To my right was Zambratta, and across from both of us, legs crossed and arms folded in satisfaction, was his boss. The boss.
Joseph D’zorio.
“Do you know who I am, Nick?” asked D’zorio. I was noticing that his ruddy complexion went well with his combed-back silver hair. The guy literally had a glow about him.
I nodded. “Yes, I know who you are.”
“Of course you do,” he said before cracking a smile. “But I bet you wish you didn’t right now. In fact, that’s your problem, isn’t it? You know me all too well.”
My shirt had been ripped open and there was no longer a panic button for me to press. Believe it or not, I was more concerned about something else.
Ever so casually I slid my hand over the pocket of my pants, feeling for the outline of the flash drive Monica Phalen had given me.
“Looking for this?” asked D’zorio.
He opened his clenched fist and I saw the flash drive nestled in the palm of his hand.
“I’m guessing, Nick, that you haven’t had the chance to see what’s on here.”
“No,” I said, “I haven’t seen it.”
“Neither have I. I imagine if we were to watch it together, we’d see things that we both already know.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Of course, what I don’t know is who else has seen what’s on here,” said D’zorio, tapping the flash drive with a knuckle.
I realized that this explained why I was still alive. It’s hard to get information out of a dead man.
“The only person who knows what’s on that drive was murdered,” I said. “On your orders, I’m sure. He was a good man, by the way.”
D’zorio rocked his head back and forth as if mulling things over. “You might be right,” he said. “Then again, you might be wrong. Maybe Derrick Phalen made more copies. What do you think, Carmine?”
Slouched back in the leather of the seat next to me, Zambratta shrugged. “It’s tough to say. But you can never be too sure with these things, no?”
“Is that why?” I asked D’zorio.
“Is that why what?” he asked back.
There was no point in playing dumb anymore. Regardless of what was on that flash drive and who else might have seen it, I knew more than enough on my own. “Is that why you framed Eddie Pinero instead of killing him outright? Less chance of retaliation? Because you can never be too sure?”
“No, that’s not it,” D’zorio said with a wave of his hand.
“Then what?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Don’t be so sure. Try me.”
D’zorio let go with a laugh as the limo suddenly came to a stop, the tires skidding on top of what sounded like gravel. Wherever we had been heading, we were there.
“Sorry, Nick,” is all he said.
But it was the way he said it, with a sense of finality. Joseph D’zorio wasn’t saying that he wouldn’t tell me his secret.
He was saying good-bye.
Chapter 85
THE DOOR NEXT to me swung open with such force that I thought it might have been ripped from its hinges. D’zorio’s driver, who looked like he could bench-press New Jersey, said nothing as he waited for me to step out. Behind him I caught a glimpse of an abandoned warehouse, half burned to the ground. It had that look to it, anyway. Desolate and isolated. The kind of place where no one can hear you scream.
“Do you need some help getting out?” asked Zambratta. “Maybe a kick in the ass?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
He pulled out his gun, jamming it hard against my head, just like he had in the alley by the pizza place.
“Actually, I do,” he said. “Your time has come.”
I swung one foot out of the limo, and then I stopped because of the sound I heard. An unexpected but quite wonderful sound.
Sirens.
D’zorio’s driver immediately slammed the door shut, nearly taking my leg off. Before I’d even landed in my seat he was back behind the wheel.
These sirens. They were real.
Real close, too. Not like the ones I had heard from the lobby of my building before Zambratta had knocked me senseless. It was as if this time the cavalry had snuck up from behind, turning the sirens on at the last possible moment. Surprise!
“Christ!” yelled Zambratta. “How?”
As in, how the hell could they have found us here?
Zambratta raised his fist to bang on the glass divider – “Let’s go!” – but D’zorio’s driver was already a step ahead. We peeled out so fast I couldn’t help but think back to that night on the run in Darfur.
Hold on tight, because this is going to be one hairy ride…
I HAD GOTTEN that much right, no doubt about it. The limo swerved wildly right and left in a series of turns, the three of us getting tossed around in the back like salads. I still had no idea where we were, and the heavily tinted windows and all the contortions didn’t help. What little I could see was a continuous blur.
How fast were we going? Ninety miles an hour? A hundred? On a side road?
Even faster as we hit a straightaway.
The crystal glasses in the bar next to D’zorio were rattling louder and louder, but my ears remained trained on the police sirens. Were they getting closer – or farther away?
There was a chorus of them, and all I could hope was that no matter how fast we were going, the guys underneath those sirens were going just a little bit faster. C’mon, boys, let ’er rip! Don’t be shy!
They weren’t.
Pop! Pop-pop!
Ping! Ping!
“They’re trying to shoot out the tires,” said Zambratta. As fast as you could say double fisted, the gun from inside his jacket was joined by the one that had been tucked into a shin holster.
“Wait!” said D’zorio. “Don’t.”
Don’t?
Zambratta looked at his boss like he had three heads. “This asshole has seen me kill two guys,” he said, waving what looked to be a Glock 9mm in my face. “They’ve got to know he’s in here.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said D’zorio. “If we pull over, no charges will stick. I can protect you, Carmine.”
Now it was my turn to look at D’zorio like he had three heads. No charges will stick? How do you figure that one? There I was, sitting on the wrong end of two guns and in the wrong car of a police chase, and that’s what I was wondering about? How D’zorio could protect his favorite henchman? But I couldn’t help myself. It seemed like such a bizarre thing for the boss to say. Like everybody but him was stupid.
I looked over at Carmine Zambratta, who was clearly thinking the same thing. Not for long, though. He just wasn’t buying it.
Instead, he began opening the sunroof.
“I’m telling you,” implored D’zorio. “I can protect you.”
“No, you can’t,” said Zambratta. “But I can protect myself.”
He jumped up through the open sunroof, guns blazing. Between the bullets flying and the wind whipping through the limo, I could barely hear myself think.
But I could see what D’zorio was about to do.
I just couldn’t believe it.
Chapter 87
IT WAS AS IF D’zorio had been counting the shots like Dirty Harry, waiting for the moment when Zambratta would need to reload. That’s when he lunged forward and punched the sunroof button, the sliding glass panel trapping Zambratta half in and half out of the speeding car.
“What the fuck!” Zambratta yelled, his legs twisting helplessly beneath him. The Zamboni, D’zorio’s prized enforcer, was out of bullets and fully exposed up there. The rest was target practice for the police.
For the next few seconds, Zambratta screamed horribly as several bullets, maybe half a dozen, ripped through his flesh and bones. Then, thump!
His lifeless body fell over against the top of the limo as one of his hands, the Glock 9mm still gripped in the palm, plopped down through the narrow space of the sunroof. I watched the blood trickle off his fingertips.