Maurice ‘Big Mo’ Tucek shook his head and lit a cigarette, his first in three years.
Calvin looked back out the windshield, toward the black Lincoln parked in front of Mama Josie’s Ristorante. “Who you figure is setting this up?”
Big Mo, a hundred pounds lighter than the last time he saw Calvin, rolled down his window a bit and spit the smoke through the crack. “Somebody with connections.”
A slow nod moved Calvin’s puggish head. “Where they got you?”
“I ain’t supposed to say.”
Another nod. “Me neither. But it’s nice. Good schools, too.” Calvin tapped thick thumbs impatiently on the steering wheel. “I’m Buddy Burns,” he said almost proudly, a smile lifting his cheeks. “What name did they give you?”
“I ain’t supposed to say,” Big Mo said once again.
“Right,” Calvin agreed. “Me neither.”
Someone about Fiorello’s size came out of Mama Josie’s, but then passed the Lincoln and continued on.
“You know, I kinda think it’s the guys who made us rat,” Calvin theorized.
“When did that truck hit you?” Big Mo asked sarcastically. “Of course it’s the feds. Who else would know where we lived, huh?”
“But why didn’t they just say so?” Calvin asked, truly at a loss.
“Look, Calvin, we sold our souls when we ratted. We are owned. They know we’ll do whatever they want ‘cause they know we’re more afraid of our old buddies than them.”
Calvin considered that, then said, “The guy threatened me. Said it would be real easy to let slip where me and Loretta and the kids are now.”
“Yeah, well, we do this and everything is right as rain,” Big Mo said, puffing deeply on his smoke. As he let it out he saw what they’d been waiting for and tossed the cigarette through the crack and into the gutter. “Here he comes.”
“He’s alone.”
“You ever remember Kermit keeping a sidekick?”
“He never needed one,” Calvin recalled, then added with some regret, “Until now.”
“You know how to get to Calumet Harbor?”
“I told you before, yeah.” Calvin started the car.
Big Mo took a gun from an envelope between his legs and screwed a silencer to the threaded muzzle. “This is nuts,” he said quietly, then louder, “Let’s fucking get this done.”
The phone on G. Nicholas Kudrow’s nightstand rang at three. He snatched it up during the first ring. He had not been able to sleep. “Yes.”
“It’s the Giraffe,” Section Chief Willis reported.
“Your people are certain?” Kudrow’s wife stirred, but a gentle hand on her hip stilled her.
“They have a tape. And pictures.”
The expectation that had kept him awake drained suddenly away. Kudrow could feel the tiredness filling the void it left. “Good. I want it tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kudrow laid the handset in its cradle and let his head sink into the soft down pillow. He was asleep in two minutes, eyes dancing in REM sleep not long after that, a smile lasting through it all.
Big Mo, feet wide against the motion of the boat, ripped the duct tape from Kermit Fiorello’s eyes first, then from his mouth. The sun was almost up, blue haze to the east, and the lights of Chicago across the water to the west. The cabin cruiser’s motor was silent after a half hour run into deep water. Calvin was vomiting over the side.
“What in the name of holy fuck is going on!” Fiorello yelled, competing with the cawing of an early flight of gulls on final to the stockyards. More duct tape held his hands and arms together behind, and his legs were similarly bound at the ankles. He sat on a padded bench at the rear of the boat. After a second to orient himself, he looked right at Big Mo. “You look like someone.”
“My hair used to be reddish,” Big Mo said. Calvin, wearing a puffy orange life preserver, finished his heaves and came aft from the pilot deck.
Fiorello squinted, studying the face, his eyes going wide after a minute. “Holy son of bitch! Mo? Big Mo? Is that fucking you?”
Big Mo smiled and confirmed it with a nod. He respectfully crossed his hands in front. One held the silenced pistol.
Fiorello winced suddenly, and rolled his neck. “Shit. My fucking head.”
“Sorry I had to bop you, Mr. Fiorello,” Calvin said.
Fiorello knew that voice without question. “I don’t fucking… Calvin? You, too.” He looked skyward in disbelief. “This boat must be sinking ‘cause the rats are on deck.”
Calvin, offended, stepped back.
“Look,” Big Mo began, “I didn’t have to take the tape off.”
“Then why did you?” Fiorello demanded defiantly. “You wanted to show me your pretty new hair?”
Big Mo glanced down, then back to Fiorello. “No, I wanted to ask you a question, and I thought it rude to do so with you not being able to see who’s doing the asking.”
“A question!” Fiorello blew a breath hard past his lips. “You bring me into the middle of… Where are we?”
“Lake Michigan,” Calvin answered.
“The middle of fucking Lake Michigan to ask me a question. Okay. Ask away.”
Big Mo crossed his arms over his chest, the pistol pointing toward Indiana. “I was wondering if you wanted me to shoot you in the head before we throw you in, or if you just wanted to drown.”
Calvin shuddered when Big Mo said ‘drown’.
Fiorello could say nothing. He looked to his feet. Not only did duct tape circle his ankles, but so did a length of yellow nylon rope, which snaked over the deck to a pair of anchors and a half dozen cinder blocks all tied together. “You’re nuts.”
Big Mo looked to Calvin. “I guess that’s a no on the shooting.”
Calvin nodded and dragged the weighty conglomeration to the side, lifted it over the deck rail, and let go.
“NO!”
The slack on the line was gone before Fiorello could finish his scream. His feet snapped away from the bench and were pulled toward the rail, dragging the rest of his pudgy frame, which stuck on the rail.
Calvin reached down and gave gravity a little help, lifting Fiorello over the edge. He screamed once more before a splash and a sucking WHOOSH drowned him out. Calvin brushed his hands against each other and looked to Big Mo.
“I kinda wanted to shoot him,” Big Mo admitted, then motioned for Calvin to take them back in.
Chapter Twelve
Missing Links
Nelson Van Horn looked long at the piece of paper the A-SAC handed him before his eyes came up. “Where did you get this?”
“Do you know what it is?” Art responded with his own question. Behind him, one of the com room’s secure fax machines began to spit pages.
“It’s KIWI ciphertext.”
Art handed a photocopy of the page from The Tinkery to Van Horn. “And this? Is this in KIWI also?”
Van Horn needed just a quick scan to confirm that it was. He nodded and asked again, “Where did you get this?”
“Nels, I can’t tell you that right now. But I need to find out something.”
“What?”
“What’s in these,” Art said, seeking the information as confirmation of, well, the impossible made real. “Can you do that loop back thing you told me about last week?”
“Sure, but…”
“Nels, this is damn important. And sensitive.”
No shit, Van Horn thought, looking at the pair of ciphertext pages. For all he knew they could be things not intended to be seen. Intelligence of the highest order. And to have someone hand him two pages of ciphertext— KIWI ciphertext! — and want to know what was in them, well…