The Undertaker

“How much!” Tinkerton screamed at him. “Three million? Five? Maybe ten?” Tinkerton smiled. “I knew you had something squirreled away, you little weasel. I knew you had a stash hidden away in here, because I can read you like a book. Even in the Marines, you always had a way out, a private little escape hatch, didn't you?”

“I'm a United States Senator,” Hardin whispered, his shirtfront now covered with blood. “You'll never get away with this.”

“I would offer you a little sporting wager on that, but I'm afraid you won't be around for me to collect.” Tinkerton grinned. “Now get up! We are going for a little walk, all of us — you, me, the rocket scientist, Miz Kasmarek, the briefcase — all of us,” he said as he turned toward me. “And no stunts, Pete. Nothing brave or noble. I'll shoot the girl if you so much as blink wrong. And be advised, this is not the Thirty-Fifth Street El station in Chicago. I saw those cute little feet of hers in action and if one of them as much as twitches, I will put a hole in her you can run your fist through. I swear I will. Now get up and get moving, all of you.”

Tinkerton grabbed Hardin by the arm and pushed him toward the door. We went through the dark outer office and into the hall, with Sandy and me in the lead and Tinkerton and Hardin close behind. The Senator turned toward the front of the building, but Tinkerton blocked his way. “No, no, the side door, Major. With Rico's boys gone, there is nothing out there to stop me now.”

“What about the guards?” I asked. “They'll remember us.”

“You really are a tourist, Pete,” Tinkerton laughed as he pointed the Glock at me. “Those rent-a-cops wouldn't recognize Donald Duck if he stepped on their feet. So, ya'll put your arms around each other like two little lovebirds and stay well ahead of me. Walk straight out the door and across the street into the park. And remember, I do know how to use this thing. Now move.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Another ‘senseless act of urban violence’…

It was nearly midnight when Tinkerton forced us out the side door, across Delaware Avenue, and into the dark city park beyond. The walkway meandered deeper and deeper into the trees and featured the same antique, wrought-iron streetlights as in the Common in Boston. They might be quaint, but they did not shed much light. Neither did a sky full of stars or a thin, quarter moon, leaving the dark, sinister expanses between the trees and tall bushes looming like black holes.

“Too bad you refused my offer back in Columbus, Pete. We really were the good guys.” Tinkerton was apparently still trying to win me over to “the dark side”. “You never struck me as one of those wild-eyed California liberals, and I assure you “The Sopranos” and “The Godfather” are a bunch of crap. When you get up close and personal with Santorini's people, or Rico Patillo's, or any of the rest of them, they are ignorant, unschooled scum – petty thieves, pimps, bookies, drug dealers, and killers — some of the worst, most amoral people this country has ever produced. That is why we had to smash them. It was for the good of the country, Pete. Making some of them talk gave us the proof we needed to roll-up their operations and put the rest of them in jail.”

“Zero Defects, Ralph?” I asked.

“That's right, Zero Defects. They should be pinning a medal on me, not crying over a bunch of low-lifes like Louie Panozzo, Richie Benvenuto, Clement Aleppo, Johnny Dantonio, and all the rest. You never met them, Pete. The collective IQ of all six couldn't have been much over one hundred. They refused to follow the simple rules they themselves agreed to, so they became breakage, that's all.”

“Breakage?” Sandy asked. I squeezed her shoulder, hoping to shut her up, but that was hopeless as usual. “For a lawyer, you've got some real weird ideas about people.”

“Do I? Santorini already had contracts out on each one of them, and dead is dead. This way, their numerous transgressions enabled the program's integrity to remain intact and their deaths served a higher purpose, which was much more than that ilk deserved.”

“What about Panozzo's wife and the other women?” Sandy asked. “What were they? More breakage? Is that what they deserved too?”

“In life, we each make our own choices, Miz Kasmarek. We chose the beds we lie in, don't we? They picked theirs, much as you picked yours.”

