Jack, it occurred to me, had taken us out to lunch just so he could size us up.
He gestured to his car. “Can I drop you off somewhere in the meantime?”
Angelo and I glanced at each other. “We’d appreciate it,” Angelo said. We had a pre-agreed-upon drop point to keep our actual location—a rundown motel—secret.
Jack patted around his jacket for the keys, which he found eventually, and then said, “Oops, almost forgot.” He took out a mirror from the inside pocket of his jacket and extended it on a thin, telescopic pole. He clicked the button on the end of the stick and a ring of light shuddered on around the mirror. “This’ll just take a second.” He ran the mirror under the car and into the wheel wells, his eyes fixed on the reflection.
He was checking for bombs and trackers.
“What is it you do for your Family, Jack?” Angelo asked. He had a suspicion already, I could see. He just wanted it confirmed.
“Collections and protections,” Jack said, eyes fixed on the mirror. “Although throwing that asshole out today was purely for pleasure.”
“And before that?” Angelo pressed. “Before that, how did you serve your Family?”
Jack gave a soft snort. “That obvious, huh?” He finished his check of the car, retracted the mirror, and opened the back door for me. “Since you ask, I came here from Vegas. I wasn’t one of Sonny’s boys,” he added quickly. “Different, uh, organization. But one day Sonny took exception to us, and I had to get out of Vegas fast. So I came here, almost ten years back.”
“And what did youdoin Vegas?” I pressed.
Jack looked past me rather than at me when he responded. “Well, I liked to call myself a mathematician. I subtracted problems from the equation.”
A hitman.
Angelo and I glanced at each other again. This was one point where I was happy for him to take the lead. Get back in the car and potentially let Jack take us to some second location where he’d attempt to removeusfrom the equation?
“Not in that line of work anymore,” Jack added, looking between us. “Like I said, I’m small fry these days.”
“Was it a workplace injury that saw you change careers?” I asked.
Jack gave a small, appreciative smile. “Something like that. Listen, fellas, we’re all friends here. Truth is, I’m a big fan, Mr. Messina. The whole Family is, actually.”
Angelo sized him up for another moment and then said, “No autographs, please.” He walked around the car and got into the front seat.
Jack and I watched him. “He’s just so dangcool,” Jack muttered to me as I slid past him to get into the back. “Must be nice to live with.”
I had a quick vision of the way Angelo had woken me up that morning, his mouth warm and wet, and grinned. “Nice doesn’t begin to cover it.”
Chapter Three
Ispent a lot of time lying awake and thinking that night. Thinking about Jack’s admission, his clear disaffection from his own Family, and the almost careless way he lived his life, stepping into bar fights when he didn’t need to. Then Ciro Castellani swam into my mind again, that portrait of the sapphire-draped woman, the money and the power dripping from his tongue as he talked to Angelo and me.
Angelo.
My thoughts always went back to him, like a vinyl record with only one groove for my mind to run in, the same track over and over. My favorite tune:Angelo.
He was in his element here. Los Angeles agreed with him even more than Vegas. He enjoyed the heat, and I could tell he was enjoying his job, too—his job as Morelli Family ambassador. When Luca D’Amato had granted him permission to leave New York, it had partly been because Angelo and I needed to lie low after the Central Park shootings that were laid at our feet. But it was also because D’Amato knew Angelo could be useful out West.
Angelo had spread the Morelli influence in San Francisco first, and then we’d gone east to Vegas, where he’d recruited a group of associates for the Family, who would help keep an eye on Sonny.
I’d been there through it all. Me—a man whohadbeen, as Gina Garcia had pointed out during our time in New York recently, a sworn officer of the law. I’d made vows, and I had done my best to uphold them even when we were on the run. I had taken lives, but only when necessary.
But the more time went on, the more murky things became. Professional ethics, it turned out, had not proved all that useful. Knowing right from wrong, telling good from evil—those were the only moral yardsticks I clung to now.
For example, I knew Angelo Messina was a good man, despite his previous misdeeds. He was loyal. Loving. Protective.
I rolled over in the bed and cuddled up to Angelo’s warm back. The air in our room was stuffy but the AC rattled so badly it was impossible to keep it on if we wanted sleep. Despite the heat, I put an arm around Angelo’s waist and settled closer to him on the pillow.
Jack had been right today. Angelo was cool, effortlessly so, and knowledgeable, and so damncompetent, the kind of man you could trust to have your back. I knew I was lucky to have him. Like Jack, I’d been a fan of Angelo’s even before I met him. But that seemed childish these days, after getting to know the real man.
