Angel Face, page 27
“Then the illusion held,” he said.
“So far. But Vic’s not the only detective with two brain cells, and we still need to deal with the Mob.”
“They’re no match for you, darling.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’ll be talking to them.”
“I could always blow them up, if you’d rather.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“I’m rather good at it, you ken.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I noticed. Oh, it slipped my mind with everything that’s been going on, but we’ve got a dinner invitation.”
“Really? With whom?”
“The Vitelli family.”
Carlyle smiled. “That’s grand. Will we be taking him up on it?”
“I don’t know.” Her face twisted wryly. “I have trouble eating with these guys.”
“They’ll not poison you.”
“That’s not the point. It feels… wrong. But maybe we should do it. For the look of the thing.”
“It’d help, aye. If you can play cards with Evan O’Malley, you can break bread with Valentino Vitelli.”
“That’s a good point.” She finished peeling off her wet clothes, leaving them in a sodden pile on the bathroom floor. “Now, are you going to stand there staring at me, or get me something to eat?”
He smiled. “It’s a grand view, darling, but I’ll not keep you waiting. I’ll be back directly.”
Chapter 28
The Times trumpeted the news on the front page. The words MOB WITNESS SLAIN IN CAR BOMBING marched in big, all-caps letters across the top of the paper. Beneath the headline was a photograph taken by some enterprising reporter. The picture was a weird, impressionistic blur of fire and rain and police flashers, like a snapshot from an old gumshoe’s nightmares. It would probably win a Pulitzer, Erin thought sourly. She laid down the paper on Carlyle’s dining table and flipped it upside down.
Somebody had leaked Teresa’s name to the press; that had probably been Holliday’s doing, or at least had been done with his knowledge and permission. The whole point, after all, was to tell the world that Teresa Tommasino was dead. But that would be awfully hard on the poor woman’s family. Maybe Webb and Vic had managed to get to them with a victim notification ahead of time. It wasn’t much consolation.
Erin decided not to bother with her morning run. She still felt tired and dragged out. She’d just take Rolf for a short walk, she thought, and figure out what to do next. Carlyle was still in the bedroom, asleep. He’d had as stressful a night as she had; in some ways, worse.
Rolf nosed her hand and wagged his tail. He’d had a quiet, boring evening. It was time for some excitement.
Her phone buzzed with a text message from Webb:
“You’re on modified assignment until we get the report from the Bomb Squad. Enjoy your paid vacation.”
“Thanks for nothing, sir,” she muttered. While she was still staring at the phone, it lit up with an incoming call from an unknown number. Having a guess as to what it might be, she activated her recording app before answering.
“O’Reilly,” she said.
“Come to the restaurant. The boss wants to buy you breakfast.”
“Which restaurant?” she asked. “Which boss?”
She was talking to a dead phone line.
“Typical,” she said to Rolf. “At least that answers the question of what I’m eating right now.”
She stood up and went into the bedroom. Carlyle stirred and opened his eyes.
“You’re a fine sight on a September morning,” he said with a sleepy smile.
Erin snorted. She was wearing an old T-shirt and NYPD sweatpants. Her hair was a mess. But it was the thought that counted.
“I guess I’ve got my meeting with Vitelli,” she said.
“Oh?” He sat up. “When?”
“Now. He invited me to breakfast. He didn’t say where, so I assume it’s at Lucky’s, like last time.”
“I’ll have Ian drive you.”
“Don’t bother. I can get myself there.”
He wasn’t smiling any longer. “I wasn’t making a suggestion, Erin. I’d feel much better if you’d a stout lad close to hand.”
“Vitelli’s not going to try anything.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “And having Ian Thompson at your back makes it even less likely. You’ll find the lad downstairs.”
Erin had been fighting too many battles lately. This was one she chose not to fight. She just nodded and set about getting dressed. Rolf bounced slightly, tail wagging more enthusiastically. This looked promising to him.
She went with a dark ensemble; black slacks and a midnight blouse. It seemed appropriate. She also took a few moments to apply some lipstick and mascara. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered, but she was trying to look like a crooked cop, someone who valued appearances more than Erin actually did. She did what she could with her hair on short notice. Then she buckled on her shield and her guns, leashed up Rolf, and headed downstairs.
She found Ian still in the security station. He had one of his Berettas on the desk in front of him, disassembled, and was cleaning it. He glanced up at her, no surprise on his face. He’d probably heard her coming from halfway down the hall.
“Need something?” he asked.
“Yeah. I need to get to Lucky’s in Little Italy,” she said. “Carlyle said to have you give me a lift.”
“Affirmative,” he said. Without looking at his hands, he reassembled the pistol in a matter of seconds. He finished by slipping the magazine into the butt, pulling the slide back to chamber a round, and holstering it under his jacket.
“Wow,” she said. “You can do that blindfolded, I bet.”
“Affirmative,” he said again. “You don’t always have enough light to see what you’re doing. You ready?”
“Yeah. Are you?”
“Yes, ma—” he started out of force of habit, cutting himself off at the last moment.
“Ian, how long since you had any sleep?”
“I’m about to go off duty,” he said. “Catch some sleep then.”
