* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 03:51
* * *
“Lights,” the man seated behind the tripod-mounted binoculars said to his partner.
“Ready.”
“Turning. Got a . . . I’m not sure what that is. Wait! It’s the Mercedes.”
“Romeo, Zulu, nine, two, zero?”
“Roger.”
“Logged.”
“Turning left into Sector Four. Hey! Hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything,” the other man said.
“Neither do I,” the spotter said. “Even with all these windows open.”
“So he’s parked?”
“Yeah. Close by.”
“This is our post.”
“Come on! This is the third time. Whoever he is, he’s not out for a night drive.”
“We’re not supposed to—?”
“We can go over the roofs,” the spotter said. “They’re all pretty much the same height. He can’t be more than a block or two away, and we’d still have—”
“—the high ground,” the other man finished. He unzipped a padded bag, removed a heavy-barreled rifle. “All right, but it has to be quick.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 03:54
* * *
The Commander’s car was nowhere in sight, but Carl was unconcerned. He flashed his brights three times, quickly. A door next to what had once been the loading bay began to climb upwards, slowly exposing an empty slot. Carl knew the electricity to the warehouse had been cut off years ago, and the Commander was cranking the door by hand.
Carl backed his Mercedes into the open space. He watched through the windshield as the door descended, turning his whole world dark.
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 03:59
* * *
“Now what?” the man holding the rifle whispered.
“Somebody opened that door for him. From inside.”
“You want to try to get—?”
“No. We’re in perfect position here,” the spotter said. “Let’s just wait. We only saw one come in. What we want is to see everyone who comes out.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 04:02
* * *
Karl climbed out of his Mercedes. He closed the door lightly behind him, but the sound was still audible in the empty building. Suddenly, a hand—a powerful hand, it always was, when Karl called up the image in the privacy of his shower—grasped the back of his neck. Obediently, Karl allowed himself to be propelled forward, his eyes now picking up the streaks of phosphorus that appeared on the concrete floor. Arrows, pointing the way to his destiny.
Around a corner, and there was light. Faint light, from a three-cell flashlight, positioned so close to the wall that only a pale aura was visible. But there was enough light for Karl to see the roll of carpet on the floor. And the blanket-covered sawhorse.
The hand on the back of his neck clamped tightly, but Karl never flinched. His hands were steady as he undressed.
“The Spartans never went into battle without the special strength they drew from their Boys of War,” the Commander said, his lips an inch from Karl’s ear.
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 04:44
* * *
“Car number one—”
“The known.”
“Right. Car one—the known subject—entered Sector Four at oh three fifty-one. Entered Building 413 at oh three fifty-four. Exited oh four thirty-six. Car number two—unknown subject, Foxtrot, Echo, Bravo, eight, eight, one, local plate—exited oh four forty.”
“He must have come in from across the open ground to the east,” the rifleman said. “That’s why we haven’t see him before, I bet. But now, whoever he is, he won’t be unknown in a few hours.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 05:58
* * *
“Nice time for a briefing,” Special Agent David L. Peterson said grumpily to his partner. “Six in the morning.”
“The Bureau never sleeps,” Mack Dressler replied laconically.
“Nothing ever bothers you, does it, Mack?”
“Not anymore, it doesn’t,” the older man said, settling himself in a metal folding chair.
A tall man in a navy-blue suit suddenly strode into the large room. He had dark hair, worn slightly longer than current Bureau fashion, and an aristocratic face.
“I’m betting Yale,” Mack whispered. “He looks a little too loose for Harvard.”
“Gentlemen,” the man at the podium addressed the thirty men seated before him. “My name is M. William Wainwright, Special Agent in Charge of the Organized Crime Task Force, Midwest Branch. I’ve called you in this morning to review our objectives and bring you up to speed on the current initiative.”
“The Invisible Empire,” Mack muttered sarcastically.
“The Klan?” his younger partner whispered.
“Pretty hard to be invisible when you’re walking around with a sheet over your head, partner,” the older man answered, his voice as soft and dry as sawdust. “This guy’s talking about the Mafia. You know, the mob the boss said didn’t exist until a couple of years ago.”
“As you already know,” the speaker continued, “there exists within America a tightly organized network of criminals. Originating in Sicily, this . . .”
As the speaker droned on, two assistants entered from the side, one carrying a large easel, the other several sheets of poster board. When they completed their setup, the speaker unclipped a pen-size object from his breast pocket. With a snap of his wrist, a professorial pointer emerged.
“This,” he said, “is the overall structure, at the national level.” A brief biography of each individual followed. “As you can see, there is a quasi-military structure to the organization, with a distinct chain of command.”
“Jesus,” Mack said, very softly.
