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Vecchio is wrong a lot.
Ray can’t say that causes him a metric ton of surprise. He’s read the file, he’s deciphered the shitty handwriting, he’s worn the wardrobe (only once, he doesn’t even remember why, just that Vecchio’s taste in cologne meant Ray had to take his one decent dress shirt to the fucking dry-cleaner’s to get the smell out). It all adds up to...well, Ray’s not totally sure what it adds up to, him and math not being what you’d call friendly, but whatever it is it’s not right.
In fact, if you want to know the truth, Ray’s starting to think that Vecchio’s wrong in a couple of ways. In that can’t-spell-for-shit, rules-what-rules, judgment’s-not-the-best-ever way, yeah. But also in that spends-more-than-he-earns, rollin’-with-the-homies, capital-W way. Ray doesn’t waste a lot of time assuming people match their backgrounds — if he did he’d have to doubt his distance from the meat-packing plant way more than he does — and he knows Italian doesn’t necessarily mean mob. But it doesn’t necessarily mean not mob, either, not when there’s what Fraser’d call “an increasing amount of evidence to the contrary, Ray.”
That’s assuming Ray talked to Fraser about how wrong he thinks Vecchio may be, which Ray has not decided yet whether he should do, all things considered.
Because, yeah. Fraser. There’s another wrong thing, a big one: Fraser and Vecchio. And Ray’s bad-copped himself enough on this one to be pretty sure he doesn’t think that way just because Vecchio clearly could’ve had what Ray himself probably never will. No, it’s evidence again — the files, the handwriting, the wardrobe, the whole shebang. Plus Ray’s seen the scar, too, and he knows that’s wrong. Yeah, he also knows how it got there, and what it’s about, and to be honest if it’d been him in those circumstances he’d’ve probably thought some about doing the same thing. But he wouldn’t’ve done it, that’s the point, because when the chips are down you do not shoot your partner in the back, no matter how hard said partner is running after an insane ex-lover with a criminal bent. You do not do that. You find a way around it — you talk him to death, you lock him in a crypt, you fucking cuff him to something if you have to — but you do not betray him when he’s already betrayed himself. That’s not buddies.
And see, there’s where the wrongness kicks in. Because Fraser and Vecchio? Supposed to be buddies, all along the line, right from the beginning, solid. And yeah, okay, they spent a lot of time together and they caught a lot of bad guys and Vecchio sacrificed a lot of Armani or whatever in the service of Maintaining the Right. But — and Ray has had to learn this lesson more times than once over the course of his knocked-around life — you can hang together and work together and make it all look a lot like friendship, and if one of you is marking time and has the acting chops to carry it off, the whole thing’ll fall apart at the push of a button.
Or the press of a trigger.
And that’s wrong, that’s a lot of wrong right there. Which Ray can’t wrap his mind around quite yet, but he’s read and he’s worn and he’s watched and he’s getting there, slow and careful.
Meanwhile he checks in on Fraser every day, whenever he thinks he can do it and not get caught, making sure that Fraser’s safe, that Fraser’s as fine as Fraser gets. Making sure that if — when, damn it all to hell — Ray figures out the last of Vecchio’s wrongness and then has to do something about it, Fraser will be okay. As okay as he can be.
And then?
Then Ray will have to figure out how to make it right.