Murders of the Sixth Kind

Legends of Tsalagee #2, Chapter 2

Author’s note: The chapters presented here in ILLUMINATION Book Chapters are from the second novel in my Legends of Tsalagee mystery series. The release date has yet to be determined, but roughly late summer, early fall 2021. In the meantime, I’m looking for beta readers. If interested, please visit my website and contact me via email for more information.

Two

Deputy U.S. Marshal Clarence Decker considered committing cold-blooded murder. Slipping along the icy sidewalks in an undisclosed location in Jersey City that frigid February night, three victims came to mind. First up, Decker listed Senior Deputy Marshal Harvey, the man in charge of their rat trap. Then Deputy Marshal Kosnik, the other man assigned to their detail, who was an asshole. And, last but not least, Tommaso Bonadonna, a.k.a. Tommy “Two Toes” Bona, the rat they were protecting.

“Hey, kid,” Harvey had said. “Tommy wants more calzone and wine from Spatoro’s.”

“Crap,” Decker said, slapped the paperback Elmore Leonard novel he was reading onto his knee. “If I keep going there, somebody’s going to figure things out and tell Giacopo’s guys, and they’re gonna follow me.”

“Try not to get noticed,” Harvey said.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” the vexed Decker said, standing, throwing his hands up. “Everybody in that place knows everybody else. I stick out like a sore thumb, going in picking up food and leaving. I’m German, I look German. They’re like Italian Rottweilers; believe they can smell lawmen.”

Harvey looked over at a grinning Kosnik and shrugged. “Try to look less Aryan and more Italian.”

To get the calzone, Decker had to walk five blocks from the Ramada Inn where they had Tommy holed up, because the office wouldn’t provide a car. They only send a car when Tommy Bona had to go testify. Once done, the U.S. Marshals — probably himself and Kosnik — would scurry Tommy off to God knows where to live out the rest of his fat, useless, eight-toed life. That being the deal for his turning state’s evidence against the Giacopo mob.

There couldn’t be food delivery, either. As the junior marshal in charge of babysitting Bonadonna, Decker always had to go get the calzone, or whatever. Sooty brown ice layered the Jersey City sidewalks like a mini glacier between the Ramada and Spatoro’s Sicilian Ristorante, making the ten-block round trip walking tour slower and more treacherous. Decker balanced the calzone in one hand, and in the other the bottle of Roscato Rosso Dolce Tommy also demanded.

The challenge was to get the calzone to the room unfrozen and the wine bottle unbroken. Food was always cold by the time Decker brought it in, but the room had a microwave. On the other hand, the wine was good and chilled. Decker felt sure every passing car, and every dark pedestrian going his way was some of Giacopo’s muscle.

Tommy was a made man, a wiseguy, which meant his testimony constituted his death warrant. That would apply, not only in the five boroughs, but anywhere else in North America the Giacopo contractors could reach. That was, of course, unless the Federal Witness Protection Program worked as advertised. Even then, guarantees turned up zeros.

Tommy had come up through the ranks to the position of soldier, risen from being a street punk to becoming Don Giacopo’s son Angelo’s driver and reserve bodyguard. The family initiated him into their ranks for his contract killing of one “Four Fingers” Tony Luchese, a small-time numbers man discovered to be a police informant. Tommy’s loan collections work accounted for most of his family business contributions, but he also took on a hit or two, when asked.

Tommy “Two Toes” Bona got his handle after losing the little and next to little toes on his right foot from an accidental shotgun blast from a colleague. On an assignment to intimidate and/or kill a delinquent loan client, his associate, Billy “One Ear” Mastraccio, in his enthusiasm to make his point, squeezed a little too hard on the sawed-off shotgun trigger which happened to be pointed at Tommy’s foot. Tommy recovered okay, but the injury left him with a sliding limp. He could no longer run fast, but he never had, really, because of his two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bulk on his five-foot, ten-inch frame. But that didn’t hamper him much in fulfilling contracts on other guys with missing body parts.

Tommy’s slip up came when two cops caught him red-handed taking out a deadbeat in Philly. Unfortunately for Tommy, Pennsylvania still had the death penalty. The DA assured him of his conviction, and execution, unless… unless Tommy would agree to a deal. Squeal on the Giacopo’s.

