The Wrong Man

103

Peter Gennaro Ramini waited on the corner, his hands stuffed in his coat, watching his breath freeze. The town car arrived on time. Say this for Donnie and his brother Mooch, they were punctual.

He got in and felt a spasm of nerves, which went nicely with the stench of fried food.

Donnie kept him in suspense, which was annoying but sometimes part of the drill. He was really just a glorified delivery boy, but he liked to feel important.

Finally, after the town car had traveled several blocks, Donnie patted Ramini’s knee.

“Even Paulie knows when to pull back,” he said. “He says to me, get this: ‘We kill the prick now and we paint a target on our back.’”

Ramini deflated with relief. He’d hoped that Paulie would see the sheer stupidity of killing the man who had helped thwart a terrorist attack on this city. Even if the general public didn’t know the extent of what he did, the feds sure did. If they whacked Kolarich now, the feds would rewrite the Patriot Act to target the Mafia.

“He understands that we’re in the clear now,” Donnie went on. “We dodged a bullet. We go after Kolarich now, we go right back to being in the soup.”

“Great. Thanks, Don.”

“Now, he did kill Sal and Augie.”

Actually, he didn’t, but Ramini had been forced to lie about that to Paulie and Donnie. The Capparellis couldn’t know what really happened in that alley with Kolarich.

“So what does that mean?” Ramini asked.

The town car was now pulling back to the same corner where Ramini had jumped in.

Donnie said, “It means we don’t forget. It means we wait. It means, someday, the lawyer might get a visit from us. It means Mr. Jason Kolarich, Esquire, better never stop watching his back.”