“Listen to this,” Don Carmine said suddenly. “Don Fiavorante wants to know how come our sports book is doing so well. Wait’ll I tell him, huh?”

  “You bet, boss,” said the Maggot, producing a notepad and pencil.

  Don Carmine scribbled a hasty note and said, “Fuggin’ fax that.”

  Obediently the Maggot walked over to a nearby fax machine and started to feed the sheet into the slot.

  “Wait a minute!” Don Carmine roared. “What the fug are you doin’?”

  The Maggot turned. “Like you said, boss.”

  “Like I said, my fuggin’ ass. That’s a business secret. You don’t fax it open like that. The wire could get crossed and someone might hear what’s written on it or something.”

  “Sorry, boss,” said the Maggot, withdrawing the sheet sheepishly.

  Don Carmine snatched it away. “You gotta watch yourself every step with this technology stuff. You guys have no conception how this works. No conception.”

  Don Carmine carefully folded the sheet into thirds and produced an envelope. He placed the folded note inside, sealing it with a tongue that belonged on a size-fourteen brogan, and handed it back to the waiting Maggot.

  “There. Now you can fax it.”

  While the Maggot was studiously feeding the envelope into the fax machine, Don Carmine Imbruglia picked up the evening Patriot Ledger and turned to the sports page.

  As Carmine’s eyes settled on the race results, they narrowed reflexively. Then they expanded like blackened kernels of surprised popcorn.

  “What the fug is this!” he howled.

  “What is it, boss?” wondered the Maggot.

  “Get Tony, that weasel. Haul his butt over to the Bartilucci yards. I’m gonna make him rue the fuggin’ day he ever met me.”

  “Gotcha, boss,” said the Maggot.

  · · ·

  Tony Tollini lived for the day when he had worked off his debt to Carmine Imbruglia.

  The trouble was, that day looked further and further distant.

  No matter how hard he worked, helping build LCN into a moneymaking operation, his own vig kept going up. At first it was because Don Carmine kept remembering new losses that had been logged on the stolen hard disk. Then it was for rent in the condo in which Don Carmine and his men had installed themselves.

  It was the Windbreak condominium complex, on Quincy Shore Drive, barely a stone’s throw from LCN headquarters. It had been deserted when they had all moved in. There were no other tenants. Tony had the impression that Don Carmine was not exactly paying rent to the owners, yet he insisted or adding a thousand dollars a week to Tony’s mounting debt. And food. Don Carmine had it sent over every week. More than Tony could eat, much of it spoiled or out of code. That was four hundred a week.

  “I’m never going to get out from under,” moaned Tony Tollini one day as he was walking along Wollaston Beach. “I’m never going to see Mamaroneck again.” Even the dimming memory of the IDC south wing made him nostalgic for his old life. He would cheerfully eat mashed-potato sandwiches from the comfort of his old desk if only he could somehow be transported back there, free of debt, free of LCN, and most of all, free of the knowledge that if he attempted to run for it, he would have not only Don Carmine after him but also his own Uncle Fiavorante.

  Hands in his pockets, Tony Tollini trudged back to his condo apartment.

  He got as far as the Dunkin Donut shop on the corner of Quincy Shore Drive and East Squantum Street when a long black Cadillac rolled up onto the sidewalk to cut him off.

  Doors were flung open. Tony’s hands came out of his pockets in surprise. Familiar chisel-like fingers grabbed his elbows and threw him into the waiting trunk. The lid slammed down and the car backed off the sidewalk, jouncing, to rejoin the hum of traffic moving toward the Neponset River Bridge and Boston.

  In the darkness of the trunk Tony Tollini could only moan two words over and over again: “What now?”

  · · ·

  The first thing that Tony Tollini saw when he was hauled out of the trunk was a rusty white sign affixed to a chain-link fence. It said “BARTILUCCI CONSTRUCTION COMPANY.”

  They walked him around to the back of a long shedlike building of rust-scabbed corrugated sheet steel.

  Don Carmine Imbruglia was waiting for him. He sat up in the cab of a piece of construction equipment that Tony had never seen before. It resembled a backhoe, except that instead of a plow, a kind of articulated steel limb ending in a blunt square chisel hung in front of the cab like a praying-mantis foreleg.

