She had been trying to reach Bass all day with no success. Someone always answered at the D.E.A. number he had given her, but they always told her that "Mr. Bass was out," and they never told her when he might be expected back. She knew they were lying to her, but she also knew there was nothing she could do about it.
Nothing except wait, sit by the telephone, and hope for a call that would tell her everything was all right.
A call that somewhere deep inside she felt would never come . . .
B
ass wasn't saying or doing much at the moment. He didn't have much of a chance, considering the antics of Williams, the man from Washington.
Bass, Ferguson, and Benton were sitting quietly and listening to his tirade.
"I can't fucking believe this!" Williams raved. "Castillo dead! Rodriguez dead! And who knows how many others! They tell me that club looks like a terrorist attack hit it! That goddamned Stone is in town for how long? Five hours? Six? And the whole goddamned town is like South Vietnam all over again!"
"Sir," Bass began quietly, "there's no proof—"
"Don't fucking talk to me about proof!" Williams yelled. "And don't fucking interrupt me! You sons of bitches don't give a shit! You don't care if Stone wipes out everyone in Miami. Hell, it would just make your jobs easier. For a while. But not for long. Then the big boys would just get back in gear and crack up the whole thing again. And where would you be then?"
He paused, but no one answered.
"Answer me when I'm talking to you,
goddammit
!"
"Sir," Ferguson said, unconsciously rubbing his neck, "we think that it's at least possible Stone might be of a lot of help to us. We're bound by the law and the right way of doing things." He put up a hand to still
Williams's
protest. "Not that we shouldn't be. But there are times when the law just doesn't seem to help."
Williams's
face grew very red. "Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you—"
"Hold on," Ferguson said. His voice was low, but something in his tone made Williams stop and listen. "Have we slowed down the drug traffic into this country one bit in the last ten years by doing things the 'right' way? Or has that traffic increased steadily? Have the criminal scum that trade in drugs been put into prison to suffer behind bars, or are they all living in mansions and driving bigger cars than you and me?"
"That's not the fucking
point
!" Williams exploded. "The fucking
point
is that everyone in this room is sworn to uphold the law, and the law is what makes this country work. While that crazy vigilante out there is blowing people away, including our major leads in this case, we're sitting here with our thumbs up our asses watching the whole thing slide away from us and he's kicking the Constitution to pieces."
"Uh . . . sir?" Benton said.
"What,
goddammit
?"
"Like Bass said, sir, we don't have any proof that Stone was anywhere near the Black Pussy Cat."
Williams grew ominously quiet. "I know he was there. You know he was there. We all know it."
No one said anything. There wasn't anything to say.
After a minute, Williams spoke again. "Now here's what we're going to do. We're going to find Stone. We—"
"But sir," Bass began.
"No, Mr. Bass. There are no buts. This is what we will do. We will find Stone, and we will trail him and know his every move. He is
not
going to fuck us up again.
Is that understood?
" He bore down on every word in his last sentence, trying to look each man in the eye as he said it.
G
uillermo "Bill" Rosales, head of Organized Crime investigations in Miami, stood beside Homicide lieutenant Rod
Allbright
as the two men stared at the interior of the Black Pussy Cat. The block walls were striated, holes were punched in the tin roof, and bodies lay all around.
"
Jesús
Christ!" Rosales exclaimed. "We've had street wars before, but nothing like this!"
Allbright
nodded. "Fifteen dead, maybe more. And it couldn't have lasted more than a minute. If this escalates . . ."
He didn't have to finish. Rosales knew what he meant. "It's not that I don't think some of these people deserved to die," Rosales said. "Jos
é
Rodriguez has a rap sheet you could use to cover a mattress. Still, this is ridiculous."
The two men watched as bodies were bagged, evidence collected, positions marked. Flash cameras snapped as portions of the scene were permanently recorded.
"Almost all
Cubanos
," Rosales sighed. "Ah, I can imagine what the newspapers will make of this." Rosales, though an American by birth, had Cuban parents and when very young had visited the island of his heritage. "It won't be good."
"There were others here,"
Allbright
told him. "Cuban or not, we don't have any way of knowing."
"What others?"
"The ones who walked away. The ones who took out those shooters with the Uzis like they were amateurs, which they weren't. I'd like to know where those guys are. I'd like to know
who
they are."
"So would I," Rosales said. "So would I."
T
here were times when Crazy Charlie
Lucci
wished he'd gone into some other line of work, something simple. Like pumping gas, maybe, or running one of those all-night convenience stores.
Then he wouldn't have had to deal with his father.
Charlie thought the old bastard was losing it.
Oh, he'd gone along with Charlie's ideas, all right. It was just that he seemed vague on the details of what was going down. And then there was that D.E.A. guy his father had
bought
from the Cubans.
Charlie didn't like that part of it at all.
"It's stupid," Charlie had argued. "He's a nothing. Why take a chance on messing with the feds any more than we have to? It's bad enough as it is, but if one of their guys disappears . . ."
