The policemen who tackle the Bonded Vault case are the sort others are inclined to describe as “cops’ cops.” These guys are rarely off the mark. They can be controversial or occasionally brash. Mostly they are unflinchingly tough, bright, thorough, and downright ruthless in pursuit of those who are incorrigibly and determinedly their opposite.
Each of them works several cases, so they rotate in and out of the heist investigation, but Bonded Vault is a priority.
The highest-ranking officer is State Police Maj. Lionel “Pete” Benjamin, Col. Walter Stone’s hand-picked number-two man and chief of detectives. He is ramrod straight, five feet nine inches tall, weighs in at about 190 pounds, and has a barrel for a chest. His hair is dark, thinning, combed straight back, and his smile is so perfectly white that it’s disarming. Benjamin is the impeccable embodiment of what Stone wants every one of his troopers to be, and he is the most cunning of men.
No matter which side of the law you’re on, every promise, every kindness, every wrong or slippery deed, whether done for a greater good or a lesser evil, has a consequence. It’s Newton’s third law, and heroes and villains alike are suckled on it: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes you can predict it, sometimes you can’t, which is precisely what makes the playing of the game fundamentally nasty and inherently dangerous.
It falls to Benjamin to help Stone develop a network of informants who can pry open a private window on organized crime. It’s no small chore, working snitches. Give a little, get a little, and always put it to work. Bit by bit by hard-won bit, the commerce of detection is always in progress—whispered tips, secrets, requests, and favors; innumerable dances with the devil and all of his wretched, cloven-hooved friends.
Stone and Benjamin years ago set up an Organized Crime Intelligence Unit within the state police.
One of its mainstays is Det. Lt. Vincent Vespia Jr. He knows Il Padrino and a good many of his associates because he grew up with many of them on Federal Hill. Vespia is handsome, quick, and unafraid. He once donned a football helmet and shoulder pads and, carrying a shotgun, raided an illegal gambling enterprise on the Hill by crashing through a second-floor window from the raised basket of a cherry picker.
There’s Lt. Michael Urso, soft-spoken, built like a defensive lineman, and instrumental in some of the state’s biggest cases.
Another is Lt. Anthony J. Mancuso, a well-liked, savvy, and particularly resourceful investigator.
Immediately after the robbery, they turn up the heat on their cluster of confidential informants, and Benjamin presses one man in particular, one of the best-placed, longest lived, and most reliable rats anywhere in the Northeast—a cruel and cold-blooded, red-headed killer named Richard Gomes of North Providence, Rhode Island, aka “Red Bird.”