A Touch of Torment, page 7
part #7 of Nick Bracco Series
“Be my guest.”
“Would it surprise you to know we’ve had reports of retailers being bullied into using your credit cards?”
No response.
Nick turned back to face him. “We have testimony from two separate managers who will claim they were threatened by employees of Entertainment Resources.”
“Yeah? Are you sure they will testify?”
The guy had it just right. The witnesses came forward only on the condition of anonymity. And Zelman knew his soldier’s threats were so vile, neither would ever testify in a court of law.
Nick pulled a plastic chair away from the table and sat down, letting Zelman know this wasn’t over so quickly.
“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” Nick said.
Zelman offered a condescending sneer.
“When I get my teeth into a criminal, I don’t let go.”
Zelman smiled. “Maybe I need a rabies shot?”
Nick clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “You think you have all this wealth tied up in cryptocurrency and that it’s untraceable, but it’s not. We can find the treasure chest.”
“Good luck with that.”
Zelman had a right to be cocky about his financial fortune, he was a wizard with digital maneuvering. Even Stevie had declared him a genius.
“You’ll be doing yourself a favor if you come clean right now. I can give you a similar deal I gave Malkin. He doesn’t leave custody without my blessing. You want to hear my offer?”
“I can’t stop you from talking.”
“Five years for tax evasion,” Nick said. “You shut the operation down and get out in two years along with your hidden wealth. No manslaughter, no conspiracy to commit murder, nothing. Just tax evasion. It’s a good deal, Khasi. I would recommend it.”
Zelman couldn’t hide the pleasure from his face. “You are truly worried, aren’t you, Agent Bracco?”
“I don’t want any more bloodshed. You and the Perrinos need to reach a compromise.”
“I wish I knew why you’re so obsessed with the Perrinos?” Zelman looked directly at the two-way mirror. “Maybe it is because you are Sicilian?”
Nick kept his composure, but inside he was thinking of Sal’s family all gathered at the Perrino household, full of pain and sorrow. And this man was responsible.
“You think you’re going to get away with this because you’ve gotten away with it so far. But you’ve never had to deal with me before.”
Zelman laughed. “You are like a dog humping someone’s leg. You think you are having a shared experience, but really it is just a form of masturbation.”
There was a knock on the door. Matt stuck his head inside and gestured for Nick come out.
Once Nick closed the door behind him, he said, “Well?”
“I don’t like it,” Matt said. “He was suppressing a grin, like he knew something that you didn’t.”
“I’m sure he knows a lot I don’t.”
“No, that’s not it. Something’s wrong. He’s hiding something.”
Nick looked through the mirror at the guy casually sitting on the bench as if waiting for a yacht to pull up and take him to his private island. “He does seem comfortable, doesn’t he?”
“Too comfortable.”
“Should I rattle his cage? Make his blood pressure raise a notch?”
“No,” Matt said. “That’s what he’s expecting. We’re in a tug-of-war right now and he’s got more bodies than we can see.”
“Okay?”
“So we let go of the rope and watch him fall down.”
Nick thought about it. “That’s a bad analogy.”
“Why?”
“Because then his side wins. That’s how tug-of-war works.”
Matt shook his head and looked disgusted. “All right, Mr. Precision, whatever you call it, just do the unexpected. He’s smug, you act smugger.”
The hallway door opened halfway and Russell said, “His attorney’s here. What do you want me to say?”
Nick looked at the arrogant Chechen picking lint off his suit. “Tell him he’s free to go.”
Russell stood there, waiting for more. “That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “That’s it.”
Russell closed the door.
Nick turned to his partner and said, “Maybe we’ve got someone on our side of the rope he can’t see either.”
Nick pull out his phone and pushed a button. When Tommy answered, he said, “You’re up.”
Chapter 12
Tommy put his phone back in his pocket and leaned against his rental car, a gray Ford Taurus with satellite radio. All he needed. Cara was next to him, clutching a used tissue like it might escape. She was gathering the stamina to go back into the house she grew up in, where her father’s memory would penetrate every pore in her body.
Relatives were parking their cars and filing past them, toward the front door, frowning and touching Cara’s hand as they passed. Through the front window, they watched Angela greeting guests and directing traffic.
“Did you always know your mom was so involved with family matters?” Tommy asked.
Cara tore a piece of tissue, then another. “My mom is stronger than you think.”
“Apparently. It’s been so long since I’ve been back.” Then he looked at Cara with intensity. “But you must know she’ll be a target. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course not. But that’s why you’re here. That’s why Nick is here. I thought you two would take care of everything. Why aren’t the Chechens under arrest already?”
“This massacre took months to prepare. You saw the FBI report. The guy who killed your father must’ve walked from a half-mile away to the church. They can’t trace him any farther. He kept his face away from surveillance cameras. It was well orchestrated. They’ll have the finest lawyers. Nick wants the best evidence possible, or they’ll get off.”
Cara looked up at the house, as if she were about to dive off a cliff. “We need to go inside.”
A large black car rolled up next to them.
“You go inside,” Tommy said to Cara.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to take care of some business.”
