Once a Crooked Man by McCallum David

Author:McCallum, David [McCallum, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781466892484
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

38

The Fiery Red Dragon was not particularly busy when the three Bruschetti brothers came in and slid into the corner booth. Rocco followed them, put the Closed card on the outer door and had the neon sign turned off. He then ordered an assortment of appetizers and drinks for everyone. As they munched away they made small talk. As soon as the last of the patrons left, the waiter and cook were banished to the street and the four men got down to business.

“Tell me, Brother, why the hell don’t we just say no?” Sal asked bluntly.

“Not a good idea,” said Enzo. “We don’t want to make the South Americans our enemies.”

“What makes you think you can trust them?” asked Max. “Once we set up the organization for them they could get rid of us permanently.”

“That would be very bad for business,” Enzo replied, chewing on a spare rib. “Even the Colombians know you got to trust somebody somewhere.”

Sal took a sip of his Cutty Sark. “What makes you think we can deliver what he wants?”

Enzo leaned back and said forcefully, “Goddam it, Sal! The man is giving us a one-way ticket to retirement. To a little peace and security.”

Max shook his head. “I agree with Sal. It won’t be that easy to set up an organization like the one he wants. We have few reliable contacts outside the city. How do you set up a network without manpower?”

“Simple,” replied Enzo. “We relocate the guys we know here.” He glanced at the doubting faces around him. “Look.” He shoved aside the dishes. “It’s like this.” He illustrated with a finger on the tabletop. “I would be in overall charge from here in Manhattan. We divide the country into sections. We assign someone we can trust to each one and let them pick a team. They will report directly to me here in New York.”

“You think he knows what happened in London?” asked Sal.

Rocco spoke up. “If he doesn’t know now he will soon. Nothing gets by those guys.”

“He’s right,” said Max. “We need to figure out what to say when he asks.”

“Not a problem,” said Enzo confidently.

Sal looked over at Rocco. “Did you wait to see the kid come back to his room?”

“What?” said Rocco.

“When you were in London.”

“No. I didn’t,” answered Rocco. “It would have been too risky.”

Sal grunted. “I’d sure like to have been a fly on the wall when he opened that fucking closet. What do you suppose the bastard did?”

Rocco smirked. “Packed his things as fast as he could. Put as much distance as he could between himself and his apartment. No way he could ever explain the stiff in his closet. That was the beautiful part of it all. He had nothing to do with Santiago’s death, but when they catch him his goose is truly cooked.”

“Why did you call the hotel?” asked Enzo. “What was that all about?”

“I did it in case the kid checked to see that Mr. Herbie Smith was a legit guest.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.