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“To stay in Keyes,” Shane said. “And keep me in the dark. Give me a different name. Tell me you didn’t know who my father was.”
Frankie and Joey nodded once more, two grim, bobblehead old goombahs.
“That’s how we ended up staying down here,” Frankie said. “Brenda was pissed as hell about that. But I always thought she knew. She offered to babysit you that day, and she never did that before.”
Joey jerked his head up.
Frankie nodded. “Yeah. I never said nothin’ because she was my wife, but that bothered the hell out of me. We fought about it, and she cried, big hysterics, but you gotta wonder why she wanted to take care of a baby just that one day. She didn’t like babies much. But just that one day, she said, ‘Give me the baby,’ and they handed you over and went off for a big romantic day on the water.”
Shane could see them, his dad and his mom on the boat, both of them laughing, probably the first day they’d had alone since he’d been born, a day on the water?—
The heat in his head made him dizzy for a minute and then he heard Joey say, “Jesus, she knew. Why?—?”
“I think she thought it was gonna move me up in the Family,” Frankie said. “She was gonna be Our Lady of the Fortunatos, open the doors in a big house and invite everybody in, sit at the head of the table, queen of New Jersey.”
The scene played again, but this time it was him, taking Agnes aboard a boat, her laughing up at him ... What if I couldn’t get to her? What if she was screaming, in agony, and I couldn’t get to her?
“Maybe we don’t leave her to Xavier,” Joey said.
“No,” Shane said, and Joey shut up. He took a deep breath. “You told me you never saw the consigliere before.”
Joey shrugged. “I was just trying to protect you.”
Thirty-five years ago, Joey was a thirty-year-old widowed mobster looking at a baby he was going to have take care of. Considering his limitations and what he was up against, he’d done a pretty damn good job. The fact that he couldn’t stop now was possibly understandable.
“Okay,” Shane asked. “Wilson. How does he play into all this? How does he know?”
Joey frowned. “I don’t know. But he’s a spook, and spooks and the Organization have worked together before, ever since the big war when the government needed help in Italy. So you’re talking over sixty years. Wilson’s probably got people wired in.”
Literally, Shane thought, remembering the transcript of Don Fortunato’s phone call with Casey Dean. Sixty years. About as long as Wilson headed the Organization.
He heard a car coming and slid out of the van into the shade on the side of the road.
A black Lincoln Town Car came rumbling down the road. Shane waited until it was over the platter, then pressed the remote. The platter sent out a massive electromagnetic pulse that fried all the electronics in the car. The engine died and the car rolled by, slowing to a halt about forty feet down the road.
The driver’s door opened and the consigliere got out, cursing. Shane’s jaw tightened as the passenger door opened and Don Michael stepped out, dapper as all hell. The years had been damn good to him. The consigliere popped the hood and both men disappeared around the front of the car as they tried to figure out what had happened. Shane stepped onto the road, Glock at the ready. He walked to car, then edged around to where he could see the two men. “Don’t move,” Shane said.
They both swiveled their heads and stared at him. Then the Don smiled. “Shane,” he said. “Am I correct?” Shane nodded. “Uncle Michael.” The Don and his consigliere exchanged a glance. “Who told ya?” the Don asked. “Joey?”
“You killed my parents.”
The Don laughed, and Shane’s hand tightened so much on the gun, he realized the barrel was shaking. Not good, he thought.
“You ain’t gonna shoot me,” the Don said. “Not in cold blood. Your father wouldn’t, and you can’t.”
“I want the truth,” Shane said. “About how they died.”
“Wasn’t me,” the Don said. “I was in Savannah. Got witnesses to that.”
“Then who was it?” Shane asked. “Him?” He nodded at the consigliere.
The consigliere’s eyes slid left, almost a twitch.
“Better yet,” Shane said. “Where did you get the bomb? Remote detonated, right? Who gave it to you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Don said, his face smooth.
“And why did he give it to you?” Shane said. “Did he think you were such a dumb fuck, you’d be easier to manipulate than my father?”
