It could just have been a quirk of the killer; for example, maybe he waited around and got a kick out of watching the police and ambulances show up to see his handiwork. There’s just no way to know.
I’m sure that Patty is telling us the truth to the extent that she knows it, but she’s wrong about one thing, when she says that no one cared about her father.
Daniel Lewinsky and Joey Silva definitely cared about William Simmons. They still do.
The still-unanswered question is why.
Dominic Romano still hadn’t told Salvatore Tartaro that he’d disobeyed his instructions.
Tartaro had panicked—uncharacteristically, Romano thought—when the Vegas and Jersey cops came to see him. His response was to order Dominic to contact Silva and postpone the events set for the sixteenth. Dominic had not made the call, and in fact had never considered making it.
But this was the day that Tartaro was going to find out. Dominic came to see him in his suite at eleven o’clock in the morning and said, “Philly DeSimone is in town.”
Tartaro was surprised by the news. “What’s he doing here?”
“He wants to meet with us.”
“What about?”
“I asked him that. He said ‘business.’ When I pressed him on it, he said he would only talk to you about it. He didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else but him.”
“Tell him to kiss my ass,” Tartaro said.
“Salvatore, Silva must have sent him. He’s our partner; you need to see him.”
“They still think we hit Tony.”
“He told me they don’t. He says they know who did, and it’s being taken care of.”
Tartaro is surprised. “Yeah? Who hit him?”
“You can ask him that when we see him.”
Tartaro thought about it for a few moments, but realized there was no way he could say no, not without blowing up the relationship with Silva. But he was still pissed off that Philly showed up unannounced, demanding a meeting. That was not an act of respect, and he would make that very clear to Philly.
“All right, let him come up.”
Dominic shook his head and said, “Not here. Philly wants it to be in a public place.”
“Public place? What kind of bullshit is that?”
Dominic shrugged. “Maybe he’s not so sure we didn’t hit Tony. Maybe he’s just being careful in case we were looking to hit him as well. Can’t blame him for being careful; you live longer that way.”
“You pick a place? You better make sure we got it covered, wherever it is. Philly’s crazy enough to come in shooting.”
“It’s all arranged. We’re going to Spumoni’s. Tommy’s giving us the back room. I’m having our people pick Philly up; he doesn’t know where we’re going. And he’s going to be alone.”
“Okay. When?”
“Now.”
“Who is going with us?”
“Ralph and Mike.”
Tartaro nodded his satisfaction at that; having Ralph and Mike as protection was akin to employing a Marine battalion, but without being bothered by morals or the Geneva Convention.
Tartaro changed his clothes; he didn’t venture out of the hotel much, but when he did, he liked to look good. Dominic waited for him in the den area, and when he was ready they went out the door.
Ralph and Mike were standing in the hall, and without saying a word they took their positions in front of and behind Tartaro and Dominic. They were of course armed, and their weapons were within easy reaching distance.
They passed a housekeeping attendant pushing a cart filled with towels near the elevator. He saw them and then looked away; he knew exactly who Tartaro was, and eye contact with a mob killer was not what he was getting paid for.
They took the elevator, not to the lobby, but to the lower floor, where customers got their valet-parked cars. But Salvatore Tartaro was not about to stand there with a ticket, waiting for his car to be brought up. His car was waiting outside at a side entrance. Tartaro was not seen in public often, and he liked it that way.
Ralph drove the car, and Philly got in the passenger seat. Tartaro, as was his preference, sat in the back behind the driver, with Mike on the right side. The windows were tinted and could not be seen through from the outside.
They drove the fifteen minutes to Spumoni’s, a small restaurant on the outskirts of town that was Tartaro’s favorite. He rarely went to the actual restaurant anymore, but had food brought in from there often. The hotel food, in his view, was fine for tourists.
Salvatore Tartaro was not a tourist.
They approached the restaurant from the back, and parked in the small rear lot. They could see part of the front lot from where they were, and there were no cars to be seen.
“Where is everybody?” Tartaro asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dominic, looking at his watch. “It’s early … Mike, go in and make sure everything is okay.”
Without saying a word, Mike got out and went inside the restaurant through the back door. When he came back three minutes later, he was grinning. “What’s so funny?” Dominic asked.
“Tommy closed the place for lunch when he heard we were coming. He said Mr. Tartaro wanted privacy, and that’s what he was gonna get. We’ve got the whole damn restaurant; even Tommy just left.”
Tartaro laughed; he was used to getting special treatment, but he never stopped liking it. Ralph got out of the car so that he and Mike were flanking Tartaro when he got out. They’d done it many times, and performed with Secret Service–like precision. No mob boss was going to get gunned down on their watch.
Dominic got out as well, and the four of them went into the restaurant through the back door. They went into the main area, and then into the private room that was off of it. They obviously had their choice of anywhere they wanted, but the smaller room had no window to the street, and was therefore safer and more private.
Once they were in the room, Tartaro said, “If nobody’s here, how the hell are we going to eat?”
