EPILOGUE

The Brass Rail restaurant had been at Second and Washington Streets in Hoboken for more than a hundred years, and despite the stories about it being haunted by ghosts after a new bride died from a fall down the spiral staircase in 1904, Nora always thought of it as the special-occasion place in Hoboken. And this is a special occasion because this is goodbye, she thought, as she sat holding the table for four on the second floor by the windows.

Benny was the next to arrive, his bulk emerging from the swinging double doors at the top of the staircase. Nora waved and beamed at him.

“Mr. Rough,” she said as he drew near, “welcome to Hoboken.”

“Ms. Smooth,” he responded, sliding into a chair. “Always a pleasure. Do you know this is my first time in your fair city? And did you also know that baseball—”

She cut him off. “Stop, stop, I don’t want to have dinner with my father, as much as I loved him. Yes, I know the baseball history. Yes, I know Cooperstown is a fraud. Yes, I know anti-Italian bias is to blame for Hoboken not having its rightful place in history.”

“Didn’t know that last part,” Benny said with a smile, “but okay, no baseball. How the heck are you?”

“Honestly, Benny, I’m still having trouble with Kyra and Conor getting away with it.”

Benny made a sour face. “So I’ve given this a lot of thought. Forget Conor. He’s just a pawn. The real chess game was between two dirtball kings—or queens, in this case. First he was with one, then the other. He’s nothing. It was between Kyra and Gina all along. And the good news is that the one who was a mass murderer lost, even though the winner is still a piece of crap.”

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

He held up one finger. “The first moves were Kyra’s, reconnecting with Conor to get to Burke and marrying him. Then, when things went south, she got Conor to send Gina in to ‘talk’ to Burke, which solved her awful-husband problem, and she told Conor to order the dinner, which shoulda fucked Gina to solve a second problem—freeing Conor from that relationship.”

Now he added a second finger. “Of course, Gina had prepared her own move, dressing up as Kyra and fucking her right back when the dinner order blew up the ‘suicide’ thing, getting her arrested as Killer Kyra.”

Then a third finger. “But Kyra got another move. She couldn’t say she knew Gina had visited Burke that night, because that would splash back all over her, and Conor. Right? Her defense is that she’s innocent because she helped arrange for a mob killer to go see her estranged husband? Not exactly a get-out-of-jail-free card. But she found a better way, with no splash, when I was stupid enough to tell Matty Parker that D’Amico was flipping. Kyra ordered Conor to tell Gina that The Nose was ratting her out. And you know Kyra did it because, remember, Gina said Conor gave her the actual name—D’Amico; Matty Parker never gave him that. It had to be Kyra. She knew Gina would whack him, which would bring the feds in to investigate The Nose’s murder, nailing Gina and clearing Kyra. Sure, it was a two-cushion bank shot for Kyra, but better than confessing she was mixed up with Gina going to see Burke.”

Benny dropped his hand. “Of course, Gina doesn’t fully understand the game, which is why her final move was so pathetic—telling us from jail that Conor’s a piece of shit. Of course he is, but, in this game, just a little piece. The big one is Kyra Burke, the queen behind him, and she won.”

Nora looked deflated. “Yeah, I know you’re right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept Kyra getting away with her moves.”

Benny nodded. “Sure, but I guess my question is, ‘getting away with’ what, exactly? I’m just telling you what’s true, not what we can prove. Because, even with you as a witness to her very careful statements in the garden, what case we got against Kyra? We’d need Gina even if we were gonna give it a shot, and she ain’t willing, and that’s just as well, because the fact that she’s an actual homicidal maniac would make her a pretty shitty witness for the United States against the Governor of New York, dontcha think?”

“I do,” Nora answered quietly.

“And we got Conor ordering the dinner, but even if he admits it was Kyra’s idea—and why would he do that?—it don’t mean shit unless Gina gives context, and we’re back to the same problem. There’s a reason Carmen and our esteemed US Attorney agreed there’s nothing there. ’Cause there isn’t.”

Nora let out an audible sigh. “I know, I know. It just feels like we never proved the truth. And we put up Conor as a witness when we now know he didn’t tell the full truth.”

Benny shook his head. “Which is why you sent Butler that letter telling him what we’ve learned about Conor, which does Gina and everybody else absolutely no good.”

He exhaled loudly before continuing. “I worry you’re aiming at the wrong target, with all this ‘truth’ stuff. Our job is to lock up bad people to protect good people—when we have the admissible evidence to prove it. Sometimes that means we gotta use other bad people to do it. Sometimes that means people we know are motherless fucks are gonna get away. But I’ve never really thought of our job as ‘finding truth.’ That’s not what the system is for. Our job is to live in gray, find the ones who have drifted into black and hammer them, so all the people sleeping soundly in white can stay that way.”

