by Justin Scott
“Two systems collided. In the eighteenth century, English wine merchants started buying the Spanish and Portuguese product in quantity. A small portion of a vineyard’s output, at first; more the next year, as the taste for it grew in England; and more after that, paying whatever price the grower asked. Eventually they bought the entire crop. That went on for a few years. Suddenly the merchants refused to pay the price. The vineyards had nowhere else to sell, because the wine merchants had seized control of the entire market.”
“Why’d they change the names?”
“They married their sons to the Spaniards’ beautiful daughters. Just bloody absorbed them.” Reggie raised his glass, gazed through it at the mile-long blue lines of runway lights beyond the window, and smiled at Chris. “Of course, it was all legitimate business. Neither society was evil, and indeed both benefited. ... Now, the society you propose to attack is evil. And it has the strength of evil, which is the strength that comes from answering to no one.”
“There’s gotta be a way to beat them.”
“There are ways,” Reggie said mildly. “Mussolini did it in Sicily. But are you willing to be evil to beat evil?”
“I’m willing to do anything.”
“Then you ought to very seriously consider doing nothing.”
His rage grew cold, intense as laser fire. He kept waiting for his achievements to be enough, but they never were. Every time he paid off, he paid the Mafia system that had killed his father. For it was his father crushed by his own truck who remained the center of his existence; the minutes holding his father’s hand as life seeped away were the source of his rage; and Mike Taglione’s tears were the fuel of Chris’s determination to wreak terrible vengeance.
Atop the tower one evening, he compared the Mafia to a construction derrick that at night kept working, secretly snatching materials off the street, and building them into the tower, making itself part of the tower. Cables guyed the derrick mast, each guy like a New York Mafia family. Cut enough guys and the derrick would topple into the street.
Six months after Reggie Rand shook him down—almost a year to the day since his father had been murdered—Chris’s accountant came in while he was watching the evening television news. The accountant had a list of reasons why Taggart Construction shouldn’t bid to general-contract a new corporate headquarters on Madison Avenue, a job which would begin about the time they finished Mike’s building.
“I know your father, God rest his soul, would be very proud of you, Chris, but this time you could blow the whole shooting match. The architect’s gone bananas and the client knows it, so the late penalties are like Stalin’s.”
“It’s a class project,” Chris retorted wearily. “If I pull it off, I’ll draw class clients.” The fact was, with his father’s building nearing completion, he didn’t know what he wanted to do next. Despite a full year since the murder, his mind still replayed it as vividly as if his father had been killed this morning.
“If you don’t pull it off we’ll be selling pencils on the IRT.”
Suddenly Chris gestured for silence.
A Belfast riot was big on the television news. A Special Branch inspector was accused of murdering an Irish prisoner, and Chris had recognized Reggie Rand marching in grand silence through a gauntlet of reporters outside Scotland Yard.
He bought British newspapers and followed the story. Reggie had surprised two IRA Provos in a remote cottage outside Londonderry and in the ensuing gun battle he had shot both. Later, a third man hiding in the eaves claimed upon his arrest that he had seen Reggie gun down a man who had already surrendered. The London Times took no sides, the mass-circulation Sun demanded a medal for the Special Branch officer, but the moderate Guardian spoke what was likely to be the government line, praising “the officer’s resourcefulness and bravery, which are, however, not licence to take the law into his own hands.”
Chris announced a vacation. His accountant blinked. “What?”
“I’m dead tired. I got to get away.”
“It’s about time. This has been a hell of a year.”
Chris nodded vaguely. “Yeah. Just don’t fuck it up while I’m gone.”
He telephoned Tony to ask if he would watch things for him, but Tony had been invited back for another summer internship in the U.S. Attorney’s office. “Where are you going?”
“London.”
He found Reggie Rand in a Victoria Street pub near Scotland Yard. As at their first meeting, they operated in complementary modes. Chris left when Reggie spotted him, walked to the Thames Enbankment, and stuffed a train ticket to Cambridge behind a pay phone.
The following afternoon he waited in a student beer garden on the Cam, slouched before a pint at the scarred wooden table in an open window. The place was packed with Americans over for the summer semester. The low ceiling echoed the roar of conversation, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, and the floor smelled of beer. The students looked like ghosts; it seemed much more than just a year since he had lived like this, talking, drinking, smoking too many Marlboros, and making notes on thoughts he no longer had time nor inclination to think.
Reggie wandered through the crowd with a Newcastle Brown Ale. He had dressed his part in rumpled corduroys and a heavy knit tie, looking like a don on the prowl for a student bedmate.
“Thanks for coming.”
“You seem at home here.”
Chris patted his faded Fordham sweatshirt. “School is school. I saw your problem on television. Sit down.”
Reggie sat and trickled his ale from the bottle into his glass. “Decent of you to remember.”
“It’s going against you,” Chris said. “What are you going to do?
“Not to worry. The Yard is delighted to give me my full pension if I’ll only retire. Friends have offered some interesting armaments work.”
“Selling guns?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you still have your ‘cutthroat’ sources?”
“They weren’t issued by Her Majesty’s government, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’ll top those offers.”
