“The device wins, Pins,” Geronimo finally said. “We can’t beat it.”
“Yeah, we can,” Pins said.
“I’m listening,” Geronimo told him.
“Don’t wait for it,” Pins said. “Let it blow on your terms. You’re the best at this. So let the best decide when the fucker goes up.”
Geronimo smiled at Pins as his right hand reached for the clippers. “Pick your color,” Geronimo said.
“I’m a stubborn little bastard. I’m gonna stick with the red.”
“Red it is,” Geronimo said.
He stood on his knees, one hand grasping Pins’s shoulder and the other holding the pliers wrapped around a thin red wire.
“I hope you’re not wrong,” Geronimo said. The smile on his face faded. Then it came back. Pins met it with a smile of his own.
“Bet on this one,” Pins said.
Geronimo snapped down on the red wire and waited for the flash. Once again willing a device to his terms.
• • •
THE FOUR APACHES were jolted in their seats by the loud explosion. They were in Boomer’s car, at the far end of the parking lot.
They watched the bowling alley implode. Shards of glass and thick debris flew in all directions. The ceiling caved in, smoke and dust filtered through the air.
Mrs. Columbo gave out a low moan. Rev. Jim was crying and swearing in a rage of emotion. Dead-Eye balled his hands into fists, rubbing them against his legs. Boomer was a mask of stone, the flames reflecting off the darkness of his deep-set eyes. He felt inside his leather jacket, his hand gripping the sticks of dynamite Geronimo had given him. He pulled his hand away and turned the ignition on the car, shoved the gear into drive, and pulled out of the lot.
“Where we going, Boom?” Dead-Eye asked.
“To finish it.”
“We know where?” Rev. Jim wanted to know, glancing back at the smoke billowing from the bowling alley.
“We will,” Boomer said, looking through the rearview. “Pins wired Wilber. We’ll pick him up on the scanner on our way to Nunzio’s.”
“That where we going now?” Mrs. Columbo asked. Her voice was stoic, almost mechanical.
“That’s our first stop,” Boomer said.
“And the second?” Dead-Eye asked.
“To pick up a friend.” Boomer lowered his foot to the gas pedal, pushing the speedometer past seventy.
“Anybody we know?” Dead-Eye asked.
“Deputy Inspector Lavetti,” Boomer said, throwing Mrs. Columbo a quick look over his shoulder and rolling his window up, the night chill too bitter against his face.
“At least it’s somebody we can trust,” Rev. Jim said, slouching in his seat and closing his eyes to the sounds of the night.
20
THEY STOOD IN the center of Nunzio’s cramped basement, surrounded by red wooden wine barrels and thick crates marked with a government seal. Several of the crates had been eased open with the flat end of a crowbar. An iron door leading to steps and street level was locked and barred. A series of bare bulbs hung overhead.
“Everything you need, you can find inside the crates,” Nunzio said, approaching one and resting a tray loaded with five cups of coffee on it.
“Where did all this stuff come from?” Dead-Eye shook his head in awe. He took a cup from the tray and walked from one crate to the next, his eyes fixed on the astonishing cache of Ingram submachine guns, semiautomatics, grenades, launchers, timers, bullets, vests, knives, and liquid explosives.
“You’re not my only friends,” Nunzio said.
“We need one other thing from you,” Boomer said. He passed on the coffee, instead filling a plastic cup with wine from one of the barrels.
“Tell me,” Nunzio said.
“A private plane. With a pilot you trust. We’re going to need to move all the equipment out of state and my airport connection can’t help me walk in with this heavy a load.”
“You want him for the round trip?” Nunzio asked.
Boomer took a look at the Apaches before he answered. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll be comin’ back. One way or the other.”
“Where to?”
“Arizona,” Boomer said. “Small town, about thirty miles outside Sedona. I’d like to be in the air in about two hours. We picked up Wilber yappin’ away over Pins’s wire. In between the laugh and the brag, he talked about taking his crew back to Lucia’s compound.”
