Willy took a chance that Joe Ciampini was on his farm. Probability favored the notion. The farm was a fortress with a guards’ station installed at the top of the long drive. Guards passed the time in a black Caddy parked across the entrance. They emerged as Willy drove up. The man who greeted him had a pistol in his right hand tucked behind his thigh. His partner gazed out over the Caddy’s rooftop, an Uzi at the ready.
Willy remembered selling the man that weapon.
He should have charged him more.
He was unarmed himself. No point doing otherwise.
The guards communicated with the farmhouse via walkie-talkie. Once identified and frisked, Willy was directed to park off the highway and enter on foot. A hike. Dusk beginning to settle. Birds sang their final riffs and a breeze kicked up as the sun descended. In the barnyard, a man with a rifle frisked him again, in case he’d gathered rocks as he strolled in or fashioned a slingshot out of willow branches. This guy was more intrusive than the guard up the road.
‘Front door,’ the man said.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ Willy said.
‘My job.’
‘You had to enjoy it so much?’
Willy got it. Either the Mafia was under attack, or they had killed their own people, in which case they wanted it to look as though they were under attack. In his mind, the fortress mentality was for show.
After the precautions outside, he was comforted to find the interior of the country home devoid of such measures. Just him and Ciampini, and the boss wasn’t nursing a Glock on his lap. The older man sat him in a comfortable armchair and crossed the room to pick up glasses. He offered bourbon and Willy accepted. Willy detected a weariness in the man’s eyes. Rumor had it that he’d been interested in retirement years ago, a return to Sicily. He had family, friends, and a villa there; he might find solace in his waning years. Other rumors maintained that his retirement was put on hold after Ciampini’s daughter went to prison for wounding a cop in her basement. She’d held a young woman hostage as a favor to her dad. Strings were pulled on her behalf. Still, the mob boss could do no better than secure a light sentence, and until she was paroled, he had to stick around. Who knows what would happen to her on the inside if he left the country? He was stuck in place.
Ciampini crossed the room yet again to return with a bottle of Knob Creek. ‘Kentucky bourbon,’ he stated, and poured. ‘I’m thinking about getting into horses down there.’
‘The horses, yeah?’
‘Thoroughbreds. Buy a Kentucky farm. See how that goes.’
A pipe-dream. He’d never be admitted to the winner’s circle. Willy assumed Ciampini knew it, too. Everybody nurtured unreachable dreams, if only to keep themselves alive.
‘Didn’t ask you to come here, Willy. Without no invite, you knock on my door. For what?’
‘Boss, I’m lying so low that’s not hair growing out of my nostrils. It’s grass. I promised I’d be in touch when the time came.’
‘What time has come?’
‘The farmers’ market. Doesn’t happen every day. Thought the time was right to check in, like I said I would.’
‘What you think, Willy? Those two, Le Gris, Pasquale, going down like that. A tragedy.’
‘Yes, sir. A tragedy. Maybe they had it coming. Not for me to know.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean in my language?’
‘Boss, those two guys wanted me dead. Maybe you know why. I don’t. Maybe they weren’t loyal to you, and when a man has enemies, you know it yourself, accidents happen. Maybe they had it coming.’
‘Who can say?’ Ciampini raised his glass.
‘Who can say?’ Willy asked him back, and raised his glass, also.
‘To life!’ Ciampini toasted, with sudden relish.
‘To life.’
They clinked and drank, their homage to the dead.
Ciampini gave the liquid time to raise his spirits before speaking again. ‘Somebody must die,’ he said. ‘How do things go on the street, Willy? Give me your report.’
Willy was sitting on the edge of his chair, knees apart. The coffee table between them provided a resting place for his Knob Creek. He made certain to use a coaster. He didn’t know if Ciampini’s family was at home, and didn’t want the woman of the house to show up and berate him for not using a coaster. He’d had that happen.
‘It’s like I said,’ he revealed. ‘Worse, but I expected it. I expected the worst.’
‘What have you learned, Willy? Do you have a strategy?’
Now or never. ‘Like I said, it’s the Hells, boss. They need to be brought into line. You can’t go fighting them right now. You’ve lost too many of your own. Go to The Rabbit. I talked to him. He’s willing. Give him the women across the city, the coming-into-town girls with the local trade he already has. He’ll give back a fair piece. In exchange, teach the Hells a lesson. They want to take the women over themselves, and the drugs, too. With The Rabbit and his Russians, you keep the drugs, you lose the women, but you get a piece for your loss. With the Hells, you lose the women, you lose the drugs too, and you don’t get a piece until they’re afraid of you again. That might never happen. This is maybe a last chance, your only chance, to take them out. They don’t know who’s available to you, who’s willing. Call The Rabbit, boss. Pop off a few Hells. They’ll still work for you but under control after that. Take back the city.’
