A Bomb Built in Hell (13 page)

“You never know in front. They'll just find me on some corner with a car and take me there … then drop me off when it's over.”

“Could I follow them with the cab?”

“No way.
I
might be able to do it … 
maybe
 … but not you. It takes years to be that good with cars.”

“Could we find out where from someone?”

“You think this is the fucking movies? Forget it. In forty years doing their work, the only thing like that I ever found out was where Salmone's daughter lives. And even that was a fucking accident.”

“The big guy? His daughter?”

“Yeah. His natural daughter, only she's changed her name and everything. She lives on Sutton Place, in one of those co-ops, married to a lawyer or an accountant or something like that.”

“Yeah …” Wesley said thoughtfully. “With The Prince gone, you're the best now, right?”

“As far as they know.”

“Okay, go to the fucking council. I'm going to hit his daughter.”

“Why? What do you want to—?”

“I'll make it look like there's a gang of freaks after
all
of them. Make it so's they
have
to go after whoever's got a hard-on for them, you understand?”

“No.”

“Look, they need to be fucking
scared
. I know how to do that. It's not just killing. When I'm done, they'll know it's no job for their foot soldiers. So that's when they'll turn it over to you.”

“Depends. They could always—”

“An open contract's garbage, and you know it. How long was Gallo on the street? And Valachi? They only put out an open contract when it's not about them. And now they'll think it is.”

“Nah, Wes. They really
wanted
Gallo.”

“Sure, but for
money
, right? He wasn't coming into their fucking
houses
after them. It was just business with Gallo. This won't be. Not if they think that hitting The Prince turned his whole gang of psychos loose.”

“So what? I still don't get this. If—”

“
You're
going to get them all together, Pet. You need to explain what they're up against, tell them what precautions to take. About this, they'll listen to you. When I get finished with this next one, they'll
all
show up to listen.

“And that's when we end this whole stupid fucking game of us working for them.”

“You gonna play it so it looks like someone getting revenge for The Prince?”

“You're kidding me, right? Carmine taught me better than that. All those swine ever think about is throwing people like us away. If they think it's payback for The Prince, they'll just stake you out in that cesspool like a slab of beef waiting for the butcher.”

“If not for The Prince, then …”

“This is gonna be like the freaks of the whole
world
rising up. They don't
need
a reason. It's going to be like those people opened a fucking box and the slime came squirming out over the rim.”

“You can't …”

“It's not hard. I've been thinking about it. All I gotta do is be slick and
look
sick, that's all. Get me all the information on this woman. Make sure she's still there, get everything.”

“Yeah, okay. But I don't—”

“Pet, this is the only way we can do it. The best chance we'll ever get.”

W
esley went back to staring at the wall after Pet left, staring into it as if was a window, with vital information on the other side of the glass. He stayed there for three hours, not moving, breathing so shallowly that anyone watching might have thought him a battlefield casualty.

Finally, his eyes closed. He took a massive breath and got to his feet. Moving mechanically, he showered, shaved, and changed into a battered cord jacket and chinos. Sneakers and some black-rimmed glasses completed the student's outfit.

His next stop was the main library on 42nd Street. He stayed until it was near closing.

T
wo days later, Wesley drove up the FDR, heading north. It was just past noon when he found a parking place on East 51st, right near the river. He walked the rest of the way to Sutton Place, thinking of another 51st Street—in New York, the other side of the city was sometimes the other side of the world.

He found the address Pet had given him. The old man had told him that the security system was a joke—the people who lived in that neighborhood wanted the kind of classy building that wasn't bristling with electronic devices and rent-a-cops. But one
must
have a doorman. This one was a middle-aged clown who was dressed in the kind of uniform that self-respecting
banana republics would have shunned, though it suited the kind of humans that dwelled in the building. Wesley took in the doorman's flat, expressionless face just before he sprang to open the door for a regal dowager. The doorman's flatness wasn't professional—he was just an ass-kisser who didn't waste his skills on non-members.

Wesley kept moving until he saw a sign saying that service deliveries were to be made in the rear. A glance down the narrow, super-clean little alley showed him that the service entrance wasn't guarded. But the sign telling tradesmen to ring the bell that was beneath it, was enough to tell him that it was kept locked. He returned to the car and drove back, thinking.

Pet was already inside the garage.

“You got everything?” Wesley asked.

“Yeah. Her husband works on The Street. Gets picked up every morning at eight sharp, but the return could be any time between seven-thirty and eleven.

“No dog. There's an intercom which lets her ring the doorman if she wants anything—so he can call a car service for her. She's got all those clubs and things, but she's home every Wednesday and Thursday morning for sure. They go out together couple of times a week, host parties in their place about once a month. No regular visitors. Getting in, that'll be the hard part.”

“I'll have her father take me in.”

Pet went back to polishing the Eldorado, not asking for explanations.

“That's the one I want for this,” Wesley told him, nodding at the beige Caddy. “It already looks like someone
rich owns it. Make it look like they take care of it, too.”

Pet just nodded.

Wesley took a piece of paper out of his pocket, a news clipping.

“Pet, you know what they're talking about here?”

The old man quickly scanned the clipping and saw what Wesley wanted. “A letter bomb? Sure. It's no big thing. There's all kinds of fancy ones—mercury triggers, that kind of stuff. But all you really need is a spring that snaps when the mark opens the flap.”

“Can you make one?”

“How big? Remember, the bigger the blast, the bigger the package.”

“Big enough to blow someone up.”

“One person? Sure.”

