King of New York, page 17
“Do you know where she is?”
“I’ve got a best guess, and it’s a very good guess, I should admit,” said Daniel, and he started explaining what he’d been able to put together from the images. They were all from a similar angle, obviously a security feed, and they showed very little in the way of landmarks, but he’d written a short piece of code looking for places within Google Maps that matched all of the significant landmarks within a five-hundred-mile radius. He’d managed to narrow it down to what he was 99 percent sure was the right door. There was a partial reflection of shop signage that was distinctive. There was the spire of a church in the distance, along with two skyscrapers. And then, stuff like the positioning of the sun—which against the time stamp allowed him to work out the orientation of buildings and the relative position of the church against the shop name. Once he narrowed this down to London, he was able to narrow it further to fifteen close matches, with one that was considerably more compelling than the others.
Jimmy nodded like he understood.
The team hadn’t gotten very far with the translation software because the Russians were using a relatively complex code language that required a cypher to decrypt, but they were working on it. They’d decoded a few messages, though, or thought that they had. There had been a little guesswork in places, like an ad promising, “Exciting new vodkas in stock” meant they had just taken a delivery of new girls. “One night only, wet T-shirt contest. Are you thirsty?” was a promise they were going to auction off a virgin and give customers time to get in their bids. Another message they’d succeeded in deciphering promised that they’d passed their health and safety inspection and had just received hygiene certificates. Very clean. Food safety assured, along with the health of the new girls in the brothels.
“It was the frequency of the food inspection messages that tweaked my Spidey senses. Way too regular, meaning something else had to be going on. Then, thanks to the wonders of our online translation, one sicko replied how much he loved food safety inspections, and I knew I was onto something,” Daniel explained.
“And Chiara? Is she on the menu?”
“Ultimately, I’d assume so,” said Daniel. “A lot is going to depend on how she handles herself, the fight she puts up, or if she’s pliable. If she fights, then they have to resort to drugs and other means of breaking her and assuring her compliance. In that case, she’s not looking at a pretty future. But, if she’s good, works hard, makes men happy, then she’ll stay there, or be moved somewhere better.”
“And if she tries to escape?” He didn’t need to hear the answer from Daniel; he already knew.
“It won’t go well for her.”
Jimmy needed her to be clever enough to figure this out.
The idea of what she’d have to endure to survive was sickening.
But the idea of her dying was worse.
“I’m getting on a plane tonight,” Jimmy said.
It wasn’t up for debate.
“Give me the street address for that door.”
He had his phone out and was already scrolling through last-minute flights to all London airports.
* * *
Alessandro brought his gun up against the young woman’s temple.
He could feel her shaking against him. Tears made her mascara run.
“Please,” she said.
It wasn’t clear what she was begging for.
“This doesn’t have to go badly. I just want you to phone your boss and tell him to come down here, easy as that,” Alessandro promised, speaking softly. He didn’t want her doing anything stupid. “Just pick up the phone, and tell him he has to come. Do that, and I promise you, hand on heart, nothing bad is going to happen to you. I need you to believe me when I say that. I don’t make promises lightly. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll need to get my phone out of my bag.”
“You do that, nice and slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them. That’s a good girl. Almost home now. No heroics.” Not that she looked like she was capable of any desperate measures. He wasn’t taking any chances.
Apparently, the receptionist felt the same way.
She opened her bag and gently tipped out the contents onto the counter.
She didn’t have a gun in there. That took the tension out of his body.
“Good girl,” he said. “Very good.”
Her hands were shaking as she handled the phone. She had him up front on her contacts, so it only took a couple of touches to the glass to call her boss.
He could hear Jimmy’s repl. “I’m sorry, Aileen, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a plane to catch. Take it to Nicky if it’s urgent. Otherwise, I’ll deal with it when I get back.” He started to click off as she begged, “Please.”
Alessandro kept the gun pointed at her.
* * *
“It’s urgent. I swear. And only you can deal with it. Please Mr. Martello.”
“No can do.” Jimmy killed the call.
The last thing he heard before the line died between them was the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. There isn’t a sound like it in the world.
His gut lurched beneath him. In his mind’s eye, he saw Aileen lying in a pool of her own blood.
Could he have saved her life with something as simple as the word yes?
Nah.
That kind of thinking was ridiculous.
The sort of guy who’d shoot a receptionist was going to do that regardless of whether he took a moment to listen to whatever he was demanding or not. She was doomed the moment he’d walked into reception and demanded she call Jimmy. He felt a pang of grief for her, and guilt, but buried it down deep. He needed to get on that plane. He couldn’t think about what a madman with a gun was doing in his office right now.
But he learned something about himself in the minutes that ensued; he couldn’t just turn it off and walk away. It wasn’t him.
