The Evil That Men Do Page 18

  Chapter 38

  Nine hours

  “You need to get the money,” Jason Marshall said to Susan.

  Draxton turned toward him. “What? We don’t negotiate with these people. We don’t give them what they want. You know that.”

  Marshall shook his head, still looking at Susan. “The stats don’t lie, ma’am. When victims of a kidnapping pay the ransom, they get their loved one back the majority of the time. You need to find a way.”

  “I can’t. I can’t access Franklin’s money,” she said.

  Susan bit her nails. Donne looked away out the large front window, down the grassy hill onto Upper Mountain Road. An older man walked his dog, moving stiffly. The dog stopped to sniff at every bush.

  “How am I supposed to get the money?” Susan asked.

  The dog squatted and took a shit on the curb. The old man bent to pick it up in a plastic bag.

  “What about through the restaurant account?” Marshall asked. “I can’t get to it. It’s not under my name.”

  “Do you know the account numbers?”

  Susan shook her head. “But I can find them. Franklin did all the banking. He keeps that stuff in his office.”

  “We need to go on the offensive,” Donne said. Marshall turned toward him, and Donne met his gaze. “What do you mean?” Marshall asked.

  “We need to find Hackett in the next few hours. We think he’s in Bayonne, right?”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Donne,” Draxton said. “Who the hell are you? You’re a civilian. Some jerk who had a PI badge and lost it. That’s all. You’re not in on this.”

  Donne shook his head. “We have to do something. Too many people have died. No more.”

  “Bullshit, Donne. You’ve come this far. You’ve helped. Let the professionals handle it now.”

  Draxton stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against for the past half hour. An aggressive move, it reeked of don’t fuck with me. Donne didn’t care if Draxton wanted him out. He was willing to fight him to stay in.

  “I’ve been doing this sort of thing for years,” Donne said. “It’s what’s right. It’s what I do. Professionally or not, this is my family.”

  Marshall stepped in front of Donne and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Relax,” he whispered. But behind the words was a tone letting Donne know he wouldn’t be forgotten in all this.

  During his argument with Draxton, he hadn’t even realized Susan had left the room. She entered the kitchen with papers in her hand.

  “The accounts,” she said, then looked at Donne. “We’re out of time. There’s no other way.”

  Marshall watched her and waited.

  “I can forge his signature. Do you think it’ll work?” She looked around the room and could sense the tension. “What happened?”

  “Forging a signature is illegal,” Draxton said, and returned to his lean. “I don’t like this.”

  Donne balled and unballed his fists, taking deep breaths to calm down. Jason Marshall hardly flinched.

  “She’s right. We’re out of time. It’s worth a shot,” he said. “If she gets stopped at the bank . . .” Draxton said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Donne said.

  Marshall ignored them. “Do they know your husband’s face at the bank?”

  “Probably,” Susan said. Her shoulders sagged a bit. “I’m going to be taking a lot of money out.”

  Marshall nodded.

  Donne had to get the hell out of here. If he could get to Hackett first, this wouldn’t be a problem. There were a few errands he would have to run first, but he was willing to search through Bayonne to find this abandoned area Hackett felt he was owed.

  Susan tried another approach. “What if I type up a letter giving myself permission to access the account and sign it with Franklin’s name? It could work, couldn’t it?”

  Again Marshall said, “Worth a shot.”

  “We’d be accessories,” Draxton said.

  “What other choice does she have?” Marshall said.

  “We know where he is,” Donne said. “We go get Franklin back.”

  “We try our luck with the money,” Marshall said.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Donne said.

  It wasn’t going to work. There was too much money involved. A preemptive strike was their only chance.

  Donne started toward the door, Mike Iapicca’s car keys still in his pocket.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Draxton said. “I’m going to visit my mother,” he said.

  ***

  Hackett fixed the last wire and stepped back. Behind him Franklin Carter moaned. Hackett wanted to hit the bastard again. Instead, he decided to have a chat with him.

  He leaned in close to Carter, so close he could smell his breath. It was rotten-as-fuck, like a man who hadn’t brushed his teeth in a month. In reality, it was only a few days.

  “You think this is all about some land deal, don’t you?” Carter didn’t say anything. He barely had his eyes open. “Do you want to know what it’s really about?”

  Carter’s head rolled on his shoulders, like he was about to pass out. Hackett grabbed Carter’s broken arm and tugged on it. Carter’s scream echoed off the basement walls.

  “Look at me when I’m fucking talking to you.” He raised his eyes to Hackett’s.

  “I’m going to kill you and I’m going to kill your family. I’m going to take your money and I’m going to give myself a better life. The life I deserved. The life my parents and my grandparents deserved. The life you and your wife’s families kept fucking up for us. I’m doing what my father wouldn’t do. What my grandfather fucked up.”

  Franklin Carter still didn’t speak. But now Hackett didn’t care. All he cared about was Carter knowing. Knowing that this was the end. “You know what? I didn’t even expect Jackson to be involved in this so soon. I thought I was going to have to drag the prick up here myself. How’d you get him involved for me?” he said.

  Franklin Carter drooled a little bit. And said, “The mother. Started talking about her dad. Wanted to know what she knew.”

