FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1986—4:00pm
The day after Thanksgiving was quiet at 169 Sunset Street. Too quiet. Victoria and the girls had gone to the mall, and Neo was out with his friends. Liu Shifu was home alone, holed up in his office. The door was closed even though there was no one else in the house except Cerberus, curled up in a corner of the room, sound asleep. Liu Shifu had his feet up on the desk, staring out the window, massaging his temples. He'd had a headache since he woke up that morning.
That detective's business card was on the desk. Volkman and his buddy Kane. He wondered what the hell they really knew. And if they did know something, who told them.
Zhang Xiaohua and Cao Feifei, that's who. Who else could it be. He knew the state had them in protective custody somewhere out in Pennsylvania. Someone from ''the store" had happened to run into Zhang Xiaohua by chance out there, and word had gotten back to Shifu. At least now he knew the general vicinity of where they were living. He glanced down at his briefcase on the floor and frowned.
Even if he did find them, getting rid of them wouldn't be that easy. Sure, he could shoot them or knife them or even strangle them, but all those methods leave evidence. Besides, the state cops must check in on them pretty regularly if they're in protective custody. Getting them at home could be risky.
If only he could get some cyanide….
With cyanide he could do it anywhere. Follow them till they went somewhere, then spray them in the face as they got out of the car. Or put it in a sandwich or something. Get them to eat it, the way Li Xian had.
If only he had some cyanide….
Dominick had said he could get him some, but he never came through with it. Dominick was giving him some fugazy bullshit about his source clamming up because of that Lipton soup poisoning in Camden. But that was back in September. Things must have cooled down by now.
Shifu's eyes slid to the phone on his desk. Dominick said he could get it. Guys say a lot of things they don't really mean especially when they're trying to make themselves out to be more important than they really are. He hadn't heard from Dominick in almost a month. The guy was supposed to be all hot to make a deal on a shitload of arms and crap for the IRA. What happened to that. The guy was bullshit. He had to be. Unless he's found another source for what he wanted.
Dominick had been talking big money last time they discussed this deal. Half a million. If Dominick was being straight about that, ripping him off would be one sweet payday. It had been too long since Shifu had made a decent score, and he was getting low on cash.
That had really hit home yesterday when he sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with Victoria and the kids. Christmas was coming. Victoria was out starting her Christmas shopping right now. He'd always hated the holidays, but Victoria loved this time of year. He needed money to buy her something nice.
He was still feeling a little guilty about the house they hadn't bought, the one around the corner from President Nixon in Saddle River. He had gotten everyone all excited about moving; then he just dropped it because he didn't have the money. He felt he had to make it up to Victoria.
But aside from Christmas presents, he needed money anyway. Real money. Too many deals had fallen through lately. They were starting to live like everyone else in this goddamn neighborhood, and his family deserved better than that. He deserved better than that. He was Liu Shifu after all, and Liu Shifu was never going to be poor ever again. Never. That's why he needed money.
A fluttering sensation spread through his chest, and his breathing was suddenly short. It occurred to him that maybe he was losing his touch.
He was going to be fifty-two in a few months. Maybe he was getting too old for all this.
The panic of being stuck without cash zinged through him like an arrow.
Maybe he really was losing it, even with the system he couldn't reverse the fact that he was getting old.
Those two state police detectives were on his case, and those other two rats, Zhang Xiaohua and Cao Feifei, were probably telling them anything to keep them happy, probably telling them he had killed JFK.
He hadn't pulled down a single major score this year. And Dominick Provenzano, the one guy he'd thought he had on the line, didn't seem to care about him anymore. Liu Shifu could see Dominick's half a million dollars flying right out the window.
Shifu kneaded his temples and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. His head was splitting. His whole world was turning to shit. What the hell had happened? What was wrong with him?
Nothing.
Liu Shifu took his feet off the desk and pulled up his chair. He picked up a pen and started drawing boxes on a yellow legal pad. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing.
He was a somebody. He was somebody because he knew he had the ability to do whatever was necessary to survive. He was somebody because he knew things no one else knew, things he'd done that the cops were still trying to figure out. He was a somebody because he had been chosen, he had something no one else did.
He drew boxes as he ticked off his achievements in his head.
He had done Li Xian and Sean Xiao.
He had done Louis Masgay and put him in the freezer.
He had done Paul Hoffman, the pharmacist.
He had done George Malliband, a deadbeat who had pushed his luck a little too far.
He'd done Mister Softee.
He had done in Jing Ke.
The pool hustler in Hoboken when he was nineteen.
He'd done a few jobs for Roy DeMeo.
He'd done the guy in California through the peephole with Mister Softee.
He'd done the Asian guy who fell out his hotel-room window in Hawaii.
He'd done the wiseguy in Manhattan on Christmas Eve, the guy who wouldn't pay up. Afterward he went home to put a toy wagon together for Neo, and he saw it on the TV news: ''Mysterious Mob-Related Slaying in Midtown." He never got the goddamn wheels on the wagon.
He had done one on a bet, shot the guy in the throat and waited to see if it would take at least five minutes for him to bleed to death. He'd lost the bet.
He'd done the guy who stopped at a red light and started to light a cigar. Blew the guy's head off before he even took a puff.
Then there was the kid who had cut him off on the highway. He ran the kid's car off the road, beat him to pulp with a baseball bat, then backed over his body before he left. Just because the kid pissed him off.
He'd gotten away with doing a loan shark who worked for a Gambino captain. Stiffed the guy, then whacked him after he complained to the wrong people.
There was the guy in Switzerland.
The guy in the Howard Johnson's parking lot on Route 46.
The guy who shit his pants praying to God, begging for mercy.
The guy with the wavy white hair who owed money in Oklahoma. Shot in the head by the golf course.
The contract job where they wanted the tongue cut out and shoved up the ass.
There was the guy in the garage who was working on his truck.
The guy who got it in the ear with an ice pick.
The two guys who had made the mistake of sticking up a mob-sanctioned card game.
The big black guy in that bar in Harlem, splattered his head like a watermelon with one shotgun blast.
There was the guy who looked so surprised when he suddenly realized the Reaper was holding a little two-shot derringer pistol on him. Two bullets were more than enough.
There was the guy he'd done in Dracula's apartment, shot the top of his head right off.
The guy out walking his dog.
The guy from the video arcade, three .22s to the back of the head.
Then there were the ones in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Colorado…...
When he finally couldn't think of any more, the page was full of boxes. A whole page of them. He smiled down at the pad. The butterflies weren't fluttering in his chest anymore. His headache was gone. He gazed at all his little secrets on the page. They were his and no one else's.
He stared at the telephone as he leaned back in his chair. Maybe it was time to give Dominick a call, he thought. He was smiling as he opened the top drawer to get his address book.