by Landon Beach
A few minutes later, he was in his truck heading to Larry’s to hook up the boat.
✽✽✽
Larissa Crawford rose from her desk at Cozy Mitten Private Investigations & Consulting Firm, LLC, and headed upstairs. The building was quiet. The phone call she had just received was the first in over a week. The firm only had three agents. One was out of the office working a divorce case. Another was on a week-long vacation to Mackinac Island. The third and newest member to the team was upstairs, moving into her office. Larissa had wanted to switch the phones at 5:50, which would send any incoming calls directly to voicemail for the weekend, but she knew the new P.I. would unpack until at least six, when Larissa planned to go home, and so she kept the phones on only to hear Brad somethin’ or other and his crazy story about a toilet phone and missing/kidnapped/in-danger brother. Well, at least she didn’t have to drive her ass out to Sterling State Park. That would be a little mission for the newbie.
She arrived on the second floor, and at the far end of the hallway, the newest private investigator to the team, Allison Shannon, bent over to pick up the second-to-last box left in the hallway.
Girl has an ass on her, Larissa thought, as Allison’s skirt hugged her round behind. Gotta warn her to leave those clothes at home, or the two boys won’t get any investigating done—and I might miss a few phone calls because I’ll be up here checking her out. It was nice to have another female in the office.
“Almost in,” Allison said to Larissa as she picked up the box and headed into her office.
Larissa arrived at the door and leaned against the frame. The room was already starting to take on some personality. The desk shined of Pledge, and Allison’s computer was set up in a smart configuration to maximize the desktop space, which only had a legal pad, pen, and phone on it. Three pictures were already hanging on the wall over her small couch. Larissa’s eyes stopped at the middle picture. It was of a younger Allison in a Coast Guard uniform having a medal pinned on. The gears in her mind turned until she located Allison’s resumé. Right, Allison was a retired Coast Guard senior chief petty officer who had specialized in search and rescue. She was also a master diver. Larissa remembered the details because Allison was only thirty-nine—had enlisted right out of high school at eighteen—and when Larissa met her for the first time, she thought that Allison could pass for mid-twenties—the benefits, she thought, from taking care of your body. She admitted to herself that there was a hint of jealousy because whereas Allison was trim and energetic, Larissa had started to spread. If she had children, she could lay partial blame on the fact that once you gave birth, your body never returned to what it was before, but Larissa had no children. She was a year older than Allison, and, at this age, one bad year of health—injury, falling off the healthy food wagon, etc.—could erase a decade of eating right and hitting the gym every other day. And once the weight came on, it was twice as hard to get off. Well, instead of spending her time being jealous, she had decided to go the other way and would try to pick up some good habits from the new private investigator. Still, if it involved anything in the water, then hell no. Hot tub? Yup. Gym? Yes. Weights? Okay. Running? Pain in the ass, but she’d do it. Swimming? Unh-uh. In fact, that was the other item that stood out to her in regard to Allison’s Coast Guard career. A master diver? What good would that do her as a private investigator? Domestic violence, fraud, and arson investigations were handled on dry land. And why did she want to be a private investigator? Girl had it made being retired before forty with no kids or spouse. Take some time and disappear on an island for a year or two. Keep a champagne company in business. Get a massage every morning, maybe have sex with the masseuse if he or she is hot. She stopped herself, realizing that she was projecting what she really wanted onto Allison. “Looks like you’re gettin’ moved in,” she said.
Allison turned toward her, and Larissa noticed that the top button to her blouse was undone. Yeah, definitely gotta get my girl in jeans and a collared shirt from now on. Now, if it were only the two of them in the office, then Ms. Allison Shannon could walk around in whatever she pleased.
“Is it okay if I stay late and finish up tonight?” Allison asked and then went back to unpacking.
“You can wear whatever you like.”
“What?” Allison said, stopping to look at her.
Shit. Get your mind off your fantasies. Larissa smiled. “I’m sorry. My mind’s shot. Friday. You know?”
