by Black Alley
My head didn’t snap up. The motion was very slow and deliberate. The color outside the window came back and I could feel myself breathing again. I kept thinking that living was a real pleasure and anything that had to be done to prolong it should be done.
When Velda came back she was holding the body armor shirt. “What is this, Mike?”
I didn’t feel like going into long explanations. “Something scuba divers use underwater.”
“What do you want it for?”
“Sunken treasure, doll,” I said.
“You?”
“Let me have my dreams, will you?”
She tossed it on my desk. “You really need a wife, Mikey boy.”
“Sure I do,” I agreed with a grunt. “Now sit down in the client’s chair. I need a sounding board. It’s not like the old days anymore. I have a head full of details, but I can’t seem to get them lined up. Azi’s .357 got me in the side, but it’s messed up my thinking.”
With a look of understanding, Velda sat down. She didn’t have to take notes. She was one of those people who had that ability to remember an entire lecture on criminology almost verbatim and repeat it back afterward. It was something she did when she wanted to, but not bothering otherwise. Even the way she sat was part of her deliberate intention to absorb every word I said and the tilt of her head reminded me of a feral cat waiting outside a mouse hole.
So I gave her all the elements of the case as I knew them, and when I was done, went over them again with suppositions thrown in to bolster theory. When I was done I felt like having a cold beer, but the ache in my side said no.
“What do you think, kitten?”
“You’re the detective,” she reminded me.
“Unless you forgot to renew it, you have a ticket too.”
“Wouldn’t you do better asking Pat?”
“If Dooley had wanted that he would have asked Pat himself. This is something he dumped on me. Sooner or later Pat is going to have to come in on it, but right now his job is running down Dooley’s killer. Everybody else is playing a big guessing game and they have the board nailed to my back. They hate me for not holding still long enough to let the darts hit it.”
“It’s all about money, isn’t it, Mike?”
“Eighty-nine billion dollars worth. It sounds almost indecent to say it.”
“And nobody is sure of where it is.”
“Hell, nobody can prove it even was. If the story is true, the old dons got screwed out of it, but they’re all dead except for Ponti. The young guys in the mob have a good idea that it’s somewhere . . . but can’t locate it. What’s funny is that it isn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack at all. It would be one huge pile of cartons packed tight with cash or negotiables . . . and nobody wants to talk about it at all.”
“Mike . . . how did the feds come in on this?”
“They’re money mice, doll. They can smell the stuff and will follow the trail until they die. They don’t care how they clip the public, but don’t let anybody hold out a dollar on them. Look at how they got Capone.”
She considered that a minute, then smiled gently. “Modern technology. In Capone’s day they had comptometers, today we have computers. They’re going to run that money down with electronics. The new dons used them to shake out the possibility of a hoard and we don’t even have a laptop.”
“We don’t need one,” I said. “Electronics didn’t squirrel that much cash away. It was being collected and hidden before the computer age hit us.”
She was thinking the same thing I was, and it showed in the way she pursed her lips. “We still follow the money trail, don’t we?”
“Right you are, doll, but before we do, let’s verify those big numbers. Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report . . . all those magazines have covered the actions of the families. Go hire some researchers to get the details. Pick up what you can from the newspapers and don’t sweat out specifics. Anything they got would have been an estimated figure anyway. We know what the drug revenue is figured at, so put it all together in big round numbers and see what we get. And by the way, have we got enough money to pay for researchers?”
“That much we have,” Velda reassured me.
“Let’s do it then.”
Ever since the army days I had never stayed in the sack after six. The coffee was made, my face was shaved and I was all dressed when the authoritative knock came on my door. I could have told who it was. Unless a badge was flashed on Bill Raabe and he was told officially not to announce the visitors he wouldn’t have let the president in. But here was Mr. Authority with a big fist who looked startled as hell when I jerked the door open and said, “Well, Miss Lake and Mr. Watson, you’re just in time for coffee.” I looked at my watch. “You city people sure get up late. Where have you been?”
Florence Lake smiled feebly. Homer harrumphed and let me shut the door behind him. I ushered them into the living room, then went back and got two cups of freshly brewed Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for them. They both muttered thanks, but I had sure put a big dent in their surprise visit. Some people can be all shook up by an official call that early in the morning.
So I let them sit. Finally Florence Lake said, “We have done an exhaustive study of Mr. Dooley’s past. A lot of man-hours went into this and we came up with some interesting details.”
“Good for you,” I told her. “You sharing this information?”
“We may.”
I took a taste of my coffee and set the cup down. “Look, Miss Lake, I don’t give a hoot one way or another what you tell me. If it’s something I wanted to know I’d find it out myself. Let’s not play games. What have you got?”
The two of them exchanged glances, then she pulled a few papers from her pocket and laid them on the coffee table. They were receipt forms, six from Gerrity Trucking company, listing week-long rentals each time and four separate orders from Watertight Carton Company. The dates were years old.
I looked them over, shrugged, and said, “What’s this suppose to mean?”
“Your friend rented those trucks and bought those cartons in his name.”