  Hackett laughed. “The mom’s been talking? Shit. I went to see good old Isabelle Donne. Since I was going to fucking take out the whole family, I wanted to know if I was going to have to waste my time coming up with a plan to off her. But she was completely gone.”

  Hackett looked at his watch.

  “By five o’clock you, your wife, and her brother will all be dead.” Hackett grabbed Carter’s arm one more time. Again Carter screamed. It would have made Hackett’s ears hurt if the idea behind it wasn’t so pleasant.

  “Feel that? The bone is sticking through your skin. Do you feel it?” Carter said nothing.

  “Answer me!”

  “Yes.” The word sounded as if it was torn from him.

  Hackett smiled. “Enjoy it. Cherish that feeling. Because it’s going to feel like heaven by the end of the day.”

  Chapter 39

  Eight hours

  Donne’s first stop was New Brunswick. Traffic was light for mid-morning and he made the trip down the Parkway, Turnpike, and Route 18 in forty minutes. His apartment smelled musty, and he cracked the window open. He planned on staying only a few minutes, and it felt strange being there at all. Like when he was a kid and they’d get home from a vacation unexpectedly early.

  Like he’d left something unfinished. Which he had.

  He’d come back to get something he’d need to finish the job. He found the shoe box in the back corner of the bedroom closet.

  The gun he kept in there, a Browning automatic, was the proof that investigating would always be a part of his life. The job was in his blood.

  As was violence, no matter how much he didn’t want to admit it. And most likely it would take that violence to get Franklin Carter back.

  Donne took the gun out of the shoe box and checked to make sure it was properly cleaned and oiled. It was an old, unbreakable habit. Donne cleaned the gun w
eekly. He tucked it, loaded, into his jeans and headed back out the door. He locked it, unsure if he’d see the inside of the apartment again.

  ***

  Donne spent most of the drive to the nursing home thinking about the last time he had planned an ambush. He’d had an advantage then. He knew the layout of the land. He had a long-range weapon, cover, and backup on the way in the shape of his ex-partner.

  And he still ended up beaten to shit.

  This time he had no backup, no idea what the outlook was, just sheer determination. He didn’t like his odds.

  ***

  His mother was awake, but little else seemed to have improved. She lay motionless. The nurse in the hallway assured Donne that was normal and to take nothing from it, good or bad. Deep down, however, Donne knew his mother was going to be dead soon.

  He wondered if the shock of his sister’s screaming fit had jarred her spirits as well. As much as his sister had been through, as much as Franklin and he had been through, his mother had been through it too. The fact that she had little memory of it didn’t make it right. It somehow made it worse.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  She didn’t speak. She looked at him and her mouth curved. It may have been a smile, but was it recognition? Donne couldn’t be sure.

  The other day, he believed her soul was still inside her, that she knew what was going on, but that feeling went back and forth in his gut.

  Donne took her hand in his and squeezed it. She didn’t squeeze back.

  “Mom, I don’t know what you know. But some bad things have been going on in our family. People are probably going to die. Franklin has been kidnapped by Bryan Hackett. Do you remember Bryan, Mom? Your brother and sister-in-law adopted him. He’s pissed, and I’m not sure why.”

  “Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy saved me.”

  That didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t expect it to.

  Donne squeezed her hand again, almost as if he were keeping tempo, using it as a rest while he collected his thoughts.

  “I’m going to go get Franklin back, Mom. I have to.”

  Maybe he expected a reaction then, but still he got nothing. She gazed off into the distance, as if something was buried deep underneath the floral wallpaper that lined her room and she had to find it.

  “I don’t know why I have to keep doing this, Mom. But I feel like it all falls on me. Remember when Hackett pushed Susan? I’ve always had to protect her.”

  The words seemed to fade into the air. Maybe he was being overdramatic, but it had to be said. Donne needed to say it for himself. Like therapy almost, and better than a drink.

  “I might die today, Mom. A lot of us might.” He let the words sink in. Sweat had formed on his palm as he continued to hold her hand. “And I need you to know I love you. And I hope you still love me.”

  Taking a deep breath, he sat listening to the beep of a medical machine somewhere down the hall. Elsewhere a television showed the morning news.

  After a few minutes, he let go of her hand and left the room.

  ***

  Like always, Jackson had run off. He said he was going to visit Mom, but Susan was sure he was running away from their problems again.

  She had just finished writing the letter on Franklin’s behalf when the phone rang. She practiced Franklin’s signature one last time before answering. This version of the signature would fool the tellers for sure. When she lined the signatures up, they were exact.

  “Do you have the money?” Bryan Hackett said after she picked up the phone.

  Jason Marshall and Sam Draxton were in the living room still, while she sat in the kitchen. She glanced down the hallway. Both detectives were stirring in their seats, as if they were deciding whether or not to make their way to listen.

  “I can access it.”

  “Good. You need to put the cash in a bank account.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After all the bullshit, I’m guessing you had to borrow cash from your friends? Put it in one of your bank accounts. When you do that, call this number: 973-555-6777. Don’t try to trace it, it’s a pay phone.”

