Without remorse - Tom Clancy [189]
'Who might you be?' a voice asked in the dark.
'The name's Clark,' Kelly replied. 'You should be expecting me.'
'Oh, yeah. Nice boat,' the man said, heading back to the small dock house. Within minutes a car came down the hill from officer-quarters.
'You're early,' Marty Young said.
'Might as well get started, sir. Come aboard?'
'Thanks, Mr Clark.' He looked around the salon. 'How did you get this baby? I suffer along with a day-sailer.'
'I don't know that I really should say, sir,' Kelly replied. 'Sorry.' General Young accepted that with good grace.
'Dutch says you're going to be part of the op.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Sure you can hack it?' Young noticed the tattoo on Kelly's forearm and wondered what it denoted.
'I worked Phoenix for over a year, sir. What sort of people have signed on?'
'They're all Force Recon. We're training them pretty hard.'
'Kick 'em loose around five-thirty?' Kelly asked.
'That's right. I'll have somebody pick you up.' Young smiled. 'We need to get you nice and fit, too.'
Kelly just smiled. 'Fair enough, General.'
'So what's so damned important?' Piaggi asked, annoyed to be bothered at short notice on a weekend night.
'I think somebody's making a move on me. I want to know who.'
'Oh?' And that made the meeting important, if poorly timed, Tony thought. 'Tell me what's happened.'
'Somebody's been taking pushers down on the west side,' Tucker said.
'I read the papers,' Piaggi assured him. He poured some wine into his guest's glass. It was important at times like these to make a show of normality. Tucker would never be part of the family to which Piaggi belonged, but for all that he was a valuable associate. 'Why is that important, Henry?'
'The same guy took down two of my people. Rick and Billy.'
'The same ones who -'
'That's right. One of my girls is missing, too.' He lifted his glass and sipped, watching Piaggi's eyes.
'Rip?'
'Billy had about seventy thousand, cash. The cops found it, right there.' Tucker filled in a few more details. 'The police say it looks real professional, like.'
'You have any other enemies on the street?' Tony inquired. It wasn't a terribly bright question - anyone in the business had enemies - but the skill factor was the important one.
'I've made sure the cops know about my major competitors.'
Piaggi nodded. That was within normal business practice, but somewhat risky. He shrugged it off. Henry could be a real cowboy, a source of occasional worry to Tony and his colleagues. Henry was also very careful when he had to be, and the man seemed to understand how to mix the two traits.
'Somebody getting even?'
'None of them would walk away from that kind of cash.'
'True,' Piaggi conceded. 'I got news for you, Henry. I don't leave that sort of bundle laying around.'
Oh, really? Tucker wondered behind impassive eyes. 'Tony, either the guy fucked up or he's trying to tell me something. He's killed like seven or eight people, real smart. He took Rick down with a knife. I don't think he fucked up, y'dig?' The odd thing was that both men thought that a knifing was something the other would do. Henry had the impression that knives were the weapon of Italians. Piaggi thought it the trademark of a black.
'What I hear, somebody is doing pushers with a pistol - a little one.'
'One was a shotgun, right in the guts. The cops are rousting street bums, doing it real careful.'
'I didn't hear that,' Piaggi admitted. This man had some great sources, but then he lived closer to that part of town, and it was to be expected that his intelligence network would be speedier than Piaggi's.
'It sounds like a pro doing this,' Tucker concluded. 'Somebody really good, y'know?'
Piaggi nodded understanding while his mind was in a quandary. The existence of highly skilled Mafia assassins was for the most part a fiction created by TV and movies. The average organized-crime murder was not a skilled act, but rather something carried out by a man who mainly did other, real, money-generating activities. There was no special class of killers who waited patiently for