Cara frowned. “I’ve been hearing that exact same line my entire life. Nothing good ever happens once someone tells me that.”
He took her arm and squeezed gently. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” she said, gazing over his shoulder at the idling vehicle. “Who is that?”
“I promise I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.” He looked up the driveway at the white stucco home with red tile roof, then gave her a peck on the forehead. “You take care of your mom. I’ll take care of the Chechens.”
The passenger door on the far side of the car opened and Tommy took his cue. As he walked around the back of the luxury vehicle, he said, “Trust me,” one more time, then got in the back seat.
Once inside, Tommy was hit with an aroma of new car smell and the lingering scent of cigar smoke. Next to him sat Al Mancini, wrapped with a black wool jacket with the air conditioner blowing his direction.
Tommy held out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mancini.”
Mancini shook his hand as the driver took off down the road. Tommy looked around the interior at the acres of wood and fine leather than covered practically every inch of the vehicle. “This a Bentley?”
“Rolls Royce,” Mancini said, gazing at the interior himself. “It’s a Phantom.”
“Very nice. You could charge admission.”
Mancini opened up the console between them and exposed a refrigerated compartment. “Would you like a water?”
Tommy grabbed a cold bottle, knowing that declining an offer from a boss was not recommended behavior. “Thank you.”
The leg room was so massive, even a stocky guy like Mancini could cross his legs and never worry about touching the front seat. “So, it seems we have a situation.”
“Seems that way,” Tommy said, taking a sip of his water.
“Did you know Sal well?”
“Very well, back in Baltimore. We kept in touch over the years though.”
Mancini frowned. “I was sorry to hear the news. He was a rival, but,” he glanced at the driver as if to remind himself he had an audience, “I always respected him. We never had to worry about him doing anything underhanded.”
“That’s who he was. He didn’t have a shady bone in his body.”
Mancini was nodding, letting the memory of Sal Perrino ruminate through his mind.
The driver kept his eyes on the road as they drove onto the freeway and headed west toward downtown Phoenix. Inside the quiet vehicle, low-level music came from all around them. It sounded like the velvety voice of Jerry Vale crooning a romantic love song.
“How many speakers are in this thing?” Tommy asked, knowing exactly how to play into Mancini’s ego.
“Thirteen,” Mancini said proudly.
“And two subwoofers in the floor,” the driver added without turning.
“I gotta know,” Tommy said. “How much does this fine machine cost?”
Mancini grinned, but said nothing.
“Two hundred thousand?”
Mancini pointed his thumb upward.
“Three hundred?”
Mancini kept his thumb pointed.
“This couldn’t possibly cost more than a half a million dollars, could it?”
Mancini couldn’t keep the grin from his face. “It could if you add all the extras like I did.”
“Wow,” Tommy said, genuinely impressed.
And Mancini could tell it was genuine. He reached into a hidden door panel and retrieved a manila envelope and handed it to his guest.
Tommy opened the envelope and placed the contents on his lap. A thin pack of papers topped with an eight by ten photo of a man leaving a building.
“That’s their new crew chief,” Mancini said. “Name is Tapo Pashkov. They call him the Enforcer. Used to dig graves back in Chechnya, but has risen to the top of the heap in Zelman’s organization. Rumor has it he assassinated the previous crew chief in front of the rest of the crew.”
“Geez,” Tommy said.
“We got company,” the driver said, peering through his rearview mirror.
“Yeah?” Mancini said pulling a hidden sun visor from the roof liner where a mirror came down.
“Three cars back. Been following me from Chandler.”
“Is it a red Mustang?” Tommy asked.
Mancini glared at him. “How’d you know that?”
“Because he belongs to me,” Tommy said, tapping his phone, then sending a text message.
There was silence as the driver and Mancini stared at their mirrors.
“He backed off and exited the freeway,” the driver informed them.
“I know,” Tommy said. “I just told him.”
Mancini flipped up his visor, then gave Tommy a strange look. “What was that all about?”
Tommy shrugged. “You asked if I would take a drive. That’s my Baltimore instincts coming out. A little protection, just in case.”
Now Mancini smiled. “You thought we was gonna kill you?”
The driver chuckled.
Mancini broke into a full-out belly laugh, bending forward and slapping his hands together until it swelled into a huge coughing fit.
When Mancini finally settled down, he wiped a tear from his eye and said, “You’re something else, you know that?”
“I’ve been told.”
Mancini leaned his head back and took a full breath. “Oh, man I haven’t laughed so hard in years.”
“Glad I could be your entertainment,” Tommy said, looking down at the photo in his lap.
“Listen,” Mancini said, turning somber now. “I know who you are and I know who your cousin is. I got no beef with either of you. You’re Sicilian, right?”
“Guilty.”
“Okay, well, we don’t go around killing our own. We’ve become somewhat of an endangered species. So let’s talk about more important things, like this Chechen situation.”
“Sure, but shouldn’t you be discussing this with Angela?”
Mancini grimaced, as if he licked a lemon slice. “You know how awkward that would be? I go tell Angela Perrino that we should be working together? Two competing families? How do you think that would go over with the company I keep?”
