D’zorio shook his head. “The guy never goddamn listened,” he said. Oh, I see. So you killed him?
The limo suddenly swerved hard to the right, sending me tumbling across the seat. Pushing myself back up, I squinted through the dark tint of the windows. Those were no longer trees we were passing. They were cars.
We were getting on a major highway, picking up even more speed.
I yelled to D’zorio over the sirens. “So we pull over now, right? That’s what you said!”
“Not quite yet,” he answered.
He reached for a small compartment by his right arm that was no bigger than a box of tissues. If only that’s what was in it. Christ, why does everyone have a gun except me?
Grabbing the handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket of his suit, D’zorio draped the cloth over his open palm.
“What are you doing?” I said.
But I knew what he was doing. He was making sure there’d be no gunshot residue on his hand. When he killed me.
“It’s like I said before, Nick. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
With that, he aimed the gun at my chest. Meanwhile, the limo was weaving like crazy in and out of lanes, but D’zorio’s hand was surprisingly steady. He’d done this before.
“Wait… WAIT!” I yelled. “You heard Zambratta – the police know I’m in here.”
“Yes, and when I’m done explaining everything to them, they’ll know he’s the one who shot you.”
Checkmate, Nick. Game over. No way out, not this time.
I closed my eyes, swallowing my last breath.
Pop!
IT SURE SOUNDED like a gun – only it wasn’t. Not this time. Actually, it was one of the limo’s tires exploding, maybe from one too many hairpin turns, or maybe from a bullet during the chase.
Of course, I didn’t know that right away – I was too busy spinning around like laundry in a dryer as the limo flipped over.
And over and over and over. High bouncer, too. Possibly some cartwheels.
Call it the worst car crash I’d ever been in and – as crazy as it gets – the luckiest break I’d ever been handed, even though it hurt like hell.
My body slammed against the ceiling, the door, the bar. It was happening so fast, my hands were useless to protect me. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to grab.
Somehow in all that flipping around, amid the crushing of metal and shattering of glass, I managed to stay conscious. And when the limo finally came to a stop – upside down, no less – my vision was going in and out as if I were looking through one of those View-Master toys.
Click! Where am I?
Okay. I was lying facedown on what I guessed was the ceiling of the limo. Slowly, I lifted a hand to my forehead, swabbing it with my palm. I didn’t have to see the blood; I could feel it, warm and gooey. It was as if the huge lump I had gotten from the butt of Zambratta’s gun had erupted. It hurt like hell.
But the worst pain was lower in my body. The right side of my chest, my ribs. Every breath felt like I was being stabbed with a knife.
I was about to call out for help when I heard a moan a few feet away. It was D’zorio. As bad off as I was, he looked even worse.
There were shards of glass wedged into his forehead and cheek, and I was pretty sure a bone was protruding through his sock right below his ankle. He was wheezing and coughing up blood.
He looked at me. I looked at him. We both looked at his gun. It was maybe six inches from his hand.
Make that four inches.
He was reaching for it, his perfectly manicured nails now covered in blood, but clawing their way toward the grip of the gun.
Then, out of the blue, I heard a voice. “Go ahead, Joey, give me a reason!”
Wait! I know that voice… I absolutely do.
I craned my neck to see the man kneeling beside the limo. The barrel of his Smith and Wesson.40 caliber automatic was trained on D’zorio.
Wait! I know this man. He’s the guy from the diner. And my sister’s house.
I thought he had wanted to kill me, only now here he was saving my life. He wasn’t with the mob. He was against them. It was as clear as the three letters emblazoned on his jacket.
FBI.
Chapter 89
I HAD A broken rib for sure, maybe two. There were deep cuts and gashes on my forehead, my ear, and my right arm, all of which would definitely require stitches.
As the EMT finished examining me, Agent Douglas Keller of the FBI folded his arms and gave me a look that reminded me of my father, who’d been a junior high principal. “You need to get to a hospital, Nick,” he said. “We’ll talk about all this afterward.”
“We’ll talk now,” I said. “Or we won’t talk ever again. I’m not kidding – Doug.”
We were standing in the middle of the southbound side of the Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. Behind me, for several miles, was a parking lot of cars that weren’t going anywhere for a while. To my left, on the northbound side, was a slow parade of rubberneckers, each and every face asking the same question with a wide-open mouth: What on earth happened over there? I could see the details they were taking in and trying to figure out: A flipped limo – with bullet holes? Police everywhere – and FBI, too?
Not to mention that NYPD photographers were taking pictures, measuring skid marks, and drawing a chalk line around D’zorio’s driver, who, despite his size, had somehow been thrown to his death. Remember, folks, always wear your seat belt. As for what remained of Zambratta’s body trapped in the sunroof, you don’t want to know.
“You do realize, Nick, that I’m not required to tell you anything,” said Agent Keller.
“That’s right. I get that much, Doug. Just like I’m not required to write about the FBI agent who stalked me for two weeks while threatening my life,” I shot back. “Is that ‘Keller’ with two l’s?”
He smiled. “Glad you find all this funny,” I said.
“For the record, I never actually threatened your life, Nick.”
“No, but that’s what you wanted me to think. You said I was in a shitload of danger.”
“You were in a shitload of danger. You still may be.”
“Yeah, but not from the FBI. Not from you. So why were you trying so hard to scare me?”
Keller shook his head as if to say, I can’t freakin’ believe I’m about to tell you this.
But he did.
It seems that one Vincent Marcozza, Eddie Pinero’s attorney, had been cooperating with the FBI for the past ten months, although not by choice, of course. He had been about to get nailed for income tax evasion, so Marcozza had cut a deal.
“What kind of deal?” I asked.
“Let me put it this way,” said Keller. “Marcozza agreed not to bring his ‘A’ game to the courtroom. He basically let Pinero get convicted.”
My jaw dropped and I must have looked like one of the rubberneckers passing us. “Did the Organized Crime Task Force know about this?” I asked next.
“You mean, were their prosecutors in on it?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”
“No, they had no idea,” said Keller. “I mean, maybe privately they were scratching their heads over Marcozza’s crummy performance during the trial, but that was it. Nailing Pinero was a huge victory for them. They took it and ran.”
And that’s where I had come into the story. Literally. I had walked into Lombardo’s and right into Eddie Pinero taking his revenge on Marcozza.
Only it wasn’t Pinero, as we later found out. It had just looked that way because it was supposed to.
“How did you know it was D’zorio – that it was a setup?” I asked Keller now.
“We didn’t know. That is, not until you did.” He motioned with his hand. “Give me your phone for a second,” he said.