Текст книги "Wild Card"

Автор книги: James Swain

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter 21

Leaving work that night, Valentine remembered that he was supposed to bring food home for dinner. It was Wednesday, which meant Chinese take-out. To stay within their budget, he picked up a quart of wonton soup and three egg rolls to go with the chow mein Lois made at home. It made dinner special, and didn’t cost a lot of money.

He drove to a strip mall in Margate and parked in front of Lo’s Imperial Palace. He’d been coming here every Wednesday for years, and was not surprised when Sam Lo met him at the door with his order. He started to make small-talk, only Sam cut him off.

“You wife call five minutes ago,” Sam Lo said. “Go home now. Pay me later.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Your wife crying,” Sam Lo said.

“What happened?”

“Somebody break into your house. Sound real bad. You’d better hurry.”

Valentine drove down Margate’s quiet streets faster than he should have. Pulling onto his block, he saw a pair of police cruisers parked in his driveway, and was relieved to see there wasn’t an ambulance with them. He parked on the street and ran inside. A uniformed cop named D’Amato met him in the foyer.

“Is my family okay?”

“Yes,” D’Amato said.“Your wife’s in the kitchen and your son’s with a neighbor.”

“Is the house wrecked?”

“Pretty much, I’m afraid.”

Valentine didn’t want D’Amato telling him any more. He had to see for himself, and walked through the foyer into the dining room, and stared at the wreckage. His house was a disaster area. Everything of value had been turned upside-down, and smashed with some type of blunt instrument. The credenza his mother had given them as a wedding present lay on the floor, its sides battered, with every piece of his china removed and shattered. The dining room table, another wedding present, had been chopped up with an axe, and lay on the floor like discarded pieces of kindling.

He entered the living room. Paintings and family photographs had been pulled off the walls, their frames fractured; tables and chairs split in half. Then, he checked the other downstairs rooms. They were also ruined, and he wondered if a small tornado had somehow ripped through his house. He walked back to the foyer where D’Amato stood.

“How about the basement and the upstairs?”

“The same,” D’Amato said.

“Anything notdestroyed?”

“They spared the breakfast table,” D’Amato said.

Valentine found Lois sitting at the breakfast table, her face buried in her hands. He touched her shoulder, and she jumped up and stuck her head against his chest and began to sob. They had never had much money, and she treasured the few things of value they had. “I brought Gerry home from school, and found the place like this,” she said. “He was so upset, I sent him next door. They destroyed his record collection and his phonograph.”

“You think it was other kids?”

“I don’t think kids would use knives to rip out the stuffing in the mattresses in our beds, do you?”

Valentine blinked. In the living room he’d seen where the burglars had kicked a wall in, and the significance of the act hadn’t registered. Holding his wife’s shoulders, he said, “No one was hurt. We can always replace this stuff. Remember that.”

Lois looked up into his face.

“With what money?” she said.

They heard the back door open. D’Amato’s partner stepped into the kitchen. Valentine had seen him down at the station house before. His name was Dolce, and he had a friendly face and an easy-going manner. Seeing them, Dolce took his hat off.

“I’m really sorry about this,” Dolce said.

Valentine mumbled the word thanks.

“I walked the property and had a talk with your neighbors on both sides,” Dolce said. “No one appears to have seen anything.”

“How about in the alleyway behind the house?”

“Nothing,” Dolce said.

“So these burglars waltzed in during the middle of the afternoon, destroyed my house, and no one saw a thing,” Valentine said.

“One of your neighbors was in the basement doing laundry. The other is sick, and was sleeping.”

Valentine lived on a busy street. Someone had seen something. Only no one was coming forward. It confirmed his suspicions, and he said, “Do you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?”

“I’ll be with my partner if you need me,” Dolce said.

Valentine took a glass from the cupboard, filled it with cold water, and handed it to his wife. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

Lois held the glass with trembling hands and took a long swallow. “Is that what you tell people who’ve been burglarized?”

“No. I tell them I’m going to find the people who did it, and make them pay.”

“You have to know who they are first.”

“I know who did this,” he said.

Lois put the glass onto the table. “You do?”

“Yes. Now promise me you won’t repeat that to these officers.”

