Butcher's Moon

Forty-eight

Calesian could feel it slipping away. He’d had it in his hands, he’d held it just long enough to know what it really was, and now it was slipping away.

That bastard Parker. They’d get him, of course, they’d finish him off, either tonight or tomorrow or sometime later this week, but it was going to be too late for Calesian. The power that had skidded through Buenadella’s hands and into Calesian’s was gone again, running out like sand through the bottom of a sack. And not a damn thing he could do about it.

Buenadella’s house was a goddam fortress by now. There had to be at least forty armed men in here, plus Dutch himself and Ernie Dulare. Also a guy named Quittner that had been sent over by Frank Schroder. Quittner was a cold bastard, tall and skinny and pallid and silent as death. He wasn’t a part of anybody’s action, wasn’t a regular at all. He belonged to Frank Schroder, the way a horse belongs to a mounted policeman. Most of the time Quittner didn’t even seem to exist; just every once in a while Frank Schroder wanted a representative somewhere, on something he considered very important, and here came Quittner, empowered to act on his own, to make Schroder’s decisions for him, and then to fade out of the picture again.

So now the power lay between Quittner and Ernie Dulare And when the crisis was over and Quittner disappeared once more, that would leave Dulare the man in control.

It was strange about power. Al Lozini had held it in his hands a long, long time, unquestioned and unchallenged, but Dutch Buenadella could bleed it out of him slowly over three years without Lozini ever even feeling it: getting the money, getting the right men, inching the reins into his own hands.

If the guns hadn’t come out, the shift in control would have been seamless and simple and straight, as automatic as the movement of a teeter-totter. But once Parker and Green had come to town and the balance had gone, once violence had become the only way to make things right, Buenadella had lost the rhythm, had ceased to function, and it became inevitable that the reins would fall from his grasp again.

But not back to Lozini. Once a man was drained of his power, he seemed to lose the assurance that had won it for him in the first place. Lozini with his mastery intact would never have gone after Calesian himself with a gun, just as Calesian would never have dared to shoot a Lozini who was still in charge; so in a way it was the knowledge of his powerlessness that had killed Lozini more than anything else.

Something like that was also happening to Buenadella. For a while Calesian had seen himself as the silent partner, the power behind the throne, with Dutch Buenadella nominally in charge. But then Parker had brought in an army from some goddam place, he’d attacked in a way that hurt too many people and that neither Buenadella nor Calesian could deal with on their own, and Buenadella’s loss of control became apparent to the wrong men: to Frank Schroder and Ernie Dulare.

So that’s where the power was now, in the hands of Ernie Dulare and of Frank Schroder’s man Quittner, sitting together at the desk in Buenadella’s den, making their phone calls, making their decisions without consulting Buenadella, picking up the reins in every way. Tomorrow, when Quittner stepped out once more, Ernie Dulare would be the man holding Al Lozini’s power in his hands, with Schroder as his ally and Buenadella as his satellite.

And Calesian? Dulare had made it plain when he got here tonight, in a few harsh cutting remarks, that he felt this mess was more Calesian’s fault than anybody else’s. He’d made his peace with Buenadella, and he’d apparently chosen to turn Calesian into the goat, the one whose bad judgment had brought this trouble down on everybody’s head.

Which just wasn’t fair. It was Buenadella who had started the power play in the first place, and it was Buenadella who had taken Parker and Green’s money, and it was Buenadella who had ordered Mike Abadandi to go kill them. But all of that was being forgotten now. The only things being remembered were that Calesian had killed Al Lozini and that Calesian had fired on Parker and Green after Buenadella had worked out an agreement with them. Nobody was making a big point of blaming Calesian, nobody was arguing with him and giving him a chance to defend himself, but the feeling was obvious in the air. Calesian was out. Not yet, but soon; Farrell would be elected mayor, and would appoint his own police commissioner, and it was only natural to expect the new commissioner to do some reshuffling of assignments. Calesian would lose his slot with the Organized Crime Squad, would be shifted to Public Relations or the Red Squad or some other meaningless backwater, and that would be the end of him. His last state would be worse than his first; less power than before, after having for just one day tasted more power than he’d ever dreamed of.

