Who Killed Tiffany Jones? (21 page)

“Whatcha doing about replacing Van derVall, K.J. Hunter, and Woods—getting things started again?”

“I’m working on that too. Pasaro had to go to New York, but he’s 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 151

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going to Vegas with one of our guys next week. Amsterdam will take a few more days; for now we’ll work with Petris Nicholov and his contacts. Hunter’s gonna be tough to replace.”

Napolini tapped his cigar on the edge of the ashtray and stared up at the overhead fan, deep in thought. “There’s a lot of money involved, Rico. It’s a sweet deal. Nevertheless, I’m thinking about pulling out of it.”

“Pulling out?”

“That’s right, it’s drawing too much attention to us. Too many guys have been whacked. Sooner or later the Feds are gonna trace it back to us. Now we got people inside the organization turning on each other, families pointing the finger at one another, and too many people we don’t control are involved. It’s beginning to smell. I don’t trust the fucking foreigners—that English prick would turn his shorts around in a minute. And forget about the Africans and these damn performers, especially the rappers! They’re fucking crazy.”

“Yeah, but with the rocks they usually wear and the attitude they got, nobody’s better at walking through customs without being checked. There’s no better cover for getting diamonds back into the country. Look, Uncle Frank, the deal is worth millions to us, as much as we’re taking in from most of our other operations combined. We can’t just stick to the old ways. We gotta keep up with the times. You can’t pull out!”

“Yeah, I can,” Napolini said calmly. “I don’t like Klaus, but he warned us that this thing could blow up in our faces. I’m not risking everything we’ve worked for on something this shaky. Clean it up, quick, or ditch it. Is that clear?”

Napolini stood up and finished his wine as Riccardo stared at him in disbelief. “Ciao,” the older man said, “call me tomorrow. I’m bringing this up at the meeting this evening. I’ll let you know what the others think.”

Riccardo stood and hugged him before he left.

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Rizzo remained at the door watching the two soldiers who sat slumped on bar stools as Napolini left the restaurant. When Riccardo joined them, Rizzo turned and left. No one said a word.

Rizzo parked the Lincoln Town Car at five-thirty near the large red canopy in front of Alberini’s restaurant. The traditional eatery with its old-world decor had been one of the premier Italian restaurants in the area for decades. It also boasted “one of the world’s best wine cellars,”

which is why Napolini had made it one of his favorites. He and Rizzo walked past the glass-enclosed solarium and main dining room with its floor-to-ceiling mural of Venice; up the stairs they passed the private dining room that was being set up for the meeting and entered the dimmed bar and lounge with its stained-glass windows and Tiffany lamps. Napolini ordered a bottle of 1997 Estancia Meritage and Rizzo a beer as they settled in to wait for the others to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, Louie Marino joined them. He was the family’s most trusted advisor; both Frank Napolini and his father, the family boss, relied on his counsel.

“How’d things go at the club?” Napolini asked.

“No problems,” Marino said as he took a seat at the bar. The bartender poured a glass of wine for the bespectacled consigliere.

“What do you think, Louie,” Napolini said, “should we dump this diamond shit? It’s gettin’ too fucking messy.”

“Hard to balance the potential profit against the risks, but I lean toward movin’ away from it,” Marino said, “especially with all the crap goin’ on here now. It’s already too hot. I helped your pop set up the business, you know that, and to tell you the truth, I don’t trust this thing. We don’t control enough of the shit, too many loose cannons, you know what I mean? I don’t want to see you get involved in something that’ll bring us down, Frank.”

“Yeah, that’s how I feel, but what about Riccardo? The kid’s got his heart set on this deal.”

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“Hey,” Marino laughed, “you know how it is with these young Turks—got more balls than brains. It looked like a winner, no doubt.

But you got to be wise enough to know when to step back.”

Rizzo leaned over and whispered to Napolini, “I think they’re set, Frank. Ignazio’s signaling from the doorway.”

