Headshots

Headshots

A Novel

David A. Todd

2014

Headshots

the sequel to

In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Copyright 2014

by David A. Todd

Unlawful copying prohibited

Cover by David A. Todd

Cover photographs by

Mchavez at Wikimedia Commons

and

Tage Olsin

Both photographs modified for the cover

Used under Creative Commons License

Table of Contents

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

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

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Author

Works by the Author

Headshots

Chapter 1

Enea Cerelli couldn't believe what he was seeing. At first, everything had gone well. His snipers had taken their shots, and hit Ronny Thompson, ace pitcher for the Cubs, as he was on the mound in Yankee Stadium. Robo Ron was motionless on the ground. A risky operation that, by all common sense should have failed, had gone perfectly.

But now, as he watched from the luxury box, across the infield in the opposite stands, two of his men had been stopped and detained, one by two men in suits and the other by uniformed officers. What was going on? Why were officers stopping his men? How did they know someone was in the stadium who needed to be stopped? He moved to the front of the box and looked for his two shooters in the stands on that side. Both were gone, he assumed up the steps and out of the stadium. Were they somewhere under the stands, also detained? They didn't respond to his request that they check in via the communication system.

He looked below where Colt Washburn and his group were sitting. The Chicago mobster was there along with two others, watching the field. Where was the fourth man he had seen walk in earlier? It was the 7th inning stretch. Perhaps he was off stretching.

Enea, we're leaving now. Tony Mancini was at the door of the luxury box, beckoning to him.

In a minute please, Don Mancini. I want to check on my team. May I meet you at the car?

Sure, but hurry along.

Some fast thinking convinced Cerelli that the police were on to the whole scheme. How, he didn't know, but he was sure they were all in danger of capture. He wouldn't join the Don at the car—if they even made it to the car. It was time to put Plan B into effect.

* * *

FBI agent Robert Standevan reached the loop at downtown Chicago and exited the Interstate. He was on his cell phone, trying to make sense of what had just happened in New York. The dispatcher in the FBI office was relaying information from the agents at Yankee Stadium. Thompson was down, apparently shot. Two men had been detained, trying to exit the stands, carrying megaphones with small guns fixed inside. So far, everything Sarah Riley, the Chicago Mafia escort, told him had come true.

Just as he pulled into a parking space at his FBI office, a supervisor from New York came on the phone.

Thompson was indeed shot. They're taking him to the hospital now.

Plastic bullets?

No. Well, maybe a combination. He was bleeding when they took him off the field.

What about the spectators? Standevan had reached the building. Any panic in the stands?

No, no one knows. They must think Thompson collapsed from the overwork. I suppose some suspect, especially the press. Listen, I need to head to the site, then probably to the precinct. Anything you need to add from what Thompson's girlfriend told you?

I don't think so. I'll call the boss man, but I think we're going to pick up Frank Fonucci, based on what she said. I don't know for sure how he's involved, but he knew it was happening. Maybe he'll tell us something.

Do so. Hey, the New York agent yelled, the phone away from his mouth, get someone to the hospital to help the locals with the press control. They'll be a bloody nuisance. He hung up.

His supervisor, Ned Gross, reached the door of the building the same time he did. I headed here as soon as Thompson went down. So much for a quiet Saturday evening watching the last game of the World Series. What do we have?

As they walked through the halls, Standevan filled him in on what the Bureau supervisor in New York told him.

I think we should pick up this Frank Fonucci that Riley mentioned.

Who's he again?

Standevan explained Fonucci worked in Chicago for the New York Mancini Crime Family. The Riley girl said she heard about the shooting from him.

I agree, Gross said. I'll send a couple of agents as soon as I can reach them on the weekend. We ought to get the girl in here as well.

Standevan shook his head. She flew to New York this afternoon. I urged her to come in, but she was boarding the plane when she talked with me.

Well, maybe you need to head to New York yourself.

Once in Gross's office, both men immediately made calls.