  “What did I do?” asked Tony, eyes widening into half-dollars.

  “Lay him out for me,” ordered Don Carmine harshly.

  They laid Tony Tollini on the cold concrete amid rusty discarded gears and other machinery parts, which bit into his back and spine. His face looked up into the dimming sky, which was the color of burnished cobalt. A single star peeped out like a cold accusing eye.

  Machinery whined and the articulated limb jerked and jiggled until the blunt hard chisel was poised over Tony Tollini’s sweating face like a single spider’s fang.

  Don Carmine’s raspy voice called over, “Hey, Tollini. You ever heard the expression ‘nibbled to death by fuggin’ baby ducks’?”

  Tony Tollini didn’t trust his voice. He nodded furiously.

  “This baby here’s a nibbler. They use ’em to bust up concrete. You know how hard concrete is?”

  Tony kept nodding.

  “You wanna bust up concrete,” Don Carmine went on, “you need brute force. This baby has it. Watch.”

  Machinery toiled and the nibbler’s blunt implement jerked leftward. It dropped, almost touching Tony’s left ear. The Maggot was holding down Tony’s head so he could not move.

  Then a stuttering noise like a super jackhammer filled Tony Tollini’s left ear. The hard ground under his head vibrated. The lone star in the cobalt sky above vibrated too.

  When the noise stopped, Tony’s left ear rang.

  Don Carmine Imbruglia’s voice penetrated the ringing like a sword slicing through a brass gong.

  “You been holding out on me, Tollini!”

  “No, honest. You have all my money. What more do you want?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ money. I’m talkin’ the hard-on disk.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one the Jap stole, what do you think? You told me you hired him right off the fuggin’ street. Never saw him before. Right?”

  “It’s the truth, I swear!”

  The nibbler jerked up. It moved right, like a mechanical claw in a grab-the-prize carnival concession.

  “I’m from Brooklyn, right?” Don Carmine was screaming. “I don’t know my fuggin’ ass from yesterday’s paper.”

  “You do! You do! I know you do!”

  The nibbler slashed to the right.

  Tony screamed and tried to avert his face.

  The hard nibbler point only brushed the tip of his nose, but it felt like the cartilage had been yanked off.

  The point dropped. It started hammering again, this time in Tony Tollini’s right ear. He was crying now, loud and without shame. He was asking for his mother.

  When the sound stopped and Tony could hear a resonant ringing in both eardrums Don Carmine was saying, “Tell me about the guy Remo. You hire him off the street too?”

  “It’s true!” Tony swore, blubbering. “On my mother. It’s true.”

  “Then how come he breaks my computer and three of my best guys end up dead? That’s a fuggin’ coincidence, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So how come the Jap is trying to con me into buyin’ my own hard-on disk back?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  The nibbler jumped up. It moved leftward again. Tony tracked it with his eyes. The concrete on either side of his head was shattered. The only place left for it to go was his head, which suddenly felt as fragile as an eggshell.

  When the point was poised over Tony’s mouth, he shut it. The nibbler’s engine started up. He could smell the diesel-exhaust stink.

  The nibbler point retreated a few inches until it was over Tony’s sternum.

  Then it dropped.

  The weight was like the Washington Monument on Tony Tollini’s fragile chest. He couldn’t breathe. But he could yell.

  “I didn’t do nothing! Ask Uncle Fiavorante. I didn’t do nothing. On my mother, Don Carmine.”

  “You watch what you say about your mother, weasel,” Don Carmine warned. “She is Don Fiavorante’s sister. I won’t have you defamin’ the sister of Don Fiavorante with your fuggin’ cogsugger lies.”

  “Please. Don’t kill me.”

  “Show him the ad, somebody,” ordered Don Carmine.

  A newspaper was thrust into Tony Tollini’s field of vision. He blinked the blurry tears from his beady frightened eyes and scanned the crumpled page.

  Smack in the middle of the racing results was a blackbordered notice. It read:

  LANSCII DISK FOUND

  WILL RETURN FOR PROPER REWARD

  CALL CHIUN 555-522-9452

  “Chiun was the name the Jap gave,” Don Carmine growled. He glared at Tony. “Your Jap.”

