If Wishing Made It So (16 page)

‘‘Any of it ever recovered?’’ Mike asked.

Jake fiddled with a pen while he talked. Now he wrote a number down on a Post-it notepad and flipped it around for Mike to see. ‘‘What’s that say?’’

‘‘Six and a half to ten percent?’’ Mike said. ‘‘That’s it?’’

Jake tapped the pen up and down on the desk. ‘‘That’s the average. It makes me think nobody’s looking for the stuff. We’re not talking Tonka toys here. You’re telling me nobody can find stolen bulldozers, stolen backhoes? You can’t hide them under a tarp in somebody’s driveway.

‘‘Yesterday I started contacting some of the other construction companies with projects in this area. And guess what? Close to six million dollars’ worth of equipment has been taken from sites in and around Atlantic City in the past two months.’’

Mike sat back in his chair and whistled. ‘‘That’s a helluva lot of machinery. Where is it now? That’s the million-dollar question.’’

‘‘A million bucks is right. I made some arrangements with these companies. They’re all hurting because of the lost equipment. They’re falling behind on their schedules. They get hit with big penalties if they don’t finish on time. So here’s the bottom line: We find the equipment and get it back, we get twenty percent of everything we recover. You do the math. If we can bust the people behind the theft ring, we’ll get a hundred-thousand-dollar bonus from the biggest company I talked to.’’

‘‘So what’s your ideas for investigating this? Where do we start?’’

‘‘Marty Bisignano is out on bail. The court is making him wear one of those ankle bracelets so he can’t make a move without them monitoring it. I know his address. He’s sure to be home. And since he can’t go visiting any of his old friends, I say we do what we do best: watch his place and see who comes calling. Maybe it’ll just be the Papa John’s Pizza delivery guy. Maybe it will be somebody interesting.’’ Jake leaned forward, his voice turning serious. ‘‘Mike, you better think about how deep you want to get in this.’’

‘‘You know I want to do this. Why are you even asking?’’

‘‘Because this James Torelli is a killer. He finds out we’re snooping around, he’s likely to come after us. If we’re not careful, bang, bang, we’re dead. Is the money worth it to you?’’

Mike gave Jake a long steady look. His life was in shambles. He didn’t want to go back to the hotel room and see Kiki. He didn’t want to go to a bar to drink away his troubles and brood about how screwed up he felt. He didn’t hesitate before he answered his partner. ‘‘The money
isn’t
worth it. Getting our business started is. We can do this, Jake. I’m not afraid of this mobster. If he wants to kill me, he’s going to have to find me—before I find him.’’

Jake gave Mike a broad smile, his teeth bright white in his dark face. ‘‘I figured you might feel that way. I brought you a present.’’ He took a wooden case smaller than a shoe box out from under his desk and slid it across at Mike.

Mike opened the lid. A black 9mm Beretta lay in the blue velvet interior. ‘‘I’m going to need a license to carry this.’’

‘‘No problem,’’ Jake said. He threw a piece of paper on the desk. ‘‘I have friends in high places. I asked them to expedite your PI license and this permit. I also got a call from our lawyer, the one who drew up the papers to incorporate our agency. He’s only waiting on one thing before he files in Trenton and we’re in business.’’

‘‘What’s that one thing?’’ Mike said, taking the gun out of the box and holding it in his hand.

‘‘Our company’s name.’’

For the next half hour, Mike and Jake tossed around some ideas. The best they came up with was JM Detective Agency, Got-Cha Surveillance, Integrity Investigators, and Catch-M Private Investigators.Nothing hit them as being perfect. They decided to go out for breakfast before starting their surveillance of Marty Bisignano, aka Marty Biz.

While devouring his own plate of eggs, sausage, hash browns, rye toast, and black coffee, Jake watched Mike pushing a Western omelet around on his plate. Gloom hung over him as visibly as a black cloud.

‘‘Okay, partner. Something’s eating you up. You worried about this job?’’

Mike shook his head. ‘‘Nah, it’s personal crap.’’

‘‘I read in the paper this morning that you and Kiki set a date. But you sure as shit don’t look like a happy man. You want to talk about it?’’

Mike did, but he didn’t know how. He picked up the salt shaker and started to toss it idly from hand to hand. ‘‘Nothing to talk about. I met someone I used to know. Old girlfriend, cute as a button. Well, things got out of hand. I didn’t keep my pants on when I should have. Kiki found out and went ballistic. But it’s over and done with.’’

