Rogue Asset (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 11), page 21
Bob took off on a diagonal sprint, the rearguard opening up with both barrels at the moving target but well late, both slugs blasted at the column behind him. Bob grabbed the gold-and-gem encrusted egg and side-armed it, whipping it at an equal angle with shortstop precision. The shotgun wielder had almost reloaded as it crashed into the side of the shield bearer’s head.
He staggered sideways from the blow, almost falling over, Caruso popping out of cover and opening fire again, .40-caliber bullets striking the first man center mass; the MAC-10 and shield dropped as he crashed onto his back.
Bob saw the other man’s shotgun come level, less than fifteen feet away; he hurled himself into a forward roll, the second blast over his head, his right hand snatching sideways under the side table, fingers finding the handle of the pistol as he came up onto his feet, arm level and firing an instant later.
The first bullet found its mark, hitting the rearguard between the eyes, the second striking two inches to the right. He staggered sideways, confused, vision dancing around the room as neurons fried out and his brain began to shut down.
He collapsed to his knees, then pitched face-first onto the living room rug.
Near the sunken portion, to their left, the man by the shield began to regain his wind, trying to push himself up to his feet. Caruso walked over to him. “Bastardo!” he muttered before shooting him through the head.
He glanced down briefly at the Faberge egg, pieces broken off, its value obliterated. But he ignored it, instead walking over to where his brother lay still.
Caruso’s head dropped. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, then crouched beside Raffi. He used his right hand to close his brother’s eyes, the light gone from them. Then he crossed himself, took the cross out from under his shirt and kissed it.
He rose back to his feet.
“I’M SORRY ABOUT YOUR BROTHER,” Bob said, trying to compensate for being half-deaf from gunfire.
“He was always my brother, but we never got along,” Caruso said. “Never. But I love him always, even though he always hate me. And now… for what?”
It took the two men outside the villa another thirty seconds to make it to the top floor, their shock giving way to fear that Caruso might wonder why they hadn’t questioned four colleagues showing up at two in the morning.
Instead, he told them to clear up the mess. They set about covering the men with blankets until body bags could be secured. Caruso watched them work, an emptiness growing inside, the notion that his only brother was being cleared away like trash from a house party. Of all the grim, horrific scenes he’d stumbled across – or helped create – over his years as a gangster, none seemed as relentlessly sad as Raffi’s grubby walking cast sticking out from under a vinyl tarpaulin.
He ambled over to the living room sofa and sat down a few feet from Bob. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Did you come here tonight to kill me, then change your mind or something?”
“If I’d come to kill you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Bob said. “And you wouldn’t have woken up. And I’d have left before your crew even had a chance to turn on you.”
“So make your point. Why did you come?”
“Is that gratitude I detect?” Bob said sarcastically.
Caruso sighed again. “American, for pity’s sake… I just lost my brother, okay? I am glad you helped me, grateful even. But I am also fucking tired. Please… get to the fucking point.”
“You wanted an answer by yesterday. I’m a bit late. But I came to turn down your offer. And to give you this.”
Bob reached into his jacket, and Caruso tensed up.
“Relax.” He took the envelope out of his jacket and tossed it onto the sofa. “I have no beef with you. Killing you or screwing with your business can do nothing but cause me headaches and keep me here longer than I want to be.”
Caruso nodded towards it. “What’s in there?”
“It’s a wedding invite.”
“You’re joking.”
“Alessandra is inviting you and your wife—”
“She’s out of town.”
“Regardless, should she be back by Saturday, you are both invited to her wedding. No strings. It’s supposed to be a sign of respect, I guess, to show you that they’re just here out of nostalgia and not to step on your toes. I mean… if either one of us wanted it to happen, the other would be dead already. Because I’m pretty sure you could’ve finished me in my room the other night.”
Caruso couldn’t help himself. As sad as he felt about Raffi, he liked Bob. He could’ve just stood aside and not helped, let them kill him. But rather than risk a succession war when he was doing a job, he’d intervened.
