Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  She saw the four almost identical men in their expensive clothes get out, stretch their cramped muscles, and stand looking about them with their flat, expressionless eyes that somehow reminded her of Jimmy Lee.

  And she noted too the slight yet all too significant bulges in their chest and hip areas that were the unmistakable marks of their trade.

  Mary Yung had never seen these four men before, yet she knew them as well as she knew the inside of her own skin. She wasn’t fooled by the designer sport clothes or the cameras. Today was just another of their normal workdays, and this was where they had come to work. And she knew as surely as she had ever known anything that it was her phone call that had summoned them.

  Mary suddenly felt sick.

  When the four tourists left the parking area to stroll along the nearby streets, she began following at a safe distance.

  She saw them separate into two pairs and go into about half-a-dozen shops, where they seemed to be asking a lot of questions. They also made several small purchases that included a map, a couple of rolled up posters, and some picture postcards.

  At one point they opened the map and gathered about it for a few minutes, pointing and talking.

  Then they returned to the two Mercedes and drove out of the parking area. This time three of the men were in one car, leaving the fourth man alone in the other.

  Mary got into her rental and followed. Thinking no further than that, she had no idea what she was going to do about anything. It just seemed right to stay with them.

  Reaching a fork in the road, the man alone bore left and headed out of town and toward the road edging the water. The car with the three men stayed to the right and drove in the direction of the Walters house, with Mary tailing them from far back.

  As they approached 14 Via Contessa, Mary picked up a bit of speed and drew just close enough to catch a glimpse of the Mercedes as it came to an almost complete stop in front of the house, hung there for a few moments, then continued on up the winding road and out of sight.

  Toward the cul-de-sac, Mary thought.

  If she’d had any small lingering doubts before, she didn’t now.

  Reaching number 14, she pulled into some space beside Gianni’s car, dashed up the house’s entrance steps as fast as she could, and banged on the door.

  It opened almost immediately.

  Mary Yung looked at the fair-haired, blue-eyed, bearded man facing her and didn’t recognize him as anyone she knew.

  Then she saw the automatic pointing loosely at her chest.

  “Come on in, Mary,” Vittorio Battaglia said. “Join the party.”

  The man traveling alone, a dark-haired young Sicilian named Domenico, drove only a few hundred yards out of town and parked at a scenic turnoff overlooking the water.

  A short distance below, he saw the ruins of an old Saracen tower that one of the local shopkeepers had described, and started down toward it. The path was rough, with much of it carved out of rock, and Domenico picked his way cautiously, with particular concern for his brand-new Gucci loafers.

  Nearing the tower, he heard the water lapping at the rocks and the cry of a gull, but he still saw nothing. That asshole bean-counter didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Amalfians. They were all shit-eaters. He’d never met one that wasn’t.

  Then he scrambled around the edge of a sharply angled carob tree and saw the boy.

  He was kind of a small kid, with these skinny arms and legs that instantly reminded Domenico of his brother before he’d been mashed flat as a pizza by an oil truck. The boy’s back was toward him, and the kid was standing at an easel, painting. The canvas was only about half-done, but it looked beautiful to Domenico, very real and lifelike, with the water all shiny, and the sun on the rocks bright enough to make you squint your eyes. The thing was, it didn’t look like anything you’d expect a kid to be able to paint.

  “Hey.”

  The boy turned.

  “You Paulie?” Domenico said in Italian.

  Paul nodded.

  Domenico grinned. “That’s a great picture. I couldn’t do anything like that if my life hung on it.”

  Paulie looked at him with his serious eyes. “How did you know my name?”

  “Your mom and dad asked me to pick you up. They were in a kind of rush on account of the party. My name’s Dom.”

  “What party?”

  “The one at my uncle’s house that they forgot all about until a little while ago.”

  Paulie frowned. “They want me to come to a party?”

  “They thought it would be a big treat for you on account of all these great paintings that’ll be there. Not to mention some pretty important artists.”

  Paulie stood there staring. He was holding his palette and brushes, and his fingers kept opening and closing on them. His lips felt very dry, and he licked them.

  “What’s the matter, Paulie?”

  “I think you’re full of shit.”

  “Hey, that’s no way to talk to a guy. It’s not even respectful.”

  “I don’t know you, mister. And my mom and dad wouldn’t send anybody I don’t know after me. What are you? One of those creeps that like to fool around with little boys?”

  Domenico laughed. “You’re some kid. Real tough. I once had a little brother was tough like you. Till a truck rolled over him. Then he wasn’t so tough no more.”

  Paulie was suddenly terrified. Was this a real mafioso? He’d only seen the fake ones in the movies and TV, so he didn’t know whether this Domenico was the real thing. He didn’t look much like a gangster. He looked kind of nice. Even the way he spoke and laughed. Like he was just having a good time. But maybe there were all different kinds of gangsters, too.

  “So what do you say, Paulie? You coming to the party, or what?”

  Afraid his voice might turn out to be gone, Paul just shook his head.

