Phalen leaned back in his chair, a knowing smile filling his lean face. “Holy shit, it was you. All I’d heard was that someone had accidentally recorded Vincent Marcozza’s killer at Lombardo’s.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “Because I don’t think it was an accident.”
I expected Phalen to immediately ask me what I meant by that. He didn’t.
Instead he stood up and asked me a question I never would’ve guessed in a million years.
Chapter 48
“DO YOU LIKE pasta fagioli?” asked Phalen.
Huh? Come again? Bizarre soup segues for a thousand, Alex?
Phalen didn’t wait for my answer. “I know this place right across the street that serves the best pasta fagioli you’ll ever have. Best in White Plains, anyway. C’mon, we’ll get a bowl, have some lunch.”
The next thing I knew, I was following the guy out of his office and to the elevator bank on his floor. What’s going on? I was thinking as we walked – kind of fast, actually.
I was no psychic, but this much I could figure out: Derrick Phalen didn’t want to be in his office when we discussed Eddie Pinero’s involvement – or rather, noninvolvement – in Vincent Marcozza’s murder.
He had his reasons, I’m sure. Hopefully he’d explain them to me over lunch. Bring on the pasta fagioli!
Not quite yet, though. No sooner did the elevator arrive than we were stopped by a man’s voice coming from down the hall. He was calling out Phalen’s name.
Immediately, Phalen muttered something under his breath.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh, nothing,” he answered. “I was just saying we’ll catch the next elevator.”
But I was almost positive that wasn’t what he’d said. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d muttered only two words. Holy shit.
As if he couldn’t believe something. Like what? This bruiser coming down the hall?
“Oh, hey, Ian,” said Phalen as the man caught up to us at the elevator. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” he said. “You got a minute?”
The two of them started to talk shop for a bit – at least, I think that’s what they were doing. I tuned out mostly, my ears giving way to my eyes and how different these two guys were physically. Derrick Phalen was a lean, compact man with short-cropped brown hair and a square jaw. Ian LaGrange was much taller and considerably wider. To be blunt, the word fat came to mind. So did the all-you-can-eat buffet at Caesars Palace in Vegas.
Of course, I didn’t even know then that Ian LaGrange was, well, Ian LaGrange.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Phalen, suddenly realizing he hadn’t introduced me. “Ian, this is Nick Daniels.”
“Nice to meet you, Nick,” said LaGrange as we shook hands.
Phalen turned to me. “Ian’s the deputy attorney general in charge of the Organized Crime Task Force. Or, as I like to call him, the Godfather.”
“It does have a nice ring to it, I have to admit,” LaGrange said, smiling through his scruffy beard. “So where are you guys heading?”
“We’re getting a quick bite to eat,” said Phalen. “Just across the street.”
LaGrange glanced down. “You’re wearing your vest?” he asked. “Derrick?”
“We’re only going across the street,” Phalen repeated.
“Yeah, and Lincoln was just going to the theater. Go put it on.”
Phalen shot LaGrange an exasperated look that reminded me of a teenage son catching heat from his father.
“Vest?” I asked.
“Bulletproof vest,” said Phalen before turning around for his office. “I’ll be right back.”
Wait a minute. The guy needed a bulletproof vest to go out in public? More important, where was mine?
“Hey, we could always order in!” I called after him. It sounded funny but I wasn’t really joking.
“Don’t worry, it’s just office policy,” said LaGrange, trying to reassure me. “There’s never been an attempt on anyone working for the OCTF.”
I was going to make some crack about there always being a first time for everything, but I bit my tongue. I’d only just met this guy. I didn’t know his sense of humor or for that matter anything else about him. Except his size.
“So what line of work are you in, Nick?” he asked. Very cool and casual-like.
Uh-oh. Careful, now.
“I’m a writer,” I said.
“No kidding. What do you write?”
“Articles, mostly. I work for Citizen magazine. You heard of it?”
“Sure have. Is that why you’re here to see Derrick?” he asked. “To do an article?”
There was no outright concern in his voice, but I knew subtext when I heard it. No way he was asking just to make idle conversation in the hallway.
And I wasn’t about to give an answer that could get Phalen in any kind of trouble.
“No. Derrick’s actually helping me out with some background on a novel I’m writing,” I said. “Verisimilitude and all that.”
“No kidding. We help out on the Alex Cross books sometimes.”
“Never read them,” I said.
I watched closely as LaGrange nodded, relieved when he quickly changed the subject. He asked which restaurant we were going to.
“Actually, I don’t know,” I told him.
He seemed to believe me. And as far as I could tell, LaGrange didn’t know that I was lying about why I was in his building to see Phalen.
He had bought the novel line.
At least that’s what I thought.
Only it turned out Ian LaGrange knew exactly what I was up to. The real surprise, however, was how the big man knew.
As Phalen had said himself…
Holy shit.
And then some.
Chapter 49
DERRICK PHALEN RETURNED to his office after lunch with Nick Daniels and did very little but stare up at the grid of white ceiling tiles above his desk. He stared at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes straight. The prosecutor had a lot to digest and it certainly wasn’t the pasta fagioli. It wasn’t even the very interesting story he’d just heard from Nick Daniels.
