by Thomas Perry
Light seemed to enter Tony Pompi’s eyes. “If they caught one of them!”
Phil nodded. “Or all of them. Anyway, they found the one who could give back the money.” He began again. “Now, we have another strange happening. Frank Delfina has disappeared.”
“When was he anything but disappeared? He travels all the time, like a salesman.”
“Since the minute the first of his guys started to leave, I’ve been calling, trying to reach him. His guys in L.A. say he’s in Omaha. His guys in Niagara Falls say he’s in Albuquerque. The ones in Oakland say he’s in L.A. They’ll make sure he gets back to me. They’re all nervous, they don’t know when he left or when he’ll be back.”
“I don’t get it,” said Joe.
“Why would he drop out of sight right now? He’s the one who has the money,” said Phil. “You just said they’re not mailing money out anymore. Well, I know why. Because Delfina caught them. He’s got them, and he’s spent the last week getting the money collected. By now he’s got enough of it back to start buying himself the support of a few other families. Castananza, Catania. There will be others soon.”
“I can hardly believe it,” said Joe.
Phil stared at the carpet. His look of understanding deepened, then turned sour. “This is why the families have never been able to get anywhere. You make a deal that whoever finds the money will share it, and … here we are again. These people, their word is worth shit.”
Joe cocked his head. He and his brother had spent hours discussing ways to keep most of the money themselves, but there was no reason to distract him now with unwelcome reminders. “And you think they won’t share it?”
“If they were going to share, would they do it this way—call their guys home with no warning, no explanation?”
“I guess it makes sense that if they found it, they wouldn’t leave their guys standing around in airports forever.” He thought for a moment. “And if Delfina is the one behind all of it, I suppose he would want to be hard to find.”
Phil reached for the telephone and pushed a few numbers. “Bobby? Yeah. Here’s what I want you to do. Call in all our guys except the ones in Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Boston, Philadelphia. In those places, leave a few guys. Have everybody else home tonight. The ones who are left, tell them to stay put, but make themselves invisible. I want them to slip out of sight, rent a room someplace, and sit tight by the phone.”
He listened for a few seconds. “Right. Get enough home to protect our territory, and leave a few out there that nobody knows about. If somebody decides to surprise us, they’ll find out my arm is longer than theirs. Somebody hits, I want soldiers right under his nose to hit back.”
His brother Joe watched him, and he could feel that something was on his mind. “What?” he snapped.
“It sounds like you’re getting ready to retaliate in all directions at once. Wouldn’t it be better to figure out who’s doing what, and then pick who you’re going to hit?”
Phil winced. The man knew absolutely nothing. He had grown up in this house watching their father run the family, then watched Phil do it, and he had learned no more than if he had been the family dog. “Don’t you think that if our guys noticed all these soldiers were being pulled back, somebody else noticed too? Do you think we’re the only ones in the country who know that Frank Delfina has dropped off the radar screen?”
Joe said, “I imagine other people wouldn’t have missed that.”
“Well, nobody called me. I’ve known about it for a week, and not one person bothered to pick up the phone and tell me.”
40
It was nearly morning, and Tommy DeLuca was getting worried. “Why don’t they call? They should have found Delfina by now.” He had begun the evening by drinking single-malt scotch to keep his excited anticipation from growing too great to bear. A little after midnight, he had changed to coffee, because he had begun to lose the feeling of jovial confidence and had descended into a slow, lazy feeling of defeat. Now he was edgy and irritable.
“They’ll call,” Guarino said. DeLuca could hear that Guarino’s voice had a different tone. That wasn’t the way he wanted to hear Guarino’s voice. Guarino was just saying what he was supposed to say.
“We should have brought in the other families before we started looking,” announced DeLuca. “Then it wouldn’t have been sneaking around, three guys here and five guys there. We could have gone into every one of his businesses with an army. We could have surrounded each building, set fire to it, and shot anybody that came out.”
Guarino sighed. “It might not have been that easy. They’re sitting in their houses with the gates closed and the lights out.”
“That’s just the little guys: Castananza, maybe a couple of others. The Langustos still have their guys out there looking, and Tasso and Molinari and Augustino.”
“It’s better we didn’t call in everybody until we know for sure,” Guarino said. “I’m telling you, everybody’s tense. What if we got them in on it and a few of their guys got killed? It wouldn’t take much to set these people off right now. We could see that army of guys, only they’d be coming up Michigan Avenue to drag us out and hack our heads off.”
“We all agreed to cooperate.”
“Sure,” said Guarino. “But it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier if we already took all the risks, and did all the work, and then bring them in on it. Then it’s you handing out the money, and not Phil Langusto. And as soon as we find Delfina, we’re ninety percent there. If you do it this way, there’s no risk.”
“There’s a risk, all right,” said DeLuca. “You ever thought about what happens if somebody finds out we grabbed Delfina and got Bernie’s money back before we tell them ourselves?”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. The New York families. With all five of them, they must have two thousand made guys, and they’ve been fighting each other every few years since the Stone Age. These people like Molinari … they worry me.”
