‘Because he’s a murderer and a psychopath. He’s an old man who’s spent the whole of his life killing people, right from his teens. We didn’t know anything about him. He could have stayed wherever he was and never made a sound, and none of us would have been any the wiser. He’s kidnapped the girl for a reason. He hasn’t just turned himself in to confess all these things to make himself feel better. This isn’t an exercise in conscience, it’s a calculated method of accomplishing something that we know nothing about. He has an agenda, a rationale, and however fucking crazy that might be, it’s still a reason, right? The man has a reason for doing this and it ain’t because he likes the sound of his own voice, and it sure as fuck ain’t because he wants to barter for a lesser jail sentence. These are things we would have never known anything about. He never had a jail sentence to begin with . . . why on earth would he go about creating one?’
Woodroffe shook his head and looked at Schaeffer. ‘He’s right. Why has he turned himself in at all? Why didn’t he just stay wherever the hell he was and die quietly?’
‘Because he’s fucking crazy, and crazy people do crazy things all the time,’ Schaeffer said. ‘You cannot apply reason to an unreasonable action.’
Hartmann raised his eyebrows. He remembered having that exact same thought himself.
‘So what the fuck do you propose?’ Woodroffe asked Schaeffer.
Schaeffer shook his head. ‘We don’t have a choice. We have been asked to put a proposal to this man, and that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna give it our best shot. Hartmann is gonna go over to the Royal Sonesta Hotel, and with a hundred federal agents present, he’s gonna sit in a room with Ernesto Perez and ask him if he wants to make a trade for the life of the girl. We’ll see what Perez has to say, and if he tells us to go fuck ourselves then we’re in no worse a situation than we are right now.’
‘Good point,’ Woodroffe said. ‘Mr Hartmann?’
Hartmann shrugged his shoulders. ‘You guys are in charge here . . . I’m just the ex-alcoholic who drove a twelve-wheeler through his life and then got dragged down here against his will and wants nothing more than to go home. But don’t blame me if he gets so pissed off he decides he’s never gonna tell us where the girl is.’
‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ Woodroffe said.
‘Agreed,’ Schaeffer said. ‘I ain’t gonna be the one to call the FBI director and tell him go shove his proposal up his ass.’
‘It’s your call, boys,’ Hartmann said, and he rose to his feet. ‘But I ain’t doing it tonight.’
Schaeffer frowned. ‘Whaddya mean, you ain’t doing it tonight?’
‘I have a migraine the size of most of Louisiana and then some. I didn’t sleep good last night. I am not in the best frame of mind to negotiate a trade for Catherine Ducane’s life. You want me to do this then you gotta cut me some slack on how it’s done. I need some time to think about this, to work out how I should best speak to him. I think it’s a fucking waste of everybody’s time, but I also understand that if he says no then we haven’t really lost anything either. I have more reasons not to be here right now than you guys could ever imagine, and the last thing I wanna do is blow my only chance of leaving here as soon as possible by going at this in completely the wrong frame of mind.’
‘I agree with Hartmann,’ Woodroffe said.
‘You wanna call Bob Dohring and tell him we ain’t doing this right now? If we ain’t doing it now then when the fuck are we gonna do it?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Hartmann said.
‘Every twenty-four hours is another twenty-four hours of Catherine Ducane’s life. You understand that, right?’
Hartmann nodded. ‘I understand that . . . of course I understand that, but if she’s dead then another twenty-four hours ain’t gonna make the slightest bit of difference, and if she’s alive then she’s alive because Perez wants her alive, and if that’s the case then she’ll stay alive until he’s got to the end of whatever the fuck it is he’s decided to tell us.’
‘So what do we tell Dohring ?’ Schaeffer asked. ‘You have any bright ideas for that one?’
‘Tell him Perez refused to speak to us ’til tomorrow. Tell them that he wants to tell us all about New York before he discusses anything else. Tell him whatever the fuck you like. I’m getting out of here. This place is driving me fucking nuts, and the last thing I’m gonna do right now is go over to the Royal freakin’ Sonesta and barter with Ernesto Perez. And if whatever you tell Dohring doesn’t work, tell him I’ll quit unless he gives us some flexibility on this . . . and he can come down and work his charm on Perez and see what the fuck happens then, okay?’
