At a little past midnight, he pulled up in front of Giametti's house. The mobster didn't live too extravagantly, but all his needs were met. That was how the Mafia took care of its own.
Sampson peered into his rearview and saw two more cars ease up against the curb directly behind him. He spoke into a mike sticking out from his shirt collar. "Good evening, gents. I think this is going to be a fine night. I can feel it in my bones. Let's go wake up the Greaseball."
Chapter 37
SAMPSON'S PARTNER THESE DAYS was a twenty-eight-year-old detective named Marion Handler, who was almost as big as Sampson was. Handler was certainly no Alex Cross, though. He was currently living with a large-breasted but small-minded cheerleader for the Washington Redskins, and he was looking to make a name for himself in Homicide. "I'm fast-tracking, dude," he liked to say to Sampson, without a hint of humor or self-effacement.
Just being around the cocky detective was exhausting, and also depressing. The man was plain stupid; worse, he was arrogant about it, flaunting his frequent logic lapses.
"I'll take the point on this one," Handler announced as they reached the front porch of Giametti's house. Four other detectives, one holding a battering ram, were already waiting at the door. They looked to Sampson for direction.
"Take the lead? No problem, Marion. Be my guest," he said to Handler. Then he added, "First in, first to the morgue." He spoke to the detective holding the battering ram: "Take it down! Detective Handler goes in first."
The front door collapsed in two powerful strikes with the ram. The house alarm system began to wail, and the detectives hurried inside.
Sampson's eyes took in the darkened kitchen. Nobody there. New appliances everywhere. An iPod and CDs scattered on the floor. Kids in the house.
"He's downstairs," Sampson told the others. "Giametti doesn't sleep with his wife anymore."
The detectives hurried down steep wooden stairs on the far side of the kitchen. They hadn't been inside more than twenty seconds. In the basement, they burst in the first door they came to. "Metro Police! Hands up. Now, Giametti," Marion Handler's voice boomed.
The Greaseball was up quickly. He stood in a protective crouch on the far side of the king-size bed. He was a short, potbellied, hirsute man in his midforties. He looked groggy and still out of it, maybe drugged up. But John Sampson wasn't fooled by his physical appearance – this man was a stone-cold killer. And much worse.
A pretty, naked young girl with long blond hair and fair white skin was still on the bed. She tried to cover her small breasts and shaved genital area. Sampson knew her name, Paulina Sroka, and that she was from Poland originally. Sampson had known she would be here and that Giametti was rumored to be madly in love with the blond beauty he'd imported from Europe six months ago. According to sources, the Greaseball had killed the girl's best friend because she'd refused to have anal sex with him.
"You don't have to be afraid," Sampson said to Paulina. "We're the Washington police. You're not in any trouble. He is."
"Just shut the hell up!" Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both confused and scared. "Don't say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I'm warning you!"
Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.
"Don't say a word!" Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was pressed into the shag rug. "Don't talk to them, Paulie! I'm warning you! You hear me?"
The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets, attempting to cover herself with a man's shirt she'd been given by the detectives.
She finally spoke in the softest whisper. "He make me do anything he say. He do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying – everything you could imagine. I can hardly walk… I am fourteen years old."
Sampson turned to Handler. "You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the hell out of here. I don't want to touch the slime."
Chapter 38
AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station house. Sampson wouldn't take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it bleed. Giametti didn't seem to notice it himself.
Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary questioning, but Giametti didn't have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and observed, sizing up both men.
So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he looked. "I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed. Sleeping – just like when you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She's a scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?"
Sampson finally pushed himself forward in his seat. He'd heard enough bullshit for tonight. "Anybody ever tell you you could do stand-up?" he asked. And, Marion, you could be his straight man.
"Matter of fact, yeah," Giametti said, and smirked. "Couple of people told me that exact same thing. You know what? I think they were cops too."
"Paulina has already told us she saw you kill her friend Alexa. Alexa was sixteen years old when she died. The girl was garroted!"
Giametti slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. "The crazy little bitch. Paulie is lying through her teeth. What'd you do, threaten to send her back? Deport her to Poland? That's her biggest fear."
Sampson shook his head. "No, I said we'd help her stay in America if we could. Get her into school. The best. Do the right thing by her."
"She's lying, and she's nuts. I'm telling you, that pretty little girl is two kinds of crazy."
Sampson nodded slowly. "She's lying? All right, then how about Roberto Gallo? Is he lying too? He saw you kill Alexa and stuff the body in the trunk of your Lincoln. He made that up?"
"Of course he made it up. That's total bullshit; it's complete crap. You know it. I know it. Bobby Gallo knows it. Alexa? Who the hell is Alexa? Paulie's imaginary friend?"
Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders. "How would I know Gallo's story is bullshit?"
"Because it never happened, that's how! Because Bobby Gallo probably made a deal with you."
"You mean – it didn't happen that way? Gallo wasn't actually an eyewitness? But Paulina was. Is that what you're saying?"
Giametti frowned and shook his head. "You think I'm stupid, Detective Sampson? I'm not stupid."
Sampson spread his hands to indicate the small, very bright interview room. "But here you are."
Giametti thought about it for a few seconds. Then he gestured toward Handler. "Tell Junior here to go take a nice long walk off a short pier. I want to talk to you. Just you and me, big man."
Sampson looked over at Marion Handler. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Why don't you take a break, Marion?"
Handler didn't like it, but he got up and left the interrogation room. He made a lot of noise on the way out, like a petulant high school kid who'd just been given detention.
Sampson didn't say anything once he and Giametti were alone. He was still observing the mobster, trying to get under the punk's skin. The guy was a murderer – that much he knew. And Giametti also had to know that he was up shit creek right now. Paulina Sroka was fourteen years old.