Omerta (The Mafia Chronicles #4) by Peter McCurtin

Author:Peter McCurtin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime, crime fiction, the mafia, crime syndicates, mario puzo, crime fiction ebooks
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Seven

THE DRIVER OF the phony cab was still behind the wheel when Collino drove past, going east on Bleecker. He didn’t think the driver would follow him. He just drove the cab, the tough guy gave the orders.

Taking it easy, Collino watched the cab in his rear-view mirror. Like he figured, it didn’t take off after him. That didn’t mean there might not be another tail car on the scene by then. An old panel truck stayed behind him all the way to Broadway, but when he slowed down it passed him.

He went down Broadway, then over to Third Avenue and went north again. His watch said it was five minutes to four. Uptown again in the Twenties, sure as he could be that he wasn’t followed, he parked his car in a lot, then took a cab to a rental car garage in the Forties, off Times Square. There he used a credit card to rent a late model hardtop and told the guy in the office that he’d be back later to pick it up. By then it was nearly four-thirty, still too early to do what he had in mind.

In a bar on 44th Street between Sixth Avenue and Times Square, where a lot of actors hung out, he ordered a bottle of beer and left it standing unpoured while he made a call from the pay phone to a narcotics detective he had on his personal payroll. Maybe the drug cop was on other payrolls he didn’t know about. He didn’t think he was but, like he always said, you never knew.

They put him through to some office cop who said Detective White was out sick—and would he care to leave a message?

Collino hung up without answering and dialed the number of White’s home in Jackson Heights. White’s wife answered the phone and didn’t want to put him through. Mrs. White thought he was some other cop, maybe a sneak from the gumshoe squad. Collino had checked on White and his wife when he first started doing business with the narc. Mrs. White liked things her husband couldn’t afford on a detective’s salary. Maybe she was nervous and guilty at the same time.

“I said my husband is sick,” she said again. “You tell the lieutenant for me ...”

Collino straightened her out without giving his name. “It’s me,” he said when White got on the phone.

White sounded as if he had a bad cold. Collino didn’t like Detective Eddie White, and maybe he liked honest cops better than crooked ones. Sometimes he thought that was funny.

“You sound terrible,” Collino said. From the phone booth he could see the bar, the door leading in from the street. The same people, mostly actors and hangers-on, were still at the bar. They were there when he walked in, so they were all right. A young guy with bleached hair and a buckskin jacket came in with an old woman with a face like a mask.

“And feel terrible,” White said. “I took cold pills and still feel lousy.

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