That’s an understatement.
There’s a crackle on the line, the telltale sound of Feds listening in. But that was the whole reason Bernardi called on this open line, of course. To allow the Feds to hear our plans. He has an agenda, though I’m not sure yet what it is.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bernardi says with fake sympathy. “I hope it’s nothing serious. I know how much your father loved him.”
I grip the phone so hard that it cracks in my hand. “Thank you for your call, Don Bernardi. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday. I’ll be bringing a few friends with me, of course.”
“Of course, of course. The more the merrier.” He knows I mean bodyguards. His cheerful acceptance means that either he doesn’t plan an attack on me—or bodyguards will be of no use if he does.
A car bomb, for example.
Or poison.
Bernardi hangs up, and I wait until I hear the tap go dead as well, just as a small amusement. The Feds will never get anything out of me, nor out of an old fox like Bernardi. They know it. We know it.
But still, we have to play the game.
I begin to open the day’s mail. After two invitations to Hollywood premieres—addressed to my father—I pause, staring down at a neatly-typed page, folded once in the middle with a crease so sharp I half expected a paper cut when I opened it. There are two small stapler holes in the top corner, suggesting something attached to it, but when I open it there’s nothing but a sentence scrawled on the paper.
KEEP AWAY FROM TEDDY MACCALLUM.
—With compliments
When I check the logo on the page, I recognize it as a company that operates down at the docks. Most of the dock workers are Bernardi associates. But this company, I happen to know, is affiliated with a different organization.
The Pacific Syndicate.
“Wilson!”
It takes him a moment to appear. “Sir?”
“Where are the envelopes for today’s mail?”
“I put them into the incinerator, as usual, sir. I’m sorry if I’ve done wrong—”
I’m already on my feet. I know exactly what he means by “the incinerator.” All written correspondence that enters Redwood Manor is routinely burned up to prevent intelligence gatherers from piecing anything together. In my father’s study there is a small bronze wall panel set into the wall. It hides a chute that leads directly to the furnace in the basement, where everything is immediately destroyed.
I already know it’s pointless, but I run down there at once, hoping—but no. The furnace, which is triggered by the very act of opening the chute, has already incinerated anything that Wilson might have thrown down there.
Annoyed, I take up one of the pokers and sift through the ash, just in case, and immediately strike something hard and unyielding. I pull it toward me, a twisted rectangle of melted plastic and shattered glass.
A cell phone. Completely destroyed, I can see that at once, but I pull it out anyway.
I poke around a little more, not expecting anything, but thereissomething else in there among all the ash. It’s dirty work getting it out, and when I do, I almost wish I hadn’t.
It’s blackened by the fire, but I know what it is at once. A narrow stiletto dagger, made from hard iron that would require much higher temperatures than this furnace to melt down.
A stiletto with the venerable, still-recognizable crest of my mother’s Family carved into the pommel: a bull’s head.
* * *
A little while later, Jacopo is shown into the study, where he sits down opposite me with a muttered greeting. “The background check you wanted,” he says as soon as the door closes. He throws a folder onto the desk. “It’s all in there.”
I open it up and find that, yes, it isallin there. “Just tell me,” I say, closing it up again. “I don’t have time to read all this. Do we have a problem, or not?”
Jacopo turns his hat in his fingers. “Depends what you mean by aproblem. Teddy MacCallum is the son of a billionaire, and he runsCute Crims—all of that is true. He’s got no record and no full-time job so far as I can tell. That website of his, though—he’s making money there. The membership fees start at bronze and go up to a thousand a month for some platinum users. Those are the real hardcore obsessives. Kid’s raking it in.”
“So he’s got money. That’s a problem?”
