by Zoey Parker
Snap out of it, Carla scolded herself. This isn't some magazine model you're shaking hands with. He's a thief and a killer, not to mention a sadist.
She felt torn. If she played it too icy, Gio wouldn't feel comfortable enough to confide in her about his crimes and she wouldn't be able to gather the evidence she needed. If she played it too friendly, he would almost certainly get the wrong idea and she'd find herself dodging his sexual advances, which could get messy in terms of getting the job done.
Inwardly, she bitterly cursed the fact that male undercover agents didn't have to deal with these kinds of problems.
“Gio it is, then,” Carla replied, hoping her smile was professional and genuine without seeming flirty. She sat down, and the others did as well.
“So Louie,” Mario said, “where have you been hiding this bright young woman? How come I've never seen her before?”
Louie's face flushed, and Carla saw his stubby fingers twitch nervously near the buttons on his shirt, as though he wanted to fidget with the mic on his chest.
Goddamn it, Louie, can't you try to keep it together for just a few minutes? Carla thought angrily. You lie in front of judges and juries almost every day of your fucking existence. Can't you muster up a halfway-convincing lie now?
“Uh, well, I've mostly been, y'know, keeping her busy with clerk stuff, filing, typing up motions and complaints and all that.”
Carla saw Mario's eyes narrow.
Oh, you stupid asshole, you're making it sound like I'm some kind of secretary who doesn't know her ass from her elbow, she fumed silently. There's no way they'll want me to work with Gio now. We gave you a very simple cover story, Louie, and now you're wiping your ass with it.
“But, but, um, but she's good, though,” Louie added quickly, swallowing hard. “She's very sharp, she's helped me out on plenty of cases, and she's got, y'know, a brilliant legal mind. She was the, uh, daughter of one of my professors at Stanford Law, Phillip Hackton, and he was one of the most respected criminal attorneys in the country, so...”
Carla tried to keep her expression neutral, but rage erupted inside her like a volcano. She couldn't believe her ears. How could he make up such outrageous lies on the spot like that? All it would take was ten minutes on Google for anyone to see through such transparent bullshit.
She wondered whether Phillip Hackton was even a real law professor at Stanford, or if Louie had simply decided to wing it on that one too. She tried to imagine the look on Don's face as he listened to this remotely.
Mario turned to Carla. “That's some kind of pedigree you got there. What does your old man think about you working for guys like us? He doesn't feel like you're tarnishing the family legacy, or nothin' like that?”
“Maybe that's why she uses a different last name,” Gio pointed out.
Carla registered Louie's slight wince out of the corner of her eye.
Yeah, you couldn't even bother to remember the last name of my alias to make it match your dumbass fairy tale, could you? she thought. If this whole thing goes south because of you, Louie—if Fred goes unavenged because you fucked us here—I swear to God I'll wipe my ass with that guarantee of immunity and make sure you get locked in the most miserable hole the federal penal system has to offer.
“Actually, he died the year before I went to law school,” Carla said. “I decided to use my mother's last name because his tends to cast such a long shadow, and I felt I wanted to succeed on my own merits rather than his reputation.”
Mario nodded slowly. “You wanted to earn your career instead of inherit it. I respect that. I'm hoping with your help, my little Gio will be able to do the same.”
“You don't need to talk about me, Papa,” Gio said tightly. “I'm sitting right here.”
Carla could hear the resentment in his voice, and she noted a subtle, defensive slump in his posture. When she'd first entered the room, he had seemed lively and confident, but the more his father talked down to him and dismissed him, the more he appeared to regress into a sullen teenager.
She had taken numerous classes on criminal psychology at Quantico, and she knew that in many family-based criminal organizations, sons found it difficult to live up to their larger-than-life fathers, which often resulted in mental or emotional problems—addictions, abusive patterns with their own children, violent behavior toward other authority figures, and even disordered sexuality. She had no doubt this was somehow tied to the rumors about Gio's kinks, and wondered whether she might be able to find some way to exploit that.
Besides becoming one of his subs, of course.
Mario continued to talk to Carla as though he hadn't heard Gio. “If he's gonna make it in this life, he's gotta establish himself as more than just my son. He's gotta show people he's his own man. They won't be loyal to him if they think he had everything handed to him.”
Carla raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that you just handed him this restaurant.” She knew it could be risky to seem like someone with a smart mouth, but she also knew it would be better to offer an incisive observation—even if it seemed disrespectful—than to look like nothing but an empty-headed brownnoser. She could always apologize if she overstepped her bounds. Establishing her credibility was far more important.
But Mario nodded vigorously. “See, you get what I'm saying. In fact, that's gonna be your first job. You're gonna move some money and papers around so that legally, it looks like Gio bought this place for himself. That should make sure nothing that happens here can be connected back to me or vice versa. And to the other guys in our thing, it'll dispel rumors of, whatchamacallit, nepotism or the like.”
