Operation Bamboozle

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Operation Bamboozle Page 24

by Derek Robinson


  “And the problem?” Martineau had a voice like rich gravy.

  “Well … she treats home like a hotel. No respect for her father. And this other woman paints pictures of her. Naked.”

  Martineau glanced at Fantoni’s suit, shoes, necktie. Not schlock. “Are they a financial burden?”

  “No. Hell, no. It’s the nude painting I can’t …” Fantoni shook his head. “I grind my teeth in my sleep, Father. Honest to God.”

  “Yes. And perhaps honest to Freud.” Martineau stroked his chin. “The good doctor turned over a lot of rocks in our sleep. Have you read his Die Traumdeutung? The Interpretation of Dreams? I could lend you my copy.”

  Fantoni waved the offer away. “Freud never had a daughter like mine. She flaunts her body. Hasn’t the Church got an opinion about nudity?”

  “You mean, should we put a figleaf over it?” Martineau chuckled. “The Middle Ages are a long time gone. You’ve seen Michelangelo’s statue of David, in Florence? A masterpiece. The Pope is not about to declare it obscene. The glory of the naked human body is celebrated in half the paintings of the Renaissance. Do you consider your body obscene?”

  “That’s not the point.” Fantoni glared. “Would you want nudes of your daughter … all right, your sister, all over your house?”

  “I’d have to see them first. Are they good paintings? Who is the artist?”

  “Calls herself Princess Chuckling Stream. Claims to be Comanche.”

  Martineau thought about that. “Some Native American art is excellent. Vigorous and uninhibited.”

  “You know a lot about it, for a priest.”

  “Oh, my first degree was in the history of art. That was at Yale.”

  “I went to Princeton.”

  “Ah. Princeton.” Martineau nodded sympathetically. “I’m told the plumbing is very good.”

  Fantoni hunched his shoulders. “Lucky you’re a priest,” he muttered.

  “Or what? You would break my legs? Is that your normal solution to problems?” No answer. “The confessional is open to you at any time. Now, for instance.” Fantoni was heading for the door. Nobody understood him. He was alone. Very well: alone he would be.

  3

  “I’m not going to Istanbul,” Luis said. They were driving back to Konigsberg. “My guess is that’s where Vito expects me to go. Operational headquarters. Close to Ukraine.”

  “You’d hate it,” Julie said. “Baggy pants and big black mustaches. Not your style.”

  “Or I could not go to Milan.”

  “It’s Italian. He’d respect that. Pull over here.”

  The Packard bumped onto the grass verge and he killed the lights. A distant whiff of the Pacific drifted into the car. Far off, première searchlights scanned the night sky and found nothing. “You gave away fifty grand back there, Luis. Why did you do that? First you bust a gut to get it, then you …” She raised her arms and let them flop.

  “It was a surprise,” Luis said. “Some of them didn’t really trust me. So I stuffed their mouths with gold.”

  “It was their gold.”

  “That’s not how they feel. They’ve each won five grand, and they’ve still got ten grand capital, plus forty they’ll earn.”

  “Fat chance. We just lost fifty grand. I’m not complaining, I just want to get the con straight, because the way I see it, we need to find two hundred grand for the first quarterly dividend, and now we haven’t got it.”

  “That’s a long way off. Maybe I’ll find it in Istanbul.”

  “Where you’re not going.”

  “For Vito’s benefit. If we hurry home and I pack now, maybe there’s a late plane I can miss.”

  She drove him to the airport. On the way, she said: “Maestro. Maestro DiLazzari. That was a bit rich.”

  “I simply told him what he wanted to hear. It confirmed his own opinion of himself. Now he believes he’s running the show. He’s the maestro, I’m just his bagman.”

  “Uh-huh. What was really on that tape?”

  “President Eisenhower’s State of the Union speech. Your pal at the studio lowered it a couple of tones and played it backward. Sounded Ukrainian to me.”

  “Gunshots?”

  “From his sound-effects library.”

  They walked into Departures and looked at people buying tickets. “I got nowhere to go,” Luis said. “Everywhere is out there, but I got nowhere.”