Was there a way back? Not yet, not that he could see, but still he couldn’t just give up. He had to hang around, watching and waiting, hoping for some break somewhere; sitting in Buenadella’s den, obscure and ignored in a corner, he watched Dulare and Quittner over at the desk, like two military commanders in a field headquarters setting up for a major battle. Watched and listened and hoped for some new hole to open, some other route back to the trough of power.

Dulare was on the phone now, talking to Farrell. Until a day or so ago direct communication between Farrell and anybody at all on this side of the fence would have been unthinkable; but now they were in a crisis situation, and security was going by the boards. Besides, with the election tomorrow it was too late for anybody to get political mileage out of Farrell’s connections; and after the man was elected, what was anybody going to do about it?

Dulare was saying, “George, you just sit tight. You’ve got good security around you there, and . . . I know they did. That’s why your security’s so much better now. You stay there, stay out of it, stay above it. Do your early morning voting booth number, then fade away again and let it all happen. We’ll take care of things on the outside . . . They also serve, George, who only stand and wait . . . I know it. If I’d been in this earlier it wouldn’t have happened . . . That’s right, George, that’s just what’s going to happen . . . I definitely will, I’ll let you know first thing . . . That’s right. Goodbye, George.”

Dulare hung up, made a face, said to Quittner, “The man’s a bigger asshole than Wain ever was.”

“He’ll do,” Quittner said. He had a soft voice, with no strength in it; he was frequently hard to hear. “He’s just frightened, that’s all.”

Dulare grunted, and looked at the sheet of paper he’d been doodling on. “I keep thinking,” he said, “there must be other places for them to hit. The Riviera. Nick Rifkin’s Place. Your man Pelzer.”

“They know a lot,” Quittner said. “They know more than I do. Nick Rifkin, I knew nothing about.”

“A little loan operation.” Dulare shrugged, turning that conversation aside. “The question is, what else can they hit?”

“What else is there for them to know about?”

“It’s that goddam Faran,” Dulare said. “He’s a hail-fellow-well met, let’s get together have a couple drinks. You sit with him, you trade stories, pretty soon he knows everything you do.”

“He’s too expensive,” Quittner said.

“Frank’s got a lot of friends,” Dulare said. “A lot of buddies. They’ll all want to forget it, let him go, not make a big deal.”

“He’s too expensive.” Quittner had a cold, soft, unemphatic way of repeating himself that was much more impressive than a lot of shouting or a whole array of different arguments.

Dulare shrugged. “Let’s see if we get him back alive,” he said. “Then we can talk it over.”

There was a silence. Calesian watched Quittner turning it over in his mind, watched him decide not to repeat his comment again but to let it go for now, and knew that Quittner was determined that Frank Faran should die. There seemed to Calesian no question but that Frank Faran was soon going to be dead.

What did Quittner want? While he and Dulare went on talking about other potential places for Parker to hit, Calesian studied Quittner, trying to understand the man. Would he be taking over when Frank Schroder died or retired? Schroder was in his sixties now, so that was a possibility, and Quittner had the look of someone patient enough to wait things out. But did he want any more? It was hard to see Quittner, for instance, in Al Lozini’s role; the man in charge had to have the potential for some sort of human contact with the people under him, and Quittner seemed just too cold and withdrawn, he seemed to live too completely inside himself. It was impossible to think of Quittner hosting one of those gourmet dinners that Al Lozini used to do once or twice a week.

All at once Calesian felt an almost physical pain of nostalgia for the way things used to be. Way back, four or five years ago, back when Lozini was still completely in charge, before Dutch had made his move, before anything had happened. How easy and good that all seemed now.

