by Neil Turner
He listens with interest but doesn’t betray the slightest hint of what he might be thinking.
“How closely are you related to the Luciano family?” I ask.
The hint of a smile touches his lips while he considers his reply. “I’m not, Mr. Valenti. At least not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have no formal relationship with them.”
My skin crawls at the prospect of what this “favor” might entail. Defend some goombah in court against charges for crimes that harm innocent people? Murder? Human trafficking? Kidnapping? Prostitution? Drug dealing? I might be able to live with my conscience if I did some work for this guy that involved more or less legitimate business such as tax avoidance or financial fraud: white-collar crime in which people aren’t physically harmed. Yeah, I’m rationalizing—everything these people do hurts someone, somewhere, somehow. On the other hand, we’re negotiating for Brittany’s safety. Is there any depth to which I won’t sink to that end?
My eyes stray to my almost-empty glass. I force myself to look away. “I don’t suppose you can be more specific about this favor?”
He considers the question but doesn’t immediately reply.
“Perhaps we can negotiate some exclusions?” I ask hopefully.
“Let’s set that aside while I give it some thought,” he finally says as he sits back and casually recrosses his legs. “We should clarify our existing arrangements before we consider another.”
“How so?”
He looks me squarely in the eye. “There can be no ambiguity about the specific terms of any arrangements we may come to, Mr. Valenti. None. As I’m sure you can imagine, the consequences should you fail to deliver on a commitment will be unpleasant.”
Unpleasant? Loved ones maimed, kidnapped, or murdered? Maybe a limb lopped off? An acid bath? “Yeah, let’s be clear.”
“For two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the contract that is currently on your father’s head will be canceled.”
The contract currently on his head? “That sounds considerably more limited than your promise to make the contract go away and to guarantee my father’s safety,” I counter. “Perhaps you can clarify your offer?”
“The brother of your father’s victim has contracted with the Lucianos to eliminate your father. That contract will be terminated.”
“That’s it?” I ask in stunned disbelief before a wave of outrage washes over me. “Leaving that Cosche piece of shit free to put out another contract or come after Papa himself?”
Giordano arches an eyebrow.
I think back on our conversation about the $250,000. “Fuck that. You promised that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars would guarantee my father’s safety, not buy him an extra few days or weeks and leave him looking over his shoulder every day.”
Giordano purses his lips thoughtfully, stares off into the fireplace for a long moment, and then nods. “I believe you are correct, Mr. Valenti. I can see how my words might be interpreted that way. My apologies for not being clear.”
I stare back at him and wait for more.
“I am a man of my word,” he adds. “We are agreed, then. You have my promise that the matter of your father’s safety will be resolved.”
“Good. Thank you,” I say as a wave of relief washes over me. As he dips his chin and nods, it occurs to me that I may have just issued a hit of my own. How do I feel about that? Not so good, even as I rationalize it as trading some nameless gangster’s life for Papa’s.
“There is more to this matter,” he continues.
I sigh. “What?”
“You’ll recall that our primary motivation in approaching you is to prompt an end to the interest your police have in our business.”
“I don’t see how accomplishing that is within my power.”
He smiles. “Oh, but I think it is. The inquiries through Interpol were in regard to your father’s problems from Orsomarso. If you pass the word to the police here that the danger to your father has been removed, there should be no reason for the American authorities to continue poking their noses into our affairs. Business can then return to normal.”
He makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is. “I can certainly pass that along.”
“I assume you will speak to your friend, Detective Plummer.”
Is there anything about my life this guy doesn’t know? It’s unnerving as hell to realize how closely these people have been watching me and how deeply they’ve probed into my life. He knows this, of course, and is using the knowledge to keep me off-balance. And compliant, I suppose. Well, he’s going to have to work a little harder to make me that malleable.
He leans forward and gives me a look signaling that I should listen very carefully to what follows. “It would be best not to disclose my visit when you speak with Detective Plummer, Mr. Valenti. The police in America would not consider me a welcome visitor.”
Meaning he’s wanted by law enforcement. Great. At the moment, I’m probably guilty of harboring a wanted criminal.
“Should the police learn of my presence here and detain me, it could prove to be more than a simple inconvenience, Mr. Valenti. It would needlessly complicate or even preclude our business together.”
“I’m not sure if that’s an explanation or a warning,” I mutter.
“Both.”
I nod while a fresh tentacle of fear creeps into me. “Understood.”
He smiles. “Of course, you understand such things. You are a paisano yourself.”
I’m not your fucking paisano. My friends aren’t a bunch of murdering thugs. Not that I dare give voice to those thoughts. I screw up the courage to return to the topic of my daughter. “I want Brittany home.”
“As I said, Mr. Valenti, that depends on whatever terms we may agree to. The ball is in your court.”
And I haven’t got a clue how to return his volley.
“I see that this is something of a quandary for you,” Giordano says after a moment. “If I may make a suggestion?”
I nod.
“If we are to proceed in the matter of your father, he will be under our protection the minute your funds clear. Not a minute before. Capisce?”
“I totally understand,” I seethe. Papa’s at risk until I pay up.
