Invasion of Privacy

we’re seeing, kind of a home away from home, you know? But this gentleman we’re paying our respects to—Mr. Ianella, the one gets rattled out by your guy there?—he wants us to stay in the best place in the city. So we’re at the check-in desk, and there’s some convention or other going on. The clerk tries to tell one of our Milwaukee people—this gentleman’s son, got a scar through his eyebrow and a look that’d scare Tyrannosaurus fucking rex—that there’s no rooms available. So the son leans over the counter, and says something real quiet like, and you’d have thought the clerk grew fucking wings, he moved so fast for us. And I get this apartment, it’s got a living room and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi the size of a fucking regular room. And the bed? Let’s just say you would’ve thought you were in the Wilt Chamber-lain Suite.
    “Anyways, I get settled in the room, figuring it might be nice to pick something up at the bar, show her the Jacuzzi, you know? And when I get down there, I see ten, fifteen broads standing around, all sipping wine and club sodas, and they’re even pretty young. And I say, ‘Great, they must be here for the convention’—not pros hustling, you understand, just like attending it. Then I notice the hotel has this computer bulletin board in the lobby right by the bar, and they’ve got what the convention events are, rolling over the screen. And guess what the convention turns out to be?”
    “I give up.”
    “It’s some kind of nurses’ thing, only the fucking theme or whatever you call it is ‘Sexually Transmitted Diseases.’ The computer screen’s rolling panels with titles like ‘Dysfunctional Vaginal Bleeding’ and ‘Canker Sores of the Male Organ,’ and I say to myself, ‘Fuck, the vibes this board’s giving off, there ain’t gonna be nobody laid in this hotel for a year.’ ”
    Zuppone’s laugh was cut short by the gate agent’s announcement that our flight was just hooking up to the jetway. He rose to look and said, “Come on.”
    “No.”
    “What do you mean, no?”
    “I mean I’m not setting up Alfonso DiRienzi for your hitters.”
    His face coloring, Zuppone sat back down. “Cuddy, they aren’t ‘my hitters.’ They’re the guys have a score to settle with a certain bean counter who betrayed them.”
    “I don’t see the difference.”
    “The difference is that my people owe the Milwaukee people a favor, and the coordinator I told you about let the cat out of the fucking bag that ‘we’ know where the rat is. And that ‘we’ includes you, since it was the fucking favor you asked with the photo that got me into this situation in the first fucking place.”
    “And they expect you to produce me for a little talking to.”
    Primo shrugged. “You might say that, yeah.”
    “Not tonight.”
    “What?”
    “They know who I am?”
    “Cuddy, you winking out on me or what? They never fucking met you before.”
    “So they don’t know my name.”
    Zuppone struggled to keep his voice down. “Of course they don’t know your fucking name.”
    “All right, then. You tell them you’ve been trying to reach me. Tell them you camped out in front of my house and I never showed up.”
    “Your car’s there now.”
    “Tell them it wasn’t when you left.”
    “Cuddy,” the face getting more flushed, “why should I tell them any of this fucking shit?”
    I pointed to the jetway. “Because when they come through that door, I’m going to be holding one of the telephones next to us, speaking on an open line to Boston Homicide. Just to make sure nothing cute happens here.” Zuppone glanced nervously at the jetway door. “You got rocks in your head or what? These guys just flew how many fucking miles to talk to you tonight, get this thing done.”
    “You tell them you’re working on finding me, and meanwhile you’ll show them the city.”
    “Show them the city? Cuddy, these guys didn’t come here to shop Quincy fucking Market. They came here to avenge the family honor and fly the fuck back.”
    The gate agent opened the doorway, putting on a yearbook smile to greet the arrivals.
    I said to Zuppone, “I’m going to make the call, and then I’ll try you tomorrow on your car phone.”
    “Tomorrow? What the fuck am I supposed—”
    I stood up and walked over to the phone bank. After I picked up a receiver and dialed, Primo took a series of breaths, the color in his face finally returning to normal. Only three people—an older