Night screams, p.19
Night Screams, page 19
“Who the fuck would be stupid enough to ride in the back of a truck in weather like this?”
“Then, what if—what if those guys have killed someone. What if they’re taking the body someplace to get rid of it? We can’t just—just ignore it! What if—”
“What if nothing!” Angelo said, squeezing his gloved hands into tight fists. For once in his life, he wished he carried a gun so he could threaten this man to do what he wanted him to do. But that would have been foolish. He had to get—and maintain—control of this situation. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to get involved in anything like this. I think it looks like a glove, but even if there is some dead guy in the back of that truck, so what? Big fucking deal! It don’t concern either me or you!”
“But what if—”
“For all you know, these might be guys you don’t want to be messin’ with,” Angelo said, adding just a touch of menace to his voice.
Mark glanced over at his passenger, obviously trying to gauge just how dangerous he might be. Then, when he saw the truck up ahead slowing down for a left-hand turn, he pulled to a stop on the side of the road. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep, controlled breath, then let it out slowly and said, “Look, Frank, I have to follow that truck—at least to see where they’re going. I think there’s a gas station a mile or two up the road from here. You can walk or hitchhike to it if you want.”
The sun was low on the horizon; it was going to be dark soon. Angelo considered how ball-busting cold it was outside; then he grunted. “Too fucking bad you don’t have a car phone,” he said. He settled back in the car seat, thinking—Okay, let this do-gooder find out what’s going on; then I’ll be rid of him.
“I swear to God,” Mark said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, tracking the overloaded truck as it moved down the long stretch of country road. “This isn’t a main road or anything, so they can’t be going far. Just let me follow them to see where they’re going. Then—I swear to God—I’ll drive you to the gas station. You can get a wrecker to pick up your car, and I can call the cops from there. I can’t ignore something like this. I have to find out where they’re going.”
Angelo smiled grimly and said, “Okay, then. Better step on it, though. You don’t want to lose them, do you?”
With a loud squealing of tires, Mark cut across the main road and sped after the pickup truck. Fighting back a surge of anger, Angelo settled back in the car seat, wishing to hell someone else—anyone else—had stopped to help him, but what could he expect out in the boondocks like this?
3
4:29 P.M.
“End of the line, Markie-boy,” Angelo said when he saw the pickup truck slow for a turn into a driveway. “Turn around and let’s get the fuck out of here.” Both he and Mark stared down the one lane dirt drive lined with snow-covered pines and high, dirt-streaked snow-plow ridges.
Mark braced his hands on the steering wheel as he pulled a quick U-turn across the road and then stopped the car opposite the driveway entrance. His face was pinched tight with concentration as he looked down the darkening, tree-lined alley.
“You don’t think we should check it out first?” he asked.
Angelo shook his head tightly and said, “No way. I think you should get your ass out of here.” He looked thoughtfully down the driveway and added, “You have no idea what you might be getting yourself into.”
Mark gnawed on his lower lip while he considered. Then, after glancing up and down the road, he sucked in a deep breath and turned off the ignition. Pocketing the keys, he snapped open the car door and put one foot out onto the road.
“You can sit here and wait while I check it out,” he said, staring a moment at the screen of trees that blocked his view of whatever was down that road; then he glanced at his wristwatch. “I won’t be more than fifteen minutes or so.”
“The fuck you will!” Angelo stopped himself from lunging across the seat and grabbing Mark to force him back behind the steering wheel. With the heater turned off and the door open, cold air invaded the car, probing under Angelo’s coat collar and down his back like icy fingers. He couldn’t repress the shiver that wracked his body.
“Look, man,” Mark said in a trembling voice. “I don’t know where the fuck you’re coming from, but something . . . something really weird is going on here, and I have to check it out.” Again, he glanced down the driveway. “You can either sit here and freeze your ass off, or you can come with me.”
Angelo tempered his response and, smiling thinly, said, “Or you could leave the car running so I can have some heat.”
