“That might be tough,” Felipe said. “Both pitchers are on the mark, tossing nothing but strikes for the most part. Only hits have been on mistake pitches.”
“You sound like you know the game pretty well,” the man said, offering Felipe some peanuts. “You play for your school team?”
“I’m in a league with some of my friends,” Felipe said. “Nothing too organized. Just some pickup games when we got enough of us to play a full nine.”
“What position?”
“That depends on what time I get there,” Felipe said. “If I’m early, I get the pick of what I want and that’s to pitch. If I’m late, they usually toss me behind the plate and keep me there till the end.”
The man sat back, the ground around his feet soon crowded with empty peanut shells, and focused on the game for a few batters. Felipe glanced at his hands, thick-skinned and scarred, a large, oval-shaped ring wedged onto his right pinky. They were the hands of a hitter, someone that would be comfortable in a brawl, content to let his skill and his zest for punishment decide the night’s outcome. His clothes were tailored and expensive, a sharp contrast to the man’s imposing physical presence. The overhead lights highlighted the white in his thick mound of hair and, when he turned to look at Felipe, the boy could see the ragged ends of thin scars that dotted the skin around his dark eyes. “You’re a new face to me,” he said to Felipe. “How long have you and the cop been friends?”
“Long enough for me to be here with you,” Felipe said, still not sure on what side of Lo Manto’s fence the man next to him fell.
“Relax, little man,” he said. “Me and you are on the same team with this one. If you got any worries, don’t let them come from my end. Me and your cop pal go back decades, not days.”
“I figure you for a friend,” Felipe said. “I don’t think he’d put me next to you if it was the other way. Still, it’s always better to go in the water one step at a time.”
“I don’t blame you there,” the man said. “It’s worth the dough you pay to be careful. But for now, there’s nothing for us to do but kick back and watch the game. In a bit, I’ll get up and hit the head. When I come back, I’ll have a few things with me. I’ll leave them on the chair and be on my way. With any luck, that’s about as exciting as our night together is gonna get.”
Felipe nodded and smiled. “You throw a Mets win into that mix and I’ll sleep happy tonight.”
Tony Collins and Rock Pullman, two Camorra gunmen, waited in the walkway leading to section 421A, watching Frank Silvestri talking to the Hispanic kid next to him as if he didn’t have any cares. They were assigned to ride tail on Silvestri, check on his moves and motives, and take him only if and when an opening allowed them to make a clean break. The word down from their boss was that it would score them higher points with the don they had never met if they could come back with some positive information that would pin a traitor tag on Silvestri. They had been on him for two days, but so far had detected nothing that would give off any such indication.
“You sure you heard right?” Collins asked. He was in his mid-thirties, an Italian by birth who had been adopted and then abandoned by the elderly couple who found the troubled child too difficult a burden to carry. He was raised in the States by a Camorra crew boss who used the boy’s taste for violence to the advantage of the family. “This guy’s doing a flip on the crew?”
“That’s the impression I was given,” Pullman said with a slight stutter. He was younger, stronger, and much more dangerous than his partner, quick to flare and even quicker to draw a gun and empty the barrel. He had been in the business less than three years, after he had bailed Collins out of a setup in a downtown dance club. The move, made more out of instinct than any sense of honor, resulted in the shooting death of two low-level drug dealers and a high five-figure offer to follow Camorra instructions. So long as those instructions involved someone taking a bullet, Rock Pullman was a happy man.
“So, how do you explain him going to a ball game with a spic from the Bronx?” Collins asked, ignoring the screams of the crowd for a Mets rally.
“It’s not my job to explain where this old sandhog goes,” Pullman said with a shrug. “We just need to figure out his game plan. This thing with him and the kid might just be a night at a ballpark. If so, we waste a few hours, nothing more.”
“That were so, he would have come with the kid,” Collins said. “Not just show up four innings into the game. Ain’t like he’s coming from a job or anything. The guy was in a bar up until he got in his car and hit the highway.”
“Maybe the kid’s a safe way to either make a drop or a pickup,” Pullman said. “Of what is what I can’t figure.”
“Whatever it is, it’s something,” Collins said. “None of it, the ballpark, him with the kid, don’t feel right to me.”
“You ask me, we waste this old fuck right here, tonight,” Pullman said. “We’ll never get a better setup than what’s in front of us now. Everybody, left and right, up and down the entire ballpark, will do nothing but panic. We make the hit and then just walk out, like nothing happened. We do that and we score points in a big way and maybe finally get noticed for the work we do.”
“They wanted us to pop him, they would have made it clear,” Collins said. “But if they said a word about it, they didn’t spread it out my way.”
“This guy’s going to take some heavy slugs,” Pullman said. “We wouldn’t be on his tail if it wasn’t so. It’s just down to a question of who and when. Let’s make it tonight.”
“And what happens if that’s the wrong move for us to make?” Collins asked. He stopped a beer vendor and overpaid for two large containers that seemed to be all foam and no brew. “Which parts of the city you want your bones buried in?”