  “It’s a blues number. Try New Orleans.” They kissed. She left. Long goodbyes were not their style.

  The DiLazzari organization made money the way cows make milk. Each day’s output is recorded. A cow goes dry, it’s off to the slaughterhouse. No sentiment. The beast is not a pet, it’s a delivery system.

  Once a week, Nicky Zangara got reports from Vito’s lieutenants, boiled them down and told Vito what was paying and how much.

  Now he could see Vito didn’t care. Bored. Same old stuff. Nicky finished up fast.

  “This Ukraine thing,” Vito said. “Part of the crusade to save the West. I been thinkin’, what the US needs is a vigilante force to whack the Reds who’ve been infiltratin’ us, like Joe McCarthy says.”

  “McCarthy’s a bag of wind.”

  “That a fact? Maybe you’ve gone soft on Communism, Nicky. You never liked this Ukraine thing, did you? Maybe you’re some secret bleeding-heart pinko liberal. Maybe my vigilante force ought to whack you first.”

  “Gimme the say-so an’ I’ll have Cabrillo whacked.”

  “And lose our investment? Not very smart.”

  “This patriotism shit,” Nicky said wearily, “it’s not what we do. It’s not business. It screws up the accounts.”

  “Which are history,” Vito said. “Cabrillo is the future. Patriotism is big business. Get your sliderule mind around that. How many beans make five, kid?”

  “It ain’t six,” Nicky said.

  “No? Rub ’em together, make ’em breed. Could be you got six, even seven, maybe eight. Get me? You make me tired. Be missing.”

  Nicky left. Be missing, he thought. Al Capone used to say that. Capone, too full of himself, picture always in the papers, big shot, big name, where did it get him? Jail is where. Huh. Be missing. Cheap crack. Cheap and stupid.

  4

  Agent Fisk told his boss that Cabrillo-Conroy were still active in LA, according to local Bureau sources.

  Agent Prendergast had kidney stones. He hadn’t told Fisk, hadn’t told anyone in the Bureau, because he hated the thought of being suspended for reasons of health. Meanwhile the kidney stones hurt. He asked Fisk exactly what ‘active in LA’ meant. Fisk said there was a pattern of association with known mob figures. Prendergast got a stab of pain in his gut and said, “If you want to go to LA and connect the dots and be a G-man hero, do it on your own time. Take a vacation.” Fisk said he had two weeks coming and he took it and flew west.

  Agent Moody was surprised to see him. “You sounded a lot taller on the phone,” he said.

  “I was standing on a box.”

  They went to a coffee shop. “Strictly speaking, I’m on leave,” Fisk said. “But seeing as I’m a local boy, got my degree at USC, and I followed Cabrillo-Conroy up and down the East coast, it seemed worth getting your slant on the case.”

  “There is no case,” Moody said. “They keep bad company. So do I. Some of their bad company end up dead. So do mine. Cabrillo-Conroy live in the Santa Monica mountains which we bug and tap and I think they know it because she sings These Foolish Things Remind Me of You right into the bugs. Sometimes they talk about Ukraine but the only crime being committed on the premises is the dog’s breath, which is not a federal offense.”

  “And Vito DiLazzari?”

  Moody took off his shoes and held them in his left hand and placed his hat on top of them. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “It’s a Mob boss with the shit kicked out of him. It’s DiLazzari, one day. But right now we can’t nail him.”

  Fisk sipped his coffee and thoug
ht. “Cabrillo-Conroy and DiLazzari form a pattern. A shape. There must be a purpose.”

  Moody put his shoes on. “I think you’d better meet Charlie Denny. He’s no damn help but he gives a very good lunch.”

  They ate at the Los Angeles Yacht Club.

  “Fisk is a great believer in patterns of crime,” Moody said. “Personally I never saw much shape in anything except maybe those cute chalk outlines on the floor. You have any thoughts?”

  Denny sucked down an oyster. He stared into space, as if listening for it to drop. “DiLazzari is taking a ride on a tiger,” he said. “Cabrillo has the tiger by the tail. Or maybe the positions are reversed.” He smiled benignly.

  “Told you so,” Moody said to Fisk.

