Lone Wolf #6: Chicago Slaughter (14 page)

“The key,” Wulff said. He kept the man pinned, knee-to-thigh. “Get the key.”

The man shook his head back and forth in agony. Tears were in his eyes. “No,” he said and then struggled for breath once again, reaching deep into himself. Little sand puffs came up around them. “No. No.”

“Get the key and get these off,” Wulff said, “or I’ll hit you in the stomach again.”

The man’s eyes registered horror but still he shook his head. He was a tough one, all right; in full possession of himself he had been the toughest that Wulff had yet faced in this miserable, tormented city. Not at all like Versallo who was completely surface; shake him and he turned inside-out. “I won’t do it,” he said, “you’ll kill me.”

“I’ll kill you anyway,” Wulff said. “Don’t you think I will? Can’t you believe that.” And the man shook his head but his eyes said
yes,
I believe that, I believe you would kill me, and Wulff saw himself rimmed in those tiny, credulous eyes, unspeakably ferocious, leaning over the man. He saw how he must have looked and the effect was terrible. The man’s hands were fluttering all over his body, ducking and diving into various little crevices, his eyes now contracting against the sand. “Can’t find it,” he said hoarsely.

“Find it,” Wulff said and slapped him across the face. The man’s jowls quivered, the blow knocked ten years off him and suddenly he was fifty, haggard, squirming and struggling in his pockets like a little old man looking for a subway token. Then, in a palm like a pearl, there was a key. Wulff extended his braced arms. “Unlock them now,” he said.

The man resisted feebly, shaking his head again. “No,” he said, but it was only the squalling, balking resistance of the imbecile. Wulff brought him back to attention by slapping him on the face again. Now the man looked ashen, senile; the key dipped in his grasp and then he aimed it toward the handcuffs. Wulff held his arms there, waiting. They had moved beyond deadness to a strange, clinging warmth as if there were moisture or oozing fluid within. That was the next to last stage, he knew, before circulation failed completely and he would be left with gangrene regardless of what happened next. The man had braced him in this way deliberately, counting on getting Wulff eventually even should he fail. It had been a foolproof plan indeed but he simply had not counted on poor luck and lack of foresight. Somehow he got the key in. Wulff inverted his wrists and let the key turn.

The cuffs fell away; they bounced off the man’s forehead and then onto the ground. Wulff stood, walked away from the man then and walked twenty yards or so to where the pistol lay, picked it up, and put it in his pocket. Then he walked further from the man, behind a little hedge, the only touch of vegetation in this blasted area and there he stood awaiting for the pain of returning circulation to hit him.

It took a minute or two for the blood to begin its motion, and for the next three or four minutes—as he had thought—he stood there absolutely helpless. The pain was exquisite and tormenting, so much so that if Wulff had been alone he would have screamed from the sensation much in the way that he screamed during sex. But screaming was the wrong thing to do. The man lying on the ground was in pain but he was not in the least stupid; if he deduced that Wulff was helpless he might, despite his own agony, chance making a rush at him, and Wulff, not able to move his arms without agony, doubted that he would be able to reach the gun. The man might have a chance of overcoming him. Smart of him to pick the gun off the ground anyway. He could have kicked the man into unconsciousness first but he did not want to do this. Wulff needed information.

At length, in little sobs and squirts of anguish the pain began to subside. He was able to focus his eyes once again, was able to move his arms, was able to see and care that the man uprange had dragged himself to his knees and was now regarding Wulff from that crouched, penitential position with a look of hate as profound as he had ever seen. Wulff walked in that direction, took the gun out of his pocket and pointed it at the man.

“All right,” he said, “now we’re going to talk.”

The man could breathe a little better; his voice was under control although very soft. “No we’re not,” he said.

“Yes we are.”

“Make me.”

“What’s your name?”

“I won’t tell you. I won’t tell you anything.”

“Why did you want to kill me?”

The man, amazingly, smiled. “Doesn’t everyone?” he said.

“I don’t know. I don’t keep statistics. You did. Why?”

