The Good Guys Page 39

  Admittedly O’Brien and Russo continued to wonder about Bobby Blue Eyes. It was impossible to suddenly forget all about him. That would be like listening to the 1812 Overture and leaving before the cannons and bells. It just felt incomplete. The daily reports from the Country Club were filled with interesting tidbits—it was like a mob gossip column—but not nearly enough to satisfy their curiosity.

  Which was why Slattery had arranged this very meeting at a gay bar with Special Agent Valone. But O’Brien and Russo were stunned when Slattery introduced them to him. Neither agent ever suspected that the somewhat dense ass-kissing Vito V was an FBI undercover agent rather than a legit young wannabe. And they were duly impressed. Looking at him, O’Brien figured him at twenty-six or twenty-seven, mostly because he knew it would have taken him several years to complete his training, get this assignment, and gain admittance to the social club, although he looked more like a teenager struggling to look old enough to buy a six-pack. The age didn’t matter at all, O’Brien decided. Special Agent Valone had more balls than a bowling alley. And his were bigger too.

  “Eddie just couldn’t shut up about it,” Valone reported. “It was like he was living on borrowed breath. He needed to get it all out. It was like an eruption of nervous energy. But Bobby . . . you know, truthfully Bobby’s not a bad guy . . .”

  Except, Connor thought, for the occasional mass murder.

  “. . . but this wasn’t him. It was like he was there but he wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. They didn’t just blab out all the details, they didn’t tell me anything, just that something big went down. We didn’t know the whole story until it was in the papers.”

  O’Brien asked, “What about Two-Gun? You hear anything about him?”

  Valone in person was quite different from Valone on tape. Russo was surprised that she had been completely fooled by him. The warm-up act turned out to be the star of the show. “And Franzone, how’d he react to the whole thing?” she asked.

  Valone sipped his watered-down rum and Coke. “Bobby and Franzone spent a lot of time holed up together. I can’t tell you what they were talking about, but whatever went down between them, Franzone was pretty pleased. There was definitely a lot of hugging going on.” He paused and smiled at his next thought. “Now, Two-Gun Tony, that was a whole different thing. He was totally boxed in. Figure it out, when you’re playing for the visitors and the home team gets whacked, people are gonna figure that your team had something to do with it. I think it’s fair to say that Cosentino was sweating caviar. Eddie was telling me that Cosentino called Franzone four or five times minimum, and then one of his guys, Joey Black, showed up at the club with an envelope.”

  “Cosentino was making a payoff?” O’Brien asked. “That’s interesting. For what?”

  “Nah, it wasn’t a payoff.” Valone pressed his thumb against his index and middle fingers and shook them like he was talking to the dice. “It was a tribute. That was the beautiful thing about this all. No matter how pissed off Cosentino was, and you know he had to be steaming, he couldn’t touch Bobby or Eddie.” He waved his hands in the air. “I mean, what they did was completely the right thing. These guys had whacked Skinny Al, so we . . . you know, I mean them, the wiseguys, they had the right to get even. But there was a lot more than that involved. Now, this is according to Franzone. He called us all together for a meeting.” He looked at Slattery. “I’m sure you guys got this one on tape, right?”

  Slattery nodded, then told O’Brien and Russo, “We got the transcripts in this morning. If you want to see them, I got them back in the office.”

  Valone continued, “Cosentino figured the Russians might be coming after his crew, so he wanted to have as many friends as he could get. He needed Franzone. That meant he couldn’t touch Bobby or Eddie. In fact, Franzone told us that Cosentino was making noises about going into the fuel oil business together. It was pretty amazing.”

  “So what about San Filippo?” O’Brien asked.

  “That was the piece of resistance. Franzone knew how much he owed Bobby.” He paused and shook his head at the wonder of fate. “So they opened up the books for him. Bobby’s gonna get made.”

  O’Brien and Russo stayed at the bar a lot longer than they had planned, even after Slattery and his star undercover had left, even after the place had filled up and Russo was getting a lot of curious glances. While O’Brien was busy pontificating about the symmetry of it all, Russo took a good long look at him. She noted that he used the same word, “fairness,” in three consecutive sentences, something he would ordinarily not do. There was a lot to like about the guy, she finally decided, although he could probably do some work on his sense of humor. He was unusually quiet—for him—in the car. He was definitely glad for San Filippo. Bobby Blue Eyes was a stand-up guy. Being made, being inducted into the Mafia, came with certain privileges—and it just might save his life one day.

  For O’Brien, San Filippo might prove to be an extremely valuable connection. Bobby was moving up the ladder toward real power in the family. And there was no way he could ever tell anyone about his connection to the bureau—a situation that might prove extremely beneficial to the bureau in the fugure. It was decided, as Slattery explained, “to leave him there and let him grow.”

  More than all that, though, Connor O’Brien was contemplating the irony of the situation. Growing up, he’d played all the fighting games: cowboys and Indians, Superman and Lothar, Star Fleet against the Romulans, Yankees and the Red Sox, the FBI against the mob. And in all those games it had been easy to separate the good guys from the bad guys. Almost always, he played the good guy. As a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation he was no longer playing a game. He had become a good guy.

  He was sorting all this out in his head as he drove uptown. It turned out that sometimes, to be a good guy, you had to do bad things. In this case, for example, to achieve an important and legitimate objective, he’d sort of pushed a guy into a shoot-out. People had died. And they had died brutally. Connor knew that he’d broken all the good guy rules and gotten away with it. And the only reason he was able to do it was that the bad guy was true to some strange family code. All that stuff about honor and loyalty that they believe in.

  Sometimes good guys do bad things, and maybe sometimes the bad guys do the good things. A couple of drinks after a long drought can make a situation like this seem pretty complicated.

  O’Brien was so deeply immersed in his thoughts that he drove right past Laura’s block. He was almost to his own apartment when he realized his error. “Oh man,” he told her, “I’m sorry. I don’t know where I was.” The smile on her face was so welcoming that he completely forgot she was his partner in the anticrime business. He sighed and corkscrewed up his courage. “Want me to take you home?”

  She looked at him like he was crazy. “Forget about it,” she said.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The authors would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of our agents, Frank Weimann of the Literary Group and Mickey Freiberg of Acme Talent and Literary Agency. We also very much appreciate the enthusiasm of our editor, Rick Wolff, who was able to recognize this unusual project and gently lay upon us a steel glove to help us along, as well as the many people at Warner Books who were always there with a welcoming smile.

  David Fisher would especially like to acknowledge the never-ending support and encouragment of his wife, Laura Stevens. He would also like to thank Jerry Stern of Columbus, Ohio, and Tom Jones of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the kind use of their cyberspace storage depot, which proved far superior to his own refrigerator, and Karen Greenfeld for making cyberspace appear. He is also very grateful to George and Kathy Hicker for putting up with him—or, actually, putting him up. And of course Belle Stevens, who was right there behind him—right behind him—the whole way.

  Bill Bonanno would like to acknowledge the culture and tradition from which he comes, that gave him the strength and guidance to enter into and complete such
an unusual collaboration. No man can rid himself of his heredity and his environment, as well as the accident of birth that preordained his destiny. It has been an extraordinary voyage of calm and stormy seas, but the sun has always shined on him. For that, he would truly like to acknowledge all those people who traveled this road before, carrying with them their ideals, and created a well-worn path.

  Joe Pistone would like to acknowledge the long and deep friendship and support of all those individuals with whom he has long and valued relationships. They know who they are. And finally,

  Hiya Gailie!