Read Online Forced Out by Stephen Frey - Free Book Online

damn lucky to be dating you."
    Cheryl smiled. "Thanks, Daddy." Another small sob shook her, like an earthquake aftershock. She pressed her face into his neck again. "Will you really try to like him?" she whispered. "Please."
    Jack tilted his head back and let out a slow breath. Sometimes life was so hard. "Sure, Princess."
    8
    J OHNNY DIDN'T WAIT around. Thirty minutes after dropping Stephen Casey off on a street corner twenty blocks away from the seafood warehouse--tied to a streetlamp, blindfolded, and still wearing just his boxers--Johnny was back at Marconi's row house. One thing about the old man, he didn't sleep much. Claimed he needed less and less the older he got so it wasn't tough getting a late-night meeting with him. Seemed like Marconi was using a lot of those extra waking hours to put on pounds. It was one in the morning, and he was horsing down a ham and cheese hero. Leaning over a little folding tray table with a pastel flower painted on it that was sitting in front of his easy chair as he watched Green Acres, lettuce and tomato spilling out both sides of his mouth.
    "I always liked the Gabor sisters," Marconi muttered through his half-chewed food.
    "Always thought they were sexy."
    Interesting, Johnny thought. He figured Marconi didn't have sexual thoughts anymore. Figured he'd left that behind. But maybe men never did. "Uh-huh." Marconi put the sandwich down. "So what'd you find out, Deuce?"
    "It's like you said," Johnny began. "Kyle McLean didn't drown in the East River after all. The car going in the drink was all staged with the NYPD's help. Casey faked everything for McLean."
    Marconi cleaned off his onyx pinkie ring with a paper napkin. The ring was covered with mayonnaise. "Where's McLean now?"
    "Casey doesn't know."
    "He's lying," Marconi snapped. "He knows."
    "I don't think so. I used one of the best torture techniques around on him. He told me McLean was alive right away, but he didn't say anything else about him. Even when I pressed." Even with a third, fourth, and fifth bucket of water. "If Casey knew anything else, he would have spilled his guts. Believe me, Angelo."
    Marconi waved his hand angrily, then pointed. "I'll tell you who knows," he said loudly. Johnny winced, afraid of what was coming. He'd already thought of this, just hoped Marconi hadn't. But the old man never missed a trick--or an opportunity. "Who?" he asked innocently.
    "McLean's mother. She knows. If they're good Catholics, the kid's talking to his mother. You and I both know that, Deuce." Marconi grinned. "You may need to get the dirt out of her. Then put her in the dirt."
    "She wouldn't tell me even if she knew," Johnny answered, disgusted at the thought of waterboarding a middle-aged woman who'd probably never even hurt a flea. Torturing an innocent woman wouldn't just break his code of honor, it also would disintegrate it. Make him no better than any of the other goons walking around New York who offed people for next to nothing regardless of who they were or whether they were guilty.
    "She's his mother. She'd die before she told me."
    Marconi pointed a stubby finger at Johnny. "You know I don't condone violence against women, but this is my grandson. I can't rest in peace until I make this thing right. You need to do whatever it takes to find out where McLean is now that we know the accident was a fake. Even that waterboarding trick you do. You'll go after this woman if you can't find any other way to hunt him down. And you won't screw around. You don't turn up anything on McLean quick, you're going after his mother. Got it?" They stared at each other hard for a few moments, neither one blinking. Finally Marconi picked up the hero and took another messy bite.
    As Johnny watched Marconi chew, he tried desperately to shake off the image of a blindfolded middle-aged woman strapped to a piece of plywood. The image of the icecold water going down her nose. And the image of her begging for her life. "Casey did tell me something