Paulie comes home from work and presses play on his answering machine. He smiles at the message from Vincent. He looks up at the clock, but knows that it’s too late to call back. He and Tania were on a stakeout of José Medina Mendoza. It had turned up absolutely nothing—and not for the first time.
Mendoza conducted his business as he did every day, making the rounds of his supermarkets, before returning to his flagship store on Sunset Boulevard in the mid-afternoon. At six p.m., he left in his Ford Mustang and went home. They watched him walk up his driveway and get greeted by his wife, Maria, and their two children, Matthew and Dorita. Three times, Paulie and Tania stayed in the car all night to see if Mendoza left for some midnight rendezvous. But he never did.
Paulie calls Vincent back the next day.
“We did another surveillance on this guy,” Paulie says. “It turned up nothing. We don’t have a goddamn clue, Vincent. Anyway, how did the test go?”
“Piece of cake.”
Paulie believes him, the asshole.
“Hey,” Vincent continues. “I’m planning to come out there within the next couple of weeks.”
“That sounds great, but I don’t know if I should expose you to my partner—or to anyone else I know for that matter.”
“Yeah, yeah G-Man. No problem. I have absolutely no interest in meeting your boy scout troop, anyway.”
They laugh and hang up.
Teri calls her son into the kitchen and they eat breakfast.
“Are you really going to go out to California to see Paulie?”
“Yeah, Ma. I want to see him in person. We have to get the situation with Papa Tony resolved.”
Teri smooths back her son’s hair in a loving fashion and smiles.