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“Let’s focus on work,” she said. “I’ve got a magazine to run and you might have the biggest story in your life to write. Correct so far?”

I had to smile. She was proving it once again. If Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator, Courtney Sheppard was the Compartmentalizer.

“The police have arrested the wrong man for the murder of Vincent Marcozza,” she continued. “And you’re the only one who can prove it.”

“They
maybe
arrested the wrong man,” I corrected her. “As for my proving it, I’m nowhere near doing that.”

“Not yet, you’re not. But tomorrow’s another day,” she said. “Tomorrow’s always another day.”

I shot her a look. “What are you up to?” I asked.

There was something about the way she’d said
tomorrow
, like she had something tricky up her sleeve.

And sure enough, Courtney definitely did.

“C’MON IN,” said Derrick Phalen of the Organized Crime Task Force, greeting me with an easy smile and a firm handshake at the door of his office in White Plains, New York. As he walked back to his desk, he motioned to an old, beat-up gray chair in front of it that looked to be one fat guy away from total collapse. “Have a seat, if you dare,” he joked, though given the chair’s condition, it wasn’t all that funny.

“Thanks,” I said, gingerly settling in. Then I reported, “Made it okay.”

Quickly glancing around the young prosecutor’s modest office, I came to an equally quick conclusion. This guy
worked
for a living. His desk was absolutely covered in paperwork while files as thick as phone books surrounded him like a moat.

But it was the little yellow stickies of notes and phone
numbers that really caught my eye. They were stuck to every conceivable surface — his computer, desk lamp, stapler, coffee mug, even the framed diploma from the Fordham School of Law hanging on the wall.

“So how do you know Courtney?” I asked. “She didn’t tell me all the details.”

“I was roommates with her brother, Mike, at Middlebury College,” he said.

I immediately felt as if I’d put my foot in my mouth, even though I knew I really hadn’t. “Oh” was all I could manage.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know. We’re coming up on ten years since Mike died, and I still can’t believe he’s gone.” He rubbed his chin, reflecting. “He was a helluva guy. In fact, I was actually in Manhattan that morning and we were supposed to have lunch together. He even left a message on my cell phone to confirm twenty minutes before the first plane hit.” Phalen paused for a moment. “I still listen to it from time to time.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Hey, no,
I’m
sorry — I didn’t mean to be a downer on our first date.” He sat up in his chair, snapping his shoulders straight. “So tell me, what can I do for you? And for Courtney.”

To tell you the truth, Derrick Phalen, I’m not sure. That’s what I’m here to find out
.

“Did Courtney give you any of the background?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

“Only that you wanted to talk to me about Eddie Pinero,” he said. “I assume it’s for an article you’re writing for
Citizen
. Right so far?”

“Yes, hopefully,” I said. Instinctively, I reached into my leather bag to retrieve my tape recorder. I placed it on his desk.

Immediately, Phalen looked at it like Superman does kryptonite.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” he said. “As I told Courtney, I’m happy to talk to you, but I can’t go on record — or for that matter be recorded — when it comes to anyone this office has investigated. Them’s the rules.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I said. It was the first and only time I wasn’t a hundred percent on the level with the guy. He’d soon know why.

“No worries,” he said. “It’s just that when you work for the Organized Crime Task Force, you try to limit how much your name appears in print.”

“I can certainly appreciate that,” I said. I then held up my tape recorder, giving it the same kryptonite look Phalen had. “Actually, this thing has been nothing but trouble for me lately.”

“What do you mean?” asked Phalen.

Bingo, there it is. My opening
.

A week ago I was worried that word about my recording of Vincent Marcozza’s killer would leak. Now here I was about to leak it myself.

“You might say I’m the reason Eddie Pinero is in jail for murder right now,” I said. “How’s that for an opening line?”

Phalen leaned back in his chair, a knowing smile filling his lean face. “Holy shit, it was you. All I’d heard was that someone had accidentally recorded Vincent Marcozza’s killer at Lombardo’s.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “Because I don’t think it was an accident.”

I expected Phalen to immediately ask me what I meant by that. He didn’t.

