Rizzo’s Fire Page 32

  “Yeah, sure, Til, but relax, okay? I’m not bailin’ out on you.”

  The priest smiled at him. “I hadn’t suggested you were.”

  Rizzo sat back in his seat. “Oh, yeah, you sorta did. It’s in your eyes.”

  “Set my mind at ease then, Joe.”

  Rizzo reached into his pocket and extracted a small Panasonic tape recorder/player. From another pocket, he removed a microcassette.

  “There’ll never be a better time for me to get this out there,” he said. “Me and Mike are bulletproof now. Maybe not forever, but all we need is right now. You got about a half hour to spare, Father? I got somethin’ I want you to hear.”

  LATER, AS Jovino showed Rizzo the door, they paused and shook hands.

  “I’ll personally deliver the tape to the United States attorney for the Eastern district. First thing Monday morning.”

  “Good,” Rizzo said. “They’ll have no trouble believin’ some runaway left it here at the shelter. Once they start nosing around and find out Daily’s daughter was once a runaway herself, they’ll see the logic of it.”

  “Of course they will,” Jovino said, his eyes twinkling. “And despite the rather less than stellar conduct of some few of my colleagues, most people still do trust priests, Joe. They’ll believe me all right. Don’t concern yourself about that.”

  Rizzo nodded, lifting his collar in anticipation of stepping out into the dark, cold evening. “Good,” he said.

  Jovino shook his head, a sadness coming into his eyes. “I always knew Councilman Daily was something less than noble, Joe. But this … this tape. It’s an outrageous betrayal of trust. Of dignity. Of democracy.”

  Rizzo shrugged. “Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Keep it simple. What we got here is a crime, Father. Forget about what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s a betrayal.”

  Rizzo opened the door, the cold wind intruding immediately, biting at the exposed skin of his face.

  “What we got here is illegal,” Rizzo said, his eyes kind, his tone soft.

  “A crime, Father. Just a crime.”

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five