Sitting there beside Troy, he had to admit the threat to his own life had never been greater than now. But was he only getting what he deserved? And what, if anything, could he do about it?
5
When Locasio and his three companions arrived at the drugstore parking lot, they found Boots’ abandoned rental car but no sign of the tour bus beside the church. No doubt it was on the road to Natchez, Locasio concluded. Which was no cause for concern. He was confident they could catch up with the bus in Mississippi. The condition of his capo was something else. At a trim and virile twenty-nine, Locasio had difficulty relating to obesity and heart problems, but he knew Boots had been courting disaster for some time. The man had become so obsessed with finding Pagano that he had let everything else, including his health, go to hell.
As he slid behind the wheel, he saw Boots’ cellular phone and binoculars, and the odd-looking case beside them. Familiar with his boss’s habits, he reached beneath the seat and retrieved a 9mm Bernardelli semiautomatic, which he slipped into his pocket. Thank God it wasn’t on Boots when the paramedics arrived, or it would have brought in the cops.
Locasio pulled a cigarette pack from his jacket, tapped one out, stuck it between his lips and lit it with a flick of his lighter. He drew the smoke into his lungs and relaxed. He’d had to curtail his smoking habit around Boots lately. Just a hint of cigarette smoke would propel Boots into paroxysms of coughing, triggering a return of that ungodly chest pain.
Using the telephone, Locasio called to find out where they had taken Boots, then punched in the hospital number. The report was not good. Mr. Samuel Minelli of New York City was listed in critical condition. The doctor was not available.
“I can’t give out any other information,” the nurse said. “But I would advise you to get his family down here right away.”
Boots’ wife was dead. There were some nephews, but Locasio was about as close to family as anybody. Locasio had been selling dope in high school when he first attracted Boots’ attention. The boy had passed along word that he was looking for more interesting action than peddling dime bags to pock-faced, snotty-nosed teenagers. His parents had divorced when he was fifteen and neither showed any inclination to take on the task of trying to rehabilitate an incorrigible teenager. Boots pulled him off the streets and treated him almost like a son. Almost. But there was never any real parental bonding. It was more of a teacher-student relationship. Locasio drew praise when he did a slick job of passing counterfeit bills or fencing stolen goods.
Locasio was twenty when he underwent the ceremonial spilling of blood and swearing of allegiance to the mob. He had been a faithful soldier ever since. Now he knew what he had to do.
Locasio clicked off the phone and turned to the others. “Boots is in damned bad shape. Let’s get back to the motel. I’ve got a call to make.”
The morning fog, which seemed more of a misty haze, had begun a gradual retreat, opening the way for what would likely be a pleasant, sunny day in Nashville. As Locasio drove Boots’ rented car along Briley Parkway past the Opryland Hotel complex and the sprawling Opry Mills Mall, he speculated the place probably drew its share of good-looking chicks in need of companionship. Regretfully, he put the thought aside. Much more weighty matters required his attention. With his captain fallen, Locasio felt he was the logical choice to take over as leader of the operation. There was no time to delay while the family sent in some more seasoned executioner from New York. Anyway, knocking off an old guy in his seventies couldn’t be all that much of a problem.
Back at the motel, he placed his call and got the current consigliere on the line. He explained what had happened to Boots and that he knew where to find the traitor, Pat Pagano. Locasio related his story cryptically, aware there was a good chance the FBI was listening in.
“Hold on,” said the consigliere. “I think you'd better talk to The Boss.”
A few moments later, a voice came on he recognized instantly. It was the slow, measured but forceful tones of the old Don himself, Tony Vicario. “Your mentor has expressed great confidence in you,” he said. “Can you do what is required?”
Locasio’s chest swelled with pride. It was like being tapped by the sword of a sovereign. “Yes, sir. I can.”
“Good. Leave someone there to look after our friend. Take the others and resolve the problem.”
Locasio hung up the phone and turned to his colleagues, a look of satisfaction on his face. The baton had been passed. He was now in charge. Locasio’s voice took on a commanding tone as he turned to his troops.
“The Boss has given our marching orders. Marco, you are to stay with Boots. You can keep the rental car. Give the word if there’s any change in his condition. Joe and Ferrante will come with me.” He gave them a diabolical grin. “We’re going to pop old Pagano and send him to join his ancestors in hell.”
6
The first hint this might turn out to be something other than the typically smooth-sailing Silver Shadows outing came at mid-morning in the vicinity of the Tennessee-Alabama state line when the bus began to labor on hills. Up to that point it had been a page torn from a travel brochure, with the historic Natchez Trace unfolding before them like a serpentine ribbon of asphalt, played out beneath a backdrop of azure blue punctuated by a few fluffy white accent marks. Occasionally, Tillie pointed out significant spots along the scenic two-lane parkway, which wended its way southwest from Nashville following the trail first trod by animals, then by tribes such as the Choctaw and Chickasaw, finally by white settlers in the late eighteenth century.
“Most of the travel was one way back then, headed the opposite direction from us,” Tillie said. “Some of you may have heard the story of how it was used. People floated their crops and products down the Mississippi to sell them at Natchez or New Orleans. Rather than try to fight the river current back upstream, they would dismantle their boats and sell the wood, then head north on the Trace by foot or by horseback.”
