NEW YORK CITY
Vinnie “Big Head” Tedesco stood on the sidewalk, one hand pulling at the tight crotch of his trousers. His eyes roamed the street, as if searching for someone or something he wanted to avoid. Both were nervous affectations, which if recognized, Vinnie would have preferred to hide. Even so, there was an underlying cockiness about the man. His black silk shirt was open to mid-chest, allowing sunlight to reflect the glimmer of a heavy gold chain, and he occupied the sidewalk as if it were his private domain, forcing passersby to move around him. He was a large man, not exceptionally tall, but put together like a block of cement. His hair was long and dark and thickly curled, and it made his already large head seem enormous, almost a caricature: thus his street name, Vinnie Big Head. He was thirty-six years old, an up-and-coming member in the Rossi crime family, and in less than two minutes he would be dead.
Ollie Pitts stared at the body, already outlined in chalk. He made a sucking sound as he tried to remove a bit of food from his teeth. Then he belched.
“How do you see it?” Paul Devlin asked.
Pitts gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “The one witness we got saw him about five minutes before it went down. Says our boy was standing here, takin’ up half the sidewalk like he was waitin’ for somebody.” A small grin flickered across his lips. “Of course it coulda been just bad luck for Vinnie. A couple of shooters from another family drivin’ around lookin’ for a target, and Vinnie just happens to be standing there scratching his ass.” Pitts paused and belched again. “But I don’t buy it. To me it smells more like a setup. Our boy here gets a call and somebody he knows says, Hey, Vinnie, meet us on the corner and we’ll go get some scungilli, or a blow job, or whatever Vinnie happens to be up for today. Then the car pulls up and Vinnie Big Head gets two in the chest before he knows what hit him.” He raised his chin, indicating the sunburst splatter of blood and bone and tissue that surrounded Vinnie’s head on the sidewalk. “Then the shooter gets out and pumps two in his head, just to make sure. Typical mob heart-and-head stuff.” He paused, dunking about that. “Looks like a heavy-caliber, though, not the twenty-two peashooters they usually use for this kind of thing.” Another shrug. “But Vinnie was a big guy with a nasty rep. Maybe they wanted to make sure the first ones knocked him down. They also didn’t have to worry about noise. Not in this fuckin’ neighborhood.”
Devlin studied the surrounding buildings. The body lay on Broome Street, just off Mulberry in Manhattan’s Little Italy. It was one of the city’s landmark districts, an area forged more than a century ago by a continuous flow of Italian immigrants and the Mafia goons who lived in their shadow. Today, only a few Italians remained. Over the last twenty years nearby Chinatown had gradually spread across Canal Street, taking over the once fabled neighborhood so noted for its reticence with police. But that attitude of silence had not changed with the ethnicity. Pitts was right. This was still a see-no-evil kind of place, and not a single neighborhood denizen could be found among the tourists who stood gaping at Vinnie Big Head’s blood-soaked body. Those who lived and worked here knew better than to stand around where they might be asked questions they did not want to answer.
Devlin smiled at the thought. The one “witness” they had found was a tourist, a man from Iowa who had been inside a nearby shop when the shooting took place. He had been a good citizen and had waited to tell police the little he knew, excited about a story he would now have for his friends back home. Had he known anything at all, he might have returned to those friends in a box.
“This is number five,” Devlin said. “All of them Rossi’s people. And, so far, no retaliation. I’m starting to think John the Boss is really sick this time.”
“It should only be cancer of the throat.” Pitts grinned at his boss. He knew Devlin shared the sentiment.
Giovanni “John the Boss” Rossi had plagued police for more than thirty years, the last twenty as head of a Mafia family whose criminal enterprises stretched from New York, to Miami, to Las Vegas. It was a fact disputed by his doctors, and one very suspect Catholic priest, all of whom swore that Rossi had developed Alzheimer’s disease more than a decade ago and was little more than a sick old man, barely capable of finding the bathroom in his Ocean Parkway home. In short, Rossi was an enigma who had kept police at bay by feigning mental enfeeblement, as he regularly went about the city, conducting mob business, dressed in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers, his retinue of accompanying thugs acting more like keepers than the bodyguards they were. Police attempts to question him were often met with blank, drooling stares. The media, of course, loved the act, and had even dubbed him “the Bathrobe Don.”
