The man with the gun let out a low chuckle. “Only if they’re in my way,” he said. “And right now you are in my way. The girl, too. But with her I have to wait. There will be a time for her to die.”
“But not at your hand,” Assunta said.
She turned to face the man with the gun, her large bare feet flat on the hard surface, her back braced, her gaze steady. She moved the fingers of her right hand, buried inside her dress, and pressed them around the grip and trigger of the old handgun that had once belonged to her husband. She fired off three rounds, each one catching the man in the center of his chest, the second shot bursting through a great artery. The man’s gun fell to the floor an instant before he did. He went down with a heavy thud, the front of his head landing against the edge of the stairwell, the skin ripped open and gushing blood. The old woman stared down at her target, watching him bleed out for several seconds, and then turned away. She locked the door to the basement and then gently sidestepped the flow of blood filling the area around the man’s body and walked back up to her apartment, the gun in her dress still smoking and hot.
Pete Rossi stood in the center of the restaurant’s large kitchen, surrounded by an array of pots and pans hanging from a series of shiny hooks nailed into the four brick walls. He ran the cold water tap on the stainless steel sink, slowly rubbing his hands together under the rush of the icy flow. He reached over, grabbed a cloth napkin off a side cabinet, and watched the water soak it through. He turned off the tap, squeezed dry the napkin, then spread it across his face. He kept it there, allowing its fresh smell and cool touch help wipe away the strain of the last several days. He leaned his head back, took a deep breath, and pulled the cloth from his face, tossing it back into the empty sink.
It was only then that he turned his attention to the shivering man standing across the room, staring at him with eyes filled to the brim with fear. Rossi walked over to the stove and reached for a small espresso pot, thin lines of steam flowing out of the spout. He pulled a cup from the cabinet above his head and poured out the thick black liquid, filling it to the lip. He took several slow sips, the hot coffee warming his chest, the biting taste of the espresso coating his throat. The man across from him was now visibly shaking, his right hand braced against the side of a wooden hutch to help steady his legs. Rossi walked closer to the man, stopping next to a Viking stove, and clicked the oven on to four hundred degrees. “What is it that makes you so afraid?” Rossi asked the man in a low voice. “Is it me? Or is it the fact that you failed me? Failed the very people who depended on you to succeed?”
“I had the back covered,” the frightened man, Otto, said, the words barely audible. “The kid didn’t get out that way. I was told to stay put and that’s what I did.”
“And while you were busy staying put, one of my men died and the girl I asked you not to lose went into the wind,” Rossi said. “So, it really doesn’t matter then, does it, that you had the back covered?”
“What was I supposed to do, Mr. Rossi?” Otto asked. “What if she had come out that way and I wasn’t there to stop her? Then, I’d still be in the same jackpot I’m in now. Only worse.”
“How long have you worked for me?” Rossi asked, resting the empty coffee cup on a clean white counter.
“It’ll be six months come November,” Otto said. “And up till now, every job I been on has gone off without a hitch.”
“I never concern myself with the ones that have gone as planned,” Rossi said. His words were measured, direct, a mob boss dictating to an underling not deserving to be in the same room. “It’s the ones that fail that get my attention.”
“It was not my fault, Don Rossi,” Otto said, sweating out each word, swallowing hard to keep his voice free of the panic running through his body like a river. “I did all I could to keep that cop’s niece under our eyes. The job did not fail because of me.”
“But you’re the one that’s here,” Rossi said to him. “Your partner’s dead. The girl is somewhere safe. And you are here with me, in the warmth of a large kitchen, watching me drink my coffee.”
“I will find her for you, Mr. Rossi,” Otto said. “I swear to you, I’ll track her and bring her back to you alive, like you wanted.”
“I don’t want her back,” Rossi said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t want you to find her. All I asked was for you not to lose sight of her. The girl was never my target. She was my lure. And now, because of you and your dead friend, she’s gone. And so is the plan that she was to play such a key part in. Which means since I no longer need the plan, I no longer need you.”
