The other members of the team were Lou Santiago, a tall Italian with dark hair and squinty eyes; Brad Danzig, the youngest member who spent way more time in the gym than any human should be allowed; and Lester Shanahan, a tall Irishman who always used slaps of Old Spice cologne to cover the nips of whiskey we all knew he drank during the day.
Then there was Ed, our fearless leader, who, at forty-five, was still tall and handsome and ready with the quick smile and warm hands that could still make my juices flow. We still had our little sex romps every now and then, even though he was usually involved with someone else and I swore that every time would be the last. When it c
ame to Ed, my willpower was shit. And he knew it.
Each team member, including myself, was a top-notch investigator with lots of successful operations under their belt. Maybe that was why we were all so fucking frustrated now. Ed stood at the front of the room and said it best.
“We’ve been spinning our wheels in O’Connor shit for six months, people. If we don’t get a break soon, we’re gonna have to close the book on these mother fuckers and let them walk. That is something I do not want to do. Am I clear?”
The “O’Connor shit” Ed was referring to was a criminal organization led by a notorious Irish gangster named Patrick “Patsy” O’Connor. The task force (task club) had been trying to collect enough evidence to bring O’Connor and his gang up on a multitude of charges for months, yet so far, we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him with jaywalking.
We all knew that our time was running out. If we couldn’t find the crack in Pats O’Connor’s armor soon the task force would either move on to the next gang on the list or, most likely since memos about budget cuts kept coming down from on high, be disbanded and everyone reassigned.
I shuddered to think that I might end up back chasing hookers and johns in Vice. At this point, I was willing to do anything to make sure our investigation into Connor’s organization somehow bore fruit and kept the team together. Anything.
I sipped the coffee and listened to Ed basically tell us that the weekend surveillance of O’Connor’s operation at the docks had resulted in nothing more than the usual comings and goings of O’Connor and his crew.
I let my eyes go around the white board behind Ed that was covered with the mugshot and surveillance photos of members of the O’Connor gang, with Patsy’s photo at the top, then horizontal and vertical lines displaying the hierarchy of his organization.
The higher a photo was on the board, the higher that person was in the organization. The photo directly below Patsy’s was that of his son, Sean, an attorney whom we believed was being groomed to take over the organization from his father.
“Claire? Claire?”
I blinked when I heard my name. I had been busted daydreaming about Sean O’Connor again. I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but the photograph of Patsy O’Connor’s only son never failed to catch my eye.
Tall, muscular, blonde, blue eyed, big Irish smile… he was, without a doubt, the best-looking gangster I’d ever seen.
I’d yet to see him in person, only in photographs and grainy surveillance videos, but there was something about him that made a little tingle run up and down my spine. I sometimes imagined him handcuffed to my bed, naked, with a ball-gag in his mouth…
Jesus, Claire, you really need to get laid.
“Claire?”
I looked up to find Ed staring at me. “Claire? You with us?”
I quickly swallowed the lump in my throat and pried my eyes away from Sean O’Connor’s photo, ignoring the heat between my legs. I looked at Ed and gave him a firm nod. “Yes, sorry, just thinking.”
“First time’s always hard, sweet cheeks,” Joanie said, grinning over her shoulder at me. I flipped her the bird and gave Ed my full attention.
“I asked if you had found anything else in Sean O’Connor’s background that we might be able to use to get in the door. Anything we can use against him.” Ed leaned an elbow on the podium next to him and shoved his other hand in his pocket and rattled the change he had on him. It was an old habit of his, shoving a hand in his pocket to rattle change when his patience was running thin. I’d been on the receiving end of it many times.
“Oh, well, not much I’m afraid,” I said, stumbling over my words. I cleared my throat and put on a serious face as I laced my fingers together on the table and nodded at the photo of Sean O’Connor.
“I dug deeper into his background before he went to work for his father, but I didn’t find anything useful,” I said formally. “The guy is so fucking clean he squeaks.”
“What about friends and business associates?” one of the uniformed cops sitting behind me asked. The name SAUNDERS was printed on his name tag.
I shrugged at him over my shoulder. “He does not have a large social circle. He has a few buddies from college who appear to be legit, but that’s it.”
“What does he do for fun?” Saunders asked.
“He spends most of his nights at a club downtown that he has an interest in called The White Rabbit.”
“I’ve been there,” Danzig said, his head bobbing atop his thick neck. He was wearing a skintight black t-shirt that struggled to contain the bulging muscles of his shoulders and chest. “Place is a fucking meat market.”
“The place is a pussy mill,” Joanie said, smiling sideways at Danzig, who always sat next to her so they could shoot off their mouths and snicker at one another. They were an odd set of pals, the young weightlifter and the older lesbian who preferred flannel shirts over silk blouses. She poked her elbow into his ribs. “You must have been right at home.”
Danzig sneered at her. “Like you don’t haunt every lesbian bar in the city looking for a rug to munch on.”