Allison went back to work.
Thank God. That was close. “You don’t have to get my permission to work after hours. You’re an employee now and can stay as late as you want. You got your key, right?”
Allison pulled open a desk drawer and took out a key. “Got it.”
“Good. Just hit ‘away’ on the alarm panel when you finally leave for the night. I’m heading out soon.”
Allison nodded.
“However, there’s one thing I need you to take care of before you head out for the weekend,” she said and started to chuckle.
Allison grinned. “What?”
“We got a call a few minutes ago.”
“New case?” Allison asked.
“Ha! Probably not. You’ll be laughing too when I tell you what I need you to do, but I promised this guy that we would check it out for him.”
“Let’s hear it,” Allison said. “Anything to get out of the office. I hate unpacking.”
“Girl, you might regret what you just said.”
3
Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan
1 Week Ago…
The driver, Gino Gregorio “GiGi” Rizzo, turned off of Lake Shore Road, and the black luxury sedan rolled down a long asphalt driveway toward an enormous Tudor-style home. Neatly trimmed privacy hedges rose on both sides of the rectangular-shaped property, giving the narrow driveway a tunnel-like feeling.
In the soft, tan-colored, leather back seat of the Cadillac CT6-V sat the second in command of the entire Detroit Mafia—The Association—Underboss Fabio De Luca, who went by the name Fabian. He spoke to his driver and bodyguard. “Slower, GiGi. I haven’t been here for a very long time.”
GiGi obeyed, and the car crept, wheel turn by wheel turn, down the driveway—the silver-plated rims glittering in the sunlight. Fabian watched as the high, green hedge passed down his side of the car. Only the roof of the mansion next door was visible.
The visit had been coordinated and leaked to make it look like a friendly call to his aging uncle. This was, of course, true. But there were other things to discuss. Matters that no one else could know about. Matters that, if known, could make him disappear into the depths of Lake St. Clair. He remembered accompanying his father to the house when the construction had finally finished in 1982. His uncle had just been promoted to Fabian’s current title of Underboss at that time, and his father was serving as the Street Boss. Fabian was eighteen and heading off to college to study business so that he could one day come back and help The Association. It had been a glorious evening full of cheer, hope, and love for his family. Now, almost forty years later, his uncle was semi-retired, and his father had died in prison, serving a sentence for racketeering. He peered out the front windshield. The house, growing larger by the second as the car approached, was the last place Fabian had spent time with his father before he was convicted and put in prison, where Fabian would observe him wither away for two decades before succumbing to throat cancer.
The pavement ended in a circle before the house with a fountain in the middle of a carpet of green grass. The home’s stucco exterior was complemented by two stone sections, and the windows were tall and narrow with dark trim. There was a half-circle picture window above the arched doorway. The rest of the front windows had standard grids and fit within the pattern of exposed timbers. A dormer window halfway up the steep, multi-gabled roof stood out and called attention to the asymmetrical layout. Most multi-million-dollar lakefront homes in Grosse Pointe Shores were a mix of colonial and modern. The eight-thousand-square-foot
Tudor home spoke of old money and had been built in the tradition of the Country Club of Detroit, a few miles away, where his uncle had been a member for twenty years now. He had also helped finance the club’s nine-million-dollar renovation a few years back. Membership was by invitation only, and Fabian had eventually been approached when the renovation was completed. A gross oversight, one of the board members had explained. Naturally, the membership had its costs: thirty-five thousand dollars a year to be a golfing member plus eight hundred dollars a month in dues or five thousand dollars a year to be a social member plus five hundred dollars a month in dues. The golfing membership would have been pocket change, but he hated golf—chasing a palm-sized projectile around immaculately manicured grass while attempting to control his temper. Not a chance. Why not skip to the nineteenth hole and start there? So, he had opted for the five-grand social membership and witnessed the concierge staff frown, realizing they had failed to lure an insanely obese cat compared to the fat cats who were already golfing members. In a final move of desperation, the club manager had invited him to lunch and said, “I hate the game too. It doesn’t make any sense to call it a sport.” His voice had lowered to a whisper at this point. “To be honest, I mostly ride around in the cart, waiting for my opportunity to screw one of the beer girls I hire.” Fabian had politely grinned, finished lunch, and said, “No thank you,” when the club owner paid the bill and said, “So, what do you say? Let’s play a couple of rounds and get some top-shelf pussy on the back nine?”
