A Father's Wrath

A FATHER’S WRATH

Joe Martello #1

A novella by

Phil Nova

Smashwords Edition

ISBN:

Copyright 2015

This book is protected under the copyright
laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other
unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is
prohibited.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of
the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.

WARNING: This book contains adult language
and/or situations.

CHAPTER 1

Joe Martello stood against the wall in his NYPD
uniform, his radio on just enough to hear, but not enough to
disturb the party.

A waiter in a tuxedo shirt passed with a tray
of drinks and then entered the crowd of wealthy patrons, most of
which were dressed in expensive suits and evening gowns.

Crystal chandeliers above provided the perfect
amount of light while a piano player added elegant background
music. The smell of garlic and rich foods emanated from the buffet
table.

Joe strolled along the wall and glanced down an
adjoining hallway. At the end of the hall was a large room full of
children, most of them bald and skinny, a few of them laughing and
talking, others eating cake and ice cream. A few women sat at a
small table, talking and eating.

He didn’t want to stare, so he kept moving
along the wood-paneled wall, toward the phone booths and the main
doors that led to the hotel lobby.

Joe stepped out into the quiet lobby. The
revolving door was still. The doorman stood inside the lobby,
staring outside. A bearded maintenance man polished the ornate
brass railing along the side of the staircase while a cute female
clerk behind the counter sat and texted on her phone at super-fast
speed.

The doorman glanced at Joe, then turned his
gaze back to the street outside.

Joe took a quick stroll to the front doors and
looked out the big glass window.

The snow had stopped coming down outside, and
luckily, it only left a few inches as opposed to the one foot the
weatherman had been ranting about. A sanitation truck plowed and
salted the avenue while a few maintenance men cleared the sidewalks
with snow blowers. Only a few bundled-up pedestrians were out and
the only cars on the street were taxis and patrol cars.

When he finished the academy two years ago, Joe
had planned to make detective, but with all these babysitting and
security assignments around the United Nations, he knew he’d never
make enough arrests to make it past beat cop.

As he turned
around, Joe glanced at the bulletin that read,
Children’s cancer research fundraiser.
He felt guilty for thinking about his own problems while
knowing that most of these poor kids will never live to see
puberty.

A tall pale man
with glasses, dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, stepped
out into the lobby with an unlit cigarette in his hand. He didn’t
fit in with all the suits, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything
wrong either. Joe noticed a tattoo on the man’s forearm, the same
tattoo he had on his shoulder: an eagle with the Earth, an anchor,
and the words
Semper Fi.

When Joe stepped back through the double-doors
and into the fundraiser, he noticed two men rushing down the hall
while zipping up their pants. As he got closer, he could hear a
woman’s voice inside the men’s room yelling, “Taylor!”

Just as he was about to go inside, a
full-figured woman in a black dress burst out of the men’s room and
almost caught Joe in the face with the door.

He jumped back, “Hey! Watch it!”

The frantic woman yelled down the hall,
“Taylor!”

“What’s the problem, miss?”

The woman turned to Joe and glanced at his
uniform and badge, her body trembling and her eyes full of water.
“He’s my son. He went to the bathroom, but he never came back. It’s
my fault, damn it! I shouldn’t have let him go alone.” She started
sobbing.

“It’s not your fault. Just tell me what he
looks like.”

The woman caught her breath, then said, “He’s
seven. He’s wearing a gray suit and the cutest little clip-on tie .
. .” She started sobbing again.

A few people gathered in the hallway and
watched.

The waiter approached with his empty tray,
trying to make his way to the kitchen.

Joe stopped the waiter and said, “Stay with
her. I’ll be right back.” He hurried down the hall and entered the
door that led to the kitchen.

Inside, he found dishwashers washing and cooks
cooking . . . business as usual.

He stepped out of the kitchen and continued to
the end of the hall. There was an emergency exit door, but it had
an alarm. If the kid had run out this way, the alarm would have
gone off . . . unless it wasn’t working.

Joe braced himself for the loud blast, but it
never came. He opened the door and stepped into the cold concrete
staircase.

Across from the stairs was another emergency
exit door. Just as Joe was about to go through that door, he heard
something. He listened closely while moving closer to the
staircase.

The sound of a whimpering child came from
above. Joe knew it had to be that woman’s kid. Damn kid got lost
and now he’s scared.

When he reached the landing above, Joe saw the
kid curled up in a fetal position, crying. The kid’s shirt was torn
and stretched. His pants were around his ankles along with his
underwear.

Joe picked up his radio and called for an
ambulance, then the precinct.

When he noticed blood, and what looked like
shit, on the kid’s inner thighs, Joe knew someone had raped
him.

His stomach twisted. He felt like crying for
the boy, but at the same time, he felt like killing someone . . .
killing the scumbag who could do something like this.

CHAPTER 2

Outside the hotel, shivering from the cold,
Richie Carson finished his cigarette, then stomped it out on the
icy sidewalk and hurried back into the lobby.

