One for the Price of Two: Blood Relations, #1

By Howard Weiner

Series: Few challenges prove more nettlesome than a change in family business leadership, especially when the family business is murder-for-hire.

The Carrullo Family is in transition: Father-in-law, family patriarch, lead assassin, is giving way to his new son-in-law. Dad has carried forward the artistry he learned from his father. His new son-in-law was a former special forces operator and sniper in the armed forces trained in speed, stealth, and function.

Four generations living in the same household from the oldest, "Nana," to the recent newborns--all of whom are involved in the family business. Some by choice. Some not.

The Book: Fraternal twins are raised by an ambivalent aunt who provides an unusual childhood experience. One twin leaves home to join the armed forces and is ultimately assigned to a special forces unit conducting clandestine operations in North Korea. The death of one of his unit members yields an introduction to an organized crime family specializing in murder for hire. The funeral for the family's son and an interest in their daughter brings new blood to the family business

The family patriarch, eager to step aside, takes a page from a noted mobster and takes on the mantle of dementia to gracefully retire from a culture that otherwise prefers to bury its secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard Weiner
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386768395

Howard Weiner

Howard Weiner is a recent addition to the literary genre of fiction. Writing mysteries, thrillers, crimes—with a touch of romance—an approach described by one reader as “one bubble off.” Many authors sharing the genre have characters whose fortune is determined by others. They literally have dodged the bullet that otherwise would have killed them. Weiner’s characters make their own fortune—good or bad—and they live with the results. Weiner’s own experiences are blessed with no small number of noteworthy characters and events. He brings these slightly off-kilter individuals to life, complete with their own stories and dramas. Like the child prodigy in his first novel, It Is Las Vegas After All, who comes to the starting edge of adulthood and then loses the approval of his doting parents, the sponsorship of one of America’s great institutions of higher education, and gains the enmity of his girlfriend’s father—an international arms dealer—to become a home-grown terrorist operating on U.S. soil. A survivor of rich, nuanced bureaucracies in the public and private sector, Weiner writes about characters whose career choices and decisions are morally questionable. A student of personal behavior in complex circumstances, Weiner brings these often cringe-worthy characters to life. Some are amoral, others immoral in a narrow slice of their lives, yet they otherwise look and act like people we all know from work or even childhood. Like one of the female leads in his novel, Serendipity Opportunity, an out-of-the-box thinker who flunks most of life’s basic relationship tests, yet she is someone you never want pursuing you in the cause of justice. There’s a former foreign security official who uses his protected status as a witness for federal prosecutors to provide cover for his own mayhem and murder in Weiner’s third novel, Bad Money. Many of Weiner’s stories are born out of real life events: The mix-up in luggage claim at the airport in, Bad Money, the chronic high school slacker in Serendipity Opportunity whose one stroke of good fortune creates his opportunity to perpetrate a complex series of frauds, or the brilliant student in It Is Las Vegas After All who uses his prodigious talents toward an evil end.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

June 2017

SHE WAS DROP-DEAD TIRED. The overhead lamp in the galley was making her headache even worse on this, her fourth segment of the day. Her tour started in Las Vegas at an obscenely early morning hour. Almost twenty-three hours later, she neared the finish line—in Las Vegas from whence her tour of duty began. Air safety officials never permitted members of the flight crew to work such hours. Flight attendants, responsible for passenger safety in the cabin? Well, that was an altogether different matter, but whoever said life was fair?

Earlier segments were delayed by unexpected mechanical issues, end-of-month flight crew shortages, and finally, bad weather. Normally, she’d be home before midnight. On this tour, she’d be lucky to walk through her front door before 4 a.m. Her ex-husband’s offer to send her back to the university to finish her degree was looking a whole lot better than yet another cramped kitchen galley in which she stood. Unfortunately, the offer was tied to the former hubby and no amount of fatigue could restore the luster on his image.

The gate agent at LAX started the boarding process with business class passengers. They, too, were tired and irritable. Orders were higher than normal for a pre-take-off cocktail, a glass of wine, or a whiskey straight-up. First drinks were followed by seconds and thirds—the modern flyer’s anesthesia. Anything to lessen the misery of delayed flights and the abominable late hour.

