Border crossings, p.1
Border Crossings, page 1
Border Crossings
A Tony and Stan Thriller
Vincent Zandri
Published by Vincent Zandri, 2024.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
BORDER CROSSINGS
First edition. May 25, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Vincent Zandri.
ISBN: 979-8224704323
Written by Vincent Zandri.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Vincent Zandri
Begin your Moonlight journey today with a FREE copy of MOONLIGHT FALLS, the first novel in the Thriller and Shamus Award winning series. | Or visit WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to nab all of Vin’s pulse-pounding thrillers today. | PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI
“According to the map, we’ve only gone four inches!” – Harry Dunne, Dumb & Dumber.
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Also By Vincent Zandri
Begin your Moonlight journey today with a FREE copy of MOONLIGHT FALLS, the first novel in the Thriller and Shamus Award winning series.
Or visit WWW.VINZANDRI.COM to nab all of Vin’s pulse-pounding thrillers today.
PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI
“Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”
—New York Post
“(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”
—Booklist “Starred Review”
“Zandri does a fantastic job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror
Show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word “tough.”
—Suspense Magazine
“I very highly recommend this book . . . It’s a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”
—Life in Review
“(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”
—The Times-Union (Albany)
“The action never wanes.”
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting.”
—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years
“Tough, stylish, heartbreaking.”
—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.
“A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”
—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure
“A classic slice of raw pulp noir...”
—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob
“Zandri (is) a veteran wordsmith who executes quality and quantity at superlative levels.”
—Book Reporter
“According to the map, we’ve only gone four inches!” – Harry Dunne, Dumb & Dumber.
Border Crossings
A Tony and Stan Thriller
Vincent Zandri
1
; The Albany VFW family gathering room is filled with all sorts of grieving people of all ages, genders, and economic status from white trash to upper middle class. Most of them are overweight, and there are more old people than younger, although there are some obnoxious great-grandchildren running around already fueled up by their respective sugar highs. One thing they all have in common is, now that the funeral for the old man is over, they’re all starved as fuck.
Located at the far end of the room are two long foldable tables that are covered in rectangular aluminum foil pans that contain everything from ziti and meatballs to chicken parm, to chicken wings, to chicken fricassee, to meatloaf and mashed potatoes covered in gravy. All this food is being washed down by cans of cold Budweiser available for a nominal cash payment from behind the bar on the opposite side of the room. No one seems to mind that the floor is covered in ugly linoleum, the walls in cheap pink and blue acrylic wallcovering, the ceiling acoustical tile, and the harsh lighting provided by drop-in fixtures that give off a buzzing noise like the light they’re emitting contains deadly radiation.
Two late forty-something, muscular men who go by the names Stan and Tony (the former Polish and the latter Italian), occupy one of maybe fifteen round tables. The table is closest to the entrance, just in case they need to make a quick exit, which is entirely possible considering they have no business being there.
“You see, Tone,” Stan says, wiping his mouth, not with a napkin but with the paper tablecloth, “I told you this would work. These fucking post-funeral buffets are killer. You know how much this shit would cost us if we had to pay for it in a restaurant?”
“No,” Tony says, stuffing his pie-hole with a spoonful of beef stroganoff, which he endearingly refers to as beef-stroke-me-off. “How the fuck much?” With his mouth full of food his words sound like Ow the uck mush?
Stan steals a long few beats to calculate the estimated costs in his brain.
Finally, giving up, he says, “A lot. More than we can afford on our salaries carting flowers all over the city for that coffee with milk colored fairy.”
“He’s mulatto,” Tony says, dipping some overly buttered Italian bread into some stroke-me-off sauce and shoving it in his mouth before he’s swallowed what’s already in it. “Raymond can’t help who his parents were.”
Again, his words are distorted by all that food in his cheeks and mouth, but Stan understands him just fine. He doesn’t even mind that he can see him chewing his food when he talks. Tony and Stan are close. Almost like brothers. They even share a studio apartment together. Not that they have any choice in the matter.
Finally, Tony swallows what’s in his mouth, and he wipes his mouth with a napkin.
“How’d you find this buffet anyway?” he asks while he considers heading up to the food table for some ziti, meatballs, and sauce.
“Simple, I just went online and went to the obits in the Times Union Newspaper. If I’m in the mood for Italian food, I look for guineas who’ve bought the farm, like the guy they just buried.”
