“Tell me you’re fucking kidding,” Robert said as Alex told him about the police visits to their offices. “They killed some kid?”
“Both women had children, and I told the guy to make it look like an accident,” Alex said calmly. “All I can think is something went wrong.”
“Killing a kid isn’t an accident, Alex, it’s a fucking disaster. It’s the kind of fucking disaster that makes people crazy about demanding the police find whoever did it.” Robert banged his fist on the desk a few times before he glared at Alex. “This was an easy job. Kill the accountants. That’s it.”
“I know that, but I didn’t kill the kids, and I sure as hell didn’t order that.” Alex stood and turned his back on him. “Jesus, who the fuck does that? Did he think there was a bonus for both of them?”
“Get Dean up here.”
Alex walked to the door and opened it. “I already called him up since I figured you’d want to see him.”
“Tell me.” He hoped Dean was smart enough not to need a ton of directions here.
“The two detectives came to ask questions about Naomi first, and they seem satisfied we didn’t have any connection to this.” Dean’s hair was out of his usual neat style, and his shirt was sweat stained. “When Brinley’s mother got here asking questions, I had no other play but to call them back. Shit, guys, we killed a kid? Or two?”
“Myers’s mother came here?” he asked, and Dean nodded. “I thought you both said she had no family here.”
“She doesn’t,” Alex said. “She arrived last night for a visit from New Orleans.”
“And she’s the type who’s not going to let this go,” Dean said and told him about his talk with Wilma. “I asked if Brinley mentioned anything about work and she said no, but I think she’s lying.”
“No one in the building is paying you to think about anything but the books, smart guy. Telling her or the police we had nothing to do with this is like telling them we did it,” he said, punching the desktop twice more. “If anyone else comes, you send them up here.”
“Yes, sir. What about Brinley and her son?” Dean asked.
“With any luck she’ll never be found. Let’s hope our other guy dropped the kid somewhere, or this will be radioactive.” Dean stood up and Alex placed his hands on his shoulders from behind. “Dean, you’ve been here long enough to know to keep your mouth shut, right? You letting anything slip to the police over a girl who was never going to fuck you unless she was tied down would not be healthy for you. You screw up, and we’ll introduce you to Caterina Terzo’s dark side, and she will fuck you.”
“Come on, Robert. You know I’m solid.”
“Get out of here and finish all that audit stuff yourself,” he said and dropped into his office chair. When he opened his eyes he noticed Dean’s pained expression. “What?”
“Brinley took a few boxes to finish at home since we’re on a tight deadline, and so did Naomi.”
“We all know Naomi’s aren’t a problem, but that’s not true of the rest. If Myers’s car gets dumped and the police get to it first, and those boxes are in there, I’m going to kill you to make myself feel better.” He leaned back and closed his eyes again. If he could kill Francesco and his two evil spawn, he would. That’s who was to blame for all this, since they’d pushed to expand way too fast and without a lot of planning. Francesco and his need to rush had pushed him into this fucked-up corner.
“You want me to call and have the car torched? Have him search the house?” Alex asked when they were alone.
“And invite our contractor to make some more money off me when they try to sell the paperwork back to us?” He poured himself a finger of whiskey and swallowed it. “Let’s give it until tonight, and if this one did his job, the cops won’t find the car.”
“Then I’ll check in the morning and get the boxes myself if they’re in her place.” Alex sat back down and shook his head when Robert picked up the bottle again. “It’s no time to lose your head.”
“The day can’t get any worse, unless there’s something else you’re not telling me.” He poured a little more, but as he lifted his glass, Caterina Terzo came in with her man Leon Santiago.
“That was like tempting fate.” Alex sighed and poured himself a drink.
“You don’t seem happy to see me,” Caterina said, motioning for Leon to stand by the door. “You put my father off, and for what?” She glared at them. “Then imagine my surprise when I watched the news this morning…Still, my phone was silent.”
“You coming over here isn’t going to help anything.” He was starting not to care how Caterina or anyone in her family felt about how he spoke to them. None of them understood the importance of not going through life like Godzilla in one of those old movies. Rushing and smashing things that were hard to put back together wasn’t his style, even if he had played his card on the accountants a little quickly. Their business had to be planned out if they wanted to keep going, but the Terzos were only interested in getting their money cleaned while everyone else took all the risks.
“Bobby, don’t get ahead of yourself. When you took my father’s deal, you understood what was expected of you. If you didn’t, keep that to yourself.” Caterina, as always, spoke like she was ordering in restaurants or talking about the weather. It was like killing and threatening people was an everyday occurrence. “Explaining now would have to take place somewhere you could scream all you want.”
“Let’s be honest with each other, Caterina, and admit you need me as much as I need you. This deal needs both sides, so don’t fucking come in here and threaten me.”
Leon got to him with impressive speed, but he didn’t say anything else after the big guy took the glass he’d been drinking out of and smashed it against Robert’s forehead. He blinked against the blood dripping into his eyes.
“The other thing to remember,” Caterina’s tone hadn’t changed, “is you’re an asshole we found with the qualifications to run a used-car lot and not much more. You’re here because you can follow directions, not because you’re a genius.” She might as well be saying it might rain tomorrow.
