The French Connection

by Robin Moore

  The cab led them straight across midtown to Third Avenue, where it turned north, then, at 52nd Street, made a right, stopping midway toward Second Avenue in front of a restaurant called La Cloche d'Or. Egan and Waters, having watched Jehan enter the restaurant from the corner of Third Avenue, walked along the opposite side of 52nd Street until they came abreast of the place. There was a fairly good view into the small, cozy-looking, French-rustic style café. Jehan was being seated alone at a table for two, and the host, with a slight bow, was handing him a menu.

  "Could be a meet," Waters said.

  "Maybe. Anyway, it looks like he'll be here for a while. Have you eaten, Frank?"

  "Not lately."

  "Why don't you grab a bite?" Egan suggested. "I had a sandwich before. I can stay here."

  "I think I'll do that. See you later," the agent said as he returned to his car.

  Egan strolled to Second Avenue, then came back past La Cloche d'Or to Third Avenue, and finally he folded himself into the shadows of a brownstone structure across from the restaurant and lit a cigarette, shielding the flame of his Zippo with his hand.

  At the Edison, Sonny Grosso also had taken time for some nourishment at the coffee shop. His stomach had started acting up again as it always did as tension built in a case. Intestinal rumblings and a little queasiness had warned him of an impending case of the diarrhoea that had embarrassed and almost incapacitated him on several previous occasions. So he indulged himself in a cheeseburger, tossed green salad and two large glasses of milk. He remembered his mother often saying that milk "bound up a loose stomach."

  By 7:30 Sonny was back in the Edison lobby. Agents covering the hotel reported no further word on Jehan since Frank Waters' signal that Eddie Egan had the Frenchman at the restaurant on East 52nd Street. Sonny decided to go over and keep his partner company. He left the hotel and walked to his white Oldsmobile convertible, which he had left parked on 47th Street near Eighth Avenue. Warming up the engine, he flicked on the portable radiophone. Somebody was reporting on Patsy Fuca.

  " — in his blue Buick on Grand Avenue. Traffic is heavy, a lot of shoppers out. Now he looks like he's heading for the Williamsburg Bridge." There was a staticky pause . . . "That's it, the bridge. He's going into Manhattan again. Anybody around Pike Slip?" A brief gaggle of voices confirmed that Patsy's favourite hangout was under wraps. Sonny reached for the mike. "Cloudy here. Who's on him, kay?"

  "Fluhr and Bailey."

  "Artie: he's by himself, right?"

  "He's alone."

  Sonny listened as the agents crossed the East River behind Patsy. "Coming off the bridge now, on Delancey Street. Oh-oh, he's going right, uptown. Turning on Houston, approaching the Drive, yeah, he's going uptown on the Drive."

  Back to the Roosevelt? Sonny asked himself. Why not? that was where he had met the Frenchmen each of the past two days.

  "Cloudy again. I'm on the west side by the Edison. I'm going to start moving east. I think he may be going to the Roosevelt again. Give a yell the minute he gets off the Drive."

  Sonny turned the corner of Eighth Avenue, went north one block, then east on 48th Street. As he negotiated the stream of cross-town traffic, the metallic radio voice of Artie Fluhr continued to relate Patsy's progress: "Past Fourteenth, past Twenty-third . . . "

  Sonny wished Egan and Waters were with him.

  "Passing Thirty-fourth now. He's moving along pretty good, traffic's light here. He's getting over in the left lane, looks like he's going to get off at Forty-second."

  Sonny had reached Fifth Avenue on 48th. He waited for confirmation. "That's it: Forty-second Street!"

  Fluhr cried. "All cars in the vicinity,"

  Sonny broadcast, "get in position around the Roosevelt."

  He raced across Fifth Avenue over to Madison and, cutting downtown to 45th, opposite the Roosevelt, drew over to the curb just short of the corner and doused his lights. The streets were busy with pedestrians, but there was nobody familiar to him outside the Roosevelt. " . . . continuing west on Forty-fifth," Fluhr reported. Sonny peered beyond the hotel into darkened 45th Street, trying to wish Patsy into view. It was eight o'clock. A bus stopped at the corner of the Roosevelt and left its rear sticking out into the cross-walk, blocking his view of the hotel entrance.

