Chapters (75)
- Cover
- Contents
- Dedication
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- Acknowledgments
- “We Are Very Different People”:Stuart Woods on Stone Barrington
- Stone Barrington: The First Five
- About the Author
- Praise for Stuart Woods and
- Books by Stuart Woods
- Credits
- About the Publisher
“His name is Johnny Donato.”
“That has a familiar ring.”
“It should; he was a capo under Big Paul Castellano, before Gotti had him capped. Word is, he was supposed to be driving the Paul that night, which means he would have got it, too, but Paul sent him on some errand or other, so he survived. He disappeared after that and didn’t turn up again until Gotti and Sammy Gravano were in jail. Now he’s running a supposedly legit concrete business, taking up where Sammy left off.”
“And how did a girl as elegant as Dolce end up with a guy like that?”
“Pretty much the same way Mary Ann ended up with me. He was a guy from the neighborhood, working for a bookie and running his own little protection racket on the side. He tried to get a weekly paycheck out of my old man for not burning down his candy store, but when I heard about it I took him aside and discussed it with him.”
“You mean, you beat the shit out of him?”
“Something like that.”
“So why didn’t he and his friends retaliate?”
“I made sure I got him alone, made it personal; nobody saw it, so he didn’t have to salvage his pride. Besides, by that time I was a cop, so he didn’t want to mess with me.”
“Dolce looks too smart to get mixed up with somebody like that, let alone marry him.”
“She is smart, but she was eighteen, nineteen, and for a while, she was stupid. He was a very slick item, drove a convertible, dressed well, flashed money around. Eduardo had her on a tight leash, and she didn’t like it. By the time he got a handle on the situation, they were in Miami on their honeymoon.”
“So Eduardo brought her back?”
Dino shook his head. “That’s not his style. He gave her some rope, and Donato hung himself. They hadn’t been married a month before he was fucking around. She got smart and went home.”
“What’s she doing now?”
“She’s Eduardo’s right-hand man, and I use the gender advisedly. She’s got more balls than any four guys I know.”
“An Italian of Eduardo’s generation makes a business associate out of a daughter?”
“What’s he gonna do? He’s got no sons, and it’s fifteen years before Ben could step up to the plate.”
“You think he wants to bring Ben into his business?”