New York Minute 19
Jun. 4th, 2005 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbard*falls over* This chapter killed me. Killed me very dead. I wrote three different versions of it, hated them all, and finally went with the one I hated the least. Has more of the Mafia than the NYPD in it, though. But hurrah! Ace! And foreshadowing.
“Aciello,” a low voice said..
Ace turned around, frowning. His good eye flickered toward the shadows, and the woman who stood there. “Astra,” he acknowledged. “You got anything?”
She brushed up against him, letting her curly hair fall out of its bun and down her back as she pulled the hair tie loose. “Sure,” she said. “Buy me coffee?” She nodded toward the brightly lit coffee shop across the street.
Ace’s mouth quirked a little. “Oh, very funny,” he snapped.
“I’m high-maintenance, don’t like to cook, rich and spoiled – you expect me to do this shit for free?”
He shook his head. “Fine.”
Astra was silent as they made their way across the street. She ordere
d for both of them, leaving Ace staring into the mocha she’d gotten him with a bemused expression on the sharp planes of his face. Astra slid into the seat across from him, pulling out several sheets of folded paper from her shoulder bag.
“Okay,” she said, after she’d taken a long slurp from her macchiato. “I did some checking around like you asked me to, trying to find out if anyone in any of the Families put a hit out on Daniel Messer.”
“What about on the streets?”
She made a face. “I did what I could, but it’s not as easy to find out stuff there. In the Families they have to talk to me, on the street they just bitch and moan and change the subject – if they don’t just rape me on principle. I have contacts who’re working on it.”
“And?”
“The answer’s yes.”
Ace let out a narrow breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Who?”
“What?”
“Patriso. Who’d he hire?”
Astra bit down on her lower lip, her face considering. “Well, that’s just it. He put out an open hit.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Hey, when have I ever done something like that? This is important. Don’t get coy on me, Anthony Aciello – I know Daniel Messer’s Val Constantine’s nephew, and next in line for the Constantine Family in anyone ever whacks Constantine.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “I just didn’t know he was a cop. The kid has some balls.”
“He’s not exactly a kid, Astra,” Ace pointed out. He took a cautious sip of his macchiato.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s younger than me. That makes him a kid.”
Ace rubbed his hand across his face, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Christ,” he said softly. “An open hit.”
“And he gave his capos carte blanche when it comes to Messer,” Astra added helpfully. “I’ve heard that preferably he’d like him alive.”
“So what, he can chop him up into tiny pieces and serve them to Val when they try and negotiate a peace treaty?”
“So I’ve heard. I know the Lark and Johnnie Boy Marcatti are looking for Messer.”
“Shit.”
“So I would assume.” She unfolded one of the pieces of paper, slid it across the table at him. “This car was recovered on the highway heading to Jersey two days ago. It belongs to a man named Mordecai Pierazzo. Friend of yours, I think?”
“Yeah, he works for Val. That doesn’t make any sense, though. Mordecai’s car –”
“It was reported stolen a week ago. Local gossip in his precinct says Elkie Caruso’s favored for the job, but they can’t nail him for it.”
“Caruso does work for Patriso sometimes,” Ace said thoughtfully.
Astra wagged her finger at him. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. He’s never dealt with Fat Freddy or Blue Eyes – but now and then he pulls a job for Ivan Placido.”
“And Placido’s one of Patriso’s capos.”
“Exactly.” She unfolded another piece of paper. “Toll picture from the three days ago. Christmas DaCosta heading toward Manhattan at eleven o’clock. I’ve done some checking – nobody, and I mean nobody, can tell me where he was then.”
“Who’s got the car now?”
“State Patrol. They went over the thing for prints, didn’t find a damned one. Car’d been wiped clean. So we got nothing there.”
Ace leaned forward, macchiato forgotten at his elbow. “Christmas DaCosta tried to whack Danny,” he said, “but he missed and got Bonasera instead.”
Astra arched her eyebrows. “Bonasera?”
