Malice Times Read online

  MALICE TIMES

  VINCENT MASSARO

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Vincent Massaro

  All rights reserved.

  First ebook edition, 2019

  Visit at: www.facebook.com/VincentMassaroJr/

  Cover Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash

  For my wife Mary Beth

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I love to write and create stories. To do that takes a lot of support, love and prodding from many people. I want to first thank my beautiful wife, Mary Beth, whose encouragement, confidence and love is never-ending. Her dedication to this project was matched only by my own. She was the first to read and edit Malice Times. This book is quite a bit different and better because of it. I would like to thank Matt Cesario, who did the last edit and polished off those final hard edges. Matt did it better than anyone. I’d also like to thank his wife, Amy, and his children, Elizabeth, Robin and Katie, for sparing his time to edit this book. I would like to thank my parents. Finally, without the love and joy that my children, Elizabeth, Samuel and Luca, provide me every day, I don’t know that I could have done this.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  About the Author

  1

  The phone rang. It was just after midnight and another sleepless night loomed. I fingered the scar tissue in the shape of a bullet hole in my right shoulder. I had become a minor celebrity for being in the right place at the wrong time. My fame was fleeting in the face of the O.J. news cycle, which suited me fine. That was months ago and I still hadn’t been able to go back to work. I got a bullet in the shoulder and a little money, which was running out. Most days, I stayed home drinking.

  The pain dulled as each shot of tequila burned down my throat. My favorite movie, The Thin Man starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, was playing on my small television. I was in the middle of drinking with Nick and Nora Charles. It was one of my happy places. The phone on the table rang again. I reached for the tequila bottle and poured another shot.

  Nothing good ever happened after midnight, I told myself, as the phone rang once more. With an irritated sigh, I put my glass down on the face of O.J. Simpson, with the headline, “They Don’t Fit,” and picked up the phone.

  “What?” I asked into the receiver.

  “Hello brother.” A voice spoke out at me from the echoes of my past. I hadn’t spoken to my brother or anyone else in Malice Grove in over ten years. Transported through time, the smell of cheap cigar smoke intermingled with spilt whiskey filled my nostrils. Michael and I were never the closest of brothers. Using only one word to describe my brother, I would choose bizarre. He probably preferred eccentric. They always do. As a small child he kept a roach as a pet. He called the roach Malice after our hometown of Malice Grove. He kept it in one of those plastic cages made for hamsters with a little running wheel. A damn wheel for a roach. Malice never ran the wheel. It would just scurry about and make everyone very uncomfortable, but he loved that damn bug as much as a kid would love his dog. When Malice died six months later, there was a funeral. Michael gave a fitting eulogy. “Poor Malice, he died from death.” There was a little bit of sociopath in him.

  I spent days and nights dreaming of the day that I would leave Malice Grove forever, but I loved that little weirdo despite all of his eccentricities. When I was a junior in high school and he was a freshman, there was this kid in my class who was a world class bully. His name was Freddie Marks.

  On a rather dull and dreary day he decided to pick on Michael. Michael was wearing a baseball cap. Michael typically wasn’t one to wear ball caps, but he had taken it out of my room during one of his brief bouts of hero-worship. He had not yet learned that his older brother wasn’t nearly as cool as he or I imagined. One thing I could do rather easily despite my lack of cool was kick Freddie Marks’ ass. Most kids didn’t mess with the Marchello brothers. Everyone in town either worked for my father or needed his business and influence. Most kids were told to stay away. Freddie wasn’t particularly bright or maybe his parents weren’t particularly bright. Probably a little of both. Stupid begets stupid.

  Freddie took the cap and held it over my brother’s head. Michael was vertically challenged. They were standing at the top of a raised area outside the school and Freddie flung the hat over the railing and onto the blacktop of the parking lot twenty feet below. My brother flipped and swung at Freddie. Freddie pushed him to the ground. Before he could kick Michael in the side as he laid on the ground, I flung Freddie to the ground. Straddling poor Freddie, I gave him a couple shots to the face and got up. Freddie picked himself up off the ground, slobbering all over himself screaming how he was going to tell the principal. I grabbed the little jerk and tossed him over the railing. He plunged to the blacktop below. Fortunately, the hat broke his fall. He only broke a leg and an arm.

  After it was all said and done, I didn’t get suspended or detention, didn’t even have to apologize. My father’s influence reached very far and my father was very proud of me for protecting the family. It wasn’t the last time I kicked Freddie Marks’ ass either. Hey, if you can get away with it, right? It helped with my anger control problem. Any time I felt really angry over anything I would just go beat the hell out of Freddie. If my dad tore into me about something that morning, I’d just go kick Freddie’s ass. A girl I liked started dating another guy, kick Freddie’s ass. Remington Steele didn’t have a new episode on the previous night, kick Freddie’s ass. It really was a miracle that Freddie survived high school. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he ended up hanging himself in a closet. Perhaps, he is still sitting in his bedroom cowering in a corner or constantly looking over his shoulder. No big loss. So maybe my brother wasn’t the only sociopath. Maybe sociopath begets sociopath, too.

