The Mark of Cosa Nostra

by Nick Carter

  "Agent?" Then I knew he was referring to the AXE agent who had been following the real Acasano. "Yes. Some concrete and wire and the Atlantic. He was well taken care of."

  "Where did you catch him?"

  "In my home. Somehow he had broken in and was stealing the telegrams you and I had exchanged."

  "Oh?" His eyebrows arched. "Only the telegrams, nothing else?"

  "What else…" I caught myself. "My friend, Rozano, I am not so stupid as to keep the list where a Government agent could find it."

  He smiled. "Of course not. But, Tommy, even you must be careful. There are enemies very close to you."

  I frowned at him. Maybe Acasano might have known what he meant but I sure as hell didn't.

  Then he nodded his shiny he ad forward. "See that television set? It is a video security unit. There is a camera mounted secretly in every room of the house." He picked up a small control box. "With this remote control I can see any room I wish."

  "As I said earlier, Rozano, my friend, your security would be the envy of every man in the States."

  "Do you know what Government agency the man following you worked for?"

  There it was again, another trick question from out of the blue. Was Nicoli testing me? If so, why? I found myself beginning to sweat.

  "No," I said. "I didn't find out."

  Nicoli moved forward on the couch "Didn't you search him after the hit?"

  "Yes… sure I did, but he had nothing on him, no papers or identification."

  "Hmm." He leaned back again, looking thoughtful "Of course he wouldn't carry anything going out to your home Afraid he would be caught, huh?"

  "Why all these questions. Rozano? Do you suspect me?"

  "Ha!" he shouted, slapping my back. "Whatsa matter with you, my old friend, huh? Got a guilty conscience?"

  I smiled weakly, and noticed that while the other men were still talking together, at least one of them was watching us at all times.

  "My conscience is clear. I have been loyal to you, Rozano."

  He hugged me. And when he looked at me there were tears in his eyes once again. "My old friend, I know. You and I go back too far for treachery, huh? But I am so sorry for you."

  "Sorry?" I asked with a frown. "But… why?"

  "Watch." He picked up the control box from the stand next to the couch and pushed a button.

  My eyes were glued to the television set as it started to brighten. There was flickering with wavy lines across the screen, then a picture came on.

  There was a room. There was no furniture except one straight-backed chair. A girl was sitting in the chair with her head bent over so I couldn't see her face. As I started to speak, Tai Sheng came on the screen.

  He had lost some of his polish. Even in black and white I could see he was sweating. In shirtsleeves, with the collar unsnapped, a few strands of hair hanging over his forehead, he stepped over to the girl.

  Nicoli was sitting quietly beside me. If I was breathing I wasn't aware of it. Tai Sheng grabbed a handful of the girl's hair and lifted the head up enough for us to see the face.

  It was Tanya. Her face was bruised and bleeding. I stared without believing. And even as we watched, Tai Sheng backhanded Tanya across the face. Then he doubled his fist and smashed her hard on the cheek. With a click the screen went blank.

  I spun toward Nicoli. "You had better have a damned good reason for this," I hissed. "That's my broad that gook is slapping around."

  He held his hands up, palms toward me. "Please, my friend. I can understand your shock. Imagine how shocked we were when we found out."

  "Found out what? Just what the hell are you talking about?" My guts were burning with rage. I wanted to tear the little bastard apart; give him open-heart surgery and go in through the bottom of his feet.

  But he sat there smiling sympathetically for me! Then he nodded. "I can see she fooled you, Tommy, as well as all the others."

  This was all going a little too swiftly for me. I was trying to figure where we had slipped up. There must have been a large confused frown on my face.

  "Tommy, have you ever heard of a Government organization called AXE?"

  Somewhere inside my head a part of me snapped to attention. It would have been easy for me to panic. Instead this part of me stepped back two paces and looked at the whole thing objectively through my eyes.

  Tanya was being tortured. Not because of what she knew about me. After all, Rozano had been sympathetic toward me. He had said that I too had been fooled. So, it wasn't me they had found out about, it was Tanya. And Nicoli wanted to know if I had ever heard of AXE.

