Detective Fog and the Mission Pigeon

51. November 1st, Continued (Part 4)

After that, the operation went off without a hitch.

Most of the time, Paul was kept unconscious, babysat by Jack, who would take the chains off and kill him when the detective arrived.

Nick was tied by the rigged-up gun, which would fire when Detective Fog crossed in the path of its motion sensors. Of course, the motion sensor pointed one way and the gun just a little bit off-kilter, aimed a little above Fog's head and for where she would have stood moments previously. It should hit after she was out of the way.

The only way it would kill her would be if she stepped backward and jumped up into the six shots being fired.

It wasn't hard to lead the detective to the scene. No one had been told about the hit, per se. Word had carefully and strategically been passed among the entire mafia that Paul Aniston was being held in the Dog Patch for some reason or other, for which rumors abounded. If she had leverage on anyone in the mob, Detective Fog should be able to find her way to the warehouse easily enough.

And Jason himself left Jack to man the scene while he looked for the detective. Her little scheme to sic Stink on him said she was exactly as dangerous to the mafia as Mena and Hugo thought, and it could very well have been the end of Jason Nakos, but the important part was that Jason had set her up not only to survive the trap set for her by the mafia but to leave her enough evidence to put Jack Costas in jail for murder one.

The shots fired at Nick from Jennifer Makris's gun might get her into a bit of trouble too. Some good improvisation, that.

That wasn't enough for Jason Nakos to bet all his chips on, terminating his life's work. He needed to turn over Mena Sigler and Hugo Zane as the conspirators of the murder. He needed Detective Fog to put the pieces together or Jack to roll over on the bosses.

Or both.

To make that happen, Jason had come up with a plan not kept in any file, with no paper trail, but one that he memorized and could set in motion and adapt no matter what Jack did in response. Jason had gone over the plan two hundred times in his head, and he needed it to work.

If Mena Sigler and Hugo Zane didn't end up behind bars for this crime, Jason was a dead man.

The first step was to concoct a plot so convoluted for the murder of Paul and Nick that the cops would never be satisfied Jack came up with it on its own. Mafia involvement was the default assumption, but if a crime was nice and simple, it could open and close on one button man, and everyone could pretend he had acted of his own volition, case closed.

But a scenario like this had to be concocted by the bosses, and the police wouldn't be able to put Jack away and ignore the rest. They would need to lock up a mastermind. Jack would roll over on Jason easy enough. Jason could just go along for the arrest and give up substantial incriminating evidence on Mena Sigler and Hugo Zane himself, but he planned to be long gone before anyone could get cuffs on him. Gone could mean dead.

Jack would need to give up the bosses themselves if he didn't want to do life in prison — but nobody did that.

That's why the next step was to plant the seeds of dissent. The two men chatted while they chained a mortally terrified Nick Minardos sans vocal cords up to some kind of boiler tank.

Just when Jason was about to start an obvious monologue about how this was how the mob repaid two soldiers doing a job, Jack took the words out of his mouth.

"I gotta say," said Jack, "one day it could be me getting tied up for the slaughter. And only because I did what I was asked to do. You know that's why they want this done so hush hush. Let the rumor mill come up with the reason, don't tell anyone what's happening: Sigler asked Nicky and Paulie to off the mayor, they do it, and this is their payback. As if the guys who pull the trigger are gonna go confess to the police."