The Gianellis were going down.
“The Gramatica murder,” McMichael said, regaining control of the situation.
Raymond Gianelli shrugged. “A tragedy — an old friend, dearly missed. Did you have a question?”
“Yes. A simple one — did you order the murder?”
Selachi sat forward and half-smiled. “That isn’t a serious question, surely….”
Gianelli put a hand on his attorney’s arm. “It’s okay, Russell. It’s okay…. Mr. McMichael, the answer is no, I did not order the murder of Marty Gramatica.”
“You did not tell the man you ordered to do this to…” McMichael made a show of referring to his notes. “… ‘Make sure the bastard doesn’t wake up tomorrow’?”
Gianelli remained passive, though his eyes met McMichael’s. He shrugged and opened his palms and smiled like an uncle addressing a beloved but slightly dim nephew.
“You have to understand,” Gianelli said, “that I’ve known Stewart Musetti for a long time… practically all my life… but we had a falling-out over business matters, and Stewart feels, rightly or wrongly, that he was not treated fairly. That has made him bitter. We are adults here. We know that bitter men sometimes do things that are…” — Gianelli smiled at Booth—
“…vengeful in nature. My son, in his understandable passion, spoke the truth: Musetti lies.”
Leaning forward, McMichael asked, “Then Stewart Musetti is nothing more than a disgruntled employee with an ax to grind?”
“Bingo!” Vincent blurted, drawing another reproving glance from his father.
Booth was starting to understand something — he’d expected McMichael to depose the father and son separately, and had expressed his misgivings about dealing with them together half an hour before this meeting.
“It’ll be fine,” McMichael had said, bemused. “After all this time, Seeley, don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you, Dan… but I think I’ve earned an explanation.”
McMichael nodded. “Yes you have…. I’ll ask both Papa and Junior questions now, some things we know they’ve done and we can get them for in any event…. Then, in a couple of days, I’ll come up with some new questions, just for Vincent. Once we get him alone, and on the record, I’ll go after the father — with hothead sonny boy’s answers in my pocket.”
“I guess that makes sense….”
The prosecutor shrugged. “If nothing else, and these charges somehow get flushed like all the others, at least I might have a shot to get them for perjury.”
McMichael had used the word “flushed” on purpose. Like the other federal prosecutors in the building, he was running scared.
As a young enforcer, Raymond Gianelli had been called “the Plumber” because he had a way of stopping leaks inside the mob. As Gianelli had climbed the ladder of command, the nickname stuck but changed in definition.
Each time new charges were brought, somehow “the Plumber” managed to get them “flushed.” In a lifetime of working for, and later leading the largest mob family in Chicago, Gianelli had never spent a night in jail.
And right now Raymond Gianelli was staring at Prosecutor McMichael with dispassionate eyes.
“Despite what the people in this office think… and you FBI people, too, Agent Booth… we are simply in a family business here. Does it offend you, our Sicilian heritage? Is that why you seem determined to drag us down?”
This nonsense shattered Booth’s ability to monitor himself, and he heard himself say, “You’re playing the race card? The ‘man’ is persecuting you? You gotta be kidding me….”
“Mr. Booth,” McMichael said.
Selachi raised his pen and pointed it at Booth. “You’re overstepping, Agent Booth. You are badly over—”
Raymond Gianelli’s voice, soft but powerful, cut his lawyer off. “Agent Booth,” he said, “I resent your attitude and your implication. Marty Gramatica was my friend, for many, many years… and he was Vincent’s friend. Why would I have him killed?”
Booth’s control was back. “Because he crossed you.”
Gianelli shrugged and waved that off. “So you say.”
“I’m not the one who says,” Booth said. “I’m just passing along what our witness tells us.”
The mobster shrugged again, but was that a smile tickling the bastard’s lips?
Booth felt a chill — he knew Uncle Sam had the Gianelli duo cold; so why was “the Plumber” smiling?
All of a sudden, Booth had the feeling that something was not right….
As if picking up on Booth’s mental cue, Special Agent Josh Woolfolk opened the door and made an awkward picture of himself, framed there.
“Mr. Woolfolk, we are very busy,” McMichael said, annoyed.
“Yes, sir, I know, and I’m sorry, but…”
Woolfolk completed his sentence with a gesture, curling a finger toward Booth, summoning him to the hall.
McMichael’s eyes darted back and forth between the two FBI men.
And everyone on the Gianelli side of the table sat back and relaxed.
When they were alone in the hallway, Woolfolk glanced both ways. Shorter than Booth, thinner, but older, Woolfolk had dark hair swept to the right and dark, puffy eyes that gave him an exhausted look.
“What?” Booth asked, growing more peevish by the second.
“It’s… it’s… Moose…”
“Moose?” Booth asked, frowning in confusion.
“Musetti,” Woolfolk finally managed.
Everything inside Booth stilled, much as it had in his military days, when he was a sniper and had acquired the target.
Everything around him slowed, everything within seemed to stop. He breathed without breathing, felt no nerves, no tension, no anything.
There was only him, the trigger, and the target.
Right now the target was Woolfolk. “What about Musetti?”
“He is gone.”
The inner stillness exploded. “Where?”
Woolfolk, eyes hysterical, said, “No damn idea.”
Booth took a deep breath, refocused on the target. “What about the four agents guarding him?”
The other agent swallowed and shrugged. “Gone, too.”
“Gone, too?” Booth echoed. “Where… how…?”
“No clue.”
Booth’s mind raced. “When was the last time we had contact with them?”
“They checked in from the safe house this morning right before breakfast,” Woolfolk said. “A pair of agents showed up with lunch and found the place empty… like it had been abandoned.”
Hands on his hips, Booth loomed over his fellow agent. “And we haven’t heard from any of them since?”
“Not a word.”
Prosecutor McMichael came out into the hall, carefully shutting the door behind him. “What’s going on?” he hissed.
Booth and Woolfolk exchanged a look.
Booth said, “They’ve all disappeared.”
The prosecutor’s face turned to stone. “Who? What…?”
Booth explained what he had just learned.
“Musetti and four FBI agents?” McMichael asked, his voice cracking. “Vanished? How the hell is that possible?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Booth said, eyes on the closed door. “And the people who do know aren’t likely to tell us…. No wonder that bunch was so smug this morning — they knew damn well Musetti was about to disappear, and what better alibi for them than being deposed by a federal prosecutor and the FBI agent who had been hounding their asses?”
McMichael’s eyes were on that closed door, as well.
“We’re going to lose them,” the prosecutor whispered. Despair edged his words. “The Plumber’s going to get another set of charges flushed.”