Wheel of Fortune (Detective Louis Martelli, NYPD, Mystery/Thriller Series Book 6)

by Theodore Jerome Cohen

  The women were not the only ones impressed with their dates. As Thornton and Dugan descended the brownstone’s staircase, the men’s faces morphed into broad smiles. It should have been clear to anyone standing there the evening about to unfold would be a memorable one.

  The foursome left the safe house and walked to where Agent Jackson, decked out as a livery driver complete with a black cotton and vinyl chauffeur’s hat and white gloves, stood waiting with his white stretch limousine’s side door open.

  “Theo,” said Thornton, “you truly have a calling for this job.”

  Jackson tipped his hat. “Why thank you, Ms. Thornton. It’s a pleasure to be at your service this evening. Good evening, Ms. Dugan. Please keep an eye on Ms. Thornton. These redheads have a tendency to become wild.” He winked, helping to put Dugan at ease.

  With everyone seated in the limousine, he shut the door, walked around to the driver’s side, and got in. “Where to, gents?” he called through the vehicle’s intercom system.

  “Adorante’s, Jackson,” answered Thornton’s date.

  The limousine slowly pulled away from the curb as its four passengers introduced themselves to one another.

  Sixty

  The drive to Adorante’s nightclub took 30 minutes, given the Saturday evening traffic. Another limousine had just driven away from the entrance when Jackson pulled to the curb. Jumping out, he was in time to assist the nightclub’s greeter, who already had opened the door and was in the process of helping Thornton and Dugan step out. The men followed.

  “We’ll give you a call when we’re ready to leave,” one of the men said to Jackson, who nodded knowingly. He’d already figured out where he would park the limo—in a small private lot one-half block from the nightclub. He pulled away as the foursome entered the restaurant.

  “Reservation for four. Racchetti,” said Thornton’s date, Neal, who was acting as host.

  The maître d’ looked at him, checked the reservations list, and nodded. Then, looking at Thornton’s purse, which had a slight bulge, he asked in a gruff voice, “Do ya mind if I look in your purse?”

  “Why? Do you need a tampon?” Thornton shot back, sticking her nose in the air.

  The maître d’ turned bright red as his assistant, a young woman, brought her hand to her face to stifle a laugh. “Fugetabout it,” he barked.

  “Men are such pussies,” Dugan whispered to Thornton.

  Grabbing four menus, the maître d’ asked them to follow him to their table. As he seated Dugan, he saw the top of the tattoo on her back and the one on her right arm. “Hey, ain’t you Tommie Lupinacci’s girl? How is he?”

  “He’s fine. Well, maybe not in the best of health these days, actually. He’s got a few medical problems, which is why he’s not here. I’ll give him your regards.”

  “Dat would be nice. Tanks.”

  Thornton’s date tipped the man $40 and sat. Within seconds a server arrived and poured water for the foursome. Then he took their drink order. He reappeared three minutes later with a bucket and a bottle of the house’s finest champagne. Popping the cork, he poured a small amount in a glass for Thornton’s date, who after tasting it directed him to pour some for his guests.

  The evening continued, with chatter at the table extending over a variety of subjects. Care was taken to avoid saying anything that might blow their cover. Most of what they talked about had to do with family, childhood experiences, the travails of modern life, and such. For all intents and purposes, these were four of Pittsburgh’s beautiful people out for a night on the town. The band played a variety of music, beckoning them to the dance floor time and time again. They often changed partners and frequently found the other patrons watching them, some with looks of envy on their faces.

  As expected, the nightclub’s photographer, a tall statuesque blond wearing a skimpy blue satin costume, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels, was going from table to table, soliciting customers to have their pictures taken. Dugan’s date waved her over. Stuffing a fresh $100 bill in her cleavage, he said, in a drunken-sounding voice, “Please take one of my Nicole for me to remember her by.”

  The woman was only too happy to oblige. She left the photograph of Dugan on their table while the couples were dancing. This was the photo they would leave behind when they departed.

