I asked, “Paul... you mean that’s all the security they had?”
“It was a new twist, Jack. The time before when there was an attempted hijack, eight people got shot, a large transfer truck burned and the cargo was nearly lost. They went the other way this time. Less is more.”
“Less is less, Paul.”
“Yeah, well. Anyway, it was supposed to be secret.”
“Supposed?”
“Big money can buy big secrets, Jack. This old world is coming apart. 9-11 should have told us that. So should the mess in Iraq.”
“What the heck could anybody use it for? Who else had a delivery system anyway?”
“Jack,” he said, “some countries make no bones about atomic materials and use them as a bargaining point. Others are openly trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
“Paul, they couldn’t have gotten that stuff out of the country, could they?”
“No, not with our inspection devices. But...”
“Say it.”
“Suppose they want to use it right here?”
I wanted to explode but held it back.
“What kind of a team is on the prowl for it?” I asked him.
Paul told me, “From what I understand, the Feds have a small army of experts with their noses to the ground.”
“All chasing down Benny Orbach’s background and current associations?”
“Probably.”
“And getting nowhere?”
“I can’t find out anything. The big squeeze is on this.”
“Have newspapers or TV sources got a bite on the story?”
“No way. The Feds have got long arms with big sticks.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “You remember those TV shots of the public running like hell when the World Trade buildings came tumbling down?”
“It hasn’t slipped my mind.”
“Imagine what would happen if someone popped off one giant atomic blast in the middle of Manhattan.”
“Damn!”
“Maybe there wouldn’t be anybody left to run away,” Paul said hoarsely.
“So we find the load of bad news.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ Jack?”
“Guess it’s up to the NYPD.”
“Jack — stay retired....”
“Oh absolutely,” I said derisively.
Chapter Eight
Darris Kinder drove me to a friend of his who operated a towing service and had several pieces of equipment on hand that could handle five tons with no difficulty. Tony Marks, the owner said, “How much weight you talking about?”
“At the minimum, a couple of tons.”
“What size?”
“Let’s say a four-foot cube.”
“No problem. Is it on the ground?”
“In a truck.”
“So you slide the skids under it and lift it out.” He thought about it, figuring out the next step. “Then,” he said, “you spin the load around on the same skids and drop it into the other truck.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he repeated. “What are you figuring to steal, Mr. Stang?”
“A lady’s heart,” I laughed.
“Brother, that is a heavy load,” he laughed back.
On the way back to Sunset Lodge, Darris said, “Jack, I’m not going to get into your business, but if something is going to happen around here, I’d sure like a little warning.”
“It’s cool, Darris. If this were a trouble spot, I’d sure tell you.”
“Big time, right?” he said.
“Big time,” I agreed, “and out of the area.”
There are moments when you have to sit back and think things out. Other moments, time that seemed to drag on listlessly suddenly explodes into such action that you can hardly remember one second from another. Sometimes — like now — it was a bit of both. I went from being a listless retiree who was turned upside down by things of the past into a hairy old bull with a feather up his tail.
And unlike the immobilized past, the screaming present was unwinding like a high-speed spool of tape on an old-fashioned computer.
So I sat down in my own living room and let the facts roll by me. There weren’t many. What could Bettie have uncovered that would lay organized crime open for conviction? It was another generation of mob power now. Did they face the same dangers? What was the stolen atomic pile to be used for? Where was it hidden? It would have to be in a very protected place that could contain possible radiation.
Hell, all I had to do was read the papers. Who wanted atomic energy? Not the kind that could run productive factories or be used in scientific experiments or be beneficial to the citizens of the world.
Somebody wanted the destruction it could bring to cultures they hated. Progress was the 9-11 debacle, the terroristic political regime of Iran and neighboring nations of the same bent. Nothing was hidden any more. All their vicious desires were out in the open now, horrific endeavors barely disguised behind religious themes. With one blast of atomic power there wouldn’t be any need for suicide bombings or driving hijacked aircraft into huge commercial buildings. One big city, one gigantic explosion, one tremendous death quotient and their demonic point would be made.
The government had agencies to handle a crisis like this. But the government had agencies that moved as fast as a garbage scow with anchors down. And the government would never think that an almost dead street in Manhattan might be the breeding ground for a great catastrophe.
I ran my fingers through my hair and wondered where all the wild ideas came from. Ideas weren’t real — but they preceded reality.
I heard the bells from the ice cream truck coming down Kenneth Avenue. I left bleak thoughts behind and went outside and bought three vanilla super-cones from a kid with a ring in his nose and brought them over to Bettie’s house.
Tacos let out those race-dog yips and when Bettie opened the door he nearly took his own personal cone out of my hand, along with my fingers.