Napolini and Marino rose and started for the entrance to the private dining room at the center of the restaurant. “Don’t worry, the kid’ll get over it,” Marino said as they entered.

“The only thing I’m concerned with right now is how the ossobuco alla milanese is tonight,” Napolini laughed.

“Ah . . . and the tagliatelle al pesto,” Marino offered.

Inside the walnut-paneled room, they greeted the eight men who had arrived from Cleveland and Detroit. They were seated around a long mahogany table in tufted leather Chippendale chairs; a crystal chandelier hung overhead. When the curtains were drawn across the floor-to-ceiling windows at the entranceway, Rizzo, arms folded, took a position outside the door with Ignazio, one of the Cleveland guests’

bodyguards.

It was nearly two hours later when the ten men emerged smiling from the room. They shook hands, hugged, and then, in small groups, straggled out of the restaurant, which was now packed with Sunday evening dinner guests. Outside, Napolini asked Marino to join him in the Lincoln, Rizzo would bring him back to pick up his car later, he told him. In the backseat of the car, the two men discussed the meeting as Rizzo cruised along the back roads that fed into the Strip, stopping occasionally to attend to family business.

“The kid’s gonna be fucked up when he hears what we decided,”

Napolini said as they sat in the parking lot of Opus Twenty One, the trendy restaurant at Avalon Lakes Golf Course. Napolini had sent Rizzo in to tell Lillian, a twenty-two-year-old waitress and his latest outside diversion, that he would pick her up at 9:30.

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“Not to worry,” Marino said, “Rico’s got to learn that the organization comes first. Anyway, we’re givin’ him two weeks to straighten this shit out.”

“Yeah, but you know I hate to turn him down after what happened to Johnnie. He still doesn’t know what really happened that night, does he?”

“No, not as far as I know. But you gotta stop blaming yourself for that—who knew that asshole would flip out and fire on Johnnie.

Nobody else knows what happened but me and your father, the don, and neither one of us is gonna say a word.”

“Well, you never know when one of the shark’s buddies will step up and drop a dime, try to split up the organization. Anyway, he can be a hothead, and this deal was his baby. We’ll have to watch him for a while, in case he can’t make it right.”

“He’s a smart kid, Frank, he won’t fuck up now,” Marino laughed and patted his friend on the knee. “We ain’t gonna be here forever, you know. He’ll be running things himself soon enough.”

When Rizzo returned to the car, Napolini told him to stop by the Crown Hill Burial Park. The small cemetery was just north of Route 422 on Franklin Street. Despite his sometimes brutal line of work, Napolini considered himself a devout man, and he appreciated quiet and solitude. He often stopped at Crown Hill to meditate and think, or, as was the case today, to speak confidentially to a close associate or friend. When Rizzo parked, Napolini and Marino strolled over to the rectangular marble monument and benches placed near the center of the grounds. Rizzo stayed behind, leaning on the Town Car and watching the entrance to make sure that no other automobiles entered the deserted cemetery. From his vantage point he could see the two men clearly even though it was twilight and they were about a hundred yards away.

Napolini and Marino lit cigars and, seated on one of the marble benches, admired the detailed rendering of the Last Supper that had 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 155

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been etched on the monument. It was a perfect place to relax, and the men continued their conversation as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon. Neither of them saw the two figures in stocking masks who silently crept up behind the Lincoln and clubbed Rizzo on the head. A few minutes later, after crouching and skulking from one gravestone to another, they lay ten feet behind their targets. In unison they rose and aimed shotguns at the backs of the two men on the marble bench.

They fired simultaneously and, as the sound of the blasts broke the silence and echoed through the cemetery, Napolini and Marino slumped to the grass. The shooters sprinted back past the Town Car and the still unconscious Rizzo, then down the hill where they disappeared into the darkness.

Freetown

Ezekiel Kwabena relaxed in the backseat of the Mercedes as it slowly wound its way toward Freetown. He had departed New York’s Kennedy Airport at 6:00 A.M. on Thursday for the long flight back to Sierra Leone. Seven hours later he arrived at Brussels International Airport, where there was a two-hour layover. As usual, he had switched briefcases with a Belgian contact inside the VIP passenger lounge.