  “Joe,” my brother said. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. Years had melted away since the last time I heard that voice. He had been sixteen at the time. I had been eighteen. He again said my name as if it were an echo. My body tensed and I picked up the shot of tequila. My body relaxed as the golden liquid trickled down my throat.

  “Michael,” I managed to say at last.

  “Father doesn’t know that I am calling you, if that is your concern.”

  “I really couldn’t care less,” I said.

  “We both know that’s not true.” I could almost see that smirk on his face that made everyone around him so very uncomfortable.

  “What the hell do you want?” I asked tired of the conversation already.

  “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I was watching the news one night to get the latest scoop on the O.J. trial and there you were as big as the noonday sun
. My big brother, with the name Joe March. A hero, too. My brother, the hero.”

  “So, this is a social call?” I asked. “Just to catch up on old times? I haven’t been in touch with any of you for a decade. That should have given you a hint that I am not all that interested in keeping in touch. Besides, that all happened six months ago. Good-bye, Michael.”

  “I need you to be my hero now, Joe, just like you were when I was growing up. Someone is trying to kill me.” I had hesitated in hanging up. Why had I hesitated? I tried to will myself to hang up the phone, but the receiver stuck to my ear like it had been sown to the side of my head.

  “Trying to kill you? That seems like a problem for the police, not a long-lost brother.”

  “We both know that the police in this town don’t give a damn about uncovering crimes,” he said. “Only in covering them up.”

  “How do you think I can help you?” I regretted it as soon as the words slipped through my lips, but he had hit all the right chords. Guilt, heroism and desperation. Besides, I was so incredibly bored and running short on money.

  “When I first saw that news report, I filed it away. I thought I could take care of things myself, but it has all gone a bit sideways on me and I’m not really sure how to get them right.” The fear in his voice filled my head. I closed my eyes knowing that sleep would never come that night.

  “And you say someone is trying to kill you?”

  “Well, I don’t really know that. It is just a feeling. A feeling like I am in real danger.”

  “Why would you be in real danger?”

  “I have, shall we say, done some not so nice things.” He hesitated. I didn’t offer any relief. The wheels in his head were turning. I waited for him to continue. “I haven’t been a very good person. I want to set everything right, but I fear it might be too late. I thought if you could come here and meet me and we could sit down and talk, perhaps you could advise me on how to make things right.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it over the phone, Joe. It is really quite embarrassing. I just thought that since you are still out of commission and have some free time, you might want something to fill your time. I know it’ll be hard for you coming back here. I do not ask this of you lightly. Father will be difficult, I know.”

  “And Rae,” I said to myself.

  “And Rae. Although, you may be able to avoid her and perhaps father, too. You may be able to help me from the sidelines. No one need know you are here.”

  “I always hated the way you talked. Why can’t you talk normally?”

  There was silence for a moment. “This is normal for me.”

  I could tell I hurt him, but I was too tired or too drunk to care. “Why not just tell me about it on the phone? I can just as easily help you from the sidelines here.”

  “I don’t think that is prudent,” he said. “Please, Joe, I really need you.”

  I knew I would be going back as soon as he had told me that he needed me to be his hero again. No one could resist that from their little brother. The rest had just been window dressing. Add a dash of guilt with heroism and boredom and you have a recipe for disaster.

  2

  My Jeep plowed toward its destination enveloped in a blanket of darkness and fog. The dim glow of lights ahead signaled the small town of Malice Grove. It wasn’t too late to turn the Jeep around. My gut and head were screaming obscenities into the night. The fog blew them back into my face. A cold shiver ran up my spine as I drove past the sign signaling entrance into Malice Grove.

  Fear slithered through my brain like a snake through tall grass. Malice Grove was built on prohibition and it continued to live there. The Marchello and Dempsey families have been there since the beginning. Once partners, now competitors. By extension, the town became something of a haven for criminals looking for work or just passing through. This led to a small network of places dedicated to the vices of those kinds of men. Horse racing, small gambling rooms, prostitution, dog fighting, loansharking and the Marchello and Dempsey families either operated them or staked the money. And if you owned something that was staked by the Marchello or Dempsey family, you didn’t really own it.

  I pulled the Jeep up in front of the place Michael and I had agreed to meet. The green canvas awning of the bar that I had known since I was a child was weathered and faded. “The Grove” splashed in block lettering across the green canvas, the letters no longer white, but a dingy gray.