“Detective Danny works with. She got clipped by the car, spent a day or so in a coma. Danny’s boss is one the warpath about this. I want this taken care of, Astra. I don’t want no fucking cops sniffing around the Families if we can avoid it. You dead sure Christmas did it?”
“Ninety percent. Pretty big coincidence, doncha think?”
“Pretty big coincidence,” Ace echoed. He smiled wolfishly, the motion tearing at the old scars behind his eyepatch.
*
Danny gave the group two tables away a surreptitious glance. “Well,” he said in a low voice, “she definitely matches the witness descriptions.”
Mac’s eyes were on the blonde’s wine glass. “Prints,” he said.
“Huh?” Flack looked confused. Or maybe that was the alcohol talking, although he’d only had three – or maybe four, or maybe five – glasses of wine, two of which were post-coital. Or maybe it was the sex.
Mac gave him a patient look. “She’s not wearing gloves,” he explained. “Therefore, she’ll leave prints behind on the glass, and on her silverware, and anything else she touches. We’ll be able to link her to the Met that way.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “If her prints are there,” she pointed out, nibbling on what should have been Mac’s share of the lemon meringue pie. He’d pushed it toward her after one bite. “There were only four sets, and there are five people at the table. There’s a one in five chance hers are the ones that weren’t.”
“But they’ll match up with the ones from the other robberies,” Mac argued. “All in all, there were six unidentified sets of prints. One set has been identified as Shannon Akers’, and four were matched to the ones at the Met. Therefore, Ashley’s will match up with at least one of them, if she’s been with her team as long as the robberies have been going on.”
Flack squinted at him. “Did you just say ‘therefore’?”
“Flack.”
“Can I just arrest them?”
Aiden coughed. It sounded a lot like, “subtlety, damnit.”
He glared at her. “Question ‘em?”
“On what grounds?” Mac inquired. “Flack, I’m as eager to catch the perps as you are, but we can’t do anything without probable cause, and, ‘you resemble a witness account of a shooting several days ago that resulted in one fatality and five casualities’ doesn’t quite work.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Flack blustered. “Something more along the lines of ‘hey, ma’am, could I have a word? You happen to look like a suspect in a murder. You can’t account for your whereabouts on Wednesday the eleventh at noon, can you?’”
“I could beat it out of her,” Aiden offered helpfully.
Mac rubbed at his forehead. “Aiden…”
“That’s it,” Flack said suddenly. “Enough waiting. It’s driving me fucking insane.” He pushed away from the tables, the flare in his eyes a silent dare for anyone to challenge him.
Mac sighed and put his head in his hands. Danny suddenly found himself wondering when the last time he’d slept was. When he raised his head, though, he didn’t protest Flack’s actions.
The quiet buzz that the women at the other table had been generating stilled as Flack approached them. Danny felt his fingers clench and knot in the fabric of his pants, the air thick with the heavy threat of violence, crime – murder. He found himself palming the butt of his gun, brushing the backs of his fingers across his badge like a charm.
“Can we help you?” Ashley asked icily, her eyebrows arching up toward her hairline.
Flack flashed his badge and her eyes narrowed. “I’m Detective Flack of the NYPD,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you about a hired murder at the Starbucks on Mulberry Street.”
The redhead sitting next to Ashley clenched her fingers tightly around her wine glass, and it cracked and snapped beneath her hand. Flack turned his cool blue gaze on her. “Problem, ma’am?”
She looked at the bloody shards of glass she was still holding as if she wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten there. “A hired murder?” she said, her face struggling to project confusion.
Flack smiled at her, white teeth flashing predatorily. “That’s the wrong answer,” he said. “The right answer is, ‘what murder?’ Please stand up, ma’am.”
The redhead’s eyes flickered frantically between Flack and Ashley. A brunette with a shortcut bob ending just above her chin leaned forward, eyes narrowing in cold anger. Ashley put her hand on Flack’s arm before she could speak. “What murder?” she said. “There. You happy now?”
