“This is Matthew Starr’s project, right?”
“It was until yesterday afternoon.” The wiseguy had one of those faces that was perennially balanced between menace and amusement. Heat could have read his answer as a joke or a fact.
“Mind if I ask what your role is here?”
He sat back, relaxed, a man in his element. “Labor consultation.”
“I notice there’s no labor taking place.”
“Damn straight. We shut it down a week ago. Starr stiffed us. You know, nonpayment on our, ah, agreement.”
“What sort of agreement was that, Mr. Nicolosi?” She knew full well what it was. They called it lots of things. Mostly the unofficial construction tax. The going rate was two percent. And it didn’t go to the government.
He turned to Rook. “I like your girlfriend.”
“Say that again and I’ll break your knees,” she said. He looked at her and decided she could, then smiled. “Not, huh?” Rook affirmed that with a mild shake of his head.
“Huh,” said Fat Tommy, “fooled me. Anyways, I owe Jamie a solid, so I’ll answer your question. What sort of agreement? Let’s call it the expediting fee. Yeah, that works.”
“Why did Starr stop paying, Tommy?” Rook was asking questions, but she found herself glad for his participation, tag-?teaming from angles she couldn’t take. Call it good cop/no cop.
“Hey, man, the guy was strapped. He said he was and we checked. Underwater so deep he was sprouting gills.” Fat Tommy laughed at his joke and added, “We don’t care.”
“Do guys ever get killed for that?” asked Rook.
“For that? Come on. We just shut it down and let nature take its course.” He shrugged. “OK, sometimes guys get dead for that, but not this time. At least not at this early stage.” He crossed his arms and grinned. “For real. Not his girlfriend, huh?”
Over carnitas burritos at Chipotle, Heat asked Rook if he still felt like they were wheel-?spinning. Before he answered, Rook slurped the ice cubes with his straw, vacuuming for more Diet Coke. “Well,” he said, finally, “I don’t think we’ve met Matthew Starr’s killer today, if that’s what you mean.” Fat Tommy drifted in and out of her mind as a possible, but she kept it to herself. He read her though, adding, “And if Fat Tommy tells me he didn’t do Matthew Starr, that’s all I need.”
“You, sir, are an investigative force unto yourself.”
“I know the guy.”
“Remember what I said before? Ask questions and see where the answers lead? For me they’ve led to a picture of Matthew Starr that doesn’t fit the image. What did he put out there?” She drew a frame in the air with both hands. “Successful, respectable, and most of all, well funded. OK, now ask yourself this. All that money and he couldn’t pay his mob tax? The spiff that kept concrete pouring and iron rising?” She balled up her wrapper and stood. “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“To talk to Starr’s money guy. Look at it this way, it’s another chance for you to see me at my charming best.”
Heat’s ears popped on the express elevator to the penthouse floor of Starr Pointe, Matthew Starr’s headquarters on West 57th near Carnegie Hall. When they stepped into the opulent lobby, she whispered to Rook, “Do you notice this office is one floor higher than Omar Lamb’s?”
“I think it’s safe to say that, even up to the end, Matthew Starr was acutely aware of heights.”