’t fear me, a lone soldier, but they had nightmares about the faceless, nameless sniper I’d become.”
Waller nodded slowly.
“Ah, yes, I think I see your point. Even though you’re Tanner, Tanner still exists as a being of his own, at least in the mind of others.”
“Correct.”
“What other rules were there?”
“Rule number two—Never kill the innocent. Rule number three—Kill the guilty, and make an honest dollar doing it.”
Waller raised an eyebrow.
“An honest dollar?”
“Killing is work, much the same as other work. It takes planning, effort, and skill.”
“Any other rules?”
“Number four—Never leave an enemy alive, kill him before he has a chance to kill you. I foolishly failed to apply that rule to Frank Recti, and I’m paying for it now with pain.”
“What’s the next rule,” Waller asked.
“Rule number five, the final rule—Never give up until the target is dead. I once had to track a man into Mexico to kill him. It took months and cost me more than I’d been paid to do it, but I’d been hired to kill him, and kill him I did. When Tanner takes a contract to kill, you can consider the target dead.”
“Five rules then, and they all make sense, but I’d add a sixth one,” Waller said.
“What’s your sixth rule?”
“Be the best. Tanner is the best, Keane. Despite the polic
e statements in the paper, they know that only one man was responsible for the killing of Frank Recti and his men. The thugs on the street know as well. Tanner is not only considered a ghost and a myth, but also a legend.”
“How do you know that?”
“I still have friends at Pinkerton, men who work the streets. They say the members of the outfit’s council have all increased their security. They’re afraid that Tanner may come after them.”
O’Connell laughed, then winced, as his wounded side ached.
“Killing Frank Recti was good for business. I bet I could double my fee. It’s too bad I’m retiring.”
Waller stayed with O’Connell for ten days. After seeing his friend in a new light, Waller was interested in understanding as much as he could about O’Connell’s alter ego, Tanner.
O’Connell spoke freely to Waller, and over time, he revealed the tactics and strategies he had developed through the years.
When he recounted the tale of how he had killed Gilberto Ricco, Waller shook his head, as an amazed look covered his face.
“Walking on lake ice is risky as all hell, Keane. You were lucky that trek didn’t kill you.”
“Luck played a part, such as finding that mound of snow to crawl behind. But Michael, I never felt more alive. I was out to kill a man who everyone believed couldn’t be killed. When I accomplished that and lived, I knew I was the best. It’s a rare thing to be the top in any field. It is an exceptional feeling.”
Waller stared at O’Connell.
“I can understand that. You should be proud.”
“I am,” O’Connell assured him.
The vacuum left in the mob’s hierarchy due to the elimination of Frank Recti turned into a power struggle between rivals.
When the dust appeared to have settled, the man at the top had made many enemies along the way. His Name was Gus Tucci, and Tucci was an old-school thug. He had no intention of letting Tanner get away with killing a Made Man.
One Hundred Years Of Tanner Page 11
