Eddie resumed his methodical march up the last few steps and pushed the door open much like he had at the entrance. Noticing that the room was clear he pushed further into it and Ivan climbed in behind him.
The first thing he noticed was the mattress. Fresh sheets lined it and a small lamp stood on the floor just to the side.
“A bum?” Eddie asked. He crouched next to the sheets and picked up a small radio.
“Not likely. You know bums that own radios and can rewire power outlets?” Ivan scanned the room. “I’d say we found our money source, or at least someone who has been brokering transactions.”
“You’re right. This isn’t just a radio. It’s a police scanner.” Eddie turned a knob and a dispatcher doled out instructions to some officer or another. He turned another knob and lowered the volume.
Just as he did so, they both heard a crash from down below. Ivan hit the deck next to Eddie who killed the LED light.
“Now what?” Eddie whispered.
“Now we let that fucker come to us.” Ivan crouched next to the door, both guns trained on the entrance. Eddie raised his Ak-47 and they waited as the footsteps below reached the first metal step.
Chapter 19
Three silhouettes approached them along Don Ciancetta's curved drive, obscured by the flashing lights of the squad cars. Part of him wanted to run inside, some natural instinct to evade his life's chosen enemies. Another part of him wanted to shoot his way out of there and go down in a blaze of glory. If they suspected him of planting explosives and detained him there was a good chance he'd never see the light of day even if he wasn't guilty. He coughed and his eyes watered but he worked his way towards the approaching shadows anyway.
Time isn't on my side these days.
One of the shadows, the larger one, broke off at a word from the slender one that he realized was a woman by the curve of her hips and the sway of her gait. The larger shadow stopped walking, made to follow but stopped and spun away from the converging trio in disgust. The Pope caught sight of the man's broad back and made out the letters "F.B.I." stretched across his shoulders.
The woman approached first and was finally close enough that he could make out her features. Her long dark hair lined her face and he couldn't tell if it was brown or black. Her dark eyes sized him up as she flipped over a badge with one hand while extending her other for a hand shake.
"I'm Special Agent Sydney Price."
The Pope coughed into his hand then shrugged, showing her his wet hand while refusing to clasp hers. She pulled it back but her eyes didn't leave his. He glanced over at the other silhouette, but he was standing back and off to the side and the constant flashing light kept blinding him every time he tried to get a better look. "What do you want?"
"A bomb went off at the Galleria Mall today," Agent Price said while she unrolled a sheet.
"What the fuck does that have to do with my client?" He looked back over his shoulder, following the agent's gaze. Don Ciancetta paced back and forth on the drive less than a dozen feet behind them.
"More than a hundred dead and wounded Americans," she said, raising her voice. "These people are neighbors of yours."
"Boo fucking hoo," he shot back. He felt a twinge of anger, but he didn't want to give any leverage to this glorified cop standing on his boss' front porch. "Tell me why we should care. Do you have a warrant officer?"
"Special Agent Price. Federal Bureau of Investigations, Christian Biela." She locked eyes with him again. In negotiations the first one to blink always lost and he had a feeling, suddenly, that they were negotiating something. The only thing was he couldn't quite figure out what.
He held the gaze and made sure to enunciate. "Again, tell me why I care."
"Because my wife is on that list." A gravely voice whispered from the shadow to her side. He squinted at the figure but hairs crawled along the back of his neck. He knew that voice.
"The shadow speaks." The Pope said as the silhouette took a step forward. The brown stubble remained but the bloody crease across Alex Vaughn's head had healed and scarred since the last time the two of them crossed paths. The man had brandished a gun at him to get information, gone so far as to put the barrel in his mouth. That was for a friend.
His wife this time.
He took a cautious step back.
"Officer Vaughn." The man owed him his life. The Pope's desire for one less dead cop on the streets, and all the heat that would have brought with it, led him to intervene in a moment of crisis for the cop in front of him. "Sorry to hear that about your wife."
