Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Long Island
The black Mercedes S-Class didn't use the regular expressway. It took the commercial delivery routes through the industrial salt flats of Queens, where the smell of rotting river water and low-sulfur diesel fuel seeped through the climate control system. Norah lay across the rear leather seat, her head resting on an ice pack Marco had secured from the night nurse, her eyes fixed on the red digital clock on the dashboard.
11:34 p.m.
Beside her, Luca was on a secondary encrypted radio unit, his words brief and dry.
“Tell the boys at the Gowanus yard to drop the gates,” he said into the receiver. “No deliveries from Riverside until the steel is checked by our own people from the Jersey local. If Chen calls the office, tell him I’m in Atlantic City until Monday. Let him sweat through his linen shirts.”
He clipped the radio back into its cradle beneath the armrest and looked down at her. His eyes were completely dark now, the green iris gone behind a dilated pupil that had no light in it.
“Your sister,” Luca said. “Where is she?”
“A cottage outside Montauk,” Norah said, her voice small against the rumble of the V8 engine. “She thinks I’m on a retreat in Maine. I didn't tell her about the USB drive. I only sent her a sealed document with the password to my cloud storage. I told her if I didn't call her by the first of December, she should mail it to the Federal prosecutor in Manhattan.”
“Your sister is an idealist,” Luca said, turning his face back to the dark window where the outline of the old Brooklyn Navy Yard was slipping past like a line of dead ships. “Federal prosecutors do not look at cloud storage unless they have an iron-clad warrant signed by a judge who isn't sleeping with the governor’s sister. Harding knows that. That’s why he wasn't looking for your sister. He was looking for you.”
The car turned off the main road onto a private peninsula that extended out into the dark, choppy waters of the Long Island Sound. The trees here were different from the city’s concrete planters; they were old, twisted oaks that had been bent by eighty years of salt wind, their branches white with early winter frost.
At the end of the spit of land stood a low, sprawling house made of dark cedar and granite blocks. It didn't have the grand, theatrical pillars of the old mafia estates in New Jersey; it looked like a fortress disguised as a whaleboat captain’s lodge. The windows were small, high, and reinforced with internal steel shutters that could be dropped by a single switch near the kitchen door.
“This is the North Fork property,” Luca said as the car entered the reinforced garage beneath the house. The heavy steel door rolled down behind them with a mechanical groan that felt like a lock turning on a vault. “My grandfather bought it during the dock strikes of fifty-four. The county sheriff doesn't have a map for this road. The electricity comes from an independent generator behind the barn. You stay here until I find out who gave that motorcycle rider your license plate.”
Marco helped Norah out of the car, his massive hands surprisingly gentle as he transferred her to a pair of wooden crutches. The house inside was warm, smelling of dried pine needles and whale-oil soap. A large stone fireplace dominated the main living area, its hearth cold but clean.
“There are no phones here, Norah,” Luca said, walking to a small wooden cabinet near the window and pulling out a bottle of dark amber rye. He didn't pour a glass for her; he knew she was on municipal painkillers. He took a short, sharp swallow straight from the crystal stopper. “There is an old shortwave radio in the study that connects to my office in Red Hook. If anyone comes down that gravel road without the proper transponder in their bumper, the gate will drop sixty pounds of steel spikes into their axles. You understand?”
Norah leaned against the oak table, the crutches chafing her armpits. “You’re treating me like a prisoner, Luca.”
“I’m treating you like an asset that forty million dollars’ worth of politicians want to turn into fertilizer,” Luca said, his eyes locking onto hers with that same terrifying honesty she had noted in her journal two years ago. “When you sat across from me in that coffee shop, you asked me if I trusted anyone. I told you I trust people who have a price because their movements are predictable. You don't have a price, Norah. That makes you a wildcard. And wildcards are the things that get men like me killed.”
He walked toward the door that led back to the garage, his black overcoat catching on the doorframe as he turned.
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“Where are you going?” she called out, her voice echoing off the high cedar rafters.
“To see Michael Chen,” Luca said, his hand resting on the iron latch. “He owes me thirty-two thousand dollars for an old union contract in Queens. I think it’s time he paid his debts in information.”