“A point to consider in that regard, Mr. Valenti. Time is of the essence. Your father’s location is an asset we currently possess. It is of value to others, as well.”
“I know.”
“You are familiar with the expression ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush?’”
“Yeah.”
“The promise that you will raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is like a bird in the bush, Mr. Valenti. Your father’s hunters would also be happy to compensate us immediately for that information. Perhaps not as much as you have agreed to pay, but they have cash readily available—cash in hand, if you will, whereas your two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is still somewhere in the bush. I suggest you act quickly on our offer.”
I take a deep breath as outrage stirs within me.
“Relax, Mr. Valenti. We do have a deal, but our patience is finite.”
“I already told you that I don’t have that kind of cash lying around the house,” I shoot back with a mixture of anger and fright.
He smiles. “Because you don’t have that kind of cash. Here or anywhere. We know this, but we also know that you have the means to raise it. I only suggest that you do so without undue delay. We will be watching.”
“It’s Friday evening,” I remind him.
He nods. “Unfortunate timing, I agree. While you wait for the banks to open on Monday, you will have time to weigh my offer concerning your daughter. That is a matter of perhaps more urgency. I can do nothing to influence events concerning Brittany unless we come to an agreement. It would be a shame were something to befall her while you think things over, wouldn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It’s a good thing Penelop
e called an hour ago to remind me that I’m due in the office by nine o’clock. I was already awake, but the work appointment had slipped my mind while I riffled through my latest investment statements, desperately trying to figure out how to raise a quarter of a million dollars in short order. It is Saturday morning, after all, and my brain has been scrambled since Matteo Giordano walked out of my home last evening. I polished off the bottle of bourbon I shared with him and made a good start on another while I had an initial look at the investments. In my inebriated state, a solution didn’t offer itself. I woke up this morning hoping things would look better in the morning light. They don’t.
My thoughts turn to Brittany after I cast the paperwork aside and head for the bathroom. Can Giordano really save her? Does he know if she’s still alive? He seems to know a hell of a lot, but does he know that? Why the hell didn’t I ask him last night? I’d do so now, but I have no way to contact him.
“We’ll be in touch,” he had informed me as he let himself out.
After a quick shower and shave, I hop into my Porsche and arrive at the office only five minutes late. Not a big deal as our appointment is scheduled for ten o’clock. We’ve come early to prepare for our visitors.
Penelope greets me with a grin. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“I was awake when you called,” I protest.
“You look like heck,” she observes after giving me a long look. Then she moves closer and gives me a sniff. “Have a little too much to drink last night?”
I still stink after gargling a gallon of mouthwash? Rather than simply answer the question honestly, I toss out a line I heard somewhere or other. “I might be feeling a little storm-tossed.”
“Storm-tossed?” she says with a snort. “You look and smell hungover.”
“Well, it’s much the same thing, but storm-tossed sounds ever so much more romantic, doesn’t it?” I ask in a lame effort at levity. I’m embarrassed and a bit ashamed about waking up less than sober. The drinking is becoming a bit of an issue again. It sure as hell isn’t going to help me save Brittany, but I reason that losing myself in a fog of alcohol helps maintain my sanity for a few hours at a time.
Penelope smiles the smile of the exasperated.
“Do I smell like a brewery?” I ask.
She ponders the question, then shakes her head and replies, “Maybe like we’re a block or two away from one. Have you eaten?”
Meals have become a decidedly hit-or-miss proposition. Most of the normal activities of life have. I shrug. “Forgot, I guess.”
Out comes her cell phone. I listen to her side of the conversation while clearing off my desk.
“Mom? Can you stop and pick up a bagel or two on your way in? Tony hasn’t eaten. I know… we’ll just need to keep harping on him. Thanks, see you shortly.” She drops the phone back into her purse. “Mom’s bringing you a couple of bagels. They should sop up whatever alcohol is still sloshing around your stomach.”
After I tuck the last of my meager desktop accoutrements into a drawer, it’s time to complete the transformation of my office into the Brooks and Valenti conference room. Penelope helps me push the desk back into a corner. Then we drape a starched white linen tablecloth over it. Voila! Our conference room has a side table to hold a coffee pot, stainless-steel water carafe, and a dozen of Penelope’s scrumptious home-baked muffins. I head for the back hallway, where an oversized walnut folding table sits on a wheeled furniture dolly. I trundle that back to my office, where Penelope helps me wrestle it off the dolly and unfold it. God knows how old the thing is, but it doesn’t look too makeshift, not after Papa stripped it down to bare wood and refinished the wood to a museum-grade gloss. This is the Brooks and Valenti conference room table. We place the little visitor chairs from our offices around it somewhat self-consciously—we’re well aware that the result is a far cry from a typical law office conference room. We considered buying more appropriate chairs, but they wouldn’t fit in our offices. There’s nowhere to store full-size chairs in our sprawling premises, anyway. We make do.
All the while, through chatter about the Netflix movie Penelope watched last night and speculation about what we will discover at ten o’clock, the fallout from Giordano’s visit percolates through my mind. The $250,000. The “favor.” How do Giordano’s directives square with those laid down by Joe? How the hell do I balance the competing demands? Whom do I involve?
