Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon (18 page)

Werkle nodded and raised the cup to
his lips again. “We’re gonna have to do something about these fucking
stugots
. They’re animals. If they...”

He stopped at the sharp knock at
the door. It opened.

“Mario just died, Poppa,” Alfie
said.

“
Fanculo
!” Werkle shouted,
tossing the teacup across the room. “Those motherfucks!”

We stood there as he sat, breathing
heavily. Then he lowered his head. “
La
buonanima
,” he
said.

Angelo lowered his head as well.
“
La buonanima
.”

“Yeah,
la
buonanima
,”
Paulie added.

Werkle looked up. “Go make the
arrangements for Mario, Alfie,” he said.

“Okay, Poppa.” He closed the
door.

“We’re gonna kill those animals.
All of ‘em.” Werkle glanced at Angelo. “You have any problem with me
calling Eddie and having you stay on for a few days? With Mario gone, I
need somebody to get my guys ready to go to war with these
stugots
.
My boy...he ain’t ready for that yet.”

“Whoa,” I said before Angelo could
speak. “War?”

“Yeah, war,” Werkle said. “We’re
gonna hit ‘em hard and fast. Starting with that
figa
that’s running
the place.”

I took a deep breath. “You need to
think that through, Mr. Werkle.”

“I have thought it through,” he
said. “I started thinking it through when they whacked Ralphie. Now Mario’s
dead. Ain’t no more thinking to do.” He paused. “Look, I know you got your
own thing, Charlie, but this is our thing. And it’s my decision, not
yours.”

“I’m not talking about my thing or
your thing,” I said. Actually I was. A full-on war between Werkle and
Schleu would certainly get the cops involved. And maybe the Security Force
too. Until I knew what Schleu had planned for Christmas Eve, I couldn’t let
that happen. I had to stop it. If I could.

“Then what are you talking
about?”

“Numbers,” I said. “How many
soldiers do you have?”

He studied me in silence for a few
seconds, then said, “I can put fifty or sixty guys out the door right now.
Make some calls, more.”

“Schleu has at least eighty, maybe
a hundred guys in the Floresta. Heavily armed. With only one way in, a door
you’re going to have to go through to get to them.” I paused. “I’m sorry,
but your guys will never make the steps.”

Werkle looked at Angelo. “What do
you say?”

“Mario was a friend of mine,” he
said. “I want them dead as much as you.” He paused. “But like it or not,
Mr. Welles has a point. The Floresta is like a fortress. One way in.
Windows they can fire from. These guys took the Floresta away from Papa
Lazaro because Lazaro only had a handful of people to fight back. We’d need
an army to get through what they got now.”

“So we get an army,” Werkle said.
“I got friends I can call.”

“You’re missing the point,” I said.
“Say you get three hundred soldiers. Good soldiers. And you arm them good
too. AKs for everybody. Grenades.” I paused. “Where are you gonna be if two
hundred and fifty of them are dead on the grass outside the Floresta when
you finally get inside? Sure, maybe you win. Maybe Schleu and the rest are
dead. But what do you end up with?”

I shook my head. “
Ugatz
.” My
knowledge of Italian slang is pretty limited, but even I knew
ugatz
what meant. Nothing.

“So what are you trying to say? We
just let it go?”

“No,” I said. “I’m saying that you
don’t go in like a bull. You go in like a thief in the night.” I paused.
“Cut off the serpent’s head and the body dies, right? They lose their boss,
they’re going to be easy pickings for you.”

Werkle stared at me without a
word.

“Kaiser,” I said. “Barozie. Lavino.
All dead. Where are their soldiers?” I paused. “In the wind.”

He stayed silent for nearly thirty
seconds, studying me. If he didn’t buy it, I’d leave and make a phone call
to Phillip Bain. If somebody was going to assault the Floresta, at least
the Security Force would do it right and come out on top.

