by Tod Goldberg
Jeff sat back, took a sip of his beer, and let Fat Monte process the information.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Fat Monte said.
“Thirty-seven times, Monte? You think I wouldn’t notice Neto was stabbed thirty-seven times in the chest?”
Fat Monte had another shot halfway to his mouth but thought better of it. He set the glass back down on the table. Jeff thought he saw a little shake in his hand. “Maybe you think I’m a little bitch like your friend Paul Bruno,” Fat Monte said. “See, I don’t scare. Prison doesn’t scare me, either, so why don’t you just go ahead and call your assault team down to secure the bar and take me in.”
Hearing Paul Bruno’s name immediately gave Jeff pause. That Fat Monte knew he was a snitch made Jeff reconsider a few things. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, not with Ronnie Cupertine’s connections. Maybe he had a guy in the bureau. Or maybe he just bugged all the cars he sold and serviced out of his shop. Most likely, though, he was keeping tabs on Paul Bruno. It’s what Jeff had predicted for Bruno’s fate, he just didn’t want to believe it could come to pass so quickly.
“You want to be on the hook for Paul’s murder, too?” Jeff asked, just to see how Monte reacted. “Because I’m happy to add that to your ticket.”
“You’d need to find a body first,” Monte said.
“Funny thing,” Jeff said, “I didn’t even know he was missing.”
Fat Monte started to say something, stopped, and then started to laugh. “Maybe he committed suicide,” he said. “You never know.”
“Pretty hard to hide your own body,” Jeff said.
“I got somewhere to be,” Fat Monte said. He took another shot, slammed the glass onto the table, and then started to stand up. Before Jeff could even make a move, Matthew reached out with his right hand and grabbed Fat Monte Moretti by the balls and yanked down. Fat Monte shrieked and fell to both knees and then onto his side. Matthew stood up as though to help him back up, but in the process managed to also kick Fat Monte in the face. Not too hard. Just hard enough to break his nose.
“Whoa,” Matthew said, as friendly as can be, “easy there.” He reached down and seized Fat Monte by the back of his neck and hefted him back up onto his stool. Fat Monte’s face was a bloody mess, his nose now pointing to the right, his eyes filled with tears. “Maybe you should go a little easy on those shots.” A waitress came rushing over with a rag filled with ice, which Fat Monte took without saying a word.
“Is he going to be all right?” she asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Matthew said.
“Do you want me to call an ambulance for you, Monte?” she asked. Monte. She knew his name; he was a regular at the Four Treys now, the kind of guy who the servers knew by name, the kind of guy who wasn’t likely to make a scene now because this was where he actually came to chill out, where he came to not be who he was during business hours . . . whenever those happened to be for members of the Family.
“Yeah,” Fat Monte croaked out, “call 911.”
The waitress turned to Jeff. “Is he being serious?”
“I don’t think so,” Jeff said. “But then, you probably know him better than I do.”
“Are you being serious, Monte?” she asked. “Do you want me to call your wife?”
“No,” Fat Monte said.
“No you don’t want me to call your wife or no you’re not being serious?” the waitress asked.
“Both,” he said. “And bring me some Tylenol, doll, if you could.”
“You’re not gonna sue or anything, are you, Monte?” the waitress asked. Fat Monte shook his head, which looked like it hurt. “All right then,” she said, and she walked away.
“Nice girl,” Matthew said once she was gone. “You sure you don’t want her to call your wife, Monte? How about your mommy?”
“Fuck you,” Fat Monte said, though there wasn’t much behind it. It occurred to Jeff that this might be the first time in his adult life that Fat Monte had actually been on the other end of a beatdown, even if a single punch hadn’t been thrown. That was the thing about being trained how to fight versus just picking it up on the streets. You learned how to do the most amount of damage with the least amount of exertion. Matthew managed to emasculate Fat Monte in two distinct ways. “How the fuck am I supposed to explain to my wife how I ended up with a broken nose?”
