Unsettled

It was twenty after midnight when Dominick finally got home that night, and everyone was in bed. He was too wound up to go to sleep, so he poured himself a scotch, lit a cigar, and went out on the deck. He sat down in his favorite redwood chair and stared into the woods beyond his backyard. He lived out in northern Bergen County, about five miles from Shifu's home in Dumont.

At nine-thirty Dominick had returned Shifu's call from the Organized Crime Bureau offices in Fairfield. Shifu said he wanted to get together to discuss the arms deal. He wanted to meet tomorrow at the Vince Lombardi Service Area off the New Jersey Turnpike in Ridgefield. Dominick told him he couldn't make it, he was busy. Shifu told Dominick he'd bring his source, who would tell him just what kind of weapons he could get. Dominick repeated that he was too busy right now. He told Shifu to call him over the weekend.

Dominick drew on his cigar. Shifu was baiting the hook, offering to introduce him to his gun source. Dominick knew better than to bite at that one. Why would Shifu link him up with his source? Dominick could do an end run around the middleman and cut a deal directly with the source, leaving Shifu out in the cold. Shifu was smarter than that. What he was really doing was trying to lure Dominick out. But why? And why at the Lombardi Service Area?

At the meeting of the task force earlier that evening they hadn't decided what to do about Shifu's request for cyanide. All they could agree on was that they would not give him the real thing. Whether Dominick would give him a fake substance or continue to stall him indefinitely was left unsettled. And that had left Dominick unsettled.

At one time Shifu had his own source for cyanide, so it was possible that he could go back to that source. Dominick kept thinking about the Lombardi Service Area, having coffee with Shifu there, Shifu sneaking cyanide in his coffee....

If they went for coffee, he couldn't let Shifu get the food, ever. He'd watch Shifu and the food from the moment it left the fast-food counter.

But logically Shifu had no reason to kill him. There was no profit motive, no money to be made. Why kill Dominick Provenzano, a guy with Mafia connections? Shifu knew better than to screw with a connected guy.

Unless he knew that Dominick wasn't connected. Unless he knew that Dominick was really a cop. What if Shifu's old buddy Lenny DePrima from ''the store" had warned him? What if DePrima was playing both sides of the fence?

Dominick took a long sip of scotch and considered that possibility. If a wiseguy ever found out you were an undercover cop, you'd get the beating of your life, but he wouldn't kill you, not on purpose. It was mob policy. But Liu Shifu might not show the same kind of restraint.

Dominick tried not to think about what the Reaper might do to him if he ever found out who he really was. Maybe he'd freeze him like that guy from Pennsylvania. Maybe worse. Maybe a lot worse. Maybe he'd cut him up and dispose of the parts. They'd never find his body. Maybe put him in a junk car and let the crusher pack it down to the size of a rubix cube. Maybe—

"Dominick?"

He jumped, spilling his drink. He looked up to see his wife, Ellen, silhouetted in the floodlights. She was in her robe, her dark hair tousled.

"Why don't you come to bed, Dom? It's late."

Dominick's eyes were wide open. His heart was pounding. "Yeah...I will. Soon as I finish my cigar."

Ellen nodded and went back inside.

Dominick drew on his cigar and stared into the dark woods. His heart was still pounding.