"What I think we should do," Mr. Savarese said, "un less this interferes with your plans, Paulo . . ."

"My time is your time, Mr. S., you know that."

". . . is send Pietro to the garage, where he will clean this flat-tire truck up as well as he can, and if necessary, as he suggested, put a clean blanket over the dirty seats, and then bring it here. By then it will be dark."

"Good thinking, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

"And in the meantime, you and I will discuss what you're going to talk to this man about."

"Right, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

Paulo Ca.s.sandro's prediction that it would be a tight squeeze in the front of the Ford pickup truck proved to be true, and the blankets-he had sent one of the Cla.s.sic Livery mechanics to a dry goods store to get two nice ones-proved to be hot and slippery when installed over the greasy upholstery, and Paulo knew Mr. S. was uncomfortable.

But Mr. S. hadn't said anything. Paulo interpreted this to be another manifestation of Mr. S.'s being fair. Mr. S. knew that he was the one who had ordered the pickup, so it wouldn't be right to b.i.t.c.h about what happened when he got what he asked for.

At five minutes to eight, the pickup stopped outside a ten-foot-high hurricane fence in a field south of the Philadelphia International Airport. There were metal signs reading, U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. TRESPa.s.sING FORBIDDEN UNDER PENALTY OF LAW attached at twenty-five-foot intervals to the fence.

As they had driven up to the fence, Mr. Savarese had seen where there once had been provision for floodlights to illuminate the entire perimeter of the fenced-in area. They were no longer in use. Neither was what had been contained inside the fence: a battery (four launcher emplacements) of U.S. Army antiaircraft weaponry.

During a particularly tense period of the Cold War, the installation had been one of many such batteries surrounding Philadelphia and from which, should the Russian bombers have come, NIKE rockets would have been launched to blow them out of the sky.

Roughly in the center of the four launcher emplacements (their launching mechanisms long since removed) was a windowless concrete building. Its thick concrete walls had been designed to resist anything short of a direct hit from a low-yield nuclear weapon. When the site had been active, the building had held, in four interior rooms, an additional dozen NIKE rockets, as well as some maintenance supplies and equipment.

The dozen NIKEs were to be used to reload the four launchers, a process that would take-presuming the launchers and their crews were still intact after the first Russian a.s.sault-about twenty minutes. The possibility had occurred to the planners that the shock waves generated by the first bombs dropped would almost certainly put any elevator system bringing the spare NIKEs from underground storage out of whack, even if there was, immediately post-strike, any electricity to power the elevator.

So the spare NIKEs were stored at ground level, behind thick concrete walls and heavy steel doors, in rooms from which they could be manhandled to the launchers.

Paulo Ca.s.sandro was impressed-but not surprised-when Mr. Savarese had told him about the NIKE sites, and how he thought they might come in useful at some time for some purpose. Mr. S. had said he thought they would be around for some years, deserted but in reasonably intact condition.

Wherever possible, Mr. S. had told him, they had been built on land that was cheap, which meant that no one could see much that could be done with it, and for which there was still not much demand. Now that use of the areas would require the demolition-very expensive demolition-of thick, steel-reinforced concrete before anything else could be erected on it, the land was even less desirable.

But what he had found really interesting about the NIKE sites, Mr. S. had told him, was that they were federal property, much like Fort Dix over in New Jersey. Local police did not have authority on federal property. Which meant not only that the Philadelphia police would not be patrolling the NIKE sites, but also that the federal authorities, with nothing to protect but empty, and practically indestructible, buildings, would not be giving them very much attention, either.

Mr. Savarese had told Paulo to put an eye on several of the NIKE sites and determine which of them could be put to use while attracting the least attention. And after that, to keep keep an eye on it, in case anything should change. an eye on it, in case anything should change.

