Rogue Asset (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 11), page 4
Kandi could barely stand it. “But then…” she offered cryptically.
They were enjoying the explanation of theft from addicts way, way too much. “Then another of your newsletters arrived. So now, you’ve got a mailing list of gambling addicts who are all convinced they’ve found the best oddsmaker on earth, someone who’s picked eight correct outcomes in a row AND has paid out,” Bob followed along. “And now they’re practically begging you to take their money.”
“By week eight,” he said, “they’re putting down whatever they can, pawning shit for cash, selling their jewelry, getting a ticket on their wedding ring, that kind of thing. Some of them are putting down a thousand, two thousand, three thousand on a single game, and they’re just sending the money to us through the website.”
“And those guys… they don’t get another email back, do they?”
He shrugged. “Now what would be the point of paying out twice?”
Kandi chimed in again, proud of how smart her man was, “It’s like clockwork, it’s so damn fine! He automated, so as soon as an email pays, it goes to the castoff list.” The café waitress wandered over, but Kandi held up her talons and waved her off. “I’m good, honey.”
“And those who don’t bet that week but are still on the winning side of your list?” Bob wondered.
He shrugged again. “We keep cutting it in half, sticking with the local team.”
“How much do you take by the time you’re done?”
Bob saw the change in his body language, Errol’s mind clearly flitting to where everything had gone wrong. He slumped slightly and stared at the faux-wood tabletop, then took a long sip from his coffee. He steeled himself.
“We was doing so good, man. So good. It was perfect. Up forty-two thousand dollars for eight weeks’ work and a grand of total investment. I figure if all goes well, we’re up a quarter million in the first year, minimum. Then we’d pull up, move to a different city, a different sport. Man, I was thinking baseball, because… a hundred and sixty-two games per season? We could turn it around quicker, make the money quicker.”
“But someone took you back somehow?”
“Nothing that genius, not even close. We just had one dude on the list who… I mean, shit. It was supposed to be a vetted list, you know?”
His air of hopelessness was not a good sign. It felt like a sudden chill, Bob thought. That can’t be good.
“Who?”
“Come by the name Johnny Grasso. Didn’t make nothing of it until week nine. He’d put a little more down than most after week eight, twenty bucks. But still, minor stuff. Then he drops a hundred and fifty grand. And I realize we ain’t put any restrictions on the site as to how much they can wager.”
“Didn’t think about getting too much money.” Kandi sighed.
“There’s always something,” Bob said. “I’d figure you’d both know that by now.”
Errol shot him a look. “The deposits are automated to go straight to a series of accounts, split it up if any of them are over ten grand. So the bank ain’t even questioning it.”
But… Bob thought. There’s always a “but” when it comes to your average neighborhood criminal mastermind. He rubbed his scalp lightly, a stress headache just about intruding. For a clearly bright man, Dawn’s brother was also a class-A idiot. “So you took it. But…”
“But it was the wrong man to take. Just got greedy,” Errol admitted. “Should have checked him out, you know. But I figured he was rich, stupid. He ain’t coming after me in the hood or nothing, and the website don’t lead nowhere.”
“Let me guess,” Bob said. “He’s a heavy hitter of some sort.”
Errol nodded slowly. “Old-school Mafioso. He ain’t even from here, just owns a few houses… business interests, as they say. He’s Sicilian.”
Ah, geez. Dawn, you sure can pick ’em, can’t you, he thought reflexively.
But of course, she hadn’t. Errol was family, albeit ten years older than her.
She felt obligated. And Bob knew he was obligated to her a dozen times over. “So… do I have to state the obvious solution?” Bob asked.
“Man, we’ll take whatever you got,” Kandi muttered.
“Give it back,” Bob said. “Return the money. Agree to whatever compensation he wants. If he’s a ‘made’ guy, you’re not getting out of this any other way. That’s their entire mission statement, backing their own to the hilt and never giving up.”
