CHAPTER 33.

IT WAS A LITTLE past three in the morning when Nick let himself back into the Tudor. As with all unoccupied houses carried on the Ventura books, lights were programmed to come on and turn off to give potential housebreakers the idea that people were living there. He had no trouble with the burglar alarm; Nick had coded it himself.

He had parked his car several blocks away. It was dead quiet in Forest Hills Gardens. Nick went directly to the office, and with a small-beamed flashlight he studied the computer and then the music system Joe Menucci had installed earlier in the day. The listening devices were inconspicuous. Voice-activated, they looked like no more than another tuner b.u.t.ton or selection device. He thought for a moment, then headed for the kitchen, another usual gathering place. He ran his fingertips around the edges of the table, chairs, light fixtures, frames on various pictures. There was a large spice rack placed on the wall near the table as a unit in a decorative arrangement. Next to it was a wreath made of twigs, clumps of dried flowers, and small fruits. Among the dehydrated grapes was a tiny recording device. Completely un.o.btrusive.

Nick traced the arrangement of music speakers throughout the house. At least one in every room. Then, just out of curiosity, he went to the bas.e.m.e.nt. There was an expensively furnished playroom, a pool table, gym equipment in one corner. Most unusual of all was the small lap pool, fifteen feet long and eight feet wide, about five feet deep. It was connected to a motor that, when turned on, provided a swimmer with a strong current to work against. Someone had put a few outdoor-type chairs and a bundle of white towels alongside the pool.

Nick didn't worry about light showing. All the bas.e.m.e.nt windows were shuttered. He poked and pried with his hand, then with a penknife. His arm entered the heating duct that led up to the dining room.

He felt around for a moment-and, as he withdrew his arm, his whole body froze in response to the cold circle of a gun barrel that pressed into the side of his neck. He held his breath as he heard the click of a hammer being drawn back, then turned in response to an angry voice.

"What the f.u.c.k ya doin' here, Nicky?" Playboy Pilotti asked.

CHAPTER 34.

PAULY THE PLAYBOY Pilotti was nicknamed for his spectacular failure to stay married. When he was a kid, he was Pauly Pill, always the strongman of the neighborhood. He grew up demonstrating how he could lift heavy objects and straight-arm them over his head. He made a serious mistake when he was in his early teens, but it was a mistake that ensured him a lifetime job with Richie Ventura.

A kid named Ba-Ba-Boom-which was descriptive of how he liked to punch people out-socked Richie Ventura in the eye. As he readied his fist for the follow-up to the mouth, he was grabbed, hoisted aloft, cursed at, and then dropped from a height of nearly six feet. The fractured jaw wasn't the Pill's fault. The kid should have had sense enough to roll when he landed, like cats do to break a fall instead of a bone. When Richie kicked the fallen Ba-Ba-Boom, the bully got a broken arm and three busted ribs. Pauly Pill took the rap for the whole thing and spent nine months in a juvenile detention house. Which didn't bother his parents too much. They were small, nervous people, and between them they hadn't been able to manage his behavior since he was four years old and began breaking his little sister's toys and then his little sister's fingers.

Pauly spent years perfecting his powerful body. He entered contests and won trophies. To other bodybuilders, he was a thing of beauty. To the uneducated eye, he was vastly misshapen, carrying a small bullet head on a thick neck, set on ma.s.sive bulging shoulders. His chest was huge, waist narrow, legs much too short for the top part of his body. He had to have his clothing custom-made. He had custom-tailored shirts made by the brother of the guy who made his suits. When dropped on the floor, Pauly's clothing looked like an outfit for a short, powerful ape.

He was a perfect man for Richie Ventura, who didn't really like to do his own dirty work. He was good with a bat, a cleaver, a gun. His hands could get a lock on a guy's neck that was a killer. Literally.

Wherever Richie went, Playboy Pilotti was either far ahead, for safety's sake, or slightly behind for backup. He worked long erratic hours, took vacations whenever Richie wanted a change of scenery. He went through three marriages before he decided he didn't really like having some woman asking when he was gonna come home. He had a nice apartment near Richie's house in Ma.s.sapequa, Long Island, a good car with a cellular phone. He loved to eat at all of Richie's favorite restaurants, where no one would insult you with a menu. He also had a part ownership in a health and fitness club, and at times worked out for hours to the admiring gaze of club members. It all depended on Richie-his hours, his whereabouts, his activity.

He did a lot of different things for Richie. One of the main things was he kept his mouth shut. Whatever he knew, or thought he knew, was buried deep inside his closed mouth. Richie Ventura trusted him almost completely. After all, you have to trust someone in your life-and this guy had taken a rap for Richie when they were just kids. That kind of loyalty cannot be faked.

Nick turned and raised one hand toward Playboy's gun, palm out in a pacifying gesture. He knew-Christ, he hoped-Pauly wouldn't shoot him without Richie's okay.

