Danny Marino was beginning to understand that the shortest messages took the longest to deliver.
He came back from Fourteenth Street a little after four. Tony Spada was sitting behind the desk in the back room of the Downtown Athletic & Bridge Club, reading the racing form. Continue reading
Danny Marino had learned something about important men.
The more important they were, the more errands they had for somebody else.
“Go down to Fourteenth Street,” Tony Spada told him. “There’s a tailor shop two doors west of Third. Ask for Mr. Caruso.”
“What am I picking up?” Continue reading
Danny Marino had discovered the only thing worse than being followed. Being expected. Continue reading
The Pontiac sedan had seen better days.
So had Danny Marino.
The Pontiac was parked half on the curb outside a warehouse near the waterfront, somewhere south of Brooklyn Heights. Danny wasn’t entirely sure where. The streets had changed names twice since Tony Spada had given him directions, and the directions hadn’t been very good to begin with. Continue reading
The man from Miami arrived wearing a white suit in the rain.
Danny decided that was either confidence or stupidity. Continue reading
Charlie drove the Pontiac into Brooklyn without saying another word. Danny had discovered that Charlie could go for remarkably long periods without talking. It was one of the things Danny liked about him. The other was that Charlie seemed to know where he was going. Continue reading
Danny Marino was beginning to enjoy the advantages of being nobody. Nobody watched a nobody.
Important men lowered their voices when other important men entered the room. They stopped talking when a capo appeared. They changed the subject when somebody from another family came through the door.
Danny was a nobody that they sent for coffee. That was how he learned about Miami. Continue reading
The Pontiac sedan was parked under a dead streetlight on Second Avenue.
Rain had polished the pavement black. Storefront signs floated upside down in the gutters, broken into pieces whenever a cab went by. Somewhere down the block a delivery truck was unloading newspapers. The bundles hit the sidewalk one after another with a heavy slap. Continue reading
“We need to talk about the bomb.”
Danny looked around the room. Continue reading
Danny got into the Pontiac. The man beside him closed the door. Nobody said anything.
The driver pulled away from the curb and joined traffic as though he had been doing nothing more suspicious than waiting for his wife outside Macy’s.
Danny sat in the back with the second man. He smelled cigarettes, wool, and something medicinal. The man beside him was perhaps forty-five. Dark suit. White shirt. Plain tie. No jewelry. His shoes were polished but not new. Continue reading