Verona

by Deaver, Jeffery

  Then Nagle noted in the doorway the man he knew with certainty would be here.

  Fifty-year-old John Yung was five four in height, with enviably thick black hair, combed back with lotion. He was in a light-gray suit, white shirt and white tie. The accessory seemed curious; Nagle supposed white signified something funereal in Chinese culture.

  With Yung was his Max, a minder known only by one name: spelled Ki and pronounced “key.” The unsmiling man was squat and broad. His hands were huge and Nagle imagined he was a master of various types of martial arts. Yung’s forty-man tong was nearly as powerful as Nagle’s organization. It was certainly as violent. They were competitors on every front: drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, massage parlors and street prostitution, retail-store protection. Yung controlled twenty-five square blocks north of the Panhandle, Nagle thirty blocks, south.

  Yung whispered something to the widow and offered her a carefully folded handkerchief, to dry a stray tear. He then leaned up to Pete J, shaking his hand and gripping the big man’s elbow as he did so. Nagle was pleased to see that Lark’s son had looked more distressed earlier, when the two of them had shared a word or two, rather than now, with Yung.

  Yung moved on to the casket. As he approached it, his eye caught Nagle’s and the small man smiled. Nagle reciprocated.

  The expressions, of course, were anything but the polite courtesies they seemed. Just the opposite. They were battle flags being raised.

  “Well, lookie who it is.”

  Oh, hell. Not now.

  “My good bud, Brendon.”

  Outside the funeral parlor, Nagle and Max paused, regarded each other briefly, lips taut. Nagle turned his attention back to the newcomer.

  The trim man, about forty, wore the same dark plaid suit he always wore and a pastel shirt. Today, it was yellow. He sometimes picked green or rose. Better choices. Yellow made him look sickly. You could say that a light-colored shirt was his trademark. But that suggested forethought, which would be giving Organized Crime Task Force detective Elliott White far too much credit. He might’ve been a good cop, father and husband but fashion was not his strength.

  He walked with a faint limp. Nagle’s grandmother would have called it a hitch in his gitalong.

  His unmarked car, muddy and scratched, sat at the curb nearby. Inside was an African American woman in a blue suit and an open-collar white shirt. Detective Violette Hayes—a name that Nagle loved—was watching closely. She was young and stocky and eager and appeared primed to call in a 10-13, though the odds of either Nagle or Max taking a swing at White, much less shooting him dead—as lovely as that thought was—were nil.

  Nagle reached into his pocket. “Here you go, my friend.” He offered the slim detective a card for one of the car washes he owned. “I’m comping you. You can get that bird shit off your roof. Lot of stakeouts under trees lately?”

  White ignored the outstretched hand, which angered Nagle to no end, and he put the card away.

  Nagle knew this was a busting-chops call, not a legal one. Those came pre-dawn with stern shouts and loud raps and drawn guns.

  A few cars away, the door of Nagle’s Lincoln Navigator opened and his driver—and second minder—stepped out. Six-foot-tall Jimmy Ebbitt weighed fifty pounds less than Max. Crowned by a shaggy haircut, Jimmy was strong and tendony as steel cable. His face was narrow to the point of being Halloween scary. Max was imposing because of his size, Jimmy because he looked like a hollow-eyed zombie who couldn’t wait to suck your blood. No, that was vampires who sucked blood. Well, couldn’t wait to do whatever zombies did.

  Jimmy joined his boss and Max.

  Detective White sized up the minders. “Max the Factor. And who else but Jimmy Jump Up?”

  For no earthly reason, White sometimes gave people bizarre nicknames. He stepped up onto the curb, buying height. “Paying respects, were you?” He cut his eyes toward Hannity Brothers’.

  “Did you, Detective?”

  “To Lark? I only pay respect to people I respect.”

  Which didn’t come out half as clever as he’d probably hoped.

  The cop looked up and down the street. A bus went by hissing gassy exhaust. Two cars, one rattling precariously. Among Panhandle residents, vehicular life largely involved Hondas, Nissans, Kias and vans with plumbing and delivery logos on muddy, dinged-up sides. A BMW 3 Series and that bargain-basement Mercedes were the fanciest vehicles Nagle had ever seen parked here.

