Judge & Jury

One

MY NAME IS NICK PELLISANTE, and this is where it started for me, one summer out on Long Island at"the wedding of weddings." I was watching the bride celebrating at the head of the dance line as it festively wound through the tables.A conga line. I groaned. I hated conga lines.

I should mention that I was watching the scene through high-powered binoculars. I followed as the bride slung her ample, lace-covered rear end in every direction, toppling a glass of red wine, trying to coax some bowling ball of a relative who was scarfing down a plate of stuffed clams up into the procession. Meanwhile, the grinning, affable groom did his Gowanus Expressway best just to hang on.

Lucky couple, I thought, wincing, thinking ten years down the line.Lucky me, to get to watch. All part of the job.

As special agent in charge of section C-10, the FBI's Organized Crime Unit in New York, I was heading up a stakeout of a wiseguy wedding at the posh South Fork Club in Montauk. Everybody who was anybody was here, assuming you were into wiseguys.

Everybody except for the one man I was really looking for.

The Boss. TheCapo di tutti capi. Dominic Cavello. They called him the Electrician because he had started in that trade, pulling off construction scams in New Jersey. The guy was bad, terror-level-red bad. And I had a slew of warrants on him, for murder, extortion, union tampering, and conspiracy to finance narcotics.

Some of my buddies at the Bureau said Cavello was already in Sicily, laughing at us. Another rumor had him in the Dominican Republic at a resort he owned. Others had him in Costa Rica, in the UAE, even in Moscow.

But I had a hunch that he was here, somewhere in this noisy crowd on the South Fork Club's beautiful back deck. His ego was too large. I'd been tracking him for three years, and I expect he knew it. But nothing, not even the federal government, was going to make Dominic Cavello miss his closest niece's wedding.

"Cannoli One, this is Cannoli Two," a voice deadpanned in my earpiece.

It was Special Agent Manny Oliva, whom I'd stationed down on the dunes with Ed Sinclair. Manny grew up in the projects of Newark, then got himself a law degree at Rutgers. He'd been assigned to my C-10 unit straight out of Quantico.

"Anything on the radar, Nick? Nothing but sand and seagulls here."

"Yeah," I said, dishing it back,"ziti mostly. A little lasagna with hot sausages, some stuffed shrimp and parmigiana."

"Stop! You're making me hungry down here, Nicky Smiles."

Nicky Smiles. That's what the guys I was close to in the unit called me. Maybe because I was blessed with a pretty nice grin. More likely it was because I'd grown up with a bunch of these wiseguys in Bay Ridge, and my name ended in a vowel. Plus, I knew more about La Cosa Nostra than just about anyone else in the Bureau, and I was offended by what this scum had done to the reputations of all Italian Americans: my own family, friends of mine who couldn't have been more law-abiding, and, of course, myself.

So where the hell are you, you sly sonovabitch? You're here, aren't you, Cavello? I swept the binoculars along the dance line.

The procession had snaked all the way around the deck by now, past all the juiced-up goombahs in tuxedos with purple shirts and their high-hairdo wives busting through their gowns. The bride sidled up to a table of old-timers, padrones in bolo ties sipping espresso, trading old tales. One or two of the faces looked familiar.

That's when the bride made her mistake.

She singled out one of the old men, leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek. The balding man was in a wheelchair, hands on his lap. He looked feeble and out of it, as if he were recovering from an illness, maybe a stroke. He had on thick black-rimmed glasses, no eyebrows, like Uncle Junior onThe Sopranos.

I stood up and focused the lens on him. I watched her take him by the hands and try to get him up. The guy looked like he couldn't pee upright, and he could barely wrap his arms around her, never mind get up and dance.

Then my heart slammed to a stop.

You arrogant sonovabitch! You came!

"Tom, Robin, that old geezer with the black glasses. The bride just gave him a kiss."

"Yeah," Tom Roach came back. He was inside a van in the parking lot watching pictures sent from cameras planted in the club."I got him. What's the problem?"

I took a step closer, zooming in with the lens.

"No problem.That's Dominic Cavello! "

Two

"THIS IS A GO!" I barked into the mike attached to my shirt collar."Target is a bald male in black glasses, seated in a wheelchair at a table on the left-hand side of the deck. It's Cavello! He is to be treated as armed and likely to resist."

From where I was, I had a firsthand view of the next few minutes of action. Tom Roach and Robin Hammill jumped out of the van in the parking lot and headed for the entrance.

