by Thomas Perry
He walked out of the building and down the street, and then the night enveloped him.
31
Elizabeth Waring was in her office reading the reports of agents in the field. “The three victims have been identified as Richard Pellagria, age 37, Michael Gonno, age 29, known associates of the Balacontano crime family, and Daniel Scarpi, age 30, a member of the Scarpi crime family. At approximately 10:00 a.m. on July 30 Pellagria and Gonno appear to have been making collections at businesses in Queens, when they were ambushed in Monty’s One-Day Dry Cleaners. Scarpi, who is believed to have been one of the men at the ambush, was killed that evening in an apparent retaliation.” She looked away from her computer and rubbed her eyes.
The fighting between the Balacontano and the Scarpi families in New York was heating up. The two reigning bosses were now dead, as were an increasing number of the younger men. There were going to be a lot of funerals before the fighting stopped.
It occurred to Elizabeth that this morning she was doing exactly what she had been doing in the basement of this building the year she’d graduated from college. She had been trying to keep track of the men on the list of bosses, and in every moment when she wasn’t doing that, she was scanning the descriptions of deaths all over the country to find homicides that might have been the work of La Cosa Nostra members. She was still checking deaths, only now she did it in the corner office of the fourth floor.
The reports she evaluated were about the same—casualties of the squabbles between groups of greedy, violent men. Now the reports often included photographs or maps or diagrams, but other than technology, nothing much had changed. Crime bosses were usually older men. They were migratory, trying to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, but they seldom left their own territories for long periods at a time, because they needed to keep an eye on business. They often traveled with women, some with their wives, and others with girls young enough to be their granddaughters.
The man she had been most concerned about lately, the one who had turned up again after seven years away, was not mentioned in any of the reports. He was not a member of LCN and had no business with them anymore. She was almost certain that the week’s most notable activities had been his doing. He had every reason to want the Balacontano family weakened and without its acting boss and a few soldiers. Their main concern over the past couple of months had been finding and killing him. Now, at least for the moment, it wasn’t.
If Balacontano had a chance of being released on parole, it would be good for everyone in the world of crime if his family was weakened in advance. Maybe the Scarpi family had figured that out too and acted on it. But over the years of her long career, she had developed a sense of how things happened. One thing she was sure of was that the solitary killer who used to be called the Butcher’s Boy would not sit still and let somebody else solve his problem.
Her telephone rang, and she picked it up. “Waring.”
It was her assistant. “Your car is ready to take you to the airport, Ms. Waring.”
“Thanks.” She got up, grabbed her travel bag, and headed out the door. She would be in New York in less than an hour, and at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in another hour.
She thought about Balacontano’s parole hearing. Its exact time and place hadn’t been announced to the public. She would be flying up with Bill and John, making a three-person delegation from Organized Crime. Usually the hearing was simply a review of the prisoner’s post-conviction record, the details of his original crime, and listening to the statements of the victims of his crimes. That was a one-day job.
She met John and Bill at the airport in the waiting area for their departure gate. She could see they were anxious, standing a distance from the other travelers and whispering. She said, “Hello, gentlemen. What’s up?”
“A new development,” John said. “Andrew Wain Herren has submitted a request to provide additional evidence to the hearing officer. We were asked if we object, and the deputy assistant decided that we would not object. Herren swore that it came to his attention in the past twenty-four hours and that he believed that it had a bearing on the eventual decision.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Why does this sound like we just got forced into playing somebody else’s game?”
“I think that’s a good description of what’s going on. He’s been hinting for some time that he was going to try to get Bala’s conviction thrown out after he was paroled. I thought it was a bluff, because I couldn’t see how he could get a mob boss paroled or get a new trial for a man whose appeals are exhausted. I think we’re being played by Andrew Wain Herren.”
“Or somebody.”
“What?”
“All lawyers lie,” she said. “But all lies don’t come from lawyers.”
“I’ll ignore the insult for now. But what are you talking about?”
“For the moment, I believe that Herren wouldn’t manufacture evidence to set a man like Carl Bala free.”
“How do you get to that conclusion?” Bill asked.
“I’ve never believed that Carl Bala killed Arthur Fieldston and buried his body parts on his own farm. He had no reason to do the killing, let alone to have the head and hands brought across the country just so he could hide them in the most incriminating place. Since he’s innocent, there could easily be evidence of it that has come to Herren’s attention.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe somebody saw the real killer do it, or cut up the body, or move it, or bury it.”
“Why would they come forward now?”
“Who knows? Maybe a lab ran a DNA swab on something in the house where Fieldston was killed and it matches somebody. If Herren genuinely thinks it’s enough, he’s probably right.”
“You believe the truth will always find its way into the sunlight?” said Bill.
“No,” she said. “I’m not even naive enough to think that you and I will ever know what this new evidence is. This isn’t a trial—it’s barely an interview. It doesn’t have to stand up in court or be shared with anybody. All it has to do is sway the hearing officer and possibly one of his bosses on the Federal Parole Commission.”
