A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(114)

One of the men seemed to hear something, or maybe have a vague premonition. He lifted his face just as the heavy rock plummeted down from the sky, obliterated his skull, and pinned his lifeless body to the ground.

His companion spun and ran into the tunnel. Earlier Jane had looked down the tunnel when she’d seen it from the car, and she knew it was at least 150 feet long, a 20--degree upward slope on gravel and perpetually wet stone. She turned and began to run.

Jane was up and over the gentle rise at the top of the hill in seconds, and then she made her way downward quickly, sliding when she needed to, until she was just above the tunnel entrance and to the right. She looked around her for any object she might use as a weapon—a stone, a piece of wood—but she saw nothing.

Jane heard him coming. His feet slapped into a stream of water, scraped when they slipped on loose stones, and squished when he stepped in mud. His breathing was loud and rasping, the run burning his lungs and sapping his strength. Jane took out her lock-blade knife and opened the blade.

The man reached the end of the tunnel. He was big, but he was gasping for breath and walking unsteadily. He still carried his pistol in his right hand and a flashlight in his left. As he took his first step into the open, Jane sprang, landing at his back. He started to spin to bring his gun around but she thrust her knife into his back and withdrew it. He seemed to ignore the wound, maybe wasn’t aware of it yet. He turned, trying to bring the gun around toward her, but she stayed behind him.

She couldn’t let him pivot to face her, so she threw her left forearm around his head to cover his face and hold on, brought her knife across his throat, and stepped back. He fell before he could complete the turn, and the gun and flashlight fell beside him as he did. Jane stood still for a few seconds while the blood pooled on the carved-out rock under him and then seeped down to mix with the trickle of water that flowed into the tunnel. Then she began the walk down the tunnel into the open-pit of the mine.

When Jane approached the end of the tunnel, she stopped and called out in Seneca, “Come out now. They’re all dead.”





30



Beautiful summer days like today were precious, and -Lorenzo Malconi knew that at his age he had probably seen most of the ones he’d see. He felt secure and content, sitting on the chaise longue with his feet up, his eyes closed behind his dark sunglasses. He knew Andy Spato was in the kitchen with Vacci drinking coffee, probably telling each other stories full of exaggerations, the way young guys did. Every thirty seconds or so, one of them would take a look through the sliding glass door at him to be sure he was okay. Knowing that made him feel safe while he was weighing options, working on plans and speculations.

Sometimes he would remind himself of things to keep his memory strong. He had never liked the feeling of suddenly realizing he had overlooked a detail or forgotten to keep track of an operation for a while. Whenever that happened, he would send somebody to invite the people involved to his house to report directly to him how things were going.

This afternoon he was thinking about the storage business outside Avon. Little Angela was now serving as the official owner for him, but of course, the business was his. There were many things an imaginative man could do with that business, more than just storing things that Daniel Crane’s crew of half-wit burglars stole from suburban homes. People—customers—drove through that gate, parked inside the high fence, and went into the office. They drove vans and trucks right up to their storage bays to load or unload. What better place could there be to handle the sale and distribution of merchandise of any kind? One storage bay, ten by fifteen feet, would probably hold all the heroin ever sold in Buffalo. A few bays would hold all the cocaine. He left that idea to mature in the recesses of his brain and settled back into his chair, seeing the orange-red glow of the sun through his eyelids.

A shadow fell on Mr. Malconi, like a cloud across the sun. He was still warm, but the shadow gave him a chill. He opened his eyes, and there was a person standing at the foot of his chair, back to the sun, so at first it was only a black silhouette.

He hadn’t heard the sliding door open, so he turned his head toward it. He could see Spato and Vacci through the glass. Spato was still sitting at the table, but his head was down on the tabletop, cradled in his arms, as though he were in a deep sleep. His coffee cup was on its side, and the coffee formed a pool on the kitchen table and dripped onto the floor. Vacci was lying on the floor at the other side of the room. “Spato!” Malconi shouted. “Spato! Get out here!”

“Don’t bother. He’s going to be asleep for a long time. So is the other one.” The voice was a woman’s. “There was GHB in their coffee. I knew it was good stuff because I got it from Daniel Crane’s supply.”

Malconi looked in her direction and started to sit up, but he could see now that she had a gun in her right hand. She held it downward with her arm straight, but all she had to do was lift it. “Who are you?” he said.

“That doesn’t matter. I brought you something.” She tossed a manila envelope on his lap.

He picked up the envelope and peered into the open end. There were a couple of sheets of paper printed with photographs from a computer, and he could feel some smaller stuff loose in there. He emptied it onto his lap.

There were four little plastic cards. Drivers’ licenses. He picked one up, and saw the blue print across the top—-Massachusetts—and the man’s photograph twice, one big and one small. A little green silhouette of the state. He looked at each license. Louis Pantola, an address in Boston. Gerald Migli, Michael Tissenti, also Boston. Anthony Bollino, Newton. The names and faces meant nothing to him, but he knew exactly who they were.