Page 108 of Crescendo

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Tell him it’s his long-lost nephew.”

“Just a minute.”

Nearly three pass before a new voice answers the line. “Van Hallen.”

“Hello, Detective,” I say coldly. “This is how we’re going to play this game. I’m going to speak. You listen, and only if you have something worth saying do you talk back. Understood?”

“Vialle?” The detective sounds gruff, pre-coffee. “What the hell are you playing at—”

“Vincent Stacatto,” I say, cutting each word short. “That name ring a bell?”

Van Hallen grunts. After almost a minute of silence, he finally spits a reply out. “Go on.”

“What if I were to tell you that his human-trafficking operation is about to take a nasty hit. Tonight. Would your men be able to stop tailing me to be around to catch the fireworks?”

He’s silent, wondering whether or not I’m yanking his chain. “Stacatto runs amultimillion-dollar operation, Vialle. That wouldn’t be fireworks we’re talking about. It would be an explosion.”

“I want to see him burn.”Well, the little thrill-seeker will get her fucking wish.

“That doesn’t answer my question, Detective.”

“Ah...yes—all right. I could spare a few men if your tip was fucking credible.”

“Next question. Stacatto kept a woman around him. Young. Foreign—”

“You’ve just described just about every missing adolescent girl in the international database,” Van Hallen snarls.

“Not this girl. Speaks English. Her name is Danny...Daniela—”

“Manzano?”

I assume it’s a last name. Daniela Manzano, Vinny’s pretty whore.

“He’s kept her close,” Van Hallen says, but now, he’s even more cautious than he was before.

“What do you know about her?”

“Humph... Stacatto barely lets her out of his sight. She was his neighbor, they say, growing up. They lived in the same building. She’s young, like you said. About twenty-two...twenty-three. Family came from Brazil, I think.”

I don’t like how quickly Van Hallen settled on the right woman. He wasn’t lying about having a hard-on for Stacatto, atleast. “Do you know anything about a murder case connected to her?”

“Terrible, terrible crime,” Van Hallen says softly. “Poor kid lost her whole family. The photos of the crime scene haunted the precinct for weeks.”

“Next question. Detective Andrew Sosa. Know him?”

“No,” Van Hallen says carefully. “But I do know of aChiefAndrew Sosa.”

Chief.Apparently, being a prick in Stacatto’s pocket could make a man rise through the ranks within the course of five years.

“What do you know about him?”

Van Hallen hesitates. “I know that he writes my departmental performance reviews.”

“Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and tell you that I know for a fact that he’s working for Stacatto.”

“That’s a very stupid accusation to make, Vialle,” Van Hallen warns, but he doesn’t trash the notion outright. Smart bastard.