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“What you got here is a massive racketeering operation,” said Gra
“You work those cases?”
“A couple.”
“How’d you break ’em?”
“Hook a small fish. Small fish gives up a bigger fish. Roll ’em over like that all the way up the line.”
“HQ needs this to go away today,” said the senior CID man.
“Then for starters,” said Gra
Gra
Two hours later, Gra
Gra
Gra
“You’re not going to write a statement?”
“Fuck you,” said Be
Gra
“I know you from someplace, Eddie?”
“Where the fuck would I know you from?”
“You ever been fingerprinted in a New York police station? Done any time? Eduardo DiBiaso, that’s the name you were born with, isn’t it?”
“Where’d you get that?”
“Right here on your paperwork, Eduardo. Why is that, you change it for the draft board to get the stink of garlic off you? Or were you dodging a warrant?”
Be
“You got a wife and kids back home, Be
“I got a wife.”
“That where you’re sending the money? Home to the wife?” No response. “Which makes her an accessory after the fact. We could go after her, too. Send the NYPD to her door. What’s her taste been so far, five thousand? Ten?”
“I got nothing to say till I talk to a lawyer.”
“Lawyer? Where the fuck you think you are, Hoboken? There’s no justice system here. There’s no neighborhood capo back home taking care of the family ’cause you kept your mouth shut. Military courts don’t work that way. This ain’t some pe
“Bullshit.”
“And once word gets around how you guys ripped off our troops in the field? Life in the brig is go
The first crack showed in Eddie’s practiced tough-guy facade. “What about it?”
“We know you got a relationship with the officers ru
Eddie didn’t.
“Help us put those big shots in the pokey and the system’s go
“What, so I can get killed on the front line? Thanks but no thanks.”
“Okay, Eddie. So we’ll go with choice number three.”
Gra
“What’s that? What the fuck you doing?”
“I turn my back for a split second, you were so despondent you threw yourself over the rail. Tragic waste of life. No death payment, no gold star in the window, no folded flag for the missus-”
“Wait a second, wait a second-”
“You don’t think I’m pissed off enough? I’d be doing a favor for everybody in your life you’re going to fuck over if you live through this-”
Eddie grabbed hold of the wrought iron balcony with both hands for dear life as Gra
“Okay, okay, I’ll write it, I’ll write it, I’ll cooperate-”
“You sure about that?” Gra
“I’m sure, I’m sure, Jesus Christ!”
Gra
“Fifteen minutes,” he said, and walked out of the room.
By six o’clock that night the urge to confess had spread through the 724th like old-time religion. Whenever Earl Gra
The CID brass organized di
During the main course, a radio message came into the communications center downstairs for CID’s commanding officer. Three GIs from the 394th stationed at a checkpoint outside a small village called Elsenborn fifteen miles due east had gone AWOL overnight. Local MPs were on their way to investigate, so the radio operator didn’t feel it was important enough to interrupt the di
An hour later, the radio man burst into the room during coffee and dessert with a second dispatch: The missing men’s bodies had been found in the woods a mile outside of town.