“It’s the cop you want, Mr. Rossi,” Otto said, straining out every word, well aware that a decision about his life had been made long before he even entered the room. “I could take him out for you. All I need is the chance and your say-so.”
Pete Rossi turned and opened the door to the large oven behind him, a burst of intense heat warming his face. “You are out of chances,” he said to the young man standing behind him. Rossi pressed down gently on a black button in the middle of a phone hanging on a side wall, next to a framed photo of his father, looking young and stylish in a brown three-piece suit and brown fedora. Within seconds, three men in dark clothes stepped into the kitchen, circling Otto. “Strip him before you throw him in,” Rossi told them as he headed out of the room.
Panic filled Otto’s young body, each muscle trembling now beyond any control. One of the three goons reached over and held him by the elbows, preventing him from falling to the floor. “You can’t do this, Mr. Rossi,” Otto managed to say. “You just can’t do this to me.”
Rossi turned to Otto, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. “Don’t worry, Otto,” he said. “I wouldn’t waste a new oven on you. I was just testing to see if it worked. But you will die today.”
Pete Rossi locked eyes on Otto and stared at him for several long seconds. He always argued against keeping men like this in the organization, even if they were used for only the simplest tasks. They often failed in their duty, and on the few occasions when they did manage to succeed, they bragged about it to the first set of good ears they could find. It was too much of a risk for the Camorra to take. The outfit should always strive to bring in the best recruits, the smartest and sharpest available talent, and have them work their way up from the most menial chores. If it was good enough for a Fortune 500 corporation, it should be good enough for the most elite criminal organization in the world.
“Don’t waste any bullets on him,” Rossi ordered the tallest of the three goons. “Bury him alive.”
Joey Tugs McGraw rested the suitcase filled with pure heroin on top of the shiny brown table. He gazed up at the man standing across from him and nodded. “I see your hands are empty,” he said. “And there’s no bag anywhere near you. I hope that doesn’t mean you forgot to bring the money.”
“The money’s in the car,” the man said in a voice that was steady, calm, and assured. “All of it. Down to the last Andrew Jackson.”
“How about, then, you go and get it,” McGraw said. “Since that was a big part of the deal. And I’ll wait here while you do.”
“Open the suitcase,” the man said. “And step away from it. I need to make sure the product is in there and that it’s as good as I was told. For me, that was an even bigger part of the deal.”
“Well, now that we made it very clear we don’t trust each other,” McGraw said, “how do you want to play this out?”
The man took a deep breath and rested his hands inside his jacket pocket. He pulled one out slowly and pointed an open pack of gum at McGraw. “I usually chew three at a time,” he said. “The extra one in there is for you, if you want it.”
McGraw shook his head. “Knock yourself out,” he said. “Chew three, four, put the pack in your mouth if you want. I really don’t give a shit. I came here to close a deal and leave with some cash. If I want to blow bubbles, I’ll hang out with a kid.”
The man undid the gum wrappings and placed o
ne slice after another in his mouth. “How about you take the suitcase and we both go outside?” the man asked McGraw. “I pop the trunk and you look at the cash, while I check out the dope.”
“In broad daylight?” McGraw said. “That your idea of clever or did some moron read it to you this morning?”
“You have a very negative attitude to be doing this kind of work,” the man said. “That either means you’re new to this end of the business or this is your first shot at a big haul. Either way, I get no comfort from it.”
“I don’t give a shit what you get from it,” McGraw said, spitting out the words, a small bubble forming at the edge of his lips.
“Nor should you,” the man said. “But here’s something you should give a shit about. You need to leave here with the money and I need to leave with the dope. And we’re going to have to do that soon. Otherwise I turn and go back to where I came from, which puts you back in your car as well. Except I don’t have to explain to the Squid why you still have his dope and don’t have his money.”
“I’ll throw that to you,” McGraw said. “No sense in me catching blame for any of this shit.”
