Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I had meant to update earlier, but things in my life got a little complicated. I can't even blame the Holidays! LOL
Jamie sat on a bench under a large Elm tree in Washington Square Park. The area of the park he was in was nearly vacant, and that worked perfectly. The fewer who saw, the better.
Though it was on the beginning of June, the summer temperatures had arrived early. It was only eleven am, and it was already 73 degrees. The forecast said the daytime high would be 82 degrees.
After his midnight tour had ended, he checked his phone and found a message from Arboghast. The new undercover assignment was happening. Immediately.
He had quickly headed over to Arboghast's office, where they had gone over the cover story one more time. Jamie had spent every moment he could spare while off duty learning about his new alias, so he was already confident that he knew Johnny Rosen backwards and forwards.
Now all he could do was wait. Glancing down, he looked at his clothes. Well worn jeans, a navy blue t-shirt and ratty sneakers. All splattered with paint. Much like the way he looked when he briefly helped Renzulli on his painting crew. For good measure, Arboghast had a can of primer ready and waiting so Jamie could smear a bit of it across his hands.
Jamie silently cursed when he felt the bench shift as someone sat down on the opposite side.
The plan was for the undercover agent, Miguel Hernandez, who had already infiltrated the Giovanni Organization, under the alias of Mitch Hurst, to spot Johnny. He was going to text his phone, which was set to vibrate in his pocket. That was Jamie's cue that it was happening. From there, Miguel would bring Carmine Giovanni over to Johnny, under the guise of spotting an old friend who had recently been paroled.
"Don't I know you?" a womans voice asked.
Jamie looked over and saw it was the woman he and Danny had spoken to little more than a week earlier. The jogger from the park. He was stunned.
"Ah, yeah...well, sort sort of," he stuttered. He took a second to gather his composure. "The morning you went for a jog," Jamie continued. "I was there playing basketball with my" he wasn't quite sure how much he could say, "friend."
"That's right," she smiled before taking a sip of her Sweet Tea from a local coffee shop. She noticed his clothes. "You're a painter?"
"Whatever pays the bills, right?" He didn't quite understand why, but he felt guilty lying to this woman, so he steered the conversation towards her. "What about you? In between meetings?" She looked him oddly. "I just assumed you were a career woman." He motioned to her dress.
It was soft and femine. A delicate white lace that was fitted on top but flared out on the bottom so it didn't cling to her. A few accessories in bright summery hues added a fashionable but youthful look.
She smiled. "I decided to clean myself up today. Feel like a girl again. I'm a house flipper...well, I guess more like a brown stone and apartment flipper."
"You don't seem like the type," he mused. When he realized how that must have sounded, he went to apologize but she wasn't offended.
She flexed her upper arms. "These babies can swing a sledge hammer like nobody's business. Destroying a wall is great for getting out pent up frustration."
"I'm sure," Jamie smiled back.
She laughed. "I'm serious!" She stood up and gently lifted the hem of her dress to expose a gash about four inches from the top of knee. "Three days ago, from the moment I woke up, my day was just utter hell. I went to a condo I just bought and started to rip apart the kitchen. Only problem?" she paused for a moment for dramatic effect. "I'm accident prone." She let the hem go and it fell gracefully back into place. She took her seat on the bench, this time angling her body toward Jamie. "One of the lower cabinet doors splintered and flew off in my direction. It won."
He chuckled. "That's why you're supposed to wear protective gear."
"In my defense, I was wearing protective gear. But they were goggles. The shorts I happened to be wearing are rags now, though. Which is really too bad because I loved those shorts."
"Lesson learned?"
She laughed softly. "Until next time. But, my point is, even though it won the battle, I won the war. I put every ounce of disappointment I had about that day into destroying a kitchen. By the time the evening rolled around, I felt light. Like a kid without a care in the world."
"You sound like you love what you do," he observed.
"It's fun. But my real passion is in design. I love the creative aspect of envisioning something in my mind and making it a reality."
"Did you go to design school?" Jamie asked.
"I studied fashion, actually. But my grandfather was an architect. By the time I was born, he was a successful business man. When I was a kid, he bought me a hard hat so I could go with him when he went to his job sites. I learned a lot from him." She took another sip of her tea. "What about you? Do you enjoy painting?"
He shrugged, again not wanting to lie. "Like I said, it pays the bills. For now."
"Are you part of a painting crew?"
He knew he had no other choice than to answer her with the back story that had been prepared for him as his alias Johnny Rosen. "I freelance. I fill in on painting crews when some of the guys call in sick."
She nodded her head. "If you're interested, I could talk to my General Contracter. I work with him on all of my renovation projects. He might know of a crew that needs another member."
"Thanks for the offer, but -" her cell phone interrupted his decline of her offer.
"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, pulling the phone out of her purse. "I'll just turn this off," but her brow furrowed as she caught the number on the ID. "Actually, I've gotta take this."
Jamie nodded in understanding as he motioned for her to go ahead. It would give him a minute to figure out how to decline her offer as politely as possible. He wasn't quite sure what reason he would give her about not being interested in steady work.
"Hello? ...You're speaking to her... What? ... When? ...Oh, God! Is he OK?"
The panic in her voice was obvious.
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, fighting the urge to cry. "Yeah, I'm leaving right now. I'll be there as soon as I can." She hung up the phone, rushing to stand up.
"Is everything OK?" Jamie asked, quickly standing up as well.
"I don't know. I'm sorry, but I have to go!" And with that, she was rushing off.
He felt the need to rush off after her to find out what was going on, or at the very least help her hail a cab. But the vibrating phone in his pocket stopped him in his tracks. He sighed deeply and watched as she hopped in a cab and it sped away.
Once again, he didn't even have her name.
