Johnny fed the FedEx's address sheet into the shredder, stood, and opened the seemingly solid bookcase by twisting the ornamental column on it. He exited into a secret hallway that led into the next building, which was used as a storage facility for retired amusement games. Sam had a business that refurbished the bell-ringers and other vintage arcade games, then sold them to dealers across the country, who in turn sold them to rich people who liked to put them in their fancy houses.
Johnny's driver, Spiro Feretti, was waiting in the Lincoln. Johnny slid in beside him and lifted the magazine Spiro had laid down before he started the car.
“You been reading this rag for a solid week, Spiro,” Johnny told him.
“I like to take my time. It only comes out every other month.”
Johnny thumbed through the pages. “You know, I gotta wonder about this bodybuilding shit. I mean this staring at greased-up men and bodies of those she-he muscle chicks is sort of…” He stared down at a fold-out of a well-oiled man on a stage, posing. “Spiro, it's queer.”
Spiro was pressing a remote door opener. “You mean odd, right?” he said, staring ahead at the opening garage doors. “Not fagola.”
“This muscle shit is dick-sucking queer. There's nothing normal about looking at this shit.”
“I work out hard to maintain this-”
“Hey, don't sulk on me,” Johnny cut in. “You got a build scares the shit outta people. You are one strong-looking bull. Enough already. Maybe I have to get a new guy who don't look like some fucking sausage filled with marbles, like he's gonna explode.”
“Sure, Johnny. I got the cuts, the definition I like. I ain't going to compete or nothing. I mean, that takes pumping eight hours a day.”
“Just remember, Spiro. You start looking at me like you want me to screw you, you're a dead man.”
Spiro turned and looked at Johnny with wounded eyes. “I ain't ever had no such a thought,” he declared solemnly.
Johnny laughed and popped Spiro in the shoulder. “Of course not! I'm just messing with you. I know you ain't no sissy. You'd look like shit in a dress. Chill-those steroids are supposed to shrink just your dick, not your sense of humor!”
Spiro drove out into the street and waited for the garage door to close before proceeding. As they neared the intersection, three vehicles crossed in front of them and pulled up at the curb. Men and women, all wearing jackets with FBI emblazoned on them, streamed out of the cars and ran up to Bertran Stern's front door.
“What they doing?” Spiro asked. “Can they go into a lawyer's office like that?”
Johnny slunk down in his seat. “Get the hell outta here!”
Spiro steered the car away from the attorney's office and drove in the other direction. Johnny stared out the back window.
“He knows a lot of shit, Johnny,” Spiro said.
“He can't tell-it's client privilege. And he has a big family that can't hide out with him. Anyway, we can always pay to have some guys we know whack him. It would be real expensive, but doable.”
“Like an investment in the future.”
“You know, Spiro, it's too fucking bad we can't write hits off as a business-related expense.”
Spiro laughed.
“See,” Johnny said, “you still got your sense of humor.”
Bertran was in the kitchen making a mug of English breakfast tea. He planned to wait until Johnny was gone before returning to his office. He would spray Lysol to kill the eye-tearing cologne odor Johnny always left lingering in the air.
He was sitting there sipping his tea when he heard his receptionist squeal, “They, they're… the FBI!”
“What?” he said. “What the devil?” He felt his heart race, then the icy grip of real fear. He thought about the photographs that had been delivered to his office. Did the feds know about them? Was it possible they had already seen them? He heard fists pounding at the door.
“What should I do, Mr. Stern?” the receptionist shrieked from her desk, in full view of the people demanding to come inside.
“Give me a few seconds.”
Bertran bolted into his office and slammed the door. Johnny was gone. He grabbed up the shredder and looked in at the confetti before he opened the bookcase and set the machine in the secret passageway. He pushed the bookcase closed until it clicked into place, then sat at his desk. Sweat poured from every pore in his body. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief and gulped down a glass of water.
The agents didn't bother to knock. The door flew open and the room filled up with blue jackets and hard eyes set in determined faces.
“You people have a legal emergency?” Bertran Stern joked.
One of them handed him a search warrant. He made a show of looking for his glasses, then read the warrant, summoning whatever courage he could pull together into a wall of bluff to hide behind. There is no evidence. It doesn't exist. Even the scraps are not on my property. I never touched those pictures. No evidence equals no arrest. How did the FBI know about the pictures?
The warrant, issued by a federal judge named Horn, sought evidence of conspiracy between Sam Manelli and other unidentified parties to commit murder. The warrant didn't specify which murders had taken place, but Bertran knew good and well from the images what murders the warrant referred to. The smug expressions on the feds' faces said they knew that he knew. A “John Doe” informant was credited with furnishing the information.
“This warrant seems a bit vague,” Bertran pointed out. “A fishing expedition. But there is nothing here that could possibly help you.”
“That right?” an FBI agent said.
“Search away, ladies and gentlemen,” he said graciously. “If you have no objections, I have paperwork to catch up on.”
“Would you open your safe?” The man in command was short and not particularly threatening in either his speech or manner.
Bertran pointed his finger at the safe. “It isn't locked. I never keep much of anything in it. I don't deal with cash or dark secrets.”
He didn't keep any records of anything incriminating in his office. There was nothing like that within miles. Russo certainly had books on what came and went on the dark side of Manelli's empire, but Bertran had never even seen the “dirty” books. He envisioned thick leather-bound volumes, but they could be computer diskettes or images carved into wax tablets, for that matter.
The agents opened the safe door and started removing the items and laying them on the coffee table.
“Just put it all back in when you are done,” Bertan said.
“We'll be taking them,” the agent in charge told him.
Bertran felt their eyes on him, felt the hate, the anger. But he knew the agents were going to be a lot madder when they left. He lifted a stack of papers from beside his blotter and placed it tidily before him.
The agent in charge stared down at something that had been under the papers Bertran had moved and was now exposed.
When the lawyer realized what he had just unwittingly uncovered, a vise tightened on his left arm near the shoulder and his eyes felt like they were being vacuumed out of his skull. Something took his heart in its jaws and crunched it.
The rectangular image of three obliterated heads stayed with him until he was swallowed up by absolute darkness.
56
Richmond, Virginia
Sean left the hotel Saturday afternoon to walk around the neighborhood. She had located a coffee shop where Max had told her that most of the residents and guests ate. The restaurant was closed on Sunday, so Sean went to the convenience store and stocked up on bottled water and enough food so she wouldn't have to go out until Monday, when business demanded she must.