A MAN LIKE SMITH

by Marilyn Pappano

  Jolie smiled at the dryness of his tone. "Don't worry. If Nick's doing business as usual, they're being paid for standing on the corner and looking out for anything suspicions or unusual."

  "Does the fact that they're here mean that he's also here?"

  "No. But if he is here, they won't be looking to get into any trouble until he's gone."

  They crossed the street just before it ended at a brick wall and entered the park through the rusty gate. Either Michael or Remy would be more comfortable out here in a place like this in the middle of the night, he reflected ruefully. But then, Michael and Remy both carried guns most places they went. They were trained and prepared to deal with hostile criminals. Tonight he would trade his own ability to deal with hostile witnesses and, on occasion, jurors for theirs in a flash.

  Just inside the gate, Jolie signaled him to stop with her hand on his arm. The stone beneath his feet rocked as he abruptly obeyed. She moved a few feet past him, peering hard into the shadows, listening, even it seemed, sniffing. Satisfied with whatever she'd discovered, she pushed her hands into her pockets and spoke into the darkness. "Nick, it's Jolie. I've brought Smith Kendricks with me. He wants to talk to you."

  Smith strained to identify whatever it was that she saw or heard or smelled. There were shadows that swayed in the light summer breeze, and a street or two over, a car's engine revved and its tires squealed across the pavement. From a nearby open window, music drifted out—heavy metal, discordant, harsh, hardly the soothing sort of music to accompany sleep.

  There were also plenty of smells to identify. The sickly sweet stench of garbage rotting in the July heat. The lush, wet, muddy smell of the Mississippi, only a few blocks east. Closer by was the earthy, rainy scent of vegetation and, underlying it, too delicate to compete, an occasional whiff of roses, climbing spindly and sparse, along the iron fence.

  And tobacco. It was light, little more than a hint, as if coming from a distance, barely brushing his senses before vanishing.

  Nick Carlucci was a smoker.

  He was here.

  Smith considered what he knew about Carlucci, excluding Jolie's bombshells tonight and last night. He was a good attorney, probably one of the best in southern Louisiana. He knew the law inside and out, could quote chapter and verse, could cite case law from memory that sent other, supposedly better-educated attorneys scrambling for their books. The first time Smith had ever faced him in court, he had regretted deeply that Carlucci wasn't on the government's side. They could have used his skills, his knowledge, his instincts.

  Before Carlucci had gone to work for Falcone ten years ago, he had been in practice for himself. He had represented small-time crooks and had done it with flair. He'd built himself a reputation for being brilliant, for winning and for not giving a damn how guilty his clients were, and he had soon attracted Falcone's attention. It wasn't long at all before he was working exclusively for Jimmy … and, judging from the evidence he had so far turned over to Jolie, at the same time secretly working against him. Smith wondered why. Why did a man work hard for ten years at keeping his boss out of jail, then turn around and risk his life to undo all that he'd done?

  "Come on, Nick," Jolie coaxed. "It's late, and we've all got better places to be and better things to do."

  One long moment passed without a response, followed by another; then the shadows moved, shifted, and Nick Carlucci stepped into the light. He was dressed in dark clothes to better blend into the shadows. He wasn't smoking now, but Smith could still smell the slightly sweet flavor of the tobacco.

  "All right, Jolie, I'm here," he said quietly. "What do you want?"

  "I'm sorry about last night."

  "Uh-huh." He sounded skeptical. "You get involved with people like him, things like that happen."

  "Why did you run off, Nick? Why didn't you stay and deal with them?"

  "Dealing with the feds isn't in my best interests at this time. Apparently, neither is dealing with you." He moved a few steps closer. "I haven't seen your name in the paper lately."

  "Turning over the tapes and transcripts you gave me last time isn't in your best interests," Jolie replied. "That stuff about Remy Sinclair… Jimmy would have made you, Nick. He would have known it was you, and his boys would have killed you."