Their flight left on time and landed at La Guardia ahead of schedule. The Justice Department in New York had an FBI man waiting to drive them to the Metropolitan prison, so they were in the hearing room twenty-five minutes ahead of schedule.
A few minutes later, the principal people came in. The hearing officer was a man named Donald O’Hara, a federal official who had been with the Bureau of Prisons for about as long as Elizabeth had been in Organized Crime. He had a thick briefcase she imagined must be full of files. Balacontano had been in prison for a long time and had been moved from prison to prison, prompting records to be added at each facility.
Then a court reporter came in and set up her transcription machine. There were a few other people whom Waring couldn’t identify. Maybe they were relatives of victims who planned to speak or merely observe. They could be federal officers who were, like her, professionally interested in the fate of this prisoner.
Hearing Officer O’Hara took out a pile of file folders, a yellow legal pad and pen, and a single folder with several typed sheets clipped to it. He looked down, as though rereading the sheets to prepare.
Elizabeth and the others watched and waited, and finally the inmate, Carlo Balacontano, was escorted into the room by two guards who looked like the ones Elizabeth had seen the night she had come to the prison. Ten steps behind him, she recognized the lawyer Andrew Wain Herren from photographs of him she had found online. He was a tall, handsome man who looked about sixty. He wore a perfectly tailored gray suit, a luminous white shirt, and a navy-blue tie with a subdued pattern of tiny squares. He had a thin folder that wouldn’t hold many sheets, and a tape recorder about five by eight inches in size. The machine was the only part of the scene that she had not expected, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it.
O’Hara called the room to order in a calm, quiet voice. As soon as it was silent, he identified himself, and the court stenographer began to type. He announced that this was the first parole hearing for federal inmate 95762, Carlo Antonio Balacontano, and rattled off a long case number that Elizabeth didn’t listen to. She was staring at the tape recorder that Herren had placed beside his left hand, away from Balacontano. What was that for? Why was it an audio recorder, and not a video ? Even if whatever it contained had been from 1982, there had been video cameras available for years. Depositions had been videotaped even then. Was it a copy of a telephone wiretap recording? But the FBI used a big reel-to-reel recorder, not a portable cassette.
The hearing began. O’Hara asked for the people who were relatives of Balacontano’s victim, Arthur Fieldston, to speak. Nobody spoke. He then went through his notes, summarizing Balacontano’s record. He had been convicted on July 5, 1982, sentenced immediately afterward, and had begun serving his sentence. He had not been charged with any crimes committed in prison, had not been disciplined for serious infractions, had a satisfactory work record, and had participated in educational and rehabilitative activities.
He asked Balacontano a few questions. Since he was over the normal retirement age, he could not be held to the requirement that he have gainful employment. But how did he plan to support himself?
Balacontano said, “I’ve been offered a consulting position with the Trans-Matic Supply Corporation. The corporation is located in my old neighborhood, and I worked there as a young man.”
Elizabeth Waring looked down at her hands in her lap. Balacontano had owned the company for about fifty years, and had carried his own name on the payroll in those days to give himself an excuse for having money.
The rest of the hearing went according to the usual procedures. One by one, O’Hara asked him about each of the requirements for parole. Did he have a stable address? Balacontano said that his attorney’s office had rented an apartment for him. Herren nodded and handed a sheet—presumably the receipt for a lease deposit—to the hearing officer.
After about an hour, O’Hara said, “I’ve reviewed all the records and read the submissions from Mr. Balacontano’s attorney and the Justice Department’s attorneys. All the information, as well as my recommendation, will be submitted to the parole commissioner tomorrow. This hearing is adjourned.”
Elizabeth was on her feet before O’Hara, Balacontano, or Herren. She walked from the seats to the table and intercepted Herren. “Hello, Mr. Herren,” she said. She showed him her identification. “I’m Elizabeth Waring from the Organized Crime Section of the Justice Department. I wonder if I could speak with you for a minute.”
He looked at her, appeared to be about to refuse and walk away from her, but then seemed to be swayed by her identification and by the fact that her size, sex, and age made her unthreatening. “It’s kind of irregular. You could reach me at my office,” he looked at his watch. “But I’ve got a minute now.”
O’Hara and the small crowd in the room had gone out one door, and Balacontano and his guards out the other, so they were alone.
Elizabeth said, “I couldn’t help noticing your tape recorder. It wasn’t turning during the hearing, so you weren’t recording. You didn’t use it to play a tape during the hearing. You played it for the hearing officer before you came in, didn’t you?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“I don’t need to hear any of the words. I just need to hear the voice for two or three seconds to be sure.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Elizabeth said, “When he was young, they used to call him the Butcher’s Boy. He is the most dangerous professional killer I ever saw, and I’ve been in the Organized Crime Section for over thirty years. Just let me hear the voice, and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“If he made that tape to help you get Balacontano paroled, he plans to kill him. If you’ve seen his face, he may kill you too.”
