Frank Lazzaro had never needed a lot of sleep. Three or four hours would do it for him. He had shut his eyes around three in the morning and awakened at seven. He checked his cell, thinking he must have missed a call from Rocca and Belletiere about Alec’s car. But there hadn’t been any call.
“What the fuck is up with those clowns?” he muttered.
He tried Rocca’s cell, then Belletiere’s. Both calls bounced to voicemail. He tried Belletiere’s home phone. His wife Sophie said he hadn’t been home all night. She wasn’t worried; Paul didn’t exactly keep regular hours.
But Frank was getting a little concerned. It occurred to him that the boys might have run into some trouble with the police. They’d been trespassing on the island, after all. If they’d been arrested, they would have called Frank’s attorney, Howie Springer. Frank got in touch with him. Springer hadn’t heard a thing.
This was starting to get spooky. Something wasn’t right.
Over breakfast, Frank tracked down DiRosario and Costello and told them to go to Devil’s Hook and see if the car had been moved. Victoria, washing dishes in the sink, overheard his end of the conversation and had to be told about Alec. She didn’t exactly break down in tears. She’d never been a fan of the kid, or of any of Frank’s family members. Ordinarily, Frank might have taught her a little respect, but at the moment he had other things on his mind.
He shaved, showered, and dressed in his trademark Armani suit and Charvet necktie. He was reviewing some paperwork when Costello got through to him on his cell. He and DiRosario were at the cottage, and they had bad news.
“It’s a goddamn crime scene,” Costello said. “Cops all over the place. Paulie and Lou—they’re dead, Frank.”
He shut his eyes, feeling suddenly winded. “How?”
“Dunno the details. It’s not like we can go up to the cops and ask. But Paulie’s Impala is there, and we seen two body bags being loaded onto a morgue wagon. You got a TV signal at your place?”
“Yeah, the dish is still working.”
“Turn on channel four. They got a news van here and they’re gonna go live in a minute.”
Frank switched on the set in the den and watched the live update from Devil’s Hook. Two reputed mobsters killed in a shootout. A car linked to a third party, the cottage’s owner, Alec Dante, currently a person of interest to the authorities.
Frank stamped at the remote, killing the TV. He put his head in his hands and tried to make sense of it. How the fuck …?
Maybe that little scrote Fish Face had been jerking him off. Maybe the Long Fong Boyz knew about Alec all the time and were keen on having a war. It had to be something like that. He couldn’t believe this woman, Bonnie Parker, was behind it. One gun-toting twat couldn’t do that much damage, and why would she have been back on Devil’s Hook anyway? For that matter, what would the Long Fong Boyz be doing there?
None of it added up. He was feeling itchy and antsy, and he could sense the black beast stirring in its cave.
That was when he’d left the house in Saddle River, heading into Jersey City in search of answers.
The drive was rough, and not just because the roads were fucked. He had trouble concentrating. Rage and sorrow competed for his attention. He couldn’t believe Rocca and Belletiere were gone, just like that. They’d been with him for years. Not the brightest bulbs, but loyal and dependable and always good for a laugh. Dead now—killed while running a stupid errand, picking up a car. After all the shit they’d been through, all the threats they’d survived.
The last he’d seen of them was when they left the warehouse, having helped Frank put Tommy Chang into the drum.
No body, no murder—that was Frank’s motto. Without a corpse, a murder prosecution was nearly impossible. So unless you wanted to send somebody a message, the corpse had to disappear. A drum was the easiest way.
Along one line of shelves in the warehouse stood a row of 55-gallon steel drums. Together he and Rocca had upended one of them and rolled it over to the chair, where Belletiere was busy cutting Chang’s body loose. They stuffed the kid inside, headfirst, and stood the drum upright. Chang’s bare feet stuck up like flowers in a vase. Frank pushed them down, bending the corpse’s knees.
Rocca and Belletiere handled the rest, while Frank returned Virgil to the office and fed him some chopped liver as a treat. By the time he came back, the drum had been filled with five bags’ worth of Sakrete instant concrete and water from a hose. The hose also proved useful in washing down the blood-flecked floor.
The concrete would take twenty-four hours to set. At some point down the line, the drum’s lid would be sealed, and the whole thing would be trucked to a landfill, where it would join a million tons of garbage. And Tommy Chang would never be found.
They had locked up the warehouse, and Frank had dispatched Rocca and Belletiere to collect Alec’s Porsche, because he didn’t want the local cops asking questions about it. What had happened after that was a fucking mystery. And he had to admit, it unnerved him a little. He’d been sure to pay his respects to Santa Muerte at his bedroom shrine before leaving the house.
Jersey City was mostly without power, and the waterfront was a flooded mess. Luckily, Alec hadn’t lived on the water. The gate to the building’s underground garage stood open, presumably because it wouldn’t operate without electricity. No one was guarding the garage, so Frank drove in and found a dry spot to park. He could have parked on the street, but he preferred to keep the Mercedes out of sight. There was no telling exactly what was about to go down, and he didn’t need an eyewitness placing him at the scene.
Ever since interrogating Tommy Chang, Frank had been recalling his conversation with Harry the doorman. One detail in particular kept coming back: Alec had gotten into a dispute with his neighbors. At the time Frank hadn’t asked for details, but he wanted the details now. A pissed-off neighbor with surplus disposable income might be just the person to hire a PI with a reputation as a triggerman.
