He was more than old, Brett thought. He was also sick.
The Barillo car drove away and disappeared down the street. As Brett stood by his own car staring after it, he saw Diego round the corner in his beloved old BMW.
Diego slammed to a stop and jumped out of the car. “Gone?” he asked.
Brett nodded. “Barillo and a younger man, maybe forty, forty-five,” he told Diego. “Oddest thing. I was afraid of an ambush when I stepped out of the car, but he came out to tell me ‘face-to-face’ that he didn’t kill Maria or Miguel.”
“I wonder why it’s so important to this guy that we believe he didn’t kill Miguel,” Diego said. “Or why he’s so focused on you.”
“Maybe he knows that Miguel came to me. We have informants, they have informants,” Brett said. “I’ve never seen the younger man. Some lieutenant, probably.”
“Must be, since he keeps his kids out of the family business.”
“What a good father,” Brett said.
“Do you think it was a ploy, something to get us off his tail?” Diego asked.
“No,” Brett said thoughtfully. “I actually don’t. He seemed sincere.”
“Lots of criminals seem sincere—the same way murderers find Christ just before they go up in front of a parole board,” Diego said.
That was true enough, Brett knew. “Come on in. Might as well get out of the street.”
At his door, Brett keyed in the alarm code and they went inside. “Want coffee or something?” he asked.
“Coffee? I’m still dreaming of getting something called sleep for part of the night,” Diego told him. “I’ll take a water, though.”
Brett grabbed a bottle of water for Diego and made himself a cup of coffee. It wouldn’t keep him awake once he lay down to sleep, he knew.
The two of them sat on the stools at the kitchen breakfast bar.
“You know what struck me as odd?” Brett asked.
“Besides dead men going around killing people?”
“Barillo himself. He’s a shell of a man. Quite frankly, he looks weak in every way. How does a shriveled little man like that command such an empire? I think he has something, Diego, some kind of disease. I wish I knew what it was.”
Diego shrugged. “Heart disease? Cancer?”
“I don’t know, but it was interesting. The man with him was twice his size and plainly hostile, but Barillo shut him up effortlessly.”
“Like The Godfather. There can be only one don until the don steps aside.”
“Well, I doubt it will be one of the sons,” Brett said. “According to Bryant, there are three kids. Jeremy is going for his law degree. Apparently he’d like to go into politics, but I think his father’s reputation will put an end to those ambitions. Then there’s Felipe. Smart kid—he’s in anatomy or something premed like that. Anthony Barillo himself has a medical degree, not that he uses it now. Maybe everything Felipe does is to impress his old man, who knows. Then there’s the daughter, Cecelia. She’s about thirty and already has master’s degrees in two fields, I forget what, and she’s going for a third. It really is like The Godfather. He’s a major crime lord, but he wants his kids to be above reproach—like Michael Corleone. Of course, Michael would up being the one to take over the family. Maybe Barillo’s kids are starting to feel the pressure, too. The man who called me the other night said ‘my father.’ The guy tonight was too old to be either of the sons, though. Maybe it was his brother.”
“Barillo’s brother?”
Brett nodded. “Now that I think about it, it could be his youngest brother, Tomas. There were originally four brothers, but one died of natural causes and one died in a shoot-out. Tomas is the youngest, and Bryant thinks he’s being groomed to take over, not that Barillo has loosened his grip by a millimeter.”
“Sounds almost like a royal dynasty. When Anthony Barillo is gone, it will be like, ‘The king is dead, long live the king!’ No wonder poor Bryant has been at it so hard all these years. They have to root out the whole dynasty if they’re going to have a real effect.” Diego yawned.
Brett remembered that he’d roused his partner from a sound sleep and shook his head. “You want to just sleep here?” he asked.
“No, that’s okay. I’d only have to get up early and go home to shower and change.” Diego indicated the old AC/DC T-shirt he was wearing. “They’ll frown on it if I come to work like this. I’ll take off and see you in a few hours.”
“Thanks for the backup.”
“You’d have my back, too, amigo,” Diego said.
Brett saw him out to his car, and he didn’t head inside and lock up until Diego was out of sight.