* * *

Cerelli ducked into the back of a concessions stand, let in by a girl who knew him. He quickly changed into a janitor's uniform he had stashed there, grabbed a roll of trash bags, and exited into the wide corridor. Uniformed officers seemed to be everywhere. He began emptying trash cans, working into a place where he could see the field. He watched as the Cubs and Yankees battled in the last innings. He was interested in the game only to the extent the final results worked into his plans. The Cubs players who had been bribed were rallying in response to the shooting of Thompson, just as he had predicted.

He stopped and watched the last inning. The Cubs took the lead in the top half, then defended it in the bottom. Don Mancini now owed Colt Washburn $80 million. It was the end of the Don, and with any luck, it would become the Cerelli Crime Family.

* * *

Mancini chafed in an interrogation room at a police station in the Bronx. What the heck had happened? The police were swarming at Yankee Stadium. Why were they there, and why would they pick him up? No one could possibly know that they had a crossfire set up to knock Thompson out of the game. Unless there was a double-cross.

And where were his key associates? And what was happening in the baseball game? Two detectives came into the room.

Hey guys, why am I here, and what's going on in the ball game?

Take it easy, Mr. Mancini. He introduced himself and his partner. Do you know why you've been detained?

No. No one's told me anything since your goons grabbed me at the stadium. What's going on in the game?

Cubs took the lead in the top of the ninth, the lead detective said. Yankees are challenging in the bottom. You've been detained because of the shooting of Ronny Thompson.

The what?

You saw him go down. The medics say he was shot at least three times. We've got two of the shooters, so it's only a matter of time until they tell us who ordered the hit. We have a credible witness who says it was you.

What? You're crazy.

You saw Thompson go down, didn't you?

Everyone in the stadium did. It's a wonder he didn't collapse sooner, as much as they've been pitching him.

From somewhere beyond the room they heard groans.

Looks like the Cubs won, the other detective said.

Mancini's face went white.

* * *

In seats in Yankee Stadium, Colt Washburn and his team were elated. The Cubs win over the Yankees meant Tony Mancini owed him $80 million. The New York Mafia Don would be ruined. Washburn hoped to just take over his operation in payment of the debt. Things couldn't have gone better.

Well, except for two things. Sarah Riley showed up at the stadium, directly against his orders. She had obviously become too attached to Thompson. She was supposed to have been a fake girlfriend, a stabilizing factor in his life. Instead, she seemed to have fallen for him.

Then there was Ernie Baiter, a rising star in the Washburn operation. When Thompson went down on the mound in the seventh, Baiter thought he saw someone off to the left, looking through a bullhorn rather than blowing through it. Baiter followed him, was gone ten minutes, then came back with a smile on his face, garrote in hand. Had he murdered his quarry and gotten away with it, or was this one other thing Washburn would have to contend with?

* * *

The Cubs burst into the visiting locker room, world champions for the first time in over a century. In a replay of after-game celebration rituals practiced for years, champagne spurted high. Some were doused with it; others poured it on their own heads. TV cameras caught it all, as reporters pulled player after player aside for interviews. World Series Champions caps were everywhere. Manager Bill Standish spoke passionately about the comeback in the last inning. He then asked for a moment of silence for Thompson, for everyone to say whatever they wanted to whomever, for his safety and care, and got it.

As the hubbub began to fade, players went to the showers. One player pulled another aside and they had a hushed conversation. A third joined them. They were frequently interrupted by other players and coaches. The three all had worried looks, like boys who had gotten away with a prank but were now afraid they would be found out.

[Return to Table of Contents]

Chapter 2

John Lind returned to his hotel room around midnight, exhausted from the day's activities. Covering the seventh game of the World Series—in Yankee Stadium—should have been enough. But the excitement was heightened by Robo Ron Thompson pitching games back-to-back, after having won every game that the Cubs won in the playoffs, a mammoth task.

The drama was increased by the Cubs' quest for their first World Series title after more than a hundred years of disappointment, their first appearance in the post-season finale in many decades. The press frenzy had been huge, much of it directed at Thompson, who had become the major leagues' first thirty game winner in a long, long time.

