Lone Wolf #6: Chicago Slaughter by Mike Barry Page B

or more than they wanted him. He was a fringe benefit, extra pay for the driver if he was brought in as well.
    “Son of a bitch,” he said involuntarily, “son of a bitch.” He was no longer a person. He was a valise. That was about the way it had been since he left Vegas. And before that, in Boston. “Son of a bitch.”
    “I happen to disagree with that,” the driver said almost cheerfully, “but I’ll fight to the absolute death for your right to say it.”
    They whipped along the lakefront.

Chapter 7
    Versallo felt happy. He had got up that morning with a singing feeling deep in his chest, the kind of feeling he used to get when he got a good high going, before he had made himself quit the stuff. And all day the high was building, building within him, fed this time by nothing more than coffee, cigarettes and the sure feeling that he had got him. He was going to get the son of a bitch. He could not lose.
    Sometimes you just knew it; you knew when you were on a hot streak, building and building toward something really good, a breakthrough and you had that perilous feeling of taking the wave at its highest point, moving beyond collision, simply rising. Sometimes—and it was rare but when it came it was unmistakable—you knew that you were on a streak, in the groove and nothing could beat you. Horse was much better, sex a little, but luck was all right. He had lost the one, gotten slow with the other; he would take his kicks where he could find them. Luck. He had the bastard nailed.
    He knew somehow that Mendoza would bring him in. He had had no contact with the man since he had dispatched him to the airport but with that peculiar extra-sensory feel which was one of the many things which made him superior to other people he could
feel
that Mendoza had him. Mendoza was his best man, his most competent and trusted assistant; he could not have put the job in better hands than his and at around three o’clock that afternoon, give or take no more than a couple of moments, he had had a sharp jab, a
flame
almost, of knowledge. He knew that Mendoza had him. He had gotten him into the disguised cab and now he was bringing him in. They were on their way. They were coming in, Mendoza and Wulff and the fucking valise with the smack. He could have started singing, he was that happy, he was that sure. But Versallo had cultivated professionalism the hard way, working at it from the bottom. He would keep that knowledge, beating like a small bird, to himself.
    So he did nothing. He betrayed no emotion. He hung around the offices and went through the motions of work instead. He dispatched three trucks to Milwaukee to pick up a small meat consignment. He took a call from city hall and verified that he was good for sixteen tickets, hundred dollars a plate, to the farewell dinner for some retiring hack sewer commissioner a week from Thursday.
    He met with the union shop steward who said that the complaint this week was that the washrooms on the second and third levels were filthy and almost never provided with paper towels and the men were mutinous. They were threatening a job action of some sort. The steward wanted Versallo to know that although he did not personally condone this kind of action the men were quite angry and felt that their complaint was justified. This was the kind of thing, the steward pointed out, that, just because it was so minor, should be straightened out quickly. Otherwise the smaller resentments built into larger ones and at the time of the new contract negotiations …
    It was this last which, despite the burning happiness within him almost caused Versallo to lose his good humor and temper simultaneously. If his mind had not really been on the abduction, if he had not been looking forward to two million dollars worth of purest whitest shit he would have gotten into real trouble with this steward just as he had with the one this guy had replaced. Lost his temper with the man, thrown him out of the office,