Devlin had gone after Rossi on his last high-profile case, the death of socialite Natasha Winter. But the don had again proved too elusive. He had entered a private sanitarium, and had managed to wiggle free of the various crimes surrounding that death, including a near-successful attempt on Devlin’s life.
Now Rossi seemed to be at the center of the storm. Five of his underlings had been gunned down in the past two months, all supposed victims of a gang war between Rossi and the rival Columbo crime family. The media had beaten those war drums with uncontrolled gusto, until the mayor had ordered Devlin to take over the investigation and, hopefully, calm public concern. But there was little Devlin could do. It was a one-sided war, with Rossi allegedly hiding out in his Brooklyn home, under the personal protection of his top enforcer, Mattie “the Knife” Ippolito, the don, himself, said to be too ill to direct an effective counterattack.
If true, it was a plus as far as Devlin was concerned. In the past Rossi would have had the backing of the powerful Gambino crime family, headed by his nephew, Donatello Torelli. This time, however, the Gambino soldiers had remained on the sidelines, either unwilling or unable to help. Devlin took personal satisfaction in Rossi’s “family” problems. Two years ago he had put Rossi’s nephew behind bars, helping to weaken the ties between the Rossi and Gambino factions. At the time Rossi had sworn vengeance for that arrest, and Devlin was certain the attempt on his life had been the result of that oath. Now, despite Mayor Howie Silver’s interest in ending the war, Devlin was privately rooting for the Columbo family, hoping its thugs would find a way to send the Bathrobe Don to that great cannoli factory in the sky.
“Don’t count Rossi out yet,” Pitts said.
Devlin wondered if Pitts was reading his mind. He took Pitts by the arm and led him away from the body. “It’s been a long time since we paid John the Boss a call,” he said.
Pitts nodded. “Not very respectful of us. You thinking about a ride out to Brooklyn?”
Devlin looked back at the body of Vinnie Big Head and pursed his lips. “This thing isn’t going anywhere. Not unless we find ourselves a suicidal witness who can ID the shooters.” He turned back to Pitts. “Tell the other guys to canvas the area, just in case. Then you and I will make a little house call on the Bathrobe Don.”
“Maybe we should take an enema bottle in case the old fuck really is sick.” Pitts grinned at him. “Besides, it’s a lovely day to visit Brooklyn, and there’s nothing I like better than an afternoon drive to a grease factory.” He watched Devlin narrow one eye at the ethnic slur and laughed. “Hey, I’ll be good. I promise. I just wanna detect and solve, just like Hizzoner told us.”
Devlin looked away and shook his head. Pitts was incorrigible. And the mayor was living a pipe dream. Detect and solve-the actual words the mayor had used at his press conference announcing that Devlin’s special unit would investigate the latest mob bloodbath. It sounded wonderful. In newsprint. But right now the mayor would have to settle for half a loaf. Detection was the best Devlin could offer. The solution the mayor wanted-or the resolution-wouldn’t come for another month or two … when the wiseguys got tired of killing each other. He jerked a thumb toward their unmarked car.
“Let’s go detect,” he said.
Giovanni “John the Boss” Rossi’s home was a stately, three-story pile of bricks situated behind a high, thick hedge on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway. The house was only three miles from Coney Island, and Pitts had already put in a request that they drive to Nathan’s and “scarf down a couple of hot dogs” before returning to Manhattan.
Pitts was an enormous man who ate like there were two of him. He was six-two, and an easy two hundred and thirty pounds, and despite a protruding gut, everything about him was solid and formidable. He had a bristling crew cut and a square, flat street fighter’s face, and the largest pair of hands Devlin had ever seen. They were the kind of hands that would look comfortable holding nothing less than a leg of lamb.
He also had one of the worst personnel jackets Devlin had ever read. A twenty-seven-year man who had specialized in homicide most of his career, Pitts had a long list of brutality complaints-none ever proven-to go with an equally impressive record of arrests and convictions. He was forty-eight years old, three years shy of a three-quarter-pay pension, and most of the other bosses in the department believed he would be bounced off the force before he ever reached it. Devlin thought he was the best working street detective on his squad.
Pitts parked their unmarked car in front of Rossi’s driveway, effectively blocking any exit, and smiled at the two goons guarding the entrance. They were both in their early thirties, and despite the July heat, each of their wide bodies was covered by a windbreaker. Pitts had no doubt about what the jackets were concealing.
One of the goons took two steps forward. “Move the fuckin’ car,” he snapped.
