Watchers (61 page)
“Hush,” she said.
“But—”
“We didn’t plan for this baby,” she said. “In fact, we took precautions against it. But it happened anyway. There’s something special about the fact that it happened in spite of all our careful precautions. Don’t you think? In spite of all I said before, about maybe not being meant to have it . . . well, that’s just the old Nora talking. The new Nora thinks we
were
meant to have it, that it’s a great gift to us—as Einstein was.”
were
meant to have it, that it’s a great gift to us—as Einstein was.”
“But considering what may be coming—”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ll deal with that. We’ll come out of that all right. We’re ready. And then we’ll have the baby and really begin our life together. I love you, Travis.”
“I love you,” he said. “God, I love you.”
He realized how much she had changed from the mousy woman he’d met in Santa Barbara last spring. Right now, she was the strong one, the determined one, and
she
was trying to allay
his
fears.
she
was trying to allay
his
fears.
She was doing a good job, too. He felt better. He thought about the baby, and he smiled in the dark, with his face buried in her throat. Though he now had three hostages to fortune—Nora, the unborn baby, and Einstein—he was in finer spirits than he had been in longer than he could remember. Nora had allayed his fears.
Vince Nasco sat in an elaborately carved Italian chair with a deep glossy finish that had acquired its remarkable transparency only after a couple of centuries of regular polishing.
To his right was a sofa and two more chairs and a low table of equal elegance, arranged before a backdrop of bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes that had never been read. He knew they had never been read because Mario Tetragna, whose private study this was, had once pointed to them with pride and said, “Expensive books. And as good as the day they were made because they’ve never been read. Never. Not a one.”
In front of him was the immense desk at which Mario Tetragna reviewed earnings reports from his managers, issued memos about new ventures, and ordered people killed. The don was at that desk now, overflowing his leather chair, eyes closed. He looked as if he was dead of clogged arteries and a fat-impacted heart, but he was only considering Vince’s request.
Mario “The Screwdriver” Tetragna—respected patriarch of his immediate blood family, much-feared don of the broader Tetragna Family that controlled drug traffic, gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking, pornography, and other organized criminal activity in San Francisco—was a five-foot-seven-inch, three-hundred-pound tub with a face as plump and greasy and smooth as an overstuffed sausage casing. It was hard to believe that this rotund specimen could have built an infamous criminal operation. True, Tetragna had been young once, but even then he would have been short, and he had the look of a man who’d been fat all his life. His pudgy, stubby-fingered hands reminded Vince of a baby’s hands. But they were the hands that ruled the Family’s empire.
When Vince had looked into Mario Tetragna’s eyes, he instantly realized that the don’s stature and his all too evident decadence were of no importance. The eyes were those of a reptile: flat, cold, hard, watchful. If you weren’t careful, if you displeased him, he would hypnotize you with those eyes and take you the way a snake would take a mesmerized mouse; he would choke you down whole and digest you.
Vince admired Tetragna. He knew this was a great man, and he wished he could tell the don that he, too, was a man of destiny. But he had learned never to speak of his immortality, for in the past such talk had earned him ridicule from a man he’d thought would understand.
Now, Don Tetragna opened his reptilian eyes and said, “Let me be certain I understand. You are looking for a man. This is not Family business. It is a private grudge.”
“Yes, sir,” Vince said.
“You believe this man may have bought counterfeit papers and may be living under a new name. He would know how to obtain such papers, even though he is not a member of any Family, not of the
fratellanza
?”
fratellanza
?”
“Yes, sir. His background is such that . . . he would know.”
“And you believe he would have obtained these papers in either Los Angeles or here,” Don Tetragna said, gesturing toward the window and the city of San Francisco with one soft, pink hand.
Vince said, “On August twenty-fifth he went on the run, starting from Santa Barbara by car because for various reasons he couldn’t take a plane anywhere. I believe he would’ve wanted a new identity as quickly as he could get it. At first, I assumed he’d go south and seek out counterfeit ID in Los Angeles because that was closest. But I’ve spent the better part of two months talking with all the right people in L.A., Orange County, and even San Diego, all the people to whom this man could’ve gone for high-quality false ID, and I’ve had a few leads, but none panned out. So if he didn’t go south from Santa Barbara, he came north, and the only place in the north where he could get the kind of quality papers he would want—”
“Is in our fair city,” Don Tetragna said, gesturing again toward the window and smiling at the populous slopes below.
Vince supposed that the don was smiling fondly at his beloved San Francisco. But the smile didn’t look fond. It looked avaricious.
“And,” Don Tetragna said, “you would like for me to give you the names of the people who have my authorization to deal in papers such as this man needed.”
“If you can see it in your heart to grant me this favor, I would be most grateful.”
“They won’t have kept records.”
“Yes, sir, but they might remember something.”
“They’re in the business of
not
remembering.”
not
remembering.”
