The Intervention Part 23

11.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, EARTH.

2 MAY 1990.

HE HAD COMPLETED the mental exercises that he was accustomed to perform at the start of each business day, and now Kieran O'Connor stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his office and let his mind range out. His aerie was on the 104th floor of the Congress Tower, Chicago's most prestigious new office building, and from its vantage point he could oversee thousands of lesser structures, hives of concentrated mental energy that invigorated his creative mind-powers at the same time that they stimulated his hunger. Kieran had known other great cities - Boston, where he was born in poverty and educated in Harvard's affluence; Manhattan, where he had apprenticed in a law firm having a sizable Sicilian fraction among its well-heeled clientele - but the effete and tradition-bound East was an unsuitable home base for a unique upstart such as himself. Instinctively he had come to the dynamic heartland of North America, to this city notorious for its cavalier misprision and polymorphous get-up-and-go. Chicago was the perfect place for him; its commerce was thriving, its politics disheveled, and its morals overripe. It was a coercer's town with bioenergies that matched Kieran's own, not suffering fools but welcoming bullies with open arms - a bottomless wellspring of novelty, hustle, and clout.

From his high place Kieran looked out across a bristling forest of skysc.r.a.pers, a grid of crowded streets, green bordering parklands along the Lake Michigan sh.o.r.e that flaunted lush tints of spring. Countless cars ant-streamed along the multiple lanes of the Outer Drive. The lake waters beyond were a rich iris-purple, paling to silver along the eastern horizon. Outside the breakwater was a dancing sailboat. On a whim, he zeroed in on it and was rewarded with the ultrasensory impressions of two people making love. He smiled and lingered over the emanations momentarily, not with a voyeur's vulgar need but in dispa.s.sionate reminiscence. He had other pleasures now; still, the resonances were good...

A chime sounded, pulling him back to reality.

He turned away from the window and went to his enormous desk. The polished surface mirrored a single yellow daisy in a black vase and a photograph in an ebony frame - Rosemary holding the infant Kathleen, little Shannon in a white pinafore clinging to her mother's skirts. Rosemary and Kathleen would never grow older, but Shannon was a moody fifteen-year-old now, resisting initiation into her father's world. The phase would pa.s.s; Kieran was sure of it.

The chime sounded again.

Kieran touched one of a line of golden squares inset into the rosewood desk-top. A compact communication unit lifted into ready position. Arnold Pakkala looked out of the screen with his deceptively distant expression. His colorless eyes seemed to study a potted fig tree behind Kieran's right shoulder.

"Good morning, Arnold. "

"Good morning Mr. O'Connor. You'll be interested to know that Grondin has checked out and approved two more California recruits. They'll be flying in to the corporate training facility next week. "

"Excellent. "

"Mr. Finster is standing by on the Was.h.i.+ngton land-line. However, I must also advise you that Mr. Camastra's car has just entered the Tower parking garage. He must have taken an early flight from Kansas City. "

"Hmm. He'll be in a stew so we won't keep him waiting. Let me know as soon as he gets up to the office. There's time for the Finster call, I think. Put him through, full-sanitary scramble. "

"Right away, sir. "

The communicator screen displayed a sequence of security codes punched up by Kieran's executive a.s.sistant. Eventually these dissolved into a close-up of Fabian (The Fabulous) Finster, whose engaging smile featured two large upper incisors separated by a comical gap: chipmunk teeth. Most people were so captivated by that droll grin that they failed to take note of the icy green eyes above it. When Fabian Finster had earned his living as a bottom-of-the-bill mentalist in Nevada casino shows, he had enhanced his naturally striking appearance with neo-zoot suits trimmed in blinking LEDs. Now that he was one of the confidential agents of Kieran O'Connor, Finster strove for a more conservative image and had taken to Italian silk suitings and striped ties, with nary a trace of glitz. But the show-biz aura still clung to him, and he still performed occasionally to keep up a front, even though most of his time was now occupied by more serious and lucrative activities.

Kieran said, "We'll have to make this quick today, Fabby. Did you wrap up Senator Scrope?"