“What’s his name, Costello?” Tony asks.
“Yeah, like Abbott and Costello,” Stan says. “I feel like Polish food, I look for somebody with a pollock last name. I want to drink a million beers and eat corn beef and cabbage, I look for a mick who’s bought it. Soul food, like ribs and chicken, requires a Black dude dying, but for obvious reasons, that’s a little more tricky.”
“Well, you done good, Stan,” Tony says. “I gotta hand it to ya.”
He’s just about to get up to make his third trip to the food table when three houses approach the table. Rather, not houses necessarily, but three men who are easily six feet two inches minimum and who are no strangers to the weight room. They are each wearing black baseball hats that say, Army Rangers on them. All three of them are holding cans of Budweiser beer.
Tony might be a musclehead himself, but at five feet five inches, he knows better than to make a fuss with three professionally trained killers like these men clearly appear to be. The same goes for Stan, who might sport some decent biceps, but at five feet seven and carrying a beer gut that makes him look like he swallowed a basketball, he refuses to look the three visitors in the eyes.
“Excuse us, gentlemen,” The man in the middle says.
He’s sporting a three-day growth on his round face and steely blue eyes.
“I don’t recall seeing you guys around the VFW hall,” he says.
“Oh, we belong to another one,” Stan lies.
Tony gives him a look across the table like, Are you fucking stupid?
But then the Italian meathead feels even stupider having asked the question in the first place since he clearly knows the answer.
“Yeah, which one?” Scruffy Ranger presses.
Stan swallows something that looks like a brick.
“Oh, ummm, you know,” he says. “The one across the river in Troy.”
“The Collar City VFW?” says Scruffy Ranger.
“That’s it,” Tony jumps in.
“What conflicts you two in? Afghanistan? Syria? Iraq? All three like most of the brave young vets who pickle their livers around here?”
“All of ‘em,” Stan says, his mouth still overly filled with a future coronary. “Others too.”
“Wow,” says Scruffy Ranger. “So naturally you...um warriors...fought side-by-side the old man.”
“Oh sure,” Tony says. “Lots of times.”
“That’s funny, Scruffy Ranger says, “Because the old man was in World War Two and he died at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. You guys look pretty fucking good for being in your late nineties.”
Stan swallows what’s in his mouth. Suddenly, his stomach feels like it’s full of concrete. Tony feels his pulse racing and he’s a little short of breath. He eyes Stan from across the table. He doesn’t need to say a word since his wide eyes say it all.
“Run!”
2
Stan doesn’t just shoot up from the table along with Tony. He tips the table over to create an obstacle between him and the three meatheads. The two race for the open door which is less than ten feet away. While they’re sprinting through the open door, three beer cans explode with foamy suds against the bearing wall directly above the door jamb.
“Run like hell,” Tony insists.
“I got so much food in me,” Stan says, “I feel like a fat pig.”
“You are a fat pig,” Tony barks. “And those motherfuckers want to slaughter you.”
Directly up ahead are the entry doors to the VFW. The two flower truck drivers eye the double doors as one of them opens and an old man wearing yet another black baseball cap with white brim stitching that says “World War II” is being wheeled inside by his late middle-aged daughter. Behind the two running men, the three goons are catching up to them, shortening the distance between their freedom or being pounded to a pulp out back near the dumpster.
“Stop right there,” one of the meatheads screams. “Nobody gets a free lunch on the back of a dead decorated soldier. You hear me?”
When Tony comes to the old man, he shoves the chubby middle-aged woman aside. She falls, her skirt riding up so high on her thighs you can make out her Eighteen Hour Girdle.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Tony says while taking hold of the old soldier’s chair handles and shoving him toward the three meatheads.
The old man screams like a girl while the wheelchair rams the three vets like they’re the three spare pins on a bowling lane. It’s then that Tony grabs Stan by his jacket collar and yanks him outside. Thinking quick, Tony then pulls the American flag off the side of the building and shoves the wood flagpole inside both aluminum door openers. When the meatheads come to the doors, they attempt to yank them open, but they can’t. The doors are now locked from the outside.
“Ha ha!” Tony barks. “Look at you dopes now.”
That’s when, as if on cue, he and Stan both extend their right arms and raise their middle fingers high, pressing them against the glass door. Seeing the now enraged faces of the three Ranger vets, the two about-face and race across the lot for their delivery truck.
