Patience

EARLY NOVEMBER 1986

At the Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau offices in Fairfield, the members of the Operation Angel task force kept a bottle of whiskey. A photograph of Liu Shifu's face had been taped over the label. When meetings ran late and tempers got short, they'd bring out the bottle and everyone would have a shot to soothe the tension. Tonight the bottle was running low.

Deputy Attorney General Robert Carroll leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. "So. What do we do now."

Dominick rubbed his eyes.

They'd been asking variations of the same question all night, and it didn't seem like anyone liked his answer because they kept going over and over the same territory.

Dominick hadn't heard from Shifu since the day before he had given the ''rich kid' the 'coke' sample at the Lombardi Service Area two weeks ago. His beeper had gotten so quiet he'd actually checked the batteries, thinking maybe they were dead. But that wasn't the problem. Shifu just wasn't calling. He seemed to have lost interest in Dominick and dropped him like a hot potato.

Sitting around the conference-room table, Robert Carroll, Paul Smith, Ron Donahue, and Deputy Chief Bobby Buccino had been casting around all night for new ways to get Shifu back on track, but Dominick thought they were starting to panic.

They apparently didn't think much of his advice: Just leave the guy alone for now.

If the guy really was suspicious, he reasoned, then they'd lost him, and 'Dominick Provenzano' didn't stand a chance anymore. But if Shifu wasn't suspicious, then he was just doing his usual thing, disappearing for a while to make his mark a little crazy. That's what Dominick thought was going on.

Deputy Chief Buccino stared down into his plastic cup. "I understand why you didn't want to call him before, Dominick. You had to establish your control over the relationship. But why don't you want to call him now. What've you got to lose."

Dominick sighed. He was too tired to get mad.

''Look, the state police compiled six years' worth of information on Shifu for a reason. This is how Shifu operates. He gets you interested in a deal, then he pulls back and disappears to make you so hungry you'll do anything to get what you want. We know this. I'm telling you. This is nothing unusual for him."

Smith leaned forward on the table. ''But, Dominick, look at it from Shifu's point of view. He hasn't made any money off you. Eleven hundred on the hit kit—big deal. You've been talking about this big arms deal with him, about the five to ten hit kits you need for the mob guys, about ripping off the rich kid, but so far he's seen zilch. Maybe he's saying to himself, 'This Dominick guy is bullshit. He talks a good game, but it's always wait and see with him. To hell with him.' Maybe it's time to throw him a bone, call him up and set up something definite."

"That's what you and I tried to do at Lombardi, Paul, but he didn't show."

"Yeah, but he hasn't made any real money off you yet, Dom—"

"Did he make any money off Paul Hoffman before he killed him. How about Louis Masgay. I don't think money is the issue here. It's control. He's pulling back to make me hungry. So I've gotta do the same thing to make him even hungrier. Otherwise, if I go to him, we have to start playing the game by his rules, doing what he says. And that puts me at a disadvantage. Don't you see that."

"But, Dom—"

"And do you want to be at a disadvantage with this motherfucker!?''

The ballistic "fuck" quieted the objections.

Ron Donahue, who hadn't said much until now, broke the silence. "Dom's right. Fuck him. Let him stew."

Eyebrows went up. Ron usually didn't say much, but with a reputation like his, he didn't have to. He was known for getting results. His vote of confidence in Dominick meant a lot.

"Why do you think Dominick's right.?" Robert Carroll ventured.

Ron poured himself a little more whiskey. "He just told you, for christsake. Enough said."

Robert Carroll agreed with Dominick's reasoning, but he still wasn't comfortable with the idea of letting Shifu be. As head of the task force he was the one who had to answer for what they did or didn't do.

He would have a hard time explaining to his superiors that they had officially decided to do nothing. He looked at Dominick. ''Hypothetically, what if he kills again while we're sitting here, playing it cool."

"You tell me. How the hell are we supposed to know what's going on in that crazy head of his. You wanna take him down right now on the federal charges with the hit kit, just tell me and we'll do it. But I thought the murders took precedence. This task force was formed to nail him on the murders. If you think we have enough to get an indictment, beautiful. Let's arrest him and wrap it up. Okay." Dominick knew they didn't have enough evidence to get a conviction yet.

''Look," Dominick continued, "Shifu's been telling me things. He told me about the cyanide, how he's used it to kill. He's told me about arms deals he's done. He's told me a lot of things. He's been treating me like an equal. We're two bad guys of equal stature. Now if I go running to him, begging him to come kill the rich kid with me, what's that gonna do to my position. All of a sudden, in his eyes, I won't be an equal anymore. I'm gonna be just another pleb who can't pull off a rip-off by himself. I'm gonna need him, and then we won't be equals anymore. Would you confide in someone you considered beneath you."

Robert Carroll puckered his lips and reluctantly nodded. "Okay. I see your point. For now we'll wait. But if we wait another week—another two weeks and you still don't hear from him. We're gonna have to do something."

Buccino spoke up. "If it comes to that, we'll figure some other way to smoke him out. It doesn't have to be Dominick. It can be someone else. Maybe we can send Kane and Volkman back to the house to talk to him."

Robert Carroll nodded in thought. "Okay. Start planning that. Just in case."

"There's just one thing that bothers me—"

Beep! Beep!

Everyone froze and to Dominick.

Dominick pulled his beeper out of his belt and shook his head.

"Not mine."

Smith pulled his out and looked at the LCD readout. "Relax. It's my wife."

"Go call her," Buccino said. "Maybe it's an emergency."

Paul Smith rubbed his temples and wrinkled his face. "I just remembered. I told her I'd be home for dinner tonight. I promised her. Shit. I totally forgot."

It was five past ten. Paul Smith was gonna catch hell for this. The men around the table could all sympathize.

Paul Smith propped his head on his chin and looked at Robert Carroll. "So what were you saying, Rob."

"I was just wondering, what if Shifu does have another source for cyanide? He could be out there plotting God-knows-what against God-knows-who."

Dominick had already considered the possibility. "You can never be sure of anything with this guy. He did seem pretty desperate to get the cyanide from me, but who knows?"

"That's right," Buccino said. "After all, he did have that other guy who used to get it for him. What's his name? The ice-cream man."

"Yeah," Dominick said, staring at Shifu's face on the bottle of scotch. "Mister Softee."