I shrug.
She bites her lip. “How—how did you know I want a promotion?”
I didn’t. But I know people like Garcia. Ambitious, pragmatic people who are willing to bend the rules to get what they want, and what they always want is advancement. I run across a lot of people like her in my line of work.
“I’ve applied for a role with the FBI,” she goes on when I don’t reply. “And do you know what, Mr. D’Amato? I can see areas in which you and your men—and women—” she adds, with a curious look at me, “—might be useful.”
I let that sit for a second before I say softly, “If I had a rat problem in my house, Detective Garcia, I’d call in an exterminator.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” she says quickly. “It would be a giant headache dealing with an official informant. There are a lot of protocols, procedures…” She shakes her head. “But Baxter Flynn isn’t part of your Family, is he?”
“I’m not related to him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Or Angelo Messina?”
That just makes me laugh.
“Listen,” she snaps. “I’m going to speak plainly to you. I’m willing to let them go today—Flynn and Messina—ifthey can be useful to me. If they can help me get to the FBI…and help me while I’m there.”
Flynn might talk to her, give her tips here and there. Angelo never would, not without my say-so. Besides, I suspect they’ve already flown, even as she sits here speaking with me. But it does give me a bargaining chip, the ambition of Detective Gina Garcia.
And it could be useful to me to have someone in the FBI.
“I don’t have any sway over what others might choose to do,” I say carefully. “Whatever promises Baxter Flynn has made to you, it has nothing to do with me.”
She smiles, and I can see she understands the game. Any information coming through Flynn will have been approved by Angelo. And anything approved by Angelo will have been approved first by me.
“Alright,” she says with satisfaction.
“But as for your frivolous charges against me,” I continue, “that’s where your real problem is, Detective. Once my lawyer is through with you, you’ll look like such colossal fuck-up, you won’t stand a chance getting into the FBI.”
She flicks her hair back as she stands. “Oh, that whole thing? My mistake,” she says. “Obviously you’re a fine, upstanding member of the community.”
I’m not sure how she’ll pass off amistakelike that to her superiors—but that’s her problem. “You can explain all that to my lawyer.”
She gives an irritated nod. Garcia doesn’t like Carlo Bianchi much, and I can’t blame her. He does take great delight in pissing off the NYPD. I’ll tell him to play nice, just this once. Give Garcia a break. Show her how easy life can be when she’s my friend rather than my enemy.
* * *
Finch isdelighted to hear that we’ll be leaving the hospital ASAP. And Teo Vitali, who I’ve asked to come into the conversation as well, is much happier at the idea of providing security in one of my own properties than in a hospital setting.
Finch does point out I’ll still need a lot of recovery time and home care, but I’m prepared for that. “That nurse—Darla?—she seems competent. I’ll triple her current salary to come and take care of me for a few weeks.”
Finch is silent, thinking, until he nods. “I can live with that.”
Vitali clears his throat. “Thing is, Boss, the townhouse…” He gives an apologetic shrug. “It just ain’t habitable right now. It’s fire damaged, smoke damaged, water damaged…”
Damn it. I hadn’t eventhoughtabout the damage to the townhouse.
“We have a hundred properties in New York,” Finch snaps. “Pick one and make it safe. And we’ll stay in one of those while the townhouse is renovated.”
Finch is jumpy and irritable, and of course I knowwhy, but it still fills me with rage to think that after all the work I’ve put in, after all the power I’ve gathered to myself, my husband still feelsunsafein the city I rule.
When I turn my attention back to Vitali, ready to support Finch’s suggestion that he just get on and do his damn job, I can see there’s another problem just from the look on his face.
“What is itnow?” I ask, trying not to groan. “Come on, Vitali. Out with it.”
“Alright,” Vitali says steadily, and then he goes through every residential property I own in the city and explains why they’re no use. Most are in apartment blocks, which makes them difficult to fit out, or complicates escapes if someone really wants to do us harm. There are some buildings that we own entirely and from which we could, if we were willing to spend the money and be assholes about it, evict everyone—but that would also take time we don’t have.
