Tom Piccirilli - Headstone City

He sat and tried not to glare at her, but he couldn't help feeling a touch betrayed. Somehow he'd grown to care enough about her to form expectations. She wrapped the kimono around herself and Dane asked, “You mind if I get dressed?”

“No, of course not.”

Who would think that such a small thing as a.22 could ruin the mood? When events calmed down, he might have to ponder this one a little longer. But as it was, he'd barely zipped up his fly when Cogan walked in.

“Does that doorman give you dirty looks too?” Dane asked, continuing to dress.

“Naw, I'm on the lease.”

“You the one that put up that goddamn swing?”

Glory had said the apartment didn't come from drug money. Couldn't fault her for telling the truth, when she did. So the place wasn't really bugged. Not technically. But Glory was in contact with Cogan, both of them keeping their eyes on Dane. But for what purpose?

“So it's not about the drugs. Or the movies. It's the guns.”

“Yep,” Cogan told him, no longer grinning. His hair combed. Everything in the open now. Two buddies who finally had all the bullshit out of the way and could lay it on the table.

Glory Bishop said, “Guns? What guns?” Feisty, but with a little girl air about her. Cogan came over and plucked the Beretta out of her hand, more daddy than boss or lover. “What are you two talking about?”

Dane finished dressing and sat on the other end of the couch from where he and Glory had gotten their final groove on. “Only in relation to a revolution.”

“Tha's right.”

“Which country?”

“Some Central America shithole I have a hard time pronouncin'.”

Glory just kept standing there. “What the hell are you both talking about?” Not even all that flustered. She'd always known something else was going on, and like Dane, she'd just gone with the flow, hoping everything would be revealed in the end.

“Start a war or stop one?” Dane asked.

“Tell you the truth, son, I'm not sure. That's for the fellas well above me. I'm just doing my job.”

“I thought that sort of thing was the CIA's turf.”

“It mostly is, but I suspect the Bureau is expanding. Interagency cooperation and like that.”

“Oh holy shit,” Glory said, cinching the kimono tighter around her waist, looking on the floor for her panties now, talking rapidly. “You motherfucker, Cogan, you rotten motherfucker. Jesus, when my husband was on trial, the things you said. All those threats you made… so determined to ruin my life, you fucker. You said you'd-”

“I said a lot of things, darlin', every one of them true. I needed your help, and I did what I had to do to get it.”

“Motherfucker!”

“Why'd this guy take a fall in the first place?” Dane asked.

“He wasn't ambitious enough,” Cogan explained. “He got sloppy. He wanted out of the deal, but we needed him. His company, the way the cash was cleaned, the way the weapons came on up out of Southern California. His contacts, the distribution, everything. But he kept trying to shut it down and pull out.”

“He wanted to go clean and you wouldn't let him.”

Noting the judgmental tone but ignoring it, Cogan said, “I told him to just keep on playin' ball, but he had to buck me. What makes a man do that, thwart his own government? He was a damn fool, and a traitor to boot, if you want to put a point on it. I figured Glory would step up when he went down.”

“Rotten motherfucker!”

“So what do you want from me?” Dane asked.

“I want you to convince your friend Vincenzo Monticelli to help out his sister's career even more.”

It started snapping into place then. “You want a new front man. Vinny Monticelli to take over where this guy left off. Grease the production company's wheels, that it? Smuggle the drugs and guns, keep putting the clean money into the business, make a few movies, put Maria on the screen, overthrow some pissant country.”

“Tha's right.”

“Man, did you go the long way around the block. Vinny wants me dead. So what makes you think I'll have any pull with them about where the family money goes?”

“Let's just say I got a hunch he'll listen to you. Some folks been declarin' that he's crazy. If so, I figure you might be the only one to talk any sense to him.”

“Why?”

“You're kinda crazy too.” Cogan showed his big teeth, almost getting podunk again, but not quite. The real smile this time, shining through. “I had a feelin' about you right from the start. You haven't exactly been lying low, son. Throwing down in Choochie's, going to visit the old Don right in his house. You've been shaking up that family like a hornet's nest. Sharpening the blade, getting the crew back into action. Kicking their asses into shape. You got spirit! Figured they'd take you on as a capo, then you'd have Vinny's ear again.”

“Figured you'd put me to use.”

“Just so.”

Dane thought Special Agent Daniel Ezekiel Cogan might be out of his tree as well. The Right Reverend Matthew Colepepper probably had the right idea putting Cogan's mother in the asylum, but he shouldn't have stopped there. “You don't understand us Mediterranean types at all.”

“Naw, probably not too well.”

Glory drifted back toward Dane. “I'm sorry. I didn't know this rat fuck was playing me. I thought I was protecting myself.”

“You were. It's okay,” Dane told her. He thought about that day at the movie premiere, how she'd told him she was only attending as a favor to a friend. Cute, look at that, she'd told the truth again. Making contact with Dane under Cogan's orders. All because of Vinny, and nobody had even met with him yet.

Yeah, it was all pretty insane. Now that the mob was going legit, the feds wanted them to get back to the dirty dealing. The guy who wanted to go clean, they tossed his ass in the can.

“Why didn't you just ask Vinny yourself?” Dane asked.

“I didn't want to get that close to the situation, y'understand. Now, JoJo Tormino, he and I had been doing some talkin'. He was a bit sweet on Maria.”

“He wanted to marry her, but he got iced before he could pop the question.”

“I know it, and it was a damn sad thing to hear. Didn't figure him to go out the way he did. He was always cautious when meeting with me. Never took me to that bakery before, though, would've been nice if he had. He always wanted to meet in those there little strip mall coffee shops out on Long Island. He'd wear sunglasses, nervous as could be. That boy was headed for a heart attack.”

Dane could imagine it, seeing JoJo and Cogan discussing the future of Maria Monticelli's acting career. Getting Vinny to invest in Glory's husband's production company. JoJo getting his ticket punched because he wanted the love of his life to get into movies and say dialogue like Augh. Yeee. No please, I'll do anything you want. Wah. Maria running away from Zypho, the monster with penislike tentacles trying to impregnate the all-female crew as they flew around the galaxy.

Dane frowned at both of them and felt a shard of hysterical laughter trying to shove itself up his throat. He swallowed twice to keep it down but he knew there was a sick smile on his face. “Even if I could get anybody in the Monti family to invest more of their time, effort, and money into drugs and the company… even if I could get them to launder the dirty cash and run out more guns… why the fuck would I want to? What do I get out of it?”

“Because it's what Maria Monticelli wants,” Cogan said. “To be on the screen. And you love her.”

There it was. The leverage that Cogan had been holding back.

Maria.

First JoJo. Now Dane. Everybody out of their head in love with her. Easily manipulated.

“How do you know that?” he asked.