“This guy was a made crew boss long before you and me were born,” Pullman said, reaching for one of the containers. “Taking out a somebody like him is how reputations are made. And no matter what else happens, bringing him down and dealing with all the shit that might follow is a whole lot better way to go than being sent out as errand boys.”
Collins drank his beer, looked out at the vast ballpark, the sounds of the hometown crowd ringing in his ears, and weighed his options. He knew the wiser move was to do as they were told, follow Silvestri, note his contacts and venues, and report back. The riskier call was to do what had not been asked, bring down a Camorra boss they already suspected of being on the endangered list. Collins realized such a move would be seen as either forceful and brilliant or reckless and foolish and it was now on his shoulders to decide which way to go. He downed the last of his beer and tossed the empty container to the hard ground at his feet.
“Let’s waste this old fuck.”
Silvestri wiped shell dust from his black button-down shirt and jacket and ran a hand across the front of his mouth. He looked over at Felipe, the boy totally engrossed in the give and get of a tie ball game. He envied the kid his youth and his freedom, his ability to get lost in something as mundane as baseball, millions of miles removed from the worries of the criminal life. He had heard enough about Felipe to know the boy had a firm handle on most of what came his way, had been steeled against the hard rules of daily life, and had learned to disguise his fears. He knew how to handle trouble and had learned to think on his feet and let the moment dictate his motions. Frank Silvestri looked at Felipe and saw the same fierce gaze that he saw in Lo Manto when the cop was that age. It was a look that signaled both determination and an unwillingness to cave in to any danger tossed in his path. It was a look that grew out of the harsh lessons of street life and the pain of personal loss. And now it was time to put all those lessons to good use.
“I was supposed to hand you an envelope wrapped in a Mets jacket,” Silvestri told Felipe, both standing now during the seventh-inning stretch. “You’re going to have to settle for just the envelope. I don’t have the time to get you the jacket. I have to make my move before then.”
Felipe looked at Silvest
ri and then at the faces that stood gathered around their section. They were either men in jackets and ties rushing to a game after a long day at a crazed office or fathers with their sons, both wearing gloves and hats, eager for a foul ball to come their way. The rest were senior citizens, grateful for a night away from the lonely sounds of an empty apartment. None of them looked like shooters out for a kill.
“You need me to come with you?” Felipe asked. “Maybe I could help.”
Silvestri shook his head and followed it with a chuckle. “Lo Manto said you had the cubes,” he told the boy. “I appreciate it, but the day comes I can’t handle two would-bes, then they earned the right to put me down.”
“They followed you into the game?” Felipe asked.
“I didn’t see them at first,” Silvestri said. “Caught a glimpse when that little guy from short hit a home run. They’re down to my left, waiting in the walkway.”
“What do you want me to do?” Felipe asked. He watched as Silvestri pulled a long yellow envelope from deep inside his jacket pocket.
“Lo Manto needs to see this,” he told the boy, and handed him the envelope. “Make sure that he does.”
“What about you?” Felipe asked, watching as Silvestri buttoned his jacket and began a slow walk up the concrete steps. “What are you going to do?”
Frank Silvestri turned back to Felipe and gave the boy a wink and a smile. “What I was born to do,” he said.
Silvestri sidestepped a young couple holding hands, the girl’s head at rest on her boyfriend’s chest, both holding a beer, alone in a crowd of thirty thousand. He was moving to his right, heading toward home plate, looking to get out of the stadium and into the parking lot, where the darkness and the rows of cars played more to his hand. He didn’t need to turn around to know the two ghosts were on his tail, following him as close as they could, still deciding when to make their move. Even if they succeeded in putting him down and ending his venerable Camorra run, Silvestri knew they would not last long in the dark life.
Silvestri walked down a garbage-littered ramp, heading for the Gate A exit. He moved slowly, looking to anticipate what lay ahead, the options that made the most sense. Even though he had been at this dance so many times across so many years, the adrenaline rush still felt fresh, his body coiled but relaxed, ready to pounce in any direction, his mind cleared of all clutter, free only to thoughts of a kill. Silvestri had been a crime boss for more years than he could count, and normally such a time away from the down and nasty would work to weaken his actions. But at heart, he was a street soldier, his instincts better suited to a fight in an empty parking lot than to the walls of a sterile conference room.
Silvestri was walking down the center aisle of parking area A2 when the first bullet zipped past him and shattered the windshield of a black Ford Explorer. He pulled a .38 from his hip holster and rolled to the ground with the agility of a man half his age. He came up on one knee, his gun hand poised over the hood of a steel gray Honda Accord, staring out into the neon darkness, listening for the slightest sound that would tip off the location of the shooters. He controlled his breathing, the noise from the ballpark reduced to background, waiting for the one small mistake that would dictate the flight of his first bullet.
The sneaker skid came to his left, beside a battered light pole, between a blue van and a dented station wagon. He turned his hand, held his gaze steady, and fired off two rounds, then waited for the grunt that soon followed. Silvestri leaned against the side of the Honda and rested his head on the tin door, his eyes closed, as relaxed and at ease as if he were on a family picnic. This was the only way he could imagine to face death. He figured the second shooter to be crouched down somewhere, nervous, confused as to what his next move should be. It was the advantage of age over inexperience, and Frank Silvestri was going to play that hand straight through to the end.
