"Miss Ciampi. Well, here we are again, talking about the dear dead days of yore. Your package arrived, and I will say that I did not expect to be surprised by anything at my stage of life, but I was surprised. My heart must be stronger than my doctors are telling me, or it might've just gone off the rail when I saw that film. What a devil that Dick was! And we thought he couldn't keep a secret!"
"I take it then that you didn't know about the film, or the shots of Weinberg at Arlington," said Marlene.
"Mmm, why don't we reserve such conversation for our tete-a-tete. There's a Delta plane that leaves National at ten-twenty tomorrow. Do you think you could be on it? I'll have you met."
"And my husband."
"Of course, and Mr. Karp. I'll look forward to meeting you both. Until then."
He broke the connection.
"It was weird, Butch," Marlene said later, when Karp had returned home and they were seated on the ratty couch in their living room. "It was like we were doing him a favor. He wasn't even breathing hard, or no harder than he usually breathes-the guy must be on his last legs." The front bell rang.
"That must be Harry," said Marlene, rising.
"Or a Cuban gunman," said Karp.
But it was Bello. They had a nice dinner. Marlene made a Sicilian dish, veal rolls with parsley and pine nuts, and Harry had brought a bottle of Vignamaggio Chianti from the city. Harry didn't drink anymore, of course, so Marlene had most of the wine herself, and became quite merry, despite Karp's continually referring to the dinner as the Last Meal. Harry was well briefed on the investigation and the purpose of the trip. The various negative outcomes were not mentioned, not in words, although Marlene and Bello exchanged a number of looks that contained major cable traffic.
In the morning, Karp gave Harry the thick red envelope. "Hide it behind the refrigerator," he said. "They never look there."
Harry accepted the thing solemnly. "Take care of her," he said.
"Take care of Lucy," said Karp, the statement delivered in a tone that allowed interpretation: either "for tonight" or "until age eighteen."
"No problem," said Harry. Meaning, either.
In the airliner, taxiing to the runway, Marlene said, offhandedly, "He wouldn't risk bombing the plane, would he?"
"Marlene," said Karp, "you should wait until we're high in the air before saying things like that." He slumped in his seat and tightened the safety belt another notch.
No fireball, however, marred an uneventful flight. At Dallas-Ft. Worth International, there was a man in the arrival lounge with a sign that said Ciampi/Karp. He was a young blond, with an unstylish crew cut and a roughly triangular physique, his big shoulders straining against a neat tan blazer. He wore brown whipcord trousers over cowboy boots, and a western shirt with a bolo tie. On the clasp of the bolo and the breast pocket of his blazer was a seal that bore a silhouette of a chess queen in white, on a dark green field.
They followed him out of the concourse to where a white Lincoln limo waited. The man held the door while they entered the back and sank into smooth, soft leather, and then he got behind the wheel and drove off.
"It'll be about an hour, folks," the driver said. "There's drinks and things in the little refrigerator there, if you want."
They each took a cold Coke. "Guy really knows how to run an assassination," Karp whispered. "We're going out in style."
Marlene shushed him and looked out the smoked window. As they drove north on the Tollway, suburbs changed gradually into country: wire fences, rolling hills, white-faced cattle grazing in small herds. They left the freeway and proceeded down a succession of increasingly smaller roads until they came to a barred gate with a gatehouse nearby. The man inside it came out and swung the gate aside. He was dressed in the same costume as their driver, with the additional touch of a white Stetson. On the arch over the gate, Queen Ranch was picked out in carved wooden rustic lettering; between the two words was a large plaque with the chess queen emblem.
They drove down a graveled road, across a little stream on a wooden bridge, and there, on a slight rise in the terrain, was the house.
A bribe of four hundred dollars had gained Caballo admittance to the apartment formerly occupied by the couple Marlene called Thug 'n' Dwarf. The Federal Gardens manager was happy to do it, since in its currently wrecked state the apartment was unrentable, and he hadn't gotten around to arranging the repairs. The story the thin man gave him, of having to hide out from his wife during a messy divorce, made sense to him: he'd had several himself. Cash under the table that he could conceal from his current spouse was always welcome.
Caballo waited for three days, eating cold food and sleeping a lot in the day, on the broken bed, when the man was away at work, with the stuff in his red envelope, and the woman and the child were in and out. He thought he would have to wait for the weekend. They would go out for a family excursion, and the stuff would be left behind and he could pop in and get it. He was fairly confident that he could find anything hidden in the small apartment. If not, he was perfectly prepared to burn the place down.
He listened a good deal at the party wall too, but he could hear little except the sound of the radio or the TV. He hated not knowing what was going on. This should've been a job for half a dozen men, with complete electronics, bugs in every room and on the car. Instead it was just him, more of Bishop's paranoia. During his frequent light sleeps he had fitful dreams of green jungles and red earth, clumps of frightened people, explosions and screams. Pleasant dreams, in which he was in control of the situation. He woke and washed himself, giving himself a whore's bath at the sink, using only a trickle of water to avoid making a sound. There was an old towel on the floor, smelly, but he used it anyway to dry his face and his body. He had known worse dwellings.
On the third day another man came to the apartment and the radio came on loud and stayed on until late. During the night, Caballo found a gallon jar under the sink. There was a hose attached to a spigot outside. He cut a few feet off this and slipped out to his rental car and siphoned gas, filling the jar.
The next morning Karp and his wife left, leaving the other man alone with the child. The radio stayed off, but the man and the child did not leave. Evening came; Caballo stayed alert. He had decided that if the man and the child did not leave, he would burn the place that night.
Around seven, Caballo heard their door slam, the voice of the child and the man's deeper voice telling her not to run in the parking lot, then the sound of a car starting and pulling out.
Caballo waited two minutes. He took a miniature flashlight and a big folding knife and went out the back door. He was actually glad he did not have to burn the place. Sometimes they kept stuff in the refrigerator, where it might survive even a big fire. He intended to be on the last flight to Mexico City once the material was destroyed.
In through the kitchen door; the lock was a joke. He started his search from the top, as he had been taught long ago. Large bedroom, the adults' obviously. Drawers out, scattered, bureaus turned over, closets emptied, pottery lamp smashed. Nothing. Slash mattresses and pillows. Kick baseboards and walls. Nothing.
Bathroom. Nothing in the medicine cabinet, ripped from the wall, or the hamper. Nothing in the toilet tank or under the sink.
Down the hall. The kid's bedroom. Fling apart the bureau. Overturn the toy chest. Rip the mattress and the pillows again. Slash apart the stuffed animals, break the heads of the dolls. Pull down the bookcase. He made the colorful books fly, tearing the bindings, scattering the pages.
He was working fast and efficiently. No more than five minutes had elapsed since he entered the apartment. A thin sweat lay on his brow, but his hard breathing was more from excitement than exertion.