Frank took the Ruger from the gym bag, along with a screw-on silencer, slipping both into a pocket of his raincoat, then pulled on black gloves. It paid to be careful when there was trouble afoot.
He found Harry at his post. The doorman was surprised to see him back so soon, and clearly uneasy about the look in Frank’s eyes. Maybe he’d seen the news. Maybe not. Frank didn’t give much of a shit either way.
“Hey, Mr. Lazzaro. You just can’t stay away.”
“Got an inquiry for you, Harry.” No small talk this time. “You said my nephew, he got into a situation with his downstairs neighbors?”
“Uh, yeah. This have anything to do with why the police were snooping around?”
“The police were here?”
Harry nodded. “I had to give them access to Alec’s unit. They had a warrant,” he added defensively. “They weren’t there too long, though.”
“They’re gone now?”
“Left about a half hour ago.”
That was lucky. Frank didn’t want to waste time dealing with the police. “You tell them anything about the neighbors?”
“No sir.”
“Tell me. Tell it all.”
“Well, it happened a couple months ago. I don’t really know the details.”
“Just tell me what you do fucking know.” Frank was in no mood for bullshit.
“Uh, okay. It was the Wallings in number 1008. Well, Dr. Walling, anyway. I saw him and Alec get into it in the lobby once.”
“A fight?”
“Nah, just the two of them getting in each other’s face. Dr. Walling says Alec’s been making a lot of noise in his place and it’s coming right through the ceiling. He’s pretty hot about it. Then Alec leans in close and says something real quiet, and Walling backs off.”
“This Walling sounds like a goddamn pussy.”
“You know it. Your boy scared the shit out of him. He must’ve crapped his cotton Dockers.”
“Did it go any further?”
“I’m pretty sure the Wallings reported the noise situation to the condo board. A formal complaint, that kind of thing. You know, violation of the rules, lowering their unit’s resale value, blah blah blah.”
“The board take action?”
“They might have sent Alec a letter. No big deal.”
“Other neighbors complain?”
“Not that I know. Most of them—well, they know who Alec is. They’re smart enough not to make trouble.”
“Yeah. But this Walling, he’s not so smart. What kind of doc is he, anyway?”
“Aaron Walling? He’s an orthodontist. Married. No kids.”
“They around now?”
“The wife’s not. She went to Philly to get away from the storm. Hubby’s still in town. I saw him this morning … Um, why d’you ask?”
“Not important.”
Harry didn’t seem to like where this was going. He tried to pull in the reins. “I don’t think it amounted to anything, Mr. Lazzaro. You know, just a little dustup between neighbors. Happens every day.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Frank returned to the garage, thinking hard. It seemed incredible that anybody would put Alec out of commission on account of a fucking noise complaint. But there could have been more to it. Who knew what Alec had said to this clown Walling, what kind of threats he’d made? Anything was possible.
Walling could have hired Parker—or the whole scenario could be wrong. Frank still didn’t know. But there might be a way to find out.
From his time as owner of Alec’s condo, he knew that residents garaged their vehicles in assigned spaces, and the numbers of the spaces corresponded to the unit numbers. Walling would park in space 1008. Frank checked it out. A black BMW was sitting there.
Okay, it was a safe bet Walling was home, which made sense, since who would be out and about on the day after a hurricane? The whole Eastern Seaboard was a fucking disaster area.
Back in his Mercedes, Frank found the SIM card he’d salvaged from Alec’s cell phone. He took a throwaway cell from his glovebox, tossed the SIM card that came with it, and installed Alec’s. Now the throwaway was a clone of his nephew’s phone, and when he made a call, Alec’s name would show up on caller ID.
From an online directory he obtained Aaron Walling’s home number. Smiling fiercely, he punched it in.
Walling’s phone rang five times—long enough, Frank estimated, for Walling to have lifted the handset and seen the caller’s name.
Six rings, seven. It would go to voicemail if the son of a bitch didn’t pick up soon. If the guy had been really spooked by Alec, there was a chance he would be too much of a wuss to take the call.
Frank had almost resigned himself to failure when he heard a click and a strangely hesitant, rather throaty, “Hello?”
Though he was no mimic, Frank believed he could match his nephew’s voice well enough for a word or two.
“This is Alec Dante,” he said, pitching his voice an octave higher than normal. Alec had been a tenor, a pretty good one. Frank had heard him do “Ave Maria.”
Walling’s response was deeply satisfying. There was a sibilant intake of breath, then the beginning of a reply—just one stammered syllable: “Wha—wha …”
It was all Frank needed to hear. He ended the call.
The guy’s reaction was as good as a confession. He should have had no way of knowing that Alec was dead, yet he’d sounded just like a man who’d been tapped on the shoulder by a ghost.
The little ass-suck was behind it, all right. He’d had Alec killed—because of the loud parties, or for some other reason.
And he hadn’t even had the stones to do it himself. He’d hired Parker. A woman, for Christ’s sake. What kind of man hired a fucking cooch to do his dirty work? What the hell was he made of?
Frank intended to get an answer to that question. He intended to open up Aaron Walling and see just what was inside. After which, he would pay a visit to the crazy bitch gunslinger who’d offed his nephew.
Then things would get really interesting.