A Dark and Broken Heart (36 page)

“That’s very good of you to say so, Vincent, but what this has to do with—”

“Bear with me,” Madigan interjected. He took another drag of his cigarette. “I have been thinking about this thing that happened, and I have been thinking about trust, and I have also been thinking about Seneca and his viewpoint about luck. Whoever robbed that house did not have luck, good or bad. Whoever robbed that house and killed your nephew had preparation and opportunity . . .”

“Well, that is obvious, Vincent—”

“Maybe so, but this is the thing I don’t get.” Madigan leaned forward. “People who work for you, right? They get taken care of. I mean, look at you and me for an example. I work on a give-and-take principle. I give you what you want. I take from you what I need. You give me what I ask for. You take from me what you require to make business go smoothly. We’ve never had any problems. We’ve never had any disagreements. We’ve always seen eye to eye, right?”

“Sure, Vincent, sure.” Sandià shifted in his chair. He had an expression on his face—implacable, calm, unattached perhaps. This was business. His personal relationship with Madigan—factually—meant nothing. If Madigan was not there, someone else would take his place. He was curious as to where Madigan was taking him with this line of conversation. He was questioning the destination. It had been merely four days since the robbery of the house, the murder of his nephew, and whatever patience he might have possessed was growing thin. He wanted answers. He wanted results. If answers and results were not forthcoming, then people were going to die.

Sandià waved his hand.
Get to the point, Vincent
, that gesture said.

Madigan cleared his throat. “And during all these years we have worked side by side, have I ever given you cause for concern? Have I ever given you any reason not to believe what I have told you?”

“No, Vincent, of course not. As I said before, we have had . . .” Sandià paused. He smiled like he was trying to force himself to be good-humored, to take the edge of seriousness out of the conversation. “We have had what I would call a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“So I want you to listen to me now,” Madigan said, “and I want you to hear me out, and when I am done we can talk about this thing and see if we can make sense of it.”

“Say what you want to say, Vincent. Enough of this bullshit, okay?”

“That’s the point right there,” Madigan said. “It isn’t bullshit. I’m not bullshitting you. I’m gonna tell you something, and this is going to come out of left field, but I want you to consider all options and possibilities before you dismiss this out of hand.”

“Okay, okay, okay . . . Jesus, Vincent, you’re getting me fucking angry now. Enough with the lectures. Tell me the details here.”

“I think . . . Hell, Dario, I think your nephew was going to rip you off.”

Sandià looked at Madigan. A frown flitted across his brow. It was there, and then it was gone. He smiled, then he looked intense, confused even, and then he smiled again. The smile became a laugh, and then he was shaking his head and saying, “Jesus, Vincent, you had me fucking going then . . . I thought you were gonna tell me something that made some sense.”

“You have someone else on the payroll,” Madigan said. “You have someone inside the department on the payroll, someone who gives you information, someone who tells you what you need to know. I have a very strong suspicion that this person may have been working with your nephew and they were going to rip you off for that money, and then your nephew was going to use that money to put some people together, and he was going to come after you. He wanted the territory, Dario. He wanted your territory and he was prepared to do pretty much anything he needed to get it. He had his own relationship with whoever else you have on the payroll, and they figured to take you and me out of the picture and put themselves in our places . . .”

Sandià was silent.

His expression did not change.

That—perhaps—was the most unnerving thing of all. Sandià’s initial reaction—one of dismissal—was merely superficial. The truth—harsh though it was—was that Sandià trusted no one. He knew he could trust no one, not even his own family.

That moment, the fact that there was nothing at all in Sandià’s eyes scared Madigan more than anything he had ever seen. If Sandià’s nephew had in fact tried to rip him off, then the nephew
would have been killed. It was business. It had always been business, would always be business.

And then Sandià spoke. His voice was low, a whisper almost, and though the words meant one thing, the feeling behind them was something else entirely. It was as if Sandià was saying things in an effort to convince himself of something he wished to believe, and yet knowing—all too well—that Madigan’s words could be just as true.