  “He’s not my Jap,” Tony moaned.

  “You sent him.”

  “I hired him off the street, Don Carmine. Please don’t nibble me to death like a baby duck.”

  “I own you, Tollini. If I wanna nibble you into the ground, I can. And you know why. Because I’m the fuggin’ Kingpin of Boston, that’s why. Now, tell me where the hard-on disk is.”

  “I don’t know. I swear to God!”

  “Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” said Don Carmine, jerking levers. The nibbler sank an eighth of an inch, but it made Tony Tollini’s tortured sternum creak like a loose shutter in the wind.

  “Had enough?”

  “I swear,” Tony sobbed.

  The nibbler dropped again.

  Now Tony could not breathe because his cracking ribs were compressing his lungs. His heart felt like it was about to burst.

  He clicked his heels together and thought: There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

  Abruptly the nibbler lifted. The pressure went away. When Tony opened his eyes, he could inhale again. He filled his lungs greedily.

  A shadow crossed his face. He looked up. Don Carmine’s brutish face was looking down at him. “Scared you, didn’t I?” he said.

  “Yes. Don’t shoot me.”

  “I ain’t gonna fuggin’ shoot you.” Don Carmine made motions with his paws. “Let him up, boys. Let him up.”

  Tony Tollini’s head, wrists, and ankles were released, and he was hauled to his feet.

  “What are you going to do to me?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  “Nothin’. You’re tellin’ the truth. You gotta be. A weasel like you ain’t man enough to be stand-up in the face of a nibbler.” He swept his hands around to indicate the rusting construction yard with its idle equipment and piles of metal. “How’d you like my latest acquisition?”

  “You bought a construction company?” asked Tony, prying a rusty gear off the back of his dirty Izod shirt.

  “Naw. I just stuck a gun in the owner’s face and he said it was mine. That’s what I love about this state. Nothin’s worth nothin’ no more. So people don’t put up a fuss when you take it away from them. I figure when things bounce back, I’ll be in the driver’s seat.”

  Tony found a hearty arm around his shoulders. He looked. It was Don Carmine’s arm.

  “I like you, Tony. Did I ever tell you I liked you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sharp. You got brains. You also got what we call intesticle fortitude.” He shook a lecturing finger in Tony’s miserable face. “This is a good thing to have.”

  They were walking toward the Cadillac now. Bruno the Chef opened the rear door. Carmine stepped in. Tony meekly walked around to the trunk and waited for the lid to be opened.

  “G’wan,” said Don Carmine. “Get in here. From now on, you ride up front with me.”

  Tony slid into the back seat. The others got in. The Cadillac pulled out of the construction yard.

  “Something’s up,” said Don Carmine as they hummed south along Route One. Tony saw sights he had never seen before. A miniature golf course guarded by a twenty-foot-tall orange plastic dinosaur, strip joints with fruit names like the Golden Banana, the Green Apple, and the Pink Peach. Chinese restaurants sprouted along the roadside like deformed mock-bamboo mushrooms.

  “What do you mean, boss?” asked the Chef.

  “Something about this doesn’t add up. Think about it.”

  Everyone thought. Even Tony Tollini, although thinking wasn’t in his job description.

  “Anything, any of yous?” asked Don Carmine.

  “Nope.”

  “Naw.”

  “I ain’t got a thing,” admitted the Maggot.

  “Hah. That’s why yous are all soldiers and I’m the kingpin. Listen up,” said Don Carmine, ticking off points on his left hand with a stubby forefinger. “Tony hires this Remo character off the street. He breaks the box and whacks out Frank, Luigi, and Guido. Bing bang boom. Just like that. Dead. All three of ’em.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What was the last thing I said before they dragged this Remo away?”

  Everyone thought. The Maggot ventured an opinion.

  “Scroom?”

  “No, not scroom. I said, ‘Get me a Jap.’ Right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You dummies. I say ‘Get me a Jap’ in front of this mook, Remo. He lams. I say ‘Get me a Jap’ to Tony here. And what happens?”

  “He sends up a Jap.”

  “Right.”