“Can’t,” Errol moaned. “Already lost it.”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me… “How?”
Kandi raised her hand slowly. “That’s on me, I guess.”
“You guess?” Errol snapped. “Woman… you best be glad I love you, the shit I put up with…”
“What happened?” Bob asked once again.
“Friend of mine from high school, Lacey, got a tip on a what-you-call-thingy… you know…”
“A stock… A horse… A race… A game…” Bob said as flatly and dryly as he could muster. Just the prospect of working with the duo was tiring.
“Crypto thingy, you know.” She looked at Errol, her expression going from inquisitive to irritated when he didn’t take his cue. “Well? What was it called again?”
“Ascendent Crypto,” Errol muttered. “Motherfucking thieves.”
“Well, she was making good returns!” Kandi said. “I figure she’s doubled her money in a month. If we follow what Lacy did, in a few months, we could get a nice condo down in Hotlanta, live free and easy for a while, you know? Get the fuck away from all the god-dang snow here every winter.”
“And?”
Errol chimed in, “Turned out her friend was hooked up with a dealer in Gary. He’s running this scam out of some shithole there.”
“You went over there, I take it?”
“Yeah. But he got six armed motherfuckers on the premises, you know? I mean… well, shit, dudes who look like you, with, like, body armor and shit. Crazy.” Errol might have read Bob’s disdainful glance, as he added, “Not like it matter; money’s all moved electronically already. Probably ain’t nothing to take back. Can’t just jack the mofo; that ain’t how that crypto shit work, dawg.”
The irony of a con man investing in someone else’s scam didn’t seem to have struck either of them, so Bob let it go. “How’d Johnny Grasso find you?”
“Don’t know,” Errol admitted. “But it only took him two days.”
Bad sign. Someone that efficient was deeply connected and probably monitoring his investment, Bob knew. That meant they might’ve been watching the building on Elm, which in turn meant they might know Errol had someone else looking for him. “And?”
“He gave me two weeks. That was a week ago.”
“And then?”
“He’s going to take me to church on Sunday, then buy me a pizza. Man… what the fuck you think he’s going to do? He’s going to kill us! And he already gave us the ‘if you leave town, I’ll know’ speech.”
Bob considered what he’d been told. Unless he’d grossly misjudged the man’s lack of character, Errol wasn’t going to find the money in a week; and Bob knew that a “made” man would have undeniable resources. He wouldn’t be able to keep Dawn’s sibling alive for long, if at all. And he’d be sticking his own head in a noose.
This is a fool’s errand.
He’d have to be honest with Dawn, he knew, tell her what she didn’t want to hear. Because there seemed nothing he could do in so short a time, nothing that would change what was going to happen.
Bob got up. He took out his burner and handed it over. “Here’s my number. Put it into your phone, and if you need help, call me. In the meantime, I’m going to talk to your sister, see what we can figure out. Okay?”
“That’s it?” Errol asked as he copied the digits and handed it back. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“For now,” Bob said. “Just… hang tight, okay? I’ll get back to you.”
He could feel their stares as he headed out the door. It had begun to snow lightly outside. It didn’t generally stick around in early November, serving instead as a warning of bleak, cold days to come.
He glanced back as he went out the door.
Errol’s hopeless expression seemed apt.
6
Bob leaned on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth, his green tea in his free right hand, and watched the river patrol cruise by.
It was nice, being back on a restaurant patio in Chicago. He’d thought he’d hate returning to his old stomping grounds, that he’d get lost amid the skyscrapers and bad memories. Instead, it had just felt comfortably familiar. Not home anymore, but good nonetheless.
If it had been a few months earlier, he knew, he could’ve reliably strolled up North Clark and caught a Cubs game at Wrigley. At playoff time, miracles willing, he’d always be a Tigers fan. But the roar at Wrigley and the crack of a bat made for a great Saturday, even without the beer.
He checked out the other diners and gazed over at the entrance, expecting Dawn to show up imminently. That was when things were going to get difficult.