‘Have you been drinking?’ Woodroffe asked. ‘Is this getting to you so much that you’ve fallen off the wagon, Mr Hartmann?’
Hartmann closed his eyes and clenched his fists. It took everything he possessed to restrain himself from lunging across the table and belting Woodroffe.
‘No, Mr Woodroffe, I have not been drinking . . . apart from the poisonous fucking coffee that you people have somehow managed to concoct.’
‘It’s okay,’ Schaeffer said, ‘I’ll handle Dohring. There’s a good deal of sense to what you’re saying. You go back to the Marriott. Get some rest. We’ll hear Perez out tomorrow, and then we’ll put our proposal to him. We’re all agreed, right?’
Hartmann nodded. Woodroffe grunted noncommittally.
Schaeffer rose from his chair. ‘Then it’s settled. Tomorrow we listen to what the man has to say, and when he’s done Mr Hartmann will go to the Sonesta and speak with him alone.’
Hartmann nodded his thanks to Schaeffer and walked across the office to the exit. He glanced back when he reached the door and saw both Woodroffe and Schaeffer standing silently, neither of them looking anywhere in particular, each of them lost somewhere within their own thoughts. Perhaps they had families too, Hartmann thought, and for a second he realized that he had paid no mind at all to what either of them might be going through as a result of this. But the fact of the matter was that they had chosen this life, this line of work, and he – Ray Hartmann – had seemed to wind up here by nothing but default.
He shook his head and went out through the doorway. The images of Catherine Ducane looked back at him from each wall as he walked. The effect unnerved Hartmann, unnerved him greatly.
Schaeffer watched him disappear into the corridor and turned to Woodroffe. ‘You think he took it?’
Woodroffe shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Seems to have done.’
Schaeffer nodded. ‘It’s important that he thinks we’re actually going to make this deal with Perez. If he doesn’t believe that this is our position then he will not communicate it with any conviction.’
‘I think he’ll give it his best shot, but I think he probably knows Perez better than both of us. I think Perez won’t take it . . . think he’ll tell us to go fuck ourselves.’
‘And I think Ernesto Perez is going to die,’ Schaeffer said. ‘Regardless of whether he agrees to a deal or not, regardless of whether he tells us where the girl is, or if we find out she’s been dead from day one . . . whatever the hell happens he’s going to die.’
‘I know,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I know.’
‘So we go with this. We let Hartmann think we’re making the deal. We let them both believe that we will let Perez walk, right up to the point where he tells us about the girl, and then we fuck him, okay?’
‘That’s the brief we’ve been given, that’s what we do.’
Schaeffer nodded and reached for his jacket.
‘And Hartmann?’ Woodroffe asked.
Schaeffer turned and looked at his partner. ‘What about Hartmann?’
‘He will not be happy to find that he’s been cut out of the loop.’
Schaeffer seemed to sneer for a moment. ‘You really think anyone gives a rat’s ass about whether Ray Hartmann is happy or not? Come on, Bill, get real. This thing is gonna go forward regardless of who gets stepped on. This is Ducane’s
daughter for Christ’s sake. You really think how anyone feels is gonna be taken into consideration?’
Woodroffe shook his head. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s okay, we go with it whichever way it’s supposed to go. We’ll do a body count later and clean up the battlefield.’
‘Always the way,’ Schaeffer said. ‘Always the way.’
‘And Ducane? When do we start knocking on his door and asking who’s home?’
‘Right now we don’t,’ Schaeffer replied. ‘That is not part of our gameplan, and as far as I know it never will be. It’s our job to find the girl, and once the girl’s found then whatever happens to Charles Ducane is gonna be someone else’s business.’
‘What d’you think?’ Woodroffe asked.
‘About Ducane?’
‘About Ducane.’
Schaeffer shook his head. ‘I don’t think anything. I cannot afford to think anything. I start sidetracking into whether or not Charles Ducane is in some way involved in all the shit we’ve been hearing then I’m gonna get into discussions I don’t want with people I don’t want to meet. You understand what I’m saying?’
Woodroffe nodded. ‘As clear as daylight.’