  At 10:55 PM, Dugan’s date indicated it was time to ‘go to work.’ “Missy, would you mind throwing your champagne in Neal’s face? Feel free to yell something like ‘How could you?’ Have a little fun.”

  Dugan picked up her fluted champagne glass and threw its contents in Neal’s face. “You want me to what?” she yelled at him. “No, I will not sleep with you!”

  Neal stood and started to wipe his face with his napkin. Facing Dugan, he said, “I apologize. I didn’t mean—”

  By this time Dugan’s date had risen and appearing drunk, staggered around the table, holding onto the backs of chairs to steady himself. Reaching Neal, he appeared to punch him in the face. Neal fell backwards onto the floor. The crowd was horrified. A woman screamed.

  Neal rose slowly from the floor to a crouching position and then, head down, rushed Dugan’s date, sending both agents crashing into an empty table, which collapsed under their weight. The men rolled around throwing simulated but realistic-looking punches accompanied by a not-so-genteel verbal exchange. Thornton, for her part, rushed over and began ‘beating’ Dugan’s date with her fists while Dugan attempted to pull her away.

  Seeing two bouncers making their way rapidly towards the melee, the server who had been waiting on the foursome, and a nearby busboy, both of whom were Bureau agents, rushed to spirit Thornton and Dugan away.

  The bouncers, each more than six feet tall and weighing in excess of 300 pounds, grabbed Thornton’s and Dugan’s dates and marched them to the nightclub’s entrance. They were just about to throw them onto the sidewalk when they were confronted by Special Agent Jackson, who had been phoned by one of the agents working in the restaurant. Behind him at the curb was his limousine, the side door open. Jackson, his feet spread, had his hands on his hips with his suit jacket open and pulled back. Tucked in his belt was a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

  “Whoa, whoa, brothers. What are you doing with my children?” asked Jackson, politely.

  The bouncers stopped dead in their tracks. They released the men, stepped back, and put their hands up, chest high. One spoke. “Be easy, bro. Dis no big dilly. We’re cool wit da birds. It’s da dudes what’s bustin’ grills.”9

  “Well, why don’t you just leave the gentlemen to me and go about your business before someone gets seriously hurt,” Jackson said softly, patting the pistol in his belt with his right hand.

  The men turned and walked quickly into the nightclub. But the foursome and Jackson still had some work to do. They noticed the maître d’ and several customers were still standing at the entrance, watching them. “I think we should leave, gentlemen,” said Jackson, with an urgent tone in his voice.

  “I’m not riding with that sonofabitch,” spat back Thornton’s date. With that, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a taxi parked at the stand to their left. Dugan and her date got into the limousine, which took them back to the safe house for a late-night celebration and nightcap with Thornton and her date.

  By noon the next day Dugan and Thornton were back in New York City. If anyone were to ask Dugan today, she would not hesitate to tell them the evening was among the most memorable of her entire life.

  Sixty-one

  When a copy of Davis’s picture taken at the nightclub late the night before reached Tommie Lupinacci on his phone in the early hours of Sunday morning, he was apoplectic. “What the fuck is going on here?” he shouted, awakening his wife, who was bewildered as to what had triggered this outburst. “Can’t that fuck do anything right!” he yelled. “It was a simple job. He said he’d taken care of it!”

  “What’s that, honey? Who are you talking about?” his wife asked, bewildered.

  “Go bac
k to sleep! I have calls to make.”

  Stomping downstairs to his den on the first floor of his home in Rumson, New Jersey, Lupinacci picked up a throwaway cell phone and dialed one of his men. The time was 1:25 AM.

  A sleepy voice answered. “Yes, boss?”

  “Enrico, call Vanni. Now! I want the two of you to bring Severino to my office at 6 AM.”

  “This morning, boss? It’s Sunday.”

  “Yes, goddammit, I know it’s Sunday. Bring him to my office this morning. Do you want me to tell you again?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And Enrico—”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Tell Vanni you and him are going with me to Lancaster right after we take care of some business.”

  “Will Severino be going with us?”