Mark smiled and shook his head. “Look, Frank, I’m not exactly saying I don’t trust you, but what’s to stop you from driving off once I’m gone?”
Angelo’s thin smile widened. “Nothing at all—except my word.”
“Why don’t you just come with me,” Mark said. “Look, we don’t have to go down the driveway. We can cut off across that field there and stay in the woods the whole time. No one’s gonna see us if we keep to the woods.”
“You got a description of the truck and where it is. Why not just give that to the cops.”
” ‘Cause I have to see what the hell they’re up to,” Mark answered.
“You’re full of shit, you know that?” Angelo said, shivering wildly inside his coat. He wondered which would be colder, sitting here in an unheated car or traipsing through the woods with this asshole do-gooder. After a moment, he decided that, at least if he was walking he might work up enough of a sweat to stay warm. Looking warily up at the darkening sky, he nodded slowly.
“Okay,” he said as he clicked open his door. “I’ll take a little pleasure walk with you.” He got out and slammed the car door shut. Glaring at Mark across the car roof, he jabbed a gloved forefinger at him and said, “But we’re talking fifteen minutes at most. I ain’t about to get myself lost in the fucking woods, not with night coming on.”
Mark nodded agreement, and the two of them dashed across the road. They followed the driveway for no more than fifty feet, then darted into the snow-filled woods. As soon as they were out of sight in the woods, Angelo wished for the dozenth time this afternoon that he was packing a gun so he could waste this jerk. He could take the asshole’s car, get back in Philly, and ditch the car long before anyone would miss the sorry bastard.
But he didn’t have a gun; so instead, he trudged through ankle-deep snow, all the while silently cursing himself for being a fool. If he was going to be walking in the cold, he should be heading to the nearest gas station. At least there wasn’t much snow under the trees; it was sheltered and did feel a bit warmer than it probably would have been in the car.
“I think I see a building over there,” Mark said, crouching behind a tree and pointing off to his right. Angelo looked in the direction he was pointing and shrugged when he saw the dark bulk of a barn and an unoccupied farmhouse. A single bare light bulb glowed inside the barn. The overloaded pickup truck was backed up and parked in front of the barn door.
“Great,” Angelo said. “You’ve seen where they were going, now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Just a minute. I want to see what they’re doing in there.”
“You know,” Angelo said, “did it even occur to you that it might not have been what you thought it was?”
Mark turned and regarded him with one raised eyebrow.
“I mean, now that I think about it, I ain’t so sure I saw any hand. For Christ’s sake! For all I know, it could have been a piece of rope or a feed bag or something.”
“All the more reason to check it out then, don’t you think?” Mark said. “I’d feel kind of foolish, getting the police involved if that wasn’t a hand.” He straightened up and began moving carefully between the trees, angling his way over toward the barn. “You coming or not?”
Angelo glanced back the way they had come, then followed a pace or two behind Mark as they moved in a direction that would take them out behind the barn. When they were halfway there, they heard the sound of grinding gears and the sputter of the truck’s engine. Mark pointed to the overloaded truck as it started backing up into the wide-open barn doors.
“I’ll bet there’s a window or an opening out back where we can see inside,” Mark said.
Angelo scowled and considered leaving the jerk behind and heading back to the car to wait; but he sucked in a deep breath and followed, mentally cursing both himself and Mark for fools.
They crouched in the fringe of pine trees that backed the barn and spent several seconds studying the battered, ship-gray structure. It was old and weathered. In fact, it looked as though the next strong gust of wind would knock it over. In the gathering gloom, it had a hulking, dark presence that bothered Angelo. For some unaccountable reason, he imagined that indeed the barn was barely supported, and it could come crashing down on top of both him and Mark at any moment.
“So, Frank—” Mark whispered, “—what do you think?”
From inside the barn, they could hear the chugging of the pickup truck, muffled voices of men talking, and heavy thumping sounds as the men tossed the hay bales to the ground. The surrounding woods were perfectly silent except for the faint hiss of wind in the pines high overhead. Angelo shivered, thinking how he could have been comfortably eating a seafood dinner at The North Pier in Boston by now if that goddamned rental car hadn’t died.