  I stared back across Main Street to the beach and the lake beyond. No moon hung in the sky. Darkness obscured the lake and the fog drifted through town. The softly lapping sounds of waves rolled gently against the shoreline. The sound calmed me for a moment. Music drifted down from a newer structure at the end of a long pier that jutted out into the lake a couple blocks down Main Street. Lights burned through the fog. I took a deep breath of the hot summer air and imagined the moments lost on the beach with Rae Dempsey. Guilt crept inside me. I pushed it down and walked into The Grove.

  A hairy man stood behind the bar reading a magazine. A thin haze of smoke hung in the air like a tiny storm cloud. The bar was empty save a couple who sat in a corner booth, cigarettes burning between their fingers. The bartender looked up from his magazine to see who dared to interrupt his peaceful night. A cigarette stuck to plump, chapped lips. The man squinted in my direction searching my face for recognition. I could tell he knew the face, but just couldn’t quite place it. He sucked some smoke out of the cigarette, then he peeled it off his bottom lip and placed it in an ashtray sitting in front of him. I looked around the bar to see if my brother was hiding somewhere out of sight, but he wasn’t there.

  I located a pay phone down a hallway leading to the restrooms and called my brother. It rang and rang and went to an answering machine. Now, there’s some great news. My stomach did a little flip as I left a message. I heard a little gasp from the bar. When I came back around the corner the hairy bartender’s eyes bore into me. He didn’t seem the sort prone to gasp.

  “You know who I am?”

  He nodded. Great conversationalist.

  “Then you know my brother?”

  “I do,” said a voice behind me. At first, I thought it was the male of the couple who were hiding in the corner, but they were gone.

  I turned to see a tall slender young man standing in the doorway. He was draped in a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and black pants. The thin black tie reached too long down his thin body. His skin was pale white. Deep blue eyes peered out from beneath the bill of a baseball cap set over light brown hair. He wore black leather driving gloves. He looked very much like a real life vampire.

  “A lot of people know my brother. Which one of them are you?” I asked.

  “I’d be the one who found you.” With that accent there should be a cowboy hat perched upon his head instead of a faded blue baseball cap.

  “He found me on the news, Tex.”

  “He saw you on the news. I located your address and phone number, being that it was unlisted.”

  “So where is he?”

  “He not here yet?” It struck me then that this was a very dangerous young man. His eyes were fixed on mine. They didn’t dart around. His gaze never wavered. The vampire comparison kept lurking in the back of my mind. He licked his lips almost for effect.

  “Unless he’s hiding beneath one of those tables.”

  “That’s odd.” With that he slinked over to the bar and sat down. The bartender had already put a drink in front of him and the young man took a sip. I walked over and sat down a couple of stools away. His gaze fixed on me again and he smiled. The smile bared fangs. Did I say fangs? Vampires were on my mind. He moved over one stool to sit next to me. I wondered why Michael needed me when he had a friend like this.

  “The legal drinking age is twenty-one in this state, Tex,” I said. He raised the drink to his lips and took another sip. “So, you work for my brother?”

  “No,” he said laughing. “I just
did him a little favor is all.”

  “Do you often do favors for him?”

  “Your brother is a right nice guy.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said.

  “I suppose he's not. Well, anyway, he asked me to find you and I obliged.”

  “You obliged? I see. And you just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

  “No,” he said. “I just wanted to see what all the hubbub was about.”

  “Hubbub?”

  “Hubbub.”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem as though Michael is coming.”

  “I got to tell ya, I kinda expected him to be sitting here waiting for you all day. The fact that he isn’t here doesn’t sit right with me.”

  My feeling of worry ratcheted up to fear. Michael had been scared. There was no way he’d be late for this meeting. It’d be perfectly natural for me to be late. I had to drive a long way and even I was only ten minutes late.

  “I can’t say it sits right with me either.” I turned to the bartender. “Has my brother been in here tonight?”

  He shook his head in the negative. The cigarette came precariously close to being flung to the side, but it stayed pinned to his lip.

  “Take me to my brother’s apartment, Tex,” I said to the young man.

  “The name is Joshua and I’m not from Texas.” He got up and walked towards and through the door as I followed. He walked to a brand new 1995 black Lexus LS. He started the engine and rolled the passenger side window down.

  “Nice car.” I leaned in through the window.

  “Get in.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  I didn’t want to leave my Jeep and the thought of riding in the same car as Joshua made my skin crawl.

  “Suit yourself. This is your rodeo.”

  He rolled up his window. I didn’t want this to be my rodeo. I wanted to be at home watching a movie, drinking tequila and passing out.

  I climbed into my Jeep and followed the brand-new black Lexus owned by the very young man with the Texas accent. Through the fog I heard the lapping of the waves against the shore and the screeching of sea gulls. Even that didn’t calm my nerves. I reached into my glove box and pulled out my gun and placed it on the passenger seat next to me.