Thomas Perry: Blood Money

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. The New York families. With all five of them, they must have two thousand made guys, and they’ve been fighting each other every few years since the Stone Age. These people like Molinari … they worry me.”

“That’s why this is the best way. You let them in on it, and what was to guarantee they wouldn’t cut a side deal, dust our guys, and take all the money? Molinari is capable of that … Catania’s crazy, and Phil Langusto is the fucking Prince of Darkness.”

The ring of the telephone in the stillness made DeLuca jump. He lifted it with his fingertips, as though it might be hot. “Yeah?”

Guarino watched Tommy DeLuca’s face. DeLuca squeezed his eyes closed as though they stung, and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “All right,” said DeLuca. “Bring everybody home now.” He hung up, and turned to Guarino. “They’re pulling their guys home.”

Guarino stood up. “Who is?”

DeLuca said, “The big guys. Langusto, Tasso, Molinari, Augustino, Catania … ” He squeezed his eyes closed again, then took a deep breath and let it out in despair. “When Castananza pulled his people out, I should have known. He’s been around for a long time, and he figured out he didn’t belong in this. It’s all been some kind of trap. It’s probably Catania. When we had that sit-down, he kept trying to make everybody think we imagined the whole thing. He and Delfina probably had our money all the time.”

“If they’ve got the money, why would they do anything else? What else do they want?”

“Delfina always thought he got screwed when Castiglione left and the Commission divided up the family. He got nothing, and I got Chicago. So what do you suppose he wants?”

“What about Catania?”

“Catania wants to take over the world,” DeLuca said. “We’ve got to get ready to protect ourselves.… We’ll make it really obvious, make it clear that Chicago isn’t going to be easy, so he’ll try to gobble up somebody else first.”

Guarino was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t know, Tommy. Are you sure it’s a good idea to look like we’ve got something in mind? People are nervous. All it would take right now is one little thing. A car backfires near one of those guys, and we’re going to have bodies dropping from one end of the country to the other.”

“There’s nothing else we can do,” pronounced DeLuca.

Guarino said, “I’d better get started, then. First thing is to get the word to people in all our businesses this morning, so nobody gets surprised.”

Guarino walked to the front door, then was startled to hear DeLuca’s voice right at his shoulder. He didn’t remember DeLuca ever walking him out before. “One more thing. Before this starts, I want a promise.”

“Sure, Tommy. What is it?”

“If anything happens to me, I want you to get Catania.”

Guarino shrugged. “He’s dead.” He opened the door and went outside. As he walked toward his car, he contemplated the strange observation he had made years ago. He had just seen another demonstration of it, but he still did not fully understand it. He remembered Tommy DeLuca from not that many years ago, when he was just the head of a crew on the South Side. He had been hard and audacious. When things had gotten ugly during the attempted coup in ’87, he had walked the street in a kind of strut, his overcoat open, his hands in the pockets, where he could reach through the lining for the little machine gun he carried. He had been alert and watching—not looking for something he was going to run away from, but something he was going to open up on with that gun.

Guarino had worked for four bosses in his life, and he had seen this happen before. For some reason, after a year or two in power, they began to change. They stopped going out and having fun with the guys, and they stopped smiling. But the less pleasure they got out of life, the more attached to it they seemed to get. It was as though they had won and kept so much money that they couldn’t bear the thought that they might ever die. He had noticed Tommy getting timid a couple of years ago. The few times he had seen Catania, he was always popping vitamins and drinking orange juice or bottled water, and that was a sign too. He wanted to live forever, like some Egyptian pharaoh.

The only exception that Guarino had ever seen had been Paul Castiglione. That was a man who had kept his edge. Even when his try at empire building had been betrayed and his allies killed, he had gone into exile the right way. He had done it like a crocodile backing out of a house. There was no question he was going: the Commission had said he was out. But they knew they had to be satisfied with that, and not kill him, because as long as he was going anyway, there was no reason to get any closer to those teeth.

If Castiglione ever disappeared from Arizona, there would be a number of people in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and a few other places who would find themselves rethinking some of their decisions from those days. There would be a lot of others who would be glad to see those days come back, and Guarino was one of them.

He got into his car and drove off toward the bookmaking service he ran on Fifty-fifth Street. It was the only place he could be absolutely positive had a phone line or two that he could use without being overheard or taped. It had always been one of his favorite places. He supposed that, with a war coming, he would probably have to shut it down in a few days, even though it supplied ten percent of his income. It was going to put a dent in his plan to save for the kids’ colleges, but it was the only thing to do. He wasn’t going to put twenty-seven people, half of them women, in front of a firebomb, at least not for ten percent.

As Guarino drove, he pondered all the calls he would have to make this morning. DeLuca had sent about two hundred and fifty guys out, and each had some people of his own. That had been far too many to have away from home for any reason, and now it just might cost something. He was going to have to make about fifty calls before the sun came up.

Tommy DeLuca sat inside his big brick house, wondering what he should be doing. By noon he was going to be surrounded by soldiers, but now he was in this peaceful, quiet room with nobody to talk to. This was when he could think, and he would have to think. In a few hours, when the guys started gathering around him, they were going to want to hear something that sounded like a sensible order of battle, and a strategy for defending the South Side of the city from … whom?

From Delfina and Catania, certainly, but Delfina was too devious to act without having the numbers on his side. DeLuca thought of the possibilities and felt his chest shrinking inward away from his shirt. Catania had probably brought a few other families with him from the beginning. The only ones that made sense would be a couple of other New York families. He wouldn’t want anyone at his doorstep waiting for a chance to take him out.

DeLuca thought of a few preliminary precautions. He would keep guys at O’Hare. There would be a few people in the arrival areas to spot the invaders, but the real meat of the crew would be outside, where they could do something about it. They would need some way of communicating, so spotters could alert the shooters to targets. Radios? He had a strong suspicion that it was a bad idea. There were so many radios already at work in an airport that somebody would end up telling an American Airlines pilot to shoot the man with the yellow tie, and everybody would go to jail. Cell phones, maybe.

There should be teams along the last stretches of the big highways—Interstate 90, certainly, and maybe one or two others. People should be placed in windows near all of his businesses. He would give them binoculars. There would be a few heavily armed defenders inside to hold off the assault.