Verona

Six

Friday, July 15

Present Day

A week after Brendon Nagle and John Yung had been arrested in the warehouse sting, Andy Nagle was sitting in his father’s office.

The building was being renovated and would be put on the market soon, though Andy wondered what the demand would be for a building owned by a murderer. He supposed that the residential market would be a problem — who wanted to sleep with ghosts hovering — but commercial developer?

Blood and business had never been incompatible.

The bulk of the remodeling work had been done, though a large drop cloth was spread over part of the floor, the electrical outlet plates needed to be screwed back in, and the wall where the police had removed his father’s safe needed replastering.

Andy could look up and see wires and insulation and pipes through the drafty black L-shaped gap. New acoustical tiles were going up in place of the old yellowing ones.

His phone hummed. No caller ID. It would probably be the automated phone calling system from the prison where his father, like Yung, was being held without bail. The male voice sternly gave a number of rules — no recording, no conferencing — and then asked if he wanted to accept the call. As with the others, Andy did not pick up.

That’saboy...

He eased back in the comfortable brown leather chair. Large windows looked out on a city park. He remembered, years ago, standing at this very sill and watching the snow. That visit was the first time his father had wanded him with a transmission-detection scanner. He was twelve.

An incoming email triggered a vibration on his phone. It was from Detective White, reporting that the government auditors had been through his father’s company’s books, and forensic experts had examined the computers. They’d found that the man was hardly the rich mafioso he claimed to be. His illegal operations were just barely breaking even. Did Andy know of any other resources his father had?

He replied that he was sorry but, no. His father never gave him access to the accounts on the illegal side of his business. Only the legitimate operations, the real estate. And that business, too, hadn’t been doing well. Andy concluded the email:

He sent the missive on its way.

The intercom box on the desk buzzed. Andy pressed a button. “Yes.”

“It’s me.” The voice from downstairs was a whisper.

Andy hit the door-unlock button. A few minutes later Jimmy Ebbitt walked quickly inside and swung the door shut behind him, breathless. Apparently he’d run up the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. Andy was struck by his change of appearance. He was more emaciated than ever and he sported a shaved head in place of the shaggy locks. He wore dark glasses, which he now took off.

The skittish man looked around the office and walked to the window, peered out. He apparently saw nothing to trouble him, though that didn’t appear to balm his unease.

“How’s your dad?”

“I don’t know. We’re not in touch.”

“No? Guess not. You got a right to be pissed, kid. But he wanted the best for you and your mom. Rest her soul.”

If I hear that one more time, I’ll scream.

The twitchy man twitched now, as he looked out another window. “And Max? I didn’t want to call, figured they were bugging his line. How’s he doing?”

“He’s hanging in there.”

Jimmy, who’d been living underground since the warehouse arrests, knew nothing of the takedown sting that Andy and Loi had orchestrated. He believed the abduction was really ordered by John Yung. And so he had no clue that Max had been part of it and was fine — aside from the sore muscles following his dive into Toucan Café’s sturdy outdoor furniture.

His voice cracked. “I want you to know, Andy. At the warehouse? Those cops just showed up. They came out of nowhere. Fucking nowhere! I panicked. When I saw ’em, I got the hell away. I’m sorry.”

“Nobody’s blaming you. What could you’ve done?”

“That’s right. I couldn’t do nothing. I just... I just feel bad. I shoulda seen it coming.” Jimmy the contrite puppy whispered, “Andy, listen, I could use some help. The cops’re looking for me. Everywhere.”

“Where’re you staying?”

“This crappy place over on Taylor.” He swallowed and got to the words he’d undoubtedly rehearsed a hundred times. “I gotta get out of the country. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, but your dad owed me for the last month. It was due the day he got busted.”

“He paid you cash, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, ten thousand a month. I really need it. It’s not your problem, I know. But...”

Andy rubbed his eyes. “Jimmy, I’ll tell you, the police took almost everything.” He paused and looked the man over. “If you had the money where would you go?”

He brightened at this. “I was thinking the Bahamas. But they froze my bank account. I ate in a soup kitchen last night. It was really that. Soup, I mean. What they give you. It wasn’t bad. It was just, it was... soup.”

Andy said, “Bahamas’re nice. I’ve been to the Atlantis.”

Jimmy was frowning. “Oh, I don’t mean someplace fancy like that. A cheap motel is good, just until I can get on my feet again. Not even on the beach.”

Andy shrugged. “I found a little cash in one of the file cabinets here. Cops missed it. A couple thousand. You want it, it’s yours.”

Jimmy’s red eyes brightened. “Really? Oh, man, thanks.”

Andy pointed across the office. “The one on the left, the end. Top drawer. It’s in an envelope.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Andy.”

The man strode eagerly across the room but stopped when Andy said, “Oh, Jimmy. I’ve got a question.”

He turned.

“Didn’t Yung come through with the ten he promised you?”

“Yung? The ten?” he stammered.

“What I’m asking, that’s right,” Andy said calmly. “The ten thousand.” When Jimmy, face glowing crimson, swallowing, said nothing, he continued, “What he was going to pay you for selling out my father.”

Silence still, as Jimmy blinked. His right hand thumb and forefinger flicked compulsively together.

“You approached Ki and told him you’d sell Yung my dad’s plans for the Panhandle, so he could buy up the properties first.”

The skinny guy now managed to get a few whispered words out. “No, Andy, no. Ki’s lying. I swear. I’d never do that.”

But he would, and he had.

Because Ki, working with Loi and Andy by then, had dutifully reported to Andy and Loi Jimmy’s willingness to betray Brendon Nagle.

The skinny man sputtered, “Really, it’s more complicated than that.”

Really, it wasn’t.

Andy took the silenced Sig Sauer automatic pistol from the desk drawer and shot Jimmy Ebbitt twice in the chest and then once in the head. He collapsed right in the middle of the drop cloth, which Max had placed there earlier in the day for this very purpose.