When he boarded the six-hour flight to Liberia’s Monrovia Payne Airport, he was carrying more than $500,000 in cash. From Monrovia he took a small private plane and arrived at Lungi International Airport in Sierra Leone at about 1:45 A.M. West African time. He was met by his driver and an armed bodyguard, who now accompanied him on the almost one-hour drive to Freetown.

Kwabena placed his hand on the revolver that the bodyguard had given him at the airport and pulled the leather briefcase closer to his side as the car cruised through the moonlit countryside along the partially paved Peninsula Highway. Although he had taken the route hun-16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 156

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dreds of times, this part of the trip was always a little harrowing. Heavily armed government troops manned the roads and there were frequent stops and checkpoints, but there was still the real possibility of attack by members of the Revolutionary United Front.

Staring out at the hypnotic dance of headlights on the darkened road, Kwabena tried to relax. And within moments, as he thought about the last few years, a smile came to his face. Yes, he had come a long way: four years ago, he’d been just an anonymous clerk in the government Gold and Diamond Office who lived in near poverty at Bo.

But he had attracted the attention of his superiors when he devised several efficient and practical ways of facilitating the diamond mining process while eliminating some of the inevitable theft associated with it. He was promoted and moved to the central mining office in Freetown a year later. There he quickly established associations with high-ranking government officials, and demonstrated that his negotiating skills were as advanced as his administrative ones. “Ambassador” was an honorific he acquired by achievement, not by appointment.

When he was given the opportunity to travel to Europe and the United States as a liaison between the government and diamond conglomerates like De Beers, his talents became more evident and even-tually essential. He had quickly risen to the top of his agency and established himself as the key figure in Sierra Leone’s diamond export trade. He’d worked diligently for his country, but he had also served his own interests. And when he was approached by Klaus Svrenson, whom he met at a convention in Antwerp, Kwabena had not declined the Swede’s offer to “discuss” an alternative method of redirecting some of his country’s resources to benefit himself. He was aware of the criminal involvement of the mob in America and the thin line he straddled with regard to so-called conflict diamonds. But, except for Clarence Johnson, he didn’t see or deal with the unsavory elements involved in the deal. He worked with businessmen and politicians like the late Dave Hamlin. Now, however, the riffraff was rising to the top, and his 16470_ch02.qxd 7/12/02 4:40 PM Page 157

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position was being compromised and threatened. Fortunately, he had been preparing for just such a disaster. In a matter of months, he would leave the whole business behind him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the car reached Freetown and began the ascent to Juba, the exclusive hillside area in which he and many middle-class, professional and government-connected residents lived. As the Mercedes wound its way up the steep, circuitous road, Kwabena gazed down at the central city and seaport. The city was under curfew and at this hour there was little activity, only pockets of lights were to be seen at Lagoonda, the casino hotel, and a few other tourist spots.

Shortly after passing Kabassa Lodge, the huge compound that had been the residence of several former presidents, the driver stopped and stepped out of the car to speak to one of the armed troops stationed at the gate leading to Kwabena’s housing complex. When one of the soldiers, a round-faced youth of only seventeen, recognized Kwabena, he waved the car through. A few minutes later, a guard opened the security gate leading to the grounds of Kwabena’s large Moroccan-style stone home.

The driver left after two servants rushed outside to retrieve the lug-gage, but the bodyguard accompanied Kwabena into the house and stationed himself in the foyer, a few steps from the huge oak front door.

Kwabena passed a second guard and two Dobermans sitting at the bottom of the stairs and staring at the door. Still clutching the briefcase, he went upstairs. He first looked in on his two children, who were sound asleep in their own bedrooms. After checking on his wife, who was also asleep, and placing his revolver on the bedside table, he went to his study. He dismissed the young female servant who had been following him, waiting for instructions, by telling her he wouldn’t need anything further this evening.