"I think he's s.e.xy," said Beth Marie, as Braddigan rode the television into their bedroom with manicured face, hair, smile, and voice. Johnny Deuce fingered the rising edge of the plastic call b.u.t.tons on the panel. He hoped Johnny Carson wouldn't unload another rerun or have that squeaky-voiced writer as moderator. Johnny Deuce did not like to fall asleep without the sounds of friendly voices.

"Terrible," said Beth Marie.

"Huh?" said Johnny Deuce.

"Three men were mauled to death in some vegetable laboratory. Out in the desert."

"Too bad," said Deussio. He was thinking about business. His secretary had nice legs. She had nice b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a nice duff. She had a sweet face. She wanted Deussio to get a divorce. Even though she worked in only the legitimate fronts of Deussio enterprises, she knew too much already. She had threatened that either she got Deussio in marriage or she would leave. This was not a major business decision. It was a simple one. If she left, her next residence would be the bottom of the Missouri with concrete panty hose over that lovely duff. Such was life. Deussio was startled to feel Beth Marie touch him. In bed no less.

"They found one guy in this press room with a typewriter mashed into his chest," she said.

"Awful," said Deussio. Willie "Pans" Panzini was another matter. He was spending too much money on 80.what Deussio was paying him. This meant that Willie Pans was either stealing from Deussio, which was bad and could be corrected by a firm lecture or some moderate grief, or he was collecting money on his own from other sources, which would be nonnegotiably terminal. Sally would have to find out which. Perhaps stick a blowtorch in Willie Pans's face. Blowtorches brought the truth out of people.

"Another man had his back broken. A whole piece of his spine went right through his stomach. That's what the coroner out there said," Beth Marie said.

"Awful," said Deussio.

"I think we knew him. We knew the man. We saw him last year when we went to the coast. That lovely public relations person."

"What?" said Deussio sitting up in bed.

"All those killings. Your friend James Jordan was killed today at some vegetable experiment."

"Wondergrain?"

"That's right."

"Jeeez," said Deussio, grabbing Beth Marie's shoulders and demanding she repeat everything Gil Braddigan had said about the desert killings. This was much like getting a stock market report told to a social worker and filtered through a r.e.t.a.r.d. All he got was intimations of something horrible happening to their friend Jordan whose wife had set such a nice spread in their Carmel home. As Deussio listened and questioned he began to wonder.

"Thanks," he said, leaving the bed and ringing for Sally.

"John," said Beth Marie.

"What?"

"You want to?"

81."Want to what?"

"You know what," said Beth Marie. "That."

"That's some way for a wife of eighteen years to talk," said Deussio and met Sally running up the hallway with a drawn snub-nosed .38.

He slapped Sally in the face.

"Dummy," said Johnny Deuce.

"What I do? What I do?"

And for that Johnny Deuce hit harder. The smack echoed down the hallway.

"Will you shut up out there, I'm trying to watch TV," came Beth Marie's voice.

"Why didn't you tell me about Giordano, out-on-thecoast Giordano?"

"What Giordano?"

"Giordano who was killed today. Dreaming, huh? I was dreaming that last time, huh? Dreaming. Those guys was frigging crushed to death."

"I didn't hear nothing."

"Don't we get word no more? What is this? I could be killed in my sleep. Dreaming, huh? I ain't sleeping in this house. We're going to the mattresses," said Deussio, meaning his crime family was preparing for war.

"Against who?" said Sally.

"Against what, you mean," said Johnny Deuce. "Against what."

"Yeah. What?"

"We don't know what, dummy," said Johnny Deuce and he slapped Sally hard in the face and when Beth Marie complained again about the noise in the hall, he told her to go finger herself. Sally did not protest the slapping a.s.saults against his pride. The closer one got to John Deussio, the less one became affronted by his famous temper and the more one appreciated an artist.

82.Deussiq had raised the level of mob war in the midwest to exquisite craftsmanship. Neat surgical strikes that took out precise portions of organizations and left profits undisturbed.

