Two Wilde Weeks (A Tommy Wilde Thriller Book 2) Read online

  Tommy continued to watch in horror as Scooter sped the video up and four people came into the frame: the spotter and the two junkies, as well as someone else.

  A man with a black ponytail and designer driving shoes.

  “You know who that is, Tommy?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “No,” he lied. “I’ve got no fucking clue.”

  Marv sucked his teeth.

  “This guy here? He’s a fucking scumbag drug dealer. Oscar Bugli—some shit.”

  Tommy continued to play dumb.

  “Who?”

  “Oh, just some guy who’s peddling drugs for Nick Petrazzino… head of Casata Pasta or something like that.”

  Tommy’s shocked expression was mistaken for ignorance.

  “A mobster, Tommy. Nick’s a fucking mobster. And this Oscar fella, well, we know he’s dealing some expensive white powder, know what I’m sayin’?”

  Tommy’s mind was racing nearly as quickly as his heart now.

  Where did they get this video from? And, more importantly, how long does it go on for?

  He once again tried to clear his throat, but it wasn’t just dry now; it seemed to have constricted to the diameter of a drinking straw.

  Did they see me go down the alley, too? Did they see us carrying the body out?

  “Hey, earth to Tommy,” Scooter said, pulling his cell phone back and sliding it into his pocket.

  Tommy raised his eyes to look at the man. He wasn’t as muscular as Marv, but he was well-built. And the addition of the mustache made him look more like a caricature of cop than an actual, bonafide NYPD police officer.

  “Yeah, so, in case you want to do something stupid, just think about this video. Think about your brother’s parole and how fucking quickly he would find himself behind bars, if it just happened to get out. And trust me, Tommy,” Marv continued, licking his lips in sheer enjoyment, “behind bars, little Brian Wilde will be tossing more salad than the cunty waitress over at the Olive Garden.”

  “I’ll get your money.”

  Marv nodded.

  “Of course, you will. All five grand of it. And you’ll get it in…” he looked at Scooter. “What do you think? A week? That seems fair.”

  A week?

  Scooter nodded.

  “Yeah, a week. Unless, of course, you want to make it six grand?”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “Good.” Marv reached out and slapped Scooter on the back. “C’mon, Scoot, let’s get the fuck out of here. I’m damn tired. Besides, I want to tell you a story about when I almost made Tommy here piss himself.”

  Both men turned, and for several seconds, Tommy was content in just watching them go.

  It was only when they opened the door to Marv’s off-duty station wagon that he remembered his wrists were still bound.

  “Wait! You can’t leave me here!”

  Marv laughed, showing Tommy his molars.

  “Yeah, we can.”

  The man got into his car and slammed the door closed.

  Scooter did the same.

  “At least cut my hands free!” Tommy begged. “Please! Just cut—”

  Marv hammered on the gas and wrenched the wheel to one side.

  A high-pitched squeal reached Tommy at roughly the same time as the shower of pebbles and stones.

  Chapter 3

  Tommy closed his eyes and tucked his chin into his collar until the spray of rocks ended and the smell of burning rubber faded.

  “What the fuck,” he whispered. He opened his eyes and then shouted the refrain as loud as he could. “What the fuck!”

  He was on the same bridge as last night, only this time he wasn’t struggling to punch holes in a barrel that contained a partially dismembered corpse, but he was the victim now.

  Tommy didn’t have his cell phone, his wallet, or even the broken switchblade—they were all in his car back at his house.

  Which was miles away.

  Cursing under his breath, he spent a grand total of six seconds looking for something sharp to cut the zip ties with before remembering that there was nothing here.

  Tommy couldn’t believe that it had come to this.

  He was being squeezed now from both sides, except both sides seemed to, paradoxically, somehow have the upper hand.

  One week to come up with five grand…

  A monumental task, to be sure, but a far cry from having three hours to find a hundred thousand dollars.

  Tommy rather awkwardly sat in the middle of the bridge and then curled his feet behind him. From there, he worked his bound wrists around his ankles and by stretching his shoulders to the point of nearly dislocation, managed to slip them over his feet. Even though his hands were in front of him now, Tommy remained seated. There was no way he would be able to walk all the way home with his hands zip-tied without someone stopping him and asking questions he simply couldn’t answer. He just had to get his hands free.

  Tommy untied his shoelaces and then, using his mouth, ran one of the ends between the zip tie and his palms. The bandage that he had put on his wounded was now soaked with blood, but that was the least of his concerns. It took six tries until he finally managed to tie the end of the lace he’d passed through the zip tie to a lace on his other shoe. He double knotted it, then leaned back as far as he could to stretch.

  Squinting up at the sky, Tommy peddled with his feet as if riding an imaginary reciprocating bicycle at the gym. He did this three or four times before pushing his feet out even further, thus applying more pressure with the laces on the zip tie.

  In less than a minute, the friction caused the zip tie to snap.

  Tommy groaned and lay flat on his back for a moment, completely spent. After catching his breath, he held his hands up to the sunlight, wincing at the deep red grooves on his wrists.