“Maybe you should ask yourself how you’ll explain it to Ronnie Cupertine,” Jeff said.
Fat Monte pulled the rag from his face, examined all the blood—as if he thought looking at it might somehow fix the situation—then pressed it back up against his nose. “What kind of feds are you?”
“Tell me about Sal Cupertine,” Matthew said, “or one day you’ll be walking down the street and I’ll be inside of a building with a sniper’s rifle, aimed right here.” Matthew reached over and touched a spot on Fat Monte’s back. “You feel that? That’s the part of your spine that controls your bladder, your bowels, all your sexual functions. That’s where the bullet is going to go. And you know what? It will be perfectly legal because you’re a known criminal with a gun and I’m an FBI agent. You’ll be shitting into a bag for the rest of your life, trying to make your limp dick work. Maybe I’ll just go ahead and do it when you walk out of this place tonight, because I’m sure you’ve got some heat on you and you’re surely on probation. Save us all some time.”
“I want my lawyer,” Fat Monte said.
Matthew actually started to laugh. Jeff thought Matthew was enjoying this a bit too much. Here was Fat Monte Moretti, one of the most feared gangsters in all of Chicago, a man probably responsible for a dozen or more murders, asking for his lawyer, undone by a broken nose and the realization that sometimes you really don’t have any rights.
“Let me put it to you this way,” Jeff said. “You’re free to go any time. But understand that as soon as you walk out the door, you’re a dead man. Either my partner here will shoot you, or it’s gonna be the Gangster 2-6, or it’s going to be someone in the Family, once we put out the word that you were seen at this nice bar consorting with the FBI. You could say we’re actually here to help you.”
“Help me?” Fat Monte said. “This asshole broke my fucking nose and now wants to hobble me.”
“I know you helped get rid of Sal Cupertine,” Jeff said. “I know you killed Chema. I know you had Neto killed. So that’s two bodies on your sheet, plus aiding a fugitive who murdered federal agents. And now I’m pretty sure you killed Paul Bruno, too, because you opened your stupid mouth. You want that weight? You willing to spend the next five hundred years in prison? Because that’s what you’re looking at, Monte. No more in and out in a year. No more Ronnie greasing things so you’re living like a kingpin somewhere. Because now you’re a liability to him. So I’m talking the rest of your life in a supermax, solitary confinement for twenty-three hours a day. That’s if you live through the week. All that, and your wife will have a bounty on her ass from the Gangster 2-6 for you killing two of their boys. You ready for that?”
“I talk to you,” Fat Monte said, “what can you do for my wife?”
Matthew shot Jeff a quick look. Fat Monte hadn’t just taken the hook, he’d swallowed it all the way down. Jeff wasn’t totally convinced this was the case, actually, though if there was something to be gleaned from all this, it was that Fat Monte understood what Jeff said was entirely true. Though, if Fat Monte actually went to his lawyer, well, there could be some problems . . . namely that Matthew was impersonating an FBI agent . . . though the odds were fairly good that Fat Monte Moretti would probably have some problems alleging that his civil rights had been violated, particularly since he was a known felon.
“We can get her protection right away,” Jeff said, which was a lie. But it was a lie he’d figure out how to make good on, if need be. He still had a few friends, somewhere.
“Like a house in Phoenix or some shit?” Fat Monte said. “Maybe a little place on an island? Get her some new tits,
also? Maybe you put her up in business, like an ice cream shop or some little boutique place selling sweaters and scented candles?”
“This isn’t TV,” Jeff said.
“So don’t play me like I’m on TV,” Fat Monte hissed. He pulled the rag from his face and picked up a napkin from the table and dabbed at his nostrils to check for bleeding. It was down to just a few trickles, though once he saw himself in a mirror, he wasn’t going to be pleased. “Unless I see some marshals in this joint, you don’t even have the authority to make that kind of promise. You’re not the first feds to come knocking on my door with offers of immunity and shit.”