Inside, he stomped out the snow and salt on the
rubber mat before sloshing across the highly polished marble floor.
The doorman looked down at the mess Richie was making, but he
didn’t say anything.

A family with too much luggage approached the
revolving door. The doorman stepped over to a glass door next to
the revolving door and opened it. The cold wind blew in and made
the girl behind the counter stop texting and look up.

The doorman continued holding the door while
the family thanked him and dragged their wet luggage
inside.

Before returning to the fundraiser, Richie
sprayed two shots of Binaca into his mouth.

Inside, a crowd of people was gathered at the
end of the hall, near the bathrooms. He wondered what was going on,
but what he really wanted was another drink and some more of those
delicious appetizers.

Just as he was about to make his way toward the
back where the food and drinks were, he heard a woman scream—a
woman that sounded a lot like his wife, Gail.

Richie pushed his way through the crowd, which
at 6’5” and 280 pounds, wasn’t hard to do. As he got farther down
the hall, he could hear his wife crying. Between the alcohol, his
high blood pressure, and the adrenaline, his head felt like it was
about to burst.

At the end of the
hall, Richie saw the same cop he’d just seen in the lobby. He
remembered the name on his badge,
J.
Martello
. The cop stood with the staircase
door open.

As Richie approached the door, he saw Gail
sitting on the stairs, crying, and holding their son Taylor who was
also crying.

The cop tried to stop Richie from entering the
staircase.

Richie looked down at him, he didn’t care if he
was a cop, no one was going to stop him from going through that
door. “That’s my wife and son.”

The cop stepped to the side and let Richie
pass.

Richie approached his wife and asked, “What
happened?”

Gail didn’t speak. She just looked down at
Taylor, who had his face buried in her hip.

Richie squatted down, “What happened,
buddy?”

Taylor didn’t answer, he didn’t even look at
his father, he just kept crying and hiding his face, clinging to
his mother.

Richie asked Gail, “What the hell’s going on?
Where’s Chelsea?”

The cop said, “Your daughter is with the other
children in the playroom, sir. She’s fine. The program director is
with them.”

Richie noticed something on the floor . . .
drops of blood. The veins in his balding head began to throb even
more. He turned around and yelled at the cop, “What the fuck
happened?”

The cop said, “Your son was assaulted,
sir.”

“Assaulted? What do you mean
assaulted?”

Gail finally caught her breath enough to say,
“Don’t Richie.”

A man and a woman, both wearing business
clothes and detective’s badges on their belts, entered the
staircase. The male detective was white with blond hair. He was
tall, but not as tall as Richie was. The female detective was short
and looked Hispanic.

The male detective turned to the cop in uniform
and said, “I’ll take it from here, officer Martello. Just try to
clear that hallway, the bus should be here any minute.”

He turned to Richie and said, “I’m Detective
McCoy. This is my partner, Detective Perez.”

CHAPTER 3

At a small table in the back of the fundraiser,
near the piano, Bradley Bedford sipped a Martini while conversing
with his boss, David Schultz.

Next to David was Ko Sin Lu, the US ambassador
from The Republic of Tan Guk Van.

All three men wore glasses and tailored Italian
suits.

David, a sixty-two year old financial genius
with a swollen red nose and a receding hairline, supervisor of
American affairs for Yates Pharmaceuticals, sipped his
twelve-year-old Scotch, then turned to Ko Sin Lu and said, “So . .
. Lu . . . do you mind if I call you Lu?”

Ko Sin Lu replied in his heavy accent, “I like
it. It sounds very American.”

Bradley chuckled.

David took another sip, then said, “So . . . Lu
. . . your country will soon realize they made the right decision
to become a part of this great ideal we call
capitalism.”

As a black man who grew up in the projects and
earned his law degree through scholarships and hard work, Bradley
was happy to raise his glass and make a toast, “To
capitalism.”

David and Lu also raised their glasses and
said, “Capitalism.”

They all took a drink.

Bradley glanced at his watch. He was hoping to
visit his hot Russian mistress tonight before going home to his
wife, but now, watching David suck down that Scotch, he had a
feeling this was going to be a long night.

David said, “You know, Lu . . . you and your
country have given me something to look forward to. For the past
ten years, we’ve been dealing with religious fanatics in
Afghanistan. What a shit hole.” David took another sip and
winced.

Bradly watched a crowd of people gathered on
the other side of the room, near the entrance. He wondered what was
going on.

David continued speaking with Lu. “I hate those
damn religious fanatics. They’re not scared to kill themselves
because they get all those virgins after they die.”

“Virgins?”

David said, “Yeah, virgins. I know . . . the
whole thing is just so fucking crazy. Anyways, I’m just happy to
get out of there and get into your country. We don’t mind doing
business with gangsters. That’s something we already know how to
do.” David winked, then raised his glass.

Lu raised his glass.