“Knock, knock,” came a voice at his door.
Instinctively Phalen looked to see who it was, but he really didn’t need to. He knew it was Ian LaGrange, and not because of his boss’s all-too-familiar baritone.
No, he expected the Godfather to be dropping by sooner or later. Probably sooner.
“Hey, Ian, what’s up?”
“Not much,” said LaGrange. “How was your lunch with the writer – the novelist?”
Phalen rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling tiles. “Don’t ask. All I can say is, that’s the last time I do a favor for a friend.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“That guy I introduced you to at the elevator is a writer for Citizen magazine. As a favor to his editor I agreed to give him some research, a little help for a novel he’s working on. Only it turns out there’s no novel.”
“I don’t follow,” said LaGrange. “What was he here for, then?”
“It was a ruse,” said Phalen. “What the guy actually wanted to do was sell me on this crazy idea that it wasn’t Eddie Pinero who ordered the hit on Vincent Marcozza. What kind of bullshit is that?”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were. The guy’s a real conspiracy nut. It was like having lunch with Oliver Stone.”
LaGrange laughed. “So if Eddie Pinero didn’t order the hit on Marcozza, who did? In his opinion?”
“That’s the thing. He didn’t know.”
“Gee, and let me guess, he wanted your help in finding out.”
“Exactly,” said Phalen.
“So what did you tell him?”
“A polite version of Go sell your crazy somewhere else, you nutbag. What else could I do?”
“Thatta boy,” said LaGrange, tipping an imaginary cap at Phalen. “Keep
your distance from the guy, okay? Writers like that, all they can spell is trouble for everybody concerned.”
“Consider it done.”
As LaGrange strolled off, Phalen leaned back in his chair, his eyes finding their way back up to the white ceiling tiles. Slowly, he exhaled.
He’d been holding his breath the entire time, hoping that LaGrange would believe him.
It hadn’t been easy.
Hell, no. Ian LaGrange – the Godfather – hadn’t gotten to where he was by being anybody’s fool. Bluffing him was like tap dancing to ZZ Top on a tightrope.
But it was nothing compared to what Phalen was going to do next.
Chapter 50
“I CAN’T FREAKIN’ believe I’m doing this,” Phalen muttered to himself as he slowly walked down the deserted and dark hallway of the OCTF offices at close to midnight that same evening.
But of course he could believe he was doing this. He even knew why.
If he’d learned anything in his nearly three years with the Task Force, it was that his family of fellow prosecutors actually shared one major similarity with the Mafia families they were trying to take down: the motto Never Trust Anyone.
Including the Godfather.
Granted, it was impossible to work for the OCTF without succumbing to a little paranoia. Phalen didn’t have to look any further than the standard-issue bulletproof vest.
But worrying about your enemies in the mob was one thing. Worrying about the people who worked for you – that they weren’t loyal or, worse, they were out to get you – was entirely another.
Enter: Ian LaGrange.
Were it not for a spilled cup of coffee, Phalen may never have found the bug planted beneath the enter key of his computer’s keyboard. When he did, though, he had no question who had planted it.
He just had no proof.
So he left the bug alone.
Phalen went about his business, knowing that LaGrange could hear everything in his office at any time. For others, that might have been an awful burden – always having to choose your words carefully, always acting like the good soldier.
For Phalen, however, it was like being given the answers to a test in advance.
He always knew the smart thing to say in every situation. He always had a heads-up.
Right up until that afternoon, when he had asked Nick Daniels if he liked pasta fagioli so they could get out of his office and talk in private.
That’s when the big surprise had come.
The six-foot-four Ian LaGrange had come bounding down the hallway from his office almost like a linebacker for the New York Giants. Right then and there Phalen had known this seemingly coincidental meeting at the elevator was no coincidence.
LaGrange was very interested in Nick Daniels and what he had to say about Eddie Pinero and Vincent Marcozza. A little too interested, in fact.
Something wasn’t right about this. It stunk to high heaven already.
That’s why Phalen was about to return the favor to LaGrange.
Patiently, he waited in his office until everyone else had gone home for the night. He even waited out the cleaning crew until they’d emptied every last can and mop pail.
Now it was just him and a little birdie.
A Flex-8 “F-Bird,” to be exact. The latest, most sophisticated digital recording device used by none other than the OCTF itself. Battery powered, smaller than a quarter, and on its way to a brand-new home.
The Godfather’s office.
Phalen slowly turned the doorknob at the end of the hall and stepped inside, quiet as a mouse.
Or a bug.
Here’s listening to you, Ian.
Chapter 51
I HAD TO ADMIT, Derrick Phalen knew his pasta fagioli. It was good stuff, very good. Reminded me of my favorite Italian restaurant in the world, Il Cena’Colo, back in my home-town of Newburgh.
But even better than Phalen’s pasta fagioli was what came with it – and I’m not talking about a piece of Italian bread. It was my next move.
Thanks for the jump start, Courtney.
Phalen had listened calmly to everything I said at lunch, asking a logical question here and there, but mostly listening. He wasn’t about to print up any “Free Eddie Pinero” T-shirts, but he didn’t look at me as if I were crazy, either.
