The Mark of Cosa Nostra

Eight

It was useless to pound against the door. It would be like beating against the brick walls. I turned my back on it and looked around the room. There was a comfortable-looking bed, a dresser, one table with two chairs, and landscape paintings of the Grand Canyon on the wall. The two windows looked out directly over the Mediterranean.

I could see the bleached city of Palermo far down the hill, and sailboats moving silently back and forth beyond the harbor. Closer were the vineyards and the olive trees and the high wall. But closer to me than anything else was the wire mesh over the window.

Besides the massive main door, there was a smaller one leading to a bathroom.

I paced back and forth. They had Wilhelmina, but I still had my little gas bomb and stiletto. I would wait, if that’s what they wanted, but I wouldn’t wait long. I couldn’t believe that Bozano Nicoli would actually leave instructions for his old friend Acasano to be locked up. It sounded more like Sheng’s idea.

There was no way I could get out except through that door. So, until they opened it, all I could do was wait. I went over to the bed and stretched out.

Many thoughts ran through my mind. There had been a security leak. Somehow Nicoli had found out my real identity. Maybe the real Acasano had somehow, in death, told of his own passing. Maybe he had left behind an envelope with instructions: Open only if I don’t have my usual cup of coffee at a certain place every morning. Then the open letter will explain that he was dead, and an AXE agent had been the last one following him.

Or maybe it had something to do with that Oriental snapping my picture in the hotel lobby. The image was clear. Nicoli suspects that his old friend, Acasano, has been done away with by agents of the Government. For some reason the agents want to penetrate his organization. They send one of their operatives over in an Acasano disguise. But Nicoli isn’t sure. Maybe Acasano isn’t really dead. There is one way to make certain. Have one of the kitchen staff snap a picture of Acasano as he comes into the hotel lobby. Compare the picture with old ones of the real Acasano, and see if there is any great difference.

An AXE disguise can be as close to perfect as you can get. But no disguise ever is going to compare favorably with the real article. Under close scrutiny, the disguise will lose every time. And maybe that’s what was happening right now. Nicoli was comparing the photo of me in the lobby with some ten-year-old photo of the real Acasano. How much does a man change in ten years? Not enough.

All this, of course, was pure conjecture on my part. Thinking ate up part of the afternoon. If what I was thinking was true, then I had to get out of there. And I had to find Tanya. There was no way of knowing in which room they had put her. I could search through this old place for a week and still not find half the hiding places.

I had one way of getting out. It was foolhardy, and would likely kill me, but it was a way.

Fire.

If I got some of the bedsheets burning close to the window and started hollering, the noise and smoke might bring someone to open that door. Hugo and I would be waiting. It was the only way I had.

Of course the whole room might be soundproof, in which case I would burn to death or get my lungs filled with smoke. To top off my good idea, I lit one of my gold-tipped cigarettes.

I smoked and looked at the canopy above me. First I’d have to get wet. The shower in the bathroom would take care of that. Then, lying flat on the floor with a wet washcloth over my face, I wouldn’t be bothered by the smoke for a while.

Rolling to the edge of the bed, I had just swung my legs over the side when I heard the lock in the door clicking. I shrugged and Hugo fell to my hand. I was leaving this room, and I didn’t care whom I had to go through to do it. The doorlatch clicked, and the door swung open. I got to my feet.

It was Michaels, the Negro who had answered the door. He was pushing a cart. When he had the cart next to me he took the cover off the dish. The steak looked thick and delicious. There was also a baked potato and some green beans. Next to the main dish was a side dish of salad, and a small bottle of Chablis.

Michaels was smiling. “Mr. Nicoli thought you might be hungry, sir.”

I hadn’t realized it, but I was. “Is he still in conference with his wife?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.” The Chablis had been in a bucket of ice. Michaels was working a corkscrew down into the top of the bottle. He pulled the cork out with a small pop, then poured a little of the white wine into the glass. He handed the glass to me. “Does this meet with your approval, sir?”

