Titans

by Tim Green

  "Wear the pack in front like this," Cook said, strapping the pack around his own waist. "It can go underneath your pants and no one will ever know it's there. The transmitter will send the signal to a receiver I'll have nearby in my car. There's a homing disc I've put on the back of the transmitter. I can follow you wherever you go. I'll tape everything once I hear that Rizzo has made contact with you. You'll have to wear this all the time. I'm sorry, but we can't be sure when or where Rizzo will have you picked up."

  Both Hunter and Rachel looked more worried with each passing moment.

  "I don't want either of you to worry," Cook said with confidence. "I've done this hundreds of times. It's no big deal and it will be over before you know it. You'll be able to go back to living your lives the way you always have."

  As Cook expected, this seemed to be exactly what the couple wanted to hear. He kept things simple, as though what was going on was no more than an ordinary task like washing a car, and his easy yet upright manner, his good looks, and his smart wardrobe helped him to put even the most endangered civilians at ease. To prove the point to himself, he reached out and plucked a sweet bun from the plate.

  He chewed a mouthful casually, then swallowed and licked some sticky icing from his fingers before saying calmly, "Do either of you have any questions?"

  Hunter reached across the table and picked up the wire. He turned it over slowly, testing the sticky surface on the back of the mike. 'Just wear this all the time?" he said.

  "Yeah, except the shower and in bed."

  Cook had meant it as a kind of joke, but he could see that Hunter was taking the whole thing very seriously. "So you'll be there, I mean, around wherever it is that Rizzo meets me?"

  "Yeah, I'll be right there, close by," Cook said.

  "And you think everything's OK with Rachel and Sara?" Hunter said. "You're sure you don't think we should send them somewhere?"

  "Would they ever go away anywhere during the football season?" Cook asked.

  "No," Hunter said. Rachel shook her head in agreement.

  Then, like I said, the best thing to do is what you'd normally do. The most dangerous thing would be to start changing the way you behave. Believe me. I'm not coming in the back door for nothing. If Rizzo knew you were up to something, I might not get my chance to nail him."

  Hunter looked directly into Cook's eyes and said, "Maybe that would be the best thing of all, for him to just go away."

  This caught Cook off guard. He thought his message the previous night was clear. He held Hunter's gaze. The problem with that is, if I don't get Rizzo, well, I've already got you."

  "Why is it you don't already have Rizzo?" Hunter said.

  "If you go down, which you could easily do," Cook said firmly, "and you try to bring Rizzo in, he'll sell you out and say you approached him to pay off some gambling debts. I can get Rizzo on bookmaking, but that's chump change. He'd barely get a warning for something like that. Bookies need a revolving door at every courthouse across this country. They're in and out, in and out. It's no big crime. But threatening a player who tells him he's going to back out of his fix--that's extortion, that's bookmaking, that's fraud, that's racketeering . . . and that's more time than Tony Rizzo will be willing to serve. He'll start serving up his buddies and hopefully, his buddies will serve up him."

  Cook could see that the message was now loud and clear.

  "Hey," Cook said, almost apologetically "you're not the only guy with a family. I've got things in my life that need doing, too. Believe me, the best thing is for you and me to work together."

  Cook stood to go.

  "Mrs. Logan," he said, "thanks for the coffee and the roll."

  "Hunter," Cook said, holding out his hand to shake with the quarterback, "I'll be right there if you need me. After tomorrow at noon, you just talk into the mike if you want me to appear for any reason. I'll figure out the best way to make contact without our friends finding out."

  Hunter stood now and shook the agent's hand. "So you think this is safe?" he said again.

  "Listen," Cook said, putting on his most serious face, "everything will be fine. I'm the only one that knows you've got this wire. You just tell Rizzo that the deal's off, let him rant and rave at you, threaten you a bit, and you say OK. He'll leave you alone and that's it. You're done! The hard part will be over, and you and your family will be fine. I promise."

  With that final assurance, Cook said thank you once more to Rachel and faded out the back door into the darkness.

