by Robert Greer
Reveling in their anonymity, Rollie Ornasetti and three of America’s most influential crime bosses walked into the rest stop dressed in business suits, looking for all the world like the capitalist businessmen they were, and headed for the private dining room. No one took notice as they strolled past the hostess’s station—not the balding black man with the overweight wife, or the dairy farmer from Wisconsin with his second wife and an assemblage of five kids, or the two teenage Puerto Rican sisters out on the make, or even the Calumet City, Illinois, off-duty detective with the telltale gun bulge beneath his leather jacket.
Forty-five minutes after their inconspicuous entry, the three crime bosses and their youthful Colorado connection sat in the private dining room leisurely drinking coffee and espresso and talking after having enjoyed a midafternoon meal, prepared by a chef from a five-star Chicago restaurant who had been whisked out to cook a meal that included shrimp scampi, linguini in wine sauce, and tender baby artichokes flown in from the West Coast.
Dabbing the corners of his mouth with a crisp linen napkin and suppressing a belch, Santo Trafficante shot Rosselli a quizzical glance. “I still don’t understand why you like to meet in such a public place.”
“It’s picturesque,” Rosselli offered, sipping his espresso, unperturbed.
“So’s the Riviera, and wouldn’t you know it? The place crawls night and day with plainclothes French cops.”
“This place doesn’t. More importantly, I can bring in my own private chef.”
“Whatever.” Trafficante took a sip of the tar-colored, high-test coffee he preferred to espresso, eyed Marcello, and asked, “Did you put our package from overseas to bed?”
“Sure did.”
“Did he look happy?”
“As happy as people like him can be.”
Trafficante nodded understandingly. “What’s his take on the Chicago scrub?”
Marcello shrugged. “Didn’t have one. I don’t think it really matters to him one way or the other.”
“Well, it sure as hell matters to me,” Rosselli interjected, his voice rising. “How the hell do you think the feds got wind of things?”
“Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me?” Trafficante said, trying his best not to snicker. “We’ve got a carful of loud-mouthed Cubans flying around the parade route for the whole damn world to see, and you wonder how the feds found out? Not to mention the fact that the local ass-wipes for America’s chief G-man and number-one sissy, Hoover, picked up our nutcase who was supposed to be a diversion straight off the bat. And you ask how? We shoulda let Ornasetti’s fuckin’ Creole boy pop that lunatic diversionary John Bircher like I wanted.”
“And quadruple the federal snooping that would follow? The hell we should’ve,” Marcello countered.
“Carlos is right,” Rosselli said, taking a sip of espresso. “Beats the hell outta me how the feds sniffed things out. Don’t really matter. What matters is, we’ve got additional shooting arcades lined up, and we don’t need to stir the pot.”
“Think that Louisiana half-breed Ducane could’ve been a plant? Maybe he tipped the feds off,” Trafficante said, looking squarely at Marcello.
“Not on your life,” Marcello countered sharply. “I watched him grow up.”
“You sure as hell stick up for him, Carlos,” Trafficante said with a smile. “That boy got somethin’ on you?”
“No more than he has on you, Santo.”
The conversation ground to a halt as the three crime bosses sipped their drinks in silence, recognizing that they were very close to telling tales out of school in front of Ornasetti, who hadn’t uttered a peep since the espresso had been brought out.
Helping himself to more coffee, Rosselli broke the silence. “You up for Tampa?” he asked, aiming his question at Marcello.
“Absolutely.”
“Could turn out to be another scrub,” said Trafficante, turning to face Ornasetti. “You’re the logistics whiz—whattaya say about Tampa?”
“Same as I said about Chicago. I’ll get the job done as long as there’s no interference from local cops or the feds, like we had here.”
“Who’s your high-position shooter down there?” asked Marcello.
Ornasetti responded quickly, hoping to demonstrate to the three crime bosses that he was on top of every nuance of their plan. “Some dumb-ass Puerto Rican out of Jersey. I promised him a bundle.”
Trafficante laughed. “Wonder how he’ll spend it?”
“That’s his call,” Ornasetti said with a quick snort.
Breaking into a pumpkin-faced grin, Rosselli spoke up: “Yeah. His call all the way.”
Ornasetti smiled and took a sip of espresso without saying another word, aware that everyone at the table knew that people like Antoine Ducane and the Puerto Rican out of New Jersey were expendable—both of them men who had stepped into water that was way over their heads.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The sometimes hazy solitude required to write a novel is always brightened by the light of people other than the author who help bring that novel to life. I am fortunate to have a bevy of such lights.
To Kathleen Woodley, my dedicated secretary of nineteen years who struggled with the worst cold imaginable to somehow deliver the final typescript version of The Fourth Perspective to its recalcitrant, longhand writing, computer-illiterate author on time, my heartfelt thanks. To Connie Blanchard, who dropped everything to also chip in, I offer a round of thanks as well.
To Connie Oehring, who did her usual masterful copyediting, repairing my spliced sentences, inappropriate use of commas and semicolons, and sentence run-ons, thank you so much.
A bolus of research time was required with this effort. When I needed help about the specifics of a rare Oklahoma license plate, I turned to Jim Gummoe, whose knowledge in that arena far outstrips mine. I traveled twice to Santa Fe to learn all I could about masterpieces of nineteenth- and twentieth-century photography from John Boland and Christopher Marquez, of the Andrew Smith Gallery. Thank you both for offering your valuable insights and for giving The Fourth Perspective an authoritative historical hook. To John McDowell and Lyndia Carter, I thank you for sharing your “Golden Spike” historical knowledge.
Information about the antiquarian book trade and rare and not-so-rare books and photographs was generously provided to me by Bob Topp and Jim Gladney, and instruction in the art of bow hunting came from John Mullen.
Finally, to the publishing team behind me, especially my publicist, Caitlin Hamilton-Summie, and the entire editorial and publishing group at North Atlantic Books, as always, thank you for helping to bring my imagination to life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Greer, a native of Columbus, Ohio, spent his formative years in the steel-mill town of Gary, Indiana. He graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree and subsequently earned degrees in dentistry, medicine, and pathology from Howard University and Boston University, as well as a master’s degree in creative writing, also from Boston University. He is a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In addition to authoring the C. J. Floyd Mysteries, Greer founded the High Plains Literary Review, where he serves as editor in chief, and has written medical texts and scientific articles. A longtime resident of Denver, he reviews books for a Denver NPR affiliate and raises cattle on a ranch in Wyoming.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Robert Greer
Cover desig
n by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4321-2
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