For the Love of Pete (33 page)
Sunday, 10:37 a.m.
A
shley Janiowski was the scariest pregnant lady Zoey had ever seen. Of course Zoey’s perception might’ve been colored by the knowledge that Ashley carried an Uzi in her purse and had just blown away a man without even blinking.
“I can’t believe Uncle Tony sent Rutgar after his own grand-nephew,” Ashley was saying as she rubbed her swollen stomach under a pink and white flowered maternity smock. A cartoon mouse on the front held a sign that said BABY ON BOARD! “That’s cold, even for Uncle Tony. That’s really cold.”
They were all sitting in the Agrawals’ living room, making it pretty cramped. Mr. Agrawal had taken the news that he had a corpse in his motel pretty well, considering. He’d turned a little gray, sat down hard on a chair in his living room, and stared into space for a bit. Dante had asked him to wait on calling the police to report the hit man’s death, and Mr. Agrawal had merely waved a hand kind of vaguely.
The three Agrawal children were alternately playing with Pete and Neil Junior and watching a cartoon that involved a boy scientist with a weird German accent. The Gupta ladies were helping their niece set the table for brunch. Neil was sitting next to Ashley, alternately basking in her wifely concern and being blasted by her displeasure. She seemed to vacillate rapidly between the two.
And Dante lounged in an armchair, his body relaxed but his eyes intent. Zoey frowned. He’d been limping, but he refused to let her look at his leg or side. She only hoped that he wasn’t slowly hemorrhaging to death in his masculine stoicism.
“And you!” Ashley suddenly rounded on her husband, the pendulum obviously swinging back to displeasure. “What were you thinking, doing a job with Neil Junior in the back of your truck?”
Neil looked a little like a deer in the headlights. If he hadn’t been the one to snatch Pete in the first place, Zoey might feel a bit of sympathy for him.
“It was a little job, Ash, just a fucking little job. How was I to know that—”
Ashley let out a snort like a displeased pregnant buffalo. “That the FBI would double-cross Tony, and you’d arrive during a shootout between the FBI agents, and have to snatch a baby, putting Neil Junior in danger? I don’t know, Neil, maybe you should’ve thought ahead, you know?”
Ashley pushed up her glasses and shot a glare at Dante.
Dante raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t the one shooting, Mrs. Janiowski.” He looked at Neil. “So you arrived in the middle of a shootout?”
Neil nodded, keeping a wary eye on his wife. “More like a fucking bloodbath. There were two Feebs down, and the third bought it as I walked in.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed, and Zoey remembered that the “Feebs” had been his coworkers. But his voice was mild when he asked, “How do you know the shooters were FBI, too?”
Neil snorted almost as explosively as his wife. “Suits, fucking military-cut hair, and the dead Feebs had let them in the room, there wasn’t no fucking forced entry. Didn’t take an Einstein to figure who they were.”
Dante nodded.
“Listen.” Neil sat forward on the couch. “I didn’t go there to take the kid, swear on my mother’s grave—”
Ashley shook her head angrily and muttered something about Neil’s mother, but he raised his voice over hers.
“Tony sent me there to make sure this FBI guy had done the job he promised and had had Spinoza offed.”
Dante looked up sharply. “The FBI agent was going to kill Spinoza for Tony the Rose?”
“That’s what he’d promised.” Neil shrugged. “I don’t know if Tony had paid him or had something on the guy. Don’t make any difference, because he must’ve backed out of the deal.”
“But why would the FBI agent have his own agents killed?” Zoey asked.
“SOP,” Neil said. “Standard operating procedure. You kill the guards, and then it looks like the place has been stormed and hit men killed the snitch. Only, as it turned out, the snitch wasn’t there to be popped, get it?”
“Oh.” Zoey nodded and then shivered. If Nikki and Ricky hadn’t fought and then sneaked out of the apartment, they would’ve been dead, too.
“Anyway,” Neil continued, “I get there, the snitch isn’t there, the Feebs are having a massive layoff of staff—you should pardon the expression—and the only other person in the apartment is the fucking kid. What do I do? You want I should go back to Tony the Rose empty-handed?” Neil shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You aren’t going back to Uncle Tony at all, Mr. Boo,” Ashley said fiercely. The pendulum had swung again. “I don’t want you anywhere near that old fart.”
