Harvey Brandon Forrester was used to tracking down people who had disappeared. He had founded a private investigation practice twenty years ago, and he specialized in lost causes. His four partners preferred to limit themselves to easier cases, like following unfaithful spouses or finding defaulted debtors, but Forrester liked the more complicated cases. Strictly speaking, he was more of a bounty hunter than a private detective. Because of his excellent connections with the US Attorney’s Office and many renowned law firms in New York, he couldn’t complain about a lack of work. His search for the eyewitness in the 1963 murder of the gangster Stefano Barelli turned out to be more difficult than expected. Difficult because Forrester could hardly investigate in Little Italy. His client wanted to avoid anything becoming public about this investigation. Forrester had spent two long days searching the police files they’d provided him. He read the interrogation records and indictments, looked at pictures, reconstructed the sequence of events, and finally reached the conclusion that there had to be not just one eyewitness but at least six or seven. But the US Attorney’s Office was looking for one man in particular: the son-in-law of the owner of the small trattoria where Barelli was shot. His name was Vincente Molto, and he’d been missing since that day.
Forrester combed through documents and electronic records to find more information about the eyewitness. Vincente Molto was born on July 24, 1940. He married Lucretia Amato in May of 1962 and left New York with his wife on May 28, 1963, for an unknown destination. So the man had to be sixty years old. Forrester browsed the police computer and got lucky. Vincente Molto had been convicted of a crime in 1961—aggravated assault. There was a picture, fingerprints. And a note in the file stating that he was suspected to be a member of the Genovese family.
Harvey Forrester spent three sleepless nights; he tapped all available sources, spoke to reliable informants, and finally traveled to Florida where he actually made a find. In Tarpon Springs, a small town outside of Tampa, he found Valentine Mills living in a small house with a view of the Gulf. Forrester watched the man for a full day before was he sure that he’d found the right person. Although Vincente Molto had gained a hundred pounds since his mug shot had been taken, the unusually bushy eyebrows and the receding chin were the same. Forrester called Lloyd Connors on the phone.
“I found your man, boss,” he said. “He’s living under a false name in Florida, near Tampa.”
“Are you one hundred percent sure?” The deputy US attorney’s voice sounded tense.
“One thousand percent,” Forrester replied. “I’m never mistaken.”
“Okay,” Connors said, “I’ll send two US marshals. Don’t do anything that could give him advance warning.”
Lloyd Connors could hardly believe his luck. He hadn’t had particularly high hopes that Forrester would find the man that Nelson van Mieren had mentioned in his testimony. If this Molto—now Mills—was also willing to testify against Vitali, then everything would be clear-cut. The deputy US attorney smiled grimly. Maybe he could charge Vitali with the murder of Stefano Barelli. This murder, committed on March 17, 1963, was definitely a case for the electric chair. Van Mieren claimed that Barelli had tried to push Vitali out of the business. So Vitali killed him with a shot to his neck. The murder charge would be the icing on the cake when seeking a warrant for Vitali’s arrest. Connors picked up the telephone and called Nick Kostidis, but his secretary said he was out of the office taking care of private business. The deputy US attorney dialed Nick’s cell phone number.
“I’m on my way to the hospital right now,” Nick said after he heard about Forrester’s find. “I think we should move Alex to a different location.”
“Is she capable of answering some questions tomorrow? I want to arrest Vitali tomorrow evening at his grand ball, and I urgently need her testimony for that,” Connors replied.
“I think she’s ready,” Nick said.
“Good,” the deputy US attorney said as he leaned back, “she’s my best trump card against Vitali. Take good care of her.”
Two paramedics in scrubs entered Dr. Virginia Summer’s private ward at Goldwater Memorial Hospital. One of them pushed a stretcher, while the other held a clipboard under his arm.
A young doctor came out of the nurses’ station.
“Hello, can I help you?” he asked.
One of the paramedics, a stocky man in his midforties, smiled in a friendly way and looked down at his clipboard.
“We’re supposed to transfer one of the patients in your ward to another hospital,” he said. “Ms. Alexandra Sontheim.”
The doctor gave him a suspicious look.
“We don’t have a patient with that name. Can I see your papers?”
The paramedic standing behind the doctor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a revolver with a silencer. While the doctor stared at the papers, he raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. The stocky man caught the young doctor and placed him on the stretcher, while the other entered the empty nurses’ station to check out the ward’s patient listings.
“Room 16 is the only one that’s allegedly empty,” he said.
Both men walked along the hallway until they reached room 16. They didn’t waste time knocking, but entered immediately.
“Best regards from Sergio,” Luca said. From a distance of about six feet, he aimed at a patient lying beneath white hospital bed linens and fired four times.
“That’s it,” he said, putting the weapon in his jacket pocket. Both men left the ward unseen and took the elevator to the ground floor.
Nick Kostidis and Frank Cohen entered the foyer of Goldwater Memorial Hospital accompanied by the US marshals Spooner and Khazaeli.
“Fucking idiot!” Deputy Spooner grumbled. “That guy almost hit my brand-new Dodge.”
Khazaeli tried to calm his colleague down. A dark Lincoln had suddenly pulled out of a parking spot and almost hit Spooner’s car in the hospital parking lot. The driver—a fat paramedic—didn’t apologize and simply drove away.
“He’s still an idiot!” Spooner shook his head. At that moment, the beeper on his belt went off.
“It’s the head office,” he announced after a quick glance at the device. “Shit. My cell phone doesn’t work in the hospital.”
He turned away and walked to the desk to make a phone call. Nick, Frank, and Khazaeli waited in the hall until he was done. When he saw Spooner’s face, Nick was overcome by a strange feeling—a kind of dark premonition. He felt like someone had punched him in the stomach.
“What’s the matter?” he asked the US marshal, struggling to control his voice.
“Something’s wrong,” Spooner responded with a grim face. “Boyd and Roscoe are unreachable. They’re not at their post.”
“Who are they?” Nick asked impatiently. Spooner didn’t answer, but he disengaged his Glock’s safety catch and rushed to the staircase.
“The marshals guarding Sontheim,” Deputy Khazaeli said. He also pulled out his gun and pressed the elevator call button. Nick turned ice cold. All the color vanished from his face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank asked as they got into the elevator with two nurses, who were staring aghast at Khazaeli’s pistol.
“I don’t know,” the US marshal replied. “Both of you wait in the elevator until we figure this out.”
Nick’s whole body began to shake. The elevator stopped on the third floor with a quiet ring.
“Stay here!” Khazaeli repeated, but Nick shook his head.