Jack ran a hand through his hair in a nervous habit, like he wasn’t used to having his head bare. He’d been so shaken up at the docks that he’d thrown his hat on the dashboard of the car when we’d bailed. “I just meant…it’d help if we could figure out who they were.”
“They weren’t very recognizable,” Angelo said. He’d been so controlled, so thoughtful since the docks that I just couldn’t read him. But he’d been considerate of me, stopping me outside the room after Jack and Greco had gone in, to ask me quietly, privately, how I was doing.
I’d just shaken my head.
“Does it sound like the way any of the Families here work?” I asked Jack. I was beginning to regain my higher thought processes at last. I turned to Angelo. “I’ve seen crime scene photos from drug cartels that looked like that.” Angelo nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced, so I asked Jack, “Do any cartels have an issue with the Bernardi Family? With Greco?”
Jack threw up his hands helplessly. “We mind our business around here. If there’s some beef starting up, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. And I can’t see how a massacre like that could’ve happened on the docks without anyone hearinganything.”
“Happened too fast,” said a hoarse voice from the bathroom door. Greco had finished his shower without us noticing, and was leaning against the doorframe with only a towel wrapped, straining, around his thick waist. He’d regained himself, although the paleness of his face suggested he was still shaken up.
“Who were they?” Jack asked. “The dead guys, I mean. We’ll get to whodidit to them in a minute.”
Greco crossed his arms and shut his mouth in a very obvious gesture.
“Talk,” Angelo said. “Or I’ll make you.”
He talked.
The Bernardi Family had been good to him, he said, had even mentioned him taking up a position with them, but Greco had decided yesterday it was time to get out of the States for a while. “You two assholes were getting too close, and the Feds were looking for me, too. Seemed like a good time to go. We got down to the docks midafternoon, and they had instructions which container they should put me in. We got there and, you know, I didn’t like it. Didn’t seem right. Container was empty except for one chair, but the note said it was supposed to be all rigged out for a sea journey. So we were just standing there, staring at that chair and then…”
He shuddered despite himself. It was a curious thing to see a man like Donnie Greco so affected.
“There must have been a whole lot of guys came in there behind us, but they were quiet, so fucking quiet, all I could hear was…” From pale he turned green again. “The sound of those Bernardis dying. And it was dark—they shut the doors behind them. Couldn’t see a thing.”
“No guns?” Angelo asked. He was listening intently, just like I was, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. I wondered what he made of all this. Once we were alone we’d have to talk it through.
“No guns. Knives. And some kind of syringe, because when they were done with the rest, they came for me, jabbed me with something and I passed out.”
“How many?” Both Jack and I seemed content to let Angelo ask the questions.
“Shit, I don’t know. Four? Five?”
“Fourorfivemen came into that metal shipping container behind you, and your Bernardi friends didn’t notice until they were already dying?”
“Itoldyou, I can’t be sure,” Greco snapped. “The only thing I remember, apart from the dying, is…” He stopped and swallowed. “When I was blacking out, this creepy fuckin’ voice whispered, ‘Tell Angelo I hope he likes his present.’”
I took a sharp breath in. Angelo’s eyelid flickered, but he made no other reaction.
Greco huffed, trying to laugh it off and failing dismally. “Didn’t know what the fuck it meant till I saw you, Messina. Damn. Never thought I’d be glad to see that pretty face of yours, but shit, I really was.”
“So they stuck you with a sleepy time cocktail, tied you to the chair, and left you there?” Jack concluded, when Angelo said nothing further. “Seems like some straight up bullshit, my friend.”
“You saying I’m a liar?” Greco growled.
“I’m saying—” Jack started, but Angelo held up a hand and he stopped.
“And what about Ricky Fiori, in the desert?” he asked.
Greco frowned. “Desert?” I stepped forward to show a photograph of the corpse, and Greco viewed it dispassionately. “Oh, that guy. He was supposed to be driving me around town. Disappeared a few days back. Didn’t think much of it, and the Bernardis never mentioned it. So he’s pushing up daisies too, huh?”
I stared at him, wondering again how a man could get so callous. There were some people who just didn’t belong in the company of other human beings. I’d believed that when I was working in the FBI, and I still believed it now. Men like Donnie Greco gave nothing good to the world. They only made it a worse place for everyone else to be.
“We need to get Greco somewhere safe for the night,” Angelo said. “He can’t stay here.” He refilled his coffee cup as he spoke.
“Huh?” The big man’s face was slack, uncomprehending. I could see what a useful tool Lou Clemenza must have found him before Greco had turned rat. A powerful body without a powerful brain to back it up. “Whaddya mean, stay the night? We need to blow town right now.”
Angelo shook his head. “Not until I’m satisfied you’re going to be useful.”
