James Grippando - Need You Now

“I’m just saying, theoretically, if Dad were dead, then these guys he put in jail would stop, wouldn’t they?”

“The key word there is ‘theoretically.’ There’s no way to prove he’s dead or alive. We don’t even know who he is.”

“Well… what if we did know?”

She glanced over and immediately caught my drift. “Holy shit. You found him? How? No, don’t tell me,” she said as her hands instinctively covered her ears, “I don’t want to know.”

I grabbed the wheel and steered around a stopped cab.

“Damn it, Patrick! You are going to get us both killed!”

“We’re more likely to be done in by your driving, sis.”

She swatted me and took back the wheel, but she was beyond angry. “We agreed that we would never do this,” she said. “We promised Mom that we would never look for him.”

“Listen to what I’m saying. If I can convince the Santucci family that he’s dead, their search is over. There would be no reason for the mob to chase us, threaten us, kill us, or do anything else to us ever again.”

“Is that what you’re telling me: Dad is dead?”

“Actually, I’m virtually certain he’s still alive. But I can prove he’s dead.”

“Stop playing with me!” she said as she stood on the brake. Behind us, tires screeched and horns blasted. It was a bona fide miracle that we weren’t rear-ended. Connie steered the van to the curb and slammed it into park, her face beet red.

“It wasn’t my intention to rip into you so soon,” she said, “but you obviously don’t understand how furious I am with you. Do you realize what you’ve done? Our only option may be to go back to the Justice Department and get ourselves reprocessed in the program. New location, new identity: square one. That makes me mad, it makes me want to kick your ass, it makes me just want to cry. I like my life. Finally, for the first time since Mom died, I’m happy with who I am. And now I may lose everything all over again because you had to go and stir things up.”

“I didn’t stir up anything.”

Connie looked away. She was trying to hold her emotions inside, but tears were coming, and it was tearing me up to watch her fall apart. I had to tell her. Finally, I had to tell someone the truth.

“This whole fear of the Santucci family rearing its ugly head is like being afraid of the bogeyman.”

“The bogeyman doesn’t put you in the emergency room.”

“That had nothing to do with the Mafia. But it does involve Dad. I didn’t want to go looking for him. I really didn’t. It was the FBI who came to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

I took a breath, not sure where to begin.

“Patrick, talk to me.”

She was using her stern maternal voice, the one that made me feel like the fifteen-year-old boy who went to live with his twenty-three-year-old sister. This wasn’t skipping school or getting drunk on prom night, but I felt the same need to come clean.

“Her name is Andie Henning,” I said. “About eight months ago she came to me and said she needed my help with an investigation.”

“What kind of investigation?”

Anyone who had watched the news in the twenty-first century was generally familiar with the Abe Cushman story. Beyond that, I was so far ahead of Connie and the rest of the world that I had to stop and remind myself that the name “Gerry Collins” would probably mean nothing to my sister. More to the point, she had no idea that Tony Mandretti-our father-was Tony Martin, and that Tony Martin had pleaded guilty to killing Cushman’s right-hand man.

“The FBI believes that a big chunk of the Cushman money was funneled through BOS in Singapore. We’re talking about billions of dollars.”

“The FBI asked you to spy on your own bank? Why on earth would you agree to do that?”

“That was exactly my reaction. Until Agent Henning mentioned the name Tony Mandretti.”

I could see her anger rising all over again. “Please don’t tell me that you got suckered into working for the FBI in exchange for some promise of a family reunion. That is the craziest thing I-”

“Dad’s dying,” I said.

She blinked hard, absorbing the blow.

“Not tomorrow, not next week,” I said. “But it’s coming. The good news is that he’s getting decent treatment. That was the deal. I helped the FBI and went to Singapore; they arranged for Dad to get the kind of treatment he couldn’t get in prison.”

“Wait a minute. He’s in prison? For what?”

I paused to soften it, but that seemed only to make her more anxious.

“For what? ” she asked again.

“Murder.”

She closed her eyes in anguish. “I really wish you hadn’t told me.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“Then why is he behind bars?”

“He pleaded guilty to the murder of Gerry Collins.”

Her eyes closed again. More anguish. Or maybe it was a massive headache. “You are not making me feel better.”

“Connie, I’m telling you: Dad didn’t do it.”

“Did the FBI tell you that?”

“No. In fact, Agent Henning is adamant that he’s guilty.”

“Did Dad tell you he’s innocent?”

“Not directly.”

“Don’t be cute. Have you talked to him or not?”

“No. That was one of the conditions of my assignment: no contact between us. This wasn’t about a family reunion, as you put it. The deal was simply to get Dad the medical treatment he needed. He doesn’t know I had anything to do with it.”

She drew a breath. “Patrick, it’s understandable that you would want to help Dad if he was sick, and I can see how it would make it easier to help him if you thought he was innocent. But-”

“That’s not it,” I said. “I didn’t agree to the FBI’s terms and risk my career just to get medical treatment for a deadbeat father who had killed another man. What drove me is that I knew he was innocent. I’m not asking for your help or approval. I’m simply telling you that it’s my intention to get him out of prison and let him live his last days the way he wants to live them.”

“We haven’t seen Dad in years. How could you possibly know anything about him, much less whether or not he’s sitting in prison for something he didn’t do?”

I started to talk, then reconsidered. It was beyond my persuasive powers to convince her in this setting. “Let me borrow your phone.”

She handed it to me but asked, “What’s wrong with yours?”

I didn’t have time to get into it fully. “I only have my BlackBerry, and I’d rather not send this message on a bank-issued phone if I can avoid it.”

“Why not?”

“Just drive,” I said.

“Drive where? To the zoo?”

“No, go through the circle and head up Central Park West,” I said, while tapping out a text message on her phone. “Take Terrace Drive through the park. There’s someone you need to meet.”

“Who?”

Connie’s phone chimed with Agent Henning’s response to my text. She was on her way.

“Alice in Wonderland,” I told Connie. “I think it’s time we all got acquainted.”

A ndie was alone in her office when the text arrived. She didn’t recognize the incoming number, but the message was clearly from Patrick.

Position Three. ASAP.

It was his third message in less than twenty-four hours, his second selection of Position Three. She sensed that something was wrong. She rose from her desk, closed the door, and hit Call Back. Speaking on the telephone was a total break in protocol, and Patrick sounded surprised, but he answered in Spanish- Hola -which was their previously agreed-upon code for I’m OK, no gun to my head.