Enforcer: A Prequel Novella to the New Mafia Trilogy (3 page)

As dawn approached, fading the sky from black to gray,
movement in the house drew our attention. A light came on the second floor and
then the first. A lowered black Mustang with gold rims was parked in the
driveway and when the tail lights flashed from being remotely unlocked, we knew
our moment had come. Anthony opened his door wide enough to slip out silently
onto the street. Fortunately he had thought ahead and disabled the dome light.
I climbed out after him, avoiding the sliding door on the side, not wanting to
risk making a sound.

We approached the house, spanning out so we weren’t in a
cluster.  Joey B. ducked behind a pick-up truck parked in the street and
Anthony moved down the sidewalk, using an overgrown hedge as cover. I looked
like any other college kid, aside from the gun being held flush with my outer thigh,
so I used this to my advantage. Bethlehem was home to more than one college and
I didn’t look nearly as suspicious.

One of the Kings shuffled down the driveway towards the
Mustang. He had a forty ounce bottle in one hand and his keys in the other.
Pretending to be a college student stumbling home after a long night, I paused
near the end of the driveway and bent over, making dry heaving sounds.

          “Yo whatcha think you doing, man?” the King called.
It was the distraction that Joey B. needed. He moved in and shot the King at
point blank range. With the silencer it made a dull popping sound. Without
stopping, he bent down and snatched the keys out of a lifeless hand and tossed
them to me.

          “Grant, throw him in the trunk then stay out here
on watch and call my cell if we need to get the fuck out,” Anthony said before
he and Joey B. crept into the house.

I popped the trunk and picked the body up from underneath
the armpits, dragging it to the rear of the car. The guy wasn’t big, but he was
all dead weight and it was awkward hoisting the corpse into the trunk. Tucking
limbs inside, I closed the lid, careful not to slam it.

A large bloodstain bloomed on the front of my shirt and my
hands were covered so I quickly peeled off my shirt and used it to wipe my
hands, then I wiped down the trunk to erase any fingerprints. A puddle of blood
had pooled on the driveway, but it wasn’t obvious on the asphalt so I didn’t
make any attempts to clean it up.

After, I positioned myself so I could watch the street and
see if anyone was making a run from the house. Our actions had gone undetected
and the rest of the neighborhood was quiet, only a few homes had lights on. I
listened for any sirens in the distance and heard a few faint pops coming from
inside the Kings’ house. We all had suppressors on our pieces so the pops
weren’t recognizable as gun shots.

An older man walked by with his dog, an old Basset Hound with
droopy eyes that raised its nose in my direction briefly before shuffling along
behind its owner. Those were a few tense moments where I tried to act
nonchalant by leaning against the back of the Mustang. Fortunately, the old man
didn’t even look at me and I wondered if he was conditioned to ignore the
goings on at this house.

Minutes later Anthony and Joey B. came out of the side door
and joined me on the driveway.

          “Any problems?” I asked.

          “The First Crown wasn’t here, but we took out four
of his men inside. I think he’ll get the message,” Anthony said. “Let’s go.”

We walked back to the van, scanning the neighborhood as we
went for potential witnesses. The sun was just beginning to peek above the
horizon so there wasn’t a lot of activity. We hoped we left unnoticed, but
would torch the van once we got back to the city, just in case.

***

Normally I went home for Thanksgiving, but shit with the
Kings was escalating and with everything going on, I decided to stay in the
city. Natalie didn’t take the news very well.

          “What do you mean you’re not coming home?”

          “Sorry, Nat. I have too much shit going on with
finals coming up. This semester is kicking my ass.”

          “What am I supposed to do with Mom? You know this
time of year usually triggers one of her funks.”

I could hear the anxiety in Nat’s voice and I hated to leave
her alone. She was right, ever since our dad left, the holidays brought out the
worst in our mom.

          “I’m sorry, but I just can’t make it home. Go to
the football game and stay out of the house as much as possible. You know Mom
will lock herself in her room after dinner. I’ll make it up to you.”

          “You said that about my birthday and I’m still
waiting.”

I stopped pacing across the living room in my apartment and
closed my eyes, rubbing the back of my neck. “I know. Listen, I’ll make time
over Christmas Break, okay?”

Even though I didn’t make it home to York, I managed to send
home enough money for my mom to buy ten turkey dinners for Thanksgiving. Rico
invited me to a restaurant his wife’s sister, Gloria, and her husband, Franco,
owned.

Rico had me meet him at his house in South Philly. While we
spent a lot of time together, I had never been to his place before or met his
family. I knew he had been married to his wife for twenty years and they had
two sons and a daughter. One of his sons answered the door. Since he was about
my age and I knew Rico’s oldest was eighteen, I figured this was Dominic. He
was about an inch shorter than me, which put him at around 6’2”, but he looked
taller because of his thick unruly, black hair. Dominic grunted a hello and let
me in, stepping aside, not turning his back on me. While I had dressed up for
dinner, Dominic had on baggy jeans and an Eagles jersey.