A group of bookmakers on Front Street in Marietta, Ohio, who thought profits did not have to be shared totally with St. Louis connections, learned one night the folly of independence. Each one found himself in a warehouse, tied but not gagged. In this way, he was able to hear the shock sounds of friends he knew. In the center of the warehouse was a man stripped nude. When a spotlight flashed on his face, they saw it had been the man who had promised them protection from St. Louis for a far smaller cut than they had been paying St. Louis. The man was swinging from a rope. The searchlight lowered and they saw a reddish wet cavity where his stomach had been. They heard their own groans and sobs and then the lights went off and they were all in darkness.

One by one, each felt a cold edge of a knife press against his solar plexus, felt his shirt b.u.t.tons be unb.u.t.toned, and waited. And nothing happened. They were escorted out of the warehouses, untied, and taken, shaking, to a hotel suite where food was laid out in abundance. No one was hungry. A fat man with stains on his shirt and great difficulty in speaking English introducted himself as Guglielmo Balunta; he worked for people in St. Louis who provided these gentlemen services and he wished, what was the word for it, to toast their health and prosperity. Excuse his poor English.

He was worried, he said, because animals were about. They did awful things. They were not businessmen like him. and his guests. All they knew was kill.

83.Cut stomachs and things. This did not help business, did it? Everyone in the room a.s.sured Balunta it sure as h.e.l.l didn't. No.

But Balunta had a problem. If he couldn't return to St. Louis and a.s.sure his people that they would get their cut, they would not listen to him. These animals always have their ears for violence. He needed to bring something home, he said, some pledge of good faith, that business would continue as usual. Maybe a little better than usual.

Men who just minutes before could not control bowel or bladder a.s.sured their host he spoke very good English even if all the words were not in English. The increased cut, well, yes, it seemed reasonable. Fear made many previously unacceptable things reasonable.

The success of this was only a small part of Johnny Deuce's genius. For not only had he arranged it that not one bookmaker was hurt and thus no profits were lost for the day but he saw great possibilities and he shared his reasoning with Guglielmo Balunta. They spoke in a Sicilian dialect, although Johnny's was not good, having only learned it from his parents.

There were times, said Johnny Deuce, that offered incredible opportunities, just because no one else had thought of them. Balunta waved his hands, indicating he did not understand. Johnny, driving their car back to St. Louis-he had asked to take Balunta alone personally-had difficulty talking with both hands on the wheel, but he continued.

Balunta was in for a very nice cut of the increase from the gambling in Marietta. Not much. But enough of a causa bono for contentment.

Balunta a.s.sured Johnny Deuce that he too would be rewarded for his brilliant work. Johnny Deuce said 84.this was not the point. Who was the one man in the organization most trusted now by the top man in St. Louis? It was Balunta, of course. He had just done a good job.

But some day, Johnny reasoned, Balunta would be offended by what was given him. Some day he would be cut out of something that belonged to him. Some day he would have grievance against his boss.

Balunta said this would never happen. He was close with the don. And he held up two stubby fingers. Especially now that he had brought this small southern Ohio town into line so neatly. Especially now.

"No," said Johnny Deuce. "I am young and you are old but I know as surely as the sun rises that disagreements occur in business." And he named incidents and he named names and even pointed out that Balunta had gotten his own position because his predecessor had had to be eliminated.

This was true, admitted Balunta. And it was here that Deussio's strategic brilliance began to show. When you have this disagreement or trouble, or even when they are on the horizon, how hard will it be to get to the top people? And when he said "get to" he took one hand off the wheel and pointed it as if it were a gun.

Very hard, agreed Balunta. He conceded that they might even get to him first. In fact, probably. Which was what kept most people in line.

"Now tell me," said Deussio, "what does the horizon look like now. You said it yourself. Clear."

"You're the guy coming home with the bacon," he said, lapsing into English. "You're the guy who's due a bigger cut. You're the f.u.c.king hero."

"So what you saying, Johnny Deuce?" asked Balunta.

"We hit the top now."

85."Mi Dio," said Balunta. "This is a big thing. Too big."

"It's either you hit them now while you got the advantage or they get you when they have it. I admit, it's a hard choice. But you do the hard thing today when it's easy or you take the hard thing in the face tomorrow. When it's tough. Frigging tough. You know I'm right."