“If this bus breaks down, we may have to do the same thing,” Fred said from his seat a few rows back.
After the laughter subsided, Tillie leaned toward the driver, then spoke into the mike. “Chick assures me his bus will not break down. But if it should, we’ll make Fred get out and push.”
The prospect of Lovely Lane’s chief usher nudging his shoulder against the rear of the bus appeared a real possibility when the vehicle began to have difficulty climbing the modest hills. Since the time had come for a pit stop anyway, Chick pulled off the parkway at a small wooded area with back-to-back rustic restrooms.
Bryce joined Fred at the rear of the bus where Chick had the engine compartment open, probing around.
“What’s the problem?” Fred asked. “I was starting to worry that Tillie might really want me to get out and push.”
Townes scratched his head thoughtfully. “We started losing power a few miles back. I’m not a diesel mechanic, but I know a little about these monsters.”
He had left the engine idling and reached in to tug on the throttle cable. As the engine revved up, a burst of black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe.
The driver looked around, a frown on his dusky face. “Not good.”
“Too rich a mixture?” Fred cocked his head to one side.
“Would be in a gasoline engine, but not a diesel. Usually means low compression or a problem in the injection system.”
“What can you do about it?” Bryce asked.
“Nothing till we get to Tupelo. I just hope there’s not too many hills between here and there.”
Tillie charged up, brows pinched toward her nose. “What’s the trouble?”
Chick gave her the bad news.
“I wondered why you seemed to be slowing down so. Is this going to delay us much?”
Chick shook his head. “I hope not. I’ll get it looked at while you folks are eating lunch. Maybe we can make up some time this afternoon.”
Though clearly not pleased with the situation, Tillie took a deep breath
and spoke with finality. “We need to be in Natchez by suppertime.”
She devoutly hoped this was not an omen of worse things to come. When she had herded everyone back on board, she switched on the microphone. “We’re having a little problem with the bus,” she said. “Chick says it’s losing power. Makes it tough getting up hills. He doesn’t think there’s any danger of a real breakdown, but he plans to get it checked out in Tupelo. That’s where we’ll be stopping for lunch.”
Though she had tried to downplay the potential for further problems, she recalled that newspaper story about the hurricane and couldn’t help wondering if this trip had somehow acquired a jinx that might dog them the rest of the way.
When Bryce explained the problem, Troy took the news with a disgruntled frown.
“That’s annoying,” he said.
“Chick’s taking the bus to a garage in Tupelo. We’ll have to wait and see what they say about it.” It was more than just an annoyance to Bryce. His concern was the slowdown in their progress, which would give anyone in pursuit a better opportunity to catch up.
The peaceful view of cleared fields and still-green forests that spread out beyond the bus windows made the situation a bit more palatable for Troy, however. After gazing out the window dreamily, he turned to Bryce.
“Reminds me of when I was growing up. I’m an old farm boy. Raised on a fifty-acre plot in Sumner County. You ever live in the country?”
Before the trip, Bryce had considered how to handle questions about his background. He wasn’t sure how his usual policy of vagueness would play in this crowd. Making the choice even more difficult was the fact he genuinely enjoyed Troy’s friendship.
“Afraid not,” Bryce said. “I was a city boy.”
He didn’t elaborate, but the place where he grew up was nothing at all like this. And the name he was born with, Pat Pagano, was equally foreign to the one he used now. The son of a brash, hustling, black-haired Italian father and a shy, compassionate, red-headed Irish mother, he was raised in the desert country of southeast Nevada. Vince Pagano, his father, worked on the giant Boulder Dam project in the early thirties. When the dam was completed, he moved his family to Las Vegas, where he landed a job as a dealer in a small casino. That remained home for Bryce until his fateful move to New York.
He looked back at Troy. “Why did you decide to give up the rural lifestyle?”
“I still get a hankering sometimes for the peace and quiet, but I deserted the farm as soon as I got out of college. Didn’t want to have anymore to do with smelly old cows and labor-intensive crops like tobacco. Got a job selling insurance and just kept at it till I retired.”
“What kind of insurance?”
“Life and health. Course, in later years it got more sophisticated. I added a lot of initials after my name. You know, CLU, ChFC, called myself a Financial Services Consultant.”
Bryce shifted in his seat. “What did you do then?”
“Still sold life and health insurance, but concentrated more on business people than common folks. Handled a lot of buy-sell agreements, retirement plans, investments, things like that.”
“Stocks and bonds?”
“Yeah, some. I never got into that end of it too big, though. If a client wanted securities, I’d recommend something. Didn’t like to sell anything I wouldn’t buy myself.”
Now that he was almost reconciled to the fact that his cover had been blown, Bryce found himself caught in the limbo of uncertainty over how far to go. Did he really need to continue all this shadowboxing with reality?
“I used to be involved in investment counseling myself,” he said, letting his guard down.
“One of the big brokerage firms?”
“No, I worked for a relatively small company for several years, then handled investments for a corporation.”