“Have you been up for two straight nights?”
“Give or take.”
She decided this was another fight not to wage. “Just remember, sleepy drivers cause as many accidents as drunks,” she said.
“I’ll watch out for both,” he said.
Despite his lack of sleep, Ian drove with his usual skill, getting the Mercedes to Little Italy without incident. Erin made a halfhearted effort to get him to stay in the car, but she knew she wouldn’t succeed. So she walked into Lucky’s Restaurant flanked by a ninety-pound K-9 on her left and a former Marine Scout Sniper on her right. It occurred to her that as a show of force, it wasn’t half bad.
Valentino Vitelli was in the same booth as last time. He had a pair of slab-faced goons two tables over, watching Erin’s approach with stony expressions. Erin nodded to Ian and cocked her head toward the thugs’ table. Ian split off from her and walked over to the two meatheads.
“Mind if I sit, sir?” he politely asked one of the thugs.
The Mafia soldier glanced at his boss, who nodded. He shrugged. “It’s a free country, buddy,” he said.
Ian sat, sliding his chair back from the table so he could keep an eye on both the bodyguards and Vitelli. His jacket hung open and his right hand lay in his lap, comfortable but ready.
“Miss O’Reilly,” Vitelli said, standing up and extending a hand. “I’m so glad you could join me. Please, sit down.”
Erin shook hands with the old man and took a seat. “Sitz,” she instructed Rolf, who sat just outside the booth and watched her.
A waitress came to take their order, as if she’d been waiting for Erin. Maybe she had been, on Vitelli’s instructions.
“You remember the pancakes?” Vitelli asked. “You gotta have the pancakes again. My friend here wants the strawberry pancakes and coffee. Same for me. How about your buddy over there? What’s he want? I’m buying.”
“Nothing for me, thank you, sir,” Ian said.
“Not even coffee?” Vitelli said. He waved his hand dismissively. “A cup of coffee for my friend there.”
The waitress departed. Erin looked at Vitelli. He seemed friendly and pleasant enough. He had a copy of the Times on the table, front page up. She didn’t think that was a coincidence.
“You done good, Erin,” Vitelli said. “Can I call you that? Erin?”
“Of course you can, Mr. Vitelli,” she said. It was good to get the names on tape. Her recorder was listening.
“Real good,” he said. “But my boy’s still behind bars.”
“Without their star witness, they’re going to have a lot of trouble making the charges stick,” she said.
“Yeah, but they got the wrong judge on the case,” Vitelli said. “The guy they got’s a real hardass. Old-school, like they used to have out west. You know, the kind who just wants to string ‘em up? But what can you do?”
“I did my part,” Erin said. “I took care of the witness, just like you asked.”
He patted the back of her hand. Erin saw his hand coming and schooled herself not to flinch.
“Yeah, you did,” he said. “Beautiful. And I’m glad she didn’t suffer none, didn’t know it was coming. That poor girl, just in the wrong place, wrong time. Terrible thing.”
“It’s a little late to feel bad about it,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Vitelli said. He sighed. “It’s a hell of a world we live in, and we gotta leave it to our kids. It’s better they don’t know what we do for them, isn’t it? If they knew, they’d either be guilty or they’d be spoiled. We want them to be better. But nine times out of ten, they grow up just like us. We got a saying where I come from: La mela non cade mai lontana dall’albero.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“The apple don’t ever fall far from the tree,” Vitelli said. “That’s the worst part of it. You ever have kids, you’ll know what I mean.”
“We’ve got a business arrangement, Mr. Vitelli,” she said quietly. “I assume that’s why you asked me to come here.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Al over there, he’s got something for you. Al, you want to give this nice lady what you got?”
One of the goons got to his feet and lumbered over, pulling a manila envelope out of the inside of his jacket. It was a very thick envelope. He handed it to Erinwith a nod of professional respect and returned to his seat.
Erin bent the fastener on the envelope and popped it open. She glanced inside. It looked to be full of large-denomination bills; lots and lots of them, tied in neat bundles. She made no effort to count the cash, knowing that would be rude and would also take a while and raise some eyebrows. She didn’t think many women counted out fifty grand on the table in this restaurant. Then again, maybe some of them did.
“It’s all here?” she asked. “Fifty grand?”
“Every cent,” Vitelli said. “You earned it.”
He patted her hand again. “You’re one of us now, Erin,” he said. “You can’t get made, of course, on account of you’re not Italian. But anybody needs me to, I’ll vouch for you. You got a friend in me, and if you ever need anything, you just give me a call.”
“I’ll remember that,” she said.
“And we may have more work for you, down the road,” he said. “You did so good with this one. I bet I know where you learned it, too. Everybody knows about Cars and what he done in the old days. I guess he still knows his old tricks.”
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Erin said, pasting a smile on her face. “But he doesn’t forget the ones he knew.”
The waitress came to the table. She distributed the plates. Rolf watched with interest, but without much hope. In his experience, professional food-service workers rarely dropped things.
“Come on,” Vitelli said to Erin. “Eat up.”
The ricotta pancakes were delicious, but the lump in Erin’s throat made it hard to swallow. The taste of victory, she’d learned, could be bittersweet.
