Double Espresso (A Loretta Kovacs thriller) Page 11

  “Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Of course. And by the way this is the way it should be. Your parents are supposed to pick who you marry. This love stuff is way overrated. My father told me who I was going to marry, and that was that.”

  “You mean, you didn’t love him?”

  “That came later.”

  “But what if it didn’t?”

  Annette scrinched up her face and shook her head, annoyed with the question. “That’s what’s wrong with you people today. You’re always asking ‘what if, what if?’ Forget about ‘what if.’ Just have a little faith.”

  Loretta did not agree, but it wasn’t worth starting an argument. “So who’s the lucky guy?” she asked.

  Annette looked both ways before she spoke. “Frank, of course.”

  “Marvelli!?” Loretta could feel the blood draining from her face.

  “Sure, he’s a pain sometimes, but he’s the perfect husband for Jennifer. He’s a good-looking son of a gun—don’t you think? And he did everything for my Rene, everything. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s really lost without her. He needs someone, and so does Jennifer. They’ll make each other happy. Besides, my granddaughter needs a mother, and I don’t want him marrying some stranger. Nina doesn’t need a stranger; she needs family.”

  Loretta was feeling a little light-headed. This woman was serious. She had this all planned out.

  “I also want more grandchildren,” Annette said. “And I don’t want Sammy the schmo’s little rug rats running around my house.” Annette clenched her fists and shuddered. “The thought of him with my Jennifer makes my skin crawl.”

  Loretta stared at Jennifer making espresso behind the counter. She was gorgeous, she was young, she had a great bod, she wasn’t stupid, and she looked like Marvelli’s beloved Rene. Why wouldn’t he want her?

  Annette whispered in Loretta’s ear. “They already like each other. They’d never admit it, of course, but you can tell by just watching them together. They just need a little nudge. It won’t be hard to make a mushad’.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A match. That’s what we call it in Italian slang.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Annette squinted at her. “You don’t sound like you think this is a good idea. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Wrong, she thought. Everything is the matter.

  “You watch,” Annette said. “All I need is a week, and I’ll have them together. You wanna bet?”

  “That’s okay.” Loretta didn’t want to lose twice.

  “Here you go, Mom,” Jennifer said, coming back to the table. She set down a small cup of espresso and a dessert plate with a cannoli on it. Loretta gazed down at the cup and the plate. The espresso smelled wonderful, and that cannoli didn’t look bad either.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” Annette poked her finger at the pastry.

  Jennifer laughed. “It’s a cannoli, Mom. What do you think it is?”

  “It’s a Seattle cannoli. I don’t want it.”

  “A cannoli is a cannoli, Mom. Eat it.”

  “No, thank you.” Annette pushed the plate away and sniffed the espresso suspiciously. “You sure you don’t have any sambuca?” she asked her daughter again.

  Jennifer was definitely a dish, but Loretta wondered why Marvelli would ever want to have this mother-in-law twice. Of course, he already had her, so it didn’t make much difference, did it?

  “You want this, Loretta?” Annette asked, nudging the cannoli plate toward her.

  She looked at Jennifer’s figure. “No thanks,” she moaned. “I’m not skinny.”

  “What?”

  “I mean hungry.”

  “Oh. You sure?”

  “Loretta!” Marvelli shouted from across the room. He was standing behind Alan, pointing at the computer screen. “I think we got it. I think we’re in business here.”

  Alan gave her the puppy-dog eyes from across the room, attempting a timid smile.

  Oh, great, she thought with a sigh. My Mr. Right.

  14

  The choppy water of Puget Sound was the color of a well-used blue-steel 9-mm automatic, which was what Loretta figured the feds would use on her and Marvelli when they figured out what they were up to, which probably wouldn’t take too long.

  “This is nuts, Marvelli,” she said, holding on to the rail of the twenty-foot powerboat as Marvelli roared over the whitecaps, making the hull slap the surface.

  “I thought you knew how to drive this thing.”