A look of uncertainty crept into her face. “Okay,” she said.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He went to the kitchen door and opened it. Stepping outside, he shut the door behind him. The weather had turned bitter, yet he did not feel the cold, nor hear the howling wind, the bam bam bamof his heart blocking it out. He hurried across the backyard, tripping over Gerry’s outdoor toys – stuff he and Lois planned to give away once they accepted that Gerry was no longer a little boy – and stopped at the fence.

In the corner of his yard sat an ugly concrete bird bath. The previous owner had left it because it was too heavy to move. He stared at the spot in the ground where he’d buried the Prince’s address book, and, just a few nights ago, the surveillance tape from Resorts. The ground around the bird bath was undisturbed. He felt his heart beat return to normal, and turned back toward the house. He had to deal with this right now, or he had to walk away. There was simply no other choice.

He crossed the yard and saw Lois step onto the back porch.

“I want to know who did this to us,” she said.

“Nucky Balducci,” he replied.

Chapter 22

Every town in the state of New Jersey had at least one fancy restaurant that was run by the mob. Hoodlums had to eat somewhere.

The restaurant in Atlantic City which bore this distinction was called Lou Sonken’s. Although the cuisine was northern Italian, the interior resembled a French bordello, with naked statuary and red carpeted walls hung with paintings of plump nudes. No cop Valentine knew had ever eaten there.

He parked in a vacant lot across the street, then jogged over in the shadows, trying to avoid the valets, most of them were thugs just out of prison who needed work. He slipped inside the front door, and was spotted by the maitre d’, a weasel in an ill-fitting tux. As he tried to enter the restaurant, the maitre d’ blocked his way.

“I’m sorry, but we’re booked solid,” the maitre d’ said.

“Go back to your little stand,” Valentine said.

“But —”

“Or I’ll arrest you.”

The maitre d’ retreated, and Valentine walked down a foyer covered with photos of Lou Sonken shaking hands with every mafia kingpin who’d ever stepped foot in Atlantic City. Entering the restaurant, his eyes canvassed the dimly lit room. Nucky Balducci’s bald head popped up like a buoy in a sea of slime. He sat at a corner table, inhaling a plate of clam linguine. Luther sat beside him, gnawing on a pork chop. As Valentine approached, Luther rose up in his chair. Valentine put his hand on the bodyguard’s shoulder, and drove him into his seat.

“One word out of you, and I’ll cuff you,” Valentine said.

Luther’s mouth clamped shut. Nucky continued to twirl linguini on his fork. “Why don’t you pull up a chair, and join us,” the old gangster said.

Valentine borrowed a chair from a nearby table without asking the diners if they minded. As he sat down, his legs hit the table, disturbing the two men’s drinks. Luther reached out and stilled both glasses.

“How you been?” Nucky asked.

“Shitty.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Valentine took out his wallet, and dropped it on the table so his detective’s badge was showing. Nucky glanced at it.

“You here on business, huh?”

“You’re psychic.”

“Want something to eat?”

“No. Do you know my partner, Doyle Flanagan?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Doyle says he could stop all the break-ins and burglaries in this town by putting four guys in jail. Four guys do all the jobs.”

“No kidding,” Nucky said.

“Doyle says it’s easy to tell which burglar is which. One always drinks a beer and leaves the empty. Another’s into lady’s underwear. The third pisses on bathroom floors. I won’t tell you what the fourth does, too disgusting. Problem is, we never have enough evidence to put them away.”

Nucky put his fork down. “What does this have to do with me?”

The rest of the diners had started to file out of the restaurant. Valentine glanced up at the smokey mirror hanging behind Nucky’s shaved head. In its reflection, Lou Sonken and two big waiters stood in the doorway, waiting for Nucky to call them in. Valentine turned around in his chair. “Get back in your cages,” he told them.

Lou and his apes did not move.

“Do as he says,” Nucky ordered them.

The three men went away. Nucky leaned into the table and dropped his voice.

“Explain yourself, will you, Tony? The suspense is killing me.”

“My house got broken into this afternoon. The guy who did it wasn’t one of those four guys. And he was looking for something.”

“You think I know?”

“You run this town, don’t you?”

Nucky balled up his napkin and tossed it onto his bowel of unfinished pasta. “You’re not wearing a wire, are you?”

Valentine rose an inch out of his chair.

