I usually get into my office by nine AM. My secretary, Shirley, opens the place up at 8:30 and listens to messages before I get there. Yesterday when I arrived, Shirley told me that I received a call from Louie Mansicalco, a name I recognized as one of the late Fat Sal Camorota’s soldiers. The call made me was nervous. Several weeks ago, Fat Sal had bought a bullet and his body was found inside the trunk of a car parked at Stewart Airport in New Paltz. Nobody knew what his killing was about. There was no war between the families, no one was talking and there seemed to be no reason for a hit on Fat Sal. I was nervous because I knew everything about Fat Sal’s death and I believed that no one knew about my involvement.
I met Fat Sal several years ago and had done him a big favor with his son Gary. Gary Camorota was gay and was arrested for performing a lewd act in a public restroom. To the old- fashioned wise guys, being gay is both a bad thing and embarrassing. To Sal it hurt his standing in the family and somehow it came to me to squelch the whole episode, make it disappear. I called in a favor due me by one of the DA’s and the whole occurrence was dropped. Sal Camorota called personally to thank me and told me “You did me a solid Devlin. If you ever need a favor don’t hesitate to call.” The world of these traditional thugs revolves around such favors. After helping with Gary, Camorota’s family threw some small time cases in my direction; nothing big but some extra cash is always a good thing.
Sal returned the favor when I crossed paths with professional assassin Nick Greene. I got involved with some stolen diamonds through a client of mine, Mira Schuyler. Mira’s husband sent Greene gunning for me. Purely by luck and in self defense I fired a bullet that tore a huge hole in Greene’s stomach. His gun fired harmlessly through my office window. Chief of detectives Al Seidenberg and the NYPD were happy to be rid of Greene who was a notorious killer and they took my story without questions. I didn’t have to reveal my role in the diamond heist. Seidenberg knew about the stolen diamonds but didn’t want to pursue it further, so I was clear of Greene’s killing. Taking out Greene gave me quite a reputation in the low-life circles where I do my business.
Fat Sal’s death was a different story. Another client of mine, a rich divorcee, Doris Nordstrom, who made my mouth water, had three million dollars in bearer bonds that she wanted “picked up” from her ex-husband’s office. I should have steered clear of anything like that but Doris was the type of woman that I would have done almost anything for. I wasn’t going to break into her ex’s place myself. So I went to Camorota. Fat Sal was always greedy and I convinced him how easy it would be for him to get the bonds. He took care of the “pick-up” but the greedy pig then decided to keep the bonds for himself. Because he held onto the bonds he crossed paths with Eddie Vance, an independent Irish hood and another friend of Doris’s who ran a private casino uptown and used tough Albanians as his muscle. Vance was no one to mess with and to get back the bonds he took care of Sal, Sal’s chief lieutenant Frank Ferrara, and two other soldiers in Sal’s crew. He then left the bodies at Stewart Airport. Vance ordered me to forget any details, which I was more than happy to do. The bonds and Vance’s involvement were unknown to the remainder of Sal’s soldiers and to anyone outside of Vance’s inner circle except for me. Sal wanted everything for himself so he told no one and why the Fat Man was killed became a mystery to the rest of his crew or to any of the other New York families. No-one wanted a war so no one took credit for whacking Sal or looked into it at all. For these hoods, in many cases its best to be ignorant.
Maniscalco was the first wise guy to contact me since Fat Sal’s death and it made me very uneasy. I couldn’t ignore his call though, and called him back. “Devlin” he told me on the phone “I need to talk to you. Meet me at Vittorio’s on Bleeker tonight at nine and I’ll explain everything.”
I usually met Sal at his own restaurant, Robbiano’s, in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn and the fact that the meeting with Maniscalco was in a different place made me even more nervous. I had no choice so I went as requested.
Mansicalco was a tall thin guy with dark skin and a huge nose. He always seemed mild mannered and it was tough picturing him as the killer thug that he was. His personna seemed more like someone’s friendly Uncle Louie who ran a delicatessen. He met me at the bar and we sat at a small table. He acted very friendly.
“I’m working with Richie Ferro now,” he told me. “You know he’s Sal’s nephew and he’s taking over Sal’s businesses. They made him a Capo.”
I nodded and said. “I heard about it from here and there. The newspapers are calling him crazy Ritchie Ferro and they say he’s bucking the big shots and the other families. He won’t follow directions and play by the rules.”
