The local watering hole. God love it. His dad would have been proud.
Grimacing at that thought, he pushed his hands through his hair, and went back to his seat at the bar.
He faced down the shot glass filled to the brim with pale brown liquid. The sight of it made his mouth water.
No. He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the day’s growth of stubble and smelling the last faint whiff of Lily Raines’s perfume.
He’d come too close too many times to sinking into a bottle, just like his old man. Just like his oldest brother. There were better ways to die.
And there’ll allus be worse ones. His dad’s slurred Irish brogue echoed in his ears.
“Shut up, Dad,” he muttered.
As much as he’d like to use a quart of Irish whiskey to drown the look of terror in Lily Raines’s eyes and forget the reason he’d been there to see it, he couldn’t afford to.
Three years and thousands of hours of undercover work were on the line. And as of tonight, his career probably was, as well.
Because Giovanni Castellano, the King of the Coast, had ordered “Jake Brand,” with Armand Foshee to watch over him, to make sure Juror Number Seven held out for acquittal in Theodore “Sack” Simon’s murder trial.
With a sigh, Brand threw some cash down on the bar, turned his back on the brimming shot glass and headed for his car. He maneuvered the dark streets to a private pack-and-mail store that rented post office boxes. The store was closed, but he had a key to the alcove where the boxes were located.
He parked at the entrance and took a moment to roll up the leg of his jeans. Gritting his teeth, he ripped the tape off his ankle and with it the miniature tape recorder that had been a part of him for the last three years.
He massaged his skin where the tape had abraded it, ejected the tiny cassette and inserted a brand new one. He stuck the tape recorder in his shirt pocket. His ankle could use a rest. He’d tape the device back on his leg first thing in the morning.
He pulled his sock up and his cuff down.
Then he wrote the date on the used tape’s label and dropped it into an envelope, unlocked the box and shoved it inside, just as he’d done three or four times a week for the past three years. His fingers encountered a note. A single sheet of paper, folded once. He stuck it in his pocket and grabbed the untraceable prepaid cell phone his contact had left in the mail box.
He dialed the only number programmed into it. The cell phone of FBI Special Agent Thomas Pruitt.
“Pruitt. It’s Gallagher.” He could hear voices in the background. It sounded like a ball game.
“What’s up?”
“I got an assignment today from Castellano.”
“No kidding? Hang on.”
Brand heard Pruitt tell someone he’d be right back. After a few seconds the background noise lessened.
“Sorry. My kid’s baseball game. Go ahead. What happened?”
“Castellano put me with a ratty little lowlife named Foshee. We paid a visit to a juror in the Simon case. Leaned on her hard. Foshee threatened her to vote not guilty, to hang the jury, or something would happen to her father.”
“Wait a minute. Castellano gave you this assignment himself?”
“Yep. I got called into his inner sanctum—his table at Gio’s. Foshee was there, along with a couple of muscle-heads with machine pistols.”
“I’ll be damned. Finally! We’ve waited for three years for a break like this. Who is she? The juror?”
“Name’s Lily Raines. She’s juror number seven.”
“Raines. I wonder if she’s related to a guy named Raines I used to know. He got shot on the job a couple of years ago.”
“That’s him. He’s in Beachside Manor Nursing Home. Something happened there tonight. Foshee didn’t tell me what, but it was enough to send Lily tearing over there about twenty minutes after we left her apartment.”
“I’ll check on it.”
“How do you want me to handle this? You going to let the D.A. know Castellano’s tampering with the jury?”
“How’d you handle it tonight?”
Brand made a rude gesture toward the phone. He didn’t like Pruitt. “How the hell do you think? I went along. I didn’t know any specifics until we got to her apartment.” It had sickened him to have to hold her still while Foshee manhandled her and threatened her. “I tried to keep Foshee from being too rough.”
“You did right. You’ve gotta play along. Three of you undercover for three years and this is the closest we’ve gotten to Castellano. We had a feeling he would try something during the trial, but this is better than we’d hoped. We can’t risk any screw-ups at this point.”
Brand’s gut clenched. His lieutenant, Gary Morrison, who had been his contact for his first year undercover, had stressed the importance of not going outside the law any more than necessary. If an undercover cop was going into a situation where he would be forced to commit a felony, his commanding officer had an obligation to extract him.
Brand and the other two officers working inside Castellano’s operation were protected up to a point, but they were required to report any illegal activities in which they were involved.
“Yeah, well, you haven’t been working with the damn mob for three years. I don’t want any screw-ups, either, but I’d like to know you’ve got my back once this is all over.”
“You do the assignment. I’ll protect your back.”
Brand blew out a frustrated breath. Pruitt was FBI, and there was no love lost between the Feds and local law enforcement. He wondered if he was being set up to take a fall.
He pulled the microcassette recorder out of his pocket. With his thumb he pressed record and held it near the phone. Never hurts to have insurance.
“Gallagher? You there?”
“Yeah. Just thinking. Make sure you understand, Pruitt. I’ve worked too hard to end up getting my badge yanked for committing a felony.”
“Listen to me. The justice department is behind this operation one hundred percent. They’ve given us carte blanche. Any means necessary. Have you talked to Springer or Carson?”
His fellow officers working undercover. Brand frowned. “Nope. Hardly ever see ’em.”
“Well, Carson is working the docks. He’s convinced Castellano’s moving weapons and explosives in. Springer agrees. Plus, he says they’re bringing in illegal aliens.”
“Terrorist activities.”
“Right. So you’re covered on all sides, by justice, homeland security—you know the drill.”
Brand did. Job one was to protect his fellow officers. Job two, earn Castellano’s trust.
“You think we can get Castellano on terrorist charges?”
“I think so.” The excitement in Pruitt’s voice was obvious through the phone line. “If we can, he’ll go away for a long time and the careers of everybody involved will be assured.”
Yeah, Brand thought. You mean your career. But he didn’t