Aiden brushed up besides Flack’s shoulder before Danny saw her stand. “Get up, lady. You’re under arrest for the murder of Shannon Akers.” She unhooked her cuffs from her belt.
“I didn’t shoot Shannon!” the redhead burst out.
“Jocelyn!” Ashley snapped.
Aiden leaned forward, scowling. “Maybe not, but I bet you know who did. Meanwhile, we’re taking you in. And the rest of you, to ask a few questions.”
The brunette inspected her fingernails. “I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have,” she said.
“Same here,” a woman with a luxurious fall of red brown hair agreeed. She offered her hand to Flack. “Billie Hartigan.”
Ashley’s face twisted a little. “I want my lawyer,” she said.
Flack turned a limpid blue gaze on her. “Why? Are you guilty of something?” He leaned forward, suddenly threatening. “Like robbing the Met?”
“I think I’m bored,” Danny said to no one in particular and stepped away from the table to join Flack and Aiden. “Detective Messer,” he introduced himself. “If I print those glasses, will we be able to match them to ones recovered from the Met. What about the gun in your purse? Think that’ll match ballistics from the Met and Starbucks?”
Ashley’s mouth worked silntly. “I –” she said, and Flack hauled her up out of her seat.
“You’re under arrest for three counts of murder and grand theft,” he said, cuffing her as the rest of the room suddenly went quiet, all eyes on them. Flack nodded to Aiden, and they hustled the two women out of the restaurant.
Danny turned toward the other three. “I’d like youu to come down to the station, to answer a few questions.”
“Like I told the other detective, we’ll be happy to answer any questions you hae,” the brunette said. She and Billie Hartigan exchanged looks, and Billie spoke for both of them. “Shannon was our friend too.”
*
“Cops,” Joey snorted to Carmine. “Must be the only people that can walk into a restaurant for a casual dinner and come out working.”
“Well, I doubt they came with intent to arrest,” Carmine pointed out. He gnawed on a hangnail. It gave and broke, and he spat it out the window.
Joey leaned toward him, frowning a little. “Hey, d’Alessandro, you all right? You been off since you got back from your dad’s. The Dellacroce making trouble again?”
“Some,” Carmine shrugged. “Not more than usual. Val helps some.” Though Giovanni d’Alessandro didn’t know it, and Joey doubted he would have accepted it if he did.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Carmine just shook his head. “How long you think they’ll be in there?” he asked, nodding toward the precinct house.
Joey arched one eyebrow. “Paperwork,” he said. “Think about it.”
“Oh, is this more information from the chick with the ass?”
“Excuse me, the ‘chick with the ass’?”
Carmine switched hands, continued chewing his nails down to the quick. “You know. The cop. The one who kept calling you up and giggling, ‘oooh, Joey, can we take a bubble bath?’”
“She’s a defense attorney, not a cop.” Joey frowned in sudden piercing consternation. “Is it your dad?”
Carmine scowled at his hands. “Let it alone, Joey, okay? Just leave it alone.”
“Hey, I’m worried about you, man.” He picked up his trilling cell phone before Carmine could respond with anything but a silent emerald glare. “Sforza. Oh, hey, Ace, how goes the hunt?”
“It was a hit,” Ace said.
“What?”
“The car that ran down Stella Bonasera. It was a hit on Danny and they ran down the wrong detective.”
“Who was driving?”
“Christmas DaCosta. Now he won’t be driving anything ever again.”
“Huh,” Joey said, filing that away for future reference. “Patriso hired him? I thought they could afford better than that.”
There was savage fury in Ace’s sharp voice. “Not exactly. Fat Freddy put out an open hit on the kid.”
Joey put one hand to his forehead in outraged disbelief. “Oh, Christ, you’re fucking with me. An open hit? We haven’t heard about one’a those for a coupla years now. Last one was who? Jimmy Sirracci? He lasted, what, a week? Two?”
