The door opened on the sixth floor before Nicoletti could respond. As they exited the car, he pointed to the right at a men’s room sign. “I need to make a pit stop,” he said.
Sparks waved an “Okay” and went left. Twenty-five yards down the hall, she turned right toward the ICU. Except for the interminable beeping of monitors, a deathly quiet hung over the unit. The ICU suite was at the end of the hall—fifteen yards away. A nurses’ station was several steps ahead on the right, slightly recessed from the hallway. As Sparks approached the station, a male voice shouted, “What are you doing?” shattering the quiet. Sparks turned into the recessed area just when a metal tray flew past her head and crashed into the glass wall of one of the ICU rooms opposite the nurses’ station.
Sparks placed a hand on the service revolver in her hip holster as she tried to make sense of the situation.
A woman with long black hair, dressed in a parka and what appeared to be hospital scrubs, pistol in hand, leaned over the counter. Not believing she had time to pull out and fire her own weapon before the woman found her target, Sparks charged and body-slammed the woman against the counter. The woman gasped, staggered momentarily, and then righted herself. She turned, her gun hand sweeping toward Sparks, who chopped down with her fisted hands on the woman’s wrist. The pistol fired, sending shockwaves of sound reverberating off the glass walls. Sparks heard breaking glass as she hit the woman in the side of her face with a solid punch, which backed her up. Then she leaped forward, grabbed the woman’s weapon in two hands, and ripped it away. She swung it and connected with the woman’s head, dropping her to the floor as though her bones had turned to sawdust. A wide, bloody gash showed on her forehead.
Sparks pocketed the pistol, rolled the woman onto her stomach, and cuffed her wrists. Then she leaned over the counter and saw a man in a white smock and pants huddled behind it.
“You okay?” Sparks asked.
“Jeez,” he blurted as he stood. “Yeah, I’m okay, thanks to you. She wanted to know which room Hugo Rosales is in. When I asked her if she was a family member, she went ballistic.”
Sparks backed away just as she heard running footsteps behind her. She pulled out her revolver as she whipped around, but quickly lowered her weapon when she saw Vince Nicoletti rush toward her.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Nicoletti shouted. “What the hell happened?”
She pointed at the woman on the floor. “You recognize her?”
Nicoletti leaned to the side and stared at the unconscious woman. “Victoria Nguyen. What the hell is she doing here?”
At that moment, two women turned the corner up the hall, moved toward the detectives, but then abruptly stopped.
“On my God,” one of them yelled, her voice high-pitched, beyond anxious.
Sparks moved in front of Nicoletti, removed her cred pack from a jacket pocket, and held her badge high.
“We’re detectives with the Brooklyn P.D.,” Sparks said. “Who are you?”
The woman who’d spoken stepped forward. “I’m Carmela Rosales.” She pointed at one of the ICU rooms. “That’s my husband in there. What happened?”
Sparks said, “My best guess is that woman over there was trying to get to your husband. Why, I don’t know.”
Carmela turned to the woman with her. “This is my friend, Janet Jenkins.”
Sparks said, “Maybe you should both come down to the station. We’ll need to get statements. Maybe you can shed light on what went on here.” Sparks handed Carmela a card.
“We’ll meet you there,” Carmela said.
“Make it an hour from now,” Sparks said. “We’ll have to process our prisoner.”
Detective Nicoletti watched the male nurse patch up the wound on Victoria Nguyen’s forehead. “I’m no doctor, but won’t that thing need stitches?”
“Absolutely,” the nurse said. “But if we wait a while, the scar will be larger and more visible.”
Nicoletti smiled. “You must be Italian.”
“Nope. I’m Lithuanian. Italians aren’t the only ones who are into revenge.”
The lobby and the circular drive in front of the hospital entrance had turned into a circus. Police vehicles with flashing lights had taken over the area outside, while uniformed cops guarded the entrance, the elevator doors, and the entrances to stairwells. On her way through the lobby, Janet, who had left Carmela Rosales on the ICU floor, spotted Bruno standing outside the gift shop. She waved at him to follow her, and quickly left the building.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Bruno asked, when he caught up to her. “The police checked my ID and searched me for weapons. It’s like a war zone.”
“Wait until we’re in the car.”
Back in the SUV, as Massarino’s man, Silvio, drove them away, Janet told Bruno what had happened.
Bruno cleared his throat. “I have to believe the woman they arrested was hired to kill me. Detectives Andrews and Rosales were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Janet felt her temperature rise. “And she came to the hospital to kill Hugo because he might have seen her face last night.”
Bruno nodded. “Probably right.”
“Carmela Rosales gave my name to two detectives in the hospital,” Janet said. “They want us to come to the police station to make statements. When I don’t show up, they’ll surely check my name and find information regarding Giovanni Casale and Charles Forsythe’s deaths.”
Bruno nodded. “And then they’ll tie me in, as well.”
Janet said, “You can’t go on hiding for the rest of your life.”
“I know, Janet. I think I’ll be able to come out of the dark pretty soon…if all goes as planned.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
Bruno smiled at her. “Not a chance. The less you know, the better off you are.”
DAY 9
CHAPTER 26
Bobby Tennucci carried three boxes of documents into a messenger service office in Brooklyn at 8 a.m. He filled out a transmittal slip, paid cash for the delivery charge, and handed the desk clerk four one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Two of the hundreds are for you and the others are for your delivery guy. I want these boxes delivered at 9 a.m. sharp. You got that?”
The clerk said, “Yes, sir. They’ll be the first off the truck.”
Tennucci gave the man a piercing look. “If they’re dropped off late, I’ll be back to have a conversation with you.”
The man visibly swallowed. “You can depend on us, sir.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”
“I hope this works,” Massarino said.
Bruno exhaled a nervous little laugh and nodded.
“What about the…what did you call them? You know, the codes.”
“CUSIP,” Bruno said. “Yeah. If they check the codes I put on the securities before they wire the funds, we’re screwed.” He closed his eyes and thought, and if someone calls Sunrise and asks for Joseph Campbell with a last-minute question, we’re also screwed.
Massarino collapsed in the roller chair beside Bruno and rubbed his hands together as though they were cold.