* * *
Jimmy used one of the side doors to get into the Martello Construction building, keying in the alarm code so it didn’t trip the siren in warning, and made his way from there to the front desk, moving slyly through the connecting passageways that ran behind the scenes. It wasn’t much, but knowledge of the terrain gave him some small advantage.
He assumed that whoever had shot Aileen was staying at the front desk, waiting for him.
They could just as easily have gone deeper into the building and put down his people one by one, though.
He knew he’d only get one shot, two at max, to deal with this. Guns weren’t his jam since the day his patriarchs died. He felt horribly out of his depth, but everyone in here was his people, and they were counting on him to keep them safe. The Martello name assured some of that, but now that a gunman was inside their sanctuary, the name counted for nothing. That was a lesson his father, his grandfather, and his uncle had learned at a cost.
He came through the last door, covering the angles, heart hammering.
“Glad you could finally make it,” Alessandro said.
He was sitting on one of the reception sofas, looking entirely relaxed. There was no blood. It looked for all the world like they were just keeping an appointment, business as usual.
“What the fuck?”
Alessandro gestured with the gun. “Say hello, Aileen,” he told the girl.
“Hello,” Aileen said nervously.
By the sound of it, she was on the floor with her back pressed to the desk. The sudden surge of relief was like a tidal flow of adrenaline through his body.
“Are you OK?” he called to her.
Alessandro smiled, like everything was going according to his grand plan. “Go ahead, answer any questions. It’s fine. We’re all friends here.”
“I’m OK, Mr. Martello. I’m so sorry about this. I tried—”
“None of this is your fault,” he cut her off. “Don’t even begin to think that way. This is family business, and it was never part of your job description. All that matters is that you’re safe. We can take it from here.” To Alessandro, he said, “Why don’t you let her go? I’m here now.”
“How many of your employees know that this whole thing is a fraud? A front? I mean, does darling little Aileen here know that her charming boss is really a mobster?”
It was reasonable to assume none of the employees on the legitimate side of the business had a clue what they were a part of, or hadn’t until now.
“There are more ways of ruining someone’s life than spraying bullets about,” Alessandro said, still eerily relaxed. “I’ve been watching you, Jimmy. And you know what I find fascinating? There are at least a hundred ways in which I can get to you and mess you up. You start anything, and I will finish you. Is that clear?”
Jimmy was shaking his head. “I don’t know what you think I’m starting, but you’ve got it wrong. You are the one who walked in here with a gun.”
Alessandro chuckled. “I had a point to make. I’m hoping that I made it. Otherwise, next time I might be forced to shoot something more important than an acoustic tile. Of course, I’ve had time to wonder how you intend to handle this. Now, I mean. Do you pay Aileen off, or will you shoot her yourself now that she knows too much about who you really are?”
From beneath the desk, Aileen whimpered in fear.
“You came here for a reason, so say what you’ve got to say. Then get the fuck out of here,” Jimmy said.
Alessandro smiled coldly.
“You would never make it as a politician, Jimmy boy, you know that? Far too impatient, far too blunt. No room for subtlety and artifice. It’s time to reel in the ambitions. Stop getting ahead of yourself. There’s only room for one king, and that’s not going to be you. That’s my message. Consider it delivered,” Alessandro said. “Whether you take heed or not, that’s very much up to you. But if you don’t, this is going to end ugly.”
With that, he got up and walked out of the building.
Jimmy kept his gun trained on Alessandro’s back long after the door was closed and the man was well away. His finger itched to pull the trigger and put several slugs into his back, stitching a line from his ass to his neck, but if he did that, he would be starting something, and that would just play into the ill feelings toward him right now. He’d find himself facing a war of the families.
He couldn’t afford to do that.
“Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Martello,” Aileen said. “I swear I won’t tell anyone what happened…I don’t care who you are…please.” He looked down at her sympathetically and gently helped her up off the floor.
* * *
Jimmy only had carry-on luggage.
He rushed through the airport, sprinting through Customs with seconds to spare and was in his seat, the last man on the plane, before they locked the doors.
He had no idea what the hell Alessandro was thinking, pulling a stunt like that, but it had gotten his attention. It was hard not to worry about the long-term implications.
Some days it felt like he was juggling far too many things, some of them sharp, others on fire, everything never more than a fingertip from being dropped.
But this was the life he’d signed up for.
It was how his father had lived, and his grandfather, and down the generations before them to their roots in the old towns of Sicily.
He slept the sleep of the damned on the plane, only waking when the vibrations through the toughened glass of the window shivered him back to consciousness. Jimmy touched down at Heathrow, ready for whatever the United Kingdom had to throw at him.
His friend Bryan met him outside the terminal. He was waiting in a low-riding sports car and had offered to put him up for a few days.
Jimmy had warned him, “I’m here on business,” meaning, “Things could get messy,” but his old friend had simply delivered a wry smile.
“Bring it on. I could do with a little excitement in my life.”
He’d always had a “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse behind” attitude, which was at odds with Jimmy’s more cautious worldview. Right now, that was exactly the kind of man he needed on his team.
