Full Tilt (Rock Star Chronicles) Read online

  “Yeah, well, you wanna know what Scripture comes to my mind?” He leaned his elbows on his knees. “The one you just read on the ridge. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, pray for them.” He stared at her.

  “I know.” She shifted in her chair. “I know what it says—”

  “What good are we doing if we only love the lovable?”

  “I get your point, okay? I’m just frustrated. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I don’t want to argue.”

  “I’m frustrated, too!” He clenched his fists. “I’m torn between loving these people and wanting to rip their heads off.”

  Karen sighed and dropped her forehead into her hands as she leaned on the table. “I’m bitter about Millie…I’m shocked Wes would pull a gun…I’m thinking about the baby Jesus…” She began to sob. “I’m just so mixed up.”

  Everett knelt beside her and put his arm around her shoulders, knowing, too, that she was saddled with the sorrow of infertility. “I’m sorry, hon. Sorry about everything.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I love you so much.”

  “We’ve got to pray, Ev.” She cried. “I just don’t have the answers. Back when I wrote those letters to you, it was different somehow. I had faith you were gonna be saved.”

  “I know, but the results are in His hands. We just have to be obedient and share His love—almost blindly.”

  “You’re right.” Karen nodded with her eyes closed. “You’re teaching me now.” She took in his face. “You’ve grown so much—”

  The phone rang. Everett remained there for two rings, then eased up, kissed her forehead, and went to the granite-top desk that was built into the wall of the kitchen.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi…Uncle Everett?”

  “Madison?”

  Karen looked over, wiping her tears with the sleeves of her sweater.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Um, is Aunt Karen there by any chance?”

  “She is. Hold on.” He covered the phone while Karen got a Kleenex and blew her nose. Then he handed her the phone, squeezed the back of her neck, and picked up his mug.

  “Madison…hi.” Karen headed for the family room with the phone, sounding congested. “Of course I’ve got a second…”

  Everett was petting Rosey when Karen rushed back into the room, snapping her fingers.

  “Uh-oh.” She eyed Everett. “Which hospital?”

  Everett mouthed the word Eddie? but Karen shook her head.

  “Okay, I know where it is,” she said. “Of course I can come. Are your mom and dad there?” Karen paused, then frowned. “Well, you keep trying him and we will, too. We can be there right away. And honey, we’ll be praying.” She turned the phone off.

  “Wesley?” Everett asked.

  “Yep.” She clasped Everett’s hands. “He’s okay, but he’s been shot in the wrist. He and some friends were at a shooting range. It was an accident. The bullet went right through, missed the bone completely. He’s gonna make it.”

  “Oh, man…what about Eddie?”

  “They can’t find him. Can’t reach him by phone. Don’t know where he is. Sheila’s at the hospital.”

  “We better get down there.”

  “Who knows,” she started for her coat, “maybe this is the beginning of the answer to our prayers.”

  Forty minutes later, Karen rubbed Madison’s back as they sat next to Wesley’s hospital bed on the second floor of White Plains Hospital Center. Everett stood nearby, his arms crossed, and his energy sapped from the recent emotional upheaval. The room was still and dark except for the fluorescent light that glowed and hummed ever-so-quietly beneath some dark cabinets over by the sink.

  As he slept, dark shadows filled Wesley’s deep eye sockets and accentuated the hollow cheekbones on his ashen face. Sheila had fallen asleep with her head back in the chair next to the bed. Her nose was red and her mascara was slightly smeared. She clutched a box of tissues in her lap.

  “The doctors said it was painful,” Madison whispered. “He’s been on an IV since they brought him to the room.”

  Everett noticed the white gauze wrap that covered about four inches of Wesley’s wrist. “His hand and arm look pretty good.”

  “Both sides have started to bruise where the bullet went in and out.” Madison’s whole body relaxed and she seemed to breathe easier.

  “We couldn’t reach your dad,” Karen said.

  “I know. I tried him again just before you got here… Whatever.”

  “So,” Everett gestured to Wesley, “they were at a shooting range?”

