“Sugar is just a little too cute. Besides 5,000 kilos of sugar is small enough to be suspicious and when we’re talking a street value of ninety million dollars, one cute screw-up could cripple my operation. Give me the name of the ship.”
Micah pressed the button to stop the remainder of the conversation. “That was about three weeks ago. She has it in a storage yard. She doesn’t have to pay you a cut of what you don’t know she has, now does she? I’m sure she wasn’t going to try to cheat you—much. Once she had two Families under her control, I’m certain she would have told you the line was re-opened, but I doubt you would have gotten a cut from what she stored.”
“Then am I to assume you want to trade Sharon’s coke for your wife?”
“No,” Micah stated rather bluntly. “My wife deserves so much more than being a pawn in a drug deal. I have something else to trade, but I’m not willing to discuss it now. I want a private meeting, and your word that you won’t have me shot before I present the deal.”
“I’ll have to give this matter a little thought.”
“I want to know my wife, her mother, and her sister are safe—now.”
“You’re not going to get to talk to her.”
“Why not?”
“Remember who you’re playing with Gavarreen. I didn’t blindfold her to get her here, and I’m not going to allow her to say something that would lead you directly to me. You’re going to have to trust me when I say they are fine. Call me back in twenty-four hours.”
“Make it three or no deal.”
“Gavarreen,” he stated icily, “I don’t make deals. I give opportunities—don’t blow this one.”
“Three hours,” Micah replied giving no ground to the most powerful man in the U.S. mafia. “And don’t call Sharon.”
“I’ve already spoken with her.”
“And?”
“I told her that her men shouldn’t have pushed Giovanni. What happened was her fault, and she should have trusted my man enough to let him hold the collateral on his own. Her move to strand him at that house showed a lack of confidence in me; I made sure she knew I was disappointed. I said I would be the one to hold the bargaining chip now.”
“Don’t tell her you know about the drugs. She’ll dump that coke in the sewer before she’d get caught hiding it from you. She’s going to need to be involved, but not right now and she can’t know why.”
“Three hours, Micah,” he stated as if he detested his name, “I’ll let you know my decision.” And the call was disconnected.
David pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later. Micah guessed he must have done about a hundred and twenty all the way. He wasn’t in any mood to listen when he climbed out of his car. He was ranting about getting on a plane to New York and killing every mafia member he could find until someone took them to Caprizio. His only momentary pause was when he noticed Micah taking aim at him with the biggest gun he’d ever seen.
That was the last thing David remembered.
“Hey, wake up,” Micah said, patting David’s face.
David grimaced, evidently unaware, for the moment, why he was lying in the gravel. “Son-of-a-bitch, my leg hurts!” he grumbled. He sat up, one hand rubbing his upper leg and his other brushing the small rocks from his hair. “Did you freaking shoot me?!” he asked sounding thoroughly disgusted.
“Don’t get riled up again. Are you ready to listen?”
“What was that?”
“A modified coil gun with a taser cartridge.”
David blinked a few times as if his brain was trying to decide if that was even possible. “Crank?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, I bought you one, too; twenty-five grand a piece.”
“No coil gun is worth that much.”
“You haven’t seen this gun.” Micah stood up from kneeling over David and offered him his hand.
David accepted and rose, rather wobbly, to his feet, “Damn, I’ve got a hell of a Charlie-horse now.” He limped toward the front door, “You know I’m gonna shoot your ass when I get my hands on mine, right?”
Micah gave a small laugh, “At least let me give you the safety talk so you don’t push the wrong button and kill me.”
“Why’d you shoot me, anyway?”
“First, you were about to come unglued, so I figured it would calm you down—which it did. And second, I had to test it on somebody,” he chuckled.
“Damn, bro, next time you need a test dummy, I’ll drive you to the freakin’ homeless shelter—those idiots will do anything for a couple bucks!”
The mood which had, strangely enough, temporarily lightened after Micah shot David, returned to serious once they were in the house where Micah had his gear laid out.
“So tell me what the hell is going on, and why we need some futuristic stun gun shit instead of using our Glocks?”
“You knew I promised Leese that I’d change and I wouldn’t kill anyone ever again.”
“You shot that to hell,” David snapped.
“No, I didn’t. I haven’t killed anybody.”
“I think Moretti and Botachelli would disagree if they could.”
“They aren’t dead.”
David stared at Micah as if his words had been rubber balls that bounced off his ears. “They’re dead. They found Vitale’s body in that storage tanker, you—”
“They found a body; it wasn’t Vitale’s.”
“Well then you killed somebody!”
“No I didn’t. I stole a body from a hospital morgue in Virginia. It was a John Doe, so I knew no one at the hospital would report it as missing. Why go through all the media attention and embarrassment over someone no one knew anyway?”
“Then where the hell are they? I can’t believe they’d both agree to go into hiding for you.”
“You’re right, neither one would have agreed to that so I’m holding them until this is over.”
David looked around as if the men would suddenly appear, “Where? They aren’t here; who is watching them?”
“I have them at a house in Florida.”
“With who?” David repeated.
“Ryan.”