“Inside of a regular letter?”

“If the envelope's heavy-enough paper.”

“Rich people
always
write on heavy paper, right?”

“I guess,” the old man said, dubiously.

“You see this column, the Debutante Ball? The third broad down on the line is DiVencenzo's daughter.”

“So? He's nothing.”

“But he can't do something like this without inviting the boss, right? So—the wife, she should be getting a whole bunch of invitations to stuff like this. That's why the weasels lay out so much coin … to get their daughters into the society columns.”

“So?”

“So the boss's wife is gonna get a special invitation.”

“How many of their women you gonna hit?”

“I think two will get it done. Starting at the top, right? If they don't, then we'll see. You get the stuff from outside; I'll meet you back here tonight. And get hold of the kid, too, okay?”

T
he three men sat in Wesley's apartment; the dog was on guard in the garage. Pet had assembled his materials on the workbench. Along with the spring-detonator and the grayish clay explosive charge, he had a package of 100-percent rag-content bond lilac paper. The matching envelopes were so stiff they resisted any attempt at bending. Their deep flaps held a discreetly fine-lined return address in a dark-purple italic script.

Pet and the kid looked admiringly at the embossed calling cards.

“How come you didn't get the invitation printed, too, Wes?” the old man asked.

“Amy Vanderbilt says you always handwrite these things.”

“Who?”

“In the library, Pet. There's not but one
correct
way to do these things.”

“She'll never see the writing, anyway,” the kid put in.

“That's not the point,” Wesley replied. “What if they got an X-ray thing going, or something else we don't
know about? Never take a risk you don't need to—that's how I was taught.”

“Who's going to write the invitation?”

“None of
us
can do it, that's for sure.”

The kid was studying the stationery. “I know an old woman who used to do this,” he said.

“Go to these parties?”

“No, write these invitations. She's in a nursing home where they put me to work when I was on probation once. Those places they keep old people in, they're just like the joint. This lady used to make money addressing these things for some rich people—it was part of her job before the people she worked for said she got too old. Then she got dumped into that home. She's still there.”

“How'd you know?”

“I go and see her every once in a while—she tells the other old people I'm her grandson. She used to sneak me extra food when I was on the cleaning crew there.”

“She'll address this for you?”

“Sure.”

Wesley looked at the kid. “After that, you got to leave her there.”

“No! The fuck I do! They
already
left her there—she's already dead as far as everyone's concerned. She'd never rat me out.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure. She don't care about living anymore. She knows what's happening … what happened
to
her, I mean. I could fucking tell her
why
we was doing this and she'd be okay even then.

“Wesley, Mr. P., she
knows
I'm some kind of thief. She's old, but she's not slow. She's just doing time, and there's only one gate gonna ever open for her.”

“What's she know about you?”

“Just what she thinks my name is, that's all. And that I give a fuck about her. She's not giving
that
up. Not for anyone. I know.”

Wesley looked at Pet. The old man nodded: “When I was Upstate, the only people who you could ever count on visiting you was your mother, or your sister, or your grandmother. I ain't saying that's a woman thing—no big shock if your wife stopped coming—it's blood. What's she got to gain by giving the kid up? Besides, they're never going to find
that
envelope.”

Wesley gave the kid several envelopes and some stationery. “Here's the address they get addressed to, okay?”

“Okay. I'll tell her that I found some work for her, get her to address a whole bunch of them. She wouldn't ever take money from me, but she'll do this. And she'll never know what's happening.”

The kid went out the door alone. He was back in seconds. “Wes. That dog …”

“I know. Be right there.”

W
esley stood in front of the three-panel mirror, rechecking. He had shaved extra carefully; Pet had given him an immaculate haircut and a professional manicure. On his left hand was a heavy white-gold wedding band, on his right a college ring: Georgetown University, 1960.
He wore a dark-gray summer-weight silk-and-mohair suit, a soft-green shirt with a spread collar, and a tiny-patterned gray tie with a moderate Windsor knot. He carried a slim attaché case, complete with combination lock and owner's monogram; the initials were “AS.” Wesley checked his gold-cased watch; it was right on time.

The Eldorado looked as if it had been polished with beige oil, gleaming even in the dim light of the garage.

By nine-thirty that morning, Wesley was ostentatiously parking right in front of a fireplug on Sutton Place, well within the doorman's line of sight.

The doorman noted the El D with genuine approval. Too many of the high-class creeps in his building drove those foreign cars. He liked the looks of the guy getting out of the car, too. Calm and relaxed, not like those rush-rush snobs who breezed by him every day as if he didn't exist. Now, the way the guy parked that hog right in front of the plug and never looked back? That was
real
class.

Wesley smiled at the doorman. In spite of money, they were equals—two men who understood each other.

“Will you please ring the Benton suite? Tell them Mr. Salmone is here.”

“Yes, sir!” snapped the doorman, pocketing Wesley's ten-dollar bill in the same motion.

The lady in 6-G asked the doorman to repeat the name a couple of times, then to describe the waiting man … and finally said to allow him up. Wesley walked past the doorman and into the lobby. The elevator cages were both empty. He stepped in, pushed the button, and rode to the sixth floor.

“What about the elevator operator?” Wesley had asked. Pet answered, “No sweat there. The cheap motherfuckers fired them both a year ago. They said it was for efficiency, right? But they left a couple of old guys without a job. Probably without a pension, either.”

Suite 6-G was all the way in the right-hand corner, just as the floor plan had shown. Wesley raised his hand to the bell, but the door was snatched open before he could make contact.