“Big deal. He worked for Ponti and the don let him do what he wanted on his estates. Why don’t you check with Lorenzo himself?”
“You know what Ponti would tell us,” Homer said.
“Yeah, he’s not a nice guy like I am.”
“Mr. Hammer,” Homer insisted, “have you got any idea what your friend would transport in those trucks?”
“Of course,” I told him.
They both edged forward on their chairs. “If you’d check those dates, it was when old Ponti was building his place up there in the mountains. Dooley was crating all the furnishings he was putting in there and hauling them up.” Their expressions suddenly turned cold. “Why, do you think he was carting money someplace?”
They were lousy poker players. That’s exactly what they had in mind. I was only guessing about when Ponti decided to move to the country, but it sounded like a good guess. If it had fallen to the don to hide the great pile of loot he’d need some kind of a cover story to do it and this would have been a logical one.
Neither one wanted another cup of coffee, so I let them leave and called Pat at his office. He chuckled when I told him what had happened, then asked what I was doing for lunch. I knew something was up by the way he said it and told him I’d meet him at his favorite pizza place at noon.
I had a single slice with coffee. Pat ate all the rest, washed it down with a cold Miller High-Life, then leaned back, satisfied. “Dooley has really got things rolling. This business with the families is nothing new. Our guys knew something was going on, but nobody was shooting at each other with any great regularity. . . .”
“What about the shoot-out at the dock?” I said sharply.
“That one was a total surprise. We never saw it coming. They put it down to a sudden animosity between the mobs, or something the young ones brought up. They couldn’t find a reason for it and Ponti certain
ly didn’t offer one. All he told us was ‘You know how it is.’ ”
“Pat, you have something on your mind,” I told him.
He waved for another cup of coffee. I shook my head. “For the past two years there has been some great familiarity between the young punks in the mob. It isn’t that they have any great love for each other, just that they have something in common.”
“Sure, the only thing that interests them is money.”
“They’ve hired some fancy talent to do things for them. A lot of those kids are damn well schooled and know where to look for specialized help.”
“But there’s nothing you can charge them with,” I stated.
“Right.”
His coffee came and he tore open a couple packets of Sweet ’N Low and dropped the contents in.
“But we know where they have an office full of top of the line computer equipment. We staked the place out for three months and have a total of twenty-seven upper-echelon mobsters who have been there. We never knew why, but we have enough supposition to get a friendly judge to sign an order that allows us to search the place.”
“Pat, you’re not supposed to be telling me this.”
“I know, pal, but it was you, me and Dooley before and no matter how you cut it, you’re in this too.”
“When are you going to hit that place?”
“No way you can tag along, Mike.”
“Then how am I in it?”
“In spirit, pal. You can read about it in the papers.”
“The feds going in?”
“Can’t keep them out.”
“But you have the search warrant.”
“Sure, and we’re scratching backs too.”
I said, “When do I get the details, Pat?”
“As soon as it’s not classified.” He picked up his cup and finished the coffee. “Wondering why I’m telling you this much?”
I nodded. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Pat wiped his mouth and stood up. “I’m curious to see what you’re going to do.”
I said, “Oh,” paid the bill, and told him so long outside the diner.
Willie-the-Actor was a little skinny guy with a strange kid-like voice, a deep love for any kind of booze, and no money at all. The job I held out for him was easy enough to do and meant a whole week in a bar if he could handle his money properly. It took a whole morning to get the scene staged properly and when I was sure he had it, we got in a cab, went to the address that I knew and made a call from a cellular phone.
He didn’t know who he was talking to, but he said it fast and clearly, sounding like a twelve-year-old street kid half out of breath and real excited. He didn’t even wait for the person on the other end to answer him. He said, “Ugo . . . Ugo . . . that you? You know that place where you guys meet? Some guy is watching it. I think he’s gonna bust in there. I had to let you know cause we’re kind of neighbors. You better get over here, Ugo.” He stopped a moment and I could hear shouting in the phone, then he said, “Gee, he’s lookin’ over this way. I gotta go.”
When he hung up I handed him his pay, let him get out of sight around the corner and went back to my cab. We didn’t have to wait very long. Ugo Ponti came out of the garage under his house in the dark blue Buick and took off with a screeching of his wheels. My driver followed him without any difficulty at all. In New York there are cabs all over the city and one seems to look just like another. Twice we rode right alongside him and I got a good look at the glowering face of the prince of the local family.
We got down to Greenwich Village where new businesses have renovated the dilapidated old area and breathed new life into it. There was room at the curb for his car so he parked and hopped out. I paid off the cabby down the block, saw Ponti scan the street then enter a narrow alley between two buildings and disappear. The doorway was there, a heavy wooden leftover from a different century. The lock had been replaced with a good model, but one I could handle, so I just backed off, waited inside the lobby of a publishing firm until I saw Ugo step out, maddeningly puzzled, his face tight with anger. He looked around, shook his head and went back to his car, probably silently cursing the “kid” who had recognized him and passed on a bad tip to him.