  After ten days, Luis came back.

  He was in the belvedere, using a thin black cigar to burn holes in the red-and-green tunic he had bought in New York weeks ago, when Julie came up to say they had a visitor. Name of Denny. Said he was CIA.

  “An impostor,” Luis said. “Since when did the CIA make house calls? I’ll see him off the premises.”

  But Denny was in the kitchen, coat off, enjoying a cup of Earl Grey. He had an easy smile and a firm handshake. “Can’t tell you how much I’ve looked forward to this meeting,” he said. “Call me Charlie. I suppose you want to see a badge and ID and so on.”

  “No thank you. It won’t be as good as mine.” Luis showed him the honorary detective badge given him by the chief of police in Caracas. “Worth all the fifty dollars I never paid for speeding offenses.”

  Denny was impressed and amused. “Some of my colleagues warned me about you, Mr. Cabrillo. They said you were a maverick, a loose cannon, a rogue male. So I took the trouble to investigate Operation Bamboozle. We have men inside Ukraine. They tell me half the State lottery tickets are indeed forged. Congratulations. It’s not easy to jump over the Iron Curtain.”

  Silence. Julie looked at Luis. He was as straightfaced as a statue but his eyes had the look of a man who has just won the Nobel for piracy on the high seas.

  “Excuse us for a minute,” she said to Denny. “Have a cookie. Have them all.” He gave her a smile. No problem. He had plenty more.

  She took Luis by the hand and led him out of the house. “One. This guy is a Government man. Don’t ask me how I know. Two. It’s quittin’ time. Tell him the Ukraine is a con, pure and simple. Or dirty and complex. Whatever. Just tell him. Three. I’ll pack the bags because we gotta get outa here. Now.”

  They went inside. “Luis has news for you,” she said.

  “It’s all a con,” he said. “Forget Ukraine. They don’t even have a State lottery, so there can’t be any forged tickets, can there? Bamboozle is exactly what it says, a swindle. You’ve had a wasted journey. More tea?”

  Denny’s smile turned into a laugh. “They told me you would say that. Forgive my hilarity. But Ukraine does indeed have a State lottery, it is run by the KGB, it’s a racket and half the tickets are fake. The profits are channeled west through a Swiss bank, obviously. It’s a beautiful operation and the Agency wants it, complete and entire, for itself. We thank you for blazing the trail, and goodbye.”

  “No, it’s a con,” Julie insisted.

  “We know otherwise. The only real con is when you try to tell us it’s a con. Shame on you.” That last was a joke.

  “Where does this leave Vito DiLazzari?” Luis asked. “He’s a major investor. You’re making a hostile takeover bid. He won’t like that. It’s not ethical.”

  Julie sighed. “You’re away with the fairies again,” she told him.

  “Give him back his money,” Denny said.

  “There’s more to it than that,” Luis said. “Vito wants recognition as a concerned citizen and a patriot.” Denny cocked his head and looked sideways. “It’s true,” Luis said. “The DiLazzari organization outgrossed Pepsi in southern California last year.”

  Julie raised both arms. “Who cares?” she shouted.

  “Set up a meeting,” Denny said. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t understand. That usually does the trick.”

  “In your office?” Luis said. “Have you got a photograph of you with the President?” Denny nodded. “Vito will like that,” Luis said.

  Nothing more to be said. Denny thanked Julie for her hospitality, and left.

  She swirled the dregs in his cup and looked at the pattern formed by the tealeaves. “I see a mobster as mad as a wet hen.” She swirled again. “I see a boy and a girl riding into the sunset pretty damn fast.”

  Luis shook his head. “There is still juice in the lemon,” he said. “Old Ukrainian saying.”

  5

  A short five-hole golf course had been put into the grounds of the DiLazzari residence, and Vito was playing Nicky Zangara. “Bend your goddamn knees,” he said. “Look at the goddamn ball. Keep your fuckin’ head down.” Nicky smashed the ball as if he hated it and they watched it soar two hundred yards and vanish into the trees.

  “Shithead,” Vito said. “You lost it, you bought it.”

  Nicky gave him a dollar. Vito stared. Nicky gave him another. “I hit the sonofabitch twice as far as you,” he said.