Then came the shooting of Thompson. Oh, no one in Major League Baseball would admit to Lind that it was a shooting, even though other in the New York and national media had somewhat picked up on it, but he had seen Thompson's jerky movements at the mound, and the blood on his uniform. He had seen minor commotion in the stands, with police officers detaining people trying to leave. He had been to the hospital and seen the anguish on the faces of Thompson's parents and watched Walter Thompson break down when Lind asked him to accept his apology for the false story he had printed just weeks before involving the father.

But all of this had been topped when he saw the small huddle in a corner of the Cubs' locker room, something so out of the ordinary on a championship team that he was confused by it. Why were they in such a grouping, conspicuous in trying to be inconspicuous, faces long and worried?

Lind flopped on the bed, certain he would be asleep in less than five minutes. His cell phone rang almost immediately, however. It was a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, calling from the hotel lobby, saying he had pictures he needed to see, plus some footage to point out to him on the computer. Lind knew his colleague wouldn't bother him this late if it weren't important, so he had him come up.

The pictures were of the same three players. They were huddled in the dugout the inning after the shooting. Then they separated themselves from the others on the field, after the Cubs won. While the others were in a group at the mound, the three pulled away and talked in the outfield just past second base. Each had made good plays in the last couple of innings; you could say it was their playing which gave the Cubs the final lift to victory. They couldn't stay isolated for long. Cameramen and reporters with microphones had soon mobbed the three.

Yeah, I see it, Lind said as the photographer pointed something out on yet another photo. What about the footage you mentioned?

Right, it's from a network feed. He ran it on his tablet. A camera caught the scene in the Cubs' dugout as play resumed after Thompson had been carried off the field. They saw the same three players come up to Standish one by one and speak, seeming to be pleading about something. Then the three players got together in the dugout, away from everyone else, their backs to the cameras, in the same area of the photographer's still shot.

Lind watched it three times. He couldn't read lips, but it sure seemed that the three men had all said a version of Put me in the game. They had been benched because of their slumps. Whatever it was they said to Standish, it seemed to work. He put them in, and they all played up to or above the level they had played at all season. All slumps come to an end, but how fortuitous that three of the worst slumps in the history of post-season play had all come to an end at exactly the moment when the Cubs needed them most, when they were motivated by the injury to Thompson. Yes, how fortuitous when stars-become-goats become heroes.

Lind handed the man's tablet back and gave him a hundred dollars to have a good time at the bar. He pocketed the money but said he'd rather have an assignment. Lind asked him to stake out the hospital where Thompson was, get some photos of those coming and going, maybe even penetrate somewhere past the waiting room.

Right, I've been there already. It's a media circus, but I'll head back there.

Once he left Lind again flopped on the bed, but now his mind was racing. He could see he had many stories to write, and more to pursue. He held his tablet above his head and found the same footage and watched it again. Interesting, and confirmation of his observations. He searched and found other network footage. The late inning heroics by the Cubs he had already watched. He found the part where Thompson went down, the jerky movements confirming in his mind that they were caused by gunshots. Surely someone else would recognize that, or would he be the one to break that story? He watched again as Thompson's girlfriend was on the field and by his side, only to be quickly pulled away by stadium security. Lind had discovered that she was a Chicago Mafia operative, apparently assigned to Thompson for some purpose.

Lind thought. Two murders earlier in the year in Chicago related to Thompson. Plus the fabricated bank fraud in Wichita against Thompson's dad, and the murder of the person who executed the fraud. Several attempts to hurt or embarrass Thompson during the season. And now Thompson is shot in front of a stadium full of people and knocked out of the biggest game of his life. It sure looked like a Mafia hit.

He wondered who to call, and thought of a J-school friend who had taken work as a stringer in New York City. It was now past 1:00 a.m. and Lind had a morning flight. Would his friend still be up at that hour? He found her number among his contacts and called.