The old man hadn't listened. He thought it was a fine idea, and it was about the only idea he'd had in the last few years. So he stuck by his guns, and Charlie had given in.
Now Charlie was going over his plans for the rest of the night with the old man. He'd told him everything twice already, but Don Vito had to hear it all again. His mind was like a sieve.
"It's real simple," Charlie said loudly. The old man was partially deaf, too. "We go in, we blow '
em
away, that's all there is to it."
They were in the master bedroom of the mansion on Don Vito's estate. When his wife had died nearly ten years before, the don had redecorated.
There was a circular bed with red silk sheets, and a black spread. The walls and the carpeting were white. There was a huge mirror on the ceiling over the bed.
Probably the only way the old fucker can get it up
, Charlie thought.
Pretend he's in a whorehouse
.
Don Vito was propped in the bed, supported by five or six pillows in red and black silk cases. He was wearing black silk pajamas and looked like a waxen corpse, his face thin, the flesh hanging on it loosely. The only thing about him that looked alive was his eyes, which were still darkly black and shiny.
"Nothing's ever that simple, Charlie. I thought I taught you that. I want you to go through it again, carefully."
Shit
, Charlie thought.
I know he's got a broad waiting in the next room. Why can't he just let me go and get on with it?
Aloud, Charlie said, "All right. It's like this. You remember I told you about the big drug deal that's going down between the Colombians and the Cubans?"
"Of course," Don Vito said. And he did. He remembered much more than people thought. For several years he had been cultivating the image of a senile old man, but it was merely that—an image. Let them think he was harmless, and they would reveal much more to him than they might do otherwise. Even his own son. "I remember. Go on."
"Good. Right. Well, of course the Colombians and the Cubans don't trust each other. We know that."
Don Vito tried not to smile. For his son to state such an obvious thing was almost an insult. Or maybe Charlie was none too bright, which the don had long suspected might be the case. At any rate, no one in the drug pipeline trusted anyone else. That was an article of the faith: "Trust no one."
Charlie was going on. "So naturally, the Cubans don't go to the processing plant. The Colombians won't tell where it is. Shit, even we can't find that out.
"Anyway, the Cubans naturally don't want the Colombians in
their
territory, either. The Colombians import, process, and wholesale to the Cubans, who sell it on the streets. So they've set up a meet at a neutral site, like they always do. But it's always a different place. This time, we found out where."
"How did we do that?" Don Vito inquired.
"You know that. It was your guys that found out." Charlie admitted the last part grudgingly.
"And what about my guys?"
Charlie looked at the old man sharply. How much did the old man know? "You heard something?"
"People still tell me things, Charlie."
"I guess they do." Charlie watched the old man speculatively. "So you heard about the nightclub?"
"Nightclub? Strip joint, no more. Why give it such a glamorous name? Yes, I heard."
"It was a fucking slaughter. I heard some guys must have got away, but there was a lot of dead people. Cubans mostly."
"Including any particular ones?"
"Yeah, right, including your two tame boys, Castillo and Rodriguez."
The old man shifted on the pillows, trying to reach a more comfortable position.
"I need a drink," Charlie said. He went to the padded leather wet bar on one side of the room—red leather with black diamond patches on it—and poured himself a stiff bourbon.
"And do we know who is responsible for this 'fucking slaughter'?" Don Vito said when Charlie came back to the bedside.
Charlie took a deep drink. "No, we don't."
"And is there more to the story?"
The drink gave Charlie the courage to admit the rest. "Yes. There were some guys in there, we can't find out who, and they blew away a four-man hit team. Just like that."
"I don't like this, Charlie," the old man snapped.
"Neither do I,
goddammit
! We don't know who called the hit and we don't know who walked out of it. You think I like that shit?"
The old man just looked at him.
Charlie took another drink to calm himself. "Anyway, we've got to go through with our plan. Me and my guys will hit the spic drug deal tonight." He looked at his watch. "In one hour from now."
"And the Colombians will think the Cubans have double-crossed them, of course, since the Cubans chose the site. Or perhaps the Cubans will think it is a Colombian double-cross. Either way, we win."
"Right." Charlie finished his drink.
"You believe that Enrique
Feliz
will fall for it? Or the Colombians? You believe that
Feliz
is that stupid?"
Charlie walked over to the bar and refilled his glass. "Sure he is. The only hitch in the deal is that D.E.A. guy you bought."
The don stiffened. "That is the smartest thing we've done."
To Charlie, this defense of his action was a sure sign that his father was indeed senile, and that the flashes of life he had shown only moments before were a freak occurrence.
"Let me explain it," the old man continued. "If there is any question in the mind of the Colombians about the Cuban double cross, they might hesitate to throw their business to us. How will we ever be able to gain their confidence?"
"There won't be a question. Hell, I've hired a bunch of Cubans for this deal, through Castillo and Rodriguez. Me and the guys will be out of sight, just helping out if they need us."