Urban Renewal (25 page)

“I
knew
you’d like it!” the monster crowed. “See, I can shop, too!”

“Is it okay if we get back to business?” Buddha said, his voice a model of politeness. Which deceived no one in the room except the happy giant.

“
WE
’
LL WORK
it the way we always do,” Cross told the others, now including Tracker, who had entered soundlessly. He was crouched next to the Akita, whispering in some language none of the others recognized. The Akita responded by lying down. Tracker scratched the beast behind one ear. Princess glowed with pride—all his hard work spent on socializing with Sweetie was clearly on display.

“We get paid by both of them? How are we going to sell that one, boss?”

“I’ll handle the conversations. We need two shooters, which we’ve got, one distraction”—nodding his head in Tiger’s direction—“and
maybe
some muscle … I’m not sure about that part, yet.”

“Who am I supposed to distract?” Tiger said, midway between happy at being included and annoyed with her assigned role.

“Costanza. At the Double-X.”

“You want me to dance every night until he shows up? You must be out of your—”

“We’ll know when he’s coming.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Give it a rest, okay?”

Tiger sat down on the crate that the ever-gentlemanly Rhino had quickly dusted off for her. She crossed her legs and did her best to look slightly insulted. On Tiger, it looked more like a threat. Especially as she made a point of rewrapping the Velcro holster that held a pair of narrow throwing daggers around her muscular right thigh.

“Costanza can’t be seen coming here. And he never knows who’s watching—all those guys eat paranoia for breakfast. But he’ll come to the Double-X. Maybe alone, maybe with one or two of his crew leaders. That’s why I guessed that the ones we just talked to are in Dominic’s crew—he’s the closest to Costanza.”

“That’s when I—?”

“That’s only if he
doesn’t
come alone.”

“Just lay it out, boss,” Buddha said. “None of us are getting it so far.”

“If you all can just be quiet for a few minutes, I will.”

“
YOU ARE
certain?” a soberly dressed man in his sixties asked. His voice was just above a whisper, despite the total sweep for bugs performed every twelve hours by well-paid experts. In addition, noise-cancellation software was permanently programmed into the track which ran in an endless loop through the Bose CD player, placed between the two men on a face-level shelf.

“There are no other men that size in Chicago. Maybe in the world. And he talked in that squeaky voice he’s supposed to have. And the tapes he gave me, I had our people look at them—they’re not faked.”

“How did he find you?”

“That I don’t know. My
gumare
lives way out in Oak Park. No way anyone could have followed me, not in
this
city. I’ve been visiting her for a long time. Nobody knows, I’m sure.”

“So …?”

“So it’s three-something in the morning. I’m walking to my car—not
my
car, the one I borrowed, just in case the feds are tracking my plates—when this … 
thing
snatches me from behind. Grabs the back of my neck like it was a suitcase handle and
throws
me into a car. The car takes off like it was some kind of moving cloud—I couldn’t hear the engine, and it didn’t even bounce driving over those lousy streets around there.”

“That is their car.”

“Whose car?”

“Never mind. What happened next?”

“I never even thought about reaching for my hardware. Hell, I think bullets would have bounced off that monster, anyway. Then some guy in the front seat says he wants to make sure something gets to you, and I was the only man for that job. He hands me this package. The car comes to a stop. The back door opens by itself. He says, ‘Out,’ and you know the rest.”

“You acted correctly. There are no options with those people.”

“I don’t know who—”

“Describe what you did after you returned to this place,” the soberly dressed man instructed his underling. “Step-by-step.”

“I came in downstairs. I took the package to the back. I had one of the guys cut it open. Carefully. For all I knew, it
was a bomb or something, and I wasn’t going to just hand it to you because some weirdos told me to—I don’t answer to them.

“But inside was just these tapes. DVDs, I mean. I watched them, one by one, in the same order they were numbered. Okay, first I see four of Dominic’s crew going into some building that looks like a concrete block. It’s in a junkyard, and there’s ‘71’ spray-painted on it in red. Then they’re talking to some old man behind a desk. Now they’re in some room, talking to a guy with a big bull’s-eye tattoo on—”

“The back of his right hand.”

“Yeah! And they’re saying that Costanza wants to meet with this guy about a job. Then it goes black. Next, it shows one of them—I don’t know their names; they’re not made guys, not if they’re still in Dominic’s crew—putting money into an envelope, and then putting the envelope itself inside some abandoned trailer. From a semi, but I couldn’t see if there was a cab in front of it. That’s it, except for the note.”

“Yes. A very polite note: ‘It is better to prevent a problem than to fix one.’ ”

“So Costanza’s got to go?”