Ciampini listened quietly. He had probably drawn a similar conclusion. Willy knew that. The best advertising reinforced an existing preference.
‘Enjoy your bourbon, Willy?’
‘Delicious. I been too busy to have a drink lately. This goes down like pure medicine. Right to my toes.’
‘Willy,’ Ciampini said, ‘there’s you to be talked about, too. Not only the Hells. Not only The Rabbit and his new crew. Don’t leave that part out.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it, boss.’
‘Don’t be sorry. We clean up the situation.’
‘That’s good. Yeah. How?’
‘I had an old foe. A cop. We’re like a couple of old dog warriors. Both bitten, both chewed up, but we both still bite.’
‘Old dogs. I like that. Old junkyard dogs.’
‘I don’t live in no junkyard, Willy.’
‘Of course not. No. I misspoke.’
‘Neither does Touton.’
‘That old cop?’
‘He’s the one. We fought each other over the years, Willy. Good fight.’
‘He’s bothering you again?’
‘If he is, I don’t care. He’s got a right. But some young guy’s been brought in he told me about. I don’t like him. I don’t want him in my city. He sent my daughter up for shooting a cop. It was only a wound. Hard to believe he thinks there’s no consequence for that.’
‘Yeah. Heard of him. Strange name.’
‘Strange name. Yeah. Cinq-Mars.’
‘Right.’
‘Put him in the river.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me, Willy. Or are you telling me that you gone deaf? Giving you a direct order here in case you didn’t notice. Don’t hesitate on me.’
‘No, boss. No. It’s just … That’s not my usual ticket. You know that.’
‘Willy, Willy, I’m losing guys left, right. Everybody has to step up. Do different jobs. Fill in. Especially guys who want to prove to me. If I wonder about a guy, I give him that opportunity to prove to me.’
‘Are you wondering about me, boss?’
‘On my mind, Willy. You. Lately. I got guys up from New York, couple guys in from Detroit. Good guys in a fight. Still, the local crew got to do its part. You know? This cop, this Cinq-Mars, he needs to buy his own Kentucky farm. Ride a horse in the sky. Play the fucking Kentucky banjo in the clouds. Your job, Willy. You don’t have to do it yourself. Arrange if you want, except don’t use our boys. Bikers like that kind of shit. What they don’t know, they bump a cop, we start fighting them, right there we’re on the right side of the law, they’re not. See how this can work? The fight can go that way. See what you work out. Me, I believe if you want a job done, do it yourself. Up to you, Willy. Either way. Get it done. Just make sure it don’t point back to me. That could get my daughter in trouble. Here’s what I want.’
Willy waited while Ciampini wet his whistle with bourbon.
‘Tomorrow,’ the boss continued, ‘big cop funeral. For that dick Poof-Poof the kid whacked. Cops coming from across the continent, marching downtown with their big-sack bellies. Swing their arms. Lift up their knees. Turns out, the dead guy is partner to Cinq-Mars. I would’ve liked it was him he shot, but didn’t happen like that. OK, instead, tomorrow, before the funeral or in the middle or after, it’s his funeral anyway. We bury Cinq-Mars. A message to cops. Don’t mess with us. They been messing with us here, New York, Miami, fucking Chicago, Las Vegas. It stops here. Do it or arrange it, Willy. You want a war? You been pushing for a war? All I hear out of you. OK. But I want you in the fight yourself. Deep in. Not just putting it on me or on the Hells or on The Rabbit. You fight, too. You’re a killer now, turns out. Show me, Willy. Take Cinq-Mars out for a swim. Seal your place. Great opportunity. Any problem?’
Willy held the man’s gaze. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘You bet, Mr Ciampini. This Cinq-Mars, he’s in the river.’
‘Good.’ Ciampini lounged back on his sofa, pulled one leg up and extended it across the seat. ‘I didn’t want you to think you can open a dam, let the water out, without you don’t get wet yourself.’
‘Understood. I’ll dive in, boss. Deep as you want.’
‘Good. Drink your bourbon, Willy. Then plan this. You got a brain. My advice? The voice of experience? Don’t leave nothing to chance.’
Willy had arrived at the farm on a whim. Now he sensed that Ciampini had expected him to show up all along.