“Who’s that?”
“You called me butt features.”
Brian thought he recognized the voice and that response meant it was definitely Pete.
“Game on ... tomorrow.”
Bolt upright. Eyes open. Swallow hard.
“Bye,” he said to Brian’s voice and, without thinking, he put the phone down.
“Fuck,” as he realized he needed to speak with Brian more. Luckily, Brian had given him the phone booth number which he’d use for this important message and Pete had taped it next to the phone. Just in case.
So Pete rang straight back and hoped Brian hadn’t walked away too fast. After a couple of rings, Brian answered.
“Is that you?”
“Yes,” said Brian. It was Pete on the line.
“Need some help. Can you come over this afternoon?”
“Sure thing. When?”
“Around three?”
“Got it. See you then.”
“Bye.”
That done, Pete poured water over his face and head from the little sink in his room and put on a pot of coffee. He opened the fridge and found cans of beer and some moldy ham, which he threw in a bin bag lying by the fridge.
With nothing to eat, Pete took the bin bag and walked round the place looking for crap to throw away. He’d be gone a few weeks and the festering stench of his rotten past shouldn’t be used to drag anyone’s attention towards his yard.
He tied up the bag and threw it on the sidewalk, ready for whenever the refuse truck came to collect. Finally Pete’s brain kicked into gear and he placed one short call to Frank Senior.
THE CALL FROM Pete came into Lagotti’s office around twelve twenty and, luckily, Luigi was by the phone when it rang. He wasn’t usually keen on answering as he found the telephone a difficult device. He preferred to figure out what was going on by looking at the expression on your face.
So the phone rang and Luigi answered it.
“Hallo.”
“I’ve a message for Frank Senior.”
“Okay.” Beat
“Are you going to pass him over to me or are you going to take the message?”
“Yes,” said Luigi already starting to feel uncomfortable, wishing Paul had been in the room at the time when the phone’s little bell began to ring-a-ding.
“Which one, numb nuts?”
The voice at the other end was starting to get annoyed and a touch abusive. If he had been in the room, Luigi would’ve slugged him one. But to be fair, if Luigi had been in the same room as the guy, he’d have seen how pissed Luigi was and might well have altered his tone all round.
“Um... I’ll take the message.”
“Okay. Listen carefully. The message is...”
“Yes, I’m listening,” Luigi interrupted.
“I know. Listen good and say nothing for a second, numb nuts.”
“Uh huh.” Heavy sigh from Pete, who was on the edge of losing his patience.
“The message is: Game on tomorrow. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“Good,” said Pete as calmly as he was able. “Say the message back to me so’s I know you got it.”
“What?” Luigi was starting to get confused again. Phones shouldn’t be this complicated.
“Say the message back to me, shit head.”
“Game on tomorrow got it.”
“No, no, no! Just the three words: game on tomorrow. Just those three words. Nothing more, nothing less. Say them back to me, for Christ’s sake!”
“Game on tomorrow.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely. Make sure Frank Senior gets that message in the next half an hour. Tell him the Wheels left the message.”
“The wheels?”
“Yeah, the Wheels. He’ll know who it is.”
“Let me get this straight. You want me to tell Mr. Lagotti that some wheels left a message that the game is on tomorrow?”
“Close enough, shit-for-brains. Just make sure you fucking tell him.” And with that, Pete hung up.
Now Luigi might not be the brightest wrench in the toolbox but when he had an errand, he had an errand, and nothing could or would make him deviate from his chosen objective. He might well have been flustered by Pete’s aggression and found the message quite unusual, but he was going to get it to Frank Senior before he forgot it come hell or high water.
The good news was Lagotti was only in the next room, reading his girlie magazine, so Luigi knocked on the door and waited.
“Enter,” called out Lagotti.
Luigi walked in and waited for Lagotti to put down his picture papers, which always took a couple of minutes.
“A guy called the wheels called and left you a message.”
“Why thank you, Luigi. And what was that message that the Wheels has left me?” Lagotti knew Luigi was the slowest in the race but as a reliable son-of-a-bitch as you could find in the Northern hemisphere. So he knew patience was the key to extracting information out of this Rottweiler.
Luigi thought for a moment, not wanting to let his boss down and knowing he had heard the phrase not once, but twice at least, just a few seconds ago.
“He said the game was on for tomorrow.”
Lagotti smiled.
“Did he say: Game on tomorrow?”
“Yeah, those was the self-same words he used!”
“Good news then. Well done, Luigi.”
“Thank yous.”
“Now I’ve got a job for you and it must be done today. Without fail, you understand?”
“Sure thing, Mr. L.”
“I want you to pay a visit to that bank teller, Carter Reinfeldt before he gets home from the Bank of Baltimore tonight. You tell him you’ll be back again tomorrow evening to collect the case he should have got for me.”
“Okay.”
“Tell him Tuesday night is when you will get the case from him. Got it?”
“Do you want me to do this alone or can I bring Paul?”
“Whichever you prefer, Luigi. The man won’t give you any bother, but if you’d like some company on the ride over, that’s fine by me.”