"Not Officer Vaughn anymore. Just Alex Vaughn. I retired." Alex stepped forward and held his hand out between the two of them, coming in a bit too close for comfort. The Pope looked at it for a moment before clasping it and attempting to turn back towards Sydney but Alex Vaughn held his hand tight, swinging him back around. "I'm not sorry about what happened to my wife. But I promise you, someone will be." He pried his fingers away from Alex Vaughn who just looked at his shoes and held his ground, causing The Pope to slide to his left and look at Sydney.
"So what is he doing here?" he asked.
She smiled but it was Vaughn who spoke again, still not looking up. "Because we have... history together."
He squinted his eyes in disbelief. "You wouldn't have told her. I don't believe it."
"You think I needed persuading to come over here and find out if you knew anything about that explosion. You or your ...master?" Vaughn finally looked up and his eyes spoke louder than his words. The words came anyway. "I'm prepared to do whatever it takes." He looked past The Pope and spoke directly to the Don, still pacing in the background. "Anything."
The Pope stepped back to his right and cut off Alex Vaughn's line of sight. "We have nothing to do with that explosion."
"I'm not saying you did," Agent Price spoke up. "But what do you know about Russians operating in the area?"
"I don't know shit."
"That's too bad," Agent Price frowned.
"It's bullshit." Vaughn pulled up. "You mean to tell me that two explosions go off in your neighborhood, Russian bodies start showing up left and right and you don't have a clue what's going on? That's your story?" Again he looked over The Pope's shoulder and spoke directly to the Don who stopped pacing and looked at Alex Vaughn with his great furrowed brow.
"Two explosions?" The Pope asked.
"One at the mall another at an old friend of yours, Dick LoGalbo." Vaughn spoke to him but his eyes kept searching for the Don.
"No shit?" he raised his eyebrow hoping to look surprised.
"Two dead Russian priests," Vaughn continued.
"Two? So sad."
"And another dead Russian outside my house." Alex Vaughn was now so close to him that he could smell his breath. This time though, The Pope really was surprised.
Three dead Russians.
He couldn't help but think that the Russians that nabbed Rafael Rontego must have bit off more than they could ever have hoped to chew. He didn't love these Russians, and he hated them even more for bringing all the negative attention to the area. It didn't even sit well with him that so many civilians were harmed. Mothers, children, young men; bombs like that were indiscriminant.
But I can't let them know anything.
If they found the Russians they might find Rafael still being held there. Indictments would rain down like a summer shower.
On all our heads.
He snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed Agent Price studying his face. She seemed to be looking right through him so he tossed out a few hurried words. "That's a shame, it really is. I wish we could help. But seeing as you don’t have a warrant, I'm assuming you don't have one since you haven't thrown it at me yet, I'm gonna have to ask you leave my client's property."
"Sure, we'll leave," Agent Price said making no movement to do so. "But when we leave our offer leaves with us."
"Offer?" The Pope looked at Alex who was staring at Don Ciancetta like he was about to give b
irth.
“In case you hadn’t heard there’s a case open on you and your boss there.” Agent Price pointed a slender finger at the Don.
“A case? I wasn’t aware.” He straightened up and pulled his crumpled jacket tight around his waist.
“Well, you might have noticed if you weren’t so busy flipping my men off earlier.” A couple of familiar agents heard her raised voice and their silhouettes waved with one-finger salutes. The Pope gave a small wave back. “But even if you weren’t, you are now and you know that I can make life easier on you, both of you.”
The Pope perked up at that and looked back at Don Ciancetta, who had slowly been walking closer to the conversing trio, and then back at Agent Price. “Right. Like you’d just lift your investigation and walk away.”
“Come on Chris. You know the rules.” Vaughn’s eyes flashed. “You know she can’t do that. She can’t do it anymore than I could have when I carried a badge. But you know the same as I do that some things can be worked out.”
