Warren Murphy - Mob Psychology

"But who?" asked Bruno the Chef, his face characteristically blank.

"I dunno. I dunno. Let me think."

Carmine Imbruglia screwed up his face into a homely knot. He chewed on one knuckle.

"I see two possibilities here," he said, swallowing a fragment of dry skin. "One, it was that Tony. He was the only one who knew we were makin' a move, except you and me."

"What's two?" said the Chef quickly, hoping to steer his don away from the delicate subject of personal loyalty.

"Two is if we can't make more money to pay off Don Fiavorante, we gotta figure out a way that Don Fiavorante gets less."

"Don Fiavorante don't think that way."

"Maybe," said Don Carmine slowly, "Don Fiavorante shouldn't think at all."

Bruno (The Chef) Boyardi's dull eyes grew very, very worried as Don Carmine got to his feet and strode over to a bank of windows along one side of the LCN conference room.

His knotted expression melted into one of open surprise as his gaze went through the dark windows.

"Look what we got here!" he said.

"What?" asked Bruno the Chef, peering out.

He saw a step van the color of dried mud.

"It ain't got no markin's," growled Don Carmine.

"Sure, it has. See the little gold shield on the side?"

"Looks like a fuggin' badge," muttered Don Carmine. "Can you make out the letters?"

"U . . . P . . S."

"The military! They sent the fuggin' army after us," howled Don Carmine, lunging for his tommy gun. He yanked back the charging bolt and waited.

When a man in a drab uniform identical in color to the step van's paint job emerged from the driver's side, Don Carmine opened up through the windows.

The racket was calamitous. Glass shards cascaded like glacial ice letting go. Smoking brass shell casings sprinkled and rolled about the floor.

Struggling to hold the bucking muzzle on his target, Don Carmine Imbruglia laughed with whooping joy.

"Take that, army cogsugger! You ain't takin' Cadillac Carmine, the Kingpin of Boston!"

"I think he's dead," said the Chef when the drum ran empty.

"Sure, he's dead," Carmine said, smacking the smoking weapon lustily. "This is a tommy. A good American weapon. It kills better than anythin'."

"Maybe we should get rid of the body," suggested Bruno the Chef, watching it bleed with vague interest.

"Get rid of the truck too. Dump it in the river. That's why I picked this joint. The river's a great way to get rid of dead guys. "

"Okay, boss," the Chef said amiably, starting for the door.

"But make fuggin' sure you dump it on the Boston side of the river," Carmine called after him. "Let the Westies catch the blame."

"They don't call them Westies up here, boss. They're Southies. "

"Westies. Southies. Irish is Irish. Hop to it. And when you're done, get that Tony in here."

"Right, boss."

Chapter 32

The Master of Sinanju examined the patient in the bed.

He was old. His bone structure whispered of the Rome of Caesar's day. His skin was waxy and yellow as old cheese.

"What is his illness?" Chiun asked Harold Smith.

"Poison. "

"Ah, the stomach," intoned Chiun, who in deference to his antiseptic surroundings wore ivory white. He looked about him. A doctor in Harold Smiths employ stood off to one side, looking concerned and even puzzled. They were in the hospital wing of Folcroft Sanitarium.

"He is in an irreversible coma," the physician said defensively. "There is nothing you can do for him. I told Dr. Smith that."

The Master of Sinanju ignored the quack's obvious ravings and examined the machine that forced the comatose unfortunate's lungs to pump, and touched lightly the clear tubes that provided unhealthy potions.

Without a word, he began ripping these free.

This brought the expected reaction from the physician. Seeing his barbaric machines desecrated, he made protest.

"You'll kill him! The patient must have his intravenous liquids. "

The Master of Sinanju allowed the lunatic to approach, and with a deft movement snatched up one of his waving forearms and inserted a clear tube into it.

The doctor's face acquired a perplexed dreamy expression and, made docile by the poisons that were supposed to cure the sick, he allowed himself to be seated in a nearby chair.

"Are you certain that this will work?" asked Harold Smith anxiously.

"No," said Chiun gravely.

"Then why are you-?"

"There is nothing to lose," said Chiun, shaking his hands clear of his white sleeves. "This man has been pampered by machines until his will to function has been lulled into a lazy sleep. If he dies, he dies. But if he is to recover, his body must be convinced that this will happen only if it struggles for life."

And before Harold Smith could protest, the Master of Sinanju abruptly plunged his long fingernails into the exposed wrinkled pot belly of the patient.

The man's emaciated body jerked as its spine squirmed and twisted like an electric arc sizzling between contact posts.

Using both hands, Chiun plunged his nails deeper into the sickly greenish flesh.

And into the patient's ear, he whispered a delicate warning.

"Fight for your life, lazy one. Or I will take it from you."

Harold Smith turned away, his teeth set, his eyes closed. In his mind's eye he saw ten eruptions of blood. One for each of the Master of Sinanju's remorseless fingernails.

The next phase of Smith's plan depended upon bringing his patient back to health.

Chapter 33

"In onore della famiglia, la famiglia a abbraccio," intoned Don Carmine Imbruglia in a corner office at LNG headquarters, lit by sullen candlelight.

"I don't know what the fug it means," he said ruefully, "but they always talk that kinda crap at one of these things."

"What things?" asked Tony Tollini, looking at the dagger and pistol that lay crossed on the table before him. For some reason, the windows were obscured with black crepe.

"Baptisms," said Don Carmine.

"Oh. Is someone being baptized?"

"Good question. You are."

Tony Tollini's eyes bugged out. "Me?"

"Don't be modest. You done good for LCN. We're gonna make you one of us."

Tony started to rise, saying, "I don't-"

Bruno the Chefs meaty hand pushed Tony Tollini back into his seat.

"Show some respect," he growled.

"What . . . what do I do?" Tony asked, weak-voiced.

"Almost nothin'," Don Carmine said casually. "Here, gimme your hand."

Tony Tollini allowed Don Carmine to take up his shaking hand. Don Carmine lifted the silver dagger off the table with the other.

"Okay," said Don Carmine. "Repeat after me, 'I want to enter into this organization to protect my family and to protect all my friends.' "

" 'I want to enter into this organization to protect my family and to protect all my friends,' " Tony repeated in a dull voice.

" 'I swear not to divulge this secret and to obey, with love and omerta.' "

" 'I swear not to divulge this secret and to obey, with love and omerta,' " Tony added, wondering what an omerta was. It sounded like a weapon. Maybe a Sicilian dagger, like the one Don Carmine was waving before his eyes.

A quick pass of the glittering blade, and the tip of Tony's index finger ran red with blood.

"Okay, I cut your trigger finger," said Don Carmine. "Now I cut me." Don Carmine sliced the tip of his trigger finger and joined it to Tony's. Only then did it begin to sting.

"Somebody gimme me a saint," called Don Carmine.

"Here," said Bruno the Chef, pulling a laminated card from his suit pocket.

Don Carmine looked at the face. "I don't know this one," he muttered.

"Saint Pantaleone. He's good for toothaches."

"Toothaches! What are we, dentists now?"

"I got a busted biscuspid, boss."

Don Carmine shrugged like a small bear with an itchy back. "What the fug. A saint is a saint, right? You, Tony, repeat after me," he said, touching a corner of the laminated card to the sickly yellow candle flame.