  At the other corner, on the south side of 45th, a man in hat and overcoat paced outside a public telephone booth occupied by another man. Sonny marked the nervous one as a home-bound commuter anxious to reach his wife.

  Then Sonny rolled down the left window and stared. Sonofabitch! Frog Three! And Barbier was the one in the booth! He snatched the radio mike:

  "Cloudy here, at Forty-fifth and Madison. Guess who I found? The two missing Frogs! They must be waiting for our boy."

  " . . . approaching the Hotel Roosevelt," Artie Fluhr signalled. Sonny glanced away from the telephone booth. A car was nearing the front of the Roosevelt.

  As it came into the bright glow from the marquee, he recognized Patsy's blue Buick. A couple of other sets of headlights followed half a block behind, one of which had to be Fluhr and Bailey. Patsy swerved to a stop by a fire hydrant next to the telephone booth near the corner. Mouren tapped on the glass pane, alerting Barbier, then walked around the front of the compact and climbed into the rear seat. Patsy's head swivelled in every direction. He doesn't like sitting there any longer than necessary, Sonny thought. In a moment, the booth went dark as Barbier emerged and got into the car beside Patsy. The signal light had just changed to green, and the Buick spurted across Madison, westbound on 45th Street.

  Sonny quickly looked for the car carrying the two agents who had trailed Patsy from Brooklyn. He spotted it almost at the intersection of Madison. Sonny snapped, "Artie!'‘" and simultaneously flashed his headlights, "you guys hang back while I take them. Pull into that space they just left. I'll flash you whichever way they go. Everybody else stand by."

  Sonny turned right into 45th. Patsy's Buick ahead was waiting for a light at Fifth Avenue. The signal changed, and the compact made a left, heading downtown. Sonny just beat the light and came up behind them as Patsy, left directional blinking, waited out opposing traffic before turning into 44th Street.

  "They're going into Forty-fourth back toward Madison,'‘ Sonny radioed the other police cars in the area. He could picture Fluhr and Bailey leaving their spot opposite the Roosevelt and pulling around to the corner of 44th and Madison.

  The Buick, however, manoeuvred into a space midway between Fifth and Madison. Sonny also edged in to the curb well to their rear. The three men got out and Patsy locked the car doors. They walked across the street to a bar-restaurant called the Game Cock, a beamed English pub-style bar that Sonny knew to be a favourite of advertising and publishing people in the Grand Central district. At eight-fifteen on a Friday evening, the place was crowded with junior executive types. A few were flirting with pretty, fashionable young editorial assistants or secretaries.

  Patsy and the Frenchmen found a booth and were ordering drinks, while Sonny managed to wriggle some elbowroom at the end of the bar. He asked for a sweet vermouth on the rocks.

  The subjects were seated around a semicircular table, bent forward over their cocktails, heads together, talking earnestly. Sonny, sipping his sweet wine sparingly, cast only an occasional glance in their direction. He thought more about the deployment of police vehicles that he hoped was taking place outside. After about fifteen minutes, Patsy stood, looked around and made his way to the rear of the bar, where he entered a telephone booth. He was on the phone for about ten minutes; Sonny saw him deposit at least one additional coin. Then he returned to the table and resumed the intent discussion with the two Frogs. It must have been growing heated, for Sonny could see Patsy gesticulating as he made a point and Barbier and Mouren responding in kind. They paused to order another round, Patsy a highball and the Frenchmen brandy in snifters. Ten minutes or more later, Patsy again rose and went back to the telephone. They seem to have problems, Sonny thought.


  So they couldn't have set the deal yet.

  On 52nd Street, between Third and Second avenues, Eddie Egan's conviction that Jean Jehan was waiting for someone in La Cloche d'Or had waned considerably. The detective, first standing next to the stairs of the brownstone across the street, then pacing the block, had been sure that Frog One must be keeping a prearranged appointment at the little French restaurant. But he had just sat there, alone, apparently savouring the various courses served him, a small bottle of wine at his hand. Nobody had approached him other than the maitre d'hôtel and a waitress. Once, about eight o'clock, he had arisen and moved out of Eddie's view, returning, still alone, after several minutes; it could have been a trip to the men's room, or perhaps a telephone call. Since then, he had not stirred, concentrating with leisurely care on the food and drink before him. A little after eight, Frank Waters had come back and informed Egan about the new tail on Patsy, who had picked up the missing Frogs. They waited together out of sight across from La Cloche d'Or.

