“How’s the car?”
“Being prepared for the scrapyard, I believe.”
“My condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to be there long?”
“As a matter of fact, I just finished up.”
“Good. I’m not too far away. I’ll pick you up. I’m heading somewhere I think you’ll want to be.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
Chapter 42
Ten minutes later, Stone joinedDino in the back of Dino’s police department sedan, heading across the city.
“Now will you tell me where we’re going?” Stone asked.
“My techs were able to find a clean image of the guy who drove the garbage truck last night,” Dino said, handing Stone a manila envelope.
Stone opened it and extracted a photo of a man he had never seen before. The guy had to be in his fifties and wore the fatigue of a hard life in the creases of his face.
“Who is he?”
“Manuel Kroger, goes by Manny.”
“Never heard of him.”
“No reason you would have. He does odd jobs for whoever will give him work. Intimidation. That kind of thing.”
“He doesn’t look particularly intimidating.”
“Which is probably why he doesn’t get a lot of work these days.”
“Someonedidhire him to drive that truck.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Why not?”
Dino handed Stone a piece of paper that contained a list of six names. The second name from the bottom wasManny Kroger.
“If this is supposed to be enlightening, it’s not doing a very good job.”
“That is the list of Eduardo Buono’s crew on the JFK heist.”
Stone stared at him for a moment before looking back at the paper. “You think Manny Kroger is the one extorting Jack?”
“I think, at the very least, he’s involved. The little I’ve heard about him, though, leads me to believe he’s more a follower than a leader.”
“Then one of these others must be calling the shots.”
“We can eliminate Saunders and Miller,” Dino said. Those were the first two names on the list. “Saunders met a bad end a dozen years ago, when he encountered a clerk with a shotgun while trying to bump off a convenience store in Texas.”