“But the human mind never forgets, Don Tetragna. No matter how hard it tries, it never really forgets.”
“How true. And you swear that the man you seek is not a member of any Family?”
“I swear it.”
“This execution must not in any way be traced to my Family.”
“I swear it.”
Don Tetragna closed his eyes again, but not for as long as he had closed them before. When he opened them, he smiled broadly but, as always, it was a humorless smile. He was the least jolly fat man Vince had ever seen. “When your father married a Swedish girl rather than one of his own people, his family despaired and expected the worst. But your mother was a good wife, unquestioning and obedient. And they produced you—a most handsome son. But you’re more than handsome. You’re a good soldier, Vincent. You have done fine, clean work for the Families in New York and New Jersey, for those in Chicago, and also for us on this coast. Not very long ago, you did me the great service of crushing the cockroach Pantangela.”
“For which you paid me most generously, Don Tetragna.”
The Screwdriver waved one hand dismissively. “We’re all paid for our labors. But we’re not talking money here. Your years of loyalty and good service are worth more than money. Therefore, you are owed at least this one favor.”
“Thank you, Don Tetragna.”
“You’ll be given the names of those who provide such papers in this city, and I’ll see that they are all forewarned of your visit. They’ll cooperate fully.”
“If you say they will,” Vince said, rising and bowing with only his head and shoulders, “I know that it is true.”
The don motioned him to sit down. “But before you attend to this private affair, I’d like you to take another contract. There’s a man in Oakland who is giving me much grief. He thinks I can’t touch him because he’s politically well connected and well guarded. His name is Ramon Velazquez. This will be a difficult job, Vincent.”
Vince carefully concealed his frustration and displeasure. He did not want to take on a troublesome hit right now. He wanted to concentrate on tracking down Travis Cornell and the dog. But he knew Tetragna’s contract was more a demand than an offer. To get the names of the people who sold false papers, he must first waste Velazquez.
He said, “I would be honored to squash any insect that has stung you. And there’ll be no charge this time.”
“Oh, I’d insist on paying you, Vincent.”
As ingratiatingly as he knew how, Vince smiled and said, “Please, Don Tetragna, let me do this favor. It would give me great pleasure.”
Tetragna appeared to consider the request, though this was what he expected—a free hit in return for helping Vince. He put both hands on his enormous belly and patted himself. “I am such a lucky man. Wherever I turn, people want to do me favors, kindnesses.”
“Not lucky, Don Tetragna,” Vince said, sick of their mannered conversation. “You reap what you sow, and if you reap kindness it is because of the seeds of greater kindness you’ve sown so broadly.”
Beaming, Tetragna accepted his offer to waste Velazquez for nothing. The nostrils of his porcine nose flared as if he had smelled something good to eat, and he said, “But now tell me . . . to satisfy my curiosity, what will you do to this other man when you catch him, this man with whom you have a personal vendetta?”
Blow his brains out and snatch his dog, Vince thought.
But he knew the kind of crap The Screwdriver wanted to hear, the same hard-assed stuff most of these guys wanted to hear from him, their favorite hired killer, so he said, “Don Tetragna, I intend to cut off his balls, cut off his ears, cut out his tongue—and only then put an ice pick through his heart and stop his clock.”
The fat man’s eyes glittered with approval. His nostrils flared.
By Thanksgiving, The Outsider had not found the bleached-wood house in Big Sur.
Every night, Travis and Nora locked the shutters over the inside of the windows. They dead-bolted the doors. Retiring to the second floor, they slept with shotguns beside their bed and revolvers on their nightstands.
Sometimes, in the dead hours after midnight, they were awakened by strange noises in the yard or on the porch roof. Einstein padded from window to window, sniffing urgently, but always he indicated that they had nothing to fear. On further investigation, Travis usually found a prowling raccoon or other forest creature.
Travis enjoyed Thanksgiving more than he had thought he would, given the circumstances. He and Nora cooked an elaborate traditional meal for just the three of them: roast turkey with chestnut dressing, a clam casserole, glazed carrots, baked corn, pepper slaw, crescent rolls, and pumpkin pie.
Einstein sampled everything because he had developed a much more sophisticated palate than an ordinary dog. He was still a dog, however, and though the only thing he strongly disliked was the sour pepper slaw, he preferred turkey above all else. That afternoon he spent a lot of time gnawing contentedly on the drumsticks.
Over the weeks, Travis had noticed that, like most dogs, Einstein would go out into the yard occasionally and eat a little grass, though sometimes it seemed to gag him. He did it again on Thanksgiving Day, and when Travis asked him if he liked the taste of grass, Einstein said no. “Then why do you try to eat it sometimes?”
NEED IT.
"Why?”
I DON’T KNOW.
“If you don’t know what you need it
for,
then how do you know you need it at all? Instinct?”
for,
then how do you know you need it at all? Instinct?”
YES.
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