John Locke - Lethal Experiment

“These are happier times for organized crime,” I said. “These days the feds are more interested in terrorists. As for local law enforcement, the mayor and police chief are apt to stop by for a celebratory drink.”

Kathleen frowned. “No submachine guns?” she said.

I’d made the mistake of mentioning Sal’s party to Kathleen a week earlier, and she insisted on coming. I had been determined to keep this part of my life a secret from her, but two days of her world-class pouting weakened my resolve. Plus, there was a part of me that wanted to see how she’d react to meeting Sal. Would she be able to handle a gangland social event?

“You might see the occasional weapon brandished,” I said.

Kathleen seemed fascinated by the prospect of meeting an underworld crime boss. Over the past few days she asked a hundred questions about my relationship with Sal. I lied by omission, commission, and every other way a person can lie. In the end I led her to believe that Homeland Security had an unofficial alliance with the mob, and that they helped us identify and locate suspected terrorists. I told her that going to Sal’s birthday party was good business for the government, and asked if she’d be willing to perform with a magician at Sal’s party. After telling her what she’d have to do, Kathleen was delighted to be included. As evidenced by her B-movie mob speak.

“Will there be a lot of guys named Lefty?” she said.

“Don’t know.”

“How come criminals never call anyone Righty?”

“Don’t know.”

We pulled up to the front entrance and came to a stop. The driver climbed out, circled the car, and held the door open for us. Kathleen was wearing a cocktail dress, so I got out first and served as a modesty shield.

As she climbed out behind me she whispered, “Am I allowed to call anyone a dirty rat?”

I tried not to smile, but failed.

“Say it,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m funny too.”

“You are not funny.”

“Am too!”

We climbed the steps and entered the house. I remembered every nook and cranny of the place from two years earlier, when I’d broken into this very same home and set up residency in Sal’s attic for a week.

The party was in full swing. Some of the guests were half plastered, as evidenced by the young, up-and-comer from Dayton, who shouted, “Hey, Creed! Yeah, I’m talking to you. You think you’re hot shit? You ain’t nothin’!”

Beside me, I could feel Kathleen’s body tensing.

I gave him the hard stare and his eyes went wild. He started moving toward me. Lucky for him, his father grabbed him by the collar and passed him off to his bodyguards.

“My son has no manners,” said Sammy “The Blond” Santoro. “Please forgive him, Mr. Creed. It’s the liquor talking. I shouldn’t have brought him.”

I looked at him without speaking. We’d made it maybe ten feet inside Sal’s home and I was already on the verge of being exposed.

Sammy, a well-known killer in his own right, a city boss in Sal’s organization—was visibly nervous, practically cowering. Bringing Kathleen to this party had been a mistake. I could only imagine what she must be thinking. She had to be wondering why these hardened men were terrified of me.

“Mr. Creed, I’m prepared to make this right,” he said.

I moved close to him and whispered something in his ear. He bowed, thanked me profusely, and backed away.

“What on earth did you say to that man?” Kathleen said.

“I told him he and his son gave a great performance.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s all part of the show,” I said. “Sal hires people to maintain the theme. It’s all staged, like when you go to a Wild West town and a gunfight breaks out in the saloon.”

The foyer led to the huge great room, decorated in white. We crossed the foyer and got stuck in guest traffic for a minute.

“You think a phony gunfight might break out tonight?” Kathleen said.

“If it does, just play along,” I said.

Looking over her shoulder I watched Sammy “The Blond” and his goons drag Sammy’s son out the front door. One goon had his meaty hand smothering the kid’s mouth so I wouldn’t hear the insults he was attempting to hurl at me.

I recognized Jimmy “The Pearl” Remini standing next to us.

“Hi Jimmy,” I said.

He turned to see who was speaking. When he recognized me his face blanched.

“Jimmy?”

“The Pearl” had gone mute.

“Jimmy, it’s okay,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m just a guest here, saying hello.”

Jimmy breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Jesus, you startled me,” he said. “I haven’t seen you since—” he stopped to consider his words.

“Since that thing,” I said, helpfully.

“Yeah, right,” he said “the thing.”

We introduced our significant others, and Kathleen said, “What thing?”

“Take care, Jimmy,” I said. “You too, Mrs. Remini.”

They backed away quickly and gratefully.

“You gave a great performance, Jimmy!” Kathleen shouted.

Jimmy “The Pearl” and his wife smiled and nodded and kept backing away.

“They seemed nice,” Kathleen said.

The great room was cavernous, with twenty-four foot ceilings. Up above, there was only room for a crawl space, something I knew first hand. The week I “visited,” I hung out in the areas above the bedrooms. There was standing room there, and I’d managed to fashion a relatively comfortable lifestyle. I had to remain quiet and cramped at night, of course, but when the family was out I could move around and make some noise. My first job had been to divert a portion of the heat and air to the attic. Next I hooked up a phone jack, so I could record all the land line calls that came in and went out of the house.