  “No. I have other plans for Mr. Gianotti.”

  Lupinacci ended the call and threw the phone onto a nearby couch. Then he started pacing the floor and muttering to himself. Feeling weak, he staggered behind his desk and fell backwards into his chair. There, he opened the lower left-hand drawer and withdrew his blood pressure measuring device and cuff. Stripping off his robe and pajama top, he donned the cuff and started the machine. In a minute he had the reading, 150/110. I’m going to have a fucking heart attack, he thought, all because that sonofabitch Severino couldn’t follow orders. What did the bitch do? Buy him off with sex? Money? Did he think he could get away with this?

  Lupinacci sat in the chair until 5 AM, staring at the ornate clock on the wall that was a gift from the governor. Then, gathering every last bit of strength he could muster, he went upstairs, dressed, and left for his office.

  It was a little after 6 AM when the mobster took the elevator to the third floor of his warehouse in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. Enrico, Vanni, and Severino were already waiting. Lupinacci did not waste a minute. He walked up to Severino and pulled out his cell phone. Opening it, he keyed up the picture of Davis that had been taken just a few hours earlier at the nightclub in Pittsburgh. “Do you recognize this woman?”

  “You know I do, Mr. Lupinacci. I took care of that little problem for you a couple of weeks ago. When was this taken?”

  “Last night, not more than six or seven hours ago.”

  Severino appeared stunned. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. “That’s impossible, Mr. Lupinacci. Someone is fucking with you! When I dumped her body in the park across from the FBI, she was dead, believe me. There is no way the broad could have survived. I pumped a slug into her brain from four inches. I even checked for a pulse.”

  Lupinacci snapped. Walking behind his desk, he opened the center drawer, withdrew a pistol equipped with a suppressor, and pointed it directly at Severino’s chest.

  Severino was terrified. “Boss, what are you doing?” He put his hands up in front of his face and cried, “boss, stop—”

  Lupinacci, without even a hint of emotion, pulled the trigger. The sound made by the weapon was not the soft ‘phut’ movie and television viewers are accustomed to hearing, a Hollywood fabrication if ever there were one. But it was sufficiently muted as to ensure no one outside the warehouse heard it. Severino was dead before he hit the floor.

  Vanni and Enrico were stunned. They knew their boss was mercurial, but never had they seen him do anything like this.

  “Get rid of the body,” barked Lupinacci. “Put this piece of garbage in one of our compactors. By Monday morning he’ll be on his way to a landfill in central Virginia. When you’re done with that, get back here and we’ll leave for Lancaster.

  Sixty-two

  ‘There’s virtually no question in our minds, Lou, that Lupinacci has the photo taken of Dugan posing as Davis last night.” It was 7 AM, Sunday, and Special Agent Ron Bishop was speaking with Detective-Investigator Louis Martelli.

  “We picked the photo off at least five telephone lines in the Pittsburgh area on which we have intercepts,” Bishop continued. “The picture is burning up the wires. I think we have to go on the assumption he’s seen the picture. And my guess is that being the psycho he is, he’s going crazy right now. Understand, though, that any call made directly to Lupinacci would probably have been to an untraceable cell phone.”

  “I’d agree. Which means he’s probably on his way down here to finish off Davis and the people in US Trash, not necessarily in that order.”

  “Where are our people at this moment, Lou?”

  “Well, Knots, Linden, and the new guy are in Gettysburg for the weekend. They’re not expected back until early tomorrow morning. It’s my understanding they’ll be coming to work directly from Gettysburg. Frankly, I’m all for leaving them where they are. There’s no way Lupinacci can find them, so they’ll be out of the line of fire.”

  “Don’t you think having them posted at the office in case it’s attacked makes sense?”

  “Not if they attempt to burn us out, Ron. They could drive by early Monday morning, stop, lob some Molotov cocktails or tear gas into the office, drive our guys out, and kill them before the police even could be notified. It’s not worth it. If Lupinacci is intent on killing US Trash’s employees, then he already has his people looking for us. And as of now, they’re not going to find those three guys. We just have to trust that in his anger, Lupinacci will focus on us and not on the office or the trucks.”

