Baby Bailino (Baby Grand Trilogy Book 2) Page 2
“And Joey?” Bailino had asked his lawyer.
“Full immunity, contingent upon your full confession,” his lawyer had said. “All assets have been moved to the accounts as you have designated.”
“And?”
“And the details of the plea bargain are being held tightly under wraps. Just as you requested and agreed to. Nobody will know the terms.”
“Good,” Bailino had said.
As far as Bailino could tell, the Cataldi crime family still didn’t know Joey was Bailino’s biological child, unless ToniAnne or Joey had told them otherwise, and he hoped to keep it that way. With Joey safely tucked away at MIT in Cambridge, Bailino had intended to spend the rest of his years at Stanton, dodging shivs and food poisoning, and he would have been content with that, but the birth of Faith Carter had changed everything.
The Stanton Correctional Facility emerged in the distance, its gray brick exterior a familiar sight to Bailino, who had visited the prison regularly since the 1980s when Gino had first been remanded there. It wasn’t until this moment that Bailino even wondered what had happened to the body of the old mob boss after they put him to death by lethal injection two years ago. He assumed Gino had been buried with the rest of the Cataldi family in Queens, inside an ostentatious tomb visited by huddles of little old Italian ladies in black, but for all he knew the bastard was floating somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
The transport convoy came to a stop outside the prison gates, and the guards inside the van all stood as if on command and readied their weapons. A crowd that had been sitting near the entrance gates stood and began to taunt the van as the bright lights of the news cameras flooded the bright afternoon with even more light. Bailino could feel Bernie eyeing him, but he continued to stare outside.
The prison’s automatic gate opened, and Bailino’s vehicle drove through, while the others remained outside the electric fence that was topped with vine-like barbed wire. The van maneuvered toward a main building not far from a watchtower, where several armed guards paced, surveying a prison yard where inmates dressed in orange federally issued jumpsuits ogled at the transport through a chain-link fence, eager to see the infamous new resident who would be joining their ranks. The van swerved to the right of the main entrance, backed toward a narrow alleyway, and came to a stop. The guards remained standing until there was a series of clanks and the back door to the van opened, revealing another handful of armed guards.
“All right, Bailino. On your feet,” Bernie said.
The guard nearest Bailino pulled him up and nudged him forward with the barrel of his gun. Bailino took one last look around the van before stepping down onto the pavement and into the sunlight.
Despite the circumstances, it felt good to be outside again, and Bailino tilted his head north and gazed at a cluster of trees lining the low mountains in the distance, where his Upackk factory was located.
“Let’s go,” Bernie called. “We ain’t got all day.”
As the guards moved in formation and established a tight circle around Bailino, reporters lobbed questions, while prison inmates yelled assorted obscenities and wisecracks. Bernie led the small group of guards toward the building like a schoolteacher escorting his pupils back to school following a field trip.
“Here we are, Bailino,” Bernie said as he opened a side door to the prison. “Home, sweet home.” Inside, rows of armed guards flanked the narrow hallway like a receiving line.
Bailino stepped onto the prison’s cracked tiled floor, greeted by the familiar smell of ammonia. He smirked. He wouldn’t be spending enough time at Stanton to call it home, that was for sure, and as soon as he was out—which would be soon—he made a mental note to find Bernie Brooks and kill him first.
CHAPTER 3
Governor Phillip Grand watched Bailino enter the gray building on the flat-screen television in his Executive Mansion office. He had a full-day’s agenda planned and hadn’t expected to catch any of the live coverage of the prison transfer—a transport that was expected to gain more viewership than O. J. Simpson’s infamous white Bronco ride. However, like the millions of others watching the journey unfold on their digital screens, he wanted to see what had become of the man who had abducted his daughter two years ago, committed multiple murders, including a respected police detective, been shot by his abductee, with whom he fathered a child, and somehow lived to tell the tale.
As the cameras zoomed in, Phillip expected to see a far less formidable Bailino, a man whose body had undergone a long healing and recovery process from the two gunshots that Jamie had fired and the resulting collapsed lung and other maladies, but the man on the television screen was far from frail. The hair was grayer, if only around the temples, but the months of hospital confinement seemed to restore, rather than strip, Bailino’s health and stamina. He appeared fighting fit.
Phillip turned off the set and leaned back in his swivel chair. He didn’t know why he had expected anything less from his long-ago army buddy. He knew what Bailino was capable of—an inner strength that seemed to stem from, as much as it defied, his rough-and-tumble upbringing on the streets of Brooklyn. Every day, for two years, Phillip had been waiting with trepidation for the phone call that would tell him the news: that Bailino had somehow escaped from the prison hospital, leaving a bloody trail of injured physicians and nurses, or how he had disappeared without a trace, but the day had never come. All week long, with Bailino’s prison transfer looming, the news networks had been reporting the unlikelihood of his escape, interviewing organized crime historians and retired prison guards and wardens. Still, Phillip couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that Bailino would find a way to get out. Some wild animals couldn’t be caged.