Lagotti knew Luigi didn’t need chaperoning and he didn’t need the company, but he did need someone who could remember a couple of basic facts for more than ten minutes without having to read it in a notebook. And Paul was far brighter than Luigi, but not nearly as fearless - mainly because he was far brighter and understood what risk was. But they both had their uses and could handle themselves well if it came to that.
Luigi left Lagotti, still with his feet up on the desk, and went to find out where Paul had gotten to.
LAGOTTI PUT HIS magazine onto his lap and smiled to himself. This was as close to a win-win situation he had ever conjured up. Heads he won, tails he won. The only way to lose would be if the coin landed on its side and even if that somehow happened, he still wouldn’t lose: he’d still have the bank adviser by the balls and his step nephew would still want to rob another bank for him. Thinking a bit further, Lagotti realized there was only one scenario that could play out where he actually did lose - if Reinfeldt was killed in the robbery and couldn’t pay him back. The chances were slim because Frank may be a vengeful man, but he was a professional and wouldn’t let the chance to kill the guy, who’d been fucking his girl for best part of a year, get in the way of grabbing some bags of cash.
Talking of which, Lagotti decided now matters were finalized with the job, he should sort out the cash transfer agent - or money laundering as it is usually known.
The basic idea behind money laundering is to swap out any cash that can be identified with other cash that is clean. A smooth running capitalist system operated in this murky world: every person along the chain between dirty and clean money needed to create a profit for themselves, so there was an essential mismatch between the amount of dirty money provided and the amount of clean money handed back at the so-called retail end of this chain.
Specifically, in our example, the total profit across the entire supp
ly chain was sixty per cent as Frank was only going to get forty cents on the dollar which was a shockingly good rate. This was achieved mainly because Lagotti didn’t believe he would need to accommodate it as he thought Carter give him all the cash and Lagotti could afford to wait months before shifting it and he’d get a wholesale rate, anyway.
The first step for Lagotti was to line up Jimmy the German, a Baltimore based gentleman of European heritage, who could take in amounts of half a million plus and perform magic on the cash within a period of about two or three days. The magic came at a price which was fifty cents on the dollar so it was well within Lagotti’s profit margin.
After the transaction was complete, Lagotti would need to get the clean money over to Frank and the boys so they could finally split the spoils and part their merry ways.
Were it to happen, this would be the most dangerous part of the escapade because there would be clean money - a lot of it - and many people with access to firearms. Dangerous indeed. And one of the basic courtesies, when you are returning less than half the money a gang has given you, is to turn up in person with their loot. Otherwise you look like you’re robbing them blind yourself, which you are - hence why you don’t want it to appear to be the case.
Lagotti would need to be standing next to the clean dough when it was handed over to the guys and that made him nervous, genuinely nervous. It was why he paid Paul and Luigi to stand around looking mean near him because they were the kind of guys more likely to spill blood than ask questions.
And depending who showed up at that point, at the back of Lagotti’s mind, was the thought that maybe Paul and Luigi could deal with the remnants of the group if everything at the bank had turned messy. After all, this entire scenario was predicated on the teller not walking out with the money as some bad shit has to go down when you rob a bank with an empty vault.
Lagotti put the call through to Jimmy the German to prepare him for some financial Spring cleaning. Then he left the repair shop to meet his step nephew in their favorite derelict factory.
37
TO KILL TIME as much as anything else, Frank drove into Baltimore to find somewhere to eat and tried a little Italian on the corner of West Lexington and Park, which was half full - a good sign given this was a Monday lunchtime. As ever, even here, he took a table at the back - although there was no reason for him not to be in Baltimore having lunch.
Frank ordered some linguini with a simple Neapolitan sauce and a basket of bread and olives were delivered to his table while he was waiting.
The pasta was fine but the sauce was no great shakes; Mary Lou’s was better. He knew that for a fact, but he was able to spend a bit of time somewhere different and somewhere quite relaxed, given the tension and mayhem to engulf him as soon as he woke up tomorrow. This made Frank feel better about himself even though the sauce wasn’t worth the gas to travel here.
He had a good crew even though he still had his doubts about Frankie’s choice of Pete. They were tough enough to get through the next twenty-four hours, but they had sufficient brains between them to improvise when his plan inevitably hit the skids.
Frank’s final thought at the table was for Mary Lou. She had been through so much over the past year with him, Carter and Frank Senior. And still she was there, double checking the vault was full to brimming with that bank’s money.
He paid the check and headed out. Just before he did, Frank turned round and asked the waiter to direct him to the pay phone.
“THANKS FOR TAKING my call.”
“No problem. You have an assignment for me?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“Good. Who is it?”
“Frank Lagotti Senior.”
Beat.
“Is that a problem?”
“Not for me. When?”
“In a week’s time?”
“It’s short notice. Any flexibility on the timing?”
“For sure. Just no sooner than a week. Can be a week, two weeks, a month. Whatever works for you. I just want him dead.”
