Stand and fight, boy. A plan began to form. He’d put the word out: he wanted Billy and he wanted him alive. He’d talk to Tony and sound him out on the chance that Eddie was playing a game of some sort, that Eddie was connected with rivals to the north. That was his starting point to gather information. Then he would act on it.
There’s a likely spot, Kelly told himself. Springer was just crawling along, quietly. The trick was to find a place that was populated but not alert. Nothing unusual about that mission requirement, he smiled to himself. Toss in a bend in the river, and here was one. He checked the shoreline out carefully. It looked like a school, probably a boarding school, and there were no lights in the buildings. There was a town behind it, a small, sleepy one, just a few lights there, a car every couple of minutes, but those followed the main road, and nobody there could possibly see him. He let the boat proceed around a bend – better yet, a farm, probably tobacco from the look of it, an old one with a substantial house maybe six hundred yards off, the owners inside and enjoying their air conditioning, the glare from their lights and TV preventing them from seeing outside. He’d risk it here.
Kelly idled his motors and went forward to drop his lunch-hook, a small anchor. He moved quickly and quietly, lowering his small dinghy into the water and pulling it aft. Lifting Billy over the rail was easy enough, but putting the body in the dinghy defeated him. Kelly hurried into the after stateroom and returned with a life jacket which he put on Billy before tossing him over the side. It was easier this way. He tied the jacket off to the stem. Then he rowed as quickly as he could to the shore. It only took three or four minutes before the dinghy’s bow touched the muddy banks. It was a school, Kelly saw. It probably had a summer program, and almost certainly had a maintenance staff which would show up in the morning. He stepped out of the dinghy and hauled Billy onto the bank before removing the life jacket.
‘You stay here, now.’
‘… stay …’
‘That’s right.’ Kelly pushed the dinghy back into the river. As he began rowing back, his aft-facing position forced him to look at Billy. He’d left him naked. No identification. He bore no distinguishing marks that Kelly had not created. Billy had said more than once that he’d never been fingerprinted. If true, then there was no way for police to identify him easily, probably not at all. And he couldn’t live too long the way he was. The brain damage was more profound than Kelly had intended, and that indicated that other internal organs had to be severely damaged as well. But Kelly had shown some mercy after all. The crows probably wouldn’t have a chance to pick at him. Just doctors. Soon Kelly had Springer moving back up the Potomac.
Two more hours and Kelly saw the marina at Quantico Marine Base. Tired, he made a careful approach, selecting a guest berth at the end of one of the piers.
‘Who might you be?’ a voice asked in the dark.
‘The name’s Clark,’ Kelly replied. ‘You should be expecting me.’
‘Oh, yeah. Nice boat,’ the man said, heading back to the small dock house. Within minutes a car came down the hill from officer-quarters.
‘You’re early,’ Marty Young said.
‘Might as well get started, sir. Come aboard?’
‘Thanks, Mr Clark.’ He looked around the salon. ‘How did you get this baby? I suffer along with a day-sailer.’
‘I don’t know that I really should say, sir,’ Kelly replied. ‘Sorry.’ General Young accepted that with good grace.
‘Dutch says you’re going to be part of the op.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sure you can hack it?’ Young noticed the tattoo on Kelly’s forearm and wondered what it denoted.
‘I worked Phoenix for over a year, sir. What sort of people have signed on?’
‘They’re all Force Recon. We’re training them pretty hard.’
‘Kick ’em loose around five-thirty?’ Kelly asked.
‘That’s right. I’ll have somebody pick you up.’ Young smiled. ‘We need to get you nice and fit, too.’
Kelly just smiled. ‘Fair enough, General.’
‘So what’s so damned important?’ Piaggi asked, annoyed to be bothered at short notice on a weekend night.
‘I think somebody’s making a move on me. I want to know who.’
‘Oh?’ And that made the meeting important, if poorly timed, Tony thought. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’
‘Somebody’s been taking pushers down on the west side,’ Tucker said.
‘I read the papers,’ Piaggi assured him. He poured some wine into his guest’s glass. It was important at times like these to make a show of normality. Tucker would never be part of the family to which Piaggi belonged, but for all that he was a valuable associate. ‘Why is that important, Henry?’
‘The same guy took down two of my people. Rick and Billy.’
‘The same ones who -‘
‘That’s right. One of my girls is missing, too.’ He lifted his glass and sipped, watching Piaggi’s eyes.
‘Rip?’
‘Billy had about seventy thousand, cash. The cops found it, right there.’ Tucker filled in a few more details. ‘The police say it looks real professional, like.’
‘You have any other enemies on the street?’ Tony inquired. It wasn’t a terribly bright question – anyone in the business had enemies – but the skill factor was the important one.
‘I’ve made sure the cops know about my major competitors.’
Piaggi nodded. That was within normal business practice, but somewhat risky. He shrugged it off. Henry could be a real cowboy, a source of occasional worry to Tony and his colleagues. Henry was also very careful when he had to be, and the man seemed to understand how to mix the two traits.
‘Somebody getting even?’
‘None of them would walk away from that kind of cash.’
‘True,’ Piaggi conceded. ‘I got news for you, Henry. I don’t leave that sort of bundle laying around.’
Oh, really? Tucker wondered behind impassive eyes. ‘Tony, either the guy fucked up or he’s trying to tell me something. He’s killed like seven or eight people, real smart. He took Rick down with a knife. I don’t think he fucked up, y’dig?’ The odd thing was that both men thought that a knifing was something the other would do. Henry had the impression that knives were the weapon of Italians. Piaggi thought it the trademark of a black.
‘What I hear, somebody is doing pushers with a pistol – a little one.’
‘One was a shotgun, right in the guts. The cops are rousting street bums, doing it real careful.’
‘I didn’t hear that,’ Piaggi admitted. This man had some great sources, but then he lived closer to that part of town, and it was to be expected that his intelligence network would be speedier than Piaggi’s.
‘It sounds like a pro doing this,’ Tucker concluded. ‘Somebody really good, y’know?’
Piaggi nodded understanding while his mind was in a quandary. The existence of highly skilled Mafia assassins was for the most part a fiction created by TV and movies. The average organized-crime murder was not a skilled act, but rather something carried out by a man who mainly did other, real, money-generating activities. There was no special class of killers who waited patiently for telephone calls, made hits, then returned to their posh homes to await the next call. There were made members who were unusually good or experienced at killing, but that wasn’t the same thing. One simply got a reputation as a person whom killing didn’t affect – and that meant that the elimination would be done with a minimum of fuss, not a maximum of artistry. True sociopaths were rare, even in the Mafia, and bungled killings were the rule rather than the exception. And so ‘professional’ to Henry meant something that existed only as a fiction, the TV image of a Mafia button man. But how the hell did Tony explain that?
‘It isn’t one of mine, Henry,’ he said after a moment’s contemplation. That he didn’t have any was another issue entirely, Piaggi told himself, watching the effect of his words on his associate. Henry had always assumed that Piaggi knew a good deal about killing. Piaggi knew that Tucker had more experience with that end of business than he ever wished to have, but that was just one more thing he would have to explain, and this clearly was not the time. For now, he watched Tucker’s face, trying to read his thoughts as he finished his glass of Chianti.
How do I know he’s telling the truth? The thought didn’t require any special perception to read.
‘You need some help, Henry?’ Piaggi said, to break a very awkward silence.
‘I don’t think you’re doing it. I think you’re too smart,’ Tucker said, finishing his own glass.