The Dark Ones (3 page)
Authors: Anthony Izzo
Mike O’Donnell took a drag on his Kool and blew smoke into the air. From his Monte Carlo, he looked up at the Hark Company’s warehouse. A forklift was parked out front, and next to it was a stack of pallets. He watched the big roll-up door, now sprayed with green and pink graffiti. He glanced at his watch. He was early for the meeting with Hark. If he’d showed up late, Hark wouldn’t have seen him.
He rolled down the window, tapped ash from the cigarette. The fishy smell from the lake wafted into the car.
The mechanical whirr of an unseen motor sounded, and with a creak the warehouse door was raised. The tallest guy Mike had ever seen stood in the doorway. He stretched, revealing a wingspan like a cargo plane. He approached the car, his slick bald head gleaming. Hark must’ve started hiring movie monsters.
The man reached the driver’s side, and Mike was eye-level with the guy’s waist. The man crouched down. Mike looked into pale gray eyes, as flat and dull as a razor blade.
“Mr. O’Donnell?”
“Yeah.”
“Step out of the car,” he said in a flat tone.
Mike got out of the car, wishing he had his .45 on him, but the piece was in the glove box. Hark would have him patted down anyway.
Mike stood chest high on the guy. Right now he was looking at the man’s red tie. The rest of his outfit was black: suit, shirt, and shoes. Mike looked up and said, “You going to a funeral or something?”
The guy smiled and said, “My job is to create a need for funerals, not attend them.”
The guy indicated Mike to follow, and Mike hurried to keep up with the man’s loping strides. His stomach fluttered as he approached the gaping door of the warehouse. It was like being an explorer in a newly found cave. He knew that Hark had a violent temper and little patience for mistakes. He wasn’t sure what to expect.
Rumor had it he had taken a pickax to the last guy who screwed up one of his assignments. He had no trouble imagining the ghoul who escorted Mike into the warehouse using said pickax on an unfortunate victim.
They passed rows of crates and cardboard boxes, until they reached a door at the far end of the warehouse. It had a sign on it marked PRIVATE. As expected, the man patted him down, and, apparently satisfied, gave a grunt. They stepped through the door. Mike expected to find an old desk and scuffed furniture, but he was surprised. A dark hardwood floor stretched across the room, and on it rested an Oriental rug. The walls were paneled in a rich cherry and a leather couch and chair were arranged in front of a desk. Behind the desk, between two bookshelves, brightly colored tropical fish swam in an aquarium. The hum of the filter filled the room.
“Sit down,” the man said.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Mike said, and plopped on the couch. The leather smelled new.
From behind him, the door opened. Hark rounded the sofa. Mike caught a glimpse of his outfit: pink polo shirt, blue track pants, and sandals. He took a seat behind the desk and folded his hands as if he were a CEO preparing to address the board.
“So you know why you’re here?” Hark asked. “You got the note.”
He had. A week ago he’d been out at Cozumel getting some Mexican food and trying to talk Lisa McCready out of her panties. After dinner, he’d found a note in the pocket of his leather jacket. Someone was a crafty son of a bitch. It had said to meet Hark at the warehouse, with the date and time. “Got here early.”
“That’s good. Guy shows up late, I show him the fuckin’ road. That’s how it is.” He opened a desk drawer, rummaged around. Mike studied him. A solid build starting to go to flab. Probably busted a few skulls in his day. Thick calluses on the hands, scuffed knuckles. You could hammer nails with those fists.
Hark pulled out a bag of jelly beans from the drawer. He took out a handful and popped them in his mouth. Chewing, he held out the bag. “Want some?”
Mike didn’t want to be rude. “Sure,” he said, and took a handful.
“I eat these things by the bagful. My dentist fucking loves me.”
Mike popped the jelly beans in his mouth. They were way too sweet, but he managed to get them down.
“I hear you’re good,” Hark said.
“Who says?”
“It gets around. Heard you pulled that Peckham job. Nice score.”
“How’d you know?”
“You think I’m a cop or something? We’re in the same business.”
“Makes me jumpy, is all.”
Hark put the jelly beans away. “I don’t need jumpy.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mike said. “So what’ve you got?”
Hark smiled. He was going to enjoy this.
“Like to get down to business, huh?”
“My time’s valuable,” Mike said.
Hark laughed, a short bark, like a blast from a machine gun. “Your time’s valuable. What the fuck? This guy.” Still laughing, he said, “You familiar with those condos going up over off Furman?”
“Near the old Iron Works?”
Hark nodded. “They’re half done. The builder comes to me for a loan. Needs sixty grand go keep things going. I say fine. I tell him what the vig’s going to be, he tells me to go fuck myself. I tell him get the hell out. Before he leaves, he tells me he might go to the attorney general regarding some of my ... business dealings.”
“And you want me to ... ?”
“Burn the fucking things to the ground.”
“I don’t do arson.”
“The price is good.”
It had better be damned good
. “I’m listening.”
. “I’m listening.”
“Fifteen grand.”
Mike could keep Mom’s chemo treatments going for a while with that money, maybe have enough to fix the leak in the roof. “Why so much?”
“I want to nail this fuck, teach him a lesson. And you’re good. You’ll keep your mouth shut.”
Mike leaned forward. “I’ll need twenty. It’s high risk.”