  I shrugged, then said cautiously, "Maybe I could have read about it in the paper or seen something on television."

  Nicoli seemed pleased that I didn't know much about the organization. He leaned toward me with his eyes shining behind the bifocals. "Tommy, my good friend, it's like the FBI or the CIA. This AXE is a Government agency out to crush us."

  "That's impossible."

  "To you and me, good friend, it sounds indeed impossible. This thing of ours, this Cosa Nostra, is much too big and powerful to crush. But still the Government keeps on trying, huh?"

  "So what has this got to do with my woman?"

  The gold fillings were sparkling. 'Your woman is not the Sandee Catron she pretends to be. She is, in fact, an undercover agent for AXE sent here to Palermo to assassinate me!"

  My mouth dropped open. "I can't believe it," I said in a whispered rush.

  "So far Sheng hasn't been able to get her real identity, but he has ways. It will just take time."

  I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips, then adjusted my trouser crease. He was watching me closely and I knew it. To show anything other than shock would have told him something. I made sure my hand was shaking when I lit one of my cigarettes.

  "Rozano," I said calmly. "I am not a man to jump to conclusions. I have known Sandee for a time, perhaps not as long as I have known you, but long enough. To hear something like this about her is a deep shock. As much as I admire you, my friend, I cannot take this without some kind of proof."

  He put his hand on my shoulder. "Logical, Tommy, That is why I have always admired you. Logical Of course you must have proof, and I will give it to you After all what are friends for, huh? I will open your eyes to this thing."

  "Perhaps there is the possibility you may be wrong."

  "No," he said shaking his head. His hand was still on my shoulder. "Sheng has proved himself a good ally. His men are everywhere."

  "Sheng is a man to be watched," I said without feeling. "He will go far."

  Nicoli nodded. "Sometimes I think perhaps he steps too far. But he is useful, very useful. Listen carefully, Tommy. About a week ago there was a Chinese cook in one of the large Lake Tahoe restaurant-casinos. This man reported seeing Sandee Catron come out of a mountain cabin. He also saw three men. Since the cook was a good man working for Sheng, he decided to do a little checking. By asking around he learned that the men were newcomers. He already knew that Sandee Catron was your woman, so he checked with Chinese Communist American Headquarters in San Francisco's Chinatown. To his surprise he learned that Sandee was supposed to be in her New York apartment with you. If that was true, then who was the exact duplicate there at Lake Tahoe?"

  I smoked and listened. The picture was becoming very clear to me.

  Patting my shoulder to emphasize each sentence, Nicoli went on. "This cook had given a description to his headquarters of the three men in the cabin. Word came from San Francisco that one of the men was on file in Peking as an agent from a Government organization called AXE. Since one man was an AXE agent, logically, so were the other two. Why did they have a girl who resembled Sandee Catron? When Sheng told this to me, I thought these AXE agents had planted an impostor in New York and had kidnapped the real Sandee Catron. And I thought the reason for it was so the undercover agent could get the list from you, or get the information out of you somehow. These broads can be very persuasive, huh
, Tommy?"

  "Very. So, at first you thought she was after me. What made you change your mind?"

  He shrugged. "The girl came to Palermo with you. That meant she served another purpose. And then it was so obvious I cursed myself for being stupid She was sent to assassinate me so I wouldn't take over in the States."

  I leaned to my left and mashed the cigarette out in the ash tray. The act bought me a little time to figure how I was going to react to all this.

  "So?" Nicoli said. "What does my old pal, Tommy Acasano, think of all this?"

  I looked at him with pursed lips and a frown. "How did this cook, this stranger I have never met, know that Sandee Catron was my woman?"

  A flush came to his face. He blinked at me, took off his rimless glasses, and started wiping them with a spotless handkerchief. Then he cleared his throat and fixed me with a steady stare.

  "Tommy, you and I have been friends for more than a decade. We have seen many changes in this thing of ours. We have seen the young punks rise and the old masters go down in defeat. Change is constant, even in a business as stable as ours. You and I have not seen each other in ten years. It could be someone else from another family has won your loyalty."