“Okay, calm down. Luther, take a powder, will you?”

The bodyguard excused himself from the table. When he was gone, Nucky explained the situation. “You’ve been seen around town with a couple of feds.”

“So?”

“People are getting nervous.”

“I’m helping the FBI find a guy who’s murdering hookers.”

“That’s the story everybody’s heard,” Nucky said.

“You don’t believe it?”

Nucky snorted contemptuously. “Who gives a shit about dead hookers? Take my advice. Stay away from those FBI guys. It’s making plenty of people nervous.”

“Did you order someone to break into my house?”

“No,” Nucky said.

“Then who did?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Tell me who they are, Nucky, or I’ll run you in.”

“ You’ll do what?”

“You heard me.”

Nucky’s bald head turned beet red. He suddenly looked like a pressure cooker ready to explode. “You’re serious.”

“Damn straight,” Valentine said.

Nucky rose from the table, and motioned for Valentine to follow him. They walked through the empty restaurant and down the foyer, turned right at the maitre de’ stand, and entered the nightclub. It had been modeled after the Moulin Rouge, with a serpentine bar, a stage that mechanically moved up and down, and bar stools covered in zebra skin, their stripes highlighted by an ultra-violet light. The club was empty, except for the ancient mixologist, an old Sicilian named Arthur who’d been there since the beginning of time. They shouldered up to the bar.

“A Budweiser, Arthur,” Nucky said.

“Of course. And for your friend?”

“Tap water,” Valentine said.

Arthur smiled like Valentine had made a joke and he thought he was supposed to smile.

“Turn the TV on,” Nucky instructed.

“You wanna watch anything in particular?”

“I want to see the news.”

A big color TV hung from the ceiling behind the bar. Arthur climbed up on a chair and turned the set on. Then he poured their drinks.

“Talked to your old man lately?” Nucky asked.

“Leave him out of this,” Valentine said.

Nucky shrugged and sipped his beer. “I thought you were gonna drop by, see Zelda.”

“She still in her room?”

“Yeah.”

“You want something for her to do?”

Nucky perked up. “You got any ideas?”

“She can help clean up my goddamn house.”

The news came on. It was from a station out of Newark. One of the newscasters was a woman in her late thirties, the other a man about the same age. They spoke to the camera without acknowledging each other. It was like watching a marriage on the skids. After five minutes, a story about a killing came on. Nucky pointed at the screen.

“Here we go,” he said.

“South Philly crime kingpin Giuseppe “The Gip” Scarfone was killed by a car bomb in the God’s Pocket section of Philadelphia this morning,” the woman reporter said, standing on a Philly street corner with a scarf around her neck. “The bomb was so powerful that pieces of Scarfone’s sharkskin suit were found on a rooftop a block away. Also in the car were Antonio and Salvatore Andruzzi, known in law enforcement circles as The Twins. According to police, it is believed the killing was in retaliation for the slaying of Paul “The Lobster” Spinelli in New York two days ago.”

Nucky nudged Valentine with his elbow.

“You hear that?”

“What about it?” Valentine said.

“Guys that did that, same guys that broke into your house,” Nucky said. “You want my advice? Stay away from those feds. You’re scaring people, Tony.”

The old gangster finished his drink, and then he was gone.

Chapter 23

It was Liddy Flanagan who came to Lois’s rescue the next day.

Liddy was the oldest daughter from an Irish family with twelve kids, and knew a thing or two about taking charge. Hearing about the burglary, she’d gotten the afternoon off at the bank where she worked, then rounded up four women from her church, and appeared on Lois’s doorstep, armed with brooms and vacuum cleaners and plastic garbage bags. Seeing them, Lois had let out a shriek.

“You’re a godsend,” she exclaimed.

While the church ladies cleaned the house, Liddy sat with Lois at the kitchen table, and made her write down every single item that had been broken, or was missing.

“For insurance,” she explained.

The list ended up being two pages long. It made Lois miserable all over again. The family heirlooms and the presents they’d gotten at their wedding could never be replaced, nor the memories that went with them. But it was a start.

By early afternoon the broken furniture was sitting on a pile on the front lawn, and the church ladies were gone. Liddy had brought over a portable TV, and the two women sat on the rug in the empty living room and watched the soaps. Their favorite soap was called Endless Love. Although they both worked, they watched the show every day during their lunch breaks. So did most of their friends. When the program was over, Liddy let out a deep sigh.

