Private

“Sci. Are you getting this? In five days, they’re going to kill this girl.”

Chapter 72

JACK HAD CALLED ahead to Private’s new East Coast office. A senior operative, Diana DiCarlo, was waiting at the gate when Emilio Cruz disembarked at Miami International Airport.

CIA trained, DiCarlo was very efficient. She handed Cruz a briefcase with everything he would need: gun, surveillance equipment, car keys, and phone numbers of Private sources throughout South Florida. And she told Cruz where his subjects were staying.

Cruz checked in to the Biltmore, the room directly above the men he was tailing. He set up his microphones and listened.

Later, he followed his subjects from the hotel to clubs and restaurants, even watched them place their bets at the dog track in Hialeah.

Now, three days into the job, he was in South Beach, the flashiest, sexiest part of old Miami.

Emilio Cruz was sitting on a coral-rock wall, the beach rolling out before him to the ocean’s edge. He was dressed to blend in, wearing a wife beater under an open shirt, black wraparound shades, hair banded at his nape.

He appeared to be engrossed in the daily racing form, but it was a prop. He had a camera eye embedded in the frames of his sunglasses that was not just taping; the images were bouncing off a satellite a couple of miles overhead, sending pictures and sound back to the office in LA.

Directly ahead and maybe thirty feet away, three men sat on a bench facing away from him and toward Ocean Drive.

They were talking together, but their eyes were on the inked, half-naked girls skating by on the hot plum-colored sidewalk.

The two men Cruz had been following were Kenny Owen and Lance Richter. Both were NFL referees. Owen was bald and freckled. Richter was twenty years younger, with a lot of bushy brown hair, a fresh sunburn, and a gaudy Rolex watch that must have weighed a pound.

Five minutes ago, the refs had been joined by Victor Spano, a lieutenant in the Chicago-based Marzullo family.

Cruz had almost said it out loud.

Holy shit.

Chapter 73

SPANO LOOKED FRESHLY showered and wore a shoulder holster under his ice blue jacket. He was telling the refs about the good time he’d had last night at the Nautilus Hotel across the street. There was no sexier town in America than Miami, not even Vegas.

“The mother was a little hotter than her kid. But the kid was more enthusiastic.”

Richter shrugged and said, “Mr. Spano, wasn’t that, like, incest?”

“Nah,” Spano said. “It was her stepmother. What do you think? I’m a pervert?”

Everyone laughed. The kid with the hair said, “But seriously, Mr. Spano. Back to the assignment we have this week. Tennessee by seventeen points at Oakland? Seventeen points is no walk in the park, and we could be under a lot of pressure here.”

Spano said, “I follow your point, Lance, but you know what they say. Pressure is self-inflicted. You guys are pros. I don’t see a problem.”

A homeless teen with meth mouth and wearing a Speedo and a dirty green shirt came over to Cruz and asked for some spare change for his college fund.

Cruz said, “You’re standing in my sun.”

The kid-already a bum-said, “It’s why they call it spare change, dude. You won’t miss it.”

By the time the fresh kid had pushed off, Spano and the refs had finished their meeting and split up, Spano returning to the art deco hotel across the street, the refs inside a cab heading downtown.

It didn’t matter. Cruz had the whole story. The Titans were favored to mow the Raiders down. The refs had to prevent a massacre and protect that seventeen-point spread. If they did, someone was going to make a whole lot of millions.

Cruz tapped buttons on his iPhone, calling Jack.

“Good news, very good news. I recorded the fix. Do you receive me, captain?”

“Loud and clear. We got it all here. Audio and video. Who’s that in the blue jacket?”

“Victor Spano. Out of Chicago. Marzullo family.”

“Unreal,” Jack said. “Good job, Emilio. Come home. We need you here.”

Chapter 74

JUSTINE WAS AT BESO, the spectacular restaurant owned by Eva Longoria and Todd English. It was a huge vaulted space known for its Mexican cuisine with an original twist.

Justine’s round booth gave her a wide view of the room, but she hadn’t exactly been stargazing. That wasn’t her style.

She’d been passing the time paging through a short stack of yearbooks from Gateway Prep. The waiter cleared the table and brought her check.

“Everything was good this evening, Dr. Smith? You enjoyed your lemon sole?”

“Yes, Raphael. I’m practically addicted to the lemon sole. Everything was perfect.”

Actually, nothing was perfect, other than the fish. She’d tagged ten boys, Gateway graduates from the years 2004 through 2006, who somewhat matched Christine Castiglia’s description. Some had pointy noses, some had sticking-out ears; none of them had a police record.