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  Ricca had died ten years earlier, but the first cousin had taken over after the old man’s funeral, and had established himself. After the boatlift, he’d sent for Javier and given him responsibilities in Chicago and the Midwest. The position was short-lived, however, and Javier’s propensity for alcohol and women ended his life. He died of a gunshot wound, drunk and in bed with his employer’s mistress.

  Surprisingly, there was an inheritance and an insurance policy, which was enough to keep the son, Manny, now alone and unemployed, in alcohol and pills to the point that his sense of reality twisted in circles like a cyclone.

  After her mother became sick, Susan, also in Chicago, was never enrolled in school. She was left to manage herself most all day, every day, while her father gambled and waited for another assignment from his bosses. She quickly found trouble, from petty theft to selling drugs, and she became an accomplished con woman as a teen. She bounced around from thing to thing for years, aimless, until she met Manny.

  Manny was five years her senior, and seemed worldly and wise. To a sixteen-year-old girl, his charm and dark Latino looks were alluring, and when at a neighborhood party he focused them on her, she was captivated. Over the ensuing months they became inseparable. Smitten, Susan would do whatever he asked of her.

  Manny, numbed by the drugs, had developed a sense of self that included casual cruelty and an extreme level of self-importance, which later morphed into a self-indulgence that bordered on the narcissistic. Initially, Susan was enamored by the handsome young man with the deep brown eyes, the inexhaustible wealth, and the untamed sex drive. He seemed to command the respect of everyone around him, which was an aphrodisiac to the young girl.

  “Here, take this,” he’d said to her when they first started dating.

  “What is it?” She looked at the small capsules with uncertainty.

  “No, it’s fine. I want you to take them so we can enjoy the party. I took some already,” he said.

  “Upper or downer?” asked Susan.

  “It’s a benny. Amphetamine,” he said.

  The result was that Susan stayed up for the next twenty hours, high on speed and partying. She was on the edge, and life was crisp and colorful and would go on forever. With Manny, she felt like she was a part of something important, something wonderful.

  At seventeen, Susan left her father and moved into Manny’s apartment. She was mature for her age, a result of her hard life and her confidence from the streets. And she looked older than most girls her age.

  Manny bought her jewelry and drugs and clothes that he wanted her to wear, and he wore her on his arm like a Barbie doll. Susan was in love with Manny, and he could do no wrong.

  “Let’s get married,” Susan said one day.

  “You’re seventeen,” said Manny, as if that explained everything.

  Susan looked at him. “I have a fake drivers license that says I’m eighteen,” she said.

  “OK,” said Manny. A month later, they were married in a small ceremony by the local parish priest.

  The friction started a couple weeks later.

  “Where have you been?” Susan asked him one night, when he arrived at the apartment drunk and late.

  “I was out,” he shouted. This wasn’t their first fight. “And it’s none of your business what I do.”

  “You were with someone.” Susan sized him up, looking at him, then smelling his shirt. “I told you, I won’t put up with that.”

  Manny turned away and said, “Too bad.”

  “You’re just stupid,” said Susan in anger.

  He turned back toward her and stared at her for a minute. Then he said, “You’re gonna respect me,” and he punched her in the stomach, hard.

  * * *

  “Chica, I have to tell you something,” Manny started. His drug use had increased in recent months, and he’d started doing odd jobs for his supplier, in order to stay closer to the source.

  Now what? thought Susan. She’d been watching his decline, his slow spiral downward.

  “I’m doing some work for Rolando.”

  Rolando Ortega was Manny’s supplier, and he was responsible for about half of the drug distribution in Chicago’s Cuban neighborhoods. He was also ruthless and unforgiving.

  “What kind of work?” asked Susan. “What are you doing, Manny?”

  “Nothing to worry about. You know that Rolando and I go back, right?”

  She was silent. She could tell that he was high on something. Probably bennies again.