A sharp breeze shifted the black heavy drapes as well as the plastic flap of the half-eaten bag of Oreo cookies on Phillip’s mahogany desk. He pulled the drapes back, letting in what little sunlight there was—a large cloud had passed overhead. Normally, the view from Phillip’s private office was quite remarkable with its unobstructed vista of the Hudson River and the lush hills and valleys surrounding it, but today it appeared dreary and lifeless. Or maybe that was just his mood.
Phillip turned toward his desk and bumped into the glass display case that held the antique pistol his father had given him two Christmas Eves ago. That thing was a monstrosity, and Phillip would just as soon keep it in the closet along with the antique bullets his father had slipped to him after dinner that day—”just in case,” he had said, as if the Redcoats were going to storm the Executive Mansion during midnight mass. Phillip wasn’t sure whether the pistol was meant to be a gift or a punishment. His parents hadn’t approved of being kept in the dark about Charlotte’s abduction, and Phillip guessed he couldn’t blame them. It was Katherine’s idea to mount the pistol in a display case—”just imagine your father’s head at the end of the barrel,” she had said—so it looked like Phillip was stuck with it.
He gathered some paperwork and opened his office door, startled to see one of Wilcox’s FBI agents, whom he had forgotten had been standing there. With Bailino’s transport scheduled for that day, Wilcox had dispatched additional manpower to provide an extra layer of security for the governor and his family.
“Governor,”
the fresh-faced FBI agent said with a nod.
“The transport’s complete,” Phillip said. “I don’t think you guys need to hang around here anymore.”
“Not until I receive authorization, sir,” the agent said.
“Very well.” Phillip gave the young agent a slap on the back. “Thank you for your service.”
Down the hallway, tiny footsteps came running up the stairs as Charlotte barreled toward her father, her blond curls bouncing around her happy face.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Charlotte jumped into Phillip’s arms. “Look what I made you!”
“What is it, Charlie?” Phillip asked, lifting her up and taking an object made of bendy clay that had not yet hardened from his daughter’s hand.
Rosalia appeared huffing and puffing at the top of the landing. “I so sorry, Governor Phillip,” she said. She put her hand on her chest, her fingers resting on the ruffled white lace of her dress to steady her breathing. “It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with that one.”
“Don’t worry about it, Rosalia. I’ll take her.” Phillip examined the item in his hand. “Ah, now what is this?”
“Can you guess?” Charlotte asked, her bright blue eyes wide with excitement. “Can you guess, Daddy? Huh, huh?”
“Well, let me think….” He glanced at Rosalia who made a gesture with her hands. He recognized it as the American Sign Language sign for watering can.
“It’s a flowerpot, of course,” Phillip said.
“Daddy, you’re so smart!” Charlotte wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and squeezed until Phillip gave her a raspberry on her neck and she giggled.
“Okay, cookie, let’s go show Mommy what you made. We’ll have to plant some seeds inside it right away.”
“Let’s plant pumpkin seeds, Daddy. Ro Ro loves pumpkin pie, right, Ro Ro?” she called to Rosalia.
“Yes, Carlota,” Rosalia said, cupping Charlotte’s face as the governor passed by with her. “I will make a nice pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving with the pumpkins you grow.”
Downstairs, Katherine was in the kitchen huddled over two laptops, a steaming cup of coffee between them.
“Well?” Katherine asked when he and Charlotte entered.
“Mommy, Mommy, look!” Charlotte jumped down from her father’s grasp and reached for the flowerpot in Phillip’s hands.
“Not now, Charlotte,” Katherine said, her eyes darting between screens. “Mommy’s working.”
“He was just transferred.” Phillip mussed Charlotte’s hair so that her moppy curls flipped from side to side. “To Stanton. Were you watching it?”
Katherine motioned to the series of tabs she had opened on her screens. “I was doing everything not to watch it.”
“Yeah, well, so was I, and then, like everyone else, I couldn’t stay away.”
Charlotte climbed onto Katherine’s lap and stuck the flowerpot in her line of sight. “What is it, Mommy? Can you guess? Can you?”
“Well, I really can’t if you’re shoving it in front of me like that.”
Charlotte pulled the clay pot back so that it was dangling precariously over one of Katherine’s laptops.
“Actually, let me take a closer look at it.” Katherine pulled it toward her and studied it.
“No hints, Daddy.” Charlotte pointed a stern finger in Phillip’s direction. “Let Mommy do this by herself.” She sounded exactly like her mother every time Phillip tried to help Charlotte accomplish a task.
Still, Phillip tried to make eye contact with Katherine. The relationship between Charlotte and Katherine seemed to grow stronger after Charlotte’s abduction, Katherine trying harder to be an attentive parent, but he worried that something as simple as a wrong guess might set them back—both of the Grand women were so very proud.
“It’s a flowerpot,” Katherine said simply, without any assistance. “Ask Rosalia to go with you and get some dirt and you can fill it up.”
Charlotte was overjoyed. “My Mommy and Daddy are the smartest people ever!” she yelled and went running up the stairs calling for Rosalia.