  “We know all about it, Nagle.”

  It was “Brendon” no longer. Much less “good bud.”

  “About what?”

  “Play dumb all you want.”

  “Pretend we’re playing charades, Detective. Gimme a clue. How many words? Sounds like?”

  “I know you’re going to make a play for the Panhandle.”

  Nagle was good at exasperated looks. He fired one White’s way now. He noted that the man’s expression was like that of a biologist examining a bug in a jar—if that bug had been brought in on suspicion of murdering another bug.

  “I’m not allowing that to happen,” White continued.

  Nagle shifted from facial to manual gestures. He lifted his arms, palms up. Meaning: The fuck you talking about? “I’m happy as a clam in the land of Uncle Sam on the South Side. Why’d I want to invest in this flea-ridden ’hood? Look around you, Detective. You sure you don’t want that car wash?”

  Jimmy said, “Why don’t you just fuck off, Detective?”

  White smiled. “Jimmy Jack Off, what a withering retort! I’m recovering from the trauma best I can.” He turned back to Nagle. “Answering your question—the PH, not the car wash—because you’re a greedy prick who wants to exploit and terrorize the poor folks here. You’re already making a move on the PH. And I will not have any more bodies in my precinct. The stats’re already shitty, thanks to you, Lark, and Yung.”

  Nagle said, “My grandmother had an expression.”

  “Did she now?” White offered an amused glance at the very large Max, who had stood motionless, arms crossed, this entire time.

  “Yeah. Her expression for talking was ‘having a chin wag.’”

  “Chin wag. Like a dog’s tail wags. That’s funny.”

  “And I’m not inclined to have one with you now. So why don’t you skulk off somewhere.”

  “Skulk,” the detective mused. “That’s good too. I don’t know which one I like better. Skulk or chin wag.” The half smile morphed into a glare.

  “I got a meeting, Detective. All I can say.”

  “You will make a mistake someday, Nagle. And I will be there when it happens.”

  White turned and strode back to the car. Violette Hayes turned the key and the engine snapped to life. They drove past Nagle and his associates, without glancing toward them.

  “Prick,” Jimmy muttered. He and Max returned to the SUV, and Nagle continued up the street to Sam’s to collect Andrew. He walked inside and stopped. He had to laugh.

  In the hour that the father had been at the funeral, the son had been busy.

  The young man was sitting at the bar talking with a woman wearing tight jeans and a white tee. Their backs were to him but he was impressed with her figure and dark hair, long and silky.

  Nagle wondered what she was like. Andrew was a handsome kid, a charmer who’d escaped his father’s bad-temper genes. He’d dated plenty: pretty girls who smelled of expensive perfume, who spent hours on their makeup and clothes and hair, and who—at least when Nagle was around—didn’t say “fuck” or “asshole.” They came from good families, did well in school and were on professional tracks. But they didn’t last long in Andrew’s life. For all the packaging, they were eerily vacant.

  The woman’s hand went to Andrew’s arm and she leaned close to whisper something. Andrew laughed and whispered something back.

  Nagle noted that his son had closed the folder containing the Evergreen Avenue property purchase documents. Good. Professional.

  Andrew glanced toward th
e door and saw his father. He smiled his way, paid the check. He and the girl did the trading-numbers thing—with phones, of course, not pieces of paper like in Nagle’s day. Andrew hesitated for a moment and then kissed her, fast, on the cheek. He stepped away from the bar, and the girl turned, her eyes following him.

  Nagle froze. The young woman was John Yung’s daughter.

  Nagle and Andrew were in the back of the Navigator, en route to the building on Evergreen.

  “Do you know who that was?” Nagle asked softly.

  “At Sam’s?”

  “Sam’s. Yeah. The girl.”

  “Loi.”

  “Loi? That’s a name?”

  “Chinese for ‘Thunder.’ She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

  Silence.

  “What is it?”