David’s head tipped back and his eyes rolled toward the ceiling, “My God you are crazy! Either that or you’ve wanted Ryan dead all along!”
“No, I don’t, but I had to have someone who wasn’t in the Family. Anyone else would have caved under the pressure. Ryan, unfortunately, doesn’t know enough about those two to be freaked out.”
“Why did you do this?!” he asked sounding exasperated.
“Because it’s the only way I’m going to be able to prove that Sharon was the mastermind of this whole freaking thing!” Micah said with his volume rising. “She wanted her father dead so she could take his place! She wanted Botachelli dead, and Rizzo sufficiently scared shitless so she could take-over our Family, too! No one would have believed she planned something this big. She’s already blamed me for her dad’s murder, and I’m sure she’s going to try to say Botachelli’s was all my fault, as well.”
“How the hell did Caprizio get involved in all of this?”
“Sharon told him her nice, fat, revenue-making coke line had run dry. She also told him we killed Martinez. She said she was pretty sure if she could get me to kill Ambassador Tocovara, her shipments would resume—but only if she had the right leverage. He offered Giovanni to help hold the collateral for fifty percent of her future shipments. Of course, once she was the Boss of two clans, she wouldn’t mind splitting the coke fund.”
“Do you know where the coke is at?”
“It wasn’t easy tracking all her electronics; she has three different cells and two laptops—but nothing scrambled.”
“It amazes me that she’s lived this long. So are we trying out the new guns?” David asked as a grin began to replace his serious expression from a moment earlier.
“No. I don’t want her to know the coke is gone from Jeffrey’s Store-n-More, yet.”
“It’s still here,” he
asked with surprise, “in New Orleans?”
“Yeah, evidently she didn’t want to chance moving it very far. It’s sitting inside a small box truck in the storage yard. Her boys are across the street at the Super 8 on the second floor with the perfect view.”
“I don’t know how you’re planning to get it out of there, but even if they don’t see us, someone is surely going to notice when the truck is missing.”
“Not the way we’re going to do it. I have two and a half hours before I call Caprizio back so we need to hurry if we’re going to get this done.”
Thirty minutes later, David was checking into room 214 of the Super 8. Micah had been paying for that particular room ever since he discovered Sharon’s men were in 215. With the curtains drawn, he quickly lifted the mattress and box spring, and then pulled the wooden pedestal frame away from the wall. Cutting the drywall on his side was easy and silent with the heavy duty razor knife, but going through the wall in the neighboring room would have to be done very carefully in case his measurements were off. He pushed a small hole with an awl. He expected to be in darkness behind one of their beds, but judging from the amount of pale light, he was off a bit and actually was behind the nightstand between the two beds. He threaded his small flex-cam into the hole and stared into their room. This was better in his estimation because he had been concerned that the mattress and linens would have slowed the release of gas into the room. It wasn’t as easy cutting the dry wall on their side because David had to work in the tiny opening and space between the walls. He could hear their television and the muffled sounds as they conversed about a ‘talented’ stripper at one of the clubs. Once the two-inch round hole was cut, he had to restrain from laughing as their conversation became clearer. They were getting pretty raunchy as they talked about her ability to do the splits and pick up cash, hands-free.
David placed the end of the gas canister into the opening and then packed it with plumber’s putty to secure it—and to keep from knocking himself out.
“Goodnight, guys,” he whispered as he pressed the gas-release lever and put the last piece of putty in place. From start to finish, including putting the bed back together he was done in twenty minutes. He called Micah as he walked out of the room.
One ring and he answered, “How’d it go?”
“I walked past their window and looked inside; they are out cold. Thank God they were both on their beds watching TV while they were jabbering; that stuff works pretty damn fast. Are you sure they won’t know they were gassed?”
“As long as they were in bed and don’t wake up on the floor, it pretty much just leaves you feeling rested instead of woozy.”
“Well then I’d say they are going to have a damn good rest, bro,” David laughed and then said he would meet Micah across the street in a matter of moments.
Micah drove up to the gate in a rented box truck—a rental truck identical to Sharon’s. He punched in his code and drove inside. It would have been too suspicious to transfer the drugs between trucks in the open lot, but to simply replace one truck for the other was no problem. David was the one who was skilled at locks. He rarely had any problem using anything from a bump key to a screw driver; it only took him a couple minutes to have the other truck cranked and pulled forward as Micah pulled into the parking space. They swapped out the license plates and drove out of the lot, unobserved, with multimillions of dollars worth of Columbian cocaine.
When they reached where they’d left Micah’s car, he gave David his keys and told him to follow him. He had one more stop to make before they drove back to his house. He would eventually tell Sharon that he had her coke, but he certainly didn’t want her men on the road between New Orleans and Pensacola looking for a plain white, sixteen foot box truck—but he had a solution.
Although he was on the outs with his own mafia Family, there were still a few business connections of his father’s willing to do him a favor or two. One of those was Kirk Svenson who ran a custom auto wrap shop. Micah told him he needed a standard box trailer covered quickly, and that it didn’t matter the advertisement or design. Kirk said he’d been doing a big ad campaign for FTD and had plenty of panels on hand. If Micah didn’t care that it was an ad for flowers, and if it didn’t need to be perfect, he could have his men get the job finished in an hour. When the workers pulled the truck out from the building, Micah’s jaw dropped and David burst into laughter; Kirk forgot to mention what the background color was for the FTD advertisement—the truck box was now vivid pink!
