Blindsight by Robin Cook

toward them. "He looks like a teenager," Angelo said. "He is," Tony said. "He's eighteen. He was in my sister's class before he started hanging around with the wrong people and dropped out of school." "Now!" Angelo said.
In a flash both Angelo and Tony got out of the car and confronted the surprised Frankie DePasquale. Frankie's eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. "Hello, Frankie," Angelo said calmly. "We need to talk." Frankie responded by dropping his groceries. The bags split when they hit the wet sidewalk and a number of cans of tomato paste rolled into the gutter. Frankie turned and fled. Tony was on him in a flash. He grabbed him roughly from behind, knocking him to the pavement. Holding him down, he frisked him quickly, coming up with a small Saturday night special. Tony pocketed the gun, then turned the terrified boy over. Up close, Frankie looked even younger than eighteen. In fact, it didn't look as if he shaved yet.
"Don't hurt me!" Frankie pleaded.
"Shut up!" Tony snapped. The kid was such a drip. It was disgusting. Angelo pulled the car up alongside them. With the engine running he jumped from the car. A few pedestrians had stopped beneath their umbrellas to gawk at the spectacle. Angelo pushed through them. "All right, move on," Angelo commanded. "We're police." Angelo flashed an old police department badge that he kept in his pocket for just this sort of occasion. The fact that it said Ozone Park when they were currently in Woodside made no difference. It was the shape and the glint of metal that caused the desired effect. The small crowd started to disperse.

"They're not police!" Frankie yelled.
Tony responded to Frankie's outburst by putting his Beretta Bantam to the side of Frankie's head. "One more word and you're history, kid."
"In the car," Angelo commanded.
With Angelo on one side and Tony on the other, they stood Frankie up and dragged him to the car. Opening the rear door and pushing his head down, they shoved him inside. Tony climbed in after him. Angelo ran around and jumped into the driver's seat. With a screech of rubber they headed west on Roosevelt Avenue.
"What are you doing this for?" Frankie asked. "I haven't done anything to you guys." "Shut up!" Angelo said from the front seat. He was keeping his eye on the rearview mirror. If there had been any sign of trouble, he would have turned on Queens Boulevard. But everything was quiet so he kept going straight. Roosevelt became Greenpoint, and Angelo began to relax. "All right, punk," Angelo said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Time to talk." He could just see Frankie cowering in the corner, keeping as far from Tony as possible. Tony was holding his gun in his left hand with his arm draped over the back of the seat. Tony's eyes never left Frankie. "What do you want to talk about?" Frankie asked. "The job you and Manso did on Paulie Cerino," Angelo said. "I'm sure you guessed that we work for Mr. Cerino."
Frankie's eyes darted from Tony's face to Tony's gun, then up to the image of Angelo in the rearview mirror. He was terrified. "I didn't do it," he said. "I was just there. It was Manso's idea. They forced me to go. I didn't want to do it, but they threatened my mother." "Who's "they'?" Angelo asked.
"I mean Terry Manso," Frankie said. "He was the one." With a sudden wicked slap, Tony cracked Frankie across the face with the barrel of his gun. Frankie screamed and pressed the palms of his hands against his face. A trickle of blood oozed between his fingers.
"What do you think we are? Stupid?" Tony sneered. "Don't hurt him yet," Angelo said. "Maybe he'll be cooperative." "Please don't hurt me anymore," Frankie pleaded between sobs. Tony swore contemptuously and forced the barrel of his pistol between Frankie's fingers and into his mouth. "Your brains are going to be all over the inside of this car if you don't smarten up and stop screwing around with us."
"Who else was involved?" Angelo asked again.

Tony withdrew the barrel of his