The Informant

27

HE WAS OUT on the street alone again. There was a feeling he was getting from Elizabeth Waring that she wasn't exactly telling the truth. She wasn't telling him something that she considered important. She said she was interested in getting him into a guarded room someplace and asking him questions. That wasn't a surprise. But she was alone. When the FBI showed up, she wasn't much happier to see them than he was. She had told him the arrival of FBI agents was an opportunity to save both of them, but it had sounded like a bluff. When he had refused, she had seemed almost relieved.

She must have been making offers she hadn't cleared with any of her bosses. She was just hoping if she got him, they'd be glad enough to back her up. But for the moment, she wasn't telling anybody what she was up to because they would have stopped her. That was the way her pitch felt to him. It wasn't even a very good deal. She hadn't even offered immunity from prosecution. Was he supposed to think that was an oversight? The most peculiar part of her behavior was that she wasn't just hunting with the hounds anymore. She was hiding with the foxes too. That had to be a new experience for her, and it might make her easier to deal with later if he needed to.

He reached into his pocket and took out the little leather wallet he had picked out of her jacket pocket while he'd had his arm around her on the street. On the front was a deeply etched seal with an eagle on it. He opened the wallet and saw it was her Justice Department identification. He put it back into his pocket and kept walking to the parking structure where he'd left his car.

Parking structures were often good places to kill people. He'd used them a number of times, but it was important to check first for surveillance cameras, to be sure they were clear like this one. But he'd been in and out of this one already and it was fairly well lighted, so it was possible he'd been seen by people working for Vince Pugliese. He took a few moments to look for smudged finger marks on the car, unlocked it, and opened the hood to see if there were any signs of tampering. He didn't see any. He knew that if there was a device, there would be an attempt to place it where he wouldn't see it. He looked under the car, then closed the hood, and started the car. Searching for bombs was really only looking for an amateur's clumsy errors. A pro's work was invisible. A bomb could be set off by turning the ignition key, but it could also be done by running a wire from the brake lights or the headlights, or by making a call with a cell phone that sent a current to an initiator, or by a rocker switch that closed a circuit when the car hit a bump. Since the army had been fighting enemies for years in the Middle East who used improvised explosive devices, there were now probably thousands of young guys with fresh discharge papers who knew their way around explosives better than he did.

He backed out of his space and drove off the lot. It was ten minutes before he stopped bracing for the explosion that hadn't come. He drove a few miles away before he began searching for a twenty-four-hour mailing and copying center. When he found one in a mini-mall, he parked on the street and went inside. He used a computer to match the print font of Elizabeth Waring's ID, typed the name Elliot Lee Warren, and printed and trimmed it. He positioned it on the identification so it covered her name. He used a webcam to take his own picture, printed it in a small format, put it over her picture, and then scanned the identification and printed it. The finished identification would not have fooled experts, but he didn't intend to show it to any. He deleted everything he'd done on the computer. Then he paid his bill. He used the laminating machine to laminate it, paid for that, and left.

He drove back downtown toward Vincent Pugliese's building. He had a very strong feeling about what Pugliese was doing now that there was only one remaining Castiglione brother, and if he was right, he only had one more stop to make. He parked his car by the curb on a street three blocks from Pugliese's building. It was about nine o'clock now. The early evening traffic had drained people out of the center of the city toward the suburbs, but when he reached the area around Pugliese's building, it was still not back to normal. There were still men in the streets in twos and threes when any men walking should have been alone, heading for parking structures to claim their cars and drive home.

He was losing the time of night when he could hope to get to Pugliese. If he stayed on these streets until everyone out here was either a gangster or a cop, the only things that could happen were that he would be recognized and killed or arrested. He walked to the alley behind the building, went down the ramp into the underground parking lot, and began to search. He opened the door labeled JANITOR'S STORAGE, then tried the ELECTRICAL door, then one that was unmarked but contained an array of vertical pipes and valve wheels. Finally he found a door with RISERS stenciled on it. He opened it and saw there was a stairway leading upward into the dark. He followed it, climbing to the next floor, where he was stopped by a second steel door. He tried the knob, but this one was bolted from the other side.