She prepared the glasses and snacks while another cabin attendant welcomed business class passengers aboard. Later, they would be followed by those flying economy. This flight was only one-third full which was a blessing. Unfortunately, most were leisure flyers which was most decidedly not a blessing.

Leisure flyers were the bane of cabin attendants. Leisure flyers were newbies. They took forever to stow their luggage and personal items before clearing the aisle. Newbie traffic jams and delayed departures were commonplace. Tempers flared even under the best of circumstances. Yet, at the end of the day, the newbies were just like everyone else, if not more so. They wanted to be home, to have it all behind them.

Later, she found she couldn’t explain what it was about the passenger who boarded in the midst of the newbies. He was taller than most, but that wasn’t it. His facial features were smooth, rounded with none of the angular bone structures most men had. He wore one of those rugby shirts with the parallel horizontal lines much like the old TV test patterns. His skin was light, very light. Perhaps that was it. Who lived in Las Vegas with milky white skin?

His long sandy hair was tied in the back—a man bun.

The horror that was the boarding process mercifully came to an end. The late hour guaranteed a quick trip to their runway and takeoff. Planes waiting to depart were not stacked up. A long, but quick taxi ride to the take-off area was the only thing between the plane and flight. Quickly, they were airborne, and shortly thereafter, they reached cruising altitude. Drink and snack service began.

The senior flight attendant encouraged economy passengers scattered throughout the plane to move forward. Seating was plentiful, and they wanted to bring this part of the flight service program to an end.

She completed the business class service and turned her attention to staging the extra beverages and ice needed to begin service in the economy section, when one of the other attendants started to complain.

Didn’t she hear us ask everyone in economy to please move forward?

I’m sorry, she started, who are you talking about?

The tall woman sitting in front of the rear bulkhead.

Describe her, she prompted.

Tall, milky complexion, soft features, pony-tail, wearing a rugby dress. She paused, Can you imagine? Skin like that in the hot desert sun. She must hide under a ton of sun screen and big hats. Poor thing.

Did you say a woman? she asked.

Yes, a woman.

The only person who fit that description was a man she saw during boarding.

Wow, she thought. It’s been a long day. Did I mistake a woman for a man?

Later, she walked up the aisle collecting the discarded service items and any other refuse passengers wanted to unload. When she reached the rear of the plane, she saw the woman.

The passenger was sitting upright, because seats directly in front of the bulkhead did not recline, but she was nonetheless in full slumber. The cabin attendant stopped to stare. The woman was asleep after all.

She couldn’t get over it. The same soft, feminine features, pony-tail, skin coloration, and that dress. She was certain the dress was a shirt worn by a man. However, she couldn’t argue with the image before her. This was clearly a woman. She wasn’t about to disturb this woman’s slumber to ask her gender. But she knew what she saw earlier.

Walking back to the front of the plane, she looked to see if anyone else wore the rugby shirt she spotted earlier. Must be another passenger, she thought, or maybe I’m crazy.

The captain announced the descent and expected landing in Las Vegas. She strapped into the retractable seat reserved for flight attendants. When the cabin lighting dimmed, she closed her eyes. Throughout the descent, her mind replayed the boarding loop, again and yet again. It was a man she saw. Whoever that was in the back of the plane wasn’t him. She knew it.

⁑ ⁑ ⁑

THEY STARTED THE CLEANUP from the rear of the plane before the last passenger exited into the jet way. The late-night departure and general newbie fatigue meant the passengers didn’t have enough time to create their usual mess and disarray in economy. Five minutes after the last passenger was gone, the cabin attendants grabbed their own bags and followed them into the gate area.

The walk from the end of the concourse to the baggage claim area went on forever. The subway ride from the concourse to the main terminal and baggage claim only made the transition more tiresome. As she passed the luggage carousel serving the flight she saw the woman walking toward the parking garage. She was maybe fifteen to twenty feet ahead.

The woman wore four-inch heels. Given her already tall stature, the heels made her even more notable. And her calf muscles were to die for. She was a giant towering above the others.