Pitts turned to Devlin and shook his head. “Do you believe this shit? Every fucking garbanzo street punk in this city can spot an unmarked car three blocks away. These two ‘Mafia killers’ “-he made quotes in the air to surround the words-“they think we’re here to visit our fucking guinea aunt, who lives across the street.”
“Disabuse them of the notion,” Devlin said.
Pitts displayed his detective’s shield from the breast pocket of his suit coat, then pushed open the door. He emerged from the car like a bull entering a Spanish bullring, took three quick steps to the man who had spoken, grabbed him with one ham-sized hand, and propelled him toward the trunk of the car.
“Spread ‘em, asshole,” he growled. He turned to the second man. “Join him, you piece of dog shit, before I put my foot halfway up your ass.”
When Devlin reached the back of the car, Pitts had already relieved the pair of matching Browning nine-millimeter automatics. Devlin handed Pitts his pair of cuffs and inclined his head toward the center of the car. Pitts grinned and quickly lowered the driver and passenger windows, then used his cuffs and Devlin’s to manacle the men hand to hand so their arms were encircling the centerpost of the car.
“We got fuckin’ licenses for them pieces,” one of the men shouted.
Pitts reached out and pinched his cheek. “That’s good, Cheech. You show ‘em to us when we come out.”
“Hey, you can’t leave us here like sittin’ fuckin’ ducks.” It was the second man. His voice sounded like gravel rolling around in a dryer.
Pitts gave him a cold grin. “Quack, quack,” he said.
Rossi’s front door was opened by a woman so frail and ancient that her skin seemed nearly transparent. There was no smile or hint of welcome on her weathered face, and her soft brown eyes turned hard and glaring as she took in the inspector’s shield that Devlin held out to her.
“Don Giovanni is sick. Go away,” she snapped.
Devlin tried a smile, but it only caused the woman to step forward, further blocking their way. “I can’t just go away,” he said softly. “Please tell Mr. Rossi that Inspector Devlin and Detective Pitts are here to see him.”
“It’s all right, Anna.”
The voice came from behind the woman. Devlin looked past her into the foyer and saw Mattie “the Knife” Ippolito standing in the doorway of an adjoining room.
Ippolito didn’t look like a mob enforcer, especially one whose personal body count would supposedly fill a small warehouse. He was tall and slender, with thin, ascetic features, and Devlin had always thought he could pass for a Catholic priest if you dressed him in a Roman collar. Only his weasel’s eyes gave him away. He’d be a priest who’d happily steal the congregation’s bingo money.
Devlin approached the man and found that he was now blocking the way to the next room. At six-one, Ippolito stood fairly even with Devlin, but gave away a good twenty pounds.
“You want to take us to the Bathrobe, Mattie?” Devlin made the suggestion with a small, hard-eyed smile. “Or should I just toss you out of the way and find him myself?”
Ippolito shook his head with mock sadness. “Hey, we could be nice about this, you know? Don Giovanni, he’s sick, just like the old lady tol’ you. All I’m asking here is a little respect.”
“Hey, Mattie, we could respectfully drag his ass down to headquarters. How about that?” Pitts had come up beside Devlin, hovering like some intimidating specter ready to be unleashed.
“All right. All right. Let them in. We’ll have the place fumigated later.”
Devlin smiled at the sound of Rossi’s crackling, rasping voice. Pitts’s suggestion mat they drag him down to headquarters had momentary merit. It would be a waste of time, of course. It would prove useful only if Columbo-family hit men were waiting when he left One Police Plaza. But the mayor would not be amused by a mob shoot-out one block away from City Hall.
Rossi was seated in a wingback chair when they entered the room. His small, frail body was covered by a silk bathrobe over silk pajamas, his rattier, moth-eaten attire being reserved for public appearances. His feet were clad in slippers, revealing bony, painfully white ankles.
“So, the New York Police Department’s inspector of detectives. Such an honor.” Rossi’s chin was elevated and seemed to point at Devlin. The pose was a replica of the portrait that hung above the mantel behind him-Rossi’s hero, II Duce, at the height of his power, when all the trains in Italy ran on time.
“How old are you now, Devlin?” he continued. “Thirty-eight?” He shook his head. “Amazing. I never thought you’d live past thirty-six. God has been good to you.”
Devlin glared at him. It was two years ago that Rossi tried to have him killed. “You did your best, Bathrobe. It just wasn’t good enough.”