“They want to fight you on their turf,” Nunzio said. “Why not wait and take ’em out on your own ground.”
“We just lost two good cops on our own ground,” Mrs. Columbo said.
“You don’t even know the layout,” Nunzio said. “How many guns she’s got, what you’re up against. You gonna do it, do it right, Boomer. Don’t turn it into a suicide ride.”
“This is the right way,” Boomer said. “It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Us against them.”
“From the phones on that plane we can reach out to all our federal contacts,” Rev. Jim said. “Ask ’em to tell us what they know about her spread.”
“And then we tell ’em we’re going in,” Boomer said. “Ask them to follow us out a few hours later.”
“How you so sure they’re gonna go along with somethin’ this crazy?” Nunzio asked.
“They don’t have a choice,” Boomer said. “They’re not gonna blow us out of the sky and they’re not gonna rat us out. Besides, half the guys we deal with would kill for the chance to be with us.”
“Lucia’s expectin’ you to go after her,” Nunzio said. “That should be worth a thought.”
“I think it’s time we met,” Boomer said. “After all we’ve been through together.”
• • •
DEPUTY INSPECTOR MARK Lavetti stood under the awning of a doorman building on Madison Avenue, fixing the collar on his brown tweed jacket. He was a handsome man in his early forties, his lean figure topped by a thick head of curly dark hair. He had been a member of the New York City Police Department for twenty-one years and had never recorded a major arrest. He was a test cop, making his steady climb up the ranks by cracking open books in schools rather than cracking heads out on the streets.
He was born with a taste for the sweet life and from his first weeks at the Police Academy was quick to smoke out a pad and how best to squeeze his way in on the action. He took his first envelope while still wearing the grays of a trainee, fifty a week to fill a local dealer in on which probie cops were eager to score free joints and lines, no questions asked. In return, the dealer sold their names to the turf leader of their precinct.
By the time he stood under the awning of the building on Madison Avenue, Mark Lavetti was pulling down twenty-five thousand in cash a month, feeding info to major dealers in the five boroughs. He never went near the money himself, instead using a rotating team of relatives as a pickup posse, letting them move the cash from sealed locker to selected bank and mutual fund accounts.
Lavetti was a master at covering the money trail.
His three-bedroom co-op was in his mother’s name. The sporty Corvette he drove when not on duty was owned tire and gearshift by a sister in Mineola. He had a summer home in Woodstock mortgaged to an uncle living in a nursing home. His yearly vacations came courtesy of a cousin who ran a tourist agency.
Despite the rumors floating out of various precincts, the top brass saw Mark Lavetti exactly as he wanted to be seen—a clean cop riding the fast track.
His biggest score had also been his easiest.
Mark Lavetti was on the phone seconds after Joseph Silvestri walked out of his One Police Plaza office. He listened to the sad man tell him about his wife’s involvement with a band of disabled cops, assured him all would be kept confidential, then set up a meeting with a main feeder to Lucia Carney’s drug business. Outside Gate D at Shea Stadium, Lavetti handed over the six names of the Apaches to a man he knew would want them dead. In return, he accepted a manila envelope crammed with $100,000 in cash.
And
he never gave the matter another thought.
Lavetti walked at a brisk pace down Madison, wondering whether to detour over to Lincoln Center to pick up a pair of opera tickets for himself and his new girlfriend, a model who was easily impressed by such things, or wait until after dinner and then drive past. His car was parked at the corner of Sixty-second Street, next to a hydrant, an official NYPD tag in the front window. As he got closer, he noticed a dark blue sedan double-parked close to his car, blocking his exit, the driver nowhere in sight.
He took the keys from the front pocket of his slacks, ready to call in the car and have a truck come tow it, angry he hadn’t just parked in the building garage as usual.
“Where you off to tonight, Inspector?” Boomer asked, coming out of the shadows of a shuttered dry cleaners, standing behind Lavetti, both hands in his jacket pockets.
“Who the fuck are you?” Lavetti asked.
“I’m surprised you don’t recognize me,” Boomer said. “I’m an Apache.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Lavetti asked. But a shift in his tone betrayed his disquiet.
