3

      Lorenz Trabucco sat in the front passenger seat of the car and slowly pried away the dirt from under his fingernails with a nail file. He hated waiting around, and he still couldn’t believe his damned bad luck. He loathed boring-ass assignments, and he sure as hell didn’t like Texas. He preferred his hometown of Boston any day of the week.

      “I don’t know why Serge insists on sending me on these expeditions to shit-kicker land,” Trabucco complained to no one in particular. He looked to his wheelman and bodyguard, Lou Maxim, first then looked into the back seat where Mickey “Bronco” Huffman and Joey DeLama sat. The two were dozing off, and at first Trabucco felt like yelling at them to stay alert, but he opted not to. He figured there was no point in being a dick.

      Trabucco returned to his manicure as he continued complaining, “It’s just that I think I’m beyond this stuff. You know what I mean, Maxi?”

      “I know what you mean, boss,” the bodyguard replied.

      “I shouldn’t have to babysit some techno-geek broad, I should be out enforcing.” He thumped the dash and then patted his chest for emphasis. “I’m a Trabucco. You know what I’m saying? I come from a long line of enforcers. I don’t—”

      “Boss, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but it looks like she’s leaving.”

      Trabucco immediately looked in the direction of the house. He could see the car being backed out of the driveway. What he couldn’t see was who was in it. “It’s too far away. Can’t tell if that’s her in the car or the old bat who picked her up at the airport. What do you think, Maxi?”

      “Looks like her, boss.”

      “All right, then follow her,” Trabucco said. “But you make sure she don’t see you. You got that?”

      “I got it, boss.”

      “Hey, you boneheads!” Trabucco shouted at the back-seat pair as Maxim started the car. “Quit your damn loafing and pay attention. The broad’s leaving.”

      “Where’s she going, boss?” DeLama mumbled.

      “What?” Trabucco said, reaching back and slapping DeLama’s face. “What the fuck do I look like to you, Joey? Do I look like Mumbo Jumbo the Mind Reader to you, or something?”

      “No, boss, course not,” DeLama stammered, his face visibly reddened by Trabucco’s assault.

      Trabucco looked at Bronco who was now fully awake and reaching beneath his jacket to check the load in his .45-caliber semiauto pistol. The guy was a strict professional and he loved to kill. The big son-of-a-bitch bruiser—bigger even than Maxim—with his pug nose and shaved head was the only one in the crew that actually intimidated Trabucco just a bit. There were a lot of opinions, mostly conjecture, as to where Huffman had earned the nickname of Bronco, but the widely accepted story was he’d gotten it from the ladies. Supposedly, they loved to ride him like a horse and they insisted he was hung like the same, and that he was a bucking bronco.

      Joey DeLama was another story entirely. A young kid who was heir to a Newark crime Family, DeLama had been taken down a few notches because he’d been a big mouth and nearly brought down his entire Family. His father had decided that DeLama needed to go out and get some smarts, so he called his long-time ally, Nicolas Lenzini.

      Serge Grano happily agreed to assign DeLama to Trabucco’s crew. He was a wet-behind-the-ears snot, too long spoiled by having a father who was one of the most powerful syndicate guys in Jersey, and yet he didn’t know shit. In Trabucco’s opinion, DeLama was capable of fucking up a wet dream, and the guy had little chance of becoming a made man, never mind heading up the Family business. Trabucco thought it would be better if old man DeLama just killed this spawn he’d sired, and try again.

      But that was another story. For now, the important thing was for them to keep up with this government woman. Trabucco didn’t know much about her, beyond that; he didn’t even know her name.

      “You don’t need to know her name!” Lenzini had barked at him. “You just need to keep on her ass. I’ve told you where she’s headed, and how to find her. You just make sure you don’t lose her, okay? You think you can handle that for me?”

      “Yes, Mr. Lenzini,” Trabucco had said. “I understand perfectly, Mr. Lenzini. Consider it handled, Mr. Lenzini.”

      It really jerked his chain that he had to kowtow, but he knew this was his station in life and he had no inkling he’d ever amount to being much more than a bull and at best someday, maybe a head bull. Yeah, maybe eventually he’d get Serge Grano’s job. At present, he was subjugated to lifelong service under a miserable half-breed like Lenzini. The old man’s father, Marcomo Lenzini, had been of pure Sicilian blood, but he’d never wanted to marry—feeling that his business was definitely a man’s business—and instead had chosen to dip his wick in anything that suited him, including one of the young Spanish maids cleaning his house. So in a sense, Nicolas Lenzini was illegitimate, and everyone knew it, but no other woman was able to give Marcomo a son, so he accepted this and made it official by marrying the maid, although they lived separately until Nicolas was born. The old man’s marriage proved short-lived; mother and child died during a second pregnancy.

      Nicolas Lenzini was raised an only son, and he inherited his father’s empire when Marcomo Lenzini—a man among men and respected by all of his associates in la Cosa Nostra—died of lung cancer on the eve of his son’s eighteenth birthday. So it went, Nicolas Lenzini, barely out of diapers, took over the family business. He became a hard and embittered man, greedy and ruthless with his enemies. He was not temperamental; in fact, Trabucco never recalled Lenzini even raising his voice. Then again, he didn’t have to—when Mr. Lenzini talked, everybody listened or they’d wind up fish food in Boston Harbor.

      “Where do you think she’s going, boss?” Maxim asked.

      “Don’t know yet,” Trabucco replied, “but I’d guess into town. Maybe she’s shopping. Maybe she’s baking cookies and forgot something. Maybe she’s going to a bar to get drunk. Just drive, Maxi. Can you do that? Huh? Can you just drive and quit asking me stupid questions?”

      “Sure thing, boss,” Maxim replied.

      Trabucco knew he was being an asshole, but he didn’t care. He was in charge, and he could be anything he wanted. His men didn’t take it personally. They were still as loyal to him as ever. What really made him nervous about this whole thing was that what he’d been told about this woman. She was going to be instrumental to Mr. Lenzini’s plans, and they were there to insure that nothing bad happened to her. She was insurance, really, against retaliation by the rag heads.

      Trabucco still thought that was a huge mistake. He couldn’t figure out why a guy with Lenzini’s clout needed to do business with a group like the NIF. Trabucco didn’t trust them, and he didn’t want to work with them. But Lenzini insisted that they could all get a lot richer and be a lot better off if they cooperated with them. Trabucco didn’t see it that