I sipped some of the wine and let it wrap itself around my tongue. It tasted very smooth.

“Mr. Nicoli sends his apologies for keeping the door locked, sir,” Michaels said. “It was necessary so you wouldn’t know where the young lady was being kept. The door will be unlocked from now on, sir.”

I frowned at him. “Kept? Why is Miss Catron being kept?”

Michaels continued to smile. He bowed as he backed out the door. “Mr. Nicoli will explain everything.”

“Really? When?”

“Soon, sir.” He turned and was gone. Not only did he not lock the door, but he left it open.

The food was getting cold, so I ate. It was nice to know I didn’t have to burn the place down. I ate angrily, partly because I didn’t know what to expect and partly because I didn’t like the way I was being treated.

When we face an obstacle we know there is no hope of conquering, we feel a very real kind of fear. But the unexpected produces a fear which stands all by itself. It is a gnawing, deep kind of panic that works on your guts.

I was so tensed up I couldn’t eat more than two or three bites. Why were they hiding Tanya? Trying to get something on me? Maybe they were torturing her to make her tell them who I really was.

Hugo was back in his sheath. I roughly pushed the cart away and walked out of the room. It wasn’t hard to find the stairway leading down. But before I left the landing I looked up and down the hallways. I didn’t know what I expected to find. Tanya, calling for me?

It would be easier if I could see the whole mansion. Then it would be easier to decide which would be the best place to imprison a girl.

I went down the carpeted steps two at a time. Michaels was emptying ash trays when I reached the bottom step. The ash trays looked like the kind they have in movie theaters. He nodded toward me and smiled as I walked by.

“Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Acasano?” he asked.

“Not much.” I went into the study and looked around.

It was a man’s room; books lined every wall. There was a lot of dark wood and black leather chairs. The room was dominated by a huge oak desk sitting in the middle. Another door led outside. I took it.

I entered another hallway with dark wood walls and continued down it to still another door. That led to a huge kitchen. What surprised me was all the smoke in the air, cigar and cigarette and pipe. The kitchen itself was an island affair; the sink, the stove, the oven, and the working counter were all built in an oblong in the middle of the floor. There was yet another door, leading to what must have been a service porch. That’s where they were.

Five men, sitting around a card table playing poker. They looked up when I came in, nodded a greeting, then went back to their game. The smoke was much heavier here. They all looked like hoods. They had the mangled ears, the bent and blotched faces, the broken noses. Their coats were off and they didn’t even try to hide the shoulder holsters hanging under their left arms.

“Wanna sit in for a few games?” one of them asked.

I shook my head. “No, thanks. Guess I’ll just watch for a while, if it’s all right.”

“Sure.” The man was dealing cards around. “Jacks or better,” he said to those around him. Then he looked up at me. “You’re an old pal of Rozano’s, right?”

I lit one of my cigarettes. “Yeah. We go back a long ways.”

“I’ll open,” another man said. There was a clink of plastic chips as he threw in two red ones.

“By me,” the one next to him said. “Too much for me,” the next man said. It went around until it reached the dealer.

He tossed two red chips in the pot. “Raise you a dime. Cards.”

When he had dealt around he gave himself two cards.

“Keeping a kicker?” the opener asked.

“It’ll cost you to find out, Louie.”

Louie threw in two red chips. “A dime.”

“Up another dime,” the dealer said. Then he looked up at me while Louie looked at his cards and thought. “So, has Rozano changed much over the years?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen him yet. He’s been in conference with his wife ever since I got here.”

The man nodded with understanding. “Another battle. That might go on for hours. I keep telling him, Rozano, I keep saying. What you ought to do is get some nice young broad on the side, then it would be easier to take that wife of yours. But does he listen to me? No. The only one he listens to is that goddamn gook. It ain’t like the old days, right?”

“It sure isn’t,” I said. “In the old days a man had a little respect for his friends.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling,” Louie said, tossing in two red chips. “Let’s see what you’re so goddamn proud of, Al.”

