Chapter 4 - The Meatpacking Plant
The Flushing Meatpacking Facility had been abandoned since 1994.
It sat at the end of an unpaved industrial road bordering the murky, polluted waters of Flushing Creek. The corrugated tin roof was rusted through in places, letting thin streams of rainwater drip into the vast, concrete floor where rows of rusted iron meat hooks hung from overhead monorail tracks.
The air inside smelled of damp concrete, old iron, and stale diesel fuel.
A single 200-watt bulb hung from a frayed yellow cord over the center of the room, casting long, sharp shadows across the concrete floor.
Marco Ricci was tied to a heavy oak chair directly beneath the light. His coat had been stripped off, leaving him in a white dress shirt stained with sweat and dirt. His face was bruised—Paulie had been forced to subdue him when he tried to bite his way out of the van—and his breathing was shallow, rattled with terror.
Ten feet away, tied to a second chair, sat Arthur Vance—the sixty-two-year-old union director for the Red Hook docks. Vance was sweating profusely, his expensive silk suit ruined, his double chin quivering as he stared at the concrete floor.
The heavy steel side door groaned open, letting in a draft of cold night air.
I walked into the facility, my boots clicking against the concrete. Bruno walked a half-step behind me, his claws clicking rhythmically in sequence with my steps.
Paulie and Big Mike stepped out of the shadows, standing with their hands behind their backs.
I stopped six feet in front of Marco.
"Silvio..." Marco rasped, his swollen tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. "Silvio, please... we were boys together in Little Italy. Your father gave me my first job at the olive oil company..."
I didn't answer him. I pulled a small folding wooden table over, set it down in front of Marco, and placed two items on the surface:
A loaded snub-nosed .38 revolver. And a clean white sheet of paper with a pen.
"What... what is that?" Arthur Vance squeaked from his chair, his eyes bulging. "Listen to me, Don Silvio! I'm a public official! I have federal connections! If I disappear, the Waterfront Commission will bring down the entire NYPD on your family!"
I turned my head slowly toward the union boss.
"Bruno," I said quietly.
The Cane Corso didn't bark. He didn't rush. He walked over to Vance's chair with a slow, deliberate stride, stopped eighteen inches from the man's face, and opened his jaws wide, exposing four inches of bone-crushing canine teeth. He let out a single, wet breath that hit Vance's cheek like hot steam.
Vance whimpered, his eyes rolling back in his head as he wet his trousers, his entire body shaking so violently the chair legs rattled against the concrete.
"Silence," I told Vance.
I turned back to Marco.
"You have two choices tonight, Marco," I said, leaning my hands on the small wooden table. "Choice one: You write down every bank account, every offshore shell company, and every crooked politician you and Vance used to hide the money you stole from my family over the last five years. You sign it over to Mateo Vasquez’s trust fund."
Marco swallowed hard, his tear-filled eyes darting toward the revolver on the table. "And... and choice two?"
"There is no choice two," I said flatly. "Choice two is what happens if you waste my time."
Marco looked at the revolver, then at the pen, then up at my face. He saw no mercy there. He saw no old memories of Little Italy, no shared wine at Sunday dinners, no brotherhood. He saw only the cold, unyielding wall of a man who had decided that a murderer had no place left in the world.
"Give me the pen," Marco whispered, his shoulders slumping in complete submission.
For forty-five minutes, the only sounds in the cold meatpacking plant were the scratching of the ballpoint pen against paper and the rhythmic dripping of rainwater from the rusted ceiling.
Marco wrote everything down. He named names, listed safety deposit box numbers in Nassau, recorded the location of three million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds hidden in a storage locker in Jersey City, and detailed every illegal dock transaction he had hidden from my ledgers.
When he finished, his hand was shaking so badly he could barely sign his name at the bottom of the fourth page.
I picked up the pages, scanned them carefully under the hanging lightbulb, and handed them to Tony.
"Verify the Nassau accounts with our attorney in Miami," I instructed. "Transfer every cent into the girl's foundation before sunrise."
"Yes, Boss," Tony said, stepping into the shadows to make the calls.
I looked down at Marco. He was staring at the snub-nosed revolver on the table, his chest heaving with desperate breath.
"I did what you asked, Silvio," Marco wept, his voice hollow. "Give me a pass. Let me take a train to California. I'll never come back to the East Coast. I'll change my name. You'll never hear from me again."
I picked up the revolver from the table. I checked the cylinder, ensuring six brass cartridges were seated in the chambers, then set it back down within reach of Marco's bound hands.
"I am not going to kill you, Marco," I said, my voice dead and cold.
Marco's eyes widened with a flicker of pathetic hope. "You... you're letting me go?"
"No," I said, turning my back on him and walking toward the heavy steel exit door. "I am leaving the gun on the table. Paulie will untie your right hand in five minutes. What you do with the next sixty seconds after that is between you and Almighty God."
Marco froze, his gaze shifting frantically from my retreating back to the gun, then to the dark corner where Bruno stood watching him.
"Silvio! You can't leave me here with him! Silvio!" Marco screamed, his voice turning into a high-pitched shriek of pure terror. "SILVIO!"
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I pushed open the heavy steel door, stepping out into the cold rain. Bruno followed close behind me, his black coat gleaming under the yellow sodium lights of the industrial alley.
Behind us, inside the tin warehouse, the heavy iron door slammed shut, sealing the shadows inside.