“You put a price on me.” Boomer stepped closer, holding the urge to pull the trigger on the gun inside his jacket. “And on my friends. Somebody started to collect. Two of them died today.”
“Are you crazy!” Lavetti said. “Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m a cop. A deputy inspector!”
“The two who died were cops,” Boomer said. “You’re just a punk with a badge. But tonight you’re in for a treat. I’m going to give you a chance to die like a cop.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Lavetti said, starting to turn and run.
“Then you’ll die right here.” Boomer pulled the gun from his pocket and pressed it to Lavetti’s temple. “On the street, like the piece of shit you are. Either way, I don’t give a fuck. It’s your decision.”
“Where are we going?” was all Lavetti could manage to say.
Boomer turned Lavetti around and cuffed him as he pushed him toward the backseat of the dark blue sedan. “To visit an old friend of yours. And I bet she’s gonna be real happy to see you.”
“I could have you killed,” Lavetti said, glaring at Boomer from the backseat. “One call, that’s all it’ll take.”
“A lot of guys have made that one call, Lavetti,” Boomer said, kicking over the engine and peeling out of his space. “I’m still here. And they’re all dead.”
• • •
BOOMER AND DEAD-EYE were crouched down, hidden by shrubs and darkness, staring across a golf pond at the heavily guarded three-story house.
“I count at least eight in front,” Boomer whispered. “Figure the same number in back. And double that for the ground crew.”
Rev. Jim and Mrs. Columbo were stretched out farther up the ridge, Lavetti shoved face down alongside.
Except for Lavetti, they all wore bullet-resistant vests under their black shirts. On the plane ride over, the four of them had jammed a full arsenal of semis around their hips and waists, loaded up on grenades and ammo, and listened while Boomer laid out what sounded like nothing less than an invasion.
“You really think any of this is going to work?” Rev. Jim asked at one point.
“Are you kidding?” Boomer said. “It’ll be a fuckin’ miracle if it even comes close to working.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Dead-Eye said. “I was starting to worry.”
“With our luck,” Mrs. Columbo said, jabbing a thumb toward Lavetti, “he’ll be the only one to make it out alive.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Boomer said, staring over at Lavetti, who had stayed silent through the entire flight.
“Run that Greek fire deal by me one more time,” Rev. Jim said.
“I’m new at this myself, so bear with me,” Boomer said, holding up a white five-foot plastic tube. “But the way Geronimo told it, you air-gun the nitro through the tube and it shoots out above the water, a lot like a torpedo out of a sub. It bounces off the water and right into the house.”
“It leaves behind a flame trail,” Dead-Eye said. “So you can use it as light too.”
“An air gun and nitro,” Rev. Jim said. “What could go wrong with that?”
Boomer had alerted his federal sources from the air and bargained himself an hour’s worth of attack time. “Don’t worry, Tony,” he said to a voice at the other end of the phone. “As it is, you’re giving us about thirty minutes more than we need. We’ll try and leave you nothing to clean up.”
Before Tony clicked off the line he said, “I don’t know which is better, if we find you dead or alive.”
“If you find us,” Boomer said, “I’d count on dead.”
• • •
LUCIA CARNEY DRANK from a glass of white wine, looking out into the darkness. Wilber Graves stood next to her, a smug smile on his face. She was dressed in a black pants suit, her hair hanging down around her shoulders, a .45 silver-handled semiautomatic lodged against the base of her spine.
“They’re here,” Lucia said. “Hiding in the shrubs somewhere.”
“They won’t get far,” Wilber said. “Or even close. They’ll be dead before they reach the house.”
“A shame,” Lucia said. “I was hoping to at least meet them. To fly all this way and go to all this trouble, just to end up dead on a golf course.”
“There are six men on every floor inside the house,” Wilber told her. “Just in case.”
“And where will you be?” Lucia asked.
“Where I belong,” Wilber said. “Next to you.”