The Cadillac traveled halfway around the circle and stopped in front of the brick sidewalk that led straight to the front door. GiGi opened the car door for him, and he emerged to feel the summer heat against his face, neck, and arms. The trickle of the circle’s fountain soothed his nerves as he walked around the front of the sedan. The house was still majestic, quiet, and well-kept. At seventy-four and in tremendous physical shape from his daily workout regimen of swimming at the country club’s lap pool followed by a set of tennis, Fabian figured that his uncle, Pietro De Luca, whose sobriquet was “Papa Pete,” had at least twenty more years of good health left in him. Whereas his father had started smoking the cancer sticks as a teenager and never quit, Papa Pete had cut them out early and was not a heavy drinker or a drug user. Expensive scotch and wine were to be experienced, savored, not downed. But business meetings were another matter. The purple lilacs lining the front landscaping bed mixed with the smell of freshly cut grass gave him a jolt of energy and helped put his mind at ease as he approached the door. When he was a young boy, he would visit his uncle for a week every summer. Papa Pete would purchase a model car for him to put together, paint, and affix car-detail stickers to. Thinking back, one of those models may very well have been a Cadillac. Maybe they all were, he thought. At family gatherings, he could tell his uncle was respected. Everyone got quiet when he spoke, and people waited on him, always offering him coffee or homemade wine. Papa Pete was a devoted Roman Catholic who prayed every night. Fabian did too—even right after plotting a murder or beating. His uncle had been the voice of reason for The Association for nearly as long as Fabian had been alive. Now, Fabian needed that sage guidance, and he needed to ask his uncle a favor.
The men walked across the backyard toward the pool house, which stood half-way between the main house and Lake St. Clair. Pietro De Luca put a reassuring hand on Fabian’s shoulder. “Let’s walk to the water while Aldo tidies up.”
Fabian nodded. The statement meant that his uncle’s head of security, Aldo Mantegna, would sweep the pool house for any listening devices before the meeting. The majority of meetings held between members of The Association now took place in public places, selected at random, to avoid surveillance. However, his uncle trusted the old ways, and he trusted his compound. No doubt, the main house was still swept daily, but ensuring that eight thousand square feet were completely secure was no longer realistic. The pool house was where business had been and was still, on occasion, conducted. They passed it, and Fabian glanced back and saw his uncle’s housekeeper, Vanni Palazzo, exit the main house and head toward the small building with Aldo. No doubt, there would be fresh bruschetta, antipasto salad, porchetta, sandwiches, and probably bottles of Chianti or Barbaresco.
The men arrived at the seawall that ran the entire width of the property. There were two recliners near the edge, stools around the bar underneath a large cabana, and a fire pit with benches around it at one end; the rest of the deck was empty except for an aluminum dock ladder and deck box that held towels on the far end. It was here that Fabian had taken his high school sweetheart for an evening swim and fucked her in the water as she faced the ladder and gripped the poles while he thrashed back and forth behind her. It was also where he had watched a former Association member held underwater and drowned by Aldo, a permanent punishment for skimming money.
They sat on the chairs looking out at the lake’s cobalt blue surface while GiGi and his uncle’s bodyguard, Aldo’s son Marcello, stood by the cabana—high-powered guns within an arm’s reach behind the cabana’s bar if trouble arose.