  “Yeah.” Madison turned to Karen. “He was with that Tony guy I told you about. And another guy. A gun jammed. Wes and Tony were working on it at the same time, and it went off. The owner called 911.”

  “Were the police involved?” Karen asked.

  “No,” she checked her mom and lowered her voice, “but the doctors did tests. They told my mom meth was in his system.”

  Karen shot Everett a glance. “Has the doctor informed the police yet?”

  “She already did. But they told her that, because the guys are adults and the shooting was an accident—and no meth was found at the scene—they couldn’t do anything…”

  “The cops around here are overwhelmed,” Everett said.

  “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” Somebody tapped on the door, and Madison went to answer it. “Sometimes I think it might help if Wesley got thrown in jail for a spell.”

  She opened the door slightly. Everett heard a low male voice on the other side. Madison conversed with whoever it was for several moments; then she shut the door gently and turned back into the room, wide-eyed.

  “That was Tony Badino’s father. He got a call from someone,” Madison said. “There was some confusion. He thought his son had been shot. The nurses told him about Wesley, and he recognized our last name—”

  Badino… “Wait a minute.” Everett ran a hand through his hair, took several steps toward the door, and stopped. “Who’s Tony Badino?”

  “The guy Wesley’s been hanging out with,” Madison said. “The crazy one.”

  “I told you,” Karen added. “He was with Wesley the night, you know…at our house.”

  Everett shook his head, trying to clear the haze.

  It can’t be. “You didn’t say his name was Badino.” He headed for the door.

  “Why?” Karen followed. “What’s going on, Ev?”

  He opened the door and stuck his head into the light of the hallway, looking to his left. Empty.

  “Well, well,” came a deep voice from the other direction, “if it ain’t the world-famous rock star. I had a feelin’ you’d be here.”

  Everett turned the other way to face the finely dressed Dominic Badino and his two dark henchmen. He leaned back into the room and said to Karen, “I’ll be right back. Sit tight.”

  “What’s going on?” Karen insisted.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. Be cool.”

  Everett went into the hallway. It was all clear except for the Sopranos.

  “Madison’s a fine-looking young woman,” Badino remarked from behind charcoal-tinted glasses. “Is your nephew all right?”

  Everett’s jaw tightened and his fist clenched. His impulse was to hammer the captain, but he rethought it when he sized up the tall and short guys wearing black raincoats, whom he recognized from Pappano’s. “He’s going to make it,” Everett managed.

  “I got a false alarm about my boy.” He turned to his bodyguards, who were both on cell phones. “At least we think it was a false alarm. We’re still puttin’ the pieces together. Sounds like it was an accident. I can’t get ahold of my boy. The little—”

  “I didn’t realize Wesley was friends with your son.”

  “Tony’s been runnin’ with your nephew for a while.” Badino laughed. “Gotta keep track of these things, Mr. Lester. By the way, I hear your brother’s on a winning streak.”

  Everett heard the words, but they didn’t registe
r. “What do you mean?”

  The short, wiry, older wiseguy interrupted. “Excuse me, Mr. B. I finally got Mrs. Badino. The boy’s fine. He’s been in touch with her. Everything’s okay. He’s got his phone back on when you’re ready to speak ta him.”

  “Okay, Rocko. I’ll talk to him in a minute.”

  “What were you saying about Eddie?” asked Everett. “The winning streak?”

  “You don’t know?” Badino smirked. “I’m tellin’ ya, your brother’s got the fever, and when that happens there’s no truth. No truth. You can’t believe anythin’ he tells you.” Badino chuckled. “Not that it bothers me. If your brother’s bettin’, we’re ultimately makin’ money.”

  Everett was sick of this big talker. “Would you just tell me what he’s doing?”

  “You gave your brother twenty grand to finish off his debt with us, right?”

  Everett nodded.

  “He bet it.” Badino took pleasure dropping the nuke. “Mike said he placed the bet while you were waitin’ in the car for him last Saturday. Talk about dirty pool.”

  Everett’s face burned. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands.