Herren stared at her for a moment. “Thank you for the warning.” He turned and walked out the exit where his client had been taken.
Elizabeth took out her phone and called her colleague John. “It’s Elizabeth. I’m positive he’s getting out. We’ve got to be sure that we’ve got agents sitting in cars with their motors running before he steps out the door. Call the warden and ask for advance warning of his release. Call the New York FBI office to say we’ll need him under surveillance. We need to have things set before we leave the city today.”
John said, “Why the red alert?”
“If we don’t protect him, he’ll be dead.”
“He’s got hundreds of people to keep anybody from getting near him. He’s safer than we are.”
“Just do it,” she said. “When we’re home, we’ll see if we can get WITSEC involved. Maybe Bala can be relocated and given a new identity.”
“Balacontano isn’t a witness.”
“If we keep him alive, he might be.”
Twenty-one days later, the Notice of Action for the parole hearing in the case of Carlo Balacontano was issued to the inmate. The time it took was about average, and the other concerned parties received the same information. Carlo Balacontano was granted parole. FBI agents were assigned to observe his release and to begin surveillance.
32
Michael Schaeffer drove his car up Route 9, the highway overlooking the Hudson River. Once he had passed the first few miles, the land leveled out, and dozens of small towns were laid out on flats that looked only inches above the wide, slow river. He passed places that seemed to have come from his childhood—parks with old bandstands, grassy expanses with wooden picnic tables and boat launches, baseball diamonds of Little League dimensions, and one full-size field near a high school.
The life he and Eddie the Butcher had lived in Pittsburgh didn’t include much time for those things, but their secret work did. They drove through hundreds of little towns just like these, often staying at rustic motels.
Eddie liked these places. He said it was because he could watch everything that needed to be watched, and that was true. He liked the baseball fields, and what he called “real hardware stores,” where the tools and equipment were up to a workman’s standards. He even liked the old churches. He liked eating in diners with booths and counters and big front windows.
Anybody could see he was glad to be there, so in spite of his size and the fact that his muscles were from heavy work instead of playing games, people glanced at him and felt comfortable. Eddie and the boy traveled through those towns, not past them, from Maine to Oregon, and Canada to Texas. As far as the boy knew, they never left a trail behind them, because little towns on big highways saw plenty of travelers, and he and Eddie were by no means the ones who stood out the most.
After he grew up and lost Eddie, he occasionally traveled that way, but it was mostly because he missed Eddie. A lot of the little towns had become suburbs and bedroom communities of bigger places. Other little towns simply died of weathering and obsolescence because the local economy didn’t work anymore. After that, when something—a business, a building, a road—broke down, there was no practical reason to put more money into it. Eventually the size and anonymity of large chain hotels just outside the biggest cities kept him safer.
Once Schaeffer left the United States, he never missed it consciously while he was in England, only when he was back in the country. He would have stayed away forever except for the fact that those men from the United States who were visiting England had, in spite of his efforts to stay out of sight, recognized him and known that his death was worth a great deal of money. This trip back was his third; he had managed to make it back to England after his first two, and was hoping to do so one more time.
Driving along the east side of the river toward the north, he realized that Eddie was what he was missing. Eddie
was what he’d had instead of a family. Those road trips they’d taken to murder someone were what he’d had instead of family vacations. This part of the world, the Northeast and the Midwest as far as Detroit, reminded him of his teenage years. After that, Eddie was dead and he was alone, and he had traveled where he needed to, gotten paid for many deaths, and had become rich. Even before his troubles hit, he had begun to think about where he could go if everything went wrong and he had to leave the country. The choices were limited because the only language he spoke was English, aside from a smattering of southern Italian slang and expletives. He had flown to England and taken a train to Bath because he’d seen pictures of it in a brochure.
This trip was different. He knew for certain that the one who had been sending killers out to get rid of him wasn’t some enemy of Balacontano’s who thought the Butcher’s Boy was good bait to trap Balacontano, or an underling who wanted to impress Balacontano and become his heir apparent. It was Balacontano himself who didn’t want him to do something to jeopardize his parole. And he knew that once Balacontano was out, he wouldn’t stay at some apartment in New York City being watched by the FBI until he died.
Just outside Albany, Route 9 crossed the Hudson River, and he switched to Route 4, which took him into Saratoga Springs. The town was exactly as Schaeffer had remembered it—old brick buildings with carved wood flourishes at the eaves, a few green parks and ponds, and wooden Victorians along the major streets. He drove through town, stopping at only two traffic signals and using the time to study the place until the light turned green again.
And then he was out in the countryside, among the vast horse farms with their white fences and broad green fields. Each had a fancy gate with a name on it that opened onto a straight farm road, most of them wide enough for two trucks to pass. The roads led up to the highest spot on the property, where the house stood, and went on past it to the barns and stables. They all had lush pastures and dirt-covered paddocks for exercise and training.