“You want to take a peak through that window there?” Mark asked, indicating a small, dark rectangle on the backside of the barn. Most of the panes had been painted out, but on the lower left side was a hole about the size of a golf ball, through which filtered the mellow yellow glow of light.
“I could just about give two shits what they’re doing in there,” Angelo said, barely above a whisper. “And if you had half an ounce of brains, you’d—”
“Keep it down, will you?” Mark said. “I just gotta take a look, I mean, what if they’re, like, burying the body in there or something?”
“It ain’t none of my concern,” Angelo said with a derisive snort. He stood back in the snowy darkness of the trees, slapping his arms to stay warm now that they had stopped moving.
After casting a cautious glance along either side of the barn, Mark skittered out across the open ground and flattened himself against the side of the barn to one side of the window. He edged around and, crouching low, peered in through the opening. Angelo tried to deny his own slight stirrings of curiosity as he watched the light-trimmed edge of Mark’s face. His curiosity rose sharply when, his eyes rounded in shock and his mouth a wide O, Mark jerked away from the window.
“Jesus Christ!” he said, staggering backward and grabbing Angelo’s arm for support. His voice was a raw, ragged gasp. “They’ve got a—Oh, my God! There’s a dead—a dead man in there! For real!”
Angelo smirked, only half-believing Mark as the young man gripped his wrist and tugged him in the direction of the barn.
“You’ve gotta see it!” he whispered. “I want you to verify what it is, so when we go to the police, they’ll believe me.”
“We ain’t going to no police,” Angelo said firmly, but he allowed himself to be led over to the window.
“Go on. Look,” Mark whispered. His voice assumed a deep tone of command. “See for yourself!”
Squinting one eye as though looking through a telescope, Angelo bent down and peered through the opening. The strong, musty smell of rotten hay assailed his nostrils and almost made him sneeze, but he checked himself. His heart did a cold, hard flip in his chest when he saw the dead man lying on the barn floor. It was his boss, Tony Vincenza—the man he had killed less than an hour ago.
“Mother of Christ!’ Angelo muttered. His legs went all rubbery. He turned and collapsed back against the side of the barn, gasping for breath.
“Yeah, I know,” Mark said softly. “I haven’t seen many dead people, either.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine that I’d ever get used to seeing a stiff.”
Angelo opened his mouth to say something, but nothing would come out. All he could think was, how in the hell had this happened? Tony had hired him to kill Phil Belario because Phil was muscling in on some of his business concerns, but Angelo had cut a better deal with Phil and taken out Tony instead. So what the hell was Tony’s body doing out here? How had these men found it so fast, and what the fuck were they doing with it?
“I can’t—No!—I don’t”—but that was all Angelo managed to say before dropping to his knees in the snow and throwing up. He leaned forward, his face almost buried in the puke-stained snow as wave after violent wave squeezed his body.
Mark knelt down beside him and gently placed a hand on Angelo’s shoulder.
“Hey, man, take it easy there,” he said. “I know seeing something like that’s gotta be pretty upsetting, but you have to keep quiet.” He hooked his thumb toward the barn and looked around cautiously. “I mean, what if those guys in there hear us?”
Angelo’s vision was blurred. Vomit dribbled down his chin as he looked up at Mark and stammered, “We’ve got to—to get the hell—out—out of here.” He ran his forearm across his mouth, smearing the vomit across his cheek as he struggled to stand. “These guys—I don’t know how they—I’m not sure what the hell’s going on here, but we gotta get moving!”
“Come on, then,” Mark said calmly as he eased his arm around Angelo’s shoulder and directed him toward the woods. “Lets’ get back to my car. We have to find someplace to call the cops—”
“No!” Angelo snarled. He trembled as he walked into the dark shadows under the pines. “No cops! Not while I’m around!”
