Thomas Perry - Sleeping Dogs

The Butcher’s Boy had fooled the alarm system and sat here in the dark waiting for him. This didn’t surprise him either. Alarm systems weren’t for people like them; they were to keep out some junkie who needed your stereo. He let his eyes dart to the nightstand for the remote control, but it wasn’t there. He could have turned out the lights and taken his chances in the dark, but of course this man knew that. So it had to be the lamp itself, quick and low and hard.

“I’d like to talk to you for a minute,” said the Butcher’s Boy.

“About ten years ago? I know why you’re here. I’d be here too.”

“Okay, let’s start with ten years ago.”

“I didn’t think I was setting you up. I thought they really were going to pay you. If I’d known they were going to take you out on the Strip and kill you …” He stopped and shrugged. “You know me.”

The Butcher’s Boy nodded. “You would have made sure they didn’t fuck it up.”

“I was the best. Maybe not ten years ago, but before that.”

“You were the best once. Not a lot of people can say that, especially the ones who were.”

Little Norman nodded. “I might have been able to talk them out of it, too. I always liked you. You were the only one in the trade that seemed to really be alive. Besides me.” Little Norman kept the lamp in his peripheral vision. He was too far away to grab it; he would have to bat it at the Boy. “I’m curious, kid. I know you’re not going to tell me where you’ve been.”

“No.”

“But tell me this: did you have any fun?”

This seemed to take the Boy by surprise. “Fun?”

“Yeah. I mean, was it worth it? Ten years is a hell of a lot of time to be hiding in a hole somewhere. Did you put together any kind of a life while you were gone?”

“I liked it. It was a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be. I’d have stayed forever. It doesn’t make me any happier to be here, but at least I didn’t waste the time I had.”

“I’m glad. At least old Eddie taught you something that did you some good. Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. Just make it in the head.”

“I’m not here for that. I’m not taking you this time, unless you can’t stand good luck and go for the lamp or something. I want you to talk to the old men.”

There was no question of who the old men were. “What for? What do you want to say to them?”

“Remind them of what happened ten years ago. I behaved like a professional. I did the job, I came here to get paid and the customer tried to chew me up.”

“They don’t give a shit about any of that. They didn’t then. They cared because of what you did after that. You buried a lot of people. It took them years to clean everything up.”

“I want them to remember that too. You understand what I’m saying.”

“You want to scare the old men? Has it been that long? You don’t remember who they are?”

“If they kill me, they get nothing. If they leave me alone, they can forget about me. I’m not working anymore.”

“You did Talarese and Mantino and Fratelli. Three medium-big fish in one week.”

“Talarese is the one who found me. Mantino had a specialist waiting for me when I tried to get out on a plane. Fratelli had people looking for me. I guess he was doing Balacontano a favor.”

“That ain’t the story they’re telling.”

Little Norman could tell that this wasn’t what the Butcher’s Boy had expected to hear. “What are they saying?”

“Talarese was wearing a police wire when you got him.”

“Talarese? Bullshit.”

“You wanted to know what they’re saying. That’s it. A lot of people think somebody who had problems with what was on the recording hired you to get all three of them. Some people think you just went crazy from hiding: you figured it wasn’t enough to put Carl Bala in jail. You had to cut down the ones he left in charge, so his family would fall apart.”

“I did them because it was the only way they left me to stay alive.”

Little Norman watched him for a reaction. “Then you made a mistake. If Talarese was wired, Mantino would be on the recordings. He’d be glad Talarese was dead.”

“I didn’t imagine that guy at the airport. When I left the cops were moving in on him.”

“Did you know his face?”

“No. A tall guy with blond hair and a mustache.”

“Did you ever let anybody take your picture?”

“No.”

“Couldn’t Mantino have found somebody who saw you in the old days? Think about it. You sure he wasn’t one of the cops?”

Wolf didn’t have to think. “Who did the wire belong to?”

“I won’t know unless they arrest somebody. Maybe they won’t. Maybe you killed everybody worth jail space.”

“I’m leaving now,” said the Butcher’s Boy. He stood up, the gun still trained on Little Norman. “Tell the old men what I said. Make sure they know what they’re doing if they decide to come after me.”

“You think Carl Bala’s going to leave you alone?”

“Carl Bala can’t do anything unless they let him.”

“What about the police?”

“I’m worried about the old men.”

“How do I give you their answer?”

Wolf shook his head. “This is the last conversation anybody’s going to have with me. If somebody is looking for me, watching me or waiting for me, I’ll know where they came from.”

“All you’re offering is that if they leave you alone, you’ll leave them alone?”

The Butcher’s Boy gave a little shrug. “It’s not a bad deal.” He stepped backward out the door and closed it behind him. Little Norman strained to hear his footsteps, then listened for the squeaking hinge on the front door, then waited for the rattle of a car’s starter. He heard none of them.

“No,” he said aloud. “Not a bad deal at all.”

Elizabeth cradled the baby in her arms. Amanda was asleep, but every time Elizabeth tried to ease the bottle out of her mouth, she would suck on it a few times to reassure herself that it was still there. Elizabeth stared across the baby’s room at the wall. It had occurred to her a few seconds ago that if she were the Butcher’s Boy, right about now she would be on her way to Boston to get Giovanni Bautista. It would have to be done right, though, a virtuoso performance, because Bautista would be expecting him. He was the last of Balacontano’s old stalwarts, and if the Butcher’s Boy killed him now it would accomplish two things: it would cut off, at least for the moment, Carl Bala’s most potent remaining means of finding him; and it would scare the hell out of everybody outside the family who might consider hunting him. This was the part that nobody else had ever understood about the Butcher’s Boy ten years ago: in order to survive, he’d had to remind people of their mortality. That would be what was on his mind now—surviving by convincing people that if they didn’t leave him alone he would kill them. What else did he have?

Now she slipped the bottle out of Amanda’s lips, jammed it upright beside her in the padding of the chair, then carefully eased her weight forward and straightened her legs to stand. So far, so good; Amanda was still limp and sleeping, a little gurgle in the back of her throat coming in slow, regular intervals, like a snore. Elizabeth stepped carefully on the boards of the hardwood floor that she remembered didn’t creak much, and made her way to the crib in her stockings. She leaned over the bars with Amanda in her arms, setting first the little heels, then the bottom, then the back, and only then, very slowly, the head on the mattress. She pulled the soft blanket up to the baby’s armpits, and was turning to sneak out of the room when she heard the telephone down the hall ring. She froze and looked at Amanda, then tried to step toward the doorway more quickly, each step now landing unerringly on a board that cracked like a rifle shot, and the phone growing unaccountably louder.