Tommy understood. The families were all about loyalty. Loyalty to just one name. Mancini couldn’t afford to show even the hint of an arrangement. Too soft. It would be a sign of weakness he might not survive. The lion only gets eaten after it’s been injured and slowed down.
“Okay, I get that, but how come you’re all of a sudden concerned about the Perrinos?”
Mancini’s face turned dark. “When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, did we say that was a Hawaiian problem? No. That was an attack on all of us. So when the Chechens attack the Perrinos, that was an attack on the Mancinis, the Braccos, all of us. Capisce?”
“Now you’re speaking my language,” Tommy said, breezing over the first sheet of the typewritten pages on his lap.
“Good. Everything we know about the Chechens is in there. Hopefully, it’ll help your cause.”
“I appreciate it.”
The driver exited the freeway at 7th Street and drove down the offramp.
“So, tell me more about this Enforcer,” Tommy said, flicking his finger at the photo.
“The grave digger,” Mancini said. “He seems to have moved up the ranks quickly. We don’t know how or why. Zelman keeps his business separate from his muscle, so they don’t spend much time together.”
The driver turned left, toward downtown Phoenix. They were on Central Avenue now, the buildings stretching taller along both sides of the road.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Tommy asked.
Mancini pointed to the picture in Tommy’s hand. “I just showed you the alpha male in Zelman’s army, now I’m going to show you the weak link.”
The driver pulled into the parking lot of a Mexican food restaurant. He parked on the east side of the lot facing the street. Cars whizzed past going north and south. Tommy wondered if they were going inside, but Mancini sat there and pulled out a cigar.
“See that gray van across the street?” Mancini asked.
“Sure,” Tommy said, spying the Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van sitting next to the side of a free-standing building with the side door open. Jake’s Bar looked like a small house built in the fifties when Central Avenue was a quaint neighborhood road. Before air conditioning became a staple in the Phoenix area and the population skyrocketed into the top ten for US cities.
A man came out of Jake’s and opened the back door to the van.
“That him?” Tommy asked. “The weak link?”
“Nah, that’s the drummer,” Mancini said.
“What are we looking at here?” Tommy asked.
“We’re looking at a rock band that’s headed by Khasi Zelman’s son, Jerry. They’re unloading the equipment for their performance.”
The drummer grabbed a small snare drum from the van, tucked it under his arm and went back into the building. A moment later a thin kid with long scraggly hair and wispy beard came out and pulled a guitar case from the van.
“That’s him,” the driver said.
“The Doorknobs,” Mancini said.
“That’s their name?” Tommy asked.
“Yup.”
“Sounds like an a capella group.”
“Believe me, it ain’t. Bunch of noise with a lot of echoes,” Mancini said. “Zelman keeps the kid out of his business, or the kid hates his father’s business, we don’t know. I can only tell you, the kid is soft. Hates guns, hates violence. Probably a member of PETA.”
The driver snickered.
“So what am I supposed to do with this?” Tommy asked. “The kid’s not involved with the Chechen Mafia. How is he a weak link?”
“Because he knows things.” Mancini pointed to the papers on Tommy’s lap. “It’s all in there. I’m sure there’s something your cousin can do with it.”
“It’s not that easy. He needs probable cause, otherwise all this looks like harassment. It’ll tilt the court in the Chechen’s favor. He can’t afford to bring a lame duck case to the DA.”
“Well, there’s gotta be something he can do.”
“Maybe there is,” Tommy said staring down at the papers with renewed interest. “Maybe there is.”
Chapter 13
Nick and Matt had to park ten houses away from the Perrinos’ place with all the family and friends taking up most of the street. It was a slightly uphill grade, so they had to lean forward to get their balance.
Nick sent Julie ahead with the Perrino family to help with the preparations.
“The way I see it,” Matt said, “we go after Zelman with the IRS, using tax evasion as a charge. Get him off the street.”
Nick was shaking his head. “That’ll take too long. He’ll have his lawyers drag it out for months, maybe years.”
Matt chewed a piece of gum with fervor.
Nick scanned their surroundings for anything suspicious. “Do you remember Captain Meadows back at the academy?”
“Sure.”
“Do you remember his favorite saying?”
“Guy had a million of them. You mean, ‘don’t raise your voice, improve your argument?’ That one?”
“No,” Nick said. “When the chips are stacked against you, stop using chips. Change the currency.”
Matt shook his head. “I never understood half the shit that guy said.”
There were two burly men in black suits standing watch on the front porch with their hands folded in front of them, acting innocent, but certainly packing.
As Nick and Matt climbed the steps, one of the guys opened the front door.
“Thanks, Tully,” Nick said. As soon as he stepped into the Perrino home, he was flooded with the smells of marinara sauce, garlic bread, and meatballs.
“Man, I got hungry fast,” Matt said.
There was a table in the front room with trays of lasagna, bowls of salad, and two strawberry cheesecakes on raised stands. People milled around for space, while Nick nodded to the same people he’d seen at the funeral. By the time they’d reached the kitchen, Angela had an apron around her black dress and look of contentment on her face. Finally she was in her element doing something productive, momentarily taking her mind off the gaping hole in her life.
