“Where you go?” the Eastern European cabbie asked in a tone that was somewhere between angry and threatening. He wore ear buds, connected to a hardback book-sized radio suspended on a hooked piece of coat hanger punched into the bottom of the dashboard.
Bruno had spent the last six months in a cocoon of affectionate care and friendship, but he hadn’t forgotten where he’d come from, who he’d been most of his life, or what had happened to him. He’d resolved to be a different man in the future. He looked at the driver’s ID badge on the right visor and saw the name Franco Djokovic.
“Where are you from, Mr. Djokovic?”
“Where you go?” the guy repeated.
“You answer my question and I’ll tell you where I want you to take me.”
The driver leaned forward and glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “I drive car; no make conversation.”
“Okay, Mr. Djokovic. Take me back to LaGuardia. I’ll get another cab. After I report you to the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission.”
The driver seemed to think about that for a few seconds. “Okay, okay. I am from Croatia.”
“Well, Mr. Djokovic, I’m from New York. So, take me to the corner of Avenue N and East 98th Street in Brooklyn. Do you want me to tell you which route to take, or can you come up with the quickest way all on your own?”
The driver nodded. “I know best way to drive.”
“Good. Now you can go back to your music.”
The forty-minute drive gave Bruno time to think. He’d had six months to conceive and fine-tune a plan. But he repeatedly tested it for flaws, possible traps, dead-ends. Like a chess player, he tried to anticipate his opponents’ moves. Rosen, Rice, and Stone might be assholes, but they were intelligent, unscrupulous assholes.
He exited the cab, walked down 98th Street to a three-story home, and gawked up at the property. It didn’t surprise him that it looked about the same as it had when he’d last seen it. For a moment, he was lost in the memories of that day twelve years ago, when he and Paolina had attended a Massarino family function. Even after Carlo had emigrated to California, he and his Paolina were often included in Massarino events. Though he could see his breath and despite the cold drizzle, he felt suddenly warm. Each time he was around the Massarinos it had been like attending a holiday festival. Plenty of great food, too much Italian wine, laughter and arguments, and singing and dancing. And children. The place was always packed with children. It was the children who made him melancholy. He’d wanted kids of his own, but Paolina wanted nothing to do with them.
He climbed the steep steps to the front door, dropped his suitcase on the landing, and reached for the bell. But before he could ring it, a slightly smaller version of Carlo Massarino opened the door.
Louis Massarino had changed a great deal. He appeared to have aged more than the ten years since Bruno last saw him. His hair was completely white and sparser; his skin furrowed. If anything, the man was even thinner than he remembered. The Massarino men had never seemed to be able to gain weight, while their women more than made up the difference.
“Entra. Benvenuti nella mia casa,” Massarino said.
“Grazie, Don Massarino.”
Massarino grabbed Bruno’s suitcase from the stoop and led the way inside. He handed off the case to a man waiting in the hallway. “Take this to Mr. Pedace’s room, Silvio.” Then Massarino turned back to Bruno. “You’re probably hungry. We’ll get you something to eat; then you can rest.”
“That sounds great,” Bruno said. “But maybe we can talk a little now.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“If you don’t mind,” Bruno answered.
“Good. Good.”
They moved to a sitting room that was a combination office and den. It was a man’s room, with large leather furniture, heavy built-in bookcases, and an enormous desk. Bruno remembered that the last time he was here, this room had been two rooms—a dining room and a living room.
Seated in two opposing leather chairs, Massarino picked up a crystal bottle from a tray table between them and filled two glasses with a light-brown liquid.
“Fogolar Riserva,” he said. He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “It helps me sleep.”
Bruno picked up a glass. “Grazie, Don Massarino. I appreciate—”
“Do me a favor, Bruno, cut out the Don Massarino crap. Those days are gone.” He chuckled. “Besides, the last thing I need is for the Feds to hear me being referred to as Don anything.”
Bruno nodded. He sipped from his glass and gave Massarino a wide-eyed look. “Wow. This is exceptional.”
Massarino smiled again. “Only the best for my friends.”
Silvio returned at that moment with a tray laden with antipasto. He placed it in front of Bruno and left the room.
Then Massarino placed his glass on the table, settled back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and steepled his fingers. “Now, tell me about my brother’s murder.”
DAY 2
CHAPTER 3
“This case has it all,” Hugo Rosales told John Andrews over lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack. “A P.I./hitman, a Wall Street banker, and a Mafia family.”
“What are you talking about?” Andrews said. “You’re not on that Mafia business again, are you?”
“Charles Forsythe was the son of a Lucchese don. He—”
“Come on, Hugo. That’s like saying I’m a cattle rustler just because my great-grandfather stole cows in Wyoming eighty years ago.”
Rosales shot Andrews a shocked expression. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“It explains a lot.”
“Screw you, Hugo.”
Rosales laughed, choked on the food in his mouth, and went into a coughing fit.
“Serves you right,” Andrews said, as he bit off a hunk of his sandwich and calmly chewed. After he swallowed, Andrews frowned at his partner, who continued to cough. “God forbid you need someone to do the Heimlich maneuver.”
Finally, his coughing jag over, his face still red, Rosales asked, “You think the election coming up next year has anything to do with the D.A. deciding to pursue this case?”
Andrews laughed. “Even if there’s no Mafia connection, talking about organized crime will make the D.A. look like the Protector of the People and Crime Fighter Extraordinaire.”
“There’s that. And imagine the press coverage when Janet Jenkins testifies. I mean, she’s like the greatest vigilante killer California has ever seen. She stabs to death the killer Rasif Essam in self-defense after the bastard murdered her mother, and then saves a man from certain death by crushing his would-be killer with her Chevy.”
“Maybe some of that press coverage will slough off on us. Could get a promotion out of it.”
It was Rosales’s turn to laugh. “Don’t hold your breath, partner.” Rosales checked his watch. “We’d better get over to St. Anne’s. It’s almost two.”
Janet Jenkins had met with the St. Anne’s CPA for advice about the one-million-dollar gift from Bruno Pedace. She was shocked to learn that, after taxes, she would be lucky to keep six hundred thousand dollars of her windfall. But it was still more than enough to put a forty percent down-payment on a duplex in Redondo Beach and to pay off her credit card and car loan balances. She planned to rent out one half of the duplex and move into the other side. She felt damned good about being a property owner for the first time in her life, and being a landlord on top of it. She was due to close on the duplex in thirty days.