Instead he stood up and asked me a question I never would’ve guessed in a million years.

“DO YOU LIKE pasta fagioli?” asked Phalen.

Huh? Come again? Bizarre soup segues for a thousand, Alex?

Phalen didn’t wait for my answer. “I know this place right across the street that serves the best pasta fagioli you’ll ever have. Best in White Plains, anyway. C’mon, we’ll get a bowl, have some lunch.”

The next thing I knew, I was following the guy out of his office and to the elevator bank on his floor.
What’s going on?
I was thinking as we walked — kind of fast, actually.

I was no psychic, but this much I could figure out: Derrick Phalen didn’t want to be in his office when we discussed Eddie Pinero’s involvement — or rather, noninvolvement — in Vincent Marcozza’s murder.

He had his reasons, I’m sure. Hopefully he’d explain them to me over lunch. Bring on the pasta fagioli!

Not quite yet, though. No sooner did the elevator arrive than we were stopped by a man’s voice coming from down the hall. He was calling out Phalen’s name.

Immediately, Phalen muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” he answered. “I was just saying we’ll catch the next elevator.”

But I was almost positive that wasn’t what he’d said. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d muttered only two words.
Holy shit
.

As if he couldn’t believe something. Like what? This bruiser coming down the hall?

“Oh, hey, Ian,” said Phalen as the man caught up to us at the elevator. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he said. “You got a minute?”

The two of them started to talk shop for a bit — at least, I think that’s what they were doing. I tuned out mostly, my ears giving way to my eyes and how different these two guys were physically. Derrick Phalen was a lean, compact man with short-cropped brown hair and a square jaw. Ian LaGrange was much taller and considerably wider. To be blunt, the word
fat
came to mind. So did the all-you-can-eat buffet at Caesars Palace in Vegas.

Of course, I didn’t even know then that Ian LaGrange was, well, Ian LaGrange.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Phalen, suddenly realizing he hadn’t introduced me. “Ian, this is Nick Daniels.”

“Nice to meet you, Nick,” said LaGrange as we shook hands.

Phalen turned to me. “Ian’s the deputy attorney general in charge of the Organized Crime Task Force. Or, as I like to call him, the Godfather.”

“It does have a nice ring to it, I have to admit,” LaGrange said, smiling through his scruffy beard. “So where are you guys heading?”

“We’re getting a quick bite to eat,” said Phalen. “Just across the street.”

LaGrange glanced down. “You’re wearing your vest?” he asked. “Derrick?”

“We’re only going
across the street
,” Phalen repeated.

“Yeah, and Lincoln was just going to the theater. Go put it on.”

Phalen shot LaGrange an exasperated look that reminded me of a teenage son catching heat from his father.

“Vest?” I asked.

“Bulletproof vest,” said Phalen before turning around for his office. “I’ll be right back.”

Wait a minute. The guy needed a bulletproof vest to go out in public? More important, where was mine?

“Hey, we could always order in!” I called after him. It sounded funny but I wasn’t really joking.

“Don’t worry, it’s just office policy,” said LaGrange, trying to reassure me. “There’s never been an attempt on anyone working for the OCTF.”

I was going to make some crack about there always being a first time for everything, but I bit my tongue. I’d only just met this guy. I didn’t know his sense of humor or for that matter anything else about him. Except his size.

“So what line of work are you in, Nick?” he asked. Very cool and casual-like.

Uh-oh. Careful, now
.

“I’m a writer,” I said.

“No kidding. What do you write?”

“Articles, mostly. I work for
Citizen
magazine. You heard of it?”

“Sure have. Is that why you’re here to see Derrick?” he asked. “To do an article?”

There was no outright concern in his voice, but I knew subtext when I heard it. No way he was asking just to make idle conversation in the hallway.

And I wasn’t about to give an answer that could get Phalen in any kind of trouble.

“No. Derrick’s actually helping me out with some background on a novel I’m writing,” I said. “Verisimilitude and all that.”

“No kidding. We help out on the Alex Cross books sometimes.”

“Never read them,” I said.

