John Miller - Inside Out

Before Rush was blinded, the dark had been the one thing he was afraid of. Since he was first put into his own bedroom at the age of two, he had slept with the door open a crack, a night-light in the hallway illuminating the way to his parents' bedroom. Since the accident, Rush hadn't cared whether the door was left open or closed. Another small thing that feasted on Winter's heart.

New York, New York

It was almost eleven when a gimp-gaited Herman Hoffman walked up from the subway stop at 72nd and Broadway and started making his way toward the meeting. As he turned the corner, he spotted an elegant gray Towncar parked across the narrow street from the small coffeehouse. He ignored it, knowing that the driver was studying him, relaying to the man inside the shop on his mobile phone that Herman was approaching, without backup. A sign on the door said that the small business was closed. As he approached, a large man unlocked the door from the inside. As Herman slipped into the coffeehouse, he caught a reflection in the window-a small, ancient man wearing a tweed jacket, whose body seemed shaped like a question mark-the man he had become.

Herman's limp was his badge of honor, the visible remains of his courage-compliments of an ill-mannered Stasi agent who had used a wood-carver's mallet on his knee in a futile attempt to elicit information. Men like Herman knew that torture rarely led to useful information. He was seventy-eight and his face looked like a cadaver's. The smell of ointment wafted from him. He looked like a man on the edge of the grave, not someone who held the reins to organized death and destruction.

The New Orleanian he'd come to meet, Johnny Russo, was Sam Manelli's nephew-in-law, operations manager, enforcer, trusted messenger, and heir apparent to Sam's crime empire. Russo sat at a table in the rear, wearing an expensive sports jacket that shone like wet fish scales. With his buzz cut, his high-tech wire rims and patent-leather boots, he might have been mistaken for a forty-something art gallery owner instead of the savage he really was.

Herman sat directly across from Russo, who closed his magazine, laid it aside, and folded his hands together. “Mr. Hoffman,” Russo said, concentrating his attention on the old man. “Coffee?”

“Hello, John.” Herman allowed his face to communicate a flicker of amusement. “Too late for coffee.” He pursed his lips, shrugged his narrow shoulders and placed a small plastic box on the table. The green light set into its surface blinked a steady beat.

“What's that?” Johnny Russo asked.

Herman slipped the apparatus back into his coat pocket. “It's a little bird that chirps in the presence of any electronic devices like transmitters, even recorders.”

“Where can I get one of those?”

“They're not available. Is everything in order?”

Russo raised his eyebrows. “Sam said yes to the figure. Who the hell's he going to shop prices with at this late date, right? I mean, it isn't like he has any choice.”

“Things are in place.”

“Sam wants out of that place like you wouldn't believe. He's hot as a two-dollar pistol over all this. All of the fee up front and he didn't even flinch. I guess three million for a single hit is some kind of a record.”

“Nowhere near it.” Herman forced himself to smile. “Certainty always costs more than maybe. This is a complicated, expensive operation. Sam will get his freedom. You will get what you want. And I will get the satisfaction of performing the impossible-one last time.”

“And three million, tax free.” Russo's eyes shifted focus and Herman realized that the mobster was staring at the large flakes of dead skin on the shoulders of his jacket. The disease that ravaged his skin was humiliating, especially considering the man he had once been. When their eyes met, Russo peered over Herman's shoulder at his man near the door and then gave Herman a we-are-going-to-rule-the-world smile. “When is this gonna happen? Sam wants it real soon. Every day he's in that jail is like a year to most people.”

“I can't give anybody outside my group the date of an operation, John. My people have not failed once in fifty years. I know where the marshals have Devlin. You can assure Sam that the trial is never going to take place. Dylan won't even make it to testify before the ‘secret' congressional committee on organized crime. My people are already staging. That's all you need to know.”

Russo's eyes danced with excitement. “That's great! If everybody gets the message that there is no safe place to hide if they betray me

… The feds are gonna be hugely pissed.”

“They'll know Sam was behind it, but they will never prove it unless you, Sam, or I talk.”

Herman knew Russo well enough to understand that he was no Sam Manelli and when this self-important turd didn't have Sam on his shoulder, the empire was doomed. Of all the alliances Herman had ever formed, this one was singularly unpalatable.

“Where is it?” Herman asked.

“What?”

Herman stared down at his hands again as if he were memorizing the liver spots. “The three-million-dollar fee.”

Russo snapped his fingers. “Spiro!” The muscle man by the door strode over carrying an attache case and placed it on the table. Russo popped the locks and rotated the case to expose a stack of engraved documents.

Herman thumbed the edges of the bearer bonds, not counting to confirm there were sixty of them, just making sure they were real. With so much at stake Johnny Russo wouldn't dare hand Herman bogus paper, but Russo might have been screwed over by someone else. He looked at his watch and stood up. “I have a subway to catch.”

“You want me to send Spiro and the car to make sure you get home with that?”

Herman stared down at Russo. “You're kidding, right?” Herman wasn't about to have Russo know where his home was. Personal danger had nothing to do with it.

Herman rode the nearly deserted subway with the stainless-steel briefcase on the floor beside him. He sat patiently with his eyes closed.

He had dealt with some of the country's most infamous gangsters from the late 1940s. No matter what talent each possessed that had elevated them to their positions of leadership, not one in a thousand rose above the level of an expensively dressed ape. Herman had always admired Sam Manelli. He was remarkably intelligent, utterly ruthless, and knew more about human nature than anyone. He was also a man of his word. He would rather be tortured to death than inform on anyone. When Sam was gone, the last of the honorable crime bosses was gone, which was just as well. Even if a code of silence was possible with these new gangsters, modern electronics were making secrets a thing of the past.

At his stop Herman picked up the briefcase, got off the train, and walked slowly up the steps out onto the street. His building was near the Stock Exchange, Battery Park, and Trinity Church, and although the neighborhood was teeming with people during the week, it was fairly deserted after five-thirty and a ghost town on Saturday nights, when all the office buildings were empty.

Herman walked casually, swinging the briefcase containing 3 million dollars' worth of paper-every bit as negotiable as cash. He saw two men seated on a stoop in front of a closed deli a block away. He didn't make any attempt to cross to the other side of the street-he maintained a course that would place him an arm's length from them. He didn't look at the two men until they stood and made it impossible for him to pass without stepping off the curb.

One of the men was large and dark as pitch, with a deep scar that gave his cheek the appearance of buttocks. His clothes smelled like something that had been pulled from a muddy ditch and left wadded up for a few days. “Hey, man. You got the time?”