Authors: Joseph Badal
David answered questions about Gino’s condition thrown at him by Cataldo, Ramsey, O’Neil, and his father. When he ran out of answers, Cataldo said, “Let’s eat.”
None of them had eaten anything substantial since the meal they’d shared on the guesthouse patio. They walked into the dining room behind their host. The room seemed dominated by a huge lead-crystal chandelier that hung from a fourteen-foot-high ceiling. A table that seated twelve had been set formally with china and silver.
A tense silence overhung the room. Joey Cataldo, after all, was a stranger to his guests, and they were more than strangers to him. They represented danger. One slip of the tongue could undo him. No one seemed able to initiate comfortable conversation. It was left to Cyril to enter the room and get them talking again. Unfortunately, what he said only raised the level of anxiety in the room.
While one of the members of the house staff served soup, Cyril asked Cataldo, “Sir, did you happen to catch the late news tonight?”
“No,” Cataldo responded. “I try to avoid the brain damage those bastards cause.”
“Well, sir,” Cyril answered, “some woman reporter did a story on Don Bartolucci’s admission to St. Joseph’s Hospital.”
“Oh shit,” Cataldo groaned. “Every damn punk in town with a ten-year-old grudge against Gino now knows where he is. We got no guards on him! Whatsamatta with me?”
Cataldo pointed at Paulie Rizzo. “Paulie, you and three of my men go to the hospital. You carrying?”
“Yes, Don Cataldo.”
“Paulie, I want you inside the Don’s room. One of my guys will stay in the corridor; another will be in the lobby. The fourth guy will be outside. You’ll all stay with the Don until I send in another team.”
“David and I can take a shift,” Peter said.
Cataldo looked at Peter and smiled. “I appreciate your offer to help out, but I got men who are better equipped to do this kind of work. Why don’t you stay here and get some rest.”
Peter glared at Cataldo. “I know I am a guest in your home and I assure you I mean no disrespect when I say, ‘Kiss my ass.’ ”
Cyril said, under his breath, “Oh my goodness!”
No one else dared say a word.
Cataldo directed a dead-calm stare at Peter.
David started to say something to diffuse the tension in the room, but Peter waved him into silence.
“You don’t know me,” Peter said. “So you have no way to know what I’m capable of. No one, even one of your best men, could have a stronger motivation than I do to protect my friend Gino. Don’t write me off just because I’m old enough to be your father.”
Cataldo glowered at Peter. Everyone in the room waited tensely for his reaction.
Finally, he cracked a terse smile.”All right, Mr. Hood. You want to help, that’s okay by me. You and your son and two of my men can take the second shift. That’s better, I think, than me kissing your ass.”
Cyril laughed, seemingly out of pure relief.
CHAPTER 42
Manny Segal viewed his chosen profession in the same way another man might view his job as a banker or a merchant. It was just another way to make a living. A way to pay his expenses. Of course, the difference between Manny and most others was that his expenses were quite high.
At 2 a.m., Segal blackened his face and left his car parked on a quiet residential street one block from the estate David Hood had entered earlier. He was dressed in all black: knit cap, pullover, a pair of pants gathered at the cuff, a fanny pack, and a pair of rubber-soled shoes. He crept along the stone walls that fronted the unlighted road. He stopped at a nine-foot-high wall, about thirty yards right of the estate’s entrance gate. He stayed away from the security camera that pointed at the gated entrance. About to launch a plastic grappling hook attached to a rope over the wall, a sudden noise alerted him to movement down at the gate. He dropped to the ground and pressed against the base of the wall. After a few seconds, he heard the gate open. Security lights mounted on stone pillars illuminated a vehicle that slowly pulled out to the end of the driveway. Manny recognized David Hood at the steering wheel. There was another person—an older man—in the front seat. Maybe Hood’s father, another of his targets.
A voice from inside the gate shouted, “Say hello to Mr. Bartolucci for me, will ya?”
The car sped off. After the gate had closed and the security lights switched off, Segal ran back to his own car. He knew the hospital surely wouldn’t be as well protected as was this estate. David and Peter Hood, and Gino Bartolucci in the same place at the same time—it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe Jennifer Ramsey would be there, as well. He reached into the back seat for a towel and rubbed the black grease from his face and neck. He removed the knit cap from his head and smoothed his hair.
