"I'm on top of it," Spinoza told him earnestly.

"I hope so, Frank. I'm counting on you. Everybody's counting on you."

The words had their desired effect. Spinoza felt the burden settling down across his shoulders like a physical weight. Unconsciously, it made him squirm.

"Don't worry, sir. I've got a handle on this end, as long as Kuwahara pulls his horns in for the next few days."

The caller's voice turned sharp.

"No matter what, Frank. Keep the lid on. When it's time to move, you'll be the first to know."

"Yes, sir."

"I knew that you could do it." And the line went dead, the hollow humming in his ear again. As he reached out to cradle the receiver he saw his hand was trembling, and he brought it quickly back into his lap, covering it with his other. Spinoza sat staring at the silent telephone, skeptical that any deal New York came up with would be satisfactory to all concerned in Vegas. It sure as hell would not satisfy Minotte, cooling in a drawer down at the county morgue. And it would have to be some deal to satisfy Minotte's capo now or any of the others who were up in arms.

Some deal.

Like Seiji Kuwahara's head, for starters.

Frank Spinoza made a conscious effort to calm down. It really did not matter to him what the deal was from New York — just as long as he was on the winning side when it all shook out in the end. And Spinoza had made a lifelong habit out of choosing winners. It was a knack he picked up on the streets of Brooklyn as a child, growing up wild and mean — incorrigible, they called it — with a father in jail and his mother working at a string of dead-end jobs that kept her out all hours of the day and night.

He did not like to think about the jobs that she had taken, or the price that she had paid to keep him fed and clothed through frigid New York winters. He would have happily repaid her now — if she had not been gone these twenty years.

Brooklyn was a hotbed for aspiring mafiosi in those days. Like now, he thought, but with a difference, right.

The old Murder, Incorporated crew was still around the neighborhood back then, still a few good years away from Sing Sing and the chair. It made for opportunities. Young Frank Spinoza started out by running errands for them, picking up some pocket money in the process.

He had risen through the ranks, surviving several dons along the way and always siding with the heir apparent who appeared most likely to succeed. Thus far his choices had been right on target, leading him to the respected post as New York's top ambassador to Vegas.

Respected, as long as he had the correct answers. As long as he could carry out his orders.

"Keep the lid on, Frank. We're counting on you." Dammit!

For the first time in his life he had some doubts about his ability to carry out the task he had been given.

Doubts concerning whether he could keep the lid on in Las Vegas with so many different pressures threatening to blow it off right in his face.

Spinoza calmed himself, taking a deep breath and looking around his luxurious office, drawing strength from his surroundings. He was equal to the task or he would not be sitting here, about to meet with some of the most fearsome mobsters this side of the Rockies.

He could handle them, could handle anything that came his way because he was a born survivor. Frank Spinoza smiled and felt the tension slowly melting out of him. He was adept at picking winners, and this time would be no exception. If he played his cards right he just might come out looking better than The Man himself. Frank Spinoza closed his eyes and made a wish.

Seiji Kuwahara sat behind his desk, watching the waitress as she laid out the silver teapot and ceramic sake bottle. She lined up the little thimble glasses on the desktop so they were perfectly arranged. He knew that he could not have found an eighth of an inch difference in the spacing of the items before him; everything was ritual perfection, and therefore no more than commonplace.

The waitress finished, bowing her way out of the office. Kuwahara acknowledged her only with his eyes; it would be unseemly and humiliating for him to bow to a woman or an employee. She closed the door behind her, cutting off the normal clatter of the restaurant as suddenly as if a falling blade had severed all the sound waves in midair. His office had been specially constructed to provide him with a sanctuary in the rear of his establishment, the Lotus Garden. It was soundproofed, insulated — to keep out the riot of aromas that were sickening by day's end — and fortified, in case police or other hostile visitors came calling unexpectedly.

The single door would open only when Seiji pressed the electronic release on his desk.

Without it, cutting torches or explosives would be needed to gain entry, costing the intruder any small advantage of surprise they may have had.

And he had had no use for the small fortress up to now, but things were changing in Las Vegas.

The opening guns had spoken. But the first engagement, meant to be decisive, had resulted only in confusion and disappointment. Kuwahara did not think of it as a defeat — although a cadre of his handpicked samurai were stretched out on stainless metal tables in the morgue. He grimaced at the thought of the cruel indignities that medical examiners, with their shiny instruments, would visit on his soldiers after death in battle.

No matter.

They were gone. The essence of them had departed, leaving only empty shells behind. The round-eyed doctors with their scalpels could not do them any further harm.

He did not grieve for the commandos fallen in his cause. It would have been unmanly on his part, and they were all professionals who knew the risks and took them willingly, accepting death the way a lesser man accepts rush-hour traffic or a minor setback on the job. They had been ninja, and they were no more.

If he felt anything at all, it was regret that they had died without fulfilling their assignment.

Seiji did not count the mission as a failure — not entirely. The pig, Minotte, lay in the same morgue as Seiji's warriors, and others of that camp had fallen, also. Kuwahara knew that much by way of his informers in the city government.

He knew that the selected target had been badly wounded but Seiji had not meant to lose his first team on the opening mission. It would call attention to him now, before he was prepared to face concerted action on the part of Minotte's surviving associates.

At present they were still disorganized — a priceless lone informer in the hostile ranks had told him so — but given time they would inevitably close their ranks against him. Given time.

Seiji Kuwahara was not afraid because he did not plan to lose the coming war.

He had used the best he had against Minotte, and there were more where they came from in case he needed them.

A phone call to Tokyo and he could field a dedicated army, every man a fighter to the death. But it might be time to try a different angle of attack.

Perhaps he should have hired some free-lance Occidentals for the raid against Minotte, he reflected. As it was, the guilty finger pointed straight at him.

He sipped his tea, pushing the problem from his mind.

Now that all the simmering hostilities were laid bare, perhaps he could achieve a final resolution to the conflict. Tokyo was growing more impatient by the day, and so was Kuwahara — though for rather different reasons.

He had learned a lesson from his studies of the Mafia, acquiring insight that enabled him to climb inside the thought processes of his enemies, to see the world through their round eyes and to take their vision one step further.

He had learned the history of the Mafia Brotherhood — an ancient order that found more fertile soil in America. Transplanted from an old and decadent society, the Brotherhood found new vitality there. And with it came an independence that allowed a severing of old roots, the establishment on foreign soil of a distinct and separate empire, larger and stronger than its Old World predecessor. Rich and fat now, decadent itself, the Mafia was ready — all unknowingly — to cede that fertile soil to other, newer growths. To the Yakuza, for instance.