Lone Wolf #6: Chicago Slaughter (12 page)

Randall, uncomfortable in the uniform of a federal marshal but otherwise almost at peace, proceeded in the car Calabrese had given him to the city jail, being careful to observe all rules and regulations. Calabrese had made it quite clear to him that once he left the mansion on Michigan Avenue he was completely on his own. “I can set this up and give you what you need,” Calabrese had said, “but that’s where it ends. If anything happens to you it happens to
you,
and if I’m ever tied up with it you’re finished. You understand that? And I don’t mean any quick easy death. Do you understand that?”

Randall understood that. Now that he had dealt with Calabrese he had a total comprehension of the man. He arranged things at a distance and then he stepped away. And if you did not realize that, if you tried to carry him one step further than he had gone, you were finished.

The way Calabrese had set the whole thing up was amazing. It confirmed the feeling that working for Versallo had given him over the years: that in all the world there were only five or six men who carried absolute power within their individual specialties, and at these top levels everything was arranged very simply and quickly. It was only when you slipped below the very top that life looked confusing and complex; at the summit everything could be worked out with a couple of phone calls.

Calabrese had sent him out of the room; Randall had sat for twenty minutes in a large, bare area down the hall smoking cigarettes and looking at the traffic in and out of the servant’s quarters. Calabrese apparently had a large staff. A woman who might have been Calabrese’s wife came over at one point and asked if there was anything he needed and Randall said no, he was fine, he didn’t want to trouble anyone. He suspected that Calabrese would not have liked the idea that his wife was involved at all with anyone who saw him professionally and that it would be better to keep his distance. At the end of the twenty minutes Calabrese himself had peered out the doorway at the end of the hall and motioned Randall back in, had told him bluntly, “Your man is at a precinct station on the South Side. I’ve told them to hold him for your pickup.”

“That’s good,” Randall said.

“It’s not so good,” said Calabrese, “it’s not so good at all, it’s a little complicated. He’s been trying to see a federal prosecutor named Wilson, your man has. Do you know that?”

“Why?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Calabrese said, “it’s all been arranged. He’s waiting there to be picked up and they think that a federal marshal is going to be the one to get him. You’ll be the federal marshal.”

It was all going a little too rapidly for Randall. “Where does the federal prosecutor come into this?” he said to gain time. “What does this Wulff want with him?”

“That doesn’t matter at all. That is all taken care of. You will pick him up at the precinct station in an hour,” Calabrese said, looking at his watch, “and you will dispose of him.”

“He’ll think that I’m a federal marshal?”

“Exactly,” Calabrese said, and permitted his eyes to take on one, small glint of satisfaction, as if he allowed himself one of these at rare occasions out of some defined quota. “That is all arranged.”

“Will I have any help?”

Calabrese looked at him impassively, the glint gone. Everything back to normal now in that face which was both impassive and at some deep level completely observant. “You do not need any help,” he said. “Help was never spelled out to be any kind of requirement.”

“All right,” Randall said, feeling an uneasy excitement, “I’ll do it alone. I want to get the son of a bitch.”

“I know you do.”

“I’m supposed to be dressed as a federal marshal?”

“You will find clothing in the trunk of the car you’re being loaned. Go to a gas station and change there. Afterwards disposition of the car is entirely up to you, Randall. I would prefer however,” Calabrese said, “that this car not be found. A word to the wise.”

“All right,” Randall said again. “Tell me where he is, that’s all.”

“You will be advised of your destination by the guard as you leave the grounds,” Calabrese said, “which I suggest that you do immediately.”

Randall shook his head in honest wonderment. “You don’t leave anything to chance, do you?” he said.

“I try not to. In my business chance would merely be a complicating factor. Our business is done, Randall, we have finished our discussion and I would prefer that you leave by the door nearest to you at the hallway.” Calabrese went for the pack of cigarettes again, broke one and then, as if allowing himself a special treat, in the first display of emotion which Randall had yet seen from the man, he plucked out another and broke that as well, giving out a little
ah!
of pleasure.

“What about the valise?” Randall said at the door. “Do I take that with me?”

“The valise? What valise?”

