After a minute, she exits, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. Her hair is tucked up under the cap and the clothes fit like a kid trying on her dad’s softball uniform. But the effect works: it’s impossible to see what kind of a body she has under the clothes, and with the cap lowered, the top half of her face is in shadow. It’s not perfect- you don’t want to go too far the other way so that someone thinks “why’s a beauty like her wearing dumpy clothes?”-but it’ll do for now.
Archie’s office is in an old aluminum manufacturing plant on Harrison. Risina, Smoke, and I sit in a conference room, a stack of files on a long wooden table.
“This is everything, Smoke?”
“All the files in the last six months, plus a few Archie was putting together.”
“Okay, each of us takes a third. Sing out if you read anything that jumps out at you.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know. We’re tracking breadcrumbs looking for red flags. I don’t know why someone wants to find me, so we have to work off the assumption that Archie’s abduction is a factor. There are plenty of ways to try to find someone, but they chose to rough up Archie, which makes me think there’s a personal connection between the kidnapper and him. Maybe it has something to do with a hit he fenced, and usually these types of things are immediate, so I thought we’d narrow it down to the last six months. He keeps thick files. Just look for anything that… anything that looks abnormal. That’s the best I can think of to do to get started.”
Risina nods as Smoke divides the folders and slides her a stack. If she’s surprised by the amount of professional killings contracted in the last six months just by this one fence, she doesn’t show it. I think I know why. Here is something she can relate to, something in which she excels: literature. She opens the first file and burrows into it like a mole. I watch for a moment, thinking about that first time I saw her on the Via Poli in Rome, surrounded by all those austere books. This is a different kind of reading-a long way from Dickens and Walpole and Dante-but compelling just the same. After a moment of watching her, I pull a file off the top of my stack and get to work.
The first few files are typical assignments: eight-week jobs in various corners of the country. One shooter was assigned to each, and the jobs were all completed on time. Nothing remarkable about the marks: a lawyer, a construction contractor, a horse jockey. Guys who had no idea death was coming for them until the moment their bells were rung.
The fourth file is interesting. Archibald used one of his contract killers-a woman named Carla-to settle an old personal score back in Boston. Archie took down a rival fence who had set him up on an aiding and abetting charge.
“Tell me about Carla?” I say to Smoke.
Smoke shrugs. “Dumpy woman. Nothing special. Archie borrowed her from another fence, wasn’t in his regular stable. I don’t think she worked much. Burned out or got burned or something.”
“You ever meet her?”
“I did. On that job you’re holding now. She needed a scrounger to get her a bunch of equipment, and I helped facilitate.”
“What’s a scrounger?” Risina asks.
“A fella who gets you any props you need while working a job-a delivery truck, a uniform, a wheelchair, an ID badge…”
“Weapons?”
Smoke shakes his head. “Your fence’ll supply those.”
“Yeah, scroungers are mainly for everyday things. They get paid well to work quietly and quickly.” Then, to Smoke, “What was your vibe off Carla?”
Smoke shrugs. “Not much to look at. Had a dog-face if you want me to get specific. Not sure what breed, but definitely canine. She didn’t say much either, all business. A little jumpy, to tell you the truth. Why? What’s in the file?”
“Nothing… just… a personal gig for Archie. File says it went down the way it was supposed to go down. It shouldn’t be suspicious; but if I were looking for a reason to kidnap a fence, I’d start with the jobs he instigated himself. I might want to talk to this Carla.”
“Archie didn’t have a problem with her. Like I said… that was the only time he used her.”
“Okay.”
I set the file aside and plow into the next one. An hour goes by with no further anomalies, no red flags waving at me. Shaky clients called off a few hits before the assassinations took place, but this is not uncommon. Clients buckle under the weight of what they’ve set into motion, and they’ll pay extra to cancel the order, trying to salvage their conscience, afraid to wake up with blood on their hands. Fences can make a pretty good business on canceled hits.
I just open the last file in my stack-the execution of a pit boss at Harrah’s Casino in Joliet-when Risina speaks up.
“I think I found something.”
And she did.
It’s rare, but occasionally in this business there are incomplete hits. Not canceled hits… incomplete ones. An assassin might get killed while on the job, or the mark goes into hiding and just can’t be found, or the police or FBI catch wind and sting the bagman in the act. The fence is forced into an awkward position; he has to turn the money back over to the client, which is a substantial sum, half of which, subtracting his fees, he paid to the hit man on commencement of the assignment. So personally he’s on the hook for the total, unless he can barter with his hired gun to return a portion of the commencement fee. If his hired gun is alive and not in jail, that is. Worse, the fence takes a shot to his reputation by failing to execute the assignment. Clients get jumpy, rival fences swoop in like vultures to fill the void. A few dings like that, and the contracts dry up.
Four months ago, Archie put a file together on a Kansas City man named Rich Bacino. This is the file Risina found, the file I’m absorbing now. On the surface, it doesn’t look like a difficult kill. Rich started an internet software company in the boom of the nineties and was prescient enough to sell it before the bust of the aught-years. He netted eighty million dollars before he turned forty. A bachelor, he bought up properties on both coasts and added an apartment in Paris. He spent a little money on the usual accoutrements of the rich: cars, boats, real estate. But Rich saved the majority of his cash for a newfound passion.
Rich started collecting.
Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of marks involved with an assortment of illegal activities. I’ve killed crime bosses, money launderers, numbers runners, low-level bagmen. I’ve killed corrupt politicians or judges taking bribes on the side. I’ve hit businessmen with mistresses and Sunday school teachers who were buried in gambling debts. I’ve also come across a few assholes involved in illegal collecting: kiddie porn or Nazi memorabilia or stolen art. You dabble with that stuff, it’s just a matter of time before a guy like me shows up on your doorstep. You sit in slime long enough, you make enemies and you get dropped.
But Rich’s collection is a first.
Rich Bacino collects skulls.
He has over fifty, all famous people, all acquired after the bodies were laid to rest without the heirs or families knowing about the exhumation. DNA tests and documentation prove their authenticity, though very few people will ever see the paperwork to confirm it. Collections like this aren’t gathered for display; it’s hard to describe, but they’re built on a perverse sense of getting over on everyone else. It’s like Poe’s telltale heart beating underneath the floorboards while the constable stands obliviously above it-except instead of driving the collector mad, the beating, the knowing excites him. While his friends, family, and acquaintances visit in his living room, they have no idea that the skulls of say, Ronald Reagan or Jeffrey Dahmer or Gianni Versace are stored in the basement beneath them. It’s a big secret fuck-you to everyone, an “I’m more powerful than you’ll ever know” high.
Exactly how much he pays for the skulls, I have no idea. Archie estimates millions of dollars exchange hands for each purchase. The more famous the person, the more public the grave, the higher the price.
So Rich either crossed someone he shouldn’t have, or someone’s loved ones found out about his hobby, because a price tag was put on his skull. Archie was hired to facilitate the kill, which was an eight-week job assigned ten weeks ago. And yet, Rich Bacino is still alive.
The bagman assigned to kill him was a native Chicagoan named Flagler. Next to his name, Archie had written a single word in red ink.
