Blood risk Read Online Free PDF Page B

slowed and drove off into a roadside picnic area fifteen minutes later.
        "On foot from here," Shirillo said. He looked at his watch. "And we'll have to make it fast." He picked up two pairs of field glasses from the back seat, handed one to Tucker and got out of the car.
        Twenty minutes later, having tramped a considerable distance through a pine woods, moving silently most of the time, they reached the vantage point Shirillo had chosen, in the trees to the side of the private road, halfway down the mile-long straightaway that fed into Baglio's driveway. They stood well back in the shadows under the pines, watching the big white mansion.
        "Some house," Tucker said.
        "Twenty-nine rooms," Shirillo said.
        "Been inside?"
        "Once," the boy said. "When I was eighteen, I was a numbers runner for one of Baglio's Hill operatives, a man named Guita. Guita thought I was a smart kid destined for big things in the organization, and he brought me here with him once to meet Mr. Baglio."
        "What happened to your big career in the underworld?" Tucker asked.
        "Guita got himself killed."
        "Police?"
        "No-Baglio."
        "What for?"
        "I never knew."
        Tucker said, "Some action up there at the house. Is this it?"
        Shirillo had not been using his binoculars for a few minutes, but he lifted them and peered up the slope. "Yes," he said. "That's Henry Deffer, Baglio's personal driver, that old bastard there. Walking beside Deffer, the dandified one, is Chaka, Baglio's accountant and trouble-shooter. He's the second most powerful man in the local organization."
        "The other two?"
        "Just hoods."
        "That the money, in those suitcases?"
        "Yes."
        "How much, do you think?"
        "I've asked around. No one could say for sure except Baglio and Chaka. But it's likely to be somewhere between two hundred and five hundred thousand, depending on what kind of two weeks it's been."
        "Where's it come from?" Tucker asked.
        "Baglio's suburban gambling operations, the small stuff -punchboards in a couple of hundred gas stations, small numbers operations out of laundromats and newsstands and beauty parlors, small sports betting from maybe sixty or seventy barrooms. Each one of them's a tiny situation in itself. Multiply a small stake by two thousand situations, and it turns into big money."
        "Why only a twice-a-month collection?"
        "Because it is so little compared to inner-city numbers running, organization hookers, protection money, the dope take from both suburbs and inner city. It isn't enough to warrant all those rounds every week. Besides, these situations with the punchboards and the dollar bets are mostly legitimate businesses copping a little dirty money on the side that they don't have to report on the income-tax returns. They like holding onto Baglio's share, interest free, for a couple of weeks; sometimes, it might help a guy make a payment he'd otherwise be a few days late on. Baglio doesn't mind that so long as they turn in an honest percentage and don't get behind."
        A black Cadillac limousine had pulled out of the driveway and was on its way toward them down the narrow lane. They stepped even deeper into the shadows and watched it go past.
        Shirillo said, "Baglio has about fifty collectors for the suburbs. Every second and fourth Monday of every month they hit the road, picking up the small change from these situations. They deliver it here starting midafternoon, until dinner. Monday night it's counted, packaged and put in suitcases for the trip into town Tuesday morning."
        "What's done with it then?"
        "Baglio owns a good piece of a bank in town, one of the big ones on Forbes. Deffer parks the Caddy in the garage under the bank, while Chaka and one of the bodyguards use the bank president's private elevator to take the suitcases to the president's