“It gets better.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Patriso gave his capos carte blanche when it comes to Danny Messer. The old bastard wants him alive, Joey.”
“Fuck.”
“You think?”
They were silent for a minute, then Joey repeated, “An open hit?”
“Open as a Parisian hooker’s legs.”
“Fuck,” Joey said again. “Every lowlife in the city’s gonna be out for his blood.”
“At least he’s armed,” Carmine said helpfully. “And wearing Kevlar.”
“What was that?”
“Carmine pointed out that Danny goes around with a gun, a badge, and a bullet-proof vest,” Joey said.
“If he was wearing Kevlar, he wouldn’t have gotten himself fucking shot,” Ace said caustically.
Joey turned his head toward Carmine. “He has a point there.”
“I’ve ben waiting years for you to say that, Sforza,” Ace said sharply. “If you and Carmine are there and I’m here, then who’s on Val?”
“Carmine?”
“Yeah?” He frowned at his hands.
“Who’s on Val?”
“The twins.”
“Michael and Mordecai,” Joey said into the phone. “We ever gonna learn who your source is, Ace?”
“Which one? You’ve met most of ‘em.”
“You know the one I mean. The one who knows stuff only the dons and a couple of their capos know. You got an informant with the Pagliuca or somethin’?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Ace said. “Be seein’ you around, Joey.”
“You too, Ace.” Joey snapped his phone shut. “You got most’a that, Carmine?”
Carmine shook his head in disbelief. “Patriso put an fucking open hit out on Danny?”
“’bout the gist of it, yeah.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Uh-huh.” Joey tapped his fingers impatiently on the wheel. “’m I right in thinking there’s no way this can end well?”
“For once in your life, yes.”
“Aciello,” a low voice said..
Ace turned around, frowning. His good eye flickered toward the shadows, and the woman who stood there. “Astra,” he acknowledged. “You got anything?”
She brushed up against him, letting her curly hair fall out of its bun and down her back as she pulled the hair tie loose. “Sure,” she said. “Buy me coffee?” She nodded toward the brightly lit coffee shop across the street.
Ace’s mouth quirked a little. “Oh, very funny,” he snapped.
“I’m high-maintenance, don’t like to cook, rich and spoiled – you expect me to do this shit for free?”
He shook his head. “Fine.”
Astra was silent as they made their way across the street. She ordere
d for both of them, leaving Ace staring into the mocha she’d gotten him with a bemused expression on the sharp planes of his face. Astra slid into the seat across from him, pulling out several sheets of folded paper from her shoulder bag.
“Okay,” she said, after she’d taken a long slurp from her macchiato. “I did some checking around like you asked me to, trying to find out if anyone in any of the Families put a hit out on Daniel Messer.”
“What about on the streets?”
She made a face. “I did what I could, but it’s not as easy to find out stuff there. In the Families they have to talk to me, on the street they just bitch and moan and change the subject – if they don’t just rape me on principle. I have contacts who’re working on it.”
“And?”
“The answer’s yes.”
Ace let out a narrow breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Who?”
“What?”
“Patriso. Who’d he hire?”
Astra bit down on her lower lip, her face considering. “Well, that’s just it. He put out an open hit.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Hey, when have I ever done something like that? This is important. Don’t get coy on me, Anthony Aciello – I know Daniel Messer’s Val Constantine’s nephew, and next in line for the Constantine Family in anyone ever whacks Constantine.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “I just didn’t know he was a cop. The kid has some balls.”
“He’s not exactly a kid, Astra,” Ace pointed out. He took a cautious sip of his macchiato.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s younger than me. That makes him a kid.”
Ace rubbed his hand across his face, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Christ,” he said softly. “An open hit.”
“And he gave his capos carte blanche when it comes to Messer,” Astra added helpfully. “I’ve heard that preferably he’d like him alive.”
“So what, he can chop him up into tiny pieces and serve them to Val when they try and negotiate a peace treaty?”
