Full Tilt (Rock Star Chronicles) Page 26

  “What’s with the jewelry?” Everett nodded toward Madison’s closed fist.

  “That’s just in case…” Eddie headed for the door.

  “Look, I’ll drive you. There’s no way Madi’s going.”

  “Fine.” At the front door, Eddie pushed the sheer aside. The suitcase he was carrying dropped to the floor. “Uh-oh.”

  Everett bolted for the other window and heard Madison’s footsteps behind him.

  “That’s Badino’s thugs,” Eddie said.

  The long, black Lincoln glided in and crept up directly behind Madison’s Beetle, stopping just inches from its bumper. Then one, two, three of its big black doors opened, ever so slowly.

  “To the basement!” Eddie grabbed Madison’s hand, rushed for the steps, and started down. Everett followed. “You guys need to stay down here or head for the woods out back,” Eddie said. “I’m gonna have to deal with this.”

  He went straight for Wesley’s apartment, back into the bedroom. Diving to his stomach, he reached beneath the waterbed and dragged out a heavy gray duffel bag while Everett called 911 on his cell phone.

  “You’re not callin’ the cops.” Eddie looked up from his knees, sweating.

  Everett ignored him. “This is an emergency,” he told the operator. “Armed men are entering this residence. Hurry!” He confirmed the address, hung up, and looked down to see Eddie loading several semiautomatic pistols.

  “I’ve heard these guys only know how to shoot at close range.” Eddie kept loading. “If I can keep my distance, who knows.”

  “Daddy, please, stay here with me.” Madison squirmed. “The police will be here soon.”

  “You may need this.” He tossed Everett a .45 he’d just loaded. “Madison, I want you to stay in this room and lock the door. Don’t come out for anything.” She tried to grasp his hands, but each contained a gun. He kissed her on the cheek instead. “I’m gonna protect you, honey. I have to do this. Now please, stay calm.”

  Everett stuffed the gun in the waist of his Levi’s. “Pray, Madi.” He tossed her his phone. “Call Karen. Tell her to pray, too.” As he pulled the door closed, he heard it lock.

  Eddie had already raced up the steps.

  Everett stopped. He’d never seen Wesley’s apartment. This was where Karen found the meth equipment and where Wesley had pulled the gun on her.

  He touched the cold handle of the heavy pistol, which he knew how to use very well. And he remembered from his arms training that if you dare arm yourself against an intruder, you darn well better be ready to use the weapon.

  But he didn’t want to kill.

  Crack!

  The blast rang out from upstairs.

  Crack! Crack!

  It sounded unreal.

  Heading outside and circling around to the front door seemed like a fair option, but Everett needed to be the roadblock between Madison and the enemy. He dashed up the steps. At the top, he grabbed the gun, chambered a round, and lay on the floor, with his knees on the top few steps.

  “Eddie,” he whispered loudly.

  “I’m behind the couch,” his brother said. “They tried to crowbar their way in.”

  “What were the shots?”

  “I fired through the door to keep ’em back.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Not sure,” Eddie called. “I see someone out there still. They may try to send someone in another way. You better go back downstairs. Watch Madi’s door. I’ll stay here.”

  Glass shattered from the direction of the basement.

  “Madison!” Eddie darted in the crouched position toward Everett at the steps.

  A blast of glass exploded at the front door, but the shot missed Eddie.

  “Stay here,” he barked at Everett. “Don’t let ’em past that door!”

  Eddie flew down the steps, and Everett crawled closer to the foyer. Chunks of glass covered the shiny wood floor. Through the gaping hole in the window, he could hear someone just outside the front door.

  Madison’s piercing scream rang out so loud and long, it chilled Everett to the core. He didn’t even think but braced the .45 in front of him with two hands and blew four holes clean through the door. Then he whirled for the basement and plunged into the darkness three steps at a time.

  Karen couldn’t help it; she was repulsed by Sheila who, holding the empty flask in one hand, wiped the corners of her mouth with the middle finger of the other. “Your sister thinks I’m an alcoholic.” Her head bobbed, she blinked slowly, and her words tumbled out in a slur.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Mom,” Wesley said. “You won’t remember anyway.”