‘So until we’re invited we don’t show up, because whatever the hell kind of garden party that is I can guarantee you we’ll not be welcome.’ He rolled down his shirtsleeves, put on his jacket, and then held the door open for Woodroffe.
Woodroffe rose from his chair. ‘One day it’ll make sense,’ he said.
‘Who told you that?’ Schaeffer asked.
Woodroffe smiled sardonically. ‘The patron saint of liars.’
‘There you have it,’ Schaeffer said, and smiled. ‘Only man that can be trusted in this line of work.’
*
Two blocks down Hartmann stopped at a callbox. He called information for the number of Verlaine’s Precinct House. When he was put through he found Gerritty once again on the desk.
‘He’s out somewhere,’ Gerritty said when Hartmann asked for Verlaine. ‘You want his cellphone number?’
Hartmann took it, hung up, dialed the cellphone number and found Verlaine in transit.
‘Where are you?’ Hartmann asked.
‘About three blocks from the Precinct. Why? This isn’t another one of your insane fucking ideas, is it?’
‘No,’ Hartmann said. ‘I wanna ask if you’ll do something for me. Don’t worry, it’s harmless enough . . . it’s something personal.’
‘Meet you on the corner of Iberville,’ Verlaine said. ‘You know where that is?’
‘Sure.’
Hartmann drove over there and pulled up. He waited no more than three or four minutes and then saw Verlaine’s car approaching.
Verlaine parked up against the curb and Hartmann made his way over there.
Once inside he asked Verlaine if he could do him a favor.
‘Shoot,’ Verlaine said.
‘Thursday night – if we’re still in this on Thursday night – I want you to call my wife in New York.’
Verlaine didn’t say anything.
‘I want you to call her and tell her I’m on an official thing. Obviously you can’t tell her where I am, but I want you to tell her I’m on an official thing, and there might be a chance I won’t make it back to New York for Saturday.’
‘Sure,’ Verlaine said. ‘I can call her, but why don’t you call and tell her yourself?’
Hartmann shook his head. ‘Let’s say there’s a possibility she will read it as a cop-out or something. There’s a good possibility she won’t believe me, but if you call and tell her there will at least be a shred of credence to it.’
‘Trouble?’ Verlaine asked.
‘You could say that.’
‘Things gonna work out for you?’
‘I hope so.’
‘I’ll call her,’ Verlaine said. ‘You tell me what to say and I’ll say it, okay?’
Hartmann nodded and smiled. ‘Thanks, John . . . much appreciated.’
‘Not a problem, Ray. You okay?’
‘Sure,’ Hartmann said, and reached for the door lever.
‘Where you headed now?’
‘The Marriott,’ Hartmann said. ‘Got one bitch of a headache and I gotta get some sleep.’
‘Sure thing. You take it easy, okay?’
Hartmann made his way across the street to his own vehicle and drove slowly back to the Marriott. From his room he called for a sandwich and a glass of milk to be sent up. By the time they arrived he wondered if he had the strength to eat. He did anyway, the better part of half of it, and then he pulled off his clothes and collapsed on the bed like deadweight. He slept, slept like deadweight too, and even the alarm call didn’t manage to wake him.
He did wake though when Sheldon Ross got a passkey and let himself into the room.
It was a quarter of eight, morning of Wednesday 3 September, and Ross waited patiently outside the door while Hartmann showered and dressed.
They left together, drove across to Arsenault Street, and once there Hartmann found Schaeffer and Woodroffe seated exactly where they had been the evening before.
‘You boys even go home?’ Hartmann asked.
Schaeffer smiled and rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t fucking remember,’ he said, and before he could say another word there were voices and people, and Ernesto Perez, two men ahead of him, two men behind, and for all the world to see it appeared that he had become someone of importance all over again.
Once they were again seated across from one another, Hartmann looked at Perez and wondered if what he had said hadn’t been the truth. Had he in fact started to re-evaluate his own life? Had he started to truly accept that he was exclusively responsible for the situation he was in?
Hartmann shrugged the thought away. How could someone such as Perez precipitate anything of any worth? The man was an unconscionable psychopath, a hired killer, a brutal and unforgiving murderer. Surely there was nothing about him that could provoke any sense of mitigation or temper. Hartmann – despite himself – even considered the possibility that there might be something vaguely human within this individual, and then he closed such a thought down.