Whether that would stop what
Redmond called Armageddon was another story. But I was running out of time
and options.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna take a
nap. You got three hours. When I get up, you either got a plan to do it
another way or we do it my way.”

“Thank you for this opportunity,
Don Alfredo,” Angelo said quickly.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said.

Werkle stood and lumbered around
from behind the desk, passing us without a word or a glance. He closed the
door when he left.

Angelo turned to me. “I sure hope
you have some ideas.”

“I always have ideas,” I
said.

I did have ideas. What I didn’t
have was information, and without that, it was hard to tell which ideas
were good and which were crap.

We kept Pirelli there, hoping that
he could give us some more general information about what was happening at
the Floresta. That was a bust.

Paulie Pirelli was the kind of guy
who did exactly what he was told to do. He probably did it well. But that
was all he did. Eichhorn told him to watch the Floresta, take pictures when
the sentries changed shifts or when Schleu was visible. If it wasn’t
sentries or Katarina Schleu, he tuned it out.

He was able to tell us, as Eichhorn
had, that the groups of people had stopped coming after Schleu returned to
the Floresta Thursday morning. Probably after hitting the warehouse on
Beacon where Redmond was. There had been no groups on Friday either.
Saturday they had started up again, but only two groups arrived, not the
average of four that had been showing up before Thursday.

What did it mean? I didn’t know,
and without knowing, it didn’t help. It was just a series of facts. Four
groups Wednesday, none Thursday or Friday, two Saturday. It probably meant
something, but without context, it meant nothing.

The plan that Werkle expected was
one that ended with Schleu dead. I still wasn’t sure that would stop
whatever she had planned, but it was at least a starting point. To do that,
we had to get to Schleu. Preferably outside the Floresta. Because I
couldn’t see a way of getting to her inside the building.

They’d never seen Schleu leave the
Floresta, and only saw her return on Thursday morning. Was there another
way out? Or did they miss her going out the front door sometime before
then? Was she gone Friday? Is that why there were no groups that day? Or
was it something else?

Pirelli didn’t have answers.
Neither did I.

We were going around and around for
the third time. Part of what I do is ask questions until I hit on the right
one. I kept thinking that if I asked that right question, Pirelli would
give me an answer I could use.

Then the same guy who’d delivered
the latest pictures of the Floresta that morning stuck his head in the
door. “Mr. Vitale?”

Angelo looked over.
“Yes?”

“Don Alfredo said we were supposed
to let you know if something happened.”

“What do you have?” Angelo
asked.

“Call from the guard at the main
gate,” he said.

“Transfer it here.”

“Okay,” the guy said, closing the
door.

Angelo went around the desk and
picked up the phone as it began to ring. “This is Angelo Vitale,” he
said.

He listened for a moment, then
said, “I’ll send somebody down.” He glanced at Pirelli. “Go find somebody
to take a car to the gatehouse. And have them wake Don Alfredo.”

“Right,” Pirelli said.

As he left, I asked, “What was
that?”

“Black van pulled up on Hampton in
front of the gatehouse. Tossed two people out.” He paused. “Eichhorn and
Brewster. Guard said one of them is alive and talking.”

No-Neck Al Werkle was clearly a
vampire who liked his sleep and didn’t like having it constantly
interrupted. He burst into the room and yelled, “Now what the fuck is going
on?”

“Schleu has returned what she
took,” Angelo said. “Dropped them off at the gate. They’re being picked
up.” He paused. “I guess one of them is dead.”

Werkle dropped behind his desk.
“Why the fuck would she do that?”

“Well, I think part of it is Schleu
telling you that she knows who they worked for,” I said. “And that she
knows who you are, and where you are. As for the rest, we’ll have to
wait.”

We didn’t have to wait long. A
couple of minutes later, there was a knock at the door and Alfie came in,
followed by Eichhorn.

He looked rough. They’d used their
fists on him. But he was alive, which was more than could be said for Brewster.