“Not yet. First, I have to speak with the man who wrote this note.”

“You know who he is?”

“Yes. He is a man you can hire, a man with a crew of his own.”

“Hire for what?”

“Anything,” the older man said.

“
THIS IS
a strange place,” the soberly dressed man said, looking out the side window of his personal car, a black BMW 7 Series, the long-wheelbase model. His most trusted lieutenant was in the front passenger seat, the wheelman was a high-ranker who normally wouldn’t be playing limo-driver, but he never questioned the instructions he’d been given, considering who delivered them.

“Every place is strange if you don’t know it,” Cross replied from his position behind the driver.

“True. But why here?”

“So you can see the film wasn’t faked. There’s the semi-trailer, just ahead.”

“You are the one called ‘Cross,’ ” the older man said, pointedly looking at the tattoo on the back of the other’s hand. “You work for money. How do you make money showing me that I have been betrayed? Why give me such a warning? How do you profit from this?”

“The pest control guy who comes to your house every month tells you there’s rats in your cellar. You’re not sure how they got in there, but you know how rats breed. So you tell him …?”

“To exterminate them, yes. But this is something I can—”

“Handle yourself? Maybe. But you couldn’t stop until you got all the way up to Costanza. Why call for a sit-down over that? And how could you be sure he wouldn’t get tipped?”

“How can I be sure that you have not gone to some elaborate ruse to get me out here? Costanza does not have my position—which I have known for some time he wants for himself—but he has money.”

“If Costanza paid me to do that job, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Hey, pal! That’s Don Citelli himself you’re talking to. You think you could—?”

The older man made a gesture to silence his lieutenant.

“You are correct. I would not be here. But not in the sense you mean. I would not be here unless I believed you wanted to talk, as you said on the phone. You may be armed. Or perhaps not. But the agreement was that I could pick you up at any place I chose. And that you would get in my car. So I am here. Not only because I believe you want to be paid, but because you have analyzed the opportunity Costanza’s men brought to you.”

“And because I can do something you can’t.”

“Yes?”

“I can take out Costanza in such a way that it would never be connected to you.”

“How?”

“Trade secret.”

“I should trust you, then?”

“Why would you not? You’ve asked around. Or maybe you already knew that if I take money for a job, that job gets done. Always.”

“How much money are you talking about, here?”

Cross held up one finger.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I’m always serious. How many times do you buy something that comes with a lifetime warranty?”

“You have an … unusual way of putting things. But that is far too much money for—”

“For total pest control. And don’t waste any more of your time. If you don’t want to pay the price, just say so, and we’re done.”

“You are a man who shows respect. I know you smoke. Yet when you step into another man’s car, your nose tells you that no smoking is done in it. You could ask if I minded, but you don’t do that. Instead, you don’t smoke.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Cross said, his voice devoid of inflection. “Say ‘yes’ or say ‘no,’ and I’ll respect your decision. Either way.”

“Half before, half after.”

“I can live with that. But you sure you can?”

“What?”

“You take the deal, then Costanza’s going to go. You won’t know where, or how. But it will look like a personal thing, not business. If you’re okay with anyone connected to you walking around with five hundred large, that’s up to you. But anyone you trust that much, you sure you want to risk someone keeping an eye on him? Anyone seen with me, right after your enemy gets himself killed, that could make suspicious people certain their suspicions were justified.”

“Would you mind stepping out of the car for just a few moments? You can smoke your cigarette, and I can confer with my people.”

Cross responded by opening his door, stepping out, and closing it very gently—he knew that the BMW’s door would finish the job on its own. He walked around the front of the car, giving all inside a view of him through the windshield as he strolled across the chopped-up concrete. Then he leaned back against a short stretch of chain link and lit a cigarette.

“We’re here,” a voice whispered behind him.

“You get better all the time,” Cross said, dragging on his
cigarette so that even someone watching closely would not see his lips move. “I caught a tiny little movement—gold flash, maybe?—but nobody would even guess this place was occupied.”

“That was Rico. New guy. Last time he’ll ever wear that stupid chain.”

“Just explain that I saw it, Condor. No more, got it?”

“Got it.”

Cross had just snapped his still-burning cigarette away after the third drag when the front passenger window slid down.

“Okay, come on back,” the lieutenant said.

In the back seat, the older man said, “You are as people say. My … friend in the front seat, he talks as if he is giving you orders, but you take no offense. Others might.”

“Uh-huh,” Cross said, his mind flashing on So Long’s world-view of all men doing some kind of “measuring.”

“We will have your money, all your money, tomorrow, before noon. Where should it be—?”

“You tell me. I’ll take it from there.”