His partner moved a few imperceptible inches away from the heretic.
“But that’s just background,” the speaker said, his tone indicating he was about to say something important. “In this region, our specific target is one Salvatore ‘Sally D.’ Dioguardi. Originally a member of the Mondriano family in Brooklyn, New York, Dioguardi was dispatched to Locke City approximately four years ago, with orders to wrest control of local rackets from one Royal Beaumont.”
The speaker’s assistants placed charts of the two organizations side by side on the easels.
“Beaumont is a local product, with no national connections. However, he is well entrenched, with deep roots in local politics, and Dioguardi has not been successful in dislodging him. The Bureau has been aware of the situation since its inception. However, as activity was relatively stable, and, presumably, well-known to local law enforcement, no Bureau role was envisioned.”
The speaker paused to gauge the impact of his presentation on the audience. His quick glance took in a wall of attentive postures and flat faces—a tabletop full of face-down cards.
“Recently, one member of the Dioguardi gang was severely beaten. He is still comatose. Two other members were assassinated. No arrests have been made. According to our sources within the Locke City Police Department, there are no suspects.
“Note, Dioguardi himself appears to share the view that Beaumont is not responsible for the attacks. Our profile of Dioguardi indicates that he is a rash, impulsive individual, with a violent temper. And hardly an intellectual,” the speaker said, chuckling.
None of the assembled agents joined in.
“Therefore,” the speaker went on, unfazed, “we do not believe we are facing a gang-war situation as has occurred in larger cities around the country. In fact, several of our RIs have reported rumors of an impending truce of some sort. Any potential alliance of criminal organizations is of great interest to the Bureau, especially one that involves Mafia families and outsiders. We have no record of this occurring previously, although, of course, nonmembers have worked with Mafia organizations on many occa
sions, and even formed working partnerships.”
“So pay close attention . . .” Mack said, just below a whisper.
“Every agent in this room has been working in a remote surveillance capacity of some sort,” the speaker continued. “Placing undercovers inside either of the organizations in question is not a viable option. So the information provided by our Registered Informants is, admittedly, secondhand. The purpose of the Task Force is, therefore, to begin the process of information sharing. The Bureau is extremely interested in these ‘truce’ rumors. So, once weekly, we will be meeting. Same time, same place. And once all the new information is assimilated and correlated, we’ll have—”
“—more fucking charts,” Mack said, under his breath.
“—a clearer, more comprehensive picture of whatever the various parties hope to gain from a joint enterprise.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 06:44
* * *
“He never even mentioned the Irish guys,” the spotter said to the rifleman, as they drove back to their base in the warehouse district. “You think that means Shalare’s not a player?”
“No,” the rifleman said, “it means that kid in the fancy suit—Wainwright?—he’s not.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 07:09
* * *
“I got it, boss!”
“You sure?”
“Boss, mebbe I ain’t sure ‘xactly what I got, but I got something, I knows that much.”
“What we were talking about?”
“Yes, sir. Just like you said there was gonna—”
“That’s enough. When can I see it?”
“I’m at work, boss. I don’t finish till six. I could—”
“Too much traffic then. Make it eight.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 09:39
* * *
“You wasn’t in your room last night, suh,” the elevator operator said to Dett. “Even though it looked like you was.”
“How do you know all that, Moses?”
“Know it looked like you was, ’cause the maid said the bed all messed up when she came in to do your room earlier this morning. Knew you wasn’t, ’cause somebody else was.”
“Who?”
“Can’t say, suh. But I thought it might be something you would want to know.”
“Much obliged,” Dett said, offering his hand to shake.
The elevator operator hesitated, then grasped hands with Dett, felt the folded-up bill inside, and pulled it back with him. “Hope you didn’t give me too much, suh.”
“I don’t catch your meaning.”
“What I told you, wasn’t no big surprise to you.”
“How do you know that?”
“ ’Cause other peoples knew you was gonna be out real late, suh, if you came back at all. And I figure, a man like you, that can’t be no accident.”
“You’re an even sharper consultant than I first thought, Moses.”
“There’s a room I got here, suh. Not no room like you got, not a sleeping room or anything. More a big closet, like. Down in the basement, off the boiler room. Got me an old lock on it, but I don’t need it. Nobody would go in and mess with old Moses’s junk.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause, all the years I been here, I got a lot of friends. And I know a lot of things. Plus, I’m an old man, so, sometimes, I forget to lock that room for days on end. People got themselves plenty of chances to look inside, see what I keep in there.”
“And what’s that?”