He felt like the man had the same weary view of others and same cautious confidence in himself. “You know… you could have just tapped on the front door.”
“I was literally thinking that, like, twenty minutes ago,” Bob admitted. “Of course, I’d already knocked three guys out by then. And I was trying to make a point.”
“Huh.” He weighed that. “Why ‘nostalgia’? One of them get arrested here at some point or something?”
“Alessandra’s grandma was from here, went to the same church,” Bob said, skewing the facts slightly to keep Grazia Miccoli out of it. “And she wanted it somewhere away from Sicily, where their rivals might think they’re vulnerable during a big event.”
“Okay. That explains why Giacomo’s men were leaning on the monks and priests to use the Church of St. Daniel – one more reason he deserves a smack in the mouth, eh? But… this makes more sense, being family tradition. So… they have the wedding, then they fuck off back to their little island?”
“They do.”
He sighed. “I’ll think on it. It helps that I know Roberto is full of shit. You can bet his greasy fingers were all over this tonight.”
“As long as you’ll consider it.”
“Sure. But… I never promise nothing.”
Bob got up and headed for the bedroom door. “Again, I’m sorry about your brother. I wish it hadn’t come to that.” He opened the door. “Do me a favor, though: don’t send any more men after me. If you do, I’m going to have to kill them, and I really don’t want that level of hassle again. I might not react well.”
“Punto preso,” Caruso said. Point taken.
Bob followed the hall, past the suspicious glares of Caruso’s other men, and jogged down the stairs to the front door. He waited until it clicked shut behind him, then took out his burner and dialed Alessandra.
After five rings, she answered blearily. “Hmm? Bob?”
“Sorry about the late hour. I paid our friend Corrado a visit.”
“Eh!?” She’d clearly snapped wide awake. “You didn’t…”
“No! No, I didn’t. In fact, I may have saved him from a family coup.”
“Eh?”
“Long story and I’ll explain when I see you. Either way, he has your invite.”
“Then we shall see.” She yawned. “Bob… the rehearsal is this afternoon. After you get some sleep, you should come to the estate, stay here overnight before the wedding. As you requested, everyone working at the church tomorrow will be kept here so that there is little chance for the Ghost to replace any of them at the last moment.”
“And as long as he doesn’t know that’s the plan, it’ll make his life that much more difficult,” Bob said. “You’ve gone with the discussed seating arrangements?”
“We have. The close family guests will have all of the seating adjacent to the central aisle in the nave, meaning any of the more distant guests would have to clamber by them to get to the wedding party.”
“Good. The Ghost built a rep on getting in and out, doing a job and disappearing. That’ll be almost impossible inside the church proper, surrounded by guards and allies of the families.”
“Then you’ll come out to the estate?”
“I’ll see you this afternoon.” He ended the call.
Bob jogged across the square to Via Cesarotti, where his rented Vespa was parked. He’d just about reached it when a figure stepped out of an adjacent doorway.
“Mr. Singleton. Or is it Smith tonight? I’m never sure,” Inspector Nick Boni noted. “You’re out late. It’s two forty in the morning. Sightseeing?”
They were either following him or keeping tabs on Caruso’s place. Probably the latter, Bob guessed. “Oh… I think you know that’s not the case.”
“That was quite an interesting maneuver, swinging from the window to the balcony. Are you, perchance, mad? It was a thirty-foot drop onto a concrete sidewalk.”
“Well, I’d have been mad to have just jumped, then,” Bob reasoned. “But the grappling hook was doing the hard work.”
“I could prosecute you, of course, for breaking and entering.”
“If Caruso were to file a ‘denuncia,’ an official complaint,” Bob countered. “I believe under Italian law that without that, a property crime with no evidence of theft might be somewhat hard to make stick. Hardly the way you want to spend your time, either, babysitting me in court.”