  “I want you to know why I drink, Wes.” She leaned her elbows unsteadily on her knees. “There are reasons things have turned out the way they have.”

  “Why are we even talkin’ about this?” Wesley shot out. “It’s not gonna do any good.”

  “Because, honey, I want you to understand—”

  “I understand plenty!” His head and shoulders pivoted away from her. “I understand that ever since David died you’ve given up; Dad too. We’d all be better off goin’ our separate ways.”

  “Honey,” she scooted the chair closer, “things were bad before David’s accident.”

  “Just get out of my face, okay? You smell like a doggone distillery. Why don’t you go home and sober up? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Sheila reached for him, put a hand on his arm. He let it remain.

  This was not her world; this was not her idea of family—so far from it. Karen was so out of place. She wanted to be gone from here.

  What’s my role in all of this?

  She shuddered when she heard the muffled ring of the cell phone in her purse. Picking up the bag, she excused herself and made for the hall.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “Aunt Karen!”

  “Madi? What’s—?”

  “I’m at my house—with Everett and my dad.” She gasped for breath. “They’re after us, Badino’s men.” She let out a cry. “Everett asked me to call. Please pray!”

  Karen searched the room with her eyes. “Have you called the police?”

  “Everett did. Oh. Oh my…ahhh! A window just broke!”

  “Where are you in the house, sweetie?”

  “Basement. Someone’s outside the door. They’re pounding…”

  Karen could hear the bashing. Wood cracking and splintering. Madison whimpering.

  Get out!

  But before Karen could get the words out of her mouth, the line went dead.

  33

  THE SECOND EVERETT HIT the bottom of the steps, hot weapon still locked in hand, he froze with his back to the left wall. The door to Wesley’s apartment was open. He inched closer, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, and concentrated on breathing inaudibly.

  “Please, don’t!” Madison cried.

  “Let her go!” Eddie yelled. “I’m who you want. Take me. Let’s go. Right now! Just leave her alone.”

  Everett eyed the top of the empty steps, then tiptoed to within several feet of the doorway. Extending his free left hand to balance himself against the trim around the door, he leaned into the path of the doorway ever so gradually, peering into the long room, then ducking back out of view.

  The snapshot he took of the setting was dreamlike—Madison in the back bedroom, in the headlock of a tall goon with a revolver to her head. The man was one of the wiseguys from Pappano’s restaurant. Eddie’s back was to Everett and his arms were outstretched, pointing two guns at Madison and her abductor.

  “Put the guns down,” came the intruder’s low voice. “Or I kill her now and then finish you.”

  Silence.

  “Your choice,” the gunman said. “How many are gonna die here today? Don’t make no difference to me. None. But I’m losin’ my patience.”

  Eddie’s guns clinked to the carpet.

  “Facedown on the couch.” The low voice was moving now. There
was no backtalk from Eddie. A grunt from Madison sounded closer.

  It sounded as if the gunman had kicked the weapons away. Everett’s breathing got heavier, faster—and his ribs seemed to jump with each beat of his thumping heart. He strained to listen as sweat trickled down the side of his face, and he swiped at it with a rolling shoulder.

  “I need rope or tape, Lester.” The intruder’s voice was coming closer. “Where is it?”

  “In the kitchen drawer there’s tape…I can get it—”

  “Shut up! Stay put.”

  “Ouch!” Madison cried.

  Everett was about to barrel in, but something held him back. Drawers were gliding open and banging shut.

  “I don’t know why I’m doin’ this,” the wiseguy said. “You don’t know how lucky you are, lady. This ain’t like me.”

  The instant Everett heard the shriek of the reeling duct tape, he made his move.

  Karen burst through the door to Wesley’s hospital room, making Sheila and him recoil.

  “That was Madison! She and Everett and Eddie are in trouble at your house.”

  “Oh my word.” Sheila wheeled around from Wesley’s bedside. “What on earth—?”

