I think Spilatro has built his own mousetrap. Psychologically, he takes no pleasure in the kill itself; in fact, it repulses him. So he’s thrown all of his passion, all of his expertise, into building elaborate killing machines, elaborate mousetraps. With a living, breathing target, the machine has to be able to contract or expand or adapt based on the movement of the prey. He can build miniatures and plan to his heart’s content, but at some point toothpicks have to replace plastic pieces.
So the question is: how much has Spilatro been thrown off of his plan to kill me? Was I supposed to die in the construction accident that claimed Smoke? Was I supposed to get caught in the crossfire at Kirschenbaum’s house, trapped between the bodyguards and the police? Or am I still scurrying my way through the mousetrap, tripping a rubber band instead of a crank?
And one more thing: Carla referred to Spilatro as a Silver Bear, even though he takes no pleasure in the actual kill. My first fence taught me that to do what I do, to live with what I do, I have to make the connection to my mark so I can sever the connection later. I have to get inside his head, exploit whatever evil I find there, so I can continue to the next job. What I’m missing from all this, what I still don’t know, is why Spilatro singled me out. What connection do we have?
Carla and I move from the stoop on Warren Street to a coffee shop around the corner. I tell her she doesn’t have to worry about getting shot, that I just want to hear the rest of her story, but my words don’t seem to lift any weight off her shoulders. She sits like a prisoner in the corner of a cell, with no hope of rescue. I know Risina is out there watching, and I wonder if she can see the effects the killing business has on its participants.
“The last job. The one you did for Archie. Tell me about it.”
“Archie?”
“Archibald Grant. He was the fence.”
“Oh. Yes, Archie Grant. I only talked to him on the phone.”
“You never met him face-to-face?”
“I didn’t meet anyone except for K-bomb. And he, I only met once.” She holds up one finger. “He came to me after the job you’re talking about, when I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was gonna do now that Doug was gone. I never knew the fence’s name before that. I didn’t even know what a fence was, to tell you the truth. He just showed up and asked me if I wanted to continue working. I’ll be honest, I’ve only pulled a couple of jobs on my own. Today’s call came in from a third party and I thought it was weird and my antenna went up, but I showed up anyway because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. Should’ve known…”
“Yeah, well, here you are. If it makes you feel better, I’d’ve gotten to you one way or another.”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Tell me about that last tandem job. I want to hear every detail.”
“You have to understand, Doug only told me the bare minimum to keep me involved. I was the flash of light, the honking horn, you know what I mean?”
I shake my head.
“The distraction. The feint. The thing that causes the mark to look one way when death is coming from the other direction.”
“Bait?”
“Look at me. Do I look like bait?”
“I meant…”
“I know what you meant. Sure, I’d meet a few of the marks. Get ’em to a particular spot Doug would designate in the run-up. That was tough for me, I gotta say. It’s one thing to see these targets from afar, another to shake their hands, hear them speak, watch ’em smile or what not.”
“The last job…”
“Yeah, I’m getting there. I’d been off for a while. I know Doug was taking contracts and fulfilling them without me. Two or three in a row and truth be told, I didn’t mind. I thought I’d like the adventure of it, the game, you know, but when I was lying in bed each night, I’d think about those men I helped put under, and I had a real hard time closing my eyes.”
She’s checking my face, looking for a sympathetic nod, but I give her nothing. She blows a bit on the top of her coffee before taking a sip.
“Anyway, he’d been home for a while and I knew he must’ve gotten a new gig because he spent a lot of time down in the basement. I’m talking a good two months, only coming up for a meal, a smoke, a bathroom break, or bed. I figured he was going to work this one solo, but this particular Sunday, he calls me down there.
“This is a simple one, he tells me. Police detective in Boston who drinks too much. This cop must’ve tossed the wrong guy in the can, because there’s a price on his head and Doug is collecting. The procuring fence wanted it to be a tandem, to make sure it went down on a certain day, and Doug convinced the acquiring fence that he’d supply the other contract killer. Me. So this fence…”
“Archie Grant,” I interrupt. I keep mentioning his name to see if it’ll elicit a response, but so far, nothing.
“If you say so. Anyway, Doug tells me this fence is skeptical, but Doug insists on bringing me on, and we can kill two birds with one rock. We’ll work the tandem and we’ll make sure it looks like an accident. I guess that satisfied what’s-his-name, because Doug got the gig and procured the down payment for both hitters.
“I remember thinking, so this is why you want me to work with you now… so you can collect double fees on the same hit. Say what you want about Doug, the man knew how to game a system no matter what it was. You thought you were pulling the strings? That’s only cause he let you think so. He was the one working the puppets, didn’t matter what the play was. It wasn’t till I saw him doing it to others that I realized all these years, he’d been doing the same to me, you know? I guess that’s neither here nor there now, but there it is.
“So getting back to this hit… Doug built this elaborate model of this alleyway in Boston. Painted and sanded and lit up to the very last detail. The bar where this detective liked to drown his sorrows was specially made with a flying roof so he could take it off and you could see inside. It was like nothing you ever saw. This one made the one he did for Cleveland look like a kindergartner’s shitty homework assignment. Doug had little bartenders in there, little dishwashers, little beer mugs, even miniature peanut shells on the floor. The works.
“So he starts talking me through the plan. This mark comes in this joint every Saturday night like clockwork and stays not only till the bar closes, but after the owner locks the front door. The target is chummy with the owner or shaking him down or whatever but he gets special treatment, one last glass of whiskey on the house before the lights go out. The owner’s a salty old Southey who fixes that last highball himself before running receipts in his office until the mark finally heads out the back door.
“So Doug has this plan. It involves me showing up just as the doors close, pretending to be a health inspector. I’m supposed to do a few hocus pocus maneuvers, you know, get the front door locked, slip a roofie in the mark’s drink, keep the owner occupied in his office or the kitchen, wave our target out the back door, and that’s just half of it. Doug’s showing me this elaborate set up he’s got worked out in the alley, real domino rally type stuff, ice on the steps, trip wire on the bottom, a lever that’ll whack his feet out from under him so that he’ll nail the back of his head on the ice, five other things I’m forgetting about. Complicated stuff and his eyes light up as he’s telling me all about it.