line.”
Weeks ago, when Wulff had first met this man, it would have been inconceivable for Calabrese to have made any reference to the fact that he was in the drug trade, let alone be as specific as this. Calabrese had lived in a high estate on Lake Michigan and had walled himself off in those spaces not only from the world but from any direct contact with what had put him there. Calabrese would no more have admitted to handling drugs than a pimp, stopped for a license-and-registration check by a cop, would have explained exactly how he earned the money to drive an Eldorado. But now all of that had slipped from him; looking at him across the desk, Wulff saw that Calabrese had become that stranger inside, the death’s head, and the death’s head would not lie anymore. “I want those drugs,” Calabrese said again. “I worked to develop them and I want them.”
“I want the girl and Williams.”
“You won’t get them until I see the drugs. I’ll kill them first.”
“The shipment is the only hold that I have on you,” Wulff said, “once I turn it over, you’ve got the whole ball game: you’ve got me too. I won’t do it.” He shook his head, feeling the decision settling into him, that decision which he must have known he would have to face this flatly and soon. “Them first,” he said, “you get them out of where they are and into safety and I’ll turn the stuff over to you. And then,” Wulff said, “then it will be just you and me in a room like this one and we’ll see who comes out of it. Because that’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
Calabrese shook his head, took out a cigarette, broke it and flung the pieces against a window. “No,” he said, “I wanted to do that when we last spoke, when you were in Los Angeles. I wanted to kill you, Wulff, because you represented maybe the only thing I’ve ever found that I wasn’t able to beat and because I’m an old man who’s pretty afraid of losing control anyway, that was enough.” The death’s head winked at him, gave a half-bow from its dead, glowing eye sockets. “But that’s all past now. I don’t stay mad long, you can’t let your temper get the best of you if you want to stay at the top in this business and that’s where I am. At the top. No, Wulff, it’s purely business. I just want the drugs.”
“Then you know where I stand.”
Calabrese leaned back, fingered another cigarette from the package and said, “You know, you’re making things difficult for me. Very difficult.”
“I was counting on that.”
“You say that the shipment is the only hold you’ve got on me but what have I got on
you
? Just the girl and the black man and I’m not too sure about the black man at all. You split up with him in Los Angeles, that wasn’t going to work at all. So it probably comes down to just the girl and that isn’t enough, but it’s all I’ve got and if I let her go, then what? Then you’re a free agent again.”
“I’m a man of honor.”
The death’s head smiled. Wulff had never seen anything so terrible in his life; the cold, resigned smile of a dead man lying under the glass of the outer face. “Man of honor?” he said, “you’ve sent five hundred people into their graves. You’ve dedicated your life for reasons I don’t understand yet to driving the international drug trade out of existence. You’ve murdered, tortured, destroyed, burnt, stolen and you tell me that you’re a man of honor?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “you are riot a man of honor. Maybe by your own code you are; you feel that you’re acting for higher purposes and that the international drug trade is composed of vermin anyway, are not truly human, so that you can do anything you wish without the normal sanctions we apply against humanity. We can leave that to the experts to argue if they’d care to. I can’t trust you Wulff, that’s all. How can I trust you?”
Wulff said, “You have to trust me. You’ve got no
Weeks ago, when Wulff had first met this man, it would have been inconceivable for Calabrese to have made any reference to the fact that he was in the drug trade, let alone be as specific as this. Calabrese had lived in a high estate on Lake Michigan and had walled himself off in those spaces not only from the world but from any direct contact with what had put him there. Calabrese would no more have admitted to handling drugs than a pimp, stopped for a license-and-registration check by a cop, would have explained exactly how he earned the money to drive an Eldorado. But now all of that had slipped from him; looking at him across the desk, Wulff saw that Calabrese had become that stranger inside, the death’s head, and the death’s head would not lie anymore. “I want those drugs,” Calabrese said again. “I worked to develop them and I want them.”
“I want the girl and Williams.”
“You won’t get them until I see the drugs. I’ll kill them first.”
“The shipment is the only hold that I have on you,” Wulff said, “once I turn it over, you’ve got the whole ball game: you’ve got me too. I won’t do it.” He shook his head, feeling the decision settling into him, that decision which he must have known he would have to face this flatly and soon. “Them first,” he said, “you get them out of where they are and into safety and I’ll turn the stuff over to you. And then,” Wulff said, “then it will be just you and me in a room like this one and we’ll see who comes out of it. Because that’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
Calabrese shook his head, took out a cigarette, broke it and flung the pieces against a window. “No,” he said, “I wanted to do that when we last spoke, when you were in Los Angeles. I wanted to kill you, Wulff, because you represented maybe the only thing I’ve ever found that I wasn’t able to beat and because I’m an old man who’s pretty afraid of losing control anyway, that was enough.” The death’s head winked at him, gave a half-bow from its dead, glowing eye sockets. “But that’s all past now. I don’t stay mad long, you can’t let your temper get the best of you if you want to stay at the top in this business and that’s where I am. At the top. No, Wulff, it’s purely business. I just want the drugs.”
“Then you know where I stand.”
Calabrese leaned back, fingered another cigarette from the package and said, “You know, you’re making things difficult for me. Very difficult.”
“I was counting on that.”
“You say that the shipment is the only hold you’ve got on me but what have I got on
you
? Just the girl and the black man and I’m not too sure about the black man at all. You split up with him in Los Angeles, that wasn’t going to work at all. So it probably comes down to just the girl and that isn’t enough, but it’s all I’ve got and if I let her go, then what? Then you’re a free agent again.”
“I’m a man of honor.”
The death’s head smiled. Wulff had never seen anything so terrible in his life; the cold, resigned smile of a dead man lying under the glass of the outer face. “Man of honor?” he said, “you’ve sent five hundred people into their graves. You’ve dedicated your life for reasons I don’t understand yet to driving the international drug trade out of existence. You’ve murdered, tortured, destroyed, burnt, stolen and you tell me that you’re a man of honor?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “you are riot a man of honor. Maybe by your own code you are; you feel that you’re acting for higher purposes and that the international drug trade is composed of vermin anyway, are not truly human, so that you can do anything you wish without the normal sanctions we apply against humanity. We can leave that to the experts to argue if they’d care to. I can’t trust you Wulff, that’s all. How can I trust you?”
Wulff said, “You have to trust me. You’ve got no
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