“Why?” What’s the problem?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want to—”
He cut himself short when a wash of yellow headlights swept down the driveway. Both men flattened themselves to the ground as a tow truck pulled into the door yard. Angelo’s stomach went cold and watery when he saw his broken-down rental car attached to the tow.
“Oh, sweet Jesus! Oh, shit!” he whispered, squinting as he watched the truck pull to a stop in front of the barn door. Two men got out. They were nothing more than black shadows in the gloom as they walked around to the back of the truck and lowered Angelo’s car to the ground.
“Say,” Mark said close to Angelo’s ear. “Isn’t that your car?” His breath washed over Angelo’s face like warm water, but Angelo could barely nod agreement as he looked in amazement from his car to the dark farmhouse.
“Wait just a fucking second,” he said, easing himself up into a crouch and brushing snow from his coat. “Just what the fuck is going on here?”
“Nothing much, Angelo,” a cold voice from behind them said suddenly.
Angelo let out a startled shout as both he and Mark spun around to see who had spoken. Silent figures resolved out of the darkness as they came around the back of the barn. Angelo couldn’t tell for sure, but if looked like four or five men. As soon as he realized that one of them was Phil Belario, he knew there must be at least half a dozen more staying behind cover with guns trained on him and Mark. Snow crunched underfoot as the group of men moved slowly toward them.
“Sorry ‘bout this, kid,” Angelo said to Mark, “but I tried to warn you. I think you got yourself into something you ain’t gonna like.”
“What?” Mark asked, his voice high, constricted. “How do you know these men? And why’d he call you Angelo?”
“Just shut the fuck up and let me do the talking. Maybe I can convince them to let you go.” Taking a bold step forward with his arms upraised, he called out, “Hey! Jesus Christ, Phil!” He laughed a high, dry laugh and shook his head as though dazed. “Goddamn, I got to hand it to you. You really had me going there.” He looked around casually. “So what the fuck is all this about, anyway?”
“Why Angelo, I’m surprised at you,” Phil said in a soft, grating tone of voice. “One of the best in the business, and you haven’t figured it out?”
“Wha—? What are you talking about?”
“This is a hit, Angelo,” Phil said. “I’m taking you out.”
“What the fuck?” Angelo took a few steps backward, but he knew damned well there were several armed men behind him to stop him if he turned and ran. “What the fuck you talking about?”
“You’re a loose end, Angelo,” Phil said. “You worked for Tony—how many years? Ten? Twelve?”
“Yeah—‘bout twelve, I guess,” Angelo said, fighting the trembling in his voice.
“And when he put a contract out on me, how long did it take you to cut a deal with me, huh? Not even one full day! You betrayed your boss like that!” He snapped his fingers with a sound like a gunshot.
“Well, now, wait—wait just a second there, Phil,” Angelo stammered. “You and me—we’ve* known each other a long time.” His chattering teeth diced every word as he spoke. “I’ve known you almost as long as I’ve known Tony, and—to tell you the truth—I couldn’t see what he was getting all bent out of shape about. I told him I didn’t want the contract, but he insisted on using me, so I figured—you know—that I’d tip you off.”
“And it didn’t take you very long to decide to double-cross your boss, now, did it?”
Finally at a loss for words, Angelo merely shrugged.
“So you have to see why I can’t trust you, Angelo,” Phil continued. “I’m taking over all of Tony’s interests, and I have to have people around me that I know are gonna be there for me, one hundred percent.”
“But I was there for you, Phil! I didn’t clip you even though there was a hundred grand in it for me.”
“But I have to be sure no one’s gonna double-cross me at the first opportunity,” Phil said mildly. “You can appreciate my problem, can’t you?”
Angelo was silent a moment; then he frowned deeply and said, “So what the fuck—? How’d you set this up.”
Phil snickered and smiled broadly. “A little dash of sugar in your gas tank took care of the engine,” he said. Before Angelo could say more, Phil reached into his coat and withdrew a pistol equipped with a silencer.
