“But it’s pretty much over?”
“Almost.”
Massarino placed a hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “Good job.”
“Rosen and his buddies are going down, Louis. I hope that gives you some satisfaction.”
Massarino nodded. “Yeah, Bruno. I’m feeling pretty good about that.” He slapped Bruno on the back and left the basement.
Two floors up, Massarino called Bobby Tennucci and told him he wanted to meet.
“I can be there in twenty minutes, boss.”
“Better we meet in the park by Frankie’s place. Thirty minutes.”
CHAPTER 27
“So, why don’t you clear up my confusion?” Detective Rhonda Sparks said. “You were in the hospital ICU because…?”
Victoria Nguyen stared back with a dead-eyed, blank expression across the interrogation room table.
Sparks pointed at the bandage on Nguyen’s forehead. “You attacked the nurse there because he was rude?”
The same blank stare.
“Do you always pull a pistol and shoot at people who are rude to you?”
Nguyen threw her head back, tossing her long black hair off her left shoulder. Her handcuffs rattled. When her gaze reconnected with Sparks’s, the detective involuntarily shuddered. The coldness she saw in the woman’s eyes momentarily unsettled her.
“What’s your game here, Ms. Nguyen? Why were you on the street outside that pizza joint the other night? Why did you shoot Detectives Rosales and Andrews?”
Sparks glared at Nguyen and waited a few seconds. When there was no response, she said, “Someone paid you to kill the detectives; isn’t that right? Give me the name of your employer and I’ll talk to the D.A. Maybe she’ll offer you a deal.”
Still no response.
Sparks took a guess and said, “We know you went to the hospital to murder Detective Rosales because he was the only living witness to you killing Detective Andrews.”
Nguyen’s frozen mask finally cracked. She grinned at Sparks, but still didn’t speak.
Sparks left the room and stood next to Vince Nicoletti who stared into the one-way window. “What do you think of the ice princess?”
While he continued to stare at Nguyen, Nicoletti pinched his lips and said, “Did you see her reaction when you mentioned her coming to the hospital to kill Rosales?”
Sparks grunted a reply.
“That little grin told me she thinks she’s got us fooled.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe she wasn’t at the hospital to murder Rosales. Or, maybe she was there to kill him and someone else.” He shook his head in frustration. He grimaced at Sparks. “I don’t know, partner. I just got this feeling we’re missing something.”
Sparks turned as though she was about to return to the interrogation room, but she pirouetted back to face Nicoletti. “You know Carmela Rosales’s friend, Janet Jenkins, didn’t come to the station with her.”
Nicoletti scrunched up his face. “I was about to mention that. That’s kind of strange. I mean, it seemed like she wanted to cooperate.”
“I’ll start again on Nguyen. Why don’t you meet with Mrs. Rosales? And, on a lark, maybe you should run the friend, Janet Jenkins, through the system.”
Janet felt a deep unease as she thought about what Bruno had gotten into. She badly wanted to question him about his activities, but he hadn’t been receptive when she’d broached the subject before. She felt confined and impotent. I need to get out of here, she told herself. Her boss, Frank Mitchell, had called “to check in.” But she knew what he really wanted to know was when she would return to work.
She went to the closet, removed her suitcase, and tossed it on the bed. “To hell with it,” she muttered.
“David Lander.”
“Dave, it’s Bobby’s friend,” Bruno said.
“Yeah, I recognized your voice. What’s the problem?”
“Calm down, Dave. It’s almost over.”
“I’m never placing another bet.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Dave. Don’t forget the treatment program I promised to pay for. You tell me where and when you want to go and I’ll wire the fee to them.”
“I sure appreciate that. But you said it’s almost over. What do I have to do now?”
“It’s simple. You’re going to be a hero at Sunrise Casualty Insurance.”
The creation of an electronic presence for First Fidelity Philadelphia Guaranty Company had been relatively simple and had taken Jesse Falco a mere four hours. But the hack into Rosen, Rice & Stone’s computer system had taken Falco almost twenty-four hours. When he’d finally broken through the company’s firewall, he jumped to his feet and whooped like a ball player who’d just hit a game-winning home run. “I’m in,” he’d shouted.
Falco called Bruno Pedace.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Jesse. You told me to call when I finished.”
Bruno coughed a tired laugh. “Great work, Jesse. You’re amazing.”
Falco breathlessly asked, “What do I do now?”
“I’ll messenger a flash drive to you at your shop. Load the files on it into the company’s server.”
The kid said with undisguised exuberance, “I can do that.”
“There won’t be any footprint?”
“Of course not.”
“Never a doubt in my mind, Jesse.”
Bruno made a call at 4:30 p.m. on a burner phone to the investment department of Eastern Teachers Retirement Fund, one of Rosen, Rice & Stone’s largest institutional investors. He guessed that ETRF would have been one of the first organizations the Rosen firm called to invest in the real estate deal.
“Bess Katz, Investment Department.”
“Ms. Katz, is Eastern Teachers about to invest in a CMBS underwritten by Rosen, Rice & Stone?”
“Who is this?”
“You don’t need my name. But I warn you that if you don’t listen to me, your organization will be very sorry.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Quite the opposite, Ms. Katz. I’m trying to save you a huge amount of embarrassment.”
“You’ve got one minute and then I’m hanging up.”
“That’s more than enough time,” Bruno said. “Assuming you’re participating in the syndication I referred to, you’re about to be scammed. The entire thing is smoke and mirrors. The mortgage loans in the deal aren’t owned by Sunrise Casualty Insurance Company. Sunrise has no idea their name is being associated with a bogus transaction. It’s unaware that Rosen, Rice & Stone has bundled fictitious loans into a security collateralized by real estate supposedly securing Sunrise loans.”
“That’s impossible,” Katz said. “The CUSIP system would never—”
“Have you checked the CUSIP registry?”
“Well, not yet. We wouldn’t wire funds until we had.”
“Do yourself a favor. Call the real estate investment department at Sunrise and ask them if they’re divesting of any of their commercial mortgage loans.”