He pressed a wad of tissue to his head. “I was at another casino, so don’t try to rewrite history.” He tried to turn away before Leon hit him again but the fist to the side of his head hurt just as much. He leaned against the desk, determined not to drop to his knees in front of her. “Come on, Caterina. I’m not your enemy.”
“What the hell did you do?” Caterina asked, putting a finger up when Leon cocked his fist back to hit him yet again.
There was no other choice but to explain. He slumped into his chair. “I was doing research on the numbers to see how much more we can filter through this casino, since you and I both know this place is a dump. If, all of a sudden, we’re dishing out millions more, someone’s going to notice. You want that kind of heat on you?” He rolled his chair a little away from Leon to buy time. “Give me Victor’s slot next door, and Francesco would have to triple his operation to max out capacity.”
“You bring down an iron curtain on this place when the cops start to squeeze everyone for information on two dead women and their kids, and you expect to be rewarded for that?” Caterina laughed and shook her head. “Are you delusional?”
“Did you want me to leave them out there with the real picture of what we’re really doing?” He hoped she’d see reason. “We needed the report to move forward, to prove to your father we couldn’t handle a lot more at once. But we couldn’t have loose ends when it came to who knew about the numbers.”
“Get Dean up here,” Caterina said and snapped her fingers, prompting Alex to dial. “Shut up,” she said when Robert opened his mouth again. “You had your chance to talk, and I’m tired of listening to your long list of mistakes.”
Dean arrived and explained what the audit was supposed to prove, and how it differed from the books they kept for the purpose of the gaming commission. “Robert’s right in that adding much more isn’t impossible, but it has to be done slowly. There’s no way to hide much more than we do already.”
“If this audit was necessary to prove that, why didn’t you do it?” Caterina asked, and Robert saw how Dean swallowed hard. His pronounced Adam’s apple was a dead giveaway.
“I gave him two weeks because I didn’t want to put Francesco off longer than that,” Robert said. “He wouldn’t have made the deadline on his own. The women were expendable.”
“You’ve got an answer for everything.” Caterina stood. “Concentrate on your business and stop dreaming about the place next door. That might be a reach unless you can prove to us you can navigate your way out of this shitstorm. From what I can tell, all you can do is get yourselves into a world of hurt. At some point, I think you’ll become expendable too.”
“Do you want to stop moving money until the cops are finished with whatever they’re going to do about our two problems?” He wiped his eyes again and his fingers came away bloody. If he needed stitches after the big son of a bitch Leon hit him, he was going to be pissed.
“If you want to keep breathing, then you’ll keep working, and do whatever you can to send the cops somewhere else.” Caterina turned toward the door but stopped. “Who’d you ask to help you? Their names,” Caterina asked, staring at Dean.
Robert glanced at Dean and nodded slightly. “Naomi Williams was found dead this morning, but one of our new hires, Brinley Myers, is missing,” Dean said, and Caterina mouthed something under her breath.
Caterina looked from him to Dean. “Were you drunk when you came up with this plan?”
“I was only looking out for our business,” he said, but his stomach clenched, since now it sounded even dumber than it had before.
“It’s a casino, Einstein. Laundering money through a casino isn’t exactly difficult,” Caterina said loudly, finally looking like she was pissed off. “But instead of doing what my father asked, you set your sights on bigger things and completely lost your mind. Now you’ve fucked us because the cops are going to be relentless on account of the little kid. Add another one to that, and someone has to go down.”
“Naomi Williams didn’t have any family except for her daughter, and she wasn’t anyone important, so it shouldn’t take long for the police to disappear. We went over this already.” Robert didn’t care how it looked—he poured himself another drink.
“What about this other woman? What’s her story?” Caterina asked, sitting back down and crossing her legs again as if she intended to stay a while.
“What about her?” Robert asked.
“Dean,” Caterina said, “start talking.”
“Brinley started last week, and she didn’t mind the workload I asked of her. When we went to lunch at Paris, she was there with Naomi. Remember, I pointed them out.”
Caterina pinched her left eyebrow. “Wait, the pretty blonde?”
“That’s her, but I got suspicious when Naomi started whispering to her. I’m sorry, I should’ve done the work myself, but I had a pile on my desk only I could do. Since no one but me ever looks at everything at once, I didn’t think it’d be a problem.” Dean was talking fast again, and it only seemed to make Caterina angrier.
“Will she be found?” Caterina asked Robert.
“She and her son are missing, and we answered all the cops’ questions, and they left. Whatever happened to her, she’s with a professional, so she won’t be found.” Robert slapped his hands together and stood. “We’ll do what you said and go back to work. Believe me, you have my word, nothing like this will happen again.”
“You used all your strikes today,” Caterina said, standing as well.
Robert was sure she was ready to run back to Francesco and lobby for his death.
“Start praying your mistakes really do disappear.” Caterina and Leon left, the door shutting softly behind them.
“Are we in trouble?” Dean asked. He looked even sweatier than he had when they’d called him in.
“Get back to work and try not to overshare again.” Robert needed to get out for a little while and forget the downward slide his life and job had taken.
“Stop worrying,” Alex said. “The contractor working the second job is the best in the business.”
“For both our sakes, I hope so. Caterina’s right that all this was unnecessary, but we can’t kill Dean just yet.”