detail in the scheme of things. I could tell the police about Gin Rummy, but to their mind, it would be like telling them the Easter Bunny did it. Nobody knew his identity, and nobody really cared anymore about Kathy Rubinkowski’s murder.
For no particular reason, I opened up Joel’s lengthy work. He had identified a number of people within and outside the Capparelli crime family who might qualify as Gin Rummy. Joel even had an executive summary, the kind of thing his corporate clients would like:
Approximately four years ago, federal authorities first heard the name “Gin Rummy” transmitted over a wiretap by two known members of the Capparelli crime family. Since that time, a number of killings have been attributed to Gin Rummy, but his identity has remained a mystery. It is believed that, in the face of increasingly invasive surveillance by federal agents, the Capparelli family has entrusted its most important work to Gin Rummy, including the murder of top crime boss Anthony Moretti, and has deliberately kept his identity known to only a handful of people. Federal agents believe, in fact, that his identity is known only to Paul Capparelli, his sole confidant Donnie Mancini, and Gin Rummy himself. We believe, of course, that Lorenzo Fowler also knew that information, and was willing to trade on it before he was gunned down, probably by Gin Rummy himself.
Right. I recalled that odd conversation with Lorenzo, right here in this office, when he first mentioned “Gin Rummy” to me. A hit man? I asked. Close enough, he said. An assassin? Right, he said. I never got the answer to my follow-up question: What’s the difference between a hit man and an assassin?
And I probably never would. Joel, for his part, had given his best guess in the following paragraph of his executive summary:
The most obvious suspect is Peter Gennaro Ramini, a/ k/ a “Pockets,” who served as the primary assassin for the Capparelli family under Rico Capparelli, before Rico’s arrest and imprisonment left his brother Paul Capparelli in control.
I finished reading the executive summary and let out a sigh. Some questions don’t get answered. Who knows? Maybe I’d keep looking for the elusive killer.
Or maybe, at some point, he’d come looking for me again.
Or maybe not. Maybe I was done with this. Maybe Tori was onto something in her apartment, the night before December 7. We could leave here. We could ditch everything and run away, start over. Was I ready to do that?
I looked at the photographs on my desk. One of my deceased wife, Talia, clutching our newborn child, Emily. Talia would always be the love of my life. That spot was permanently filled.
The other photo was Shauna and me, mugging for the camera in the bleachers last summer at a ball game. I stared into her frozen eyes and felt my heartbeat ratchet up. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what we meant. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to find out.
Exhale.
I decided not to confront that particular topic at this time and, instead, flip through Joel’s report. I’d had enough drama in my life for one year.
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.”
104
I was the last in the office, past six-thirty. I was looking out the window at the cityscape when I heard her footsteps down the hallway, the familiar clack of her boots.
“Hey,” Tori said.
“Hey, yourself.” Down below, Christmas shoppers filled the streets. I used to love Christmas when I was a kid, because it was one of the only days that my dad was in a good mood. And it was the only time when our family seemed normal. That used to matter so much to me, when I was a kid-feeling like I was normal. Feeling like I belonged.
“Did you mean what you said before?” I asked, my forehead planted against the glass window, still looking down at the street. “About us just leaving this city? Leaving everything behind?”
“Of course I did,” she said. “Would you… do that?”
I didn’t answer. I breathed onto the glass and watched it fog up.
“What’s wrong, Jason? Did something…”
Her sentence trailed off. In the reflection off the window, I could see her standing by the couch. Joel’s treatise on “Gin Rummy” was resting there, open to the executive summary.
“I thought seriously about saying yes,” I said. “I really did. I love this city, but I would have considered leaving it for you.”
“You still can,” she said.
True. I still could, after everything.
“I have unfinished business,” I said. “Gin Rummy is still out there. I have to find Kathy Rubinkowski’s killer.”
“That’s not your job. You did yours. Leave the rest to someone else.”
I nodded. That was the same thing I’d been trying to tell myself.
“Help me out here,” Tori said to me. “Because this is sounding suspiciously like an excuse to blow me off. And if that’s what you want to do, I’d rather you just said that.”
I could see where she might think that. I’ve heard a lot of women complain that men are afraid of confrontation when it comes to breakups. They hide behind stupid reasons. But that wasn’t the case here.
I watched her in the reflection. It was somehow easier to do it this way. She reached down and picked up the three-ring binder Joel had put together.
“Joel got me started,” I continued. “He identified a long-time hit man named Peter Ramini. Apparently he was a big deal when Rico Capparelli was the boss. He would still make the most sense, even with his brother Paul at the helm.”
“So I’m reading,” she said, holding the summary in her hand.
