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“You’re not stupid, Joey. Don’t ever let anyone call you stupid!”
That’s what Joey Barella’s mother said to him frequently, and it puzzled him, because she was the only person who ever seemed to raise that possibility.
Like the time Mr. Dayton flunked him in algebra, and Joey’s mother said, “Don’t let him call you stupid, Joey! So you’re not a math whiz. That doesn’t mean you’re stupid!”
But Mr. Dayton never said anything about Joey being stupid. Why did his mother always bring it up?
Sure, Joey knew he wasn’t the brightest person living in Framingham, Massachusetts, but he wasn’t the dumbest either. He got by just fine. Graduated high school without too much trouble. Never considered going to college. But he didn’t need it. His uncle had introduced him to some people, and now he made a damn good living, with plenty of room for advancement. Besides, in his line of work, there were things more important than intelligence. Loyalty, for instance. That was a biggie. Probably number one on the list.
Joey was loyal. Damn right he was. Everybody knew it.
Which probably explained why, six days before a bunch of exotic animals got loose from a zoo in Blanco County, Texas, Anthony Carducci wanted to meet Joey in the parking lot of a strip center on Worcester Road, not far from the Framingham Country Club.
Joey had never met the big boss before and was surprised he even knew Joey existed. But the old man had called Joey up and told him the time and place. And he’d told Joey not to tell a soul about it. Nobody. Not one person. “Not even that girlfriend of yours,” he’d said.
How did Carducci know about his girlfriend?
“Lemme ask you something,” Carducci said later as they sat in his Cadillac. It was a hell of a nice ride, but it smelled strongly of aftershave and pine air freshener, especially with the windows closed. “You been arrested before?”
“For what?” Joey asked.
Which was a stupid question, but Joey was nervous.
“For anything at all. I’m asking if you ever been arrested before.”
“No, sir.”
“Never? Not once?”
“No, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Never been fingerprinted?”
“No.”
“And they never took your DNA for nothing?”
“Uh-uh.”
Carducci nodded approvingly.
“I heard you like to box,” he said. “Golden Gloves and all that shit.”
“I do, yeah.”
“They say you’re pretty good.”
“I’m all right. Won twenty-seven fights. Twenty by knockout.”
“How many you lose?”
“Four. But three of them were right when I started, before I, you know, figured out what the hell I was doing. I had no defense at first. Didn’t know how to cover up.”
“That how you got that scar on your face?”
“The son of a bitch head-butted me. I knocked him out in the next round. No TKO, either. I knocked him completely out. Sent him to the hospital.”
“Nice.”
“It was sick nasty. Black guy with a smart mouth.”
“Gonna go pro?”
“Thinking about it. I figure it’s worth a shot.”
Carducci nodded again.
“Got a manager?”
Was that what this was about? Joey’s boxing career? He hadn’t seen this coming.
“I got a guy I train with. Not sure if he can take me to the next level or not, to be honest.”
“Why boxing instead of that mixed fighting stuff?”
Joey shrugged. “I’m not big on kicking. I don’t need some skid kicking me. Come at me with your hands, like a man.”
Carducci seemed to appreciate that. “And you’re getting married next year,” he said.
Jeez, they were jumping all over the place. What were they even talking about?
“Yes, sir. November.”
“Got some money saved up for a down payment on a house and all?”
“A little.”
Joey got the sense that Carducci was trying to get to know him—to gauge what kind of person he was—but why?
“But you could always use a little more—am I right?” Carducci gave him a big smile.
“Hell, yeah,” Joey said. “Always. Houses are fuckin’ expensive. Even a little one.”
Was Joey getting a raise? A promotion? He’d always worked hard and kept his mouth shut. Did what they told him to do. Didn’t brag about it to friends. Business was business.
After a long pause, Carducci said, “Here’s what this is about. I need you to do something for me. Something really important. You do this, I’ll never forget it. You know what I mean? Never.”
Joey nodded.
“But you can’t tell nobody. And if you decide you don’t want to do it, well, that’s okay. But you can’t tell nobody about this little talk, neither. Not a goddamn word. Not even your girlfriend after she gives you a nice blowjob. You tell anybody and we’ll have a big problem. Understand?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, then.” Carducci took a deep breath. “There’s a guy who did something to me and my family a long time ago. Then he fucking disappeared for nineteen years. Now I know where he is.”
Joey immediately knew what this was about. He’d heard the stories over the years, and he’d looked it up on the internet. Joey didn’t know if he was supposed to ask questions now or stay quiet, so he stayed quiet.
“He killed my brother, is what he did,” Carducci said. “Ran him down in the street like a goddamn dog. He suffered and then he died.”
“That’s terrible,” Joey said, although he remembered that Carducci’s brother had been trying to kill the other guy. Supposedly. The other guy had been trying to get away, but Carducci’s brother had stepped in front of his car with a gun. That’s what witnesses said, although most of them got foggy memories later, once they learned who the dead guy was. Suddenly they weren’t real sure what had happened, and one of them went so far as to say the guy in the car had definitely been trying to kill Carducci’s brother. The gun the brother had supposedly been carrying hadn’t been found on the scene.