Neil looked at his plain little wife, his big, beefy face creased sheepishly. “I gotta report to Tony sometime, hon. Tony don’t like people walkin’ out on him without his say-so.”
Ashley frowned, looking uncertain.
Zoey cleared her throat. “If Tony were in prison, that wouldn’t be such a problem, would it?”
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged. “I mean, he’d have other things to worry about instead of Neil.”
Dante shifted in his chair. “She’s got a point.”
Ashley narrowed her eyes. “How do you figure Uncle Tony’s getting in the pen? There’s no trial without Ricky the snitch, and Ricky’s kid is right here.” She nodded with her chin to Pete, playing on the floor with the rest of the children. “Will he take your word that she’s safe?”
“No.” Dante’s eyes were locked with Ashley’s. “But if I can get Pete back before nine o’clock Monday morning, Ricky will testify.”
“Nikki will make him do it,” Zoey murmured. “Believe me.”
“How’re you going to get that baby through both Uncle Tony’s men and those crooked FBI agents?” Ashley scoffed. “’Cause don’t think that Uncle Tony won’t be waiting for you all to show up.”
“I know,” Dante said. “But there might be a way to do it. If you’re willing to help.”
“Bring down my uncle Tony?” Ashley’s eyebrows rose behind her glasses.
“Yes.”
Neil looked concerned. “Now, wait just a minute. Tony the Rose is the biggest, meanest fucking outfit boss in Chicago. Don’t nobody cross him.”
Ashley poked her glasses. “Yeah, well, Uncle Tony sent a hitman after my Mr. Boo and my baby Neil. He’s goin’ down.”
Zoey grinned. “You go, girl.”
“All is ready!” Mrs. Savita Gupta called from the dinner table. “Come! Come, sit down before the food grows cold.”
They all rose to go eat brunch. Dante was moving slowly, and Zoey hurried to his side to help him rise.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “You okay?”
“Better than you,” she retorted. “I’m not the one limping.”
He shook his head. “I’m okay.”
She frowned, but there was an even bigger worry on her mind than Dante’s wounds. “How can you go back to Chicago with the corrupt FBI agent still after you? He tried to have you killed this morning, Dante.”
“I know,” he said as they moved into the dining room. “I can handle him.”
“But he’s got the rest of the FBI believing you killed your colleagues. He planted evidence against you, and you aren’t even sure who he is.”
“Hush. I have a good idea who it is.” He lowered his head to brush a kiss over her lips, silencing her. “Besides, I have a friend I can call for backup. And I have a plan.”
“A cunning plan?”
He raised his head. Everyone was staring at them, and Zoey thought Neil might be blushing.
“Yeah. A cunning plan.” Dante looked at Mr. Agrawal. “Do you have a computer I can use?”
Monday, 8:53 a.m.
T
his is the stupidest cunning plan in the world,” Zoey said to Dante as they walked up Jackson Boulevard.
He’d had problems finding a parking spot in downtown Chicago, so they were later than he’d wanted to be. They were walking at a rapid though not hurried pace, and his injured thigh was killing him. “Gee, thanks.”
“I mean, you’re an FBI agent. Couldn’t you have come up with a plan that involved secret codes or explosives?”
Dante felt his mouth curve. Zoey had been babbling since they’d hit the outskirts of Chicago. She was obviously nervous and probably scared, but she hadn’t said anything about turning back, and for that he was immensely grateful.
“I’m fresh out of explosives.”
“Or bazookas,” Zoey muttered. They turned the corner onto North Dearborn, and the federal courthouse came into view. “A plan with bazookas would’ve been good.”
Dante stopped and pulled her into the shelter of a building entryway. “Bazookas are kind of hard to get past a federal courthouse’s security.”
Her big blue eyes searched his. “Oh, God, Dante, what if—”
He kissed her, feeling the softness of her lips beneath his, wishing desperately that he could just take her away from here, take her to bed and forget this whole thing.
But he couldn’t.
Dante raised his head, staring into her face, painfully conscious that if things didn’t go as planned this might be the last time he looked into her beautiful eyes. There were a million things he wanted to tell her, but if he did it would only worry her further.
He smiled. “Nothing will go wrong. Trust me.”
She frowned fiercely. “It had better not. You promised me a date at the Field Museum.”
