Greco’s tone turned wheedling. “Listen, Messina, I’m tired of all this. If you guarantee me protection, get me back to the Feds, I’ll go. I’ll tell them whatever you want me to tell them. Got no desire to keep running.”
It was too much. I stepped forward, pointing a finger between his eyes. “No,youlisten, Greco. We don’t want you making up stories; we just want thetruth. Do you have information that can clear us or not?”
The big man’s cagey chuckle drove me forward, but Jack snatched at my arm before I could raise it. “No point bruising your knuckles on him,” he said quietly.
But Greco had stopped laughing. “I got stuff on Ethan Villiers,” he said, glaring at me. “That’s why that fucker Walsh offered me a deal in the first place. When he got taken out, I didn’t feel like hanging around waiting for my turn. But you keep me alive, I’ll go on record about what I know. If you think that’ll clear you, good for motherfucking you. Otherwise you can suck my dick and then let me go.”
“You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” Jack observed. He looked back to Angelo and me. “Well?”
Angelo took another sip of his coffee, savored it, then set his cup down and motioned toward Jack and me. “Let’s step outside so Greco can get some clothes on.”
It was a brief conversation. When we were out of sight of Greco, I could see the victory shimmering in Angelo’s dark eyes. “Carlo Bianchi told me that if we could get him to incriminate Villiers, it would be enough. Greco was an official criminal informant. His intel will be accepted.”
“Who the hell is Carlo Bianchi?” Jacopo asked.
“Our lawyer,” Angelo said impatiently, without even glancing at Jack. He was fully focused on me. “With Greco’s testimony, he’ll be able to throw enough reasonable doubt around to get the two of us cleared. The only thing we need to do is keep Greco safe for one or two nights while we get our extraction plans in place,” Angelo said. “I don’t want to turn him over to the Feds here. Can’t trust them. But if we get him back to New York, to that Garcia friend of yours, Bax—”
“Hang on,” Jack said uneasily, “what about this group of guys leaving you a murder present?”
“That,” Angelo said, and this time he did look at Jack, “is really not my problem.”
It surefeltlike our problem, but I didn’t say a thing.
“I’ll talk it over with Don Castellani,” Angelo continued when he saw Jack’s dubious expression, “when we’re there for dinner tomorrow night—tonight,” he amended, checking his watch. “But Bax and I are not going to get involved in LA’s issues.”
“With respect,” Jack countered, “this seems more like ayouissue, if what that Greco guy said is accurate.”
“Well, if that’s so, then once I’m out of town, the issues will cease.”
Jack still looked doubtful. “So what, you’re gonna leave this guy shacked up in the Hilton while you swan off to the Boss’s for dinner?”
I saw exactly where Angelo was heading. “No,” I told Jack. “We’re going to put Greco in the safe house your Boss so kindly provided us, andyou’regoing to guard him. That way, if anything happens to him, we’ll knowexactlywho was involved.”
Jack gave me a long look. “You are one suspicious son of a bitch, Flynn.”
“You would be too, in my position.”
He raised his eyebrows with a slight smile. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
Donnie Greco, however, raised very vocal arguments against our plan. “I ain’t letting this dickhead anywhere near me,” he snarled, when we told him our intentions. “I don’t trust the Castellanis. They’re tight with the Rossis, and the Rossis never liked me.”
“No onein New York ever liked you,” Angelo told him. “But the fact remains: you need protection.”
“Then give me a fucking gun and I’ll protect myself.”
“Frankly,” Jacopo said, “I’m not in any hurry to get locked in a safe house with this jackass, either. Why not let him tie his own shoelaces for once? No one will know he’s there, except us and the Boss.”
I noted his oblique admission that Ciro Castellani had cameras in the safe house. Angelo glanced at me.
“You put this guy in there with me, I’ll kill him,” Greco said, stabbing a finger at Jack.
“You can try,” Jack laughed, and then said, “Seriously, though, if you make me go and he tries anything, Iwillkill him back. Self-defense.”
“Bax and I will stay in the safe house with you,” Angelo told Greco. The threat in his words was light—but it was there.
Greco’s eyes widened. “No fuckin’ way. I’d rather take my chances with this asshole.” He nodded at Jacopo.
“Oh, I’ll give you achance,” Jack replied with a vicious glare. “Just one.”