Lucia finished her drink and smiled. “Time will decide where you belong, Wilber,” she said as she walked past him without looking up.
• • •
“WE HOLD TO the plan for as long as we can,” Boomer said, looking past Dead-Eye toward Rev. Jim and Mrs. Columbo. “If we make it out, we regroup here and head back to the landing strip.”
“Don’t I at least get a gun?” Lavetti asked, still stretched out on the ground.
“Know how to use one?” Rev. Jim asked.
“Of course I do,” Lavetti exclaimed.
“Then the answer’s no,” Mrs. Columbo said. “We may be crazy, but we ain’t stupid.”
“Don’t think of yourself as an Apache,” Dead-Eye told him. “Think of yourself as a bulletproof vest we don’t have to wear.”
“It’s like havin’ my very own shield,” Rev. Jim said. He snapped one cuff around Lavetti’s wrist, closing the other end on his own. “Wonder how many bullets he takes before I tire of draggin’ him around.”
“Enough to kill him, I hope,” was Mrs. Columbo’s answer.
“We ready to do this?” Boomer asked, standing and zipping his jacket.
“No,” Dead-Eye said. “But if it means getting out of this heat, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Dead-Eye and I will walk down the front path like we’re invited to a party,” Boomer said. “Soon as you can, Rev. Jim, get that Greek fire going across the pond.”
“It’ll either be flames or me shootin’ past that water,” Rev. Jim said.
Boomer turned to Mrs. Columbo. “Mary, you get as close as you can and launch those rockets just like we showed you on the plane.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “If I can drive a wrecking ball down a Manhattan street, I can sure as shit shoot a rocket against the side of a house.”
“We all meet inside,” Boomer said. “First one to Lucia takes home the prize.”
“We’re all going to be killed,” Lavetti said, panic firmly set in. “She’s in there waiting. They’re all in there waiting. If you turn back now, I can work something out. Have her back off. It’s your only way out.”
Boomer stepped over to Lavetti and slapped him hard across the face. “As soon as the shooting starts, uncuff yourself from him,” Boomer said to Rev. Jim. “He’ll be surrounded by his friends.”
“See you at the fair.” Rev. Jim began dragging Lavetti with him toward
the golf pond.
Boomer watched them go, then turned to Mrs. Columbo. He touched her cheek and smiled. “You sure you’re gonna be okay?” he asked.
“You worried because I’m the only woman on the team?” Mrs. Columbo asked.
“I’m worried because you’re the only woman I care about left alive,” Boomer said softly.
“You really know the right time for romance,” she answered with a smile. She lifted her launcher and rocket pack and headed off in search of a shooting site.
“That just leaves the two of us,” Dead-Eye pointed out.
“You’re a smart man.” Boomer placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “How the hell’d you end up with a guy like me?”
“Born under a dark cloud,” Dead-Eye told him. “And there’s nothing I can do to change it.”
“Let’s go make some noise, then.” They began to walk down the well-lit path, knowing there were eyes on their every step. They turned a slight curve and saw the house, a quarter of a mile ahead.
“They’re not gonna let us get much closer,” Boomer said.
“I wouldn’t have let us get this far.”
“Maybe we got it all wrong,” Boomer said. “Maybe they don’t want us dead.”
“That’s what Custer thought. Up until that first arrow.”
• • •
“WHY ARE YOU waiting?” Lucia asked Wilber, anger in her voice and eyes.
“Can you see them yet?” Wilber asked. “I thought you wanted to see them.”
“Enough with your stupid little games, Wilber,” Lucia said. “I want to see them dead.”
“They are dead,” Wilber said. “They just haven’t been told yet.”
“Well then, have the men let them know,” Lucia said. “Now.”
Wilber opened the windows to the terrace, stepped outside, and gave the signal.
• • •
REV. JIM EASED the nitro ball into the air gun, then placed the front tip of the gun inside the opening of the five-foot plastic tube. He and Lavetti were crouched at the edge of the golf pond, directly across from the rear of the house.
“You have any idea what you’re doing?” Lavetti asked, desperate.