  “Stubborn, too, huh?” Domenico shrugged. “OK. Then stay and finish your painting. It’s coming great. If you don’t mind, I’ll just watch a minute.”

  Feeling his knees getting wobbly, Paul turned and stabbed a brushload of cerulean blue and purple at a patch of sky.

  Then a streak of really bright light suddenly popped on and off somewhere behind his eyes, and the painting and everything else in front of him quietly disappeared.

  Domenico made sure he caught him as he started going down, so Paul never hit the ground. There were a lot of sharp rocks around that could have hurt him. Domenico wanted no unnecessary damage being done to this particular kid.

  The three men in the other Mercedes were parked on the cul-de-sac at the far end of the Via Contessa. Having passed and taken stock of Peter Walters’ home at number 14, they had things to consider and decisions to make.

  The house itself presented no problems. It was a reasonable distance from its closest neighbors, and the surrounding brush and trees, along with the twisting road it was on, made it all but invisible from other houses. So there was little chance of anyone seeing them entering or leaving. The possible complication came from the third car parked in front of the house. It meant one or more visitors. Not great for carrying out a low-profile operation.

  But that would have to be dealt with. Time also was important. At least they’d learned the boy was out of the house, and Domenico would be handling that. You couldn’t have it all ways. If something got fucked up, the kid would be good insurance.

  It took no more than fifteen minutes of discussion. They’d go with what they had.

  Leaving the cul-de-sac, they drove back down the Via Contessa, charged with the dark excitement that such things brought. They were in good spirits. Maybe the third car had even left by now.

  The Mercedes slowed as it approached number 14.

  The third car was still there.

  So was a fourth car.

  Swearing softly, they passed the house and continued on toward town.

  32

  NUMBER 14 VIA Contessa had already taken on the closed-in air
of a position under siege.

  The security system was turned on, the doors and windows were locked, the blinds were drawn, and those inside were armed.

  Waiting, peering anxiously out at the road for nearly fifteen minutes, Peter Walters finally saw the gray Mercedes coming back down the mountain. He watched it approach, slow almost to a halt as it neared his house, then pick up speed and disappear around a curve.

  Still, he kept everyone on alert for a full twenty minutes more. When it seemed clear that the men in the car weren’t immediately coming back, he told the others to have some coffee and try to relax for a while. He himself remained on watch at a window.

  Peter was almost sorry the Mercedes had passed him by. It had been simpler, somehow, when the immediate threat was there. Regardless of the danger, he could always deal with straightforward action. It was what he did best. Now there was nothing to do but think and wonder. And it had been a confusing, stress-filled time for him from the moment Gianni had knocked on his door and instantly turned his and his family’s world upside down.

  Was it really just an hour ago?

  And for nearly half that time, he and Peggy had sat listening to Gianni’s own collection of horror stories while a leaden anxiety settled on his chest, and an oppression close to strangling rose to his throat.

  Yet in the end, all Gianni had been able to do was create more mysteries than he was able to solve, and pose more questions than his old friend Vittorio could even come close to answering.

  What could the FBI want from him so badly?

  After more than nine years of peaceful obscurity, what could he have done to suddenly turn himself into such a threat to the national security? Of course Cortlandt had already warned him he was the object of an FBI hunt. But Gianni’s tales of terror pushed it much further than that.

  And what about the four men in their two Mercedes that Mary had come screaming her new alarms about? Who were they? More FBI agents? Or Interpol police? Or maybe just some independent syndicate people joining the hunt for fun and profit?

  But even more puzzling and dangerous, how had these four beauties known he was living as Peter Walters in Posi-tano and been able to drive straight to his door? And could it really be pure coincidence that they had somehow managed to find him no more than an hour after Gianni and Mary had arrived in town?

  If anything had helped keep him alive for twenty years in a very dangerous line of work, it was his never believing in coincidences. When these odds-on, seemingly inexplicable things happened, there was almost always a connection somewhere. Which meant that Mary and Gianni had either been under surveillance from the beginning and followed here, or one of them had turned informer.

  Another puzzle for his growing collection.

  Then he thought, Idiot! Go back to the beginning.

  “Gianni, watch the window for me,” he said, and went into his studio to make a call he’d thought about making from time to time for almost ten years.

  Somehow, he still remembered Mike’s number, and he decided a special kind of hocus-pocus had to be running riot in just that. But after two rings, a telephone company recording clicked in to tell him the number he had called was no longer in service.

  Peter sat staring bleakly at the phone. Until it hit him that his pilot friend had a brother named Artie living in the same area of Long Island, and he had an operator look up the number and put through the call.

  A man answered.

  “Is this Artie Keagan?” said Peter.

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “My name’s Thompson, Mr. Keagan. Your brother, Mike, used to do some flying for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just tried to reach Mike’s old number, but it’s been disconnected. I was wondering if maybe you had a new number where I could reach him.”

  Keagan made a soft, grunting sound. “Wish I did. But Mike’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “My brother’s dead, Mr. Thompson.”

  Peter Walters sat listening to a dull humming. He wasn’t sure if it was coming from his head or from the phone.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. When?”

