But is it Immoral? Ch. 02

"Oh, Dalton, I can't let you do all this; how will I ever repay..."

"Enough," he snapped. "It's all worked out so don't worry about it." He stood, "Pack up what you're going to need tonight and bring it with you tomorrow. After work you'll meet me at your folks and they'll make the first call from there, then we're all going to the hotel; you'll make the second call from there after you're all settled in then shut your phone off. The room is reserved under Conrad's Photography so not even the hotel staff will know who's staying there." He turned to leave. "Don't worry, Jean," he said looking back as he reached the door, "we're going to get this guy," he said with a reassuring smile.

Just as he started to leave Bel approached, "Dalton, I assume this means you're going to help Jean?" Without saying a word he smiled, gave her a small kiss on the cheek and walked out.

Bel looked at her smiling friend behind the desk. "Okay, what's going on? I just heard you have a family emergency and won't be in next week; is everything alright?"

"Bel, honey, everything is much better than alright," she said, now grinning.

The next day, after work, Jean was all packed and drove over to her parent's house just as planned. Once they had the luggage loaded in the car and they were ready to go, Jean's mom called Kevin's home phone and left an urgent sounding message on his answering machine before heading out.

"Hello, Kevin, this is Audrey Barnes. We're looking for Jean and wondered if she was with you? If she is would you have her call us right away, please. We have a family emergency. Thank you."

***

There wasn't much that wasn't indelibly etched in Jean's mind from that awful day years ago; she recognized Eric as soon as she saw him waiting in the hotel lobby, even without his uniform.

Dalton greeted him first. "Hi, Eric," he said as they shook hands, "Man, I want to thank you for doing this; you're a real life-saver."

"Are you kidding; a free week in a luxury hotel like this, who wouldn't volunteer?" He turned toward Jean and noticed the flush in her cheeks, "Hi, Jean," he said extending his hand, "It's nice to see you again."

Jean bashfully took his hand then introduced him to her parents. A couple bellhops approached with their bags and everyone was shown to their rooms.

Jean's mother looked around with her mouth open. "Oh, Dalton; this is spectacular." Everyone agreed and thanked him again and again as they surveyed the lavishly appointed suite.

Once they were settled in, Jean called Kevin's cell phone. Much to her relief it went to voice mail and she was able to leave a message instead of talking to him personally.

"Kevin, this is Jean; I'm sorry to call you on such short notice but my aunt is dying and I'm flying out with mom and dad to see her before she passes. I'll call you as soon as I get back."

"Perfect," Dalton told her, "Now turn off your phone and leave it off, if I need to contact you I'll call the room."

Eric was standing next to her and noticed the tears from worry. "Don't fret," he told her in a calm, relaxed voice; "Everything's going to be fine, I promise I won't let anyone hurt you."

***

Okay, now what, thought Dalton as we was getting into his car to leave. Just then his phone rang, it was Jack.

"Jack, old buddy, I sure hope you have some good news for me." He heard Jack chuckle a little on the other end; that was a good sign, he wouldn't do that unless he had something up his sleeve.

"Dalton, my friend, how soon can you meet me at Plato's?"

"Ah, well; rush hour traffic should be dying down by now, depending on what the Kennedy looks like, I'm guessing thirty-five, forty minutes."

"I'll see you there."

Dalton was excited to hear what Jack had in mind as he sat on the stool next to his pal and ordered a beer. "Well?"

Jack slid several photographs in front of him. "See these two guys?"

Dalton looked at the photos. There were various shots taken in different locations during different times of the day, but they were all pictures of the same two guys. In some of the shots they were either together or with someone else, but most of them just showed each guy by himself. "Yeah, who are they?" he asked.

"This," Jack said placing his finger on one of the photos, "is Billy, 'The Button,' Spinozo; he's hit man for the mob out of Detroit, and his partner here," Jack said pointing at one of the other pictures, "is Johnny Iota, also a hit man for the mob."

Now he really had Dalton worried; he wasn't sure just what Jack was leading up to. "You're not going to tell me these are the friends that asshole is talking about."

"No, no, no," Jack quickly replied, "But they're going to play a key role in getting our boy out town...in a hurry...never to return."

"Okay, Jack; I can usually read you, but I'm lost. How the hell are these guys going to help? You planning on having the guy bumped off?"

