LITMIR.BIZ

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at Renny. All heated glances and flirtation aside, the man was obviously on a schedule he intended to keep. “And he has bearing on this meeting...how?”

      Renny handed him the first of the records she’d brought with her—a copy of his original birth certificate from New Jersey, much different from the one he had now from Indiana, which he’d been using since the fifth grade. The name printed on it, however, wasn’t Tate Hawthorne, as he had come to be known after his stepfather adopted him. Nor was it Tate Carson, as he had been known before that. The name on this record was—

      “Joseph Anthony Bacco the Third?” he asked.

      “Grandson of Joseph Anthony Bacco Senior,” Renny said. “Aka Joey the Knife. Aka Bulletproof Bacco. Aka the Iron Don.”

      “And why are you showing me a birth certificate that belongs to a mobster’s grandson?”

      Renny started to correct him, but he hastily amended, “Alleged mobster’s grandson. What does Joseph the Third, or Joseph Senior, for that matter, have to do with me?”

      She withdrew from her portfolio a photograph, one of several she had from the 1980s. In it, a man in his sixties was seated on a sofa beside a man in his twenties who was holding a toddler in his lap. She handed it to Tate, who accepted it warily. For a moment, he gazed at her through narrowed eyes, and somehow she sensed there was a part of him that knew what was coming. But he only dropped his gaze to the photo.

      “The picture is from Joseph Bacco’s estate,” Renny said. “The older man is Joseph Anthony Bacco Senior, and the younger man beside him is—”

      “My father,” Tate finished for her. “I don’t remember him very well. He died when I was four. But I have some photographs of him and recognize him from those. I assume the little boy he’s holding is me.”

      “Yes.”

      “Meaning my father was an acquaintance of the Iron Don,” he gathered, still looking at the photograph.

      “He was more than an acquaintance,” she told him. “Your father was Joseph Anthony Bacco Junior.”

      At this, Tate snapped his head back up to look at her. “That’s impossible. My father’s name was James Carson. He worked in a hardware store in Terre Haute, Indiana. It burned down when I was four. He was killed in the fire.”

      Renny sifted through her documents until she located two more she was looking for. “James Carson was the name your father was given by the federal marshals before they placed him and your mother and you in the Witness Protection Program when you were two years old. Your family entered WITSEC after your father was the star witness at a murder trial against one of Joseph Bacco’s capos, Carmine Tomasi. Your father also gave testimony against a half-dozen others in the organization that led to a host of arrests and convictions for racketeering crimes.”

      She glanced down at the record on top. “Your mother became Natalie Carson, and you became Tate Carson. You all received new Social Security numbers and birth dates. The feds moved the three of you from Passaic, New Jersey, to Terre Haute, and both your parents were given new jobs. Your father at the hardware store and your mother at a local insurance company.”

      Renny handed him copies of documents to support those assertions, too. She’d received everything she had to support her story via snail mail at her condo a few days ago, from her high school friend with the mad hacking skills. They were records she was reasonably certain she wasn’t supposed to have—she’d known better than to ask where they came from. The only reason Phoebe had helped her out in the first place was because Renny (A) promised to never divulge her source and (B) pulled in a favor she’d been owed by Phoebe since a sleepover thirteen years ago, a favor that might or might not have something to do with a certain boy in homeroom named Kyle.

      These records, too, Tate accepted from her, but this time, his gaze fell to them immediately, and he voraciously read every word. When he looked up again, his pale gray eyes were stormy. “Are you trying to tell me...?”

      She decided it would probably be best to just spill the news as cleanly and quickly as possible and follow up with details in the inevitable Q&A.

      “You’re Joey the Knife’s grandson and legal heir. In spite of your father’s having ratted out some of his associates, your grandfather left his entire estate to you, as you’re the oldest son of his oldest son, and that’s what hundreds of years of Bacco tradition dictates. What’s more, it was Joey’s dying wish that you assume his position as head of the family and take over all of his businesses after his death.

      “In short, Mr. Hawthorne,” Renny concluded, “Joseph Anthony Bacco Senior has crowned you the new Iron Don.”

Two

      It took a minute for Tate to process everything Renata Twigg had dropped into his lap. And even then, he wasn’t sure he was processing it correctly. It was just too far outside his scope of experience. Too hard to believe. Too weird.

      Renata seemed to sense his state of confusion, because she said, “Mr. Hawthorne? Do you have any questions?”

      Oh, sure. He had questions. A couple. Million. Now if he could just get one of them to settle in his brain long enough for him to put voice to it...

      One that finally settled enough to come out was “How could a mobster want to leave his fortune to the son of a man who double-crossed him?”

      “Alleged mobster,” Renata corrected him. Again. Not that Tate for a moment believed there could be any shades of gray about a guy named Joey the Knife.

      “If I really am Joseph Bacco’s grandson,” he began.

      “You are definitely Joseph Bacco’s grandson.”

      “Then why would he want to have anything to do with me? My father—his son—turned him in to the feds. Wouldn’t that kind of negate any familial obligation that existed prior to that? Or... I don’t know...put a contract on my father’s head?”

      “Actually, your father didn’t turn Joey in to the feds,” Renata said. “Or any other member of the immediate Bacco family. All the information he gave to the feds had to do with other members of the organization. And he only gave up that information because the feds had enough evidence of his own criminal activity to put him away for forty years.”

      “My father?” Tate said incredulously. “Committed crimes worthy of forty years in prison?”

      Renata nodded. “I’m afraid so. Nothing violent,” she hastened to reassure him. “The charges against your father were for fraud, bribery, embezzlement and money laundering. Lots and lots of fraud, bribery, embezzlement and money laundering. There was never any evidence that he was involved in anything more than that. He was highly placed in your grandfather’s business. Wise guys that high up... Uh... I mean...guys that high up don’t get their hands that dirty. But your father didn’t want to go to prison for forty years.” She smiled halfheartedly. “He wanted to watch his little son grow up.”

      Tate tried to take some comfort in that. Even so, it was hard to imagine James Carson involved in corruption. His memories of his father were hazy, but they evoked only feelings of affection and warmth. His dad, from what he recalled, was a good guy.

      “Anyway,” Renata continued, “because your father never fingered anyone in the Bacco family proper—in fact, his agreement with the feds stated he would absolutely not, under any condition, incriminate his family—Joey the Knife never sought a vendetta. He really loved his son,” she added. “I think a part of him kind of understood why your father did what he did, so he could be with his son. But even more important, I think Joey really loved you—his first grandson. And since you had nothing to do with what your father did, he wanted you to come back and take your rightful place in the family.”

      As what? Tate wondered. What kind of nickname would suit the lifestyle he’d assumed instead? Bottom Line Bacco? Joey the Venture Capitalist?

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