Chapter 9: Carbone's Last Move
The call came the following morning.
Not to Joseph.
To me.
I was in the kitchen making toast when my phone lit up with the unknown number — the same one from two nights before, in the car.
I answered.
"I was hoping you'd pick up." Carbone's voice was exactly as it had been on the recording.
Calm.
Conversational.
The voice of a man who had never learned to be afraid.
"I think we should talk.
Just the two of us."
"I don't think we have anything to talk about."
"I think we have quite a lot." A pause.
"Your father is about to make a very serious mistake.
I'd like to give you the opportunity to prevent it."
The word *father* landed deliberately.
He knew.
He had known since the photograph in the Golden Crown, probably.
He had been watching long enough to put it together.
"I'm listening," I said.
My mother appeared in the doorway.
I held up one hand.
She stopped.
"Joseph has been speaking to people he shouldn't," Carbone said.
"I'm aware of the package his attorney delivered yesterday.
I have friends in that office — not enough to stop the process, but enough to know what was submitted." A pause.
"Here is what I'm offering.
I will withdraw.
I will remove my interest in you and your mother entirely.
I will instruct my people to stand down.
In exchange, Joseph contacts his attorney and recalls the submission."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then things become complicated for everyone." His voice remained pleasant.
"I have information about Joseph's operations that would be of significant interest to the same prosecutor's office.
I've kept it as insurance for many years.
I've never wanted to use it.
I still don't." Another pause.
"But I will, if I'm forced to."
"You're threatening to expose him."
"I'm offering a trade.
There's a difference." He let that sit for a moment.
"Talk to him.
You have until six o'clock this evening.
After that, I'll assume the answer is no."
He ended the call.
I set the phone down.
My mother came the rest of the way into the kitchen.
"I heard most of it," she said.
"He has something on Joseph.
He's threatening to use it."
"He's bluffing."
"Maybe.
Maybe not." I looked at her.
"We have to tell Joseph."
"Yes."
I called him.
He answered immediately, as if he had been waiting.
I told him everything, word for word.
He was quiet for a moment.
"He's not bluffing," Joseph said.
My stomach dropped.
"What does he have?"
"Something from a long time ago.
Before I restructured my operations." A pause.
"It's not nothing.
But it's also not current, and my attorney believes the documentation Carbone has is incomplete.
It would create noise.
It would not result in charges."
"But it would damage you."
"Yes."
"Joseph—"
"I'm not recalling the submission, Audrey."
"He'll use what he has."
"I know."
"That doesn't concern you?"
"Of course it concerns me." His voice was very steady.
"But Carbone threatened your mother's life.
He arranged for her to be kjlled if she ever came back.
He took twenty-one years from both of us." A pause.
"Whatever noise he makes about me is the price of finishing this.
I'll pay it."
I looked at my mother.
She was watching me with an expression that I recognized.
The same expression she had worn when I was a child and something had frightened her — the careful, controlled face she put on so I wouldn't see the fear underneath.
Except this time, underneath the control, I could see something else.
"He means it," I said to her.
"I know he does," she said quietly.
I put the phone back to my ear.
"Joseph.
Carbone said he'd assume the answer is no after six o'clock."
"Good.
Let him assume."
"And then what?"
"And then he makes his move.
And we make ours." He paused.
"Stay inside today.
Both of you."
"You keep saying that."
"And you keep being in danger, so I'll keep saying it."
I almost laughed.
The absurdity of it — standing in my mother's small kitchen, toast going cold on the counter, talking to a man who might be my father about a crjme boss's deadline.
"Okay," I said.
"Audrey."
"What?"
A pause.
Longer than the others.
"I know this isn't what you planned for your life."
"No."
"I'm sorry for that."
I looked at the birth registration, still on the kitchen table where I had left it the night before.
"Don't be sorry yet," I said.
"Let's see how today ends."
He ended the call.
At four-fifteen, Victor's phone rang.
He stepped outside to take it and came back two minutes later with a different look on his face.
"What?" my mother asked.
"My contact at the prosecutor's office," he said.
"They executed a search warrant on Carbone's primary business address an hour ago." He paused.
"They also picked up his financial advisor for questioning."
I looked at him.
"That's faster than Joseph expected."
"Yes." Victor sat down.
"Which means the documentation was stronger than anyone anticipated." He paused.
"Or Carbone had more existing exposure than even I knew about."
My mother sat very still.
"Is it over?" she asked.
"Not yet," Victor said.
"But the walls are closing."
At five fifty-three, seven minutes before Carbone's deadline, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Silence for a moment.
Then Carbone's voice.
And for the first time, the pleasantness was gone.
"Tell Salvini he's made an enemy."
"He had one already," I said.
"He just didn't know it."
A pause.
"You're very much your father's daughter."
The line went d*ad.
I set the phone down.
My mother was watching me.
"What did he say?"
"He said Joseph made an enemy."
She was quiet.
"He said I was very much my father's daughter."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then, for the first time in two days, she smiled.
May you like
Small and tired and real.
"He's not wrong," she said.