“And we thought our lives were complicated.”

They went to the kitchen and stood at the counter. Lois fixed a pot of coffee, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. She spoke to someone in Italian for a minute, then hung up. Liddy quizzed her with a glance.

“That was my Aunt Rosealita in Brooklyn,” Lois explained, pouring two cups. “I call her every day, and explain what happened on the show.”

“Your aunt doesn’t speak English?”

“About ten words. Hello, goodbye, yes, no, pizza, coke, you know, the essentials. She immigrated here from Italy, came through Ellis Island with my folks. My mother used to translate the soaps for her. When Mom died, the tradition was passed on to me.”

“It’s good that you do that.”

“Thanks.” Lois leaned against the counter and blew steam off her cup. “Listen Liddy, I want you to come clean with me about something.”

“What’s that?”

“I think you know.”

“Honestly, Lois, I don’t.”

Lois shot her a look. Liddy avoided confrontation whenever possible, and Lois guessed it came with being part of a large family. She pointed out the window at the ugly concrete birdbath in the backyard. “Tony buried something out there. I want you to tell me what it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Liddy said.

Lois put her drink on the counter, and pinched her friend’s arm. “Remember the promise we made to each other when we first became friends?”

“The one about not keeping secrets?”

“That’s right.”

Liddy swallowed hard. She and Lois had met in high school during their senior year. Tony and Doyle, their boyfriends, were already best friends, so it had made sense for them to be as well. They were both practical that way.

“I remember,” she said.

“I know Doyle confides in you – you told me so a hundred times,” Lois went on. “He tells you things he can’t keep bottled up. Tony buried something out there, and I think you know what it is.”

Liddy looked at the floor, feeling trapped. “Doyle made me promise —”

“No secrets,” Lois said.

Liddy started to protest, then caved in.

“All right,” she said.

They sat at the breakfast table. Liddy played with a paper napkin as she spoke. “There’s something rotten going on at Resorts’ casino. Doyle said the three cops who got killed at the Rainbow Arms were part of it. Tony buried an address book and a videotape he thinks is evidence. Doyle said that’s why your house was ransacked.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Some kind of stealing. Tony got his hands on the casino’s financial statements, and sent them to that guy in Las Vegas, only he said the numbers were okay.”

“You mean Bill Higgins?” Lois said.

“Yes. Bill compared the financials to the casinos he polices in Las Vegas. He said the percentages were correct, and nothing was wrong.”

“Which means no one at Resorts casino is stealing anything.”

“Right. Doyle and Tony think the money is coming from someplace else.”

“Where?”

“They don’t know.”

“Who’s behind it? The mob?”

“I don’t know.”

“No secrets.”

“Yes, it’s the mob.”

Lois suddenly felt afraid. She put her hand on Liddy’s wrist and squeezed it.

“Is Tony scared?” she asked.

Liddy stared at the floor.

“They’re both scared,” she whispered.

That night, Lois and Tony slept on the floor of their bedroom on a mattress borrowed from a neighbor, while Gerry stayed down the street with friends. Lying beneath the bare window, Lois stared at the smiling face of the moon while remembering the night fifteen years ago when they’d moved in and had no furniture. Their lives had just been starting, the future filled with promise and unfulfilled dreams. Turning on her side, she propped her head on her hand. Tony’s eyes were closed. She licked his ear, and his eyes snapped open.

“We need to talk,” she said. “Liddy told me everything. Were you trying to protect us by not telling me what’s going on?”

He stared at the ceiling, as if considering the request.

“Yes,” he said.

“It didn’t work.”

Lois ran her fingers through her husband’s thick head of hair. He hadn’t been much to look at when he was a teenager, just a gangly kid with a thin face and a long Roman nose. As he’d gotten older, his face had taken on character, and he’d turned downright handsome. It had been like watching him grow into himself.

“I paid Nucky Balducci a visit last night,” he said, breaking the silence. “I confronted him, told him I wanted to know who’d robbed us.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it was the New York mob.”

For a moment, Lois couldn’t speak. “Is that who Nucky works for?”