  Chapter 34

  On Saturday morning, Hunter packed his bag for the team's trip to Kansas City. Rachel stood leaning in the doorway with her arms folded. Sara was downstairs watching her nominal allotment of cartoons.

  "Rachel, everything will be fine," Hunter said, then stuffed in an extra pair of socks and zipped his bag.

  "I know," Rachel said. "I just want them to call already. It worries me that nothing's happened. Maybe they know about Cook. Maybe they're waiting until you make this trip and Cook's not there."

  "Rachel," Hunter sighed, "we've been through this. Cook can't get on the charter plane. Neither can Rizzo. Cook's going to keep close to Rizzo while I'm gone, just in case he does try to zip out to Kansas City to make contact with me, but like Cook said, it just doesn't happen that way. These guys aren't that sophisticated. Rizzo doesn't know about Cook, and he's just waiting until he's damn good and ready before he contacts me. He's making me sweat, that's all."

  Hunter looked at his watch and said, "Bert's late. Shit! It'll cost us two thousand if we miss this plane."

  "I don't know, Hunter," Rachel said, following him down the hallway to the stairs, "this whole thing ... I mean, who ever heard of an FBI agent who worked alone? I mean, he seems like a great guy! and the real thing. But what if this Cook guy isn't on the level?"

  "Rachel," Hunter huffed as he chugged down the stairs, "will you stop all this? He's OK. I told you. He was the guy who came to the team during camp. He was there with the DEA guy. He's the real thing, believe me."

  "I'm just worried about you," Rachel said, right behind her husband as he bent down to kiss Sara on the couch. "You can't blame me for that."

  Hunter stood up and put his arms around his wife.

  "A car has entered the outer drive" came the monotonous electronic voice of the security system.

  'That's Bert," Hunter said.

  "Why are you worried about Daddy?" Sara asked her mother after coming to life at a commercial break.

  "I'm . . . I just don't want him to get hurt in the game, honey," Rachel said.

  "He won't get hurt," Sara chirped. "Audrey said Daddy's got a glass shoulder, but I told her that her dad probably never put the pads on."

  Hunter smiled at his daughter and tousled her hair. "Putting the pads on" was a common football term she must have picked up from him. Players were always questioning the manhood of the general public by pondering whether or not they had ever "put the pads on."

  "A car has entered the upper drive" came the voice, and then a horn beeped.

  Hunter bent down and kissed his daughter one last time. "I love you, sweetheart."

  "I love you too, Daddy."

  Rachel followed him to the front door.

  "Love you," Hunter said, opening the door.

  "So Cook's following you two all the way to the airport, right?" Rachel said, then tugged on Hunter's collar and said loudly, "Make sure you follow them, Cook!"

  "Rachel!" Hunter said, tugging back his collar. "Will you give me a kiss? I've got to go. Stop worrying about me."

  "OK, go. Good-bye, you'll be late. I love you."

  Hunter gave her a final kiss and hurried out to Bert's car. "I'll see you soon," he said as he shut the door with a wave.

  Bert punched the car and they took off down the driveway in a great hurry.

  "Not soon enough," Rachel said, but Hunter didn't hear her.

  Later the same day, Vincent Mondolffi emerged from his favorite Brooklyn haunt. His eyes we
re adjusting to the dark evening sky when he spotted a white van parked at the curb just down the street. He silently pursed his lips in annoyance. He was beginning to feel like a man in the deep woods without a hat. The FBI was buzzing around his head like a swarm of deer flies. They wouldn't kill him, they wouldn't even slow him down that much. But there they were, a constant irritant. He had spent the week in Philadelphia on business, and they had even followed him there. He knew they were listening to many of his conversations, and he had to go to great lengths to keep many of his conversations private. He had to have Ears rent him a car every few days, then have Dominic sit in it all day so that the feds couldn't put some tracer on it. Back doors, pay phones, and speeding cars had become a way of life for him in the few weeks since the call announcing that he would be the focus of the special task force rather than Tony. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if he wasn't one step ahead of them all the time.