Jack laughed, "No, nothing quite that drastic, but you're close." Jack took a swig of beer then smiled at his own cleverness. He'd pulled off a few scams here and there, usually in co-operation with some law enforcement agency, but this will be one for the history books.

"Dalton, do you remember when Sal Dimarco got whacked a couple years ago? His body was found in the trunk of his car at O'Hare."

"Yeah, sure; he was pretty high up the ladder in the Chicago crime syndicate. I remember them finding his body, why?"

"Well, it was never proven, but it's pretty common knowledge that these are the two guys that did it. Tony Dimarco, Sal's brother was so sure, he put a fifty thousand dollar contract out on them; neither of them have been seen since. The Feds aren't sure if someone collected on the contract, or if they left the country."

"Where did you get these shots?" asked Dalton.

"From the Feds; when we saw those books at asshole's apartment yesterday, I got thinking. This morning I went over to the Federal building to see if I could talk them out of some of their surveillance photos and voila."

"Okay, I still don't see how these are going to help Jean."

"My artistic friend, that's where you come in," he told Dalton.

When Dalton got home that night he couldn't contain his glee. He had to share Jack's diabolical plan with his wife.

"Oh, honey; the guy's going to piss his pants, I love it," she laughed. "Can I help?"

"Well, I'm not sure what you can do, It's kind of a one man project." When he saw the disappointment in her face, he added, "but I'm sure we can find something for you. Come on, we need to study these shots and figure out which ones to use."

Tracy accompanied her husband to his office where they both poured over the surveillance photos, selecting the best candidates for their purpose. He made a copy of the ones he wanted to carry with him.

"Do you think this is enough, just four shots?" asked Tracy.

"Yeah, well there'll be more than just these; Jack is putting together some more stuff on his end as well."

"Just be careful, honey; I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to you," Tracy said as she looked into his eyes and kissed her man.

"I'll be careful, babe; I've done this kind of thing with a lot more dangerous characters than this jackass. I know what I doing," he told her to comfort her worries. "I can't do anything until Monday anyway; the weekend is too unpredictable and I'm not spending it sitting in his parking lot wondering if he's ever coming out."

On Monday, while Dalton started to implement his part of Jack's plan, Eric Watts was just stepping into the shower of his luxury hotel room. He couldn't believe he was given such an opportunity.

The first time Eric saw Jean was over four years ago when they broke into her motel room and arrested her and her lover for Adultery. It was explained to him later, that Jean wanted to experiment with some bondage games; for some reason she was afraid to bring it up to Dalton, who she was married to at the time, so she found a collaborator in one of her co-workers. When Dalton found out he swore out a complaint charging his wife with adultery and named her lover as a co-defendant. When they broke into their motel room Jean's naked body was handcuffed to the bed and blindfolded.

He'd often thought of her after that. Eric had no interest in bondage but there was something about Jean herself that struck a chord with him. She was so terrified, so vulnerable that day when her world came crashing down around her; even then, he wanted to put his arms around the grief stricken woman and tell her everything would be okay; of course he couldn't; not then anyway, but maybe he'd get another chance.

Dalton sat in the parking lot of Kevin's apartment house waiting; he'd picked a vantage point that he hoped would give the results he was looking for; he needed some profiles. He had no idea how long it was going to take, but he was hoping to wrap things up fairly quickly.

He followed Kevin to work and shot more pictures. Before the end of the day, Dalton had taken over three hundred shots of Kevin with a long, telephoto lens. I'm glad Tracy volunteered to help, Dalton thought, it's going to take me half the night to go through all of these.

As he walked into the house that night, Tracy greeted him at the front door with a big hug and kiss. "How'd it go?"

"Pretty good," he told her, "I got quite a lot of shots, I'm sure I have some we can match. You haven't changed your mind about helping have you?"

Tracy smiled and shook her head; she loved working on projects with her husband and something like that would be a lot of fun.

"Good," he said, "cause I'm going need it."

That night, after dinner and after singing Taylor to sleep with a lullaby, Dalton and Tracy started on their project. After working well into the night they were both disappointed to find, that out of all the shots Dalton had taken, only one could be used. "Well, one down and three to go," Dalton said with a forced smile.