  “I do,” Marvelli said. “I have a boat a little bigger than this back home.” He was grinning into the spray, his eyes covered by wraparound sunglasses. He looked almost dashing. Loretta wanted to kick him for looking so good. He and Jennifer would make a lovely couple, she thought. Once Marvelli got out of prison.

  “I’m telling you, Marvelli. This is nuts. No way in hell this will work.”

  “Calm down and start thinking like a feebie.”

  “What a frightening thought,” she muttered. She felt the leather ID wallet in her pocket, making sure it was still there. It was a genuine FBI ID issued to Special Agent C. Gibson. Marvelli had a similar one in his pocket that identified him as Special Agent Michael Tarantella. The IDs had arrived at their hotel this morning via overnight express from Agent Tarantella. Marvelli had said that Tarantella owed him big-time for a multitude of past favors, and this only partly repaid the debt.

  She rearranged her blowing hair and yelled over the rumble of the engine. “You sure these things are for real?”

  Marvelli nodded and yelled back. “Tarantella said not to worry. These are real IDs. He also prepped me over the phone on what to expect when we got there.”

  “But he’s never been there himself.”

  “Right. But that’s good. If we seem a little awkward, that’s why.”

  “But he told us himself that you have to be escorted to get into My Blue Heaven. Remember?”

  “Not necessarily. He told me that veteran agents who have business there and who’ve been cleared can get there on their own. Tarantella fixed it so that we can get in. See, I knew he was holding out on us when we met him in the parking garage. He just didn’t want to stick his neck out.”

  “I don’t understand. How did he fix it?”

  “He and his partner Gibson are currently working undercover in two different mob families. They need to check out some information that they’ve received to see if Rispoli can corroborate it. We’re cleared to talk to him for as long as we need to.”

  “But how do we get him out?”

  “We’ll figure that out when we get there.”

  “Great plan,” she grumbled.

  “Positive mind, Loretta. Always gotta have a positive mind.”

  “Gotta have a better plan,” she countered. “This is too complicated, too many variables, too many ways for things to go wrong.”

  “Don’t make it complicated until it gets complicated. Don’t anticipate.”

  “What’re you?” she muttered. “Norman Vincent Peale?”

  “What?” he yelled over the engine. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Never mind,” she yelled back.

  She looked out across the waters to the islands in the distance. Each one had thick stands of tall evergreens that grew right up to the shoreline. These islands were mostly small, and it felt as if she and Marvelli had passed more than a hundred of them since they’d left the rental dock back in Seattle almost three hours ago. She gazed up at the towering white clouds that kept crossing the sun. It was beautiful out here, she thought. They could run away and never come back, go native and live together on one of these little islands. No one would ever miss them.

  Except for Annette. And Jennifer. And Marvelli’s daughter. And Julius Monroe back at the office. And her family.

  Loretta stared at Marvelli’s profile as he stood at the helm, the wind blowing through his hair, and she sighed. Forge
t it, she thought.

  She could see from the determined set of his jaw that she was wasting her time thinking about the two of them ever getting together. He only had one thing on his mind: saving Rispoli from Sammy so that Rispoli could testify against Taffy Demaggio. Marvelli was obsessed with Taffy because in his mind Taffy was responsible for his wife’s death. Logically, Marvelli knew this wasn’t true, but Marvelli’s life had never been ruled by logic. Taffy was the evil embodiment of all the doctors and nurses and hospitals that had failed to save Rene.

  Marvelli would never get over his wife, Loretta feared, and she also feared that he would eventually get together with his sister-in-law simply because she resembled Rene. It almost made Loretta feel sorry for Jennifer.

  “There it is,” Marvelli called out. “Up on that hill.”

  As they rounded a cluster of tiny islands, a bigger one came into view. It took Loretta a moment to locate the building on the landscape, it blended in so well. A long, low, sand-colored structure was built into a hill overlooking the sound. It looked more like a factory than a prison, and if Marvelli hadn’t pointed it out, she would have just assumed it was a lumber or paper mill. Tall pine trees obscured most of the building, and unless you were approaching from this angle, boaters probably wouldn’t even notice it at all. As Marvelli veered the boat toward the dock on the island, My Blue Heaven disappeared from view completely.