Al smiled and fanned his cards face up in front of Louie’s nose. “Had you wired from the start, Louie. Three bullets.”

“Lousy jacks and tens,” Louie said in disgust. He threw down his cards while Al raked in the pot.

I said, “So how come Quick Willie isn’t here with you guys?”

Al shook his head. “That gook keeps Willie jumping. Poor Willie don’t like it, but what can he do? Rozano says, ‘You do what Tai Sheng tells you or you go back to the States and fry for that rape murder.’ Willie’s hands are tied.”

“I think I heard about that one,” I said. “Schoolteacher, wasn’t it? He had her on a boat for three days.”

Al nodded. “There wasn’t much he didn’t do to her either. Young broad too, maybe twenty-two or — three. He busted her up so bad he got scared. So, I guess he figured the only way was to knock her off completely.”

I used one of their ash trays to mash out my cigarette. “How did he get a name like Quick Willie?”

Al fixed me with a steady stare. “Don’t underestimate Willie, friend. He may not be a mental giant, but he is very fast. He got the name Quick because he is very, very fast in getting a rod to his hand and squeezing off those first three shots.”

“I see.” I stood with my hands behind me while the man next to Al dealt.

“Same game,” he said. “Jacks or better.”

There was a screen door leading out to the back patio. I eased around the poker table and went out. The swimming pool was about fifty yards in front of me. Evidently the girls had gone inside.

The well-manicured lawns flowed under olive trees in all directions around the pool. Far to my left were the tennis courts; beyond the oasis of trees and grass and structures stretched the vineyards.

I walked out from the mansion, past the pool and down the first row of vineyards. The vines had been picked clean of grapes. The earth between them was as soft as powder. When I had gone about twenty feet along the row I looked back at the mansion.

It stood majestic, looking like an old Virginia plantation home. Anyone who had just been transported there would not believe he was anywhere else but America. But something was wrong.

This was the first time I actually had a look at the entire side of the house. The thing was lopsided. On the left quarter of the place there were no windows. Three stories, windows spaced evenly across, except for that wide strip on the end. It wasn’t all that wide, maybe large enough to hold an elevator shaft. But surely not as wide as the house itself.

I started across the rows of vines, heading for the left corner of the house. If you looked at the mansion from the front, this would be the right side. As the side came into view, I stopped dead. No windows. The whole right face of the house did not have one window.

They tried to conceal it with a row of olive trees and honeysuckle vines growing up the house itself. But the wall was blank — no windows, no doors, nothing.

Rozano Nicoli had a section of that house unlike the rest of it. Was it a secret section? Is that where they had Tanya? With my head bowed in thought, I started back toward the swimming pool. I almost missed seeing Quick Willie coming toward me.

He lumbered with his long arms swinging like water hoses. Except the size of those arms were closer to fire hoses coming out of hydrants. There was a scowl on his face as he squinted against the sun.

I waited for him, letting my arms hang loose. What he wanted, I didn’t know. Maybe he was angry because I left the room.

Before he was five feet away, I could hear him puffing. He held his hand up in a friendly gesture. “Mr. Acasano,” he said in a quick pant.

“Keep moving like that, Willie, and you’ll have a coronary.”

“Heh, heh. Yeah, dat’s a good one. A coronary. Yeah. Dat’s a heart attack, huh?”

“Yeah, Willie.”

He stood in front of me, looking straight ahead across the vineyards. With his handkerchief he wiped his face and brow. There was a frown of concentration on his mangled and scarred face.

“I gotta tell you somethin’,” he said.

“What, Willie?”

He stared far off into the vineyards, blinking and frowning. His wheezing and panting was nasal. Breathing must have been very difficult for him.

Then his face suddenly brightened. “Yeah. Rozano says ta come get you. He’s ready ta see you now.”

I nodded and we started walking back toward the mansion. “What about my broad, Willie? Is she going to be there?”