The next day Dalton learned from his mistakes and was sure he would be able to use more from the day's shoot. About noon his phone rang.

"So how's it coming, buddy?"

"Ah, well I'm getting there, Jack; how about you?"

"I dug around in the paper's archives and hit the mother-load; I've got more than enough to make our friend shit his pants."

"I'll have to tell that to Tracy, she just thinks he's going to piss in them," joked Dalton.

"So how long do you think before you get what we need, do you have anything yet?"

"Yeah, I got one from yesterday but I hope to have the rest by the end of today. Now, it'll still take me a couple of nights to get it all ready though; I doubt we'll be completely ready to go before Thursday."

"And you've got Jean and her folks put up till when...Friday?"

"Yeah, well, until noon Saturday actually. If it goes longer than that I'll have to renegotiate."

"We should be okay."

They ended their conversation when Kevin left the dealership and took off for a nearby restaurant on foot. By the end of the day Dalton was sure he had enough shots for what he needed; now came the photoshop magic.

"Oh, honey," Tracy watched in awe as Dalton worked his wizardry, "these are perfect, nobody could tell they weren't the real thing."

Dalton smiled, his wife was absolutely right, they were perfect. "Maybe I'm in the wrong business, huh, I could probably make more money blackmailing people."

"Never you mind," she joked back. "We're doing just fine as it is."

"I'm tired; I'm going to leave the last one till tomorrow. Since I rescheduled my shoots this week, I can stay home with you and Taylor. I'll work on designing the Brownstone brochure and finish this up, then maybe we can all go to the park or something."

By the end of the day on Wednesday, Dalton was feeling good. He had completed the Brownstone brochure and had it ready for the printer; he and his wife had spent a couple hours playing with Taylor in the park, and he had just finished the last shot for Jack's plan. "Ahhh, Miller time," he said as he stretched out in his chair.

"Can I see," asked Tracy.

"You sure can, my darling."

Tracy closely examined all the photos again. "Ah, maybe you should wait with that Miller, there, hubby."

That caught his attention; he sprung back up in his chair. "Why; what's the matter?"

"Look here, honey," she said pointing to the last shot he worked on, "There's a reflection of this guy back here in the store window but nothing for Kevin."

"Shhhiiitttt," cried Dalton as he flopped back in his chair.

"Maybe he won't notice," she said.

"No, honey, we can't take that chance; these have to be perfect."

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically.

"Oh Geez, don't be sorry, honey; something like that could have blown the whole thing; are you kidding, I owe you big time, babe."

Tracy smiled; she already had a good idea just how she would have him repay her. "Can you fix it?"

"Oh yeah, it's tricky but I can do it," he said.

Tracy watched as he brought the picture back up in photoshop. "Now," he said after some careful manipulation, "we dissolve it until...how's that," he said with a smile as he showed Tracy the screen.

"Damn, honey; that's amazing."

"It's still early; I'm going to call Jack and let him know I'm all ready."

They made arrangements to get together over an early lunch the following day. Jack had everything he needed; since Dalton was done with his part, there was no reason why they couldn't pull the trigger in the afternoon.

Kevin wasn't in the best of moods; he'd had a hard day at work and he still hadn't heard from Jean. All week he'd wondered if her trip was legitimate or just a way to try and avoid him. Either way he was going to teach her a lesson when she got back. She'd think twice before leaving him in the lurch again, he'd make sure of that.

It was after seven-thirty by the time he came stumbling home; he was tired and aggravated; at first he didn't even see the large manila envelope propped up against his computer screen. He had taken a shower, thrown on some casual clothes, and was about to pop a frozen dinner in the microwave when it caught his eye.

"What the hell...?" he mumbled to himself. He walked over and picked up the package like it was about to bite him. It was an eerie feeling to know someone had been in his apartment when he wasn't there.

He looked around the room half afraid someone was going to jump out at him from behind the couch. Cautiously he checked the drapes by the sliding doors that led to the balcony; he looked out at the balcony itself, next. He listened for any sounds in the apartment; with the package still in his hand he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and crept into the bedroom, again he found no one.

Once Kevin was convinced whoever left the package was now gone, he sat down at the kitchen table, carefully opened it, and spilled the contents on the table in front of him. There were some newspaper clippings, some eight by ten color photos, and a note.

