22

JAKE AWOKE WITH a groan, not knowing where in the world he was. His mouth felt like dry dirt and the back of his collar was sticky and damp. The pain in his head brought back the scene in the drainpipe, and he touched the oozing wound, removing a red-stained finger as he sat up and fumbled with the bottle of Advil lying on the floor of his rented Cadillac. After gulping down four tablets with the help of a warm bottle of water, Jake studied the narrow and crooked city home from across the weedy park and its rusty chain-link fence.

The house belonged to a twenty-seven-year-old punk named Anthony Fabrizio, who owned a marijuana possession charge at eighteen and a third-degree assault at the age of twenty-three. Fabrizio earned a modest income at a security company, too modest to afford the G55 he kept parked in the detached garage behind the crooked house. Jake knew all this after a late-night phone call to Don Wall. He had berated his friend for not coming up with the information on Massimo.

“I already got a job, you know,” Wall had said hotly. “And enough bosses for a dozen agents.”

Jake knew he hit a nerve, though, and because he came up with nothing on Massimo, Wall had agreed to run a quick check on Fabrizio before going back to bed.

The G55 hadn’t shown up until just before three in the morning, when the enormous Fabrizio stopped in the street and got out to piss on his neighbor’s trash before pulling behind the house. Even though Jake detected a wobble in Fabrizio’s gait and suspected it would be some time before the young man got up for work, he hadn’t taken any chances, and so he spent his night in the Cadillac’s backseat.

The car now smelled of Burger King. Jake looked around him, then slipped the bag of trash out onto the curb before climbing over the seat to take up his position behind the wheel. He checked himself in the rearview mirror and realized he’d need to change into one of the other shirts from the Marshall’s bag in the passenger seat before he returned to the BK around the corner for a quick coffee and the bathroom. He winced as he pulled the shirt over his head but a silver flash caught his attention.

With only his head and one arm in the shirt, he fired up the Cadillac and took off after the G55, impressed with Anthony Fabrizio’s work ethic. Fabrizio didn’t appear to be in a big hurry, though, and he proved it by stopping at a Spot Coffee on his way through the city, giving Jake a chance to finish dressing. Coffee in hand, Fabrizio continued to an exclusive city street out near Amherst where the homes sat well off the road, each boasting several acres and trees as thick as tractor tires. Jake kept going past the yellow Spanish-style hacienda with its red clay tile roof and gaping wrought-iron gates, making note of the street numbers for the next several houses so he could know the address Fabrizio had gone into.

“Twenty-seven fifty-five Middlesex,” Jake said aloud to himself, pulling over where he could keep an eye on Fabrizio coming out.

Jake dug into his bag and started his computer, waiting patiently for the wireless card to give him Internet access. His headache began to ease. He punched the address into the White Pages Reverse Directory and came up with two names: Iris and John Napoli. Using Autotrak and a couple other services Jake subscribed to through the TV network, he dug into everything he could find about the two Napolis but came up with nothing more than an old mortgage and a couple civil disputes from the past that looked like home contractors up to their usual tricks. When he Googled John Napoli and Buffalo, he got 631,000 hits. He went through the first three pages, mostly doctors and dentists named John Napoli, before he realized how common the name was and quit.

Frustrated, he dialed Don Wall again.

“What? Don’t you sleep?” Wall said, his voice raspy and broken.

“It’s after nine.”

“And you told me last night when we spoke at midnight that you were working the overnight shift like me.”

“Well, I did.”

“And you found what you were looking for,” Wall said, yawning. “So you need something else.”

Jake gave him the name, John Napoli, and the address, knowing the FBI had wells of information much deeper than anything to be found on the Internet.

“And after you run that,” Jake said, “see if you can ask around and find me someone who knows about the organized crime scene in western New York. An old-timer or something. There are about a million John Napolis and I need someone who can link the one with that address and maybe some criminal activity.”

“Okay, when I get up I’ll get you the info and make a couple calls.”

“When you get up?”

“Jake,” Wall said wearily, “when I dole out the signed face shots to the relatives over the holidays, you are the light of my life, but I’m working a Muslim cleric with a band of brothers interested in a cache of automatic weapons right now. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t act like the intern peeing down her leg to get you a cappuccino.”

Jake sighed.

“Seriously,” Wall said. “I’ll call you when I’m up.”

Jake said good-bye. He didn’t have to wait long before the G55 pulled back out onto the street, heading downtown. Jake set his computer down and took off after it. Only three cars back at a light on Elmwood, he was certain he could see the top of a small white head peeking out from the side of the headrest in the backseat. It had to be the old man from the abandoned mill, John Napoli. Jake’s heart began to pound and he told himself to relax, that he was a long way from any kind of breakthrough.

When the G55 pulled over at the curb in front of an Italian bakery, Jake pulled over, too, watching carefully. When Fabrizio disappeared inside, Jake jumped out and sprinted across the street to a bistro, now in desperate need of the bathroom. It didn’t take him long, but when he came out, the G55 was already pulling away from the curb.

Jake jumped into his car and took off, nearly smashing into a delivery truck. The G55 turned at the light and disappeared. Jake blew through a red light amid a blast of horns and followed. Up ahead, he just caught the glint of silver as the SUV veered onto an on-ramp. Jake crossed a double yellow, nearly colliding with an oncoming car before cutting off a long line to the on-ramp and cruising up the shoulder and onto the highway where the Mercedes surged ahead into the passing lane. Jake went nearly a mile and topped a rise in the road before he saw the G55 pulled over on the shoulder, idling.

Jake had no choice but to blow his cover, or just keep going. He kept going, eventually getting off at the next exit, pulling down the ramp, turning right, pulling a quick U-turn, then driving halfway up the on-ramp that would get him right back onto the highway. He spun around in his seat so he could see not only the oncoming traffic but the G55 if it got off at the same exit he did. Less than two minutes later, the silver SUV shot past him in the passing lane on the highway. Jake took off, keeping his distance this time, his heart thumping at the thought of having been discovered.

Before too long, they got off the highway, and after a few blocks Jake realized they were heading right back to the warehouse area on the river.

It wasn’t until he turned down Ganson Street, well behind Fabrizio and Napoli, that Jake’s heart began to pound in earnest. The pulse of blood hammered through his damaged head, heightening the pain again. With his focus on the G55, Jake hadn’t bothered to even look behind him. Now, with the cereal factory looming big in his rearview mirror, he realized that as he had followed the G55, two men in a dark sedan had been following him. Up ahead, a massive dump truck pulled out into the street, blocking his way. As Jake pulled to a stop, the sedan crept right up to his bumper, pinning his Cadillac before the two men hopped out with guns.