The Informant Read Free

supposed to do, but stop. I have questions. Who does Michael Delamina work for these days?"
    "Michael Delamina?" she repeated. "I don't know who that is."
    "Then good night. I'll leave your gun outside in the back yard where you can find it. I remember you have kids."
    In a few heartbeats, Waring sensed that he had reached her bedroom doorway, but she hadn't seen or heard him move. "Wait."
    He was still. "I'm waiting."
    "I do know who he is. I just needed to know what rules you were setting—what would happen if I didn't know."
    "You mean would I kill you? No. Now you want to know what will happen if you tell me."
    "Yes."
    "Tell me, and I'll tell you something."
    "Frank Tosca. He's an underboss trying to move up to be the head of the Balacontano family. He's an upstart, but he's young and energetic, and the family was stagnant, aging, and fading. Now, one by one, all of the old soldiers and their relatives and hangers-on are being gathered into the fold." She paused. "So what are you going to tell me?"
    "I know Frank Tosca."
    "So what?"
    "I'll tell you something about him. About fifteen years ago he killed a man named Leo Kleiner on Warren Street in New York. He shot him in the left side of the head with a K-frame .38 revolver, like the cops used when we were kids. That one was originally owned by a cop. I'd be surprised if Tosca didn't still have it hidden in his house on the St. Lawrence River in Canada."
    "Why are you telling me this?"
    "I didn't take some oath of omertà like they did. I worked for people who had the money to hire me. What I tell you next is important. There were three men on the street that night who saw it happen—Davey Walker the driver, Boots Cavalli, and Andy Varanese. Cavalli wouldn't tell you anything if you set him on fire. Davey Walker is dead. But if you put enough pressure on Varanese, and promise him protection for the rest of his life, he'll help you out. He hated Tosca."
    "Will anybody believe this after fifteen years?"
    "The house in Canada used to have a hidden room. If you head down into the basement, right in the middle of the stairway before you get down there is a door built into the wall. That's where he kept his collection of things he couldn't let cops find. He figured the Canadians wouldn't be interested in raiding the house because he never did anything there, and the Americans can't do a surprise search in a foreign country. So I think what I've given you is an eyewitness and the chance to find the murder weapon in the suspect's possession."
    She waited for him to say more, then sensed that he wasn't standing where he had been anymore. She stayed still, wondering what he was doing. She heard the door downstairs by the kitchen being locked. She threw off the covers, sprang from the bed, ran to the window, and looked out.
    She watched him from above, a dark shadow moving across the back lawn. He stopped at the brick barbecue, opened the stainless steel lid, placed her sidearm on the grill, and closed the lid over it. He turned, looked up at her, then moved to the back of the yard, pulled himself up onto the low stone wall, and rolled over it into the next yard.
    Waring snatched up the telephone and speed-dialed her office at the Justice Department. "This is Elizabeth Waring. I just had a home visit from a suspect of the very highest priority. I need a team to set up a perimeter five blocks from my house. He looks about forty-five years old, Caucasian, probably brown hair, wearing a black topcoat, dark clothing." She listened for a few seconds.
    "If he looks like every man for a mile, pick up every man for a mile, and I'll try to sort them out. This is not a brainstorming session, it's an order."
    ***
    On Tuesday morning Elizabeth Waring wore a navy blue pants suit and a pair of flat, highly shined shoes. It felt like a uniform, which was what she had designed it to be. It helped her to feel invulnerable. She was forty-six years old now, well past the age when she could be