“I got the fire marshal in my pocket, low risk.”
“Twenty.”
“Sixteen or get out.”
Something told him it would be wise to accept the offer. “Okay. I’m in. What if I get caught, though?”
“You don’t want to think about that,” Hark said. “Concentrate on the job.”
“Consider them toast.”
Mike pulled into the driveway. He killed the Monte’s engine and sat with his hands on the wheel. What if the job went wrong? He could wind up at the bottom of Lake Erie. But what if it went right? The money would be nice. But arson. That was a new one for him. He risked putting his ass in the fire—literally—but you didn’t turn down Hark. The guy had connections, and if this job went well, there might be more. That could lead to more cash and better care for Mom.
He got out of the car and climbed the steps. He paused for a moment, looking at the peeling blue paint on the house. Forty years in the Valley and his mother wouldn’t move. The Mc-Crearys and the O’Laughlins were dead or living in the burbs. The Hoolihans remained next door. The Irish had moved out and the junkies and gangbangers had moved in. The Purina mill was long gone, and when it had been demolished, Mike had watched the rats in a veritable conga line leave the place. The Valley had begun a slow decline, like an aging movie star losing her looks. Except there was no facelift or Botox for a neighborhood.
He entered the house, inhaling the aroma of cigarette smoke and bacon grease. He slipped through the house, stopping at the photo on the dining room wall. In it, he kneeled, dressed in pads and uniform, his helmet at his feet. That had been sophomore year and he had started at free safety. He was All Western New York that year, but that was before he met Mickey Schuler, and according to his mother, before he had flushed his life down the toilet.
Schuler had been team manager. A wiry kid prone to wearing heavy metal T-shirts and studded belts, he had a whistling asthmatic wheeze. That alone had kept him off the team, and it was probably best, because half the team would’ve cheerfully snapped Schuler’s leg. Mickey had a knack for irritating, slipping tacks in a set of cleats or juicing the water bottles with Dave’s Insanity Sauce. The hot sauce in the water had left him on the verge of getting fired.
One day after practice, Schuler approached Mike. “I’m thinking of robbing a store. Maybe that place on the corner of your street.”
“You nuts?” Mike had said, still dressed in full pads.
“It would be easy. Especially with two of us. I’m not talking using guns or nothing.”
“Why you telling me this?”
Shuler leaned against the bleachers, arms crossed. The blue-and-white-clad Bulldogs jogged off the field, red faced and sweaty.
“You’re smart, Mike. Not like those shitheads,” he said. “I’ll split it with you.”
After going back and forth, something inside Mike clicked. It was like a switch turning on, some internal machinery that had been dormant. His body hummed. He liked the idea. Loved it.
Three days later, while Schuler distracted the clerk by breaking a bottle of grape Crush, Mike had slipped behind the counter, hit the cash button on the register, and grabbed a wad of bills. He slid the drawer shut and darted out of the store. Somehow he felt jazzed, smooth, and liquid. He floated home.
They had split $176 and were in court a week later. The crime spree had ended and because they were nice Irish Catholic boys they had only to pay back the money and perform community service. They wouldn’t pull another job until after graduation.
It was Schuler he would call to help with the Hark job.
Now, Mike entered the back bedroom. Agnes O’Donnell was on the bed, dressed in a pale green nightgown, her veiny legs poking out from underneath. She had a white scarf over her head to cover her now hairless scalp. The skin on her face seemed to sag a bit more with each day.
“Where you been?” she asked.
“Out on business.” He pulled up a chair at the side of the bed. He kissed her cheek and she rewarded him with a weak smile.
“Been gone a while, haven’t you?”
“Don’t worry.”
“Hand me my smokes.”
“C’mon, Ma.”
“They can’t do any more damage, Michael. It’s like bailing water on the
Titanic
. Hand them over.”
Titanic
. Hand them over.”
Reluctantly, he handed her the pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She took one out and lit it. The harsh smoke filled his nostrils. The tumor that had began in her right breast had metastasized in her lungs and liver. The doctors were giving her a month. He didn’t like to think about that.
“Word’s getting around Michael.”
“About?”
“Your good deeds.”
“I ain’t no Boy Scout.”
“Mrs. Torrez said you gave her a hundred bucks toward her cable bill. And you bought Mr. Galpin a motorized scooter. Ann Driscol told me. You hit the lottery?”
Yeah. The money. He kept a little tucked away from each job he pulled, selling stolen goods or using cash taken from a heist and spreading it around the neighborhood. Spreading money around was the least he could do, help out the neighbors.
“Well?” she said, through a curtain of smoke.
“I’ve been doing some odd jobs.”
“For?”
“People.”
“Ann said she saw you talking to Gino the Wop over chicken parm at Chef ’s”
“Ann Driscol needs some duct tape for that mouth of hers. Gino needed someone to run some errands.”
She blew smoke overhead. “People say he sells hash out of that garage of his. Car repairs, my asshole.”
“Mom, don’t talk like that.”
She cuffed him one across the side of the head. “Ow!”
“I’m still your mother,” she said. “You and Schuler up to something?”
He pushed out the chair and stood up. “I’m going to take care of you, Mom.”
She gripped his wrist, her skin warm against his. With a pleading look on her face, she said, “Don’t lie to me. Are you pulling burglary jobs?”
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