  “Okay, I’ll go along with you on that. What about Amanda? If I were Lupinacci, I’d consider her Ground Zero.”

  “And you’d be correct,” said Martelli. “Next to Davis, who I’m sure he believes betrayed him to the FBI, Amanda has been the biggest thorn in his side. She’s the one who’s managed this little company from the beginning, built the business, and taken customers away from him right and left. She also was the mastermind behind the traffic spikes in the back of the building that caught his two people off guard when they attempted to torch our trucks. That whole incident made Lupinacci and his people look like fools. He has a score to settle with her, bigtime. If I were a betting man, I’d say he wants to be the one to kill her, and he wants to do it up close and personal.”

  “I agree. And you? As I recall, you left Tiny and his sidekick singing soprano in the church choir after your last encounter at the card table.”

  Martelli laughed. “Yes, that was truly an amazing poker game. I even played a few honest hands, though I’ll deny ever doing so if asked.”

  “Well, what about them? My guess is they’re the ones who are going to be gunning for you.”

  “And you’re probably correct again, Ron, though Halstead’s most likely in the hospital because of the burns he suffered when he and that gorilla Tiny attempted to torch our trucks.

  “What I think has to happen is that Sean and I need to be in a position to watch over Amanda at her motel. We’ve devised a little plan that should keep any of Lupinacci’s people who come after us away from where the real action will take place. If it works, and I’m confident it will, Tiny and whoever’s with him should be nowhere near Amanda when everything goes down, and we should have Lupinacci in custody by the time the sun comes up.”

  “I’m only going to ask this once, Lou. Do you want me to send more agents to Lancaster? If Lupinacci and his people are going to strike early Monday morning as we think they will, then we still have time to bring in the cavalry.”

  “No, please don’t do that. It might compromise the entire operation and everything we’ve done to get to this point. Anyone you sent wouldn’t know the area and would significantly increase the amount of coordination needed. And if Lupinacci or any of his men sensed something’s amiss, the rabbit would dive into his hole and we’d be back to square one.”

  “Okay. I’ve seen what you can do, Lou. I have the greatest respect for you and Sean. At this point it’s your show. But I’m counting on you to take care of Amanda. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to her.”

  “I’ll call her, Ron. And don’t worry. We’ll protect her with our lives.”

  Sixty-three

&n
bsp; ‘Iagree with you, Lou,” said Sean. “If Lupinacci and his men are going to hit us, it will be early tomorrow morning, perhaps an hour or so before sunrise. I also agree that Lupinacci will personally go after Amanda, perhaps with two or three other men. And regarding what you said to Ron, I thought you have been trying to reach her.”

  “I have, but her phone just rings and rings. The cell phones we use don’t have voicemail for obvious reasons. Maybe she’s in an area where there’s no service or her phone isn’t charged. I don’t know. And I don’t want to call her on the motel phone or go to her room in the event Lupinacci has put a tap on the line or has the parking lot staked out.”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  “Well,” responded Martelli, “let’s remember to stay away from our motel today. Might be a good time, come to think of it, to go to the office and grab our NYPD credentials. Then, tonight—maybe around 11:30 PM or so—we’ll go back and park our car behind our motel. From there, we’ll enter the motel office through the back door and exit through the front. At that point, you and I will say good night and go to our rooms, which fortunately are adjacent. I want to make sure if anyone’s watching, they see us go into our rooms.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Then, as you suggested, we dummy up our beds . . . you know, use the extra blankets and pillows in our rooms—the one’s on the shelf in the closet—to make it appear someone is sleeping in them. Around 1 AM, I’ll call you. If we’re lucky, anyone watching the building, especially Tiny, who probably begged to be the one to kill us, may be dozing. That’ll give us an added margin of safety. Regardless, with the lights out and staying close to the ground, we’ll sneak out, make our way quickly to our car, and head for Amanda’s motel.

  “Good thing we’re at the end of the building,” said O’Keeffe.