He smiled at that and jammed his hands into his trouser pockets, rocking slightly on his heels. “Maybe so, maybe so. You have a good discussion, you and Caruso? He’s still breathing, I take it? I thought maybe I hear something, but his villa is maddeningly well soundproofed.”
“He’s fine. Probably snoring again by now.”
“Oh? You woke him? I imagine he wasn’t too happy about that.”
Bob spread his hands apart in a “who knows?” gesture. “He seemed okay with it. I gave him an invite to the wedding. You’re supposed to get one, too.”
“Oh, I’ll be there whether they want it or not,” Boni assured him.
“I just said… they’re inviting you. So they want it.”
“And I spit on their invitation! And whatever game you are playing with Caruso, know that he is responsible for many deaths!” He let his cool exterior drop for just a moment, as if trying to properly hold his temper. “He is drenched in the blood of others. More even, probably, than this ‘Ghost’ that your young employer has spent so much time chasing. Oh… yes, we know about that too.”
“So you know I wasn’t lying to you. I’m just here to keep heads on a pair of dons’ shoulders.”
Boni sighed deeply. “It is disappointingly so.” He turned on his heel and began to walk up the street. “Have a good night, Mr. Singleton,” the policeman said without turning his head. “And in the morning, do yourself a favor: go home.”
33
The wedding convenor, Irena, was a charming, buxom woman from Pisa. She seemed unfazed by how difficult everyone was being.
She was scurrying around the estate’s grand ballroom, groups of empty plastic seats sitting in for the majority of guests. Those close to the family occupied the chairs nearest the red carpet that stood in for the church aisle, as Bob had requested.
“You couldn’t put me nearer the doors?” Victor Tepi was asking her from his third-row end seat. “I mean, it’s a proper wedding. Their fucking vows alone are going to take thirty fucking minutes each. What if I need a smoke? I’ve got to walk all the way down the aisle to the front doors, like an idiot?”
“Signore Tepi… please…” Irena said with a baleful expression. “There is only so much time for us to practice all of this, and we have yet to even have the wedding party enter.”
Bob watched it all unfolding from the lectern being used as a makeshift dais and the head of the red carpet. Next to him, Father Bertolo mopped at the rivulets of sweat running down his sideburns with a white linen handkerchief.
“You okay, Padre?” Bob asked. “I know it’s hot as hell in here, but you’re looking more anxious than a mouse in a cat factory.”
The priest nodded twice in curt acknowledgment. “I… admit, the controversial nature of some of the guests…”
“It’s hard not to be nervous in a room full of goodfellas, eh?”
The priest stopped mopping and folded up his handkerchief into careful quarters before pocketing it. “It is just so, I shamefully admit. They have given me no reason to be worried, but…”
“But you read the news, like the rest of us. And they’ve pretty much all been on it at one time or another.”
The priest looked out over the close family guests, the nod more enthusiastic this time. “So many potential problems if I get even one little thing wrong, forget one requested passage, fail to acknowledge the right person at the right time. Father Parisi finds himself in the same predicament, we are ashamed to admit.”
Bob looked over at the younger priest. An older man with salt-and-pepper hair over a goatee and a steel gray suit was receiving a blessing from Parisi, stooping to shake the shorter priest’s hands with a pair of giant mitts.
He moved off, a retired nun from the convent taking his place, also grasping Parisi’s hands with both of hers. He muttered something Bob couldn’t hear, then crossed himself. She took his hands again and blessed him profusely.
Parisi placed a hand on his chest, touched. “È una benedizione,” he said.
The elderly nun moved away.
“Busy day, eh, Father?” Bob wandered over and offered his hand to shake. “You seem to be a magnet for people’s contrition and well wishes in equal measure.”
Parisi nodded, a slightly fatigued look in his eye even though it was only two in the afternoon. “It’s true. I have been offering words of support all day, and even though the guest list is finite, the requests seem endless.” He shook Bob’s hand with a gentle double-pump, like a celebrity moving through a crowd.
