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“Why did the Boss want him killed?”
“I never knew until now it was to get the guy’s business. It’s how Branco got to the big time, owning a string of shops. Big step on his way to the aqueduct job, right? Now he’s on top . . . Or was.”
“Could you tell me about the next job?”
Isaac Bell coaxed her along, story to story, and Antonio Branco emerged as a criminal as ruthless as Bell had expected. But the gangster was unerring in his ability to couple effective methods to precise goals.
Captain Coligney interrupted briefly when dinner arrived.
Francesca ate daintily and kept talking.
Bell asked, “How did you happen to meet the Boss?”
“I don’t really know. I got in trouble once—big trouble—and out of nowhere some gorillas come to my rescue, paid off the cops. One second I think I’m going up the river, next I’m scot-free. Then I get my first message to go to confession.” She cut another bite of porterhouse, chewed slowly, washed it down with a sip of wine, and reflected, “Sometimes things really work out great, don’t they?”
“Did you help him get the aqueduct job?”
“I sure did! I mean, I didn’t know then. But now . . . There was this guy, celebrating a big, big deal. Practically takes over a whorehouse for a weekend. Champagne, girls, the whole deck of cards. I went to confession. Next thing you kno
w, the guy is dead. Before he died, he told me he won this huge city contract to provision the aqueduct. Guess who got the contract after he died?”
“Branco.”
“You got it, Isaac.”
“What was the last job you did for him?”
“Archie.”
“Were you supposed to kill him?”
Francesca Kennedy looked across the table at Bell and cocked an eyebrow. “Is Archie dead?”
Bell gave her the laugh she expected and said, “O.K. So what did Branco tell you to do with Archie?”
“Listen.”
“For anything in particular?”
“Anything to do with your Black Hand Squad.”
“What did you hear?”
“Not one damned thing.”
“But you learned about the raid?”
“Nothing until then. That was the first thing Archie spilled. And the last, I guess,” she added, glancing about the windowless room.
Bell asked her how she had informed Branco, now that he wasn’t a priest anymore, and she explained a system of mailboxes and public telephones.
“How about before Archie?”
“I did a double. A couple of cousins. You know what the Wallopers are?”
“Hunt and McBean?”
“Oh, of course you know. This was a strange one. Wait ’til you hear this, Isaac . . . Could I have a little more wine?”