  Now it was eight fifty-five, and Egan had gone through almost an entire package of Camels, when Jehan appeared about to leave. Smiling and nodding graciously, he paid his check, gathered himself together and stepped out into 52nd Street. Drawing a deep and apparently satisfied breath, he strolled west, toward Third Avenue. Egan and Waters followed separately, glad at last to be going some place.

  The question of what place, however, remained unanswered. For Jehan wandered slowly and without apparent aim toward the West Side. He paused here and there to glance into windows of luxury auto showrooms on Park Avenue and the elegant shops along 57th Street. At Fifth Avenue he turned up toward the Park and strolled diagonally through Grand Army Plaza, its great fountain and pale statuary softly lit, a courtyard in front of the majestic Hotel Plaza.

  Here it is, thought Egan, watching from the corner of Bonwit Teller's at 58th Street: he's meeting somebody right here in the open. He gestured to Waters, across Fifth Avenue. But then Jehan started walking again. No, Egan guessed, he's going into the Plaza. But Frog One went by the hotel's entrance, its broad steps crowded with smartly dressed people awaiting transportation, and turned the corner onto Central Park South.

  Egan grew irritable. How much do these creeps like to walk? How far are they going to make me walk? When the hell is the breakout?

  Jehan led them to the next intersection, where he stood a moment outside the Hotel St. Moritz before continuing south on Avenue of the Americas. When Egan came around the corner, waving Waters on, Jehan was almost across 58th Street. On the far sidewalk he hesitated, then detoured toward a brightly lit bar on 58th, a few steps off the Avenue. He looked in the window a few seconds and then went inside. The place was called the Thunderbird. From a vantage point across the street, Egan, joined now by Waters, could see that the bar was practically empty, although it was ten o'clock.

  Frog One had seated himself at the bar and ordered a drink. The only other customer Egan could see was a flashily dressed blonde with a gaudy bouffant hairdo a few seats along the bar. Jehan had spotted her too, and was eyeing her, smiling and raising his glass.

  "Now who's this broad?" Egan pondered.

  "She looks like a hooker," said Waters.

  They waited in the street until several more customers had entered and the place didn't look so barren, then pushed through the door themselves. Jehan by this time was perched next to the blonde. They were engrossed in what appeared to be amused repartee.

  Egan and Waters took a tiny table at the rear of the lounge, where the lighting was dimmer, and ordered two ryes and gingers and some pretzels. Egan went to the telephone and advised base as to Frog One's current location. He was told that for the past hour, since 9P.M., Patsy Fuca, with the other two Frenchmen, had led some twenty cars full of police and Federal agents an exasperating chase throughout midtown.

  Egan returned to the table and had scarcely finished bringing Waters up to date, when a familiar face popped through the door from the street, Dick Auletta. He picked them out at once and advanced through the bar, passing behind the Frenchman and the woman. Auletta leaned over the two at the rear table.

  "Sit down," Egan offered.

  "I can't. I just wanted to see if anybody else came in here, Patsy or the other two Frogs."

  Waters stiffened. "Don't tell me they're completely lost?"

  "Naw. My partner and I just lost them around here somewhere, and I heard you guys were in here. We got about eighteen or twenty cars on them. Somebody will pick 'em up."

  "What the hell are they up to?" Egan asked.

  "Damned if I know," Auletta shook his head. "Well, I'm gonna go back to the hounds." He glanced guardedly toward the bar. "I see the old fox is making out. Need any help?" he asked Egan.

  "No, I don't figure what he's up to either, but he's been easy so far. Me and Frank will handle him."

  But Waters stood up. "Eddie, if you don't mind, I think I'll tag along with Dick a while. I'll be back later."

  Auletta and Waters went out, leaving Egan alone to watch Jean Jehan.

