David Ellis - Breach of Trust

They had an F-Bird, but it hadn’t come from me. They’d taken it off someone else.

“So, I’m sorry about all that,” Charlie said, as if he’d accidentally spilled some coffee on my pants or something. “They had to be sure. We just-had to make sure. You understand.”

I needed time to gather myself here, but I probably didn’t have that luxury. Staying in role was as important now as before.

“Say something, kid,” he said.

“Fuck. . you,” I managed.

He liked that. “Say something else.”

“Is that thing,” I said between breaths, “really a recording device?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Someone’s. . wearing a wire?”

“Someone was ,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“Great. That’s. . just great.”

“I think we’re okay, kid. I’m gonna uncuff you now.” He showed me the key. Under the circumstances, he probably figured I would be reticent about anyone approaching me.

He came around behind me with the key. He took the coat-Paulie’s coat-off my shoulders.

“Don’t take the coat,” I snapped. “I’m freezing. Put it back on.”

I wasn’t freezing, actually. The events of the last half-hour had elevated my temperature considerably.

“Okay, take it easy.” He unlocked my handcuffs and then threw Paulie’s coat over my shoulders again.

My hands were free again. I savored it. I rubbed my wrists.

“So, listen. I’ve got a few things I gotta take care of. My guy here, he’s going to drive you home. Don’t talk to anyone about anything until I get back in touch with you. You hear me, kid? Not a fucking word to anybody.”

“Charlie. . whatever you do. . whoever it is. . don’t kill anybody. Keeping someone quiet. . isn’t worth. . a murder charge. Trust me.”

I thought it made sense to cast my appeal in terms of attorney-client advice as opposed to a plea to his morality.

“I’m going to get you your clothes,” he said.

“You don’t just. . kill a federal witness, Charlie.”

“I’m not going to kill anybody.” He walked out, leaving me alone. He came back only a few moments later with my clothes, a little worse for wear but all there, in the laundry basket.

“Paulie’s gonna need his coat back,” said Charlie. “You know his buddy Sal had to go to the hospital? You shattered the guy’s nose.” He thought that was funny.

I handed Paulie’s coat to Charlie. I didn’t need it any longer. I just needed that brief interval of time, while Charlie left the room, to fetch my F-Bird out of Paulie’s front coat pocket.

I sat silent in the backseat of Leather Jacket’s SUV. I didn’t know what Charlie had in store for the snitch he’d caught with the F-Bird. I assumed the penalty for betrayal would be death, Charlie’s denial notwithstanding. Either way, everything had changed now. The G had targeted Charlie Cimino, and now he knew it.

My F-Bird was once again resting comfortably in the pocket of my suit jacket. I’d removed it during the drive to this place with Charlie, once the warning bells went off with his questions about Starlight Catering. I’d faked a sneeze and removed my handkerchief from my pants pocket. Charlie hadn’t noticed that I then placed the handkerchief in the inner pocket of my suit coat, which allowed me to snag the F-Bird and palm it for the remainder of the ride in my right hand. I’d thought about dumping it somewhere in the Porsche, but I figured if they were going to search me, they’d be bright enough to search the car, too. Lucky for me, the F-Bird was light as a feather, so Paulie didn’t feel it when I dropped it in his coat pocket while we were squaring off in the garage.

It was a gamble, sure. Paulie could have discovered it, and I would have been toast. But I didn’t have a better idea. And it didn’t seem likely these guys would ever think to search each other for the device.

I got lucky when Paulie threw his coat over me at the end of the interrogation, allowing me to retrieve it. Otherwise, I’d have had a problem. Sooner or later, Paulie would have found it in the bottom of his pocket. I would have had to intervene before that time. But it would have been a bridge to cross later; the more immediate problem was surviving that room. And now, thanks to sweet Irish luck, I had survived and retrieved the F-Bird in the same sitting.

I paid attention to the route Leather Jacket was taking back to my house. I’d had some vague notion that his job might be to drive me to a remote location and put a bullet between my eyes. But if they wanted me dead, I would have died in that room.

I got out of the SUV without a word to Leather Jacket. When I got inside my townhouse and saw that the SUV had driven away, I pulled out my cell phone. It had been turned off. I powered it up. My plan was to call Lee Tucker. But my phone was already ringing. The caller ID showed “David Hamlin,” meaning Tucker.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You’re okay?”

“In one piece.”

“Thank God.” He took a breath. “Okay, listen-”

“You better find Greg Connolly,” I said. “Because Cimino has him and he’s going to kill him. If he hasn’t already.”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“There’s another CI,” I said.

“Jason-”

“Charlie knows that. He showed me his F-Bird-”

“Jason.”

“I assume it was Greg Connolly-”

“Jason.”

I stopped. “What?”

“Greg Connolly is dead,” he said.

I let out a breath. “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit. Go to your back door,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to knock on it.”

I went through the kitchen to my back door and opened it up. Lee Tucker was coming up the walk. “They killed him,” I said.

He nodded. He walked past me and closed the door. “Found his body at Seagram Hill almost an hour ago.”

I looked at my kitchen clock. I’d lost all sense of time. It was almost midnight. He threw his coat on the kitchen table and started pacing.

“A car just dropped me off,” I said. “An SUV. Plate number is-”

“We’re on it,” Tucker said. “And we’ve got agents watching your house right now, from all sides. In case someone decides to stop by unannounced.” He looked me over. “They did a number on you. You okay?”

I waved him off. I was anything but okay. My head and neck would be sore for days. I had a permanent chill that would last a long while, too. Even my right hand ached, from punching the one guy in the nose.

“Fuck,” said Tucker. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. ”

I thought that was an accurate summary of tonight’s events.

Two in the morning. Chris Moody had joined us. We were sitting in the kitchen. Tucker and Moody had listened to the contents of my F-Bird several times already on a laptop computer Moody had brought.

Charlie Cimino had returned home shortly after I did, near midnight, and was still there. They’d tailed Leather Jacket’s SUV to some location, though Moody and Tucker didn’t elaborate on where or what had transpired. All was quiet now. Greg Connolly was dead. I was alive and secure. Cimino and his cronies were home in their beds, hopeful that their crime had gone undetected.

Greg Connolly had been found facedown, with his pants at his ankles, in an area of the city called Seagram Hill but more typically known as “Semen Hill.” The Hill was a notorious west-side locale for prostitutes, many of the male variety. Found in the condition he was, the story would be obvious enough: Greg Connolly was jumped and murdered while looking for a ten-dollar blowjob.

Tucker looked at me. “So you slipped the F-Bird out of your pocket in the car, then you dropped it in the goon’s pocket?”