  He did admit to himself, though, that whatever the inconvenience, it was much better now than when they were scrutinizing Tony. He knew that this task force was desperate, and he also knew that he wouldn't make any mistake that would allow them to write him even a parking ticket. Vincent Mondolffi had always been careful. It was one of his strong suits.

  He was on the sidewalk getting into his car with Ears when Martino, the owner of Romans, came bustling out of the restaurant in his shirtsleeves calling his name.

  'Vincent! Vincent!" he cried. There is a man on the pay phone who says it's urgent that he speak to you."

  Mondolffi nodded to Martino and followed him back into Romans with Ears in tow. There were only a few people who knew to call him at the pay phone. Over the past few weeks he had gotten only two calls on it. The last thing Mondolffi wanted was the feds to find out about the pay phone and start bugging it. The phone's security was so critical to him that he had a man run a check on it every day at six o'clock just to make absolutely sure. He picked up the phone, confident that the call was a private one.

  "I've been calling you" came a voice that was becoming too familiar and too expensive as of late. "We've got a problem."

  'Tell me," Mondolffi said impatiently.

  "I mean a real problem."

  Mondolffi could tell that the caller was nervous, almost desperate. This made him very uneasy.

  "What?" he said.

  'Tony's been fixing Titans games, you know that." Mondolffi said nothing. "So now, the black agent--"

  'The same one with that Keel kid?" Mondolffi cut in.

  "Yeah, he' s gotten to Hunter Logan. Logan's going to wear a wire. If Tony meets with Logan and he talks ... it's over, you can kiss Tony good-bye, and I know you don't want Tony turning into a federal witness."

  "Did Tony already talk to Logan with this wire?" Mondolffi asked gruffly.

  "No."

  "So, what's the problem? I tell Tony to shut his mouth and lay off the Titans and everything's fine."

  There was silence. It was obvious to Vincent Mondolffi that his informant had not thought things through. This was not a good sign.

  'There's already a file on Tony and Logan," the voice said.

  "Get it," Mondolffi said flatly.

  "Get it for you?" the voice said, breaking as if that was a joke.

  "I said, get the file. For me. I want it. I don't want anybody putting heat on Tony for anything. I don't want that. I'll pay for it."

  "Something like that," came the slow, careful response, "would be hard to get."

  "You listen to me," Mondolffi said in an angry tone, "I've had it up to here with all this shit! I don't want to hear about it! You get me that file. If something goes down on my nephew, something's going to go down on you, too! You got that?"

  "Yes," said the voice in a distant way that made Mondolffi wonder if the man was thinking of something else.

  "All right? Are we all right?" Mondolffi said.

  "Yes, of course," the voice said with regained composure. "I'll arrange to have it delivered."

  "Good," Mondolffi said and hung up the phone with a sigh.

  He turned to Ears and said, "Come on. We've got to lose that FBI van and find Tony."

  Outside, as he was getting into his car, Vincent Mondolffi again eyed the white NYNEX van halfway down the block. Ears, he noticed, was smiling as he pulled on a pair of driving gloves he used whenever he had to do some fancy driving. "I'm too damn old to be doing this kind of shit," he mumbled as he slid into the backseat beside Dominic.

  Ears Vantressa knew that the hardest part about losing a tail was knowing exactly who was following you. Most times when someone wanted to tail you, they had at least two vehicles in constant communication with each other. You could always flush the first, but the second could be right there beside you and you'd never know. In this case Ears knew exactly what he was looking for. Besides the NYNEX van there was a dark blue Crown Vic. To get them both in line, Ears got onto the BQE and started to speed. He knew somewhere in the sea of headlights behind him, the two FBI vehicles would come into line together. After a few miles Ears swerved off the BQE and onto the LIE for the Midtown Tunnel. He raced toward the tunnel and jumped off the express at the Green Point Exit. This left him in the heart of the Brooklyn river docks, and after a couple of quick turns and a final dodge around a corner into a dark garage they sat and waited with the lights off, facing out into the side street. Within a minute the van raced right by. A minute later the Crown Vic followed.