  Smith wondered what she was talking about, but he resisted the urge to ask. When this meeting was over, there would be plenty of time to question Jolie—or, hopefully, Nick himself—about it.

  "They would have had to find me first." Finally Carlucci turned his attention to Smith. "What is it you want from me, Kendricks?"

  "Your cooperation would be nice, for starters."

  His smile was thin and mocking. "Followed by all the evidence I've gathered and my smiling face on your witness stand next week?"

  "That's about it."

  "And what would you be willing to offer in return?"

  Smith gave his question a moment's consideration. Even though the idealist in him despised plea bargains, the realist knew it was the way the game was played. You give me this, and I'll give you that. You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.

  But damned if he wanted to be scratching Nick Carlucci's back.

  The bulk of the charges in these cases were against Falcone himself and his boys, as Jolie referred to them; those pending against Carlucci were mostly conspiracy charges of one sort or another. The most serious as far as Smith was concerned involved the other man's role in blackmailing Susannah Duncan Sinclair and the attempted murder of both Susannah and Remy. They were family, and Carlucci had threatened them. He wanted him to pay for that.

  But he could deal. He could let Carlucci walk as long as he hung his boss out to dry first.

  "We could be persuaded to either drop or reduce the charges against you," he said evenly, "in exchange for your full cooperation in Jimmy's trial next week."

  "And what else would you offer?"

  "Protection."

  "The federal witness relocation program?"

  A new name, a new place, a new life. Nicholas Carlucci would cease to exist, and the man who had used that name for nearly forty years would one day resurface someplace far from New Orleans with a whole new identity. It was the ultimate in fresh starts and second chances. Smith wondered if Carlucci would make the most of it or if, like so many others who had tried, he would find that going straight was too much work.

  "If it's considered necessary," he replied.

  Nick seemed to be considering his offer; then he shook his head. "No, thanks. I'm not interested."

  Disappointed, Smith took a step forward. "Then what was the purpose behind all this? Tapping Falcone's phone, eavesdropping on his conversations, photographing his meetings, documenting ten years' worth of illegal activity? Why pass all this evidence on to Jolie? Why expend all that time and effort and put your life on the line, only to stop short of where you could do the old man some real damage?"

  "I intend to do the old man the kind of damage he can't recover from," Nick retorted. "But I'll do it on my own terms, not yours and not the FBI's."

  "And what does that mean?"

  Nick took a moment to shake a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and light it, then blow a fat puffy cloud of smoke into the air before he replied, "It means I intend to see Jimmy in court … and in jail … and if there's any justice at all in this world, I intend to see him in hell."

  His words were a promise, given without hesitation, without emotion, and leaving absolutely no doubt in Smith's mind that he meant exactly what he'd said. Whatever was driving Carlucci went beyond justice, beyond revenge. It was something stronger, something more powerful, that cut all the way through to his soul. Jimmy Falcone had once had a formidable ally in Nick Carlucci.

  Now he had an even more formidable enemy.

  Standing a little off center about halfway between the two men, Jolie felt a little shiver dance down her spine. She'd had dealings with a number of angry people before, with bitter, hopeless, frustrated, eve
n murderous people, but she had never dealt with anyone as cold and empty as Nick.

  "Why, Nicky?" she asked, not meaning to ask the question out loud, not intending to use the nickname he disliked, the name that connected them to a more innocent time. "What did Jimmy do to make you do this?"

  For a time she thought he wasn't going to answer. That was so typical of him, of his arrogance. But then he proved her wrong. He responded in a flat monotone. "He killed someone."

  It wasn't much of an answer. Falcone had killed, or been responsible for the killing of, a substantial number of people over the course of his career in organized crime. In the past thirteen years, she had covered many of those murders for the newspaper. Most of his victims had been business associates who had crossed him in one way or another; some had been competitors who had tried unsuccessfully to muscle in on his business; a few had been apparently innocent bystanders who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  But she couldn't recall a single one who might hold some significance for Nick.