  “It’s the mob family. They’re after Eddie.” She shook Sheila’s shoulder. “Can I take your car?”

  “Well, I’m coming too.” She staggered to her feet.

  “Keys, Sheila! Where’re your keys?”

  “Right here.” She picked up her purse.

  Karen grabbed it from her, took a last glance at Wesley, and booked for the door.

  “Wait up!” Sheila called.

  Karen made a beeline for the elevators, hit the down button, and sighed as Sheila lumbered toward her down the long hallway. Karen scanned the area for stairs but saw none. She took in an enormous breath, closed her eyes, and prayed for angels to guard her loved ones.

  It seemed to take forever to get to the lobby and make for the exit.

  “What are you driving?” Karen said, as the large double-glass doors parted.

  “My green Lexus,” Sheila said from four steps back.

  “Where?”

  “Straight across. First level. I’ll show you.”

  The cold wind whipped beneath the huge concrete overhang, howling and buffeting them as they trudged across the drop-off lane, passing an assortment of people who were heading inside.

  A heavy man in his fifties pushed a bony, blond woman bundled in a wheelchair; two nurses passed them with their arms crossed; behind them came a young man sucking every last carcinogen out of a glowing cigarette nub before flicking it to the ground.

  Wait.

  Karen did a double take.

  Black trench coat.

  But they had to hurry.

  “It’ll be straight ahead when we get in the deck,” Sheila murmured. “I counted the rows when I parked. Let’s see, was it nine?”

  Gray ski cap.

  “I can never remember…”

  Dirty work boots.

  “I think you better drive, Karen.”

  That was Tony Badino.

  With his arms locked in front of him, the .45 bolted to his hands, and what felt like fifty thousand watts of electricity surging through his trembling body, Everett burst into the basement apartment, zeroing in on one thing—the wiseguy’s hands. As he’d hoped, they clung to outstretched duct tape and a clumsily held revolver.

  “Drop everything now!”

  The tape dropped. So did the weapon.

  Everett was on the kneeling man as quick as a wasp, burying the nose of the pistol hard into his upper back. “Facedown. On your stomach! Hands behind you.”

  Eddie rolled off the couch onto the floor, where he scrambled to retrieve his guns.

  “Tape his hands,” Everett told him.

  But his brother attacked instead, ramming both knees into the intruder’s back, causing him to grunt as he bounced off the ground. Then Eddie smashed the barrel of one of the guns into the man’s temple.

  “I should kill you right now!” Eddie screamed. “You—”

  “Get off him!” Everett slammed his brother to the ground. “Do what I say. Tape him. Now!”

  Eddie’s hair was glistening with sweat, and his brown eyes jumped wildly.

  “Hurry!” Everett growled with gun drawn.

  Hesitantly, Eddie set his weapons down and picked up the tape.

  “Ahhh!” Madison’s fingers shook at her mouth as her eyes enlarged and fixated on the door leading to the porch.

  Before Everett could turn, he was being told not to move one single nerve, and to drop his gun. He did so. The second his weapon hit the carpet, his brother was in motion, rolling, grabbing one of the weapons on the floor, and firing.

  An explosion of light blinded Everett. But seconds later, both men in the doorway were still standing, still coming.

  In a blur, the hostage on the floor arose. His fat arm latched around Eddie’s neck from behind and ratcheted tight. Madison squealed as Everett reached out for his brother, who was gasping for breath.

  Then the sirens.

  One of the men who’d just entered collected the guns while the other—a slender, pockmarked-faced man with black sunglasses—kept his weapon on Everett and Madison. “You two move and you’re dead. No more games. Come on, Sonny.” He wound his gun at the henchman choking Eddie. “Bring him to the car. Quick.”

  “What about him?” Sonny grunted, nodding at Everett as he dragged Eddie across the room. “After what he’s put us through…”

  “No,” the leader said. “Those aren’t the orders. Come on.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Sonny mocked, out of breath, “you’re bein’ saved for a higher purpose.” Then his daffy smile morphed into a wicked scowl. “We’ll be seein’ you again real soon, little brother. This ain’t no free pass.”