Once David composed, he looked at Micah and, with all seriousness restored, said, “I’m not driving it.”
Micah grumbled, but didn’t object as he drove the truck home.
CHAPTER thirty-three
Exactly three hours after his first call to Caprizio, Micah sat in the quiet stillness of his bedroom—out of David’s hearing—and placed the call.
Caprizio dispensed with the greeting, “I’ll meet with you here. I expect—”
“Not in New York, that’s too big of an advantage for you.”
“Do you really think I’m going to give you the upper hand?”
“No, so it won’t be New Orleans, either. Although Sharon doesn’t know it yet, I’ve taken her drug shipment; I’ll bring it. The other items I have stored for you are in Pensacola; I’d prefer not to have to move them, so we’ll meet there.”
“But you don’t mind moving your pregnant wife? Who are you more concerned about, Micah, your wife or your son? I get the feeling she’s unimportant to you.”
“No,” he barely got out before his feelings caught mid-way in his throat, “she’s everything to me. And this,” he said with a bit of anger overtaking his quivering emotions, “is why wives are supposed to be off limits. She shouldn’t be in this situation. I should be in her place, and you know it. When you found out who Sharon wanted taken, you should have told her no. My parents, my brother, my sister, any of them would have understood being used for leverage, but not my wife—she’s innocent,” he said, trying hard to suppress his raw emotions; showing any weakness to this man wasn’t good.
“I agree,” came the surprising reply. “But what’s done is done. I’m at least impressed that you care about some of our rules—rules that you’ve broken in the worst possible way.”
“I can’t change the past, but I can give my wife and son a future.”
“In the mob?” he scoffed.
“No. I only want her freedom; I don’t care what happens to me afterwards. I was wrong to go back to her the first time, and I won’t make that mistake again.” Then he stressed, “With me out of their lives, they’ll be safe.”
The silence was long. Micah was used to this with Caprizio now, so he waited for the man to speak.
“Where are we meeting in Pensacola?”
“There is a small municipal airport where we can meet without attracting too much attention. Be there tomorrow morning by ten a.m. Expect Sharon to call you in a little while; go along with whatever she says. She has no clue you know about the coke shipment. I’ll meet you at the airport. If you don’t have them or if they’ve been hurt,” he stopped for a moment wondering should the next words come out of his mouth. He made his decision and he would stick by it, promise or not, “I’ll kill you.”
“Good luck with that,” came the insincere reply, and Caprizio hung up.
Micah’s next call was to Sharon. She answered quickly and was talking before he could say anything.
“She’s safe. I can get her back for you. I’ve made a deal with Caprizio for—”
“Half your drug shipments?” he finished for her. “I’ve talked with him and I know about Tocovara. What do you think he’s going to do when he finds out you lied to him, Sharon? What will he do if he knows you sent me to kill your father?”
“He’ll never believe you, Micah.”
“Really? Would he believe me if I had a truck with two pallets of pure white cocaine inside?”
“Don’t fuck with my business,” she
growled.
“It’s pretty uncomfortable to have someone yanking you around, isn’t it?”
“I’ll tell him to kill her,” she warned.
“He’d never do that and you and I both know why; I’ll tell him about the drugs, and then he’ll want to see which one of us is telling the truth. You’ve got a dead father, and I have your coke—you lose.”
“You’re good, Gavarreen, but you’re not that good. My coke is safe.”
“Why is that? Because your boys in room 215 haven’t called to say they watched me steal it? You of all people should know I am that good, baby—or is your memory too short?”
“What do you want?” she asked, suddenly willing to deal.
“I want what you wanted; I want to be the Boss of my Family. You keep the lower east and I keep the south. You call Caprizio and tell him we have a new arrangement. Tell him I’ve agreed to get the shipments going if Giovanni delivers my wife, and I’m allowed to be a boss.”
“He’ll kill you, Micah,” she said, sounding a little bit torn on his plan. “As soon as I tell him the shipments are moving again, he’ll send someone to wipe you off the face of the earth—probably everyone in your immediate family, too. The only one he might let live would be your wife since he’ll have to agree to let her go unharmed.”
“I don’t care anymore. You said I was the source of all her troubles so what does it matter if I’m dead? Who knows, maybe you’ll end up with the southern Family after all.”
“You don’t have to do it this way. Give me back my drugs and I’ll tell him the line is moving again without interference from Tocovara. I’ll ‘gift’ him this first shipment in exchange for your wife, but I want you, Micah. She’ll be out of this mess and I’ll eventually put you in power.”
“No,” he said bluntly, “She goes free and I take over my side.”
“Why, you stubborn bastard, why?!” she practically screamed at him.
“Because I love her—and I hate you! Deal or die; it’s your choice. I’ll have the drugs in Pensacola by five p.m. tomorrow. I need a call from Leese by four, or else I call Caprizio and tell him what you’ve done.”
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