Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

have a good reason to think Pro will see me. And if you haven’t the intelligence to see that, the only person wasting anybody’s time here is you. Have I made myself clear, or do I need to explain any of that?”

We had reached the garden and stopped. He gazed at me a moment through half-closed lids and said, “Have we finished measuring dicks, Detective Stone?”

“You tell me.”

“What makes you think Morry Levy will agree to see you?”

We had come to a row of benches, and we sat down. “We’re looking into a cold case.”

“Nelson Hernandez.”

“From information received—please don’t ask me from whom—we have reason to believe that Pro Levy might have information and also an interest in seeing the case prosecuted.”

His eyes swiveled around the park, like they were threading ideas together. “I’m going to need a little more than that, Detective.”

“Okay. We have reason to believe there may be a bent cop involved, and that will have to do. I am not prepared to say any more. If you give that to Pro, I know he’ll talk to us.”

He looked me straight in the eye. “I am astonished, Detective, that with your background and experience, you would have come here on such a mission. You should know that the witness protection program is categorical in not allowing access to any of its subjects under any conditions whatsoever, whoever you are, without exception. I am going to return to my office now, and I hope you will not attempt to follow me or speak to me. And please never raise this subject with me or any of my colleagues again. Whoever it was suggested this to you was sorely mistaken. Good day.”

He got up and strode away, back toward the FBI building, leaving Dehan and me to stare at each other. She said, “What the hell was that?”

“I think we just got our meeting with Pro.” I looked at my watch. “Come on, let’s get a hot dog.”

As we walked, she said, “This is deep.”

“Deep is your word du jour.”

“Whatever. He’s taking a message back to Pro, who is on witness protection but still in with the Vincenzo family, against bureau policy, so that Pro will have a meeting with us because he and the Vincenzos have an interest in finding Mick Harragan?”

“That about sums it up, Dehan.”

“We are being used by the Mafia.”

“They are trying to use us. Whether we let them or not is up to us.” We got to the stand and I ordered two hot dogs. I watched her a minute. She looked troubled. “You up for this?”

She nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Three

The call came at three a.m. I squinted at the screen. It said the number was withheld. When I answered, a deep voice came over the line.

“Stone?”

“Yeah. Who is this? It’s three in the morning…”

“You’re going to go to LaGuardia. You’re going to go to the Fastair desk. You tell ’em who you are. There is a plane gonna take you to see you-know-who.”

“You-know-who?”

“Yeah, you know… you-know-who. You got that?”

I rubbed my face and sighed. “Yeah, I got it.” I hung up, then swung my legs out of bed and thought of Dehan. For a moment I considered not calling her, but changed my mind. I pressed her speed dial.

“What?”

“Get dressed. I’ll be there to pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“Why?”

“We are going to meet you-know-who.”

Dehan had an apartment in an old oxblood block in the Foxhurst district. She was waiting in the doorway when I arrived. She ran down and climbed in.

“Who would have guessed my life would become so glamorous when I teamed up with you, Detective Stone? What’s happening?”

I told her what I knew. She thought about it for a bit and said, “So nobody knows where we are, and we don’t know where we’re going.”

“Yup. But we’re still naïve enough to trust that the FBI would not set us up.”

She gave me the once-over. “What’s that, the royal we?”

“We’ll take it a step at a time. See where it leads.”

There was a pilot waiting for us at the Fastair desk. He led us out onto the tarmac and across to a small jet. As we boarded, I asked him, “Where are we going?”

He looked surprised and smiled.

“You’re boarding an air taxi and you don’t know where you’re going? That’s a first for me. I have instructions to fly you to Port Lavaca, on the Matagorda Bay. About twenty miles outside Victoria. Flight time is about three hours, so we should be there at…” He checked his watch. “Thirty minutes after eight.” He smiled at us both and added, “Cabin crew will be serving you breakfast shortly after takeoff.”

I sat and Dehan sat opposite me across a small table. She said, “I feel like James Bond. Did you bring your tux? Next thing we’ll be sipping martinis and assassinating Third World presidents.”

I smiled. Dehan had a sense of humor. Who knew? She caught my look and said, “There is a serious side to this, Stone.” I nodded. She went on, “The bureau isn’t paying for this jet.”

“Nope, the Mob is.”

“When the Mob lays it on like this, they expect something in return.”

“Which begs the question, are the Feds in an uneasy truce with Vincenzo, or is Harrison in bed with them, along with Sam?”

We were taxiing toward the runway, and I knew what was coming next. We stopped and the engines started to scream. She said, “Tell me where you stand.”

We began to move, and next thing we were hurtling down the runway and the earth was falling away beneath us. Outside, the eastern horizon was turning a gray blue over the Atlantic, and to the west the billion lights of New York