“No,” Jack insisted. “There're bad apples, sure, and weak sisters. But for the most part, I can be proud of the people I work with.”
“Most are on the take, one way or another,” Carramazza said.
“That's just not true.”
Rebecca said, “No use arguing, Jack. He has to believe everyone else is corrupt. That's how he justifies the things he does.”
The old man sighed. He opened the attache case on his lap, withdrew a manila envelope, handed it to Jack. “This might help you.”
Jack took it with more than a little apprehension.
“What is it?”
“Relax,” Carramazza said. “It isn't a bribe. It's information. Everything we've been able to learn about this man who calls himself Baba Lavelle. His last-known address. Restaurants he frequented before he started this war and went into hiding. The names and addresses of all the pushers who've distributed his merchandise over the past couple of months — though you won't be able to question some of them, any more.”
“Because you've had them killed?” Rebecca asked.
“Maybe they just left town.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, it's all there,” Carramazza said. “Maybe you already have all that information; maybe you don't; I think you don't.”
“Why're you giving it to us?” Jack asked.
“Isn't that obvious?” the old man asked, opening his hooded eyes a bit wider. “I want Lavelle found. I want him stopped.”
Holding the nine-by-twelve envelope in one hand, tapping it against his knee, Jack said, “I'd have thought you'd have a much better chance of finding him than we would. He's a drug dealer, after all. He's part of your world. You have all the sources, all the contacts—”
“The usual sources and contacts are of little or no use in this case,” the old man said. “This Lavelle… he's a loner. Worse than that. It's as if… as if he's made of… smoke.”
“Are you sure he actually exists?” Rebecca asked. “Maybe he's only a straw man. Maybe your real enemies created him in order to hide behind him.”
“He's real,” Carramazza said emphatically. “He entered this country illegally last spring. Came here from Jamaica by way of Puerto Rico. There's a photograph of him in the envelope there.”
Jack hastily opened it, rummaged through the contents, and extracted an eight-by-ten glossy.
Carramazza said, “It's an enlargement of a snapshot taken in a restaurant shortly after Lavelle began operating in what has been traditionally our territory.”
Traditionally our territory. Good God, Jack thought, he sounds as if he's some British duke complaining about poachers invading his fox-hunting fields!
The photo was a bit fuzzy, but Lavelle's face was sufficiently distinct so that, henceforth, Jack would be able to recognize him if he ever saw him on the street. The man was very black, handsome — indeed, striking — with a broad brow, deepset eyes, high cheekbones, and a wide mouth. In the picture he was smiling at someone who wasn't within the camera's field. He had an engaging smile.
Jack passed the picture to Rebecca.
Carramazza said, “Lavelle wants to take away my business, destroy my reputation within the fratellanza, and make me look weak and helpless. Me. Me, the man who has controlled the organization with an iron hand for twenty-eight years! Me!”
Finally, emotion filled his voice: cold, hard anger. He went on, spitting out the words as if they tasted bad.
“But that isn't the worst of it. No. You see, he doesn't actually want the business. Once he's got it, he'll throw it away, let the other families move in and carve it up among themselves. He just doesn't want me or anyone named Carramazza to have it. This isn't merely a battle for the territory, not just a struggle for control. For Lavelle, this is strictly a matter of revenge. He wants to see me suffer in every way possible. He intends to isolate me and hopes to break my spirit by robbing me of my empire and by killing my nephews, my sons. Yes, all of them, one by one. He threatens to murder my best friends, as well, anyone who has ever meant anything to me. He promises to kill my five precious grandchildren. Can you believe such a thing? He threatens little babies! No vengeance, regardless of how justified it might be, should ever touch innocent children.”
“He's actually told you that he'll do all of those things?” Rebecca asked. “When? When did he tell you?”
“Several times.”
“You've had face-to-face meetings?”
“No. He wouldn't survive a face-to-face meeting.”
The banker image had vanished. There was no veneer of gentility now. The old man looked more reptilian than ever. Like a snake in a thousand-dollar suit. A very poisonous snake.
He said, “This crudball Lavelle told me these things on the phone. My unlisted home number. I keep having the number changed, but the creep gets the new one every time, almost as soon as it's installed. He tells me… he says… after he has killed my friends, nephews, sons, grandkids, then… he says he's going to… he says he's going to…”
For a moment, recalling Lavelle's arrogant threats, Carramazza was unable to speak; anger locked his jaws; his teeth were clenched, and the muscles in his neck and cheeks were bulging. His dark eyes, always disturbing, now shone with a rage so intense, so inhuman that it communicated itself to Jack and sent a chill up his spine.
Eventually, Carramazza regained control of himself. When he spoke, however, his voice never rose above a fierce, frigid whisper. “This scum, this nigger bastard, this piece of shit—he tells me he'll slaughter my wife, my Nina. Slaughter was the word he used. And when he's butchered her, he says, he'll then take my daughter from me, too.” The old man's voice softened when he spoke of his daughter. “My Rosie. My beautiful Rosie, the light of my life. Twenty-seven, but she looks seventeen. And smart, too. A medical student. Going to be a doctor. Starts her internship this year. Skin like porcelain. The loveliest eyes you've ever seen.” He was quiet for a moment, seeing Rosie in his mind's eye, and then his whisper became harsh again: “Lavelle says he'll rape my daughter and then cut her to pieces, dismember her… in front of my eyes. He has the balls to say such things to me!” With that last declaration, Carramazza sprayed spittle on Jack's overcoat. For a few seconds, the old man said nothing more; he just took deep, shuddering breaths. His talonlike fingers closed into fists, opened, closed, opened, closed. Then: “I want the bastard stopped.”
“You've put all your people into the search for him?” Jack asked. “Used all your sources?”
“Yes.”
“But you still can't find him.”
“Nooo,” Carramazza said, and in the drawing — out of that one word, he revealed a frustration almost as great as his rage. “He's left his place in the Village, gone to ground, hiding out. That's why I'm bringing this information to you. You can put out an APB now that you've got his picture. Then every cop in the city will be looking for him, and that's a lot more men than I've got. You can even put it on the TV news, in the papers, and then virtually everyone in the whole damned city will have an eye out for him. If I can't get to him, then at least I want you to nail him and put him away. Once he's behind bars…”
“You'll have ways of reaching him in prison,” Rebecca said, finishing the thought to which Carramazza would not give voice. “If we arrest him, he'll never stand trial. He'll be killed in jail.”
Carramazza wouldn't confirm what she had said, but they all knew it was true.
Jack said, “You've told us Lavelle is motivated by revenge. But for what? What did you do to him that would make him want to exterminate your entire family, even your grandchildren?”