“The valise that I brought in; the valise that I offered—”

Calabrese stood in one casual gesture, looked at Randall. Randall had not realized it; he was quite a tall man, over six feet, slightly stooped in the way that tall men are when they edge above their sixties, holding in his stomach in that tight, self-conscious way which meant that he probably had a paunch. He looked cadaverous in this posture but the way in which he held himself told the tale.
Don’t smile,
Randall thought and this was really an unnecessary warning because looking at the eyes of the man any impulse to look for humor vanished. He had never seen eyes like this. Calabrese had kept them shrouded throughout their dialogue so far, it was as if he had held himself down, had
contrived
a look for himself. But now a different Calabrese peeked cautiously out of his face and decided that he did not like what was seen. “I know nothing about the valise,” Calabrese said.

“All right,” said Randall, “that’s okay; I had only offered—”

“I remember absolutely nothing about any valise. Did you come here with a valise? You came here with no valise. You came here empty handed with a request, and out of the goodness of my heart I listened to you. Now you are about to leave and you mention a valise. You must have a false memory, and this would be a very dangerous thing, Randall, for you to go around giving people the impression that you came here with goods and that Calabrese sent you away without them. That would be a slur upon my reputation, which as you know is excellent. Do you remember any valise, Mario?” Calabrese said, and a short, deadly-looking man holding a gun suddenly appeared behind Randall in the doorway, looking at Randall with great interest. “This man seem to be claiming that he came here with baggage.”

“I don’t remember nothing,” the man said.

“Mario’s memory is excellent,” Calabrese said. “He is paid to notice and to observe many things and I am absolutely dependent upon him for what might be called detail work. You remember no valise, however, do you Mario?”

“None,” the man said.

“You see?” Calabrese said. “Your false impression has been corrected. Surely you admit your mistake now, do you not?”

“Of course,” Randall said. Once again that feeling of being entirely out of his class assaulted him. It was true; it was true. He could not deal with this man; he was not even at a point where Calabrese truly had to acknowledged him. He was, in Calabrese’s mind, merely a construction, like Mario, upon which certain requests like confetti were tossed. Versallo had been tough but not at this level. Randall had never dealt with anything like this.

“I think that Mario will help you to the car in which you came,” Calabrese said. “You appear to be a little confused and in need of an escort.”

“I came with no—”

“This man thinks that he did not drive up in a car, Mario,” Calabrese said, “he seems to have lost his senses completely; claiming not to have a car, claiming to have a valise. What help do you think this man needs in finding his memory?”

“I’m sure we can think of something,” Mario said and gave Randall an enormous smile, one of such sweetness that Randall imagined that he would see flies buzz out of the man’s mouth in an instant, the same flies that would fester around a cake in a decayed room. “Why don’t you come along and we’ll work things out?”

Randall stood his ground, not believing that this was happening to him, not willing to accept the fact that he had come to Calabrese as an equal, to appeal for help and was going to end up being mugged and shot by one of Calabrese’s men but then, the old man smiled himself, an odd, uneven, wintry little smile that seemed to break down the component parts of his body: slouch, paunch, concave chest, high forehead seen as individual parts floating around the nexus that was Calabrese, rather than assembled into a whole, and Randall saw he had been set up for this like a child and that Calabrese was amused. This was the old man’s sense of humor; he was playing. He found it amusing that Randall would think that now he was going to be shot. Calabrese raised a hand and pointed. “Mario will take you to your car,” he said, “and I’m sure that your memory and powers of recall will sharpen on the drive. Go now. Go.”