“You can try that,” the man said. “That might buy you an extra ten minutes or at least a long enough time for the Squid to figure out which knife he wants to use to slice you into little pieces for his fish tank. He’ll come looking for me again. But only to tell me that you’re dead and he’s sending somebody who knows how to close.”
“How do I know if I go outside you don’t have three or four guys waiting for me?” Tugs McGraw said. “Waiting for your nod to take me out?”
“Like you said, it’s broad daylight,” the man said, resting his hands hard and flat on the table. “And I never needed a nod to take anybody out. I do my own blood work.”
Tugs McGraw’s eyes moved from the man to the suitcase, beads of sweat coating his upper lip. “We move to the car, you go out first,” he said. “Then head right for the cash. Any move that don’t look right to me is gonna be followed by a bullet. We clear?”
“As a glass coffee table,” the man said.
The man turned and led the way out of the small office, down two flights of concrete steps, and out through a glass door to the tree-lined street. Tugs McGraw was several steps behind, the suitcase in his left hand, his right in the front pocket of a thin jeans jacket, fingers wrapped around a .38 Special. The man walked toward a near-empty parking area, heading for a black late-model sedan with New Jersey plates. He stopped, turned, and waited as McGraw drew closer and pointed to the car at his back. “I need to pop the trunk,” he said. “Everything you’ll need to see is in there.”
“Do whatever it is you need to get it done,” McGraw said. “Just do it slow and know I’m eyeballing every move you make.”
“I’m counting on it,” the man said.
He stood in front of the trunk, slid the key into the lock, and popped it open. He moved aside and waited as McGraw stepped in next to him. Tugs glanced down into the trunk and jumped several steps back when he saw the muscular young man in the leather coat bound and gagged, his head resting on a gray valise filled with the cash McGraw was expecting to bring back to the Squid. McGraw pulled the .38 from his pocket and dropped the suitcase to the ground. “I warned you not to screw with me,” he snarled. “Now all you went and done is give me a solid reason to make you dead.”
“Don’t you even want to know who I am?” Lo Manto asked, standing with his hands spread apart. “Otherwise, how will the Squid know who it was you killed?”
The sharp edge of the barrel end of a nine-millimeter wedged against McGraw’s neck froze him in place, preventing him from giving Lo Manto an answer. “Ease your finger off the trigger,” Jennifer said to him. “And don’t push your luck. I don’t care if my partner lives or dies. So you can only imagine how that makes me feel about you.”
“I think she does care,” Lo Manto said, stepping closer to McGraw, watching as he let his gun slip from his fingers, catching it as it came off his hand. “She just says that to annoy me and scare the piss out of guys like you.”
“You gonna take the money and the drugs?” McGraw asked, his voice cracking from fear and the tension. “You have any idea what the Squid will do to you for something like that?”
“I can only imagine it’ll be ugly,” Lo Manto said, tossing the gun into the open trunk. “Maybe not as ugly as what he’s going to do to you for letting it happen, but still not a situation I’d want to have to face.”
“You’re not going to arrest me?” McGraw asked, surprised at the very thought.
“I can’t,” Lo Manto said. “I have no authority in this city. And my partner behind you, just dying to put a round into the back of your head? She’s not looking to make a bust. She just wants to go home and get away from all of us.”
“We were making a drug deal,” McGraw said, losing any pretense of tough. “You can’t let me walk away from something like that. I don’t care what end of the world you’re a cop in. That’s an arrest you just gotta go and make.”
“I’ve never met anyone so eager to go to jail,” Lo Manto said. He leaned against the trunk of the car with his arms folded, watching Jennifer holster her piece and step back from McGraw. “But I didn’t see any laws broken here. If anything, I’m just borrowing your suitcase. Airline lost one of mine on the trip over here. And I’ll get it back to you, first chance. So you can leave anytime you want. I know the Squid’s waiting for you and I don’t want you to be late on account of me and my partner.”