“Yes. The mob has somehow gotten their fingers into Resorts’ operation. I have an address book they want. It has some names in it, all hoods. They’re tied to whatever’s going on. The trouble is, I can’t prove a damn thing.”

“Then why should Nucky or anyone else care?”

“Because I’ve been seen around town with the FBI. I told Nucky I was helping them find a serial killer, but he didn’t believe it.”

“What are you going to do?”

He took a deep breath. “Two things. I’m going to figure out what the mob is doing. And, I’m going to stay away from the FBI.”

“You’re not going to help them catch the killer?”

“Being connected to the FBI right now isn’t healthy,” he said. “I need to back away from it. It’s not worth jeopardizing our lives over. Nothingis worth that.”

“Oh,” she said.

Soon, her husband was asleep. Lois fell back on her pillow and stared into the darkest corner of the room. She had never heard Tony say he wasn’t willing to help someone. It was the thing she loved about him most, the quality that drawn her to him when they were teenagers, and made him so special in her heart. It saddened her to think that his job had changed him, and only after he had started to lightly snore did she let herself cry.

Chapter 24

Someone once said, the heart is a lonely hunter.

Izzie could not get Betty out of his mind. Trying to track his beloved down, he’d called around Nyack, and discovered she was renting a one room apartment over a butcher shop with freezing cold floors. He got her number from information, and called her every night. Most times, Betty cursed him and slammed down the phone. Once, she’d tortured him by talking dirty, then hung up. She could be rotten like that, but Izzie still missed her. He decided to send her a present. Not just any present, but a true expression of his love. Slipping out of the house in Ventnor one morning while Josh and Seymour were asleep, he drove up and down Atlantic Avenue until he found a pawnshop. The store was called Goldfarb’s, and could have given Fort Knox a lesson in security. Iron bars on the windows, multiple surveillance cameras, a burly armed guard by the door. The owner was a Rumpelstiltskin-like character named Herbie.

“What’s your pleasure?” Herbie asked.

Izzie placed a stack of hundred dollar bills on the counter. Herbie riffled the stack with his thumb to make sure they were all real.

“I’m looking for something special for my girlfriend,” Izzie said.

“She must be quite a lady.”

“She itches where I can’t scratch,” Izzie explained.

Herbie disappeared behind a beaded curtain. When he returned, he was carrying a metal strong box. It was heavy, and he placed it on the counter with a grunt, then popped the lid. Inside was a collection of the most beautiful jewelry Izzie had ever seen.

“Do you ship?” Izzie asked.

Two days later, he phoned Betty. This time, she’d wanted to talk.

“I can’t believe you bought this for me. It’s so beautiful,” she cooed.

Izzie was sitting in the second floor bedroom of the rented house with the phone pressed to his ear. He could hear the ice melting from his beloved’s voice. He had sent Betty a spectacular diamond bracelet along with a pair of fur-lined slippers.

“I wanted you to know how I felt,” he said.

“How many diamonds does it have?”

“Thirty-five.”

She purred into the phone. “One for every year.”

Izzie knew she was older than that, but played along. “That’s right.”

“Are they all real?”

“They sure are. No glass for you, baby.”

“And the metal. Is it silver?”

“Platinum.”

“God. It must have cost a small fortune.”

“It’s hot, so the guy gave me a good price.”

Betty screamed so loud that Izzie had to pull the phone away from his ear.

“ You sent me a hot bracelet?”

“Yeah,” Izzie replied. “Whatta you think, I got it from Tiffany’s?”

Betty called him a fucking asshole and slammed down the phone.

Izzie went downstairs feeling lower than a snake’s belly. This long-distance romancing wasn’t working. He needed to drive to Nyack and see Betty, and apologize to her before she tore a hole out of his heart as big as Manhattan.

The first floor was jumping. He and his brothers had brought home a dozen suckers from the casino, and everyone was drinking and smoking and having a good time. They had expanded their operation to include a pool table, which doubled as a craps table, and a second card table, where the suckers could play each other before Izzie cleaned them out. He found Josh in the kitchen fixing a tray of sandwiches. His brother looked worried.

“What’s eating you?” Izzie asked.

Josh said, “Whose idea was it to invite that guy Vinny Acosta?”

“Mine. He’s got a ton of money. And he’s dumb as a fence post.”

“He’s a scary guy. I want to get rid of him.”

