Cut Out (20 page)

“Don’t fuck with me, Guyton. Something smells real bad around here and I think you’re part of the stink.”

“Don’t come in here with that attitude,” Guyton warned, getting up out of his chair and dwarfing Giannini as he leaned over his desk.

“Who was Fastone working for?” Giannini asked bluntly.

Guyton blinked. “What?”

“I was at Lisa Cobb’s brother’s house yesterday. Someone worked him over with a blowtorch and then killed him.”

Guyton sat back down slowly. “I didn’t hear about that.”

“That’s because I haven’t told anyone. Someone sapped me over the head, and when I regained consciousness, the body was gone.”

“You should have reported it.”

“No,” Giannini shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not until I find out what’s going on.”

“I don’t have to tell you nothing,” Guyton said.

“Why’d Fastone start having an affair with some suburban real estate developer who had no links to the mob?”

“Hormones, I guess,” Guyton said with a forced laugh.

“Bullshit. You still don’t get it, do you? Someone’s after the Cobbs. And that someone may be after all those who had anything to do with the Cobbs, and that puts you pretty damn high on the list.”

“Hey, I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Guyton said.

“What did you do?” Giannini asked. When Guyton didn’t answer, Giannini pressed home her attack. “Right after I leave here, I’m going to the feds and I’m going to make some noise.”

Guyton let loose a genuine laugh this time. “Noise about what? You don’t know shit.”

“I know there are pages missing from the Torrentino files. I know that someone is going after the Cobbs and they don’t care who they have to kill to get to them.”

“The Cobbs are safe. They went under in the Program,” Guyton said.

“Then who killed Fastone? Who killed Tom Volpe, Lisa Cobb’s brother?”

Guyton didn’t answer.

Giannini tried another approach. “Tell me about Fastone.”

“What about her?”

“She set up Philip Cobb, didn’t she? She was working for Torrentino when she got involved with Cobb, wasn’t she?”

“Of course she was working for Torrentino,” Guyton said finally. “Any idiot—except Cobb, that is—could have figured it out. He had no idea who she was when she sashayed into his life.”

“Torrentino blackmailed him with the affair?” Giannini asked.

“I suppose. I don’t really know, and it didn’t really matter. Maybe Cobb just wanted to make some big money. Whatever his reasons were, he started working for the Torrentinos. He was washing more than two million a month for them through his firm, helping make them legitimate while getting dirty himself.”

“His kid was dying,” Giannini spat out. “It ever occur to you he might have needed the money?”

“Everyone needs money, Giannini. Not all of us go to the mob for it.”

“Why’d they try to hit him if he was worth a couple of million a month to them? The file makes it sound like Michael Torrentino was pissed ’cause Cobb was screwing Fastone, but if he set up the whole thing, that doesn’t hold water.”

Guyton stared at Giannini for a long time. She returned the stare. Her mind sorted through the facts, coming again to the pieces that didn’t seem to fit. Suddenly she sat bolt upright. “You son of a bitch!” she exclaimed. “Torrentino didn’t try to kill Cobb in Chicago. You set it all up, didn’t you? That’s why the investigation into the attempted hit was so skimpy in the files and there were pages missing! The two supposed hit men, the cop just happening upon them in time to break it up, the whole thing—you planned it, didn’t you?”

“Not me,” Guyton said. “The feds. O’Fallon and his guys from the task force thought it up. I just gave them a little help. And that’s why your threat of going to the feds doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re a cop, for God’s sake!”

“And he was a goddamn criminal!” Guyton returned hotly.

“You’re supposed to uphold the law—not bend it to fit your needs.” Giannini paused to get herself under control and back in focus. “Cobb never knew he was set up? Not even after the trial?”

“No.”

“Jesus Christ,” Giannini muttered. “The poor bastard got it coming and going.”

“He was a crook, Giannini. He took a slice of that two mill every month. The Torrentinos didn’t make that money selling cookies door to door. Cobb deserved what he got. Hell, he deserved to go to fucking jail. He got off scot-free as far as I’m concerned.”

You don’t know the half of it, Giannini thought. “Was Fastone cooperating with you and the feds?”

“No. She was still working for Torrentino.”

“Then who killed her?”

Guyton looked troubled. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe she wasn’t working for Torrentino,” Giannini mused. “Maybe she got involved with Cobb at Torrentino’s urging in the beginning, but then she came up with a better idea. Maybe she was on her own at the end.”

“What are you talking about?” Guyton asked.

“It looks like a professional hit,” Giannini said, getting back to the known facts.

“Yeah,” Guyton agreed reluctantly.

“Was she after Cobb?” Giannini asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The Torrentinos had to have a contract out on Philip Cobb after what he did to them. If Cobb didn’t know Fastone had set him up, they still might have used her to get to him, figuring Cobb might try to contact her some way.”

“Maybe,” Guyton conceded. “But why kill her then?”

“Because I think they got to Philip Cobb and killed him,” Giannini said, watching the surprise flit across Guyton’s face.

“Cobb’s dead? How do you know?”

“I’ve got my own sources,” Giannini said. “Maybe Fastone led them to him; he was killed, then they killed her to tie up loose ends. Or maybe she was on her own and they followed her.”

“Either way, it’s over,” Guyton said.

“No, it’s not over,” Giannini replied, standing.

“What do you mean?”

“How’d you break Cobb? How’d you get him to think the Torrentinos were after him?”

“He was scared,” Guyton said.

“Yeah, but he must have had a reason to be scared,” Giannini returned.

“He was screwing the boss’s girl—that’s a damn good reason.”

“Maybe,” Giannini said as another piece of the puzzle turned over in her head. “Or maybe Cobb was doing something else that he wasn’t supposed to, and he was afraid the Torrentinos had found out about it.”

“Do you know something else?” Guyton asked.