Balunta was quiet as the car went through the countryside. And Johnny Deuce further showed his genius, a genius that would give most of the midwest mob quiet for more than a decade.

He began by telling Balunta he knew what Balunta was thinking. If this young man is willing to have me go against my boss now, wouldn't he, at the moment of success, do the same thing to me?

Balunta said he was thinking no such thing.

"But I would be foolish," continued Johnny Deuce. "If I go against you, then my number two would see this and go against me. Now if I do not go against you, my number two will worry what you will do if he succeeds with me. I am the only one who can stop what I have started and I have a vested interest in doing so. You are going to give me a very big piece of the action from the outset. A very big piece. Together we have no worries. We will work things out for both our safeties."

But everyone, Balunta pointed out, wants it all.

"Everyone who doesn't know that all of it is a oneway ticket to the marble orchard," said Johnny Deuce. "You'll see. It'll work if we share. If we share, we're strong."

"Mi Dio," said Balunta and Deussio knew that this was a "yes." For ten days, bodies turned up downstream in the Missouri, shotguns bloomed from the front win- 86.dows of cars, brains were blown into dinner linguine. Deussio struck so fast and so quickly it was only when the St. Louis wars, as they were later called, were over that those who mattered knew where the killing had come from. And by that tune, it was Don Guglielmo Balunta.

Johnny Deuce's talents and his proven loyalty created a new order from St. Louis to Omaha. Such was Don Guglielmo's trust in his young genius that when others would come to him with stories of the crazy things that Johnny Deuce did, Don Guglielmo would say: "My Johnny does crazy things today that come out smart tomorrow." When he hired the electronics experts, people hinted he was crazy. When he hired the funny Orientals, people whispered he was crazy. When he hired computer programmers, people said he was crazy. And each time, Don Guglielmo Balunta would answer that his Johnny would be proven smart tomorrow. Even when the word got around about his strange dream and how he had young athletes try to climb up to an impossible-to-reach window in his home, even then Don Guglielmo told everyone his Johnny would be proven smart tomorrow.

But when Johnny started ordering everyone to go to the mattresses when there was no enemy in sight, Don Guglielmo was instantly worried. He did not even have to send for Johnny Deuce. Johnny came himself, with no bodyguard and a very fat briefcase.

Johnny was paunchier now than in those early years when first the two had a.s.sumed control. His hair surrendered to shiny scalp along a thinning line of resistance. His face had lost the hard lines to a smothering layer of flesh but the dark eyes still shone with sharp fury.

87.Don Guglielmo, in a ruby smoking jacket, lounged on the edge of a plush green couch set on what appeared to be acres of marble flooring. Johnny Deuce sat on the edge of his chair, his feet planted forward, his knees together, refusing a gla.s.s of Strega, a piece of fruit, talk of weather and family. He told his don he was worried.

Over the years Don Guglielmo would listen very carefully but this time his hands raised and he said he would hear none of it.

"This time," said Balunta, "you listen to me. I am more worried than you. You listen. I talk. You go to the Miami Beach. You get the sun. You get the rest. You get yourself a girl with those nice t.i.tties that go up. You have wine. You eat the good food. You get sun. Then we talk."

"Patron, we face the most deadly enemy. Deadliest ever."

"Where?" said Balunta, his hands rising to the heavens. "Show me this enemy. Where is he?"

"He is on the horizon. I've done a lot of thinking. There's something going on in this country that eventually means the end of us all. All of us. The organization. Everything. Not just here but all over. It's not just that bad night I had. That was just the tip of an iceberg that's going to destroy us all."

Don Guglilmo leaped from the sofa and grabbed Johnny Deuce's head in his hands. Palms to ears, he raised Deussio's head so their eyes must meet.

"You get the rest. You get the rest now. No more talk. You listen to your don. You get the rest. No more talk. After you rest, we talk. Okay? Okay?"

"As you say," said Johnny Deuce.

88."Atsa good. I worry for you," said Balunta.

And Johnny Deuce told his don he could use a drink but not the bought stuff. Good red wine made especially for the don. And wine was brought in in a large green gallon jug and placed on the slate-gray table top. Deussio placed a hand over his gla.s.s and did not raise it.

"You won't take the drink with your don?"