Bettie just stood there smiling in her see-through nightie, her untrimmed delta a refreshing pleasure in these days of bizarre pubic buzz cuts.
“Why do I like you?” she asked.
“Because I bring you expensive presents. Like ice cream cones.”
The dog had already dropped his on the floor and was busy licking up the mess. I got a paper towel and wiped out the tongue marks from the flooring.
Bettie said to me, “That’s the first time they came down this street.”
“You said they got fresh, before...?”
“Those drivers were always making remarks to me from the village area.”
“You’re worth whistling at any place, kid.”
“They aren’t from around here, you know.”
“Now how would you know that?”
“From being blind,” she said quietly. “My ears hear things... like dialects, that other people might not recognize. All those drivers have New York accents.”
“Most of the people down here are escapees from the big city.”
“Sure,” she agreed. “But those people have money.” She paused. “Do ice cream truck drivers get paid much?”
I shrugged. It was an oddball question. I asked her why.
She told me, “Darris said he thought he saw one of them in Sarasota driving a new Porsche convertible. He had a real snazzy blonde with him, too.”
I frowned at that. Porsches don’t come cheap, and neither do snazzy blondes.
Of course, Darris could have made a mistake. Except old ex-cops don’t make those kinds of mistakes.
I picked up the phone, got Darris on the other end and asked Darris about the ice cream dealer in the Porsche.
There didn’t seem to be any doubt in his mind. “I was positive it was him, all right. Maybe I wouldn’t swear to it in court, but it sure looked like him.”
“You meet him often?”
“When they were getting permission to operate here, I had a half-hour discussion with him. He check
ed out at his last job up north. Want me to get out his file?”
“Sure do.”
I heard a metal door slide open, the rustling of papers and Darris said, “Here’s the skinny on the group that sells the ice-cream product over here.”
He read off five names, giving me their backgrounds and I stopped him in mid-sentence with, “Who was that last one, Darris?”
He checked back and said, “Romero Suede. Suede — like the shoes.”
“Late twenties, six feet tall, dark, pockmarked complexion?”
“Sounds like the very beauty,” Darris replied. “You know him?”
“If it’s the same Suede, my old partner nailed him twice for possession of narcotics. He got six months on Riker’s Island, did four and was turned loose.”
“Who got him off?”
“That came at the request of the city. The place was overcrowded and they needed the space.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll check it out. Incidentally, where’s home base for that ice cream business?”
“That’s one of the Garrison projects.”
“You know anything about that operation?”
“No,” he told me, “But if you want to take a ride to the county seat with me, we can check out the tax rolls and see if we recognize any names.”
“You’re on, Darris. Pick me up in the morning. You’ll give a nice official overtone to the inquiry.”
And he did.
Sunset Lodge was a well-respected development and the nature of our requests was simply to see who we might contact to share mutual interests in expansion possibilities.
We got what we needed.
Al Capone liked Florida. So did a lot of other hoods in the old Prohibition days. Some of them drifted down the Keys for retirement, away from the probing of big city cops, or to establish a new line of illegal traffic. For a while Cuba made a great base, then South America opened up a new narcotics trade potential. The ones who got rich went back to being part of the financial underworld, turning dirty money into clean cash.
Retired mobsters weren’t just living at Garrison Estates — they owned it!
On the way back, Darris behind the wheel of his hopped-up black Ford, I said, “Buddy, I think we’re up to our ears in one big, deadly scam.”
“What?” His voice was soft, but the way he said it was like thunder cracking.
“Do me a favor,” I said, “keep a close watch on Bettie. And I mean close. Get one of the station house bunch, or several, to keep a relay cover on her. They know the routine and they know me.”
“How about Joe Pender — he was a pal of yours, right?”
“Perfect. And anybody Joe recommends.”
“Weapons?”
“Damn right.”
“But...”
“The old warhorses’ll be glad for the action.”
“Jack... these guys are all married.”
“I know. You think their wives protested when they were on a hot case?”
He didn’t answer me.
I said, “They’re cops’ wives, pal. They’re with us.”
“I should have known better than arguing with the Shooter,” he told me. “Now, where will you be?”
“Unfortunately, back in the Big City.”
“Unfortunately for the Big City,” he said.
Something had happened to me.
The Big City had become jammed with those “teeming” throngs that had always seemed so natural before. Suddenly they were all strange faces and behind each face was some odd agony that no one else knew about and the afflicted didn’t want to divulge. I used to see these aberrations and try to study them, but this time nothing formed into a clear matrix. I tried to ignore them and go about my business.
Sometimes I’d had to shoot one of them. I didn’t like it, but if I hadn’t, that one would have shot somebody else. Now, there was that feeling again. Something was happening and it wasn’t clear yet. It was arising like an animal awakening from hibernation and it was going to be angry and vicious if anything got in its way.
