Day of Reckoning

‘No, Signore, but I think Terry has. There’s fifteen grand here.’

Fox nodded to the champagne bucket and Falcone poured him another glass. ‘Terry, I think you’ve been a naughty boy again.’

‘Please, Mr Fox, I’m just trying to make a buck.’

‘And so you shall.’ Fox smiled. ‘Two grand, Terry.’

Terry’s eyes rolled. ‘And what do I have to do for that?’

‘What you do best.’ Fox pushed a piece of paper across that had been lying on the table. ‘Katherine Johnson. Ten Barrow Street. Just on the edge of the Village. You’ll toss her place this afternoon.’

‘But that doesn’t give me time to prepare.’

‘For what?’ Fox said coldly. ‘It’s a small townhouse. She won’t be there. You boast that you can break in anywhere.’

Terry licked his lips. ‘What do I do?’

‘She’s a magazine reporter, so you’ll probably find an office, a computer, a VCR, all that stuff. Bring whatever disks you find. Bring the videos on her business shelf.’

Terry said, ‘People keep videos all the time. I mean, do I bring all of them?’

‘Be sensible, Terry,’ Fox said patiently. ‘I’m not looking for Dirty Harry or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Just use your brain, such as it is. The boys will take you, they’ll wait and bring you back. Anything you’ve got, I want by five o’clock. I’m sure you won’t disappoint me.’

Terry’s feet hardly touched the ground as Falcone pushed him outside.

He went to Barrow Street wearing a bomber jacket that said ‘Smith Electronics’ on the back. He didn’t bother with the front door, after three rings got no reply, but went down to the basement. There were double deadlocks, but they both responded to his touch.

He found himself in a laundry room and moved upstairs to the entrance hall. There was a parlour, dining room and kitchen, so he tried the stairs, the only sound disturbing the quiet the grandfather clock ticking in the hall. The first door he tried was the study. He saw shelves crammed with books and videos, a computer next to two video and disk machines, and a multiple tape recorder. He switched them all on and removed everything he found in them, placing his haul in the carry bag that hung from his left shoulder. He opened drawers and found more disks and cassettes, which he also took.

The rest really was frustrating. Rows of movies on video, rows of instructional tapes. He was sweating now and swung at the shelves and scattered videotapes across the floor.

Okay. So he’d done what Fox wanted. Time to go. There were some bottles on a side table, and glasses. He poured some bourbon, savoured it, and left by the same route, locking the basement door before returning to Falcone and Russo.

When they arrived at the Park Avenue townhouse, Fox was waiting eagerly. He took the disks and tapes Terry Mount offered and said to Russo, ‘Look after him.’ He turned to Falcone. ‘You stay. It could be bad.’

‘Then it’s bad for both of us, Signore.’ They had been friends since boyhood.

Fox started checking the disks, mostly work notes, letters, accounts, and quickly discarded them. Then he started on the tapes Mount had found in the tape recorder, and on the second struck pure gold.

At first, the sounds were of an innocuous conversation about family business and so on. The woman’s voice was very pleasant and intimate, and the man’s…

Falcone said, ‘Jesus, Maria, Signore, that’s you.’

There were restaurant sounds in the background, a little music. Fox said, ‘She was recording us.’

Suddenly, the tape changed. Now, the woman was clearly making notes to herself.

‘There can be little doubt that Jack Fox, in spite of the war hero and Wall Street image, is nothing less than the new face of the Solazzo family and the new Mafia. I’ll lull him to sleep with the first article in Truth and then hit him hard with the rest. There might even be a special on the Truth Channel in this. I’ve just got to take it easy, and flatter him. His vanity should take care of the rest.’

Fox switched off the machine. ‘The bitch.’

‘So it would appear, Signore. What should we do?’

Fox got up, went to the sideboard, and poured a glass of Scotch. He turned. ‘I think you know, old friend.’ He went to the telephone and punched in a number. ‘Katherine Johnson, please. Hello, Kate? Jack Fox. Would you be free for dinner tonight? I was thinking about that piece, and, what the hell, there’s some more you might be interested in…You are? Terrific. Listen, don’t bother going home. I’ll send a car. You come on over to Park Avenue and pick me up. We’ve just bought this new restaurant in Brooklyn, and I’d like to check it out. Will you help?…Great! I’ll send Falcone to pick you up.’ He put the phone down, surprised at the genuine regret he felt.

In that evening of dreary rain, darkness already descending, she sat in the rear of the Lincoln, a small, pretty woman of forty, with dark hair and an intelligent face. Russo was at the wheel and Falcone beside him. They reached the Park Avenue house and Falcone called Fox on his mobile.

‘Hey, Signore, we’re here.’ He turned. ‘He’ll be right down.’

She smiled and took out a Marlboro. Falcone gave her a light.

‘Thank you.’

‘Prego, Signora.’

He closed the glass divide between them, and a moment later, Fox arrived, wearing a black overcoat. He scrambled in and kissed her on the cheek.

‘Kate, you look good.’

The Lincoln took off.

‘You look pretty good yourself.’

He smiled amiably. ‘Well, here’s to a good night.’

At that precise moment, Terry Mount was swallowing another whisky sour in a downtown bar, aware of the bulge that seventeen thousand dollars now made in his right-hand breast pocket. He went out into the street, drew up his collar as rain dashed in his face, started along the pavement, and sensed someone move in behind him, and then a needlepoint going through his clothes.

‘Just turn right into the alley.’ He did as he was told, and found himself shoved against a wall. A hand searched. ‘Hey, seventeen grand. You were right.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m a big black mother named Henry, and you wouldn’t want to meet me in the showers on Rikers Island.’

Terry was terrified. ‘I just did what I was told.’

‘Which means you know too much. Regards from the Solazzos.’

The knife went up through the breast bone and found the heart, and Terry Mount slid down the wall.

It was early evening and March dark on Columbia Street, Brooklyn, as the Lincoln turned right and pulled on to a pier where a few coastal ships were tied up. Russo switched off the engine. Suddenly alarmed, Katherine Johnson said, ‘What is this? Where are we, Jack?’

‘This is the end of the line, Signora. You sure played me for a sucker.’

She managed a smile. ‘Come on, Jack.’

‘Come on, nothing. I’ve had your house searched. Found your little tape recordings of us. Not that I said anything, but you sure did. Just take it easy and flatter me, huh? You shouldn’t have done that to me.’

‘For God’s sake, Jack, you’ve got to listen to me.’