Rossi wagged a finger. “Hey, that’s an ugly rumor. I’m seventy-three, a sick old man. The doctors say I’m dying.” A small smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. “Besides, if I wanted you dead, the worms would already be eating your eyes.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “But, instead, you’ll probably go to my funeral.”
In spite of himself, Devlin smiled at the man’s chutzpah. He raised his eyes to the portrait of Mussolini. “They tell me that back in forty-five, when you saw the newspaper pictures of II Duce hanging by his feet, you wept.”
Rossi nodded. “I even sent flowers to Italy.”
Devlin stared at him, unmoved. “I’ll send flowers for you, too, Rossi. But I think I’ll skip the wake.”
Rossi let out a low cackle. “See, that’s the difference between us. Me? I’d come to your wake. And I’d piss in your coffin.”
Rossi’s laughter grew, then he turned to Ippolito. “This is a hard man, Mattie. Don’t let him fool you. You see that scar on his cheek?” He waited while Ippolito looked. “A crazy cop gave him that, five, maybe six years ago. And, after he did, Devlin blew that cop away.” He widened his eyes, feigning surprise. “That’s right, the man’s a cop killer, just ask him.”
“Shut up, Rossi.” It was Pitts, and the words came with a growl.
Rossi ignored him. “This crazy cop, he cut the inspector’s arm, too-cut it so bad Devlin retired on disability. Took a job as chief of police in some shithole town in Vermont.” He glanced back at Devlin. “You didn’t think I knew so much about you, eh?” He turned back to Ippolito and regretfully shook his head. “But then he came back. Seems one of those crazy serial killers was out to get an old girlfriend of his. So Devlin here, he comes back, and this killer ends up dead, too, and now his old girlfriend is his new girlfriend again. Just like fucking Hollywood. They live together with Devlin’s daughter in some hotsy-totsy loft down in SoHo. It’s a beautiful story.”
Rossi’s eyes went back to Devlin and the two men glared at each other. The scar on Devlin’s cheek had turned white, a telltale sign that anger had reached the edge of control. Devlin’s lover, Adrianna, and his daughter, Phillipa, had been with him two years ago when Rossi’s killers had come. The threat that it could happen again was clear.
Hatred fled Rossi’s eyes as quickly as it had come, and he turned back to Ippolito. “But the story’s not over, Mattie. There’s more. Devlin gets the killer, and he gets the girl. It’s all beautiful, like I said. But then the mayor comes to him”-he raised a finger-“the mayor, no less. You got that?”
“I got it,” Ippolito said.
“And the mayor asks him to come back to work for the city. But not just as some shitheel detective, like he was before-but to come back as inspector of detectives. And working exclusively for the mayor, himself.” He paused for effect. “You know what that means, Mattie?”
“No. I don’t know what that means.”
Rossi wagged another educating finger. “That, my friend, means that Devlin, here, can supersede anybody in the police department-even the chiefs.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine what it would mean if the crooks did something like that? Chaos, my friend. Chaos.” He waved his hand in a circle. “Soldiers superseding capos. Capos superseding bosses. It would be crazy. Everybody would be at everybody’s throats.”
“Crazy,” Ippolito said.
Rossi’s finger shot up again. “Maybe that’s why the other cop bosses don’t like Inspector Devlin.” He turned back to Devlin, his eyes brimming hatred again. “You think maybe those other bosses wouldn’t go to your funeral, Devlin?”
Devlin returned the stare. “I’ll be happy as long as you’re there, Bathrobe. Pissing in my coffin.”
Rossi threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t like you, Devlin. But I like you.” The hatred returned. “So why the fuck are you here? Tell me quick. I feel an attack coming on. And then I won’t be able to talk to you no more.”
“I’m here to tell you it’s time to retire, Bathrobe. To go someplace nice and sunny, and let all the killing stop.”
“Retire from what, Devlin? I’m already retired. I even get Social Security from the government.” He cackled again.
“Keep laughing, Bathrobe. They got another one of your boys, today.” It was Pitts. He was grinning. “Vinnie Big Head. All that’s left is a big grease spot on Broome Street.”
Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Makes you happy, huh? So you come out here, and you handcuff my people to your car. Oh, yeah, I saw that shit. You’re hoping, maybe, some shooters come by and kill them, too. Well, fuck you.” Rossi jabbed a finger into his cadaverous chest. His hawklike nose and jutting chin pushed forward. “I’ll be here when all of you are fucking dead. You tell that to the fucking mayor. Tell him to fucking retire.”