Hi Liz. Is this too late to be calling you?

No. I'm still on the job. When you're freelancing, you work when the news is being made. What's up? Elizabeth Morgan had been the most aggressive of his journalism classmates, the one everyone figured would be the first of their class to make national news anchor. Yet her aggressiveness rubbed people the wrong way, and she'd had trouble keeping a job.

Lind told her some of what he suspected about Mafia involvement in Thompson's life, and that he thought Thompson had been shot by the Mafia today.

Shot? The commissioner said it was an injury, busted blood vessel or artery or something. Why do you think he was shot?

Lind gave his reasoning and his eyewitness account, and suggested she see some footage of the event. Then he asked her if she could find out if there was any kind of funny business that went on at Yankee Stadium, or at least find out why the police were crawling all over the place.

You mean more than usual, in the terrorism era?

Well, I'm not asking you if they found any bodies there, but—

Two.

Two what?

Two bodies. That's why I'm at the local precinct now, trying to get information. It's way past deadlines, but maybe I can post something to some newspaper's web feeds.

Two stiffs? In the stadium? Who?

A maintenance man had his throat cut. They found him stashed in a corner near a leftfield concession. And another man killed by a garrote down the right field area.

Lind let out a low whistle. A garrote? Sounds like the Mob.

Yeah. And get this. He's suspected of being a hit man in the Mancini Crime Family. He wasn't carrying any ID, but a Bronx cop who had recently transferred from a Manhattan precinct knew him. When Lind didn't answer she said, Are you still there, John?

I'm here. Are you sure about this? Do you have enough for a story on both of these?

I've pretty much got it written during the last half hour, while waiting for people here to get back to me.

Lind thought fast. "If you feel it's sound, why not give it to the Trib? The main edition deadline has passed, but they should be able to get it in the suburban edition. You're not exclusive to any New York paper are you?"

After assuring him she wasn't, Lind gave her an e-mail address to send the story to, and said he would call a night editor in Chicago. He asked her if anything else was going on at the police station.

Funny you should ask. A high priced lawyer—at least he looks like one to me—was at the front a couple of hours ago, trying to get back to see his client. They kept stalling him, and he kept hissing threats and making calls and acting like a jerk. Finally, not ten minutes ago, they let him back. They must be holding someone pretty important back there. I don't know if it's related or not.

I bet it is, Lind said. I have some information about Mancini's mob being involved in all this baseball stuff that happened today. I haven't put it all together, but I bet, if Tony Mancini himself was at the game, the FBI might have brought him in for questioning.

So the FBI is already in on this? If Mancini is back there and he's lawyered up, they should be releasing him at any minute. Sure wish I had a photographer here, but I'll see what I can do with my phone.

Lind told her his photographer was in the neighborhood and gave her his number. He hung up and made the call to the editor. Then he called an admin assistant at the Trib and left her a message to change his morning flight to open-ended. All the action was in New York, and he sure wasn't leaving.

The television was still on with the sound muted. Lind looked at it and saw the baseball commissioner at a podium. He turned up the sound and heard enough that he was still denying that Thompson had been shot. Lind had had enough. He pulled out his laptop and began writing, a sports editorial in the form of an open letter to the commissioner.

"C'mon, Commish. Why are you stonewalling? Tens of thousands of people in the stadium, and how many millions on TV, saw what happened. We recognize the effects of a gunshot when we see it. The pitcher of a century, Robo Ron, Ronald Regan Thompson, was gunned down before our eyes. Why deny it? What about the blood we saw? A sign of overwork, you say? We call you on that, Commish, but the Trib won't print the word that applies.

Look at him, Commish. He's the biggest attendance draw in decades. A fresh faced kid from the Kansas high plains, tall, skinny for his height, but with a powerful right arm, with that sandy hair always in disarray, always falling in his eyes. Do you realize how America loves this kid? They look at him and see the kid next door making good. Then they see him pitch and go ape over his greatness. Why are you denying him his truth?

