Sleeping Dogs

“It’s happening again,” said Elizabeth.

Richardson shook his head. “We don’t think so.” He looked at Hillman, the deputy assistant, for a sign of agreement, but the deputy assistant was staring at something that had besmirched his shirt cuff without actually becoming visible. Elizabeth wondered if this was a rebuff for Richardson’s being presumptuous enough to postulate a “we” that included a deputy assistant attorney general of the United States of America. It was possible; short men were protective of their right to speak for themselves, as though if they were not heard, they would disappear. But Richardson was pressing on. “Martillo worked for Detroit. He was here at the sufferance of Vico, and that sufferance simply wore itself out. Is that hard to believe?”

“Yes.”

Richardson’s lips didn’t quite smile. “The phone company says a call was made on Martillo’s car phone after he was dead. You know who the call went to? Vico.”

“Does Vico have a car phone?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’d know that they list all the outgoing calls.”

“He was caught literally red-handed. The car was found full of blood in his back yard, for Christ’s sake.”

“With three of his own men inside.”

“It was a reprisal. Toscanzio’s people were telling him that he shouldn’t have killed their boy.”

“Okay,” said Elizabeth. “Let me get this straight. You honestly think that Vico had Martillo killed, and then his soldiers called him on Martillo’s car phone to tell him that the deed was done. Then Toscanzio’s people arrived from Detroit and killed the three killers. Then what? Did they put the bodies in the car and deliver them to Vico’s back yard, or did Vico do that himself?”

“Choice number one. They also booby-trapped the fence so that whoever touched it would be electrocuted.”

“Was anybody?”

“Two people, actually,” said Richardson. “Both of them soldiers of Vico’s, and both heavily armed, incidentally, as though they were expecting trouble.”

“And you’re going to try to bring Vico to trial on the basis of this evidence?”

Without warning, the deputy assistant suddenly satisfied himself that he had found the fault on his cuff. He straightened his short arms so that the cuffs would retract into the sleeves of his jacket, then raised his eyes. He never let them move to Richardson, but instead let them gaze into space for a moment, then settled them on Elizabeth. “What do you think happened, Elizabeth?”

“Ten years ago the Butcher’s Boy got into trouble with the Mob. Specifically, Carlo Balacontano hired him, then tried to have him killed instead of paying him. What he did in response was to lash out violently and senselessly, killing several people who had little or nothing to do with the dispute. Since the various families were all suspicious of each other anyway, this created confusion and allowed him some breathing space. What he did with the time he had won was to kill a man named Arthur Fieldston and bury his head and hands on the estate of the man who had betrayed him in the first place.”

“Who was convicted in a court by a jury,” snapped Richardson. “And the conviction held up under appeal.”

The deputy assistant restored silence by staring straight ahead without acknowledging that he had heard Richardson. Then he looked once more at Elizabeth. “And that’s what you think is happening again?”

“Yes. I know he killed Talarese, and I think he killed Mantino and Fratelli. Two of them were creatures of Carlo Balacontano. I think he made an attempt at somebody in Gary, Indiana—maybe Cambria or Puccio—and the policeman, Lempert, got killed in the scuffle. I don’t know what Martillo had to do with anything, except that I’m told he worked for Toscanzio in Detroit, which would add to the mess. I think that Vico didn’t do any of this, and that he’s been framed just like Carl Bala was ten years ago.”

“Here’s the crux,” said the deputy assistant. “It’s Occam’s razor.”

“It is?”

“You have two possibilities. First, that we’re witnessing the periodic internal strife that occurs inside the Mob for the usual reasons of fear and greed, and that they’re using their many foot soldiers to pursue a power struggle. The other possibility is that one man, for no known reason, comes back after ten years and kills lots of heavily armed and protected people in different places in different ways, and then frames still another for some of the killings. One theory is simple and based on familiar behavior; the other is complicated and based on unknown quantities. One is likely and the other is unlikely. No?”

“Not this time.”

“Why not?”

“Because a man like Vico isn’t stupid. You’re accusing him of killing Martillo, which would start a gang war, and then forgetting about it long enough to let the man’s car be delivered to his back yard with his own casualties inside. He doesn’t make mistakes like that.”

The deputy assistant’s face seemed to soften with a kind of paternal sympathy. “You have to look at this logically, Elizabeth. We’re in the business of taking men like Vico off the street. In order to do this, we have to wait until he makes a mistake. When he finally makes one, can we say we won’t prosecute because we don’t believe he’d make that mistake?”

“This time, yes. Because this, all of it, has happened before—ten years ago—and Vico had nothing to do with it.”

“So if what you say is accurate, what the Butcher’s Boy will now do is to use the confusion he’s caused to disappear, possibly forever.”

“I don’t know that, but I do think Vico’s innocent.”

“I don’t think so,” said the deputy assistant. “Logically I can’t think so and still do my job. I’d like to have everyone in this room working on preparing this case.”

It was happening again. Ten years ago the people who had sat in this room had made the decision to believe that the one who had disposed of Arthur Fieldston must be the big, powerful gangster, rather than the solitary killer. Their logic had brought them promotions and public notice, and eventually had elevated them right out of the Justice Department. Now the ones who had replaced them were making the same decision. The Butcher’s Boy was going to disappear again. She tried not to think about Jack Hamp, waiting downstairs to hear where he was going next. Home was where he would be going.

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I … I’d like to be excused, if I could. I’ve been on loan from my own office, and I’ve got cases of my own coming to trial.”

The deputy assistant looked at Richardson, whose face was expressionless. “I hope it’s not hurt feelings?”

“Me?” said Elizabeth. “No. I think you’re wrong, but I always do my job. It’s just that my regular job is the one I ought to be doing, and I’ve probably been away too long.” She added, “Besides, my son has heard Richardson’s name so many times that he’s been having bad dreams about him.”