  "Rozano!"

  He held his hands up, shaking his head. "No, it is true. Such a thing could happen."

  "Not to us."

  His hand went back to my shoulder. He was smiling now. "I know that now. But how was I to know, with you all the way across the ocean, huh?" He shrugged. "I am one step from the top. I cannot afford to trust anyone. Every man on my team has been screened and continuously checked for months. Even you, my friend."

  "I see." He watched me lean back and cross my legs.

  "Forgive me," he said in a voice that sounded almost whining. "But I felt such measures were necessary."

  "That I can understand."

  "Of course all the information was filtered back to me in strict confidence. I knew all about you and the Catron broad, about the accident that broke both the boyfriend's legs, the apartment you got for her, how you spent most of your time there, everything. It is all on file in San Francisco." He looked at me sympathetically. "You have been played for a sucker, Tommy."

  I leaned forward, slapping my fist into my open palm, "That bitch! That double-crossing little tease! Sure. Pretending headaches all the time, or giving some excuse not to go to bed with me. I should have been suspicious then."

  Nicoli smiled as though he had just been convinced of something. "Tommy, I am touched. You don't know how good it makes me feel to hear you say that. If you had been sleeping with the girl, there would be no way she could fool you. You would have to know she was different, that she was not Sandee Catron, and that would mean you were in the assassination plot with her."

  "Impossible."

  "Yes. Impossible. I know that now. But to prove your loyalty to me, my friend, may I have the list?"

  "Certainly." I unfastened my belt and pulled it out enough to reveal the secret zipper on the inside. He watched me closely as I pulled out the rolled piece of paper and without hesitation handed it over to him. "I will do more than this," I said. "The girl made a fool of me. She has to pay for that. No man would respect me knowing I had been duped by a broad. She has to be hit and hit hard. And, Rozano, I feel that I am the only one entitled to do it."

  Nicoli carefully unrolled the piece of paper. Holding it under his nose, he looked at it through the bottom half of his bifocals.

  In a matter-of-fact voice, and without taking his eyes from the list, he said, "No, Tommy, that won't be necessary. I have other plans for you. Tai Sheng will take care of the girl."

  Nine

  My mind raced as Nicoli continued to read over the list. I couldn't allow Sheng to kill Tanya but I didn't even know where they had her. Nicoli had kept the box hidden against his side so I couldn't see which room button he pushed. Yet, somehow, some way, I had to stop them from killing her. The television was shut off now. For all I knew, Sheng could have already killed her.

  Nicoli cleared his throat, then carefully rolled the paper again. "Yes, it is about what I expected." He smiled at me. "You did well, Tommy." Then he sighed, leaned back, and waved to the other men in the room. "You can go now."

  They nodded in unison, put their glasses down immediately, and followed Michaels to the door. Michaels left with them.

  "It is going to work well for us, Tommy. I have waited a long time to get back home. Now I'm ready. Soon you'll be a very wealthy man, my friend."

  "I'm a wealthy man now."

  "Hah! Chicken feed. What do you make, huh? Eighty, a hundred thousand a year?"

  "A hundred and thirty thousand. That includes my interest in the loan-shark business and the numbers racket."

  He leaned forward with excitement dancing in his gray eyes. "Man, I'm talking about millions! How would you like to rake in one or two million a year, huh?"

  "It would be nice."

  "Think you could live on that, huh? With ninety-nine percent of it tax-free? I'm going to blow the States wide open. We're pushing the penny-ante punks off importing heroin and cocaine. That will be taken over by us. Everything will be stepped up: prostitution, the rackets, jukeboxes, and vending machines. And we're going to have more pull in Washington. I got two Senators and three Congressmen ready to play ball for a price. They'll get themselves on the right committees. Then whenever the Government tries to come after us, or some newly elected Senator wants to make a name for himself by attacking organized crime, our boys there will launch a whitewash investigation, just like some boys did when they were after insurance companies. A couple of two-bit punks will be arrested, and that will be that. Free rein again."

  "You make it sound easy, Rozano."