“Oh?”
“I’m looking for that ‘third party.’”
“You still demand revenge?”
“I have to. The law can’t.”
Reggie lowered his ale, untouched. Somebody started banging a guitar and he leaned closer so Chris could hear. “Yesterday I made inquiries. Your business is thriving. You’re on your way to becoming a man of wealth and power. Why court these ‘darker enterprises’? Your enemies are mired in the gutter. The sky is yours. Isn’t completing your father’s building revenge enough?”
“Not when my father can’t stand on the sidewalk and look up at it.”
Reggie shook his head and said gently, “I’m afraid I’m somewhat overqualified to contract gunmen. No, Chris. You set this meeting up very well. In fact, I rather admire your flair for the clandestine; you’ve read your Le Carré. Though I’d have chosen a less conspicuous shirt. But I’ve no interest in finding you another gunman.”
“You think it’s beneath you?”
“It’ s as if I hired Taggart Construction to erect a garden shed.”
“No, no, no. I’m looking for more than gunmen.”
“How’s that?” Reggie glanced idly out the open window, where the shallow river lapped the beer-garden terrace, and picked up his ale.
“I’m building an organization.”
“What sort of organization?”
“An organization to destroy the Mafia.”
“You don’t say?”
“I didn’t fly three thousand miles to fuck around,” Chris snapped angrily. “Or crack jokes. I’m making a legit proposal.”
Reggie deflected his glare with a mild apology. “Terribly sorry. But the Mafia employs, shall we say, perhaps thirteen thousand men in America—the majority in the so-called five families of New York—and its power has grown for four generations.”
“Nine thousand a
ssociates in New York,” Chris said, “and less than nine hundred made members. They’re not as strong as they seem, nor as organized. They have as much trouble getting along with each other as they do with the cops. But their real weakness is that they’re city kids—street fighters—not soldiers. Their leaders are wide-open, vulnerable to the kind of terrorist violence common in the rest of the world—car bombs, rockets, automatic weapons.”
“They control their streets.”
“Listen. I got in a fight with Cirillo’s strong-arms last year. I was too mad to be scared of two on one, and I took one guy out right off. So they brought in another, made it three on one, and beat my head in. That’s how the mob intimidates its victims and protects itself from competitors, but ganging up on somebody is about as far as they go. They depend upon the protections of a free society. The Police Commissioner is not allowed to send tanks to level their homes or hang them from lampposts the way Mussolini did. He beat them because they weren’t soldiers. Look what I did with a single IRA man.”
“Let’s say you manage to identify and slaughter their leaders. New leaders take over. That’s hardly destroying the Mafia.”
“I know that! That’s why I came to you.”
“You may hold an exaggerated opinion of my talents.”
“I have a plan, Reggie.”
“And I suspect you’re going to tell it to me.”
“If you’re trying to piss me off, you’re doing a good job of it. Will you shut up and listen?”
The flat pools which were Reggie’s eyes glazed over like ice.
“In one sentence, young man, what is your plan?”
“Support one Mafia family in a takeover war against the other four.”
Reggie looked at him and the pools began to glisten. “Destroying all five in the process?”
“Right.”
“What are your weapons?”
“Three weapons. Imported violence. Drugs. The law.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Number one, violence. I want you to hire soldiers we can slip in and out of New York on a one-time basis—IRA gunmen, Palestinian bombers, French mercenaries, professional fighters, terrorists.”
“A Shadow Mafia?”
“Exactly.” He liked Reggie’s phrase. “A Shadow Mafia to destroy the real one. Number two, drugs. Drugs are Mafia currency. I need a big, steady supply of heroin as a weapon to burrow into their networks. They want it, man. They need it. They’re as addicted as the guy who shoots up with a needle. I’m going to hook them to me, then cut ’em off.”
“À la our wine merchants? What’s your third weapon?”
“The law. You’ll do international, Interpol and whatever else you know. I’ll do New York. I’m going to set them up and turn them in. And I’ll use the law for information. I’ll put Organized Crime Control cops on my payroll for intelligence information.”
“Never trust a crooked policeman,” Reggie said, and smiled.
“I’m trusting you. Every man has his price.”
“Don’t ever forget his limits. He also has a magic number, that amount after which he will cease to work for you—another thing not to forget when establishing risky contacts.”
Taggart smiled back. “That’s the kind of expertise I want from you. Along with violence, drugs, and risky contacts.”
“Recruit a Mafia family. Take over the Mafia. Destroy the Mafia. Then what?”
“Hand the leftovers to the cops.”
“The leftovers being the family you provoke against the others ?”
“What’s left of them.”
“Then close down shop and walk away?”
“Of course.”
Reggie smiled and his eyes flattened with private knowledge. He started to say something, but juggled it first in his mind; obsessed with revenge, Taggart seemed a little naive on the subject of walking away. Instead of pursuing it, Reggie stated the obvious. “It would take years.”
“I’ve got years,” Taggart shot back. “Everybody’s always telling me how young I am. So I’ve got plenty of time.”
“And money.”
“I’m starting to make money.”
“And of course,” Reggie mused, “at some point your operation will start to generate money itself.”
