Page 27

On Monday, Carlo “Pinkie” Ramirez was sitting at his usual table at Casa Blanco, having lunch, when he spotted one of his lieutenants bringing over a middle-aged woman he’d never seen before.

“Who’s that?” he whispered to Miguel Montes, his friend and closest adviser, who sat next to him.

Miguel shrugged.

“Beats me.”

When the duo reached them, Pinkie’s guy said, “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Montes. This is Senora Rios. She said you were expecting her.”

Pinkie and Miguel shared a confused look.

“Sorry, lady,” Pinkie said.

“I don’t know you.”

“I-I-I’m a friend of your mother’s,” the woman said.

“She told me I should talk to you.”

“My mother?”

The woman nodded.

“ Si, she said she’d let you know I was coming.”

“I don’t—”

He stopped himself, remembering the text his ninety-year-old mother had sent him that morning.

Something cryptic about a friend in general, but he didn’t recall her saying the friend would be coming to see him .

That was par for the course with his mom.

“Senora Rios was it?” he asked.

“Si.”

“My apologies. It slipped my mind. What did you want to talk about?”

For the next five minutes, she told him about her son, who was a “good boy” but was having a hard time getting on his feet.

He’d apparently just been released from a four-month jail stint, which, according to her, had been because of a misunderstanding, and that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

The bottom line was her son needed a job, and she would be ever so thankful if Pinkie could help him out.

As the head of a thriving criminal organization, Pinkie seldom dealt with trivial requests like this.

In fact, the only time he did was when his mother sent someone his way.

No matter how many times he’d told her to stop, another person would always show up.

“Bernie has just had some bad luck,” his mother’s friend said.

“But he’s a good—”

“Senora,” he said, wanting to stop her before she repeated the whole story again.

“I understand the situation, and I’m sure we can provide some assistance.”

“Oh, Mr. Ramirez, thank you!” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

“Thank you so much.”

“Tell your son to sit tight, and we’ll be in touch soon.” He glanced at the man who had brought her over.

“Please show Senora Rios out, and make sure we have her contact information.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said.

“This way, ma’am.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, Pinkie said, “Miguel.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find him something,” Miguel said.

“Whatever it is, make sure someone keeps an eye on him. I have a feeling he’s going to be trouble.”

Pinkie returned his attention to his chile relleno, but before he could take another bite, he noticed Scotty Ochoa enter the dining area through the kitchen door.

Pinkie motioned him over.

“You’re late,” Pinkie said as Scotty took a seat.

“Sorry, boss. I had to check a few things first.”

“What kind of things?”

“I got a call about an hour ago and wanted to make sure what I was told was legit.”

Pinkie waved his fork at Scotty, signaling for him to go on.

“Johnny Fratelli’s been calling people.”

Pinkie cocked his head.

“Fratelli?”

“He’s the guy who did time with Eduardo Buono,” Miguel said.

“The guy Buono gave his cut of the JFK job to?”

“No one knows for sure,” Miguel said.

“But that’s the rumor.”

“We tried tracking him down, didn’t we?”

Miguel nodded.

“A few months after he was released from Sing Sing, but we never found him.”

The heist wouldn’t have been possible without Pinkie loaning Buono half a dozen men.

It had seemed like a no-brainer at the time.

If the job had succeeded, Pinkie would have received half of what his guys earned on the job and a cool million from Buono as a fee for his services.

While the job went exactly as Buono planned, Pinkie never saw a dime of what was owed him.

“You say Fratelli’s calling people. Why?” Pinkie asked Scotty.

“He thinks someone’s been looking for him, and he wants to know who it was.”

Pinkie glanced at Miguel.

“It’s not us,” Miguel said.

Pinkie turned back to Scotty.

“Did he find out who was looking for him?”

“I don’t know,” Scotty said.

“I called around and about half the people I talked to had heard from Fratelli directly, but they all swore they told him they didn’t know.”

“Maybe the caller wasn’t Fratelli at all,” Pinkie suggested.

“Maybe he was someone pretending to be him.”

“I had the same thought, so I asked about that.” Scotty shrugged.

“Everyone swore it was him.”

“Did you talk to Ricky Gennaro?” Miguel asked.

“No. Why? You think he might know?”

