He couldn’t resist one question, however, since he knew Joe would ask it of him in turn: “You said ‘on good authority.’ We’re pretty tied into Homeland Security, given who we are. I hadn’t heard anything about this.”
Wolff’s answer surprised him. “It doesn’t matter. I trust my sources-very highly placed and reliable. But in the end, even if this project doesn’t go through, these land deals are still sound, in and of themselves. I’ll still make money, even if not what I was hoping. The only real difference is that I’ve expended more capital than I would have normally. I’m very extended right now.”
“Is that where John Samuel Gregory comes in?” Jonathon asked. “Guys with three names are usually loaded. Doesn’t he drive a Porsche?”
Wolff’s voice flattened somewhat. “Yes, he does.”
“So you’re more business partners than you let on.”
“It’s my project,” Wolff said stubbornly.
Jonathon let his silence speak for him.
“Yes,” Wolff conceded. “We are partners because of his personal assets.”
“Tell me about Mr. Gregory.”
“He’s from down south. His father’s a highflyer. There’s always been money in the family. He came into the office half a year ago, papers in order, looking for a place to work out of. For a while, he functioned as they all do out there, but he’s smart and ambitious, and, of course, there was the money.”
“Of course.”
“Anyhow, when I found out about this”-Wolff waved an arm at the surrounding maps-“I needed someone to go in with me. I actually thought I’d have to create a consortium, which made me very nervous. Turned out, John was enough.”
“Had enough,” Jonathon corrected him.
Wolff scowled slightly. “Whatever. The point was that we stood a better chance of keeping this to ourselves as a result, at least until it didn’t matter anymore. At some point, you have to announce what you’ve got going-all the hearings and meetings and permits and whatnot. But by that time, we were hoping to have a major chunk of what we needed, so it wouldn’t matter as much.”
“How far along are you?”
“About fifty percent of that goal-where news breaking out wouldn’t have hurt.” He surveyed the room ruefully.
“Although a wild guess tells me none of that’s going to matter much now.”
He returned to the door and held it open for his guest. “Might as well go back to where it’s more comfortable,” he said.
Jonathon walked by him, allowing Wolff to reverse his security routine-switching off the lights and dead-bolting the door.
The Realtor sighed slightly as he sat back down at the conference table. “Probably for the better.”
“What is?”
Wolff was suddenly looking older. “All my life, I’ve seen this as a good business-matching people to their dreams, building businesses where people don’t have to drive an hour to get what they need, adding vitality to communities that are fraying around the edges. It was a good feeling. Even when the tree huggers or the anti-development types called me names, I could always see the value in what I did.” He shook his head. “But not if people are going to get hurt. You’ll have to prove to me that what you’re saying is true, but I’ll do what I can to help clear the slate one way or the other.”
“I’ll be damned,” Gunther said, folding his cell phone and slipping it back into his jacket pocket.
“Gee,” Willy snorted. “And I had you pegged for sainthood.”
“That was Michael. He’s been doing a little homework. Turns out most of those land deals I was telling you about, below St. Albans, tie into a single realty business-an ambitious old-timer and a rich flat-lander hoping to make a killing.”
Willy perked up. “For real?”
“A financial killing,” Joe said wearily, and then he corrected himself. “Well, maybe more, as it turns out. But here’s the kicker: When Michael asked the old guy where the younger one came from, he was told ‘down south.’ Turns out that was true Vermonter talk. He meant Newark.”
Chapter 16
Lil Farber was wearing a pair of half-glasses, in jarring contrast to the.40-caliber handgun strapped to her waist. She looked up from the document she’d just extracted from the copier outside her office and gave the new arrivals a pensive gaze.
Her greeting was guarded. “Thought you boys had gone home.”
“Got bored. Came back,” Willy answered.
“We received some new information,” Joe explained.
“About Gino?”
Joe chose not to mention how their off-the-books surveillance had netted them Gino’s girlfriend. “No. Somebody else. From North Caldwell.”
“Ritzy neighborhood,” Farber commented. “You still talking arson? That’s not our usual turf.”
Joe waggled his hand from side to side. “It’s getting complicated. This may be the money behind the arson.”
She laughed shortly, her interest piqued. “You can take the hoods out of Newark, but when they need something done, it’s hard to fight old instincts.”
“All roads lead back to the Brick City,” Willy agreed.
Farber collected her paperwork and led the way into her office, speaking over her shoulder. “What’s the name of this new target?”
“John Samuel Gregory.”
“Ooh-la-la,” she chanted, circling her desk. “Sounds veddy posh. That real?”
Joe answered her, sitting down, “We have no reason to think otherwise.”
Farber squared up to her computer and began typing. “Okay, let’s see what we got… ”
It didn’t take her long. In a couple of minutes, she murmured, “Seems you’re right about his interest in money. No convictions, but he just ducked indictments for money laundering and tax evasion and is listed as a fellow traveler in a couple of other scams.”
“Any Mob connections?”
She hitched one shoulder, still typing. “Call them Mob contacts. Hard to say how connected he really is. Things have gotten looser than in the old days, when only southern Italian Catholics could join, but it still doesn’t look like he was Family-not even in the vague way Famolare is. That having been said, he has certainly played with players.” She looked up at them. “Wild guess has it you want a copy of this?”
“If you would,” Joe answered, adding, “You told us digging into Famolare’s business, friends, and neighbors would be like hitting concrete. The same true for Gregory?”
She sat back and smiled at them. “Nope-knock yourselves out. I like going into the Caldwells myself. Reminds me of the life I turned aside to become a caped crusader.”
“Oh?” Willy asked.
She shoved herself out of her chair and poked him in the stomach. “Gotcha.”
There are three Caldwells, all located in Essex County’s northwest corner, North Caldwell being the fanciest. If Caldwell and West Caldwell can be described as upscale suburbia-with the attending shopping malls and restaurants to keep them functioning-North Caldwell represents the Olympian Heights, where the biggest commercial enterprise deemed appropriate is a country club. Its rolling streets are secluded and treelined, its houses palatial and generously surrounded by manicured lawns. There may have been more rarefied acreage available-nearby Upper Montclair comes to mind-but the home turf of the Gregory family hardly played second fiddle. As Lil Farber drove her car along the area’s peaceful, pampered, hilly avenues, she estimated some of the larger property taxes at $60,000 per year.
She slowed near the bottom of a large apron of greening grass, the weather down here being warm enough to have stimulated some early spring growth, and pulled over to the curb in full view of a Mount Vernon aspirant, albeit with an excess of red brick and white trim.
“Chez Gregory,” she announced, “or shall I say, Grégoire?”
“Any idea where all the money came from?” Joe asked their escort.