“Go wrap up your business,” Tink said. “Anything you can wind up today, go do it. Everything else, you drop. Go get your piece, if you got one, then meet up with your crew.” He tilted his head toward Benedict, who was over talking to the Slob. “We start hittin’ ’em tonight. After that, you don’t go home. You don’t visit your folks or go to the restaurants you like, or nothin’. You don’t go anywhere alone. Not till we’re done. Got it?”
“Where am I supposed to stay?”
“How the fuck should I know? Go ask Bennie.” Bennie. The made guys got away with calling Benedict that. I figured he’d turn me inside out if I said it even once.
I waited as the place emptied out, staying a respectful distance away from Benedict and Joey. Lazzaro stood nearby, bouncing on his toes. He was ready to gut a Russian or two right then, from the look of him. I’d never seen him so happy. It creeped me right the fuck out, and I thought of the night he’d shot those truck drivers for no good reason.
Benedict finished up with the Slob after about forever and walked over to me and Lazzaro. His expression was closer to the Tink end of the spectrum, though I saw that old ugliness twisting behind his eyes, and there was a note of dark glee to it now.
“You ready for this?” he asked me.
I wasn’t so sure, but with Lazzaro and Joey staring at me, there was nothing to do but nod.
“You did good last night,” Benedict said, surprising me. “You’ll do all right with this, too.” I’d hoped my uncertainty wasn’t so obvious, but his words were reassuring regardless.
“So what now?”
“Go take care of anything that needs taking care of. Then meet us at my place at eight.”
Chapter 10. Opening Salvo
When they finally gave me a gun, they did not fuck around. I huddled in the shadow of a doorway in a derelict warehouse, breathing in the stink of Boston Harbor and cradling an AK-fucking-47 in my arms. Lazzaro had handed me the damn thing, that crazy gleam leaping in his eyes. “Russian gun,” he said, giggling. “How’s that for irony?”
It was a big, clunky gun, and stupidly conspicuous. I didn’t know if they actually thought I needed this kind of firepower or if they were fucking with me, but if it was the former, we were in some serious shit indeed.
I tried to keep my mind off that and watch the gate where the trucks left the harbor terminal. According to Benedict’s sources, a certain boat had come in earlier that day, and the Russians would be leaving later with a shipping container full of guns. The last thing we wanted was the Russians to have a shitload more guns, and we could use them besides, so this would be the opening salvo of our war. Elsewhere, some guys were busting up Chebyshev’s places of business while me, Benedict, Lazzaro, and a dozen other guys camped out here waiting to steal his guns.
It was dark, but the terminal area was well lit. We’d be able to see the truck pull out long before they saw us. I’d call Benedict at the forward end of the trap, and the guys would block the road. Me and the other guys would close in from behind, and that would be it. Nothing fancy, just like me and Lazzaro taking the organ truck back when. Why mess with what works?
The truck pulled out right on schedule, and I dialed Benedict.
Then the truck stopped, blocking the terminal exit. That probably didn’t matter as far as blocking traffic—the terminal was closed anyway, and only a healthy amount of palm-greasing had gotten the Russians in and out—but it was damn strange. That big old Peterbilt sat there, rumbling, exhaust pouring skyward in white plumes.
“Ready?” Benedict’s voice was thin through the little phone speaker.
“Uh, hold on a sec,” I said. “They just stopped.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re just sitting there, waiting.”
The driver rolled down his window and flicked a cigarette butt out the window. His passenger, barely visible through the glare on the windshield, held out a pack, and the driver took one and lit up.
“What should I do?” I asked.
A pause. “Shit.” Another pause. “Get out of there, Jimmy. Get down, and tell the others to do the same.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
He hung up. I waved to Lazzaro across the way—go on, get outta here—and ducked back into the building. One of Benedict’s heavies, a guy everybody called Stiff, followed me in.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I said, but the sound of engines clued me in pretty quick. I looked out the door as a whole fucking motorcade trundled by. Six cars in all, black Caddies, windows tinted and chassis low to the ground.
“Escort,” I said. Four guys in a car, maybe six, and I guessed the cars were armored. We might be able to take them, but probably not. “Looks like they’re not taking any chances.”
“No shit.”
I called Benedict back. “We gonna do it?” I asked.
“Shit, no. See you back at my place.”
I called Lazzaro and filled him in. Stiff and I waited until the cars rolled past again, three in front of the tractor-trailer, three behind, tires crunching on ice and gravel.
“What a fuckin’ waste,” Stiff grumbled.
I nodded, but a plan was already coalescing in my head. Only trouble was, I’d have to know where the truck was going. “Think we can follow them?” I asked.
Stiff hawked up something horrible and spat it on the ground. “You mean without them noticing? Doubt it. Good way to get clipped.”
“Yeah. I figured.” I was about to give up on that whole line of thought, when something occurred to me: Hey, stupid. You can do magic. Yeah, and Benedict had taught me a thing or two that might come in handy right now, if I was clever enough.
I propped my AK in the corner, left the warehouse, and walked toward the terminal, squinting at the bright lights as I approached. What had Benedict told me? Blood was best, then hair. Fingernail clippings were about as good as hair.
