Three Wilde Months (A Tommy Wilde Thriller Book 3)
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Three Wilde Months
A Tommy Wilde Thriller
Book 3
Patrick Logan
Three Wilde Months
Prologue
PART I
Marv
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
PART II
Barbie
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
PART III
Kramer
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
PART IV
Manny
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
PART V
Screech
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
PART VI
Nick
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other Books by Patrick Logan
Three Wilde Months
Prologue
“Do you remember when Brian and I were kids, Father?”
“Despite my advanced age, Tommy, I have an exceptional memory. As does the Lord.”
Tommy looked at his hands, which were folded in his lap.
“Yeah, I know—it’s a blessing and curse, sometimes. Anyways, I remember we would come here, to Our Lady of Assumption, and after your sermon, you’d lug that big ol’ rusty basketball net down to the gym. You remember that?”
“Of course. I also remember that Brian would beat you at HORSE and you’d get so mad that you’d start throwing things. I had to calm you down. Then I’d make you set up all the pews by yourself as penance.”
Tommy frowned and made a face.
“That’s not the way I remember it. I would beat Brian, and he was the one to blow his top.”
“You are mistaken, my son, but I don’t think that you came here today to speak about basketball, much as I wish that was the case. So, what’s really on your mind, Tommy?”
Tommy exhaled loudly, his eyes once again dropping to his interlaced fingers.
“I think… I think that I’ve done something really bad this time, Father.”
The words sounded preposterous considering what he’d admitted to during his last confession. But they also seemed true.
What happened before wasn’t his fault, not really; his hand had been forced. Brian had started all of this, and everything that had happened since was on him.
Everything… except for what came next, for the plan that Tommy had set into motion.
“They pushed me, Father. They pushed me and pushed me and pushed me. Everyone pushed me. Brian, Maria, Aurora, Nick, Scooter, Vinny, Marv, Tony… everyone.”
Father Miller was silent for so long that Tommy looked at the mesh screen that separated the two of them to make sure he was still there. It was difficult to see much of anything, but the priest still somehow appeared older. His posture was stooped, his head hung low. Even though the man was but a conduit for the sins of others, it was clear that this had taken a toll on him.
And Tommy could relate. After all, he’d been cleaning up after his brother ever since they were children and look where that had gotten him.
Father Miller took a deep breath and his outline straightened.
“Tommy, I once told you that all sins can be forgiven, that the Lord will forgive all of His people who ask for it. But… but it doesn’t work preemptively. You can’t bank forgiveness and then use it whenever it suits your needs. That’s not the way it—He—works. You need—”
“But Father, what I’ve started can’t be—”
“Tommy, don’t interrupt,” Father Miller snapped.
Tommy’s eyes widened. This was the first time in all the years that he’d known the priest that the man seemed angry. Even following the basketball matches with his brother—in which Tommy was positive he was victorious—Father Miller had never used this tone.
“I’m sorry, Father.”
“Tommy, I want you to think very hard about what you are planning on doing. If it’s something that you think will require the Lord’s forgiveness, perhaps you should alter your course.”
Tommy bit his tongue, literally and figuratively.
He remained silent as a flurry of images flashed in his mind: Scooter, lying on the street, begging for help; blood pumping out of the bullet hole in Darrel’s chest; Chino Man’s body slowly dissolving in hot piranha liquid.
“Tommy? Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”
“I have, Father. The thing is, I tried to stop this. I really did.”
“Well, maybe you need to try again. Maybe you need to try harder, to consider what matters most. Maybe this isn’t what you actually want to do, how you want to live your life, Tommy.”
Tommy felt his face flush and he once again turned his gaze toward the mesh divider.
“No, Father, this isn’t what I want to do.”
The priest let out something akin to a sigh of relief.
“Tommy, I’m glad—”
“It’s what I need to do. As I said, I can’t stop this thing. And even if I could, I don’t think I would. They kept on pushing me, Father, and now it’s my turn to push back.”
Even the poorest of people can have expensive dreams.
And then Tommy added in a voice just above a whisper, “Maybe I don’t want to be poor anymore.”
PART I
Marv
Chapter 1
Three Months Ago
Tommy gaped.
He didn’t know how Marv had gotten into his house, or why he’d come here in the first place.
But that was something that Tommy would consider later. For now, all that mattered was that the cop with the clenched jaw was holding a gun to Aurora’s head.
