Only a minute or so before the five minutes were up, I turned the corner at Addison station. As I walked forward three non-descript cars with identical license plates parked at the sidewalk. All three cars were black Cadillacs. Well, we’re talking about the Chicago mob here and they do have a reputation to uphold. And black cars are quite common. People won’t know if they are from a government agency or the mob.

  A guy by each car opened a door as soon as they saw me. I almost laughed. But it seemed that it was up to me to choose one. I picked the last one and slipped into the backseat.

  “Weapons, please!” Said a man in the backseat next to me.

  I gave him my two knives. I didn’t keep anything hidden. Partly because I knew they would have at least one metal detector at the site we were going to and I had left my ceramic blades at home. One of my friends manufactures several special blades for me and one of them is a ten-inch ceramic laminated blade. It’s amazingly durable for not being steel. I have no idea how he makes them or what is involved in the process, but they are sharp, light, and very deadly. They are expensive but I always have at least four of them, and as soon as I hit four, I order ten more. I have a small backpack whose ribs are the same material and the top of them comes off and gives me two ten-inch blades.

  I told you I was paranoid.

  “Nothin’ else?” The man asked revealing a slight New York accent.

  “Not today, “ I answered.

  The man looked at me like was trying to gauge my truthfulness. “There will be-“

  “Other security checks, I know.” I interrupted only to be spared the speech about honesty as opposed to sudden death. “I’ve done similar meetings before and I know the drill.”

  The man nodded sharply once.

  I didn’t ask the man his name. I didn’t need to know and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t care.

  So, why would I have tried to bring my ceramic knives even though I knew there would be rigorous security checks? Because anything can happen in these meetings. I have seen it happen before and it wouldn’t be the first time a meeting was attacked. When that happens, being unarmed isn’t a good thing.

  I looked out the window. They were toned, but not totally black. I could have traced the exact route, but I didn’t need to know where. It would be a temporary location anyway. Not something they would use again in the near future. I only hoped Johnny “The Knife” Nivo hadn’t fallen for the ultimate mob cliche; meeting in a restaurant.

  After about an hour of driving around we made our destination, which turned out to be a normal white-picket-fence house in some suburb. Like the Stepford wives, but with the mob instead. I almost started to laugh, but then I thought about it again and it didn’t seem humorous at all. A mob gated community with their own guards, guns and rules. No that wasn’t fun. It was a freaking nightmare.

  They probably had borrowed the house from some real-estate agent. At least I hoped so.

  I walked through the meticulously kept garden. It would have made an Englishman proud. Not a straw of grass out of place anywhere. It disturbed me. Big time! It was the kind of obsessively neat garden you would find a serial killer in, pruning his roses. It was the perfect family house. That was scary.

  My guide was a half-step behind me with his hand on his gun the whole time. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that he cared. No, he treated me like a client. Someone to be protected until further notice. It was that “further notice” that made me a bit nervous. Well, that and the obviously heavily armed guards that littered the area. All guns and suits.

  The door opened as soon as we stepped on the stairs to the front door. I stepped inside without breaking a stride. There was no sound from the portable metal detector at the doorway.

  I looked around the empty house and realized I had guessed right. There wasn’t much furniture in the house. There were curtains though. Big heavy curtains made every room almost dark. The mist outside didn’t help.

  My guard, or guide, had stopped by the door without a word and watched me with a blank professional expression. He stood just a meter to the left of the door. A by-the-book position and one that would get you killed if the house was attacked. No one shot through the door these days. They blew the whole door area to hell just in case. At least they would if they thought to attack this many heavily armed guards. Either that or they would come in tanks.

  I scanned as much of the bottom floor as I could out of habit as the guard patted me down once again. I wouldn’t get out of here on my terms if things went south, but it wasn’t a bad idea to know the layout just in case.

  My guide hadn’t spoken or indicated where I should go, but I guessed that Johnny the Knife was waiting in the living room. I hope to God he wasn’t cooking in the kitchen. I grinned at my guide, but if he understood why, he didn’t show it.

  In the living room sat Johnny Nivo, blond, blue-eyed, and scary as hell. He wore his Armani like an armor and the body was not that of some decadent little mobster. No, this guy was a killer and it showed in how he moved and how he looked at you. Those eyes sent a shiver down my spine. He looked nothing like the forty five-fifty year old he must have been. He looked like mid-thirties, tops.