I knelt and picked up the cigarette butt the truck driver had tossed out the window.
I wonder how good spit is.
“Come on,” Stiff said. “Let’s get outta here.”
“Got a piece of string?”
“What?”
“String. I need maybe a foot or so.”
He gave me one of those you’re-talking-crazy looks. “No, I ain’t got any fuckin’ string. Can we go?”
I glanced at the guardhouse, where somebody was starting to get interested in us. “Yeah.”
We went back, picked up our guns, and then went to my car, stashed behind the warehouse. Lazzaro’s car had been there, too, but it looked like he was long gone. I unlocked the car. Stiff got in out of the wind, and I tossed my assault rifle in the trunk.
I produced the cigarette butt from my pocket, then picked a thread out of the cuff of my shirt and tied it around the little paper cylinder. That was a pretty good start, I thought, but not quite enough yet.
I tapped on Stiff’s window. “Hey, gimme the pen from the glove box, wouldja?” Stiff handed me a cheap blue Bic, and I scrawled a couple of glyphs on the cigarette, top and bottom, left side and right. When I felt gooseflesh prickle the hairs on the back of my neck, I knew I was on the right track. A simple incantation, modified on the fly to account for spit instead of blood, and I was all set.
I got in the car, holding the dangling cigarette butt by the thin thread from my shirt.
“What the hell are you doing, Jimmy?” Stiff asked me.
“Watch and learn.” I tied the end of the thread around my rearview mirror. The cigarette rotated, hesitantly at first, but then it stopped like a couple of invisible fingers were holding it.
Stiff looked at it uneasily.
“That way,” I said, stabbing a finger in the direction the burned end of the cigarette pointed.
“You’re nuts,” he said.
I started the car.
* * *
The cigarette didn’t lead us astray. It barely moved, except wh
en we had to turn, thereby changing the direction of its target. Then it would spin, stopping abruptly when it found the right orientation again. Stiff watched the thing, mesmerized, as we rode through town. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with myself. I wondered what Benedict would think when I showed it to him.
As if the thought had conjured him—hell, for all I knew, it had—my phone vibrated. Had to be Benedict, wondering where Stiff and I were. I thought about answering, but he’d want an explanation, and there was a good chance he’d just order me back to his apartment. Better to pretend I missed the call.
I drove right past the place, watching the cigarette rotate, the crumpled ash end of it fixed on a two-story building of whitewashed cinder blocks. Several big overhead doors took up most of the front of the building, and one of the black Cadillacs was parked out front. I had to elbow Stiff to keep him from gawking.
Benedict was fuming by the time I made it back to the apartment.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked. “Everybody else has been here for over an hour!”
“Me and Stiff got a line on where they’re taking the guns.”
“You followed them?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Not so they could see, anyway.” I held up the little divining charm I’d made.
Benedict took it by the little thread and studied it, his face impassive. Then he curled it into his fist. “So, where are they?”
I gave him the address. “But I don’t think we can move on it,” I said. “Cops have already got it staked out.”
I saw Stiff’s head jerk and puzzlement cross his features. “I didn’t see no cops,” he said.
“That’s cuz you were busy checking out the Caddy and making sure the Russians knew we were looking, asshole.”
He flushed, unfortunately more with anger than embarrassment. “Hey, I didn’t—”
“What color was the car? On the other side of the street?”
“Huh?”
“The car, numbnuts. What color? I mean, you were paying such close attention, you should know what color the car was.”
He looked away. “I gotta take a piss,” he muttered, and he walked off.
Benedict gave me a humorless smile, I guess to congratulate me on learning how to handle wiseguys. He inclined his head toward the library and started walking. I followed. He slid the heavy doors closed, cutting us off from the rest of the guys, and then he opened his hand. The cigarette lay slightly bent in his palm.
“You wanna tell me what you really did?” Benedict asked.
For a second I thought he’d seen through the line about cops, but I couldn’t quite match that up with the question he’d asked. “Uh, what do you mean?”
“There’s no blood here. No hair. No nothing. You tell me you followed somebody with this, but there’s nothing here.”
“Spit,” I said. “You know.”
“Bullshit. That won’t work,” he said, though I thought I saw a crack in his confidence. Besides, I’d made it work. I knew better.
I took the thing from his hand and held it up by the string. No matter which way I tried to turn it, even flicking it with my finger a couple of times, it always came back to the same orientation.
Benedict watched, and I watched his face. A deep line had formed where his brows knotted together. “That can’t be right,” he said. “Spit would have dried up by now.”
I shrugged. “Dried blood works though, right? Same thing.”
He looked at the cigarette and shook his head ever so slightly. A sudden realization slammed up against the inside of my skull. Benedict wasn’t very good at this. He knew a ton of stuff, and he had vastly more experience than me, but the improvisation that came naturally to me was completely beyond him. If he hadn’t read it somewhere, he didn’t know how to do it.
Still shaking his head, Benedict smiled at me. “Nice job,” he said. Then he went to get himself a drink.