Louie’s demeanor got less friendly and he shook his head with a worried look .“Don’t you ever let him hear you call him Crazy Ritchie. This has nothing to do with the trouble between him and the families. He has a job for you. Fat Sal liked you Devlin. He said you were an honest lawyer and a P.I. that could be trusted. Richie thinks the same way and needs you to find someone.”
Five years ago Ferro has been busted for hoisting trucks and Fat Sal asked me to help him. For Ferro I found a judge that wouldn’t be too harsh on him. He served three years in Attica but during the investigation he and I had hit it off. He was crude and vicious and scared the hell out of me but somehow we got along.
“So who do I have to find?” I asked Louis.
Maniscalco took out a picture. “His wife Sherry” Louie laid the picture on the table to show me. The picture showed a very pretty girl with curly blond hair and an intoxicating smile. She didn’t look like the wife of a stone killer like Ferro.
“She ran off and helped herself to an envelope with sixty G’s in it. Richie wants her back and he wants his money back. He don’t like to lose”
To the really tough wise guys, like Ferro, women were meaningless. They were either wives and mothers and then they were put on a pedestal and kept quietly at home or else they were blow jobs to be used at the wise guy’s discretion. The picture of his wife showed a lovely woman, but I knew he didn’t care about her and sixty G’s was small potatoes to him if he was becoming a capo. I didn’t believe that his wife and the money she took were that important to him. I was certain that Maniscalco’s assessment that he didn’t like to lose, money or women, was the sole reason for wanting her back.
“You guys have eyes and ears all over the place,” I said to him “What do you need me for?”
“Ritchie don’t want to scare her off. You find her and bring her back. He’ll make it worth your while.”
“Any idea where she went?”
Maniscalco breathed out heavily. It was becoming clear that he didn’t want Sherry found. “Her parents live in Brooklyn out in Mill Basin. She and her folks had a falling out when she married Ritchie so he doesn’t think she went there. Her father is Murray Eisen – know him? He’s tight with the Sclafani’s. If Ritchie or any of his crew go there they have to tangle with Eisen.”
“The truckin guy?” I asked. Murray Eisen ran a huge trucking business and was rumored to run the biggest chunk of illegal gambling and loan sharking in central Brooklyn. He had a very bad reputation and was known as a tough guy and was connected. He worked closely with both the Sclafani’s and the traditonal mob and with the Russians in Brighton Beach.
“Yeah, that’s him.” Maniscalco answered. “You realize now, why it’s kind of dicey looking for her. She’s not any old bimbo. So you find her and bring her back safe to Ritchie. He’ll pay you well when you’re done. Just keep your expenses. Here’s her picture and I wrote down Eisen’s address.”
I took the information and left him.
The next day I drove out to Mill Basin where the address was. The Eisen’s had a nice house with their own private boat dock off of the Jamaica Bay inlet. I did some reading on Eisen, an old-time Jewish wise-guy attached to Sam Shapiro, one of the successors of Meyer Lansky in New York. Eisen was a well-connected loan shark with a bad rep and like Louis had told me, I could see why Ferro, even as a tough, new capo, didn’t want to confront him. The stories all talked about bad blood between Eisen and Ferro over Ferro’s marrying his daughter,
I was going to be upfront and to just ask the Eisen’s if they knew where she was. There was no reason to lie about looking for her. Then I thought that talking to the Eisens would spook Ferro’s wife, so I decided instead to just stake out the house and see what happens, Despite Eisen’s involvement I was still surprised that Ferro just didn’t have his own people find her.
I didn’t have to wait long. The first day that I sat there, right after the work day ended at 6PM, Ferro’s wife Sherry pulled up in a new red Mustang and went into the house.
She was beautiful in a young girlish sort of way; curvy body, tight skirt, high heels and curly Shirley Temple blond hair. If I was sixteen, I would have had a hard-on immediately. Just seeing her at a distance I wanted her sitting on my lap. Her mother greeted her at the door. The mother looked to be in her fifties, in a tight top and was the very definition of a MILF. She looked like Ann Margaret in her older sexy roles in the movie Grumply Old Men. Murray Eisen didn’t seem to be around.
Sherry stayed with the mother for about an hour and then left. Eisen never came home. I tailed Sherry to a two-family house several miles away in Sheepshead Bay. I still didn’t want to spook her, so I decided to watch her for a day or two.
The next morning at eight I followed her to a diner on Knapp street. Inside I found out that she was a waitress, working her tail off scurrying about and chatting up the customers. With Ferro, I’m certain she was living a life of luxury and being a waitress must have been a big comedown. The wise guys in their arrogance want their wives to look and act prosperous and I found that most of the Mafia wives I had met enjoyed their well-off positions.
