Hostage

'He was on his way to do that when this shit went down. He gets there and finds the neighborhood blocked off. He says Smith doesn't answer his phone, which you know he would do if he could, and then he gets the story from some reporters. Three assholes broke into Smith's house to hide from the cops, and now they're holding Smith and his family hostage. It's our Walter Smith.'

'And all our tax stuff is still in that house.'

'Everything.'

Benza stared at the televisions. Stared at the house on the screens. Stared at the police officers crouched behind bushes and cars, surrounding that house.

Sonny Benza's legitimate business holdings included sixteen bars, eight restaurants, a studio catering company, and thirty-two thousand acres of vineyards in central California. These businesses were profitable in their own right, but they were also used to launder the ninety million dollars generated every year by drug trafficking, hijackings, and shipping stolen automobiles and construction equipment out of the country. Walter Smith's job was to create false but reasonable profit records for Sonny's legitimate holdings which Benza would present to his 'real' accountants. Those accountants would then file the appropriate tax returns, never knowing that the records from which they were working had been falsified. Benza would pay the appropriate taxes (taking every deduction legally allowable), then be able to openly bank, spend, or invest the after-tax cash. To do this, Walter Smith held the income records of all Benza businesses, both legal and illegal.

These records were in his computer.

In his house.

Surrounded by cops.

Sonny went over to the big glass wall that gave him a breathtaking view of Palm Springs on the desert floor below. It was a beautiful view.

Phil Tuzee followed him, trying to be upbeat.

'Hey, look, it's just three kids, Sonny. They're gonna get tired and come out. Smith knows what to do. He'll hide the stuff. These kids will walk out and the cops will arrest them, and that's that. There won't be any reason for the cops to search the house.'

Sonny wasn't listening. He was thinking about his father. Frank Sinatra used to live down the street. It was the house that Sinatra had remodeled to entertain JFK, spent a couple of hundred thousand to buff out the place so he and The Man could enjoy a little poolside poon as they discussed world affairs, sunk all that money into his nest only to have, after the checks were signed and the work was done, JFK blow him off and refuse to visit. Story goes that Sinatra went fucking nuts, shooting through the walls, throwing furniture into the pool, screaming that he was gonna take out a hit on the motherfucking President of the United States. Like what did he expect, Kennedy to be butt-buddies with a mobbed-up guinea singer? Sonny Benza's home was higher up the ridge than Frank's old place, and larger, but his father had been impressed as hell with Sinatra's place. First time his father had come out to visit, he'd walked down to Sinatra's place and stood in the street, staring at Sinatra's house like it held the ghost of the Roman Empire. His father had said, 'Best move I ever made, Sonny, turning over the wheel to you. Look how good you've done, living in the same neighborhood as Francis Albert.' The Persians who lived there now had gotten so freaked out by Sonny's dad, they had called the police.

'Sonny?'

Benza looked at his friend. Tuzee had always been the closest to him. They'd been the tightest when they were kids.

'The records don't just show our business, Phil. They show where we get the money, how we launder it, and our split with the families back east. If the cops get those records, we won't be the only ones who fall. The East Coast will take a hit, too.'

The breath flowed out of Phil Tuzee as if he were collapsing.

Sonny turned back to the others. They were watching him. Waiting for orders.

'Okay. Three kids like this, the cops will give'm time to chill, they'll see they're caught and that the only way out is to give up. Two hours tops, they'll walk out, hands up, then everybody goes to the station to make their statements. That's it.'

Hearing it like that made sense.

'But that's a best-case scenario. Worst case, it's a bloodbath. When it's over, the detectives go in for forensic evidence and come out with Smith's computer. If that happens, we go to jail for the rest of our lives.'

He looked at each man.

'If we live long enough to stand trial.'

Salvetti and Tuzee traded a look, but neither of them added anything because they knew it was true. The East Coast families would kill them.

Tuzee said, 'Maybe we should warn them. Call old man Castellano back there to let'm know. That might take off some of the edge.'

Salvetti raised his hands.

'Jesus, no fuckin' way. They'll go apeshit and be all over us out here.'

Sonny agreed.

'Sally's right. This problem with Smith, we've got to get a handle on it fast, solve the problem before those bastards back in Manhattan find out.'