After making a careful survey of the abandoned NIKE sites, Ca.s.sandro had come up with two that seemed to meet about equally the criteria Mr. Savarese had set up. They were in reasonably remote areas, and not readily visible from the streets and highways. He had gone to Mr. Savarese and suggested that while it would obviously take twice as much manpower to keep an eye on both sites, he recommended this course of action, as it would give them two convenient places. Mr. Savarese had agreed to this, with the caveat that he did not wish to use the sites routinely, but rather as sort of emergency support, and therefore he wished to be consulted before either of the sites was used at all.

Mr. Savarese had given permission to use the sites only twice. The first time was to store a hijacked tractor-trailer load of whiskey for five days until the heat was off. In this case, the driver of the truck had been a f.u.c.king fool who had gotten brave, and when struck in the head with a crowbar suffered more severe cranial injuries than was planned, which in turn caused more police attention than was antic.i.p.ated.

The second site, near Chester, had been used once for a similar purpose, this time a tractor-trailer load of sides of beef. The police seemed to be paying an unusual amount of attention to the cold-storage locker where such a cargo would normally be taken, so Mr. Savarese authorized the use of the NIKE site until distribution of the meat could be arranged. Even the sound of the diesel engine powering the refrigeration system of the insulated trailer attracted no attention in the three days and nights the trailer was at the NIKE site. But, of course, one had to consider that looking for that tractor trailer was not a high police priority.

Pietro Ca.s.sandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear (most distant from the road) gate in the hurricane fence and stopped. Paulo Ca.s.sandro got out and swung the creaking gate open and flat against the fence itself, reasoning that it would be better to have the gate open, in case a rapid departure became necessary, even if the open gate-improbably, in the dark-attracted attention.

He then walked to the building, taking from his pocket as he walked a full-face ski mask and pulling it over his head.

Pietro Ca.s.sandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear of the building, turned it around so that it was headed toward the open gate, and then got out.

"This won't take long, Mr. S.," he said.

Mr. Savarese nodded, and arranged himself more comfortably on the seat.

Pietro pulled a similar full-face ski mask over his head, then took two battery-powered floodlights from the tool bin in the bed of the truck. Then he joined his brother at the steel door to the building.

They opened the door, stepped inside, closed the door, turned on the floodlights, and walked down the corridor to the room in which, twenty-four hours before, they had left Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham to his thoughts in the dark.

The door was closed with two locking levers much like those used to secure hatches on vessels.

Pietro Ca.s.sandro opened both quickly and pushed the door inward. Paulo Ca.s.sandro, his floodlight in his left hand and a crowbar in the other, went quickly into the room.

His floodlight quickly found Ketcham, who was cowering in a far corner of the room, the too-small overcoat not quite concealing his nakedness under it. Ketcham shielded his eyes against the painful glow of light.

"On your feet, c.o.c.ksucker!" Paulo ordered.

Ketcham pushed himself erect by sliding up the wall behind him.

"Can we talk?" Ketcham asked.

"Oh, we'll talk," Paulo said.

"Jesus Christ," Pietro said in disgust, "it smells like s.h.i.t in here. We can't bring-"

"Shut your f.u.c.king mouth," his brother admonished him, and then addressed Ketcham. "Take the coat off and put it over your head, a.s.shole!"

"I really think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."

"The next time you open your mouth without being told to, you're going to eat the f.u.c.king crowbar!"

Ketcham removed the overcoat and placed it over his head as directed.

Paulo indicated the two-inch-wide white surgical-or perhaps "mortician's and embalmer's"-white gauze Ketcham had removed and which was now lying on the concrete floor, and indicated to his brother that it should be reused to make sure the overcoat over Ketcham's head did not become dislodged.

Pietro did as his brother ordered.

"Just stand there, motherf.u.c.ker," Paulo ordered.

He then left the room, walked down the corridor, and opened the door to another of the NIKE storage rooms. He flashed his floodlight around it, saw nothing that bothered him, and then returned to the room where Ketcham stood naked with an overcoat over his head.

He went to Ketcham, put his hand on his arm, indicated with his finger that his brother take the other arm, then started to lead Ketcham out of the room.

"You said we could talk," Ketcham said plaintively.

"I also told you to shut your f.u.c.king mouth," Paulo replied.

