The Informant

19

ELIZABETH HAD A STRANGE, disconnected feeling as she looked down at Washington from the air. She wasn't feeling the way she usually did when she flew into Reagan International—a mixture of comfortable familiarity and pride at how beautiful the place was. She was somewhere else in her mind, and she realized that she was feeling what the Butcher's Boy must be feeling.

He had killed Frank Tosca in the midst of the biggest conference of bosses in fifty years. He must be wondering, as she was, what kind of reaction the old men were having. Most of them were probably busy dealing with the problem of being detained in Arizona. Even if nothing else was lost, each of the old men would be aware that he had been made to look ridiculous—not only careless, but gullible. He must be feeling very alone right now.

Looking foolish was a very serious matter if you were trying to keep a couple of hundred soldiers cowed and respectful. Looking weak had probably been the foremost cause of death in their families for the past five generations. Who would they be blaming today for what had happened in Arizona? The one who had insisted on the meeting was Frank Tosca. But it must be terribly unsatisfying to be angry at a dead man.

Most of them would have no choice but to settle on the Butcher's Boy. He was safe to hate. He was an outsider. None of them would have to deal with retaliation from his cousins and in-laws. When he had killed Tosca, he had robbed the meeting of its purpose. He had contributed to the number and gravity of their potential legal troubles. He had also contributed to the spectacle they presented as a group of impotent, half-senile old men trying to reconstruct a past that could never return. It had been one against two hundred, and once again, the two hundred looked like idiots. That alone would make them want him dead.

She knew, and the Butcher's Boy must know too, that the death of a man like Frank Tosca wasn't entirely bad news to the other bosses. They were the veterans of a great many vendettas and coups. The older ones had lived through a couple of disputes that in some countries would have seemed like civil wars. They knew that a strong man like Tosca might revitalize an organization that had been stagnating for years. But the more success Tosca had and the more people flocked around him, the less power the other bosses would have. He would become the first among equals, and then, ultimately, the boss of bosses— Il capo di tutti capi. Soon they would have been paying percentages to him for the privilege of running businesses, and after that, they would have begun to take orders from him and serve at his pleasure. Many of them must have been delighted that he had not made it home from Arizona.

None of that would help his killer. Getting the killer would be a way to overcome their new image problem and keep their power from leaking away. By killing the Butcher's Boy, they would console any of their own men who had been hoping a new golden age for the Mafia would start when Tosca took over. They would complete this single small accomplishment in concert with all of the other families who had agreed to it, and maybe acting together would bring better things later. These were men who killed on a suspicion, an impulse, a whim. Death always seemed to be the solution to every problem.

If only the Butcher's Boy was astute enough to understand his predicament, he might be ready for an approach from her. He just might be feeling the right kind of desperation. If she offered the kind of sanctuary that only the U.S. government could offer, he just might take it.

As her plane banked and leveled its wings for the approach, she was already trying to think of a way to contact him. He would be watching television and looking at newspapers to find out anything he could about the aftermath of his killing Tosca. She needed to let him know that she understood his predicament and sympathized. She stopped herself. No, that wasn't right. Did she feel sympathy for him? She detected a temptation to feel sorry he was going to suffer, even though she knew the feeling was wasted on him. There were insane serial killers who murdered fewer people than he had just since he'd turned up again, and they served as the models for horror movies.

Still, there had never been an underdog who had worse odds. His opponents were all grown-up men who had needed to commit a murder in order to be "made," and they all had been trying to kill him when he'd attacked them. But she had to resist the impulse to defend him. It made her confused and, if anyone knew, would make her seem crazy, like the women who wrote love letters to convicted serial killers.

The plane landed, gave its usual bounce and shudder, rattled down the runway to a stop, then taxied toward the terminal. By the time the lights came on to illuminate the impatient passengers popping up to get their bags from the overhead compartments, she had composed what she wanted to say.

"I've known about you for twenty years, but only met you on August 30. You've got troubles, so talk to me."

She wrote it out on a page torn from her address book while she was in the cab to the Justice Department building. She got out in front of the building, paid the driver, and went inside, still thinking about what she was going to do. When she walked into the office, she almost handed the little torn page to Geoffrey. No, she thought. This has to be unofficial. No unwitting accomplices to get destroyed if it blows up. She said to him, "Hi, Geoff. Give me fifteen minutes before I see Hunsecker," and went into her office and closed her door.

She sent text messages to her children. "I'm back and will be in the office for the day. If you need me, don't hesitate to call. Love, Mom."

Then she turned on her laptop and went to the site of the Arizona Republic in Phoenix and placed her personal ad. Next she went to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.