The Pope looked from one pig fucker to the other, wondering when the other shoe would drop. But both of them had faces of stone.
Alex Vaughn lowered his voice and came in close again. “For once in your life do the right thing. There were innocent people killed.”
“Ain’t no innocent people officer. You know that as well as I do.” He sized Alex Vaughn up and down to emphasis his point.
“My wife is innocent. My child’s innocent. Don’t confuse the world we live in with everyone else’s.” He wasn’t mad, if he was he didn’t show it. His voice didn’t tremble or rise with emotion like it had that day in his office when The Pope had tasted the metal of his Beretta. It was even, subdued, almost sad.
I still have to tell him to go to hell though.
And he would have. But no one saw the middle-aged woman in the pink version of a bathrobe similar to the Don pad silent along the driveway behind them in a pair of matching slippers. Sleep hung heavily on her eyelids and her dark hair was tied back and above. “What’s this about, Leonard?”
“Jesus Christ, Maria. Go back to bed.”
“It’s about the explosion at the Galleria Mall.” Alex Vaughn threw it out into the night air and it was as if the words hung suspended on the edge of his tongue before traveling the rest of the way to Maria’s ears.
The words may have taken a second to get there but once they hit her ears it was all shrieks and yelling.
“I put up with a lot of shit Leonard! But if you had anything to do with this…” she paused for breath between the trembling of the words and prattled off the rest so that it sounded like one word. “I swear to God you’ll be spending the night in another house god-damn-it. If you know anything about that you will tell them. You hear me? Your cousin’s daughter left that mall minutes before…” And here the tears started coming. “Minutes before that…that tragedy.”
The Don looked small in that moment, his unlit cigar hanging from his lax mouth, a full two inches open.
Maria started walking back towards the house and waved her hand like she was warding off gnats. “You tell them Leonard. You tell them.” She walked back into the house with out looking back and slammed the door, exiting the lawn much louder than she entered it.
Everyone stood there in silence. The pigs stood in the flashing lights waiting for an answer and The Pope didn’t know how to respond. Don Ciancetta waved him over and walked a bit away from the group.
He lowered his voice to just above a whisper and asked, “What are our options, old friend?” He wrapped an arm around his shoulder and he felt the weight of the man’s thick hands there as they turned their backs and faced the front door. “I don’t want these feds breathing down my neck for terrorist activity on top of everything else.”
The Pope knew where he was heading and shook his head. “We can’t help them, Leo. If they get Rafael, they get everything. You go to jail, they freeze your funds, take the house, your cars, boats; forget about it. It’s all gone.”
“I’m on board. Believe me.” He looked up at him and The Pope could smell the wet tobacco of the chewed up cigar. “When we talked the other day, on the boat, it got me thinking. We know we can’t beat this forever.”
The Pope cleared his throat to protest but the Don squeezed his shoulder and kept speaking. “We’ll try of course. But that fed said something about a deal. Maybe we can work something out here.”
“They won’t let you go free.” The Pope could hardly believe his ears.
“I fucking know that numb nuts. What I’m talking about is that cop being right that we know the rules. They got a job same as us so they can’t stop coming for us, but maybe when and if that day comes, they can stop with me and leave certain assets alone.” He shifted his eyes towards the house looming like a silent shadow above his shoulders.
The Pope shook his head again. The prudent thing would be to shut their mouths, find Rafael Rontego, and remove him. He tried to speak again, but someone cleared their throat a few paces behind. Time was running out.
Don Ciancetta came around and put one hand on each of his shoulder so that they were eye to eye. “My family is what matters. All of this is for nothing if all this shit we’ve done gets undone, know what I mean? My family is what matters now, my flesh and blood, capice?"