Deputy Marshal Decker, he and the calzone half-frozen and the wine bottle unbroken, made it back to the motel suite without being followed. Tommaso Bonadonna a couple days later told “da trute and nutin but da trute,” so help him “Gad.” As promised, the Marshal’s Service took him on a circuitous route to protection. It started out in Los Angeles for three months, then Salt Lake City, then Houston, back to California — Bakersfield. Finally, in late August, they dropped him off in a small town in eastern Oklahoma; a freakin nowhere burg in the middle of that same nowhere in which the vindictive eyes of the Giacopo crime family would not think to look.

It was up to Tommy to find a permanent place to live, a domicile his pals at the U.S. Marshals Service called it. The Feds gave him a new ID, birth certificate, Social Security card, and name.

At dusk on a warm September evening deputy marshals Decker and Kosnik deposited Tommy Two Toes in Tsalagee, Oklahoma. He found himself lodged in the hotel attached to the town’s principal attraction, the Riverhawk Casino — Tommy’s temporary residence.

Cal cashed the lunch raincheck with his uncle a couple days after finding the bloodless corpse in Tubbeeland. The counter and booths and tables at Arlene’s had nearly filled by eleven a.m., mostly by men in flannel and denim who started their day in the pre-dawn darkness. They ate their chicken fried steaks or burgers and fries, wearing their sweat-stained straw hats or billed caps. They conversed with one another about the weather or crop futures or beef prices or hunting and fishing or sports.

The discussions reached beyond those small groups gathered at each table, booth, or counter seat as the men all knew one another. Like the gossiping women at whom they scoffed, they shared news or rumors or lies with everybody in the establishment. This day’s news raised the hubbub a level, as the talk centered on the dead man found in Tubbeeland; more accurately, the murdered dead man.

Tom Kelly, the former Tommy “Two Toes” Bonnadonna, sat alone at the counter listening to the conversation. Well, not alone. Al Forrester sat atop the stool to his left, Junior Waxworth the one on the right. Still, Tom ate lunch alone. He came to Arlene’s several times that week, having discovered the home-style cooking much preferable to the undeviating blandness of the buffet food served-up by the casino eateries. Most of the food at Arlene’s added a novel experience for Tom’s Italian palate, but he didn’t find it disappointing. The food came rich in starch and gravy and most of the meats fried, but not bad grub. He hungered for Italian, but the menu didn’t include it, not true Italian, anyway. Once Arlene’s had a dinner special called Lasagna, but it was Italian in name only. More cheese than tomato sauce. She served that up once a month. It was not especially popular with the locals.

This lunch he ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fried onion rings, a beer to drink. And he ate it alone.

You couldn’t call the men in the café unfriendly; just that Tom was a stranger. The community treated strangers with caution. The casino brought in lots of them, but they rarely left the gaming cell block where their money-lust imprisoned them. Occasionally, one of them would snap out of their gambling trace, and wander into the light of Arlene’s, like a tourist. That’s how the regulars at Arlene’s treated them. Most times they just ignored the strangers, because, hell, it was a free country and they’d probably not be back tomorrow, anyway.

But Tom was different. He lunched and dined at Arlene’s every day that week. Didn’t look like he missed too many meals; still, nobody talked to him. They’d maybe glance up when he came in, notice his slight limp. Several would gawk at him as he sat at the counter eating. Talked low into their coffee mugs to their tablemates. Wondered who he was, what he was doing there, what he wanted.

On this the sixth day, Punch Roundstep broke the ice. The day before his lunch-mates nominated him to be the one to approach the stranger, They appointed the least intelligent among them to gather some. Tom came in at 11:05 just as Junior picked up his ticket and vacated his stool. Punch sat next to Tom and got right to the point.

“You an Indin?” he asked.

Socrates Ninekiller, sitting on the counter stool nearest the register, heard the question and turned to look at the inquisitor and his target. The awaited answer intrigued him, as he believed the man was not; Indian, that is.

Tom looked briefly sideways at Punch, eyes squinted. “You talkin to me?”

“Yeah,” Punch answered. He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Punch. Seen you in here all week. Boys in here’s getting curious. Strangers is a rare thing. Ones that keep comin back, anyways.”

Tom looked at the offered hand suspiciously. After a long five seconds, he grasped it in his own meaty one. “Tom,” he said. “How you doin?”

“Aw, I can’t complain,” Punch answered. “Been a little down in the back, though.”

Tom nodded and shrugged, stuck out his lower lip.

“So, are ya?” Punch persisted.

“Am I what?”

“Indin.”

Tom sipped some beer and sat down the bottle. He belched softly. “Nah, I ain’t Indian, I’m Irish. But my mudder was Italian.”

