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Lauderdale and Miami. His "sideline" was catering to pervs who needed
adolescent girls, sometimes prepubescent ones. Giametti himself was obsessed
with the so-called Lolita complex.
"Capo," Sampson muttered under his breath as he drove up Giametti's street in
the ritzy Kalorama section of DC. The self-important term referred tocapitano
, a captain in the Mafia. Gino Giametti had been a significant earner for
years. He'd been one of the first mobsters to figure out that big money could
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be made bringing in pretty young girls from the former Soviet bloc, especially
Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. That was his specialty, and it was the
reason Sampson was riding his ass now. His one regret was that Alex couldn't
be with him on this bust. This was going to be a sweet takedown.
At a little past midnight, he pulled up in front of Giametti's house. The
mobster didn't live too extravagantly, but all his needs were met. That was
how the Mafia took care of its own.
Sampson peered into his rearview and saw two more cars ease up against the
curb directly behind him. He spoke into a mike sticking out from his shirt
collar. "Good evening, gents. I think this is going to be a fine night. I can
feel it in my bones. Let's go wake up the Greaseball."
Chapter 37
SAMPSON'S PARTNER THESE DAYS was a twenty-eight-year-old detective named
Marion Handler, who was almost as big as Sampson was. Handler was certainly no
Alex Cross, though. He was currently living with a large-breasted but
small-minded cheerleader for the Washington Redskins, and he was looking to
make a name for himself in Homicide. "I'm fast-tracking, dude," he liked to
say to Sampson, without a hint of humor or self-effacement.
Just being around the cocky detective was exhausting, and also depressing.
The man was plain stupid; worse, he was arrogant about it, flaunting his
frequent logic lapses.
"I'll take the point on this one," Handler announced as they reached the
front porch of Giametti's house. Four other detectives, one holding a
battering ram, were already waiting at the door. They looked to Sampson for
direction.
"Take the lead? No problem, Marion. Be my guest," he said to Handler. Then he
added, "First in, first to the morgue." He spoke to the detective holding the
battering ram: "Take it down! Detective Handler goes in first."
The front door collapsed in two powerful strikes with the ram. The house
alarm system began to wail, and the detectives hurried inside.
Sampson's eyes took in the darkened kitchen. Nobody there. New appliances
everywhere. An iPod and CDs scattered on the floor. Kids in the house.
"He's downstairs," Sampson told the others. "Giametti doesn't sleep with his
wife anymore."
The detectives hurried down steep wooden stairs on the far side of the
kitchen. They hadn't been inside more than twenty seconds. In the basement,
they burst in the first door they came to. "Metro Police! Hands up. Now,
Giametti," Marion Handler's voice boomed.
The Greaseball was up quickly. He stood in a protective crouch on the far
side of the king-size bed. He was a short, potbellied, hirsute man in his
midforties. He looked groggy and still out of it, maybe drugged up. But John
Sampson wasn't fooled by his physical appearance this man was a stone-cold
killer. And much worse.
A pretty, naked young girl with long blond hair and fair white skin was still
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on the bed. She tried to cover her small breasts and shaved genital area.
Sampson knew her name, Paulina Sroka, and that she was from Poland originally.
Sampson had known she would be here and that Giametti was rumored to be madly
in love with the blond beauty he'd imported from Europe six months ago.
According to sources, the Greaseball had killed the girl's best friend because
she'd refused to have anal sex with him.
"You don't have to be afraid," Sampson said to Paulina. "We're the Washington
police. You're not in any trouble. He is."
"Just shut the hell up!" Giametti yelled at the girl, who looked both
confused and scared. "Don't say a word to them! Not a word, Paulie! I'm
warning you!"
Sampson moved faster than it looked like he could. He threw Giametti on the
floor, then cuffed him like a steer at a rodeo.
"Don't say a word!" Giametti continued to yell, even though his face was
pressed into the shag rug. "Don't talk to them, Paulie! I'm warning you! You
hear me?"
The girl looked pathetic and lost as she sat among the rumpled bedsheets,
attempting to cover herself with a man's shirt she'd been given by the
detectives.
She finally spoke in the softest whisper. "He make me do anything he say. He
do everything bad to me. You know what I am saying everything you could
imagine. I can hardly walk& I am fourteen years old."
Sampson turned to Handler. "You can take it from here, Marion. Get him the
hell out of here. I don't want to touch the slime."
Chapter 38
AN HOUR LATER, Gino Giametti was basted, then grilled until he was well-done
under bright lights in Investigation Room #1 at the First District station
house. Sampson wouldn't take his eyes off the vicious gangster, who had a
disturbing habit of scratching his scalp compulsively, hard enough to make it
bleed. Giametti didn't seem to notice it himself.
Marion Handler had carried the show so far, done most of the preliminary
questioning, but Giametti didn't have much to say to him. Sampson sat back and
observed, sizing upboth men.
So far, Giametti was getting the best of it. He was a lot smarter than he
looked. "I woke up and Paulie was sleeping in my bed.Sleeping just like when
you busted in. What can I tell you? She has her own bedroom upstairs. She's a
scared little girl. Crazy sometimes, too. Paulie does housekeeping and shit
like that for my wife. We wanted to put her in the local schools. The best
schools. We were letting her work on her English first. Hey, we were trying to
do the right thing by that kid, so why are you busting my balls?"
Sampson finally pushed himself forward in his seat. He'd heard enough
bullshit for tonight. "Anybody ever tell you you could do stand-up?" he
asked.And, Marion, you could be his straight man .
"Matter of fact, yeah," Giametti said, and smirked. "Couple of people told me
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that exact same thing. You know what? I think they were cops too."
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