“So I’ve heard. I know the Lark and Johnnie Boy Marcatti are looking for Messer.”
“Shit.”
“So I would assume.” She unfolded one of the pieces of paper, slid it across the table at him. “This car was recovered on the highway heading to Jersey two days ago. It belongs to a man named Mordecai Pierazzo. Friend of yours, I think?”
“Yeah, he works for Val. That doesn’t make any sense, though. Mordecai’s car –”
“It was reported stolen a week ago. Local gossip in his precinct says Elkie Caruso’s favored for the job, but they can’t nail him for it.”
“Caruso does work for Patriso sometimes,” Ace said thoughtfully.
Astra wagged her finger at him. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. He’s never dealt with Fat Freddy or Blue Eyes – but now and then he pulls a job for Ivan Placido.”
“And Placido’s one of Patriso’s capos.”
“Exactly.” She unfolded another piece of paper. “Toll picture from the three days ago. Christmas DaCosta heading toward Manhattan at eleven o’clock. I’ve done some checking – nobody, and I mean nobody, can tell me where he was then.”
“Who’s got the car now?”
“State Patrol. They went over the thing for prints, didn’t find a damned one. Car’d been wiped clean. So we got nothing there.”
Ace leaned forward, macchiato forgotten at his elbow. “Christmas DaCosta tried to whack Danny,” he said, “but he missed and got Bonasera instead.”
Astra arched her eyebrows. “Bonasera?”
“Detective Danny works with. She got clipped by the car, spent a day or so in a coma. Danny’s boss is one the warpath about this. I want this taken care of, Astra. I don’t want no fucking cops sniffing around the Families if we can avoid it. You dead sure Christmas did it?”
“Ninety percent. Pretty big coincidence, doncha think?”
“Pretty big coincidence,” Ace echoed. He smiled wolfishly, the motion tearing at the old scars behind his eyepatch.
*
Danny gave the group two tables away a surreptitious glance. “Well,” he said in a low voice, “she definitely matches the witness descriptions.”
Mac’s eyes were on the blonde’s wine glass. “Prints,” he said.
“Huh?” Flack looked confused. Or maybe that was the alcohol talking, although he’d only had three – or maybe four, or maybe five – glasses of wine, two of which were post-coital. Or maybe it was the sex.
Mac gave him a patient look. “She’s not wearing gloves,” he explained. “Therefore, she’ll leave prints behind on the glass, and on her silverware, and anything else she touches. We’ll be able to link her to the Met that way.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “If her prints are there,” she pointed out, nibbling on what should have been Mac’s share of the lemon meringue pie. He’d pushed it toward her after one bite. “There were only four sets, and there are five people at the table. There’s a one in five chance hers are the ones that weren’t.”
“But they’ll match up with the ones from the other robberies,” Mac argued. “All in all, there were six unidentified sets of prints. One set has been identified as Shannon Akers’, and four were matched to the ones at the Met. Therefore, Ashley’s will match up with at least one of them, if she’s been with her team as long as the robberies have been going on.”
Flack squinted at him. “Did you just say ‘therefore’?”
“Flack.”
“Can I just arrest them?”
Aiden coughed. It sounded a lot like, “subtlety, damnit.”
He glared at her. “Question ‘em?”
“On what grounds?” Mac inquired. “Flack, I’m as eager to catch the perps as you are, but we can’t do anything without probable cause, and, ‘you resemble a witness account of a shooting several days ago that resulted in one fatality and five casualities’ doesn’t quite work.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Flack blustered. “Something more along the lines of ‘hey, ma’am, could I have a word? You happen to look like a suspect in a murder. You can’t account for your whereabouts on Wednesday the eleventh at noon, can you?’”
“I could beat it out of her,” Aiden offered helpfully.
Mac rubbed at his forehead. “Aiden…”
“That’s it,” Flack said suddenly. “Enough waiting. It’s driving me fucking insane.” He pushed away from the tables, the flare in his eyes a silent dare for anyone to challenge him.