Dominic laughed. “I guess we’re not.”
“What time is Philly coming?”
“I guess he’s not. He never flew out here. Didn’t I mention that?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Tartaro asked.
“You’re a smart guy, Salvatore,” Dominic said. “You figure it out.”
Even if Tartaro wasn’t a smart guy, this wouldn’t have been a tough one to figure out. Ralph, Mike, and Dominic had all taken out pistols, which they were pointing at him.
“What the … we can talk this out. Dominic, I’ve always taken care of you.”
Dominic smiled. “Until now. Now I’m taking care of you.”
“Why?”
Another smile. “I guess you can call it an old-fashioned power grab. But it’s going to work perfectly. You’re going to disappear, and then we’re going to blow up a casino. And when they come looking for you, they’ll assume you ran. They’ll be searching for you forever; you’ll be Hoffa, that DB Cooper guy, and that Earhart flying broad all rolled into one.”
Tartaro turned to Ralph and Mike. “Whatever he’s giving you, I’ll do better.”
“Bye-bye, Salvatore,” Dominic said, just before pulling the trigger. “Sorry you couldn’t get a last meal, but the restaurant is closed.”
Roberts out in Vegas needs to be kept in the loop.
There is no doubt that there is a Vegas component to this; because of Shawn, we have known about this connection from day one. Roberts is smart, he knows what’s going on, and he can be a valuable asset out there.
“I was just going to call you,” he says, when he gets on the phone.
“Why?”
“You go first,” he says, so I do just that. I update him on everything that has happened with Lewinsky, including the apparent importance of William Simmons. He, of course, knows nothing about Simmons, and therefore has no insight into the matter.
I also tell him about the references to something happening on the sixteent
h, as well as the Feds coming to us about the death of the terrorist and possible supplier of explosives, who had made ominous stops in both Jersey and Vegas. He knows all about it, both because the car accident in which the supplier died was near Vegas, and because the Feds came to Vegas PD as well.
“They’re scared that something is going to happen,” Roberts says. “So am I. But it seems separate from our drug case, so I’m going to let them deal with that piece.”
“Same here,” I say. “How are you doing on checking into Harriman?” Roberts was investigating whether there were possible drug thefts going on there.
He tells me that they haven’t found anything so far, nor have they made progress in reinvestigating the apparent accidental death of Janine Seraphin, Rita Carlisle’s counterpart at Harriman.
It’s disappointing, but not terribly surprising. He doesn’t have probable cause to get a warrant to look at the drug records out there; we only had it because of Galvis’s coming forward. And the Seraphin death is a cold case; if she was actually murdered, it was probably done by professionals and covered up well.
“We have some information that hospital records here show drugs dispensed in quantity to a patient who never existed,” I say. “You could check that angle.”
“Okay. Interesting idea.”
“Your turn,” I say. “What were you going to call me about?”
“Tartaro seems to be among the missing.”
“What does that mean?”
“He left the hotel yesterday; we have two hotel workers who saw him head out with Dominic Romano and two soldiers. He never came back, either to the hotel or his home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Who do you think you’re dealing with?”
“Fair point,” I say. “So where do you think he might have gone? And why?”
“On the ‘where’ question, I have no idea,” he says. “On the ‘why’ question, I have absolutely no idea.”
“Well, now we’re getting somewhere. Has he ever gone off like this before?”
“I’m sure he has,” he says. “But with all that’s going on, lately we’ve been paying a bit more attention to Tartaro’s travel habits.”
“Maybe his severed head will turn up.”
He laughs. “If it does, I’m going to stuff it and put it over my fireplace.”
Roberts and I hang up, promising to keep each other informed of developments. Nate, who has been listening in on the conversation, says, “We need to squeeze Lewinsky.”
“We tried that.”
“I know, but he’s having second thoughts. And now we have more facts to throw at him.”
“The problem is he’s more afraid of Silva than he is of us, and I can’t say I blame him,” I say. “What about talking to Ranes? Maybe get him to talk sense to his client?”
Nate shrugs. “It’s worth a try. If nothing happens, we can always go to Lewinsky direct.”
I can remember one time I dealt directly with Ranes on a case, and it went well; there may have been other times, but they’re not part of my conscious recollections. He’s a stand-up guy, for a defense attorney.
Ordinarily, a prosecutor would be contacting him, but since there was no prosecutor in our interview, it would take too long to get someone up to speed. It’s not a violation of any rule or protocol for a cop to go to the attorney directly, so that’s what I’m going to do.
I place a call to him, and I’m told he’ll call me back, which he does ten minutes later. “I assume you’re calling to apologize for harassing Mr. Lewinsky? I’ll convey your regrets.”
“You do that,” I say. “And I have some other information you can convey to him.”
“I’m having trouble understanding what your issue is with Mr. Lewinsky, Lieutenant; he’s a well-respected executive who has never gotten a speeding ticket, and you spoke to him like he was Don Corleone, or Joey Silva, as the case may be.”