  She couldn't imagine anyone whose death he would consider worth avenging.

  "Who was it?" she asked boldly.

  He looked at her with the first real emotion he'd shown this evening. It was sorrow—the sort of pure, deep, heart-wrenching sorrow that stayed with a person forever. It was similar to the sorrow she had felt on giving up Cassie, only a hundred times stronger, a thousand times more powerful. "Who he killed doesn't matter," he replied, his voice softer, his tone gentler, than she would have believed possible. "Why I'm doing this doesn't matter, either. All that counts is that I am."

  It was a woman. Jolie knew it as surely as she knew her own name. Jimmy Falcone had killed a woman that Nick had cared about, had loved. Nothing else, other than the loss of a child, could explain that kind of sorrow. She wondered who, wondered how and when and why, but she didn't ask. She couldn't.

  Smith came to stand beside her. "So you're saying that you'll testify against Falcone next week. You'll show up in court and swear to the authenticity of the evidence you provided Jolie. You'll answer our questions truthfully."

  "I'll get you a conviction," Nick replied, quietly confident. "You won't need anything besides me and my evidence."

  "But you won't go into protective custody."

  He shook his head.

  "Why not?" Jolie asked. "You know by now Jimmy's wondering about you. You know he must have some doubts about your trustworthiness."

  "So let him wonder. Let him doubt. I'll take care of myself."

  "But the FBI can protect you," she argued.

  "Uh-huh. Remember last winter when Sinclair got shot? Remember who shot him? One of his fellow agents. One of Jimmy's people. Maybe everyone working for the FBI now is clean … but maybe not. I'll take my chances on my own."

  "But—" The sound of traffic—at least two cars, possibly more—on Serenity Street made her break off, her argument forgotten. As she turned toward the street, she saw Smith, also distracted, also turning.

  The cars—four of them altogether—were definitely bureau cars. Even without the antennas on the trunk and the blue lights on the dash, they would still look like cop cars to Jolie: plain, no-frills sedans, one gray, one burgundy, two white. The first one stopped at an angle, blocking her 'Vette in front; the second hemmed it in from behind.

  She muttered a curse when Shawna Warren climbed out of the lead car. The temptation to interfere was strong—to create a diversion, to do something, anything, that would give Nick time to make it through the trees and the bushes to the gate in the back wall.

  But she had interfered once already and made it possible for him to escape the FBI. She had no doubt that if she did it again, she would be spending the rest of the night in jail. Maybe, in spite of Nick's wishes, this really was best for him.

  "Hell, Jolie," he murmured as the agents approached them. "Is this your idea or his?"

  She faced him again. "I didn't tell anyone about this meeting but Smith, and he hasn't left my sight since I told him."

  "Didn't it occur to you after you called my house last night that they would have you under surveillance?"

  "Of course it occurred to me." She made an effort to control the scorn in her voice. "But I wasn't followed, I swear. I was very careful. We drove around for nearly an hour before coming here. I would have noticed if someone was tailing us."

  He swore softly. "Have you never heard of an electronic tracking device? They put it on your car, and they don't have to get close enough to be noticed."

  "He's right," Shawna said as she joined them. "We've been keeping tabs on you from a distance all day. We followed you to work, to O'Shea's and over to Smith's. We figured chances were pretty good that eventually you would lead us to Carlucci, and you did."

  Jolie looked from Nick, who seemed resigned, to Smith, who looked regretful. Had he known? she wondered. All those miles they had driven around the city while she made absolutely certain that they weren't being followed, had he known that the FBI was tracking them electronically?

  As she watched him, he stepped forward. "Look, Shawna, I made a deal with Carlucci—"

  The agent interrupted him. "And I made a deal with Marshall. You stay out of our way on this, and he'll overlook the poor judgment you've displayed in your dealings with this witness and this reporter. He'll still let you prosecute this case."

