The End Game

When you see Miami on television, it’s always bikinis and diamonds and flashy cars. It’s cops and crooks and bags of cocaine. But in real life, people actually live in Miami, raise families, work nine to five, and try to give normal life a go.

Regular people.

Regular cars.

Regular problems.

It seemed like a long time since my problems-and the problems of the people I encountered-weren’t literally life-and-death.

It was also a million miles away from Gennaro Stefania’s situation. Here was a man whose wife and child we’re kidnapped and no one knew, not even the wife and child.

“I just don’t understand any of this,” Gennaro said.

“You have any idea why your stepfather would want to see Maria dead?” I asked.

“Maria? No. No. He adores her. He adores Liz. He wants for nothing.”

“What do you think he was doing meeting with Christopher?”

Gennaro shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “They are familiar with each other, but if we were in Italy he wouldn’t be seen within a hundred miles of him. The paparazzi would devour him for it.”

There was something else. Something Gennaro didn’t know. Something, hopefully, we’d find out after Sam got done at the hotel, where he was busy putting eyes and ears on Dinino’s Internet activities.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” I said. I was trying to sound hopeful, and for a few seconds of silence, maybe it worked.

And then Nate said, “How about Slade?” as if we were still talking about the slate of imaginary names he was considering. Which, apparently, to him, we were.

“You want me to call you Slade?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s right with that?”

“Look,” Nate said, “if I’m going into this, I gotta know who I am. Strong, silent, cool, I’m with that. But if I need to flex, I should have a name at the ready. What if I get captured? You want me to just blurt out my name and address and social security number?”

Flex? At some point, Nate started picking up words from gangster rap and movies where people turn their guns sideways to shoot each other.

“We’re not invading Iran,” I said. “No one is going to capture you.”

“What’s your cover?”

Sam had a buddy of his dummy up some street credentials for me-which means, essentially, if anyone goes looking for information on Tommy the Ice Pick, they’re likely to hear he’s Las Vegas mafia with Chicago backing. The Sicilians think of the American mafia, if they’re not from the original five families, like perpetual rookies. For someone like Bonaventura, the mere idea of checking me out would be admitting that he’d lost a notch.

“Tommy,” I said.

“Just Tommy?”

I didn’t want to tell Nate about the Ice Pick part and I didn’t really want Gennaro to hear it, either. He was already sweating.

“From Vegas.”

“Tommy from Vegas?”

“Right,” I said.

“So we’re in from Las Vegas. Muscling into this action. Getting our piece.” Nate was near giddy.

I turned around and looked at Gennaro. “It’s going to be fine,” I said. “He won’t be speaking.”

It was just after five when we pulled up to Bonaventura’s gate. There were still a good half-dozen men on the other side of it. When they saw us pull up, they opened the gate and one of the men walked up to the car and tapped on the driver’s window.

“You’re at the wrong place,” the man said. Sam was right: He looked like a Marine. Even the way he was standing, like he was trying to figure out how to kick down the door of the limo and start shooting.

Surprisingly, Nate just stared forward and didn’t speak.

“I got Gennaro Stefania in the back to see the big guy,” I said. I was staring forward, too. Just a profile with sunglasses.

The man craned his head into the car and made out Gennaro in the back.

“You weren’t expected today, Mr. Stefania,” he said.

“I didn’t know I was coming,” Gennaro said, just as I told him to say. Whatever questions anyone had, his answer was the same: He didn’t know.

“I can let you in,” the man said, “but your detail has to stay out here. That’s orders.”

“We’re not his detail,” I said. “You tell the big guy that Tommy the Ice Pick is out here, and either he lets us in with Mr. Stefania or we start removing Mr. Stefania’s nonvital organs.” I pulled my sunglasses down and turned to face the guard. Let him see my face. Let him see my eyes. Let him know I wasn’t scared in the least. “You know what the spleen does, Jarhead? Does it have an actual purpose? Because that’s the only detail you might want to consider.”

The guard kept his eyes on me but didn’t show any emotion. “One moment,” he said, and walked back through the gate, shutting it behind him.

“Tommy the Ice Pick?” Nate said.

“Tommy Two Toes doesn’t exactly scare people,” I said. The guards were clustered behind the gate now and were checking their guns and readjusting their Kevlar.

Not a good sign.

“Is this going to work?” Gennaro said.

“Yes,” I said.

“What’s the protocol if they start shooting?” Nate said.