  He frowned at me. "What is it, Tommy? You got no enthusiasm. Still moonin' over that dumb broad? Huh? You'll have a hundred broads. Gorgeous broads, and stacked. You'll get tired picking from them because they'll all be knockouts."

  I was shaking my head. "That's not it, Rozano. It's that Sheng. I don't like him. It bothers me that he's in with us. How do you know you can trust him? He's a goddamn Communist, isn't he?"

  "Tai Sheng has been very helpful to me," Rozano said with a smile. "He will be even more helpful once we get into power."

  "Perhaps. Rut there have been whispers among those family heads who support you. None of them like this Sheng. We have never needed enemies of our country before. Why now? Our form of government is what allows us to operate. We wouldn't make a dime in a Communist country. So why him? The family heads think the Oriental group is very strong in the States. They are well organized in every ghetto and Chinatown. Maybe, with Sheng as their leader, they plan to take over the families and shove you out in the cold. Remember, he has been with you for quite a while. He knows a great deal about how this thing of ours operates."

  "Fairy tales!" Rozano almost shouted. "What am I? A two-bit operator? Huh? I don't know men? I haven't screened those who come to me?"

  "I wasn't saying that. All I was…"

  "Nonsense, Tommy. That is what you have been saying. I do not operate on whispers, but on performance. Sheng has already proved his value."

  I leaned back and hiked my knee up. There was one ace I hadn't played yet. "Rozano, we are good friends. I was not going to tell you this."

  "Tell me what? Is it about Tai Sheng?"

  I nodded. "It was when he came to the hotel to pick us up. As soon as I got in, he told me to turn over the list to him. He got very upset when I told him nobody would get it except you."

  He frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That's odd. He knew you were to bring the list here to the villa. Why would he do such a thing?" Nicoli stood and crossed to a small control panel. He pushed a button.

  Almost immediately the door opened and Michaels came in. "Yes, sir?"

  "Tell Louie to bring Sheng to me."

  Michaels bowed and went out. Nicoli paced back and forth, checking his watch now and then. Presently he cam
e back to the couch.

  "Tommy," he said brightly. "How would you like to see what I've been doing on this side of the pond?"

  "I'd like that very much."

  "Good! The plane will be ready soon, in fact they are loading it now. Another shipment is going to Istanbul."

  "A shipment of what?"

  "Heroin."

  The door opened and Nicoli jumped to his feet. Sheng came in wearing his perfect-teeth smile. He did not look at me. I noticed he had put his coat on, straightened his tie, and combed his hair. There was no sign of fatigue, nor of Tanya.

  "You wished to see me, Rozano?" he said in his oily voice.

  "Tommy tells me you wanted the list from him when you picked him up at the hotel."

  For an instant the smile wavered, but Sheng recovered quickly. "And you believed him?"

  "Of course I believed him. Why wouldn't I believe him? Are you denying it?"

  The smile broadened. "No, it is quite true. I did ask for the list. It was my intention to deliver it personally to you, Rozano. I do not trust this Acasano, I have never trusted him. It is difficult to believe he was totally ignorant of the girl's being an agent."

  "That's beside the point. The girl fooled a lot of good men."

  "As you wish, Rozano. But I think this Acasano is lining up the families in the States against you, not for you."

  Nicoli took a step toward the Oriental. "Perhaps I am not as bright as you, Sheng. But you had better be able to prove that, or on my mother's grave you will pay for such a statement."

  The smile on Sheng's face vanished. "Rozano, I never say anything I am not prepared to prove. I have a man in Istanbul who has information on Acasano. The man had been instructed to check him out. A photo was taken when Acasano entered the Corini Hotel in Palermo. It has been enlarged and studied very carefully. My man will compare it with photos taken of Acasano ten years ago."

  Nicoli was frowning. "What are you trying to say, Sheng? That Tommy is not Tommy? That he's somebody else?"

  "Exactly. An agent for AXE, working with the girl."

  Rozano Nicoli let out a large" run of deep laughter. He backed to the couch, still laughing, and almost fell to a sitting position. He punched my shoulder. "You hear that, Tommy? You're not you!"