“I think it’s possible he’s the one asking about Fratelli.”

Pinkie grimaced.

“Gennaro?” But then it hit him.

“That son of a bitch. I bet you’re right.”

Scotty looked between the two men.

“I don’t get it. Why would it be him?”

“Because he was on the heist with Buono,” Miguel said.

“No shit?” Scotty had been a toddler when the heist occurred, so he only knew about it from when they’d searched for Fratelli several years ago.

“I thought Pinkie blackballed everyone who was on the heist.”

“Gennaro was a special case.”

Pinkie’s jaw clenched.

Normally, Pinkie wouldn’t have given a stool pigeon like Gennaro the time of day, but his always-meddling mother had asked him to give Gennaro a chance.

He was family, apparently—a second cousin three times removed or something like that.

To keep the peace, he’d set Gennaro up with a small bookie operation in Queens with strict guidelines on what he could and could not do, and how big he could grow.

“I can call Gennaro right now, if you want,” Scotty offered.

Pinkie shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it. Miguel and I will handle it from here.”

“Sure. Whatever you want, boss.”

“Thanks, Scotty. I like how you took the initiative on this. I won’t forget that. But for now, consider the matter closed.”

Catching the hint, Scotty stood and said, “You got it. Have a good lunch.”

As soon as they were alone, Pinkie said, “We have someone keeping an eye on Gennaro, don’t we?”

“Toomey, but he’s not full-time. Gennaro calls him when he needs muscle.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Miguel pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Toomey, it’s Miguel…Good, good. The boss wants to talk to you. Can you come in this afternoon?…I see…Uh-huh…When will you be back?…Okay, hold on.” Miguel put his hand over the receiver and said to Pinkie, “He’s in Miami on something for us, actually. Flies back tomorrow morning.”

Pinkie motioned for the phone, and Miguel passed it to him.

“Hey, Toomey. How’s Miami?”

“Mr. Ramirez,” Toomey said, surprised.

“Miami’s Miami, sir.”

Pinkie chuckled.

“I hear you. Try not to get into too much trouble, will ya?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Have a question for you. When’s the last time you did anything for Ricky Gennaro?”

“Just last week.”

“Oh, really? What was that?”

“He sent me and Baker to get a look at a lawyer’s phone.”

“A client racking up bad bets?”

“Nah, I don’t think it had anything to do with gambling.”

“Is that right?” Gennaro seemed to be straying off the very narrow path Pinkie had granted him.

“Then why were you seeing the lawyer?”

“Gennaro wanted to know the name of someone the lawyer had lunch with. So, he had us check the guy’s calendar.”

“Gennaro wasn’t really interested in the lawyer at all? He was looking for someone else?”

“Yeah, that’s the way it seemed like to me.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Sorry, Mr. Ramirez. He didn’t say anything about that.”

“Who was the lawyer?”

“Stone something or other. What was it?”

“Barrington?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Pinkie had never met Stone Barrington, but he’d heard about him.

The guy had been a pain in the ass for the Russian mob, and was rumored to have killed at least one of the Pentkovsky brothers who’d once run the organization.

Pinkie didn’t like the idea of his people getting anywhere near him.

“And did you get a look at his calendar?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“With whom did he have lunch?”

“Hold on.” The line went silent for several seconds before Toomey came back on and said, “I just sent the pic that Baker took of the calendar entry.”

The phone pinged, and Pinkie opened the picture, then zoomed in so he could read the text.

Barrington had lunched with someone named Jack Coulter.

Pinkie raised the phone back to his ear.

“Gennaro ask you to do anything else after he got this?”

“No, sir. Just dismissed us. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Then I’m guessing you have no idea who this Jack Coulter is?”

“Not a clue.”

“Okay, Toomey. Thanks. Take yourself out to a nice dinner tonight. It’s on me.”

“You’re too kind, Mr. Ramirez.”

Pinkie hung up and handed the phone back to Miguel.

“Find out everything you can on a guy named Jack Coulter.”

“You think he might be Fratelli?”

“It could be coincidence that Gennaro’s looking for someone at the same time Fratelli thinks someone’s looking for him, but you know what I think about coincidences.”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

Pinkie grinned.

Maybe he’d finally get his cut of Buono’s money.

Or maybe he’d get it all.