Butterface

Gallo held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

Ignoring the obvious setup, Ford brought it back to business. Trying to shame these two into good behavior worked about as well as it did on a dog—momentary remorse followed five minutes later with Rover being snout-deep in the kitchen garbage. Again. “Has Kapowski showed up with the files about the latest Esposito surveillance yet?”

Gallo shook his head. “That would be a negative.”

“And you two are out here waiting on him so you can review it in a timely manner?”

“Fuck no.” Ruggiero held up his glass, clinking the ice cubes in the international sign for another drink. “That’s what we have you here for, son.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Ruggiero.”

“I know.” He flashed a grin, obviously unperturbed by the dig. “It’s why all the ladies love me.”

Gallo laughed loudly. “There is no one who believes that.”

“Tell that to my wife,” he groused. “She’s convinced I’m banging half the nurses at St. Vincent’s.”

Ford didn’t want to touch that, not even with Gallo’s probably radioactive dick. “I’m heading up. If Kapowski ever gets here, you can just have him deliver the info to room two-oh-five.”

Why was he so ready to spend a night working instead of following up with the wedding planner, no matter what Ruggiero and Gallo said about her? Because there was nothing in the world Ford wanted more than nailing the Esposito crime family.

He’d been close, so close, to making a case against the organization. But as his grandpa had always said, close only counts in horseshoes and the backseat of a car. It definitely didn’t count in police investigations, and that’s why he was stuck getting brain rot as the task force’s low man on the totem pole for the foreseeable future. But he wouldn’t be there forever.

Growing up as the odd man out of the seven Hartigan kids, he’d learned early on that it wasn’t about winning the battle, it was about winning the war. Eventually, if he played it smart—which he always did—he’d move up to running the task force. Then, give him two decades and, at fifty, he’d be the youngest police commissioner in Waterbury’s history.

Gallo gave him a questioning look. “You’re staying here?”

“I’ve had two beers,” Ford said, stopping before he sang them song and verse on department policy and the law.

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Ruggiero said and took a drink from the red cocktail straw of the new amaretto sour the bartender had handed him. “Even my grandmother can drive home after two beers.”

“It’s against department policy.” Section forty-two point eight point three, to be precise.

“Fucking rule follower.” Gallo rolled his eyes and turned his barstool back around to face the bar and the giant TV screen showing the Harbor City Ice Knights losing. Again.

“We are law enforcement officers.” Which meant they needed to hold themselves to a higher standard, to put law and order above everything else.

Ruggiero snorted. “That doesn’t mean we have to be know-it-all assholes.”

Ford clamped his mouth shut and hammered the tip of his middle finger against his thumb, counting down from twenty-five because ten wasn’t going to do it with these two.

Once he tapped to twenty-five, he let out a breath. “Just have Kapowski bring up the files if he stops by. We need his detail tonight to pay off. If the tip about the massive drug deal we got was right, the Espositos will be flooding Waterbury with heroin.”

Even Ruggiero and Gallo grimaced at his words.

Despite their general assholery, they knew a lot of people would suffer if they didn’t stop this deal—and right now they didn’t have jack shit on it.

Ford grabbed his key out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Ruggiero. “Room two-oh-five. He can leave the files and the key on the desk in my room. I need a shower.”

Ruggiero shrugged, his grimace replaced with a shit-eating grin. “Maybe I’ll have that hot receptionist bring them up instead.”

“You’re hilarious,” Ford said and marched toward the elevators so he could get out of this monkey suit.