He’d been working on the case against Chicago Mafia bosses Raymond and Vincent Gianelli for most of the last six months, and now — with the help of a Gianelli crony turned informant — Booth had father and son in his sights.
Sitting on the prosecution side of the table, Booth exuded quiet confidence. Which was, after all, part of the profile for an FBI agent; but with his square jaw, close-cropped brown hair, and steel-blue eyes, his confidence today approached cockiness.
Even though this wasn’t a court day, Booth had worn his “testifying” suit, the number every law enforcement professional kept bagged in the closet for those special days in court.
Booth’s was a charcoal gray with a lighter pinstripe and had cost him just a little less than his first car; but today he wanted to look as good as he felt.
Next to Booth, federal prosecutor Daniel McMichael scribbled on a yellow legal pad that lay next to a stack of papers. His black hair receding and parted on the left, McMichael wore a gray suit easily twice as expensive as Booth’s.
The prosecutor had dark eyes that could be warm and friendly to those on his side, and icy and aloof to his enemies. A bulbous nose squatted between high, chubby cheeks and over a mouth that turned up a couple of degrees at the corners in what passed for a smile.
Dan McMichael had the wide shoulders and strong arms of an athlete, compromised by the slightly soft look of one whose playing days were long behind him. If his career had been baseball instead of prosecution, McMichael would be the MVP who went on to become the crusty but benign manager who quietly passed advice to his high-strung young players.
Booth had worked a couple of cases with McMichael and respected the attorney’s no-nonsense approach. They had carved out convictions both times and the perps were now spending long sentences in federal prisons.
To their left, sitting inconspicuously in a corner, was Anna Jones, a petite blonde court recorder with brown eyes and what Booth interpreted as a slightly openmouthed smile intended just for him.
Or perhaps that was just his confidence getting out of hand….
Checking his watch, the FBI agent noted that — although he had expected the Gianellis to be here by now — they weren’t officially late. The meeting had been scheduled for eleven and their prospective defendants still had a couple of minutes to make it on time.
And they did — at 10:59 and thirty seconds, the door swung open and three men entered, single file.
First was Raymond Gianelli, brawny but elegant in a brown suit, chocolate-colored shirt, and brown-and-tan-striped tie. His eyes, a very light brown, followed this color coordination, but his hair was black and slicked back with a hint of gray at the temples; his tan tried too hard, Booth thought, the type that came from a tanning bed and not the beach.
Next came Raymond’s son, Vincent.
Taller but thinner than his muscular father, his brown hair close-cropped, his eyes darker than Dad’s, Vincent wore a brown herringbone suit a shade lighter than his father’s. Handsome in a well-scrubbed fashion with a smile that was almost a sneer, he wore a light green shirt and solid tan tie. His brown Italian loafers no doubt cost more than Booth’s expensive suit, and maybe McMichael’s.
To the agent, Vincent Gianelli looked what he was: a textbook sociopath. The boy cared about no one but himself, with the possible exception of his father, a relationship that seemed built more on business than love for a family member, more Machiavellian than emotional.
The only other thing Vincent cared about was a huge Neapolitan mastiff named Luca, presumably named after Luca Brasi from The Godfather.
Booth knew this and more about his prey.
Mob guys could be oddly normal — basically decent people who through family ties and character defects went down a criminal path.
The Gianellis — Vincent in particular — were not in that group.
Trailing his clients, about the size of a Mini-Cooper, waddled Russell Selachi, the Gianelli family attorney.
The counselor wore a black suit, though its effect was not particularly slimming, with a white shirt with silver stripes, and a blue, pink, yellow, and green tie loud enough to have been snatched from a clown’s clothesline.
Booth wondered if a dozen clowns would pile out, like they did out of those tiny cars in the circus, should Selachi open his coat….
Even though the trio exuded arrogance, the Barnum and Bailey imagery brought a smile to Seeley Booth’s face.
“Special Agent Booth,” the elder Gianelli said in a resonant baritone, “you’re in a surprisingly good mood for a man about to be sued for wrongful prosecution.”
Booth allowed his smile to shift to a smirk. “I am in a good mood, thanks… and that would only be wrongful prosecution if you were innocent.”
“Gentlemen,” McMichael said, his voice stern as he shot a look at Booth.
The FBI agent returned the glance, his expression reassuring the prosecutor: I’ll behave, Dan.
Turning his attention back to the others, McMichael said, “Have a seat, would you?”
The three men took chairs across the table, Raymond Gianelli in the center, Vincent on his left. Selachi withdrew a yellow pad from a briefcase, and set the pad before him and the briefcase beside him.
McMichael turned to the blonde recorder. “Ms. Jones?”
She gave him a curt nod.
“All right, then,” McMichael said, looking across the table. “You ready, Mr. Selachi?”
“We are, Mr. McMichael.”
“Well, then, let the record show who is in attendance today. Myself, Daniel McMichael, United States attorney; Special Agent Seeley Booth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”
Booth thought he caught Anna smiling at him again as she recorded his name. Wishful thinking?
“…Raymond Gianelli,” McMichael continued. “Vincent Gianelli…”
The younger Gianelli grinned at Anna, apparently thinking the smile had been for him — or was he mocking Booth?
The FBI agent tensed. Ms. Jones’s smile vanished and she looked down at her flying fingers.
McMichael was saying, “…and Russell Selachi, attorney for the Gianellis. Both Raymond and Vincent Gianelli have been informed of their rights.”
“So noted,” Selachi said.
Shuffling some papers from the stack in front of him, McMichael said, “Let’s get right to the heart of the matter… and begin with your command to have Marty Gramatica assassinated.”
“Allegedly,” Selachi said.
Vincent Gianelli’s eyes burned. “That fucking liar Musetti. He’s—”
“Vincent,” Selachi said.
Raymond Gianelli shot his son a look and Vincent eased back in his chair and folded his arms and found something interesting to look at on the paneled wall to his left.
Stewart Musetti was the reason they were all in this room today.
A childhood friend of Raymond’s, son of Raymond’s father’s trusted lieutenant David Musetti, and a former Gianelli lieutenant himself, Stewart Musetti — thinking the family was about to hit him — had turned himself in and ratted out his former bosses in exchange for a future in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Booth had, in recent months, come to know Musetti well.
Soft-spoken and almost devoid of personality, Musetti — a bald man with a gray wreath of hair and silver steel glasses — looked more like a math professor than a man allegedly responsible for at least twenty murders in thirty years of toiling for the Gianelli family.
When the longtime hitman had flipped, Booth had been there to catch him, and had spent the better part of a month interrogating Musetti, then another five weeks investigating his charges and collecting evidence that would corroborate his chief witness’s story.
Now, thanks to Musetti’s loose lips and Booth’s hard work, the FBI agent had them.