“I knew it—I fucking knew it, Tommy,” Marv said with a sinister sneer plastered on his face, “I heard on the radio what happened to Scooter. You set us up. You fuckin’ planned this, to get me and Scooter shot dead by some fuckin’ lowlife!”
Tommy’s heart was racing now as he tried to figure out a way out of this mess with Aurora’s skull intact.
The truth was, he knew he was in trouble when Scooter had gotten out of the cop car and not Marv. Everything else had worked out exactly as planned, from Vinny’s reaction to the cops showing up, to the ensuing shootout. Everything went perfectly save Marv being absent.
And Aurora… what was Aurora doing here? Her presence was nearly as confusing, albeit far less dangerous, than Marv’s.
“Tommy, you better start talking—”
“Th—that’s not my girlfriend,” he blurted.
Marv made a face and raised an eyebrow.
“Your fuck buddy, then? Honestly, I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck if she’s your girlfriend, your sister, your mother. She was in your house, and she ain’t no burglar. She means something to you, so if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I’m going to put a bullet in her head.”
“No, I mean, she isn’t just any girl, Marv. You gotta let her go.”
Marv’s sneer intensified to the point that his upper lip nearly grazed the bottom of his nose. The cop shared many similarities with Vinny, not least of all not liking being told what to do.
“Listen, Marv, her name is Aurora—Aurora Petrazzino.”
Marv grunted.
“Who? Tommy, I think you lost your fucking mind with your finger. Aurora Petra—” the man’s eyes suddenly went wide.
Good, he knows the name, Tommy thought, he knows the Petrazzinos.
But if Tommy was expecting some sort of apology followed by quickly releasing Aurora, he was sorely mistaken.
“No shit? Well, sorry, sweetie, but your pops is about to take another hit. In fact, we’re gearing up for another raid on one of his stash houses. Tough few days for that fat fuck, Nick. First, he loses his gear, next he loses—” Marv paused and tilted his head to get a better look at Aurora. “—a daughter.”
Tommy tried to take this all in, but it was too much with his heart thudding away in his chest.
The cops are taking out one of Nick’s stash houses?
He shook his head.
“Marv, I’ve got cash now, and I’m going to get more. Lots more. I’ll pay you—”
Marv laughed.
“Pay me? What can you pay me, Tommy? You can’t even pay your own goddamn bills.”
“No, I—I swear.”
Tommy reached into his pocket for the wad of cash he’d procured from Joshua Redds, before realizing that he’d given the balance to Father Miller.
“Well? How much you got for me then, Tommy?”
Marv’s eyes drifted to Tommy’s hand, which he slowly started to pull out of his pocket.
Fuck.
“Nothing, Marv. I—I don’t have money right now. But I swear—I swear—I’m working on something big. Something really big. I’ll give you—”
“What the fuck is in your pocket, Tommy?”
Tommy, his desperation so palpable that it almost seemed to cloud his vision, glanced at Aurora. The woman seemed oddly calm about this entire ordeal, as if she were waiting for Tommy to make his next move in a game of chess. Marv might be a sadist and a sociopath, but was he a murderer? Would he kill Aurora right here in Tommy’s living room?
The answer was maybe… which, under these circumstances, was about as certain as an affidavit signed by the Pope. If Marv went through with his threat, then Tommy wouldn’t have to worry about paying Nick his monthly stipend anymore.
The Casata Sacra would just take it out of his life insurance policy after they ended his meager existence.
Tommy pulled his hand completely free of his pocket, showing Marv that it was indeed empty.
“I didn’t set you guys up, Marv,” Tommy pleaded, changing tactics as he slowly shifted his hand behind his back. “I didn’t. This is all just a fucked-up mistake.”
“Oh, yeah? Then what are you doing with this broad, here? Huh? It’s just a coincidence that Scooter gets blasted after a meeting that you set up? All the while you’re fuckin’ a mob boss’s daughter? Something tells me this is all connected.”
Tommy ground his teeth as he grasped the butt end of Darrel’s gun, which was tucked into the rear of his waistband.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said quietly.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Marv said, mocking him. “Tommy, you’re a shitty liar. You’re a shitty liar and a shitty—”
Tommy withdrew the gun and aimed it at Marv’s forehead. He was surprised to find that his hand wasn’t shaking.
Not even a little.