So Randall went. Mario led him through the hallway and into the rear of the grounds where he found himself in an enormous garaging area; acres of land which never could have been seen or sensed from the front, cars and trucks scattered through this acreage in all states of repair and preparedness. Calabrese had almost as much area back here as Versallo had had in the warehouse. Of course that was a common tactic, Randall understood; the chieftains would buy up acreage adjoining their own houses for whatever exorbitant price was necessary and would often demolish what structures had been on this acreage … simply for privacy. So he should not have been as surprised as he was by the sheer dimensions of Calabrese’s holdings but then again he
was,
that was all, it reminded him—if he needed reminding at that point—that Calabrese meant business. He had taken the valise and put him in a car, given him instructions on where and how to get Wulff … and now, he was supposed to do the job. The Calabreses of this world or any other did not extend themselves to efforts of this sort unless they intended completion. If he failed …

Well, he would not fail, Randall thought, yanking the wheel of the small Falcon viciously, almost past his exit, pouring the car down the ramp at the last possible moment, all six cylinders whining and screaming beneath him. The Falcon had even been overlaid with a federal seal on the right passenger entrance; a deep khaki color it looked like every expressionless vehicle which he had seen on Army posts or outside the federal buildings. Calabrese was a careful man; no detail was beyond him.

In the uniform, in fact, Randall felt somewhat official himself; if the uniform indeed was the man, shaping and framing the personality as theory had it, then he did not feel like anything so much as a federal marshall at this moment. He was going in his capacity as a federal marshall to pick up Wulff and convey him to the office buildings where the grand jury was in session. He even
thought
like a federal marshall, and it occurred to him that if he could go on thinking in this way it would be very easy, could continue being quite easy right up until the moment when he killed Wulff.

Which he would. He would do this because he wanted to avenge Versallo, that was the original impulse and not to be discounted, but beyond that he would do it for another reason: he did not want to think of what might happen to him from Calabrese if he did not. Calabrese was serious. How he had located Wulff, how precisely he had made the arrangements for the pickup he did not know but he knew this: any man who was willing to extend this kind of effort was not to be trifled with.

It was either Wulff or him now. It was that simple.

Randall brought the car to a stop in front of the precinct, wedging it within a row of illegally-parked private vehicles with police stickers, and went up the steps and into the grim, green reception area and found that his man, flanked by two cops, was already waiting for him. He had never seen Wulff before but he would have recognized him anywhere. There was no trouble in knowing the man, not only from the photographs which had been passed around through channels with the bounty offer some weeks ago. No, there was in the eyes of this tall man, flanked by cops, and waiting for him, an intensity not unlike that which he had seen in Calabrese’s. Yes, Wulff was of the same stripe as Calabrese; here was another one who believed in himself, believed in his ability to control situations and who, no doubt, was able to convey that intensity so well that there were almost no situations which he was
not
able to control. State of mind, state of will. One of the cops stepped forward and said, “You took long enough.”

“Did the best I could,” Randall said, feeling uncomfortable. Were the cops in it or not? Did they know that this was a setup or did they take him for federal staff? It was best to play it completely straight, of course. “We have to work on schedule too,” Randall said, trying to think like a federal marshall would. “We’ve got a caseload.”

“I don’t give a shit about your fucking caseload,” the cop said, pushing Wulff forward as if he were a bag of fruit. Wulff took a calm pace forward, looked at Randall levelly. “Just get him the fuck out of here right now.” So the cop was pissed off, to be sure, that Calabrese had taken away his play for an afternoon, that was clear. “I said now,” the cop said and Wulff kept that level stare on Randall.

“All right,” Randall said, “I’ll do the best I can.” He took a pair of handcuffs that had been dangling from his waist and maneuvered them off his belt buckle with some difficulty, held them out. Wulff, still giving that amused, level stare extended his hands, held them that way and Randall put the cuffs around them.

He had never realized until this moment how
difficult
it was to cuff a man; it always looked easy when cops did it and the movies made nothing of it at all but it was a strange, sweaty job. The cuffs seemed too small for the wrists, they would not come all the way around and then he was unable to lever them in properly, he tried to compensate by adding more pressure but pressure simply buckled them. They slipped away from his grasp and fell to the floor with a little clang. The cop with a detached grin stood there saying nothing. Feeling inept, Randall bent over, picked up the cuffs and tried again. “No,” Wulff said as Randall tried to loop one wrist. “That’s not the way. You’ve got to work against the pressure point,” and then, one-handed showed Randall what he was talking about. Randall, feeling that he was beginning to blush let Wulff help him and at a certain point the cop came over and finished the job. Wulff’s hands, cuffed, fell to stomach level.