Bleh, sweaty palms, Bob thought. He’d initially thought the younger Parisi the only man in the room not affected by the heat. But that clearly wasn’t so. Bob smiled broadly and gamely until Parisi looked away, then wiped his hands on his suit pants.
Something with the small group at the very back of the room – they all looked like staff to Bob – seemed to have caught the priest’s eye. “I shall return in a moment,” he said.
“It’s all good,” Bob offered.
Alessandra sidled up to him. “Are you as tired as I am?”
“Probably a little more. I mean, I figure you rolled back over and went back to sleep after I called. I didn’t get to bed until three fifteen.”
“Hardly! I had today to worry about,” she said. “And tomorrow. And the rest of my life.” She snapped out of it. “You got a look at the proceedings today. Anything stand out?”
“Not really,” Bob had to admit. “The most obvious place to hit both fathers at the same time would be when they’re walking you up the aisle. But we’ve made sure that everyone in the church near the aisle is family or a close friend. The Ghost could step in for one of them, but he’d have to do it either before they came here today or between the wedding party leaving here and arriving at the church.”
“What about something impersonal, like using a rifle and scope?” she said. “I would think a paid assassin cares more about getting the job done than worrying about a modus operandi.”
“True. He prefers knives, close-up, but he has taken down targets in a wide variety of ways. However, we’ve got men watching the tall buildings within reasonable range, and staying close to them from the car to the church, cutting off a shooter’s closest angles. Once they’re inside, which will happen before anyone knows it, there are no hidden, raised areas in the church that could serve as a shooter’s blind.”
She smiled then, white teeth showing, a broad show of confidence. “I knew it! I knew when we first met in Chicago that you were the right person for this job, Bob. Errol Green is a very lucky man.”
“He’d be even luckier if you waived the rest of his debt.”
Her mood changed instantly, her face souring at the prospect of mercy. “And have him face no punishment for what he did? For taking advantage of Johnny’s gambling addiction? No. No, that’s not acceptable. Why would you ask this?”
Bob rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? I’m swinging to balconies to intimidate mobsters so that you can get married in relative peace and your husband can eventually inherit a nineteen-billion-dollar empire, and you’re asking me why I want my friend’s brother to get a break on fifty K? Really?”
She frowned and looked slightly hurt, like a disappointed child. “But… it is the principle of the matter…”
It was always easy to fall back on principles when a person hadn’t had to compromise them repeatedly just to survive, Bob knew. It was a problem for the spoiled and wealthy, criminal or not. “He’s learned. Believe me. If he hasn’t, I’m going to be there to remind him. Just… trust me on this.”
She looked away quickly, as if she’d heard that sentiment a few too many times, from a few too many men. “I… will have to discuss it with Johnny. Leave this with me, Bob. Okay?”
“Sure.”
Bob’s pocket buzzed.
Eh? That’s Renton’s line. It was uncharacteristic of him to call during the day, particularly given that it was morning where he was, and Renton often worked overnight.
He nodded towards the doors. “I just need to see to something,” he said.
“Of course.”
Bob left her and crossed the hall to the side doors, then out onto the patio. The air outside was cool and crisp, the fall sun muted by a slight cloud haze. He answered the call. “Go ahead, Adam.”
“Yeah, sorry for the strange hours. But I left a crawler running overnight after getting into your employer’s email account. I was going through the package when I saw you’d gone back to the estate.”
Bob had had enough. For two years, Renton had been able to locate him as if by magic, no matter how much he wanted his movements untrackable. “Adam… I can’t do this anymore. I can’t have us working together with you holding something over me, even if you are working for free.”
“Bob…”
“How do you always know where I am? Like, specifically when I’ve moved? How are you tracking me? What… did the team chip me or something? I’ve been scanned and scoped and MRI’d half to death over the years, and nothing.”