Segal used his cellphone to call St. Joseph’s Hospital.
“Mr. Bartolucci’s room number please,” he said to the hospital’s switchboard operator.
“Room 532, sir.”
Manny snapped his fingers. Nothing to it, he thought.
He reached the hospital at 3:10 a.m. There was an SUV with a man behind the wheel parked near the front entrance. The man eyeballed him as he drove past. Segal figured the man for one of Bartolucci’s men. He drove around to the rear of the building where he spied a loading dock. After he parked in the employees’ lot, he walked to the dock, climbed a set of stairs, and attempted to open the double doors there. Locked. He moved to an adjacent personnel door and saw it was card key-activated. Segal took a tool from his fanny pack and worked on the lock until it popped open.
Inside, a dozen large, wheeled canvas baskets were piled high with laundry. Manny extracted a white smock from one of the baskets and put it on. The smock reached to his knees, partially hiding the sinister appearance of his black outfit.
Dennis O’Neil was well beyond having gone stir crazy. He suspected Jennifer Ramsey was as stressed as he was, but was better at not showing it. They sat in the guest house den and shared ideas about how to take down Bishop. After an hour, they were both frustrated.
“I’ve got to do something. I feel as useless as a screen door in a submarine.”
“Let’s drive out to the hospital,” Ramsey said.
“In what? We don’t have a car, and it’s the middle of the night. You want to call Cataldo and wake him up? Ask him to have one of his guys drive us?”
Ramsey shrugged. “We could
borrow
one of his vehicles.”
“You want to steal a car from a mobster?”
“It wouldn’t be stealing. I said ‘
borrow
.’ ”
“And how will you get the car past the gate guard?”
Ramsey groaned. “Good point. Maybe Cyril could help.”
O’Neil frowned at Ramsey. “He won’t be happy about you waking him up either.”
She shrugged.
O’Neil picked up the phone and called Cyril’s room. He answered after only one ring.
“You think Ramsey and I could borrow a car?” he asked.
“I’ll arrange it,” he said. “Do you know how to find the hospital?”
“How did you know we were going to the hospital?”
“That’s where I would go, sir, if I were in your situation.”
“Amazing,” O’Neil said under his breath. He thought that as long as he was asking for favors, he might as well ask for a really big one. “What’s the possibility of borrowing a couple handguns?”
“Detective Ramsey’s service pistol will be in the glove compartment of the car that will be in front of the guest house in ten minutes. There’ll be one there for you, too.”
O’Neil hung up the phone and turned to Ramsey. “If that guy was a woman, I’d marry her.”
The bell of a nearby church tolled once at half-past-three when O’Neil and Ramsey arrived at St. Joseph’s Hospital. O’Neil spotted a man in a large SUV outside the hospital entrance. Maybe one of Cataldo’s crew; maybe not. As they exited their vehicle—a black Lincoln Towncar—and walked toward the smoked-glass hospital entrance door, the guy in the SUV watched them like a hawk zeroes in on a mouse.
John Spellina, a Cataldo crew member, watched the man and woman leave their vehicle and walk to the hospital entrance. He didn’t recognize them and immediately used his radio to call his partner, Tiny Santori, who was stationed in the hospital lobby. Twice, he tried to contact Tiny, with no success. “Dammit!” he cursed, tossed the radio on the passenger seat, and got out of the SUV.
As he followed Ramsey through the hospital’s automatic entry doors, O’Neil saw out of the corner of his eye, the courtesy light illuminate in the SUV.
There was no one at the reception counter, which was on the far left side of the empty lobby. A printed sign on the counter instructed visitors to proceed to the emergency room entrance on the south side of the building. A bank of elevators was behind the counter.
“Get down behind the reception counter,” O’Neil told Ramsey. “We got company.”
As Ramsey hustled to hide, O’Neil moved to the elevators, pressed the “UP” button, ran back to the reception counter, and crouched behind it with Ramsey. He heard the lobby doors open and sounds of footsteps on the marble floor. Then, around the side of the counter, he saw a stocky man in a black suit walk toward the elevators when a chime sounded there. The man reached inside his suit coat.
O’Neil held up a hand and showed Ramsey three fingers on his left hand. He folded one finger at a time into the palm of his hand while he pulled out his pistol with his other hand. He and Ramsey stood and raced across the lobby.