“Maybe it would. I guess so.”
Again Reggie was struck by Taggart’s blind side. Did he really not consider the mind-boggling profits, the millions for thousands, that successfully smuggling large of amounts of heroin would yield? Apparently not, for he was forging determinedly ahead again, like a tank skirting the observation points on the high ground in favor of a direct route to its target.
“But I need your international cutthroats, Reggie. I need your fighters, smugglers, informers, thieves, hijackers—”
“Killers.” "
Chris met Reggie’s eye. The flat pools had formed again and he felt his own gaze reflected. “I’m hunting killers. Nobody knows that better than you.”
“The odds are against you. By a great margin.”
“I’m going to beat them.”
“A very great margin.”
“I’m still going to beat them. They took my father. I’ll take away what they care about—power.’
“But they didn’t kill my father, more’s the pity. You’ll forgive me if I ask what is in it for me.”
“Exactly what you want.”
The Englishman’s brow rose sharply. “And what is that?”
“The way you’re heading—gun salesman, security expert— you’ll end up so bored you’ll shove a thirty-eight in your mouth. I read about you. You’ve done it all. You’ve been in action your whole life. You’re the best. I’m offering you a shot at—
“What is it you think I want?” Reggie’s soft voice turned softer and quieter, pulsing with menace. Having turned the tables with a shrewd guess that broached the Englishman’s reserve, Chris had also loosed demons. Demons that convinced him that Reggie was the man to direct his war.
“Roam the world. Write your own rules.”
“A privateer?” Reggie sounded amused.
“Backed to the hilt! No one to answer to... but me.”
“That would make you the privateer, and me merely your vessel.”
“Come on, Reggie. Let’s stop dicking around.”
“Why, may I ask, not just hire a competent killer to eliminate the top dons?”
“Because I realized you were right. It’s the system more than single men.” Ironically, his brother’s diatribes against revenge had finally convinced him, though not in the way Tony intended.
“New criminal groups will pop up. And remnants of the old.”
“But not institutions. The new groups will be weak and the law will beat them.
Reggie nodded agreement. “I’m told your FBI is gearing up for a major campaign against organized crime.”
“Glad to hear it.” Taggart grinned. “I’ll take all the help I can get. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.”
“They’ll crack down on you, too, if you’re not careful.”
“But I am careful. I hire only the best. Welcome aboard, Reggie.”
Reggie sighed. “One million dollars per year.”
“What?”
“My price. Cash.”
“A million—”
“I don’t intend to haggle with a businessman. That is my price. Out of that I’ll foot the initial expenses. Cutthroats do expect to be paid, you know.”
“Wait a minute. I’m not saying you’re not worth it. But I don’t have it now. I’ll pay it, but in the future. Give me, say, five years. That’s a lot of money to make disappear from a legitimate business.”
“Generate it out of your drug smuggling,” Reggie replied, suddenly sarcastic. He pushed back his chair.
“I’ll pay you a hundred grand a year,” Chris countered, wondering where in God he would get it. “And pay you the rest once we’re rolling.”
“You’re missing the point,
mate. I seriously doubt you’ll still have this crazy idea in your head by the time you’re earning that sort of money.”
He stood up, his ale untouched. Shaking his head in disbelief, he said, “I suppose I should be complimented you thought of me.”
“It’s not crazy. It’ll work—look. Imagine a construction derrick atop a building. The building’s society. Right? Now imagine it at night.Everybody’s gone home, but the derrick keeps working when nobody sees it—like the Mafia—snatching things off the street and building them into the building, making it part of the building, part of society. Cables guy the derrick mast. Each guy holding the mast is a New York family. Let’s say five guys, five families. We’re going to cut one guy after another, and when we cut the last one the derrick’s going to fall into the street.”
“I don’t intend to be standing under it when it lands.”
“We’ll be on top of the building looking down.”
“If you still believe that when you can afford me,” Reggie replied dryly, “we’ll chat.”
Stunned, Chris watched him walk out of the pub. Disappointment turned swiftly to anger and he hurried to the train station, heading for London and the airport, seething that the Englishman had treated him like a nut. Reggie was already on the platform, waiting for the same train. Taggart took it as an omen. He went up to him and promised, “I’ll be back, you son of a bitch. And we will chat—if you’re still the best.”
Reggie sighed. “For a hundred thousand dollars I’m sure I can find someone to shoot Don Richard and a few others.”
“No. I want to take more than their lives. I want to take their belief they can do it. I want to make it too tough to start over, too hard to be in the rackets. Too dangerous, too risky, and too scary. I want them to cease to exist.”
6
CHAPTER
He costed out his attack on the office computer, as if he were estimating a bid on a building, and discovered logic behind Reggie’s demand; perhaps his fee wasn’t out of line. In fact, it appeared that Reggie Rand’s million dollars a year would be only a small portion of what revenge upon the Mafia might cost. And between raising the money and creating the Shadow Mafia, it would take years; perhaps a decade. In a sudden leap of the imagination—grim in its concept, but exciting in that he could indeed conceive it—he embraced the reality that he might be well into his thirties before his father was fully laid to rest.