Kathleen looked at the ornate painting over the fireplace.

“Is that Sal’s wife, Marie?” she said.

“It is.”

“She seems so young. How long ago did she pose for it?”

“Maybe fifteen years ago.”

A young lady was making a bee-line to us through the crowd. Kathleen squealed, “Why Donovan, she’s beautiful !”

“Damn right, she is! Kathleen, this is Liz Bonadello, Sal’s daughter.”

Liz was a tall, classic Italian beauty, close to Kathleen’s age, meaning mid-thirties. Watching them interact socially was a thing of beauty. Over the next two minutes they had started and discarded half a dozen topics of conversation and were now deep into an animated discussion that generated no small amount of laughter, as if they’d known each other for years.

Liz had her own place, but Sal and Marie kept her old bedroom ready for the occasional weekend visit. Liz spent the night here only once during the week I hid in the attic. After the first day, after I’d completed my noisy work, I was able to relax and enjoy their home. On those occasions, while Sal and Marie were out, I’d push down the attic stairs, climb down and raid the cupboard or fridge, take a shower, and use Liz’s old computer.

Liz and Kathleen concluded their discussion and promised each other they’d stay in touch.

As Liz walked away I said, “What do you think of her?”

Kathleen said, “Classy, olive complexion, nice boobs, knows her fashion.”

“Do women always size each other up that way?”

“Always. What planet are you from?”

“What do you suppose she’s thinking about you right now?”

“Classy, porcelain complexion, small tits, sexy boyfriend.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said. “Especially the last part.”

“Me too,” she said. “So where’s the bar?”

“There,” I said, pointing to the door that led to the terrace.

Once outside I could see that Sal had really outdone himself. The terrace had been professionally decorated with lavish columns, topiaries, and hundreds of tiny white lights that made it seem like a fairyland. The tables were draped in textured, white linen, with centerpieces of fresh-cut orchids. The chairs were covered in white fabric with organza sashes in cobalt blue. The bar was at least twenty feet long, with three bartenders going at it double-time.

Despite the ample and capable staff , it took ten minutes to get our drinks. While I waited, I looked back up at the house. The curtains along the back of the house were open. All the lights were on, and I could see inside Sal and Marie’s bedroom.

I’d been hiding in Sal’s attic for a reason. He had been given some misinformation about me and decided to have me whacked. I figured the safest place to hide out was in his attic. I tapped his phones and bored some tiny holes in the various ceilings and fitted them with pinhole cameras. I was trying to learn which of Sal’s lieutenants had lied about me. I figured I’d find him and torture a confession out of him. Barring that, I’d kill Sal. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long. Six nights into my stay, while Sal and Marie slept in their bed, I heard two guys break into the house. Through pinhole cameras I watched them creep toward the master bedroom with their guns drawn. I positioned myself over Sal’s bedroom. When they flipped on the lights, I put a gun in each hand and jumped through the space between the floorboards, came crashing through Sal’s ceiling with guns blazing. I killed both the would-be assassins, and later learned they’d been sent by Artie Boots, the guy that tried to set me up.

You’d think Sal would have been grateful, but it took all this time for him to forgive me. One reason he finally began trusting me is because, with Victor and Hugo’s help, I took down Joe DeMeo. I seized several of Joe’s off shore accounts, worth millions of dollars, and gave Sal half of everything I stole.

Money may not buy happiness but enough of it buys loyalty.

As we stepped away from the bar, I spotted Sal and Marie holding court on the far end of the terrace. One by one, criminals approached him, kissed his cheeks, and handed him envelopes. Sal shook their hands, appeared to make some small talk, and spent a lot of time smiling. As the mugs left, Sal looked in the envelopes and said something to either T-Bone or Big Bad, his bodyguards. T-Bone seemed to be writing something in a small ledger book, probably recording the size of each man’s contribution. Then Sal deposited each envelope into a large wooden box on a bar table that Big Bad was guarding.

Kathleen and I were particularly impressed with the backyard.

At the center of the terrace, eight wide steps down led to the sun deck and swimming pool, which had been covered for the occasion with an enormous dance platform. An eight-piece swing band had set up in the gazebo, next to the pool house, but hadn’t started playing yet. For now, the music was provided by an unlikely pair of very old men. One, the violin player, had a shock of white hair and wore the thickest black glasses I’d ever seen. He moved through the crowd while playing, pausing occasionally to whisper something in the ear of each pretty lady he encountered. The other guy, the guitar player, squinted and scowled at the guests like a jealous lover, and did his best to keep up with the violinist, both musically and spatially.

“I love the musicians,” Kathleen said. “They’re so cute!”

“Cute,” I said.

“Well, just look at them. They must be eighty years old.”

I did look at them, in fact, I knew them. And “cute” didn’t seem an appropriate description. Johnny D and Silvio Braca were a pair of octogenarians who could play a romantic ballad one minute and break your knee caps the next.

“I wonder what he’s whispering to all those women,” I said.