Chapter Seven #3
Carlo is in the alley, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Gino is already gone, no doubt loaded into a car with one of my men, heading home to his wife and daughters.
Carlo takes a long drag and then blows the smoke from his lungs. “You believe him? You think it really was Valentina Lucchese?”
“Yes. But I’m not killing a Lucchese on the word of a man I tortured. I need to verify.” I lean against the opposite wall. “We’ll start with her staff. She has a driver, Enzo or something? He takes her everywhere. He’ll know who she’s been meeting with.”
Carlo grins. “His name is Bruna, not Enzo, and I know the guy. He drinks at Vecchio’s just about every night after work. He has a rep for talking too much after a few glasses.”
“Yeah? That sounds promising. Maybe you need to go drinking tonight.”
He smirks. “It’s not like I’m going to argue with that.”
I frown. “Don’t get wasted. You’re on a mission.”
“I know,” he says good-naturedly. “I’ll buy him some drinks and let him talk. What else?”
“Renzo says he was paid forty thousand for the hit on Elio.”
Carlo bugs his eyes, looking disgusted. “Jesus, that’s it? To hit a Foschini? That’s disrespectful.”
“I agree. And if you can believe it, that slob downstairs only got half up front.”
Carlo shakes his head and drops his cigarette butt on the ground, crushing it with his shoe. “That guy was a fuck up from beginning to end.”
“Definitely. But I have a lead that might connect Valentina to the hit. The money was a wire transfer possibly routed through a dry cleaning business.”
“Oh, yeah?” Carlo rubs his jaw.
“Valentina has a nephew, Tomaso, who runs a chain of dry cleaners. He launders for half the families in the city. If Valentina needed to move money without her name on it, she’d probably go through Tomaso.”
Carlo’s eyes narrow. “You want me to go get the records?”
“No. I have someone on the inside for that.” I let out a tired breath. “You find out whether Valentina met with Renzo before the hit. If she did, I want dates, times, and who was with her.”
“Okay, boss.”
Carlo makes his calls. I make mine. I sit in the front seat of my car in the alley with the engine off and the windows down, listening to the harbor. The water slaps against the pylons. A foghorn sounds somewhere out past the breakwater. The air smells like brine and diesel.
My thoughts keep drifting to Elio. I want to know that he’s okay, but I don’t want to call him. We don’t really have that kind of relationship yet. So instead, I call Ginevra for some info. She tells me Elio is home and resting. That he has a bump on his head but other than that, he’s fine.
Once I know Elio is home and doing okay, the investigating continues. At 8:00 p.m. Carlo heads over to Vecchio’s to pump Bruna for info, but when he gets there Bruna is a no-show. So we scratch that plan and Carlo heads over to Bruna’s house to have a different kind of talk. A less friendly one.
Carlo calls me an hour later. “I got some info, boss.”
“What did he tell you?” I get out of my car, staring out at the dark water from the pier.
“Well, Bruna could confirm that Valentina had two meetings last week with a guy who matches Renzo’s description. I showed him a photo. He said the meetings were brief, but he didn’t know what they talked about because Valentina instructed Bruna to wait in the car.”
“Do you believe him?”
Carlo’s laugh is snide. “Yeah. Let’s just say, he’s no Renzo. He spilled his guts easy.”
“Okay.”
“Also, while Bruna couldn’t tell me what Valentina and Renzo discussed, he said she told him not to mention the meetings with anyone, especially Sandro.”
“Okay, good. That tells me two things, Valentina acted without Sandro’s knowledge, and she knew what she was doing was bad enough to hide from him.
” I’m relieved that Sandro wasn’t involved.
I’m still fond of him, but if he’d been behind the hit on Elio, I don’t know that I could have been merciful.
“Bingo,” Carlo says. “She knew what she was doing was wrong.”
“Fucking A she did. I need to pin down if Valentina made a twenty-thousand dollar payment to Renzo around the time he said it happened.”
“How?”
“I have a man inside the Lucchese bookkeeping operation.”
“Of course you do,” Carlo’s voice is droll. “Who is he?”
I shrug. “He’s a low-level accountant named Dario. He’s been feeding me information for years in exchange for the continued health of his gambling-addicted brother.”
“Oh, I know Dario.”
I frown. “How is it you know everyone?”
“I’m a charming guy.” There’s a smile in Carlo’s voice. “People gravitate to me, boss.”
“I’ll bet Bruna doesn’t think you’re so charming after tonight.”
“Not true. We parted on almost good terms. I gave him a bottle of really expensive whiskey when I left his house.”
I laugh. “You think that’ll make up for putting electrodes on his nipples?”