He turned around to get to work.
"Holy shit!" He heard someone say. "Johnny? Man, is that you?"
"Mitch!" He replied, using Miguels alias, he plastered a on his face as he reach out to grab his hand. "It's good to see ya!" The embraced in a quick man hug, patting each other on the back.
"Been a while!" He turned to Carmine. "This guy and I go way back! Johnny Rosen, meet Carmine Giovanni."
Jamie had studied the Giovanni family files at the NYPD as a part of his preparation for the possibility of his becoming Johnny Rosen.
"Nice to meet you," Johnny extended his hand.
"Like wise," his concurred.
"How'd they treat ya in the clink?" Mitch asked Johnny.
He shrugged. "Fine, I guess. I did my time. Got in. Got out."
"Prison?"
Johnny nodded. "I'm a graduate of Miami Federal Prison."
Carmine was taking the bait, just as they'd hoped, though it was much faster than they had anticipated.
"What were you in for?"
"It was a bogus charge," Johnny shrugged. "Obstuction of Justice."
Carmine was intrigued. "What'd you obstruct?"
He was on the hook. It was time to reel him in. As agreed, Jamie would leave - letting Miguel's Mitch, who was now a trusted member of Carmine's inner circle, tell the tale of Johnny...
"They charged me with destroying evidence," he answered, as if it were nothing. He glanced at his watch. "I gotta get back to work. The walls don't paint themselves."
"New career path?" Mitch joked, jawwing as if he and Johnny had been friends for years.
"More like the only career an ex-con can get around here," his answered. "But I gotta start somewhere right?"
"Suppose so," Carmine nodded.
"You have plans Saturday night?" Mitch questioned. Johnny shook his head no. "Meet me at Chaos. On the corner of Houston and Essex Street."
"Sounds good. Ten o'clock?"
"That works," Miguel agreed, slapping Johnny on the back. "We'll catch up then."
"See ya there." Johnny then turned to Carmine and nodded in goodbye.
"What's his story?" Carmine asked Mitch as Johnny walked away.
"Good guy. You'd like him. When he got jammed up he didn't even think about rattin' out his boss," Mitch answered.
"What was his job?"
"Jack of All Trades," he shrugged. "Worked for a South American drug supplier. He was basically the middle man. Alcazar gave him the drugs, and he then supplied the dealers with their products. But his official title? Book keeper for the legitmate business. His coffee warehouse."
"Go on."
"Alcazar took in a kid off the street. Everyone assumed it was because he thought he could mold this guy into the most loyal employee by giving him a place to stay, money to spend and a flashy car. Then one night, he sent this kid, Jason, to pick up a shipment of drugs."
Carmine motioned with his hands for Miguel to get to the point.
"Later that night, the cops pulled him over on suspicion of DUI. They searched the vehicle and found a brick of cocaine that had fallen under the backseat. Since he was young and wasn't legally employed, they wondered how he could own an Escalade. The title was free and clear and in his name. He kept his mouth shut while they grilled him for a few days as they were tracing the car back to a dealership. When they discovered that Alcazar was involved, they told the kid it was his last shot to make a deal. It was no secret in Miami that Alcazar was the main drug runner, but the police never had any evidence against him so this was their golden opportunity. The kid just wasn't cut out of a life of crime and he cracked. The cops called the DA's office to get a warrant to raid Alcazar's home and business."
"And Alcazar caught wind of Jason's betrayal."
"Oh yeah. His moles in DA's office called him as soon as the police submitted paperwork for the warrants. He called Johnny and ordered him to get the warehouse and destroy anything that could be incriminating."
"Did he destroy everything?"
"Yep. By the time he was done though, he knew the warrants had probably come thru and the cops would likely find him at the warehouse, so he scattered legit boxes of paperwork for the coffee business all around and he started to toss them into the incinerator. It was a pre-emptive strike incase they arrested him and tried to make a case, he could honestly say that what he was burning were coffee inventory counts and order forms."
Carmine nodded his head, clearly impressed. "Smart man." He looked at Mitch and narrowed his eyes a little. "How do you know all this? Before, it sounded like you hadn't seen him since before all this went down."
"Alcazar got him a lawyer who arranged for a conditional release. He had to wear an ankle monitor and was under house arrest. I was in Florida one weekend and stopped by on my through town. Johnny filled me in. A few weeks later, his trial started. The Prosecution brought their A game. Blew holes in his lawyers arguments...there was nothing concrete that Johnny destroyed evidence, but the jurors found him guilty. I heard that the jurors had given interviews to the press and basically said that it was obvious he was working for Alcazar, and not just at the coffee warehouse. They felt it was time to send a message that the people of Miami wanted the drugs off their streets and away from their kids."
"Did Johnny ever try to cut a deal?"
"Not once. If Johnny gives you his word, he's solid."
"What happened to the kid?"
"He cut his deal. When he walked out of the police station, it was the last time anyone ever saw him. Apparently people were talking about how they'd heard Alcazar had put a hit out on him. I'm convinced Johnny's jury was tainted because of the speculation about the kid being murdered."
"Do you know what happened to Alcazar? If he'd want Johnny back in his organization?"
"I don't doubt for a second that Alcazar would welcome him back to his organization. But he packed up and went back home to Columbia when there was too much heat on him here."
"Interesting," Carmine said, running a hand through his well coiffed hair. "What do you say we grab some lunch and you tell me more about Johnny?"
"You buyin'?" Mitch joked.
Carmine laughed. "What the hell. Why not?"
And with that, Miguel knew that he, as Mitch, had done his job. Johnny Rosen was as good as in with the Giovanni Organization.
I know this chapter was a little on the long side, so I apologize if you found it too word-y! :)