"Tighter than a rattlesnake's a.s.s, chief. You should have seen his face when I mentioned the number of his secret Icelandic bank account... Our pipeline into the Armed Services Committee is now secure. d.a.m.n good thing, too. Reading politicians' minds is like snorkeling in a sewer. s.h.i.+t galore - but you got one h.e.l.luva time finding the one piece you really need before you drown in the utterly extraneous. "

Kieran laughed. "Congratulations on doing a super job. I suppose you're worn out with the effort now and ready for a quiet gig at the Hotel Bora Bora. "

The mentalist's grin widened. "I can read your mind all the way from here... almost. You got something interesting cooking, I wouldn't mind giving it a spin. Provided I don't have to stay in Was.h.i.+ngton. After digging in the brains of these politicos for six months, I'm fed to the teeth. Really makes a guy appreciate the lucid crumminess of the Mob mind. "

"What I have for you is an excavation with a good deal more cla.s.s. How would you like to go Ivy League, Fabby? Do a little investigating for me at Dartmouth College up in New Hamps.h.i.+re?"

"Ah hah. You want me to sniff around that ESP project!"

"So you've heard of it. "

"I even read the new book by that Dartmouth prof that hit The New York Times best-seller list. It took me two weeks - what with having to look up all the big words - and I'm still not sure the guy said what I think he said. "

Kieran's tone was incisive. "I had no idea that parapsychology research was being taken so seriously by legitimate inst.i.tutions. Jason Ca.s.sidy and Viola Northcutt are looking into the work being done at Stanford on the West Coast, but I want you to find out what this man Denis Remillard is up to - especially what practical applications of the higher mental powers might lie behind the theoretical considerations set forth in his book. "

"You mean, is the guy up to anything dangerous to us - or is he just blue-skying around?"

"Precisely. Remillard's book is a very unlikely best seller. It's difficult to read and its conclusions are veiled to the point of deliberate obscurantism. He almost seems to be bending over backwards to make his data appear prosaic. Of course he couldn't squelch the inherent sensationalism of the topic completely, even with the pages of dry statistics and the academic jargon. His experimental verification of telepathy and psychokinesis is one of the hottest scientific stories of the century. But I have a feeling that Remillard is holding back. I want to know what other psychic experimentation might be going on at Dartmouth that the good doctor has decided not to publicize... for prudence's sake. "

"Jeez, " mused The Fabulous Finster. "If certain parties start taking mind reading and animal magnetism seriously, what's going to happen to our edge?"

"Work me up a complete dossier on Denis Remillard. Get as much information as you can on his close a.s.sociates as well. I'm particularly interested in how many adept mentalists he's recruited for his research. How powerful they are. How committed. "

"You want me to turn head-hunter if I turn up any live ones?"

"Use the utmost discretion, Fabby. " Kieran's eyes rested for a moment on the photo of the late Rosemary Camastra O'Connor and the two lovely children. "This is a dangerous game. The government may have infiltrated the Dartmouth project - or even foreign agents. Remillard's book hints at a worldwide network of cooperating psychic laboratories beginning to achieve significant results after years of fumbling and marking time. I want to know if there's any truth in that idea, or if it's only wishful thinking. "

"I get the picture. "

"One last thing. If Remillard or any of his people show the least hint of being able to probe your mind, get out of there fast and cover your tracks. "

"I understand, " came the cheerful reply. "Not to worry, chief. I won't screw up. I've noticed how people who cross you seem to get these weird cerebral hemorrhages... "

"Senator Scrope's wrap-up nets you a cool Bahama million, Fabby. The payoff on Remillard's organization could be even bigger. Goodbye. "

Kieran touched a golden square, breaking the scrambler patch. The screen went dark. Almost immediately, another square inset on the desk began blinking red.

Kieran keyed the intercom. "I'll see Mr. Camastra at once, Arnold. " He recessed the com-unit into the desk, performed a brief Yoga trans.m.u.tation designed to lift his coercive energies to the highest level, and sat back to await the arrival of his mafioso father-in-law.

"You heard, Kier? You heard? He didn't veto! I got the word from La.s.siter in Was.h.i.+ngton on the car-phone just as we exited the Kennedy!"

Big Al Camastra stormed into the room. His cyanotic lips trembled in fury and a small driblet of saliva trailed from the corner of his mouth. The two bodyguards accompanying Chicago's Boss wore expressions of apprehension.

"I heard, Al. I've been expecting this. " Kieran came around his desk, solicitous, as Carlo and Frankie helped Big Al settle his bulky body into the office's largest leather armchair.