  “What are you getting into?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m doing it for us. Rolando needs some help with his operation. This is a chance to show him what I can do. I can be a part of his organization. I just want what’s best for us, Chica,” he continued, nuzzling her neck with his face. His beard scratched her skin, but she didn’t pull away.

  “Manny, you smell like you’ve been with another woman,” Susan said suddenly. She sniffed again.

  Manny stepped back, out of range. “No, no,” he said. “I was just over at Rolando’s apartment. There was a party there.”

  Rolando lived on the seventeenth floor of one of Chicago’s newest high-rise condominiums, with a spectacular view overlooking Lake Michigan. It was one of six residences that he kept, all in other people’s names.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I can really make a name for myself,” he said. “Rolando will respect me. I’ve got it figured out.”

  * * *

  “He wants you to what?” asked Susan, more surprised than disturbed.

  “To kill someone,” said Manny. They were spread out on their living room couch, lines of coke in orderly rows visible on the glass coffee table.

  Manny had done some rough things for Rolando, but as far as Susan knew, he hadn’t killed anyone yet.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “A nobody, no one important,” said Manny with a flip of his hand, discounting the potential victim. “Someone who stole from him.”

  More and more, Manny would stay out late and come home wasted, when he came home at all. He’d become more and more abusive as Susan objected to his lifestyle. They would scream at each other, her angry about the drugs and women in his life, him resisting her interference. Frequently the arguments would turn physical.

  “Don’t hit me again,” she said one day.

  Manny looked at her with glassy eyes and screamed, “Puta!” Then he slapped her across the face.

  She looked at him, unblinking.

  Do I even have a soul? she wondered. Then she shot him.

  * * *

  “Daddy, I need your help.” Susan had called her father immediately, instinctively knowing that she was way over her head.

  “Susan?” her father asked. He had lost his wife earlier in the year, and she knew he was alone for the first time in many years. She knew he missed her, as well.

  “Daddy, I just shot Manny. He was abusive and he threatened me and he, he slapped me…”

  “Is he dead?” asked Frank Del Gato.

  “Yes. You taught me how to shoot. He’s dead.”

  “Did anyone hear it?”

  “I don’t think so. It was a .22. I shot him in the eye.”

  “OK,” said Frank Del Gato. “I’m coming over now. I’m gonna pick up Jimmy and we’ll be there in twenty minutes to clean up. You, you’re at your apartment? What room is he in?”

  “He’s in the living room, on the carpet by the fireplace.”

  “OK, you stay there, but in the bedroom until I get there. Pack a suitcase,” he said.

  * * *

  After that, Susan moved in with her father. And Frank Del Gato seemed to realize that he’d been given a second chance. He made an effort to drink less, and he tried to be home as often as he could. The loss of his wife of almost twenty years seemed to have sobered the man and given him a sense of his own mortality.

  The matter with Manny was investigated and Susan, coach
ed by her father, claimed self-defense. Eventually, the Chicago police, unable to gather evidence that could lead to charges against the girl, let the case drop.

  Over the next few years, Frank taught Susan everything he knew about killing. And when he retired, she stepped in and took his place.

  * * *

  General aviation at the Providence, Rhode Island airport was a modern brown building sandwiched between the Fedex terminal and an open hanger. Susan’s mob-connected Uber driver pulled into the parking lot. Susan said “Thanks,” got out of the car with her backpack and purse, and walked into the building. Inside, there was no one at the reception counter, so she set her bag on a nearby couch and walked to the back of the building. There were a dozen planes on the tarmac and a couple more near the fueling station.

  “Can I help?” a woman asked from behind her.

  Susan turned and walked back to the counter. “I’m being picked up by someone with Monarch Air,” she said. “Private charter.”

  “What time are you scheduled?” asked the woman, looking at a clipboard.

  “Four-thirty,” said Susan. “My name is Gloria DuPont.”