“What’s the deal?” Tugs McGraw asked. “What is it you want? It ain’t like the cops to just hustle and take a bag of cash and a haul of dope and leave the doers free. So unless the two of you are going to cut that up between yourselves, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
Lo Manto tilted his head against the overhead sun and glanced over at Jennifer. “Now didn’t I tell you he wasn’t as big an idiot as you thought? Job like this, you don’t just hand off to the first two morons with guns and a car. You give it thought and pick out the movers from the top tier.”
“Deal didn’t go down, did it?” Jennifer asked. “Still makes them shaky to me. Guy in the trunk was ready to give up the money even before we pulled guns on him. And this other one followed you out of the office building like a puppy without a leash.”
“She does have a point,” Lo Manto said, turning his full attention back to McGraw. “And seems to have made up her mind. You’re going to have to give me something to help convince her you can deliver. Otherwise, you’re free to go. The Squid is probably dying to hear all about your adventure.”
“It’s him you want, am I right?” McGraw said. “You don’t care about me or that other loser in the trunk. And why the hell should you care? Neither one of us brings you anything. Everything we know you already know. But the Squid’s a whole other story. You rope him in along with the money and that dope and you’d have yourself a hefty catch.”
“All that’s true,” Lo Manto said. “But listening to a mouthful of tough talk from you isn’t going to bring me the Squid. And until I hear something that does, you’re a clear man, free to go about the business of your day.”
“I can get you to the Squid,” Tugs McGraw said. He was standing close enough to the open trunk to see the curled-up man in the dark leather coat, silver tape double-wrapped around his hands, feet, and mouth, sweat pouring out through every open pore. “You just let me know when and I can make it happen.”
Lo Manto stared at McGraw and shook his head. “I just got off a plane,” he said, the harsh tone of his voice catching Jennifer off-guard. “Not a boat. I’ll set up the deal with you. Even give you the money to show the Squid this transaction went down without a hitch. Then we’ll step back and wait for you to set up a meet. A one-on-one between him and me. But if you shuck me at any point, play me for the wop with a badge, I’ll find you and kill you cold. And if I end up dead, I’ll make sure someone breathing does the job for me. Y
ou want to think about it or you ready to make a call?”
McGraw had trouble catching his breath, trying to come off as calm and composed, but feeling his weakness below the surface. He didn’t know who this cop was or where he was from, but he believed he was as serious as suicide and would waste him as easy as a paper target at a shooting range. He owed no allegiance to the Squid and for that matter might even benefit from having him out of the way. Use it as a way to take a step up to the next level, start playing with the major league team, setting up the deals instead of always working the risky end of the business. He might even maneuver it so he could end up playing both sides against the middle, with this cop providing the ultimate in the way of a protective shield. McGraw looked across at the cop, trying hard to ignore the danger that floated across the man’s dark eyes, and nodded. “I’m your man,” he said. “Tell me what it is you want me to do.”
Carmine DelGardo stood in the center of the pool hall, the three forty-watt bulbs above him offering the only light in the long, dusty room. He leaned against the side of an old table and shot a six ball into a corner pocket with practiced ease. Frank Silvestri took a sip from a tumbler of bourbon, pulled a stool from the empty bar, and sat down. “You think of ever maybe putting a fresh coat of paint on this place?” he asked DelGardo. “You know, spruce it up a little. Make it seem like you give a shit if anybody comes here to play or not.”
“You want a game, you’d play it in a snowstorm,” DelGardo said. “Pool players don’t give a rat’s dick about paint. They only care about the cash laying on the felt.”
“How’s that candy store of yours doing?” Silvestri asked, lighting a thin cigar and blowing a line of smoke up toward the dark ceiling. “Even there, I don’t think you had a customer since the first Bush was in the White House.”
“I invest for love, not for profit,” DelGardo said, leaning over to line up his next shot. “Besides, you don’t play pool and you don’t eat candy. And I own both buildings, so I know you’re not here to collect rent. So, there’s a reason for this meeting. I just ain’t heard you mention it yet.”