  “Unbelievable,” Marvelli said. “These people on the Internet are amazing. Alan Winslow E-mailed some disgruntled guy he found on a victim’s rights web site, and the guy knew exactly where this place was. He even downloaded a map.” Marvelli pointed to a piece of printer paper on a clipboard hanging from the dashboard. “These directions are better than the ones Tarantella gave me.”

  “But why would this guy on the Internet just give away such valuable information?”

  “My guess is he’s related to someone who was hurt—maybe even killed—by one of these finks in Witness Protection. They do tend to get away with their crimes when they agree to flip.”

  Loretta studied Marvelli’s expression. On some level he probably agreed with the vigilante mentality. She had a feeling he wouldn’t hesitate to beat the crap out of Taffy Demaggio if they met up again.

  Marvelli cut back on the engine and guided the boat toward the dock. Two long piers jutted out into the water. A weathered cedar shack sat on the shore between them. Loretta was surprised at the apparent lack of security. She’d expected to find armed guards with vicious dogs, high fences topped with coils of razor wire, and James Bond speed boats mounted with machine guns. But there was none of that. Just an empty dock and a dirt path that led up the hill.

  As Marvelli turned off the engine and let the boat glide up to the dock, a redheaded man with a gray mustache came out of the shack. He was somewhere in his forties, wearing jeans and a flannel black-and-red buffalo-plaid shirt over a gray T-shirt. “Howdy,” he said, crinkling his eyes with a smile. He took off his Seattle Mariners baseball cap, smoothed his hair, and put it back on. “Nice day.”

  “Yeah,” Marvelli said. “Too bad the Mariners lost yesterday. Four-zip.”

  Loretta had read in the paper that morning that the Mariners had beaten the Orioles 9–8, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “They play the Yankees tomorrow,” the man said.

  “The day after that, too,” Marvelli said.

  The man’s friendly face suddenly turned serious. He turned his cap around backward, and Loretta suddenly heard rustling in the branches on both sides of the dock. She did a double take when she thought she saw a rifle barrel receding into the foliage behind the shack.

  The redheaded man opened his flannel shirt to show a badge pinned to his T-shirt. “Deputy Armistead, United States Marshals Service.”

  Marvelli pulled out his new ID and opened it for the man. “Special Agent Mike Tarantella, FBI.”

  Loretta tried to swallow, but her mouth was bone dry as she pulled out her ID and showed it. “Special Agent C. Gibbons, FBI,” she said. She wished she’d sounded more natural.

  “Hand your IDs to me, please,” Armistead said as he walked out farther on the dock. He got down on one knee and reached out for them. “Keep your hands in sight and stay on the boat until I tell you otherwise.” He took their IDs and went back into the shack.

  Loretta glanced sideways, looking for more gun barrels. She didn’t see any, but she was certain they were there. Her heart was thumping like a drum beat on a slave ship. She listened carefully for movement in the bushes, but all she could hear were the low waves slapping the hull of the boat.

  “What’s taking him so long?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  “Who knows,” Marvelli said.

  A few minutes later, Armistead came back out. He nodded and waved for them to come ashore. His cap was turned back the right way, but his expression was still pretty grim.

  The inside of My Blue Heaven looked like a very modern college dorm with lounges, game rooms, and reading rooms on the main floor. The floors were covered with blue-gray industrial carpeting, and the walls were freshly painted. All the doors were metal, painted ice blue to match the walls, and most of them had reinforced-glass windows in them.

  Loretta was amazed at how quiet it was as she and Marvelli followed Deputy Armistead down a long hallway. It was definitely a federal facility, she thought. Not exactly a country club, but nothing like a state facility. That’s real hard time.

  Armistead led them past an open pair of double doors. Loretta peeked in and saw a very well equipped gym where a group of men in shorts and sweatpants were playing basketball while three guards in khaki uniforms watched from the sidelines. Loretta noticed that the guards weren’t carrying riot sticks. How civilized.