  “OK, I see you on the list, Ms. DuPont. Providence to Pittsburgh International.” She looked at her watch. “They should be here to pick you up within a half-hour. Make yourself comfortable. There’s coffee and soft drinks in the lounge over there.”

  * * *

  The flight back was uneventful. Susan was using a driver’s license she’d bought several years earlier, with matching credit cards and a government I.D. The co-pilot had looked at her driver’s license quickly, compared it with the reservation slip stuffed in his flight notebook, and nodded and said, “Welcome aboard, Ms. DuPont.”

  There were no TSA agents and virtually no security in General Aviation, which made for a quick and comfortable return flight.

  Chapter 16

  “Let’s get a change of perspective and talk this through,” said Clive Greene. It was late afternoon, and he and Zeke had been reviewing the fallout that resulted from Susan Del Gato’s escape from the Cambridge police. “I’m looking at possible relationships, you know.”

  “Sure. It seems like there are a lot of possible connections, just under the surface,” Zeke added.

  “First, we know that Jorge Ramirez knew Raul Diaz from when he was in prison,” said Clive.

  “Ramirez was a prison guard, and Raul was doing time.”

  “Quite so,” said Clive. He was quiet for a minute.

  Zeke said, “OK, second. Unrelated, as far as we know, Freddy Hanson is somehow connected to Jobare Worthington and/or Paul Richardson.”

  “Because of the attempt to, ah, dissuade you in Cambridge? Roy and Louie?”

  “Right,” said Zeke. “It was cause and effect. I audited, and someone called Hanson to stop me.”

  “At that point, though, it was probably just threats,” said Clive. “That was early on.”

  “Or threats and a beating. I agree,” said Zeke.

  “Could have been someone from one of the other schools you visited,” said Clive.

  Zeke shook his head. “I don’t think there was time. I spent time at Raleigh University first. By the time I got around to visiting the other schools, Ray and Louie were already dispatched. I’m sure it took a day or two to contact Freddy Hanson and activate them.”

  “So most likely, Hanson and, who, Jobare?”

  “Or Hanson and both men,” said Zeke. “OK, what else?”

  “Three attempts on my life,” said Zeke, dryly.

  “What’s the motivation? The source of that?” asked Clive.

  “Lots of possibilities, but the chain of events started when I first went to help Ramirez and ICE with the Benito Diaz takedown. Feel like I’ve had a target on my back since then, with the Mara’s, then Luis Cruz. And then there’s the woman assassin,” said Zeke.

  “Yes, the woman who tried to kill you. Where does she fit in? Where did she come from?” asked Clive.

  “It’s likely that those three attempts originated from the same source,” said Zeke. “Think about it… The Mara’s were there to stop me, almost as soon as I got there. Almost as soon as they failed, this Luis Cruz character shows up to finish the job.”

  “But with a different M.O.” said Clive.

  “Right, but maybe for the same reason. To take pressure off of Diaz and his operation.”

  “OK,” said Clive.

  “The woman seems to be a continuation of the same effort,” said Zeke. “But very clever.”

  “Indeed,” said Clive.

  “I’m going to say that the three assassination attempts were arranged by Benito Diaz. Which means that the killers- and Diaz- are all connected in some way,” said Zeke.

  “I can see that,” said Clive.

  “Two more possible connections that I can think of,” said Zeke.

  “OK,” said Clive. Zeke could hear him making notes over the phone line.

  “With the Student Loan scam, we’ve identified some of those involved, but there’s got to be more to it. Something at a higher level than we’ve seen so far,” said Zeke. “Some sort of controlling entity that is independent of the schools.”

  “A brain trust of sorts? A group, perhaps, that put the scam together and has managed to keep it going, and keep it hidden, for years?”

  “Yes. Some politically and financially connected entity that’s running the scam.”

  “Could be,” said Clive. “They may have something to do with the most recent attempt on your life…”

  “That’s possible, too,” said Zeke. “And here’s my last connection, and this one’s a stretch, I admit.”

