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TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-TWO

SPECIAL AGENT FRANCIS BLAIR, at his desk in the FBI field office in Chicago, leans back in his chair, eyes closed, as he listens to the contents of the wiretap through his earbuds, two men talking.

"I got three tickets to the show tonight."

"What time does it start?"

"I'll probably get there about six thirty."

The "ticket" is a pound of meth. The "show" is the meet, the drop-off from the manufacturer to the distributors.

Blair doesn't work narcotics; he's still in Organized Crime. And the conversation on the audio recording isn't taking place in Chicago but nearly twelve hundred miles away in Tampa, Florida, a city far removed from Blair's jurisdiction, a city that otherwise would hold no importance for him other than this simple fact:

It is now the home of Michael Cagnina, the mob boss released from prison only five months ago. And these two men on the wiretap? Former associates of Cagnina.

He takes out the earbuds just as his supervisor walks past his office and stops, greets Blair with a how-ya-doin'.

"How's the task force treating you?" asks the supervisor.

The task force that Blair got roped into, he means— an operation run by US Customs to catch a ring of cargo thieves.

"I'm going in for the initial meet today," he says.

"Is that what you're listening to?" His supervisor nods, gestures toward the earbuds Blair just tossed. "They've got wires up?"

"No, this isn't the task force shit. These are from DEA out of Tampa."

Blair's supervisor, only a year from retirement now, makes a face. "DEA? Tampa? The hell are you doing listen — oh. Oh, don't tell me this is about Cagnina."

Blair lifts a shoulder. "Just checking to see if he's getting back in the game."

"And is he?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Blair concedes.

"You gotta let Cagnina go," says his supervisor. "What's done is done. He's down in Florida now, and he's retired."

"Right, right, I know," says Blair. "I took my shot and missed."

"Missed? Thirteen years in the pen isn't ‘missing,' Frankie. Who cares if it was tax evasion? You put him out of business."

"Yeah, maybe, but not for the shit that would've put him away for life. Guy murders three witnesses, and nobody lays a glove on him for that."

"Well, hey, least you're not bitter." His supervisor taps the door but points at him before leaving. "Frankie," he says, "leave Michael Cagnina alone."

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