Forgive Me(84)

Raynor believed Markovich could afford much more. Good. A man who was careful with his money had money to spend.

Markovich might have been somewhat frugal, but he wasn’t a trusting man. He had opened the door with a Glock pistol in his hand. The G37 Gen4 was big bore technology, a gun suitable for law enforcement, not something a first-time enthusiast would own. The choice of weaponry told Raynor plenty. Markovich was comfortable around guns and his warning look sent a message that he had pulled the trigger on a person before.

Raynor kept his sunglasses on because he wasn’t about to move his hands. He also wasn’t armed and wasn’t worried. “You can search me for a weapon, check me for a wire, if that’s your wish. I assure you I don’t have any such items on me.”

“Yeah? How do I know? Wires these days can be small, easy to hide.” Markovich’s accent was somewhat pronounced, but Raynor knew he could dial it up and down at will. Eventually it would play in Markovich’s favor.

“May I take something out of my pocket?” Raynor asked.

Using his gun as a pointer, Markovich motioned him inside the apartment. He closed the door with his foot and aimed the Glock at Raynor’s chest. “No tricks.”

Raynor reached into his front pants pocket and removed a key with a square shaped head and an unusual tip that would fit the key ring hole on the ankle monitor. “I can take that off,” he said, pointing to the GPS tracker that was part of Markovich’s bail condition.

“Are you a cop?”

“I’m a friend.”

“It comes off, an alarm goes off.”

“No,” Raynor said. “It will continue to broadcast your signal. We could move you across town and the people monitoring you will think you’re still in your apartment.”

“How is that possible?”

“I pay people who control the software. It’s not hard.”

“What is it you want?”

“May we sit? Drink?”

Markovich didn’t think long. “Vodka?”

“I would have been disappointed if you had suggested otherwise.”

Raynor sat on the black leather sofa and took off his sunglasses while Markovich retrieved two chilled glasses from the freezer and brought a bottle of Russian Standard out of a cabinet. Raynor took a sip of the proffered drink, appreciating the slight mineral taste and hints of caraway spice.

Markovich took a seat on the black leather chair across from him. The chair was higher off the ground than the sofa, putting Markovich in a power position. Raynor had selected his seat wisely.

“So what’s this all about?” Markovich asked.

“You’re going to be convicted for your crimes. You’ll do twenty years minimum, but the penalty could be life.” Raynor never danced around the issue with his prospects.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re guilty. Because there’s plenty of evidence to convict you. You were good, but not exactly careful.”

“Are you going to offer to kill the girls for me for some ridiculously high price? Is that it?”

“You’re correct, but only in part. I’m here to offer you a way out that doesn’t involve killing any of the girls, but it does come at a ridiculously high price.” Raynor’s face broke into a smile as he hoisted his glass and downed the vodka in one long, delicious gulp.





CHAPTER 44



At the office of DeRose & Associates, Angie was deep into her research on the life on Antonio Conti. The Web had a decent amount of information about Conti, just enough so she didn’t have to visit the library to further her investigation.

In the world of organized crime, Antonio Conti was a soldier, a low level operator who worked for Philip Pissano, a caporegime, or capo, in Dominick Giordano’s notoriously ruthless crime family. The capo was a leader, head of a group of soldiers, and wielded tremendous clout and power within the organization. Conti would have been nothing but a footnote in mob history had he not been pinched on a racketeering charge related to the extortion of local businesses. His was an ill-conceived money laundering scheme.

Because Conti already had a few priors to his name, he was looking at serious time, which certainly influenced his decision to cut a deal with the Feds. In exchange for his testimony, the DA dropped all charges against him. Branded a rat in mob circles, Conti and his family required constant police protection.

As a soldier, Antonio Conti had peddled influence with tactics of fear and intimidation. As a turncoat underworld informer, he wrought havoc and crippled the leadership of the Giordano crime syndicate. The information he revealed during his sensational trial pulled away the shroud that had blanketed the mob in secrecy. Giordano ran his organization with the sophistication of a Fortune 500 company and leveraged a network of Swiss accounts along with elaborate legal and financial maneuverings to hide their illicit activities.

While working as an informant, Conti wore a wire. He secretly recorded hundreds of hours of conversation, producing damning evidence at the trial of several high-ranking mob members including the head honcho, Dominic Giordano, and Conti’s immediate supervisor, the capo Phillip Pissano. These men were not so different from the portrayals depicted in The Godfather. They valued loyalty and integrity above all else, cherished family, and spoke of honor, while simultaneously dealing quantities of heroin measured in tons.