Chapter 2 - The Chemistry of Betrayal
By four in the morning, the basement of the estate on Northern Boulevard smelled of damp concrete, copper, and rubbing alcohol.
Upper Manhattan was buried beneath four inches of fresh snow, but inside the subterranean medical suite I had built ten years ago behind three inches of reinforced steel, the air was warm and sterile.
Doc Miller, a man who had pulled lead out of my shoulder after the Brooklyn bridge ambush and stitched up half the captains in the five boroughs, stepped out from behind the glass partition of the ICU room. He was pulling off a pair of rubber gloves, tossing them into a yellow biohazard bin.
I was sitting on a metal stool in the hallway, Bruno resting his heavy chin over my steel-toed boots. My coat was off, my sleeves rolled up to my elbows, revealing the thick dragon tattoos that stretched down my forearms.
"How is she?" I asked. My voice was raspy from three packs of unfiltered cigarettes.
"If you had opened that box twenty minutes later, her brain would have starved completely," Miller said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "It’s Tetrodotoxin. A refined synthetic strain mixed with a high-grade paralytic used in veterinary surgery. It drops the heart rate to three or four beats per minute, reduces core temperature, and stops pulmonary expansion to a level that standard stethoscopes can't detect."
I took a long drag from my cigarette, letting the blue smoke trail out of my nose. "A drug that makes a person look dead to an ER doctor."
"To a rushed city coroner on a Friday night in a crowded hospital, absolutely," Miller nodded. "She was declared dead at St. John's at 6:40 PM three days ago. The coroner signed off on a massive internal trauma consistent with a low-speed impact, put her in the cooler, and released her to Miller’s funeral home sixteen hours later."
"And the funeral director?" I asked.
"Miller was paid fifty grand to bypass the secondary organ prep," a voice came from down the hallway.
Tony stepped out of the shadow of the stairwell, wiping his knuckles with a damp cloth. His shirt sleeves were stained dark red around the cuffs.
"Miller talked after two minutes with the boys," Tony continued, stepping up beside my stool. "The funeral home was the holding point. The kid wasn't supposed to be buried, Boss. The casket was scheduled to be moved to an incinerator facility in New Jersey at six o'clock tonight. But nobody was going to burn it."
My jaw set so hard I felt a sharp pain behind my ear. "They were going to swap the box."
"They were going to ship her out," Tony said, his voice dropping into a register that was barely audible above the hum of the air scrubbers. "Harlan’s people had a transport vehicle waiting at the Jersey docks. Once the paralytic wore off, she was supposed to be on a freighter heading for a private buyer in South America."
Bruno let out a low, vibrating growl from his throat at the sound of Harlan’s name, his ears shifting backward.
I stood up slowly. The joint in my right knee, smashed by a crowbar during the territory wars of '18, popped loudly in the quiet corridor.
"Where is Marco?" I asked.
"Room 4," Tony replied. "Doc Miller cleared his shoulder. He won't die from the blood loss. But he's screaming for his wife."
"His wife doesn't exist anymore," I said coldly. "Put two men on her apartment in Bayside. Make sure Harlan’s hitters don't try to clear his house before we get what we need."
I walked down the long, narrow corridor toward the heavy iron door at the end. The room inside had no windows, no furniture except for a single steel chair bolted to the center of the concrete floor, and a single overhead bulb dangling from a black wire.
Marco Ricci was strapped to the chair with heavy leather restraints. His right arm was wrapped in thick white gauze, blood already seeping through the layers, staining the fabric brown. His face was a mess of bruises and sweat.
When the heavy iron door groaned open and I stepped inside, followed by the silent, towering shape of Bruno, Marco began to thrash violently against the leather straps.
"Boss! Boss, please!" Marco sobbed, his voice echoing off the bare concrete walls. "You know me! You know I’ve been loyal! Harlan set me up! He told me it was just a financial score!"
I didn't answer him. I pulled a wooden folding chair from the corner, set it five feet in front of him, and sat down. Bruno placed himself at my right knee, his dark eyes fixed on Marco’s neck with an unnatural, calculating patience.
"You sold my cousin Carlo out six years ago," I said softly, my voice completely devoid of volume. It was a statement, not a question.
Marco froze. The frantic thrashing stopped instantly. "What?"
"I spent six years looking for the rat who leaked Carlo’s travel route to the Genovese family," I said, leaning forward, resting my forearms on my knees. "I killed three different men because I thought the leak came from their crews. But it wasn't them, was it? It was you."
"Boss... no... Carlo was my friend—"
"Carlo caught you taking a kickback from Harlan’s shipping lines in '20," I interrupted. "He was going to bring it to me on a Monday. On Sunday night, his car was forced off the pier at the Brooklyn Navy Yard."
Marco swallowed hard. A tear cut a clean path through the dirt on his cheek. "You don't understand how much money Harlan has behind him, Sal... He’s got political backing from Washington. He’s got port authorities in three states. You were playing small time with your rules about no drugs and no human cargo! We could have owned the whole East Coast!"
"My name is Salvatore Vance," I said, staring into his small, pathetic eyes. "My grandfather built this territory with a tommy gun and a hand-drawn map. We don't touch children. We don't touch women. We live like men, and we die like men."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I tossed it onto Marco’s lap.
"Call Victor Harlan," I ordered.
Marco looked down at the glowing screen. "He’ll know it’s a setup, Sal. He knows how you operate. If he hears my voice—"
"He expects a phone call at five AM confirming that the child was successfully moved from the funeral home to the Jersey transport," I said. "You are going to give him that confirmation. You are going to tell him that Miller’s staff executed the transfer without a hitch."
Marco shook his head frantically. "He won't believe it! He knows you were at the funeral!"
I reached out, caught Marco by the chin with my left hand, and squeezed until I felt his jawbones groan under the pressure. I brought my face inches from his.
"You are going to make him believe it, Marco," I whispered, "or I am going to leave this room, close this steel door, and let Bruno explain to you what happens to men who hurt little girls in Queens."
Bruno stepped forward, placing his heavy paws directly on Marco’s legs, his snout inches from the man's nose. A low, wet snarl vibrated through the dog's chest, hot breath hitting Marco’s face.
Marco broke.
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"Okay! Okay! I’ll call him!" he shrieked, his body shaking so violently the steel chair rattled against the concrete floor. "I’ll tell him whatever you want!"
I released his jaw and tapped the screen to initiate the call.