“I’m not talking. I told you that.” The man weaved in the ground, got a foot underneath him. He half-rose.

Wulff stepped forward and hit him in the mouth. The man weaved and collapsed to the ground. Wulff kicked him in the shins.

“Come on,” he said, “talk. Tell me.”

On the ground, the man shook his head. His agony had transported him; his face, incredibly, held confidence. “No,” he said, “we won’t talk.”

“We’re going to sooner or later. Why not now? Who sent you? Did Wilson send you himself? Is this a setup?”

The man held himself in frieze. “I won’t tell you,” he said.

Wulff reached out, feeling the restored circulation in his arm, seized the man by the collar and dragged him neatly upwards to face level. “You’re going to talk,” he said. “Otherwise I’m going to kill you. You know that, don’t you? You know I’m serious.”

Sweat was all over the man’s face and pain had long since given the skin an impacted density but his voice was low and controlled. “You killed Versallo,” he said, “because of that I was going to kill you. I still would if I had the chance. You know that.”

“You worked for Versallo?”

“No more,” the man said. “I’ve told you all I’m ever going to.”

“Who gave you the car? The uniform? Who set this up? Who paid off Wilson? Is Wilson in on it?”

The man kept that expression on him. His lips were set. “I’ve never had a wife,” he said. “I have no family, no children, I’ve never been able to enjoy a normal sex act with a normal woman, everything I’ve had was lent to me by other men for whom I was working. But I have one thing and that’s honor. You can’t take that away, Wulff and you know it. You’d have to kill me. You
will
kill me, but I won’t talk.”

Looking at him, Wulff saw it. He knew that the man was telling the truth. He could kill the man but he could not break him. If nothing else this man had that, and looking at him, seeing the stubbornness, something close to the divine in it—if only for the most profane of purposes—Wulff could feel admiration. The man had strength. If nothing else he had that will, that interior which had to be respected. No wonder, he thought, that Versallo had used him. Versallo knew what manner of avenger he would have.

Wulff looked at the man and he looked away and he realized that he could not kill him. Killing was all right, although the one of Versallo had turned him inside out for a while in its sheer brutality and horror. Still, killing was all right, it was a necessary means to an end and dealing at this level of the culture it was often the only effective tactic. But you killed only for gain. You could not kill in a vacuum, simply for the pleasure of killing because that made you no better, in fact it made you worse than them, because for them as well killing was only an administrative act, part of the operating equipment of a business. No, he could not do it. Wulff turned in disgust, broke open the gun, removed the cartridges left and threw it in the hedge. Behind him, the man drew in a deep, groaning breath and then expelled it as laughter. Wulff did not want to look at his face. He was not ready for that, not just yet.

A car slewed into the yard in one shrieking slide, a Buick Electra 225, and three men in suits and hats came out of it quickly, lightly. All of them held guns and all of them looked confident. Wulff, caught short, without a weapon, could do nothing. He stood there and then in utter disgust, spread his palms.

Damaged as he was, his assailant was now laughing. The tallest of the three men turned that way and the laughter stopped. “Randall, you stupid son of a bitch, you can’t do anything right,” the man said and Randall looked at the ground. “You really fucked this one up,” the man said, shook his head, looked at Wulff, looked away. “What a fuckup, Randall,” he said, and then he nodded to the two others and they closed quickly. Wulff felt swift and sure hands upon him and then, quickly, he was bound.

“Personally,” the man who had been speaking said, “I’d like to kill both of the bastards right here but orders are orders. So let’s take them in.”

Wulff felt himself being prodded toward the Electra. Randall, being handled more roughly, was clouted behind the ear by the man guarding him, fell into the back in a screaming dive.

The rest of them got into the Electra, roomy and cavernous inside, air-conditioning clamoring away. And the three men brought them in.

