The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(32)

I sat and watched then as John Gallo took my mother’s hand and kissed it. They stood there, just a few feet apart, until he turned around and headed down the walk. She watched him go, leaning against the door frame, as beautiful and imperious as ever. Even from this distance, I could see her smiling.

Smiling at John Gallo.

Elise Wolf stood there until Gallo’s driver got out and opened the back door to his Mercedes. I ducked down behind my steering wheel as the car went past me.

I’d gone there thinking I’d surprise her tonight. Only it had turned out to be the other way around.

And I had maybe found out whose side Elise Wolf was on after all.





Thirty-Seven



THEY WERE IN THE Celentano Room at Che Fico, on Divisadero, having come unseen through the back entrance, which the owner allowed them to use, giving them their privacy before they were even in their own private room.

Their usual table was set in a corner, near a white brick wall. The wall next to it, directly behind John Gallo, was covered with old album covers and movie posters, just about all of them featuring Italian singers and actors both living and dead. Mayor Charlie Spooner was seated to Gallo’s right, bowls of pasta and meatballs and baskets of freshly baked bread in front of them along with a bottle of Gallo’s favorite Chianti. When Jack Wolf arrived, he apologized to Gallo for being late.

“Nice to see you, Jack,” Spooner said, “you sonofabitch.”

“Come on, Charlie,” Jack said as he sat down. “We’ve gone over this. You know why I had to run that story. And it will provide us with cover later on when John puts everything into play.”

“And,” Gallo said, “you know how quickly that particular controversy went away.”

“Later on, no one will be able to say that I rolled over for you before we ended up in business together.”

“I’d still like to know who sold me out with those pictures,” Charlie said.

The mayor was looking at Jack Wolf, so only Jack saw the smile that crossed Gallo’s face, there and gone, as if a shade had opened and closed.

“Just see if you can manage to keep it in your pants going forward,” Gallo said to the outgoing mayor of San Francisco.

Then he raised his glass and said, “Alla nostra salute.”

They all drank.

“Where’s Danny tonight?” Spooner said to Gallo.

“Running a little errand for me.”

“I worry sometimes that he’s a loose cannon.”

Gallo smiled more fully now. “Only because he is. What I worry about sometimes is that he doesn’t fully grasp that this is about so much more than football.”

They ate in silence for the next few minutes, until they heard a knock on the door. The waiter’s head appeared. “How are we doing with the wine, Mr. Gallo?”

Gallo told him they were fine for now.

When the waiter had left, Jack said to Gallo, “My mother said you stopped by the house tonight.”

“Strictly a social call.”

“Is there really any such thing with you?” Spooner said.

Jack said, “She wouldn’t say what the two of you discussed.”

“Because that is our business and not yours,” Gallo said as evenly as if he’d asked Jack to pass the bread basket.

“No worries. We’re all on the same team here.”

“A team I own,” Gallo said without the slightest change of inflection or tone. “The way I will eventually own the Wolves.”

“We understand that, John,” Spooner said. “We’ve understood that from the start.”

“The way we understand that the current mission remains destroying Jack’s sister,” Gallo said, “as a way of arriving at our ultimate goal.”

“I’m frankly not sure we can totally accomplish that in the media,” Jack said. “And I’m in the media.”

John Gallo said, “Oh, yes, we can.”

“So far, so good,” Jack said.

“Just not quite good enough, you cocky bastard,” Gallo said.

Something about him had changed, but neither one of the men with him at the table noticed.

Jack Wolf said, “Relax, John.”

Gallo’s fury was sudden then. He slammed his hand down on the table, making their bowls jump, causing Charlie Spooner’s wineglass to fall and shatter on the floor, the sound like a gun going off.

“Don’t you tell me to relax.”

Jack Wolf and Charlie Spooner stared at him.

“Pretty good isn’t good enough!” Gallo snapped at Jack. “Do better!”

The waiter appeared then, Charlie directing him to the shattered glass. The waiter cleaned it up, went away, and came back with a new one. He poured Charlie a fresh glass of wine and left.

When he was gone, Gallo turned to Jack, his voice not much above a whisper, and said, “If I don’t get everything I want, and I mean everything, remember that you end up with nothing. Not even your newspaper.”

“I’m aware of that,” Jack said. “I was just trying to say that we’ve still got time to beat her up a little more before the vote.”

“I don’t want you to just beat her up. I want you to finish the bitch.”

He smiled, as if the last couple of minutes hadn’t happened.