Phillip watched her go. He still felt a small pang of worry every time Charlotte left the room.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Katherine said.
“What is?” he asked, fearful that she meant Charlotte being gone.
“Bailino, Phillip. Being in prison. What did you think I meant?”
“Never mind.” Phillip wrapped his arms around her. “About Bailino …”
“Phillip, enough. Let’s not let this person interfere in our lives any more than he already has, which leads me to … You still haven’t looked at any of these applicants.” She pushed a stack of resumes in his direction. “There’s only so much I can do, you know.”
The executive branch of the state of New York had been operating without a press secretary for the past five months, which meant Katherine had been picking up the slack. Since Maddox, the Grands’ trusted friend and colleague, had double-crossed them and collaborated with Bailino in the abduction of Charlotte, Phillip and Katherine had been even more cautious about the staff they hired, from chauffeurs and maids to office interns. Their circle of trust had grown so small that they had been operating on a skeleton crew ever since the incident.
“I know. I will,” he said, running his hand through his gray hair. “You know, I was thinking maybe …”
“She won’t do it, Phillip. Face it. You’re going to have to get over it.”
Phillip had asked Jamie Carter if she might consider taking the position when her brother Edward had been in the hospital and she had been staying at the Executive Mansion. Her work as a freelance writer and marketer made her suitable for the job, and he probably trusted Jamie more than anyone else he knew other than his mother, Katherine, and Rosalia, but Jamie had declined. He couldn’t blame her. She probably wanted to be anywhere other than in and around Albany.
Phillip ended up hiring a former local newsman who had impeccable references—he had worked with some of the senior legislators in the state senate—but Phillip couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about the guy, and he fired him after only three months. Since then it had been a series of revolving men and women. Nobody seemed to stick.
“Don’t forget the meeting with Clark of the Republican National Committee this morning.” Katherine sounded almost giddy. “Remember, you need to express serious interest in the presidency, while making your reelection plans clear.”
Phillip’s second term had been eventful, filled with legislation that he had been proud of, but all of that had been overshadowed by Charlotte’s abduction and eventual return, from which Phillip had emerged as either a sympathetic father figure or a veritable hero, depending upon the published account of the events to which constituents subscribed. None of those accounts had been completely accurate, of course—unauthorized books never are—and no one knew, not the FBI and not even Katherine, how much Phillip had known about Don Bailino’s involvement in the kidnapping and how it had practically paralyzed him. Some hero, he thought. Still, political experts had predicted that Phillip would be easily handed a third term as governor of New York in the fall, leaving state democrats scrambling to find anyone willing to oppose him and take the loss.
And with the national Republican Party eager to reclaim the White House, whisperings of Phillip’s potential run for president had already begun—hence, the meeting with Clark. Polling indicated that Phillip had a whopping 90 percent approval rating, highest of any elected official currently serving in public office, including the president. Apparently, nearly everyone in the country was in love with Phillip Grand, except Phillip Grand.
“Katherine,” he said, “maybe now isn’t the best time …”
“Like hell it’s not.” Katherine stood up and put the empty cup of coffee into the sink. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Phillip. Let’s not get cold feet now. In fact,” she closed one of her laptops, “now’s the perfect time. With Bailino’s incarceration, p
eople are talking about it again. You’re trending on Twitter. You should use that.”
“Use a felon to run for president of the United States?”
“You know what I mean.”
He did, but he didn’t like it. The abduction of his daughter had been the worst thing to ever to happen to him; turning it into a professional plus point filled him with disgust. So far, neither he nor Katherine ever spoke of the incident publicly, and, as far as he was concerned, he never wanted to.
A series of red circles lit up the baby monitor, which was perched on the kitchen counter. An irritated wail emanated from its speaker. Normally, Phillip Jr. woke up in a pleasant mood. Phillip decided that this mood change in his son, who hadn’t even been born when those dreaded events had taken place, indicated that he didn’t like Katherine’s plan much either.
“Philly’s up,” he said.
“Rosalia!” Katherine called as she sat back down at her seat. “The baby!”
Phillip rested his hands on Katherine’s shoulders and whispered into her ear. “Why don’t you get him?”
“Me? But I’m in the middle of—”
Phillip planted a quick kiss on her lips.
“Oh, all right.” She got up from her chair and headed toward the stairway. “I just don’t see why we’re bothering to pay for a nanny if you want me to do everything myself.”
“Oh, please, not everything. Don’t be a drama queen.”
“Why not? I’m everything else around here,” Katherine said with a flourish before disappearing up the stairs. He heard her yell, “Never mind, Rosalia. I’ve got it. Again.”
Phillip opened the pantry door, quickly stuck his hand inside, and pulled out a chocolate chip cookie from an already opened box he had stashed in the corner. He stuffed the cookie into his mouth, checking to make sure Katherine hadn’t caught him, but was startled to see Special Agent Wilcox standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Wilcox had become a familiar sight around the Executive Mansion for the past two years—Charlotte referred to him as “Willy”—but Phillip hadn’t expected to see him today.