‘OK, I get the point. Maybe it’s nothin’. Maybe I’m gettin’ paranoid in my old age. But I still hadda check it out, which I did. I went up on the roof myself, boss. That skylight, it ain’t locked down.’
‘Which means what?’
‘Which means somebody coulda got in.’ The Blade takes a step back. ‘How ’bout,’ he suggests, ‘you come up on the roof and take a look for yourself. This is not somethin’ we could ignore.’
‘I haven’t had coffee yet and you want me to climb up to the roof?’ Bobby fixes his second-in-command with his most ferocious glare, but the Blade doesn’t react. Now Bobby has to vent on the only game in town, the three kids in the outer basement.
‘You hear the news?’ he asks Donny Thorn.
‘What news?’
‘We had somebody in here last night.’
Donny Thorn’s a handsome kid. He’s got those Irish good looks, the clear eye, the square jaw, the spray of freckles. Now his head swivels back and forth, as if he’s seeing the basement for the first time, which irritates Bobby all the more. That’s not Donny’s intention and he says, ‘Nobody’s been in here.’
‘I’m not talkin’ about here, ya dumb fuck. I’m talkin’ about upstairs.’
The words are on the tip of Donny’s tongue:
‘They musta been real quiet, Bobby.’ He looks to his companions, Al Zeffri and Nino Ferrulo. ‘You guys hear anything?’ When both shake their heads, Donny spreads his hands apart, ‘But one thing I can say definitely. No one – and I mean nobody – came down those stairs.’
‘How do ya know that, Donny? Did you open the door like I told you under no fucking circumstances not to do?’
‘No, boss, we didn’t.’
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely one hundred percent. We didn’t go nowhere.’
‘And you didn’t invite a couple of broads in for a little party?’
Donny Thorn makes the Sign of the Cross on his breast. ‘Catholic honor, Bobby.’
Bobby Ditto finally turns away. He feels better now. Donny’s not lying. The boys stayed in the basement and the money in the bunker was protected at all times. Bobby follows the Blade through the warehouse and out to the yard where he finds an extension ladder propped against the wall.
‘Ya know, Bobby, what you told Donny and them, about someone breaking in last night? That’s not the way it happened. If it happened at all.’
‘How so?’
‘If somebody broke in, they woulda had to do it before it started raining. Otherwise they would’ve left footprints.’
‘So, you’re talkin’ Wednesday night?’
‘Or Tuesday or Monday.’
Bobby’s eyes bulge in his head. Monday? Before he installed his security detail? There could be ten thousand bugs in the goddamned bunker. Somebody might be listening to every word.
‘Get the freak down here,’ he tells the Blade.
‘If you’re talkin’ about Kupperman, I already called him.’
‘Good.’ Bobby stops to allow a forklift carrying a roll of Berber carpet to pass. ‘So, this intruder, how’d he get on the roof? You think he brought a ladder with him? Like the one you’re asking me to climb?’ Bobby’s eyes sweep the yard, moving over the trucks and the SUV, finally settling on the fence with its glistening razor wire. ‘And how’d he get over the fence? Did he fuckin’ fly?’
The Blade feels like he’s been saying the same thing all day, like he’s back at Mary Immaculate, in the confessional booth with Father Binnelli. ‘I don’t know, boss. Only this guy, Carter, if he was some kinda special forces freak like the Chink said? I think he woulda learned how to get past razor wire.’
There it is, Carter’s name spoken aloud. Bobby’s real good at hating, but he’s never felt anything close to what he feels now. No one disrespects Bobby Benedetti. Everywhere he goes – a restaurant, a bar, a wedding, a funeral – men of honor shake his hand. Bobby runs his fingers over his face. He feels like somebody spit on him.
‘My day will come,’ he tells the Blade. ‘Let’s take a look on the roof.’
The ladder buckles under Bobby Ditto’s weight, but doesn’t break as he climbs to the roof and marches over to the nearest skylight. When it swings up on a pair of rusty hinges, he folds his hands across his chest.
‘How can this happen? I thought the building was secure.’
‘Secure against theft,’ the Blade responds.
The skylight is approximately four feet square, way too small to allow the gigantic rolls of carpet in the warehouse to pass through, even if they could be raised the twenty feet between the floor and the ceiling. So what if the skyline offers access? You can’t open any of the doors from the inside without setting off an alarm. There’s nothing to steal.
Bobby looks around, as he did while standing at the foot of the ladder. The view over the low-rise buildings in the neighborhood is spectacular. He can see downtown Manhattan and the sparkling waters of the harbor and the massive cranes on the docks in Bayonne. Clouds roll overhead, driven by a stiff breeze that riffles through Bobby’s hair. From this very spot a decade earlier, Bobby had watched the towers of the World Trade Center burn and collapse. But he’s not thinking about the past. He’s looking for proof, any proof, that somebody used the skylight to gain access. Proof that isn’t there to find.
‘This Carter, this prick,’ Bobby observes. ‘He’s got us runnin’ around in circles. This is not the way I wanna live, Marco.’
This is another of the Blade’s jobs. As Bobby’s advisor, he’s expected to offer a plan of action, especially when problems arise. Meanwhile, he hasn’t got a clue.
‘All right, let’s suppose somebody got inside. Let’s even suppose they got into your office. What did they actually accomplish? The money wasn’t even there, right? And if they installed bugs, the cokehead will find them. Hear what I’m sayin’, Bobby? Let’s not freak out.’
If Levi Kupperman nearly jumps out of his skin when Carter takes him by the arm, his eyes virtually explode when Carter flashes the gold shield of a New York City Detective in his face. He’s thinking how it’s funny that you know something will happen, absolutely, without doubt, yet you’re still unprepared when a cop shoves your hundred and thirty pounds against the side door of a van. And you’re even more unprepared when that door suddenly opens and you’re tossed inside, when you’re on your back looking up at the face of the woman you’ve been imagining ever since you started jerking off fifteen years ago.
Levi’s glimpse of paradise is short-lived. Carter flips him on to his stomach and rummages through his pockets, turning up a packet of cocaine tucked behind an expired credit card in his wallet.
‘Look at me,’ Carter says.
Kupperman complies – he has no choice – but he doesn’t like what he sees, not at all. He might as well be looking into the eyes of a dead man. Levi’s hands were already trembling, a by-product of terminal cocaine addiction. Now his entire body quakes. Carter’s witnessed this effect before, so often that he now counts on it.
‘Tell me what you do for Bobby Ditto? Are you on the way to his warehouse?’
Levi glances at Angel, but somehow those beautiful teardrop eyes have lost their seductive luster, if they had any to begin with. The woman’s not sympathetic, not at all. She’s excited.
‘Please, I’m not a ... a gangster. I’m a—’
Carter interrupts the little man’s plea by slapping him across the face, a hard crack that spins him into the side of the van. ‘Do yourself a big favor, answer the questions I ask.’
‘OK, yes. I’m on my way to Bobby’s and what I do is sweep his place for bugs. But that’s all I do. I’m a businessman, not a gangster. Swear to God, I don’t deal drugs.’
‘You’re right on part one. You’re not a gangster.’ Carter examines Kupperman’s driver’s license for a moment, then slips it into his pocket. ‘You’re a drug addict, Levi, and you’re in over your head. Way over your head. Do you disagree?’
Levi gulps down a breath. His mind is working a little better, true enough, but the messages tossed up by his coke-fried brain do not encourage him. First, this guy is not a cop. This is the guy Bobby Ditto’s been worrying about