The photos seemed to be the most prominent items so he looked at them first. "That's me," he mumbled, "but I don't know these other guys, "what the hell..." he said as he started to read the newspaper articles. "Geez, these are the same to guys, but I..." Having no idea what any of this meant yet, Kevin saw the two guys in the photos with him where the same two guys shown in the newspaper story.

Chicago: Police are on the lookout for Billy, "the button," Spinozo, and Johnny Iota in connection with the death of Salvator Dimarco.

Kevin felt his stomach churning as he read about the murder of Sal Dimarco and the subsequent disappearance of the two accused killers. He picked up the photos again and studied them closer; there was no doubt the two men in the photos were the same two pictured in the newspaper but he couldn't remember ever seeing either of them...yet, there he was...four shots of him obviously talking to both killers.

He could feel his forehead sweating; his hand shook as he picked up the note and read it:

This is a warning; Tony has a copy of the photos showing you with Spinozo and Iota and knows you were involved with his brother's death. He has sent for two torpedoes from Baltimore who will arrive on tonight's redeye. If I were you I would get out of town before they got here. Tony will never stop looking for you so I wouldn't stay in any one place too long and I would lay low from now on. And whatever you do, don't ever come back to Chicago. Tony will know ten minutes after you hit town and you'll be dead an hour later.

A friend.

Kevin ran to the bathroom and vomited. How, he asked himself, I never saw those guys before, I know I haven't. Shit, those photos have to be fake. He wiped off his mouth and went back to looked again at the four photographs. He just didn't understand it, there was nothing to indicate they were faked.

Kevin almost died when his phone rang; his whole body trembled as he looked at the display. It was a down town number but not one he recognized. Did he dare answer it, he wondered. It rang again...his hand was shaking so hard he could barely find the connect button.

"Hel...hello," he warily answered.

"Is this Kevin McMichaels?" asked the scary voice on the other end.

"Ah, ah...I'm...ah..."

"Just listen; did you get the information I left for you?"

"Ah, ye...yes, but I..."

"Shut up and listen; two days ago Tony got those pictures of you with Spinozo and Iota; he hit the roof, he had no idea there was a third guy involved in whacking his kid brother."

"But I...I wasn't, I...I don't even know those guys...either of them...honest."

"Ah huh; pictures don't lie, asshole. Look, I don't care one way or the other; if Tony thinks you were involved that's all that matters; I'm trying to save your worthless life, here; capish?"

"Ye...yes, sir."

"Good, then listen, it took Tony just one day to find out the other guy in the pictures was you and that you were still walking around; he immediately put a price on your head and called in two guys from Baltimore. They're flying into O'Hare a little after one in the morning. I think they're planning on visiting you straight from O'Hare; they'll be back in Baltimore before anyone even discovers your body so you don't have much time. Take only what you can carry and get the hell out of town while you can."

"Yeah, yeah, okay; I understand...who...who are you, why are you doing this for me?"

"Let's just say I have my reasons, huh. Now, according to my watch you just have a little over four hours to disappear, you better get going...and remember, I wouldn't stay in any one town too long and don't do anything that would call attention to yourself, more than likely Tony will put a fifty grand contract on your head just like he did with your two buddies."

"Yeah, I'm packing right now," Kevin cried. "Hello, hello..." there was no answer, the line was dead.

Jack walked out of the phone booth and used his cell to call Dalton. "Well, the trap is sprung; you in position?"

"Yup, I'm in the back of the parking lot and have a clear view of his car. I'll call you as soon as I see some action."

"Actually, if you don't mind, I'm going home to spend some time with the wife and kids."

"Okay, pal; thanks again, Jean owes you big time."

"Well let's see if it works, first. I really think it did though, he sounded legitimately scared over the phone. You should be seeing him loading his car before long."

"Jack, speak of the devil, he's starting already; he just came running outside and tossed some clothes in the back seat then headed back inside in a hurry," Dalton said with a big smile. "I'm going to grab some pictures for Jean, maybe it'll remind her to be more careful who she dates in the future," he said with a laugh.

Dalton stayed while Kevin made trip after trip out to his car, each time with an armload of his personal stuff. It was a good hour and a half before Kevin finally hopped in the driver's seat and sped off. Just to make sure Dalton followed him to another expressway and watched while Kevin headed west and out of sight.