Forced Out (5 page)

"Gee, thanks, mister."

"You're welcome." As Jack smiled at the boy's mother and straightened up, he rubbed his left arm, then his chest. Then he sank to his knees and toppled over, his head coming to rest against a cement step.

4

J
OHNNY HESITATED ON the stoop outside Marconi's front door, checking up and down the street, trying to remember which cars had been here and which ones hadn't when he went inside. It was tough to tell much in the dim light coming from the old streetlamps, but he had a feeling something was wrong. He'd always had a sixth sense for imminent danger. A premonition of peril, he called it. And it had saved his life more than once.

He moved deliberately down the steps, then down the sidewalk toward the Seville, constantly looking around, his neck like a swivel on a stick as he walked. As he pressed the unlock button and the Seville chirped, he hesitated, wondering if someone had rigged the car to explode when the door opened. The meeting with Marconi still seemed strange to him; something wasn't quite right about it. But thinking Marconi had rigged the car to explode was stupid. The old man would never order so over-the-top an execution directly in front of his house. Would he? Maybe that would be the beauty of it. Completely unexpected, completely irrational. When they really thought about it, the cops would have to figure Marconi had nothing to do with it.

Johnny reached for the door, then pulled back quickly, like a flash of electricity had arced from the car handle to his fingers. This could be a rival family hit. He'd killed a captain in the Capelletti mob last year down in Staten Island. The Capelletti family was the second most powerful mob in the city, and they would undoubtedly take revenge if they found out who'd put a bullet through their man's head from across the street as he was headed into his favorite restaurant. But Marconi had sworn he was the only member of the Lucchesi family who knew Johnny was the killer, and Johnny was sure Marconi would never violate that confidence. If only because the old man considered Johnny the best hit man around and didn't want to lose the talent.

He grimaced as he reached for the door handle again. This was the life he'd chosen--and one hell of a life it was. Full of great things, including financial security, which he'd never known growing up. Then there were times like this.

But nothing happened when he jerked the door open. He bent down quickly and grabbed the Baretta 9mm he kept hidden beneath the front seat. He'd filed down the trigger mechanism so it fired almost like an automatic. It was his favorite gun of the fifteen he owned.

As he rose and slipped the pistol into his belt, he noticed a dark sedan at the edge of the glow from a streetlamp five cars up. His eyes narrowed. That car hadn't been there when he'd gone into Marconi's place. He pulled the pistol from his belt and took a step up the street. Instantly the sedan squealed out of the spot and roared off. He was tempted to jump into the Seville and chase whoever it was, but they had too big a lead. He'd never catch them.

Besides, the eerie premonition of peril had passed. Suddenly he wasn't worried about slipping the key in the ignition and turning it.

5

J
ACK OPENED HIS eyes slowly. He was lying flat on his back on the cement step--

which seemed only slightly less comfortable than the cheap mattress on his narrow, single bed at home. Two EMTs in white shirts and dark green polyester pants were squatting beside him, pulling instruments out of bags. He squinted up against the bright stadium lights blazing down at him from over one guy's shoulders, then against the glare of the small flashlight the other guy started shining directly into his pupils. A stretcher lay on the next step down, and there was a small but growing crowd milling around, even though the game was over. They were sneaking glances, filled with morbid curiosity. Trying to seem like they weren't fascinated by what was going on. But Jack knew they were. People were always fascinated with pain and death--as long as it wasn't theirs.

"What the hell's going on?" Jack mumbled to the EMT who'd been blinding him with the flashlight. His name was Biff. The letters were sewn onto his shirt with thick blue thread. The other guy's name was Harry. "What are you guys doing?"

"You had a heart attack, Daddy," Cheryl said anxiously, her voice trembling with emotion. "At least, that's what they think right now." She was kneeling between Biff and Harry, tears balanced precariously on her lower lids. "They're taking you to the hospital."

"The hell they are," Jack muttered, pulling himself up onto one elbow with a groan.

"Easy, sir," Harry said soothingly, doing his best to check Jack's blood pressure. "We're just trying to make you feel better. We're just trying to help you." The fingertips of Jack's left hand suddenly felt like they were going to burst. "I don't need any help," he growled back. Harry was overweight and had sad, sympathetic eyes.

