“I can imagine why.”
“Right.”
“Who’s his boss?”
“He reports to another capo, Santino Gianelli, known as Sammy Tools. He was a master burglar and safecracker before Carmine moved him up the ladder.”
“Speaking of the ladder, who does Sammy Tools report to?”
“To Carmine or his consigliere, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
“If it’s to do with methods, to the consigliere; if it’s money, to Carmine.”
“Who’s the consigliere?”
“Carmine’s bastard son, Salvatore Stampano, known among the cognoscenti as Little Carmine.”
Their dinner came and went, and Stone continued to plumb the depths of Joe Giraldi’s mob knowledge. The check came, and Stone put two other cops’ names on the credit card receipt, since the tab looked more like dinner for five or six.
At the door, Stone shook Giraldi’s hand and thanked him. “Joe, you want to make five hundred bucks, quick?”
“How?”
“Serve Carmine Dattila for me.”
Giraldi laughed heartily. “Listen, right now Carmine doesn’t know who I am, and I want to keep it that way. I’ll tell you where to find him, though.”
“Where?”
“At the La Boheme coffeehouse on Mulberry Street. Carmine spends his days there, making decisions and issuing orders. We’ve tried a dozen times to bug it, but they always figure it out. There’s an office upstairs we’ve never been able to get into.”
“Thanks, Joe.” Stone trudged home, dreading his next move. He was going to have to serve Carmine Dattila himself.
6
The following day Stone met Dino at P. J. Clarke’s for lunch.
The place was mobbed with advertising guys, lawyers and secretaries, but they had held a table for Dino.
“I hear you met with Joe Giraldi,” Dino said. They sat down and ordered cheeseburgers.
“‘Met with’ doesn’t cover it; the meeting cost me dinner at the Palm, and Giraldi ordered the Kobe beef.”
Dino couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “That’s my Giraldi,” he said. “He wouldn’t take a nickel from anybody, but his knowledge trades high. But what’s the difference? You’re going to stick Eggers with the bill.”
“Yeah, and I put your name on it, too, and another one, too, to try and justify the expenditure.”
“Giraldi gave you what you need, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, and he agreed to testify, too.”
“Did you really offer him five hundred to serve Dattila?”
“Yes. I would have gone to a thousand, but I got the impression it wouldn’t have worked.”
“Carmine has never been sued. You know why?”