had checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel, rented a car, taken a plane somewhere else, done the job, and come back. I wasn't tired, so I went out for the evening. I went to a restaurant right near where Laurel Canyon ends on Sunset Boulevard and ordered a late dinner. In walks Sam Lonzio. He sees me and comes to my table. He said, 'Can I sit with you?' I said, 'Sam. I'm here in case somebody ever asks me where I was tonight. Do you want me to say I was with you?'
'He said, 'You can't do that here anyway. Tony Lazaretti has a half interest in the place. If you eat here, you'll look like a criminal. But I've got a good alibi, and you can share it.'
'I said, 'What is it?'
''Tonight I'm on a cruise ship that stops in Ensenada. It left San Pedro already, but there's a guy on it in my cabin using my name. If I need an alibi, I show up in Ensenada anytime before the boat leaves for Cabo, and he goes home. The crew says Mr. Lonzio's been with us for the whole cruise. I've also got a cabin in the name Don Rustin. You can be him.'
''That's a lot of trouble.' I didn't bother to tell him that good alibis are simple. He had his own theory. But I said, 'What is it you're going to do that's such a big deal?'
''I've got to take out Chickie Salateri.'
''Why?'
''He's been dating one of the Lazaretti daughters. You know, Carmine's granddaughter, Catherine. She lives out here in L.A. She was married at one time to Bobby Molto, but he couldn't ever keep it in his pants, and he didn't understand why you can't cheat on a boss's child, so she got an annulment. That was, like, five, six years ago. So lately she's dating Chickie Salateri. Only she comes home from a shopping trip one afternoon, and there's Salateri with one of those little digital cameras, taking pictures. He's taking shots of the clothes in her closet, has her bank statements out on her desk and takes shots of those. She sees him, but tiptoes back outside and comes back in making a lot of noise. He doesn't know she knows, just hides the camera in his coat. When he goes to the head, she checks the camera. There are shots of her jewelry all laid out in the little velvet drawers from her jewelry case.'
''Why was he bothering with all that?'
''At first we all thought he must be working for the IRS. You know-helping them say that if she had five or six million in jewelry and didn't work, where did it come from? They do that, the feds. They put your children in a bind so you can stew about it until you want to kill yourself. But Carmine Lazaretti didn't get to be old by ignoring that light coming along the train tracks toward him. He sent people from New York that Chickie didn't know, and they watched him and asked around. They found out he's been casing the house for a robbery. He's got a crew, and he's got an out-of-state fence for everything in the house. He's even hired a woman who looks a little bit like Catherine to use cloned credit cards and IDs to clean Catherine out.'
''So you think he's planning to kill Catherine too.'
''All of this stuff takes a lot of time to pull off. If she's dead, he's got a lot.'
''So you're killing him tonight?'
''They said to do it, but if I do it after he gets her, I'm dead too. Now that I see you're in town, it's like a sign from God.'
''You want a minute to think that through again?'
''You know what I mean. You can do it for me.'
''Not interested.'
''Look,' he said. 'I've killed two people in my whole life. One was a son of a bitch in Brooklyn who owned a pawnshop. Somebody's niece noticed it was suddenly full of stuff that had been stolen in our neighborhood. One of the Lazaretti soldiers took people past the front window for a week or so, and they identified what was theirs. So I got sent to handle it. The guy wasn't even armed. He just sat behind his desk and I shot him in the chest. The other one I don't want to talk about. I've got no experience. I'll give you fifteen grand to go with me and act as a consultant. I'll do all the shooting. Then we'll drive down and catch the cruise. Those ships are full of pairs of women who pay good money just to meet somebody like us, dance and drink a little, and get laid. They say a weekend like that is just the thing. It sets them right up and they're good for a month.'
'I said, 'We can skip the cruise, but I'll help you out.' So we left. He drove, and we picked up a big van. Inside it was a plastic container, maybe four feet by two and a half, with a vacuum top that latched. We went by Chickie Salateri's house, then a couple of clubs. At the third we found him. The club was a problem because a lot of people stay very late. So I told Lonzio, go in and buy him a drink, act like his friend, and persuade him to go to another club with us. He went in, and about twenty minutes later they both came out. So there were now three of us in the van, and the big plastic tub. I sat on that, and Chickie seemed to pay no attention to the thing, as though it were a piece of furniture. Sam drove up into Griffith Park. The place is huge. Sam said the route we were taking was a shortcut to get from Los Feliz into the Valley, where a great new club had opened, but it didn't feel like a shortcut. The road was weird and winding, and went up into the hills by the observatory. Then Sam says he's got a tire that seems funny, so he pulls over to check it. This struck Chickie Salateri as more than suspicious. But he thought the one assigned to kill him must be me. He started to pull out a gun to shoot me so I gave him a quick jab to the nose. Sam opened the passenger door beside him and stabbed him. Sam was not good with a knife so he just kept trying to kill him while Chickie fought back. It took four or five minutes before the bleeding got to him and he died. The van was a mess, and so was Sam. His shirt was soaked. He ended up tossing it in the plastic bin with Chickie.'
'Where did you bury the box?'
'We didn't. Sam knew about this old cemetery in the middle of the city. It wasn't little bronze plaques set in a lawn. It was full of big gravestones and crypts. Sam drove right to a crypt. It was the kind that looked like a little marble building. He'd had somebody come through and saw the lock off in advance. The box fit right on this shelf in there. We put it in, went out, and Sam put on a brand-new lock.'
'Do you remember the name on the crypt?'
'O'Hara. The newest date carved on the wall was 1956.'
'That's a pretty respectful burial for the Mafia.'
'He was a made guy, and he had family still around. They don't usually mutilate the body unless the guy talked to the cops.'
She changed the subject. 'So if I find the O'Hara crypt in a cemetery in the middle of Los Angeles, there will be Chickie Salateri in Tupperware.'
'I think it was Rubbermaid, actually. The point is, the body is in there with Sam Lonzio's shirt with his blood and Chickie's on it.'
'Why are you giving this to me?'
'You're welcome. It's because, for whatever reason, you've been trying to help me stay alive. And because, when the time came to vote in Arizona, all the bosses of the Lazaretti family, including Sam Lonzio, voted to get together and kill me.'
'You don't ever forget, do you?'
'It was a memorable evening.'
'Maybe the vote in Arizona was a moment of weakness for Lonzio. He was surrounded by his bosses.'
'Everybody gets another chance, every day. If he doesn't like what he's been doing, he can do something different-even do the opposite of what he just did.'
'I hope you believe that.'
'What's your pitch?'
'Things have just changed for you. Now the people after you aren't a lot of old, fat cigar puffers trying to look tough. And they're not waiting for you to turn up when you happen to get down to them on your list. They're hiring real hitters-people just like you-who will make a professional effort to hunt you down.'
He shrugged. 'I already knew. They have connections with people who do this kind of work, and they've got a lot of money to spend. It's not a surprise.'
'The ones they hire may not be as good at it as you, but how good do they have to be?'
'I'll have to think of ways to keep them to a high standard.'
'Wouldn't it be better to get out of their reach?'
'If they're good enough, and there's enough money at stake, there is no such place.'
She turned in her seat and watched him as she spoke. 'I'm willing to offer you not a perfect thing, but a good thing. We'll put you up in a place that's secret and that would be extremely difficult for anybody to know about,