Carla nodded. “I understand. That shouldn't be a problem.”
The door opened and Shimizu entered with a bottle of grappa.
“Finally!” Mario exclaimed. “I'm parched as hell over here. Louie, let's get out of these kids' way so they can work out what they need to. I got some of my own business to go over with you anyway.”
Mario left, and Louie shambled out behind him. As he did, he gave Carla an awkward glance which she pointedly ignored. They closed the door behind them and Shimizu turned to Carla and Gio.
“Would you like to order something?” he asked.
“Actually, before we start, I'm going to duck into the ladies' room for a moment,” Carla said, standing. “I drank a little too much coffee in the car on the way over.”
“Hey, that's kinda too much information for a guy you just met, ain't it?” Gio smirked.
Carla shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. I spend most of my time around male lawyers, and they're fairly open about that kind of thing.”
“Well, try not to do it around me, okay?” Gio said. “I like my women to act classy.”
Yeah, I'll just bet you do, Carla thought. And I'm not one of your women, asshole.
“I'll try to remember that,” she said, stepping out the private room's side door.
She found the bathroom and went in, carefully locking the door behind her. Then she dialed the number to connect directly with Don. He picked up immediately.
“Can you believe that jackass Louie, runnin' his mouth off like that?” Don asked furiously. “Screw federal prison, we oughtta save the taxpayers money an' just tar an' feather him!”
“That'd be too good for him,” Carla said. She kept her voice as low as possible in case anyone was listening at the door. “Listen, about what he told them...”
“Yeah, yeah, we got our tech guys workin' on all that,” Don assured her. “If anyone tries to look it up, they'll find an obit for Phillip Hackton from a few years back, sayin' he was survived by his lovin' daughter Carolyn. An' no, in case you were wonderin', there wasn't never any 'Phillip Hackton' who taught at Stanford Law, so our people are workin' with the Stanford IT staff to get him added to their records as fast as we can.”
“Will it hold up?” Carla asked.
“It should leave enough of a trail for anyone who's casually lookin' into it,” Don said, “just like t
he fake social media accounts our guys set up for you, so it didn't look like you just popped outta thin air. Most people search for someone, a few pages here an' there are enough to satisfy 'em. But if the Mancinis get someone more savvy to look into it, like a private investigator...well, now that Louie's muddied the river with his tall tales, darlin', I just don't know.”
“Fuck,” she hissed. Her first hour undercover, and already everything was turning to shit.
“You sure you still want to go ahead with this?” Don asked. “'Cause with things off to a bad start like this, there'd be no shame in scrappin' the whole deal. Hell, half the guys I know would probably do the same thing.”
Half the guys you know, Carla thought. Not half the agents, but half the men. Because you know I'm worried that if I backed off now, they'll say it was because I'm a woman and I just couldn't cut it as an undercover agent after all.
But she knew she couldn't do that. Not because she owed it to herself or to any of the other women in the Bureau.
Because she owed it to Fred.
“I'm still in it to win it, Don,” she said. “As long as Louie doesn't do anything else to fuck it up, like yanking off his mic and running around the room with it.”
“The way things are goin' so far, hon, that could be a distinct possibility. Just watch yourself out there.”
“I will,” Carla said, hanging up.
But in her mind, the click of the call ending sounded like a heavy steel door swinging shut and locking behind her, and she suddenly felt very trapped and alone.
Chapter 8
Carla
Carla returned to the back room and sat down.
“There you are!” Gio exclaimed. “I was starting to think you drowned in there.”
“Sorry about that,” Carla replied, looking around. “Thanks for your patience. Where are the menus?”
“No need,” Gio said. “I already ordered for both of us.” His posture was loose and relaxed, but Carla didn't like the way he was looking at her—like a hungry predator in the wild, eyeing a herd of prey to determine the slowest and weakest among them.
“I generally prefer to order for myself, actually.” Carla tried to hide her annoyance. She hated it when men ordered for her on dates as though she didn't have a mind of her own, and she was even more peeved by Gio's presumption.
They'd known each other for about two minutes in a professional capacity, and he was already acting like he knew what was best for her? Who the hell did he think he was?
“Nah, you're gonna love this,” Gio insisted. “Tuna sashimi with seaweed salad, plus a couple of Sapporos. What's not to like?”
“Well first of all, I don't really enjoy tuna...”
“Wait 'til you see how fresh this stuff is, though,” Gio interrupted. “It'll melt in your mouth.”
“...and seaweed tends to get stuck in my teeth,” Carla continued. “Plus I prefer not to drink during business meetings, so I can stay focused.”