Calabrese knew that Randall was going to fuck up. Of course he was going to fuck up; the man always had, anyone who worked for Versallo was a loser from the start. Versallo ran a lousy operation even though, for some reason, he had a lot of employees and got loyalty from them. The sympathy felt for the man who is really soft inside, Calabrese decided. Still, he had to give Randall enough rope. If this was going to work out in the optimum way, then he at least had to give Randall the
opportunity
to do the job. But Calabrese took no chances. You did not get where he was, become what he had become, by working on any margin at all.

He sent men to trail Randall.

Now it had worked out just as he had feared it would. Here they came up the drive, past the guardhouse, the Electra filled with bodies, the guard already reporting over the intercom phone that not only Randall but Wulff had been brought back in the car. That meant only one thing, that Randall had fucked it up. Because if he had not, Wulff would have already been dead, the following
soldat
would have noted that with pleasure, would have disposed of Randall as per their instructions and would then have cleaned out of the area. But their instructions otherwise were explicit, and the
soldat
did not get or keep their positions by being creative. If Randall had not done the job, disposedof Wulff within an hour … pick them both up and bring them here.

The trouble was, Calabrese thought, that old sayings were true ones: the only way to be sure of getting a job done the way you wanted it was to do it yourself. He should not have dispatched Randall on this errand. It was too dangerous and the man’s record which Calabrese had studied carefully indicated that he was beyond his depth. Still, it had seemed too easy; he could not have really passed up what fell into his lap. Here was a chance to get rid of Wulff, who was a source of much despair to Calabrese, with minimum risk. He would not even have to use one of his own men. His own men would be tied only to disposition of Randall, which was routine work. But
now
look at it. Gloomily he watched the men spill from the Electra, Wulff bound up, yet somehow still strangely possessed of himself just as Calabrese would have known him to be, Randall showing all the signs of a bad beating, staggering from the car, being supported by two of the gunmen as he almost fell. That had been some beautiful job Randall had done, all right. Instead of being killed by Calabrese’s men, he had been saved by them. Son of a bitch.

Calabrese went back to his desk and waited. The instructions were explicit, bring up Wulff, dispose of Randall at once. It would have to be done on the grounds here but in a clean, efficient fashion. He wanted nothing more to do with Randall; he had had only one potential purpose and had failed. Now the thing was to make sure that he was dead. Wulff on the other hand he wanted to see. He had hoped that he would never have this confrontation but as he waited for the men to bring the man up he succumbed to a weird anticipation. Yes, it was true. He had actually been waiting to see this man for a long time. It may have worked out for the best after all, because he badly wanted to see the man.

He wanted to see the man who had killed Cicchini, killed Marasco, smashed up a townhouse, sunk a freighter, bombed out the Paradise in Vegas, cut up half of Havana too. This was a remarkable man; he should not, after all, have the opportunity of meeting him taken away.
Everything for the best,
Calabrese thought, without irony. Randall had done him a favor after all.

He would see the son of a bitch.

The two
soldat
who had been accompanying Randall came in with Wulff, having switched. One would be sufficient to dispose of Randall in his condition, the
soldat
had decided, and Calabrese would want two men in the room with him at all times while he dealt with this one. That was good thinking. That showed the kind of independent thought and ability to make individual decisions which Calabrese tried to drill into his troops, to take a little initiative, share some responsibility. More than anything else, he thought, it was the secret of his power. You had to know how to run a shop and when to run it, but you also had to know how the hell to delegate authority. Failure to understand that simple fact had destroyed most of the organization throughout the country … might finish off his, he thought grimly, after he could no longer oversee it. “Sit down,” he said to Wulff.

The man, still bound, shook his head. “No,” he said in an expressionless tone, “I’ll stand.”

“Much easier if you sit,” Calabrese said. He nodded to the
soldat
covering him. “Unbind the man,” he said.

“That’s a good idea,” Wulff said without emotion, “I’m going to get fucking gangrene if you don’t.”