Sherry was friendly with all the customers and had a charming way about her. Her smile even among strangers lit up the room. From my dealings with Crazy Ritchie, I knew that he was a vicious thug and I couldn’t picture this giggly innocent beautiful piece of ass with him.
I had breakfast and coffee in the diner and then watched her routine for two full days. Each night she’d go visit her mother before returning to her place. I never spotted Eisen himself. On the third day, I again followed her home and I rang her doorbell. She was living on the bottom floor of a two-family house. Her door was one door of two doors on the inside of entry foyer. The other door went to the upstairs tenant. She was nervous when she answered.
I decided to be direct. “Hello Mrs. Ferro, I’m Peter Devlin.” I held out a business card and smiled at her trying to put her at ease. “I was hired to find you.”
“Get out of here!” she snapped and tried to push the door closed.
“Listen, Mrs. Ferro, if I found you this easily, they can too. No use trying to run. Maybe if you come with me you can work out any trouble you have with your husband. Just give him his cash back.”
She shook her head and then surprisingly invited me in. “Can I give you some coffee, Mr. Devlin?”
I took it and we sat in her living room. She gave me some cookies and smiled the cutest smile I had ever seen despite her jangled nerves.
“Look, Ms. Ferro, I’m not one of Richie’s men. I’m a lawyer and a private investigator and they hired me to find you and bring you back. That’s all. I’m not going to force you. Just come back and my job is through – I won’t hurt you.”
“You don’t know what he’ll do to me, Mr. Devlin. I’ve heard of you – especially about Nick Greene. I’ve heard you’re a straight shooter and a stand up guy. Believe me please, I can’t go back to Ritchie. He’ll kill me.”
She seemed even more young girlish and frightened. “My father won’t help me either. He just tells me to clean up my own mess.”
“Look, Ms. Ferro, I think your husband just doesn’t like to lose money or lose you – it stings his pride. Let’s see if we can make a deal to give him his money back and find a way out for you.”
I put my hand on her arms and she relaxed a little. I always seem to have a calming effect on women.
“Mr. Devlin, you don’t’ understand. Can I call you Peter? He doesn’t give a shit about the money or me. We were fighting and I said some things to him that I shouldn’t have. I heard some stuff and told him that I knew it. He’s afraid I’ll talk.”
“Giving him his money might be a start. Let me talk to him and maybe your father – try to work things out.”
“You’re really sweet, Peter.” She put her hand on my arm and leaned in and kissed me.” I was surprised but delighted. If Ritchie did want her back, I could see why.”
“My father won’t help me and Ritchie is a psycho. That’s why I never left before. I want out but he won’t let me go and it’s more than his pride. He’s afraid of what I know. “
She seemed so sweet I wanted to help her. “Let me talk to him and see what I can work out. To start let me give him back his money”
She walked into the bedroom, walked back and handed me a brown envelope.“Try what you can, Peter, but it’s a waste of time. I can’t run from him so I’m just waiting for him to take me out. I’ve resigned myself to it.”
“Don’t talk like that. There has to be something we can do.”
She kissed me when I left, and I wanted her – there was a way about her that was hard to explain.
I called Maniscalco and I asked to meet him again at the same place. We sat together at the bar.
“Louie, I found her. She’ll give back his money, but she wants out of the marriage. Just to be left alone. Can I talk to Ritchie? I always got along with him.”
“I don’t know, Devlin. He’s hooked on Sherry. I don’t think he’ll listen, but I’ll set it up. I guess he’ll just want her back.”
Maniscalco arranged a meeting for me with Ferro at the same place on Bleeker. We sat a table in the same room as Louie and I had. Ferro was a short muscular man with dark hair and a small mustache. He had a visible scar on his cheek from a fight in prison and a violent look that mirrored his reputation. It was said that he was a guy you didn’t want angry at you.
I told Ferro that I found Sherry at her folks’ house. It would be tough for him to go against Eisen who had the weight of the Sclafani’s and the Russians behind him as well as his own muscle. “Listen, Ritchie she’ll give you back your cash. She just wants out. Just wants to be left alone.”
Ferro seemed upset and angry “Listen, Devlin. I know Sherry. She can be enticing. You’re not thinking of bagging her, are you? I’ll kill you if you do. She has to come back. I’m not giving her up.” He was fuming mad and spitting his words in my direction. “You tell her she has to come back. Her father’s not stepping in. You better understand that Devlin. Don’t get any crazy ideas. Just bring her back – drag her if you have to.”
