Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Luca looked supremely unconvinced at Ziggy’s confession.
“How did you do it, Ziggy?” Hudson asked him gently. “With Brady sitting right there?”
“I waited till he wasn’t looking,” Ziggy said stubbornly. “And then I—I ducked into the cloakroom and I put it in Gio’s coat pocket.”
“While Brady was still looking the other way?” Finch asked, deadpan. “Did he doze off for a few minutes?”
Brady was nodding vigorously. “Yeah, that musta been the way it happened. No other explanation. I guess maybe I was sleeping on the job for a few, but you can’t whack me for that.”
“Can’t I?” Luca asked, and Brady drew back in his seat.
Finch was nodding. “The reason two of you count out the money is to keep an eye on each other. So if that’s what happened, Brady, you fucked up. Big time.”
“That’s not—that’s not what I meant,” Brady began, but Hudson cut him off.
“So, Ziggy, why did you put the money in Gio’s coat?” he asked.
Ziggy was silent, his lips trembling. Then he said, “I meant to set him up.”
“See, the thing is,” Hudson said, “For the past few months, I’ve been mistaking you for Gio when you come into the club.
I couldn’t work out why. You don’t really look much alike, and there are a lot of other Italian guys who come in here that I never mistake for Gio.
But tonight I figured it out. You’ve been wearing a leather coat this winter, right? ”
Ziggy gave him a calculating stare. “Yes?” he said at last, more question than answer.
“It’s very similar to Gio’s.”
“So?”
“So I think you meant to put the money in your coat—”
“And I mistook Gio’s for mine,” Ziggy said quickly. “Yeah.”
“So—you weren’t setting him up?”
“No. I don’t know. What does it matter?” He looked to Luca again. “I admitted it. Let’s go, Boss. Take me outside, I’ll tell you everything.”
“He’s just gonna blame me again!” Brady roared.
Luca glanced to Finch, and they seemed to share a private conversation. “Hudson,” Finch said, “I think you’d better get to the fucking point P.D.Q. Was it Ziggy?”
“Of course not,” Hudson said. “Ziggy’s a stand-up guy. And he’s not dumb enough to steal from the Morellis, or to mistake his own coat for Gio’s. It was definitely Brady, and he made Ziggy comply somehow.”
“You said yourself you heard us arguing the whole damn time!” Brady shouted. “So how could I go out to the cloakroom? It doesn’t matter if you could see us or not, you heard us, that’s as good as seen!”
“Actually, it’s not, though, is it?” Hudson asked coolly. “What I heard wasn’t you two arguing the whole time. It was one argument, repeated. That’s why it seemed strange to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but the shouting ebbed and flowed in a repeating rhythm.”
“I don’t get it,” Dino said, frowning. “The argument was an act?”
“Not quite.” Hudson took a step forward to the middle of the room. “Brady’s a DJ.”
“Not a very good one,” Finch muttered.
“He’s used to playing around with sound, though, right?
” Hudson turned to Brady and folded his arms. “I think you told Ziggy something that made him start yelling at you when you stepped into that room. You recorded that first argument with your phone and played it on repeat on the break room sound system, so it sounded like you were in the room when you weren’t.
Then you snuck through to the cloakroom while Dino was distracted by the guy screaming about his coat, and you put the money in a leather overcoat—but you picked the wrong coat. ”
“How the hell could I even know that crazy fucker was gonna come in and scream at Dino? And why wouldn’t I just put the damn money in my own coat?”
“Because you wanted plausible deniability if things went south. I think the plan, once I was blamed and you and Ziggy had walked out of here, was to meet up so he could give you the money. As for the guy in the bathroom, you knew he’d be here because you told him to come.
I think you found someone desperate and said all he had to do was insist on coming in here just after lock-up, make a scene to distract Dino, then slip away into the bathroom to find the drugs you’d hidden in there for him as payment.
You knew he’d take them right away, wouldn’t be able to hold out.
But whatever you gave that poor guy, it wasn’t clean.
It was laced with something, and it killed him, causing a distraction.
And his death,” Hudson finished with disgust, “you also intended to be the end of Kismet, because you knew the Boss would shut us down if drugs were getting into the club. You wanted payback because you knew Finch was letting you go.”
Dino, Gio, and even Finch were looking at Hudson with respect.
Brady had gone from red in the face to pale. “You’re crazy,” he said hoarsely. “That’s some crazy fucking story you’ve made up, Taylor.”
“Well, there’s an easy way to prove it,” Hudson said. If possible, the room got even quieter. “Because you’re not very smart, Brady, and I bet you haven’t bothered to cover your tracks very well. So unlock your phone and let us search your recordings.”
With a snarl, Brady leapt from his seat and made for Hudson, but before he even got two steps, half the room seemed to move together. Gio shoved Hudson behind him while pulling out his gun, and Nick and Dino tackled Brady to the floor.
Dino gave Brady a punch to the gut that made him wheeze, and then Luca D’Amato himself pulled Brady off the floor, only to slam his head down on Finch’s table.
“Dumb move,” he told Brady, one hand keeping the DJ’s head side-on against the table.