Calabrese looked at the man with something near amusement as the
soldat
unbound him. It was really a shame, he thought. A man like this could have been so useful; he could have done so many things for his interests. (Calabrese did not think in terms of anything so rigid as
organization;
there were only interest-groups functioning along defined lines of power). He could have been such a credit to what Calabrese represented. And yet this man was lost to him. Wulff believed himself to be implacably opposed to everything which Calabrese represented, he would probably fight to death any implication that he and Calabrese shared characteristics in common. Yet they did, they always had: the outcome of a man was not so much his convictions, Calabrese had always felt, as his circumstances. Wulff might have, in another world, been him, he might have been Wulff. But it was too late to try to impress that on the man now. Still, what a
soldat
he would have been! Doubtless the man lacked that capacity for organizational grasp and abstraction which was the key to getting to the very summit, but oh my could he have carried out a command! It was a shame, that was all, a damned shame.

“I brought you in here to talk to you,” Calabrese said. “I’ve heard a lot about you, I wanted to see if you were real.”

Wulff did not react. He looked down at the floor. The
soldat
murmured and came to his sides, ready to help Wulff show the proper attitude of respect. This was impossible; they would stay in the room throughout the entire interview and try to impose their will upon Wulff. That was not what he wanted, Calabrese thought. No, not at all: he wanted to impress his will upon this man himself. He looked up with sudden decision. “Get out,” he said to the
soldat.
“Leave me a weapon.”

They knew better than to discuss the issue with him. The near one gave him a forty-five automatic which Calabrese sniffed, opened, checked with satisfaction. At ready. He put it on the desk near him. “Please sit down,” he said to Wulff as the
soldat
left the room without looking back. Trained personnel. Of course if Wulff were to overcome him they would be out on the streets within the hour to sell their services but that was all right. A man was no good at all unless he was an opportunist. These men would work with him as long as he was alive; that was all Calabrese could ask. Besides, Wulff was not going to overcome him. It would not be that simple, he thought. The struggle was on other levels.

“I don’t want to sit,” Wulff said. “Do you see any reason why I should?”

Calabrese motioned toward the easy chair over in the corner of the study. “Come on,” he said with a gesture, “be reasonable. Cooperate. I have no intention of killing you, I want to tell you that right now. I did not bring you into this room to kill you, if that was my plan don’t you think it would have been done already? I want to talk. I think that we can have some understanding between us.” He looked at the gun on the desk, near him. “That doesn’t matter,” he said, “I know how to use it and I will of course use it on you if you make it necessary. But I don’t think it is.” He gestured again. “Come on,” he said. “Sit.”

Wulff went over to the chair, sat uncomfortably, faced Calabrese with that mixture of appraisal and calculation which Calabrese had sensed from the first. The man would kill him if an opportunity presented itself. But that was purely reflex; actually Wulff had larger things on his mind. Calabrese could see this. He could respect it. It could have been me over there, he thought. Except that it isn’t but it could have been and he knows it too. Wulff sat.

“I know of your adventures,” Calabrese said.

Again Wulff said nothing. It was not precisely resignation; that was not his attitude at all. It was a profound patience operating here. The man would wait him out.

“Your adventures are remarkable,” Calabrese said. “I find them hard to believe except that all of them are verified. You are a one-man army. It is a pity that you have misunderstood the situation from the beginning and that you are battling in a futile cause, because your energies are remarkable.”

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Calabrese,” Wulff said in a monotone. “I didn’t know your name but it’s been you all along, hasn’t it? I’ve been looking for someone big enough to kill. Don’t give me a chance. I’ll kill you.”

“I’m sure you would,” Calabrese said.

“Randall wasn’t good enough to kill me but you are. I advise you to do so. It would be far better if you got rid of me because if I ever have the chance—”

“That’s all nonsense,” Calabrese said flatly. He made a dismissive gesture. “Killing, not killing, all of these threats and aggressions: you understand only the most superficial matters. Obviously you are beyond killing, Wulff, or you would have been taken care of a long time ago. But you still see things in those terms. Do you think that you can have any effect on what I’m doing, who I am?”

“Let me have that gun and I’ll show you.”

“Nonsense,” Calabrese said, “the gun has nothing to do with it. What I represent, what I do can’t be eliminated by a gun; there would only be someone else with less compassion. I don’t think of the gun at all, Wulff.”