His mannerisms and words were scary. I didn’t want to hand her over, but I was in too deep and Ferro was Crazy Ritchie.
The next day Louie Maniscalco came to my office. He still seemed friendly but he seemed nervous this time. He spoke quickly to me as soon as he sat down at my desk. “Don’t take her back to him. She’s such a sweet kid and Ritchie will kill her.” It was plain that big ugly Louie was also hooked on Sherry. “I’m going to tell you something. If you let it out, we’re both dead.”
I didn’t want to hear it, but he was going to tell me anyway. Whether I wanted to or not, Sherry Ferro was going to put my life on the line.
“You know Senator Drum?” I nodded yes. “He’s tight with the Sclafani’s and he wants to put up a big housing complex in Bed-Stuy – calls it Drum City. He’s a greedy cocksucker and its worth billions to him. The Sclafanis thought it would bring too much exposure and refused to be involved, so Drum went to Ritchie behind their backs. Ritchie told him he’d help bank roll it and keep the construction smooth. It opened a big rift between Ritchie and the Sclafani’s. Sherry heard about the whole deal and she told Ritchie that he’d better let her go or she’d go to the Feds.”
Big Louie was sweating – He was putting his own life out there to help her. “If Ritchie gets his hands on her she’s dead. Drum wants her dead also. Devlin, I know you know Seidenberg. Talk to him. Get her protection.”
Maniscalco seemed sincere. The big guy was scared. Telling me all this put him out on the firing line and in the cross hairs.
Al Seidenberg was the NYPD chief of detectives and I knew him fairly well. He had closed many famous cases and had successfully moved up the ranks of the NYPD as a Jew in an Irish power structure. He was the model for Jake Grunbaum in the crime series movies. I played in a card game with him and several other lawyers and newsmen, but he never really liked me because of the lowlife clientele that I represented.
I didn’t want to go to Seidenberg. He hated dealing with organized crime cases and he didn’t like me. I would have to try to find another angle. If Eisen knew that Ritchie was going to whack Sherry I was certain he’d do something. No-one could be that callous about their own daughter. Sherry visited with her mother every evening, so I figured I’d go through the mom first.
Early the next morning I drove to Mill Basin and parked in front of the Eisen house. The garage was closed but I only saw one car around. Eisen himself never seemed to be home. I knocked on the door. Mrs. Eisen answered it quickly. She looked like she had just woken up, but I could smell gin coming off of her breath. She was wearing a terry cloth bath robe open a bit at the neckline and was showing quite a bit of cleavage. She was older than I was, probably in her early fifties but was blazing hot. She didn’t seem a bit nervous as I stood at the front door. “What do you want” she asked. She was a bit unsteady on her feet. I handed her my business card.
“I’m Pete Devlin and I’m a private investigator and it’s about your daughter Sherry, She’s in trouble and maybe you or your husband can help her.”
She leaned against the wall near the front door and shook her head and with one hand wiped her long red, hair out of her eyes. “I know she’s left that scumbag husband of hers. Where do you come in now?”
“I was hired by Ferro to find her and I did. He wants her back, but I think her life is in danger back with him. Maybe your husband can do something to clean it up. I know he’s got a lot of pull.”
She started to cry a bit. “I know Sherry needs help, but Murray won’t do shit. He leaves me here alone and he’s off with his whores. His own daughter is nothing to him.”
“I think Ferro is planning to kill her, Ms. Eisen. It’s your husband’s own daughter – he can’t care that little. If he or the Sclafani’s said something I think Ferro would back off.”
Ms. Eisen was crying more now. “Why do you care Devlin? What’s in it for you?”
“’I’ve talked to your daughter and I like her. She doesn’t fit with that thug Ferro. I’m just trying to do the right thing”
Ms. Eisen walked towards me and stood close enough so that I could smell the gin on her breath. “So you like Sherry, do you Devlin? Do I seem nice to you?” She pressed her leg against mine and I could feel her ample chest against my arms.
“You seem very nice also, Ms. Eisen.”
“You seem genuine Devlin and I need something. Murray has his blowjobs and his whores and I have nothing.” She leaned over and kissed me. I could feel the heat steaming off of her body. I returned the kiss and put my arms around her, Her full body fell into mine and she let her bathrobe fall open. Her chest was large and impressive – still firm – she must have had some work done on it but it was a job well done. She was completely shaved and as I kissed her, she took my hand and put it between her legs. She was soaking wet. As I played with her, she opened my pants and then led me upstairs to her bedroom. She went at it with a true passion and I could feel an intense skin hunger as I lay down with her. It was almost two in the afternoon when I finally got dressed to leave.
