bureaucracy of a Nova Sicilia franchulate, but lacking in the kind of flexibility that, for example, Y.T. has. A classic case of what is wrong with the Mafia today. The only reason the lieutenant is even here is because the situation has been changing so rapidly, and, of course, because of all the fine men they lost on the Kowloon.
Ky comes in over the radio again. 'Y.T. has just contacted her mother and asked for a ride,' he says. 'Would you like to hear their conversation?'
'Not unless it has tactical significance,' Uncle Enzo says briskly. This is one more thing to check off his list; he has been worried about Y.T.'s relationship with her mother and was meaning to speak with her about it.
Rife's jet sits on the tarmac, engines idling, waiting to taxi out onto the runway. In the cockpit are a pilot and copilot. Until half an hour ago, they were loyal employees of L. Bob Rife. Then they sat and watched out the windshield as the dozen Rife security drones who were stationed around the hangar variously got their heads blown off, their throats slit, or else just plain dropped their weapons and fell to their knees and surrendered. Now the pilot and copilot have taken lifelong oaths of loyalty to Uncle Enzo's organization. Uncle Enzo could have just dragged them out and replaced them with his own pilots, but this way is better. If Rife should, somehow, actually make it onto the plane, he will recognize his own pilots and think that everything is fine. And the fact that the pilots are alone there in the cockpit without any direct Mafia supervision will merely emphasize the great trust that Uncle Enzo has placed in them and the oath that they have taken. It will actually enhance their sense of duty. It will amplify Uncle Enzo's displeasure if they should break their oaths. Uncle Enzo has no doubt about the pilots at all.
He is less happy with the arrangements here, which were made rather hastily. The problem is, as usual, the unpredictable Y.T. He was not expecting her to jump out of a moving helicopter and get free from L. Bob Rife. He was, in other words, expecting a hostage negotiation somewhat later on, after Rife had flown Y.T. back to his headquarters in Houston.
But the hostage situation no longer obtains, and so Uncle Enzo feels it is important to stop Rife now, before he gets back to his home turf in Houston. He has called for a major realignment of Mafia forces, and right now, dozens of helicopters and tactical units are hastily replotting their courses and trying to converge on LAX as quickly as they can. But in the meantime, Enzo is here with a small number of his own personal bodyguards, and this technical surveillance man from Ng's organization.
They have shut down the airport. This was easy to do: they just pulled Lincoln Town Cars onto all the runways, for starters, and then went into the control tower and announced that in a few minutes they would be going to war. Now, LAX is probably quieter than it has been at any point since it was built. Uncle Enzo can actually hear the faint crashing of surf on the beach, half a mile away. It is almost pleasant here. Weenie-roasting weather.
Uncle Enzo is cooperating with Mr. Lee, which means working with Ng, and Ng, while highly competent, has a technological bias that Uncle Enzo distrusts. He would prefer a single good soldier in polished shoes, armed with a nine, to a hundred of Ng's gizmos and portable radar units.
When they came out here, he was expecting a broad open space in which to confront Rife. Instead, the environment is cluttered. Several dozen corporate jets and helicopters are parked on the apron. Nearby is an assortment of private hangars, each with its own fenced-in parking area containing a number of cars and utility vehicles. And they are rather close to the tank farm where the airport's supply of jet fuel is stored. That means lots of pipes and pumping stations and hydraulic folderol sprouting out of the ground. Tactically, the area has more in common with a jungle than with a desert. The apron and runway themselves are, of course, more desertlike, although they have drainage ditches where any number of men could be concealed. So a better analogy would be beach warfare in Vietnam: a broad open area that abruptly turns into jungle. Not Uncle Enzo's favorite place.
'The chopper is approaching the perimeter of the airport,' Ky says.
Uncle Enzo turns to his lieutenant. 'Everyone in place?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How do you know that?'
'They all checked in a few minutes ago.'
'That means absolutely nothing. And how about the pizza car?'
'Well, I thought I would do that later, sir - '
'You need to be capable of doing more than one thing at a time.'
The lieutenant turns away, shamed and awed. 'Ky,' Uncle Enzo says, 'anything interesting happening on our perimeter?'
'Nothing at all,' Ng says.
'Anything uninteresting?'
'A few maintenance workers, as normal.'
'How do you know they are maintenance workers and not Rife soldiers in costume? Did you check their IDs?'
'Soldiers carry guns. Or at least knives. Radar shows that these men do not. Q.E.D.'
'Still trying to get all our men to check in,' the lieutenant says. 'Having a little radio trouble, I guess.'
Uncle Enzo puts one arm around the lieutenant's shoulders. 'Let me tell you a story, son. From the first moment I saw you, I thought you seemed familiar. Finally I realized that you remind me of someone I used to know: a lieutenant who was my commanding officer, for a while, in Vietnam.'
The lieutenant is thrilled. 'Really?'
'Yes. He was young, bright, ambitious, well educated. And well meaning. But he had certain deficiencies. He had a stubborn inability to grasp the fundamentals of our situation over there. A sort of mental block, if you will, that caused those of us who were serving under him to experience the most intense kind of frustration. It was touch and go for a while, son, I don't mind telling you that.'
'How did it work out, Uncle Enzo?'
'It worked out fine. You see, one day, I took it upon myself to shoot him in the back of the head.'
The lieutenant's eyes get very big, and his face seems paralyzed. Uncle Enzo has no sympathy for him at all: if he screws this up, people could die.
Some new piece of radio babble comes in over the lieutenant's headset. 'Oh, Uncle Enzo?' he says, very quietly and reluctantly.
'Yes?''
'You were asking about that pizza car?'
'Yes?'
'It's not there.'
'Not there?'
'Apparently, when they set down to pick up Rife, a man got out of the chopper and climbed into the pizza car and drove it away.'
'Where did he drive it to?'
'We don't know, sir, we only had one spotter in the area, and he was tracking Rife.'
'Take off your headset,' Uncle Enzo says. 'And turn off that walkie-talkie. You need your ears.'
'My ears?'
Uncle Enzo drops into a crouch and walks briskly across the pavement until he is between a couple of small jets. He sets the skateboard down quietly. Then he unties his shoelaces and pulls his shoes off. He takes his socks off, too, and stuffs them into the shoes. He takes the straight razor out of his pocket, flips it open, and slits both of his trouser legs from the hem up to his groin, then bunches the material up and cuts it off. Otherwise the fabric will slide over his hairy legs when he walks and make noise.
'My God!' the lieutenant says, a couple of planes over. 'Al is down! My God, he's dead!'
70
Uncle Enzo leaves his jacket on, for now, because it's dark, and because it's lined with satin so that it is relatively quiet. Then he climbs up onto the wing of one of the planes so that his legs cannot be seen by someone crouching on the ground. He hunkers down on the end of the wing, opens his mouth so that he can hear better,