She didn’t take small steps. No, this woman’s stride allowed her to steadily increase the gap between them. She was pulling away. At the door leading to the parking garage, the tall woman temporarily slipped out of sight.

The cabin attendant made her way to the people mover dead ending at the roadway. The large parking structure lay directly ahead. Suddenly, in the bright sodium lighting, she saw the woman’s head above the crowd. Then she lost her again after the parking garage elevator doors closed.

The elevator panel showed the cab’s travel ended at the same floor where the flight attendant parked her own car. She took an adjoining elevator cab and exited at the same floor a short time later.

She preferred the top floor of the parking garage, except during the holiday periods when everyone seemed to travel. Most days—today—the floor was mostly empty. Walking around the elevator structure, she gained a full view of what seemed like acre after acre of empty parking stalls. Yet, she could hear the wheels of the woman’s bag rolling across the concrete, even though she didn’t see her anywhere. She did a second slow scan of the floor after the sound stopped. Nothing. Giving up the chase, she changed directions and made her way to the far end of the floor to her own car.

Using the key fob, she clicked open the tailgate of her small SUV when she was no more than ten feet from the vehicle. Her timing was letter perfect. She lifted her own bag from the garage floor and into the rear compartment before the tailgate was fully extended. She double clicked the fob again to close the hatch and walked to driver’s side door.

She heard the click, click of the heels too late. By the time she turned to face the sound, the tall woman’s fist collided with her larynx crushing her windpipe. As she slowly collapsed to the ground, oblivious to her own impending death, she noticed the tall woman’s nose hairs.

Her last thought was to question how any woman would fail to clip her nose hairs.

There was no answer to be had.

She was dead.

CHAPTER TWO

August 1977

DAWN MATTHEWS SAT ALONE in the waiting area. Her parents long since deceased, her only sibling had just died in childbirth. She replayed the conversation that had just taken place.

Ms. Matthews, Dawn, your sister delivered two healthy babies—twins, one girl, one boy, spoke the obstetrician. For such joyous news, he wore an incongruous expression of sadness. Unfortunately, there were complications surrounding the delivery of the second baby, the little boy.

Complications? What do you mean there were complications? She knew something was horribly wrong.

Your sister was not in the best of health. She was very underweight to support a pregnancy let alone to deliver twins. During her first visit to my office, I did something I seldom do. I asked her to consider terminating the pregnancy.

But she was doing so well during the pregnancy. She was glowing in the last month. She was so looking forward to having twins. Dawn was confused. Bad news, a glowing sister in the last term of her pregnancy, now the twins were here. What happened? What’s the bad news?

Dawn, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your sister’s heart was under tremendous strain of delivering twins. One child, perhaps. But her heart gave up following the delivery of the little boy. She really struggled through the second delivery, determined to see it through. But afterward, she crashed. Her heart simply gave up the fight.

Dawn is dead? she shrieked. That’s impossible. She was doing so well. She gave birth to two healthy babies. They are healthy, right?

Both babies are fine. Normal height, weight, all of their fingers and toes. The OB put the best face possible on an incomprehensible outcome. Someone from the hospital will be along shortly to assist with the details. So, why don’t you wait here. Is there anyone you need to call, contact?

No, I’m the only one left in our family, she responded in a mechanical voice devoid of the highs and lows of normal conversation. What details? Do you mean a funeral? We don’t have any money for a funeral.

Like I said, the hospital social worker will help you sort all of that out. They have experience to offer which will prove useful. So, why not take a seat. She’ll be along shortly.

No matter how many times Dawn replayed the conversation in her mind, she remained unable to process the death of her younger sister, Sissy. Somehow, she would need to find a way to bury her sister. And what about those two babies? Lord have mercy, Dawn never saw herself as a mother. She never had any children of her own. Now at forty-one she was a first-time mother to twins.

The social worker looked like twenty miles of bad road. Dawn was convinced the Good Lord ordered an extra ten yards of skin to drape over her tall, thin frame. If ever there was the human equivalent of a basset hound, this was it.

You must be Dawn, she offered in a bright greeting which quickly took a turn toward the funereal. I’m sorry for your loss. Do you need any help contacting close family members, an undertaker, or any of the other arrangements that need to be made?