  “He won that night.” Badino brushed some lint off his coat. “Ohio State over Michigan. So he was up twenty grand. ’Course, he bet it all Sunday and won on the Giants; up forty. Then he took the Raiders in the afternoon and won that. Up eighty. That’s the last I heard.”

  Everett was cold to the core. He cupped his hands to his mouth and blew into them. “Mr. Badino, I’ve tried to help Eddie. I’ve offered to put him in residential treatment. He won’t go—”

  “’Course he won’t. He’s full tilt. I told you that.”

  “But what I’m saying is, you can’t hold me responsible for his behavior—or my family.”

  Rocko’s eye’s flared as he made for Everett. “How dare you…” But Badino raised a thick arm, stopping the little maniac with the back of his pudgy hand.

  “Don’t you dare tell me what I can and cannot do.” Badino’s mouth barely opened as his small black eyes met Everett’s. “This is like havin’ a child who vandalizes, Mr. Lester. If that pipsqueak can’t pay for the damage he does—his parents will. And we’re lookin’ at you like his parent, you and Karen. Unless, of course, you want us to approach his real mother, Doris, who I happen to know is very sick with emphysema in northeast Ohio. Now, that wouldn’t be a very pleasant visit—”

  All sound faded and everything seared white in Everett’s head. He tore into Badino, whipping him around by the lapels of his coat. “Leave my mother out of this. And my wife!”

  Rocko’s knee slammed Everett’s groin, and he groaned as he collapsed with his head down to his knees.

  The door to Wesley’s room swung open. Karen was in the hallway. “Leave him alone. Help! Somebody!”

  The tall bodyguard swung Karen around and clapped a big hand over her mouth. Her eyes were huge as he muffled her screams. Everett lunged at the goon, ripping his arm away from Karen’s mouth, and jacking him with a right hook to the side of his face.

  “Heeeeelp!” Karen squirmed away.

  Madison was in the hallway now, running in the direction of the nurses’ station.

  The goon was about to bash Everett. “Why, you miserable—”

  “Enough!” Badino barked. “Outta here—now.”

  The dude rammed Everett into the wall, and he crumpled to the ground. The three men regrouped and headed toward the dark end of the hallway.

  “As long as your brother keeps betting,” Badino seethed as he walked backward, while the goons jogged toward the exit, “we’re gonna be an intimate part of your life. Get used to it, Lester. Tell your wife and mother to get used to it, too.”

  20

  JUST WHEN EVERETT WAS ready to collapse back in Wesley’s dark hospital room, the turmoil fired back up.

  “I want to know, straight out, what my dad is into,” Madison demanded as she stood in the middle of the room. “What’s he doing? Dealing drugs? Insider trading? What?”

  Wesley slept in the same position as before the altercation. His mother was wiping her face with a steaming washcloth at the sink.

  “Go ahead.” Sheila spun around. “Tell her what you’ve found out. I don’t care anymore. I can’t go on like this. It’s like I don’t even have a husband. I wish I didn’t. What good is he? Where is he now, when we need him?”

  Sheila dried her hands with a paper tower and walked to Wesley’s bed, where she stroked his head with trembling fingers.

  Everett wanted to crawl away, despising the fact that he had to convey such disturbing news to his niece. “Your dad’s been gambling.” He approached Madison. “It started at the casinos, but a couple of months ago, he took it to another level; he got himself a bookie.”

  The girl just stared, her mouth sealed shut.

  “Eddie said he didn’t know the bookie was part of a, kind of a crime operation.”

  “Oh, he knew!” Sheila insisted.

  “What are you saying?” Madison asked. “Mafia?”

  “Some kind of organized crime family, yes,” Everett explained. “The men here today were from that family. Tony Badino’s dad, Dominic, is the captain.”

  “How do you know all this?” Karen asked.

  “They were all at the restaurant Saturday when I went with Eddie to help him pay his debts. Badino is highest in command next to the boss.”

  Karen stuck her hands on her hips. “He’s the one who threatened you?”

  “More than once.”