"Just leave me alone so I can--"

"
Hey
, why don't you just lay down and shut up," Biff interrupted, stowing the small flashlight back into his belt with an angry thrust. "Christ, some of these old guys really piss me off," he complained. "Why don't you just let us do our jobs."

"Why don't
you
go play in traffic, you punk!" Jack snapped. Biff was thin, with beady eyes. Red and road-mapped, too. Like he was hung over. Jack could tell Harry cared about what he was doing, even if he was a pain in the ass. But for Biff this was simply a paycheck. "That would make
me
feel a lot better." Jack spotted the pointed end of a knife tattoo on Biff's upper arm, sneaking out from beneath his shirtsleeve. He'd never liked tattoos. "A hell of a lot better." He reached for the black Velcro strip noosed tightly around his upper arm and tore it off.

"
Daddy
," Cheryl cried. "My God, what are you doing?"

"Princess, I'm--"

"Come on, Pop," Bobby cut in, "listen to them. Don't give them such a hard time." Bobby was towering over Jack, silhouetted by the stadium lights. An irritated, thiscould-really-screw-up-my-plans-for-the-night expression on his face. "Don't tell me what to do, young man."

"It's stupid not to take their advice, Pop."

"Don't ever call me stupid again," Jack warned, making it to his knees with a moan.

"I didn't call you stupid. I said it was stupid not to--"

"Not if you want to keep dating my daughter," Jack growled, brushing grit and a piece of old bubble gum off his palms. Harry tried to keep him down, but Jack pushed the EMT's hands away and rose unsteadily to his feet. "Are we clear on that?" Bobby glanced at Biff and rolled his eyes, then turned and headed down the stairs.

"Don't do this, Daddy," Cheryl begged. "Please."

"Princess, these guys are gonna rush me to a hospital like it's a real emergency, then hand me over to some people in pale green outfits who'll run a hundred different tests on me. But they won't tell me anything while they're running them. Finally, around one o'clock this morning, I'll get a piece of paper with some meaningful information on it. It'll be the bill, and it'll be about two thousand bucks. After they stick me with it, they'll shrug their shoulders, tell me they can't find anything really wrong with me, and recommend that I stop drinking scotch and eat more greens." Jack shook his head.

"Nope, I'm not going anywhere with them."

"I know you don't have health insurance," she whispered. "I know that's the problem. I'll pay for everything, don't worry."

"No, you won't," he replied, his tone easing. She was so sweet--which was the whole problem. "I can't let you do that." He'd stolen a look in her checkbook last week when she was at work. The balance was a measly $440. Of course, that was twice what was in his account. "I'll be fine, I promise."

6

G
OOD EVENING, MR. Casey." Johnny's polite greeting echoed eerily in the small back room of the warehouse. Bare cement walls, dim lighting, bone-chilling cold, a rusty metal conveyor in one corner, a stack of rotting boxes in another, and the stench of fish and mildew with every breath. A nasty place for a nasty job. It was perfect. "Sorry to put you out this way."

"You're not sorry for anything."

Stephen Casey lay on his back, blindfolded and secured to a narrow piece of threequarter-inch plywood suspended from the ceiling by four strong ropes. The plywood hung at an angle so his head was eighteen inches below his feet. He was much bigger than Johnny, but that didn't matter at this point.

Marconi had made a crew of Lucchesi soldiers available to Johnny, even though killing Kyle McLean wasn't sanctioned by the family council. Johnny had contacted the crew's leader and ordered him and his men to go to the address on the crumpled yellow paper and pick up Casey. Using Lucchesi code--because he was on a cell phone--Johnny had instructed the leader to take Casey to this family-controlled warehouse, tie him up in a very specific way, and leave. The crew had followed Johnny's orders to a tee. Casey was secured so tightly to the plank he could barely even move his toes. One thing about the men under Marconi's command: they always carried out his orders exactly.

"What do you do now?" Johnny asked.

"Huh?"

