WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

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?”

“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

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