Al raved, "That yellow-belly b.a.s.t.a.r.d! That fink! He's just gonna hold the bill until tomorrow without signing it, then it automatically goes into law even without his signature. "

Kieran nodded. "The President wants the law but he didn't want to give public affront to its opponents. "

"What the h.e.l.l kinda religious man is he? Goin' against the Catholic Bishops and the Council of Churches and the NAACP and the f.u.c.kin' PTA, for chrissake? They all lobbied for the veto. We all knew he'd have to veto! How could he do this? G.o.d - you know what this means? It's Repeal all over again!"

"Boss, take it easy, " Carlo pleaded. "Your bionic ticker... you gotta calm down!"

"A drink!" Big Al roared. "Kier, gimme a drink. "

"Al, you shouldn't, " whined Frankie, catching Kieran's eye and shaking his head frantically. "The doc in K. C. said -"

Kieran O'Connor lifted one hand in peremptory dismissal. The two bodyguards stiffened and their eyes glazed. Both of them turned, completely docile, and left the room - oblivious to the fact that Big Al had enjoined them only five minutes earlier not to leave him alone with Kieran O'Connor under any circ.u.mstances.

The don had forgotten his own order. He was leaning back in the chair, one puffed and blotchy hand over his eyes, muttering imprecations. Kieran busied himself at an antique sideboard where cut-gla.s.s decanters sparkled in the sunlight. "A little Marsala won't hurt you, Poppa. I'll have some, too. It's a nice virginale that DeLaurenti discovered and sent in to New York on the Concorde last week. If you like it, I'll have a couple of cases sent out to River Forest. "

Kieran took one of the filled gla.s.ses and wrapped the old man's tremulous fingers around it. He let healing psychic impulses flow from his body to Camastra's through the momentary flesh contact. "Salute, Poppa. To your health. " Kieran lifted his own gla.s.s and sipped.

A bitter smile cracked Big Al's pallid features. "My health! Madonna puttana, you should have seen those vultures giving me the eye in Kansas City, wondering if I'd drop dead right in front of 'em so's they could call off the Commission meeting and the vote!"

"The flight back has tired you out. You should have gone home to rest instead of coming downtown directly from O'Hare. Everything will work out fine. The Commission did as we expected. I won't have to exert mental pressure on them directly. " He raised his gla.s.s to the old man again and returned to his seat behind the desk.

Big Al watched him with hooded eyes. At forty-six, Kieran O'Connor was still youthful, his dark hair only slightly silvered at the temples and at the distinctive widow's peak above his wide forehead. With his olive skin and dark brown eyes Kieran looked more Italian than Irish - but he wasn't, and that should have stalled him in the consigliere niche permanently, no matter whose daughter he had married. Big Al still didn't quite fathom why it hadn't.

"The Commission voted you your seat, " Camastra told Kieran. "You're the Acting, as of today, and they give tentative approval for you to take over when I retire. But we're not outa the woods yet. Falcone and his dinosaur faction keep harping on tradition, b.i.t.c.hing because you're not a paisan'. They're willing to give you respect - but not to the point of joining your new financial consortium. "

Kieran made an airy gesture. "Patsy Montedoro's influence will keep the younger dons on our side, and the Vegas and West Coast people are solid. Let Falcone and his pigheaded conservatives stew in their own juice for another year. Their racketeering and gambling interests have been on a long slide for over a decade - and now that the Piccolomini legislation is on the books, they're caught by the shorts. The end of Prohibition was a Sunday-school picnic compared to the legalization of marijuana and cocaine, and the decriminalization of other drugs. "

Big Al shook his jowls in bewilderment. "How could the President do it? Every p.i.s.s-poor tobacco farmer in Dixie will be planting pot or coca trees. Little old ladies'll grow opium poppies in window boxes! We'll have a country fulla junkies. " He gulped his wine.

