Page 37

It took an hour before Gennaro had calmed down enough to think straight.

Manny had screwed up.

There was no denying that.

Still, though Barrington was still breathing, the attempt on the lawyer’s life hadn’t been a complete failure.

He and his friends had been sent to the hospital, after all.

Gennaro could deal with that.

On his computer, he began working on a new message to Jack Coulter.

Not being a natural writer, it took him longer than he’d expected, but in the end he came up with a suitably threatening letter to set the next phase of his plan into motion.

As it was printing, the landline rang.

He expected Rosa to answer it, but when she didn’t, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was after ten p.

m.

She was “off the clock.”

He was not going to miss her a single minute after he left.

Not one.

He snapped up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Gennaro? Oh, good. I thought maybe you weren’t home.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Stefan. Stefan Howard.”

Gennaro grimaced.

“What do you want?”

“I, um, I met your guy at P. J. Clarke’s a few hours ago and got the impression you were doing my job tonight.”

“Yeah, it’s done.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Did you…Did you kill him?”

“Did you ask me to kill him?”

“Um, no.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

“What did you do?”

“Are you for real right now?” Gennaro said, venting some of his anger with Manny onto Stefan.

“I told you the job is done, so it’s done.”

“I-I wasn’t saying you didn’t. I just wanted some details. That’s all.”

“Fine. We wrecked that fancy car of his and sent him to the hospital. Is that enough details for you?”

“Sure. That’s great. But…”

“But what?”

“Did you deliver the message?”

“You didn’t ask me to deliver a message.”

“Of course I did!” Stefan said, his voice suddenly shrill.

“You want to check your tone, buddy?” Gennaro growled.

Stefan took an audible breath.

“You were supposed to pass on the same message you gave to Weston.”

“I would have if you told me that.”

“I swear I did.”

“You want me to play back the recording of our conversation?”

“You recorded our conversation?”

“What do you think?” Gennaro hadn’t.

He never recorded anything.

Stefan said nothing.

“I’m kinda busy here,” Gennaro said.

“So, unless you need anything else…?”

“No, that’s it.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Gennaro hung up.

“The nerve of that guy,” he said.

At least, he wouldn’t have to deal with him ever again.

Pushing thoughts of Stefan out of his mind, Gennaro donned a pair of latex gloves, retrieved a manila envelope from the box of them he’d purchased that afternoon, and slipped the printed letter inside.

From his closet, he grabbed one of several unused disposable phones.

He checked the battery to make sure it was charged, wrote down its number so he’d have it, and dropped the phone into the envelope with the note.

Now all he had to do was have the package delivered to Coulter in the morning.

Stefan was seething.

Not only had Gennaro failed to tell Barrington to leave Sara alone, but he’d also accused Stefan of lying about asking him to do it, and then had the gall to basically hang up on him.

No one disrespected him like that and got away with it.

And he wasn’t about to let Gennaro be the first.