Lind stopped there, tiredness finally overcoming his energy surges. He'd finish this tomorrow and it would run the next day. As he began to drift off, he wondered what the Trib's headline would be the next morning: Murder at Yankee Stadium?

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Chapter 3

In all her time working for Colt Washburn, Sarah Riley had never been arrested—or at least she had never been booked, printed, and photographed. Detained, yes. Questioned, harshly. Under suspicion, half a dozen times. But never officially charged. So when the New York police brought her in for that purpose, it shook her up. Given that they had treated her well in the twenty-four hours since Ronny had been shot, she was expecting them to just release her.

Nope, said the detective. He looked like a veteran of the force, fifty-ish, well built, with a face that showed no trace of a smile. You break a law, you get booked. You're cooperating so they aren't throwing you in lock-up. Keep cooperating and they might even let you go back to Chicago. But the Feds here will want to talk with you first.

A year ago this man would have been putty in her hands, Sarah thought. Put him in a suit and he could be a police captain, or even on the commission. As one of Washburn's best sex operatives, she had taken many of those to bed in Chicago. The police protection that resulted had been one of the reasons Washburn's crime organization had flourished, and was then the largest and strongest it had ever been.

All that had changed when she was assigned to Ronny Thompson. He was an awkward, naïve kid from rural Kansas. To become part of his life without suspicion she had gone back to her own roots as an Iowa farm girl. Ronny suspected nothing. For most of the season she had been his girlfriend. He didn't want sex from her, as he still clung to some religious indoctrination he'd had growing up. Companionship was all he asked for.

But he was actually fun to be with. He treated her like a lady, which was so unlike all the other men she handled for Washburn. She found she enjoyed his awkwardness around her, hurt when he talked about being estranged from his parents, and desired his success in all things. Such feelings must have been deep inside her, pushed down by the weight of her rebellion growing up and then the work she did, waiting for a certain country boy to pull them out of her. She was supposed to be stabilizing him; instead he had rescued her.

In a rush of emotions and reactions, she had defied her mobster boss, walked out on her new assignment, and gone to New York to…to do what? Try to prevent Ronny from getting shot? In the process she had contacted the FBI, then assaulted a New York cop while trying to get to Ronny.

The camera snapped, and she winced. Then she turned and it snapped again. Her mug shot was now on record. As painful as this was, she cringed at the thought of the confession she needed to make to Ronny. She figured that would come tonight. By now he should have recovered enough for them to have an honest talk. Sarah thought she would prefer a grilling by the cops, or confronting Washburn, over having to tell Ronny everything.

* * *

Ronny Thompson was starting to come out of a painkiller-induced fog. The doctor said it all happened forty-eight hours before, and that he was healing well for what he'd been through. But what had he been through? Ronny remembered taking the mound at the bottom of the seventh. He had wanted to come out of the game as he felt he couldn't throw another pitch. But Manager Standish asked him to try to pitch one more inning.

He remembered waiving off warm-up pitches then following his normal routine at the seventh inning stretch: standing still and watching the flag. The song ended, the crowd started cheering, and he bent down to get the rosin bag. From there it was mostly a blur. He remembered the pain. First in his back, then his chest, then his right shoulder. He had seen footage of him being loaded on the cart and taken out of Yankee Stadium, the fans cheering wildly, but he remembered none of that. The doc had told him what happened, but Ronny didn't remember what he said. The doc also said he'd already had one operation and was going to need another.

His parents had visited him at the hospital at some point early on, then there was a visit he remembered a little better from them and Sarah. Since then he was mainly aware of pain, and of hearing his mom's and dad's voices. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming that or if they were really in the room with him.

Sarah. Seeing her had caused him to focus briefly. He thought of that awful message on her phone, making her sound like a, well, a whore was the only way he could think to say it. He wasn't sure if it was real or a dream, but his last memory of her was her sitting on his hospital bed and pouring tears over him.

He wanted to focus, but the pain was beginning to come back. As he had been told to do, he punched a button that the nurse said would give him some more medication. He knew