Mac sighed and put his head in his hands. Danny suddenly found himself wondering when the last time he’d slept was. When he raised his head, though, he didn’t protest Flack’s actions.
The quiet buzz that the women at the other table had been generating stilled as Flack approached them. Danny felt his fingers clench and knot in the fabric of his pants, the air thick with the heavy threat of violence, crime – murder. He found himself palming the butt of his gun, brushing the backs of his fingers across his badge like a charm.
“Can we help you?” Ashley asked icily, her eyebrows arching up toward her hairline.
Flack flashed his badge and her eyes narrowed. “I’m Detective Flack of the NYPD,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you about a hired murder at the Starbucks on Mulberry Street.”
The redhead sitting next to Ashley clenched her fingers tightly around her wine glass, and it cracked and snapped beneath her hand. Flack turned his cool blue gaze on her. “Problem, ma’am?”
She looked at the bloody shards of glass she was still holding as if she wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten there. “A hired murder?” she said, her face struggling to project confusion.
Flack smiled at her, white teeth flashing predatorily. “That’s the wrong answer,” he said. “The right answer is, ‘what murder?’ Please stand up, ma’am.”
The redhead’s eyes flickered frantically between Flack and Ashley. A brunette with a shortcut bob ending just above her chin leaned forward, eyes narrowing in cold anger. Ashley put her hand on Flack’s arm before she could speak. “What murder?” she said. “There. You happy now?”
Aiden brushed up besides Flack’s shoulder before Danny saw her stand. “Get up, lady. You’re under arrest for the murder of Shannon Akers.” She unhooked her cuffs from her belt.
“I didn’t shoot Shannon!” the redhead burst out.
“Jocelyn!” Ashley snapped.
Aiden leaned forward, scowling. “Maybe not, but I bet you know who did. Meanwhile, we’re taking you in. And the rest of you, to ask a few questions.”
The brunette inspected her fingernails. “I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have,” she said.
“Same here,” a woman with a luxurious fall of red brown hair agreeed. She offered her hand to Flack. “Billie Hartigan.”
Ashley’s face twisted a little. “I want my lawyer,” she said.
Flack turned a limpid blue gaze on her. “Why? Are you guilty of something?” He leaned forward, suddenly threatening. “Like robbing the Met?”
“I think I’m bored,” Danny said to no one in particular and stepped away from the table to join Flack and Aiden. “Detective Messer,” he introduced himself. “If I print those glasses, will we be able to match them to ones recovered from the Met. What about the gun in your purse? Think that’ll match ballistics from the Met and Starbucks?”
Ashley’s mouth worked silntly. “I –” she said, and Flack hauled her up out of her seat.
“You’re under arrest for three counts of murder and grand theft,” he said, cuffing her as the rest of the room suddenly went quiet, all eyes on them. Flack nodded to Aiden, and they hustled the two women out of the restaurant.
Danny turned toward the other three. “I’d like youu to come down to the station, to answer a few questions.”
“Like I told the other detective, we’ll be happy to answer any questions you hae,” the brunette said. She and Billie Hartigan exchanged looks, and Billie spoke for both of them. “Shannon was our friend too.”
*
“Cops,” Joey snorted to Carmine. “Must be the only people that can walk into a restaurant for a casual dinner and come out working.”
“Well, I doubt they came with intent to arrest,” Carmine pointed out. He gnawed on a hangnail. It gave and broke, and he spat it out the window.
Joey leaned toward him, frowning a little. “Hey, d’Alessandro, you all right? You been off since you got back from your dad’s. The Dellacroce making trouble again?”
“Some,” Carmine shrugged. “Not more than usual. Val helps some.” Though Giovanni d’Alessandro didn’t know it, and Joey doubted he would have accepted it if he did.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Carmine just shook his head. “How long you think they’ll be in there?” he asked, nodding toward the precinct house.
