Page 169 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Jury-rigged

minor infractions, if you recall, so the data was blocked from patrol
car screens until the sentencing was over. He would have been busted
sooner or later, but very unlikely just when he’d need an alibi.”
“Perhaps.” Labelle could be maddening by making a statement that
coming from someone less dogmatic would indicate ambivalence or
skepticism expressed in a socially agreeable fashion. But in her mouth
the word was a dart hurled at my own conclusions. Maybe the
coincidence was too great. Maybe Rommel had a very good idea that
driving his car in certain places at certain times would be likely to
cause a cop in a black-and-white to run his plates through the
computer. Now I would have to check whether or not the arrest had
occurred anywhere near a doughnut shop not normally patronized by
the Simulians.
She mercifully moved on.
“Your men lost Napoleon that night. He had been downtown, in
the nightclub district, going on foot from one club to another. His
business in each lasted about ten or fifteen minutes, and a notebook
you found in his pocket later had a series of addresses and codes
possibly corresponding to either a numbers racket or extortion. At
eleven-fifteen, as he was walking north on the east side of Briskette
Boulevard, a car without lights pulled up alongside him, three men
jumped out and apparently forced him into the vehicle. It sped off,
and all we had was a partial ID on the make and model.”
“We were able quickly to match it in our DMV files to one owned
by Rocco ‘Rocky’ Risotta, whose territory Napoleon was trying to
muscle in on. Risotta and his associates were not in their supposed
domiciles that night when we went calling. Napoleon re-appeared at
his residence about four a.m., slowly getting out of a taxi whose
driver he could pay only after going inside for money. He had been
beaten, and with care: most of the bruises were under his clothing,
evidently a professional courtesy.”
Labelle tapped her keyboard. “I don’t see any reference to
interviews with the Risotta mob.”
I shook my head, almost smiling. “They had nothing to say, and
Napoleon didn’t, either. It’s against their code to rat anyone to the
police, even their blood enemies. And the Simulians never let anyone
in on their action, be it for profit or revenge.”

168