Warren Murphy: Created, The Destroyer

"Jimmy?"

"Yeah, boss."

"You're a good man."

"Thanks, boss. What brought that on?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to say it."

"You ain't afraid something's going to go wrong with Viaselli?"

"No. Not Viaselli."

"That hooked guy?"

Felton buttoned the blue jacket that matched perfectly with his pants, except he knew it didn't belong with those pants.

Jimmy knew better than to press the point. When Felton was ready to talk, he would talk and not before. Jimmy put the revolver inside his jacket pocket.

Later that night, Felton was in a talking mood. Jimmy was at the wheel of the pearl gray Rolls Royce Silver Dawn, subbing for O'Hara. He drove over the George Washington Bridge, its high-wired lights glinting like an Italian festival, its span stretching onward to New York like a great aqueduct of ancient Rome, except it carried people, not water.

"You know," Felton said, staring at New York from the back seat. "I was sorry I missed World War Two."

"We had a war of our own, boss."

"Yeah, but World War Two was a war, a big one. It's a hell of a thing that somebody's gotta go to an engineering school on the Hudson to learn how to run a war."

"You could've done it better, boss."

Felton frowned. "Maybe not better on the war side, but I would've known enough to look out for the Russians."

"Didn't we know?"

"We knew, but I would've known better. I would've looked out for England, France, China, the works. That's what the game is, Jimmy. Outside the family, you got no friends. There's no such thing as friends. Only relatives."

"You're the only family I ever had, boss."

"Thank you, Jimmy," Felton said.

"I mean it. I'd die for you or Miss Cynthia."

"I know it, Jimmy. You remember how that hooked guy came on?"

"Yeah, boss. I was right behind him."

"Ever see a guy move like that before?"

"You mean at you?"

"No. No, not that so much. Just the way he moved. He came without telegraphing that he was coming on."

"So?"

"Do fighters telegraph punches?"

"Not good ones."

"Why not?"

"They're taught," Jimmy suggested.

"That's right."

"So?"

"So, who's teaching?"

"Guys can learn it lots of places," Jimmy said. Felton was silent for a few moments.

He asked, "Seem more difficult lately to make a hit?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Is it the fault of the help? They getting worse?"

"About the same. You know, young punks, got a gun, they'll foul it up if you don't lead them by the nose."

"But what was their big trouble?"

"They said their targets were getting tougher to hit."

"But what else?"

"I don't know. Nothing else."

"No. There's something else."

Jimmy turned onto the West Side Drive heading for downtown New York. He eased the car into the right-hand lane. It was a Felton order. When on a job, obey the misdemeanours. No littering, no loitering, no speeding or double parking. It had always worked well.

"There's something else, Jimmy."

"You got me, boss."

"First they were hard to hit. And second, they never hit back. None of those mugs we hired ever got shot or even hurt."

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and looked for the 42nd Street exit. The conversation was beyond him. The boss was working on another one of his ideas.

"Why weren't any of these guys armed?" Felton asked.

"Lots of people don't carry guns," Jimmy said as he turned into a ramp that led down from the elevated highway.

"People checking into Viaselli's operations or mine?"

"So they're stupid."

"Stupid? No, they've got a pattern. Patterns and stupidity don't mesh. But that guy with a hook was a change from the pattern. If we thought that hooked bastard was fast, watch out for what comes next. I feel it. I know it."

"You mean they're going to get better."

"I don't think we're going to see much better. I don't think there is better. But watch out for teams. Killer teams."

"Like we had in the forties?"

"Like we had in the forties." Felton leaned back in his seat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The doorman at the Royal Plaza on 59th Street near Central Park was surprised when the well-dressed occupant of the Rolls Royce insisted the doorman park his car so that his chauffeur could accompany him.

The doorman agreed quickly. One does not argue with Rolls Royce passengers.

Felton made sure Jimmy was behind him before they both entered the plush Plaza lobby, with its heavy gilt-crested chairs, ponderous plants and effeminate room clerk.

The gun and shoulder holster fit neatly beneath the suit, and Felton and his driver attracted little attention as they stepped onto the elevator.

"Fourteenth floor," Felton said.

Jimmy slipped his right hand into his black uniform pocket to adjust his weapon. Felton gave him a quick dirty look that told him the move was wrong.

The gold-tinted elevator screen doors opened into a small foyer. Every other floor opened to a hallway with rooms. But Felton had advised Viaselli when he rented the floor in the Royal Plaza to reconstruct the entrance, eliminating the hallway in favor of a box-like entrance with peepholes.

Felton waited in the foyer and winked at Jimmy who smiled back. They both knew the arrangement of the floor and knew that one of Viaselli's body guards right now was looking them over through a one-way mirror on their left. Felton adjusted his tie in the mirror and Jimmy made an obscene sign toward his reflection with a middle finger.

The door opened. A man in a dark pin-striped suit and a bluish silk tie invited them in.

They walked calmly like a team of dancers, never showing emotion or quickening their pace, into a large, well-lit overfurnished living room filled with clouds of gray smoke and enough men in business suits to start a convention.

Only it wasn't a convention. And when Felton and Jimmy stopped in the middle of the room under a gaudy chandelier, the talk suddenly stopped and the whispering began.

"It's him," came the whispers. "Heah, that's him. Yeah. Shh. Not so loud, he'll hear you."

A well-manicured little man with a black knotted Italian cigar stuck between his thin dark lips came over to Felton and Jimmy, waving a thin bony right hand and flashing a twisted smile.

"Eh? Come sta, Mr. Felton?"

Felton tried in. vain to remember the man's name. He smiled a guarded recognition.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

"Thank you, no."

The man clapped one of his hands over his chest as if restraining a bleeding heart from bursting outward onto the gold yellow carpet. "I hate to mention this, but him"—the man said bowing slightly toward Jimmy, "this ain't no place for drivers. There's gonna be a meeting, you know."

"I didn't know," Felton said, looking at his watch.

"He gotta go."

"He stays."

The little man's expressive hands opened palm outward, his shoulders hunched. "But he don't belong."

"He stays," Felton said without expression.

The smile that never had been a smile disappeared as the thin dark lips tightened over yellow teeth. The right hand cupped toward its owner's face in a familiar Latin gesture. "Mr. Big's going to have something to say about this."

Felton glanced at his watch again.

The little man retreated to a cluster of compatriots grouped around a sofa. They listened to him, casting sidelong glances at Felton and his chauffeur.

Jimmy busied himself by staring down everyone in that group.

Suddenly, there was a rustle in the room as everyone seated jumped to their feet and those standing unconsciously straightened their backs. They all looked toward the big double doors that had been flung open.

A man in a conservative gray suit and striped Princeton tie stood in a doorway and called out: "Mr. Felton."