  Johnny Nivo rose and walked up to me. To my complete surprise he hugged me and stepped back. “No offence, but I almost feel like you’re family. Not ‘Family,’” he said and walked back to the couch. “Sit! As Lou’s and Piotr’s daughter you have got some respect and by your skill you have more.”

  “Thank you, Mr Nivo.” I said carefully. I didn’t really know how to handle this. But I’d be damned if I would try and capitalize on it.

  “Call me Johnny.” He said and pushed a Styrofoam cup towards me. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” I sat down.

  I must have looked as stunned as I felt because Johnny Nivo started laughing. “Take it easy, Maria, I was a friend of your fathers’. We helped each other out. And we trained together sometimes. I miss those idiots.”

  He turned his blue eyes on me and I shivered again.

  “So,“ he continued, “how the hell did you get an open contract on your head?”

  “Scruples,” I answered shortly.

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  “They’ll get you killed.” Johnny Nivo agreed.

  “And an idiot that doesn’t understand principles,” I added. “In short – I fucked up. I ran when I should have sought out a mediator, and now I’m up the creek.” I sipped my coffee to stop me from turning into a babbling idiot.

  Johnny Nivo sighed. “You can say that again, Maria. We cannot do anything more than to stay out of it. Unfortunately, the primaries on this have never failed. I mean never failed. They’re that good. But I have assembled a file with as much as I can tell you about them.”

  Johnny nodded towards an envelope on the table.

  “At least I stopped Mike from going after everything and everybody.” I picked up the envelope and opened it. I already knew I wouldn’t be allowed to take it with me.

  “He wanted to go butcher on this?” Johnny Nivo asked in a hard voice.

  “Yeah. He said he would kill everyone just in case. I talked him out of it.”

  “Idiot,” he growled. “We can’t afford that kind of attention at the moment and he knows it! I’m going to talk to Silvio about this! Excuse me.

  Johnny Nivo walked out of the room, anger setting his pace.

  I was a bit surprised by the friendly welcome. I was generally regarded as a trustworthy outsider, but very few would give me the kind of welcome Johnny Nivo had given me. And that scared me a little.

  I wasn’t fooled by his calm and easy exterior. This was a guy that had more deaths on his hands than most serial killers and who lived and died by his oath to the Outfit. Nothing could change that.

  I pulled out the only sheet out of the envelope and started to read.

  I understood directly why I hadn’t heard about these guys. They had no name and no known members and they only did high-paying jobs. No other official work at all and they did nothing but hits. They had a list of successful hits that you wouldn’t believe and that was only the hits the Outfit was sure they had done.

  These guys were also paranoid in the extreme, not surprisingly considering their business, but most crews like this have a bit of an ego. They like to make sure everyone knows they are the biggest guys on the block. But not these guys. You couldn’t contact them by phone, by mail, by e-mail, or anything. You posted your contract on listed sites and they answered only there. The money always had to be posted at some neutral third party and in cash. Nothing but cash drops. It was all or nothing, and if you messed up you were dead. They ran tight security, no delays or all was off. Or rather they ‘offed you. Listed in the file were people that had tried to cheat them or get a fix on who they paid. They were all dead.

  In short; they were hidden and incredibly well connected, and I was fucked. If the Mafia couldn’t give me more than this, they were some serious bastards. There were ways to track messages and communications, but I hadn’t the time or the resources to do that so I would have to go with the only other option available– live bait!

  “You tell him to play nice or I’ll go after him myself! It is an extremely bad time to go on a rampage. Everybody walks on eggshells here, and if you rock the boat some other organization will shut you down. Permanently!” Johnny Nivo almost shouted into the phone.

  “No, I’m not exaggerating, Silvio, “Johnny Nivo continued after a while. ”If the cops believe that we’re behind the kidnap and murder wave we have up here we might as well close down Chicago! It is that bad right now.” Johnny Nivo walked back into the room. “You do that! Bye”

  I didn’t say anything, but then I didn’t have to.

  Johnny sat down again. “You see why we think you won’t survive?” He meant the file, of course.

  I leaned back and nodded. No need to beat around the bush. They had canceled guys with more experience than me, so I could see where he got his optimism from.

