Thomas Perry - The Informant

His best hope was that these men would be too suspicious and guarded to help Tosca come to power in the Balacontano family. Why set loose a force greater than their own? Agreeing to hunt for the Butcher's Boy was a small enough thing to do, but its very smallness meant it would be worth little gratitude in the future. Once Carl Bala was satisfied and put Tosca in power, Tosca wouldn't need their help anymore.

He stood in the crowd and studied what he could see of the big room through the glass. If Tosca had wanted to preside, he had been thwarted. The participants were sitting in equal seats at the table, the old men taking turns as each of them made his own statement. Now and then a speaker would stop, raise his eyebrows inquiringly, and gesture toward one or more of the others. Most of the time, the men indicated would nod sagely or make a reply that seemed to indicate an affirmative answer. There was no telling what the topics were, but he guessed that they were using the conference as a way to settle the eternal boundary disputes and make requests for help, a share in some racket, or exclusive rights to some method of stealing in some particular place. He knew that for most of them, there was a wide range of issues that were more important than the succession of leaders in the Balacontano family or the fate of a hit man nobody had seen in years.

Agreements made openly in this company would be difficult to disavow later, and at the same time, could not be understood by third parties to be conspiracies. He stood outside among the young men, the retainers and bodyguards and soldiers, who had no more idea of the outcome than he had. But then, four men came out of the door and lit cigarettes. As they talked to friends and acquaintances, he edged closer. Within a few seconds, the four were surrounded by a growing ring of the curious.

In the center was a man about forty years old. He said, "The local stuff-gambling, street dealers, fencing operations, crews that rip off trucks and trains and cargo containers, percentages of local businesses-all that stays local. You won't have a crew from a Chicago family come in and start asking a contractor in your town to pay them for protection. Trying to pull a scam on a national company or make a deal in a foreign country is open to everybody. But if you have to go to the national headquarters, and it's in St. Louis, you do the St. Louis people the courtesy of letting them know you're there and giving them a small piece of the game." He shrugged. "It's all pretty much the way it was before we were born."

Schaeffer said quietly to the man beside him, "I wonder what happened with Frank Tosca."

One of the men who had come out heard him. "They're still talking about some of it, but he'll get what he wants. They all like the idea of a mutual defense agreement. If some outsider attacks one of the families, the don asks for help, and the other families all send soldiers."

One of the listeners said, "Sounds like overkill."

"That's the point. Things used to work because everybody knew if they wanted to go head-to-head with the Mafia, they were taking on a lot more than what was in front of their eyes that day. There was no way they could win. We need that again. Say some Mexican gang starts shaking down a neighborhood in Houston. The next thing that happens is that the city fills up with goombahs. Fifteen or twenty of the Mexicans disappear one night and the problem is solved for the next ten years."

One of the listeners said, "I'd be ready for that."

"Right. It's the only way. We should have been doing that already."

"Damned straight."

Schaeffer said, "What's that stuff about him wanting some guy killed? Why can't he handle that himself?"

"I think it's a test, to see which of the old men are on board."

"What do the old men think?"

"They all agreed to that first thing. It's common courtesy. You'll hear everything in a few minutes. They're going to take a half-hour break after the last couple of capos finish talking."

Schaeffer drifted backward, allowing other men to slip in to listen, so he didn't appear to be moving, but was soon ten feet from the center of the conversation. Then he was in dimmer light, farther from the lodge. He turned away and began to walk. When he was near the cabins, he left the pavement and walked between two of them as though he were taking a shortcut to his own.

He went to the back of cabin ten, entered through the window, and sat down in the dark to wait for Frank Tosca. He had heard what he needed to know so there was no reason to take the risk of standing outside the lodge in the crowd, waiting for someone to recognize him. He sat in the dark and planned and rested. It was over an hour later before he heard men's voices as they passed on the paved drive outside. Maybe the formal part of the conference was over, or maybe it was just the break. But he had to be ready.

He stood and went to the doorway, stepped into the space at the hinge side of the door, took out the lock-blade knife he had brought, and opened it. He concentrated on regulating his breathing and his heartbeat, readying himself for the struggle. This was no different from the old days. There was no longer any room for negotiation or for last-minute bartering. He heard a man coming up the gravel walk. He listened for other footsteps, but there was only one set. The man climbed up the wooden steps. His leather-soled shoes clopped on the wooden porch. His key was in the lock. The door opened and he stepped inside. Tosca. He began to close it, but before it was fully closed, Schaeffer was behind him, his forearm snaking around Tosca's neck, the knife edge tilted inward. He brought the knife across Tosca's throat with as much force as he could, and then leaned into the door so it closed and locked. He released his hold on Tosca.

Tosca collapsed to the floor on his back, his blood pumping out of him rapidly. His eyes were wide with the panicky realization that he was dying, and would be dead in seconds. His shirt, the upper part of his sport coat, and the carpet beneath him were soaked already, and the blood was pooling beside him.

Schaeffer looked down and said, "I told you to leave me out of it."

A few seconds later, Tosca lost consciousness and his body relaxed. On his way to the window Schaeffer wiped the knife on the bed sheet, closed it, and put it in his pocket. He moved the pistol he had taken from the dead sentry from his belt to his jacket pocket and climbed out the window. He closed the window, took a few steps, and slipped in among the surrounding pine trees.

He walked purposefully toward the outer edge of the complex, heading upward on the hillside with his hand in his pocket on the gun. He passed within sight of two more cabins, and he could see there were lights on in their windows. He kept climbing steadily up the hill, away from the cabins. From the vantage of the higher ground, he could see that about half the soldiers were still milling around outside the lodge, and a few of the old capos seemed to have stayed in the big meeting room, standing in small groups talking, but there were many more men walking up the paved paths to cabins. He could see nobody running or making big gestures so he knew Tosca still had not been discovered. He climbed as rapidly as he could, staying in the cover of the pine groves.

He began to feel winded, to gasp for breath as he forced himself to trot up the hillside. The lack of breath was a nightmarish feeling. He was back in the world he had left twenty years ago, forced to stay alive with his wits and the weapons he could find, but he wasn't the same man anymore. He was twenty years older, far beyond the age when this prolonged physical exertion was routine. What he was doing tonight was something that would have challenged him in his prime. He didn't allow himself to think about how much of the ordeal was ahead of him; he just kept running, putting one foot in front of the other, taking himself up the side of the mountain.