“This is crazy, Vincent. I know you do some pills and whatever, Vincent . . . but this is crazy—”

“Is it?” Madigan asked. “Is it so crazy?”

“So if that’s the case, then how did my nephew end up dead?”

Sandià just asked the question directly. He was not angry, his voice still barely more than a whisper, and his gaze was unerring, riveting, fixed on Madigan.

It took everything that Madigan possessed to meet that gaze and not look away. Not for a moment. Not for a heartbeat.

“Because whoever else you have working for you had no intention of taking you down. He’s making too much money. He’s onto a good thing. He is approached by this kid, he hears him out, he goes along with it, and he figures he can do the work himself. He can take the money from the house, he can off your nephew and the delivery crew, he can kill his three accomplices. He’s away scot-free, he’s more than three hundred grand in profit, he keeps his relationship with you, and the only person who knew that he was aware of the money delivery is dead.”

“No, Vincent, this is not possible . . . You don’t know what you’re saying. My own nephew? You think Alex did this thing? That he wanted to overthrow me? My own sister’s boy?”

“He wasn’t your son, Dario. He was your nephew. He told you what you wanted to hear. He made you believe he was with you all the way, but all the time he had this thing going on, this thing to be the big boss, the master of the house. And he works at this thing behind the scenes; he talks to whoever he can trust. Why does he approach your other police contact? Because a police contact is already compromised. He’s a better bet than someone inside the family, right? This guy has to be careful whatever he does. He can’t go blabbing around the place. He can’t up and say whatever he likes to you. You’re dealing with this guy like eggshells already. He knows that. This isn’t like someone who can just disappear into Witness Protection if they decide to give you up. This is a cop. This
is a brother-in-arms. This is someone who’s going to vanish like no one else. Why? Because the department doesn’t want this in the papers. They don’t want this on the news. There’s nothing that hurts the department’s image more than a dirty cop. They’re going to do whatever they have to keep word of this out of the press. If your contact gives it all up, then they’re going to hide him somewhere. He tells them he’s been working with you. He says he’s on graft, kickbacks, he’s doing deals for you, he’s passing information, and has been for years. They’re scared like you wouldn’t believe. This is going to take their reputation back to how it was in the forties. They give him immunity. They listen to everything he has to say. They prepare their case. They get you, your whole family, everyone. They close everything down, and our man is in Boise, Idaho, with a different name, a different life. You’re never going to find him. It’s all over. End of story. But, then again, it could go the other way. Your nephew plans to take you down, he tells your police contact, the contact tells you. What are you going to do? You’re going to get rid of your nephew, but then you’re going to have to get rid of the cop as he can tie you to the death of your nephew. Think about it. The smartest thing to do is kill your nephew, take the money, and everything is back to battery.”

Sandià was silent. He was hearing what Madigan had to say. He was looking for anything and everything he could recall that would confirm or deny what Madigan was suggesting. What had Alex said? How had he seemed? How had he responded to such and such? That time he said so and so . . . Could that have been a lie? The wheels were going in Sandià’s mind. Madigan could hear them. Two things were working for him. One was a small facet of human psychology: Give someone reason to doubt, and they automatically look for reasons to confirm that doubt, not refute it. The second was Sandià’s hard-earned suspicion of everyone. A man like Sandià could not maintain such an empire without distrusting everything he heard and everything he saw.

“And if this is true, then why did this other person, this cop, the one in league with my nephew, why did he not go ahead and take me down?”

“Why would he? Why would he need to do that? What possible reason could he have for doing that? You think he wants to be put through the ringer, to have his whole life closed down around him? You think he wants to wind up in Boise, Idaho? He already
has it good. He already has you paying him whatever you pay him, and if it’s equivalent to what you give me, well, unless he’s crazy . . .”

“Or a gambler, Vincent. A gambler and a drunk. Maybe whatever I give him is irrelevant. Maybe he’s just like you. Maybe I could give him a million dollars a month and it wouldn’t matter a damn because he just spends it on cards and booze and football games . . .”

