Page 31 of Operation Wolf: Eli
CHAPTER 17
Eli
OLIVIA SWEPT OFF WITHthe dishes, and I couldn’t help but think this was what it must be like to have a wife. Someone to share a cup of coffee with before we both hustled off to work. Someone to come home to, to look forward to waking up with. Someone who was all mine. I wondered if such a life would ever be possible for Olivia and me.
It’s got to be. I’m not the same street kid I used to be. I’m a soldier, and I’ve got connections in high places now. If there is any time for Olivia and me to try to make a go of it, it’s now.
That’s the spirit, my inner wolf rumbled.Take what’s yours.
Chuckling a little, I cleared away the rest of the dishes and prepared to go into town.
The life and mind-set of a wolf is far simpler than mine. But maybe my beast is onto something, after all.
* * *
I was in a pretty good mood by the time I reached the post office.
I’d already stopped at the general store for the kerosene and made light conversation with some of the townsfolk in the square who were warming up nicely to the new Mr. Degan, especially after mywifehad made an effort to visit the town, indicating to the women that I was not, in fact, single. Not that it had stopped some of them from giving me sultry looks and flirtatious smiles. Seemed that steamy kiss I’d given Olivia in the park the other day had gotten tongues wagging and imaginations firing.
Not that it really mattered either way. There was only one woman for me, and she was waiting back at the place I was beginning to think of as home, wearing a paint-smeared frock with her hair tied back as she worked on her latest masterpiece. When I’d come up to kiss her good-bye, there had been a smudge of blue paint on the tip of her nose, though I had no idea what the blue was for. She’d refused to let me see the painting, and all I knew was that it was being painted on a vertical canvas.
“Hello, Mr. Degan,” the postmaster called as I walked into the post office, his steel-gray bristle mustache twitching with a smile. “Come to check the mail?”
“Hello, Mr. Harrington.” I waited until the man finished ringing up the woman at the counter before I approached. “Have you got anything for me today?”
I was expecting Harrington to say no as he usually did. Mail hardly ever came to the residence out here unless Hunter or his family was actually here publicly, which was certainly not the case now. So I was taken aback when the postmaster actually nodded and ducked behind the counter.
“Yes, I believe something did come for you today,” he said, rummaging around. “Aha! Here we are.” He popped back up from behind the counter with a smile, proffering a single white envelope.
Taking the envelope, I glanced at the return address.
It was from a C. Kingston in Tallahassee, Florida, addressed to Mr. Todd Degan. I knew it was from Hunter because prior to my leaving, we’d agreed to use the secret code name “C. Kingston” for any emergency communication from him. I surmised the envelope was rerouted through a different state to keep it from being so easily tracked. Dread tugged my stomach toward the soles of my shoes.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Harrington. Good day.”
I left the post office, the postmaster staring after me with interest, and found a bench near the town square to sit on. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my pocketknife from my back pocket and used the blade to slit open the envelope. I slowly pulled out the letter and unfolded it, not at all sure I wanted to read it but knowing I had to.
Dear Mr. Degan,
Our friends in Chicago have been having a bit of trouble finding their missing outfits. I don’t know how, but they managed to figure out I was involved in their disappearance and have contacted me, demanding to know their location so that they could recover them. I have so far refused to give them any information, but they did make some interesting threats. As a result, I agreed to pass on a rather unfortunate message from Jack Carideo himself.
He insists, if the outfits are not returned, particularly the Italian skirt, they will have to seek reparations from the tailor who made them. According to Jack, they already have said tailor in custody, and he is quite a nuisance to them. So much of a nuisance, in fact, that if the outfits are not returned, they will have to let him go.
I cannot promise they won’t soon discover the locations of these outfits on their own, so I suggest that you act accordingly. I think it would be awfully nice if you kept in touch sometime.
Sincerely,
C. Kingston
I folded up the letter, my fingers numb, and I slid it into the pocket of my full-zip sweater that I wore under my coat. I didn’t know how the Outfit found out about Hunter, but given their vast intel connections, anything was possible. But Hunter’s code was crystal clear. Jack Carideo himself had gotten involved, and I knew from my experience with the Outfit that if Olivia wasn’t returned per their demand, they were going to kill her father.
A large part of me wanted to just shred the letter into a million pieces and ignore it. I didn’t care if Jack wanted to whack Sal Giordano as long as his daughter remained safe. After all, it was that bastard’s fault we were in this whole mess in the first place. But I knew Olivia would never forgive me if she found out I’d let her father die. She loved the crotchety old bastard even though he had chosen to lead a life of organized crime and had done nothing but cause her heartache all along.
Not to mention, there was no guarantee we would stay safe even if we did just hunker down here and wait it out. There was always a chance the Outfit could have tracked this letter here. Maybe they were even sending soldiers down to Shelburne right now to take care of the whole mess. It wasn’t like they would have to travel all the way from Chicago. The Outfit had friends and connections on the East Coast that would gladly take a trip to an idyllic little town in Vermont to pick up a few renegades and cause some trouble.
No, I would have to take some kind of action; that was for certain.
The only problem was, I had no clue what I was going to do.
