Sympathy For the Devil (12 page)

Hicks smiled. “A psychopath’s sense of crazy changes from day to day.”

“It would still take you a week to teach that ignorant fuck how to open his email and another week to explain what the spreadsheets mean. You want to send it? Be my guest. Because by the time he does get someone on a plane to come over here and wack me, I won’t give a shit anymore.”

Hicks realized there was more behind this than just bravado. “What happened?”

Russo rubbed the sore hand he’d just pounded on the desk. “What do you care?”

“When we were in your office, I told you that your problems are my problems, so if something’s bothering you, I want to know what it is.”

“My junkie son is what’s bothering me. That’s what you called him yesterday, isn’t it?”

Hicks didn’t bother apologizing because he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. “What about him?”

“He’s back to putting shit in his arm again. Or smoking it. Whatever the hell he’s decided to do, the effects are still the same.”

Hicks had been afraid of that. His son was Russo’s one weakness. “What is it this time? Heroin?”

Russo nodded. “For the amount of money I’ve spent trying to get that kid clean, I could’ve bought a small island in the Caribbean. I came home last night after making your miserable fucking acquaintance and he flat out hits me up for money. No explanation, just sticks out his hand and demands it. I was in no mood for his bullshit, so I told him to leave me alone. What does he do? He goes up to my room, steals a handful of my gold cufflinks and my Rolex before he tears ass out of here. I didn’t know he’d taken anything until later that night, and I haven’t seen him since. He won’t pick up his phone, and he’s not with any of the scum he usually hangs out with. None of the ones I know, anyway.”

Hicks didn’t want the answer to the next question but he had to ask. “How do you know?”

“You’re not the only one with connections here. I have my ways.”

Hicks didn’t pretend to be impressed. “You’ve got an uncle who’s retired NYPD and a few friends who are lieutenants on the Nassau PD. Which one did you call?”

Russo shook his head. “Jesus, you really do know everything, don’t you?”

Hicks didn’t like Russo going outside the circle. He didn’t like him asking people to look into his family problems. He might get the idea to tell them about Hicks and, if that happened, it could become a problem. Not an unsolvable problem, but messier than Hicks wanted. “Answer the fucking question.”

“My uncle worked narcotics and still has some friends who work the streets. He called around but no one knows of anyone trading Rolexes for dope. Not in the last few days, anyway.”

“You tell your uncle anything about me?”

“No, darling. No one knows about us.”

“Keep it that way.” In all of his surveillance of the Russo’s family, Hicks hadn’t really focused on the son, Vincent Russo, Junior. But with a little research, Hicks figured he could find him if he had to. Junkies were like rats, often taking the same paths to the same places to get their fix. He hoped he wouldn’t have to look too hard.

“I’ll make a deal with you. I know you keep a hundred grand in cash in your safe. Don’t bother lying about it because I know it’s there. You hand it over and I’ll see what I can do about finding your kid.”

“No.”

“That’s not a word you say to me. Give me the money, and I promise I’ll help you find Junior.”

“I said no. Want me to spell it out for you? N-O and here’s why: I don’t care what you do to me or how you’ve screwed over people like me in the past. Because you’re not the only one here who can put things together. If you’re coming in here unannounced like this, I’ll bet it’s because you need that money pretty damned quick. That’s good, because I need my son back pretty damned quick, too.”

“We can talk about that after you hand me the money.”

“No, we’ll talk about it now because he doesn’t have that kind of time. This is the third time he’s come out of rehab and if it doesn’t take now, I don’t know if it ever will. I don’t even know if he’ll survive the treatment and if he doesn’t survive it, neither will I.”

Talk like that was a bad thing for an Asset. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. As God is my witness. You want to threaten my wife and daughter? Knock yourself out. They’re two of the most ungrateful, greedy little bitches in the world. Neither of them has had any use for me for years and the second I die, I don’t know who’d be the first to call the lawyer. Vladic can gut both of them as far as I’m concerned, if it would bring my son back.”

Russo paled and sagged back in his chair. He looked at the bottle of scotch and his empty glass, but made no attempt to reach either. “He’s a sweet kid when he’s clean. Nice. Respectful. Creative as hell.” His eyes began to water. “I know he can make something of himself if he can just kick this shit once and for all. He’s only twenty years old, for Christ’s sake. But he’s my whole world and everything I’ve built is to give him some kind of chance, so if he’s dead, I might as well be, too because I’ve got no reason to live.”

When Russo looked up at him, Hicks saw no trace of hate or anger, just flat resentment in his eyes. “I got home early this afternoon and moved the money. I put it in one of the safe deposit boxes I’ve got all over the island. You say you know everything there is about me, so you know I’m right. I split the money up so none of it is all in one place, and you don’t know which banks I put it in because I stopped at all of them for exactly the same amount of time.”

Hicks felt his temper beginning to spiral again. The Ruger was beginning to become a viable option. “Don’t do this, Vinny. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“You’ll probably be able to pull whatever computer voodoo bullshit you do to get your way into some of the boxes,” Russo went on, “but probably not all of them in time before you need the money. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take the same resources you used to dig up shit on me and you’re going to use them to find my son and bring him back home where he belongs. Dead or alive, I don’t care. I just need him here with me so I know where he is, not lying dead in some crack den with the rats…” He choked off his words and looked away. “And don’t bother telling me you can’t do it because I know goddamned well you can. People like you can do anything they want when the price is right, and it’s right now. I’ve worked with people like you before.”