Johnny was leaning against the wall ten feet from where Casey was hanging. Damn, it was cold in here. He moved closer so Casey could hear him better, watching Casey's breath rise. "What do you do now?" he repeated, louder. The echoes were suddenly more noticeable, more ominous. "You were a city cop, but you retired from the force." Marconi hadn't told him what Casey did for a living now, just that Casey wasn't a cop anymore. The guy didn't look older than fifty, so he had to be doing something. Couldn't just be sitting on his ass collecting a pension. "Where do you work now?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Calm down, Mr. Casey."

"
Calm down?
You pricks break into my house, tie me up, blindfold me, throw me in the back of a truck, drag me to wherever this godforsaken place is, and you want me to calm down?
Screw you.
" Casey struggled furiously for a few moments, pulling frantically at the ropes binding his wrists and ankles beneath the plywood and straining at the rusty chain around his neck. Finally he gave up. "What do you want from me?" he asked, gasping. His struggle had only tightened the bindings.

"Tell me what you do."

"Why you wanna know?"

"I just do."

"I'm a damn security guard at a parts warehouse out at the airport."

"Which one?"

"LaGuardia."

"What airline?"

"Delta. What do you care?"

Johnny took another step forward, so he was only a few inches from Casey. "Why'd you quit the force?"

"I felt guilty, you know? I wanted to give somebody else a chance to risk their lives every day for fifty grand a year. Why the hell do you think I quit?" he said with a snarl.

"I figured out crime
does
pay. I figured out it wasn't worth getting shot at by you guys when you're making twenty times what I am and ninety percent of the time you beat the rap anyway." He hesitated. "And I wanted to be around for my grandkids," he admitted.

"I started thinking about not making it home one night. I started to get that bad feeling." Johnny heard the faint sound of water dripping somewhere. So cops got that premonition of peril, too. "How many grandkids you got?"

"Two."

"How old?"

"Three and one."

"Boys, girls?"

"What is this?" Casey demanded. "What do you guys want?"

"It's just me here, Mr. Casey. Nobody else. The other men are gone. It's just me and you."

"That supposed to make me feel better?"

"No."

"You gonna kill me?" Casey asked, his tone turning less surly.

"Not if you give me what I want."

"What's that?"

"Information."

"Screw you!"
Casey shouted again, his bravado back in high gear.
"I'm not telling you
anything."

So Casey was going to play tough guy. Which only made sense. He was an ex-New York City cop. He wasn't used to being pushed around. He was used to doing the pushing. It wouldn't matter, though, not one damn bit. Johnny had never failed to break anybody. Not using this technique.

"What information could I possibly have that you'd want?" Johnny zipped the fleece he was wearing up to his chin, picked up a box of Saran Wrap off a stool, and moved close to Casey. Casey's head was level with his knees. "I need to know about a man named Kyle McLean." He let the echoes fade, gave his words time to sink in. "Is he alive?"

"I don't know anybody by that name." Casey suddenly shivered uncontrollably, and goose bumps rose up over his entire body. Marconi's soldiers had stripped Casey to his boxers, and according to the thermometer on the wall, it was thirty-nine degrees in here. His clothes lay in a wet pile in the middle of a puddle next to the stack of boxes. "I swear it."

"I've seen the police report," Johnny shot back, his voice rising, taking on a hint of anger. "Don't lie to me. I hate it when people lie to me."

"Look, I don't remember the guy. I was a cop for twenty-five years. I made a lot of arrests, filled out a lot of reports. I don't remember all the names, you know?"

"Sure, sure, except Kyle McLean was related to you." Casey's head snapped toward Johnny despite the chain around his neck and the blindfold. "He was your nephew." The obvious reaction of recognition a sure sign a nerve had been struck. "The report you filed says McLean accidentally drove his car off an East River pier one night a couple of years ago when he was drunk. And that he drowned. That jog your memory?" Casey nodded as best he could. "Oh, yeah, yeah.
Now
I remember." His teeth were chattering so hard it was difficult for him to speak. "Can I have a blanket or something?

I'm freezing."

"When we're done," Johnny answered, leaning down close. "When you've told me what I wanna know."

"You already know everything I know. Kyle accidentally drove his car off a pier near where they used to keep that old battleship. He drowned."