"Eh, it's the same it's always been," Scubisci said. "You're just jumping at shadows. Comes from being around as long as we have."
"No, Pietro. It's there. I can feel it."
The Don spoke with utter conviction. He seemed so certain of this phantom something-or-other that even Pietro Scubisci paused.
"You sure, Don Carmine?" he asked quietly.
"I would bet my life on it, Pietro," Carmine replied. "I don't know what it is yet, but we are under attack."
After an instant's hesitation, Pietro Scubisei shook his head. For a moment he had almost been drawn in.
Pietro rolled his stooped shoulders. "So what?" he said. "I mean, I don't think there's nothing there, mind you. But so what if there is? What can we do about it?"
Carmine's face steeled. "A big threat requires a big response. Knock them down so hard they're afraid to get back up. Whack them so hard they ignore you, 'cause it's easier to pretend you don't exist than to do battle with you."
It was obvious that Carmine Viaseili had given this invisible threat some thought.
"You gonna take on the whole government, Carmine?" Scubisci had asked with a rasping chuckle.
Carmine Viaselli did not laugh. "If I could find a way, Pietro. If only I could find a way."
When that meeting with Pietro Scubisci had ended one year ago, Don Carmine Viaselli still didn't have a plan. How could you have a plan when you were fighting an enemy as big as the United States government? An enemy with so many faces, with unlimited financing, with so much raw power that you might as well try shooting at shadows? An enemy that now-if Carmine's gut was correct-had crossed over the line into lawlessness to achieve its ends.
It was a fight that couldn't be won, and Don Carmine knew it. After dwelling on the problem for weeks, he had finally decided to call it quits. Let someone else take over the show. Someone like that backstabber Pietro Scubisci.
Why not? Carmine had the money to retire. Take the wife and youngest kids and move someplace nice, like Vegas.
He was actually thinking about packing his bags that morning ten months ago when he met his unlikely savior.
Carmine had walked into the living room of his Central Park apartment only to find a stranger standing there.
It was impossible. His enforcer, Norman Felton, had set up the security precautions personally. Felton was the best. There was no way anyone should have been able to penetrate this far. Yet someone had.
Carmine Viaselli stopped dead. His heart pounded in his chest. All his worries, all the sleepless night, all had come down to this moment.
"You from the government?" he demanded. His eyes darted to the room's four corners in search of more federal agents.
The stranger was alone.
The Oriental in the black suit offered something that, on another man's face, might have passed for a smile.
"I represent myself, not a government. I have heard of your problem. I wish to offer myself as the solution."
"Who are you?"
"My name is immaterial as far as our business is concerned. But if you must call me something, you may call me Mr. Winch."
"I'll tell you what I'll call," Don Carmine threatened. "I'll call the cops, that's what I'll call."
"You are welcome to do so," Mr. Winch said. "However, would that be wise? I know that you bribe many of them, but you do not own them all. Who is to say that the ones you get won't be the ones who you fear are after you? After all, do they not work for your government?"
Don Carmine studied the Oriental with slivered, suspicious eyes. There was something about him. Carmine Viaselli had seen enough of it in his day to know what it was. This man possessed an aura of death.
"How you know about my troubles?"
"I hear things," Mr. Winch replied. "It is an easy enough thing when one knows what to listen for."
"You some kind of hit man?" Carmine asked.
This time Mr. Winch's smile was genuine. "I am the original kind," he promised.
Don Carmine's back stiffened. He thrust out his proud Roman chin. "You here to whack me?"
"I am here to offer you my services. You have a problem that needs attention. Ordinarily, I do not like to stay in any one place for very long, but at the moment my situation requires a certain amount of stability. I suggest a business arrangement from which we will both benefit."
Don Carmine knew in his marrow that he was talking to a cold-blooded killer. Maybe the coldest he'd ever met. But given the circumstances, he wasn't about to trust this Winch.
"I have a man who does this sort of work for me," Carmine Viaselli said.
"An amateur," Winch replied.
"Just the same, he's my man," Viaselli said. "I don't know you, and I won't be intimidated into hiring you."
Winch shrugged, a delicate, birdlike movement that failed to wrinkle the fabric of his perfectly tailored suit.
"Then don't," the Oriental said. "It does not matter to me. One of you is like the next. If not you, I will go to one of your enemies." He turned and walked away.
That was that. No arguing, no more discussing. Don Carmine trailed Winch into the hallway. His men there seemed surprised to see the Oriental. Obviously, they hadn't seen him come in.
"I don't like that you got in here," Carmine said as Winch got onto the private elevator.
"Yes. I can see how that would be disconcerting." His broad, flat face was without emotion as the elevator doors closed with a ping.
The instant the doors shut, Don Carmine turned to his men. "I want that son of a bitch wiped," he ordered.
The call was made from upstairs. Three of Don Carmine's best men were waiting in the lobby for Mr. Winch when he left the elevator two minutes later.
What happened next, no one was quite sure. According to witnesses, the three Viaselli Family soldiers had approached Winch with guns drawn. That much the few eyewitnesses could swear to. There was a gunshot. Everyone knew that. It was after that things got fuzzy.
There was a blur of something in black that no one seemed able to follow. An instant later, when the blur resolved into the shape of the strange Oriental, there were three fewer Viaselli soldiers among the living.
Winch had deposited one man headfirst into a sandfilled standing ashtray. The thug had drowned on a mouthful of ashes and stubbed-out cigarette butts.
The second lay in a mangled heap behind a potted plant.
The third was missing altogether. He was found an hour later in the basement. Somehow Mr. Winch had thrown him down the elevator shaft-seemingly impossible, since the doors were already closing when the men attacked. He fell only one story, yet had injuries consistent with a twelve-story fall.
When news of what had happened reached the fourteenth floor, Don Carmine quickly sent more men after Mr. Winch. These soldiers had no guns. Waving white handkerchiefs, they caught up with Winch on the sidewalk a block from the Plaza. Offering profound apologies from Don Carmine, they escorted Mr. Winch back upstairs.
When Mr. Winch stepped off the elevator to the fourteenth floor, Don Carmine was waiting for him, an eager expression on his wan face.
"Do you give lessons?" Don Carmine blurted.
"Not to you," Mr. Winch replied.
"Not for me, for my men," Don Carmine said.
"No," Winch said. "Not for you, not for any of them, not for any price."
"Very well," Don Carmine said, clearly disappointed. "But you will work for me?"
"If your financial terms are acceptable to me."
"Whatever you want, you got," said Don Carmine, who felt relief for the first time in months. "You'll be my personal bodyguard. You keep my body safe, you'll be a rich man."
And so the deal was struck.
Carmine soon learned the reason Mr. Winch needed to stay in one place. It was that spooky little kid.