Jake took a swallow of the strong hot coffee, then set it down with great care. ‘‘Mike, my friend,’’ he said with deliberation. ‘‘This situation involves two women. You screwed both of them in one way or another. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts this is
not
over and done with.’’

Jake reached one large brown hand across the table and delicately picked up a pinch of salt from the trail of white that had fallen out of the shaker Mike had been fooling with. ‘‘Bad luck to spill salt.’’ He tossed it over his left shoulder. ‘‘You believe in luck, Big Mike?’’

‘‘No.’’

Jake snorted at that. Quick as a striking snake, he reached over, grabbed Mike’s hand, and turned it palm up.

Mike gave him a puzzled look.

Jake dropped another pinch of salt into the upturned palm.

‘‘Son,’’ he said, ‘‘you don’t know shit about women. I suggest you toss this back and get Lady Luck on your side. You’re going to need all the help you can get.’’

Chapter 15

Mike Amante had heard the old joke, ‘‘Why are New Yorkers so depressed? Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.’’ He knew people sneered and called the Garden State the armpit of America. He couldn’t deny that the industrial North Jersey landscape along Route 1-9 looked bombed-out, gray, ruined, stark, and bleak. And it was true that the landfills next to the turn-pike sometimes caught on fire.

But Mike had fallen in love with the Jersey shore. He intended to move there. He’d looked at a couple of houses in Margate and Avalon a month ago. He just hadn’t gotten around to telling Kiki that yet, in the same way he had avoided telling her he had decided to quit real estate and go into the detective business with Jake in Atlantic City, or AC as the natives called it.

But Camden did not rank on his list of favorite New Jersey cities. In recent years it had taken over top honors from Detroit for having the nation’s highest crime rate. It had become the new Murder City. Not surprisingly, Marty Biz called it home.

Mike and Jake decided to split up the surveillance of Marty into six-hour shifts each. If nothing panned out in two days or so, they’d come up with a plan B. They kicked around some ideas before Jake got in his white, five-year-old Ford Taurus to make the forty-minute drive to Camden.

‘‘Another thing, Mike,’’ Jake said. ‘‘A hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes Roadster isn’t going to blend in real well in Marty’s neighborhood. Maybe you better rent a car or something.’’

‘‘It cost more like a hundred and fifty thousand. And I was thinking the same thing. I’m going to garage the Mercedes for a while and go buy something more practical.’’ Mike thought for a moment. ‘‘A Toyota Prius maybe.’’

Jake shrugged. ‘‘Yeah, sure. But a Camry might work out better. More common, but it’s up to you. Let’s see.’’ He glanced over at the dashboard clock. ‘‘It’s getting close to eleven now. I’ll grab some lunch to take with me and still get there around noon. You show up to take over around what, six?’’

‘‘Right. I’ll phone you when I’m on my way.’’ Mike thumped the top of the Taurus a few times with his hand and Jake drove off. His adrenaline was pumping. If it weren’t for being miserable, he’d be a happy man.

Tony G. ‘‘cleaned up well,’’ as they say. Hildy tried to view him objectively. Nothing could be done about the broken nose and smashed cheekbone. Yet, now that he was dressed in his designer clothes, his rugged face gave him an undeniable masculinity that the sockless Italian loafers and ivory silk shirt couldn’t undermine.

She had to admit he turned heads. A pert, pretty, and very buxom green-eyed blonde, who had been standing behind them on the up escalator inside the hotel, had actually slipped a piece of paper with her name and room number into the pocket of his Versace sports coat.

Hildy, noticing the incident, had reached into Tony’s pocket and handed it back to the embarrassedwoman. ‘‘You seem to have dropped this,’’ she said coolly. She prayed she could be as self-possessed when The Plan went into play. She checked her watch. Eleven o’clock. It was all about to begin.

Not entirely by accident, Tony G., with Hildy’s hand resting lightly inside the crook of his arm, exited from Caesar’s onto the boardwalk at exactly the same time Mike was jogging up the boardwalk from the direction of Jake’s office.

Hildy spotted Mike when he was still a hundred yards away. Her heart began to race. She knew the way he ran; she had seen him hundreds of times on the football field. As a woman in love, she would have recognized his build, his posture, and the color of his hair even if he had been in the middle of a crowd in Yankee Stadium.

