William Brown - The Undertaker

“Ah! Ah!” Hardin screamed as he grabbed the side of his face and spun sideways in his chair. When he pulled his hand away, there was blood all over his fingers, running down his neck and onto his shirt. Then Tinkerton pulled the Glock back, as if he was about to give Hardin a backhand blow across the mouth, but the Senator covered his face and shrank away in stark terror. “No, not the face,” he mumbled. “Not the face.”

Sandy turned her eyes away, but I continued to watch this horrific show, not knowing what Tinkerton would do next.

Tinkerton lowered the Glock and laughed as he looked down at Hardin's lap. “Why Senator, I do believe you have pissed you pants. Now get that kitty! Get it now, or by God, your precious 6:00 News face will be the last of your worries. I'll turn your brains into a fresco on that wall.”

“No, please,” Hardin cowered, completely broken as he raised his shaking hands to fend off any more gunshots. “Please.”

“Get it!” Tinkerton pointed the Glock at Hardin's other ear.

Trembling, Hardin reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He bent over and opened a side drawer in his desk. There was a steel strong box built inside. His hands were shaking, covered with blood, as he tried to fit a small key into the lock, but he dropped the keys on the carpet.

Tinkerton walked around to the other side of the desk and pressed the silencer against the side of Hardin's head. “No more games, open it.”

Hardin whimpered and shook like a leaf. He picked up the keys and tried again, and then he tried a third time, before he could get the key into the lock and open the door. Tinkerton shoved him aside and reached in, pulling out a large brown alligator skin briefcase. He laid it on the desk and snapped the locks open. He slowly raised the top. I saw the briefcase was packed with stacks of hundred-dollar bills and several fist-sized blue-velvet bags.

Tinkerton picked up one of the stacks of green and fanned it near Hardin's ear with his thumb. “You know, Major, nothing ruins the image of a great man worse than a very ordinary vice.” He dropped the stack of bills in the briefcase and picked up one of the blue-velvet bags. It was heavy and sounded like a bagful of small stones as he tossed it up and caught it lightly in the palm of his hand. “What do we have here, Major? Diamonds?” he asked as he cocked his head, his eyes twinkling. “How much?”

Hardin didn't answer. His eyes were riveted on the brown briefcase as if it were his own life lying open on the desk in front of him.

“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.”

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.”