He went back down, walked out of the garage to the alley and around the building. As he was walking up the street toward the main entrance, he saw three of the six FBI agents he had seen inside the cathedral. One of them was the boss, the one the others had called Agent Meade. The three men came out the front door of Vince Pugliese's building, looking as though they'd wasted their time, and turned toward Schaeffer. He walked toward the building with his hands in his pockets, not showing any interest in the FBI agents. When they passed, he scanned the block as he walked and spotted the other three FBI agents getting into a car. He stopped as though he were turning into the door for Mimi's Ristorante, waited until the car was gone, then looked back up the street to see the other car gone too. Then he stepped through the glass doors to the lobby. There was one man sitting at the desk in a black sport coat tending a sign-in book and a second in an identical coat watching security monitors.

Schaeffer stepped to the desk and held up his new Justice Department identification as though he wanted both to see it at once, but so it was far enough from either to prevent real scrutiny. "Agent Elliot Warren, United States Justice Department. I'd like you both to take a step backward away from the desk, please." The two obeyed. "Now lock the front doors and escort me upstairs to see Mr. Pugliese."

The man with the sign-in book said, "There have been like, ten FBI people here in the past two hours. Let me just call upstairs—"

Schaeffer's hand rested on the man's wrist as he reached for the phone. "That would have to be the worst decision you ever make."

"Do you have a search warrant?"

"Agent Meade and the others will be back shortly with the warrant. But it's a formality. Since shots have been fired and we're in the middle of a search for the shooters, this comes under the exception of hot pursuit. Any sworn law enforcement officer can come in here without a warrant. Now lock the door and take me to Vincent Pugliese."

The two looked at each other. One stepped to the front door and locked it, and the other slid the deadbolt into the floor. The two men stepped into the elevator before Schaeffer.

As soon as the elevator door closed, Schaeffer stopped the elevator and pulled out a gun. He said, "If you cooperate, nothing will happen to you. You won't be charged with anything, and you'll remain safe. If either of you is armed, now is the time to say so and put your gun on the floor."

One of the men said, "We're not armed."

Schaeffer took the man's arm and spun him so he stood facing the wall. "Hands on the wall, feet apart." Then he turned the second man into the same position facing the wall and patted the first one down. He found a small pistol in a holster on the man's belt under his coat. He held the pistol to the man's head. "What's this?"

"It's a gun. I forgot I had it."

Schaeffer fired it into the man's head and watched him drop to the floor, then stepped over him and stood behind the second man.

"Oh, my god," the second one said. "Are you crazy?"

"Do you have a gun too?"

"Yes."

"Then you're the one who's crazy."

He found the gun and put it into his coat pocket. "Do you have any other weapons?"

"A .380 in an ankle holster."

Schaeffer bent over and took the little pistol. "Is that it?"

"That's it."

"You know the penalty for lying to me?"

"I just saw it."

"So you're clean now?"

"Yes."

Schaeffer searched him a little more, but found nothing. He pressed the button for six, the top floor, and the elevator rose.

The elevator stopped on the sixth floor and the door slid open. There was a single corridor that ran along the outer wall of the building. On the same side of the corridor as the elevator there were three doors. Schaeffer used his free hand to keep the security man ahead of him as he stepped out of the elevator. "Go up to Pugliese's door and then stop."

The man walked up to a door that had neither a number nor a name on it and stood in front of it. Schaeffer stepped to the side with his back to the wall so he could watch the other two doors, reached across the man, and knocked. A moment later, the peephole in the door went dark for a few seconds. The door opened, and Schaeffer pushed the man in and came in close behind his back.

There was a shout. "It's him!" Schaeffer's eyes were taking in everything—t he four men in a huge open loft converted to an apartment—Salvatore Castiglione, two soldiers, and Vincent Pugliese. One of the soldiers already had a gun in his hand and fired. Schaeffer felt his hostage's legs buckle, and as he began to go down, Schaeffer went low with him and shot the soldier in the chest. He crouched and turned his gun in the direction of the others. Vince Pugliese popped up from his chair with his hands in the air.

"Hold it, everybody. Drop the guns so we can talk."

Schaeffer watched the remaining soldier drop his gun on the carpet, and Pugliese seemed to realize, a bit late, that Schaeffer would never believe he wasn't armed. He opened his coat wide and pinched the grips of a pistol between thumb and forefinger and set it on the floor.