I watched closely as LaGrange nodded, relieved when he quickly changed the subject. He asked which restaurant we were going to.

“Actually, I don’t know,” I told him.

He seemed to believe me. And as far as I could tell, LaGrange didn’t know that I was lying about why I was in his building to see Phalen.

He had bought the novel line.

At least that’s what I thought.

Only it turned out Ian LaGrange knew exactly what I was up to. The real surprise, however, was
how
the big man knew.

As Phalen had said himself …

Holy shit
.

And then some.

DERRICK PHALEN RETURNED to his office after lunch with Nick Daniels and did very little but stare up at the grid of white ceiling tiles above his desk. He stared at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes straight. The prosecutor had a lot to digest and it certainly wasn’t the pasta fagioli. It wasn’t even the very interesting story he’d just heard from Nick Daniels.

“Knock, knock,” came a voice at his door.

Instinctively Phalen looked to see who it was, but he really didn’t need to. He knew it was Ian LaGrange, and not because of his boss’s all-too-familiar baritone.

No, he expected the Godfather to be dropping by sooner or later. Probably sooner.

“Hey, Ian, what’s up?”

“Not much,” said LaGrange. “How was your lunch with the writer — the novelist?”

Phalen rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling tiles. “
Don’t ask
. All I can say is, that’s the last time I do a favor for a friend.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“That guy I introduced you to at the elevator is a writer for
Citizen
magazine. As a favor to his editor I agreed to give him some research, a little help for a novel he’s working on. Only it turns out there’s no novel.”

“I don’t follow,” said LaGrange. “What was he here for, then?”

“It was a ruse,” said Phalen. “What the guy actually wanted to do was sell me on this crazy idea that it wasn’t Eddie Pinero who ordered the hit on Vincent Marcozza. What kind of bullshit is that?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were. The guy’s a real conspiracy nut. It was like having lunch with Oliver Stone.”

LaGrange laughed. “So if Eddie Pinero didn’t order the hit on Marcozza, who did? In his opinion?”

“That’s the thing. He didn’t know.”

“Gee, and let me guess, he wanted your help in finding out.”

“Exactly,” said Phalen.

“So what did you tell him?”

“A polite version of
Go sell your crazy somewhere else, you nutbag
. What else could I do?”

“Thatta boy,” said LaGrange, tipping an imaginary cap at Phalen. “Keep your distance from the guy, okay? Writers like that, all they can spell is trouble for everybody concerned.”

“Consider it done.”

As LaGrange strolled off, Phalen leaned back in his chair, his eyes finding their way back up to the white ceiling tiles. Slowly, he exhaled.

He’d been holding his breath the entire time, hoping that LaGrange would believe him.

It hadn’t been easy.

Hell, no. Ian LaGrange — the Godfather — hadn’t gotten to where he was by being anybody’s fool. Bluffing him was like tap dancing to ZZ Top on a tightrope.

But it was nothing compared to what Phalen was going to do next.

“I CAN’T FREAKIN’ believe I’m doing this,” Phalen muttered to himself as he slowly walked down the deserted and dark hallway of the OCTF offices at close to midnight that same evening.

But of course he
could
believe he was doing this. He even knew why.

If he’d learned anything in his nearly three years with the Task Force, it was that his family of fellow prosecutors actually shared one major similarity with the Mafia families they were trying to take down: the motto Never Trust Anyone.

Including the Godfather.

Granted, it was impossible to work for the OCTF without succumbing to a little paranoia. Phalen didn’t have to look any further than the standard-issue bulletproof vest.

But worrying about your enemies in the mob was one thing. Worrying about the people who worked for you — that
they weren’t loyal or, worse, they were out to get you — was entirely another.

Enter: Ian LaGrange.

Were it not for a spilled cup of coffee, Phalen may never have found the bug planted beneath the enter key of his computer’s keyboard. When he did, though, he had no question who had planted it.

He just had no proof.

So he left the bug alone.

Phalen went about his business, knowing that LaGrange could hear everything in his office at any time. For others, that might have been an awful burden — always having to choose your words carefully, always acting like the good soldier.