If he heard me, he made no note of it. He just kept plowing ahead. For now he could not be confused with such complications as my questions presented; he was concentrating on just one thing, getting to the door of the mansion. As he stumbled along, I could almost hear him thinking. Right foot, then the left, then the right. Not far now. Where to after the door is opened?

The door was opened and I followed him. Although smoke still hung in the air, all the poker players were gone. From the looks of the cards and chips on the table, they must have left in a hurry.

Willie plodded on. Through the kitchen and down a short hallway that flanked the study. When he reached the stairs he paused to catch his breath. Then we climbed them one at a time. There was no sign of Michaels.

At the landing he turned left instead of right toward the room I’d been in. We passed more doors looking just as thick as the one closing off the room I’d been in. And then we came to a blank wall. It was wallpapered and looked just like the end of any hall. Willie stopped.

“What is it?” I asked with a frown.

He turned around and around slowly, his stupid eyes searching the floor. “Da button is here someplace.” Then the frown disappeared and once again his ugly face lit up. “Yeah,” he said softly. It was a discovery that he shared only with himself.

His toe touched a small square piece of the baseboard, and suddenly there came a whirring sound. The wall began to move. It slid slowly to the side, and when it was open another hallway on the other side was revealed with double doors at the end.

This hall was well lighted. I followed Willie toward the double doors, hearing the muffled sounds of voices as we approached them. Willie opened one, letting out more smoke, then he stood aside to let me enter.

There could be no doubt as to where I was. The windowless section of the house. I saw the men who had been playing poker downstairs. They were standing in a group, each with a drink in his hand. And then I saw Rozano Nicoli.

His back was to me but I had studied enough films of him to know him on sight. Michaels had just mixed him a drink and was handing it to him.

He turned and saw me. The face was much older than the films I had seen, but the years had been kind to him. He wore a perfectly tailored suit of expensive material. Physically, Nicoli was chunky, with short, stubby legs and a potbelly. He was almost completely bald except for a pelt of gray over each ear. His face was as round as a canteloupe and had about the same skin texture. Milky gray eyes looked at me through rimless bifocals; the nose was small and pert, the mouth a straight line just above his double chin.

This was the man who was taking over organized crime in the U.S. He started toward me, arms extended, standing about five-nine, smile showing gold fillings.

“Tommy!” he shouted. “Tommy, you old son of a bitch!”

I screwed my face in the grin I had seen pictures of Acasano wear. And then we were on each other, hugging and backslapping and grunting.

Nicoli patted my flat stomach. “How do you do it, huh? Look at you for Chrissake, you’re fifty-seven years old like me. And look at you. A full set of hair, and look at that goddamn belly!”

Grinning, I patted his pot. “Life is good to you, Rozano, huh?”

He had tears in his eyes, this little man who looked like the head of a bank loan department. His arm went around my shoulder and his garlic breath came close to my ear. “It’s good to have an ally here, you know. Tommy? Man gets in my position, he don’t know who to trust any more” His voice had been whispering.

“You don’t change, Rozano,” I said. “Always suspicious.”

He held his index finger up to me. “I got reason. Believe me, Tommy, I got reason. Hey! But what is this? A wake? Huh?” His arm pounded my back. “Hey, you guys! he shouted to the other men. I want you should meet my best goddamn pal in the whole world! Michaels, for Chrissake, Tommy has an empty hand!”

“Take care of that right away, sir,” Michaels said with a smile. He looked at me. “Mr. Nicoli says you take bourbon straight with a water chaser. That right?”

I nodded, remembering that’s what Acasano liked.

“Tommy,” Nicoli said when he had guided me to the group, “this is Al, Louie, Rick The Screw, Trigger Man Jones, and Martino Gaddillo, the best goddamn stick man in the business.”

I knew a stick man handled explosives, dynamite and nitrol mostly, for banks, or federal agent records.

Quick Willie came up behind us. “Hey, boss,” he said in his nasal voice. “I didn’t frisk him when he came in.”