  “The money’s already in a bank account. We had that much in the restaurant account.” She liked that the words dripped from her mouth condescendingly.

  “You guys are very well off, aren’t you?” Hackett laughed. “Ah, not for much longer.”

  “I just want Franklin back.”

  “You’ll get him. Though I have to warn you, he’s a little worse for wear.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  The tension in her voice was enough to get the detectives moving. Draxton came through the door first, Marshall close behind. Both were silent, and when they made eye contact, it seemed like they communicated something to each other. Something Susan couldn’t understand.

  “I didn’t do much to him. But you see, he tried to escape and ended up falling down the stairs. I think his arm is broken. And it will probably get infected. So let’s get this over with, okay?”

  “You bastard. I can’t believe—”

  “Cut the shit, Susan. This is your family’s fault. And frankly, you’re getting off easy. No one’s going to die. And you certainly might take a hit in the wallet, but you won’t be so poor you have to leave the country. That’s what happened to my family, you bitch, and I want retribution.”

  Like he was some sort of remainder of a slave family. None of this could be changed, as much as she would have liked to, and now she was paying for it. If she had just kept her mouth shut years ago. If Franklin’s grandfather wasn’t involved with his family. And if only her family . . .

  And suddenly she remembered the story of her grandfather Joe Tenant. Her mother had told it to her when she was young. Susan realized her family had as much to do with this as Franklin’s and Hackett’s. Three families intertwined by time.

  All she could do now was pay up and pray it was over. “What do I need to do?”

  “I’m going to give you a bank account number. I want you to transfer the hundred grand into that account. Once the money is in my account, I’ll call you and tell you where to pick up your husband.”

  “I have your word?”

  There was a long pause on the other end. Then: “You do. Here’s the number.”

  Susan Carter took a deep breath and wrote the number down. It was almost over.

  The line went dead.

  “What did he say?” Marshall asked. She told him.

  “You don’t have to get the money in cash?”

  Susan shook her head behind her hands. She repeated the instructions word for word.

  Marshall put his hands on his hips. “He’s smarter than I thought. For sure, we expected him to go the old-fashioned route of cash in a dark parking lot.”

  Draxton didn’t say anything. It appeared to Susan he was thinking, letting the situation play out in front of him.

  Finally, he said, “This might help us. We can track the money a lot easier.”

  “No, this fucks everything up,” Marshall said. “He might not access it until long after he’s gone.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Susan said. “I’m transferring the money like he said. Then I’m getting my husband back.”

  Draxton nodded. He seemed pleased by this information. Marshall, however, looked tight and uncomfortable, sweat forming along his bald head.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you transfer that money.”

  “What are you talking about?” Draxton turned toward Marshall. The tall state trooper pulled a gun from his holster and shot Special Agent Sam Draxton. Draxton fell backward, spilling over a kitchen chair and splaying out against the wall. Dark red blood streamed from his chest.

  Marshall trained the gun on Susan.

  “I need you to get the cash. And you’re not giving it to Bryan Hackett.”

  1938

  Joe Tenant had contacts down on the docks. Most of the guys he worked with had some sort of connection to organized crime thro
ugh the unions. Tenant had even had to ask for a favor once or twice, only to repay it in the weeks ahead by looking the other way when some questionable items were off-loaded from ships.

  He made a few phone calls and talked to a few friends. Three of his friends knew of Willy Hackett, and the fourth knew he lived in a small apartment in North Bergen.

  The next day, as the newspapers ran the story, Tenant stood outside the apartment building, hands shaking, ready to end this ordeal. Crossing the street was easy, walking through the front door of the building was easy, but pressing the button to call the elevator, that was hard. Stepping through the double doors, he thought about the step he was taking. He wanted to know why, but after that he wanted this over.

  Even if it meant taking a step no man should ever have to take.

  The elevator dinged on the fourth floor and Joe Tenant stepped into the carpeted hallway. Willy Hackett’s apartment was the fifth door on the left. Banging his fist on the door, he hoped the man was actually home.

  “Who the hell is it?” The familiar Irish voice came from inside.

  “Open the door.”

  “Who the—”

  The door swung open and Willy Hackett stood in front of Joe Tenant. Tenant thought about taking the approach he’d taken with Connor O’Neill, but something different now coursed through Tenant’s veins.

  Fear.

  “You son of a bitch. I thought you fell off the face of the earth. Finally, I might add, my boy.”

  “Why?” Joe asked. “I just want to know why.”

  Before Joe could say anything else, Willy Hackett had him in a headlock and was dragging him into the apartment. The smell of fried fish struck Joe’s nose. His eyes watered as he struggled against Hackett’s grip. His heels slipped against a wood-tiled floor. His hands slipped off the fabric of Hackett’s shirt. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on the floor.

  “You want to know why?” Hackett bellowed. The Irish brogue was thick in his voice, phlegmy.

  Hackett lifted his boot and pressed it into Tenant’s throat. Struggling for air, Joe pawed at the boot, then tugged at Hackett’s pants leg. The apartment seemed to tumble in front of Joe’s eyes. The room was barren, one couch, a bookshelf, and an uncurtained window.