  She put such derision into reporter. No doubt, Jolie thought, to Shawna's way of thinking, journalists ranked right down there with the other dregs of society—the prostitutes, the con men, the thieves and the murderers. She supposed it was only fair, though, because right now the FBI in general and this agent in particular, were at the bottom of her own list. Damn the woman, and damn Alexander Marshall.

  And while she was at it, she might as well damn herself, she acknowledged grimly. After all, she was the poor judgment Smith was being accused of. It was his relationship with her, his faith in her, his dealings with her, that had left him open to criticism from a woman who wasn't half as smart or a tenth as talented as he was. If he got pulled from this case because of her…

  She knew how important it was to him, knew all his personal reasons for wanting Falcone, as well as his professional ones.

  She couldn't bear knowing that his association with her could damage his career.

  "I haven't done anything wrong with either this witness or this reporter," Smith said coldly. "If it weren't for Jolie, we wouldn't have Carlucci or any of his evidence—which is better by far than anything you've been able to put together. If you don't trust my judgment, Shawna, I don't give a damn. If Marshall doesn't trust it, fine; I'll give him my resignation. But until then, this is still my case, and Carlucci is still my wit—"

  The first shot sounded like a pop gun or a car backfiring, but instinct told Smith it was far more lethal. In the chaos that followed, he reacted automatically, grabbing Jolie around the waist, diving for cover, taking her to the ground with him. As a dozen more shots rang out around them, she wriggled closer, as if she just might crawl underneath him, and between the shouts and the shots, he could just barely make out her soft, frantic whispers. "Oh, God … oh, God … oh, God…"

  Holding her tighter, he murmured a silent prayer of his own.

  Oh, God, indeed.

  * * *

  Smith sat on the damp ground, his back against the stone wall that supported the iron fence across the front of the park. It was coming up on two in the morning, and he wanted to go home. Correction: he wanted to go home with Jolie, but he couldn't even get her attention. About half a second after the shooting had stopped, she'd undergone a remarkable transformation from frightened woman to on-the-spot reporter, and she had been as busy as the agents ever since.

  The gunmen, presumably in the employ of Jimmy Falcone, had escaped unseen. Apparently—after his brief exchange with Shawna Warren earlier, Smith found some petty satisfaction in this—rather than try to follow Jolie herself, the men had instead followed the FBI agents who
were following her, and neither Shawna nor any of her team had had a clue.

  Nick Carlucci had also escaped. While everyone else had been seeking cover, he had made his way into the shadows and through a gate at the back of the park. By the time the shots had ended, he had been driving away. Since it had been Smith's intention to let the man walk away, he found some satisfaction in Carlucci's clean getaway, too.

  With a weary sigh, he tilted his head back until it rested against the iron bars. It was funny how getting shot at could put things into proper perspective. This morning he hadn't wanted to even think about quitting his job. He had reached the decision that he could do it for Jolie, though … if she would have a baby for him.

  In the past few hours, that decision had become so much simpler. He didn't need a job where he was distrusted, where his judgment was called into question, where his ability to do his job was second-guessed and doubted solely on the basis of the woman he was seeing. He didn't need to work with people like Shawna Warren, who saw only the problems Jolie had caused and not the tremendous amount of help she had given them. He didn't need to work with people who saw his relationship with Jolie as proof of his lack of good judgment.

  And he didn't need a baby.

  No matter how much he might want one.

  All he really needed was Jolie.

  Always.

  "Is it all right if I join you?"

  He lifted his head enough to see her face in the streetlamp light. The adrenaline was wearing off now, and she was wearing down. She looked tired, worried—about Nick, he thought without jealousy—and troubled—about them, he would wager. For once they were in perfect agreement. He was tired, too, and worried about Carlucci's safety.

  And he was very troubled about them.

  "Pull up a seat," he replied.

  She sat down on the grass in front of him, her knees drawn to her chest, her hands clasped around her ankles. For a time, she sat in silence, her chin braced on her knees, resting. Relaxing. Seeking courage. Finally she spoke. "Do you think he'll show up in court?"