“And I’ll keep that promise.” He brushed a kiss across her cold forehead. “Follow the plan. If something happens, don’t forget—”
She gave a muted scream and hit him on the chest. “You just said nothing would go wrong!”
He caught her fist. “And it won’t. But if it does, promise me you’ll get to a safe place.”
“I promise,” she muttered grudgingly.
She was still scowling, and the frigid wind had turned her nose red, and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Good.”
He kissed her hard and turned to stride toward the federal courthouse. He stored thoughts of Zoey away in a corner of his brain and concentrated on the first part of his plan: getting in the building.
The ground floor of the courthouse was almost all glass walls, and the security guards could be clearly seen from the outside of the building. Dante walked in the double glass doors and headed toward the security setup. His step was unhurried, neither fast nor slow. The elevator banks were behind the security guards; in order to go anywhere within the building, you had to go past them.
To the side was a separate setup for U.S. Marshals, FBI, and other law enforcement personnel who carried weapons. A Latino flashed a badge and showed the security guard his piece. Behind him was a tall man in cowboy boots patiently waiting his turn. Dante looked away. He’d deliberately decided not to try and bring in a weapon.
There were a couple of people ahead of him in line. Dante watched as a chunky African American woman laid her briefcase on the scanner belt. She walked through the arch and picked up her briefcase on the other side, and then it was Dante’s turn.
He kept his face neutral. If the traitor FBI agent had alerted the security desk, if they had a BOLO out on him, this plan might be over very, very quickly. But the security guards barely glanced at him before waving Dante through.
He strolled to the elevator banks, where the African American woman waited with several other lawyer types. Two women chatted at the back of the elevator as it ascended, and the smell of someone’s coffee pervaded the space. Dante had a fleeting wistful thought that he should’ve gotten coffee this morning. He rubbed his thigh, trying to ease the aching muscle.
Then the doors opened on the court floor. The hall was crowded with reporters and their crews, cameramen fiddling with their equipment, their faces bored. Dante wove through the crowd, his heart beating harder as he made the doors to the courtroom. He took a deep breath, pushed open the first set of doors, nodded to the guard inside, and pushed open the inner doors to the courtroom.
“. . . in contempt of court if you continue to refuse to testify, Mr. Spinoza,” the judge was saying. She was a middle-aged woman with blazing red hair and a high but commanding voice.
The courtroom was a dark wood paneled room with seating for about a hundred spectators. Every seat was taken, many with sketch artists, busy over their tablets. Tony the Rose sat at a front table, identifiable by his red bull neck. He was flanked on either side by gray-haired men in dark business suits, obviously his lawyers.
Ricky the snitch was on the stand, looking weasely and mutinous at the same time. “I can’t testify, Judge, you know that. They took my baby, an—”
“You’ve agreed to testify, Mr. Spinoza. Failure to do so will put you in contempt of court. I trust the district attorney made this clear to you when he asked you to testify.”
“But Judge,” Ricky whined. “I can’t testify when Tony’s got my kid!”
Tony the Rose stirred. “I ain’t got his kid.”
The judge frowned. “Mr. Franklin, if you can’t keep your client from speaking out of turn, I shall have to cite you in contempt of court, as well.”
By now Dante had neared the center of the courtroom. “Actually, Your Honor, Tony doesn’t have Petronella Hernandez.”
Every head in the courtroom turned in his direction as Dante continued, “In fact, she’s—”
But that was as far as he got before Jack Headington shot him twice in the chest.
Monday, 9:15 a.m.
Z
oey was getting off the elevator when she heard the shots. Her heart started beating in triple time as she shoved through the masses of people milling in the hallway outside the courtroom. If Dante were shot, if he were killed, she didn’t know how she’d live.
He couldn’t be shot.
She pushed through both sets of doors into the courtroom. Inside all was chaos. A guard was just inside the doors, his gun drawn. He swung around at her entrance, but she darted past him. There was a knot of people in the aisle, and she hit at shoulders to make them move.
“Dante!”
She shoved aside a tall man in cowboy boots who turned a surprised face toward her. She barely noticed. Dante was in the middle of the knot, lying on the floor, his eyes closed.
“Dante!” Zoey sobbed and flung herself to her knees beside him. “Dante!” She shook his shoulder.