We had manpower, backup all over the place-even agents posing as bartenders and waiters on the inside. I had a Coast Guard cutter half a mile offshore, with an Apache helicopter that could be mobilized if necessary.

Not even Dominic Cavello would turn his brother's daughter's wedding into a firefight, right?

Wrong.

A couple of hoods in light-blue tuxedos were taking a smoke break outside when they spotted my team coming out of the van. One headed back inside while the other blocked their approach."Sorry, this is a private affair…"

Tom Roach flashed his shield."Now it's open to the public.FBI. "

I zoomed back to the other wiseguy hurrying out to the wedding party on the deck. He ran up to the crippled old man in the wheelchair.

I was right! It was definitely Cavello! But our cover was shot.

"We're blown!" I yelled, fixing on the commotion on the deck."Everybody close in on Cavello! Manny, you and Ed stay put and cover the dunes.Taylor, " I called out to an agent posing as a waiter,"wait for Tom's crew."

Then Cavello jumped out of the wheelchair, suddenly the healthiest guy in the world. Steve Taylor put down his serving tray and pulled a gun from under his jacket."FBI!" he yelled.

I heard a shot and watched Taylor go down and stay down.

Chaos erupted. Guests were scurrying around the deck, some shrieking, others ducking under tables. A few of the well-known mob bosses were hurrying toward the exits.

I refocused on Cavello. He was hunched over, slinking through the crowd, still in disguise. He was making a path toward the stairs leading down to the beach.

I took out my Glock and hopped off the ledge I'd been perched on. Then I ran for the clubhouse along the shore road.

I stayed near the white clapboard clubhouse, then ran in the restaurant's front door and through to the deck. I could still see Cavello. He had peeled off his black glasses. He shoved an old woman out of his way and leaped over a wooden fence-then he was running toward the dunes.

We had him!

Three

"MANNY, ED, he's headed toward you!"

I saw where Cavello was going. He was trying to get to a helicopter up on the point, obviouslyhis helicopter. I pushed through the crowd, shoving people out of the way. At the edge of the deck, I looked down.

Cavello was stumbling over the grassy dunes, making his way along the beach.

Then he ducked behind a tall dune, and I lost sight of him.

I shouted into the radio,"Manny, Ed, he should be on you any second now."

"I got him, Nick," Manny squawked.

"Federal agents," I heard Manny shout through the radio.

Then there were shots. Two quick ones-followed by four or five more in rapid succession.

My blood turned to ice.Oh, Jesus. I leaped over the fence, then ran down the dunes toward the beach. I lost my footing and fell to one knee. I righted myself and hurtled in the direction of the shots.

I stopped.

Two bodies were lying faceup on the beach. My heart was pumping. I ran to them, sliding in the sand, which was stained dark with blood.

Oh, dear God, no.

I knew that Manny was dead. Ed Sinclair was gurgling blood, a gunshot wound in his chest.

Dominic Cavello was fifty yards ahead, holding his wounded shoulder but getting away.

"Manny and Ed are down," I yelled into the mike."Get help here now!"

Cavello was running toward a helicopter. The cabin door was open. I took off after him.

"Cavello, stop!" I shouted."I'll shoot!"

Cavello looked back over his shoulder. He didn't stop though.

I squeezed the trigger of my gun-twice. The second bullet slammed into his thigh.

The godfather reached for his leg and buckled. But he kept going, dragging the leg, like some desperate animal that wouldn't quit. I heard a thwack, thwack, thwack -and saw the Coast Guard Apache coming into sight.

"That's it," I yelled ahead, aiming my Glock again."You're done! The next shot goes through your head."

Cavello pulled himself to an exhausted stop. He put his hands in the air and slowly turned.

He had no gun. I didn't know where he'd thrown it, maybe into the sea. He'd been close enough. A grin was etched on his face despite the bullets in his thigh and shoulder.

"Nicky Smiles," he said,"if I knew you wanted to be at my niece's wedding, all you had to do was ask. I woulda sent you an invitation. Engraved."

My head felt like it was going to explode. I'd lost two men, maybe three, over this filth. I walked up to Cavello, my Glock pointed at his chest. He met my eyes with a mocking smile."You know, that's the problem with Italian weddings, Pellisante, everybody's got a gun."

I slugged him, and Cavello fell to one knee. For a second I thought he was going to fight me, but he just stood up, shook his head, and laughed.

So I hit Cavello again, with everything I had left in me.

This time, he stayed down.