  Among the men playing ball was one black guy who handled the ball pretty well. The rest of the players were white guys who looked pretty pathetic. She assumed these were inmates and wondered if one of them was Rispoli.

  “This way,” Armistead said, prompting Loretta to keep up.

  She picked up her pace, her pulse racing because she didn’t want to blow her cover. Federal agents don’t dawdle—at least not that anyone should notice.

  She exchanged glances with Marvelli behind Armistead’s back. He looked as cool as could be while she was sweating buckets under her clothes.

  They came up to a locked windowless door. Armistead stared up at the video camera mounted on the wall. The three of them waited in silence until the door buzzed, and Armistead pushed it open. They walked into a narrow hallway with a locked mirrored picture window on one wall. There was another locked door at the other end of the hallway. Loretta was certain that there were guards behind that mirror, scrutinizing them.

  That’s it, she thought. They’ve got a computer in there, and they’ve called up files on the real Gibson and Tarantella. They’re looking at photos of the real agents, and they are not me and Marvelli. That’s it, we’re finished. We’re screwed. Best case scenario: She and Marvelli would be reprimanded and they’d lose their jobs. Worse case: They’d go to prison. And not a nice one like this.

  Time seemed to stop, and Loretta feared that she’d sweat right through her jacket, giving herself away. Armistead stared at her, fish-eyed and poker-faced. She was convinced he knew. But what were they waiting for?

  Suddenly the second door buzzed, and Armistead held it open for Marvelli and Loretta. They passed through into another long hallway. This one didn’t have the same institutional smell that the last hallway had. She thought she could smell burnt coffee. Someone had left a coffeemaker on with next to nothing in the pot.

  “Down this way,” Armistead said, pointing down the hallway.

  They followed him up to a stained-wood door with a red plastic nameplate in a brass holder—Ronald E. Darcy, Special United States Marshal. Loretta assumed he was special because instead of being in charge of a regional territory, he ran My Blue Heaven.

  Armistead knocked on the door and opened it. A you
ng man in a suit that was too big for him was just getting up from his desk. He had a stack of files under one arm. “Go ahead in,” he said to Armistead, nodding at the inner door. “He’s waiting for you.”

  The young man breezed out of the office, apparently in a hurry to do something. Maybe he was in a hurry to get out of the line of fire, Loretta thought. She balled her hands to hide the trembling.

  Armistead knocked on the inner door. “Come in,” a voice inside said.

  Armistead opened the door and waited for Loretta and Marvelli to go in first. A man in a brown suit was sitting at a mahogany desk. “Special Agents Tarantella and Gibson to see you, sir,” Armistead said. He walked past Marvelli and laid their IDs on the man’s desk.

  The man studied their IDs for a long moment, nodding to himself the whole time. “Thank you, Armistead,” he finally said.

  “Do you want me to stay?” Armistead asked.

  The man shook his head. “You can go.”

  Armistead left the room.

  The man stood up and extended his hand to Marvelli, revealing his true size. “Ron Darcy,” he said. Darcy was short and compact, and Loretta imagined that he might have been a gymnast when he was younger. He had straight, steel-gray hair that fell over his brow and a serious but boyish face that betrayed the fact that he was probably in his fifties.

  “Mike Tarantella,” Marvelli said, shaking his hand.

  Loretta extended hers. “Gibson,” she said with a terse smile.

  Darcy flashed an equally terse smile as he shook her hand, then gave them back their IDs. “What’s the C stand for, Gibson?”

  “Charlotte,” she said without missing a beat. She’d already prepared for this, even though she had no idea what the C did stand for.

  “Have a seat,” Darcy said. “So you’re here to talk to Gus Rispoli?” He was grinning as if this were funny.

  Marvelli nodded. “That’s why we came.”

  “I assume you’ve already talked to Agent Springer about him.”

  Loretta nodded, praying that he wouldn’t want to get into any details.