I looked over my shoulder and glared at him, but Tinkerton was not that stupid. He knew where the danger lay and he continued to point the pistol at me, knowing that would control Sandy. “Say what you like, it was our little unit that provided backbone to the entire Witness Protection Program. Not one of them left. Not one of them caved in. Not one of them recanted. Yes, that was zero defects. So which was the greater evil?”

“You are a fool, Ralph,” Hardin mocked him. “We got rid of Santorini and all the crooked politicians and cops who protected him. Sure, we let Rico take over all his territories, but that was a temporary expedient. We control Rico.”

“Unfortunately, Rico doesn't look at it that way, does he?” Tinkerton shot back. “You are such a waste, Timmy. Time Magazine called you “The Crusading Marine,” “The Mob's Senator from hell.” After all, you came up with the title “Zero Defects.” If we had stayed with it for another year we could have broken up the rest of the east coast families and put them all in jail, Patillo included. We could have done it the honest way, but that was too slow for you. The Senate wasn't big enough. No, you wanted the White House, and you thought you could use Rico and all of his pals and connections to get you there.”

“The White House? I don't know what you're smoking these days, Ralph. You need professional help.” Hardin sneered at him. “The VA has some good mental health people, maybe I can make a few calls for you. But, these theatrics with the handgun? A nobody like you? You wouldn't dare kill me, and we both know it.”

Hardin's last insults had pushed Tinkerton over the edge. “You lying bastard,” Tinkerton growled. “You haven't got a shred of honor left in you, none at all.”

Sandy and I had stopped walking. We turned and looked at them as Tinkerton swung the automatic around and backhanded the Senator across the mouth with the long barrel of the Glock. Hardin stumbled sideways and crumpled to his knees in the grass a few feet away. “No, no. God, not the face again. No,” he mumbled as a tooth fell out in his bloody hands. Tinkerton wasn't finished. He stepped closer and raised the pistol again, but Hardin never gave him an opening. He fell to the ground and kept crawling further away, covering his head with both arms, sobbing, “No, no.”

Tinkerton followed, taunting him. “What ever is the matter, Timmy? Don't you think the voters will like a pretty boy with a fresh scar and a few gaps where those pretty, white-capped teeth used to be? Take it from me, a few bruises helps focus the mind, don't they, Pete? Maybe I can throw in a couple of burns, too?” He stared down at the cowering Senator. “Everything I did was for the program, to protect it, and to protect you, you rotten, two-faced crook! Everything. And you hung me out to dry.”

Tinkerton was absorbed with Hardin and I knew this might be the first and only chance we would get. Should I go for him? Or, should we make a run for the bushes? I gauged the distance. Tinkerton was at least ten feet away from me. Could I get to him before he turned the gun back on us? “Now!” I whispered to Sandy, “run!” and shoved her away. She stumbled and looked back at me. “Go!” I said again and this time she did, scrambling away into the darkness.

Before I could follow her, Tinkerton had spun around and had the gun pointed at me again. “Stop right there, Pete. I'll drop you if you so much as twitch. I swear I will.”

Slowly I turned and looked back at him.

“Miz Kas-mar-ek,” he called out in a sing-song voice. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. This is a nine millimeter I have in my hand. I'll begin shooting random pieces off young Peter here if you don't, pieces you will surely miss.”

I looked over my shoulder and groaned as Sandy walked back out of the bushes. She stepped next to me and put her arm around my waist with an embarrassed shrug.

“Good girl,” Tinkerton grinned. “Now sit, both of you, right there on the grass.”

We did what he said and I looked around, desperately hoping that a cop would come by, or maybe a jogger, or even a park bum, but we had no such luck. The park was quiet as a tomb. I managed to place myself between Sandy and Tinkerton's gun, but in the end that wouldn't do a whole lot of good for her or for me. His big nine- millimeter slugs would rip through both of us without even slowing down.

Tinkerton turned back to Hardin and jabbed him with the gun barrel. “The briefcase is from Rico Patillo isn't