“That’s why this is the best way. You let them in on it, and what was to guarantee they wouldn’t cut a side deal, dust our guys, and take all the money? Molinari is capable of that … Catania’s crazy, and Phil Langusto is the fucking Prince of Darkness.”
The ring of the telephone in the stillness made DeLuca jump. He lifted it with his fingertips, as though it might be hot. “Yeah?”
Guarino watched Tommy DeLuca’s face. DeLuca squeezed his eyes closed as though they stung, and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “All right,” said DeLuca. “Bring everybody home now.” He hung up, and turned to Guarino. “They’re pulling their guys home.”
Guarino stood up. “Who is?”
DeLuca said, “The big guys. Langusto, Tasso, Molinari, Augustino, Catania … ” He squeezed his eyes closed again, then took a deep breath and let it out in despair. “When Castananza pulled his people out, I should have known. He’s been around for a long time, and he figured out he didn’t belong in this. It’s all been some kind of trap. It’s probably Catania. When we had that sit-down, he kept trying to make everybody think we imagined the whole thing. He and Delfina probably had our money all the time.”
“If they’ve got the money, why would they do anything else? What else do they want?”
“Delfina always thought he got screwed when Castiglione left and the Commission divided up the family. He got nothing, and I got Chicago. So what do you suppose he wants?”
“What about Catania?”
“Catania wants to take over the world,” DeLuca said. “We’ve got to get ready to protect ourselves.… We’ll make it really obvious, make it clear that Chicago isn’t going to be easy, so he’ll try to gobble up somebody else first.”
Guarino was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t know, Tommy. Are you sure it’s a good idea to look like we’ve got something in mind? People are nervous. All it would take right now is one little thing. A car backfires near one of those guys, and we’re going to have bodi
es dropping from one end of the country to the other.”
“There’s nothing else we can do,” pronounced DeLuca.
Guarino said, “I’d better get started, then. First thing is to get the word to people in all our businesses this morning, so nobody gets surprised.”
Guarino walked to the front door, then was startled to hear DeLuca’s voice right at his shoulder. He didn’t remember DeLuca ever walking him out before. “One more thing. Before this starts, I want a promise.”
“Sure, Tommy. What is it?”
“If anything happens to me, I want you to get Catania.”
Guarino shrugged. “He’s dead.” He opened the door and went outside. As he walked toward his car, he contemplated the strange observation he had made years ago. He had just seen another demonstration of it, but he still did not fully understand it. He remembered Tommy DeLuca from not that many years ago, when he was just the head of a crew on the South Side. He had been hard and audacious. When things had gotten ugly during the attempted coup in ’87, he had walked the street in a kind of strut, his overcoat open, his hands in the pockets, where he could reach through the lining for the little machine gun he carried. He had been alert and watching—not looking for something he was going to run away from, but something he was going to open up on with that gun.
Guarino had worked for four bosses in his life, and he had seen this happen before. For some reason, after a year or two in power, they began to change. They stopped going out and having fun with the guys, and they stopped smiling. But the less pleasure they got out of life, the more attached to it they seemed to get. It was as though they had won and kept so much money that they couldn’t bear the thought that they might ever die. He had noticed Tommy getting timid a couple of years ago. The few times he had seen Catania, he was always popping vitamins and drinking orange juice or bottled water, and that was a sign too. He wanted to live forever, like some Egyptian pharaoh.
The only exception that Guarino had ever seen had been Paul Castiglione. That was a man who had kept his edge. Even when his try at empire building had been betrayed and his allies killed, he had gone into exile the right way. He had done it like a crocodile backing out of a house. There was no question he was going: the Commission had said he was out. But they knew they had to be satisfied with that, and not kill him, because as long as he was going anyway, there was no reason to get any closer to those teeth.
If Castiglione ever disappeared from Arizona, there would be a number of people in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and a few other places who would find themselves rethinking some of their decisions from those days. There would be a lot of others who would be glad to see those days come back, and Guarino was one of them.
He got into his car and drove off toward the bookmaking service he ran on Fifty-fifth Street. It was the only place he could be absolutely positive had a phone line or two that he could use without being overheard or taped. It had always been one of his favorite places. He supposed that, with a war coming, he would probably have to shut it down in a few days, even though it supplied ten percent of his income. It was going to put a dent in his plan to save for the kids’ colleges, but it was the only thing to do. He wasn’t going to put twenty-seven people, half of them women, in front of a firebomb, at least not for ten percent.
As Guarino drove, he pondered all the calls he would have to make this morning. DeLuca had sent about two hundred and fifty guys out, and each had some people of his own. That had been far too many to have away from home for any reason, and now it just might cost something. He was going to have to make about fifty calls before the sun came up.
Tommy DeLuca sat inside his big brick house, wondering what he should be doing. By noon he was going to be surrounded by soldiers, but now he was in this peaceful, quiet room with nobody to talk to. This was when he could think, and he would have to think. In a few hours, when the guys started gathering around him, they were going to want to hear something that sounded like a sensible order of battle, and a strategy for defending the South Side of the city from … whom?
