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Three weeks earlier.
Navy Pier was a zoo. The only place worse that Jericho could have met with a client would be at an actual zoo, but the client wasn't too interested in that. Of course, he wasn't a client quite yet, just a potential one. Jericho still hadn’t made that decision. He needed to meet him and feel whether this guy was worthy of being a client. That's how he made all of his business decisions. He had to meet a prospect and listen to their words. If it felt right, if it felt just, he took the job. Any time he made a decision that went against his gut, he regretted it. Listening to that little voice in his head kept him alive all these years.
The potential client reached out to Jericho through his old business card; black with an embossed J in the middle. Jericho had been trying to phase out those old Advantage Treatment cards, but was still, reluctantly, taking those jobs when they came up. The Golden Eagle Package didn't have quite the same traction as the old Advantage Treatment. Rebranding can be a bitch.
Jericho was willing to take a meeting but wanted to make sure it happened in a space that was a little bit more public than usual. Just in case. Sometimes it’s easier to get lost in a crowd. No one was going to break out into a fire fight in front of a crowd.
Navy Pier had been part of the city of Chicago's landscape for over a hundred years. During World War II, it was an actual naval training station. In the mid-90s, the city rebuilt and reopened the landmark as a giant mall on the lakefront with its now-iconic Ferris wheel.
Jericho didn't care for the induction of commercialism into the pier. He had been gone for so long that he still had trouble reconciling the changes to his city.
Jericho walked into the food court and scanned the area to see if anything caught his eye. One small irregularity, and he would walk away. Jericho promised himself when he got into the business, if a job felt wrong, he'd walk. It was a promise that he violated a few times and always paid for it. Since faking his death, the assassin in black had been feeling like he was living on borrowed time, as cliché as that sounded. Not that he wanted to do anything to test the theory. Nothing in the food court felt off. No mob goons or anything like that. Everything looked on the up and up. Jericho walked up to the Starbucks and placed his usual order: a trenta cold brew. He grabbed his cup of coffee and took that first glorious, icy sip. Something about that bittersweet taste always mellowed him out. Cold brew coffee was a lot like life. Sometimes all you tasted was bitter. Other times, it was cold and refreshing. But no matter what, it was always better than the alternative. The alternatives being no coffee and death. Pretty much the same thing.
Jericho turned back again to scan the surroundings and saw a man seated alone at a table. He looked about forty-five with thinning hair on top and a little overweight. He had sort of an Italian look. Not like the guy was Al Capone or anything like that, but he could've been a cousin or something.
Jericho walked over and pulled out a chair. The lone man at the table looked up. "Are you Mr. Joseph Amato?"
The man nodded and turned left, then right. He also seemed to be on the look-out for any Soprano stereotypes himself.
"I'm Joey Amato."
"Well, Mr. Amato, you wanted a meeting. Let's have a meeting."
Amato looked completely uncomfortable in this situation. He clearly didn't like being here, which was odd considering he was part of the most famous crime family in Chicago's history.
The Amato crime syndicate picked up the slack shortly after the Giancana family faded away. The Amatos kept a lower profile than Capone did back in the day, or like Giancana in the 60s. The mafia had to keep quiet these days. The old school Italian mafia still wielded a lot of power, especially in the Near West suburbs. Jericho had managed to keep himself off their radar, and vice versa, for a long time.
But Joey Amato didn't strike him as the typical mob guy. He looked more like someone more comfortable in front of a computer screen than making shady business deals. But that might have been the game he was running.
"I really don't want to be here," Amato said.
"That makes two of us. So, why are we here then?"
"I don't know what other choice I had."
"Mr. Amato, as long as we're doing the whole honesty thing, I'm not terribly comfortable taking this type of meeting either. I've had a long career without having to take work from organizations like yours. Unlike you guys, I'm legit."
"Mister...I'm sorry, I'm not sure of your name."
"Mr. Miyahara."
"Miyahara? Yeah, right. It's not like you think, Mr. Miyahara. I'm not like my family. Growing up, this life was kinda laid out for me, but I never wanted it. I just wanted to go to school and work on computers."
Computer guy. Jericho could read him, all right. "But that's not the way things work out sometimes. Isn't it, Mr. Amato?"
"No, that's exactly the way it worked out. I'm not in the family business. I don't want anything to do with it. I just want to do my thing and be left alone."
"Then, why have this conversation?"
"Five years ago, this guy was looking to move up in the family business. Started making moves. Everyone knows I don't want anything to do with the family, and this kinda goes on without me knowing. Then one day, I get a call from a cousin."
"A cousin?"
"We'll leave it at cousin. He tells me someone might be looking to take me out."
"So, if you say you're not part of the business, why would anyone want to take you out? Seems like a waste of time."
"The problem is, I am still part of the family. To anyone wanting to move up in the family, maybe trying to establish a name, I might be an easy target," Amato wiped his nose. "Let's be honest, I kinda am."
"So, some hitman wants to make a name for himself by taking out the boss' son. Old story. New players. So, what happened?"
"What happened is my fifteen-year-old son decided to take the Lexus out for a ride without telling his mother or me. What he didn't know was this guy wired my car."
"When you say 'wire,' do you mean...?"
"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean."
Jericho turned away to the spacious windows overlooking Lake Michigan. "Damn."
"Yeah."
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Words didn't have to be said. Jericho got it. Poor kid takes Dad's car out for a little ride and winds up exploding. Goddamn awful.
"So... you’re asking me to take this son of a bitch out?"
"Not really...see...I don't know how to say it." Amato couldn't look him in the eyes at that point. "The guy isn't even part of the family. He's just some hanger-on who wants to be a part of things. Then he killed my baby boy."
Jericho didn't like where this was going. He had a soft spot for kids. Even teenagers. But he had a real soft spot for a guy trying to shed the sins of the father. Jericho understood that one very well. Family business was something he wanted nothing to do with either.
“The guy got caught. He was arrested, tried, and convicted. He’s supposed to be doing twenty-five years up in Waukesha State."
"That don't sound like a small liberal arts college."
"It's a medium-security prison in Wisconsin."
Jericho nodded, pretending to not understand. "Medium security?"
"We're not talking about the most dangerous hitman in the world. On top of being a failed killer, he's also kind of an idiot."
"So, instead of impressing folks, he pissed them off?”
"That's right. The family wasn't too happy about Joey Sr's only grandson getting killed. They turned on him quick."
"So, again, why are we having this conversation?” Jericho asked.
"Because he's out. For some reason, this guy was released from prison after serving only three years of a twenty-five year sentence. Now, he's skipped town. Rumor is he's gone up north to Alaska."
"He was released?"
"Yep."
The only reason someone like Parker Cassata would get an early release was if he had information. The only people with power to make that happen would be the State Police or the FBI. But what do they stand to gain by letting some two-bit schmuck like Cassata out of prison?
"What are you asking me for, Mr. Amato?"
"Well, Mr. Miyahara, I'm thinking I'd like to have him taken care of."
"That's not the kinda work I do. If you're looking for a hit—"
"If I wanted a hitman, I'd call my little brother, and he'd find someone fast. I want a guy who's going to make things right. I don't want a mob war. I want someone who understands a father who lost his only son. I don't want a killer. I want an avenger."
Damn.
"Okay. Let's talk."