Koch shrugged, then wordlessly put his bag in the back and got behind the wheel.

Cremer exchanged glances of disgust with Grossman, then they put their bags in the back and climbed in with them, trying to arrange themselves so that they would be inconspicuous to passersby.

As the truck starter ground and the engine caught with a cough, Bayer came running up, tossed his bag in the back—hitting Grossman in the head in the process—then got in the passenger’s seat and slammed the yellow door shut.

The truck’s tires began to crunch on the shells.

[ ONE ]

Q Street, NW

Washington, D.C.

1850 5 March 1943

“Luciano is a curious study in contrasts,” Gurfein said right before slicing more beef tenderloin and putting it in his mouth.

Canidy, Gurfein, and Donovan, well into their meal, were seated in the small private breakfast area that was off of the mansion’s main kitchen.

The huge table in the main dining room was for some reason being used as a conference table—with papers and maps spread all over it—and therefore unavailable.

The private breakfast area’s outer wall was a large bay window that overlooked a moonlit open area of the estate that went back an acre or so to where a row of tall evergreen trees heavy with snow masked a section of the stone wall that ringed the property and was patrolled at irregular times by armed guards.

Covered with a cloth of white linen, the rectangular table was somewhat small, about three by four, and intended to comfortably seat two. It was now set for three, using what was considered to be the “everyday” china, leaving little empty space between the nice but simple heavy white plates and the water and wine glasses.

Donovan sat at one end of the table, Canidy at the other, and Gurfein was seated between them, opposite the bay window.

Behind Gurfein—very close behind him—was a narrow ten-foot-long shelf running the length of the wall. It now held half-empty platters of sliced beef tenderloin, garlic-roasted red potatoes, steamed asparagus with a lemon-cream sauce, as well as a glass pitcher of ice water and a half-dozen bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon, one of them empty and another open and “breathing.”

At the start, Donovan had excused the staff, saying that he felt sure that he and his guests could serve themselves without risk of starving or other calamity, but if anything should arise to prove him wrong—“And I have been wrong before,” he said. “I believe it was a summer day in 1888…when I was five”—he would immediately summon them by pressing the floor-mounted service call button beneath him.

“Contrasts?” Canidy repeated, carefully cutting his last stalk of asparagus. “How so?”

Gurfein hurried the chewing of his beef, and swallowed quickly with some effort.

He said, “Although he’s rough and squat and dumpy—looks like a dumb Guinea thug, especially with that droopy eyelid and the neck scar he got from knife cuts—he is actually a cool operator who could run a corporation, if he wanted. A legal one, I mean, because he’s clearly running an illicit one. Another example is that there is absolutely no doubt that he is a ruthless killer, more than comfortable with getting his hands dirty, yet he has been a model prisoner. Not one problem since he went in the slam this time. And he’s not eligible for parole for another thirteen or so years—1956.”

“Will he get it?” Canidy asked.

“Not even likely,” Gurfein said. “Not with his history. When he first went up—he was sent to Sing Sing—the prison psychiatrist there diagnosed him as dangerous, and added that, due to his drug addiction, Luciano should be transferred to Dannemora. And he was. He was confined to his cell for sixteen hours a day, the remainder of the time spent working in the laundry, with an hour every other day allowed for some type of exercise.”

The state prison Sing Sing was at Ossining, near New York City. Dannemora, the state’s third-oldest prison and maximum-security facility—and, accordingly, a cold, miserable place to spend a night, let alone to languish a lifetime—was in upstate New York, about sixty miles from Albany.

Canidy reached for the open bottle of Cabernet. When he held it up, Donovan said, “Please,” and Gurfein nodded enthusiastically. Canidy poured a little more wine into their glasses, then into his.

“If I may,” Gurfein said to Donovan, “let me begin with a quick history of Luciano, then we can get into recent events. Because of the latter, I had to deeply invest myself in the former, and that in and of itself was a formidable task.”

“Of course,” Donovan said.

Gurfein looked to Canidy.

“Please,” Canidy added.

Gurfein cut a piece of meat and put it in his mouth, clearly gathering his thoughts as he chewed and looked out the window. After he swallowed, he took two healthy sips of wine, then dabbed at his lips with his linen napkin.

“First off,” the former assistant district attorney for New York County began, “he is not a citizen of the United States, which is what most assume he is. He was born Salvatore Lucania on November 24, 1897, in Sicily, the third son of five children. When Salvatore was seven, his father, a steam-boiler mechanic by the name of Anthony Lucania, immigrated to the United States and found work in Brooklyn at a brass-bed factory. The following year, Luciano came to the U.S. with his mother and siblings. The family worked hard, stayed out of trouble—everyone except Luciano. He was a tough guy from the start. Before he dropped out of school, in fifth grade, he was already roughing up the little Jewish kids, saying he would protect them from being beaten up in the neighborhood, at school—wherever—if they paid him—”

“And if they didn’t,” Canidy put in, “then he beat them up until they did?”

Tags: W.E.B. Griffin Men at War Thriller
Source: readsnovelonline.net