  The three men got out of the rental car and got into an old Chevy Caprice. Dominic and Vincent Mondolffi slouched down in the backseat until they were crossing the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into Manhattan. A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the Palladium. Dominic hopped out of the car quickly and jogged up to the oldest bouncer at the door. They exchanged a few words, then Dominic turned around and gave his boss a thumbs-up before disappearing into the nightclub. Five minutes later, he emerged with Tony behind him. Tony got into the backseat of the car while Dominic remained standing outside like a sentry.

  Tony," Vincent Mondolffi said warmly, kissing his nephew on the cheek.

  "Hello, Uncle Vinny," said Tony, forcing a smile. He was dressed as always in an expensive, dark-colored suit. His de was electric blue and he had a matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. His hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail.

  "I've got some bad news," Mondolffi said, "but ... it could be worse." Tony's face clouded over with concern, and he glanced at Ears nervously while he waited to hear what it was. "You've got to lay off of the Titans game, Tony," he said. 'The FBI's gotten hold of Hunter Logan and he's working with them."

  Vincent Mondolffi thought he saw a flicker of relief on his nephew's face, and then, as if he hadn't understood what his uncle had said, complete shock.

  "You're kidding," Tony said quietly.

  Mondolffi shook his head and said, "No, they're going to have Logan set up a meeting with you and wear a wire. They've already got some things linking the two of you, but I should have that file in my hands before the weekend is over."

  "I'll kill that fuck Logan," Tony said quietly to himself, seething with rage.

  "No," Mondolffi said. "No, what's done is done. You played the game and made us a lot of money, but it's over. You did a good job, and now I don't want you doing anything foolish, Tony. The feds are all over us right now, and something like that would only complicate things. Stay clear of Hunter Logan. You've gotten enough out of him. The game is over. Don't take it hard. Be glad we found out when we did."

  Tony looked searchingly at his uncle, as if maybe he expected something more.

  'That's it?" he asked.

  "Yes, why? Should there be more?" said the uncle.

  "No."

  "So we're straight on this," Mondolffi said. "I don't want another incident like the one with the drugs. I don't want to tell you twice on this, Tony. It's for your own good more than anything else."

  "We're straight," Tony said. "Who's the guy feeding you all this information?"<
br />
  'That's not important," Mondolffi said, dismissing the question. "I'll let you get back to what you were doing."

  Tony got out of the car and said good-bye. As he walked away, Vincent Mondolffi wondered to himself what would cause his nephew to be relieved, bewildered, and enraged all in the course of their simple conversation. He shrugged to himself. He had one more thing to think about tonight that turned his mind away from his nephew. His man inside the Bureau had given him an uneasy feeling. It was just a feeling, but he always followed his instincts, and they told him that someone should be keeping a close eye on the dirty agent. Someone should be there when he got his hands on that file. Vincent Mondolffi didn't want to leave something as sensitive as the file to someone who he felt was losing control. That's what was happening, too. He realized it for certain, thinking back to the sound of the agent's voice.

  He pursed his lips together tightly, thinking. A bad agent in trouble . . . that was dangerous. That was something that needed fixing. He waved Dominic inside the car.

  "Dominic," he said when his man was sitting beside him and listening attentively, "I've got a job for you ..."

  Mondolffi leaned close to Dominic and spoke softly into his ear. Ears glanced in the mirror and saw this. He averted his eyes immediately. He wasn't insulted. That was the way Vincent was. Ears knew that his boss trusted him and Dominic more than anyone in the world, and still there were things he kept from them. It was probably one of the reasons why Vincent Mondolffi was the boss.

  Ears heard Dominic get out of the car and slam the door shut. Then he watched as Dominic weaved through the crowded sidewalk outside the Palladium and hailed a cab. Despite all the years of conditioning not to wonder about anything, Ears couldn't help but wonder where his partner was going.

  "All right, Ears," Mondolffi said abruptly. Take me home."