When the distance between them closed, Mike looked right at Hildy and broke into a small smile before quickly and politely averting his eyes. There hadn’t been a glimmer of recognition in his face. He had seen and noticed a pretty woman, but he didn’t know who she was.

Hildy felt poleaxed. He didn’t know her? Her temper soared into the absolutely, positively furious zone.

Then, as he was about to jog past, Mike suddenly stopped running. He turned. He narrowed his eyes. He cocked his head. ‘‘Hildy? Hildy!’’ The name burst from his lips, a word that captured all the wonder and perplexity he felt. Joy leaped up as he beheld her. He was a man transfixed.

Hildy went still as a statue. Their eyes locked. The rest of the world disappeared.

Mike uttered her name again. ‘‘Hildy? Is it really you?’’ He couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Hildy had always been an adorable girl. This—this was a woman whose beauty took his breath away.

Even though Hildy had hoped to keep rein on her emotions, a bolt of desire like a lightning strike hit her full force. Her eyes softened. Her passion flared. Her determination to be silent, to turn away, wavered. She would have answered, speaking Michael’s name like a plea, like a prayer, but she didn’t get the chance.

Tony G. had stepped between them, breaking the spell, and put out his hand.

‘‘I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure,’’ he said, his Italian accent making each word sensual and so European.

Mike noticed Tony G. for the first time. Shock replaced the wonderment on his face. He automatically took the offered hand and shook it. ‘‘I’m . . . I’m Michael Amante. Who are you?’’

Tony G. gave a little bow. ‘‘I am Count Carmello Arigento. So, how do you know the enchanting Ms. Caldwell?’’

Mike’s eyes returned to Hildy; he couldn’t look away. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anyone in his entire life.

‘‘You didn’t answer the count’s question, Mike,’’ she said, remembering as per The Plan to put ice in her voice.

‘‘Huh? Oh.’’ He looked at this Count Arigento who was clearly waiting for his response. He couldn’t figure out what the man was doing with Hildy. He looked far too old for her. He didn’t look her type. Anyway, she wasn’t supposed to be seeing anyone, according to George Ide.

Mike frowned. He growled at the stranger, ‘‘Hildy and I went to high school together. And how do
you
know her?’’ He thrust his chin out at Tony G. and puffed up his chest.

Tony’s eyes twinkled with mischief as he answered in mellifluous tones. ‘‘How? I know her with my eyes, my lips, my touch, my every sense, for she delights them all. But you perhaps mean how are we acquainted?’’

Mike had to restrain himself from taking a swing at this arrogant ass’s already flattened nose. ‘‘Yeah, how are you
acquainted
with Ms. Caldwell?’’

‘‘I am a business associate of her brother-in-law. I had the honor of escorting Ms. Caldwell in Rome when she visited earlier this year. She has generously agreed to return the favor now that I am in America, yes?’’ He turned and gave Hildy an adoring gaze.

Mike gazed at Hildy too. He wondered why he had never realized she could look so elegant, so sophisticated, so incredibly sexy. It must be her clothes. Outside of the senior prom, he had never seen her this dressed up. And this was no white chiffon prom dress with a corsage pinned on it. This woman was dazzling. She could be on a magazine cover.

His spirits plummeted. How could he have not seen it before? He was such a fool, such a frigging loser. This angel had been his. Just last night she said she loved him, that she had never stopped loving him. Now she probably hated him.

He kept staring at her. He couldn’t help himself. Hildy’s face revealed nothing of what she was thinking, but something in her eyes when she first saw him had given him hope.

At that moment, Hildy reached out her hand and touched the count’s cheek lightly with her fingertips. All of Mike’s hopes vanished and were replaced by an ice pick sticking in his heart.

‘‘Carmello has always been a delight. I have such wonderful memories of the eternal city because of his kindness,’’ she cooed.

Mike suddenly saw the world through a red haze of impotent rage. He wondered just what had happenedin Rome to make ‘such wonderful memories. ’ He knew Hildy never slept with the guy, that was some small comfort. But what did happen between them?

‘‘I am such a lucky man to have a beautiful woman such as Ms. Caldwell willing to spend time with me,’’ Tony G. responded, again beholding Hildy as reverently as if she were the Mona Lisa. ‘‘I am hoping she will consent to let me be more than just an occasional visitor in her life.’’