Johnny Deuce removed his hand from the cut crystal gla.s.s.

"The worries are in your head. You think your don would poison his right arm?" said Balunta. "Would I poison my heart? My brains? You are the legs of my throne. Never. Never." And to show his good faith, Balunta took the gla.s.s sitting before his Johnny and drank it all. Then he threw the gla.s.s toward the wall but it fell short, cracking on the marble floor.

"I knew you wouldn't poison me, Don Guglielmo," said Deussio.

"Then why you no drink the wine with your don?"

Guglielmo Balunta wanted to express himself with his hands. Wanted to throw them out wide to express his confusion. But they did not move very well. They felt icy and they stung gently as if immersed in fresh Vichy water. He felt giddy and light. When he stepped back to the couch the legs did not step with him. So he went back anyway and almost reached the couch. The fall seemed far away, not hurting as a collapse on marble usually did but rather a gentle laying down so that he was looking up at his beautiful ceiling. His Johnny was saying something. He kept talking about inevitabilities and rolled from his briefcase that funny long paper with the holes in it. Guglielmo Balunta did not care. He thought of a very white little rock he once had near 89.Messina where he was born. He had thrown it down into the narrow straits that separated Sicily from Italy and told his friends: "I will live until the sea gives up that rock." He thought about his youth and then saw a vision of the straits of Messina. Something white was coming up through the waves. A speck. No. His rock.

Johnny Deuce did not know for sure if Don Guglielmo could hear him. Sally and the other men were already coming through the outside gate of the Balunta estate. Balunta's household men would be sent to a small regime in Detroit. They would not fight if the don were dead because there was no one left to fight for. However, if Johnny were alone and standing over the corpse, they might take out their rage of their own failure on him. So it would be quick. And in case his don could still hear him, he wanted him to know why he had to kill him.

"This sheet is the figuring of several years. Things are happening in this country that have no reason to happen. I saw it several years ago when Scubisci had. his troubles in the east. We called this 'no reason' the X-factor. And we said this "no reason" is a reason. So all of a sudden a tight city becomes untight and politicians and police are going to jail all of a sudden with prosecutors having evidence they shouldn't have. Judges we've owned for years suddenly terrorized by some other force. That force is the X-factor, and if you look at it, you'll realize we're through. In ten or fifteen years, we're not going to be able to do business."

Sally was past the front doors with his own men and their weapons came out. There was murmuring in the hallway outside the vast marble-flooring living room and Johnny Deuce called everyone inside.

90."Heart attack," he said, keeping the computer printouts concealed against his side, even though he knew the bodyguards would no more understand them than Balunta did.

"Yeah. Heart attack," said one of the house bodyguards and Johnny Deuce nodded for Sally to take them out of the room. On the way out, one of the guards whispered to Sally: "What is he, talking to a stiff?" And Sally cuffed him in the back of the head and the bodyguard understood that.

Deussio continued in the empty room. He told his dead don that the X-factor was a force that was making government work, not for those who tried to buy it but for those who voted for it. And this X-factor was growing stronger. Therefore every day an attack was delayed, the chances of overcoming X-factor grew smaller. By the time someone with Balunta's mentality had been ready to move, it would be too late.

The enforcer unit of this X-factor had brushed through St. Louis a few days before, just an edge of the iceberg. It was after something else at the time.

"We have one small advantage and I'm going to use it," said Deussio. "The X-factor does not know we understand it. See here. Look."

And he unfolded the long computer printout listing probabilities. Even if Don Guglielmo had been breathing, he would have understood it no better. Which was why he had to die. The strategist, John Vincent Deussio, knew he had to move now, even if others didn't. Which made him what he was. Which made him very dangerous. Unlike the others, he knew he was in a war for survival. So he felt very free to kill anyone who would not aid the cause.

91.He drank the unpoisoned wine Balunta had poured for himself, the wine into which Johnny had not dropped the poison pellet, and sat back on the sofa to prepare his attack.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The first Remo saw the rough sketch of himself was at the Ohio demonstration. The surrounding fields were green with corn and Fielding had explained that he also had to show the process worked hi good, moderateclimate soil as well as bad. The field was raised on a little hill surrounded by a chain-link fence.