The Pope nodded and with a flourish marched over to Alex Vaughn and Special Agent Price. His chest felt like a pile of boulders squeezing him from the back and the front in a vice. He brought his handkerchief to his mouth and shielded them from the cough that racked his body before he began speaking, fully immersed in his lawyering mode. "My client might be in a position to help you. But he would need certain," he smiled the same smile he flashed a judge and jury a hundred times, before "assurances."
"We can't ignore him and the things he's done," Agent Price said.
He held up his hands and patted the air in front of his face. "The things he has allegedly done." She opened her mouth to retort but he continued. "But let us not waste time. If you were to get something in writing confirming a commitment to limit your investigations or any consequences of said investigation to Mr. Ciancetta's person as opposed to, say, his assets, then that would be enough for my client. After all, he is a patriot and loves this country."
Agent Price swallowed and shook her head side to side. "We can't allow this man to enjoy a bank full of ill-begotten wealth just because he points us in the right direction."
"I understand you need to have a cash value if it ever comes to unceremoniously putting my client's head on a stake, but should that day ever come a percentage would be more than enough to present to the wider public on the front page of some newspaper." He glanced at Alex Vaughn again and then took a step towards Agent Price and leaned in so close he could smell a hint of her perfume. "Besides, who said merely a point in the right direction? I can tell you where he will be, all you have to do is tell us yes."
Agent Price hesitated and Alex Vaughn spoke up. "It's for his family, Sydney. He won't enjoy that wealth if you lock him up. He'd never see the outside of a prison, you know that."
"It's above my pay-grade," she snapped.
"Well then, I suggest you get a hold of whoever has the authority," The Pope said. Fighting another cough he stepped back a bit and folded his hands over each other in front of him and cocked his head as if awaiting their response. Agent Price looked at Alex Vaughn and then with a snap of her heel strode off towards one of the vans at the entrance to the grounds. She waved over the larger man as she did so and he fell into step beside her just long enough to hear her snap an order and then he sprinted off towards the other van.
For the moment, Alex Vaughn and he were alone.
"How is life these days, officer?" he said in a way that he thought amusing.
"Not as good as yesterday," he replied evenly.
"Maybe better than a few months ago though? No sense of being grateful for borrowed time?" The Pope wiped his mouth with his rag.
"Time is only as g
ood as the quality of the seconds," he brushed the hair away from his eye. "If my wife dies, I'm going to burn this town to the ground."
He looked into the officer's eyes and felt a slow crawl make its way up his spine. He'd seen the determination of the man and didn't doubt he'd attempt what he promised. "We're not the Russians."
"Call it guilty by association." He was twirling something in his hand and The Pope glanced at it to see what it was in his fingers. Alex Vaughn saw him and clenched his fist, shoving the object into his pants pocket.
"Well then, I hope she lives." He saw Agent Price make her way back towards them and the large man ran and placed a tablet in her hand. He stole one more look at Alex Vaughn and whispered, "For both our sakes."
"We had a quick agreement. Seems you're lucky it’s an election year." She flipped the tablet around and there was a contract there for certain immunities. She handed The Pope a little plastic stick and said, "Your client will have to sign." He scrolled through the contract and saw that it did indeed limit repercussions of a Federal conviction to exclude assets. Everything was in order but he still felt his hand tremble when he got to the bottom. Affixed to the electronic copy was the seal of The President of the United States. He swallowed. "This will do, Agent Price."
He walked the tablet over to Don Ciancetta and held out the plastic wand. "Sign your asset protection program, guaranteed by the President himself."
The Don raised an eyebrow but signed the tablet. "Tell them what you know."
The Pope walked over and handed the tablet to Agent Price. "As soon as I get an emailed copy of that, we're in business."
She pressed a few buttons on the touch-screen and said, "Check your inbox."
He checked his phone and saw a pending email." He verified the attachment then said, "The man you're looking for is the Black Widow. He's at the abandoned Bethlehem Steel plant or soon will be."
Buffalo Soldiers (An Upstate New York Mafia Tale Book 2) Page 21