“So your doctors are wrong, huh?”
Rossi’s head snapped back to Devlin. He was smiling again, and his eyes glittered with a touch of madness. “I got a new doctor. A kind of doctor you never heard of.” His smile widened, revealing ancient, crooked, yellow teeth. “But you will, Devlin. I promise you. And you’ll be amazed at the miracles this doctor can do.”
“I don’t think he fucking likes you.”
Pitts was driving toward Nathan’s, his hotdog request having been approved. Devlin stared out the passenger window, watching the neighborhood become rougher and more battered as they headed south.
“The man’s crazy as a bedbug. I never recognized that before. Now I’m sure of it.”
Pitts had pulled up at a stoplight. He turned in his seat. “Don’t fucking believe it for a minute. Old Bathrobe is the best fucking dago actor since Robert De Niro.”
Devlin thought about the not-so-veiled threat Rossi had made against his family. It was stupid, and Rossi wasn’t a stupid man. Maybe it was because he was dying, and felt he had nothing to lose. If so, it would make him even more dangerous.
“Too bad those two bodyguards had carry permits for their weapons,” Devlin said. “It would have been nice to lock their asses up, then drop a dime to the Columbo family that the Bathrobe was sitting there with only the Knife protecting him.”
Pitts let out a little cackle. He enjoyed that idea. Then he turned serious. “Hey, that’s another thing. I wanna know the name of the judge who approved those permits, and the name of the scumbag boss on The Job who let them slip through unchallenged. We find that out, we got two probables for Rossi’s pad.”
“It’s already on my list,” Devlin said. “I’ll have Stan Samuels digging into it before the day’s out.” He pointed a finger at Pitts. “And no cracks about Stan,” he warned.
Pitts called Samuels “the Mole,” because of his love of burrowing into long-forgotten records, a denigration of the very talent that made him an essential part of Devlin’s five-man team. Everyone on the squad had a nickname-the more derogatory of which had been coined by Pitts. Ramon Rivera, a self-proclaimed Latin love machine and Devlin’s computer expert, was called “Boom Boom.” Red Cunningham, a three-hundred-pound, baby-faced hulk who could plant a bug anywhere Devlin wanted one, was “Elephant Ass.” And Sharon Levy, a beautiful, redheaded lesbian sergeant, who was Devlin’s second in command and who ran the squad like a marine drill instructor, had become “Sergeant Muffdiver”-although even Pitts lacked the guts to say it to her face.
Pitts pulled up in front of the original Nathan’s Hot Dog Stand-still a Coney Island landmark-and glanced hungrily at the take-out counter. “You want something. A couple of dogs, maybe a knish?” he asked.
He watched Devlin shake his head. The man was tense; pissed off, Pitts thought. You could always tell when the scar on his cheek-the old knife wound Rossi had ragged him about-turned that warning shade of white. Except for the scar, he was a good-looking guy in a rugged sort of way, even more so now that a touch of gray had come to the temples of his wavy dark hair. There was also an easy gentleness about the guy. Nothing prissy, or namby-pamby, but definitely a feel that you could talk to the man. Except now it wasn’t there. Now his normally soft, blue eyes were simmering.
“The old bastard really got to you, didn’t he?”
Devlin continued to stare straight ahead. Then he drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “You turning into a shrink, Ollie?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Pitts reached out and gave Devlin’s arm a squeeze. He left his hand there. It wasn’t cop-to-boss talk now. It was friend to friend. “He ain’t gonna do nothin’ to your family, Paul. I don’t think he’d even let anybody go after you if they were around. And I don’t think he’ll even try to have you whacked again. Remember, last time he had somebody else he could lay the blame on, and the way it turned out, he gotta know even that was a mistake.” Another squeeze. “Hey, maybe he is crazy, like you said, but he’s not that crazy. He went after your lady or your kid, it would bring so much heat down on all the families, they’d never fucking forgive him. Hell, the trouble he has now would seem like a fucking picnic. The other four families, they’d get together and kill his miserable old ass, and then they’d blow up his fucking grave.”
Devlin smiled in spite of himself, the tension broken. What Pitts was talking about had actually happened. Frank Costello, one of the mob’s more notorious bosses, had died peacefully in his sleep. But the enemies Costello had left behind were still unforgiving, and almost a year after his death a dynamite charge had leveled his tomb.