  “Why would he threaten you if my dad’s the one in trouble with them?”

  “I’ll tell you why, Madi.” Sheila jabbed into the air. “Because if your dad doesn’t pay what he owes, they’ll come after your uncle for the money. Or you, or me, or Wesley—or Karen. Let’s just face it, Everett, your brother’s a self-centered loser. He doesn’t give a flip about what happens to us. We’ve got creditors calling at all hours. He’s completely gone off the deep end. And I’m not going down with the ship.”

  Everett understood Sheila’s bitterness and wondered how much of Eddie’s behavior contributed to her alcoholism.

  “Mom, he needs help,” Madison insisted. “We can’t just—”

  Wesley’s harsh cough startled everyone as he lurched forward—hacking, straining, and red-faced. He scrambled to get out of the bed but was held back by the IV hooked to the silver stand next to him.

  With fiercer hacking, it looked as if he was going to get sick. “Get him a wastebasket.” Everett grabbed the IV stand and wheeled it around the bed, not wanting the boy to undergo the embarrassment of getting sick in front of them. “C’mon, Wes, let’s get you to the bathroom.”

  Wesley pushed away the wastebasket Madison held up, made it to the restroom with the IV stand, and waved Everett out. Within seconds, violent heaving echoed from behind the large bathroom door. “Should I go in?”

  “Leave him alone, Mom.” Madison shook her head. “He doesn’t want you in here.”

  Sheila found the call button on the side of the bed and pushed it repeatedly. When no response came within thirty seconds, she bolted for the door. “I’m going to get help.”

  Minutes later, Madison’s cell phone rang. She examined the caller ID and glanced at Karen before answering. “Dad? Where are you?” She bit at the cuticles of her fingers while listening. “Yeah, well, your remaining son is in room 224 at White Plains Hospital. He got shot in the wrist. He’s gonna make it, but it sure would be nice if you could be here.”

  She listened with her eyes closed. “There are always excuses…” She crossed to the window. “No, we don’t need anything. Just get here, for Wesley.”

  By the time she hung up, the bathroom was silent.

  Sheila entered the room. “The doctor will be here in a minute.”

  “Dad’s on his way,” Madison told her.

  “Where’s he been?”

  “Said he’s been working all day and didn’t realize his phone was off. Whe
n he finally turned it on, he had twenty-three messages.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sheila said. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  The hospital phone on the table by the bed let out one low but annoying ring. Everett picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Wes? That you?”

  “No…Wesley can’t come to the phone. Can I give him a message?”

  “Who’s this?” the blunt voice asked.

  “A relative.” Everett turned his back to those in the room and lowered his voice. “Who’s this?”

  “Oh, ho! I know who this is,” came the deranged voice. “Glo-ray, glo-ray, hallelujah! Out of the darkness and into the light. This is Everett Lester, ain’t it?”

  A flash of chills engulfed Everett. “It is.”

  “It is, or ‘I Am.’” Hideous laughter blared from the other end. “Is this the great ‘I Am’?”

  Everett dropped his head, closed his eyes, and tried to remain calm.

  “Are you there, I Am, or did you disappear on me?”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you know all things.”

  “Tony Badino,” Everett said quietly.

  Long pause. “Wrong! This is the ghost of your nephew, David Lester, askin’ why you led me astray. Why you promised me the Other Side. Now I’m dead. I don’t exist no more. I’m cryin’ out from nothingness, reminding you that my blood is on your hands. Does that haunt you at night, I Am?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because, I can’t stand people like you, leading others astray.”

  Even coming from a deranged idiot like this, the words battered Everett’s psyche. He waited for more.

  “First it was the Other Side,” Badino seethed, “some make-believe oasis for everybody who dies. Now it’s even worse—a selective utopia for Jesus freaks only.”

  “If you don’t believe the way I do, that’s your business—”

  “You’re right! It is my business, and I’m gonna make it other people’s business, too. People need to know the truth. We exist for the here and now! This life is it.”

  “That talk’s from hell.”

  “There is no such thing.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you.”