“Tell me about it, Bobby,” Werkle
said as his son moved to the chair at his right.

Eichhorn stood for a moment without
saying anything. Angelo got up and took his arm, leading him to one of the
chairs in front of the desk. Then Angelo sat in the chair to Werkle’s left,
Mario’s old seat. I sat down beside Eichhorn.

“I saw Paulie outside, so I guess
he got away okay and you already heard what happened,” Eichhorn
said.

“Yeah,” Werkle replied.

“They had the drop on me and Jack
from the second they came through the door. Nothing we could do but stand
there and get took. They knocked us around a little, cleaned out the place,
and took us across the street.”

“Did you see that fucking
pucchiacha
?” Werkle asked, his voice low and ugly.

“Oh yeah,” Eichhorn said with a
sigh. “Took us right to her. She told us to get on our knees and Jack made
a remark about that. You know how Jack was, smart guy but mouthy. Said he
only kneels for God. So she says to him, “Say hello to the big guy for me’
and pops him right in the forehead. Blew the back of his head
out.”

“
La buonanima
,” Angelo said.
Werkle remained silent.

Eichhorn took a deep breath. “So I
got on my knees and they started on me. Slaps, punches, kicks, the usual
shit. She asked me who I was working for and I tried the FBI gag.” He
looked at me. “She didn’t buy it either. Or she didn’t care. Looked at the
ID card and badge, laughed, and tossed ‘em aside. And they kept the rough
stuff up till I finally told ‘em what they wanted to know.”

He bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Mr.
Werkle.”

“Ya do what you have to do, Bobby,”
Werkle said. “How come she let you live?”

Eichhorn looked up. “She needed
somebody to deliver a message. She said to tell you to mind your own
business and she’d mind hers. Said if you wanted to get in a pissing match,
she’d drown you.”

Werkle laughed. “She said
that?”

“Yes, sir,” Eichhorn said. “Those
exact words.”

“Good,” Werkle said. “Cause I’m
gonna tell all you guys something right now. Before I kill that miserable
puttana
, I’m gonna have every one of my guys piss in her mouth. Line
up and give her a squirt before I tear her fucking head off.”

Werkle probably wished he could
take part, but vampire physiology is very efficient. No body waste. Maybe
Alfie could stand in for him.

Werkle looked at me. “You come up
with your big plan yet?”

I shook my head. “Still working on
it, Mr. Werkle.”

“You got another hour and a half,”
he said, standing. “Then I start making calls.” He paused. “Talk to Acorns,
here. He’s been inside the building. Maybe he can help.” He paused again.
“Now I’m gonna try to get some sleep. Again.”

After he left, I looked at
Eichhorn. “Did you see anything that’ll help us get to Schleu?
Anything.”

“You go in, there’s a big open
room. Stairs on the right, going up. Room opposite the stairs, like the old
manager’s office or something. That’s where she was.”

“Yeah, I know what it looks like
inside,” I said. “I was in there a couple of times before the war.” I
paused. “Did anybody say anything? Maybe something that didn’t make any
sense to you.”

Eichhorn shook his head. “Just a
lot of whooping and hollering when they brought us in,” he said. “It was
like a pig catching contest at a fucking redneck convention, and me and
Jack were the pigs.”

I sighed. “Okay, let’s go through
it from the top. From when they grabbed you to when they dropped you off.
Anything you saw, anything you heard.”

Eichhorn was silent for a moment,
then said, “There was one thing. In the van, coming here. One of the guys
was bitching about bar duty, saying he was glad to be doing something
else.”

“Bar duty?” I frowned. “What does
that mean?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Welles,” he
said. “All he said was that he was glad to be back doing real work, not bar
duty. Other guy told him bar duty was easy, said something about women. I
couldn’t understand him through his redneck mumble. Swallowed his words.
Then the guy up front with the driver told ‘em all to shut up, and they
did.”