“I wish I saw it so clearly, Benny, I really do. And even if we can’t prove it to a jury, we know our governor is, at the very least, a dishonest person, and she is quite likely a really bad person who conspired with Conor McCarthy to commit murder using Gina Cufaro as the weapon.”

“Yeah, that’s where I’m a bit jaded, I suppose. We’ve had bad people in high office for a long time—startin’ with some presidents in my lifetime I could name—and somehow we stumble on. Remember, you’re Ms. Smooth—you can’t let it drag you down.”

Nora sighed again. “I’ll try. I really will.” Then her face lit up as Carmen and Jessica emerged from the double doors and headed toward the table.

“Hey you two,” Carmen said as they took chairs, “sorry we’re late. The PATH train stopped under the Hudson for some unknown reason.”

“And not even an incomprehensible and terrifying announcement,” Jessica added with a smile, “like you get in the New York subway—you know, garble garble smoke and death garble garble. Just sat there in silence. What’s up with that?”

“Jersey grows on you, eventually,” Nora said. “And hey, you made it. I’m so glad the team could get together away from the office.”

Unfolding her napkin, Carmen now slipped comfortably into her supervisor role. “Let’s order, ’cause I’m starving, then I want a report from everyone.”

After the waiter collected the menus, Nora began. “I wanted to get us together so I could tell you—I’ve decided to take a job in Westport, Connecticut, so my mom and I can be near Sophie, Nick, and his new wife, Vicki.”

“Oh no,” Jessica said. “Why?”

“Well, for the reason I said—to bring the family geography closer—but, honestly, for a couple other reasons, which is why I’m not going to try to transfer to the US Attorney’s office in Connecticut. I’m a little burned out on this work, especially after what this team has been through. I need to step away, at least for a while. And I’d like to make some more money so my mom stops carrying us, and I want the money to put Sophie through college. I’m going to run compliance for a big hedge fund in Westport called Saugatuck Associates—named for the river there. They manage money for a lot of pension funds and, best as I can tell, are honest, and very rich, people. So that’s my news.”

“Damn,” Jessica said, “bad news for the good guys.”

Carmen cleared her throat. “And speaking of bad news for Team USA, I’m bailing on the office too.”

Benny hadn’t been surprised by Nora’s news, but now he whipped his head to Carmen. “What? Oh, boss, no.”

Carmen’s eyes filled as she looked at Benny. “Yeah, ’fraid so,” she said. “It’s time for my little crew to move out of the rented left half of a house, and the only way that’s gonna happen is if I bring home more bacon. One of our former colleagues—you know Dave Berkeley,” she said to Nora and Benny, “who’s now at Benedict and Karp—reached out to me. They need a lateral partner to work internal investigations, maybe some white-collar defense. And it’s a financial offer I can’t turn down. Well, it’s an offer I didn’t turn down.”

Benny let out a loud breath. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said with a grin. “I thought you were gonna tell us it was gonna be Butler and Garcia, offering a full spectrum of legal services to America’s finest mah-fye-ah members.”

“No,” Carmen laughed, “I’m going to Midtown, not to hell.”

Benny turned to Jessica. “Okay, they’re dead to us. Tell me about you. Staying in our country’s service?”

“Yes, I am,” Jessica answered. “Got at least twenty more left with the Bu.” Turning to Benny, she added, “They, and you, are stuck with me. I’m counting on it.”

“Good to hear,” Carmen answered. “And you, Mr. Dugan?”

The three women all looked at Benny.

“First,” he said, looking at Jessica, “I’m glad at least one of you is staying with these United States.” Turning to Carmen and Nora, he added, “As for you two, it had to happen eventually. All the good ones leave. I’ve learned that, so it’s just part of life, part of this job. Don’t mean I like it, but it is what it is.”

He tapped an enormous index finger on his own chest. “As for me, I ain’t goin’ no place. Honestly, I’m the happiest I’ve been since losing Bunny. I love being a grandfather and I’m slowly buildin’ something good with my boys. One of the reasons I can’t be pissed at you two for leavin’ is that it’s about your families. It always has to be about them, or we’ll never be truly happy. You knuckleheads taught me that. It’s the thing we can control, in a world where we can’t lock up every bad guy or always see the right answer clearly.”

The waiter set their drinks on the table. Benny lifted his Pilsner beer glass, a serious look on his face. “I wanna offer a toast,” he began, looking from face to face. “This team is a family for me, and I hope for you too. We been ‘through it,’ as we say. This ain’t the mob, but we’ll be there for each other, always, capisce? There ain’t extra good people in this world, so we gotta stick together. You need, you call. We’ll have each other’s backs. Agreed?”

The three women each looked around the table. “Agreed,” they answered in unison as they extended their arms, bringing the four glasses together over the table.

There was an awkward silence after the toast before Carmen broke it. “So no dripping blood from our trigger fingers onto a picture of a saint, huh?”

Benny smiled. “I’m open to suggestions.”