  Max in the front passenger seat—on the phone—and Jimmy, driving, ignored what was going on in the back. Per the hired-help rules, they remained invisible.

  Nagle told him who her father was and at this news Jimmy broke the regs. His head swiveled briefly behind him. Nagle didn’t know for sure if he actually said, “Oh, shit,” but he might have.

  Andrew barked a laugh. “Yung, that Yung. Your . . . competitor?”

  Nagle nearly chuckled at the young man’s knowing euphemism. He had once thought he might bring his son into the business—the crime side, that is. He’d even used Andrew on a job when he was ten; the unwitting kid had no clue he was a participant. But not long after that, Nagle realized that if it ever came to a trial, the DA would go after his family, and there was a weakness in his son. He’d cave under interrogation. The less Andrew knew, the better for Nagle. He’d tried hard to keep Martha, rest her soul, and their son separate from the operation.

  But, of course, Andrew found out. No clever deductions were required. When he was thirteen, a team of burly cops from the Organized Crime Task Force came a-knocking. Andrew’s room was among the first searched.

  The smart and shrewd young man caught on immediately to what his father was now suggesting. “She wasn’t spying on me.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  He had been.

  “She didn’t even know who I was. I never told her my last name.”

  But Loi could easily have known who he was. She could have followed him from the Nagle house, or maybe waited near the funeral home to snag him. Andrew telling her his name was irrelevant. Women could be just as duplicitous and dangerous as any man in this business; Nagle had ordered two hits on them—wives of mob bosses who’d taken over their husband’s crews.

  “I picked her up. She walked in, ordered a wine and sat down at the bar. I came up with some stupid line and went over to her. We hit it off. She said her father had business up the street and she was supposed to wait there for him. They were going out for lunch with her mother later.”

  Business up the street . . .

  “She didn’t ask about me?”

  “Why would she?”

  Nagle lowered his head, his brows furrowed. The first-stage-of-anger look.

  “No.”

  A moment later: “Andrew, look. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  This was true. Physical risk from Yung and that side-of-beef minder, Ki. But pain and heartache too—if, God forbid, something, well, tragic, happened to Yung and any family members who happened to be with him at the time, Loi among them.

  A shame but accidents did happen.

  The young man stiffened. “You don’t want complications.”

  “Just not now. It’s a . . . sensitive time.”

  “I’m not sixteen, Dad.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re old enough to know what’s wise and what isn’t. And seeing her right now isn’t wise.”

  “Right now? So, what? A week, a month?” There was an edge to the young man’s voice. Well, he was a grade A, certified lawyer.

  And the son of a crime boss.

  Nagle dropped a lid on his own temper. “A month, sure.” Enough time to consolidate power in the PH.

  “She’ll be back at college by then.”

  “Where?”

  “She’s in grad school at MIT.”

  “I’ll buy you plane tickets to . . . wherever the hell it is.”

  “Boston.”

  “Boston.”

  Andrew opened the file and was looking over the notes he’d jotted on the real estate deal for the Evergreen property. He surfaced a moment later. “All right.”

  “That’saboy.” An expression that dated back to his son’s youth. Anytime Andy did something good—cleaned his room, made his bed, did his homework, fought a bully—he was rewarded with “That’saboy.”

  Andrew was frowning.

  Shit. Had the young man changed his mind?

  His son shook his head and tapped a document. “Railroad easement. Dates to 1872. We can get an exception, but P and Z doesn’t meet again until September.”

  “That’s who she was talking to in the bar? Brendon Nagle’s son?”

  John Yung, still in his funeral suit, minus the white tie, was standing in the study of his suburban home, a truly nice space. Comforting and not irritatingly luxurious. The warm gray carpet and off-white textured wallpaper kept the room muffled, and the decorations were Buddhist simple. The only piece of art—a reproduction—was a sculpture of Autumn Dew, the famed warhorse of Emperor Taizong’s. It dominated one wall.

  Presently, Yung’s minder, Ki, dominated the opposite. The man, his arms at his side, was standing next to his boss. Yung was staring out the window at his neatly landscaped backyard, trimmed to perfection. It was a beautiful view. Ki, Yung had learned, had no interest in aesthetics.