“Good, now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s where we stand,” I say. “I know things that you don’t know, but your client does. And I’m about to tell you those things, so for now, please just listen.”
“That’s a little dramatic, Lieutenant.”
“Yes it is. And I’ll double down on that by telling you this may be the most important conversation you will ever have, with the exception of the next one you have with your client.”
“I’m listening,” he says.
“We have more information since I spoke to you last. I am not going to tell you how we got it, but it’s real. Your client has been stealing drugs from the hospital by manipulating the books. He must have an accomplice internally to pull it off, but we don’t know who that is yet. We will find out. We believe that Rita Carlisle somehow learned what was going on, and she was silenced.”
“This is about Rita Carlisle?” he asks, and I can hear the surprise in his voice.
“And much, much more. Mr. Lewinsky has been participating in a conspiracy with Joey Silva to sell the drugs on the open market. There is a Vegas connection to it as well, which I won’t go into now.”
“Lieutenant…”
“Let me finish. There is a terrorism component to this investigation, an action is planned, perhaps more than one. The FBI is well aware of it, and they are very concerned. We do not know where, or exactly what is going to happen, but there is a concern that high-intensity explosives will be involved.” I still don’t believe that the terrorism investigation connects to ours, but I’m not about to tell Ranes that. I want Lewinsky scared that he’s in over his head.
“You’re not making sense, Lieutenant. Even if my client were involved in a drug trafficking conspiracy, which we categorically deny, what would such an operation gain by a mass killing?”
“That’s a question we cannot answer yet, and I emphasize ‘yet.’ But I am telling you that all of this is something we know; this is not speculation.”
“Yet you can’t prove it.”
“Correct, but we’re getting close.” I’m not telling him that we have his client on tape, because I don’t want Lewinsky to be more careful in the future. “And I am not asking you to believe it or me. That doesn’t matter at all. But here’s the thing; your client knows that all of it is real. He knows that what I have told you is true, and he is scared. So I am simply asking you to tell all of this to him.”
“For what purpose?”
“If any part of this happens the way I am saying, he will be taking the fall. He needs to think about that, because the alternative is that if he decides to make a deal, and helps us prevent this, you can do very well by him.”
“I will convey your views to my client.”
“Thank you. There is a lot riding on it.”
It was the second full rehearsal.
It couldn’t be called a “dress” rehearsal, because Nick Saulter did not wear what would be his disguise when he was doing it for real. On that day he would have facial hair and dark glasses, and knowing where the cameras were, he would never give them a head-on look.
But for now there was no danger of being discovered because he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was just out for a pleasant afternoon of shopping.
Nick bought a couple of shirts at the Gap, and a toy at a store called Cara’s Village. He didn’t pick the items at random, they qualified because they were the right size, and because the stores would gift wrap them. On the day when he had the package that he didn’t buy in the stores, it would be a similar size, and it would also be wrapped.
So for the second time in as many weeks, he ascended the Paramus Park escalator to the food court, carrying the shopping bag. He went to the Burger King counter and ordered two hamburgers, fries, and a soda, carrying the tray and his shopping bag to a table near the center of the large seating area.
It was 1:00 P.M. and very crowded. He had no trouble getting a table, but even if he’d had, it wouldn’t matter. This was fast food, and people who were there to shop didn’t linger over their meals. The table turnov
er was rapid.
When he finished, he got up and left the shopping bag behind him. But he also left an uneaten hamburger, half of his drink, and a jacket that he draped over the back of his chair, so to anyone happening by they would think the table was still occupied, and perhaps the person was in the restroom.
One hour later the package, drink, and jacket were still there, untouched. This was the second time the exact same thing had happened, and in fact he knew it was far more than necessary. On the day in question, it would be all over within twenty minutes after he departed the food court.
Later that day, at Lucky Linda’s Casino on the Vegas Strip, another man went through a similar rehearsal. He didn’t bother doing any shopping; he brought a shopping bag with a wrapped “gift” in it with him.
He sat at a slot machine with the package on a ledge next to him. He played the machine for ten minutes, then got up and placed the package on the seat. He left a jacket on the back of the seat, so as to give the impression that he was coming back.
Forty-five minutes later, it was still there. So he stopped a casino official, and pointed out that the package had been left there, unattended, for a long while. The official looked at it, then took the jacket and the package to a security desk, which served as a lost and found.
The man behind the desk took it and placed it on a shelf behind him, not even looking at it in the process.
It was a completely satisfying result. The real package would very likely explode near the slot machine, where it would be left. But if not, it would explode behind the security desk. Either location would be fine for the purpose … maximum casualties.
I’m working late in the office, although I use the word “working” loosely.
Basically, I’m hanging around for two reasons. One, I’m hoping to get a call from Ron Ranes regarding the conversation he was supposed to have with his client, Daniel Lewinsky. Second, Jessie is working late hours digging into the hospital records, so I’m waiting to take her home.
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