The lock was as easy as I expected and I closed the door behind me, locking it again. I was in a stairwell with wide, old-fashioned treads and an ornately carved banister leading to the upper floors. I didn’t have to go higher than the second. A pile of empty cardboard boxes and assorted trash blocked the way so I used my tools on the lock in the door to my left. Enough light came in from the old round window in the wall to let me see what I was doing and in two minutes I was inside.
Here I could use the lights. The windows were completely blacked out so that whatever was done here was done in secret. The tables were made of plywood on sawhorses, cheap chairs and soda boxes were used for chairs, and cardboard cartons were the containers for all the paper that ran through the computers and copiers that lined the room. There was a fortune in electronics and exotic machinery in every available space, and from the paper residue it had been in constant use.
There was nothing I could understand. I took out a good ten feet of paper, rolled it up and stuffed it in my pocket. Maybe somebody else could decipher the numbers. What I wanted to find was the material they were using for their computations. There were two filing cabinets. One held replacement tapes and copier paper, the other a set of repair tools and some replacement parts. Twice, I made a circuit of the room, poking into anything that might contain what I wanted. Nothing. I finally got it when I noticed the phones beside each one of the computer stations. They weren’t taking any chances at all. They simply called out to another location to get their input material, reducing the odds of somebody getting wise.
I was all set to leave when I heard the stairs outside creak. I flipped the lights off, then squeezed in behind a four-drawer filing cabinet just before a key went into the lock and the door opened. The .357 came in first with Ugo right behind it and Howie Drago backing him up with an automatic in his fist.
Howie closed the door, then fanned out a little from Ugo and surveyed the room inch by inch. I was in a darkened corner and didn’t move, so his eyes went right past the cabinets. Six feet away Ugo was doing the same thing, seemingly disappointed because they hadn’t surprised anybody.
Finally Howie said, “You think that tip was square?”
“It was from a kid and they’re not gonna make up stories like this.”
“So you’re like a hero to him, huh?”
“Why not? All the kids know who I am.”
Howie wasn’t sure at all. “What the hell was a kid doing over here?”
He got a disgusted sneer from Ugo for that one. “You think the kids don’t follow me around? They know where I go to eat, the joints where I hang out—”
“That’s not here, boss.”
“It don’t surprise me none, but I’ll check it out.”
“Tell me, why would anybody want to break in this place? There’s nothin’ here they could understand. The guys take all the books with them when they leave.”
“If they saw this equipment being delivered here,” Ugo told him, “and they knew the place was empty most of the time, this would be like a candy store for some druggie. They could even peddle the phones.”
“I thought you was gonna get rid of this stuff.”
“We are. Patterson’s on it now. He has a truck coming in this week. They proved that the cash is missing, but they still don’t know where. We paid a lot of idiots for nothin’.”
Both of them were still moving while they talked, cautiously peering under the tables and kicking at piles of discarded waste. Ugo was the closest and his frustration was making him more nervous with every step. He was going to be damn sure nobody else was here and I knew he’d see the filing cabinet was out far enough from the wall to hide somebody behind it.
I stayed as immobile as I could. Ugo was getting close. I could hear his foots
teps, the impact when his shoe booted something aside, then he was right up to the cabinet and he stopped dead. He saw the possible area, the only place in the room that could conceal a person and he was about to earn his bones once more.
It was too bad he was right-handed. Had he shifted the .357 to his other hand and come around the corner he would have nailed me, but he led with a stiffened right arm and I had twisted the rod out of his fingers before he knew what had happened, spun him around and held the muzzle of his own gun to the back of his neck. His breath was sucked in and he couldn’t even talk, but I could smell the fear that oozed out of him and knew when he wet his pants.
When Howie saw Ugo standing there with the fear painted on his face and a forearm at his neck he stiffened momentarily until he saw the gun come away from Ugo’s head and level directly at his face. And it was a big gun. It was the biggest S&W that they made and looked even bigger with all that nickel plating on it.
I said, “Drop the piece, Howie.” My voice was nice and cold.
The automatic clattered to the floor. He kicked it away without being asked. He hadn’t seen my face yet and didn’t place my voice.
I said, “Turn around.” He barely moved, so I thumbed the hammer back on the .357 and his face went white when he heard the click. He turned around then. “Walk backward over to me.” His feet took little tiny steps as though he was forcing them to go in the wrong direction. I had him stop when he reached the spot I wanted, then cranked down on Ugo’s neck so he couldn’t move and slammed the gun against the side of Howie’s skull. He went straight down like a puppet when you cut the strings and Ugo almost did the same thing when his knees gave way. I moved the gun back to his head again and felt his body begin to twitch. Ugo Ponti was looking down his own black alley.
There was no sense trying to change the tone of my voice. I just changed the tempo and volume when I said, “So your inheritance is down the drain, kiddo. Even the computer whiz kids don’t know where it went. No transactions, no deposits . . . just a big nothing.” I let my words sink in, let him measure the caliber of my voice. “But I’m going to find it, Ugo baby, only first you’re going to tell me something.”