Giannini wasn’t in the mood to answer questions—not when she had so many of her own. “Who’s doing the work for the Torrentinos on the outside? Who’s the acting boss?”

“Charlie D’Angelo.”

Giannini turned to the door. Guyton stepped out from behind his desk. “What’s going on, Giannini? What do you know?”

“I don’t know nothing,” Giannini snapped back over her shoulder. “All I do know is that your little setup has already cost at least one innocent person his life, and the game isn’t over by a long shot.” She slammed the door behind her.

CAMP MACKALL

31 OCTOBER, 8:45 a.m.

Riley parked just inside the gate to the Nicholas M. Rowe compound. Two MH-47 helicopters squatted like large green grasshoppers outside the compound gate on the large helipad, their motionless dual rotors drooping halfway to the ground.

Riley tried the Selection and Assessment shack first. S & A was the cadre that ran potential Special Forces students into the ground on a daily basis. The few people in the shack didn’t know where the crews were for the helicopters. Walking out the door of S & A, Riley scanned the compound and spotted what he was looking for. Two 292 antennae were jury-rigged on the south side, poking up above the buildings. Riley tracked the wires from the antennae into a building.

Two NCOs were sitting in front of a bank of radios, monitoring a Q-course Phase 13 exercise. On the far side of the open bay building, several men in flight suits were lounging about on a row of cots. Riley made a beeline for one of the men; there were four dots on the silver bar pinned to his maroon beret, which protruded from a side pocket.

Riley nodded at the higher-ranking warrant officer. “Hey, Chief, how’s it going?”

The man’s name tag identified him as Chief Warrant Officer Prowley. “All right.”

Riley glanced at the map pinned to the corkboard on the wall. “You flying missions for Phase 13?”

“Yeah, we got six exfiltrations tonight.”

“Uwharrie National Forest?”

Prowley nodded. “Four of them. Two in Pisgah.”

“You out of Fort Campbell?”

“Yep.” Prowley still hadn’t moved from the cot.

“When do you head back there?”

“Tonight, after we bring the last load back here.”

Riley sat down next to Prowley and pulled out a 1:250,000 scale map of North Carolina and Tennessee. “Listen, I’m with A Company, First Battalion, and we’ve got a last-minute tasking to run an escape and evasion mission for one of our deployed teams. I was wondering if you all could help us out tonight.”

Prowley looked at Riley, then glanced a few cots over to where an officer lay sleeping, a maroon beret covering his face, the gold leaf of a major’s insignia gleaming on the 160th Task Force’s cloth shield. “I don’t know. The major might not be too keen on it. You know how the army works. Got to plan taskings half a lifetime in advance and all that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Riley said. “But I got this one dumped on me by my major, and he isn’t the sort you want to go back to and say you couldn’t get something done.”

Prowley nodded in commiseration. “I know how that goes. What’s the mission?”

“Three pax, myself being one of them. Pickup at the helipad here when you drop off your last load, and drop us off here.” Riley pointed at the map. “It shouldn’t be too much out of your way, and it would really help me out.”

Prowley looked at the location. “That’s pretty much on our flight path back. I guess we could do it. You have a landing zone there?”

“No.” Riley smiled at the pilot’s look of concern. “Don’t worry. We’ll get off your bird.”

CHICAGO

31 OCTOBER, 9:50 a.m.

“Jesus, Giannini, I could get in big trouble if someone sees me with you,” the man in the black leather jacket whined, eyes darting about the deli. He was in his mid-twenties, and his dark hair was slicked back, complementing the sunglasses he wore to give him an authentic punk look. Giannini wondered if he’d simply copied the crime shows on TV or if the crime shows copied real life.

“You’d have been in bigger trouble if you hadn’t seen me, Nickie. You owe me.”

“But people are talking about you,” he said, taking a nervous drag on his cigarette. “I about shit when you called me—and calling me at the club—Jesus, Giannini, what are you, nuts?”

“Which people are talking about me?” Giannini asked. She’d selected Nickie because he was the only contact she had who had connections with Charlie D’Angelo. She’d called him at the “club,” one of the local hangouts for mob-affiliated people, and pretended to be a girlfriend. She really didn’t care if the ruse had gone over or not. “What are they saying?”

“They want to know what you’re poking your nose into.”

“What happened to Jill Fastone?” she asked bluntly.

“Ah, geez, Giannini! We don’t even mention her name around Charlie. Mikey’s steamed and he’s letting Charlie know. Charlie is supposed to take care of things and now Mike’s girl ends up dead.” Nickie shook his head solemnly. “Bad fucking news.”

Giannini frowned. “Any idea who killed her?”

Nickie leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Listen, I owe you for getting me off that bust, but this is heavy shit. We’re dealing with the boss, and if he finds out I’m talking to you, my ass is history.”

“I’m not wired, Nickie. This is personal—not business; it won’t ever come up in an official capacity. If you don’t talk to me, I’ve got some people I could talk to about things you’ve told me in the past. And you and I know they won’t like it.”

“Aw, shit.” Nickie stubbed out his cigarette. “All right. I was at the clubhouse when they found out about Jill’s body being discovered. Charlie about blew a gasket. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. It’s been real strange ever since the trial. Some people are saying that Charlie isn’t seeing eye to eye with Mike about some things.”

“What things?”

“Ah, I don’t know, Giannini.”

“Philip Cobb,” Giannini prompted.

Nickie blinked. “Yeah—that’s something that’s bugging the crap out of everyone. How’d you know that?”

“I’m not stupid,” Giannini spat out. “What’s the story on Cobb?”

“The word’s been out since the trial that whoever found Cobb and did him would be a rich person—at least that’s the word from Charlie. Charlie talks to the Torrentinos every day on the phone from prison, so I guess that’s what they want too.