Return To Forever (14 page)

Joe was very familiar with Arizona as he participated in several shooting competitions in the state while he was part of the Marine Corps Shooting Team. It was a beautiful state with the ability to travel from the desert to snow country in a few hours. It was a perfect environment to get lost in.

Joe filled Rick in on the new information he had obtained from Allison. “That’s a really sad story.” Rick said. “Poor girl went from one bad situation to another and now she is in hiding for her life with a greedy son-of-a-bitch that she never loved. Makes you wonder if there really is a God. I assume you are more determined than ever to find her.”

“I am” Joe responded. “Where do we go from here?”

“You need to come to the office before we continue on this mission.” Rick answered. “I want you to know exactly what you may be facing and it can get real ugly real quick.”

Joe was sitting in Rick’s office within the hour and Rick began to lay out what may lie ahead. “Joe, the next step we can take will involve pulling Allison’s phone records. I have contacts that can get me a copy of her phone bill which will show all incoming and outgoing calls. If she has had any telephone contact with Mary, an Arizona area code will be on the bill. This is another situation that would compromise my contact and he will want to be adequately compensated. My guess is we are talking a couple hundred bucks.”

“Don’t worry about the money,” Joe answered. “I’ll come up with whatever we need.”

Rick continued. “Understand this is not a slam dunk. We get once chance with one month’s activity. If we pick the wrong month we may learn nothing and you don’t get your money back. Also keep in mind the Torelli family can use the same tricks. Hopefully they have stopped looking by now but you can’t be sure. This whole thing could end up exposing Mary’s whereabouts to the wrong people and the mob family in Arizona would be happy to help out their friends from Detroit.”

“How can we be sure what month to choose?” Joe asked. “We don’t even know if she had any contact with Mary at all.”

Rick had an idea. “Do you think you could give Allison a reason to call Mary? That would give us a lock on what period to look at. Again, remember we get one shot at this.”

Joe thought for a moment. “I can’t do that Rick. We’re back to being friends and I don’t have many. If I push her she will smell a rat and the whole house of cards will crumble. Let’s go with the month I first met her and went to her house high as a kite. If she was to alert Mary, that would have been the time.”

Joe needed to get the money to Rick for the phone search and also owed Rick almost $1,000.00 for services provided up to this point. It was time to hock his 1958 Fender Stratocaster he had named “Brown Sugar”. Joe had a good relationship with the Pawn Shop owner and knew he would take good care of the guitar until Joe could buy it back.

It took almost two weeks for Rick to get the phone records for the month Joe had chosen. Sure enough there was a call made to a 602 area code. The call lasted less than a minute. Rick traced the number to a phone booth in North Phoenix in front of a Circle K convenience store. “This looks like they had a pre-arranged time for this call. I doubt that Mary took the call. More than likely a third party took a message for Mary from Allison. There was no record of a call coming in to Allison from Arizona. My guess is Allison left another number for Mary to call…maybe her work number.”

“Phoenix is a big city.” Joe said, thinking of what else they might try to zero in on Mary’s location.

—

“Put Silvio on the phone…it’s important!” The voice making the call expected immediate action…no bullshit!

“Silvio’s tied up…whose calling?” No one got through to the Don so easily. In fact, no one was supposed to have the number to his direct line.

“Listen you dumb mother fucker…you tell him it’s Jackie Torelli, capisce?” He heard the line put on hold while someone went to get the head of the Phoenix Mafia family on the phone.

“Jackie, how are you my friend?” Silvio Tedesco was pleased and surprised to hear the voice of his Detroit counterpart and old soldier from days long past. “Is everything OK? Anything I can do for you?”

“Yes, my old friend, I am in need of your help which is why I am calling. Do you remember that nasty business I had to deal with a few years ago when that little prick accountant testified against us?” Jackie asked.

“Of course I remember. The fucking canary went into WITSEC I heard. I know he cost you a lot of money.” Silvio replied.

“You have no fucking idea how much he cost me.” Jackie lamented. “I put a half a million dollar contract on the fat fuck and his wife and it looks like we may have finally found them…in your backyard.”

Jackie went on to explain how they had decided to focus on the sister-in-law who was the only remaining living relative of De Laudanum’s wife. “We found a guy in the Marshall’s service who was up to his fucking eyeballs in gambling debts and guess who was holding the markers? He got us a lock on where they were stashed….Arizona. He also told us someone else was digging around trying to find them. We figure it’s someone trying to cash in on the contract.”

“So you found out they were placed in Arizona. Is that all you got?” Silvio didn’t think this was near enough information to locate them.

“Let me finish for fucks sake!” Jackie ordered. “As I said, the wife has only one living relative…her sister. We’ve been watching her phone for the last three months. Everything has been local stuff until last month. She called a payphone in Phoenix. The call was very short. She probably gave whoever answered another number that couldn’t be traced.”

Silvio could guess what was coming next. “So you want my guys to do what? Phoenix is a big city.”

CHAPTER 26

T
he pay-phone in the rehearsal hall was impossible to hear when the full orchestra was practicing. On other nights, usually a string quartet was going over new material or students from Wayne State dropped by for a free lesson. Allison had taken a strong interest in a young freshman protégé who had immense raw talent but not enough money to obtain the high level of instruction she deserved.

This night Allison and her student pretty much had the rehearsal hall to themselves. It was the perfect time to take Mary’s call. As her student was packing up her instrument Allison heard the pay-phone begin to ring and quickly said goodbye and ran to the phone.

“Mary?” she said, out of breath from her sprint to the phone.

“Yes…hello Allison. It’s wonderful to hear your voice again.” Mary sounded so much older than Allison remembered. Their last conversation was when Allison told her of their parent’s tragic death. The sisters agreed to only reach out to each other under the direst conditions.