But first, research. He took out his burner and speed-dialed Adam Renton, his Vegas-based info handler. He answered after one ring.
“What’s up, chief? Still working that request.”
“Yeah, but I know you. It’s been a whole day. You’ve probably got enough on this dude to convict him by now.”
Renton paused before answering, as if the former National Security Agency officer might actually be considering it. Eventually, he said, “There’s a lot here already, I admit. But that’s why this one is fun. Every intelligence outfit on earth has stuff on him; I could write a well-reviewed biography if you gave me another day or two.”
“As long as you’re still being generous.”
“I told you I’d waive charges for a while, and I’m sticking to it. If I was more careful—”
“Don’t sweat it, okay, Adam?” Renton had been eating himself up since giving up Bob’s location to mercs months earlier. “Everyone important made it out okay. And I appreciate this, really.”
“Okay. Right on.” There was another awkward pause. “So… I’ll send you what I’ve got so far anyway, then?”
“Sure.”
“He’s the son of a prominent individual,” the handler stressed. “I’m glad he’s equally prominently crooked, because if I had to go into databases in Italy, then I have to start worrying about leaving a trace. And I’m pretty sure if I did… the Grasso family wouldn’t.”
“Don’t worry about that side of things,” Bob said. “Pretty sure they don’t know about me yet. And if they do… well, that NSA file floating around the dark web is solidly ten-to-fifteen years out of date.”
“Yeah,” Renton pointed out, “but back then you were more dangerous, not less. You were still a tier-one operator. You—”
“Yeah! Yeah, I get the message. I’m old and enfeebled.”
“I didn’t mean that, of course,” Renton said hastily. “But… you know what I mean.”
“I’m also older and wiser. There was no chance I’d be getting into a scrap with made guys anyway, regardless of how it might help Errol Green. But if there’s a more diplomatic way to solve this, I have to take that risk. For Dawn.”
He knew Renton didn’t understand his relationship with a middle-aged, Midwestern inner-city nurse. Renton was about as independent as a person could get and, reputationally, that extended to nearly all personal relationships.
But that was okay, too. To each their own, Bob figured.
“Message received. File on its way,” Renton said.
It arrived just after Bob’s second green tea. He checked his watch. Dawn’s late. Shocker. He ordered his salad, then flipped through the file on Giovanni “Johnny” Grasso.
His father fronted a prolific Cosa Nostra family, one with roots going back to the eighteenth century, when his great-grandfather several times removed had started a protection business in the medieval town of Pozzo di Gotto, to negotiate safe passage and fair trade between local businesses and the Sicilian nobility. The town lay near hills and mountains, treacherous, wind-swept trails running through sun-bleached valleys, merchant caravans ripe for the picking.
They’d operated as a sort of private army ever since; unlike some families, who engaged heavily in outside criminal trade like smuggling, narcotics or prostitution under the association’s larger protection, the Grasso family was traditionalist: it demanded payment from businesses in Sicily and abroad in exchange for a promise they would remain harassment free, and their enemies would suffer wherever appropriate.
If a business agreed but could not pay, they subsumed an equal ownership share in it until enough value had been derived to repay the debt. However, with high weekly interest rates charged on delinquent debtors, that often amounted, in short order, to full control and ownership. Sometimes, owners would find the locks changed within days, the “misunderstanding” only resolved once the business’s inventory and credit had both been used up.
“The current don, Vito Simone Ernesto Grasso, has been in charge of the family for forty-two years, since his father’s murder. He was twenty-two at the time and not expected to survive the ensuing succession war with some of his father’s most trusted lieutenants. But he emerged not just in charge, but with most of them dead and buried,” the report read.