As they sat quietly watching the pastoral scene pass beyond the window, Bryce recalled the accidental meeting that put him in the brokerage business.
After the war, he earned a degree in accounting, then signed on with a Las Vegas firm that counted casinos among its clients, including one his father managed. During a pre-wedding party at his father’s place one night, an accountant friend introduced him to the maid of honor-to-be. A petite, smiling girl named Ellen Davidson, she had long blonde hair and a face he could only describe as angelic. Overall, the effect was so stunning he felt he would melt right there in his shoes. She proved such a distraction that when he tried to set his empty wine glass on a small busing table, he missed and dropped it to the floor where it shattered.
“Sorry,” he said, red-faced. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”
She put one hand to her mouth and whispered, a twinkle in her large blue eyes. “Hopefully the manager didn’t hear it.”
“If he did, he’ll make me clean it up.”
“You’re kidding. They wouldn’t do that to a guest.”
“Not most guests. But the manager happens to be my dad.”
She flashed that heart-stopping smile again. “Of course. Mr. Pagano. He’s a friend of my father’s.”
“Really? In that case, I’m going to be mad at him.”
“Why?”
A waiter came by with a tray of wine glasses and Pat stopped him, turning to Ellen. “Red or white?”
“White,” she said. “But why would you be mad at your father?”
He handed her the glass as he gazed into those stunning eyes. “He should have introduced me to you a long time ago.”
He learned she worked as a secretary in her father’s securities brokerage firm and was the same age as he. They were soon dating regularly, and the following year they married. When Mr. Davidson offered him a job as a stockbroker, he took it.
Troy brought him back to the present with a smile that gave Bryce a sinking feeling. A feeling that he might have said too much.
7
The blue Cadillac sped down the sun-drenched highway. A short, wiry man with a sharp nose sat behind the wheel, a watchful look on his face. His real name was Joseph Capparella, but he had been known as Joe Blow since the day he had almost destroyed his high school chemistry lab during an unauthorized experiment with a few unstable compounds. Explosives fascinated him. Independence Day fireworks displays were always the high point of his year.
“We haven’t seen any sign of that bus,” Joe said, wary eyes scouting the road ahead.
Sprawled on the back seat, Locasio waved his hand dismissively. “It’ll take a while to catch up. No problem, long as you don’t get us busted for speeding.”
“Hey,” Joe said, “you told me–”
“He’s jerking your leg, dumbass,” said Ziggy Ferrante from the front passenger seat.
Joe gave him an icy look. Solidly built, Ferrante had an odd, high-pitched voice that did not seem to match his body, plus the blank stare of a boxer who had lingered too long in the ring. He had been a pretty decent fighter at one time but joined the mob after running afoul of the law for throwing a couple of fights.
“As long as this thing works, we’re copacetic.” Joe patted the small radar detector mounted on the dash.
The speed limit on the Trace was 45 m.p.h., but Joe kept the speedometer around sixty.
Ziggy turned to the rear seat passenger. “Exactly what did Boots tell you about this bus?”
Locasio lit another cigarette and took a long drag before replying. “It’s a Nova Tours bus. Red and white. Should have Tennessee plates.”
Joe was still troubled. “How you gonna know which geezer is Pagano?”
“We keep our eyes open. We check out everybody on the bus.”
Ziggy looked skeptical. “Maybe we ask them for a list of everybody, huh? What if he ain’t using his right name?”
Locasio flicked a long ash into the tray at his side. “I thought of that. He probably isn’t. And Boots didn’t give me his alias. I’ll have to come up with a plan. But we’ll get the bastard if we have to take out every guy on that bus, one at a time.”
&nbs
p; Joe considered that for a moment. With his talents, he could take them all out with a single blow. He saw the problem, though. Squeezing the steering wheel, he frowned. “Did Boots show you a picture of him?”
“No. Did he show you one?”
“Boots didn’t tell me shit. You know how he gets sometimes.”
“I know.” Locasio stared at the glowing tip of the cigarette between his fingers. “He said he’d tell us everything when he got damned good and ready. I’m sure he wanted to put a bullet between Pagano’s eyes before he told us.”
Joe persisted. “Didn’t he give you any hints?”
“Basically, I remember him saying Pagano was average size, a little hefty last time he saw him.”
Ziggy scowled. “Great! That covers about half the population.”
“One other thing. He has a scar on the calf of his right leg, from a shrapnel wound during the war.”
“Maybe they’ll have a swimming pool at the motel,” Joe said. He started to smile.
“That don’t make no sense, Joe,” said Ziggy. “People don’t go swimming in the middle of October.”
“They do down here, man. This is the South. People act different from the way we do in New York.”
Locasio shook his head. “You two are gonna drive me batty. Shut up and let me think this thing out.”
Joe had his own ideas about the sort of things that could be done. When the Vietnam draft caught him just out of school, he had volunteered for an explosive ordinance disposal team. He thought he had landed in heaven. The Army taught him everything he had always wanted to know about explosive devices of every sort, from grenades to bombs to mines. His job was to dismantle them or explode them under controlled conditions. But in order to take them apart, he first had to learn how to put them together. That talent assured him of employment when he returned to New York after his Army hitch.
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