Frenzy

'Okay. Hum a few bars of this: tell him to get word to Tony Cypriot. Jack Eichord has something to sell the godfather. He can give 'em the man they want. Tell him that I want the scum dead and I'm afraid if we bust him he'll end up walking. Some high-priced legal talent will plead him fruitcake and he'll be back on the street. If Cypriot wants him handle it through me personally. Him to me. Tell him to call me. I'll do all the talking. He can listen and make up his mind. That — or the man he wants to nail so bad keeps waging war.'

Now it was Leech's turn to just stare. 'He'll never buy it,' he said finally. 'No fuckin' way.'

And of course he didn't. Not for a second. But within twenty-four hours he was on a telephone in Eichord's ear.

'Don't waste my time. Whatd'ya REALLY want?'

'It's not what I want. It's what you're going to do. You're going to go pack a few things — don't take much because you don't have a whole lot of time. Get on a plane or your private jet or whatever, and fly back here. I'm going to put you in custody. For your protection.'

Cypriot began laughing uproariously. Roaring, hysterical guffaws. Eichord waited him out.

'Oh, shit,' he said, catching his breath. 'I haven't had a laugh like that in weeks. Christ. Oh. You're all right. That's funny. Hey, listen. I got to go now and —'

'HOLD IT! You put this monster on the street for the Council or Committee or whatever you assholes call it. Do you have any idea what the other families will do if I get the word to them that YOU were responsible for all these kills within the organization?' He didn't hear any more giggling. 'Your ass will be grass.' When Jack Eichord wanted to seriously threaten somebody his soft-spoken tone hardened into a razor-blade edge, and when he opened the floodgates and let all his poison pour out in a hot, acid gush, you'd better not be downhill.

'Forget about it,' Cypriot said disdainfully.

'Forget about it, huh? If you don't cooperate with me and come under our protection ... I go right to the dons. I'll tell 'em what I know about your chief enforcer and how you fucked this up.' Eichord was winging it now. 'And by next week there won't be enough of you left to fill a fucking shoe box. Now you gonna cooperate or what?'

Any other time and Gaetano Ciprioni would probably have told this no-dick cop to go fuck his mother. But he'd just had the sad and awful chore of canceling out one of his great friends and one of the company's most trusted vice presidents. The Russo kid had got word to him about the hit. What should he do? he wanted to know. Ciprioni knew that Spain knew — he WAS the godfather, the REAL godfather, to Angelina Russo. No way he'd let her be killed for the old man. So he passed the word back for Russo to do it. He hated to do it. Helluva thing. But sometimes you had to cut your losses. 'Go ahead,' he said. 'Tell him to burn him.'

Then they'd finally run down Troxell, the two-bit, whorehouse mouse of a shamus back in Cleveland or Cincy or wherever the fuck he was. Found out about Spain's daughter. Run that back to its origin points. Ultimately this whole fucking grab-ass began to make some sense. Of all people to go over the edge. Spain. He shook his head as he thought about what he should do — and in those few extra seconds he listened to the cop he'd ordinarily have hung up on as he told him, 'I know a way to set this guy up but I have to know all about him and how this happened. If you cooperate with me I can guarantee we can get Angelina Russo back, number one, I can guarantee your safety, and I guarantee you we'll take this lunatic down.' The more the cop talked the more Ciprioni thought it might work, against all his instincts. Who'd ever believe THIS shit — he smiled humorlessly — the cops an' ME on the same fucking side!

Eichord cinched the deal with some clever tap dancing about the charges that could be brought to bear in the ex-Mrs. Pat Spain, and a general amnesty number, and one thing and another that he thought he played by ear rather well. But long before Tony Cypriot could pack a bag Eichord had talked to the PI in Ohio about his client, and he was back on the phone to The Man.

'One thing I need day before yesterday,' he told Cypriot, 'is that film.'

'What film?'

'What film? The film of Spain's kid. The snuff movie. I need it NOW.'