Playboy stepped back, admiring Nick's cool.

"You doin' a little plantin' of your own, cop?"

The tough-guy smirk, the wide-legged stance, the chin thrust forward, eyes narrowed, were standard for someone in the Playboy's line of work. He was known to have killed at least seven people, possibly as many as ten, for various reasons and on various orders. In his early days, he had occasionally strangled a guy to keep others in line. When Richie pointed, his man acted. He had been charged, but never convicted, of murder a few times; but aside from the open-dormitory time of his adolescence, the only slammer time he served-eighteen months-was for a botched burglary that was someone else's fault.

It was recorded for future reference that Paul the Playboy Pilotti had nutted out in prison. He couldn't handle confinement. He had slammed his head against concrete walls, steel bars, cement floors. He claimed he couldn't breathe or swallow; couldn't sleep; couldn't eat. His time was spent mostly in the prison hospital for various self-inflicted injuries; for hysteria; for bizarre behavior.

Nick took a calculated risk. "Playboy, ya wanna call my cousin, call him. But I think I better tell ya what I'm gonna tell him." Nick gestured to the open grille of the heating vent. "I don't know who the f.u.c.k you guys got to check for bugs, but the guy was a real amateur. I bet no one ever checked out this bas.e.m.e.nt, right? I asked Richie if every room in the house had been checked and he said no. Just the dining room and kitchen. Anybody with any sense would check the whole house. I figured I'd start at the bottom and work my way up. The guy he paid to check shoulda done all this."

"Yeah? That's your story?"

"Hey, you want to call Richie right now, three A.M., and tell him you found me here checking, go right ahead. But I don't think he'd appreciate getting waked up for this little news flash."

"You find anything?"

"I just started. But like Richie said to me, 'I had a feeling.' h.e.l.l with it. Maybe I was wrong. It's none of my business anyway."

"Yeah? Well, it's Richie who decides, not you. Why didn't you tell Richie about your feelin'?"

Nick shrugged. "The less my cousin and me have to say to each other the better. For both of us." He studied the hulking thug, then thoughtfully asked him, "What about you, Pauly? What are you doing here? What the f.u.c.k you up to?"

The Playboy seemed uneasy; like a back-alley bully, he covered by getting very angry. "What the f.u.c.k that got to do with you?"

As they left the house, it hit Nick that Pauly must have been up to no good. Nick said, "You want I should tell Richie, I will. Maybe better neither one of us should say anything about being here."

"Don't try to pull any o' your wise-a.s.s s.h.i.t on me, Nicky. I ain't forgot you used to be a cop. Once a cop-"

"Like once a housebreaker? There are some pretty nice things here. Who owns all the stuff, the pictures and the silverware and such?"

Playboy Pilotti kept walking. When he reached his car, he turned and the scowl seemed scarred on his face.

"You and me, we better have no more business together, you got that?"

Nick smiled. "Business? What business? I don't know what the f.u.c.k you're talking about. I guess Richie don't need you or me to tell him what to do. See you around, Playboy."

The man with the short legs seemed to disappear as he slumped into the driver's seat. Through the window, he looked to be about five feet tall, hat included.

Driving home, Nick thought about his grandfather. He was a man accustomed to dealing with colleagues face to face, either as friends or enemies. He found the Chinese unreadable. To him, everything about them was modulated: soft voices, quick, tight, meaningless smiles, slight head nods, controlled body movements. Obviously, he distrusted Chen and the men working with him. Joe Menucci was so good at what he did, it would take another electronics genius to discover all the hidden devices.

Richie clearly had no idea that Chen's house was very expertly bugged. Papa Ventura trusted no one completely.

When he got back to his apartment, Nick punched the b.u.t.ton on his answering machine.

"Guess who's coming home? I'll call you from JFK tomorrow night. Around eight. Go to school on the morning shift, okay?"

Even from across the world, she was calling the shots. What the h.e.l.l, he'd take an office break, go to his cla.s.s, come home and wait for her call. Just the way you want it, Laura, right?

CHAPTER 35.

AT THE END OF the cla.s.s, Professor Caruso handed his students their graded midterm exams. There were a few groans, a few sighs of relief-or resignation-as the students went through the blue books to see why they got the mark that was printed in red ink inside the cover. Nick stared at the B-. He flipped the pages; didn't see many comments or checkmarks. He glanced at Caruso, who nodded slightly.

"I'll be in my office for the next hour or so. Anybody want to dispute the grade, see me then. Try to convince me; I'm a reasonable man."

Nick waited as the last of three students in line left the professor's study. He closed the door behind him and Caruso crossed the room and turned the lock.

"I'll change it to a B plus. I just wanted to get your attention."

Nick felt a little annoyed. His exam was certainly worth an A. He hadn't realized how important it was to him. He'd been doing some thinking about what would follow his current a.s.signment.

