Page 63 of The Picasso Heist

“ENZIO BERGAMO,” I say.

“What about him?” asks Joyce.

“Do you know who he is?”

“I can’t afford his clothes, but, yeah, of course I know who he is.” She impatiently places a hand on her hip. “Once again, what about him?”

“He’s using his company to launder money for the Lugieri crime family,” I say.

Joyce narrows her eyes. She tilts her head, processing every word, but we both know what matters most in what I just told her is the name, and I don’t mean Bergamo’s.

“Lugieri, huh? Dominick Lugieri?”

I nod. “The one and only.”

Bringing down the likes of Dominick Lugieri would be a major career coup for any criminal division chief at any US attorney’s office.

But for Elise Joyce, it’s personal. Very personal.

For years, she’s had Lugieri in her crosshairs.

Numerous prosecution attempts, no fewer than three trials. All to no avail.

“Follow me,” she says, turning on her heel.

I fall in step behind her. “Okay.”

We don’t go into the conference room. We walk straight back to her office, where she closes the door and immediately points at the chair across from her desk. Looks like we’re officially talking in private.

“How much?” she asks. “Bergamo and Lugieri. How much have they laundered?”

“Over two hundred million,” I say.

She slides the keyboard on her desk to the side, lands her elbows on a scuffed-up leather blotter, and leans forward. Her eyes are trying to read my soul. “How do you know this?”

“That’s not really relevant, is it?”

“It will be.”

“But not yet,” I say. “All you care about at this moment is whether I can prove it.”

“So can you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t.”

“But let me guess,” she says. “You need my help.”

“To get the evidence? No. Not really,” I say. “Just set me up with a wire.”

“You’re that close to Bergamo?” she asks skeptically.

“I am.”

“How is it that you’re—” She stops, realizing that how and why I’m close to Bergamo isn’t important. What matters is what I can get him to say on that wire. She changes her question. “How fast?”

“Shouldn’t take more than a week,” I say.

It’s the right answer. Joyce leans back in her chair almost as if bracing herself for what comes next. She knows I’m not sitting in front of her purely out of a sense of civic duty.

“Okay. So what do you want?” she asks.

“You know what I want,” I tell her.

“Yes, I do. But that’s not something I can guarantee. I can promise you that—”

“Do you think I’m here to wrap pinkies with you, Ms. Joyce?” Girl fight.

“I know you think you have a little leverage right now, Halston, but you don’t,” she says. “Not one bit.”

“I know what I have, and I know what I can deliver. And if you want it, you’ll need to give me what I want and put it in writing.”

“That’s impossible. I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can,” I say. “You’re the boss.”

“And you’re in way over your head. I can force you to tell me everything you know. You understand that, right?”

“Yes, you can. But the one thing you can’t do is force me to collect evidence for you by wearing that wire.”

It’s not a checkmate. It’s more like a stalemate. I’m putting her in a tough spot. Like a used-car salesman, a US attorney doesn’t do written guarantees. Not for what I’m asking.

But did I mention how badly Elise Joyce wants to bring down Dominick Lugieri?

She leans forward again, her elbows grinding into that desk blotter. “The evidence would need to be airtight.”

“I understand,” I say.

“The legal equivalent of a layup.”

“Better yet, a slam dunk.”

She cracks the slightest of smiles. It’s not what I said, it’s the confidence with which I said it.

My dad taught me that, told me time and time again: Be confident or be nothing.

“If you can deliver what I need, then you have my word… and I’ll put it in writing,” says Elise Joyce. “Your father will be a free man.”