The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(152)

“A close colleague,” Ben muttered, making a decision. He put Gus on the floor and went to his closet. He pulled out the bag that had seen a lot of use the last months, telling Sal, “I’m gonna be on the road, headed down there in ten minutes.”

“Got a boy already on his way, Benny. He’ll trail her everywhere, keep an eye. You got the restaurant.”

“No disrespect, Sal, and I mean it this time, but I’m not a big fan of one of your boys trailin’ Frankie.”

“You think she’ll make him?” Sal asked, and Benny’s brows shot together.

“You weren’t gonna tell her this shit’s goin’ down?” Ben asked back.

“Fuck no, figlio. She knows this, she’ll stick her nose in. She’s in that field and that body that drops on her?” he asked, but he did it not wanting an answer. “It’d be a friend she was helping.”

He had a point.

Ben tossed his bag on the bed. “That’s not why I don’t want one of your men on her.”

“He’ll take care of her, Benny.”

“That’d be my job,” Ben returned.

Sal was silent.

Ben wasn’t.

“Explain to me your take on this.”

“Got no take,” Sal replied. “All I know is that it’s not good and Frankie’s in the firing line.”

That was Benny’s take.

“She’s got a guy who works with her, forgot his first name but last name’s Bierman,” Ben told him. “He’s a dick and Frankie says he’s targeting her boss for a takedown.”

“Another hit?”

Fucking hell, the world Sal lived in.

“Office politics, Sal.”

“Oh,” he muttered. “Right.”

“To get to her boss, he’s got his eyes on Frankie and her colleague,” Ben told him. “You got a name behind the ordered hit?”

“Don’t work that way, Benny. Only thing exchanged is money and the name of the guy goin’ down.”

“What’s the name of the guy goin’ down?”

“Peter Furlock.”

“You got a guy on him?”

“Don’t give a f**k about him.”

He’d grabbed shit from his drawer and was tossing it into his bag when he told Sal, “I gotta call the cops on this, Sal.”

“You cannot do that, Benito Bianchi.”

Ben went solid at his tone.

“I got my name all over Indy askin’ these questions,” Sal stated in a cold voice. “You put the cops on this, they stick their noses in, me askin’ around, one and one will make two, and that’ll f**k me. Don’t got a lot of business in Indy, but the business I got and the relationships I got I wanna keep. I ask around about somethin’ the cops get wind of and move on, my name takes the kind of hit I don’t like. I love you, figlio, but no one f**ks me, even you.”

Goddammit!

He should never have asked Sal to get involved. He knew it. Problem was, this was about Frankie, it was important, and he had no one else to ask.

“Then you put a man on that guy,” Ben returned.

Sal was silent.

“Sal, put a man on that guy or we got problems,” Ben said quietly. “I do not want to have problems with you for obvious reasons. And I do not want to have problems with you for Frankie.”

“I’m pretty sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that I’m not in the business of doin’ good deeds.”

“Get in it for Frankie,” Benny replied.

“How in the firing line is she?” Sal asked.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ down with these hits, Sal, but I figure from what she’s told me, the PI was likely hired by Bierman. This could mean he’s got the same on Frankie. The hits, I’ve got no clue. The PI, it fits.”

“Right,” Sal prompted when Benny took a breath.

“There’s weird shit happening with this guy that’s beyond office politics,” Ben kept going. “I’ve never worked in an office, but it seems way over the top to hire a PI to find dirt on some random member of the team in order to take out a bigger fish. Frankie’s keepin’ clear, outside of cataloging all the weird shit that’s happening. Her assistant is not. She’s stickin’ her nose in with a posse of other women who probably don’t like this guy and wanna see his ass canned, but are maybe puttin’ themselves in harm’s way.”

“Detail, Benny.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Get it,” Sal ordered. “Get down to Frankie. You take her ass, I’ll take Furlock’s ass. And you want me to solve this quiet-like, you keep your ass in that ’burg and you just became a Giglia foot soldier.”

Ben’s throat started burning and he growled, “That shit’s not happening.”

“In my brand-new good deeds department, Benny,” Sal said on a sigh.

Benny drew in a deep breath.

Then he made another decision.

“I gotta make some calls about the restaurant. I gotta pack more shit. Then I’m on the road. In the meantime, you find out if she’s got a PI on her.”

“Done. You get info, call me.”