"Since he was not hired, his name is of no concern."

"It is to me," said Kurtz, and there was an undertone to his voice. "I want to know all the players." He touched the.38 in his belt.

Farino smiled, as if the idea of Kurtz's shooting him and getting away alive were amusing. Then the smile faded as the don considered the fact that Kurtz might do the former without worrying about the latter. "No one knows this man's name," he said.

Kurtz waited.

"He's known as the Dane," Farino said after another long silence.

"Holy shit," breathed Kurtz.

"You've heard of him?" Farino's smile was back.

"Who hasn't? The Kennedy mob connections in the seventies. Jimmy Hoffa. There are rumors that the Dane was behind that lovely underpass hit in Paris, where he used just the little car, no weapon."

"There are always rumors," agreed Farino. "Aren't you going to ask for a description of the Dane?"

It was Kurtz's turn to smile. "From what I hear, it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. This guy is supposed to be better at disguises than the Jackal at the height of his powers. The only good news is that if Sophia had hired him, I'd know it because I'd be dead already."

"Yes," said Farino. "So what is our next step, Mr. Kurtz?"

"Well, tonight's your truck delivery from the Vancouver source. If it's hit, we'll go from there. I'll make myself obvious in investigating it. If Kibunte is involved—whoever's involved—it makes sense for them to come after me next."

"Good luck, Mr. Kurtz."

Kurtz opened the door and the bodyguard held it for him. "Why wish me that?" Kurtz said to Farino. "Whether I have luck or not, you get the information you need. And if I'm dead, you keep the fifty thousand we agreed to."

"Quite true," said the don. "But I may have a future use for you, and the fifty thousand is a small amount to pay for peace of mind."

"I wouldn't know," said Kurtz and stepped out into the alley.

Old mob guys who never quite became made men don't die, they just end up as truck drivers for the mob. Charlie Scruggs and Oliver Battaglia had both been low-level button men back during the Genovese era, but now, in their golden retirement years, were driving this goddamn truck all the way from Vancouver to Buffalo. Charlie was sixty-nine years old and stout and leathery, with a face full of burst blood vessels; he still wore his Teamsters cap everywhere and proudly told everyone of the week he spent as personal driver and bodyguard to Jimmy Hoffa. He had the constitution of a healthy pit bull. Oliver was tall, thin, saturnine, a chain-smoker, only sixty-two but sick much of the time, and—Charlie Scruggs now knew after eight of these damned Vancouver-Buffalo runs—an absolute pain in the ass.

The truck was no eighteen-wheeler, just a basic six-ton carryall: what Charlie had called a deuce-and-a-half back in Korea. Because it was a smaller truck, it could go on backroads and even on streets without much notice. Charlie did all the driving; Oliver rode shotgun—literally, since there was a sawed-off shotgun in the concealed compartment at the top rear of the cab—but Oliver was so slow that Charlie put his faith in the Colt.45 semiautomatic that he kept in a quick-draw holster under his seat.

In eighteen years of driving trucks for the Organization, neither Charlie nor Oliver had ever had to draw his weapons. That was the benefit of working for the Organization.

The drawback was that they had to take the goddamned long way to Buffalo. Not only driving two-thirds the way across Canada—a country Charlie hated with a passion—but not even taking the direct route down through Michigan, back into Canada at Detroit, and up along the north side of Lake Erie. The problem was Customs. More specifically, the problem was that the Canadian and American Customs guys on the arm for the Farino family worked only the night shift at the same time a certain Thursday of the month at the same place: the Queenston Toll Bridge at Lewiston, about six miles north of the Falls. They were getting close. After more than seventy-two hours on the road, Charlie was creeping the truck north out of the Canadian city of Niagara Falls, on the scenic road that ran along the river and gorge. Of course, it wasn't very scenic now—a little after 2:00 a.m. — and neither Charlie nor Oliver would have given a shit about the view in the daylight, but Charlie had orders to stay off the QEW that ran along the shore of Lake Ontario—too many eager Mounties—so he'd had to take Highway 20 down from Hamilton and then head north again from the Falls.

The truck was filled with stolen VCRs and DVD players. Even crammed full, the deuce-and-a-half couldn't hold all that many machines, so Charlie wondered where the profit was. He knew, of course, that the decks were being dumped after being used to copy pirate tapes and discs, but it was still a mystery why the Organization thought it was worth their while to ship a few score of the units all the way from Vancouver to a has-been family in Buffalo.

Ah, well, thought Charlie, ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do and die.

A few miles below the big park at Canada's Queenston Heights, Charlie pulled the truck into an empty rest area. He shook Oliver awake. "Watch the truck. I gotta go take a piss."

Oliver grunted but rubbed his eyes. Charlie shook his head, went into the empty visitors' center perched right on the edge of the Niagara Gorge just north of the whirlpool, and took his piss. When he came out and crawled back up into the cab, Oliver was sleeping again with his bony chin on his bony chest.

"Goddamn you," said Charlie and shook the shotgun man.

Oliver went face forward into the metal dash. Blood trickled out of his left ear.

Charlie stared for a fatal minute and then went for his.45. Too late. Both doors were flung open and an array of grinning black faces and aimed pistol muzzles pointed his way.

"Hey, Charles, my man," said the tallest jig, who had a goddamned diamond in his front tooth and was waving a huge gun. "It's cool, my man. Forget the piece, Charles." The jig held up Charlie's pistol and then dropped it back in his jacket pocket. He pointed the huge revolver. "Just be cool a minute, and then you be on your way again."

Charlie Scruggs had had guns pointed at him before, and was still around to tell about it. He didn't like the fact that they knew his name, but Oliver may have told them that. He was not about to be intimidated by this pissant. "Nigger," he said, "you have no idea the shit you just stepped in. Do you know who this truck belongs to?"

Several of the blacks, especially the one near Oliver wearing a red do-rag, began glowering hate/kill looks, but the tall bald black just looked surprised. "Who it belong to, Charles?" he said, his eyes widening like Stepin Fetchit's.

"The Farino Family," said Charlie Scruggs.

The black's eyes got wider. "Oh, my goodness gracious, heavens to Betsy," he said in a fag voice. "Do you mean the Mafia Farino family?"

"I mean this truck and everything in it—including Oliver and me—are Organization property you coon sonofabitch," said Charlie. "You touch anything in it, and there won't be a shithole in Central America where you can hide your black ass."

The bald man nodded thoughtfully. "You probably right, Charles, my man. But I guess it be too late." He glanced mournfully at Oliver. "We done already touch Ollie there."

Charlie glanced at his dead companion and tried to phrase his next sentence carefully.

The jig did not give him the chance to speak. "Plus, Charlie, my man, you already use the N-word."

Malcolm shot Charlie Scruggs through the left eye.

"Hey!" screamed Doo-Rag from the opposite side, ducking low behind Oliver's body. "Tell me when you about to do that, motherfucker."