“What did you do?”
“You had what, thirty, fifty million worth of product in there? Is that right? And… had is the key word there. Right now, I’m sure the police have taken it away by now.”
“What did you do?!” Mallette’s voice was raised, and there was no doubt about the anger that was flowing out of him. He kept asking the same question, but he already knew the answer.
Jacobs kept laughing. “Hope you’re not running out of funds anytime soon. That might put a damper on your operation, huh?”
Mallette seemed to get himself back under control for the moment. “I can spare it.”
“Really? Oh, you must be talking about the other three places with similar content inside. Uh, well, I really wouldn’t count on them if that’s what you were thinking. I’m pretty sure the police have them blocked off now, too.”
Mallette was quiet for a moment, but Jacobs could practically hear him seething into the phone. Jacobs could picture his face turning red, veins popping out of his neck, thinking about what he wanted to do at that very moment.
“I’m gonna bury you,” Jacobs said.
“Not if I bury you first!”
“Looks like I’m winning.”
“For the moment. The war is not over.”
“Yes, it is. If I can’t find you right now, I’ll do the next best thing. I’m going to dismantle your operation bit by bit until you have nothing left. Absolutely nothing. You’ll have no money, you’ll have no men, and you’ll have no time. And then, you’ll be mine.”
“Keep thinking that,” Mallette said.
“Oh, you gonna tell me you have more operations with a few million inside just waiting for you?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“You don’t have to. I know. I know everything. I’m looking at everything right now. I have a list of names and addresses, all associated with you. Your time is ticking away. It’s almost at the end.”
“I don’t think you know as much as you think you do.”
“Oh really?” Jacobs said. “Maybe you should be looking out your window right now, wondering if I’m outside. Waiting for you.”
Mallette actually wondered if that was true. He went over to his window and looked out, not that he could see much at that time.
Jacobs laughed. “You’re actually looking, aren’t you? I figured you would. I’ll set your mind at ease for tonight. I’m not there. Yet. But I know. I finally know.”
“Know what?”
“I finally know every piece of property you own. All the aliases, all the secret businesses, everything you set up before you went to prison, so you’d have a little nest egg waiting for you when you finally got out. I know it all.”
“And what good do you think that will do you?”
“Now I’m coming. Since I know the address of every single place you own, tomorrow, I’m going to come looking for you. And I’m not gonna stop until I find the place that you’re in. And when I find you, I’m gonna do what you couldn’t. I’m gonna put a bullet in your head. And I’m going to walk out of this fight a winner, while you’re put in a box.”
Mallette’s anger exploded out of him again. “There’s not a chance of that happening! You wanna come looking for me, you go right ahead! There’s an old saying: be careful of what you’re looking for, you just might find it.”
“I hope I do.”
“So do I.”
“Remember, tomorrow’s your last day. I’m coming.”
Jacobs hung up the phone and put it on the table. He took a deep breath and leaned back.
“Good stuff, man,” Franks said. “Real good.”
“It’s only good if he does what we want him to do, and he doesn’t think I’m blowing a lot of hot air.”
“Not a chance, man, not a chance. It’ll work. I’m telling you. It’ll work.”
“I dunno. Was I too subtle? Should I have dropped bigger hints about not guarding Tiff tomorrow?”
“Say it too plain and you run the risk of making it obvious,” Thrower said. “I think you played it perfectly. You got him riled up, he’ll infer from what you said, now the rest is up to him. If he sits back and thinks about it, analyzes it, he should come to the conclusion that you’ll be out looking for him.”
“But won’t he think you’d be guarding me?” Tiffany asked.
“If he’s got more properties out there, I’d think he’d assume I’d be out there looking too. Brett can’t watch them all at once.”
“Hogwash,” Franks said. “This is it, man, this is it. He’s gonna buy this hook, line, and sinker. I’m telling you. One more day. That’s all that bastard’s got left. One more day.”
21
Mallette had Selby meet him in a parking garage, at an address that was not associated with him in any way. He didn’t know if Jacobs was bluffing or not, but from what he heard from his conversation the previous night, he couldn’t afford to take any chances.
“You really think he knows as much as he says, boss?”
“I don’t know. I do know we can’t afford to be wrong.”
“That’s for sure.”
“I also know that he was right in that all four of our places got hit last night,” Mallette said.
“That’s a big sting.”
“Catastrophic. Those four places were what was holding my organization together financially.”
“I thought there were more?”
“Legitimate business, none of which can bring in the kind of cash flow that we need to fund this.”
“So what’s the play now?”
“We need to end this thing with Jacobs. Today. Now, it’s not even personal. Now, it’s business. He’s taking my business apart, and if he keeps at it, I won’t have anything left. I’m already down to the bare bones. I didn’t get out of prison just to watch my organization crumble in front of me.”
“So what should we do? Set up a trap for him?”
Mallette nodded. “Yes, but what? We have ten men, all told.”
“Why not just set up