Nicoli held his hand up to Willie’s face. “Whatsa matter with you, you stupid? Huh? You got his rod? Gimme! Come on, come on! Give it here. Search him? He’s my pal. We go back to when you were gettin’ your face smashed stealing hubcaps.” When he had Wilhelmina, he handed the Luger to me. He patted my back again as Michaels shoved the shot glass and water into my hand.

“Thanks,” I said to Nicoli. With the Luger back in its holster, I tossed down the shot, then rinsed my mouth with water.

Nicoli was grinning. “Good stuff, huh? Good?”

“Great.”

“Nothing but the best for my pal, right?”

We all smiled at each other. The room was not much different from any of the other rooms in the house, but it was probably the largest. There was living-room furniture scattered about and, along one wall, what looked like electronic gear.

Nicoli was leading me toward a comfortable-looking couch. “Come,” he said. “Let’s sit and talk where these other punks can’t hear every word.”

There was a television right in front of where we were sitting. I had noticed the absence of Tai Sheng in the room.

“Rozano,” I said, looking around. “Such security. And so tight, it’s beautiful. An ant couldn’t get through.”

He smiled modestly. “The bars and wire mesh are nothing.” Leaning closer to me, he lowered his voice. “Tell me, Tommy, am I making a mistake? Should I leave the running of the organization to someone else?”

It was a sucker question and I knew it. If I said yes, he would suspect me. And I didn’t want that.

“Who else could do it, Rozano? No one. Only you have the leadership ability to take over now.”

He sighed. “But there are so many against me. I no longer know who my friends are. Just last week someone tried to shoot me, one of my own staff. The sides are lining up, my old friend. And it is time to count noses.”

“You know where I stand.”

He patted my knee. “Yes, Tommy. I know.” The television in front of us remained blank. “Did you take care of that agent?” he asked suddenly.

“Agent?” Then I knew he was referring to the AXE agent who had been following the real Acasano. “Yes. Some concrete and wire and the Atlantic. He was well taken care of.”

“Where did you catch him?”

“In my home. Somehow he had broken in and was stealing the telegrams you and I had exchanged.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows arched. “Only the telegrams, nothing else?”

“What else...” I caught myself. “My friend, Rozano, I am not so stupid as to keep the list where a Government agent could find it.”

He smiled. “Of course not. But, Tommy, even you must be careful. There are enemies very close to you.”

I frowned at him. Maybe Acasano might have known what he meant but I sure as hell didn’t.

Then he nodded his shiny he ad forward. “See that television set? It is a video security unit. There is a camera mounted secretly in every room of the house.” He picked up a small control box. “With this remote control I can see any room I wish.”

“As I said earlier, Rozano, my friend, your security would be the envy of every man in the States.”

“Do you know what Government agency the man following you worked for?”

There it was again, another trick question from out of the blue. Was Nicoli testing me? If so, why? I found myself beginning to sweat.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t find out.”

Nicoli moved forward on the couch “Didn’t you search him after the hit?”

“Yes... sure I did, but he had nothing on him, no papers or identification.”

“Hmm.” He leaned back again, looking thoughtful “Of course he wouldn’t carry anything going out to your home Afraid he would be caught, huh?”

“Why all these questions. Rozano? Do you suspect me?”

“Ha!” he shouted, slapping my back. “Whatsa matter with you, my old friend, huh? Got a guilty conscience?”

I smiled weakly, and noticed that while the other men were still talking together, at least one of them was watching us at all times.

“My conscience is clear. I have been loyal to you, Rozano.”

He hugged me. And when he looked at me there were tears in his eyes once again. “My old friend, I know. You and I go back too far for treachery, huh? But I am so sorry for you.”

“Sorry?” I asked with a frown. “But... why?”

“Watch.” He picked up the control box from the stand next to the couch and pushed a button.

My eyes were glued to the television set as it started to brighten. There was flickering with wavy lines across the screen, then a picture came on.