No, it’s just Sissy and me, she paused, I guess it’s just me now.

Well, truth be told, it’s just the three of you. Offered by way of a gentle reminder, Dawn was now the guardian of her infant niece and nephew.

I’m both an aunt and a mother, I guess.

That’s why I’m here to help. It’s one thing to be a sister and an aunt. You can visit, help out from time to time, but you drive to your own home each evening.

If the social worker was trying to be helpful, she was a brick short of a full load. Dawn remained overwhelmed by Sissy’s passing and the daunting prospect of becoming a mother to two newborns. She ran through the list of things that needed to be done. First on the list was a funeral for Sissy.

A funeral.

Sissy shared Dawn’s one-bedroom apartment above the laundromat on Center Street. Dawn worked in the laundromat on weekends when the owner wanted some peace and quiet. The owner paid minimum wage and agreed to lease Dawn the apartment for two hundred and fifty dollars a month as long as she worked the weekends.

Calling the space above the laundromat an apartment was a bit of a stretch. The place was originally a store room and an adjoining office, when the building was leased as a hardware store. The cracked concrete floors were old and stained. The few windows it offered were small and located too high to do much more than let in the sunlight. There wasn’t even a fully equipped kitchen. Instead, their apartment featured a slop sink and a hot plate sitting atop a small pile of wood skids on which the last three commercial washers were shipped from the factory. The bedroom, originally housing a small desk, chair, and file cabinet, now held several pieces of thick foam duck taped together to form a mattress. The foam was stripped out of the shipping cartons having served its purpose.

The bathroom was carved out of the large rectangle that used to host the storeroom. The less said about the bathroom, the better.

During the fall and winter months, the heat produced by the laundromat heated the apartment above. If anything, they were often too warm for comfort until the early morning hours when they were too cold. During the summer, the humid heat was unbearable. Thankfully, the owner gave them the large, noisy fan once used in the laundromat. It was still too hot in the summer months, especially in July and August. They slept on the cool concrete floor rather than their homemade foam mattresses. It worked, but it was far from ideal.

When Sissy discovered she was pregnant, the father was long gone, but the social services people were nearby. Between the food stamps and a small monthly cash stipend, Sissy and Dawn pooled their resources. Unfortunately, the month was always longer than their cash and food. They were a familiar sight at the town food bank.

Of the two, Dawn was the handy one. In preparation for the twins, she used the tools in the laundromat to refashion the remaining wood skids and some extra shipping foam to create two cribs. Neither crib would pass inspection by safety officials or bear the mark of Good Housekeeping. Yet, if looked at long enough, one might stretch the imagination to declare they were fit for the purpose.

We don’t have any money for a funeral, Dawn spoke the words slightly above a whisper.

Don’t you worry, sweetie. We have a small fund for these circumstances. It won’t pay for a real funeral with a hearse and a burial plot. But it will cover the cost of cremation.

The thought of reducing Sissy’s body to a pile of ashes was unbearable for Dawn. How would I ever explain that to Momma and Daddy? she asked the social worker.

Sweetie, I thought you said your parents passed?

I didn’t say that. I said it was just Sissy and me. But they are gone. Momma passed two years ago. Daddy a long time before that.

Dawn’s parents married late in life. Too late to procreate and have children of their own. Instead, they adopted other people’s children. Daddy did odd jobs around town and out into the rural farm land beyond. Dawn never understood she was adopted until Daddy came home one evening with Sissy. That’s when her parents told her she was adopted too.

Dawn was twelve when Sissy arrived. Sissy was eight years younger. Momma said it was Dawn’s job to help care for Sissy. Dawn always wanted a younger sister. So, her mother’s charge was just fine with her. When Sissy was unruly and uncooperative, which happened at lot, Dawn took some solace that she didn’t have a younger brother. Dawn saw no possible use for boys. They were dirty and smelled like wet dogs.

Momma’s rules for Sissy’s care were long and sometimes unfair. Dawn was always responsible for Sissy. If Sissy did something wrong, Dawn was ultimately responsible. If Sissy burned her hand on the kitchen stove, it was automatically Dawn’s fault for failing to take care.