“I’m sorry to bother you but I think there is something you need to be aware of. How much time do you have to talk?” Allison knew Mary was taking a tremendous risk calling her.

“I’m good.” Mary answered. “Bob is bowling with his team from work. He won’t be home for a while and will be too drunk to do anything but collapse into bed…another day in paradise.”

Mary and Bob had a modest 3-bedroom ranch in the north Phoenix suburb of Paradise Valley which was really classified as Scottsdale. Bob had a job in the accounting department at the Siemen’s plant near the Scottsdale Airport. Mary was trying her hand these days selling real estate. They had a loveless marriage and became pretty good at faking affection for the few friends and neighbors they maintained contact with.

“So what is it you need to tell me?” Mary asked, concerned that Allison might be in trouble.

“Joe has contacted me. The poor guy has been through so much but can’t get over how you just dumped him without any explanation. Mary he still loves you and is trying to find you. Why I’ll never know.” Allison paused to let this sink in with Mary.

Allison could hear Mary beginning to sob. “We were so young,” Mary said. “I really did love him but when I was on my own at college I went a little crazy and we know how that turned out. I can’t believe he still has feelings for me. How does he look?”

“He’s a great looking guy and a hell of a guitar player. He has his own band and is also taking classes on the GI Bill at Wayne State. I think he had a rough time in Viet Nam but he never talked about it.” Allison went on to explain how he found her and how she called the cops when he made his infamous late night visit.

“I had to tell him what happened to you at college.” Allison went on. “He deserved a little closure and I wanted him to know you just couldn’t face him, but that’s as far as I went. No mention of Bob’s troubles or what followed.”

Mary was crying like a baby as she listened to her sister’s story. “God I wish I could sit down with him, face to face, and tell him how sorry I am for what I did to him. He treated me like a princess and accepted all the shit dad put in our way without complaining.”

“You let a good one get away, sis. But now we have to deal with what he might uncover if he keeps looking for you. That’s why I called. I doubt he can get very far without knowing your married name but, even if he finds that out, the trail ends with WITSEC… unless you don’t want it to end there? It’s your life.”

“What life?” Mary answered. “Living with a pig who put my life in danger is no life, sis. At least he doesn’t hit me. I am so unhappy. Every day is worse than the last. I have no future Allison.”

“Do you want me to tell Joe how to reach you?” Allison asked. “You could be putting yourself in great danger. You need to ask yourself if it’s worth it and what you expect to happen when you see Joe again.”

“You hit me with a lot. I need to think this through carefully.” Mary said.

They ended the call, agreeing they would talk again the following week. In the meantime, Allison needed to think about how to give Joe the information with the best chance of not getting discovered by the mob.

—

“Joey, get the guys together. We have some important business to take care of.” Silvio’s number two took the message and immediately contacted all local family members as instructed. The meeting was to take place in the back room of the original Garcia’s restaurant which the family discreetly purchased when the chain went nationwide. Obviously, good discreet Italian restaurants were hard to find in Phoenix so they brought in their own chef to cook for the crew when they were assembled.

“OK, listen up.” Silvio announced to the group. “Our friends from Detroit have reached out to us to handle some business for them here in Phoenix. They have been looking for a rat that cost them a lot of money and, guess what, the little prick is right here in our backyard.”

Silvio picked two of his toughest soldiers and gave them the address of the Circle K where the payphone call came in. “Someone took that call and was given a message. You start with every swinging dick that works at that store and beat it out of them if necessary. Get me a name!”

The black Town Car parked at the far end of the lot in front of the ice machine and waited until the store was empty. It was around 11 PM when the two mobsters entered the store. One flipped the sign to “CLOSED” and stood by the entrance. The other walked around the store as though he was shopping. The lone employee took this all in and feared a robbery was about to take place. “Please, do not hurt me. Take the money. I will tell no one who did this.”

“Give me a pack of Marlboros and shut the fuck up.” The employee did as instructed then sat motionless on his stool. “What’s your name?” the mobster asked nonchalantly as he lit a smoke.

“My name is Sathish Patel. I am the assistant manager.” he answered, shaking in fear.

“Relax”, the stranger said with a friendly smile on his face. “No one’s gonna hurt you. We just need some information, OK?” The clerk nodded yes. “Good. Now tell me about that payphone out front. Do you get many calls coming in on that phone?”

“No, I don’t think so. Mostly the phone is used by people making calls but if we are busy it is hard to hear the phone ringing if a call is coming in.” Sathish was beginning to relax.

The smile vanished from the mobster’s face. “Let me ask this another way. Have you ever answered a call on that phone? If you lie to me I’ll break both your legs…OK?”

“Please…please, do not hurt me”, Sathish pleaded. “Yes, I did answer a call one night about a month ago. It was a woman’s voice. She asked me to write down a phone number for a friend who would come by and pick it up. I put the note with the number in the cash register and told the other clerks someone would be coming in to pick it up and that person would give them a nice tip.”

“So was it picked up?” the stranger asked.

“Yes, it is no longer in the cash register but I am not sure which employee released it.”

The mobster was clearly unhappy. “Listen Gunga Din, I don’t have time to fuck around with you. We’ll be back tomorrow and you better have the name of the employee who gave away the number. Better yet, have that person in the store when we get here. Go to the cops and we’ll kill your whole family and then cut off your balls and set you on fire.” As Sathish cowered in the corner, the mobster put out his cigarette on the clerk’s forehead and then left the store.

—

The rehearsal room payphone rang as expected one week after the two sisters had spoken.

“Mary? I hope it’s you.” Allison said as she answered.