As she stood with me at the front door, she kissed me again. “This is not something I do all the time Pete” she told me, although she owed me no explanation.
“You still do it well, Mrs. Eisen.” I told her. I still didn’t know her first name.
“You can call me Lisa,” she whispered.
As I walked out, I said “Lisa, please say something to your husband. Sherry is in big trouble unless he steps in.”
Lisa said nothing as I walked away.
I was tired when I got back into my car. It had been a fun afternoon and a nice distraction from what was going on with her daughter. Still I knew that Lisa Eisen, as much as she cared about Sherry, would say nothing to her husband. If Eisen himself was going to do anything I’d have to tell him.
I did some more investigating on Eisen. He had a pretty long record with the Feds. He had been in the trucking business his whole life, both legal and illegal, and then had moved into gambling, extortion and loansharking. He was one of the kingpins of the rackets in Central Queens and northern Brooklyn.. Although he was partnered with the Sclafani family he had his own crew and I was told that the Sclafani’s sometimes deferred to him. He had allied himself with Russian kingpin Vasily Romankov in Brighton. I got Eisen’s main address in Astoria near LaGuardia airport and drove to his place. His office was just a parked trailer and when I pulled onto his lot I was stopped by one of his goons.
“I have to see Mr. Eisen”. I told him and handed him my business card.
“About what?” he asked.
“A private matter involving his daughter.”
“Wait here,” he ordered and walked into the trailer. He came back a minute or so later, had me get out of my car, patted me down, took my Magnum and motioned for me to follow him.
Eisen sat a desk inside the sparsely decorated trailer. He was medium height and muscular, bald with a heavy five o’clock shadow. He had a half-chewed unlit cigar in his mouth.
“Devlin, you’re the guy who took out Nick Greene right? What do you want with that slut daughter of mine?”
“She’s in trouble and I think you’re the only one who can help her. I think her husband is going to kill her.”
“She got into the mess with that fricking psycho and she’ll have to get herself out. She’s a fricking slut like her mother. I’m not even certain that she’s mine. Ferro is crazy and I’m not getting whacked for that slut.”
I tried to soften him up a bit, but it was useless. It was clear that I was going to get nothing from Eisen.
From Eisen’s place I drove back out to Brooklyn and spoke to Sherry again. She was nervous but calmed down as we sat on her couch and had coffee. Unemotionally,she told me about Drum Town – the Senators development. “Pete, the families turned the Senator down but against their wishes Ritchie agreed to bankroll him. From what I heard though Ritchie and the senator didn’t get along.”
I left her and drove home. It was looking more and more like I’d have to go to Seidenberg.
The radio news the next morning was shocking but at first made me a bit relieved. Crazy Ritchie Ferro and his chief lieutenant Frank Izzo were gunned down and killed at Arcudo’s, a small Italian Restaurant in Greenwich Village. I was going to call Sherry with what I imagine she would perceive as good news. However before I could call her I went into my office and received the bad part of the story. Louis Maniscalco was sitting at my desk and Ugly Louie was panicked.
“Devlin, you better get Sherry to safety. Whacking Ritchie – this was nobody anybody knows. The Sclafani’s are clear of this. The word is that it’s Drum cleaning house and he brought in outside talent. You better get to your friend Seidenberg to protect her. I’m getting my ass out of the crosshairs also.”
Despite my own intuition and Maniscalco’s revelations I still resisted calling Seidenberg and drove out to Sherry in Brooklyn. She let me in. She knew that she couldn’t reason with whoever killed Ritchie. “Look, Sherry, stay at my place until we can figure out who to talk to. There has to be a way out.”
When I pulled into the garage underneath my apartment they were waiting. Two strangers dressed in standard fed uniform – suit, tie, cop shoes the whole works. They might have been feds for all I knew but I took out my Magnum just the same. One of the two started approaching my car. “Mrs. Ferro, you better come along with us.” one of them called out.
“Get back in the car, Sherry,” I told her and she got back in. The second man fired a single shot at the car and the other fired at me, the bullet ricocheting off one of the pillars inside of the garage. I fired back with the Magnum and surprised them. I guess they hadn’t figured on any resistance from Sherry.