There was a room. There was no furniture except one straight-backed chair. A girl was sitting in the chair with her head bent over so I couldn’t see her face. As I started to speak, Tai Sheng came on the screen.

He had lost some of his polish. Even in black and white I could see he was sweating. In shirtsleeves, with the collar unsnapped, a few strands of hair hanging over his forehead, he stepped over to the girl.

Nicoli was sitting quietly beside me. If I was breathing I wasn’t aware of it. Tai Sheng grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair and lifted the head up enough for us to see the face.

It was Tanya. Her face was bruised and bleeding. I stared without believing. And even as we watched, Tai Sheng backhanded Tanya across the face. Then he doubled his fist and smashed her hard on the cheek. With a click the screen went blank.

I spun toward Nicoli. “You had better have a damned good reason for this,” I hissed. “That’s my broad that gook is slapping around.”

He held his hands up, palms toward me. “Please, my friend. I can understand your shock. Imagine how shocked we were when we found out.”

“Found out what? Just what the hell are you talking about?” My guts were burning with rage. I wanted to tear the little bastard apart; give him open-heart surgery and go in through the bottom of his feet.

But he sat there smiling sympathetically for me! Then he nodded. “I can see she fooled you, Tommy, as well as all the others.”

This was all going a little too swiftly for me. I was trying to figure where we had slipped up. There must have been a large confused frown on my face.

“Tommy, have you ever heard of a Government organization called AXE?”

Somewhere inside my head a part of me snapped to attention. It would have been easy for me to panic. Instead this part of me stepped back two paces and looked at the whole thing objectively through my eyes.

Tanya was being tortured. Not because of what she knew about me. After all, Rozano had been sympathetic toward me. He had said that I too had been fooled. So, it wasn’t me they had found out about, it was Tanya. And Nicoli wanted to know if I had ever heard of AXE.

I shrugged, then said cautiously, “Maybe I could have read about it in the paper or seen something on television.”

Nicoli seemed pleased that I didn’t know much about the organization. He leaned toward me with his eyes shining behind the bifocals. “Tommy, my good friend, it’s like the FBI or the CIA. This AXE is a Government agency out to crush us.”

“That’s impossible.”

“To you and me, good friend, it sounds indeed impossible. This thing of ours, this Cosa Nostra, is much too big and powerful to crush. But still the Government keeps on trying, huh?”

“So what has this got to do with my woman?”

The gold fillings were sparkling. “Your woman is not the Sandee Catron she pretends to be. She is, in fact, an undercover agent for AXE sent here to Palermo to assassinate me!”

My mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe it,” I said in a whispered rush.

“So far Sheng hasn’t been able to get her real identity, but he has ways. It will just take time.”

I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips, then adjusted my trouser crease. He was watching me closely and I knew it. To show anything other than shock would have told him something. I made sure my hand was shaking when I lit one of my cigarettes.

“Rozano,” I said calmly. “I am not a man to jump to conclusions. I have known Sandee for a time, perhaps not as long as I have known you, but long enough. To hear something like this about her is a deep shock. As much as I admire you, my friend, I cannot take this without some kind of proof.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Logical, Tommy, That is why I have always admired you. Logical Of course you must have proof, and I will give it to you After all what are friends for, huh? I will open your eyes to this thing.”

“Perhaps there is the possibility you may be wrong.”

“No,” he said shaking his head. His hand was still on my shoulder. “Sheng has proved himself a good ally. His men are everywhere.”

“Sheng is a man to be watched,” I said without feeling. “He will go far.”

Nicoli nodded. “Sometimes I think perhaps he steps too far. But he is useful, very useful. Listen carefully, Tommy. About a week ago there was a Chinese cook in one of the large Lake Tahoe restaurant-casinos. This man reported seeing Sandee Catron come out of a mountain cabin. He also saw three men. Since the cook was a good man working for Sheng, he decided to do a little checking. By asking around he learned that the men were newcomers. He already knew that Sandee Catron was your woman, so he checked with Chinese Communist American Headquarters in San Francisco’s Chinatown. To his surprise he learned that Sandee was supposed to be in her New York apartment with you. If that was true, then who was the exact duplicate there at Lake Tahoe?”

