block instead of a cinder block. When he came to us in hysterics, at that time in debt by five figures, he made the mistake of thinking all crews in organized crime had interests in pornography; we did not, found no need to infringe on turf already so well covered. Gardner was desperate for money, and for something to make him worthy of our help, he offered boxes—boxes—of videos of he and his wife engaged in their bedroom activities that he had accumulated over a period of several years, all filmed via hidden cameras and high-tech equipment, all without his wife’s knowledge, filmed with his face away and hers to the camera. This is the way you must understand Gardner, as willing to give up any shred of dignity for his addiction.
Here, Peter and I saw eye to eye. All four Bovaro brothers would have taken turns on him, would have kicked and smashed those demons into submission. But I saved Randall’s life, seeing him for what he was, as having one value that would provide more to our family than the release and rush of delivering his punishment: He would do anything to continue gambling. Even if it meant surrendering the pride and trust of his wife, turning her into an amateur porn star. Even if it meant exposing his own intimate moments to the world. Even if it meant his wife and children could be forced into a lifetime of embarrassment.
Even if it meant potentially jeopardizing the entire Federal Witness Protection Program.
As we arrived at his office building, I parked in a distant space; the lot was mostly empty on that Saturday night. We both emerged from my car at the same time.
“Where you going?” Gardner asked.
“With you.”
“You crazy? You can’t get into the building, never mind the room where our systems are. I mean, c’mon, the place is loaded with cameras.”
It just looked like any office building to me, a fifteen-story glass and concrete structure designed by an architect with little imagination, a small metal sign at the foot of the building marking it as property of the U.S. Department of Justice. Could have been a building full of filing cabinets for all I knew.
He started walking toward the facility and said, “Gimme a half hour.”
“To get an address?”
He turned around, took a few paces back in my direction. “Look, I gotta run some diagnostic procedures on the servers, make it look like there’s a reason I’m badging in on a Saturday night.”
“What are you talking about?”
Gardner held up a hand to signal he was abbreviating the conversation. “What do you know about Oracle?” My answer never arrived. And as he turned and walked away, he said, “Gimme a half hour.”
I sat and waited patiently—for about twenty-eight of those thirty minutes. But when the half-hour mark came and went, I made the mistake of falling into paranoia the way I did in the convenience store in Kentucky. I imagined Gardner calling some contact in Justice, my car being surrounded by unmarked vehicles, guns aimed at me from too many positions to identify, red dots from lasers swirling in loose circles over my forehead and chest as I exited my car with my hands in the air. I could only hope that Gardner’s addiction to gambling was a ruling force, or better, that my lesson on presence of mind would be enough for him to make the right decision.
At the forty-five-minute mark, I started my car, ready to abandon Randall at the facility along with the opportunity for being captured. A few minutes later, I had the car in motion and aimed for the exit when I saw Randall appear at the cluster of glass doors at the bottom of the building. I drove over to pick him up as though it had been my original intention.
Randall jumped in the front seat and slammed the door, his face covered in sweat as though it was the first time he’d gotten us this particular information.
“Go,” he said.
“What did you find out?”
“She’s been relocated. Just go.”
I felt a rush of relief, from not only knowing she was still alive, but being on the cusp of getting her new location.
As we left the lot and returned to the freeway, my mind started spinning a tale of what might have caused Justice to move her, jammed up on the obvious conclusion: I’d not been as careful as I thought while staking her out. I struggled with which questions to ask first.