Hooked

drugs, undoubtedly the biggest moneymaker, nor did he illegally dump toxic waste from his construction jobs to save on cleanup. He left the door open for the other families to fight over the spoils he rejected. It meant more for them, and they had no problem with that.
    Everything else was fair game: extortion, racketeering, hijacking, car theft, fraud, even murder. But his secret pleasure was screwing the fat cats. Those arrogant, holier-than-thou bastards who sat in their pristine high-rise offices screwing everyone else. They were easy targets because they thought they could get away with anything. They all had skeletons in their closets. Mario knew what they were and used them. Gambling, insider trading, sexual perversions. He snickered at the last one, betting Benny Cooper knew some of those. Too bad Mario was going to die. He and Benny could clean up.
    In the end, crime was about control, and the most egregious crime one could commit against Mario Russo, the one he would avenge without a flicker of conscience, was betrayal.
    Reaching for the bottle of scotch, he half-filled his tumbler. The liquor didn’t eliminate his pain as much as anesthetize him to it. He avoided overindulging because he would take a sleeping pill, and dying from a barbiturate, alcohol overdose wasn’t on his agenda. At least not until he settled his affairs. Mario had groomed his heir apparent to follow his path. He might. He might not.
    Business was business. Mario understood.
    But Rick Martell was turning out to be a major disappointment. It wasn’t only that he fucked around on his wife’s niece. Mario knew about that before the tub of lard with the two-hundred-dollar shirts crushed the hooker, and he could hardly hold infidelity against him, could he? But Martell was fucking around with Russo Family money, and that was an unpardonable sin.
    Did Martell think because Mario was dying he’d lost his marbles? That he wouldn’t know the books were cooked? Mario had started a company, even did the accounts himself in the beginning. He didn’t leave matters in others’ hands like his father had done. Mario knew all about two sets of books. Martell wasn ’t just screwing the IRS―a plus for Mario―he was screwing Mario Russo.
    To get accounts straight, he brought in Yossie Horowitz, to pinpoint what Martell was doing, how he was doing it, and where the money was stashed. The Jew could untangle the government’ s financial bailout when the government couldn’t—that’s how good he was. Yossie got what he needed in one night by breaking into Martell’s office, cracking the computer password, and downloading Martell’s hard drive. He left things as he found them, then went home and decoded everything, including the bank accounts. He learned Martell had finagled them so only someone like Yossie understood them. He’d created shell companies to divert embezzled money. A lot of money. Mario was more than pissed, but he’d held off taking care of his nephew by marriage until Yossie transferred the accounts to his control.
    The time had come. After Cooper’s heads-up that the police had visited the woman who witnessed Martell murdering the hooker, Mario figured she’d roll on the accountant to save herself. Martell would plea bargain his fat ass to a lesser charge by flipping on Mario. He wouldn’t want to, but he would.
    Business was business. Mario understood.
    It wouldn’t matter, because by then Mario would be long dead. But Rick Martell held the key to more than the Russo family. He knew enough about every crime family in the country to take them down. If exposed, they would target Mario’s sons in revenge, and Mario couldn’t let that happen. It was his job to end the threat. Now. Mario couldn’t give Martell a pass. His nephew had betrayed him. He thought of his wife, Victoria, and her niece, Angela, then Mario did something he hadn’t done in many years. He made the sign of the cross.
    Seeing an end to his tenure, he needed to step up the action. First, find out everything he could about Cooper’s cleanup man.
    Then he thought of Tawny Dell. Was her appearance at Upper Eighties a coincidence? In his business, there was no such thing. Though he hoped he’d be proven wrong, he doubted there was one now.
    * * * * *
    B efore Mario summoned Reggie Cart to his office, his man did a thorough investigation of the ex-boxer. Reggie acted as muscle for a mid-level hood in Queens, doubled as a bouncer in Queens, and