‘You are okay, Mr Hartmann?’ Perez asked.
Hartmann nodded. He tried to think of nothing at all. ‘You were going to tell us about New York.’
‘I was indeed,’ Perez replied. ‘In fact I was listening to Mr Frank Sinatra only last night in my hotel room, singing about that very same city. You care for Mr Sinatra?’
‘A little. My wife likes him a great deal.’
Perez smiled. ‘Then, Mr Hartmann, you have a wife with exceptional taste.’
Hartmann looked up. For a moment he was angry, felt invaded almost, as if mention of his wife from Perez’s lips was a personal affront.
Perez pre-empted any possibility that Hartmann could speak by smiling, raising his hand in an almost conciliatory fashion, and saying, ‘Enough, Mr Hartmann . . . we shall speak of New York, yes?’
For some reason Ray Hartmann went cool and quiet inside.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘New York . . . tell me what happened in New York.’
SEVENTEEN
‘You gonna stay here with these people then you gotta get it right,’ Don Calligaris told me.
My head hurt. I had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much strong espresso. All these people ever seemed to do was smoke and drink, eat rich Italian food, pasta and meatballs and sauces made with red wine and sweet-tasting herbs. Seemed to me their food looked like the aftermath of a multiple homicide.
‘Five families, and it really ain’t no different from remembering all the players in a football team or somethin’.’ Don Calligaris went on. ‘Five and five only, and each of them have their names, their bosses, their underbosses, names that you need to know if you’re gonna mix with these people and have them take you seriously. You need to think Italian, you need to speak the language, you need to wear the right clothes and say the right words. You need to address peop
le in the correct manner or they’re gonna think you’re some poor dumb fuck from the countryside.’
New York was cold. It was confusing. I had figured New York to be a single place, but it was made up of islands, each of them with different names, and where we were seated – in a small diner called Salvatore’s on the corner of Elizabeth and Hester in Little Italy – was a district on an island called Manhattan. The images, the names, the words that surrounded me were as new as the people who accompanied them: Bowery and the Lower East Side, Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge, the East River and Wallabout Bay – places I had read about in my encyclopedias, places I had imagined so different from how they appeared in reality.
I believed Vegas to be the backstop of the world, the place where everything began and ended; New York disabused me of all I had believed. Compared to this Vegas was nothing more than its origin: a small jerkwater nothing of a place hunkering at the edge of the desert.
The sounds and images dwarfed me; they frightened me a little; they created a tension within that I had not experienced before. Crazy people wandered the streets asking for change. Men were dressed as women. The walls were painted with crude garish symbology, and every other word uttered was fucker or motherfucker or assfucker. The people were different, their clothes, their mannerisms, their bodies. People looked worn-out or beaten or bruised or swollen-headed from some late-night jag that had poisoned them with too much liquor or cocaine or marijuana. I had seen these things in Vegas, they were not new to me, but in New York everything seemed magnified and exaggerated, as if here everything was done twice as hard, twice as fast and for twice as long.
‘So there’s the Gambino family,’ Don Calligaris said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Albert Anastasia was boss from ’51 to ’57. He started something you might hear of around here, a little club called Murder Incorporated. After Anastasia was killed the family was taken over by Carlo Gambino, and he’s been the boss since ’57. Then you have the Genovese, and these guys are Lucky Luciano’s family. After him came Frank Costello, and then Vito Genovese was boss until ’59. After Vito came a three-man council until 1972, and now the Genovese family is run by Frank Tieri. The third family, our family, is the Lucheses. Long history, lot o’ names, but all you gotta know is that Tony Corallo is the boss now. You’ll hear people refer to him as Tony Ducks.’ Calligaris laughed. ‘Gave him that name ’cause of all the times he ducked out from under the Feds and the cops and whoever the fuck else might have been after him. Then you got the Colombos, and they’re headed up by Thomas DiBella. Lastly you got the Bonanno family. They got Carmine Galante in charge, and if you ever meet him you don’t look him straight in the eye or he’ll have someone whack you just for the sheer fucking thrill of it.’
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