Russell Andrews - Hades

They smiled at each other. When Roger shook Justin's hand he, too, said, "Thank you." Then he did his best to grin and said, "I'm hittin' your dad up for one major bonus."

Jonathan had arranged for two cars. One for him and Roger. One for Justin and Reggie. Justin and Reggie's car took them about thirty minutes from the airport, into an area of Providence called College Hill. It was a clean, suburban-looking neighborhood with expensive, colonial-style houses.

"Looks like a place where wealthy businessmen should live," Reggie said as the car pulled into a gated driveway.

"They do," Justin said solemnly. "You're about to meet one of the wealthiest."

"How do you know where he lives?" Reggie asked.

"Every cop in Rhode Island knows where Lenny Rube lives," he said. "They've all been here for dinner."

The driver stopped at the intercom before the gate and dialed up to the house. When a man's voice at the other end said, "Who is it?" Justin leaned over and said his name. There was a fairly long silence, then a woman's voice said, "We're having a dinner party, Mr. Westwood. I'm afraid this isn't a good time. We're just starting our dessert."

"Is this Mrs. Rubenelli?" he asked.

"Yes, it is."

"Ask your husband if he'd rather talk to me in private right now or if he'd like me to drag him out of your dinner party by his hair and arrest him in front of all your guests."

There was another silence. Then the gate slowly began to open. The car drove up the long driveway, dropped them off in front of the house, and Justin asked the driver to please wait. He said they wouldn't be long.

They were ushered into the Rubenelli house-the parlor was nearly as big as Justin's house in East End-and asked to wait in a den off to the right. As they were led to the smaller room, they could make out the dining room and a large table with perhaps twelve guests seated around it. There was lots of laughter and good cheer emanating from the room. Justin was willing to wait exactly five minutes before going into the dining room and putting a damper on all the fun. But with thirty seconds to go, Leonardo Rubenelli joined them in the den.

"You were always a rude bastard," Lenny Rube said. He looked at Justin and said, "Jesus Christ. What the hell happened to you?" Justin didn't bother to respond. Lenny Rube raised his eyes, a look that said, Okay, if that's the way you want to play it, then he saw Reggie and said, "Excuse me. Leonard Rubenelli." He extended his hand, and she shook it.

"Agent Regina Bokkenheuser," she said. "FBI."

"What do you want?" Lenny Rube said.

It was Justin who answered. "I want Bruno."

"What, you don't know how to get in touch with him?"

"He seems to be out of touch at the moment."

Lenny said nothing for a minute, as if he was pondering the request, then he said, "You know, I never liked the fact that you and Bruno were so friendly. It's always made me uncomfortable. Other people, too."

"I wouldn't overestimate our friendship so much if I were you, Len. This isn't a social occasion. I want you to tell him to talk to me."

"I'll tell him when I see him. That it? That's what's so pressing? Can I go back to my guests now?"

"Not yet," Justin said. "You might want to sit down for this."

Rubenelli waited long enough to convey that it was his choice whether or not he was going to stay, but when the decision was made, he sat in a large, overstuffed chair with a multicolored, flower-patterned, quilted fabric. Justin began to talk. He told the Mafia boss almost all of the financial details he'd learned from Roger, down to the profits that Rubenelli's various red-named companies had been making-as well as their recent losses. He explained as much as he needed to about Evan Harmon's shorting scheme and financial sleight-of-hand artistry.

Rubenelli said nothing until Justin was finished. Then he pulled a pack of cigarettes from a drawer. To Reggie he said, "You mind if I smoke?" She shook her head and he said, "My wife, she don't like me to smoke in the house. But I think I need one-you know what I mean?" He offered one to Reggie and Justin; they each declined. "You always were a good cop," he said to Justin. He lit up, took a quick drag. "It's why you're so unpopular."

"I'll take that as a way of saying you're not disputing what I just told you."

"Take it however the fuck you want." Rubenelli took a deep drag. "I'm seventy years old and I smoked my whole life. Since I was ten. Probably live to be a hundred. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Not that much," Justin said.

"So what do you want from me?" Rubenelli asked.

"We want you to fill in some gaps."

"And I'm doin' this just out of the goodness of my heart?"

"You're doing it because I can make a really good case that you're responsible for the deaths of Evan Harmon, Ronald LaSalle, and Wanda Chinkle. It's good enough to take to court, and right now I'd say it's at least fifty-fifty it's winnable. And if that happens, you'll be smoking behind bars for those last thirty years of yours."

"What's stoppin' you from making your case?"

"I think there's something bigger going on."

Rubenelli smirked. "What, you're sayin' I'm innocent?"

"You're the least innocent guy I've ever met, Len. I'm just saying I'm not convinced you're guilty. At least of these murders. But if we release this information, and tie you to everything I know we can tie you to, everybody else is going to think you're guilty as hell. Of a whole bunch of things."

"Ask," Rubenelli said.

"You met with Evan Harmon and Ronald LaSalle down in Palm Beach at the Rockworth and Williams hedge fund conference."

"Yeah. I have a house down there. Right on the water. I use it in the winter. Bunch of snobs, you know, but you can't beat the fuckin' weather in January."

"How'd you hook up with them?" Reggie asked.

"You're not gonna believe me."

"Try us."

"Bruno. He was usin' LaSalle as a broker."

"As a legit broker?" Justin asked.

Lenny Rube laughed. "Totally legit. Bruno got interested in the market. He started to play around. LaSalle made him some dough. A lotta dough, if you wanna know the truth. So he came to me and said I oughtta check this guy out."

"Len," Justin said, "you're telling me that you were using Ron LaSalle as your personal, legit broker to play the stock market?"

"How much of this conversation is off the record?" Rubenelli asked.

"Unless I'm wrong and you ordered these hits, it's all off the record. I wish you nothing but success with your moneymaking schemes."

"Off the record, it started legit. As kind of a test. Then we went to him and said we wanted to invest some-uh-corporate funds. We wanted him to be a kind of funds-to-funds guy."

"Funds to funds?" Justin said. "What are you, going to business school?"

"Hey, scumbag," Rubenelli said. "A lotta what we do's legit now. And we gotta play it legit. And it wasn't just my dough, our dough. We got a few… outside investors."

"Other families?"

"I'm talkin' to you about my business. I don't have to bring in other people's business. I'm just sayin' my investors got money to invest and we got people to look out for and we're like anybody else-we like to hire good people to watch over our money."

"So LaSalle started investing your money in various hedge funds?"

"Yeah. Until… well… he kinda figured out we weren't interested in dealin', you know, a hundred percent on the up-and-up. I mean, we were makin' dough, but we decided we weren't makin' enough dough."

"He backed out?"

"He wasn't stupid. He asked out. I liked the guy. He did his job for us. I said fine. Just get me a good replacement."

"Evan Harmon."

"A greedy fuckin' guy."

"You put your-okay-corporate money into Ascension."