  I was sure there was suspicions about who these people were and where they might be located. But those guesses wouldn’t be spoken openly. Wars started like that.

  “There might be someone else who has more info on these guys, but I wouldn’t bet on it. We know some other things about them, but that is not for outsiders. There are some things I can’t tell you about them. If you knew, you wouldn’t have asked us for information and since you did ask…” He spread his hands. “This is what I can give you. For the record, if you survive this come and see me again and I’ll answer as many questions you know how to ask.”

  I nodded slowly. Secrets were for the initiated, and some secrets you had to experience to understand. That didn’t make me happy, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  What it boiled down to was; what they don’t know can’t hurt you.

  “You think they might try here?” I asked. There was a little too much hardware around us for regular security.

  Johnny Nivo grinned at me. “Smart question! Let’s say that this security and hardware aren’t only in case of rivals or the law comes knocking.” He suddenly looked grim. “But if they did, I’d go crusade on them and I doubt they would survive that no matter how good they are. I don’t interfere in their business and they as sure as hell don’t interfere in mine. That’s the understanding,” he growled. “But, “He continued, “understanding is based on intelligence, and sometimes people do stupid things, eh?”

  That made me even more scared. If it was a possibility that they would try here and that Johnny Nivo seriously considered that possibility, they were even scarier than I thought they were. Mike wouldn’t even think about trying to take out someone who was paying a Capo Bastone a visit. Not without some help from inside. And some serious assurances.

  God, this was bad.

  Generally, there are some things you just don’t do if you’re a bad guy. Going after the Mob or the Russian mafia – or any other powerful organization, shoot at cops, draw undue attention to business, and so on. If you do, the hunting season starts. On you. And there are a lot of hunters in this neighborhood. But if you can back up your brass balls with something more than bluster, then you can get away with even that. Power balance is as important between the organizations as between military powers. There are rules, until you are powerful enough to break them. And that is what crime wars are about.

  I had to know more about the operations here in Chicago. I would have to go all-out on these guys, so I needed to know where I could drop a nuke and where I couldn’t. “I would like to know which parts of town I should stay away from. Areas that is too sensitive for me to even enter.”

  Johnny Nivo looked at me with cold eyes. “Why?”

  I shivered at the lack of emotion in those eyes. That he switched emotion on and off like that made him even more terrifying. “Because I might not be able to choose the playing field, and I will not take responsibility for idiots. I want to live, but I wouldn’t like to be hunted by everyone. So, I’ll need some information so that I can minimize damage if I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as I said, I won’t take responsibility for idiots. I will try to keep away from sensitive areas, but I won’t sacrifice my life because of it.”

  Johnny Nivo nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

  I let out a small breath I didn’t know I had held. “Good.”

  And then he surprised me again with a slap on the shoulder almost too fast for me to react. “Hah,“ he barked a laugh, “a little nervous, eh? Piotr and Lou would be proud. Who on the outside would even think of being honest like that? Who? They taught you well, Maria!”

  “They were honest men. In their own way.”

  Johnny laughed again and got right down to business.

  Anyone who knows anything about organized crime knows that it is the most brutal and dangerous way to live. You seldom see old Made Men. Or any other old, connected people. If I had to guess, I would say that perhaps ten percent live a normal lifespan. The rest? Worm food.

  I knew this world. I understood it and I could predict the dangers. Even in all the misery that came with living on the wrong side of the law, there were some things that weren’t that bad. I had friends, good friends, which despite their obvious anti-social tendencies were dependable and supporting. Friends that would kill or die for me, if that was what it took.

  But this situation wasn’t something you could involve friends in. I would have to take my chances on my own. Perhaps I could find other people that had bones to pick with these guys. The enemy of my enemy thing. Only, I wouldn’t trust new faces.

  An hour later my head was full with information about areas that the mob preferred I kept away from. Some I wouldn’t even thought about entering in the first place, and some were other syndicates’ areas that I would avoid like the plague.

  Johnny had another surprise for me. All but the Russians decided to stay off this contract. No one knew why, but it was the word.

  The whole situation was getting weirder and weirder.

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose trying to think of anything more I might need to know. “Anything else? That you can tell me, Mr Nivo?”

  “Just one thing!” He leaned forward and his eyes glinted with some emotion I could not read. “If you decide to fight, make sure you win, because these guys can make you sorry you even tried defend yourself!”