Frenzy

conceded to reporters that 'picking good foster-parent homes is an inexact science.'

Authorities believe that Kriegal is involved in the production and distribution of so-called 'snuff' films, pornographic films in which actual scenes of beatings, torture, and murder are also seen. Kriegal is believed by authorities to have been responsible for films in which children were tortured and killed, according to a source in the Jefferson County Prosecutor's office.

He read the words aloud to himself, and even though they were words meant to be read silently, to speak them gave them impact.

Eichord was on trail now. He had the voice. And now he had a hint. Something nudging him. This was what he lived for. His inviolable work ethic: the elemental foundation, catharsis, curative, analeptic. The restorative and stimulant to his soul as he hunted through the sewers and putrefaction and corruption and evil. And reading the words chilled him as he felt the familiar vectors beginning to cross. He was out there somewhere. Waiting to kill again. A death master. And now there was a voice. And a pattern. And vectors crossing.

He knew his next move for once. He should have done it earlier when he picked up on the pattern of the kills. Eichord no longer knew or cared if the Floyd Streicher SEE NO EVIL wise guy was involved in this. He got Bud Leech and got him away from the Homicide Bureau.

Leech was sensitive to the maneuver and wanted to know, 'How come you don't wanna talk up there?' gesturing to the cop shop. 'Come on,' Eichord said. 'Let's walk.'

'You worded about a rocking bug?'

'Forget about that. I got something, Bud.'

'Yeah?'

'I think so,' he said. And he told him what he needed. About the surveillance he wanted.

'Hell, let's put the damn van on it.'

'No way,' he said. A decision he'd immediately regret. 'I want this just you and me, podnah. Let's just you 'n' me handle it.'

'Shit, okay,' the big man said with a shrug, 'you got it.' Implicit in the shrug was a question. You think the Special Division is dirty.

Eichord just said, 'I just want to be careful. VERY careful. This is . . . . Well, hell, I don't know WHAT it is. But it's something more than warring gang factions.' He didn't say it to Leech but he thought, SUPERKILLER.

Two days later a 'professionally made bomb containing a large quantity of high explosive' blew up the stretch limo in which one of the sons of 'Jimmie the Hook' Russo, Phillie Russo, was riding with his chauffeur/bodyguard, Bugs DeVintro. Homicide, Intelligence, and Arson rolled on it, as did Eichord, and it gave him his first close look inside the St. Louis mob.

He was at the crime scene and a massive, Italian-looking man with swarthy features and a face that looked like the dark side of the moon came up to him and said, 'You d' one from d' Tass Force?'

'Yep.'

He handed him a note with a phone number on it. 'Mrs. Russo wan' you to call her,' he thought the man said.

'Mrs. Russo? Rosemarie Russo?'

'MISS Russo. Angelina. You call her?' Eichord nodded. 'Soon as you can, please. T'anks.'

He went to the nearest phone and dialed.

A woman answered it on the second ring. 'Yeah.'

'Hello, this is Jack Eichord calling for Angelina Russo, please.'

'Yeah, I know. I'm her. I'm Angelina. C'n you come over here to d' house?'

'Sure can. Right now?'

'Yeah, awright. Soon as you can, okay?'

She told him where she lived, not realizing he'd been there first thing when he hit St. Louis and couldn't get an audience with the Russos, and he thanked her and headed across town.

He didn't have any trouble finding his way to the Russo house again. He parked and went up to the door and knocked. He rang the doorbell. Knocked again. Inside a baleful, huge bodyguard was saying to his charge, 'Miss Russo, you makin' a mistake, please don't talk to no coppers.'

'Let him in, Johnny.'

'If Jimmie were here, he —'

She cut him off with a look. 'Right. If Jimmie were here you wouldn't question what I asked you to do. Now let him in, please.'

He turned and opened the door. Johnny had been with the family nearly as long as she'd been on earth. He was like family himself, but he still called her Miss Russo out of respect. She knew what was going through his mind for him to talk to her in that tone. She didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. Just stop the killing.

'Jack Eichord, Miss Russo.' He handed her one of the Special Homicide Division cards. 'I got your note.' The huge bodyguard eyed him like he'd like to string him up but he backed out of the large room and shut the door quietly behind him.

'Sit down please. And I appreciate you comin' here.'

'I've been here before but I never got to speak with you.'

'I had to talk to someone. The police.'

'All right.'

'I —' She took a very deep breath and her body sagged visibly, as if she was going to collapse. For a second he almost thought he should go over there across the room where she was sitting, be next to her if she fainted, and then she straightened up with another breath and said without preamble of any kind,

'I'm afraid for my mother.'

'Oh?'

'And myself. Why not say the truth, right? I'm afraid whoever is doing this will want us, too. My brother and I were very close. I heard things.' She looked at him with reddened eyes. 'He thought it was somebody outside the family.' Eichord didn't say anything, waiting. She coughed. 'Somebody tryin' to make it look like there was a power struggle . . . inside the family. You understand what I'm saying?'

He nodded. 'Did your brother have any idea who was behind the killings?'

'No. He didn't. Look — I'm even talkin' to you like this — I'm sayin' things I could be put under for. I would never rat out anybody in da family for any reason. You can do nothing with what I give you. If you say I told you this I'll deny it. If you try to use it I'll go down. You're gonna' be sentencing me if you tell someone else. You understand?'

He inclined his head and kept silent.

'I won't ask for your word because I don't know you. I don't know if you are a man who takes his word seriously. But if you tell anybody you put me under. They'll clip me for sure. Am I getting through to you?'

He nodded again. Angelina Russo had a voice that was used to issuing orders. 'Go ahead,' he encouraged her.

'There is a council, board, call it what you want, there is this council that meets in New York with the big families. These men govern the society. Their word is the absolute law. Not your law. The law. What we live by. You understand when we meet — as amico nostro? To be with us, with the thing of ours, is to imply honor that you can trust to the death. But it is a joke. The society, the friends of ours, this has no more meaning than a society of you coppers. Like you police, we are all the same. There is only a handful you can trust.

'So these men they must protect the family. Whenever there is power and money there are always others who want it all for themselves, and our family, like yours, exists because of greed. It is these men who have a few trusted workers within the most secret part of the society. Nobody knows who these men are who work for the capos of the families. Not even the lieutenants who run the top crews. They work in secret.

'Phillie knew that the killing was coming from outside. He was sure of it.'