Thomas Perry - The Butcher's Boy

Even taken together, the two didn’t represent much of an edge, he thought. He’d have to find a way to reduce the chance of his being spotted to practically nil. He’d have to stay away from the big hotels. No, any hotel, he decided. There was no way to predict who really owned what, and who was a friend of whom. The airport and the bus station and the restaurants were out too. It would have to be done by a quick visit to town in a single night, and then more forays later if they seemed productive. He had to keep the time he was visible to a minimum.

He wished there were some other way. If only he’d been more careless he’d know more, he thought. That was the irony of it. He’d always avoided personal connections with his clients. He never saw them more than once if he could help it, and never let them know where he lived. His post office box was all they’d known about him, and often he’d known even less about them. His lack of curiosity had been a form of protection. He let the middlemen, the brokers like Orloff, accept the danger of knowing. But now he wished he’d been curious, just this once.

Maureen had been helpful, he thought. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d made fifty thousand dollars in less than a week. She couldn’t have carried all that hardware on an airplane anyway. But it all helped, everything would help now that was done right. Weapons that couldn’t be traced and hadn’t turned up in a ballistics report would contribute something to his peace of mind, if nothing else. He knew the car was more important. There was no chance anyone would make a connection between him and a used car bought for cash by a single woman who’d just moved to Illinois to take a job in the local school system. The fact that in the fifteen-minute drive between the dealer’s lot and the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles the name A. Blake on the ownership papers had been changed to Mr. A. Blake would mean nothing to anyone.

He liked driving at night. He was a little disappointed when the sky began to acquire the blue luminescence that meant dawn would break soon. It was as though the sun were in a race with him, and now it was just behind him. In an hour it would catch up, and an hour after that it would be daylight in Las Vegas. He’d still be a day away.

IT WAS GETTING LIGHT now, and Elizabeth could see the pink, craggy mountains jutting abruptly around the flat, empty basin that seemed to contain nothing but the road and billboards. She hadn’t noticed when the change had come. She’d gotten used to the advertisements for Las Vegas, and then she’d looked again and they were all for Reno and Lake Tahoe. The pictures were the same—a gigantic girl decorated with a few feathers and rhinestones, her impossibly long legs and ripe breasts taking more space than the suggestion of an opulent building behind her—but the location was different. They had left the gravitational field surrounding Las Vegas, and entered the one that pulled cars into the complex in the north. They had passed some invisible boundary in the darkness.

She knew she should be feeling elated. Whatever value the man beside her turned out to be in court, he was a real asset already. At this moment she knew more than anyone about what was happening, and he hadn’t even been interrogated yet. And what was more gratifying was that he’d confirmed most of the theories she and Brayer had developed. There was a war on between the families, and the key to it was Fieldston Growth Enterprises. One of the capos had even killed Castiglione over it. And Palermo knew who it was and might even be able to convince a jury. But almost as important for Elizabeth was that he knew what was going on at FGE. It didn’t matter anymore that she’d let the company records slip away. She was bringing in something better, a man who could tell them anything the papers would have revealed, and more. Maybe she’d feel better after she’d eaten and slept.

Right now she felt a headache preparing to strike as soon as the sun rose high enough to pierce through the side window into her eyes. It had been over ten days since she’d begun shuttling around the country, and she’d gotten used to being exhausted. But the strain on her nerves had culminated in the arrival of Palermo in the middle of the night. And there was Palermo himself. She knew that was part of it. He was the break they’d been needing but hadn’t dared hope would ever appear. He’d be more thoroughly protected than a visiting head of state, then resettled and watched and pampered for the rest of his life. In a way he was an admission of the hopelessness of it all. The Justice Department was just a better patron this week than whoever he’d been working for last week. And none of it seemed to change anything, really, she thought: if they weren’t more afraid of each other than they were of the Justice Department, we wouldn’t even have this man. And he’s getting a free ride. The deal of a lifetime.

She felt the headache beginning to assert itself, and decided to think about something else. She was doing her job, and that was all anyone could do. There was another billboard. This time the girl was naked except for two pasties shaped like stars and a pair of net panty hose with a star on the crotch. It was the star on the crotch that made it ludicrous, she decided. Why couldn’t the girl just be naked?

Palermo put on a pair of sunglasses. He was obviously prepared for the trip. There was probably a toothbrush in his coat pocket too. She turned away to watch for the next billboard. The drive was beginning to seem impossibly long. All of the proportions in the west were wrong. You could drive for hours and see nothing but empty, harsh, hot land populated only by smiling giantesses in their feathers and sequins.

“Oh, shit,” said Palermo. “Oh, shit,” he repeated.

“What’s wrong?” said Elizabeth.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he said in rising cadence. He had begun to accelerate rapidly, looking anxiously from the road to the rearview mirror and back. “Somebody’s following us.”

“Are you sure?”

He was still accelerating, his head bobbing frequently to look in the mirror. Elizabeth turned to see the car herself. In the distance behind them was a car, still tiny, but definitely gaining on them.

“They know,” he said pitifully. “Who cares how?” She could see he was terrified. He had the gas pedal to the floor now, the car straddling the broken white line in the pavement. Elizabeth looked behind again. The car was still gaining. It looked from the front like a Cadillac or maybe a Lincoln or a big Chrysler. She couldn’t tell the difference. But it must be going at least ninety, steadily gulping up the distance that separated them from it. The white line in the road was just a blurred ribbon that snapped and quivered in front of her. She didn’t dare look at the speedometer but she knew they must be going about as fast as their car could go. Behind them, the other car was still approaching. She took the gun out of her purse and checked the load.

“Shoot the bastards,” said Palermo. “Now, before they get close.”

“But we don’t know who it is,” said Elizabeth.

“Jesus Christ, who do you think it is?” shouted Palermo. “They’re going over a hundred. Shoot the bastards!”

The car was close now. Elizabeth could see it was a Cadillac. The dark green hood had an immaculate gleam that threw the sunlight back into the sky. It was drawing up behind now. There were two men in the front seat. She knew that at this speed all she’d have to do was hit the car. A punctured radiator or a blown-out windshield would stop them—maybe kill them. But what if it wasn’t what Palermo said? What if it was just two morons opening up a big new car on a deserted highway? She said, “No. Wait a minute.”