  As the three mobsters merged in the center of the room and backed their way to the stairs, Eddie reached out to Madison. His fingers spread like the spokes on a bike. “I love you, baby…”

  Madison cried out and covered her quivering mouth with one hand.

  “Tell Wesley I’m sorry,” Eddie pleaded. “I wish I could have been a better dad.”

  As they started up the steps, Madison inched toward them. “I love you,” she wailed. “Please, Daddy, believe in Jesus. Will you do that? Please! For me? I’m begging you, before it’s too late—”

  “Tell your mother,” Eddie said, “I never stopped loving her.”

  Madison moved to the bottom of the steps, her whole body trembling.

  “Stop there, missy,” one of them said. “Don’t you set one foot on those steps.”

  “Please, Daddy!” She bawled, with her outstretched hands shuddering. “I want to be with you in heaven. I’ll see you there. Okay, Daddy? Okay?”

  And with that, Eddie Lester was gone.

  34

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Karen took solace in the stillness of the den and the ticking of the grandfather clock as she stared out the window at the many media vehicles that had converged on Twin Streams. Outside in the rain, reporters huddled with steaming coffee beneath umbrellas and with cigarettes in the back of TV trucks.

  In somewhat of a fog, Karen repeated the verses she’d clung to of late: “Who can be compared with God enthroned on high?… He gives children to the childless wife, so that she becomes a happy mother.”

  She closed her eyes. Would they ever see Eddie again? And what would become of Wesley and Sheila? Such enormous hurdles stood in front of them. And here you are, dwelling on your infertility.

  Then something told her not to be down on herself, that God wanted all of her cares, and that if she would petition Him, He would give her peace unsurpassed.

  She desperately needed such peace as she faced the fact that, overnight, the news of Eddie’s abduction had traveled across the nation at the speed of a tsunami. CNN reported that the brother of famed rocker Everett Lester may have been kidnapped from his White Plains estate by modern-day
mobsters associated with Dominic “Machine Gun” Mendazzo and his infamous Mafia family, the same group suspected of a gangland-style murder in Canarsie several weeks earlier.

  Karen walked into the family room and snuggled up next to Everett on the loveseat as CNN showed footage of Eddie’s estate in the aftermath of his abduction.

  Her parents were glued to the TV as well, coffees in hand. Cameras from the previous day had caught special tactics crews combing the Amanti and Yukon for bombs, and blurry, distant images of Everett and Madison inside the house speaking with detectives.

  The station also broadcast a live, early morning feed from the Pelham Village home of Dominic Badino, who was being taken into custody for questioning by the NYPD. Wearing a grey Stetson, sunglasses, and a velour sweatsuit, Badino was escorted from his home by a tough-looking crew of plainclothes detectives.

  Everett pointed out a frantic Margaret Badino, wearing a bathrobe and shuffling along behind her husband with her hands to her mouth in the prayer position, clutching a strand of rosary beads.

  When the news update ended and Everett flicked off the TV, his thick brown eyebrows looked almost black against his ashen face. “I thought we were in trouble before.” He paced. “We’ve got to do something. Eddie told me Badino owns half the NYPD. They’re not gonna keep him; he’s gonna walk.”

  “Okay, calm down,” Jacob said. “We’ve been through tight spots like this before.”

  “Yeah, and I’m the one who always puts us here! This is nuts. These dudes are cold-blooded killers. We’re all in danger—not just me!”

  “Keep your voice down, babe,” Karen said. “Sheila’s still asleep.”

  “I just don’t know if you realize how serious this is.” Everett pleaded. “They wired both of Eddie’s cars! I saw the look on those wiseguys’ faces yesterday. These are not normal people; they kill with no conscience.”

  He turned to Dad and Mom. “Maybe I should go back to Badino…”

  “And do what? There’s no reasoning with him,” Dad said. “You show up on his doorstep again, after accusing his son of murder, and—”

  “Jacob…” Mom cut him off.