“Hey, why don't you just relax, okay?” Gio said. His enticing smile was still in place, but Carla saw a brief spark of anger flicker behind his eyes. Clearly, he didn't like being contradicted, especially by women. “There's no reason this has to be formal. We'll have a meal and some drinks and get to know each other a little better. It'll make it easier for us to work together, right?”
“I find it's usually best to maintain a wide border between personal and professional interactions with clients,” Carla answered. “It keeps things from getting confusing.”
“Now that you're working for us, you're gonna have to get used to a more laid back way of doing things,” said Gio. “Families like ours, we got a long tradition of breaking bread with our associates. It establishes trust and shows respect. We Italians don't want to work with people who are all business all the time. We want to work with people who'll dance at our weddings.”
“Well, I suppose having a meal together won't hurt,” Carla admitted. “But I don't dance.”
“I'll bet I could teach you a few moves you'd remember,” Gio said, winking lasciviously.
Carla wasn't sure what to do next. Should she let the wink go without comment? If she did, he'd probably see it as encouragement. Should she express her disapproval? If she did that, he might decide she was a frigid scold and decide to find a different lawyer.
She took a deep breath and decided to let it go.
“As your father was saying,” she began, “our first step is to find a way to make it look like you purchased this restaurant for yourself legally. So for starters, as far as we're concerned, your father has never been here and he isn't even here right now.”
“That oughtta be easy,” Gio muttered. “Pretending my father ain't around is something I do a lot.”
Carla forced a smile, uncertain of how to respond. Was he trying to sound tough now that his father was out of the room? Was he hoping for sympathy? On some subconscious level, perhaps both were true.
“Today is the first time you've been to The Laughing Fish. You're thinking about purchasing it, and you retained me as a legal consultant to help you. Mr. Shimizu was kind enough to let us look around and order a meal, despite the fact that the place is closed. Are you with me so far?”
“Yeah, I get it. I ain't stupid. But what you're saying is already basically true, right?” Gio shrugged.
“'Basically true' is still partly a lie,” Carla pointed out, “and it's extremely important that we get our stories straight before the FBI and IRS start crawling all over the paperwork. They'll be looking for any discrepancies to nail you with, no matter how small or trivial they may seem. Remember, they got Al Capone for tax evasion.”
“Yeah, they sure did,” Gio nodded. “Did you ever see the movie about that, with Robert DeNiro?”
“I don't believe I've seen that, no,” Carla replied. She felt herself growing irritated with his tangent, and she reminded herself to stay calm and take her time. Good undercover work took time and patience, like fishing.
“We should watch it together sometime,” Gio said. “I must've seen it, like, twenty times, at least. Man, the scene with DeNiro and the baseball bat gets me every time.”
Shimizu entered with their food and drinks, setting them down on the table. As he left, Gio picked up his chopsticks and started eating the red slivers of tuna piece by piece. “Mmm! I'm in paradise, this is so good. Have some.”
Carla cleared her throat. “As I said earlier, I don't really like tuna—”
Gio raised his eyebrows, his smile fading slightly. “And I told you that you'll love it,” he said, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. He speared another piece of tuna with his chopsticks and held it out to her across the table. “Look, lady, in case you ain't figured it out yet, here's the headline: You're young, you're clearly just starting out in this business, and this is your first big break. Maybe the only one you'll ever get without going back to leeching off your daddy's name and reputation. So if you want to make millions working for our family, you're gonna have to learn to do as you're told. Now I'm not gonna discuss another fucking thing with you until you eat this tuna, so go on, take it.”
Carla sighed. “Fine.” She reached out to take the chopsticks from him, but he pulled them away, grinning.
“Ah-ah,” he teased. “No hands.”
She rolled her eyes and leaned forward, taking the tuna with her mouth and chewing it. “Okay,” she said briskly. “It's good. Thank you. Now can we get back to discussing the restaurant?”
“Fine,” he agreed, taking several long gulps from his Sapporo bottle.
“With regard to purchasing it, do you have any personal assets you can claim to have used to pay for it?”
“Sure,” he said. “I got about twenty grand from a truckload of electronics I hijacked with some guys a couple months ago, and I get a weekly slice of Little Tony Parisi's take from selling pot on the North Side, which should be good for another—”
“Legal assets, Gio,” Carla interrupted him wearily. “Thi
ngs you can justify to the IRS.”
Gio bristled visibly. “I was getting to that stuff before you fucking cut me off,” he snapped. “Don't do that, okay? I hate it when people can't wait for their goddamn turn to talk.”
Carla remembered how he'd cut her off just a few minutes earlier, and kept quiet.
“So anyway, I got my '78 Corvette, and I got my house. My dad bought me both of those with the profits from his legit businesses, so they should be fine. Hey, you should come by and see my place sometime,” he sneered. “I got some nice stuff there, I bet you'd get a real kick out of it.”
“What are the house and car worth?” she asked.