Jeff had long worked under the impression that Fat Monte wasn’t very bright. Of all the members of the Family he’d investigated, he was the one clear liability, the one part of upper management prone to common stupidity—over the years, in addition to his notable felonies, Fat Monte was pinched for drunk driving, got nicked for beating down a valet he accused of stealing three dollars in change from his car, even once tried to get on a commuter flight with a vial of cocaine in his pocket—never mind his propensity to kill other humans. Now, though, sitting here with him, Jeff was beginning to understand that Fat Monte wasn’t very bright, but he’d acquired some level of institutional intelligence.
“Okay, then,” Jeff said. He stood up and put his coat back on, Matthew followed suit, and then Jeff asked a passing waitress for a pen, scribbled his cell phone number on the back of a napkin, handed it to Fat Monte. “You call me, and I’ll get an ambulance for you.”
“That’s it? Your pit bull breaks my fucking nose, threatens me, and then you leave?”
“You don’t need to be Ronnie Cupertine’s bitch,” Matthew said. “You tell us where Sal Cupertine is, that’s all, and maybe we’ll forget about Chema and Neto.”
“They’re already forgotten,” Fat Monte said.
“Just like you’ll be when you’re not of any use anymore,” Jeff said. “I’m not asking you to tell me what crimes Sal Cupertine committed. I have that information. I’m just asking for a location. You point to a spot on a map, and your wife is safe for the rest of her life.”
“While I do . . . what? Five hundred years? That what you said?”
“You chose this life, Monte,” Jeff said, his voice rising, and it was all he could do not to grab Fat Monte by his collar and shake him, but he managed to stay calm, managed to extend a single finger in Fat Monte’s direction instead of his gun. “Your wife didn’t. She could ask Jennifer Cupertine about that, see how life really works when your old man is left to sway in the wind by the Family. See how far the omertà goes when she can’t afford to flush the toilet.”
“Fuck you,” Fat Monte said again, and there still wasn’t much behind it.
“That’s what Ronnie Cupertine does,” Jeff said. “You don’t believe me, just you wait until he sees you with your twisted face and your story about how the feds roughed you up. He’s gonna have a lot of questions about why you’re not in jail, and next thing you know, we’ll be pulling your crispy body out of the landfill, too.”
Jeff started out the door, Matthew a few steps behind him, and it was only then that he realized how quiet the bar had become, primarily because he’d shouted at Fat Monte Moretti, killer of men and a regular at the Four Treys Tavern in bucolic Roscoe Village. Bad form, sure, but whatever.
Even though they’d been gone less than thirty minutes, the inside of Jeff’s Explorer was already freezing once they made it back, the steam rising from both men fogging the windows. Jeff took his gun from his ankle holster and put it back in the glove box. Matthew didn’t seem to notice. Jeff checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, wiped a speck of dried blood from his forehead.
“I could do it, you know,” Matthew said. “Put one right in his back.”
“I know,” Jeff said.
“I want to do it now. What’s stopping us from doing it right now?” Matthew said.
“Put your gun away,” Jeff said.
“We should take it to the next level,” Matthew said. He took his gun out, examined it for a moment. “I want to hurt him.” He looked at his hands, wiped them on his pants. “I’ve got his blood all over me.”
“You violated his civil rights,” Jeff said. “If you were still working for the FBI, I’d have to fire you.”
“I want to hurt him,” Matthew said again, like maybe he was trying to make sense of his own revelation. He dumped the gun in the glove box.
“I know,” Jeff said. He pulled off Damen, turned right on Roscoe, then came back down Wolcott and onto Henderson, headed back toward the bar.
“What are we doing?” Matthew said.
“I want to see what he does,” Jeff said. “If he walks home, back to the wife, we got him. If he sits in there and calls a couple of his boys, starts plotting how he’s going to kill us, we’ll need to make different arrangements.”
“He doesn’t even know my name,” Matthew said.