“I don’t think so, Dario.”

“And why not, Vincent? Why don’t you think so?”

“Because I’m your wild card, my friend. You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I understand that you’re far too smart to have two crazy people working for you? I know you too well, right? I know you have irons in fires all over. I know you have to keep some things straight, and some things can just run wherever the hell they’re going to. I know you don’t have the attention to worry about two crazy men. You keep me around because I’m the dangerous one. Like a smart investor, you keep some stocks in the old reliables, and you put some money on the wildcat shit that could go bust tomorrow—but maybe not . . . it might just come good and make you a fortune. That’s the way you work, my friend. I’ve known you too long and I’ve seen too much to doubt you for a second.”

Sandià smiled. For a moment he appreciated the compliment, and then his humor vanished as he remembered the point of this conversation.

“You’re telling me my own nephew—Alex Calvo—my own nephew was going to betray me?”

“All I’m telling you is that there’s too much here that doesn’t make sense for anything else
to
make sense. I’m saying there’s a chance, a possibility . . . That’s all I’m saying.”

“And that I need to talk to whoever else I have to talk to . . .”

“I’m not telling you your business. All I’m saying is that there was this rumor that a cop might have had something to do with this robbery, that a cop might have had something to do with the murder of your nephew . . . and a cop might just have had the opportunity to do this. More important, if it was someone on your payroll, then who better to know when that money was being delivered?”

“And if what you say is true, then answer me this. Why would a
cop tell me that a cop had been involved? If whoever it was that did this
is
a cop, why would he implicate himself?”

Madigan smiled. “It’s the oldest trick in the book. By implying that you could be involved, you exonerate yourself. Offense is the best form of defense.”

Sandià leaned back, pressed his hands together as if in prayer, and rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. He closed his eyes.

He stayed motionless for a good four or five minutes.

Madigan could feel his own heart beating. He didn’t dare move.

Those minutes stretched away into eternity, and Madigan watched as his own life seemed to be swallowed by that void. If he’d got this wrong . . .

“Vincent.”

Madigan opened his eyes. He didn’t realize he had closed them.

“Vincent . . . I have to make some calls. I have to deal with some things.” Sandià got up from his chair. He came around the desk.

Madigan rose also, and for a moment they stood face-to-face, no more than two or three feet apart, and Sandià looked into Madigan’s eyes as if to expose the past, determine the present, predict the future. Madigan did not flinch, he did not glance away; he just looked right back at Sandià as if there was no one else in the world.

Sandià raised his arms and gripped Madigan’s shoulders.

“I have killed men,” he said quietly. “Even my name . . . it was earned, Vincent, as you know, by something I did that I had to do. I am not a man to find weakness in people. I try to find their strengths. I can use a man’s strengths. I can use his honesty and his integrity and his strength. I need a man to be courageous, to tell me the truth, to never lie to me. I need to be able to rely on people. You know that. You know that it is not possible to do what we do with deception and falsehood around us, except where we intend there to be deception and falsehood.” He inhaled slowly, exhaled again. He shook his head, but never once looked away from Madigan. “If what you are saying is true . . . If there is even a shred of truth in this, then I will find this out and I will make my decisions. If I find you have lied to me, Vincent . . .” Sandià left the statement hanging.

Madigan did not say a word. He did not breathe.

“Good,” Sandià said. “So go, do whatever you have to do, and I
will make my calls and speak to people, and we will find the truth together.”

Madigan nodded, a barely noticeable dip of the head, but he did not look away.

“And if you are right . . .” Sandià said, and then he released Madigan’s shoulders and walked back to the desk. “If you are right, my friend, then it will be a sad day for this family . . .”

“I understand,” Madigan said. “But I had to come to you, Dario . . . I had to tell you what I suspected—”

Sandià raised his hand and Madigan fell silent.

“Your loyalty has never before been in question, Vincent, and it is not in question now. Not yet. Let me resolve this for myself, and then we will speak some more.”