Joe DeCurtis snorted, then dabbed his face with his napkin. “If he’s so smart, how did he get on the FBI’s radar?”

“He bribed some low-level civil servants who weren’t so smart,” she said. “And when he paid off a couple of city council members to vote his way on zoning issues, that got our attention, and the bureau’s public corruption unit, where I work, got involved. We’ve had a secret grand jury empaneled, and they’ve indicted the council members. Now we’re gunning for Wingfield.”

“Okay. We know he’s smart, and usually careful. Do you really think he’s gonna fall for this fake hit-man scam you’ve cooked up?”

Vikki Hill rested her elbows on the counter and considered the question. “Yeah,” she said finally. “The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been for him before. Bribes are one thing, murder’s a whole different ball game. Letty is a loose end he can’t afford to ignore.”

“Have you considered what happens if he decides to take his business someplace else?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if he does?”

The bartender arrived with their food. “Hot plate,” he said, pointing to the platter of pasta. Agent Hill attacked it with her fork, spearing the pasta noodles, then winding them around her fork. She chewed rapidly, nodded her approval, then turned to her companion.

“You’ve got it bad for this chick, don’t you?”

He stared down at his own plate. “Maybe I do. Or maybe I’m not used to losing control of a situation to an FBI agent I just met twenty-four hours ago. I mean, Letty is living and working at my mother’s motel. She’s got a four-year-old child. I’m just pointing out that a lot could go wrong.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh Christ. Here it is. The girl thing again. I bet you’d trust me more if I was Agent Victor Hill. Right?”

“No!”

Vikki patted his arm. “Keep telling yourself that, DeCurtis. It’s okay. I’m used to it by now.” She pointed at his plate. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold. And then I’ll tell you how I think this thing is gonna go down. And you can go back to sleeping in your truck outside her motel room.”

“You saw that, huh?”

“I see everything. It’s my job.”

Agent Hill polished off her entrée and pushed her plate away. “Okay. Let’s talk. If I don’t hear back from Wingfield in the next twenty-four hours, obviously we have to assume something went wrong and regroup. We’ve applied for a wiretap for his phone, but judges are moving slower these days on electronic surveillance. If it comes to that, we’ll probably move Letty and Maya, out of an abundance of caution.”

“Are you talking about protective custody?”