  “Let’s hear it,” said Clive with a smile in his voice.

  “Based on what’s happened so far, you wouldn’t need to take it too much further to assume that Benito Diaz and Freddy Hanson are connected somehow.”

  “Hanson is a local bloke, though, right? Boston?” asked Clive. “Runs the mob there?”

  “I believe so,” said Zeke.

  “So, he’s into prostitution?” asked Clive.

  “Most likely that, and drugs. And bookies and protection. The usual,” said Zeke.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Clive.

  “Probably. Hanson may well get his prostitutes from Diaz.”

  “Human trafficking. We know Diaz is in that knee deep,” said Clive.

  “It’s a safe bet Hanson does business with Diaz,” said Zeke.

  “I could see that. So, what’s next?”

  “Don’t know for sure. I think I’ll rattle Hanson’s cage a bit,” said Zeke.

  * * *

  “Hey, Roy, Roy Calhoun,” Zeke called across the crowed bar. “I thought you might be here.”

  Holding his pool cue, Calhoun looked around for the voice, then stood still looking confused. A moment later, a light of recognition crossed his face. His eyes narrowed. “You,” he said. Kimmy jumped up on an empty bar stool.

  Zeke, who had edged closer to the thug said, “It is.”

  The bar was a south side working class joint that had been retrofitted with enough inexpensive television sets to earn the designation of “sports bar.” Five of the TV sets were replaying a variety of football games. The sixth was showing the Red Sox hosting someone at Fenway Park. Roy had been playing eight ball with another man.

  Zeke and Kimmy had found the place after asking Deputy Chief O’Malley where Freddy Hanson typically held court. The police chief said, “Let me call the Organized Crime guys and I’ll call you right back.”

  “His nickname is ‘Handsome Hanson,’” said O’Malley, when he called Zeke back. “But nobody calls him that to his face. OC says Hanson can be found at a place called “Murphy’s Law” in South Boston off Dorchester Avenue.”

  “Then we’ll be heading south, paying him a visit,” said Zeke.

  “I’d be careful with those boyo’s,” O’Malley had said. “Like I said, they’d just as soon kill you as shak
e your hand.”

  Now Roy looked rigid, and several of those watching the pool game around him noticed and followed his gaze. He was staring at Zeke, the pool cue in his right hand. The room had become very quiet.

  “So what is it you want?” Calhoun asked.

  “Not trouble, Roy. I stopped by to talk with Freddy Hanson.”

  “About what?” the thin man snarled, becoming more aggressive on his home turf.

  “About the attempt to kill me yesterday,” said Zeke. Kimmy was sitting on the tall stool and watching the room from behind Zeke.

  Roy looked at Zeke for a long moment, and then at his friends. Then he said, “No one’s tried to kill you. You’d be dead if they had.” This brought a few chuckles from the men around the room.

  Zeke smiled. “Well, I still want to talk with Freddy Hanson. Is he back there?” Zeke asked, pointing to the hallway that led to the restrooms and then the back of the bar. He took two steps toward the hallway.

  “You don’t need to go back there,” growled the bartender from behind the bar. He was a large man with long black hair and a matching, messy beard.

  Zeke ignored him and continued across the room toward the hallway. Kimmy stepped down from her seat and followed him. The men in the room looked uncertain for a minute, and then they glanced at one another and then at Roy Calhoun. Roy stood his ground, tall and thin and menacing. As Zeke approached, Roy stepped into his path.

  “I’m not backing down, this time,” said Roy, moving his feet further apart, stabilizing himself.

  “Suit yourself,” said Zeke.

  “I’ll wrap this cue around your head,” Roy continued, showing off for his audience.

  “No, you won’t,” said Zeke. He was no more than three feet in front of the thin man, now, facing him. “You’ve got to take a backswing.”

  “What?” Roy said as he started to swing the cue back in his right hand.