"Almost three weeks, guys," Manheim said, when everyone was seated. With him, the problem was the throat. His voice was hoarse, and it brayed when he reached for emphasis. "And whadda we got on the Carbone hit? What we got, we got the DA pretending he just can't understand why we haven't solved it yet. We got the tabloids reporting every day that there's nothing to report. I've been eating shit for the whole squad. So what gives?"
Mark Sutton sniffled. Aha, Ben Hawkins thought, even the young and muscle-bound got colds.
Then Frank Padrino spoke through the blockage in his nose. "We know who ordered it," he said. "Aldo Messina. It's a power play within the Fabretti family."
"That's your theory," said Manheim. "But Messina wasn't a shooter, he was watching boxing in Atlantic City. Everybody saw him."
Padrino coughed into his fist. "We'll trace it back to him."
"Yeah?" barked Manheim. "When?"
"Harvey, look," said Padrino. "The shooters expect to be rewarded. The reward won't be enough. It never is. There'll be a grudge. Sooner or later—"
The supervisor rapped his pipe against his metal desk, it made a sharp thin ugly sound, a sound like the pain of an ulcer. "Sooner or later isn't good enough. Where's Delgatto?"
"We tailed Delgatto for two weeks," said Mark Sutton.
"We lived with him," said Hawkins. "There wasn't the slightest indication—"
Manheim rasped on as though he hadn't heard. "And where's the old man now?"
"He's back in Florida," Hawkins said. "Where he was when the hit—"
The supervisor folded his hands and leaned far forward over them. "Doesn't it strike you as awfully convenient that just when everybody needs an alibi, old man Delgatto makes sure he's seen fifteen hundred miles—"
"Harvey," Hawkins said, "he's got family there— an illegitimate son who's not connected. His legit son, Gino, who is connected, he's been down there too. Like we told you, the old man's wife—"
"Fuck's his wife got to do with it?" said Manheim, his voice cracking like a French horn badly played. "I think Delgatto's behind it. I think he made the call. I think we're not talking RICO now, we're talking murder one."
"Big stretch," said Frank Padrino. "Carbone's death, where's the benefit to Delgatto?"
"Carbone was moving in on things," said Manheim. "Restaurants, trucking, a couple of important union s—"
Frank Padrino was shaking his head. "Harvey, it doesn't wash. Carbone, OK, Delgatto had his beefs with him, but he was a known quantity, they could work together. Messina, he's younger, more ambitious, crazier. Net-net, he's a much bigger problem for Delgatto."
Harvey Manheim swiveled in his chair, looked out the dirty windows at the huffing smokestacks, the rusting skeletons of groaning bridges. When he swiveled back again, he had a bleak wry look on his face. "Question, guys: Why are we sitting here talking about Delgatto's problem? I wanna talk about my problems. I have two: Delgatto's one, Carbone's the other."
Mark Sutton chewed his lower lip, felt a twinge of pleasure in his groin. Something sparked behind his eyes and suddenly the path was revealed to him; he could picture promotions, commendations, a handshake from the Director. "So if we could find a way to put the two problems together—" he intoned.
"Then I'd only have one," said Manheim. "And wouldn't that be nice."
"But Harvey—" said Frank Padrino.
The supervisor cut him off. "Frank, you wanna keep looking at the Fabretti family, fine, you keep your crew on that." He fixed Mark Sutton with a soupy stare. "But it is the working assumption of the Bureau that Vincente Delgatto is linked to the murder of Emilio Carbone. Ben, Mark, your job is to find that link. Got it?"
Ben Hawkins tugged skeptically on the points of his natty glenplaid vest. Suddenly his own throat felt sore, his eyes were itchy. Oh, well, he thought, a break from winter wouldn't be the toughest thing to take. It would be nice to feel some good hot sunshine on his chest. "So I guess that means you're sending us to Florida."
Manheim hesitated. It killed him that his charges should be warm while he was cold, that they should sniff salt breezes while he sniffed Dristan nasal spray. "Yeah," he said at last, his voice thick with phlegm and with resentment, "I'm sending you to Florida."
14
Gino and his bim had left Key West the day before Vincente did, the morning of the day, as it happened, that Emilio Carbone was whacked in Brooklyn.
Debbi had left with a freckled sunburn, twelve Key limes in a plastic bag, and a slowly ripening inclination to dump the boyfriend. Gino had departed with unfinished Florida business, a festering frustration about an undone deal, and neither awareness nor concern that yet another large-breasted small-hipped female was working up the confidence to kiss him off.