“Interesting place for a meeting,” Phil Stachowski said. “Appropriate, I guess. How did things go?”
He was sitting in the pew just behind Erin in the sanctuary of Carlyle’s church. Morning Mass had already ended and the room was empty. Up in the loft, a woman was practicing a requiem. The high, sweet soprano tones echoed from the rafters. Phil and Erin faced forward, as if they were just two ordinary parishioners who’d come in off the street to pray. Rolf was lying at Erin’s feet, chin on his paws.
“Everything went more or less according to plan,” Erin said. “I mean, my boyfriend almost killed me, my partner wanted to arrest me, and the Hilton’s going to be making one hell of an insurance claim, but besides that, it went great.”
“Was anybody hurt?” Phil asked.
“No. Except Jane Doe, but she was already dead, so I don’t think she counts.”
“And your witness?”
“Safe and on her way to an undisclosed location,” she said. “With a hopeless womanizer. What the hell was I thinking, Phil? This was a terrible idea.”
“It worked,” he said. “You saved an innocent woman’s life and you got in deeper with the Mob. Have you heard from them yet?”
“Yeah.” Erin dropped the manila envelope to the floor, planted her foot on top of it, and slid it back under the pew. Phil stooped and picked it up.
“Is this what I think it is?” he asked.
“Fifty thousand in there,” she said. “To the dime. I counted it after. I didn’t disrespect Vitelli by counting it in front of him. And I got him on the wire. We’ve got him dead to rights for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Of course, we can’t arrest him yet. We’ll build a file and nail him the moment we close down the undercover operation. Take down all the bad guys at once.”
“Good work, Erin.”
She knew it was bad tradecraft, but she twisted her head around to look at him. “If it was such good work, why do I feel like shit?” she demanded.
“You’re spending time with murderers and thieves,” he said gently. “You’re lying about who you are. You’re looking at the worst side of humanity and being forced to smile at it. You just accepted money for what they think was the vicious murder of an ordinary woman. This is supposed to feel bad, Erin. If you felt good about this, I’d be worried about you.”
“They’re still people, Phil,” she said. “That’s what gets me. These jerks aren’t a hundred percent bad. I mostly hate them, but not all the way. I mean, Carlyle is one of them, and I love him.”
“Carlyle made his own choices,” Phil said. “Including, in the end, the right ones. These others have the same choices to make. It’s not up to you.”
“I know that,” she said, turning back to face the altar. “It’s just… I used to think it was black and white. Cops and robbers. Angels and devils. But it’s not that simple. There’s angels on their side, and a few devils on ours. And you know something? Every devil used to be an angel.”
“As long as you can tell the difference, you’ll be okay,” he said. “Is that what’s bothering you?”
“We had to go outside the rules,” she said. “If what we did had gone sideways, we’d be the criminals. I would’ve taken the responsibility, but all of us would’ve been in the wrong. Holliday warned me about that. And… geez. This wasn’t business, it was personal.”
“What do you mean?”
“This whole thing was about fathers and sons,” she said. “Alfie Madonna wants to get back at the Lucarellis for what happened to his dad. Valentino Vitelli was just trying to look out for his son. Yeah, I get it, you can’t murder people, not even for the sake of your family, but at least I understand why he was doing it. Did you ever notice that every gangster has daddy issues?”
“I think every boy has daddy issues,” Phil said. “Every girl, too, come to that.”
“My dad was a cop,” Erin said. “Is that why I always wanted to be one? What if he’d been a gangster? Would I be just like Alfie?”
“There’s no way to know,” he said. “But I believe, when you get down to it, no matter where we come from or what’s happened to us, we all choose what we do and who we are. That’s what tells us which face we’ll see in the mirror; the angel or the demon.”
“All I see when I look in the mirror is a woman who sleeps too little and drinks too much,” she said sourly.
“It’s hard to keep a sense of perspective when you’re in the middle of something,” Phil said. “You need to look at it from the outside.”
“Maybe,” she said. “From where I’m standing, the people I ended up trusting this time were on both sides, gangsters and cops. Levine and Skip, Corky and Carlyle.”
“No, they weren’t,” Phil said. “Everybody was on the same side: yours.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Doesn’t it? You brought out the best in a couple of men most would’ve given up on. You made a plan, a risky one, but it worked. And our team won this round. You may not feel like it at the moment, but we won.”
“Is it worth it?”
Erin wasn’t looking at Phil as she asked the question. She was looking at the stained-glass windows that lined the sanctuary. Those angels and saints had golden halos. It was always easy to tell what they were.
“I can’t answer that for you,” he said. “But I can say this. Sure, your dad might’ve been a gangster, and then maybe you would’ve grown up to be a gangster girl. But he wasn’t, and you didn’t. What was your dad?”
“A cop,” Erin said quietly.
“And what are you?”
“A cop,” she said more firmly.
“That’s what I thought.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re a damned good one. Hold on to that.”
Phil got up and left the sanctuary, the echo of his footfalls fading away. Erin stayed where she was. She looked down at her hands. A cold, wet nose brushed her knee. Rolf stared up at her, head cocked.
