Oh, and let's not add the fact that quite a few people in there carried guns and weren't afraid to use them. So as I worked my way down the air conditioning vent, I kept my eyes open. Thankfully, the Federal Prosecutor's office wasn't quite as locked up as, say, the ATF offices on the fourth floor.
Creeping along, I used the small smartphone strapped to my forearm both as a flashlight and a guide. Bennie Fernandez didn't have his own office, but instead shared one with two other Federal prosecutors. Looking through the grate, I saw that nobody was there, which I had hoped for. It was midnight, after all, and none of them were on any high powered cases at the moment. If Bennie was half as smart as I thought, that would change.
I eased the vent cover out, dropping to the ground softly. I'd taken no chances, if there were any video surveillance, they wouldn't see me. I'd gone the whole face mask route. Taking the envelope with a letter and dual flash cards out of my vest pocket, I taped it to the monitor of his computer, his name written on it in block letters in black magic marker. My delivery complete, I made my way out the same way I came in, emerging on the roof just as my phone buzzed, telling me it was one in the morning. Time to make a phone call.
Sure, it isn't exactly polite to call someone's house at one in the morning, especially someone like Bennie Fernandez with a wife and young baby at home. But this time I think it was worth it.
"Hello?" a sleepy man's voice said once the call was picked up. "You know what time it is?"
"I've been told you're an honest prosecutor," I said. I was using a scrambler to disguise my voice, although I was still pitching it in such a way that it would be different from my normal voice. Okay, so a computer could match certain things, but you'd be surprised how many people are fooled when you just try to talk like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. "Is that true?"
"Who is this?" Fernandez replied, his voice sharpening immediately.
"Relax, Mr. Fernandez, I'm a friend," I replied. "I ask because I just left a little present for you taped to the monitor of your computer in your office. Nice desk, by the way, but I'd get rid of the Patriots coffee cup. At least in this town." I added the little tidbit to convince him I'd been there. The cup wasn't actually on his desk, but on a small bookshelf next to his desk, right next to a copy of the Abridged Federal Rules of Evidence. "There's two data cards and a note. Go ahead and have them verified if you want, but keep one for yourself."
"Why?"
Instead of answering, I asked another question. "I asked you earlier if you were honest. I have another one. Do you have any guts, Mr. Fernandez. Any cojones?"
Bennie Fernandez may have been a well educated Federal prosecutor, but he was still Latin at heart, and calling a Latin man's balls into question is going to get a reaction, regardless of who it is. "Give me a chance, and you'll find out."
"Good. Because if you do have guts, then you're going to make a career. I'm going to give you a name. Owen Lynch. Have a good evening, Mr. Fernandez."
I hung up, then put the phone on the roof before bringing my boot heel down on the phone, shattering it before I pulled the battery. I'd throw the whole thing into the ocean later, but I had another delivery to make before the night was up.
* * *
Louis the Frog, despite being the second most powerful man in Sal Giodano's crime syndicate, lived like a poor man. I had never understood why, although I could understand why he lived alone. He was the closest thing I'd seen outside of fiction to a true sociopath. It wasn't that he didn't have a code that he lived by, just that his rules were almost the antithesis of what every other person lived by.
He was loyal to only one man, Sal himself. Other than that, dealing with Louis was kind of like fucking around with a jar of nitroglycerin or maybe nerve gas. One wrong move, and you just might end up dead. He'd killed plenty of people, far more than I had, and had no rules at all as to who he killed. Man, woman, child, innocent or guilty, he didn't give a damn.
The scariest part about Louis though was that he was smart, smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for. They were so intimidated by his propensity for violence that they overlooked just how smart he was. While Sophie often called me a genius for what I'd been able to pick up through just the Internet and my own thinking in terms of business, I think Louis may have been even smarter than me. He just wasn't interested in legitimate business, but instead in making Sal Giordano the most powerful man in the city. Why, I never did figure out.