No. With a sensation like an iris being slowly forced shut. Calesian put away that weakness. He had been thinking about Quittner, wondering what kind of man he was, wondering if there was any way that Quittner could be useful in Calesian’s rehabilitation. There had to be some way to keep from being bounced out of things by all this—was Quittner the way?

Dulare was on the phone again, talking to Artie Pulsone over at Three Brothers Trucking. They had twelve radio-equipped delivery trucks over there, and Dulare had arranged for them all to be out on patrol, driving around the city, looking for trouble. They were in steady touch with Artie at the office, and Artie would occasionally check in by phone with Dulare.

Quittner had gotten to his feet and was over by the French doors, looking out at the floodlit shrubbery and lawn. Being casual, not knowing what he would say but only that he had to start with some sort of try, Calesian stood up and strolled over next to him. “One thing’s for sure,” he said, also looking out toward the lawn. “He won’t get in here, anyway.”

“He’ll come for his friend,” Quittner said.

Calesian looked sharply at him, surprised by the calm assurance of the man. How could he be so positive what Parker would do?

“I think he’ll call,” Calesian said. “Sometime tomorrow. The way he worked it with Al Lozini.”

”He’ll come for his friend.”

Despite the situation he was in, Calesian felt irritation and couldn’t help showing it. “What makes you so sure?”

Quittner glanced at Calesian. His eyes were pale blue, they almost looked blind. Without expression, he said, “You shouldn’t have sent him that finger. He wasn’t the right man for that.”

It wasn’t smart to try defending himself, but Calesian couldn’t hold back. “That’s easier to see now,” he said. “At the time, it seemed the right thing to do.”

“He wasn’t the right man for that. He never was.”

Quittner turned his head again, looking out at the lawn. Calesian tried to find something else to say in his own defense, but was distracted by the sound of the den door opening. It was Buenadella.

He looked terrible. It was amazing how much he’d changed, just overnight. Inside his big frame he looked shriveled and stooped. His face was fixed in downward curving lines, like the unhappy side of a comedy-tragedy mask. He had sent his family out of the city and he should have gone with them, but he’d insisted on sticking around. Not that he could do any good; he’d become an old woman, fretful and frightened.

Dulare was just hanging up the phone. Looking up, he said, “How’s it going, Dutch?”

“Any news? Did they find him?” A faint whining note had come into Buenadella’s voice; it was the worst of the new characteristics, weak and grating.

“Nothing yet,” Dulare said. “How’s life upstairs?”

“The doctor says Green was awake for a while.”

“No shit,” Dulare said.

Quittner turned away from the window, his attention caught. Calesian kept watching Quittner.

“Just for a few minutes,” Buenadella said.

Quittner, walking over to the desk, said, “Did anybody talk to him?”

“He wasn’t awake that way, to have a conversation. It’s just his eyes were open for a little while.”

“If he really wakes up,” Quittner said to Dulare, “we want to talk to him.”

Calesian, having stayed over by the French doors, touched his palm to one of the glass panes. It was warm, warmer than the air in the room, so it must still be hot outside, even though the glare of floodlights made the greenery out there look cool.

Buenadella said, petulantly, “I don’t see why we don’t kill him. That’s the only reason Parker’s coming here, isn’t it? Kill him, leave him on a street downtown, the way Parker left Shevelly.”

Dulare, speaking with controlled impatience, said, “He’s a playing card. So long as we have him, Parker can still be ready to deal.”

“What if he tries to break in here?”

“Good,” Dulare said. “I’d love it.”

Calesian turned and looked out the window again. Buenadella was saying something else, that whine still sounding in his voice, but Calesian didn’t listen. He was trying to think of how to square himself with Quittner.

Did somebody move there? Out toward the end of the lawn, amid the individual clumps of bushes.

No. It was just nerves. Calesian squeezed his eyes shut and looked out again at the glare of light. Nothing. He would let Quittner know just how much clout he had in the police force, how many men owed him favors. Then the lights went out.