“Police!” O’Neil shouted. “Freeze!”
The guy raised his hands over his head. O’Neil snatched a pistol from his right hand.
“Turn around,” O’Neil ordered. “Who the hell are you?”
The guy turned. “You got a badge?” he said.
“Yeah, I got a badge. You’ll see it after you tell me your name and why you’re here.”
The man glared at O’Neil for a few seconds, but finally broke it off and said, “My name’s John Spellina. My partner and I are here to keep an eye out for a patient here.”
“That patient have a name?”
“Yeah! Let’s see that badge first.”
O’Neil pulled out his ID wallet and flashed his badge at the guy.
Spellina hesitated, but finally said, “Gino Bartolucci.”
“You work for Mr. Cataldo?”
Again the guy hesitated, but then said, “Yeah; how’d you know?”
“We’re staying at the Cataldo estate. Where’s your partner?”
Spellina’s eyes widened. “Somewhere around here. He’s supposed to be watching the lobby and the first floor exits.”
O’Neil had a clear view past Spellina of the now-open elevator. “Is that your partner in the elevator?”
Spellina turned and exclaimed, “Shit!” He moved into the elevator car while Ramsey stuck her foot against the door. “Someone’s cut Tiny’s throat.”
“Someone’s after Bartolucci,” Ramsey said. “We’ve got to get to his room. What floor’s he on?”
“Five!” Spellina said.
“Maybe you should cover the lobby,” O’Neil told Ramsey. He saw she didn’t like it, but she nodded her agreement. Someone needed to watch the hospital entrance.
O’Neil stepped into the elevator, punched the “5” button, and watched the door slide shut. He handed Spellina’s pistol to him. “You might need this. I want you to guard the fifth floor elevator lobby. Stay there and call 9-1-1. Anyone who comes through the lobby, stop him.”
O’Neil left Spellina outside the elevator on the fifth floor. He looked left and right and spotted a nursing station to the right and ran there.
The nurse behind the desk appeared to be in her mid-50s. She looked tired, harassed, but competent. She reminded him of the Marine drill sergeant he’d had in boot camp.
“Ma’am,” O’Neil said, “I’m looking for Gino Bartolucci’s room. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“I’ve heard every form of BS over the last thirty years, but that one takes the cake. It’s past visiting hours, so you need to get out of here and let our patients rest.”
O’Neil flashed his badge. “This isn’t bullshit. There’s a dead guy in the elevator. Someone slashed his throat. I want to know Mr. Bartolucci’s room number NOW!”
She pointed back to the right and squeaked, “Room 532.”
O’Neil reached the end of the corridor. A sign on a corner of the wall showed rooms 500-550 were to the right.
Manny Segal marched toward an elderly man seated in a chair outside a closed door. The man looked up at him as he approached. Segal saw the room number behind the old man: 532.
“So,” Segal said, “how’s Mr. Bartolucci?”
The man rose from his chair. “He’s still asleep, Doctor.”
“Well, I’ll try not to disturb him,” Segal said, as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his smock and wrapped his fingers around the handle of the knife in the right pocket.
O’Neil reached the end of the second corridor. A sign on the far wall of the cross corridor had an arrow that pointed to the right with the numbers 526-550. He turned the corner and saw a little guy in a white smock standing a couple feet away from Peter Hood. The little guy pulled something from a pocket.
O’Neil raised his pistol from where he held it beside his right leg and shouted, “Hey!” just as he spotted a knife in the little guy’s hand.
The man with the knife spun around. O’Neil crouched, raised his pistol, and shouted, “Drop it!”
At that moment, David Hood opened the door to the room behind the two men and stepped into the hall.
O’Neil shouted, “Get out of there! Now!” But David charged the guy, grabbed his knife-arm with both hands, and smashed it down against his own raised right thigh. The knife clattered to the floor. The little guy twisted his arm free and squared off with David. He stepped forward, just as Peter kicked him in the back of his knee. Then David landed several punches to the man’s face and midsection, kicked him in the balls, and smashed a fist into the side of his head.
O’Neil ran forward to help, but all that was left for him to do was pick up the knife and search the unconscious man. He frisked the guy and found a garrote in a smock pocket and a Glock 9mm pistol in a shoulder rig.