“In recent years, control of international extortion rackets seems to have fallen to his son, Giovanni, thirty-two, despite misgivings from Grasso’s consigliere, Victor Tepi, a Romanian-Italian solicitor who previously served his father. It is possible his father is unaware that Giovanni expanded the family into online extortion scams and people smuggling, through an array of subsidiary front companies, and therefore into potential conflict with foreign organized crime organizations and general rivals. With six arrests for assault or rape before his twenty-fourth birthday, and no convictions, Giovanni is considered by some in Italian criminal intelligence to be the organization’s weak link. He has a hair-trigger temper and lacks, some believe, his father’s intelligence and discernment.
“Nonetheless, he is a formidable Mafioso in his own right and believed to have ordered the deaths of dozens of rivals.”
Bob kept scanning. The family’s net worth was estimated at nine billion dollars, but that was largely based on their legitimate holdings in real estate and wind farms. How much they had off the books, in cash, crypto and gold, was far less obvious, but the agency presumed, based on the volume of international trade, that it could be double that.
Eighteen billion dollars. That’s a bundle of cabbage.
People with that kind of money tend to get what they want.
Still… it also meant the hundred and fifty thousand Errol owed was, relatively speaking, chicken feed. It seemed more likely, based on his sordid history, that Johnny would want Errol dead for embarrassing him.
That might be another problem altogether.
“You look deep in thought.”
Bob looked up from his phone as Dawn took the chair across from him. A waiter spotted her come in and was over in a flash with a menu. “Thank you, dear,” she said as she took it. “You’re still buying me lunch, I take it?”
“I am. You really think this thing with my old townhouse is going to work?”
“There’s no lien anymore from the federal government, I’ve checked. I’ll have to sell it for you, with the backdated letter you wrote giving me power of attorney, because you’re not legally alive again yet. And the city’s got a lock on it for tax arrears. But if we pay that chunk… it’s a great neighborhood, Bob. It’ll go for a premium price. If… you know… If you were looking for a long-term place to settle—”
“I can’t stay in Chicago,” Bob stressed. He had to keep reminding her, which didn’t seem fair. But he understood. “I know how nice this has been. But you know what Adam Renton told me.”
“So… people are looking you up online. You’ve been in contact with a lot of people over the years, helped a lot of people. Surely it could be someone doing so for nice reasons.”
“On the dark web? And specifically accessing my old NSA jacket? I don’t think so. An oligarch stuck a massive bounty on my head. And because he did it through a merc agency that still exists, a lot of them don’t get that he’s never going to pay out. The longer I’m here, the higher the chance someone takes a potshot at me, with maybe you or Marcus in the line of fire.”
“Isn’t that up to—”
“No. No, it’s not. If I’m the target, I’m the one who has to make the decision to make myself scarce. I said I’d stay for as long as I can, and I will. But sooner or later…” He let the thought hang. Neither of them liked it.
“So… we sell your place, and at least you have some funds to live on until you figure out where you can settle. Or maybe when.” She sounded resigned to it.
“Yeah.” It had gotten grim quickly. Change the subject, Bobby. “On the upside… we’re together for a little while longer at least, and the salad here is pretty fresh, pretty tasty.” He nodded towards his oversized bowl of olive-oil dressing and veg. “Eh? Eh?”
She sighed and smiled. “Okay. Point made.”
The waiter’s timing was impeccable. “I’ll have the same,” she said, gesturing towards the salad, “with a baked chicken breast as well, please, just plain, no extra spices.”
Bob studied her curiously as the waiter left. “For the protein.”
“Darn straight,” she said. “I’ve been lifting weights as well as boxing.” She curled one of her arms, a bicep popping out.
“Ho-ly!” Bob said. “I am impressed.”
“Well, good! Now… any chance you can impress me and tell me you’ve figured out what I do about Errol’s gambling problems?”
Bob let out a sigh as deep as a memorial wake. Then he caught himself. “Sorry. That was purely reflexive. I’ve been letting this eat at me all night; how to tell you the enormous SNAFU clusterfuck your brother has laid at your door.”
He outlined Errol’s scam and the consequences. By the end, Dawn’s mouth was hanging open in abject astonishment.
