couldn’t help it if he liked things perfect. Control was an occupational hazard.
Back at the table, he sliced the envelope open with the edge of a key. Inside was a single manila file folder. There were ten photographs and a couple dozen pages of background information. Hank studied the pictures. They spanned fifteen or twenty years. He held one of the younger ones for a closer look and smiled. He knew the guy. Only barely, but he’d met him once or twice, many years ago.
The man’s name was Howard Lugano. A former tough guy known as “Homerun” Howie, who had sold out to save his own ass at the expense of his employer. Hank remembered seeing him at least once at Jackie Johnson’s pool hall, after hours—probably four in the morning. Howie and a couple other goons were still shooting pool and Jackie was bitching about how he wanted to go home. Hank remembered Howie talking loud about how he’d smashed some guy’s head in by tying him to a chair and pretending he was playing T-ball. He said he liked to whack them full force from behind with a Louisville Slugger and watch their eyes pop out the front. Hank remembered sipping scotch and listening to the guy go on and on, trying to impress anyone within earshot with what a bad ass he was. Hank could also remember thinking that a real bad ass wouldn’t have to tie a guy up, or talk about it.
Thousands of guys he’d met in thousands of situations just like that one over the years, and for some reason that one had stuck with him. Howie had been a strange one even then. Find yourself a gimmick, he’d said, be a machete guy, a golf club guy, a chainsaw guy, whatever, just get yourself a gimmick and everyone will know who you are and will know you’re a crazy motherfucker. Then, when you pulled out your trademark tool of choice, whoever you were dealing with would know you meant business.
But that had never been Hank’s style. Clean, organized, cool. That was the professional way. Get in. Get out. No mess, no noise, no fuss. Get the job done and disappear. Hank was known for not being known. And that was what kept him in high demand.
The problem with a trademark, as Howie found out, was that when the shit hit the fan and they had you, really had you, there wasn’t a damned thing you could do. You had a gimmick, you had an MO, and when the jig was up you were on the hook for a dozen murders. That’s how they’d gotten Howie to turn. But as far as Hank was concerned, everyone should have seen it coming. A loud talker like that would be the first one to crack when the pressure was on. Howie Lugano wasn’t the kind of guy who could play it cool, and his emphasis on drawing attention to himself showed he had no backbone. Anyone who was paying attention could see it, and the feds were paying attention. Lugano could do life in a concrete box for killing a bunch of guys the feds would have liked to kill themselves, or he could talk. And Lugano was a talker, so that’s what he did.
Hank flipped through the highlights of the trial transcript, chuckling and shaking his head as the prosecutor led Lugano through it:
Q. Mr. Lugano, have you ever been paid to murder someone?
A. Yes.
Q. How many times?
A. I don’t know.
Q. Can you give me an estimate? More than five?
A. Oh, sure.
Q. More than ten?
A. Yeah.
Q. Excuse me?
A. I said, yes. More than ten.
Q. Twenty?
A. Probably.
Q. And who paid you to commit these murders?
A. Mr. Fazioli. All orders came from Mr. Fazioli. He controlled everything.
It was amazing. It was obviously rehearsed. And it was bullshit too. Hank seriously doubted that Lugano—who was really just a low-level thug—ever even met Fazioli. He probably had never even seen Fazioli in person before the day he testified. Did the orders come from Fazioli? Sure. But Lugano couldn’t testify to that. Lugano didn’t know a goddamned thing. He just took orders from a guy he met in places like Jackie Johnson’s pool hall.
But it was only a matter of time now. If the information was right, and it had been with two other snitches, Lugano’s days were numbered. Nickelback was a small town and Hank was a professional. If Lugano was there, it wouldn’t take him long to find