Chương 12
Marco looked away first.
Vincent continued.
“Eight years ago, I told every man in this room that narcotics would not move through our businesses. Some of you obeyed. Some of you lied. Some of you told yourselves Marco’s routes were different because the pills were sealed, because the packages went somewhere else, because you never saw the people who died.”
Sal said, “Careful.”
Vincent turned toward him.
“No. We finished being careful.”
Sal’s mouth closed.
Vincent looked around the room.
“The records proving those routes will go to Detective Brennan tonight.”
The reaction was not loud.
It was worse.
Men stepped back as if distance from Vincent could become legal protection. Someone whispered a curse. Danny Russo knocked a bottle of water from the table and did not pick it up.
Tony stood motionless.
Marco stared at Vincent.
“You’re bluffing.”
“No.”
“You would destroy everything.”
“Yes.”
“For a bookkeeper?”
“For what we did.”
Marco laughed, but no one joined him.
“What we did?” he said. “You built this. You think handing over books makes you clean?”
“No.”
“You think prison makes you noble?”
“No.”
“You think that little girl will visit you? She’ll grow up and learn what your name means. Her mother will tell her exactly who paid the men who paid the men who burned buildings and broke legs and made people disappear.”
Vincent felt every face turn toward him.
Marco stepped closer.
“I protected your empire while you played grieving father. I made money where you refused to look. I kept captains satisfied. I kept politicians useful. I kept the trucks moving.”
Paulie whispered, “Marco.”
Marco turned on him.
“Don’t.”
The room froze.
Marco looked back at Vincent.
“You want truth? Here’s truth. Elena was offered money. Enough to leave the state. She refused because she thought numbers made her brave. She threatened to go to police.”
Vincent said, “So you went to her apartment.”
Marco’s eyes sharpened.
“I sent Frankie to reason with her.”
A slight movement came from Tony.
Vincent kept his voice even.
“You said you didn’t arrange for anyone to go.”
“I said I didn’t arrange for anyone to hurt her.”
“What did you tell Frankie?”
“To retrieve company property.”
“And the men who went after Sophie?”
Marco glanced around.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Vincent heard the faint change in his cadence.
Nora had warned him that courts needed proof. Men in this room needed less. They understood how orders became deniability.
Sal DeLuca stepped away from Marco.
It was one pace.
It changed the room.
Marco noticed.
“You think he saves you?” Marco asked Sal. “He just said he’s handing over records.”
Sal looked sick.
Vincent said, “Everyone here decides for himself what he tells the police.”
“You invited police into this?”
“No.”
Marco searched the room.
His eyes found the kitchen doorway.
Nora Brennan stepped through it with four officers behind her.
The shock broke discipline.
Two men moved toward the rear exit. Officers blocked it. Another reached inside his jacket, then raised his hands when Tony turned toward him.
Marco looked at Vincent.
“You wore a wire?”
“No.”
Nora said, “The room is under judicially authorized surveillance.”
Marco’s lawyer was not present to tell him to stop speaking.
Marco’s face lost color in the same slow way it had at the Golden Palm.
Nora approached.
“Marco Vale, place your hands where I can see them.”
He did not move.
“You planned this,” he said to Vincent.
Vincent looked at the broken watch.
“I told you the truth was coming.”
“You’re dead.”
Tony stepped forward.
Vincent raised one finger.
Tony stopped.
The gesture was the same one that had spared Sophie from Paulie’s hands.
Marco saw the resemblance.
His mouth twisted.
“All this because a child pointed?”
Vincent met his eyes.
“No. Because she was right.”
Nora repeated the command.
Marco looked toward the men who had depended on him. None came closer.
He raised his hands.
An officer removed a pistol from beneath his jacket. Another cuffed him.
As Nora began reading his rights, Marco stared at Vincent with an expression stripped of charm, loyalty, and history.
“You chose strangers over your own people.”
Vincent thought of Elena on the kitchen floor, Sophie in the bathtub, Lucia beneath a white hospital sheet, and all the men who had called obedience loyalty because the alternative required courage.
“I chose the people you made strangers,” he said.
Marco was led away.
The room remained full of men who had not yet decided whether to hate Vincent, fear him, or ask for attorneys.
Tony stood beside the table.
“You gave Brennan the location?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In the hospital.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
Tony stared at him.
“You thought I’d warn Marco?”
“I thought you might warn me.”
“About what?”
“About myself.”
Tony’s face tightened.
For a long moment, he looked close to striking Vincent.
Instead he picked up the broken gold watch.
“You know what I hate?” he said.
Vincent waited.
“I brought peppermint candies to your daughter’s funeral because I didn’t know what else to bring. Your wife looked at me like I was an idiot.”
“I remember.”
“No, you don’t. You didn’t see anybody that day.”
Vincent said nothing.
Tony turned the watch over in his hand.
“I spent twenty-three years thinking loyalty meant keeping you from consequences.”
“It did to me.”
“And now?”
“Now I think it may mean letting them arrive.”
Tony set the watch down.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need a lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“My wife is going to leave me.”
“Maybe.”
“My sons will read things about me.”
“Yes.”
Tony looked at him.
“You could at least lie once.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“I’m tired.”
Tony sat in one of the club’s wooden chairs.
After a while, he unwrapped a tuna sandwich.
“I hate these,” he said.
“So do I.”
Tony took a bite anyway.
May you like
At nine-thirty that night, Vincent entered the police station through the front doors.
Reporters were already gathering outside. Someone had leaked Marco’s arrest, the freight investigation, and Vincent’s presence at the social club. Camera lights washed the sidewalk white.