It was an instinctive gesture, but my hand ran over the familiar bulge that said the old, well-oiled Co... .45 was in its hip holster where it was ready in case all the action was suddenly shoved in my face.
Going into this alone was bad news, so I called Davy Ross and got him just as he was leaving his office at his new assignment.
I said, “I’m back again, Dave. This thing keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
“They all do, Jack. What’s going on?”
“I need backup, buddy — this is going to need more hands.”
“Want me to alert some of the group here?”
“Tell them to keep their cell phones handy. And their sidearms.”
“Got it... and by the way... I got a call to be passed on to you. Remember that vet, Brice, from Staten Island?”
I felt a coldness come down on me like a sudden shower.
“Yeah. What happened?”
“Somebody tried to knock him off. They got into his bedroom and took a shot at him, but one of those pet dogs of his jumped the guy from behind, and the bullet missed. The mutt got his teeth into the guy.”
“Bastard get away?”
“Yeah, guy pulled loose, left part of his coat sleeve behind and got into a car that was running outside the office. An old man, a light sleeper, heard the car’s engine going and looked out the window to see what was happening and caught the end of the action. Couldn’t identify the car and didn’t see the plates.”
I put the phone down and stared at the wall.
How would they get the connection between Bettie and the vet?
And why? That part was easy... she could have hidden the information that was so critical to the mob there and a hit man was sent to search the place, knocking off anyone who tried to interfere.
There was only one answer. I called Bettie and after four rings she answered.
I said, “Bettie, this is Jack. Did you call Dr. Brice recently?”
“Why... yes. The other day. With my memory returning, I just... just had to. Why? Was that bad?”
“No, kid. Just tell me what happened.”
“It was just to say hello and we didn’t talk for more than five minutes. He had a sick animal he was tending to.” She stopped, then asked quizzically, “Why?”
“You call Darris over now. Like right away. Tell him I said to clean your phone circuitry.”
“But...”
“Please, doll, do it. Now.”
“Very well.” After a brief pause she said, “Is everything all right?”
“It will be,” I told her and hung up.
Technology.
It had changed most of the criminal minds so that they knew how to use the greatest scientific advances for their own ends. They had the money to do it and the manpower to make it work. How they knew to tap Bettie’s phone was a mystery right now, but all mysteries finally get solved sooner or later.
There was another part of the puzzle that was evident now. If they knew where she was, why didn’t they kill her?
Because she still had something vital they needed, and that was buried in her lost memory.
Then something else flittered through my mind. How did the mob know she had lost her memory? Nothing was ever printed in the papers except the fact that she had been presumed killed when the car went over the bridge.
There was a damn leak.
Someplace in her past, someone knew of the infirmity and somehow passed word to somebody else and the news went unheeded until someone recognized it for what it was. It couldn’t have been a reporter because that was a story that would never be suppressed. The whole affair was damned accidental and had taken a long time before it raised its head from the dust.
For a few minutes I thought about it and the conclusion had to be one thing. An employee at the veterinary hospital had overheard something, or was told something in confidence, and had unknowingly passed the information to someone
who realized the implication and went to the right people with the story.
But... The big but was still there. Where did she hide the essential piece of information that had disrupted so many lives? And what was it?
You can hate coincidences all you want, but they happen.
There was one oddball piece of information nobody had bothered to investigate. Big Zappo Padrone’s name had come up, like a wild throw from left field. He’d been dead for generations, a lousy racketeer from the days when they were throwing bombs into saloons selling the wrong guy’s beer and blasting away with sawed-off shotguns and outrunning the Coast Guard boats with those hot rod, Liberty-powered engines left over from World War One.
He’d lived on the same street I’d worked on. His old house had been the headquarters for the New York mob action. Smaller then, not nearly as efficient as now, but just as deadly.
I glanced at my watch, then grabbed a cab and took it to the big library on Forty-second Street. I didn’t even have to show my credentials. The librarian recognized me, gave me a big welcoming smile and directed me to the area where all the old newspapers had been filmed and were on file for immediate usage.
It didn’t take long to zero in on Big Zappo’s background. There were old photos of his house on a nearly empty street, and one close-up with Big Zappo himself on the porch trying to hide his face behind a newspaper. I was just about to turn the dial on the microfilm reader and see the next page, when my eye caught something that damn near made me sweat.
The house number was plain as day. It was 4428. Hell! I remember Bucky painting on 703 when I was at the station house at the corner!
This old street ran crosstown and in the wild, hairy days of Big Zappo, one end of the street was growing and the other end just dropped into the East River. When the building boom started to corral the immigrants, streets got numbered and houses were re-identified. 4428 turned into 703. So, who hung onto the old number and why? There was a connection, all right. It was Big Zappo himself. He had lived there under both addresses.
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