Code 13 (37 page)

Seriously, I work out every day to try and keep my legs toned, and stay in shape so I can enjoy my red wine in the evenings when I go out LOL!

I also loved the pic of your car. I've found that you can tell a lot about a man from his wheels LOL!

J/K!!! Hehe!

But even better than your car, I LOVED your profile pic. What a handsome man! I LOVE your salt-and-pepper hair.

I think I might have to go turn down the air conditioner to about 58! LOL!

Are you really a seafood magnate? I love men who take charge in business. The magnate notion is a real . . .

Well, I've said enough already.

Seriously, you sound like someone I'd love to get to know a little better.

I don't fly again until Wednesday.

I'm not normally this forward, but I'll just put it out there if that's okay.

Wanna meet for a drink?

Can't believe I said that haha!

Anyway, lemme know!

XO
Buffy

“Good golly! Let's do this.” Vinnie refilled his glass with bourbon, took a sip, and started to write.

Dear Buffy,

Glad you like my car. I'd love to take you for a spin in it. It's gonna be a ride you'll never forget!

BTW, my name's Vincent, but my friends call me Vinnie.

So am I a magnate? Well, depends on how you define a “magnate.” Let me put it this way. I'm a guy that's got a lot of guys who work for me. I'll let you decide when we meet for a drink.

I'd like to . . .

“Hey, Mr. T.!”

Vinnie cursed and looked up. “What is it, Guido? I'm in the middle of something!”

“Sorry, boss. But the senator's here.”

“Already?” Vinnie checked his watch.

“Yes, sir.”

He saved his message to Buffy and put the computer in hibernate mode. “Okay, send him in.”

Vinnie looked up as Rodino, wearing a blue blazer, khaki slacks, and no tie, walked in, surrounded by three of the boys from the warehouse.

“Chuckie! Welcome to our Washington hangout!”

“Whatever this is about,” Rodino said, sporting a scowl on his
face, “did you have to insist that I travel into the slum section of the city? What if a member of the press sees me over here?”

“Chuckie! Chuckie! You hurt my feelings. I thought you'd appreciate our local digs. A great place for the boys to hang out. Know what I mean?”

“Vinnie—”

Vinnie held up his hand. This would be a one-way conversation. After all, he had other business to attend to. “Have a seat, Chuckie. Make yourself at home.” He looked at a warehouse goon. “Giuseppe, take everybody else outside. Me and the senator, we got some business to attend to. This won't take long.”

“Sure thing, Mr. T.”

“Mr. T.?” Rodino crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as the warehouse goon ushered everyone else out of the office.

“It's an affectionate name, Chuckie.
T
is for Torrenzano. Know what I mean? Hey, want a drink?”

“No,” the senator snapped. “You know I'm happy to help any way I can, but my time is limited. So can we please just get to the point?”

“Patience, Senator Grasshopper. And sit down, sit down!”

The senator, still scowling, pulled up a chair and sat. “You've got my attention. What's this about? Did Phil ask you to call me in here?”

Vinnie took a drag from his cigarette and blew smoke in the direction of the high-priced political prostitute. He once heard Big Sal say at a family reunion, after Big Sal had had a few too many, that politicians are nothing but puny, punk prostitutes all pimped up in pickle-threaded pinstripes.

They could be bought and paid for with election contributions and controlled with bad dirt that, if the political pimp didn't cooperate, could be fed to the press.

Big Sal was right. More smoke blown at the wimp.

“Actually, Senator, this ain't got nothin' to do with Phil. Actually, Big Sal wanted me to call you in for a little chat.”

At the mention of the name Big Sal, the senator-wimp's face morphed from slight irritation to a near ashen-gray.

“Big Sal?” The senator's eyes shifted. “What's Big Sal need? Is everything okay?”

“Is everything okay? Well, that just depends on your perspective, I suppose.”

“So what's going on?” he asked in a nervous, high-pitched tone.

“What's going on is Big Sal wanted you to see these.” He slid the envelope across the desk.

“What's this?”

“How would I know?” Vinnie threw up his hands, feigning ignorance. “Have a look for yourself.”

Vinnie couldn't contain his sense of self-satisfaction, nor could he suppress the grin that crawled across his face as the junior Democrat senator from New York squirmed.

As the senator's bony-looking fingers started to shake, he opened the envelope and slowly fetched the glossy 8×10 color photographs. His face turned red, and veins popped from the blood pressure in his neck. Rodino protested in a shrill voice that made him sound like a screeching cheetah.

“This is an outrage!” Rodino threw the photos down on the desk. “This is an inexcusable invasion of my privacy. And I object! In fact, I vociferously object!”

Vinnie laughed. “Who you gonna object to, Senator? You don't think we got all the judges in our pockets too?”

“It's still an inexcusable invasion of privacy. And I never thought the family would stoop to something this low!”

Vinnie abandoned all pretenses of hiding his cheese-eating grin. “Oh, I dunno, Chuckie. I thought the one of you and your boyfriend holding hands on the beach at Martha's Vineyard and kissing under the moonlight was cute. And the one of you two in the sauna. What's his name?” He smirked. “Milkey Mark? Markey Milk? Something like that?”

“He is Congressman William O. ‘Mackey' Milk, the distinguished Democrat from Boston, and one of the most brilliant members of the United States Congress!”

“Easy there, Chuckie. I mean, look on the bright side. Those pictures, if they get out, would mean ole Markey boy would get reelected every time in Boston, where that stuff is a badge of honor. Probably even help you in New York. Hey, you're guaranteed to carry Greenwich Village.”

“That's not funny.”

“But for those national presidential aspirations of yours, well, this stuff will definitely help you in California, but you're gonna need to carry a few southern states, and at least run well in Texas.”