  Shaking his head, he inspected his injured hand next. He peeled the bandage back just far enough to glimpse the wound, and then quickly replaced it.

  Vinny’s cut and sear job looked terrible now, and the gauze so wet that it seemed to suction back in place.

  I need to get home and disinfect the wound. I also need to sleep.

  Tommy almost wanted to take a nap here, in the middle of Intention Bridge, but he knew if he did that it might be hours before he got back up again.

  With another groan, he somehow managed to first crawl to a seated position and eventually peeled himself to his feet.

  The only good thing that came from being kidnapped and dangled over the side of the bridge was that he hadn’t seen the barrel.

  Either it had sunk or floated away.

  As Tommy reluctantly started the long walk home, he hoped to hell that it was the former.

  For the first hour, his thoughts raced, going over everything that had happened since that fateful call he’d received from Brian.

  Could I have done anything differently? Could I have taken a different path?

  For the second hour, Tommy’s mind went completely and totally blank.

  He just put one foot in front of the other and kept moving forward, knowing that if he stopped even for a moment, he might fall asleep on his feet.

  Eventually, Tommy made it to his neighborhood, then his street, and then his house came into view.

  His car was still in the driveway, and he knew that his wallet and phone were in the glove compartment.

  But Tommy didn’t even consider grabbing them. Instead, he went directly to the front door, which Marv and Scooter had left slightly ajar, and stepped inside.

  The blast of the cool air that struck him in the face as soon as he entered his home was a welcomed relief to the incessant fall sun.

  The smart thing to do would be to go upstairs and hop in the shower, then address his wounded hand, before crawling into bed and getting some sleep.

  Tommy didn’t make it nearly that far.

  As he crossed through his front foyer and toward the living room, his knees locked.

  He stumbled with his arms outstretched, reaching for the couch.

  He made it… sort of.

  As Tommy collapsed, his head and upper body landed on the couch, while the lower half hung over the side.

  He passed out before he could raise the rest of his body onto the cushions.

  Chapter 4

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Tommy opened one eye.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  His first thought was that the noise was coming from inside his head. But when he opened his other eye, he quickly realized that the sound was coming from the door.

  “Go away,” he moaned. “Leave me alone.”

  But whoever it was, refused to give up that easily.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Tommy tried to pull himself to his feet, only to fall back onto the couch.

  His hand ached, his legs were numb, and he was pretty sure that his feet, still wrapped in foul-smelling socks and shoes, were covered in blisters.

  On his second try, Tommy grunted and groaned his way to a standing position.

  He’d shuffled partway to the door when the knocking resumed.

  “I’m coming, for Christ’s sake, I’m coming.”

  Tommy grabbed the door and opened it, expecting to see his brother’s face staring back, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulder twitching uncontrollably.

  Or maybe it would be Vinny, shouting at him, telling him that Nick changed his mind and that he wanted nothing to do with Wilde Clean-up.

  It could also be Marv, coming to collect his inflated cut early.

  It was none of the above.

  “Dustin?”

  The man took one whiff of Tommy and made a face.

  “Holy moly, man. You look... man, are you okay?”

  Tommy glanced down at himself.


  His jeans were dirty, his shirt stiff with sweat, and even though he couldn’t see his face, he knew it to be streaked with grime.

  Stumbling halfway across New York City in a fugue state would do that to you.

  “Well, truth be told… I had one hell of a wild night.”

  Dustin stared at him and Tommy quickly became annoyed.

  “Look, if it’s about the money, I promised I’d pay you. It might take me a while, but—”

  “What do you mean night?”

  Tommy peered over Dustin’s shoulder at the bright sun. In reality, it had been a wild thirty-six hours or so.

  Give or take.

  “Yeah—wild night.”

  Dustin continued to stare, and Tommy sighed.

  “I gotta get cleaned up, Dustin. If you—”

  “Tommy, it’s Thursday.”

  Tommy made a face.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s Thursday.” As he repeated this unbelievable claim, Dustin showed Tommy his watch. The numbers were far too small, and Tommy’s vision was still blurry from sleep, but if nothing else, it added credence to the claim.

  But that didn’t make it true.

  “It can’t be Thursday.”

  Tommy racked his brain. His brother had called him on Sunday night. If it really was Thursday now, then that would mean that he’d slept for the better part of three days.

  He shook his head.

  “Naw—it can’t be.”

  “Sorry, Tommy, but it is. I tried to call you a bunch of times, just to see if you were all right because you seemed a little… well, that whole… you know.”

  It was clear that Dustin was unsure of how to continue, how much he should actually say out loud.

  Tommy closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Even though the pounding at the door hadn’t been inside his head when he’d been rudely awoken, it was now.

  Three days? I slept for three whole days?

  “Shit,” Tommy grumbled. “This is mental.”

  A gentle hand came down on his shoulder and Tommy opened his eyes.

  Dustin was smiling now, and he gently guiding Tommy back into the house.

  Tommy wanted to resist—he was in no mood for visitors—but he lacked the physical strength to do anything about it.

  Dustin closed the door once they were both inside.