They led Ketcham into the center of the other room and turned him around. Ketcham's situation was almost identical to what it had been in the first room, except in this room there was no odor of feces and urine.

Paulo wordlessly indicated to his brother that he was going after Mr. Savarese, handed his crowbar to his brother, and left the room.

He returned in two minutes, politely ushering Mr. Savarese into the room ahead of him. Mr. Savarese stood perhaps six feet from Ketcham, his delicate, fragile-looking hands folded together in front of him. He nodded his permission to Paulo to commence the conversation.

Paulo reclaimed his crowbar from his brother and walked across to Ketcham. He extended the crowbar to Ketcham's groin, gently touching both his p.e.n.i.s and his s.c.r.o.t.u.m with it.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" Ketcham said.

"Okay. Now we'll talk," Paulo said. "Tell me about drugs."

"What drugs?" Ketcham responded, sounding genuinely confused.

Ca.s.sandro's crowbar touched Ketcham's s.c.r.o.t.u.m and p.e.n.i.s again, somewhat less gently.

"Tell me what you want to know, and I'll tell you," Ketcham said, sounding desperately determined to be agreeable.

"You know f.u.c.king well what I want to know," Paulo said. "I want to hear it from you."

There was a long pause.

"I swear to G.o.d," Ketcham finally said, "that I had nothing to do with the cops being there."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Ca.s.sandro replied.

"I swear to G.o.d," Ketcham repeated. "They must have followed, been following, Williams."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Paulo repeated.

Mr. Savarese held up his hand to signal the conversation should be interrupted. Paulo went to Mr. Savarese, who, very softly, asked, "Williams?"

"I think a dinge drug dealer. I'll make sure," Paulo whispered in Mr. Savarese's ear.

"I had no reason to go to the cops," Ketcham said.

"But you would turn in a drug dealer like Amos Williams to save your miserable a.s.s, wouldn't you?" Paulo asked reasonably.

"I didn't turn him in. I swear to G.o.d, I didn't. We had a long-standing business relationship."

"So you tell me what happened, then."

"I don't know. All of a sudden, there's cops all over the motel."

"Why do you think that was?"

"I swear to G.o.d, I don't know. Except they must have been following Williams."

"What was the name of this motel?"

"You don't know?" Ketcham blurted.

Paulo picked up Ketcham's s.c.r.o.t.u.m with his crowbar.

"I ask, you talk," he said.

"The Howard Johnson on Roosevelt Boulevard," Ketcham said quickly.

"Maybe your girlfriend turned you both in, is that what you're saying?"

"No. Christ no! She didn't even know what was going on."

"She was there with you, wasn't she?"

"She didn't even go in the motel. She waited outside in the car."

"You expect me to believe your lady didn't even know what the f.u.c.k you were doing?"

"She didn't," Ketcham said firmly.

"Right. Like she don't use s.h.i.t herself, right?"

"She doesn't. I mean, every once in a while, a couple of lines, but she's not addicted."

"Bulls.h.i.t!"

"She doesn't. She's a nice girl, from a good family."

"Who does a couple of lines every once in a while, right, and goes with you to meet with this drug dealer? Bulls.h.i.t."

"It's the truth, so help me G.o.d!"

"Maybe we're talking about two different people," Paulo said. "What's this lady's name?"

"Cynthia Longwood," Ketcham said.

Paulo turned to look at Mr. Savarese, who was sadly shaking his head from side to side.

"If she was waiting outside in the car, and didn't set you and the dealer up with the cops, then what's she so upset about?"

"Why do you think?" Ketcham blurted.

This earned him a short but painful jab in the s.c.r.o.t.u.m, which caused him first to double over in agony, then fall backward into a sitting position on the floor. Paulo then kicked Ketcham in the head.

"Answer the f.u.c.king question, motherf.u.c.ker!"

"What the h.e.l.l was I supposed to do?" Ketcham said.

"The cop had just ripped me off of twenty thousand dollars, and I was handcuffed to the toilet. You think I liked what the cop did to her?"

"What cop? Did he have a name?"