Hicks gripped the Ruger tighter. “You’ve never met anyone like me. So how about you open the safe, so I know you’re not bullshitting me.”

“You know so damned much, how about you open it yourself?”

He snatched Russo by the hair and pulled him up out of the chair. He had good balance for a man so drunk and Hicks pushed him over to the picture that hid the wall safe. “Open it yourself and show me it’s really empty.”

Hicks stepped back as Russo slid the picture aside, revealing the gun-metal wall safe behind it. He spun the dial and pulled the safe door open. It was as empty as he’d said it was, except for the safe deposit keys.

“You don’t bullshit me, and I don’t bullshit you,” Russo said as he stumbled back to the chair behind his desk. “Get me back my son, and you get all hundred grand. You don’t, I don’t care what happens next.”

Hicks stood there, staring into the gaping maw of the empty safe as if it was mocking him. Emptying the Ruger into it would’ve made him feel better, but it wouldn’t have accomplished a damned thing.

Only getting Junior back would get him the hundred grand he needed.

Hicks turned away from the safe. “Do you have any idea where I can find him?”

“No,” Russo admitted. “I already told you he’s not where he normally goes, and I don’t know where he could be. You’ve got fingers in so many pies, you can figure it out for yourself.”

“You’re about to cross a dangerous line here, Vinny,” Hicks said. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Fuck you and your line. Just get my boy back.”

Russo reached for the bottle of scotch, but Hicks snatched it from him before he reached it. “I’ll find your son, but you I need you sober. As soon as the banks open tomorrow, you get into those boxes and gather up the money. You’d better have it stacked and ready for me by noon when I pull in the driveway because, if you don’t, I put a bullet in Junior’s head before I put one in your belly.”

“I’ll have the money, don’t worry about that,” Russo sneered. “Let’s just hope you’re as good as you say you are.”

Hicks tucked the Ruger back in his waistband before he decided to shoot this son of a bitch. He pulled Russo’s glass toward him and poured himself three fingers of scotch. A drink before the war.

“Tell me where your son usually goes to get high.”

O
N THE
drive back to Manhattan, Hicks brought up Junior’s file on his dashboard screen, then had OMNI check Junior’s police record. The file read like a requiem for an addict. The kid had been in and out of the system a few times already in his young life. All of them drug charges. Junkie beefs and juvie bounces. Nothing too violent or heavy.

According to his rap sheet, Junior had seemed to bounce back and forth between heroin and crack since he’d been fifteen years old. No coke or meth, at least not in enough of an amount to get him busted. It was spoiled brat syndrome, plain and simple; a disease caused by too much money and not enough supervision. It happened in every neighborhood in every country all over the world.

Junior’s latest relapse played into the reason why Hicks had thought Russo would make a good target in the first place. Hicks figured his kid’s struggles would make him easier prey and more willing to become an Asset. Hicks hadn’t counted on Russo using it as leverage against him.

Getting Junior back wasn’t impossible. It was a pain in the ass, especially since he’d painted himself into a corner with the Dean about funding the covert op against Omar. If he didn’t come up with that money in time, Jason would make sure he got pushed out of the op altogether. Hicks wasn’t going to let that happen.

According to his record, Junior tended to go on the nod in one area in Brooklyn. As junkies were creatures of habit, he decided known associates in that part of the city would be a good place to start.

If Hicks had the time, he would’ve farmed out the request to one of his NYPD assets to track down Junior for him. It would cost him a couple of bucks, but it would’ve been worth it. Unfortunately, Hicks didn’t have that kind of time, so he had to do it the hard way. Hicks had OMNI open the folder he had on the tacit surveillance on the Russos. The system tracked all the phone calls, text messages, web browsing, and online activity of all four members of the Russo family.

Hicks opened Junior’s phone records and looked up the last time the phone had been used and where it was located. The phone’s last recorded position was heading west toward Manhattan from the Russo’s house in Suffolk. It wasn’t much to go on. There was an entire junkie wonderland between Suffolk County and Manhattan alone. That didn’t count the places he could’ve gone in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.

He checked the numbers Junior had called in the last day or so and found several calls to numbers that came up as either disposable phones or to young women he’d called before. Hicks tapped on each of their numbers and accessed their records. Social media pages came up as part of the search. It looked like Junior had a thing for brunettes. Hicks smiled. Maybe Junior was worth saving after all.

The only common thing about the phone calls was that they only lasted thirty seconds. That meant voicemails. None of the calls had been returned. Hicks knew why. It was junkie desperation; pleas either for cash or a place to crash. Daddy’s cuff links and watch might help him get well for a while, but not for as long as he needed. No amount of money in the world would help him to get well for as long as he needed.

Hicks struck gold when he checked Junior’s text messages. He’d texted a number registered to yet another burn phone, only this one had been used more than once and paid for by a credit card belonging to one Devron Jackson. According to his record, Devron was a twenty-six-year-old African American from Bensonhurst. Five-feet-eight- inches tall and weighed a buck-forty soaking wet. Several convictions for possession and dealing and intent to distribute. An assault with a deadly weapon charge had been dropped. Devron dealt heroin, Junior’s poison of choice. Devron was a good place for Hicks to start looking for Junior.