“Come on, I didn’t do that. I was nice. I only used the threat of a lighter to his balls. He crumbled surprisingly fast.”
I shake my head, smiling. “You’re a sick fuck. No wonder we’re best friends.”
He chuckles. “You want me to come with you to visit Dario?”
“No, Dario won’t be a problem. He’s afraid of me which makes him eager to please. He understands what happens if he doesn’t tell me what I need to know.”
“Okay, well, call me if you need me. I’ll be at home watching porn.”
“You’re a class act, Carlo.” I hang up.
I drive to Dario’s place for my impromptu visit. His office sits at the far end of a tired strip mall between a nail salon and a shop that repairs cracked phone screens. The parking lot is patched asphalt with weeds pushing up through the cracks.
I pick the lock on the front door of the building, and when I slip into his shabby office, I find Dario behind a desk buried in receipts and manila folders. He’s scowling at his calculator and muttering to himself.
“Hello, Dario.”
When he looks up and sees me his face loses what little color it has. “Mr. Foschini.” He swallows loudly.
Dario is a large man, soft around the middle, with thinning hair plastered to his forehead by sweat.
The office is cool enough as the air conditioner rattles in the window, but perspiration darkens the collar of his shirt.
He tries to stand too quickly and knocks one knee against the underside of the desk.
A cup of pens tips over but he catches it against his stomach before it hits the floor.
“Sorry to just drop in on you after hours without warning,” I say, not sounding the least bit sorry. “But I need some information only you can give me.”
“Me?”
Yes, you.”
“Oh, well, I… I was just about to head out. M… my wife will kill me if I don’t get home in time for dinner—”
“How’s your brother?” I interrupt, closing the door behind me. His eyes nervously track the movement.
“F… fine.” He shifts uneasily. “I mean, good, in fact. He’s… he’s staying away from the tables.”
A lie, most likely. But I don’t give a fuck as long as his debts remain manageable and Dario remains useful.
“This shouldn’t take too long.” I sit in the small chair in front of his desk, crossing my legs. “I need you to find a payment for me.”
“Yes. Of course.” His chair squeaks as he lowers himself back into the seat. “From whom?”
“Tomaso Lucchese.”
His fingers stop above the keyboard.
“Tomaso who?” he repeats, eyes flickering.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know who he is. He runs a chain of dry cleaners. He’s Valentina Lucchese’s nephew.”
“Oh, that Tomaso.” He gives a nervous laugh.
“I need you to find a payment that was made recently. Twenty grand.”
Dario glances at the closed door. “How recently?”
“The last week.”
He nods several times and begins typing. His hands shake badly enough that he enters the password wrong on the first few attempts. He swears under his breath and glances up several times. “If… if you want, Mr. Foschini, I can look into this and… and get back to you.”
“I’ll wait.” As I speak, I pull on my gloves. A tremor goes through him and I almost laugh. I have no intention of hurting him unless he lies or stonewalls me. But he doesn’t know that.
For the next hour, Dario searches and I scroll on my phone.
His mouse clicks furiously as he scans accounts, traces transfers, mutters strings of numbers beneath his breath. Every few minutes he wipes his forehead with a green checkered handkerchief.
At one point, the office phone rings twice and then his cell. He glances at his mobile and then at me. “It… it’s my wife. She’s probably wondering where I am.”
I shrug. “You can take her call if you want. But you can’t leave until you finish the job, Dario. Just tell her you’re with a very important client.”
He swallows hard. “It’s probably best if I just ignore her call.”
“Suit yourself.”
He picks up his phone and puts it on silent, then goes back to digging through files. Eventually, he straightens, looking relieved. “I found something.”
I lean forward. “Yeah?”
He turns the monitor toward me and points to a line buried among dozens of transfers. “There’s a payment of twenty thousand exactly. Four days ago.” He licks his lips. “It was routed through one of Tomaso’s shell companies, then moved twice before reaching this person’s account.”
“Who owns the account?”
“Not sure.” His voice cracks and he clears his throat. “The recipient’s name doesn’t connect to anyone I recognize. Odds are it’s an alias. Take a look.” He writes it on a pad and slides it across the desk.
The name might mean nothing to Dario but it means plenty to me.
It’s an alias used by a broker who connects families with outside muscle. Killers who can be hired without bringing another syndicate directly into the arrangement. It’s not as useful as a line item marked Renzo Vitale, Murder Services LLC, but it’s close enough.
It’s a damning trail. Dario traced twenty thousand dollars, paid four days ago through Tomaso’s dry cleaning chain. A chain that just happens to be run by Valentina’s nephew. It’s exactly what Renzo described, down to the dollar, connecting the date and the name Lucchese.