The Butcher's Boy

24

“Twelve five P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Vincent Toscanzio. At 11:50 subject boarded TWA flight 921 for Chicago. He was accompanied by three persons: One registered as William Capell, positive ID Guillermo Montani. Others listed as Daniel Chesire and Richard Greene not identified. Photography will be forwarded to Justice.

“2:30 P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Carlo Balacontano. At 1:30 subject boarded private aircraft at McCarron Airport. Aircraft took off at 1:45. Flight plan filed for Nutley, New Jersey. No ETA.

“9:15 A.M., Monday, February 19, Palm Springs: Subject Antonio Damonata, AKA Tony Damon. Subject checked out of Royal Palms Hotel at 7:00 A.M. Wife, Marie Damonata, took Sun Aire connecting flight to Los Angeles, 8:30 A.M. and Pan American flight 592 at 9:50 A.M. Destination Miami, Florida. Subject and two other men in Cadillac El Dorado, Blue, California license 048 KPJ, left vicinity at 8:35, probable destination Los Angeles.

“5:40 P.M., Monday, February 19, Miami: Subject Marie Damonata arrived Miami airport flight 592. Flight was met at 5:20 by four men. One positive ID Martin Damonata, son of Marie and Antonio Damonata. One probable ID Stephen LaTona.”

That was enough, thought Elizabeth. Brayer was right, and the last one clinched it. What the others were doing might have been open to question, but Tony Damon was scared to death. The murder of Castiglione had stirred them all up, and now they were on the move, scurrying back to their strongholds and getting the women out of sight.

It was coherent, she thought. Everywhere it was the same. The news had traveled quickly. “Five eighteen P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Seattle: Subject Joseph Vortici. Vortici has not left his home since Sunday, February 18. Vortici’s children have not been in school.”

They were all waiting for the next thing to happen, and it was clear they all expected it to be ugly. She put down the sheaf of reports and walked to the window. Las Vegas was a strange place. Even this building, FBI headquarters, felt like some sort of temporary structure thrown up in the middle of the desert. One-story, cinder blocks painted government green, an air conditioner every few yards. The only buildings that looked as if they were built by people who intended to stay were the giant hotels and casinos clustered around Las Vegas Boulevard like dinosaurs crowding up to drink at a stream. It was ludicrous, really. It was everything that everyone had always told her. What had Brayer called it? “A monument to the Mafia’s ability to cater to the lowest forms of lust in the souls of the American people; to give the suckers what they want. It’s the biggest joke that’s ever been played on the United States.” “Take a good look at it,” he’d said. “You’ll learn something. It’ll show you why the best we can ever hope to do is yap at their heels.” It was true. It wasn’t a regular city. All around were the most bizarre and outlandish temptations to do things you couldn’t do at home—eat too much, drink too much, stare at naked bodies in feathers and sequins, but mostly, gamble. But you had to admit there was something about it. It wasn’t exactly beautiful. It was—dazzling. For all intents and purposes, a place that grew up overnight, the night Bugsy Siegel arrived in 1946. Vanity Fair. If John Bunyan could have seen it he would have recognized it.

“Miss Waring.” She turned and saw it was the local FBI division chief. It was the first time she’d seen him since the meeting in the hotel. Where had he been?

“Yes?” she said.

“These gentlemen are agents Grove and Daly from Justice.” He left the office and closed the door.

She waited for them to say something, but they were busy pulling out chairs for themselves and shuffling papers in their briefcases. They looked vaguely familiar. She had probably seen them some time in a Justice hallway. She smiled and said, “What can I do for you?”

Grove said, “Miss Waring, we’re from Internal Security. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She struggled to hold the smile, but she knew it must be fading. “Sure. What about?”

Daly, a chubby man with thick glasses and a crew cut, spoke first. “It’s about the incident concerning Fieldston Growth Enterprises. Please sit down.” He sounded kind, soothing, almost the way some men did who had always been chubby and worn thick glasses.

Grove cleared his throat, and she suddenly realized that this was going to be something she wouldn’t like. The men were distinctly uncomfortable. “To the best of your knowledge, who knew you had been ordered to serve a warrant on Fieldston Growth Enterprises?”

“John Brayer, of course,” she said. “The FBI. There were two Bureau auditors, but I didn’t get to meet them. I suppose the local FBI division head, the man who was just here. And there were two or three agents on surveillance at FGE.” Grove scribbled on a yellow legal-size notepad.

He said, “Who else?” He seemed to know the answer.

She remembered. “The presiding judge and I suppose his staff.”

He repeated, “Anyone else?”

This time she was sure. “Nobody I know of.”

Daly spoke up. His eyes looked apologetic behind the round magnifying lenses—big, sad, puppy eyes. “Please try harder to remember, Miss Waring.” It seemed to be very important to him. “Did you mention it to anyone? Family? A boyfriend, maybe?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I spoke to no one.”