“Well, would you look at that, lil’ Tommy Wilde has finally grown some balls,” Marv said with a laugh. He pulled the gun away from Aurora and pointed it at Tommy instead. “You gonna shoot me now, Tommy? Are you going to shoot a cop in—”
“No!” Tommy shouted, but it was too late. At some point during their stand-off, Aurora had produced a gun of her own. Tommy had no idea where she’d gotten it from, considering that she was wearing a dress that nearly reached the floor.
But that mattered about as much as why she was here, in his house.
While Marv was distracted by Tommy and spouting off at the mouth, Aurora pulled away from the cop, took aim, and fired a single bullet.
A bullet that tore through the side of Officer Marvin Pendergast’s temple.
Chapter 2
Tommy instinctively ducked, thinking that Marv’s finger might reflexively pull the trigger. But he was coming to the realization that most of what he knew of guns obtained from movies and television was categorically false.
In real life, the results were often more horrific, and while Tommy was spared the bullet in this instance, what he witnessed next was perhaps equally as shocking.
Marv’s eyes rolled back, he staggered almost two complete steps to his right, then dropped to his knees, seemingly in slow-motion. The end of this mortal dance was by far the worst part: the disgruntled police officer collapsed face-first onto the floor and the sound of something, or multiple somethings, breaking in his face was punctuated by the clatter of his pistol.
Tommy stood but two feet from Marv’s body, his eyes wide, his heart seized, his lungs deflated.
“Tommy?” Aurora said, moving toward him.
The woman’s soft voice was enough to draw Tommy out of his head.
“What did you do?” he gasped. Aurora reached for him, but Tommy pulled back, just out of range of her outstretched hand. “Aurora, what did you do?”
Aurora made a face and lowered her gun. Tommy, realizing that he was still pointing his weapon at Marv, did the same.
“What did I do? I shot the asshole who broke into your house and threatened to kill me—that’s what I did.”
Nonchalant, as if retelling why she’d purchased goat milk instead of the cow variety.
“He’s a fucking cop, Aurora—a goddamn police officer!”
Tommy’s face must have gone pale at the sight of Marv’s death because his ears, cheeks, and nose suddenly started to tingle as blood rushed back to his skin.
Aurora’s lips further curled, and her flat affect transitioned to defensive.
“What? A cop? How was I supposed to know? And—and he had a gun to my head!”
“He wasn’t going to use it!” Tommy nearly shouted. “He wasn’t fucking going to use it!”
Despite his words, Tommy wasn’t so sure. As he pictured Marv and Scooter’s faces as they sped off, leaving Tommy bound by zip ties on Intention Bridge, his gaze drifted down to Marv’s body.
Aurora’s aim had been perfect: there
was a dime-sized bullet hole in his left temple and a much bigger one on his right. Blood still trickled from the blowout, but Tommy surmised that Marv couldn’t have that much left in his head, seeing as the contents were splattered on the far wall near the staircase.
To ground himself, Tommy sent his mind to a familiar place, reciting best practices for removing blood and brain from both hardwood and painted drywall.
“Tommy, what the—what the hell was a cop doing here? What was he saying about my dad and Vinny? About a setup?”
Tommy turned his eyes to the woman and stared at her intently, trying to see fear or shock or any of the other multitude of feelings rushing his brain at that moment, in her.
He couldn’t.
All he saw was a woman who liked to be in control, one who demanded respect everywhere she went. Never in their short relationship had Tommy appreciated just how large the divide between them actually was.
He was just a simple guy who had started his own company after being squeezed out of academia.
Aurora, on the other hand, was the daughter of a notorious mobster.
Tommy sighed.
“He was one of the cops who gave me the jobs.”
“The jobs?”
“Yeah, the crime scene cleanup jobs. He recommends my services.”
“What was he talking about, being set up? What happened to Vinny?”
Tommy sighed again.
“Let’s not do this now,” he said quietly.
“Tommy, I like you; you’re different than all the other people my dad works with. But you gotta start talking, or else I’m going to start talking. And I don’t think you want that. Neither of us wants that.”
Tommy glared at Aurora.
“You threatening me?” He gestured towards Marv’s corpse. “You just fucking killed a cop in my house and now you’re threatening me?”
Aurora pressed her lips together tightly.
“Don’t act like you’re innocent here, Tommy. Don’t act like you’re some sort of Boy Scout just because you like to go to church.”
“What? I never killed anybody, Aurora! This is…” Tommy gripped the sides of his head and started tearing at his hair. “…this is fucking insane!”
“It is what it is,” Aurora shot back, reverting to her previous calm state.