and look tough. The older men, the ones who knew him or had at least seen him, were either inside the big room in the lodge or back in their home cities running the businesses that kept the supply of money coming in.
Through the huge panes of glass he could see the old men standing around with drinks in their hands. One of the Castigliones, no, all three of the Castiglione brothers, were standing around in blue jeans and hiking boots. And there was Vince Pugliese, who was their underboss now. It must be a good night for law-abiding citizens in Chicago. There was Mike Catania from Boston, and Dean Amalfi, and one of the Sottos whose first name he couldn't bring back. He was definitely a son or nephew of the Sotto who had run the Albanese empire in Detroit years ago. Mike Tragonatta was perched on a step of the big staircase with his shoulders hunched up so he looked like a vulture.
Tosca. There he was. He looked like a cheap politician threading his way through the crowd, insinuating himself and making it impossible for the others to have a conversation that wasn't with him and about him. As he passed, he punched the shoulder of Rich Martinoli and hugged the ancient, skinny frame of Paolo Canaletti. Schaeffer cringed at the stupid presumption of it. Tosca was claiming a false equality with men older than his own father.
Schaeffer couldn't spend too much time in the glow coming from the lodge windows so he moved away. He took this opportunity to go to cabins nine and ten and look in the windows. He found that nine had twin beds and two suitcases, but ten had a king and only one suitcase so he chose that one. He went to the door, pushed the blade of his knife into the space between the handle and the strike plate, and opened it. He went in and closed the door, and then searched Tosca's luggage, but found nothing useful or revealing except a nine-millimeter Beretta pistol. He decided that the rules of the conference must require the participants to come unarmed. He ejected the magazine, removed all of the bullets, and pulled back the slide to open the chamber. He took a sheet of paper from the small pad by the phone, tore off a corner, and crumpled it. He crammed it into the chamber and barrel so even if Tosca reloaded, the first round would fail to feed. He searched for other guns, but there were none in the cabin. He went out through the back window, closed it, but left it unlocked. He walked out of the small clearing on the back side so nobody would see him coming from Tosca's cabin. He passed a few men on the paved drive, but didn't recognize any of them.
He felt slightly better now because he had at least taken some steps to prepare for killing Tosca in his cabin. Any plausible plan was better than no plan. And earlier he had created a gap in the cordon of sentries so there would be at least one way out. Now he needed to learn how the old men reacted to Tosca's proposal. If they turned him down and told him to solve his own problems, Schaeffer's best move would be to get out quietly and then kill Tosca somewhere else on another day.
He got onto the lighted drive and moved toward the lodge again. As he came nearer, he could see into the big conference room and tell that the meeting had begun. The light from inside poured out onto the pavement around the building from the glass wall so he stayed back. He could see there were four large tables pushed together into a huge square. All around it sat the old men.
It occurred to him that the square was a sign of resistance to Tosca. With a rectangular table, somebody was always at the head, and somebody was at the foot. These men were all chieftains, the heads of semitribal groups composed of extended family and close friends, as well as loose collections of hangers-on, allies, and associates who were willing to follow orders because there had always been money and protection if they did. The dons from the smaller, older eastern cities were often as rich and powerful as the leaders of the families in New York or Chicago or Boston because they could control virtually all illegal activity in those places and take a percentage. They were protective of their independence and dignity, and didn't acknowledge the superiority of anyone. They also knew that while a New York family might have more made men, there was no way to project that power to do much in a tightly held city a thousand miles away.
His best hope was that these men would be too suspicious and guarded to help Tosca come to power in the Balacontano family. Why set loose a force greater than their own? Agreeing to hunt for the Butcher's Boy was a small enough thing to do, but its very smallness meant it would be worth little gratitude in the future. Once Carl Bala was satisfied and put Tosca in power, Tosca wouldn't need their help anymore.
He stood in the crowd and studied what he could see of the big room through the glass. If Tosca had wanted to preside, he had been thwarted. The participants were sitting in equal seats at the table, the old men taking turns as each of them made his own statement. Now and then a speaker would stop, raise his eyebrows inquiringly, and gesture toward one or more of the others. Most of the time, the men indicated would nod sagely or make a reply that seemed to indicate an affirmative answer. There was no telling what the topics were, but he guessed that they were using the conference as a way to settle the eternal boundary disputes and make requests for help, a share in some racket, or exclusive rights to some method of stealing in some particular place. He knew that for most of them, there was a wide range of issues that were more important than the succession of leaders in the Balacontano family or the fate of a hit man nobody had seen in years.
Agreements made openly in this company would be difficult to disavow later, and at the same time, could not be understood by third parties to be conspiracies. He stood outside among the young men, the retainers and bodyguards and soldiers, who had no more idea of the outcome than he had. But then, four men came out of the door and lit cigarettes. As they talked to friends and acquaintances, he edged closer. Within a few seconds, the four were surrounded by a growing ring of the curious.
In the center was a man about forty years old. He said, 'The local stuff-gambling, street dealers, fencing operations, crews that rip off trucks and trains and cargo containers, percentages of local businesses-all that stays local. You won't have a crew from a Chicago family come in and start asking a contractor in your town to pay them for protection. Trying to pull a scam on a national company or make a deal in a foreign country is open to everybody. But if you have to go to the national headquarters, and it's in St. Louis, you do the St. Louis people the courtesy of letting them know you're there and giving them a small piece of the game.' He shrugged. 'It's all pretty much the way it was before we were born.'
Schaeffer said quietly to the man beside him, 'I wonder what happened with Frank Tosca.'
One of the men who had come out heard him. 'They're still talking about some of it, but he'll get what he wants. They all like the idea of a mutual defense agreement. If some outsider attacks one of the families, the don asks for help, and the other families all send soldiers.'
One of the listeners said, 'Sounds like overkill.'
'That's the point. Things used to work because everybody knew if they wanted to go head-to-head with the Mafia, they were taking on a lot more than what was in front of their eyes that day. There was no way they could win. We need that again. Say some Mexican gang starts shaking down a neighborhood in Houston. The next thing that happens is that the city fills up with goombahs. Fifteen or twenty of the Mexicans disappear one night and the problem is solved for the next ten years.'
One of the listeners said, 'I'd be ready for that.'
'Right. It's the only way. We should have been doing that already.'
'Damned straight.'
Schaeffer said, 'What's that stuff about him wanting some guy killed? Why can't he handle that himself?'
'I think it's a test, to see which of the old men are on board.'
'What do the old men think?'
'They all agreed to that first thing. It's common courtesy. You'll hear everything in a few minutes. They're going to take a half-hour break after the last couple of capos finish talking.'
Schaeffer drifted backward, allowing other men to slip in to listen, so he didn't appear to be moving, but was soon ten feet from the center of the conversation. Then he was in dimmer light, farther from the lodge. He turned away and began to walk. When he was near the cabins, he left the pavement and walked between two of them as though he were taking a shortcut to his own.
He went to the back of cabin ten, entered through the window, and sat down in the dark to wait for Frank Tosca. He had heard what he needed to know so there was no reason to take the risk of standing outside the lodge in the crowd, waiting for someone to recognize him. He sat in the dark and planned and rested. It was over an hour later before he heard men's voices as they passed on the paved drive outside. Maybe the formal part of the conference was over, or maybe it was just the break. But he had to be ready.
He stood and went to the doorway, stepped into the space at the hinge side of the door, took out the lock- blade knife he had brought, and opened it. He concentrated on regulating his breathing and his heartbeat, readying