“Eye-talyun, huh? Well, I’d never guessed it. You look plum Indin. Where ‘bouts you from, Tom?”

Most of the ears in Arlene’s that noon hour inclined toward the lunch counter. Talk dwindled to whispers. Only a few eyes, those whose curiosity overruled good manners, stared Tom’s way. He looked over his shoulder at the room, turned back to his burger. “From the coast,” he said.

“Where bouts, Galveston?”

“California.”

“California, no kiddin?” Punch said. “That’d explain the tan, then.” He slapped Tom’s shoulder like a chum and turned to the others with a jesting laugh. A few laughed back. He continued. “Eye-talyun, huh? What, you some sort of gangster?” Punch grinned towards his audience.

“That’s right,” Tom said with a slight smile. He glanced back at the diner crowd, then turned again to his plate, biting off half an onion ring.

Punch’s grin faded. He leaned in and asked in a whisper, “For sure?” Tom continued eating without answering. He turned an eye toward Punch and winked.

“So, what brings you to Tsalagee?” Punch turned up his iced tea glass, crunched some ice.

“Health reasons,” said Tom.

Punch leaned in closer. “Yeah? What kind of health reasons?”

“Breathing. Advised to get out of the city, go where the air isn’t so polluted. So here I am.”

“Yeh, I heard California air was bad. I’d say the air around here is pretty good, only I’d stay away from Notch Porter’s place, if I’s you. He raises pigs.”

Tom nodded and stuffed another big onion ring into his mouth. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“What is it you do for a livin, Tom?”

“I’m, uh… I used to be in the loan business, but I’m retired now. Not looking to work… because of my health issues. Looking for a house.”

“You lookin for in-town or outta-town?”

Tom shrugged. “Out, probably. Somewhere quiet, secluded.”

Punch turned and spoke to one man in a booth across the diner. “Hey, White,” he yelled. “Ain’t that Hanson place next to you still for sale?” Everyone in the café stopped talking or eating and looked at him.

White Oxley halted his conversation with the deputy sheriff and turned his head to look at Punch. He didn’t speak immediately, eyeing the stranger next to Punch, trying to size up just what was going on. “Believe it is, boy. You lookin to move out of that trailer?” Punch was no boy, but White still considered him one.

“Aw, hell no.” Punch pointed a thumb at his neighbor. “Tom here says he’s lookin for a place.” The lunch crowd looked at the stranger’s back, too.

“Well, I’d send him to Bobby John,” White spoke to Punch as if the stranger weren’t in the room. “Believe it’s his sign stuck in the ditch next to the mailbox.”

Punch turned again to Tom. “Bobby John Samuels sells propity. His office is a couple blocks from here, Samuel’s Real Estate. He’ll get ya fixed up.”

Watching the stranger named Tom pay up and limp out of the cafe, Deputy Cal took a sip of his iced tea. “Looks like Roundstep may’ve found you a new neighbor,” he said to his Uncle White.

They met at the property. Bobby John’s pearl white Escalade sat near the back porch. Tom pulled his recently purchased Ford Taurus up behind it. He got out greeting the real estate guy. “How you doin?” he said and looked over the 70s-built ranch-style house. Bobby John started right in on his sales pitch. “Believe this’d be just what you’re looking for, Tom. Nice and secluded out here.” He gestured toward the land behind the house. “Got that five acres; nice little barn, too. Good for keeping a horse if you like to ride. You like to ride?”

Tom shook his head.

“Well, you could probably set it up as a shop or something. It’s in decent shape, has electricity; lotsa possibilities. Maybe a still.” He grinned at Tom, who looked at the roof, ignoring him.

“Place is empty.” Bobby John walked to the back door and fumbled with the knob. “Nobody’s been in it for a couple months.”

The door stuck a couple inches in. Bobby John put his shoulder into it. “There we go,” he said. They entered the kitchen. A dust-layered wooden breakfast table sat in the center of the kitchen. A U-shaped counter and cabinets surrounded it, an oven at one end and yellow refrigerator at the other, sink at the middle with a window over it framing the barn. Tom went over and opened one of the cabinet doors, found it full of dishes. He opened a drawer — flatware in a tray, several mouse droppings.

“Folks lived here killed in a car wreck about a year ago. Their son lives in Atlanta. Didn’t want the place, cleaned out all the personal stuff, said to sell it turnkey, furniture and all.”

