covers rose over his erect penis.
She stepped to the bed in time to stop him as he reached across to turn out the other light. “Leave it on tonight,” she said. As he started to turn she was already pressing against him, sprawled atop the covers, kissing his neck and giggling. She began to claw back the blanket, and he understood. She actually intended to go through with it. He snatched her wrist and said, trying to make it sound like a joke, “Wait a minute, Miss. I’m a married man.”
She held his face in both her hands, still smiling her false smile, but her eyes opened wide in a kind of pleading. She said, “I know it. And if you don’t start acting like one you won’t live until morning.”
He pressed himself to her, fondling her breast and kissing her deeply. She gently drew him on top of her, one hand clenching and unclenching on his back, and the other moving about under the covers. When she had found the gun he knew it. The hand stopped and she opened her legs. And then he was inside her, feeling at once the warm moistness of her, and the cold, hard impression of the gun on his leg. She began to give low, whispered cries, and kicked back the covers, keeping only one side veiled.
Whenever he opened his eyes, he could see her open eyes rolling about, as though in a kind of rapture. Her cries were coming more quickly now, and she moved almost with violence, her head rocking from side to side. He could see nothing but her head on the pillow beneath his, her hair spread like a flaming halo about it. At last the lids came down and she shuddered. A real orgasm, he thought. For a moment he was lost in the surprise of it, but he forgot it as her hips began to move again. He looked down at her face. There were tiny beads of perspiration now on her upper lip. Again she was moving her head from side to side. Finally her eyes narrowed for an instant before closing and they were both lost, falling weightless as the throbbing pressure exploded out of him.
For a moment they lay still, and her hand flattened on his back, while the other moved down it, then stopped. The hand raised slightly, and he heard the deafening bark of the pistol and felt a flash of heat. In an instant he had rolled clear, and found himself crouching like a wrestler beside the bed. At the foot of it he saw the figure of a man standing with an expression of pained surprise on his face, his eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open. As the figure tottered, two more shots slammed into his chest and he toppled backward like a felled tree.
“Shit,” he muttered, and looked at Maureen, who was still pointing the pistol under the covers, where there was now a singed and smoking black hole. She said, “See if he’s dead.”
He bent over the body, but there was no uncertainty. There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing. It was as though the thing on the rug had been part of the furniture of the unfamiliar room, or a bit of luggage left there by a slovenly porter. He looked at the face, frozen in its instant of outraged amazement. Then he said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. He looked up to see that she was already at her suitcase, taking out a fresh set of clothes. She turned to him and said, “But we’d better make him disappear.”
He began to dress. “Not much point in that,” he said. “It’ll slow us down, and it won’t help.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “We can’t just leave a—”
But he interrupted her. “I knew him.”
“Twelve five P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Vincent Toscanzio. At 11:50 subject boarded TWA flight 921 for Chicago. He was accompanied by three persons: One registered as William Capell, positive ID Guillermo Montani. Others listed as Daniel Chesire and Richard Greene not identified. Photography will be forwarded to Justice.
“2:30 P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Carlo Balacontano. At 1:30 subject boarded private aircraft at McCarron Airport. Aircraft took off at 1:45. Flight plan filed for Nutley, New Jersey. No ETA.
“9:15 A.M., Monday, February 19, Palm Springs: Subject Antonio Damonata, AKA Tony Damon. Subject checked out of Royal Palms Hotel at 7:00 A.M. Wife, Marie Damonata, took Sun Aire connecting flight to Los Angeles, 8:30 A.M. and Pan American flight 592 at 9:50 A.M. Destination Miami, Florida. Subject and two other men in Cadillac El Dorado, Blue, California license 048 KPJ, left vicinity at 8:35, probable destination Los Angeles.
“5:40 P.M., Monday, February 19, Miami: Subject Marie Damonata arrived Miami airport flight 592. Flight was met at 5:20 by four men. One positive ID Martin Damonata, son of Marie and Antonio Damonata. One probable ID Stephen LaTona.”
That was enough, thought Elizabeth. Brayer was right, and the last one clinched it. What the others were doing might have been open to question, but Tony Damon was scared to death. The murder of Castiglione had stirred them all up, and now they were on the move, scurrying back to their strongholds and getting the women out of sight.
It was coherent, she thought. Everywhere it was the same. The news had traveled quickly. “Five eighteen P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Seattle: Subject Joseph Vortici. Vortici has not left his home since Sunday, February 18. Vortici’s children have not been in school.”
They were all waiting for the next thing to happen, and it was clear they all expected it to be ugly. She put down the sheaf of reports and walked to the window. Las Vegas was a strange place. Even this building, FBI headquarters, felt like some sort of temporary structure thrown up in the middle of the desert. One-story, cinder blocks painted government green, an air conditioner every few yards. The only buildings that looked as if they were built by people who intended to stay were the giant hotels and casinos clustered around Las Vegas Boulevard like dinosaurs crowding up to drink at a stream. It was ludicrous, really. It was everything that everyone had always told her. What had Brayer called it? “A monument to the Mafia’s ability to cater to the lowest forms of lust in the souls of the American people; to give the suckers what they want. It’s the biggest joke that’s ever been played on the United States.” “Take a good look at it,” he’d said. “You’ll learn something. It’ll show you why the best we can ever hope to do is yap at their heels.” It was true. It wasn’t a regular city. All around were the most bizarre and outlandish temptations to do things you couldn’t do at home—eat too much, drink too much, stare at naked bodies in feathers and sequins, but mostly, gamble. But you had to admit there was something about it. It wasn’t exactly beautiful. It was—dazzling. For all intents and purposes, a place that grew up overnight, the night Bugsy Siegel arrived in 1946. Vanity Fair. If John Bunyan could have seen it he would have recognized it.
“Miss Waring.” She turned and saw it was the local FBI division chief. It was the first time she’d seen him since the meeting in the hotel. Where had he been?
“Yes?” she said.
“These gentlemen are agents Grove and Daly from Justice.” He left the office and closed the door.
She waited for them to say something, but they were busy pulling out chairs for themselves and shuffling papers in their briefcases. They looked vaguely familiar. She had probably seen them some time in a Justice hallway. She smiled and said, “What can I do for you?”
Grove said, “Miss Waring, we’re from Internal Security. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
She struggled to hold the smile, but she knew it must be fading. “Sure. What about?”
Daly, a chubby man with thick glasses and a crew cut, spoke first. “It’s about the incident concerning Fieldston Growth Enterprises. Please sit down.” He sounded kind, soothing, almost the way some men did who had always been chubby and worn thick glasses.
Grove cleared his throat, and she suddenly realized that this was going to be something she wouldn’t like. The men were distinctly uncomfortable. “To the best of your knowledge, who knew you had been ordered to serve a warrant on Fieldston Growth Enterprises?”
“John Brayer, of course,” she said. “The FBI. There were two Bureau auditors, but I didn’t get to meet them. I suppose the local FBI division head, the man who was just here. And there were two or three agents on surveillance at FGE.” Grove scribbled on a yellow legal-size notepad.
He said, “Who else?” He seemed to know the answer.
She remembered. “The presiding judge and I suppose his staff.”
He repeated, “Anyone else?”
This time she was sure. “Nobody I know of.”
Daly spoke up. His eyes looked apologetic behind the round magnifying lenses—big, sad, puppy eyes. “Please try harder to remember, Miss Waring.” It seemed to be very important to him. “Did you mention it to anyone?