I smoked and listened. The picture was becoming very clear to me.

Patting my shoulder to emphasize each sentence, Nicoli went on. “This cook had given a description to his headquarters of the three men in the cabin. Word came from San Francisco that one of the men was on file in Peking as an agent from a Government organization called AXE. Since one man was an AXE agent, logically, so were the other two. Why did they have a girl who resembled Sandee Catron? When Sheng told this to me, I thought these AXE agents had planted an impostor in New York and had kidnapped the real Sandee Catron. And I thought the reason for it was so the undercover agent could get the list from you, or get the information out of you somehow. These broads can be very persuasive, huh, Tommy?”

“Very. So, at first you thought she was after me. What made you change your mind?”

He shrugged. “The girl came to Palermo with you. That meant she served another purpose. And then it was so obvious I cursed myself for being stupid She was sent to assassinate me so I wouldn’t take over in the States.”

I leaned to my left and mashed the cigarette out in the ash tray. The act bought me a little time to figure how I was going to react to all this.

“So?” Nicoli said. “What does my old pal, Tommy Acasano, think of all this?”

I looked at him with pursed lips and a frown. “How did this cook, this stranger I have never met, know that Sandee Catron was my woman?”

A flush came to his face. He blinked at me, took off his rimless glasses, and started wiping them with a spotless handkerchief. Then he cleared his throat and fixed me with a steady stare.

“Tommy, you and I have been friends for more than a decade. We have seen many changes in this thing of ours. We have seen the young punks rise and the old masters go down in defeat. Change is constant, even in a business as stable as ours. You and I have not seen each other in ten years. It could be someone else from another family has won your loyalty.”

“Rozano!”

He held his hands up, shaking his head. “No, it is true. Such a thing could happen.”

“Not to us.”

His hand went back to my shoulder. He was smiling now. “I know that now. But how was I to know, with you all the way across the ocean, huh?” He shrugged. “I am one step from the top. I cannot afford to trust anyone. Every man on my team has been screened and continuously checked for months. Even you, my friend.”

“I see.” He watched me lean back and cross my legs.

“Forgive me,” he said in a voice that sounded almost whining. “But I felt such measures were necessary.”

“That I can understand.”

“Of course all the information was filtered back to me in strict confidence. I knew all about you and the Catron broad, about the accident that broke both the boyfriend’s legs, the apartment you got for her, how you spent most of your time there, everything. It is all on file in San Francisco.” He looked at me sympathetically. “You have been played for a sucker, Tommy.”

I leaned forward, slapping my fist into my open palm, “That bitch! That double-crossing little tease! Sure. Pretending headaches all the time, or giving some excuse not to go to bed with me. I should have been suspicious then.”

Nicoli smiled as though he had just been convinced of something. “Tommy, I am touched. You don’t know how good it makes me feel to hear you say that. If you had been sleeping with the girl, there would be no way she could fool you. You would have to know she was different, that she was not Sandee Catron, and that would mean you were in the assassination plot with her.”

“Impossible.”

“Yes. Impossible. I know that now. But to prove your loyalty to me, my friend, may I have the list?”

“Certainly.” I unfastened my belt and pulled it out enough to reveal the secret zipper on the inside. He watched me closely as I pulled out the rolled piece of paper and without hesitation handed it over to him. “I will do more than this,” I said. “The girl made a fool of me. She has to pay for that. No man would respect me knowing I had been duped by a broad. She has to be hit and hit hard. And, Rozano, I feel that I am the only one entitled to do it.”

Nicoli carefully unrolled the piece of paper. Holding it under his nose, he looked at it through the bottom half of his bifocals.

In a matter-of-fact voice, and without taking his eyes from the list, he said, “No, Tommy, that won’t be necessary. I have other plans for you. Tai Sheng will take care of the girl.”