Tom wandered through the rest of the house while Bobby John yammered, living room full of furniture, small bed in one bedroom, third bedroom set up as a sewing room. At the master bedroom Tom said, “What’s he askin?”

Bobby John consulted his leather folder. “With the land and all, as is, one sixty-seven five. Considering, that’s a fair price, but, like I say, it’s been on the market for a while, I believe he’d take less.”

Tom nodded, investigated the smallish master bathroom.

Bobby John closed his folder. “Well, you wanna look at the barn?”

“Sure,” Tom said.

They stood in the barnyard at the fence that separated it from the back pasture, Tom had his forearms on a fence post top, studying the acreage. A stand of trees ran along the back fence. Beyond there he could see hills and meadows, rolling off to the horizon.

Bobby John broke the silence after about half a minute, pushed his five-hundred-dollar Stetson back on his forehead. “That land behind yours belongs to a clan of Indians known as the Tubbees; Choctaws, I believe. They own a big spread, close to ten thousand acres. Nobody knows how many there are, several families spread all over out there. They keep pretty much to themselves, discourage outsiders from coming onto their land. But they’ll leave you alone, as long as you don’t bother them.”

He changed direction. “Nearest neighbor is about a mile.” He pointed to his right. “Rancher named White Oxley. Old coot’s a fixture in this town, been here his whole life. Vietnam vet, I believe.”

Tom didn’t respond, so Bobby John shut up, but only for about twelve seconds. “There’s been talk, guess you could call it a local legend, that somewhere on Tubbeeland, there’s a stash of gold.”

That got Tom’s interest. “Yeah? Whadda you mean?”

“Well, it’s said old Amos, the great granddaddy of all these Tubbee’s, the man who acquired the land and started it all; it’s said he got hold of a sizeable load of gold during the Civil War. Ingots I believe they call ’em, bars. Hid ’em out there somewhere.” He swept his arm, gesturing across the expanse beyond them.

Tom turned to look at Bobby John. “How much gold you talking about?”

“Several ideas on that,” the realtor said. “Most say anywhere from fifty to seventy-five bars. If they’re the standard four hundred Troy ounces, that’d put the value at some twenty-five, thirty-five million at today’s prices. I put a pencil to it once.”

Tom pushed out his lower lip and nodded.

“But I don’t know,” Bobby John chuckled, shook his head, and looked at the ground. “Like I said, lotsa talk, local legends.”

“Seems to me those people would’ve done something with it by now,” Tom said. “Head of a family dies, usually there’s a battle over who takes over, especially if lotsa money’s involved. That’s been my experience.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Bobby John removed his hat, wiped his brow. “Like I said, lots of rumors and legends. If it ever was true that old man had gold bars, it’s all probably long gone by now. But it makes for friendly talk down at Arlene’s.”

Bobby John straightened from his lean on the fence, slapped the top of a fencepost. “Well, Wadda ya think, should I make the boy an offer?”

“Yeh,” Tom nodded, lower lip pushed out. “Yeh. Offer him his askin.’

“Well, aw right then. I’ll get the ball rollin.” He turned and started toward the Escalade. The distant report of a rifle cracked to their left. Tom stopped and looked, shading his eyes.

“That’d be your close neighbor, Oxley.” Bobby John extended an arm as they walked and pointed toward the lowering sun. “White’s a crotchety old fart, but not as hostile as the Tubbees. Likes to shoot things, I hear. Has lotsa guns.”

“When can I move in?” Tom asked.

“Well, I’ll get everything started. Call that Hanson boy with your offer. Closing usually takes about a month. Financing is the slowest part. You got your financing lined up?”

“See if he’ll let me rent, till we close. I’ll pay cash.”

Bobby John stopped walking for a second, then picked it up again. “Well, that’ll speed things up.”

© 2021 by Phil Truman. All rights reserved PTI Publishing Broken Arrow, OK

This is a work of fiction. All persons and events depicted sprang from the mind of the author.

Thanks for taking time to read these chapters. I would welcome and appreciate your comments, pro or con.

Shout outs to : Liam Ireland, Stuart Englander, Phil Rossi, Teresa Kuhl, Amanda Walker, Linda Halladay, Karen Madej, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, The Garrulous Glaswegian, Bebe Nicholson, Roz Warren, S.W. Lauden, Ulf Wolf, Carol Anne Shaw, Thewriteyard, Carla Woody, Dr. Preeti Singh, Maria Rattray, Simon Dillon, Øivind H. Solheim