“I told you, I don’t get involved with Families.”
“And I heard you, but I’m gonna need you to make an exception in this case. I’m in a lot of trouble here, and if you help us out on this, we will remember that favor when, say… elections for District Attorney roll around.”
Vercetti closed the Styrofoam container and bent forward over her desk. She clasped her hands like a kid praying at her bedside, and the way she was leaning gave me an enticing view down the front of her silky blouse. This salty chick had it goin’ on everywhere that mattered. My eyes followed her curves into that olive-toned canyon, and, for a moment, I forgot why I was there.
“Mr. Lastra?”
“Please, call me Indy,” I said, returning my eyes to hers with an impish grin.
“Mr. Lastra, why are you here? Why me? Doesn’t your family have a tank full of sharks that could twist the arms of any prosecutor in the city?”
“If I’m being honest with you, Miss… excuse me, Counselor Vercetti, most of our guys have been flagged by the ABA for… non-traditional tactics. The suits we have that aren’t on probation won’t get anywhere near this.”
“And why is that?” she asked stiffly.
“I was witnessed in the act of… taking out some garbage, let’s say, by someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. To make matters a touch more complicated, this tizio del cazzo is a uh.. well, he’s a Catholic priest.” Perdonami Padre, I thought with a quick sign of the cross.
“HA!” she exploded with a single, short guffaw. “If you want my professional opinion, Mr. Lastra… Indy, you’re fucked like an altar boy in the 80s.”
“That's exactly why I need you, Counselor. You come with very high recommendations. I hear you’re the best.”
“I am the best. I’m the best precisely because I don’t take cases I can’t win. You have a first-hand eye-witness to a murder—“
“—alleged—”
“—alleged murder, who also happens to be a Catholic priest. That’s a prosecutor's wet dream. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
The cute, brassy business act was beginning to lose its charm, and I could feel heat starting to rise from under my collar. “Listen to me carefully. I’m about to lose my patience, and I promise you, I’m much less understanding when I’m angry. Capisce?”
“Are you threatening me? I’ve already lost my patience with you and your bullshit bravado. Please leave my office before I have somebody escort you out.”
“Puttana,” I hissed, sending her desk organizer across the room and into the wall. “I’ll be back, Vercetti.”
“No… you won’t.”
I paced on the street below her office, smoking a cigarette and trying to defuse the rage boiling in my blood. Nessuno mi unfungulo, I cursed to myself, kicking over a trashcan and scattering the passers-by on the sidewalk. Calm down, Lastra. Everybody has a breaking point. Just find hers, apply the right leverage, and do it fast. If this thing goes south you’re going away for a long, long time.
I pulled up my collar and headed off into the blustery Chicago air.
Chapter Six
Indro
“Little Columbo, you got a law degree?” I asked, tossing the crumbs of my pretzel to the fat white pigeon on my left. Little bastard didn’t answer, just took my crumbs and took off.
Pigeons know what’s up. That’s why I like them. My Nonno Lastra kept pigeons on our roof. He used to take me up to feed them when I was little. It was magical up there, a rare pocket of peace in my deafening family. The beat of wings from a flight of doves was my lullaby. Maybe that’s why I always found myself feeding pigeons when I needed to get my head together.
I’d spent the whole afternoon trying to dig up dirt on Counselor Vercetti. Every delinquent in the city knew her name. Hell, half of them already had her in their phones, in case they needed her services, but the bitch was crafty. None of them had even a crumb of dirt on her. Not that she wasn’t crooked. I’d heard plenty of stories, but nothing I could use. I was at a dead end.
Suddenly, a little girl appeared at the edge of the park. She was moving at warp speed. She had pulled away from her dad and was shrieking into my flock. She couldn’t have been more than four, in a little red coat, long black hair flying out behind her. The birds rose around her in a beating cloud of sound and feathers. She laughed and twirled and I laughed ruefully with her. This kid and these pigeons were going to be my last happy memory if I didn’t figure out my next move.
The dad trotted up, muttering apologies. He had one of those embarrassing white pods in his ear and was gripping a thousand-dollar Chinese tracking device disguised as a phone. I had one, too, but I hated it and kept it off most of the time. The SIM cards in those things are like a narc in your pocket. And then it hit me. The SIM card.
“Lodare Dio!” I shouted, startling the hipster dad. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. One of the drunks at the 602 Club had blabbed to me about Vercetti’s most recent case. The DA’s slam dunk evidence had mysteriously lost its SIM card just in time for trial. Rumor had it Vercetti had a man on the inside who had snaked it for her. That meant she had it now. Was she cocky enough to keep it in her office? A long shot, but a shot I had to take.
I was already striding back to Jackson Street. This was the golden hour for office break-ins. The work day was over, but enough drones were still buzzing around that