  “Go take a shower, Tommy—get cleaned up. I’ll make some coffee. And then we’ll go for breakfast.”

  Just the mention of food was enough to twist Tommy’s stomach into a frenzy.

  The last time he’d eaten had been at Rose’s Deli.

  Dustin’s right: I need to get washed up and eat something. Then I’ll be able to understand how in the hell I managed to lose three days of my life.

  ***

  As predicted, Tommy felt much better after scraping the filth from his skin. His hand also didn’t look as bad as it felt. The bleeding had stopped, and a thick scab had formed where his baby finger had once been.

  It was warm, but not hot to the touch, making the possibility of an infection unlikely.

  Still, Tommy was taking no chances. He coated the scab with Polysporin and then wrapped it in a thick layer of gauze.

  Even though Dustin had brought his car, Tommy elected to drive them both. The boy was strange and if things became unbearable during breakfast, Tommy wanted to be in control of the exit plan.

  “All right, you can drive, but we’re going to my favorite joint,” Dustin proclaimed.

  What Tommy longed for was another one of Carmen’s epic sandwiches, but he let Dustin have this one.

  After all, he’d come looking for Tommy when nobody else had.

  Three days… I sleep for three days and the only man to come around is somebody I’d just met. Fuck you, Brian.

  “Yeah, okay,” Tommy said dryly. “Sure.”

  “Ha, you’re gonna love it. This place has the best pancakes in all of New York City.”

  If the line-up outside the hole in a wall cafe was any indication, then Tommy thought perhaps this bold claim would be borne out.

  Dustin evidently knew the owner—a big man covered in flour—because they were ushered inside and seated straight away.

  They didn’t even need to order; tall stacks of fluffy pancakes seemed to just materialize in front of them.

  Tommy shoveled food into his mouth without even looking up. He chased the first stack with scalding coffee, and then repeated this routine until his stomach felt as if it were ready to burst.

  “Told you,” Dustin said with a grin. He had polished off a healthy portion of the glutenous pancakes as well.

  Tommy groaned and slumped back in his chair. As they waited for the waitress to come around with more coffee, he inspected Dustin, trying to get a read on the man.

  Is he gay? Some sort of stalker? A clinger?

  Tommy shook his head.

  His intuition about people was usually spot on, but he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the enigma across the table from him. Eager to get inside Dustin’s head, Tommy started to ask questions.

  “Why did you want to get into crime scene cleanup, anyway?”

  Dustin shrugged.

  “Promise you won’t get mad?”

  “Sure.”

  The man looked around before answering. They were shoulder to shoulder with other diners, but nobody was listening.

  They were either too focused on their own conversations or their food to take notice of two average-looking men having breakfast together.

  “My uncle? Professor Wheeler? He said that you could use the help and I, uhh, I needed the work.”

  Tommy’s eyes narrowed.

  Something about this didn’t ring true, but he decided not to call Dustin on it.

  They both had secrets, it seemed, but the lie was telling, nonetheless.

  “Why did you get into the business?” Dustin asked, stopping any further inquiry into his motives.

  “Well, I was in grad school wrapping up…”

  Tommy stopped himself.

  Not only was the story uninteresting, but it would come off as condescending to a man who had barely even finished high school.

  And it all seemed like small potatoes given the predicament he now found himself in now.

  Problems were like apex predators: they were the most important thing in that moment.

  Until a new alpha arrived on the plains.

  Then they were just meat.

  “…it’s just a job,” he lied. “I’ve got a pretty good grasp of chemistry and there was a need in the market. What can I say, no shortage of crimes to clean up in New York?” Tommy bit his lower lip. “And you know what? As morbid as this sounds, I kinda like to hear the stories of people who were here one day then—poof—were gone. I guess… I guess I just find it all a little interesting.”

  Dustin chuckled.

  “That’s one way of thinking about it and a kinda unique use of your skills, if I do say so myself.”

  This comment got Tommy thinking first of his dad, and what he’d done with his life, or rather hadn’t done, which then naturally came around to Brian.

  Brian, who was responsible for this mess, for getting him involved with the damn mob.

  With Vinny, a man who had no qualms about shooting someone—

  Tommy suddenly rocketed to his feet. He didn’t see the waitress approaching from his left and his elbow collided with her tray. A stack of pancakes went airborne and the waitress yelped as it crashed to the ground.

  And now everyone was looking at them, but Tommy barely noticed.

  “Shit, Dustin, I gotta go. I’m so, so sorry, but I gotta go,” he said as he squeezed his way towards the door.

  “Tommy? You okay?”

  Tommy apologized again and waved his hand.

  “I’ll see you soon, alright? Sorry… sorry about this.”

  Am I okay?

  The question ran through Tommy’s mind as he hurried to his car and got behind the wheel.

  No, I’m definitely not okay, Dustin. Neither is the corpse that has been rotting in my storage locker for the better part of three days.

  Chapter 5

  Tommy knew that he couldn’t go back to Intention Bridge. Chopping up the man Vinny had murdered, putting him in a barrel, and tossing him into the water as he’d done with Oscar Buglioni was out of the question.