Стюарт Вудс - Class Act

“Yes, it does. A bookie named Vinnie, who works out of Hialeah, was the guy I placed a bundle of money with and got five percent a week.”

“I remember you mentioning that.”

“But when they failed to pay the interest one week, I demanded that money and my bundle back and gave them twenty-four hours to comply. I had a reputation in prison for keeping my promises, and I guess they figure it was less trouble to give the money back than to worry about me.”

“Who is the other party in ‘they’?”

“Oh, Vinnie works for a guy named Manny who runs the mob’s South Florida interests. My money would have been funneled through Vinnie and him to somebody else.”

“Do you think Vinnie would have put out a hit on you?”

“No, but Manny would, if he was pissed off. He’d have had Vinnie hire somebody. Now all this is making sense.”

“I’m sorry, I’m missing something. What would Vinnie — or, rather, Manny — want from you?”

“Manny would probably want my money back. He’s the greedy sort. And in order to get it back he’d have to find me, and that means he needs to know my new name. Vinnie knows me only as Fratelli. Mickey O’Brien is the only person I can think of who knows that name.”

“Ah,” Stone said. “I sort of understand. Is there anything you want Bob’s people to do about this? I don’t mean anything drastic.”

“No. I need to think about the whole thing and a way to throw a monkey wrench into their works.”

“Well, you’ve got your new nose working for you.”

Jack laughed. “Yes, there is that.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks, Stone, I think I know how to handle it. Do you have an address for Mickey?”

Stone gave it to him. “Oh, and Mickey has a girlfriend living with him named Marge: she was his real estate agent on the house.”

“Got it. Thank you again, Stone.” Jack hung up. He had to sleep on this before he did anything, but it was already clear that he had to do something .

Stone called Bob Cantor. “Hey. My client was on the phone this morning, the one who’s worried about Mick O’Brien.”

“What’s with that, anyway?” Cantor asked.

Stone took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you much. Let’s just say they knew each other in another life, and Mickey is the only one who knows about that life.”

“Okay, I buy that. Do you think he wants something done to Mickey? I mean, you and I don’t deal in that, right?”

“Very right.”

“Is your client capable of dealing with it directly?”

“My client is capable of wringing Mickey’s neck like a chicken’s. But we don’t want blood in the streets of Brooklyn, especially on my client’s hands. He’s an upstanding citizen.”

“Does this thing between them have anything to do with that big robbery at an apartment on Fifth Avenue? I mean, when I was redoing the security system, I saw Mickey there. He was one of the investigators.”

“My client attended that party.” Never mind that Jack was the host of that party, Stone said to himself. “Mickey might have seen him there on the night.”

“And he would have seen Mickey.”

“Possibly.”

“I’m getting the feeling that I’m tiptoeing a little too close to the edge here.”

Stone remained silent.

“Okay, let’s scrap that theory.”

“It could work, as long as it’s only a theory and not spread around.”

“I see,” Bob said. At least, he thought he saw.

Bob Cantor thought about this thing for a while. He’d gone as far as he could with Stone, maybe further than he should have. Maybe he’d see what he could find out without consulting him. After all, what people want in this sort of case is a result; even if they didn’t want to deal with the means.

Bob knew Tiny Blanco from his days as a cop, when Tiny was muscle for his predecessor. Tiny wasn’t stupid, but he was a bully — that is, he enjoyed siccing his boys on some hapless son of a bitch who couldn’t cover his bets. Bob viewed bullying as a weakness, a way inside a man’s head.

Bob drove his van down to Little Italy and put it in a parking garage around the corner from the alley where Tiny’s business operated. He remembered something about Tiny: he always lunched alone at the same Italian restaurant, probably because he didn’t want anybody to see how much he ate. He sat near the kitchen at a table behind a screen, sheltered further between his table and the kitchen by a tall piece of furniture that held the silverware in pigeonholes.

Bob walked down the street to the next alley where the restaurant, Luigi’s, was situated. He walked past the place slowly, casing it. The screen was still there. Bob checked his watch: a quarter past one; Tiny was probably there now. The place was more than half empty, catering as it did to an earlier lunch crowd. Bob walked back and into the restaurant, grabbing a menu on his way. He sat down at the table next to the screen and listened. Judging from the noises being made, either Tiny was behind it, or they were keeping pigs in the place now.

He leaned close to the screen. “Hello, Tiny,” he said.

The noises stopped for a moment, while Tiny tried to place the voice, then he chewed some more and swallowed. “Whozzat?” he asked.

“An old acquaintance,” Bob replied.

“Whaddaya want?”

“Just the answers to a couple of questions.”

“Not now, I’m eating.”

“Yeah, I know. I could hear the noises out in the street.”

“Maybe you would like to ask your questions to some friends of mine.”

“No, Tiny, just you. Give me straight answers, and I’ll be gone. Give me crooked answers, and I’ll shut you down, take your money, and pull out your phones. How’d you like to do a couple of years on Rikers? I hear they have a very fine chef there.”

“What do you want?” Tiny said, enunciating more clearly without a slab of veal in the way.

“You sent Willie Pasco to see Mickey O’Brien. Who told you to send him and why?”

“You don’t want to mess with that,” Tiny said. “Those people play for keeps.”

“Then what’s a small-time bookie like you messing with them?”

“I got a request,” Tiny said.

“That brings us back to my original question,” Bob said. “Who from and what for? And if I don’t get an answer I like, you’re going to hear the sound of police sirens before the next minute has passed.”

“From a guy in Florida,” Tiny said. “Manny runs things for the boys down there.”

“Keep going.”

“Manny Fiore. Every buck off a track or a card game in South Florida passes through Manny Fiore’s hands.”

“Where does he work out of?”

“He has an old trailer parked at the back of the parking lot of the Hialeah, one of them Streamers, or something.”

“Airstreamer?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Now get off my back, or I’ll call for some help.”

“And you’d need it,” Bob said. He slid out of his seat, left a twenty for the waiter, and left the restaurant.

Tiny was left wondering if he still had company. Finally, he pulled back the screen an inch and looked. Nobody there.

Back in his van, Bob Cantor called Stone.

“Yes, Bob?”

“I got a name for somebody who might be involved with trying to find your client.”

“And that would be...?”

“Manny Fiore, who deals with all the betting money in South Florida.” He told Stone about the Airstream trailer.

“I don’t guess you’d want to take a hop down to Florida and check him out.”

“He’s the kind of guy you don’t want to check out,” Bob said. “He hears somebody is looking into him, and first thing you know, the looker has a gun in his ear, and somebody’s pulling the trigger.”