brother.
Jack said, “I mean, he was apparently hiding out, in the hotel here,
when Lavelle got to him. But if he knew he was targeted, why didn’t he
squirrel himself away at his own place or come to you for protection?
Under the circumstances, no place in the city would be as safe as your
house. With all this going down, surely you must have a fortress out
there in Brooklyn Heights.”
“It is,” the old man said. “My house is a fortress.”
His eyes blinked once, twice, slow as lizard eyes. “A fortress-but not
safe. Lavelle has already struck inside my own house, in spite of the
tight security.”
“You mean, he’s killed in your house-”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Ginger and Pepper.”
“Who’re they?”
“My doggies. A matched pair of papillons.”
“Ah.”
“Little dogs, you know.”
“I’m not really sure what they look like,” Jack said.
“Toy spaniels,” Rebecca said. “Long, silky coats.”
“Yes, yes. Very playful,” Carramazza said. “Always wrestling with each
other, chasing. Always wanting to be held and petted.”
“And they were killed in your house.”
Carramazza looked up. “Last night. Torn to pieces.
Somehow-we still don’t know how-Lavelle or one of his men got in, killed
my sweet little dogs, and got out again without being spotted.” He
slammed one bony hand down on his attache case. “Damnit, the whole
thing’s impossible! The house is sealed tight! Guarded by a small
army!” He blinked more rapidly than he had done before, and his voice
faltered. “Ginger and Pepper were so gentle. They wouldn’t bite
anyone. Never. They hardly even barked. They didn’t deserve to be
treated so brutally. Two innocent little creatures.”
Jack was astounded. This murderer, this geriatric dope peddler, this
ancient racketeer, this supremely dangerous poisonous lizard of a man,
who had been unable or unwilling to weep for his dead brother, now
seemed on the verge of tears over the slaying of his dogs.
Jack glanced at Rebecca. She was staring at Carramazza, half in
wide-eyed wonder, half in the manner of someone watching a particularly
loathsome creature as it crawled out from under a rock.
The old man said, “After all, they weren’t guard dogs. They weren’t
attack dogs. They posed no threat.
Just a couple of adorable little toy spaniels . . .”
Not quite sure how to handle a maudlin mafia chieftain, Jack tried to
get Carramazza off the subject of his dogs before the old man reached
that pathetic and embarrassing state of mind on the edge of which he now
teetered. He said, “Word on the street is that Lavelle claims to be
using voodoo against you.”
Carramazza nodded. “That’s what he says.”
“You believe it?”
“He seems serious.”?
“But do you think there’s anything to this voodoo business? ”
Carramazza didn’t answer. He gazed out the side window at the
wind-whipped snow whirling past the parked limousine.
Although Jack was aware that Rebecca was scowling at him in disapproval,
he pressed the point: “You think there’s anything to it?”
Carramazza turned his face away from the window.
“You mean, do I think it works? A month ago, anybody asked me the same
thing, I’d have laughed, but now. . .”
Jack said, “Now you’re wondering if maybe . . .”
“Yeah. If maybe . . .”
Jack saw that the old man’s eyes had changed. They were still hard,
still cold, still watchful, but now there was something new in them.
Fear. It was an emotion to which this vicious old bastard was long
unaccustomed.
“Find him,” Carramazza said.
“We’ll try,” Jack said.
“Because it’s our job,” Rebecca said quickly, as if to dispel any notion
that they were motivated by concern for Gennaro Carramazza and his
blood-thirsty family.
“Stop him,” Carramazza said, and the tone of his voice was the closest
he would ever come to saying “please” to an officer of the law.
The Mercedes limousine pulled away from the curb and down the hotel
driveway, leaving tracks in the quarter-inch skin of snow that now
covered the pavement.
For a moment, Jack and Rebecca stood on the sidewalk, watching the car.
The wind had abated. Snow was still falling, even more heavily than
before, but it was no longer winddriven; the lazy, swirling descent of