“But you’re using it on me, aren’t you?”

Calabrese spread his hands, showed the palms. “I’m demonstrating the gun to you,” he said quietly, “because that’s the only thing you understand. You know, Wulff, when Randall was unable to kill you—and I really knew all along that the man wasn’t capable of doing it—I decided that I wanted to talk to you because you interested me a great deal and it was time to see exactly what you had on your mind, what would drive you to your remarkable undertakings. But I’m beginning to feel differently about this now. You’re disappointing me, Wulff. Do you really have such a simple view of reality?”

“Come on,” Wulff said, “kill me. Get to it. I’m going to jump you soon just to get it over with, I swear this.”

“I believe you,” Calabrese said, fondling the forty-five, “and I believe everything that I’ve heard about you too; you
are
crazy, the rumors were not wrong. Patrick Wilson means nothing to me, do you understand that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do Wulff, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Patrick Wilson is meaningless, I can handle him with a telephone call. But you are a little tougher than that. You’re a challenge, Wulff.”

“It’s all tied together, isn’t it?” Wulff said. He showed interest for the first time since he had been brought into the room. “The whole godamned thing is fucking tied together. Patrick Wilson works for
you
, doesn’t he?”

“More or less,” Calabrese said, “but I really don’t want to brag. A man like me tries to live carefully and give the impression of being a responsible businessman—which of course, Wulff, is exactly what I am. The rest is all rumor. Patrick Wilson, he respects me. He listens to my advice. His superiors have given him latitude and he knows who is worth listening to and who is not. We have a relationship. But you aren’t listening to me Wulff. You have learned nothing.”

“I’ve learned everything.”

“You
think
you’ve learned everything but in truth, Wulff,” Calabrese said, “you understand almost nothing. You are an angry man who has settled upon indiscriminate destruction as the answer. But actually it is not. It is far more sophisticated than you think.”

“No it isn’t,” Wulff said, “it’s very simple. There’s no mystery to it at all. It all stinks, it’s all rotten and it all ties together. You’re a fucking murderer, Calabrese. You’re killing children. You can hide behind walls and buy off federal grand juries but you’re a child killer. So it’s very simple.” He held his hands together, clasped them until Calabrese could hear the knuckles curdle and then crack. “Fuck you, Calabrese,” Wulff said. “If I had a chance I’d kill you right here and then let them kill me. I don’t give a damn. I’m already a dead man. I was killed a long time ago.”

“Ah,” Calabrese said. “I’ve heard that line too. About how your fiancée was supposed to have been found by you in Manhattan, dead of an overdose and it was this which set you off on your private war—”

He stopped. Wulff’s face had become very cold and pale, had even seemed in some trick of light to contract. The man was hunched over, perfectly still, only the hands moving. It was perfectly clear that this man was going to leap upon Calabrese in an instant and damn all of the consequences. The fact that he would be shot dead meant nothing to him. Calabrese had touched the trigger.

He came off it quickly. He did not want to kill Wulff if he could help it. Already he had decided that it was fortunate that Randall had fucked up (and he knew that the man would; subconsciously he had known it all along, hadn’t he? and that was why he had allowed Randall to go to begin with) and that Wulff was not to be killed if at all possible. He might be useful. He might even be brought around, in time, to the right point of view. “All right,” he said, “I can see that this is sensitive and highly-charged material. So I’ll drop it.”

Wulff said nothing. He was still at that deadly pitch of preparation. “I said I’d drop it,” Calabrese said, “now stop carrying on that way; you’re completely wrong you see. You’ve tied Marie Calvante’s death into us in some way but I want you to know that this has been checked through very carefully, in fact frantically, by some of our best people and there is absolutelyno connection. None of our people had anything to do with this at all. If the girl was overdosed she was murdered by some street criminal, completely outside of the upper levels. And it’s possible that she was on drugs and miscalculated, Wulff. This kind of thing happens, you know. You’d be surprised how often it happens.”