  “’Bout two weeks ago. Damnedest thing. I’d just seen him earlier that night. Then bang! He was gone a few hours later. His wife, too. And the house and everything in it. All gone. Like they was never there.”

  “Jesus. What happened?”

  “Firemen said a propane tank went. Should never have been stored in the cellar. I don’t understand it. Mike never had no propane in the cellar. He wasn’t that dumb.”

  Walters offered some sympathy and hung up.

  Two weeks ago. Just about the time the Fibbies started coming after Gianni and Mary to find out where I was.

  Another coincidence he didn’t believe for a second.

  But where was the connection?

  Of course. Other than for Peggy and himself, Mike Keagan was the only living soul who knew that Irene Hopper had never really gone down with that plane.

  Was that why Mike and his wife were blown up?

  Maybe. But why by the FBI, of all people?

  Who else?

  How about whoever it was that got Don Donatti to send me to waste Peggy when she was Irene Hopper?

  Great. But who would that be?

  His imaginary trail ended right there, and Vittorio went back to the others.

  Gianni and Mary Yung were still at the living-room blinds, peering out at the road.

  Peggy sat alone in the kitchen, watching out the back. The automatic Peter had given her earlier looked like a new kind of toy in her hands. He sat down beside her. As always, a few strands of hair had fallen across her eyes, and he brushed them back.

  “I just tried calling Mike on Long Island.” Vittorio spoke quietly, so only she could hear. “When I couldn’t get him, I called his brother. It seems Mike and his wife got blown up two weeks ago. The way I figure it, whoever did them has to be the same one that was originally looking to do you. And the only one I can think of who’d know who that was is my old capo, who was given the contract and sent me to carry it out.”

  And I, thought Peggy. So that makes two of us who know.

  She thought it calmly, coldly, although it was her first conscious admission of the fact. Even to herself. Yet there was a distinct sense of relief in just knowing she was able to deal with it. After so many years of sublimated fear, of wondering how she’d behave if this moment ever arrived, she no longer had to wonder. She knew.

  It really was quite simple. There was absolutely nothing that could make her strip herself naked, that could make her smear herself that ugly, dirty, and deviant in front of her husband.

  Yes, but was it really worth dying for?

  It hadn’t come to that yet. It might never come to it.

  And if it did?

  She’d deal with it then.

  When Paulie hadn’t come home by four-thirty, Peter went to get him. It wasn’t that he was especially concerned. When the light was good and holding, and the painting was going well, his son rarely quit before five. But with all that was going on, the father thought it best to keep his family together.

  He walked.

  The farthest of Paulie’s usual painting sites was no more than a short hike away, and Vittorio Battaglia, as he now began to again think of himself, wanted to leave his car in front of the house with the others. He’d decided that the four cars parked there were probably what had kept the men in the Mercedes from stopping during their last pass. As he figured it now, they’d most likely do another drive-by just be fore or after dark. Then depending on what they found, they’d take it from there.

  Ten minutes later, Vittorio Battaglia saw his son’s easel, canvas, and paint box close beside the Saracen tower. What he failed to see was his son.

  The first place he looked was the nearby water. Paulie had strict orders never to go swimming off the rocks alone, but Vittorio had the feeling he often did.

  Vittorio stood on a rock and stared
at the empty patch of sea. The tide was coming in, and he heard its soft lapping against the rocks and felt the cool spray on his face.

  He closed his eyes.

  He stood very still for half a minute. His only movement was the rise and fall of his breathing.

  Slowly, he began to feel the tightening. It squeezed something deep inside his chest. Then it let go. Then it squeezed again. Milking.

  Then he carefully packed up Paulie’s things and walked back to his house.

  33

  “DEAR GOD,” SAID Peggy Walters.

  She had been alone at the front window, but Gianni and Mary Yung came and stood beside her when she spoke. What they saw was Vittorio Battaglia coming up the garden steps carrying his son’s things.

  Peggy went out to meet him, saw his face up close, and felt everything turn cold. She tried to speak, but there was no sound. She reached for Paulie’s folded aluminum easel, took it from her husband’s hand, and stared at it. Her silence hung in the air, numbing those watching.

  Vittorio flushed with a sudden awareness of his mistake. He never should have brought the stuff back. He should have dumped it somewhere and made up a story about Paulie going over to a friend’s for dinner. But he’d had his own demons to deal with, and how long could he play that kind of game, anyway? At best, he could only have delayed the truth.

  “He just wasn’t around,” Vittorio said. “He might have walked into town for something. Or maybe gone off with a friend. It could be nothing, Peg.”

  She nodded and he studied her face, an etched image that quietly turned to grief.

  Vittorio took her inside and carefully laid down his son’s things. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. His hands were slow, graceful, and steady. Gianni and Mary Yung watched him. But he might have been in another place, lost in this moment that brought together and formed the pieces of his life.

  He looked at Garetsky.

  “Help me get a couple of the cars out of sight,” he told him.

  They went outside and walked down the steps together.