“His money’s as green as anyone else’s. Leave Vinny to me,” Izzie said.

By four A.M., all of the suckers had left the house except for Vinny Acosta. He wasa scary guy, about six-two and two hundred and fifty pounds, with a nose turned sideways, slicked back hair, and a way of looking at you that made your skin crawl. Vinny had gotten drunk, sat down in front of the TV, and started watching a new cable station called ESPN that showed crazy stuff like sumo wrestling and log rolling. At four, a college basketball game came on, and Vinny killed the set, and came over to the card table where Izzie, Josh and Seymour were sitting.

“Basketball is for fags,” Vinny declared, throwing down a wad of cash. “Let’s play cards.”

Izzie whistled through his teeth. “What did you do, rob a bank?”

“None of your fucking business. Deal ‘em.”

Izzie shuffled the deck sitting on the table, and had Vinny give them a cut. Vinny was watching him like a hawk, and Izzie knew not to try and switch a deck on him. Instead, he held the deck over his Zippo lighter, and sailed cards around the table. It was called using a shiner, and let him see every card as it was dealt. He memorized only one hand – Vinny’s – and signaled it to his brothers when he was finished dealing. If Vinny was strong, they would all drop out. If not, Vinny would be raised and cleaned out.

Vinny had a pair of 7's. Izzie signaled the hand to his brothers, then glanced at Josh. His brother was sweating. Vinny had him spooked.

Izzie didn’t like it. If Vinny sensed that Josh was nervous, he might realize the game wasn’t kosher. Josh needed to regroup.

“Hey Josh,” Izzie said. “Get me a Coke, will you?”

“Sure,” Josh said. “Anyone else want anything?”

“I want a slow gin fizz,” Seymour said.

The brothers laughed. Vinny, staring at his cards, didn’t say a word.

Josh retreated to the kitchen, and ran cold water over his wrists. They’d made a lot of money since adding the pool table and the second card table. So why did Izzie have to bring this cretin home? They were playing with fire, and were going to get burned. He grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge and returned to the den.

Josh approached the table, then froze. Vinny had his back to him, and was staring up at the ceiling. Looking up, Josh saw tiny butterflies dancing above Izzie’s head. It took a moment before it registered what they were. The Zippo had caught the overhead light, exposing the gaff.

Josh looked at Vinny, and saw him start to pull a gun. He’s going to shoot Izzie.Josh figured he had a few seconds to save his brother’s life. Flipping the Coke bottle over in his hand, he smacked Vinny on the back of the head. The bottle disintegrated upon impact, and Vinny fell forward, and hit the card table with his face.

“Why did you do that?” Izzie shouted.

Josh pointed at the ceiling. Izzie looked up at the butterflies.

“Whoops,” Izzie said.

They laid Vinny out on the floor. He was still breathing, and except for a small cut on the back of his head, did not appear to be seriously injured.

“He told me he’s staying in one of the high roller suites in Resorts’ hotel,” Izzie said, calmly smoking a cigarette while Josh and Seymour paced the den. “He must have a key on him. I say we take him back, and lay him out on his bed. Then we pack our stuff, and go find another house.”

“What about the furniture?” Seymour said.

“We leave it.”

“The pool table, too?”

“Yes. We’ve got to move fast. If Vinny comes back, we’re history.”

Seymour stomped around the room in anger. He’d spent a whole week gaffing the pool table so they could cheat at dice on it. It was a thing of real beauty, and was going to make them rich.

“ We can’t leave it,” Seymour whined.

“Stop acting like a baby,” Izzie said.

Josh got on his knees, and searched Vinny’s pockets for a room key. The lower buttons on Vinny’s silk shirt had come undone, and Josh spied a thick canvas money belt wrapped around Vinny’s stomach.

“Oh-oh,” Josh said.

Izzie knelt down; so did Seymour. They had seen the money belt, too.

“Better see what he’s carrying,” Izzie said.

Josh undid Vinny’s shirt, then unzipped the money belt. Inside the belt were stacks of brand new hundred dollar bills. Josh removed the money and counted it.

It was a hundred grand.

Josh’s hands began to tremble. He looked into his brothers’ eyes. They were thinking the same thing, and equally terrified.

Vinny Acosta was a runner for the mob.