“He could get it,” Jeff said. “He knew who I was.”
“Do I need to worry about my sister?”
“We’ll know soon enough.” Jeff parked half a block away from the bar, in front of a blue walk-up that had both Cubs and Sox banners flying out front. Jeff took out his cell and tried Paul Bruno’s phone again. Voicemail still full. Shit.
“Anything?” Matthew said.
“No,” Jeff said. Matthew nodded, kept staring out the window, waiting for Fat Monte, or a bunch of guys in sweat suits, to appear. “If he’s dead,” Jeff said, “that’s on me.”
“It’s on him,” Matthew said. “What did you say to Fat Monte? That he chose this life? Same thing for your friend.”
“Maybe so,” Jeff said, though he didn’t want to believe that.
Jeff dialed 411 and got the number for Paul Bruno’s mother. Mrs. Bruno picked up on the third ring.
“Ma’am,” Jeff said, “my name is Jeff Hopper. I’m friends with your son. I was wondering if you’d heard from him recently.”
“Are you friends from the neighborhood?” she asked.
“No,” Jeff said.
“You one of his boyfriends, then?”
“No,” Jeff said. He tried to figure out a polite way of telling the truth and then just decided he’d tell the truth as it was. “I knew him from his work with the FBI.”
“Oh,” she said. “You were his handler, is that right?”
“That’s right,” Jeff said.
“Oh,” she said again. Jeff heard her sigh, and he wondered how much she actually knew about her son. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He normally called every other day or so. More often since his father passed. It’s been almost a month. Do you think he’s all right?”
“No,” Jeff said. “Ma’am, if I were you, I would file a missing person’s report. Get an investigation going.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. “Maybe I can ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Jeff said.
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Ma’am?”
“I just want to know if you think I’m stupid,” she said. Her voice sounded choked, and Jeff realized she was crying.
“Of course not,” Jeff said.
“Then please don’t call here again,” she said, and she hung up.
Jeff set his phone down. It was 1999, a whole new century was about to start, and people were still too scared to do the right thing. Chicago was still the kind of place where people feared the authorities and respected the crime bosses, even after all this time. “Paul Bruno is dead,” he said quietly.
Matthew nodded. “What do you want to do about it?”
“This whole thing,” Jeff said. “It’s stupid. Right? Isn’t that what you tried to convince me of? Back at the White Palace? That this was a fool’s journey?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Where else do you have to go?”
“You know who killed him,” Matthew said. “You just sat there and had drinks with him. I�
�ve got his blood all over my pants.”
“That’s what gets me,” Jeff said. “What makes Sal Cupertine any different? Why bother looking for him if it all just perpetuates? Could be any of these assholes who work for the Family.”
“The FBI any better right now? They let Sal Cupertine walk,” Matthew said. “You said it yourself. They’ll wait until it’s convenient to start looking for him. And you know what? They won’t find him. And the czars at Stateville? Doesn’t someone have to do the right thing? I mean, isn’t that what this is about, Jeff? Doing the right thing?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Jeff said.
“You better figure that out,” Matthew said, “because I’m riding with you now, and I can’t just throw my life away. I need to find this guy if I want to have a career, or else I’m going to be the most qualified security guard at Citibank.”
Ten minutes later, as Jeff and Matthew sat in the front seat of Jeff’s idling Explorer, a single woman crossed the street in front of them and entered the Four Treys. She came back out less than a minute later, hand in hand with Fat Monte Moretti.
Jeff was woken up at four o’clock in the morning by the sound of his cell phone ringing. He picked it up and looked at the number on the caller ID, but he didn’t recognize it. He hoped it was Paul Bruno, calling from Canada or something, but was fairly certain that wasn’t going to be the case.
“Hopper,” he said.
“Why do you law enforcement people always answer the phone like that?” Fat Monte said. “Anyone ever teach you to say hello?”
“It’s FBI policy,” Jeff said. “Always smart to identify yourself, takes the mystery out of things.”