generation.'
'This isn't about losing a boss. It's about honor, losing face. You killed a lot of people and nobody made you suffer for it, and everybody knows it. So the feeling gets worse, because of the shame.'
'So that's what Tosca is talking to the old men about?'
'He's asking them to make you their problem. He's reminding them of what happened years ago. You didn't just duck the ambush and get out of the country. You lashed out in all directions. Some of the old men had relatives you killed. They have wives and aunts reminding them once a week that they haven't got you yet.' Cavalli grinned. 'He's going to raise the whole country against you, and they'll hunt you until you're dead.'
'Is he going to them one at a time, or did he ask for a meeting?'
Cavalli shrugged. 'I can see why you would want to know. But that's not the way this will play out. You're not going to win this time.'
'How do you know?'
'You've taken on too much importance for that. You're a symbol, like the Thanksgiving turkey. Whether you like it or not, this is going to be a celebration, and you're the guest of honor. Frank Tosca is the first young, strong, smart leader the families have produced in years. He's like all our grandfathers-crazy-ambitious, strong, tough. He's acting just like them. If he can get the Balacontano family under his control, the rest will start to turn to him too. There are people who have been waiting for this for a long, long time. It'll be like turning the calendar back, so La Cosa Nostra is young again. Everybody wants that. But first, he needs you dead.'
Schaeffer looked at him in silence.
'Carl Bala isn't the only one who lives in time. I can tell you from experience that every year you slow down- you lose a step here and there. Your reactions aren't as fast, and pretty soon it feels like you're always walking on sand or deep snow instead of sidewalk. Then one day, you notice that your hearing and vision are a little worse too. Pretty soon, it's not so hard for somebody to come up behind you, the way you did to me tonight. They wouldn't have gotten you easily when you were a kid. But you're not a kid now.'
'I'm about to leave, and I'm taking your cell phone with me. If Tosca wants to talk about a way for this to end without anybody else dying, he can call your number anytime in the next eight hours. After that, I throw it away, and he'll lose his chance.'
'When he doesn't call, don't blame me. You know he's not going to stop looking. He can't. In the past couple of days you've killed six of his guys. He can't ignore that, or he'll lose the others.'
'Just tell him.'
He backed away from the chair, still holding the gun on Cavalli. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure he was heading toward the door. Cavalli said, 'Sure you want that?'
He said, 'It's too late to keep this a secret. Everybody in the country seems to know I'm here. So just sit tight for a few minutes, and then you can call whoever you want on the house phone.'
He could see Cavalli's reflection in the darkened flat screen of the television set. Cavalli was watching him the same way. He started to turn to open the door, but Cavalli's hand went to his coat pocket and came out with a gun. 'Don't try that,' he said, but Cavalli dropped onto his knees on the floor and brought his right hand around the chair back.
Schaeffer aimed low on the chair back and pulled the trigger six times, until Cavalli's lifeless hand released the pistol and it dropped to the floor. He could see in the reflection on the black television screen that he had hit Cavalli at least once in the head. He put the gun into his belt and went out the door.
This was exactly like all of those dumb bastards. There had been no reason for Cavalli to try that. He had just let the size of the contract on the Butcher's Boy eat away at him all the time they were talking, until he no longer had the strength to resist. He was over sixty, but he still couldn't pass up a sucker's odds to get rich by shooting a man who had just spared his life.
Schaeffer walked along the shore of the St. Lawrence until he recognized the building across the road where he had left his car. He took Cavalli's cell phone out of his pocket and pressed the wheel for the phone book. He found a number that said FRANK T CELL, selected it, and pressed the call button. He heard the ring signal, then a voice. 'Yeah?'
'Hi, Frank,' he said.
'Who is this?'
'I wanted Cavalli to give you a message, but he decided to be dead instead. I wanted to let you know that I'll disappear again if you'll forget the idea of tracking me down for Carl Bala. He'll die of old age soon, or be too old to remember I put him where he is.'
Tosca sounded pleased. 'Thanks for killing Cavalli. He had a lot of friends. In a day or two, everybody in the country who matters is going to be turning over rocks looking for you. When we've got you, I'm going to have some people dump your body outside the prison at Lompoc where Don Carlo Balacontano is so he can stand behind the fence in the exercise yard and watch the cops put you in a body bag.'
'Wrong answer, Frank,' said Schaeffer. 'See you.'
9
Elizabeth left work at seven in the evening and took the elevator to the level of her reserved parking space in the Robert F. Kennedy building's underground garage. There were always cars on this floor late into the night because they all belonged to people in supervisory jobs. Things didn't get easier as a person moved up in the hierarchy. This evening she had been trying to make her way through the past few daily reports from the data analysts who worked in the basement of the building.
Twenty years ago when she had first become aware of this killer, she had been a data analyst, and she still preferred double-checking the sources of her information, the raw, unedited statements of fact that came in with each morning's traffic. In Washington there were too many people who got by on briefings and executive summaries prepared by the newest and least experienced people, and never looked at what had prompted their conclusions. Proper interpretation wasn't always easy, not something every novice could do. Sometimes one bit of overlooked information could change everything. It took experience and intuition to sense when that one bit of information wasn't even present but should be.
Tonight she was dissatisfied. She was missing something important. She hadn't detected what the killer was doing or what he wanted. He had made an attempt on Frank Tosca at his house on Long Island and then dropped out of sight. It wasn't like him to give up, or even to let up-to slow down before he had accomplished what he wanted to do. So now he must be moving, doing something. But no reports had come in that might reveal to her what it could be.
Elizabeth had felt the frustration growing all day. She had been close to events of great importance to the world of organized crime before they'd happened-the return of the Butcher's Boy and the murder of Michael Delamina-but she had misinterpreted what she'd heard and seen, and finally, after she'd understood that he was after Tosca, she'd failed to persuade the deputy assistant in time to move in and take advantage of the opportunity.
She stepped out of the elevator carrying her briefcase in her left hand and her purse strap over her left shoulder so her right hand would be unencumbered if she needed to reach for the gun. She got into her car and kept the purse on the passenger seat where she could reach it.
It was dark out when she drove out onto the street. A light rain was falling, and the pavements were wet enough to show the reflections of headlights and traffic signals, and she had to listen to the constant thump-thump of her windshield wipers. She headed for McLean by the route that took her past her dry cleaners. She parked in one of the narrow five-minute spaces in the strip mall where the shop was and came out with the clothes she had left last Thursday-two suits, two blouses, two pairs of slacks, two of her daughter's dresses, and her son's sport coat. She thought about how good he looked in it, but also what the argument would be that got him to wear it for his college interviews later in the year.
He would say, 'That's not how I dress.'
She could say, 'Whether you wear it every day is not the point. This is the right thing to wear for this occasion.'