  “I talked to the bartender. He told me things.” When Ki talked to someone, he always got a response. “He picked Loi up. She was at the bar, having a wine.”

  “In the daytime?” he snapped. “Go on.”

  “The Nagle kid was working on some documents. They looked like business papers. Nagle and Max were with him just before they left for the funeral.”

  “Did he seem to know who she was? The kid?”

  “The bartender said he didn’t hear them mention last names. Just Andy and Loi.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “Date things, he said. Nothing about business.”

  Yung boiled with rage. His daughter with the son of Brendon Nagle! How had this happened? Yung had a tendency to assign blame instantly when something went amiss. Where could he now assess fault that his daughter and Nagle’s son had intersected? Donald Lark was in a way to blame for getting himself killed. Yung’s wife, too, for raising a troublesome and rebellious daughter, who would go into such a disgusting excuse for a bar on her own. And the wife could be doubly blamed for foolishly insisting he stop spanking the girl when she hit thirteen.

  Yung finally, though, focused the fault where he wanted it to be all along: on Brendon Nagle.

  Gazing at the backyard: the koi pond, the hardscape, the sand garden, the topiary.

  After the funeral, when he, his wife, and daughter had had a meal at Le Residence, Yung had glanced several times disapprovingly at Loi’s makeup and close-fitting jeans and top. She didn’t appear to notice the criticism. Or more likely did, but ignored her father. He gave up glaring and absently listened to her rambling on about a man she’d met at Sam’s. He’d been so nice, so funny, so handsome. So polite.

  He’d texted Ki to return to the bar and interrogate the bartender. Then Yung had turned back to Loi and asked the next logical question. “Is he Chinese?”

  “Oh, Father. Seriously?” The girl’s face had flooded with exasperation.

  Where was the willow switch when you needed it?

  Ki had returned to Yung’s home ten minutes ago with his report.

  Yung continued his own interrogation. “Did the boy seem overly . . . enamored of her?” he asked, though this question would be out of Ki’s realm. Yung had never known him to be involved with a woman, and could not even picture
it. Like a lawyer in court, he rephrased: “What did they say, talk about?”

  “Music, TV shows, colleges. He went to law school and is taking time off before he goes to work.”

  “Lawyer? Criminal?”

  My God, was the boy on track to become a prosecutor?

  “No. Corporate and real estate.”

  Yung turned from the window. “Did the boy say anything about his father?”

  A pause. “I didn’t ask. I can go back.”

  Yung was irritated. Ki should have thought of that. “No, never mind. Did he kiss her?”

  “Yes. But just on the cheek.”

  “Did she hesitate? Or did she want him to? You didn’t ask that either.”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry.” Ki remained motionless and didn’t sound the least bit sorry. He had been with Yung for seven years and Yung still didn’t know if that was his first or last or only name. He was strong and solid and knew six or seven forms of martial arts. Despite, or perhaps because of, his ability to kill virtually any human being he could get close to, Ki had an astonishing serenity about him. He walked about surrounded by the rosy aura of a spiritual leader.

  Yung considered the situation. Had Andy in fact known exactly whom he was picking up—to learn about Yung and feed the information to Nagle? It made sense. And the thought infuriated him.

  He was enraged, too, at the idea that the son of a crude, ignorant teamster wanted to make his daughter a conquest.

  And he wasn’t even Chinese.

  Yung happened to glance at a hanging picture of himself, his wife, and Loi when the girl was ten.

  The days when she was obedient.

  He said to Ki, “You were going to handle LeBron Stiles?”

  “When he’s back from Miami. Yessir.”

  Stiles. The big, loud, sunglasses-clad, gold-decked gangsta rolled with the Ten Treys. He’d shot one of Yung’s men, a territorial dispute in a neighborhood that bordered the Panhandle.

  “Find somebody else. You stay on my daughter. I want to know everything. You understand what I mean? Everything.”

  “Yessir.”

  He shooed the man from the study with the back of his hand.