Kieran got up and refilled the don's gla.s.s. "No we won't, Poppa. The other provisions of the Piccolomini Law will see to that. The educational campaigns against all forms of chemical abuse... the compulsory treatment or confinement of hard-narc addicts... the capital penalties for outlaw dealing. What the government has done is to say: 'Okay, you low uneducated trash, you unemployables, you losers, you cheap thrill-seekers. Go ahead and smoke yourself into a stupor if you want to - and pay Uncle Sam tax on each joint. Or snort till your nose falls off - but don't bother nice people while you're doing it, or we lock you up and throw away the key. And don't commit a crime under the influence, or recruit underage users, or peddle s.h.i.+t illegally - or you die.' It's a very simple, sensible solution to a nasty problem, Al. The Treasury will recover revenue lost from the declining sales of tobacco and hard liquor, the streets will be cleared of criminals supporting their habit, and the big bad Mafia will have the financial floor cut out from under it once and for all. "

"It's indecent, " Big Al said. "Sell cheap pot and crack and kids are gonna get it. I don't give a d.a.m.n about the adult addicts. Let 'em turn their brains to stronzolo! But the little kids..."

Kieran resumed his seat with a shrug. "The bleeding-heart liberals and the church people and the social workers tried to tell the President and Congress that. And so did we, of course. "

Al stared morosely into his wine. "Thirty percent. We lose thirty percent of our income just like that with the legalization - and we're the most diversified of the Families! New York, Boston, Florida, New Orleans - they're gonna drop fifty percent at least. And California - !"

"The Outfit will have a lean year or two. But those Families who go into my venture-capital pool will eventually end up richer than ever. Chicago is leading the wave of the future, Poppa, and my consortium will provide the impetus for a whole new profit structure. We'll survive, and so will the Families who follow us. "

"Follow you. " Blood-webbed eyes burned for an instant with the old antagonism and fear; but then came a fatalistic little laugh. "What else could they do but follow you, stregone? Sorcerer!"

Kieran's expression was earnest, his coercive faculty working at max. "Al, we can't keep running a two-hundred-billion-dollar business like a gang of nineteenth-century banditti - squabbling over a shrinking pie, eliminating rivals by shooting them and stuffing their bodies in car trunks. Times have changed. In two years, human beings will be walking on Mars. All financial transactions will be fully computerized. Most of the old rackets will be as dead as the peddling of narcotics. Sure, the Mob is rich. But you know what they say about money: if you just sit on it, it might as well be toilet paper. "

"Yeah, yeah, " the don said wearily. "We gotta invest. I know. "

"Invest properly, Al, so that the money makes more money. That's what I've been doing as your consigliere - and what I'll continue to do when I'm Boss. "

"Boss of Bosses, " Camastra muttered.

Kieran did not seem to hear. "In addition to our legitimate investment corporation for the Organization funds, we now have our own small tank of sharks to work with - three of them, all under my thumb and without the slightest off-color taint to attract Justice Department bloodhounds. We own Clayburgh Acquisitions, Giddings & Metz, and Fredonia International. They're takeover artists, Al, the kind of outfits that specialize in the leveraged buy-outs of troubled or vulnerable companies. So far, our little pets have confined themselves to modest raids of the loot-'em-and-dump-'em type. But now I'm ready to give them the go-ahead for some real action. Once the capital pool is ready, we're going after the biggest money there is. "

"What, for G.o.d's sake?"

"We'll begin with small defense contractors - the ones whose stock took a dive during the late-lamented detente. With the s.p.a.ce-station disaster and hawkish noises starting up again in Congress, those defense companies will come back like gangbusters. When we're ready to tackle a biggie, there's a McGuigan-Duncan Aeros.p.a.ce, the firm that almost crashed when their Zap-Star orbiting mirror weapon was axed by the Pentagon economizers. I have a strong hunch that by 1993 - when we have a new President and the Mars Project is recognized for the useless PR stunt that it is - this country will wake up and realize how far ahead of us the Russians are in the s.p.a.ce arms race. Then those Zap-Stars may get a new lease on life. "

Big Al had gone the color of chalk. "You think there's gonna be a war?"

"Of course not. Only a fresh defense initiative. Once we've wrapped up McGuigan, we can go after G-Dyn c.u.mberland, the submarine builders. And Con Electric is shaky with the j.a.panese and Chinese undercutting their domestic products - but they were the fourth largest defense contractor in the country during the 1980s, and the Pentagon certainly won't buy missile parts from Asia. "

"Madonna puttana! You really mean it!" Big Al's gla.s.s fell without a sound to the thick beige carpet. Inside his thoracic cavity, the pacemaker adjusted his heartbeat in response to the elevated level of adrenalinemia.