  “Got no style. No class. This is a game for gentlemen.” The Packard came in sight, bending with the driveway. “Okay, fun’s over. Start polishin’ your decimal point.”

  Luis and Julie walked toward them. It was a silent afternoon, one of those gentle Californian moments when the trees were utterly still and the birds had the manners to chirrup softly and the sky had patents on a soft blue never seen elsewhere. Vito was throwing golf balls at squirrels. “Little bastards bury their nuts on my putting greens.” he explained. “What’s new in Ukraine?”

  “I held discussions with the general,” Luis said, “and he is steadfast in his resolution, deep in his admiration, and he wishes you to accept as a gift this item from his KGB uniform, being a token of your mutual respect.” He gave him the red-and-green tunic.

  “Gee. I’m speechless. He wore this? A Russian general’s tunic?” Vito put it on. “Hey! He’s got some chest on him. And look … Is this what I think it is?”

  “Bulletholes.”

  Vito counted them. “Five.”

  “Two from the assassination attempt. The others came later.”

  Nicky had moved behind Vito. “Shots go in the front,” he said. “Don’t come out the back.”

  “Bulletproof vest was underneath. Standard KGB wear.”

  “Tell the general …” Vito swallowed hard. “No, this beats me. You find something.”

  “Always In Our Thoughts,” Julie said. “That usually hits the spot.”

  “My other news is not so good,” Luis said. “The general employs Ukrainian Cossacks to run our secondary network of counterfeit lottery tickets. I like the Cossacks. I know you would too. Gallant, dashing men, with a sparkling sense of humor, and a steely loyalty to their leaders. But when it comes to the dull routine of office management …” Luis shook his head sadly. “They would rather be at the races. Superb horsemen, all of them.”

  “You’re saying they dropped the ball,” Vito said. “They loused-up our tickets.”

  “Yes and no. They sold a record number of our tickets. Unfortunately, and before the general could stop them, they published a list of twenty big winners.”

  Nicky put his head back until he was staring at Luis through eyes that were almost closed. “You said …” he whispered. “You said that couldn’t happen. On account of the winning numbers came from the unsold tickets. You said that.”

  “What nobody reckoned on was the Cossacks and their native gung-ho enthusiasm. For the first time ever, there were no unsold tickets.” Luis looked left and right, searching for a solution. “It was a natural phenomenon that no-one could foresee. We have been struck by friendly fire. We now owe a very large sum of money.”

  “Life is a lottery,” Julie said. “You never know what’ll hit you next.”

  “How big is big?” Nicky asked.

&nb
sp; “Slightly under a million dollars,” Luis said.

  Vito was poking a finger through the bulletholes. “So, tell the general to go shoot the bastards. That’s what he usually does anyway.”

  “He tried that. He personally led one squad. They met with armed resistance, which accounts for the other three bulletholes.” Luis blew his nose. “We nearly lost the general that day. Lose him, we lose everything. And many of the winners are too big to be shot. Farms, factories, schools: they club together to buy blocks of tickets. Army units, too. Police, even. If they don’t get their winnings, they’ll raise holy hell.”

  Vito stretched out on the grass. Luis and Julie sat. Nicky remained standing.

  “A million,” Vito said. “That’s impossible.”

  “Not if we spread it widely,” Luis said. “Yours is not the only syndicate to have invested in Bamboozle. You’d be amazed at the names, like yours, leading those syndicates. A former chairman of Du Pont, and the second-biggest publisher in America, and a retired Supreme Court judge, and the dean of an Ivy League college. In addition, Mrs. Conroy has some names here in LA that you may well know.”

  Julie unfolded a sheet of paper. “Norton Scripps Todhunter, philanthropist … Michael J. Stagg, of aviation fame … Mrs. Jessica Finch, of Finch Funeral Parlors. To name just a few.” She folded the paper.

  “Each and every one has contributed to the emergency rescue fund,” Luis said. “So have I, of course. We still need another fifty thousand dollars to reach the target. We’re depending on you. Otherwise …” He shrugged. “Moscow will want to know why.”

 

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