The Informant (16 page)

He felt slightly better now because he had at least taken some steps to prepare for killing Tosca in his cabin. Any plausible plan was better than no plan. And earlier he had created a gap in the cordon of sentries so there would be at least one way out. Now he needed to learn how the old men reacted to Tosca's proposal. If they turned him down and told him to solve his own problems, Schaeffer's best move would be to get out quietly and then kill Tosca somewhere else on another day.

He got onto the lighted drive and moved toward the lodge again. As he came nearer, he could see into the big conference room and tell that the meeting had begun. The light from inside poured out onto the pavement around the building from the glass wall so he stayed back. He could see there were four large tables pushed together into a huge square. All around it sat the old men.

It occurred to him that the square was a sign of resistance to Tosca. With a rectangular table, somebody was always at the head, and somebody was at the foot. These men were all chieftains, the heads of semitribal groups composed of extended family and close friends, as well as loose collections of hangers-on, allies, and associates who were willing to follow orders because there had always been money and protection if they did. The dons from the smaller, older eastern cities were often as rich and powerful as the leaders of the families in New York or Chicago or Boston because they could control virtually all illegal activity in those places and take a percentage. They were protective of their independence and dignity, and didn't acknowledge the superiority of anyone. They also knew that while a New York family might have more made men, there was no way to project that power to do much in a tightly held city a thousand miles away.

His best hope was that these men would be too suspicious and guarded to help Tosca come to power in the Balacontano family. Why set loose a force greater than their own? Agreeing to hunt for the Butcher's Boy was a small enough thing to do, but its very smallness meant it would be worth little gratitude in the future. Once Carl Bala was satisfied and put Tosca in power, Tosca wouldn't need their help anymore.

He stood in the crowd and studied what he could see of the big room through the glass. If Tosca had wanted to preside, he had been thwarted. The participants were sitting in equal seats at the table, the old men taking turns as each of them made his own statement. Now and then a speaker would stop, raise his eyebrows inquiringly, and gesture toward one or more of the others. Most of the time, the men indicated would nod sagely or make a reply that seemed to indicate an affirmative answer. There was no telling what the topics were, but he guessed that they were using the conference as a way to settle the eternal boundary disputes and make requests for help, a share in some racket, or exclusive rights to some method of stealing in some particular place. He knew that for most of them, there was a wide range of issues that were more important than the succession of leaders in the Balacontano family or the fate of a hit man nobody had seen in years.

Agreements made openly in this company would be difficult to disavow later, and at the same time, could not be understood by third parties to be conspiracies. He stood outside among the young men, the retainers and bodyguards and soldiers, who had no more idea of the outcome than he had. But then, four men came out of the door and lit cigarettes. As they talked to friends and acquaintances, he edged closer. Within a few seconds, the four were surrounded by a growing ring of the curious.

In the center was a man about forty years old. He said, "The local stuff—gambling, street dealers, fencing operations, crews that rip off trucks and trains and cargo containers, percentages of local businesses—all that stays local. You won't have a crew from a Chicago family come in and start asking a contractor in your town to pay them for protection. Trying to pull a scam on a national company or make a deal in a foreign country is open to everybody. But if you have to go to the national headquarters, and it's in St. Louis, you do the St. Louis people the courtesy of letting them know you're there and giving them a small piece of the game." He shrugged. "It's all pretty much the way it was before we were born."

Schaeffer said quietly to the man beside him, "I wonder what happened with Frank Tosca."

One of the men who had come out heard him. "They're still talking about some of it, but he'll get what he wants. They all like the idea of a mutual defense agreement. If some outsider attacks one of the families, the don asks for help, and the other families all send soldiers."

One of the listeners said, "Sounds like overkill."

"That's the point. Things used to work because everybody knew if they wanted to go head-to-head with the Mafia, they were taking on a lot more than what was in front of their eyes that day. There was no way they could win. We need that again. Say some Mexican gang starts shaking down a neighborhood in Houston. The next thing that happens is that the city fills up with goombahs. Fifteen or twenty of the Mexicans disappear one night and the problem is solved for the next ten years."

One of the listeners said, "I'd be ready for that."

"Right. It's the only way. We should have been doing that already."

"Damned straight."

Schaeffer said, "What's that stuff about him wanting some guy killed? Why can't he handle that himself?"

"I think it's a test, to see which of the old men are on board."

"What do the old men think?"

"They all agreed to that first thing. It's common courtesy. You'll hear everything in a few minutes. They're going to take a half-hour break after the last couple of capos finish talking."

Schaeffer drifted backward, allowing other men to slip in to listen, so he didn't appear to be moving, but was soon ten feet from the center of the conversation. Then he was in dimmer light, farther from the lodge. He turned away and began to walk. When he was near the cabins, he left the pavement and walked between two of them as though he were taking a shortcut to his own.

He went to the back of cabin ten, entered through the window, and sat down in the dark to wait for Frank Tosca. He had heard what he needed to know so there was no reason to take the risk of standing outside the lodge in the crowd, waiting for someone to recognize him. He sat in the dark and planned and rested. It was over an hour later before he heard men's voices as they passed on the paved drive outside. Maybe the formal part of the conference was over, or maybe it was just the break. But he had to be ready.

He stood and went to the doorway, stepped into the space at the hinge side of the door, took out the lock-blade knife he had brought, and opened it. He concentrated on regulating his breathing and his heartbeat, readying himself for the struggle. This was no different from the old days. There was no longer any room for negotiation or for last-minute bartering. He heard a man coming up the gravel walk. He listened for other footsteps, but there was only one set. The man climbed up the wooden steps. His leather-soled shoes clopped on the wooden porch. His key was in the lock. The door opened and he stepped inside. Tosca. He began to close it, but before it was fully closed, Schaeffer was behind him,
his forearm snaking around Tosca's neck, the knife edge tilted inward. He brought the knife across Tosca's throat with as much force as he could, and then leaned into the door so it closed and locked. He released his hold on Tosca.