          “Hey, I’m Grant,” I said, holding out my hand.
Dominic glanced down, but made no moves to shake it.

          “Dad,” he called instead. “Your boy’s here.” After
being a dick about announcing my arrival, he left me in the entryway and went
upstairs. Seconds later I heard a door slam.

Rico appeared at the end of the hallway, he was securing his
gun to the inside of his sport jacket. I’d been around him enough to know that
he had special bands sewn into all of his jackets just for that purpose.

          “Grant, how are ya, son? Did you bring your
appetite?” He opened a closet door and pulled out a fur coat. I had no idea
what kind of fur, but it was a glossy caramel brown and thick. Rico draped the
coat over his arm and went to stand at the bottom of the stairs. I heard a
creak on the top tread and Rico gave me a wink then turned to watch a woman
descend the stairs with the grace of a dancer. Her long dark brown hair curled
at the ends and framed her heart shaped face. The cranberry red sweater she
wore complimented her fair skin. Rico smiled up at her and held out his hand.
She returned his smile and placed her hand in his.

          “You look beautiful,” Rico said, pulling the woman
to his side before turning to face me. “Grant, this is my lovely wife, Angela.”

          “Nice to meet you,” I said and we quickly shook
hands.

Rico helped Angela into her fur coat. “Dom, Ant’ny and Eva,
let’s go!” She called. A stampede of footsteps thundered above and continued
down the stairs. A girl with long dark hair like her mother’s, but pulled up
into pig tails, led the charge followed by a lanky boy with an unfortunate case
of acne exploding on his cheeks. His auburn hair was short and gelled into
immovable spikes. In one quick movement, he vaulted over the banister and
landed in front of his sister. “I won!” he cheered and laughed in his sister’s
face, revealing a mouthful of braces. Dominic sauntered down behind his
siblings, hands shoved in pockets and shoulders hunched. Apparently he was too
cool for these antics.

          “Grant, this is my daughter Eva and my son
Anthony,” Rico introduced me to his youngest kids. I remembered him telling me
that Eva was nine and Anthony thirteen. “You already met Dom.”

After the brief introductions we filed out of the house and
onto the sidewalk. Several handprints of different sizes were imprinted in the
concrete out front with three sets of initials: D.G., A.G., and E.G.

Despite Dominic’s supposed indifference, he walked on one
side of Eva while Anthony walked on the other side. This made me think of my
sister, Natalie, and how protective I was of her; shielding her from the
spiteful things our mom said to bailing her out of the stupid situations she
managed to get herself in.

She would have liked this kind of family outing and I wished
I could share this with her, but knew that wasn’t possible, I needed to keep
this part of my life separate. Rico held Angela’s hand as they walked ahead of
their children. I moved up to walk next to Dominic and strike up a
conversation, but he gave me one word answers and wasn’t particularly friendly.
Eva and Anthony were more talkative, rambling from topics like school to
sports.

It took us ten minutes to reach Franco’s Restaurant, which
looked like an ordinary row home and blended in with the others on the block.
When we were entering the restaurant, Rico hit Dominic upside the head.

          “What was that for?” Dominic asked.

          “Stop being an ass towards Grant. He’s a part of
the family.”

          “Whatever,” he grumbled and went inside.

Rico waited for me, apologizing for his son’s behavior. “I
think he’s jealous of the time we spend together, but he’s still in high
school.” 

          “It’s cool. I understand.” It felt good hearing
Rico include me as part of the family and I smiled at him. “Thanks for
everything.”

          “Don’t mention it,” he said and clapped me on the
back.

We walked into the main dining area together where there
were three banquet tables set up that ran the length of the room. Marco sat at
the head of the table in the middle, while Al sat at the head of the one
closest to the door. We made our way over to the table by the fireplace, which
fortunately wasn’t lit because it was already hot in the room since it was
packed with people. My typical Thanksgiving was spent at home with my mom,
Natalie, and a shitload of uncomfortable silence. This was the exact opposite.
A million conversations were going on at once combined with boisterous
laughter, kids playing, and the sounds of pans clanging from behind closed
kitchen doors.

Marco stopped us before we reached Rico’s table.

          “Grant, I’m hearing good things from Rico. My
cousin Telly fucked up a job and I need someone who can keep a cool head. You
interested?”

          “Uh, yeah, sure.” I was trying my hardest to pay
attention to Marco, because he demanded one hundred percent, but a girl sitting
to his left distracted me. She listened in on the conversation, her big green
eyes bright with interest. Her long black hair gleamed like polished onyx and I
imagined it would be soft when I ran my hands through it. She had smooth olive
skin and the plumpest lips I’d ever seen.  I couldn’t stop looking at her.