Schaeffer's eyes settled on Sal Castiglione, who was still seated on a desk chair with his hands behind him. Castiglione said to him, "Don't look at me." He turned his body so Schaeffer could see he had handcuffs on his wrists attaching him to the backrest of the chair.

Schaeffer turned to Pugliese. "You didn't even wait until the other two are buried?"

"You're the one who made this possible. You changed the whole equation last night. Joe and Paul were dead, and Sal came to me for protection right away. We decided the best thing to do was to fly him to Mexico, where he would be safe and live happily on the money he's stashed away. That's our agreement."

"You wanted him to collect his money so you could kill him and steal it."

"Not me." Pugliese held his empty hands up in a gesture of innocence.

"If that wasn't the plan, he wouldn't be in handcuffs, and you would have flown him out before it was too late."

"You hear that?" said Pugliese to Castiglione. "It's too late. Sorry we didn't fly you out of here in time to save you, Sal. First it was the cops everywhere, and now my old friend. I guess he can't bear to leave until he kills you."

Castiglione looked at Pugliese. "You two deserve each other. I came to you for help after this psycho killed my brothers. You lived by my family's trust for thirty years, but when the bad hour came, you turned on me before anybody else." He turned to Schaeffer. "I remember you. I suppose you came back here because he told you he'd hide you, or smuggle you out, or something. Don't you know they always do that? The one they get to kill you is your closest friend, the one you trust."

Schaeffer moved his arm slightly and shot Pugliese, and then the last soldier. He looked at Castiglione. "I'm afraid that's the best I can do for you—let you see him die before you do."

"It's not much, but I would have hated to die with that bastard smirking at me."

Schaeffer pointed at the window, his face unsurprised. "See that?"

Sal Castiglione turned in an almost involuntary reflex to look, and Schaeffer shot him in the back of the head so he would die instantly.

Schaeffer stood still and listened. There were no sounds of sirens, no sounds of people running up the stairs. There had been plenty of time since the first gunshots. He supposed the sixth floor of the old stone building was too high up and too substantial to let the noise reach the street.

He walked across the loft to the area that was set aside as a kitchen. He couldn't help wondering if Vince had ever used any of the appliances. He began going through drawers and saw the place was fully equipped. After a moment he found what he had been looking for—a reusable fabric grocery bag. He took it and returned to the living room area. He started by taking the guns dropped by Pugliese and the two soldiers. He put them in the bag, added the three guns he had taken from the dead security men, then went through the wallets of the five men in the living room and took the cash. He dug the car keys out of Pugliese's pocket. He considered searching the loft for money, but he knew Vince would not have made finding it an easy matter. He decided he'd used up his time.

He went through the big loft apartment opening doors, searching for the secret way out, and then found it. He opened a plain door near the kitchen and saw that inside was an auxiliary heating and air-conditioning unit. A person who opened the door would normally have closed it again because all that was beyond the box-shaped HVAC unit was what looked like a plain white wall. But he stepped in and pushed it, and the wall swung away from him on hinges to reveal a space beyond. He sidestepped through it and found himself on the landing of a staircase that had apparently been closed off during remodeling. There was a small airline bag sitting on the landing beside the door. He picked it up and opened it.

He had found Pugliese's escape kit. It held a Browning .45 pistol and two spare magazines, a large stack of bills, and a few credit cards and driver's licenses and passports in different names. He put the kit into his grocery bag and went down the eleven flights of stairs to the steel door. He carefully turned the bolt so it wouldn't make a noise and opened the door a half inch to look out at the underground garage. There were the same few cars as before, but no people.

He opened the door the rest of the way and hurried to the black car that Pugliese and his men had used to go after him on the street. He used the remote control button to unlock the door. He got in, started the car, and drove it up out of the garage. He drove the three long blocks to where his car was parked, left the black car around the corner from it, and walked back carrying his bag of guns and money. He set it in the trunk of his Camry, then got behind the wheel and drove. It was late night now, and it meant there would be less traffic on the major routes out of Chicago. If he turned west at the interstate, he could be in Los Angeles in three or four days.