From Delfina and Catania, certainly, but Delfina was too devious to act without having the numbers on his side. DeLuca thought of the possibilities and felt his chest shrinking inward away from his shirt. Catania had probably brought a few other families with him from the beginning. The only ones that made sense would be a couple of other New York families. He wouldn’t want anyone at his doorstep waiting for a chance to take him out.
DeLuca thought of a few preliminary precautions. He would keep guys at O’Hare. There would be a few people in the arrival areas to spot the invaders, but the real meat of the crew would be outside, where they could do something about it. They would need some way of communicating, so spotters could alert the shooters to targets. Radios? He had a strong suspicion that it was a bad idea. There were so many radios already at work in an airport that somebody would end up telling an American Airlines pilot to shoot the man with the yellow tie, and everybody would go to jail. Cell phones, maybe.
There should be teams along the last stretches of the big highways—Interstate 90, certainly, and maybe one or two others. People should be placed in windows near all of his businesses. He would give them binoculars. There would be a few heavily armed defenders inside to hold off the assault.
That was the anvil. He would have to prepare a hammer for it. He would need to institute a flying squad. Every time the defenders got hit, a ready, massive force would sweep in and smash the invaders from behind. He would probably need two or three squads. Chicago was too big for one group to cross whenever there was trouble.
DeLuca glanced toward the window, and things looked different. After a second, he realized that the pair of security lights on the eaves above the window that went on at night and off at dawn weren’t illuminating the yard. He walked to the window and looked up. Both bulbs had burned out. He sighed in frustration.
He would have liked to have one of the soldiers who came later replace the bulbs. But he couldn’t call in his people for a fight to the death and give them chores like handymen. Besides, by then it might be dangerous. Once he called everyone in, the enemy would know he was on to them. These might be the last few hours when a man going up on a ladder in front of the house would be entirely safe. He decided to forget the bulbs.
He looked out the window at the light fixture in hatred. He couldn’t just forget it. That light was the one that illuminated the thick shrubbery along the house, and the middle section of the driveway. Leaving those areas dark wasn’t safe. They were the spots where a hit team could sneak up to the house.
DeLuca went to the basement and returned with a stepladder, then went to the cupboard in the laundry room and found two new bulbs. He went out the kitchen door with the two bulbs under his left arm and the aluminum ladder banging his knee at each step, and came around to the front of the house.
He set the bulb box on top of the thick hedge, opened the ladder and planted it firmly in the dirt under the eaves, then climbed up to reach the dead bulbs. He began to unscrew the first one, but it came too easily. On a hunch, he turned it clockwise.
The light came on. DeLuca’s heart began to pound. He whirled, and the shot pierced his left eye. He was dead, but more shots came rapidly, punching into his chest, his belly, his arm as he fell, then pounding into the side of the house where he had been, and through the window.
When Di Titulo heard the gun’s click-click-click, he opened his eyes. DeLuca was gone, but Di Titulo dimly understood that he must have been hit. There was blood on the side of the house where he had been. Di Titulo sprang to his feet and crashed through the hedge. He hurried across the lawn to the street as the car pulled up.
As Di Titulo ducked through the open door to the back seat, he realized he still had the gun in his hand. The car moved off so fast that the door swung shut, then rattled all the way to the corner. When the car bobbed in a half stop before the turn, Di Titulo put the gun in his left hand and slammed the door
shut. He felt the gun being taken from his left hand, and turned to look at Saachi.
The thin, cadaverous face was close to his, and the odor of cigarettes was overpowering. The pointed teeth were bared all the way to the gums, and Di Titulo sensed it must be a smile. “You okay?”
Di Titulo felt pressed with claustrophobia. He wanted to open the window, to push the door open and get outside. He wanted the car to stop, and he wanted it to reach the speed of light. He hadn’t understood what Saachi had said, but he knew what it must have been. “That was … awful.”
Saachi nodded. “Don’t worry. It gets easier.”
Di Titulo’s eyes widened. “I thought … I’m not a … I thought it was just this one, because of the bomb in my car.” Saachi looked at him, but his face showed no sign that he had heard. Di Titulo tried again. “I’m a businessman.”
Saachi looked ahead over the driver’s shoulder. “As of two minutes ago, we’re at war. Everybody’s a soldier.” He turned suddenly to hold Di Titulo with his eyes. “This is your job now. Get good at it.”
41
Jane looked up at the second-floor window beside the big maple tree. The bedroom light was off, but she had seen a glow in the casement windows at the front, and now she could see that the kitchen lights were on. She stepped to the back door and reached for the knob, but it swung open and Carey took a stride toward her and gathered her into his long arms, holding her gently and rocking her a little. It felt warm and safe and restful.
After a long time she said, “I guess you do remember me.”
He kept her in his arms. “Sure. You’re the reason I never felt the urge to get a cat. I already have something sleek and beautiful that never comes when I call it, just drops in when it feels like it and goes away again.”
She burrowed deeper into his arms, then leaned back and lifted her face to kiss him. The kiss was soft and leisurely and perfect. “Can I come in?”