“Tell me the requirements,” LaRez said.
“Well, first, you already know it has to be fast,” Warfield said. “Cosmo’s job is to convince Joplan of the joys of confession. I mean rock-bottom bare-it-all download. But Cosmo’s gotta be careful. Joplan’s no good to me with his brain kicked out. I have to find out what’s in it. When he’s ready to talk, I’ll send somebody in.”
“Cosmo has a way of influencing people to see things his way.”
LaRez shook hands with both men and held up his hand in protest when Warfield tried to thank him. “It is my country, too. Besides that,” he said, glancing at Macc, “you are a friend of my friend.”
CHAPTER 6
“Three things…three things,” Cosmo Terracina said. “Better have ’em all if you plan stayin’ alive.” His stagewhisper voice was cavernous and raspy from years spent in smoky game rooms and lounges. “Number one is instinct. That bellyful of guts you got, well that don’t count for much if you don’t feel it in your bones when something’s coming down. Number two is they gotta fear you, shake some on the inside when they see you. I mean because they know you don’t take no shit off nobody. Nothin’. They don’t know how the hell you gonna react. You may whack ’em over a nickel. And luck. That’s number three what I’m telling you. You ain’t lucky, then fear and instinct, they don’t mean nothin’ either, Doyle. But in your heart here,” Cosmo Terracina had said to Doyle Riley years ago in Boston as he fisted his own massive chest, “in your heart you gotta be fair. You treat people fair as long as they show you respect. They don’t show you respect, then you gotta deal with it.”
Riley had seen Cosmo’s philosophy work for him in prison as well as it had worked on the streets of Boston.
For the power-hungry and impatient, eliminating an established boss like Cosmo was a tempting shortcut to power. For some who tried, it had been an early trip to hell.
In prison as in business, there are leaders and there are followers. When Cosmo arrived at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta three years ago, it didn’t take long for the prison population to learn who he was. The tenures of former members of the organized crime community in the Big A were always a topic of conversation among new inmates, as if it were an honor to occupy the same prison that once held Al Capone and Vito Genovese, so the appearance of a modern day crime boss caused a stir: In some, fear, and in others that notion of opportunity. The century-old USP Atlanta was one of the toughest facilities in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and housed hard-core criminals. And because of its age and open inside design, security among inmates was difficult to achieve making it one of the most dangerous.
Cosmo Terracina entered USP Atlanta with the presumption of power and became the most feared man in the prison. He had respect and power and the loyalty of an inner circle capable of handling any threats to his position. But the last year had been so peaceful that he worried his men might lose their edge.
Cosmo never spoke to anyone other than Doyle Riley. Men who studied Cosmo didn’t risk eye contact and anyone wishing to communicate with him went through Riley. Unlike other power brokers, Cosmo didn’t dehumanize men unless he had to, but any perceived disrespect toward him would result in a warning from Doyle Riley at a minimum. Cosmo had created the same power for himself here that he had enjoyed on the outside. Even in prison, life for Cosmo Terracina was good.
Cosmo’s continuing activities in Boston required reliable communication, and all messages to and from the outside went through Riley, who as a lawyer had worked for Cosmo in Boston for years and then got into cocaine and became too incapacitated to function. When he was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and a book full of other offenses, he refused to plea bargain and ended up in the Atlanta prison with Cosmo, who got him off drugs and put him to work as his lawyer again. Cosmo depended on him to handle details, and Riley, not much of a physical specimen, relied on Cosmo to keep him safe. It was an unspoken arrangement both men benefited from. It was family.
“Word from LaRez Sanazaro,” Riley said now. They were eating lunch at a stainless steel table that rested on the bare concrete floor of the mess hall. They always sat in the noisy southeast corner where they could talk business without being overheard.
“LaRez?” Cosmo was surprised.
“Sending us a little job.”
Cosmo had never forgotten he owed LaRez. Years ago when one of Cosmo’s associates faced tax evasion charges, the spotlight was so hot on Cosmo and his men that when it was time for the trial they still hadn’t found a safe way to silence a family accountant who had agreed to testify for the feds and entered the witness protection program. LaRez sent his personal representative, a man unknown to the feds, from Las Vegas to visit the accountant’s mother on the day before he was to testify. The accountant developed a sudden case of amnesia on the witness stand and the case was dismissed then and there.
“What’s on his mind?” Cosmo asked.
“There’s this CIA spook that’s been playing footsies with the other side. He’s coming here. LaRez wants him to open up to the feds.”
“To the feds? Maybe LaRez would like us to call a little meeting, get ’em in the conference room together. Have some tea. What’s he done, anyway?”
Riley shrugged. “Some international thing.”
“Wha’ kind of international thing?”
“Something overseas. I…, hell, Cosmo, you think LaRez sent me a book about all of this? I should have studied cryptic codes instead of law. You wouldn’t believe some of the messages I get.” Doyle Riley was the only man alive who could be that direct with Cosmo. “Something about nukes.”
Nukes. Cosmo understood. It was a big business. Brokers who can get them are selling nuke parts Russia made during the Cold War to anybody who wants them.
Next day at lunch, Cosmo filled his lunch tray and sat down across from the new man who fit the description Riley had given him. Cosmo had his complaints about some of the laws in this country, but no hard feelings. The U.S. had welcomed his grandparents off a boat from Italy and not only had Cosmo himself done okay here, America provided his children with legitimate opportunities, and they, now grown, had stayed away from crime. Cosmo got into it before he knew what he was doing and then it was too late. The money wasn’t all that bad even in the beginning, and then one thing led to another and soon he was into loans, protection and drugs, the thing he regretted most. But betray America? Cosmo had no tolerance for someone like this Joplan.
Per Cosmo’s instructions, “Brows” Brickley seated himself at Cosmo’s table. “Make the face so you will remember him,” Riley had said, and Brows had asked if that meant a follow-up job later on. Cosmo knew of Brows back in Boston, doing various jobs for the mafia. When Brows was convicted of dismembering a local night club comic who had made the mistake of sleeping with an underboss’s girlfriend, the family arranged through government contacts to have Brows serve his time in the Big A. “Listen to this, Cosmo,” Doyle Riley had told Cosmo then. “Brows is gonna join us here. The boys want us to look after him.”
When Brows arrived at the Big A, Cosmo was amused. “You never told me he was Frankenstein,” he grunted to Riley. “Seen that cliff over his eyes?”
“Steroids.”
Cosmo saw what he needed to see of Joplan for now. He rose from the table holding his tray and stepped behind the bench seat with his left foot. As he lifted his right foot over, another inmate rammed him from behind. Cosmo windmilled to maintain his balance but couldn’t recover and fell to the concrete floor. Food scraps and utensils pelted down on him like hail in a thunderstorm. He looked up to see a man with stringy red hair and a face to match bent over him. He was laughing. Loudly. Cosmo was agile for a big man but when he scrambled to get up the red man dumped his own tray on him — just in case anyone thought this had been an accident. By then, the floor was so slippery that Cosmo could get no traction. In one last try, his arms slid out from under him and his chest popped the floor. His humiliation was indescribable.