What he did do was take a pen from his pocket and write a phone number on a napkin.
“I know a guy out in Greenwich who might be able to help you,” he said, pushing the napkin toward me. “Call him and make an appointment.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Hoodie Brown.”
“Hoodie?”
“You’ll see when you meet him. Tell him you’re a friend of mine. That’s all.”
“What does he do?”
“You’ll see,” Phalen said again.
I shrugged my shoulders. Okeydokey.
The following afternoon I was on a Metro-North train out to Greenwich, Connecticut, for a two o’clock appointment with someone named Hoodie Brown. When I’d told him on the phone “Derrick Phalen sent me,” it was as if I’d delivered the secret password at the door of an underground nightclub. I was in.
“Follow me,” said the receptionist at his office.
Greenwich was the capital of the hedge fund world, but what I was doing in the lobby of one such company I had no idea. D.A.C. Investments? Why would Phalen send me to a trader?
He hadn’t. The receptionist, a tall, slender brunette who looked as if she’d stepped off the set of a Vogue magazine shoot, led me past a long, bustling trading floor to a quiet office tucked away in the back of the building. That’s where I met Hoodie Brown.
The name made sense immediately.
Not only was the man who shook my hand wearing a hooded sweatshirt – gray, with the Caltech insignia – he actually had the hood pulled over his head à la the Unabomber. Hell, this guy even looked a little like the Unabomber.
“So, who’s the P.I.Q.?” he asked, settling in behind his desk. I noticed there was no place for me to sit. No chair, no couch. Nada for visitors.
“P.I.Q.?” I asked.
“Person in question,” he explained. “Who are we investigating?”
Oh. “Dwayne Robinson,” I said. “The pitcher for -”
“I know who he is,” said Hoodie. “Or was.”
“Specifically, I’m looking to see if he has any ties to organized crime,” I added.
Hoodie nodded and began tapping away on one of the three keyboards lined up on his desk. At least twice as many computer screens stared back at him.
“Are you a private investigator?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even acknowledge that I’d asked him a question.
“We’ll pull up all domestic bank statements and any police records to start,” he said barely above a whisper. “Then we’ll see if he has an FBI file. It shouldn’t take too long.”
My jaw literally dropped. An FBI file? It shouldn’t take too long?
“How are you able to do this?” I asked incredulously.
“One-hundred-and-twenty-gigabyte fiber-optic connection speeds,” he answered.
“No, I mean -”
“I know what you meant, friend. The answer is, you don’t want to know. You may think you do, but trust me, you don’t.”
If you say so, Hoodie… whoever you are.
I suddenly felt like a little kid swimming into the deep end for the very first time. Maybe I’d be fine.
Or maybe I was in way, way over my head.
And to be honest, I knew the answer to that one. Worse, I still wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest like Derrick Phalen had.
Chapter 52
I STOOD THERE quietly in Hoodie Brown’s office, watching and waiting, respectful. Nearly shivering, too. The damn room felt like a meat locker, it was kept so cold. Hoodie, of course, was dressed appropriately. I sure wasn’t.
Thankfully, the guy was right and the wait wasn’t too long. After anoth
er few minutes, Hoodie looked up from his slew of computers for the first time.
“Do you know a Sam Tagaletto?” he asked.
The name didn’t mean anything to me. “No,” I said. “Never heard of him.”
“Apparently Dwayne Robinson did. About a month ago, he wrote him two checks over the span of a week. Both were for fifty grand.”
“I didn’t think Dwayne had that kind of money anymore. I’m almost sure of it.”
“He didn’t,” said Hoodie. “Both checks bounced.”
Red flag, anyone?
“So who’s Sam Tagaletto?” I asked.
“Definitely not a Boy Scout, that’s for sure. He’s been arrested twice for illegal bookmaking, among other things, once in Florida and most recently here in New York,” he said.
“How recent?”
“A year ago. He got six months’ probation.”
“Anything about his having ties to the mob?” I asked. Hoodie cocked his head in my direction. “You mean other than his being a bookie?”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m looking for actual names. Maybe somebody I have heard of.”
“Give me another minute on that,” said Hoodie.
He went back to the keyboard, his fingers tapping away almost as fast as my mind was racing.
Think, Nick. What does all this mean? What could it mean?
Dwayne Robinson had owed a bookie a big chunk of change and couldn’t pay it off. He hadn’t bounced just one check to this guy, Sam Tagaletto, he’d bounced two.
Maybe that’s why Dwayne had killed himself. Or had gotten thrown out of a window by somebody. Because he’d owed money to a bookie and had showed disrespect.
But there had to be more to it than that. It was now officially impossible to believe that my being at the table next to Vincent Marcozza had been a coincidence.
But if it indeed had been a setup like Pinero told me, then who had set it up?
Dwayne Robinson? I doubted it. Dwayne had been a former major league pitcher, not a former brain surgeon.
Or had it been someone else and that’s what Dwayne had wanted to tell me?
All I knew was that it was time to get to know a certain Sam Tagaletto a little better. Presuming I could find him.
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