“Got me a nice easy chair. Came right from this here hotel. They was going to throw it out, but I rescued it, like. I got a little table, a big green ashtray on it. And a picture of my wife, when she was a young girl. Most beautiful girl in Tulia, Texas, she was. I like to sit there, all by myself, just smoke me a sweet pipe of cherry tobacco. When I look at the picture of my Lulabelle through the smoke, it’s like she’s right there, still with me.”
“She’s gone, then?”
“Left me it’ll be twenty-eight years this December, sir. Just before Christmas.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was took with the cancer,” the old man said. “It came at midnight, the Devil’s time. When she woke up the next morning, it had her in its clutches. And it never did let her go.”
“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“That says a lot about you, suh.”
“I don’t—”
“This little room I got,” the old man went on, as if Dett had never spoken, “it’d be a perfect place if a man wanted to keep something outside his own room. That is, if the man trusted old Moses enough to do it.”
“What time do you get off today?” Dett said.
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 10:06
* * *
“You know what the other cops call you? ‘The Great Sherman Layne.’ What do you think that means?” Procter said,
sardonically.
The calculated dimness of the bar was perfectly suited to morning drinkers. Even the mirror facing the two men was a murky pool of misinformation.
“It means you’ve got something on Chet Logan,” the detective said, the image of the jowly cop coming readily to mind. “Same as you got something on the chief. And probably half the people in this town.”
“You think it’s only Logan calls you that?”
“I’ve got no idea,” the big detective said, indifferently. “But he’s the one who caught the Nicky Perrini case, and with you nosing around the way you always do . . .”
“You think that’s a bad thing?”
“What?”
“To go nosing around.”
“It’s always a bad thing for somebody,” the detective said. “Sometimes, the guy who gets found out; sometimes, the guy who does the finding.”
“That sounds like a threat,” Procter said, tapping his glass on the counter for a refill.
“Good advice usually does,” Layne said, unruffled. “When I was in uniform, we’d get these radio runs to what they call a ‘domestic.’ Always means the same thing: somebody beating up on his wife. What you’re supposed to do, a case like that, is take the guy aside, talk to him like a Dutch uncle. That is, unless he went too far, and the woman’s nearly dead. Or just plain dead—that happens sometimes.”
Procter raised his freshly refilled beer glass and his eyebrows at the same time, asking the detective if he wanted another. Sherman Layne shook his head “no,” and went on with his story. “Now, what you tell a guy in a situation like that is, he keeps it up, he’s headed for trouble. See, there’s things in life the law just can’t allow to go on, because they always end up ugly. You keep beating on your wife, one day you’re going to hurt her so bad that you’re going to jail, even if she won’t press charges—and they never do, not that I can blame them—or kill her, which means the Graybar Hotel, for sure. And there’s other nasty possibilities, down that same road. Maybe your wife, she’s got a father with a short fuse and a long rifle. Or a brother who’s handy with a baseball bat. See what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway I remember one night, I’ve got this guy outside, and I’m telling him all this. But he doesn’t listen good. He takes it like I’m the one who’s going to come over there and hurt him if he keeps on doing like he was.”
“What happened?”
“Well, like I said, he was a bad listener. He was so damn sure that what I was telling him was a threat instead of good advice, he hauled off and took a swing at me.”
“Do I have to guess the rest?”
“I don’t think you do. You see what I’m saying, here?”
“Sure. You’re telling me about a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Those happen,” Layne affirmed. “And they’re never accidents.”
“I’m not interested in you,” Procter said, throwing back half of his beer in a single gulp.
“That’s funny,” Layne said.
“Because I’m sure as hell interested in you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you’re a real lone ranger, Jimmy. You don’t have friends, you’ve only got sources. And that’s the way you want it, I think. See, you’re an addict. Been one your whole life, I’m guessing. Only it’s not dope you need, it’s information. You don’t get your fix, you get . . . Well, we all know what a junkie will do for his dope.”
“You’ve got my job confused with my personality, Sherman. How would you like it if I said you needed to solve crimes?”
“I might not like it,” the big man said. “But that wouldn’t make it a lie.”
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 10:11
* * *
Back in his room, Dett checked the top drawer of the bureau, not surprised to find that the hair he had plastered across the opening with his own saliva had been disturbed. But the medicine chest in the bathroom was open the exact same half-inch he had left it, the sliver of toothpick holding it open still firmly in place. And the suitcase he had left behind had not been touched.
Nobody’s that good, he thought. But Moses wasn’t lying, either.
Dett drew the shades and the curtains, then lay down on the bed, fully dressed. He drifted off to Five o’clock! flashing behind his eyes like the VACANCY sign at the motel where he had spent the previous night.
* * *
1959 October 05 Monday 11:17
* * *
“You see that guy, over at the corner table?” the pudgy man behind the counter said.
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