He gave Pitts an appreciative nod, his eyes softer now. “You’re not half-bad, Ollie. A pain in the ass as a cop, but not too shabby a shrink.”
“I’ll send you a bill.”
“Just go stuff your face so we can get back to the office sometime today.”
Devlin’s office was on Broadway, around the corner from City Hall and two blocks from One Police Plaza, a brick-cubed headquarters building that overlooked the East River. Street cops, aware of the endless political machinations that went on inside, called the building the Puzzle Palace.
When the mayor had cajoled him back to the department, Devlin had insisted his new squad be housed outside headquarters or any police precinct. Howie Silver had understood. Politics ruled the department, and anyone who trod on the very private fiefdom of the police brass was quickly ground underfoot. And even the mayor-though treated with greater subtlety-was not immune. During his first year in office, Silver had found himself repeatedly boxed out of high-profile cases when the police brass had felt threatened. It was the reason he had opted for a special squad-one that would handle those cases at his direction and report only to him.
Back in his office, Devlin went through the phone messages that littered his desk. There were four from the chief of detectives and three each from the chief of organized crime and the commander of the Fifth Precinct, where the latest mob hit had taken place-all the bosses his squad had cut out of the investigation. There was also a message from the mayor. It was the only one that would get a response.
Sharon Levy sat across from Devlin, a tall, shapely, beautiful redhead who made men’s heads turn when she entered a room, and whose sexual orientation had made her anathema to the bosses of the Puzzle Palace. She was also a gutsy, no-nonsense cop, and Devlin had made her his second in command despite howls of protest from One Police Plaza.
“We’ve got zip,” Levy said. “Little Italy is loaded with monkeys, all doing a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil bit. This thing won’t end until the Columbo family nails Rossi, or until the price gets too high to keep trying.”
“So let’s up the ante,” Devlin said. “Pull in a half-dozen gold shields from the Fifth, and a half dozen from the Seven-eight. Use the mayor as your authority. You know the drill. I want the Fifth Precinct guys to work Little Italy. The Seven-eight Precinct dicks will handle Brooklyn. Their only job will be to roust every Columbo and Rossi hood who sticks his nose out of his cave. I want every bookie, every numbers runner, every strong-arm punk dragged in. We find a betting slip, we bust everybody in sight. We find a weapon, we lock up every wiseguy within fifty yards of it. We find stolen furs in a back room, the whole building goes to jail. And I don’t care if every arrest we make gets thrown out of court, because as soon as they walk out the door, we’ll bust them again.”
“Hit ‘em in their wallets.”
“Until the pigskin squeals.”
“I like it. It’ll get their attention.”
“Yes, it will.”
Devlin noted the skepticism on her face. “I see a but in your eyes.”
“It’s more an unless.” She gave him a small shrug. “Unless they want Rossi so bad, they don’t care what it costs.”
Devlin thought that over. It was possible. It could also explain why the Gambino family, still run from prison by Rossi’s nephew, was standing on the sidelines. He gave Sharon a quizzical look. “What the hell could that old bastard have done?”
The telephone interrupted them before Levy could answer. Devlin expected to hear Howie Silver’s growling baritone, demanding to know why his call hadn’t been returned. Instead, the anguished voice of his lover, Adrianna Mendez, came across awash in sobs. Rossi’s threats immediately returned, pushed away only after he was certain that neither she nor his daughter, Phillipa. had been hurt.
After five minutes of soothing assurances, he returned the phone to its cradle and stared across at Sharon Levy. “I’m going to be leaving you with this whole Rossi bag for at least a week,” he said. “Providing I can get the mayor to pull some political strings.”
“What’s wrong, Paul?” There was genuine concern in Levy’s voice.
“Adrianna’s aunt has been in a serious accident.” He shook his head and offered up a weak, uncertain smile. “Now I have to find a way to get us both into Cuba.”