Dawn continued caring for Sissy for the balance of her life. She blamed herself for Sissy’s pregnancy. Had she done a better job supervising Sissy on the weekends, there wouldn’t have been a boyfriend or a pregnancy, but the weekend work in the laundromat dominated her attention and effort.

Sweetie, I don’t see any problem in the adoption, the social worker was back to her hopeful voice. Now don’t you worry about the lawyer costs and the court costs. The county will be pleased to have an adopted parent for these two beautiful babies ready-to-go. It will save the taxpayers a bundle to keep them out of the foster care.

The social worker was acting like Momma. The babies were Dawn’s responsibility. There was no escape now.

We’ll see to it you get food stamps, cash money, and medical care. You’ll be covered too. There might even be some WIC money to help feed those babies.

The social worker knew Dawn was under no obligation to claim the newborns. If she chose, Dawn could walk away from this major obligation leaving the county to shoulder an increase in its costly foster care population—an obligation lasting for as many as eighteen years.

Sissy didn’t prepare for these babies. She didn’t buy any diapers or clothes or any of the other things new mommas get for their babies. Dawn was overwhelmed by the logistics of infants.

Oh, sweetie, we can put you in touch with some church groups who will help you with all of those necessities. They’re good people always willing to lend a helping hand. The social worker was really selling it. Now for the big close. If these poor babies end up in foster care, there’s no guarantee they’ll grow up knowing one another. Foster parents might accept one infant, but not two. Adoptive parents are often unwilling to take on multiples.

In the best of times, foster children weren’t flying off the shelves and into the arms of adoptive parents. And the adoptive parents that did exist were reluctant to adopt twins, and they always felt guilt in taking only one. No one wanted to adopt one child and wait eighteen years for the other child to hunt them down and ask the inevitable question: Why didn’t you take me as well? What was wrong with me? Or worse, you?

As Sissy and Dawn grew into their teens, their momma took every opportunity to instill the value of family. Look out for one another. Stick up for one another. Go the extra mile for one another, was Momma’s frequent refrain. As her time with the social worker came to an end, there was only one decision Dawn could make. Her momma trained her well.

I’ll take the babies. I’ll be their momma.

It took all the social worker’s resolve to keep from punching her fist into the air.

CHAPTER THREE

Fall 1983

"WELL, ISN’T THIS INTERESTING, boys and girls. We have twins in our first-grade class. Why don’t you tell us your names?" The teacher spoke in a high, lilting voice intended to engage and flatter small children.

My name is Logan Kim Bell. This is my sister, Kim Logan Bell, the small boy made the announcement exactly as he’d been coached by his Aunt Dawn.

Isn’t that the cutest thing. Twins with reversed first and middle names!

Logan wasn’t at all certain what reversed first and middle names meant exactly. He performed his part as rehearsed. Dawn insisted he must look out for his sister, Kim. She was the shy one, and always reacted to stressful situations with tears. It was Logan’s job to do the first-day introductions.

Technically, Logan was the younger brother and Kim the older sister. Dawn believed it was the older sibling’s duty to care for the younger child. In this situation, that was impossible. Kim was simply unable to demonstrate, the good sense God gave a goose, as Dawn was quick to note. Having heard this judgment throughout the entirety of her short life, she came to accept its finality and her fate.

Not that Logan understood or agreed.

Logan and Kim had that special relationship common to twins but found the role of older brother to be an unreasonable burden. Kim seldom made the effort to become self-sufficient. It was more work than she liked, and Aunt Dawn always belittled her efforts. Whether Logan or Kim liked it or not, Logan was always in charge. He was always the person who answered to Aunt Dawn whenever Kim misbehaved or failed at some expected task.

Following several parent-teacher conferences, their teacher adopted Aunt Dawn’s point of view. Even in school, Logan was unable to escape his responsibility for Kim. When at home with Aunt Dawn, Logan long ago accepted the punishment for Kim’s increasing failures to meet his Aunt’s expectations. School was to be no different.

There was no escape for Logan Bell.

⁑ ⁑ ⁑

Winter 1989

BY THE MIDDLE of his first year in junior high school, Logan Bell was suspended for truancy more times than any other student in the