Rodino glared at him. “What do you want?”

“And if Eleanor Claxton gets the nomination, she ain't gonna want nobody on the ticket who will hurt her in the South. And this definitely ain't gonna help you in South Carolina or Mississippi or Texas. Or even Florida, for that matter, whether you're at the top of the ticket or in the second spot.”

Silence.

“I said, what do you want?”

Vinnie inhaled the Marlboro cigarette. “It ain't what I want, Senator. It's what Big Sal wants.”

Another look of fear at the mention of Big Sal
.
“Okay, then what does Big Sal want?”

“Well, he told me to tell you two things. First, he wants to make sure that drone contract gets killed.”

“That contract is as good as dead in the water. It hasn't even gone to Congress yet.”

“Hey, don't tell me.” Vinnie threw up his hands again. “Tell that to Big Sal.”

“What do you mean?” Rodino looked over his shoulder as if expecting someone to walk into the room.

“Don't worry. At least not today. Big Sal ain't here. But he wants to see you in person.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“When? Where?”

“Tomorrow morning. Company headquarters in New York. We'll arrange for transportation. And tell your boyfriend he's invited too. Now get out of my office!”

“But I—”

“We'll have one of our boys pick you up from out in front of the Capitol Building. You and your boyfriend, Congressman Milkey. Be ready around seven thirty and wait for our call. We'll fly you up in one of our private jets, bring you before Big Sal, and then, depending on what he says, we'll fly you back.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Look on the bright side. The family's paying your travel up. And if Sal don't cut you up and throw you to the sharks, you might get your way back paid, too, if you're lucky.”

“But—”

“But that's it, Chuckie.”

“There must—”

Vinnie hit the intercom. “Giuseppe! Escort the senator out of here.”

“Yes, Mr. T.”

Rodino stood, wearing a permanent scowl, and pulled his arm away when Giuseppe came in and touched him.

Vinnie turned back to his computer, eager to get back to his message to Buffy. If he got lucky, maybe even tonight . . .

“Excuse me, boss.”

“What is it now?”

“One of the programmers needs to see you.”

“About what?”

“About the drone project.”

Vinnie took another glance at the profile picture of the hot-looking flight attendant, then looked up at Giuseppe. “Send the senator on his way, then send the guy in.”

Rodino left with Giuseppe under no further protest.

The programmer, a wimpish-looking figure wearing a short-sleeved shirt and black plastic-rimmed glasses, looked like a character from
Invasion of the Nerd Snatchers
as he walked into the office.

“Mr. Torrenzano,” the nerd-man started, “I'm Marvin Dorn. I'm
one of the new IP associates from Georgetown. There's something I need to speak with you about.”

“I'm in the middle of something important. Spit it out.”

“Well, sir, this morning the Navy held a press conference and announced that this Lieutenant Commander McCormick is being assigned to finish working on the part of the project MacDonald and Simmons were working on.”

“We thought it would be one of the officers at Code 13,” Vinnie said. “But I'm surprised she's the one. She's one of the two women MacDonald was having a fling with.”

“Agreed, sir,” the nerd said. “But not only that, not long after the press conference, we monitored Commander McCormick's email. And there's something I think you should see.” The weasel handed a sheet of paper to Vinnie. “This is an email McCormick sent to her commanding officer, Captain David Guy.”

Vinnie took the email and read it.

“What the heck is this supposed to mean?”

“Which part, sir?”

“The part where she says, ‘Based on my preliminary review of LCDR MacDonald's work, the undersigned will finish and complete both legal opinions, acknowledging that each legal opinion contains conclusions contradictory to the other, and will, based on additional legal research, submit one or the other to the Secretary of the Navy'?”

“I don't know what it means,” the computer geek said. “But it sounds like she may be thinking about writing an opinion that cuts against our position, which is why I thought you might want to see it.”

Vinnie pounded his fist on the desk. “Dang it!” He unleashed a string of profanity. “And I thought we about had this problem under control.”

The geek stood there nonresponsively, staring blankly like a dead fish lying on a bed of crushed ice at the fish market.

“Okay, thanks, Miller. That will be all.”

“Marvin.”

“Say again?”

“My name is Marvin. Marvin Dorn.”

“Okay, whatever. Thanks. Look, I need to make a phone call. If you don't mind, just step out and close the door. Maybe go back to your computer or something. I'll let you know when I need you again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Miller . . . or Marvin . . . or whatever his name was, walked out of the office and closed the door behind him, as instructed.

Vinnie turned around and crossed his arms. Buffy would have to wait. Besides, there were a million Buffys out there who would swoon over the family money and power and do whatever he wanted them to do.

Right now, he had bigger problems.

Phil wasn't going to like this.

Neither would Big Sal, if it percolated up that far.

This would need to be nipped in the bud, and sooner rather than later.

Oh well. May as well get this over with. He pulled out his cell phone, went to the stored numbers, and hit autodial.

The phone rang once . . . twice . . . then an answer.

“Yo. Phil. This is Vinnie.”

“I know who you are. You get everything set with Chuckie and his Milk boy? Like Sal wanted?”

“Yo. Just took care of it. But listen. Phil. We got us another problem.”

“What did you screw up this time, Vinnie?”

“I ain't screwed up nothin', Phil.”

“Then who screwed what up?”

“The Navy put this woman JAG officer on the case. Looks like she might write an opinion against us.”

Silence.

“Phil. You there?”

“Yes. I'm here. But we sent you down there for a reason. And that's to kill this contract. Big Sal's already on my back, and if you don't perform, you ain't gonna be there much longer, or anywhere else, for that matter. If this new Navy lady or whoever gives us a problem, I want you to take care of it. Ya got it?”

“Got it, Phil. Loud and clear.”

CHAPTER 27