Blood Money by Thomas Perry

it to the back wall. “We’ll take it out to the seed farm. There’s a field they’re getting ready to plant with begonias in a couple of days.”
    “Don’t be lazy: make it deep.”
    When the two men had closed the tailgate and climbed into their truck, Caporetto pressed the thumb button beside the garage door and opened it so they could drive out, then closed it. Delfina was in a sour mood, but he gained some comfort from seeing his men moving, doing things efficiently, paying attention. He said to Caporetto, “As soon as those guys come back, put them on a plane to L.A. Call Billy and tell him to find them something to do.”
    “Sure, Frank.”
    As an afterthought, Delfina added, “Make sure it’s nothing important.”
    Delfina caught a look of mild surprise on Caporetto’s face. He shrugged. “I know Spoleto wasn’t what they expected to find, but they should have done better than this. You notice they didn’t even find a gun on him. They saw him and panicked. It would have been nice to have that guy in a small room someplace where I could have a long talk with him.”
    Caporetto nodded, but his face revealed a slight discomfort. “I still don’t understand what he was doing there.”
    “I don’t know yet where he fits exactly,” said Delfina. “But I plan to.”
    Caporetto said, “You think he just stole her credit card from Bernie’s house and charged everything to her so we wouldn’t know he was traveling?”
    Delfina looked at him in disappointment. “That’s what Strozza thinks. But you heard him. They found his wallet. Ifhe’d had her credit card, you would have heard about it. So where did it go?”
    Caporetto shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “He never had it. The girl made the charges herself.”
    “Then it was both of them? He was the one who got the girl the job as Bernie’s housekeeper, right? Maybe he used her to find out where Bernie put the money—had her pull receipts or something from the trash for a year or so. Then he somehow lured Bernie to Detroit, popped him, and took off to collect the money. That would explain why they came all the way up to New York. That’s where the big banks and brokers and all that are.”
    Delfina said, “New York City, not Niagara Falls. But it’s something like that.”
    Caporetto’s excitement slowly grew. “Yeah,” he said. “Got to be. Danny Spoleto was supposed to be this ladies’ man, right? He didn’t look like any great shakes stuffed in a box, but I heard he had to fight them off. So he gets this green kid—she’s what, eighteen?—and charms her like a snake. All she has to do is hang around Bernie’s house, sweep the floor once a day, and keep her eyes open when she empties the trash can. When she’s found enough, Spoleto pops Bernie, meets the girl, and cashes in all the accounts she’s located for him.”
    Delfina smiled indulgently, but his customary look of stony intensity returned. He shook his head.
    “Why not?” asked Caporetto.
    “It’s a good story. I like it. But let me tell you about Danny Spoleto. He started out ten years ago in New York. He had a cousin who was made, and the cousin asked the Langustos if they could find something for him. Since the old days, the Langusto family was supposed to take care of Bernie. Maybe it meant something fifty years ago, but since then, it’s been kind of nominal, like the Swiss guards at the Vatican. They still supplied bodyguards, on a regular rotation. So they sent him down to Florida to take some other guy’s place. He didn’t get on Bernie’s nerves, so they left him there for a few years. Then they made him one of their bagmen. He would delivermoney to Florida for them—most of it not even in cash—and Bernie would make it disappear. Bernie may have sent him on a few errands, too, but that was it. This was not a guy in training to enter the world of high finance. It was a guy who had to wait six or seven years before anybody would promote him to delivery