“Ah, here’s Mom,” Penelope says when we hear the front door crash closed at nine forty-four. She heads out to reception and is back within seconds to launch a paper bag from Daigle’s Deli at me. “Breakfast!”
I snag the bag in midair and dig out the first of two plain bagels. I prefer sesame seed, but Penelope banned them during our second month of operation after I’d strewn seeds all over the conference room table just before a client meeting.
“Be quick about it, partner,” she orders.
Joan Brooks, jack of all trades, plays the role of transcriptionist at Brooks and Valenti, Discount Attorneys at Law. She walks in pushing a little cart holding a court-reporter-typewriter-like thingamajig and a tape recorder.
I hold up my bagel and mutter thanks around a mouthful.
She nods while she plugs in her thingamajig and sets it up. Then she retires to her desk to play receptionist, leaving me alone with Penelope. I collapse into a chair while my partner eases the door closed and comes back to stand nearby as I polish off bagel number two.
“Anything new?” she asks with quiet concern.
I assume she’s referring to Brittany, although it could be Papa, or maybe even the R & B file. I look back at her for a long moment. Where in hell to begin?
“Tony?” she prompts softy before she reaches up and holds a finger to my temple. “I can hear the wheels grinding in there, partner. Please let me help.”
I’m surprised to feel my scratchy eyes well up like a fire hydrant being cranked open.
“Oh, Tony,” Penelope says as she pulls my head to her shoulder.
The urge to tell her everything is overwhelming. From a strictly professional perspective, she absolutely deserves to know of the connection between Brittany’s kidnappers and our case representing Billy and Rick. Not that we have time to get into that now. Maybe after the deposition.
As if on cue, the door opens, and Joan announces the arrival of our guests.
“Let them know that we’re almost ready for them, Mom,” Penelope says. Then she hands me a clutch of Kleenex to dry my eyes and blow my nose. I nod in appreciation and then, in a superhuman feat of pulling one’s shit together, turn off the tear ducts.
Penelope pauses with her hand on the doorknob and meets my gaze. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
She’s back within the minute, trailed by an exquisitely groomed woman in a plum knee-length dress who looks like something out of a fashion magazine. In her wake follows a young woman wearing jeans and an orange sweater. She falls just short of beautiful and is clearly the woman’s daughter. The fragrance of expensive perfume wafts off one or both of them, hopefully masking any residual hangover odor coming from me. Mother walks straight to me with her hand extended, drooping “just so” as a badge of her femininity. I almost feel as if I should dip to one knee and kiss the back of her hand. Everything about this woman’s appearance and demeanor spells one word: Money.
“September Larkin,” she announces by way of introduction.
September?
She notes my surprise and titters in a coquettish laugh just short of a giggle. “Mother named me after my birth month.”
I paste a smile on my face and nod. September Larkin seems to be cut from the same cloth as the Rice family and the assholes at Windy City Sky Tours… not exactly my favorite type of people.
She reaches back to clutch the hand of her daughter and drags her forward. “This is my daughter, Sapphire,” she announces proudly, feeling the need to add, “Sapphire, of course, is September’s birthstone.”
Oh, isn’t that just p
recious? I’m taking time away from the search for my daughter for this? The poor girl looks as if she wants to die. Penelope’s and my eyes meet in a sardonic echo of my initial reaction.
Penelope, whom September has so far chosen to ignore, steps forward and forthrightly extends her hand. “I’m Penelope Brooks, Mrs. Larkin.”
“Senior partner of Brooks and Valenti,” I add, earning myself a wry smile from Penelope. What the hell, September’s misogyny shouldn’t go unpunished.
September nods curtly at Penelope and turns back to me. “Sapphire was well acquainted with Megan Walton.”
Penelope nods, then settles into a seat at the table, motioning for our guests to do likewise. September is informing us about her family’s social standing when Joan bustles in to extend September and Sapphire the courtesy of our beverage service. Sapphire accepts a bottle of chilled spring water. September takes a horrified look at the Mr. Coffee brewer on our side table and waves the offer away.
Penelope smiles at the girl. “You were friends with Megan?”
Sapphire nods.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Penelope says softly.
September, apparently unhappy to be shunted aside, leans in and injects herself back into the proceedings. “Was Megan Walton’s cell phone recovered?”
“You’d have to ask the NTSB about that,” Penelope replies.
September isn’t pleased with the answer. She turns to me and demands to know where Megan’s cell phone is.
I shrug. “If it wasn’t recovered with her body, it’s probably at the bottom of Lake Michigan.”
She’s either bewildered or scandalized by the possibility. “How can that be? Why wouldn’t they try to find it?”
I’m tempted to reply, “Plane crash. Little object. Big lake,” but simply offer up another shrug instead.
“The aircraft wasn’t intact when they found it,” Penelope says.
“But surely they looked?” September presses.
Penelope ignores the question and focuses on Sapphire. “As I explained to your mother over the phone, we will be treating this as a legal deposition, complete with a stenographer and a digital recording of our conversation.”