“Okay. Leave half the money in the place we discussed a day before the hit and deliver the second half to the same place the day after the assignment is completed.”
“Understood.”
“Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
AFTER YET ANOTHER trip down the I-95, Frank arrived at the factory. His uncle’s car was nowhere to be seen, so Frank parked round the back and made his way to the usual ramshackle room, filled with rubble and a solitary chair.
Frank sat down on three breeze blocks he built into a seat, just so he could let Frank Senior see the chair had been left just for him, to show full respect to his uncle.
While he sat there, waiting, Frank thought how conflicted he felt about his uncle. There was tremendous gratitude for all the old man’s help in setting up the job and sorting out the laundering of the cash afterwards. On the other hand was what Frankie had done to Mary Lou. Cocksucker.
A wind blew through the building and sent a shiver down Frank’s spine. And the shiver kept going after the breeze died down.
At this point, Uncle Frankie arrived in the room, Frank stood up and walked over to greet him. A brief hug and Lagotti sat down in his chair and Frank resumed his position on his makeshift seat.
Once they’d settled down, Frankie cleared his throat and spoke with tremendous seriousness.
“I have one thing to say to you, my boy: Game on tomorrow.”
Frank discovered a flash of happiness surge through him when he heard those words. The plan was coming good. His plan was coming good.
“The circle is complete, Uncle Frankie. We’re all ready to go,” he heard himself say, but he was still thinking about how perfect things were going. The line of communication between them all had turned into a circle. It was such a beautiful thing to behold.
“Is there anything left for us to do before tomorrow?” Lagotti asked after a minute. Frank said there wasn’t and outlined what was left for the others to do before the morning.
Frankie asked Frank if there was anything he could do on the Tuesday. Again, Frank could think of nothing in particular and thanked Frankie for all his help. It was important Uncle Frank only thought positively of his nephew - without Frankie, they would be facing serious problems holding onto a large amount of dirty money.
“We’re all in this together. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed,” noted Lagotti, but while the words sounded reasonably warm, Frank had no real idea what he was talking about. For a moment, there was an awkward silence between the two of them, something that hadn’t really happened since Frank went into the slammer after his previous job and his uncle had tried to rig the jury and failed, so he said. But that was all water under the bridge. Frankie looked after him when he was in the penitentiary and made sure Mary Lou had a roof over her head and money in her pocket.
“We won’t be seeing each other for a while - not until the heat’s died down, so good luck and take care of yourself and your men.”
Frank let the warmth of those words soak inside him; Frankie knew how to say the right thing at the right time.
“I don’t need luck; I need steel,” replied Frank, not too certain quite what he meant, but it sure sounded good. The two men hugged and Lagotti squeezed Frank’s cheek just as he had down when Frank was a boy. Frank smiled back, patted Lagotti at the top of his arm near his shoulder and walked away.
Lagotti sat back in the chair and waited until he heard Frank’s junk heap depart the lot. Then he stood up and shivered. He hated this fucking place and was glad to be seeing the back of it, more or less.
When they found the vault empty, he’d suggest they meet up here. Then he’d point out the source of their information was the girl and he’d get Luigi - or maybe even Frank himself - to cap her there and then. The rest would flow naturally from that.
The old man strolled to his car and drove back to the auto repairs where he parked the car in its usual spot. Then it was time to pay a visit to th
e Kitkatt Club.
LIKE FRANK BEFORE him, the first time Brian visited Pete’s yard, he spent twenty futile minutes driving round trying to find the damn place. Unlike Frank, Brian’s spatial awareness meant he always found it easily after that. But they both discovered Pete might be great behind the wheel but was useless when riding shotgun. Couldn’t give you directions to find your dick during a hand job.
Pete gazed around his yard at all the vehicles in his domain before Brian’s arrival. Everything appeared fine. All the engines turned over okay, nothing sounded out of the ordinary and there was a full tank of gas in each car and truck. Locked and loaded.
Pete sat back on his bed with a cup of warm coffee in his hand. He sipped the brown drink until Brian showed up about a half hour later and the coffee dregs were stone cold.
First, they set about getting the saloons at the split up point outside Lansdowne. There was an old barn, long since used, Frank had scouted out and it looked just fine. There was plenty of space away from the road for everyone to park and ride without being seen. And no-one was going to go poking their noses in a dirty old place like that between now and the morning.
Each car was driven by Pete, and Brian followed him, so they could go back and forth to set things up. And Pete took a different route each time in case someone was following them - not that anyone had any reason to.
Next they took Mary Lou's convertible to an underground parking lot in Halethorpe for her to collect in the morning. In the trunk were the C4 and timers primed for action. All she had to do was flip the switch on the timer and attach them on the telegraph poles near the bank.
Finally, they drove the van into the same lot, but at opposite ends so Frank could start his route and pick up Andrew and Brian without any hassle.
Last of all, they drove back to the yard. Each trip together, they’d hardly said two words. Not because of any tension between them like the last time when they bought the guns. There was silence simply because there was nothing they needed or wanted to say to each other.
The Lagotti Family Series Page 19
