Twenty
Damian pacedthe floor of his office in Manhattan as Cole sat silently by. The room was dark, four grainy images of Malcolm Gatti projected on the screen behind Damian’sdesk.
“I wouldn’t have thought that fucker was smart enough to pull this shit,” hemuttered.
“Same,” Colesaid.
They’d picked up a handful of images of Gatti in the city by running street and security cams against a facial recognition program used by the NSA. Damian had been hopeful when he’d heard — until they ran them all and realized the bastard hadn’t been spotted in the same placetwice.
The images had been captured in a wide range of locations around the city, from Brooklyn to the Financial District to Queens to theBronx.
They even had one shot of him entering a bar in fuckingHoboken.
Had there been a pattern, they could have posted men near the locations frequented most often by Gatti. As it was, the images were of littleuse.
“And there’s still no activity on any of his former accounts?” Damianasked.
“Not since he went underground,” Colesaid.
It was hardly surprising. Primo had been late to the party on the benefits of criminal cyber applications. Most of his business had been run on a cash basis. If Gatti had any sense — and all evidence pointed to the probability that he had at least a modicum of it — he had stashes around the city andbeyond.
The realization sparked an idea, and Damian stopped pacing, looking out over the city through the window in his office, teasing the kernel until it materialized morefully.
He turned to Cole. “We have to assume he has cash stashed around thecity.”
Colenodded.
“Wherever it is, he has to go there in person — or send someone for it — in order to stay off-grid,” Damiansaid.
“Also safe to assume,” Colesaid.
Damian walked to his desk and tapped at his computer until a list of locations appeared. He sent it to the screen behind him so Cole could seeit.
“These are the targets Aria came up with while we were working in Greece,” Damian said. “They’re places Gatti liked to frequent, places he has some kind of connectionwith.”
“We checked the available cams on those sites, remember?” Cole asked him. “Came upempty.”
“Right,” Damian said, “but what we didn’t do is cross-reference the footage from all the locations looking for someone other thanGatti.”
Cole sat back in his chair, his eyes on the screen. “If Gatti has a flunky picking up his money — which makes sense if he doesn’t want to be seen in the same place twice — that person or persons would probably show up at more than one of the places where Gatti has stashedmoney.”
“That’s the idea,” Damiansaid.
“What if he hasn’t used any of these locations as hiding places for his cash?” Coleasked.
“Then we’re fucked,” Damiansaid.
“I’ll have the lab run the cams near these sites, see if we can identify one of his errand boys,” Colesuggested
They reviewed the operations they’d taken over from the Fiore organization after Primo’s death and looked over the financials. Even with the percentage that went to the Syndicate, there was a lot more money than Damian hadanticipated.
He understood now why the Syndicate had brought him in to take out Primo. He hadn’t been on Damian’s radar because he’d been old school, holing up at Velvet and pushing around a ton of cash through strip clubs, bookmaking operations, and protectionrackets.
But he’d ben doing surprisingly well given his lack ofvision.
When Damian had seen the numbers, he’d immediately set up a separate fund for Aria. Damian didn’t need Primo’smoney.
Didn’t wantit.