Joey arched one eyebrow. “Paperwork,” he said. “Think about it.”
“Oh, is this more information from the chick with the ass?”
“Excuse me, the ‘chick with the ass’?”
Carmine switched hands, continued chewing his nails down to the quick. “You know. The cop. The one who kept calling you up and giggling, ‘oooh, Joey, can we take a bubble bath?’”
“She’s a defense attorney, not a cop.” Joey frowned in sudden piercing consternation. “Is it your dad?”
Carmine scowled at his hands. “Let it alone, Joey, okay? Just leave it alone.”
“Hey, I’m worried about you, man.” He picked up his trilling cell phone before Carmine could respond with anything but a silent emerald glare. “Sforza. Oh, hey, Ace, how goes the hunt?”
“It was a hit,” Ace said.
“What?”
“The car that ran down Stella Bonasera. It was a hit on Danny and they ran down the wrong detective.”
“Who was driving?”
“Christmas DaCosta. Now he won’t be driving anything ever again.”
“Huh,” Joey said, filing that away for future reference. “Patriso hired him? I thought they could afford better than that.”
There was savage fury in Ace’s sharp voice. “Not exactly. Fat Freddy put out an open hit on the kid.”
Joey put one hand to his forehead in outraged disbelief. “Oh, Christ, you’re fucking with me. An open hit? We haven’t heard about one’a those for a coupla years now. Last one was who? Jimmy Sirracci? He lasted, what, a week? Two?”
“It gets better.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Patriso gave his capos carte blanche when it comes to Danny Messer. The old bastard wants him alive, Joey.”
“Fuck.”
“You think?”
They were silent for a minute, then Joey repeated, “An open hit?”
“Open as a Parisian hooker’s legs.”
“Fuck,” Joey said again. “Every lowlife in the city’s gonna be out for his blood.”
“At least he’s armed,” Carmine said helpfully. “And wearing Kevlar.”
“What was that?”
“Carmine pointed out that Danny goes around with a gun, a badge, and a bullet-proof vest,” Joey said.
“If he was wearing Kevlar, he wouldn’t have gotten himself fucking shot,” Ace said caustically.
Joey turned his head toward Carmine. “He has a point there.”
“I’ve ben waiting years for you to say that, Sforza,” Ace said sharply. “If you and Carmine are there and I’m here, then who’s on Val?”
“Carmine?”
“Yeah?” He frowned at his hands.
“Who’s on Val?”
“The twins.”
“Michael and Mordecai,” Joey said into the phone. “We ever gonna learn who your source is, Ace?”
“Which one? You’ve met most of ‘em.”
“You know the one I mean. The one who knows stuff only the dons and a couple of their capos know. You got an informant with the Pagliuca or somethin’?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Ace said. “Be seein’ you around, Joey.”
“You too, Ace.” Joey snapped his phone shut. “You got most’a that, Carmine?”
Carmine shook his head in disbelief. “Patriso put an fucking open hit out on Danny?”
“’bout the gist of it, yeah.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Uh-huh.” Joey tapped his fingers impatiently on the wheel. “’m I right in thinking there’s no way this can end well?”
“For once in your life, yes.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-05 03:45 am (UTC)Favorite lines in this part:
“I could beat it out of her,” Aiden offered helpfully.
“Open as a Parisian hooker’s legs.”
Flack squinted at him. “Did you just say ‘therefore’?”
Ah, Flack. How I love him.
Again, I am so in love with this.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-05 11:11 pm (UTC)Flack is awesome, and so easy to write.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-05 05:20 am (UTC)Love the Joey/Carmine dialogue, as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-05 11:15 pm (UTC)I think she does. Actually, I'm pretty sure she does, and Mac's used to it by now.
As is Mac just sort of throwing in the towel when Flack gets a notion into his head.
I think Mac's mood at the moment is mainly, "well, it's their case, and it looks like they're doing okay, and Stella's all right. So they can take point."