“Who?” The Judge’s eyes widened. For the briefest second, he looked thoroughly confused. “Richie Rubiano?” He recovered quickly. The mask of the all wise, all knowing returned. His voice registered moderately hidden scorn. “Is he connected to your friend in the hospital?”
Ted was thrown. He could not unsee that moment of nakedness on the Judge’s face. Either the puppet master had not been told of Richie’s murder, or something in the storyline Ted had devised was terribly wrong. Was it all wrong? No. The Judge had not so much as blinked when presented with charges of fraud, bribery, assault, and the attempted murder of Kenzie. But mention of Richie’s murder had taken him by surprise. Impossible. The tectonic plates of Ted’s world were in motion. He put his faith in what he knew to be true.
“Richie Rubiano worked for me,” Ted said. “He was married to Cheryl. Someone killed him. I believe because he was investigating, in his own clumsy manner, Barbara Miller’s surplus money. Jackie’s little rainy-day fund. Her fraud led directly to Richie’s death.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” the Judge said. He showed nothing more than a mild impatience. “The Reisners play hardball. Ask any of their competitors. They are capable of bending rules and making decisions that reflect ethical or moral persuasions many might find deplorable. That’s their world. Saints don’t prosper in the New York real estate markets. But murder? Or murder for hire? No, Ted. That is not possible.”
“I don’t think they control the situation anymore,” Ted said. He’d witnessed two murder attempts on McKenzie Zielinski and was still shaking off the effects of his fight with the assassin. He didn’t want to hear about the ethical gymnastics of the rich and powerful. “Reisner is working with people who will use any means necessary to protect their investments. Richie got in their way.”
The Judge blinked owlishly. Processing or denying? He mumbled something, then tried to steer the conversation back to what he knew. “The Russians are being handled. There will be no more assaults on your community organizer. You have my word.”
But Ted wasn’t buying. He didn’t want weak promises. He was disgusted with opportunistic morality. Lines had been crossed that should never have been approached. “She’s still in a coma, dammit, and you give me nothing but words.” A strong, beautiful, caring human being was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and a breath away from death, and no one would be held responsible. His stomach knotted at the outrage, and he yelled, “Who pays? Someone is going to prison for this. I swear it.”
The waiter appeared at the table, almost trembling. Ted had been loud, he realized, but there was no one else there to hear. The Judge waved Oliver away, but he presented a phone. “I am so sorry to intrude, but the policeman was insistent that he speak to you.” He pressed the phone into the Judge’s hands and retreated.
“This is Cornelius Fitzmaurice. To whom am I speaking?” The Judge’s voice held a lifetime of service on the bench.
Whoever it was wasted little time delivering his news. The Judge’s face registered shock, then anger. He listened for less than a minute, then spoke calmly and coldly. “Thank you for the call, Lieutenant Bass. I will not forget your consideration.” He pressed the button to disconnect and looked at Ted with a touch of confusion in his eyes. “Do you know a Stavros person?”
“I’ve met him. He’s a friend of Cheryl’s.” Ted could see the Judge was deeply shaken. He kept talking to hold back the delivery of more-terrible news. “A detective told me that he’s a small-time hood. An enforcer.”
Coldly, his mask in place, the Judge swung an arm across the table, sending glasses, plates, and silverware flying. The untouched burrata hit the floor and slid along it, leaving a trail, like a slug on steroids. The Judge looked surprised at what he’d done. “Sorry,” he said.
Ted stared in shock, not knowing how to respond to this eruption from a man who never seemed to lose control. Ted waited a moment, then finished what he had been reporting. “They call him Nicky Greco.”
The Judge nodded, playing catch-up, obviously putting pieces together in his head. His words came out without inflection, as emotionless as if he were reporting the daily rainfall statistics for the past month. “An hour ago, as Ron Reisner and his son were leaving the compound in Douglaston to come here, a man approached their car and shot both of them. The father is being taken to the hospital in serious condition. The son has been declared dead at the scene. Based on a witness’s description, the police are looking for this man, Stavros.”
Ted thought that at six foot eight with a shaved head shaped like a basketball and the physique of a steroidal gorilla, Stavros would be easy to identify. How easy he would be to find, however, depended on his cunning and luck.
“Greco, you said? Why has this man done this?” The Judge’s anger had withered, and what was left was helpless shock and confusion. “It was all arranged.”
Ted was so shocked by the transformation in this man, who had never before shown a sign of weakness, that at first he missed the implication in the Judge’s last words. All arranged?
Cheryl and her sudden confession. The light sentence. Even the payoff. The Judge would have been the one to direct all those arrangements.
And then Ted focused on the Judge’s question. Why would Nicky Greco do this? Murdering Reisner or his creep of a son wasn’t going to get the big Greek any closer to Cheryl’s supposed windfall from the surplus money. There never had been much of a chance of that anyway. So if money wasn’t the answer, what was left? Love, money, honor, or revenge. Revenge was merely a response to being thwarted in pursuit of one of the other three. Honor, in any of its guises, didn’t apply. That left only love. The big gorilla loved Cheryl Rubiano.
If Cheryl was taking the fall for Reisner and crew, Stavros Nikitopoulos, a.k.a. Nicky Greco, was going to make them pay. The Judge might understand murdering for love. “Why? Revenge. He’ll go after all of them. I’d have the police put a guard on Councilman Pak until this guy is caught.”
The Judge blinked again. He had aged decades in minutes. “Dear God,” he whispered.
Ted felt no sympathy for him. The Judge had operated as though he could control all the players, manipulating each one to secure success on his terms, as he saw fit.
A new revelation hit Ted.
“Jackie,” he said.