Caruso told him that he was getting information from Chinese police and West Coast narcotics agents. Everyone was gearing up: a ma.s.sive amount of China White was going to enter the United States very soon. By boat, by plane, in large shipments of consumer goods, commercial equipment, hidden in pa.s.senger carry-ons. Some would be picked up at LAX by a veritable army of sixteen-wheelers, which would cross the United States with stop-offs at various cities, unloaded at designated storage areas, and then distributed by various dealers into the communities. Some would be flown east to New York and Newark-large crates of merchandise consigned to warehouses throughout the area. Ships would be offloaded at major ports, designated as bulk items. Included with the valid material, unestimated kilos of China White.

He asked Nick if his grandfather seemed about to include him in the operation. Would he be in a position to gather crucial evidence?

"The information about the indictments, Tom, that really impressed him. He's also worried, I think, that his mole let him down."

"Good. That leak, by the way, has lead to a mountain of inside investigations. The two guys disappeared into thin air. No one, not their wives or kids or friends, seems to know where they are. There's even some talk going around that they've been ... offed."

It was logical. It just hadn't occurred to Nick. "All I know is that my grandfather was pretty upset about the news. And very ... happy with me."

"Good, that's what I did it for."

He told Caruso of the Forest Hills Gardens house rented for Dennis Chen, but they both thought it was too obvious a location for any real business to be occurring there.

"They're not gonna use a place we could stake out around the neighborhood, where it'd be easy to take videos of them arriving and leaving. That would be stupid. By the way, what the h.e.l.l are you doing in my babies' day cla.s.s instead of with the grown-ups tonight?"

Nick smiled. "I got other plans for tonight."

Caruso seemed hesitant. "Nick, there's one thing. I just want to sort of skim this past you, okay?"

Nick could feel the sudden, deepening tension. "What?"

"It's none of my business-except in a way, it is my business. About Laura Santalvo."

Nick sat up straight; his eyes narrowed and his voice went very low. "You're right, it isn't your business. Not in any way."

"But it might be, Nick. Laura might be connected. We know she's funded her own businesses, but she makes a lot of trips to the hot spots. We haven't been able to keep close tabs on her ..."

"This conversation is over." Nick stood up abruptly. Then he turned, dropped his midterm exam on Caruso's desk. "This deserves an A."

Caruso shrugged. "You got it."

Laura called him early that evening.

"Hey, you. I'm at Kennedy. Wanna pick me up and buy me some supper? I'm starved."

"Yeah, I wanna pick you up. And buy you some supper."

Within forty-five minutes her luggage was secured in the trunk of his car, and she directed him to a small restaurant.

Laura stared so hard as he took a bite of rare hamburger that it seemed to turn to blood in his mouth. He swallowed, shook his head, sent the burger back, and ordered grilled swordfish. The waiter, a tall, thin, pale boy, glanced at Laura, nodded slightly in approval. Another barbarian turned?

"Please, no lectures, okay?"

Laura rested her chin on her hand. "I follow my own beliefs. I never tell others what they should or should not do. If slaughtering animals after cruelly confining them doesn't bother you-"

He reached across the table and took her hand. "Hey. I missed you."

Her smile was the mocking, oh-sure grin that always got to him. She squeezed his hand.

"You are a hard case, Laura, you know that?"

"Is that what I am?"

"Among other things."

"What else I am is tired. Jet-lagged. My head is filled with too many words about textures and lines and flat hips and rounder bustlines and the excitement of clashing colors. Why don't we eat fast and get the h.e.l.l out of here?"

She didn't want to go to his place. She wanted to go home.

As they drove along Grand Central Parkway, headed toward Manhattan, Laura leaned her head back, closed her eyes.

"You have a busy time?"

"I always do."

"How often do you take these trips? Christ, you hop around like a jumping jack."

Quietly, she said, "I take 'these trips' as often as necessary."

"What makes it necessary?"

Laura sat up straight. "You interrogating me?"

"I'm just making conversation. Relax, kiddo."

There was no further conversation, only tension. Nick reached out, put on a soft music station. When he glanced at her once or twice, her eyes were closed; her jaw was tensed.

Nick drove down the ramp into the garage beneath the Beresford. She directed him to her a.s.signed s.p.a.ce. He was surprised how light her luggage was.

"When you travel a great deal, you know how to pare it down," she told him. Her tone was conversational, neither friendly nor hostile.

The elevator opened at Laura's floor. As she inserted the key and pushed the door open, they both stopped short. There were lights on in the large square entrance hall.

"I didn't think Maria would be here." She mentioned the housekeeper. "I usually call her when I return. Su-Su should be at school."

Music came softly from the sitting room, which Laura used as a library. She looked at Nick, who dropped the luggage and motioned her back.