Tosca collapsed to the floor on his back, his blood pumping out of him rapidly. His eyes were wide with the panicky realization that he was dying, and would be dead in seconds. His shirt, the upper part of his sport coat, and the carpet beneath him were soaked already, and the blood was pooling beside him.

Schaeffer looked down and said, "I told you to leave me out of it."

A few seconds later, Tosca lost consciousness and his body relaxed. On his way to the window Schaeffer wiped the knife on the bed sheet, closed it, and put it in his pocket. He moved the pistol he had taken from the dead sentry from his belt to his jacket pocket and climbed out the window. He closed the window, took a few steps, and slipped in among the surrounding pine trees.

He walked purposefully toward the outer edge of the complex, heading upward on the hillside with his hand in his pocket on the gun. He passed within sight of two more cabins, and he could see there were lights on in their windows. He kept climbing steadily up the hill, away from the cabins. From the vantage of the higher ground, he could see that about half the soldiers were still milling around outside the lodge, and a few of the old capos seemed to have stayed in the big meeting room, standing in small groups talking, but there were many more men walking up the paved paths to cabins. He could see nobody running or making big gestures so he knew Tosca still had not been discovered. He climbed as rapidly as he could, staying in the cover of the pine groves.

He began to feel winded, to gasp for breath as he forced himself to trot up the hillside. The lack of breath was a nightmarish feeling. He was back in the world he had left twenty years ago, forced to stay alive with his wits and the weapons he could find, but he wasn't the same man anymore. He was twenty years older, far beyond the age when this prolonged physical exertion was routine.
What he was doing tonight was something that would have challenged him in his prime. He didn't allow himself to think about how much of the ordeal was ahead of him; he just kept running, putting one foot in front of the other, taking himself up the side of the mountain.

When he reached the level ledge where he'd left his gear, he retrieved the rifle, the rolled poncho, and the night-vision scope, and climbed some more. It was after a few steps higher that he became aware of a faint, almost imperceptible hum. For a second he wondered if it was some kind of vehicle straining its transmission as it drove up a parallel road to intercept him. But as it grew louder, it didn't sound like that. It was some kind of aircraft. It occurred to him that he had not heard any aircraft before. And it must be too late at night for airliners to be landing at Phoenix Sky Harbor.

He moved faster. He took off the jacket he had stolen from the sentry and ran on. He concentrated on making his way up to the crest of the mountain, where the pine forest flourished and the cover was thick. When he reached the big grove he moved off the trail to the thick carpet of pine needles to quiet his footsteps and tried to catch his breath while he walked.

The hum of engines grew into a loud, rhythmic throbbing, and the sound of rotors became a thwack-thwack-thwack in the general roar. Helicopters came in overhead, and he could see their running lights as they cleared the top of the mountain and followed the terrain down into the compound below.

He kept moving, listening to the sounds of more and more helicopters coming in and landing at the foot of the mountain. He knew there would already be federal or police vehicles blocking the private road that led away from the resort, and undoubtedly the highway beyond it. The first thing they did in a raid was take control of the roads so nobody could drive out.

There was no question in his mind that these invaders were the result of his conversation with Elizabeth Waring. He had tipped her off to the existence of a meeting and asked her to use the Justice Department's net of wiretaps and surveillance operations to find out whether a lot of capos were on their way to one place. She had refused to tell him, but of course she had found out and sent an army of federal cops to round up everybody at the meeting. Now the feds would have a wonderful couple of days photographing, fingerprinting, and identifying all the men at the meeting and trying to find out what they were up to.

But things had not worked out well for him. If he had been able to get to her more quickly, or had more specific information for her, maybe the federal cops would have arrived in time to keep Frank Tosca from making his pitch. Tosca had called powerful men here from all over the country, and if they'd all been arrested right away, they would have been angry. Maybe they wouldn't have killed Tosca, but they might have. They certainly wouldn't have agreed to make him head of the Balacontano family. For Schaeffer the timing was wrong. They had already agreed before the first helicopter had swooped in. Now Schaeffer was about as likely to get scooped up in the police sweep as the rest of them. And if the police didn't get startled in the woods and open fire on him, then he would be locked up in a big holding cell with about fifty men who would consider it a pleasure and a privilege to beat him to death.

When he reached the rock shelf where he'd left his pack, he slipped the poncho over his head. He hid the rifle under a pile of rocks, pushed pine needles over it so no part was visible, and stood. Getting out was going to depend on stealth and speed, and not on trying to win a shoot-out with the FBI.

The trail through the pines was deserted, but as he loped along, the sound of helicopters was always in his ears. Suddenly the sound grew deafening, and he threw himself down and skittered under a big rock outcropping. When the helicopter was overhead, he was blinded by the outcropping above him, but then he could see the white belly slide over and then down into the valley. It looked so near that it seemed to him he could almost reach up and touch it.

They must be still ferrying policemen into the center of the resort so they could keep swarming into the compound, detaining everybody they saw. In a few minutes that would be accomplished, and they would be free to start fanning out, searching for stray gangsters from the air.

Before he dared to slow down, he needed to get outside the perimeter the cops were establishing. He kept moving through the pine woods, fighting the stitch in his side and the difficulty he felt gasping in enough air. He reached the spot where he had left the dead sentry, and knowing he had gotten that far gave him a second wind. If all the sentries were in a long line at this altitude, that line would be the spot where the police would start. He ran harder, promising himself he would get as far as the downslope and then stop to catch his breath.
Do it now,
he thought.
Whatever you do now is worth a hundred times as much as anything you can do later.