* * *
I stepped into the bathroom at some time after four in the morning, shut the door behind me, and got my phone out.
“Hello?” Kit’s voice, groggy, in that half-space between annoyed and alarmed.
“Kit, thank God.” I whispered, trying to keep my voice low. I didn’t think anybody else was awake, but I didn’t need them thinking I talked to myself on the can, either. Or worse.
“Who is this?”
“Jimmy. It’s Jimmy. Pecatti,” I added stupidly.
“Are you dying?”
“No.”
“Is somebody else dying?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then why on earth are you calling me at four o’clock in the morning?”
She was getting kind of loud, so I turned the phone down a bit. “Guns,” I said. “Lots of ’em. Old Man Chebyshev brought in a whole truckload, and they’re probably going to be on the street real soon if somebody doesn’t stop him.”
I could almost hear her wheels turning over the phone. “Where?”
I gave her the address. “They’re gonna move any day. I’d be surprised if the guns are still there in a day or two.”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Jimmy,” she said.
“Does it matter, if it keeps the guns off the street?”
“No. I guess not.”
She hung up.
Chapter 11. Close Encounter
You know what magic’s really handy for? Starting your car. If there’s even a small chance that somebody has taken it upon themselves to pack a few pounds of plastique into your engine compartment and wire it to the starter—as a childish prank, you know—the last thing you wanna do is get in your car and fire it up the old-fashioned way. Normally, I wouldn’t even have worried about it, because the East Coast Mafia guys didn’t actually go for bombs so much. If you were gonna get clipped, it would be two .22 slugs behind the ear, delivered by somebody you’d been friends with for years. Bombs—no way. They’re not always reliable, and you’re never quite sure who’s gonna get killed that way. In some of the neighborhoods, everybody was related to everybody, seemed like, and you never wanted to run the risk of a piece of shrapnel clipping some connected guy’s great-aunt or something like that.
In the regular run of things, I wouldn’t have worried about it. I’d have gone out and started my car like normal. But we were at war now, and Old Man Chebyshev’s goons were notoriously cavalier about collateral damage. A handful of our guys actually had remote starters on their cars for just such an occasion, but I hadn’t planned that far in advance. So, when we were getting ready to leave that afternoon, I used a simple trick to start the engine from a few hundred feet away. I figured I’d best get in the habit, at least for a little while.
The car did me a favor and didn’t blow up, and me, Benedict, Lazzaro, and one of Benedict’s meatheads headed off to the club. This was probably the last time we’d go for a while. The thing with the guns hadn’t gone well for us, but that was only one thing out of fifteen we had going last night, and the Russians would have figured out by now that we’d declared war. The club wouldn’t be safe for much longer. One last visit to pick up some news and marching orders, and then we’d stay away, maybe until this was over.
When we arrived, Joey the Slob was holding court at one of the card tables, as usual. The club was pretty dead, but I supposed people would be trickling in and out all day. The Slob was talking to somebody at the table, a broad-shouldered guy I didn’t recognize from the back. He looked out of place, though, and I didn’t like the feel of that. We’d just gone to war, for Chrissakes. It didn’t seem like the time to be bringing outsiders to the club.
Benedict approached the table, and me and Lazzaro sidled off to our customary place by the bar, close enough to hear what was going on, but not close enough to be obvious or in the way.
I looked sidelong at the new guy, and my whole day went to shit when that goddamn mustache swung into view.
It was Eddie Donnelly, Kit’s partner.
“Let’s keep this
quick, Joey,” he was saying. “I shouldn’t even be here.”
I cast a quizzical glance at Lazzaro, who shrugged. He didn’t know any more about this than I did, and he probably didn’t care. I couldn’t afford to be quite so indifferent. My hands were already working up a good sweat, in fact. What was Donnelly doing here? It occurred to me that, if Kit’s discretion wasn’t one hundred percent around her partner, I could be in a world of hurt here. Donnelly might just be a tame cop, coming to check in now that things were heating up, or he could be here to rat me out to Joey and everybody else. There was no reason he couldn’t be both, actually.
The Slob said a few things I couldn’t quite catch. He wasn’t worked up at all, but I didn’t know him well enough to know whether that was a good thing or if he usually kept his cool, even when somebody was about to get gutted.
“That’s everything?” Donnelly said.
“It’s enough,” the Slob said. He had on a yellow shirt the size of a bedsheet today, and with his froglike face and extra chins, I swear he looked just like Jabba the Hutt. He even had the little stubby arms, one of which he waved at Donnelly in a gesture of dismissal. “You just spread the word and make sure nobody comes around any of those places tonight. Wouldn’t want any trouble.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
The Slob grunted and pushed a fat envelope across the table. Donnelly got up to leave, pocketing the envelope so smoothly I was barely sure it had been there.
“Hey, one other thing,” the Slob said. Donnelly stopped like somebody’d grabbed him.
“Yeah?”
“Who’s watching the guns? You guys gonna move in or what?”
Confusion on Donnelly’s face. “Huh?”
“The guns. The Russians got a whole mess of guns, and I hear Boston PD is watching ’em. You know if they’re gonna move, or what?”
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