Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(10)
“Jesus!” the FBI agent explodes in disgust. He can no longer remain seated but jumps up, nearly knocking his chair over. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Rainy is about to tell him when Corelli intervenes. “She’s a soldier and under military law, not civilian law, so how about we all calm down? What do you say?” He shakes his head in irritation mixed with amusement. “Sergeant, I am not going to order you to take this on. But as I understand it, there’s a lesser boss, there’s a term for it—”
“A capo,” Agent Bayswater says, still glaring at Rainy. “Or underboss.”
“Underboss. Le mot juste. An underboss named Vito Camporeale. He’s got family connections in . . . the target area. And he has a son named Francisco—Cisco they call him—right here in New York. Cisco has gotten himself into a heap of trouble.”
Bayswater says, “Racketeering, pandering, pornography, and loan-sharking. Only, Cisco screwed up and got overly ambitious. He tried to take over a block that belongs to a colored gang up in Harlem. But see, there’s a peace deal between the Wops and the coons, and the Five Families don’t want a war with the coons right now, what with making money hand over fist on the docks and off drunk soldiers. Cisco shot a colored boy who was connected, see, and now it’s blood for blood.”
The full truth begins to dawn on Rainy. “You’re going to offer to get Cisco to . . . to a safe place. And you want me to get my father to introduce me to Camporeale and—”
“Vito the Sack, they call him.” Bayswater now comes close. He puts his hands on the back of Rainy’s chair, leans down so she can feel his breath on the side of her neck. “Because when a fellow displeases him, see, he likes to take a razor and swipe, swipe, the man’s not a man anymore, if you take my meaning.”
Without turning to face him, Rainy repeats, “You want me to get my father to introduce me to Vito the Sack and get him to help us in . . . the target area. In exchange, we’ll save his son.”
Bayswater is taken aback by her calm. She feels him release his grip on her seat back. Of course her calm is mostly an act because Rainy’s mind is screaming with complications and personal fears, the foremost of which is confronting her father with this. She wrote to him months earlier to let him know that she knows about his other activities. But since coming home on leave she and her father have never mentioned it. Forcing him to face it? To face the fact that his activities have now ensnared his daughter? That feels very, very hard to Rainy.
On the other hand, part of Rainy is excited. The part of her that wants to contribute something to destroying the monster Hitler. She is a mere buck sergeant, one of hundreds of thousands of such in the US Army, but she’s being offered an assignment that could really amount to something. She could help to save the lives of GIs like those she met in Tunisia. She has fond memories of solid, reliable Dain Sticklin and charming Jack Stafford, and she was amazed—and just a little scared—by Rio Richlin.
Since the desperate combat in the desert, that young woman, Rio, has insinuated herself into Rainy’s mind. The mix of freckle-faced naiveté and savage Amazon brutality has affected Rainy’s worldview, has shown her a glimpse of a future in which ideas of masculinity and femininity could be utterly transformed. There is a revolution in Rio Richlin (who would no doubt snort derisively at such a notion). All over the country women are going into factories and doing jobs previously reserved for men only. All over the world clever women—and Rainy knows herself to be in this category—are contributing their intelligence and insight to the war effort. But women have always worked, if not as shipfitters and aircraft mechanics, then as maids and nurses and teachers. And there are examples going back to the time of the Romans of women bright and determined enough to wield real power, though often it was from behind the scenes.
But Rio, and women like her, are intruding in an area that has always been reserved to men: Rio is a warrior. She and others like her have shown that girls—women—could do more than work; women could be brave and aggressive. Women could kill. And Rainy is sure that reality will change the world.
She’s sure it will have no effect on the minds of men like Agent Bayswater, but for Rainy it feels like a challenge.
Colonel Corelli takes charge again as the FBI man seems to have run out of steam. “You will be required to give us a full report of the contact. You must attempt to convince them to speak with me directly, but if you find yourself dealing directly with Vito Camporeale, you will prepare a full report on him and on anyone else associated with him.”
“Of course,” Rainy says.
“And on your father,” Bayswater adds.
“No,” Rainy says without hesitation.
“That’s not a request, that’s an order,” Bayswater snaps.
Rainy turns in her chair to look the agent in the face. There’s a confident sneer on his thin lips. His head is cocked to one side, a parody of some movie tough guy. “Agent Bayswater, I’m not an informer. I will not betray my father.”
“Well, you uppity little skirt,” Bayswater snaps. He seems to think insults will move her. Or . . .
Or he’s deliberately trying to goad her. Is he testing her? Or is he just a deeply unpleasant man?
“You’ll report to me, Sergeant Schulterman,” Corelli says with strained calm, glaring at Bayswater. “And I have no interest in your conversation with your father. You’ll find a connection. You may even meet with Camporeale yourself. But you will only report back, you will make no commitments. Is that understood?”