“Are you ready to party?” Bryan asked, as he navigated the streets at high speed.
“I need to check out some Russian brothels,” Jimmy said, raising an eyebrow from his friend in the driver’s seat.
“Russian girls always look so sad,” Bryan said. “Now, Polish girls, they’re a whole other issue. I know some great Polish places. Beautiful girls. Fun, fun, fun.”
“I’m looking for class rather than fun,” Jimmy said. “And it has to be Russian.”
“Whatever floats your boat, my brother. Who am I to criticize?”
To get the revels started, Bryan took him to a couple of bars in the heart of the city and, with a little encouragement, got very drunk indeed, making a show of himself. Jimmy pretended to be every bit as drunk, but he wasn’t drinking. He needed his head clear. They staggered in and out of a few places, flashing money around, asking for spectacular girls, and making sure the right people knew they were looking and what exactly they were looking for. Someone new. Someone different. Over the course of the evening, they scoped out and ruled out some places, and checked out a lot of young women in the process.
The sheer number was disturbing, and barely scratched the surface of what was nothing more or less than a human-trafficking operation. It was as ugly as it was lucrative to the men behind it, and as soul-crushing to the girls trapped inside it.
Jimmy needed to stay alert the whole time, even as he was making his grand “drunken” gestures.
He couldn’t be sure if anyone was paying attention to him, but if they were, word would get back to the right kind of people who were always just a shot away in the darkness beyond the bright lights.
The risk was that he’d make himself so noticeable, Volkov’s people would be suspicious. Someone somewhere would connect the dots between the man making a scene in a London dive bar and the man who had been talking to Popov.
He couldn’t afford for those dots to connect too quickly, though, not if he wanted to hit the house and get Chiara out through the door his research and development crew had found for him. It was such a stupid idea, marching up to the front door, banging on it and demanding to be let in, that he kept telling himself it just might work.
He was becoming an accomplished liar whenever it meant lying to himself.
“A friend of mine told me I needed to visit, and made a point that I should ask about food safety inspections?” Jimmy said at one bar, leaning in conspiratorially to breathe heavily in the barman’s face. “Dunno if I’m the butt of a joke here or what, but this is me asking. I’ve got the money…”
“Sounds like your friend has a very odd sense of humor,” the first barman said.
But the second time he asked, he got a different answer. “I hear the doctors haven’t looked at her yet, but soon.”
“Ah, good, good. That’s good. If I grease your palm, how about you let me know the moment she gets her certificates?”
“Well, my friend, for the right price, you can get a text message as soon as the bidding begins,” the barman said. “You’re sure you want to play? It can be a rich man’s game.”
Jimmy paid.
He hadn’t considered what he would do if he won the bid, and it wasn’t Chiara.
He couldn’t very well save everyone, could he?
* * *
“So, you’re back in London again?” Enzo was on the phone. He didn’t sound happy. “How long are you away for this time?”
“I’m not sure. As long as it takes,” Jimmy admitted.
Enzo sighed deeply, making no attempt to hide is displeasure. “I know you’re not an idiot, Jimmy, and I know I don’t need to tell you this isn’t good for business, but I’m going to tell you, anyway. There’s a lot of nervousness in the families right now. A lot. They’re all on edge. The balance is precarious. I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this.”
“I can’t be responsible for other people’s imaginations,” Jimmy said. “Let me ask you something now, because you know how much I value your wisdom in all things, Enzo: What could I do right now that wouldn’t be interpreted as a threat?”
Enzo went quiet for a moment. “You know, said out loud, that’s not a bad question, Jimmy. And I hate to admit that I’m not sure I know the answer. There’s trouble brewing here, and I’m beginning to think that maybe all we can do is try to ride this tiger.”
“Which means it makes no sense for me to come back early,” Jimmy said. “So, I think I should stay in London until I find Chiara.”
“I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but at what point do we consider that it might not be possible? Can we at least be pragmatic about this, and set some limits?”
Jimmy didn’t want to hear it.
He needed to believe that he could find Chiara, and that his plan was going to work. Too much was riding on it, not just bringing the girl home and playing the hero, which was an admittedly delicious prospect, but only gravy. The real meal was in getting the Russians in his pocket.
He knew in his heart that this was a long shot.
“A lot of people owe me favors. That side of the plan is working. It’s just one more…”
“Yes, sunshine, you’ve made some good moves, especially when it’s been your own game and you’ve been able to dictate the plays,” Enzo agreed. “But you aren’t the only player now. It’s no good being the best pitcher in the world if you’re on a tennis court with balls whizzing at your head. You feel me?”
“Yeah, I get that, I do, and I appreciate the concern,” Jimmy admitted. “But I’m not blind here; there’s no blindfold across my eyes. I might not know who I’m up against, but I can see their moves as they shuffle their pieces around. That’s something.”
