Page 3

Several miles away in Queens, Ricky Gennaro was polishing off his penne arrabbiata when his sister Rosa entered the dining room, crossed her arms, and scowled.

“What?” he asked.

“Snapper and Jimmy are at the gate.”

“Already?” He hadn’t expected to hear from them for another hour or two.

“You think I’m making it up?”

“What? No. That was rhetorical.” His sister could be a real pain in his ass sometimes.

“Just let them in.”

A minute later, the two men lumbered in, sans Rosa.

Both were tall and beefy, which was why they made decent enforcers.

“Boss,” Snapper said in greeting.

Jimmy nodded his head.

“So?” Gennaro asked impatiently.

“It’s done,” Snapper said.

“That was fast.”

“We got lucky and were able to get him alone.”

“Everything go all right?”

The enforcers exchanged a glance.

“What?” Gennaro asked.

“Don’t tell me you fucked it up.”

“No, no, we didn’t,” Snapper said.

“We gave him a real good beatdown.”

“I’m sensing a but .”

“Well, we, um, kinda got interrupted in the middle.”

“Interrupted?”

“A guy came into the restroom where we were working the target over.”

“You didn’t lock the door?”

Jimmy mumbled something.

“What was that?” Gennaro asked.

“Jimmy said the door didn’t have a lock,” Snapper said.

Gennaro stared at them.

“You couldn’t think of some other way to keep it closed?”

“Uh, well…we didn’t, um—”

Gennaro waved a hand in the air.

“Never mind. Did it get done or not?”

“Yeah. It did, it did.”

Gennaro waited, but when neither man spoke, he rolled his eyes and said, “How about some details?”

“Right, sorry. Um, we hurt him pretty good.”

Jimmy mumbled again.

“Oh, yeah,” Snapper said.

“We heard an ambulance arriving at Liesel’s as we drove away. Jimmy’s sure we put him in a hospital.”

“It’s New York. There are sirens all the time.”

Neither man replied to that.

“And what the hell is Liesel’s?”

“It’s the restaurant where we did the job.”

“You jumped him in the men’s room of a restaurant?”

“It was just him and us,” Snapper said.

“Until someone walked in on you.”

Snapper grimaced.

“Well, yeah. Until then.”

“Did you at least deliver the message?”

Snapper’s expression brightened and he nodded.

“Right before we left. Whispered it directly into his ear.”

Finally, a bit of good news.

“The guy who interrupted you. Did he see your faces?”

“I-I’m not sure.”

Jimmy said something under his breath again, and Snapper grimaced.

“I can’t understand a damn thing that comes out of his mouth,” Gennaro complained.

“What’d he say?”

Snapper hesitated, then said, “He thinks the guy might have.”

Gennaro groaned.

“Wonderful.”

“Sorry, boss,” Snapper said.

“Maybe we can find him and convince him he didn’t see anything.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No.”

“Did he work there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Um, no.”

“Then exactly how are you going to find him?”

“Uh—”

Gennaro closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself not to lose his patience.

Snapper and Jimmy might be good intimidators, but Rhodes scholars they were not.

“When did it go down?” he asked.

Snapper checked the time, then said, “About an hour ago. We would have been here sooner, but traffic was—”

“I don’t care about traffic.” Gennaro stood and pointed at them.

“Don’t move.”

He headed to the bedroom he used as his office.

With the door shut, he called a contact at the NYPD and asked for info about what had happened at Liesel’s.

After putting Gennaro on hold for a couple of minutes, the guy came back on.

“Somebody got jumped in a restroom. Was it something to do with you?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Gennaro growled.

“Sorry, Mr. G.” The cop cleared his throat.

“Looks like the vic was worked over pretty good and taken to the hospital. The report says he’ll be staying the night.”

“Which hospital?”

“Mount Sinai.”

“Anything on who did it?”

“There’s an APB out for two perps.” The cop read off surprisingly accurate descriptions of both Snapper and Jimmy.

When he finished, he said, “You should also know that Commissioner Bacchetti himself was there.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I am not.”

“Don’t tell me he was the one who interrupted them.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Nah. That was a guy named Stone Barrington.”

Under normal circumstances, Gennaro might have been persuaded to find out where this Barrington lived, and have his boys pay him a visit.

But given the police commissioner’s involvement in the case, there was no way he or anyone working for him would be getting anywhere near anything to do with the case.

“Okay, thanks,” he said and hung up.

He took a moment to think about what he should do next, then opened his safe and pulled out five hundred bucks.

After sticking the cash in an envelope, he headed back to the dining room.

Snapper and Jimmy were right where he’d left them.

“It looks like it’s your lucky day,” Gennaro said, then tossed the envelope on the table.

“You two are going on a vacation. I don’t care where you go. In fact, I don’t want to know. Just make sure it’s somewhere out of state.”

“Why?”

“Because the cops are looking for two guys who look just like you two.”

“There’s two other guys who look like us?”

“God help me,” Gennaro said to the ceiling.

“They’re looking for you, idiot. And if you stay in town they’ll find you.”

While Jimmy picked up the envelope and looked inside, Snapper asked, “How long do we stay away?”

“As long as it takes. Call in once a week. Rosa will let you know when it’s okay to come back.”

Jimmy whispered to Snapper, then Snapper looked into the envelope.

“There’s only five hundred dollars,” Snapper said.

Gennaro stared at him.

“And?”

“We’ll need more than that.”

Gennaro snorted.

“You’re lucky I’m giving you anything at all. Now get the hell out of here.”

The two men quickly ducked out of the room, nearly running over Rosa in the process.

Once she squeezed by them, she said, “Stefan Howard’s on the phone,” then she turned and left.

Stefan was the guy who’d hired Gennaro to have Paul Weston beat up.

Gennaro swore to himself, then went into the kitchen and picked up the extension there.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Hi, Ricky. It’s Stefan Howard. I was wondering if you have an update.”

“It’s done.”

“Seriously?” Howard sounded surprised.

“If I say it’s done, it’s done.”

“How did it go?”

“It’s my understanding Mr. Weston will be staying in the hospital for a day or two at least.”

“That’s fantastic! And the message?”

“Delivered.”

“Sweet. Thanks, man. Five stars. I’ll call you again if I need anything else. You take care, buddy.”

The line went dead.