'That's no problem,' the man told him, and he called and had two prints on Eichord's desk before you could say 'Anytime you're ready, C.B.'

And not a minute too soon, either.

Jack Eichord was the official greeter when Cypriot arrived on his company's private Lear. Two bodyguards got off first and Eichord was surprised they didn't fit the usual defensive-left-tackle and nose-guard stereotype. Both were small men, extremely professional, and — like Tony Cypriot — looked like business-men but with a hard edge.

The man himself was distinguished-looking. A natty dresser in a two-thousand-dollar topcoat over quiet Savile Row banker's gray.

'What's he for?' he said to Eichord as a police photographer flashed a bulb at him.

'Publicity.' Eichord told him about the setup he was planning. At first Ciprioni balked but it was too late to back out.

Jack said, 'I give you the same guarantee as on the phone. We'll take this maniac down and you'll skate clear of your problem.' He would be nice and safe in his bulletproof long johns. 'He won't hurt you. I promise.'

The snitch's Identikit composite had brought forth nothing from the St. Louis area realtors. Cops had been ringing the doorbells at motels, hotels, rooming houses, trying everything from trailer parks to camp-grounds, anywhere they thought there might be a possible trail. Nothing.

Ciprioni looked at the sketch in the car and nodded. 'That's him okay, but you can't tell shit from the likeness.' He started talking about the hooded eyes and the differently shaped forehead and nose and Eichord promised a touch-up from Weyland, as he visualized the SEE NO EVIL face in the airport gift shop in L.A.

As soon as Mel Troxell had run it all down for him he knew the man Spain was the one. It all fit together, and the killings of a couple of innocents along the way proved Eichord's hybrid theory. Spain was a maniacal schizoid assassin. One deadly and dangerous manhunter who had gone insane.

Ciprioni said quietly, 'If that crazy fuck has hurt Angelina I wanna whack him myself,' and Eichord thought he'd never heard the transitive verb 'whack' as often as he had since he'd started on this investigation. Back home when you got whacked out it was on PCP.

'You know your attorneys have already okayed your deal. You've got complete, unilateral amnesty. So I got a question. The 'Eyeball Murders' in L.A. . . . did your, uh, council order them?'

'Nah.' Cipriona exhaled. 'That's their country out there. Who knows from fucking California.' He wouldn't give him anything extra. 'That's somebody playing games with the eyes. Like sending the dolls with the pins in the throat. That's all Mustache Pete bullshit. We don't play that way.'

'Was this Frank Spain's work?'

'Ehhh' — he shrugged —'who knows? He didn't always clip the numbers himself, ya know? He'd control the job. Hire the workers himself. That's the way he liked to work.'

Jack fed the St. Louis area media a juicy photo story on the infamous 'Godfather' Tony Cipriot who'd been placed under official police protection. He gave it to some key media friends around the country such as Letty Budge, who would give it lots of ink and mileage. He knew there was no guarantees that Spain read papers or watched television or turned on radios. But the word was also all over the street. Eichord had Gaetano Ciprioni. The man who, more than any other, could be considered ultimately responsible for the kiddie-pom business and therefore the torture and death of Tiff Spain.

Troxell the PI, who'd already been 'debriefed' by the mob, had taken Eichord back along the trail of the Dawkins and Nunnaly plan to turn Tiff out as a pros. Met Troxell told him about the boy Nunnaly being killed in a traffic accident. About the missing Dawkins kid's probable fate, the disappearance of the daughter, and the why and wherefore of her death.

Eichord had put Jeeter Oliver to work. Jeeter was the cop shop's guy who handled anything related to motion-picture film, surveillance videos, and similar materials. Eichord was setting up his game in several different locations. Just in case. A couple of extra face cards in the deck, in case of . . . well, just in case. He'd pick locations where he thought Spain might be comfortable. Places he might trust again.

The Special Division had come alive with activity. Realtors and land owners and renters and managers all over the greater St. Louis area were being shown the newly revised revision of the Frank Spain sketch, which