Fabian started the chit-chat with innocuous updates about the family. His son, Leo, was doing well running the family restaurant, De Luca Pizza & Pasta, and getting larger around the waist from sampling too much of the cook’s daily specials. Fabian’s wife, Caterina, was content with life but hoping that Leo would soon make her a grandmother. However, Fabian knew, this would require Leo to enter into a long-term relationship, and, at present, Leo’s wandering eyes changed direction as often as the women in his bed. “What was with this generation and postponing having children or not having them at all?” Caterina had said. Perhaps, he thought, she was still insecure with the fact that they had only been able to have one child. This had caused her to avoid large gatherings with the other Association members and their families when those gatherings were still possible. Arrests, raids, and other crackdowns by the feds and police had changed all that. Fabian ended with a few forgettable updates about himself and added, “The summers are getting shorter, and the winters are getting longer, it seems.”
Papa Pete gave a weak grin and then took his turn, adding to the conversation. He was enjoying watching summer baseball from his suite at Comerica Park. He valued his hour-long swims at the country club’s pool. He still missed his ex-wife, even though she had taken his two daughters away from him when they were young; the last time Fabian had seen them was at his fifth birthday when they were six and seven. And, finally, his uncle gave a delicate wink and then confided to him that he had lost all of his lust for women and was happy spending his afternoons writing his memoirs and reading the great Italian authors—his latest book was Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante. “I was a bat flying alone in a pitch-dark cave until I traded sex for books. I now know how Langella felt. How I miss watching him on the stage…the trips to New York…the—”
They both spotted a yacht motoring slowly past his property, perhaps fifty yards offshore—the feds taking pictures and trying to listen—and he imparted two pieces of forgettable wisdom: “Give most of your money to the church, Fabian,” and, “A strong mind equals a strong body.”
When the boat was nearly out of sight, Aldo jogged across the lawn to them. “A snack has been prepared, gentlemen,” he said. This meant that the pool house was ready.
The bodyguards remained outside, sitting at a patio table with an umbrella extended overhead. A bucket of four Forst Premium beers on ice, a plate full of sandwiches, and two plates sat on the table between the men. They began to eat as Vanni exited the pool house and cracked open two of the beers and poured them into separate glasses for the men. They each gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she headed back to the main house.
Inside the pool house, Fabian and his uncle sat in leather chairs at a glass table in the middle of the room. Before leaving, Vanni had poured them each a glass of Chianti and served them a plate loaded with appetizers. The woman had the routine down to perfection. Next to the chiller holding the Chianti
was a bottle of Strega—his uncle’s favorite—and two small glasses. The Strega was significant. If they drank it at some point, then he knew that his uncle would be considering the offer; if the bottle stayed put, and the glasses stayed dry, then he knew he would be on his own.
A mahogany bar ran along one wall, ending in a small corner kitchen. There was a large leather couch, that matched the chairs they were seated in, against another wall with an oak coffee table in front of it. An enormous family portrait, taken in the late 60s before Papa Pete’s wife and children had left him, hung on the wall behind Fabian. The wall ended in a hallway that led to a bathroom and a small bedroom in the back corner.
They toasted, and his uncle spoke first. “What can I do for you, my nephew?”
Fabian took a sip and set down his wine. “Don Russo has chosen his successor.” He watched the old man for any sign that his uncle already knew.
A sip of wine. A pat of his lips with the napkin. A disarming smile. His uncle spoke, “I admit that I have heard the choice has been made. But as to who it is, I am afraid that I have long since left the circle whose members would know.” His face became serious, the kind of serious that, for decades, had made grown men go pale before him. “Since you are here, I assume you know who it is. And I assume it is not you.”
He didn’t know, and that was a relief. If he had, the conversation might have ended here. Fabian picked up his wine glass. “It’s Ciro.” He took a long drink.
His uncle sat back and crossed his legs, folding his smooth olive-colored hands. “I expected this,” he said. “Not because I believe his son is the right choice—you are the much wiser option—but because Don Russo is dying prematurely and sees his son as a way to fulfill his contribution to The Association. From what I hear, he will pass any day now.”