Chapter 5 - The Boardroom in the Dark
Sterling Dunore liked his office kept at precisely sixty-eight degrees.
The top floor of the Dunore Tower in downtown Cleveland smelled of high-grade polish, oiled walnut, and expensive Scotch. At eight-thirty on Thanksgiving morning, while the rest of the city was waking to family parades and roasted poultry, Sterling sat behind an eight-foot desk of figured maple, looking at the bruised face of Cade Branick.
Sterling was sixty-two years old, with silver hair clipped tight like an officer’s, wearing a tailored navy suit that hid a frame kept lean by private trainers. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that caught the gray, sullen daylight coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“You let him touch you,” Sterling said. His tone was not angry; it was disappointed, which was far more dangerous.
“He had Gio Traumante behind him, boss,” Cade said, his swollen jaw making his words thick. He was applying an ice pack wrapped in a linen towel to his cheek. “Gio had steel in his hand. If I went for my piece, I was taking a slug in the throat before I cleared my holster.”
Sterling took a slow sip from a crystal glass of water. “Emmett Castellano doesn't buy municipal bonds. His father was a dock boss who thought he could organize the scrap metal unions on the river. Old Dominic Castellano died thirty years ago when an industrial crane dropped a five-ton spreader bar on his car while he was sitting at a red light on West Third.”
Sterling set the glass down with a soft *clink*.
“I was there,” Sterling continued, his voice smooth and cold. “I watched the fire department cut Dominic out of the roof. Emmett was six years old, sitting on the curb in a yellow raincoat, holding his father’s watch. He didn't cry then, Cade. He isn't going to cry now.”
“He tore up the nursing home eviction,” Cade muttered. “And he took the girl. He’s got the Vance girl, Sterling. If she gives him that third-floor manifest—”
“She’s had that manifest for three weeks,” Sterling interrupted, leaning back in his leather chair. “She didn't know what to do with it. She was trying to find an honest federal agent in the Northern District of Ohio. That’s like looking for an honest priest in a brothel. But Emmett... Emmett knows who buys judges. Emmett knows how to turn a shipping manifest into an indictment before the grand jury convenes on Monday.”
The heavy mahogany door to the boardroom swung open without a knock.
A man stepped inside, shaking rain from an umbrella. It was Marlene Tibs, the office manager who had retreated into the parking garage the night before, flanked by two men in dark trench coats whose faces carried the dull, vacant cruelty of hired muscle from the south side yards.
“Sterling,” Marlene said, her voice shaking slightly as she pulled a damp manila folder from her leather briefcase. “The bank in Columbus called twenty minutes ago. Castellano’s trust deposited sixty-two thousand dollars in certified funds at eight o'clock. The nursing home board just received a formal notice of legal representation from the law firm of Moretti & Ross. They’ve filed an emergency injunction prohibiting any administrative changes to Room 114.”
Sterling’s eyes narrowed behind his gold spectacles. “Moretti & Ross don't take civil cases for receptionists.”
“They don't take civil cases at all,” Marlene said, swallowing hard. “They represent the International Longshoremen’s Association and the teamsters out of Detroit. Sterling... Castellano isn't trying to sue us. He’s closing the river.”
Sterling rose from his chair, walking slowly to the massive windows. Below him, the Cuyahoga River snaked through the flats like an oiled black serpent, its water choked with gray chunks of early winter ice. For thirty years, every barge of scrap, every container of illicit freight, every dollar that moved between the state capital and the lake freighters had paid a toll to his desk. He had survived federal investigations, rival syndicates, and three changes of state governors by knowing exactly who to buy and when to bury the bodies.
Arthur Vance had been an accident—a quiet, stubborn man who wouldn't take fifty thousand dollars in cash to look away from a column of fake freight numbers. Arthur had died for his stubbornness, coughing his lungs out in an iron bunk while Dunore built this tower on the spoils.
And now, Arthur’s daughter had found the one man who had been waiting thirty years for an excuse to tear the tower down.
“Where is Emmett now?” Sterling asked.
“The old carriage house off West Sixth,” Cade answered, lowering the ice pack. “The one his father used for the union hall before the crane accident. Gio’s got two cars parked in the alley. The Vance girl is inside.”
Sterling took off his gold glasses, pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, and wiped the lenses with meticulous, rhythmic strokes.
“Cade,” Sterling said.
“Yeah, boss?”
May you like
“Call the county sheriff’s substation in Brecksville. Tell Captain Miller that a stolen vehicle matching the description of a black Lincoln was spotted near the old warehouse district, carrying a fugitive wanted for corporate theft and extortion.” Sterling put his glasses back on, his cold eyes focusing on Cade’s swollen face. “And take four boys with you. Don't use the front door. The boiler room in that building has an old coal chute that connects to the river sewer line. If Emmett Castellano wants to live in the past, let’s bury him there.”
***