Kieran was patient. "History has shown that there is no greater potential for profit than in a suitably stimulated military-industrial complex - and the stimulation is imminent. The Soviets don't really want war and neither do we. But both countries are bound to slide back into the Cold War groove in response to internal tensions. We have our high unemployment and monumental national debt. They have their eternal food and consumer-goods shortages, and Slavic angst. "

"What if you guess wrong about a defense build-up? What if this U. S. -Russian Mars Project makes us all buddy-buddy with the d.a.m.n Reds and the disarmament thing gets into high gear?"

"Then it would be Goodbye, Daddy Warbucks. " Kieran waved one hand dismissively. "But we won't let that happen. We'll protect our investment. "

Big Al stared at his son-in-law with the unaccepting disbelief of a man confronting an impending natural disaster - an avalanche descending, a looming tornado funnel - and then his face cleared and he began to laugh uproariously. "Jesus!" he wheezed. "Jesus H. Christ! Wait till that cazzomatto Falcone gets a loada this action!"

Kieran touched a golden square. Immediately the door to the outer office opened and his executive a.s.sistant appeared.

"Yes, sir?" Arnold Pakkala inquired. His mind added: The two hoods are sitting quietly biting their fingernails, and you have a conference call coming up at ten-thirty with Mr. Giddings and Mr. Metz in Houston, and then an early luncheon with General Baumgartner.

"Mr. Camastra is ready to leave now, Arnold. Would you ask Carlo and Frankie to step in?" Kieran stood in front of Big Al with an outstretched hand and a cordial smile. "Thanks a lot for stopping by, Poppa. Betty Carolyn invited me to bring Shannon to your place tomorrow for dinner, so I'll see you then. If you feel up to it, we can talk over this new financial business in more detail. "

Supported by his bodyguards, Big Al surged to his feet. "Sure. We'll talk tomorrow. " He was still chuckling but his eyes refused to meet those of the new Acting Boss of Chicago. "You can bring the two cases of Marsala. It's real good stuff. See you, Kier. "

Kieran O'Connor turned to the window to look out again over the luminous lake. The sailboat with the lovers was gone. He focused his fa.r.s.ense on a big cabin cruiser moving up the river toward the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

Arnold said: Ten-thirty. Shall I set up the call to Houston?

One person in the cruiser was telling another person a scandalous anecdote about the Illinois Attorney General and a certain labor official.

Kieran said: Give me five minutes to meditate and clear my mind. Then bring on the sharks.

12.

MILAN, NEW HAMPs.h.i.+RE, EARTH.

16 AUGUST 1990.

IT WAS THE worst psychic stakeout in his experience, from beginning to end, bar none.

The d.a.m.n tippy little rented johnboat! Essential to his night ba.s.s fisherman cover, it was dismayingly low in the water, its aluminum hull clanked at his slightest movement, and it stunk from decaying salt-pork bait trapped down under the duckboards.

The d.a.m.n hot, muggy night! Not a breath of fresh air stirred over the small lake ringed with summer cottages, and after four hours of surveillance, he was sopping wet with sweat and cramped all to h.e.l.l.

The d.a.m.n f.u.c.king bugs! They really were - mating, that is - and doing it all over him. Perhaps it was the seductive stench, or the little boat might just have provided a convenient rendezvous out there in the middle of the lake. Whatever... aquatic insects by the hundreds, gossamer-winged and mostly connubially linked, fluttered, crept, and copulated in and about the anch.o.r.ed johnboat. Any s.h.i.+ft in posture by the boat's occupant produced a cellophanish crunch.

The d.a.m.n fis.h.!.+ Smallmouth ba.s.s, gourmandizing on the besotted bugs, leapt explosively out of the water at unnerving intervals. If he had been a genuine angler, the sight of the n.o.ble lunkers would have warmed his heart. But Fabian Finster was a city-bred, sports-hating sophisticate who preferred his fish filleted, gently grilled, and served with lemon-b.u.t.ter sauce. Periodically, when the feeding frenzy in the waters around him disturbed his concentration to an unbearable degree, he would break off the surveillance, muster his coercive faculty, and blast both predators and prey. The fish would hightail it into the depths and the bugs would faint, fall into the lake, and drown. All would be serene for ten minutes or so, until a new swarm of insects arrived and the fish pulled themselves together again.