The SoHo loft that Devlin shared with Adrianna Mendez was located on Spring Street, amid a collection of iron-fronted buildings that decades earlier had been home to glove manufacturers and tanning merchants. Later, rising costs had forced those companies to flee the city, and the architecturally unique district had been abandoned to the bums and vagrants who wandered in from the Bowery. Then struggling artists in search of large and inexpensive work areas had discovered the loft-warehouses that made up a part of each building. Within a few years the artists were followed by real-estate speculators, who sniffed the aroma of financial gain. Touting the area as the “new bohemia,” they sold the battered lofts to young stockbrokers and commodity traders and other upwardly mobile denizens of fashion. Soon the artists were driven away, save the few successful enough to afford the now pricey lofts. But the artists were no longer necessary. They were replaced by a collection of galleries and restaurants and boutiques, which seemed to sprout unbidden like wildflowers in an abandoned field, and the area, which had once seen animal hides stacked on sidewalks, became the city’s newest attraction for well-heeled tourists.
Adrianna had been one of the artists able to remain. She had moved to the area as a struggling painter, and the birth of the “new bohemia” had coincided with her sudden recognition as a major talent. The only other “old residents” were the bums and vagrants who had refused to leave. They were the city’s crabgrass, constantly reappearing despite all efforts at eradication. To Devlin they were the only mark of humanity the real-estate moguls had failed to devour, and much to the chagrin of neighboring merchants, he kept a ready supply of dollar bills stuffed in his pocket to encourage their continued presence.
Devlin found Adrianna packing when he entered the loft. She glanced up at him over a half-filled suitcase. “I can get into Cuba from Canada, Mexico, or the Bahamas,” she said. “I have a travel agent checking flights for me.”
“If the U.S. government finds out, it’s ten years, or up to a quarter of a million in fines.”
“They won’t find out. The travel agent told me the Cubans don’t stamp your passport. It’s their way of helping U.S. citizens beat the embargo. So there’s no record of you ever having been there.”
Devlin crossed the room, lifted her to him, and slipped his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry about your aunt,” he said. “And you don’t have to sneak in the back way. Howie Silver made some calls. Your license from the Treasury Department and your Cuban visa will be ready tomorrow morning. Mine, too.”
“Yours?”
“You didn’t think I was going to turn you loose in Cuba all alone, did you? The place is supposed to be overrun with sexy male salsa dancers.”
Adrianna’s head fell against his chest. “Thank God,” she said. “I was terrified. I just didn’t want to tell you. All the stories I grew up with, the stories about Castro’s storm troopers, have been playing in my mind all day. And the phone calls to the hospital in Havana haven’t helped.”
“What did the hospital tell you?”
She shook her head against his chest, her long, raven-black hair swinging slightly. “When I got the first call, telling me my aunt Maria had been in a car accident, I called the hospital right away. At first they couldn’t be more helpful. Then her doctor got on the line, and suddenly everything changed. He acted like I wasn’t supposed to know. Like someone calling from the United States was somehow suspicious.”
He stroked her head. “You told me she was a respected doctor-even worked a bit for the government. That’s probably why.” He ran his hand down her back, trying to comfort her. “You know what hospitals and doctors are like when it comes to their own. They’re like cops.”
She shook her head again, then stepped back and looked up at him. Her light brown eyes were weary, and her normally smiling mouth was now tight and narrow. “It was more than that, Paul. The doctor was acting like I might find out something I wasn’t supposed to. I was sure he was lying to me.”
“What did he say about her condition?”
“He said it was grave.” She pronounced the word in Spanish-graa-VEY.
Devlin stroked her arm. “I put in a call to the American Interests Section at the Swiss embassy in Havana. The congressman Howie got to expedite the U.S. license and the Cuban visa recommended we do that. No one was available, but I left our number here. The congressman told Howie he’d make sure someone got back to us.”
“Thank God you have friends in high places,” she said. “When I called the State Department for help, the person I spoke with acted like I was crazy. He said I needed this idiotic license from Treasury, because everything involving Cuba falls under something called the Trading with the Enemy Act.” She shook her head again as if none of it made sense. “So I was transferred to the Treasury Department, something called the Office of Foreign Assets Control.”
“What did they say?”
“They told me it could take as long as six months to get a license. Apparently it’s a policy thing to try and discourage people from going there.”
“You told them it was a family emergency?”
“Paul, they couldn’t have cared less. The woman I spoke with was more concerned about throwing regulations and restrictions at me. Like, if I got a license and visa and everything, I still couldn’t spend more than a hundred dollars a day while I was there.”
Devlin grinned at her. “So, what’s the problem? You get a good hotel room, and you don’t eat. Or you can sleep on a park bench and have all the rice and beans you want. Makes sense to me.”