“Real dumb move. Stupid to try to steal from me, from Finch. But you know what your real mistake was?” Brady flailed, but couldn’t get free.
“Trying to set up Hudson,” Luca hissed. “You think I’d believe some asshole over family? ”
Hudson wasn’t really Family. He wasn’t a made man, he’d sworn no oaths, and he definitely wasn’t a member of any Morelli crew. So he knew, without doubt, that when Luca D’Amato called him family, he didn’t mean Morelli. He meant D’Amato.
In her own way, Connie had tied him to the D’Amatos for life.
“Give me his phone,” Luca demanded, and Finch handed it over. Luca twisted Brady’s face and pointed the phone at it to open it, even while Brady squealed and protested. Luca thumbed through with one hand, the other firmly keeping Brady against the desk, until he found the last recording.
You listen to me, Ziggy, we have your daughter—see? Ziggy’s subsequent inarticulate cry of rage seemed very familiar to Hudson. Yes, that was the noise he’d heard several times that night. Dino was looking at him and nodding, too.
The argument went on. Hissed curses, louder threats, until Ziggy was agreeing to go along with the plan. Brady was crying by the time the recording stopped. For his part, Ziggy looked ashen.
“And where, exactly, are you keeping the girl?” Luca asked.
“I’m not telling!” Brady sniffled. “And they’ll kill her when I don’t call in and tell them it’s all fine. So you gotta let me go.”
Luca sighed. “You seem to think you have options here, Brady. You really don’t.” He threw the sniveling DJ over to Nick. “Get the information, would you?”
Nick gave a wide smile. “My pleasure, Boss.” And he dragged Brady out of the room.
Hudson felt decidedly queasy, but as he turned his face aside, Gio came closer to him and put his hand in the small of Hudson’s back. This time, he really did rub comforting circles.
“Now, as for you, Ziggy,” Luca said, turning to the man. “Why in the hell didn’t you just tell me what was going on? Or Finch? We look after our own, you know that.”
“Brady said if he didn’t check in regular, let his asshole buddies know it was sweet, they’d kill her. He said as long as he got out of here safe, he’d make sure they let her go alive.”
Luca gave an incredulous laugh. “There was no guarantee of that.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight. She’s my only child. Please,” Ziggy said, tears in his eyes. “Please, Boss, I know I deserve what’s coming to me, but please make sure my daughter’s okay. Look after her for me, will you?”
Luca frowned. From downstairs in the club, a long scream sounded.
Finch spoke up. “Ziggy, we understand what it’s like to have someone you love held hostage,” he said with a warning glance at Luca. “To have family threatened. So we understand why you went along with it. Why you tried to take the fall, even if it was a long shot.”
“Do we?” Luca asked, but after exchanging another look with Finch, he nodded.
“I suppose we do. Anyway, once Brady talks, which sounds like it won’t take long, we’ll go over there ourselves.
Take care of the scum and get your daughter back.
But next time, I’d advise you to just spill from the start, or things won’t end well for you. ”
The look he gave Ziggy made the man tremble.
“I was trying to get away from that asshole the whole evening,” Ziggy said softly.
“Trying to—to tell Mr. D in private. But Brady kept close, the son of a bitch. I tried to get Mr. D to look through the phones early on, but Brady told me if I tried something like that again, he’d let his friends kill my Bianca.
Right after Gio frisked us downstairs, I thought I’d have a chance if I could get up to the office fast enough—but Brady picked a fight with Gio and Hudson, made sure I had to stay there. ”
“It’s true,” Gio offered. “He did try to get away. I made him hang around.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Hudson said at once.
“The only fucker to blame here is me,” Ziggy agreed.
“No,” Hudson said. “The only fucker to blame is Brady.”
“You got that right, Blondie,” Gio said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Finch gave a smug smile when he saw, although Luca raised his eyebrows.
Luca’s phone pinged. “Alright,” he said. “Nick has persuaded Brady to part with the location. Ziggy, with me.”
“Can I come too, Boss?” Dino asked.
“The more the merrier. And we’d better take care of that other issue in the bathroom, too, when we get back.”
Hudson felt his gorge rise as he remembered the state of the dead guy. Gio gave his shoulders a squeeze and pulled him even closer.
“Me, I just wanna go home,” Art said, piping up for the first time in a long time. “But can I get my pay first, Mr. D?”
“You still got some cleaning to finish up, don’t you, Art?” Gio asked innocently, and Art scowled.
“Fuck you, Carlucci.”
“Yeah, fuck me,” Gio agreed with a grin.
“Tomorrow,” Finch said wearily. “You can come in tomorrow, Art, to finish up and collect your pay. Let Luca and Nick manage the bathroom situation tonight. As long as that body is gone, the rest of it can wait.”
“We owe you a debt of gratitude, Hudson,” Luca said sincerely, stopping on his way out the door. “I’m glad you were here to help. It’s good to know Finch can rely on you when he’s at work.”
How could Hudson ever have thought either of the D’Amato men were scary? They were kind-hearted, loving, family. It seemed like a blessing Connie had bestowed from Heaven, a reminder to him that he would never be alone, not anymore.
He’d always have family, even if she wasn’t there.