In an enclosed space like the garage, a Magnum shot sounds like a howitzer and the noise was deafening. My shot hit a windshield and shattered it. Both assassins fell back to their vehicle and began firing wildly. I hid behind a pillar and fired several times in their direction. The Magnum made a huge amount of noise both firing and with whatever I hit. Suddenly the two killers peeled out of the garage and for the time being we were safe..
Although the shots were loud, no one seemingly had called the police. I left my building and took Sherry to my secretary Shirley’s apartment in Brooklyn. She put us up for the evening and it was a safe locale for the night.
Actually seeing and hearing the gunfire made Sherry realize how close she had come to being killed. This really spooked her and the tough complacency and steely manor she had put on until now faded away. In Shirley’s apartment she folded into my arms on the couch like a little girl and cried like a child.
I realized that I could do nothing more and I would have to go to Seidenberg. I called him on a private line he had given me and he agreed to meet me at Ralph’s Diner his usual breakfast place in the morning.
He was already there when Sherry and I walked in. We sat down with him in a booth and ordered coffee.
“This is Sherry Ferro,” I said as he looked at her. “She needs your help badly.”
He nodded and shook his head “I know who you are Mrs. Ferro – sorry for your recent loss.” He then shook his head again and turned back to me. “Devlin you know I don’t touch anything with organized crime.”
“Listen Al, she’s in trouble and its bigger than anything with local wise guys. Crazy Ritchie was killed by outside talent and if you can help her she can help the Feds.”’
Sherry smiled at Big Al and that smile was inescapable. Seidenberg shrugged his big shoulders. He was reluctant to do anything with the mob, especially with the daughter of a big timer like Eisen and the widow of Crazy Ritchie. Seidenberg quickly realized that he couldn’t back away from this.
“I’ll see what I can do” he told me. “I’ll call you tonight” He then calmly went back to his breakfast and Sherry and I left. We were back in Shirley’s apartment at eight that evening when Seidenberg called.
“Bring Sherry to the Federal Building on Worth Street tomorrow morning at 8:30. I’ll be there.” Seidenberg told me.
We got there at 8:20 and walked into the lobby. Seidenberg met us, flashed his badge and whisked us through security and over to the elevators. He took us to the eighth floor where we were met by an FBI agent. He and Seidenberg knew each other.
Seidenberg introduced us to the agent. “This is Don Lehman – he’s a handler who’ll help Ms. Ferro.” He then turned to Lehman., “This is Sherry Ferro and that’s Peter Devlin the investigator I told you about”.
Lehman nodded to Sherry, shook hands with me and then led us into an interrogation room. He instructed Sherry to sit down while Seidenberg and I stood off to the side. Lehman began to interrogate Sherry. “Tell me what you have for me Ms. Ferro and I’ll tell you what I can do.” Lehman asked.
Sherry calmly and in more detail than she had told me, told him all she knew about the Drum project and what she had heard from her husband. Lehmann took notes as she spoke, nodding his head as she went on. When she finished he began to speak to her.
“Ms. Ferro, we’ve been investigating Drum and his organized crime ties for some time now, If you’re willing to testify I can put you in the witness protection program, Let me warn you first, that it’s not easy being in the witness protection program. You have to give up everything you have here.”
Sherry looked briefly at me and gave me a small smile. She then turned back to Lehmann. “What choice do I have Mr. Lehman. I have to go into the program. I’m dead if I stay here.”
“Okay then,” Lehman told her. “I’ll get everything rolling.” Lehman then turned to me and Seidenberg. “Gentlemen, you can go. I’ll take it from here. Mrs. Ferro is safe in my hands”
He had Sherry sit back down at the interrogation table and then walked with Seidenberg and me to the elevator. He shook hands, first with Seidenberg and then with me.
As I was getting onto the elevator I scanned the FBI lobby and briefly spotted Louis Maniscalco walking into another interrogation room.. “So Louie’s going to the feds also,” I said silently to myself.
When we got to the main floor lobby of the Worth Street building Seidenberg pulled me to the side. “Devlin, you’re finished with her now. She’s gone and Lehmann will keep her safe, I don’t know if you’re safe. Just be careful. You’ve been told many times – stay with investigating – you’re not a wise guy.”
Two days later. I hadn’t heard from Sherry so I assumed that Lehman had started the process of putting her in the program. However I did receive another call from Maniscalso. Louis thanked me for helping Sherry. “She’s such a sweet kid.” Maniscalco said. “I’m glad you could help her. You be careful, Devlin – I’m going into the program also. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder all the time.”