  “So?” Pink Eye pointed out in a reasonable voice. “You’re the Kingpin of Boston. Of course he sends up a Jap. Who wouldn’t?”

  “But follow my thinkin’. He wasn’t any old Jap. He’s a fuggin’ thief. He robs me blind. Now he wants to sell me back my hard-on disk. What does that tell you?”

  “Japs are crooks?”

  “No. This is something new. There’s someone on to us. You, Tony. This Remo. Why’d you send him?”

  “I thought he would work out.”

  “You were wrong,” Don Carmine snapped. “Why else?”

  “Because he wrote that he would be the answer to my problems on his resumé.”

  “Ba boom,” crowed Don Carmine Imbruglia. “There it is. This guy’s a plant. They were both plants. You were conned, Tony my friend.”

  “I didn’t mean to be.”

  “It’s okay. You’re new at this. Someone’s trying to muscle in on our operation. Okay, it happens. Now we know. They don’t know that we know, but we know. That gives us the edge.”

  “So what are we gonna do, boss?”

  “So far we’re okay. They may be cops. We don’t know. They may be feds. We don’t know that. They may be the fuggin’ KGB. We don’t know that either. They don’t know where we are on account of I shot that Fedex guy accidentally on purpose and we hadda relocate.”

  “It was a good thing we did, huh, boss?” said Bruno. “Otherwise they could find us anytime they want to.”

  “Damn right. It was a fate accompli. It was destiny. So now we’re gonna buy back our hard-on disk and then we’re gonna grab this Jap thief and whoever’s with him. We’re gonna grab him and we’re gonna sweat him. Then we know. Once we know, we kill everybody.” Don Carmine made a broad dismissive gesture. “End of fuggin’ problem.”

  “You don’t think it’s that Japanese Mafia, do you?” Pink Eye wondered.

  “How many times I gotta tell you? There’s no Mafia. We don’t use that word in my outfit.”

  “Not even a Japanese Mafia?”

  “Okay, there’s a Japanese Mafia. Everybody knows that. But no Italians. The Japs just purloined the word from us. Sure, this could be them.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “What do they call themselves? It’s some Jap name. Kazoo or something.”

  “Yeah, Kazoo,” said the Maggot, nodding. “I heard of the Kazoo. They cut their own fingers off when they screw up.”

  “And that’s what we’re gonna do to them when I get my hands on them,” said Don Carmine Imbruglia fiercely. “I ain’t afraid of no Kazoo. We’re gonna give these robbers a call right after we eat.”

  “Oh, shit, boss,” said the Chef.

  “What?”

  “I think I forgot to turn off the stove.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  One of the many phones arrayed around the office of Dr. Harold W. Smith began ringing at precisely 7:43 p.m.

  Smith looked up from his computer. Remo looked around the room.

  “Which one is it?” Remo wondered, trying to isolate the ringing.

  It was the Master of Sinanju whose sharp ears picked out the correct telephone. He pointed. “That one.” His smile was tight but pleased as Remo and Smith simultaneously lunged for the correct telephone.

  Smith happened to be closer. He snatched up the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  He listened intently as Remo hovered at his elbow.

  “Yes, I have your item. The price for its return is seventy-five thousand dollars. Take it or leave it.”

  Remo edged closer as Smith placed a hand over his free ear. “I am pleased we agree on its worth,” he said brittlely. “Now, where do you wish to make the exchange?”

  Smith frowned as he leaned into the earpiece.

  “Yes. That is no problem. Midnight it shall be.”

  Smith hung up. “They want to take delivery at the Bartilucci Construction Company in Saugus, Massachusetts,” he explained as he looked at a small black box attached to the base of the telephone. Every phone in the room was equipped with a similar box.

  When he returned to his computer and input the telephone number the box had captured, Harold Smith pressed the Send key. He waited.

  While the system hummed busily, Remo said, “That’s it? All these freaking phones for a two-minute conversation?”

  “Not exactly. I placed identical ads in every Massachusetts newspaper. A different phone number in each ad, a different phone for each number. It was a long shot. The Mafia prefers to conduct their phone business via pay-phone booths. But it should give us a geographical locale.”