Adrianna leaned against him again. “I wish stupid government regulations were the only part of this that seems so wrong.” She fought back a sob, hardened herself against it. “But it’s more than that. Maybe I’m just being paranoid because I’m so upset. But somehow nothing about this seems right. The second person who called to tell me about the car accident acted so odd. When I asked who he was, all he’d say was that he was a friend. He wouldn’t even give me his name.”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean, the second person who called about the accident? There were two?”
Adrianna nodded, then seemed to think about what she had just said. “Yes, there were two calls. That is strange. I was so upset I didn’t even think about it. First this-” She stopped and rummaged around on a table until she found a piece of paper with a name on it. “This Colonel Cabrera called. He sounded very official, and said my aunt had been in a serious accident, and I should come at once if I wanted to see her. He said to call him back and he’d have me met at the airport.” She stared into his eyes and shook her head, as if trying to make sense of what she was saying. “Then, after I talked with the hospital, the second man called. He said he was a friend of my aunt’s. And he was, I’m sure of it, because he knew about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked if Senor Devlin was coming with me. He said he’d make hotel reservations for a double room, if you were.”
“How’d he know about me?”
“I asked him that. He said my aunt told him. And if he was a friend, she would have, Paul. I wrote to her about you all the time, and she even wrote back asking questions about your job, your daughter, everything.”
“But this guy, he wouldn’t give you his name?”
“No, he said it was unwise to do that on the telephone. He said he’d meet us at the airport. When I told him this Colonel Cabrera was sending a car, he said it would be unwise to let the colonel know when I was arriving. He said the colonel worked for State Security, and was no friend of my aunt.” She stared at him, hoping he’d say something comforting. “It is strange, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. I think we should just go, ourselves, and avoid both of these characters. At least for now.”
Something didn’t smell right, but Devlin didn’t want to say it. Not now. Not until she calmed down. He took her to their large, overstuffed sofa and drew her down next to him.
“Tell me about your aunt. All you’ve ever said was that she was a doctor who worked for the Cuban government, and that she and your dad didn’t get along.”
Adrianna looked at him as though confused by the question. Her features softened with thought, and Devlin realized, as he had so often before, how much he enjoyed looking at her. Adrianna’s nose was slightly too large; her mouth just a bit too wide; her light brown eyes too much in contrast with her raven-black hair, and all together it made her the most strikingly beautiful woman he had ever known.
“There really isn’t a lot I do know about her,” she said at length. “I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. My father always refused to talk about her, and when I finally got to meet her after he died, she was always very reticent about what she did. All she really ever told me was that she was a doctor who specialized in children’s problems. I do know her government sent her to several conferences at the UN and the World Health Organization, because we’d see each other during those trips. She was here eight or nine times like that, and she always stayed a week or two, so we saw a lot of each other when she was here. But that’s really all I know about her life. That, and the fact that she hated Batista, and was a fierce supporter of Fidel Castro, and everything she thought he’d done for Cuba.”
“You must know more than that,” Devlin said.
“Paul, I don’t. After my father died, she sort of adopted me from afar. I was an adult by then-” She stopped, as if considering her own words. “I guess I never recognized it before, but all our interactions were about me-her hopes for me and my work, whatever problems there were in my life. That’s all that seemed to interest her. My life. My welfare. Everything. All of it centered around me. Whenever I asked about her, she just dismissed herself as some country doctor who took care of children. All she ever wanted to talk about was me, and my problems, my hopes, my needs. I guess you could say she was more mentor than aunt.” She closed her eyes and fought back tears. “She was wonderful, Paul. She was the first real intellectual friend I ever had. The first person who ever took me seriously.”
The call from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana came as they were completing their packing. Devlin spent twenty minutes on the phone, making notes about the arrangements that had been made and listening to a detailed explanation of what they could expect to find when they arrived.
When he replaced the receiver he stood quietly, digesting what he had been told.
“What is it, Paul?”
He shook his head, a look of mild disbelief in his eyes. “I just found out a little more about your aunt,” he said.
“What did they say?”
He shook his head again. “Honey, Maria Mendez is no country doctor who just works with little kids.” He blew out a stream of air. “Up until a few months ago she was the top medical official in the Cuban government.” He paused, still digesting it all. “Adrianna, she’s one of the original heroes of the Cuban Revolution. She fought in the mountains with Castro in the fifties, and since then she’s been the closest thing they’ve had to a living saint. The people down there call her Angel Rojo, the Red Angel.”