He opened his eyes when he felt the hard end of the nine-millimeter press against his right temple.
“You should have waited until we were both dead before you go off and take a break,” Rock Pullman said. He was leaning down, body reeking of cold sweat and stale beer, breathing heavy, right leg twitching beyond his control. “I guess that sort of shit happens when you get to be as gray in the beard as you.”
“What do you and your bleeding friend over there expect to pick up by doing this?” Silvestri asked. “It’s not that I really give a fuck, just curious is all.”
“You know how it plays,” Pullman said. “We take out a top player like you, we score a few points. You score points, they give you more time in the game. Before you know it, you’re the one sitting on top snapping out the orders.”
Silvestri laughed and rested a hand across his left knee. “You can kill me,” he said, “and you can go out and then kill ten more just like me. Even twenty. Won’t mean shit. The closest a low-end skel like you is ever going to come to a boss is if one decides to pay his respects at your wake. Other than that, the pope has a better shot at becoming a made boss than you.”
“Maybe that’s true,” Pullman said. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough. But at least I had the goods to take you out of service.”
“Somebody had to,” Frank Silvestri said.
He shifted his head and gazed up at an ocean blue sky crammed with stars. Behind him a loud roar came out of the park, echoing off the empty cars and into the darkness of the Queens night. “Sounds like they won,” he said. “It’s good to go out with a win.”
Rock Pullman planted his feet and fired three bullets into Frank Silvestri’s head, the first close-contact hit killing the career criminal in an instant. Pullman took a step back and watched as the old man’s body jolted to the right, his face landing against a front tire. He stepped over Silvestri’s body, jammed his hot gun back into the rear of his dirty brown jeans, and ran across the parking lot. He found Tony Collins leaning on the front bumper of a late-model sedan, blood running down the side of one leg. “You good enough to walk to the car?” Pullman asked, gazing down at the wound. “I can give you a hand, you need it.”
“How far away you figure the car is?” Collins asked, his face lit with sweat.
“Not much more than a mile,” Pullman said. “If we go out through the open gate down this side and jump the divider and head toward the Boulevard it might save us some time and you a little bit of pain.”
“Let’s get it done, then,” Collins said. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can get this leg looked after. Maybe even find a doctor willing to yank the bullet out.”
“I know a guy runs a clinic in Jamaica,” Pullman said. “I got his card somewhere on me. I’ll throw him a call and see if he’ll help bail us.”
“He a real doctor?” Collins asked, starting to limp alongside Pullman, both heading for the open gate leading out toward Grand Central Parkway. “Or one of those Indian guys with a matchbook degree?”
“Does it really matter where the fuck he went to school?” Pullman asked, heavy anger in his voice. “All that counts is that he takes the freaking bullet out.”
They moved past the row of darkened cars, overhead lights casting a circular glow on their path, the stadium behind them shining and rocking as if it fell from the sky. With each tender step, Collins left behind a dotted blood trail, the sharp pain from the bullet that penetrated his shin running up his leg and causing his body to shiver despite the heavy heat of the night. Pullman dragged him along, less out of friendship and more with an urgency spun from the knowledge that someone who left the game early was bound to have heard the shots and alerted stadium security.
They were about fifty feet from the chain-link fence, its twin gates open wide, when they spotted the unmarked car.
It was parked parallel to the road, the figure of a man standing alongside the front end of the vehicle. “Who the hell is that?” Collins asked, squinting his eyes to get a better look.
“Too early for the cops,” Pullman said. “They don’t show until the crowds start to build. A
nd they’re usually in black-and-whites. Could just be a guy waiting for one of his friends. We’ll know as much as we need to know when we get closer.”
“Keep your gun handy, just in case,” Collins said. “We took our one big chance tonight by whacking a made guy. Now’s not the time for us to go and get careless.”
“Maybe we should take him anyway, no matter why he’s here,” Pullman said. “Whether bystander or trouble, we drop him, we take his car, and motor our ass right out the gate.”
“We already got us a car,” Collins said, his voice a low rasp, his face pasty white. “All we need to do is get to it.”
“And at the rate you’re moving, that could be by tomorrow’s first pitch,” Pullman said. “By the time we get to it, who the hell knows how many cops will be here. And none of them need to be Batman and Robin to follow that blood trail you’re leaving behind.”
“Us killing that old-timer might go over good with the bosses,” Collins said. “We don’t know for sure, but at least there’s a chance. This other guy you want to drop turns out to be a civilian, they’ll only see it as trouble, and that won’t be good for either one of us.”
“Then keep your trap shut and only cop to the one drop that works in our favor,” Pullman said. “Either that or stand here and bleed to death. Your life, your call.”
They were about twenty feet from the man and could start to make out his features. He was standing on the far side of his car, his hands on the roof, down flat, eyes glaring in their direction. He hadn’t moved since they first made the spot. “We could use some help here,” Pullman shouted out to the man. “You got a minute? My friend tripped down one of the escalators and hurt his leg. It’s bleeding pretty bad. I think he’s going to need a few stitches.”