He smiled. “All of us who work in this field deal with a hundred details every day, a lot of them sensitive. We’d never intentionally reveal anything, but sometimes we make—” he paused, then chose “errors. Maybe we have plans that have to be cancelled due to our responsibilities at Justice.” What in the hell was he getting at?

He smiled again. “You know. You get a call from the boss—your Mr. Brayer, and then you have to break a date. My wife has gotten used to it, but believe me,” he chuckled, “it took many years.”

She saw it coming, but had to wait. He said, “You call your boyfriend and say, ‘Sorry, can’t go. I’ve got to serve a warrant.’ ”

Elizabeth said, coldly, “I just told you I spoke to no one. I have an excellent memory. Now tell me what’s going on.”

This time Grove answered. He was a large man about fifty years old, with small, sharp eyes and a broad, expressionless face. “We’re here to find out why the people you’re investigating seem to know in advance what the next move is. Your superiors consider you bright and perceptive, Miss Waring. Surely that must have crossed your mind.”

“Yes,” she admitted. In fact it had kept her awake until after two last night, but she wasn’t going to tell him.

His expression didn’t change. He said, “Well, it occurred to Mr. Connors too. He’s asked us to find the problem.”

She wondered whether she would be able to keep herself under control. Her head was beginning to throb. “And so you’re asking me.”

He nodded. “And so we’re asking you.”

She said quietly, “But I don’t know. I was just told to do it, and when I got a call from the two agents—but they weren’t agents, were they?—I served the subpoena. I spoke to no one.”

Daly said, “Do you have any suggestions for us, Miss Waring?” So there it was: the chance to serve as the anonymous accuser. “We’re not making much progress.” The methods of interrogators were always the same.

“No,” she said. “I only know I’m not the one. I don’t have any idea how they know what to do or when to do it. It might be they just figured it out. I was the agent in the open. I’d been to FGE the day before and gotten nowhere. The next logical move was to audit their records. Maybe they just put the pieces together.”

The two were already standing up and putting their notepads away.

Elizabeth felt a sudden desperation. She knew it was part of their craft, that they were trained to make her tell them things because she wanted to know what they knew, but she couldn’t help herself. “Wait,” she said. “Whom else are you talking to?”

Daly’s chubby face turned to her in a look of bright hope. “All of the agents, I suppose. The judge and his staff. Are we missing someone?”

She said, “No, I don’t think so.” Watching them leave, she regretted having said anything.

Elizabeth shut the door and dialed Brayer’s room at the Sands. When he answered she said, “John, I’ve just been grilled by two men from—”

He interrupted, “I know, I know. Internal Security. Don’t let it bother you. They’re looking for a leak.”

“I know they’re looking for a leak,” she said in frustration. “But I’m not it.”

“No,” said Brayer, “and neither am I. But I had to put up with it too, and so does everyone else.”

“Then it’s not because I was the one who—”

“No, dammit,” he said. “It isn’t. So forget it. I’ve got things going on here and I can’t take the next hour to hold your hand. So get back to work.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“More killings.” He hung up.

ELIZABETH SAT WITH THE DEAD TELEPHONE in her hand. The field reports were still in a pile on the table, set aside to make room for the Internal Security men. But killings. Brayer had said killings. That made the field reports obsolete, she thought. Half of them were more than twelve hours old. The petty chieftains had been running for cover for two days. By now some of them could be anywhere—given twelve hours Damon could be in Hong Kong. Or dead. But Elizabeth had been assigned to the field reports, and the only way back into Brayer’s good graces was to do what you were told. And she had been told to analyze the field reports. But how did Brayer know there had been killings? She picked up the pile of reports and leafed through them quickly. They were almost uniform. There were no reports of murders among them, just the opposite: what she held in her hand were thirty or forty individual ways of saying that nothing was happening. If there were killings, Brayer hadn’t gotten the information from the field, because as soon as a call came in, the typescript was run off and distributed to everyone on the case. Her heart stopped. Oh, God, she thought. Was it the mistake or the suspicion that she was the security leak?

Elizabeth sat motionless for a moment, then remembered she was still holding the telephone, and set it back on the cradle. She thought it through again. No, it wasn’t like Brayer to take someone off a case and say nothing. He wouldn’t leave her in a quiet office with a pile of out-of-date reports to keep her out of the way while the others handled everything sensitive, would he? But then why hadn’t he explained what was going on? Then it hit her. There was another possibility. That was if the killings were local. The field agents would be reporting directly to the local controller. And the controller right now happened also to be the unit head. John Brayer.

There was one way to find out, she thought. If the agents were in the field the controller would call in the report to the FBI office, even if the controller was John Brayer himself. And if Brayer had called in and the report had been withheld from her, she decided, she was damned well going to know why.