Page 23 of Witness 8

I pulled the phone away from my ear, turned to Tony and said, ‘Denise says pick her up at eight on Saturday.’

She heard me. I killed the call just as she was screaming my name.

It was only then I looked out the window, saw we were passing the courthouse again. Tony was looping Foley Square. Classic counter-surveillance moves. I didn’t give it too much thought. Somebody was always keeping tabs on Jimmy’s business and associates.

The car pulled up outside Jimmy’s restaurant. I got out, looked around the street. Not too much surveillance today. At least none that I could see. Somebody was always watching Jimmy, though. Either the NYPD anti-corruption taskforce, their vice squad, Narcos, robbery homicide or organized crime divisions. And that was just local. The feds, the ATF and even the NSA had been known to keep tabs on Jimmy the Hat Fellini.

And with good reason. He was one of the smartest mob bosses in the last hundred years. The evidence for that was right here in front of me. With so many agencies keeping tabs on him, and Jimmy running his business from the restaurant, there were only so many parking spaces on the street for surveillance vehicles and Jimmy made sure his delivery trucks took those spaces day and night – which meant that law enforcement had to rent premises with a view of the restaurant – either apartments or some of the empty retail spaces.

Jimmy knew this, so he bought all of the buildings with a view of his place.

If three or more government agencies, and thirty NYPD detectives were going to watch him, they had to pay him rent first. The more eyes on Jimmy, the more rent he took from federal and state law enforcement. He thought it was only fair for them to pay for the inconvenience.

Greenbacks and kickbacks.

Jimmy was downstairs in the private section of the restaurant at a table covered in a white cloth. An espresso and five cell phones sat in front of him. He wore his grandfather’s flat cap, white shirt, black braces. He rose and we embraced.

‘Eddie Fly, you okay, brother?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

He looked over my shoulder at Tony, asked, ‘Any tails?’

‘Clear as fuckin’ day. I did two full circuits before I fuckin’ came in.’

‘Sit down, Eddie,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, pulling up a chair. ‘You’re both skittish. The feds giving you problems?’

‘Nah, nothing like that. It’syouI’m worried about,’ he said.

‘Me?’

‘Eddie, there’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to spit it out. Somebody dropped a ton of paper on your head.’

My gut tightened like I’d just taken a punch.

‘How much paper?’

‘Fifty Gs,’ said Jimmy.

Shit. I put my elbows on the table, sank my head and inhaled.

‘Tony, get him a Scotch,’ said Jimmy.

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m okay.’

I wasn’t okay. Far from it. This morning, all I was worried about was saving John Jackson from life behind bars. Now I had something else to occupy my mind.

Jimmy just told me that someone had taken out a contract on my life. And whoever completed the hit could collect fifty thousand dollars. That’s fifty thousand reasons for every junkie, lowlife and hitman in New York to put a bullet in my head.

7

Eddie

‘You’ve got to have some idea who wants you dead that bad,’ said Jimmy.

I shook my head.