“Then this guy—this scum—he took off like a goddamn coward,” Carducci said. “Not right away, but they charged him with manslaughter, and he ran away before they could put him in prison, where he belongs.”
“That sucks,” Joey said.
“Damn right it sucks!” Carducci barked, plainly getting angry. “There was no justice. He got away with it all. And I have to tell ya...” He looked at Joey. “This is all between you and me. Every word.”
“I swear on my mother’s life I won’t tell nobody nothin’,” Joey said.
Joey loved his mother, despite her remarks about his intelligence. In this situation, it appeared Joey had said the exact right thing, swearing on his mother, because now Carducci spoke his mind even more freely.
“What I shoulda done is took care of the son of a bitch myself, instead of waiting for the trial. But no, I tried to be a good citizen. Follow the rules and all that shit. I decided to trust the system, and the cops, and the DA, which is the dumbest thing I ever done. And then he hauled ass, and then I never had a chance to set things right. It tore us all up, but especially my mother. Tore her up. Still does, as a matter of fact. Her baby boy was dead and the killer never paid for it. You know what that does to a woman? To a mother?”
“I can imagine,” Joey said. “My mother would—well, I don’t know what she’d do, but it would be terrible.”
Carducci was staring through the windshield with a sad, glazed expression and they were both quiet for a moment.
“That’s why...” Carducci finally said, and then he paused. “That’s why I don’t want to let this second chance slip away. He’s had nineteen years of freedom he never shoulda had, and now it’s time for him to pay for what he done. Problem is, the courts can’t do nothin’ now. Too much time has passed. Plus, I wouldn’t trust ’em anyway. They already let him get away once. He could do it again. That means I gotta take care of it myself.”
Carducci went silent again. Joey gave him some time to continue, but he didn’t, and Joey eventually realized Carducci was waiting for him to speak.
So Joey said, “You just tell me what you want me to do.”
The next day, Joey took a flight from Boston to Dallas, and from there he mailed an anonymous letter to Albert Cortez at Safari Adventure. Plain white paper consisting of three scrawled words: Zoos are prissons. Just a little something extra to throw the cops off track later. Make them think some animal-rights nut was on the loose. This was all Joey’s idea—something he’d come up with on the flight. Carducci didn’t know about it. He didn’t need to know every detail. He’d said he didn’t want to know. Just get the job done. Joey made sure not to touch the letter or the envelope with his bare hands, and he damn sure didn’t lick the stamp. He used water to moisten the back.
Next, Joey rented a car in Dallas and drove toward Arlington. Yeah, he was leaving a paper trail, or more like an electronic trail, but he wasn’t concerned, because he had come up with a cover story. A reason for his trip.
Before he left Boston, he’d bought an overpriced ticket to a Dallas Cowboys football game. Dumb luck, they were playing the Patriots in the next game, which was perfect, him being a Boston boy and all. If things turned to shit on this whole thing and he ever got questioned by the cops, they’d ask why he didn’t take his girlfriend on the trip, and he’d say she isn’t into football. So he went alone? Sure, why not? He’d never been to Texas. He needed a vacation. None of his friends could go, so he went alone. Anything wrong with that?
So he drove toward Arlington, home of AT&T Stadium, and found a cheap motel that didn’t appear to have any security cameras. This was the Saturday before the game. Went to a strip club that night, because that’s what he’d normally do on a trip like this—go to a titty bar and see what these Texas women looked like. Paid with a credit card. Would a guy with something to hide go to a titty bar and pay with a credit card? He had a good time, despite the circumstances.
He got up late the next morning, semi-hungover, and went to the game. Cowboys won on a fifty-seven-yard field goal on the final play. Bastards.
On Monday morning, he turned his cell phone off and bought a throwaway phone for cash at an electronics store. Then he drove south in his rental car. He knew from reading online that it was very difficult and complicated for cops to get a warrant for the data from a car’s on-board GPS, but he disabled the system anyway by pulling a fuse. Better safe than sorry.
By the time he reached Waco, his gut was in a knot.
Was he ready to do this? Damn right he was. This guy Miguel Lopez was a scumbag, screwing another man’s wife. And maybe it was true that he’d run over Carducci’s brother on purpose. It was possible. Maybe even likely. So Lopez deserved what was coming his way, even nineteen years later. Paybacks were hell.
The last thing Mr. Carducci had said was, “You get caught, you know how it goes. I didn’t know nothin’ about it. You acted on your own. Trying to build a name for yourself. You were doing it as a favor to me, but I wasn’t involved.”
“Absolutely,” Joey said, because he meant it, and because he’d have to be insane to ever point the finger at a man like Anthony Carducci.
“But if that happens—and it won’t—I’ll take care of you,” Carducci said, without getting specific.
“I know you will, Mr. Carducci.”
“Okay, then. Got any questions?”
“Gotta admit, there’s something I been wondering about.”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to tell me, but how’d you figure out where the guy is?”