Chapter 5 - The Red Hook Conference
The warehouse at Pier 42 smelled of salt, rusted iron, and the heavy, sweet stench of raw molasses that had leaked from a Cuban freighter three weeks prior. Luca Moretti sat on a stack of green wooden crates, his trousers immaculate despite the oil-stained floorboards, his eyes fixed on Michael Chen.
Chen was forty-two, wearing a silk suit that had been ruined by the grease on the warehouse chair he was tied to. His mouth wasn't taped; Luca didn't believe in tape. It made men feel like they were in a movie. He preferred the silence of three longshoremen standing by the door with heavy brass cargo hooks in their belts.
“The Ohio foundry was your idea, Michael,” Luca said, his voice light, almost conversational against the rhythmic slap-slap of the tide against the pier pilings below. “Harding doesn't know the difference between a carbon alloy and a piece of old track iron. He thinks steel comes from an office in Albany. You arranged the Nautilus trust.”
Chen swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple moving convulsively against his wet collar. “The money didn't stay in Antigua, Luca. You know how the system works. It was rerouted through the state infrastructure fund to pay for the new terminal gates at JFK. Your own people got twelve percent of that hauling contract.”
“My people hauled gravel, Michael. Gravel doesn't crack when a train goes over it at sixty miles an hour,” Luca said. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his face inches from Chen’s. “The girl. Who gave the motorcycle rider her address?”
“I don't know!” Chen cried, his voice echoing shrilly up into the corrugated steel roof. “Harding handles the security. He has those boys from the City Marshal’s office—the ones who got kicked out of the state troopers for manufacturing evidence. They’re the ones who do the street work.”
Luca didn't look back at his men. He simply raised his left hand, two fingers extended.
One of the longshoremen walked over, unhooked a heavy iron crowbar from the wall, and brought it down across Chen’s right knee with a single, professional thwack.
The scream Chen let out was short, cut off by his own tongue as he bit through his lower lip, a bright line of dark blood running down his chin onto his ruined silk tie. He shook so hard the wooden chair groaned against the floorboards.
“The street work,” Luca repeated, his voice unchanged. “Who gave them the plate number?”
“The commander!” Chen sobbed, his head hanging between his shoulders, his eyes fixed on his swelling knee. “The precinct commander at the 72nd. He got twenty thousand from the Nautilus account to clear the traffic camera logs for Brooklyn Avenue between ten and eleven last night. He’s the one who told Harding she was checking the bridge invoices at the municipal library.”
Luca stood up, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe a single stray drop of Chen’s blood from the toe of his shoe.
“Marco,” Luca said into his radio unit. “Call the Ledger’s city desk. Tell them the commander of the 72nd precinct has an offshore account at the Bank of Nova Scotia under his wife’s maiden name. Give them the account number. Let the journalists do their work before the sun comes up.”
May you like
He turned back to Chen, who was weeping silently into his chest.
“You’re going to stay here until the bridge inspection is finished, Michael,” Luca said softly. “If our engineers find one crack in those support piers—just one—you’re going to be the aggregate they use to fill it.”