          “Great, we’ll talk.” Marco said. Rico and I went
back to our table before I could find out about the girl. Whoever she was, I
knew she had to be close to Marco and that meant she was off limits.

2008

That job for Marco led to me making my second kill. While
the first one was self-defense and easier to justify, this one was different.
Knowing up front I’d be getting paid to kill someone, not just beat them up and
scare them, gave me pause.

I stood in the shadows of the alley that ran behind the
man’s row home for close to an hour; watching, waiting and trying to control
the shaking of my hands. Sweat pooled on my upper lip despite the cold snap
that had caused temperatures to plummet below zero. The man lived alone in a
shithole. The house to the left was abandoned, the back windows boarded up with
plywood. The building to his immediate right contained a corner market that had
closed for the night; the upstairs apartment unoccupied.

The guy was a scumbag cheat who had worked over several
gambling houses. He knew the risks when he started playing the game, so he had
this coming. I kept telling myself this as I watched the man move from one room
to another. It was easy to tell when he had settled in for the night in front
of the television. An eerie electronic glow flickered against frost covered
window panes.

Finally I made my move and emerged from the shadows to
silently slip across the narrow alleyway onto a litter strewn concrete slab
that made up the backyard. I pressed my body against the brick side of the
house, cold seeping through my leather jacket, as I peered in through the
window of the back door. I caught a glimpse of legs on a recliner, two feet
covered in slippers. The man was sitting with his back to the door and unaware
of my lurking right outside.

I knew I needed to gain entry to the house fast without
giving him the opportunity to run or yell. Reaching into my jacket pocket, I
pulled out the suppressor and attached it to my Glock. With it in place, I
tipped over the metal trash can that was next to the door. It crashed with a
loud clang against the concrete. Seconds later, I heard the click of the
deadbolt and the back door swung open. Just as the man stuck his head out, I
pounced, pushing him backwards into the house and knocking him on his ass. I
quickly shut and locked the door behind me before advancing on the man. The
element of surprise paid off for his reaction was slow, taking him longer to
recognize the danger he was in. I saw it register on his face, his eyes widened
and his mouth hung open in shock when he focused on the gun pointed at him.

          “Wha…what do you want?” he stammered.

          “Marco is on to your game, Pete. Where’s his
fucking money?”

Color drained from the Pete’s face when he heard Marco’s
name, but despite this obvious tell of fear, he still tried to convince me of
his innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

          “Lying isn’t going to help you.”

          “What will?”

          “Returning Marco’s money – he estimates that over
the past six months you skimmed fifty grand. Does that sound about right?” I
hated giving this guy false hopes because he was doomed either way, but I
needed to get the cash first.

          “Yeah, sure, I have it upstairs.”

          “Get up then and don’t try anything stupid.” I
gestured with my gun for him to stand and once he did, I followed close behind
with the barrel pressed between his shoulder blades. Pete led me up a steep set
of wooden stairs that creaked and snapped under our weight. We continued down a
narrow hallway to a bedroom at the back of the house. He knelt down next to a
futon that was lopsided due to a broken leg. Reaching underneath, he grabbed
onto something. I tensed, anticipating a stupid move, like he would come up
with a gun or knife.

I relaxed my finger off the trigger when he slid out a
small, brown suitcase by the handle.

          “Open it,” I ordered.

Pete complied and I saw it was full of money, but not organized
in stacks so it was hard to tell how much cash was there. It would have to be
enough, this job needed to come to an end. I zipped the bag closed and moved,
forcing Pete to step sideways. He faced me and opened his mouth to say
something, but stopped when he saw my gun pointing at him again.

His eyes were so wide he looked like a cartoon character.
Holding his hands out in front as a shield he started to back away. I let him
take two steps before pulling the trigger. Brains, blood and bits of skull splattered
against the yellowing plaster wall behind him and he dropped to the floor, his
body twitching involuntarily as life seeped out onto the hardwood floor.

I grabbed the suitcase by the handle and left, slipping
unnoticed into the shadows of the alley.

Later that night I sat in my dark apartment, drinking Jack
Daniels straight from the bottle, trying to block the images from replaying in
my head. My hand shook as I brought the bottle to my lips for another gulp.
Even drunk and in the dark with my eyes closed, the images continued. The vivid
splash of red and the wet smack the blood made as it hit the wall seemed to
replay faster and faster as my head spun. I crawled to the bathroom and threw
up everything sloshing around in my stomach. I spent the night on the bathroom
floor, eventually passing out as the cool tiles soothed my almost feverish
skin.

The next morning, I peeled myself up off of the floor, sober
and ready to accept that there was no going back. I had willingly and knowingly
ended someone’s life. The opportunity to walk away had passed.

My old life was over. I was a killer now.