  Sonny Grosso was perplexed and upset. Since leaving the Game Cock on 44th Street about 9 P.M., Patsy and his friends had run everybody ragged. As soon as Patsy had finished his second telephone call, they paid their check and went out to the Buick. In a minute, Sonny followed. Waiting for him in the doorway of a shoe store next door was Special Agent Ben Fitzgerald, and together they walked rapidly to Sonny's car up the block. Fitz, florid-faced, his eyes bright behind his glasses, told him that the area was saturated with detectives, some on foot, most in automobiles.

  As he had the night before, when he had succeeded temporarily in throwing off pursuit, Patsy wheeled his compact around onto Madison Avenue and sped northward. But this time there were too many trackers for even as skilful a driver as Patsy to outsmart. Radiophones churned out rapid-fire bursts: "There he is!" . . . "I got him . . . Pick him up at Fifth" . . . "Somebody take him off Fifty-fourth . . . We're on him . . . Who's at Park and Forty-ninth?"

  The radio frequency used by police officers in surveillance situations was a well-kept secret. A Mafia Don did once steal a police portable radio transmitter, but the organization lacked the electronic expertise needed to modify the set to pick up the new frequency to which the police quickly changed when the theft was discovered. Thus the narcotics officers could broadcast in the clear, although they never used subjects' names.

  "He's headed west on Forty-seventh . . . " over the air, and the combined force of police and government agents built a complex structure of surveillance. One car would follow the Buick a block, then turn off, and another car, approaching at right angles to the direction of flight, would swing after Patsy; or the Buick would make a turn, and the trailing police car would continue on, but yet another would already be in the block Patsy had just entered, waiting to take up pursuit. It was tricky, but given experience, instinct and daring, it worked. Nevertheless, Patsy made it exciting, and at times perilous. He drove like a Hollywood stunt man, in and out of streets, up and down avenues, twice around whole city blocks.

  Surveillance cars were all but running into one another at intersections, manoeuvring to get out of Patsy's way as well as that of other police cars.

  The chase had been going on at a frantic pace for nearly two hours. In all that time, Patsy never left the area of midtown Manhattan circumscribed by 42nd Street to the south, Broadway to the west, 57th Street to the north and Third Avenue to the east, roughly a hundred square blocks. By ten forty-five, Sonny felt he would go out of his mind if the chase continued.

  He and Fitzgerald must have been through every one of those hundred blocks. Together with Waters, who had joined the chase with Dick Auletta, Sonny masterminded the mobile surveillance. They hadn't lost the Buick, but what disturbed Sonny more and more as the night grew later was the question of Patsy's intentions: Was he actually trying to shake the tail? Or were he and his companions running through an incredible elaborate "rehearsal," a dry run? Or were they playing games, en
joying themselves at the cops' expense? And there was the recurring doubt: while they played the decoys, was the deal being made somewhere else, perhaps by persons not even suspected by the police as yet?

  Sonny's speculations ground slowly to a halt, as, just before 11 P.M., for the first time in an hour the blue Buick continued in one direction for more than a few blocks. From Sixth Avenue, Patsy turned east on 46th Street, and now he had crossed Fifth, Madison, Park and Lexington avenues and was still going east.

  Oddly, the straight path was the one weakness in the sophisticated police logistics; it eliminated the effectiveness of a number of cars going in different directions and critically reduced the number able to adjust to follow directly in Patsy's wake.

  At Second Avenue, the blue compact made a sharp right and raced downtown. Patsy lucked through several changing lights and cheated on some others, and as he passed 34th Street, still on Second Avenue, from what Sonny and Fitz could make out from garbled, conflicting radio transmissions only they and another car bearing Jimmy O'Brien and Jack Ripa had managed to stay close to Patsy and the Frenchmen. But the others were coming now.

  At 24th Street, Sonny saw Patsy swerve left toward the East River. This was an area of old, sooty-grey brick tenements — it was in fact the street where Sonny's parents had lived when he was born. But Sonny had little opportunity to entertain nostalgia. Patsy halted the Buick down at the corner of 24th and First Avenue, facing the Veterans Hospital and the downtown perimeter of the big Bellevue medical complex.

  His passengers stepped out, and even as the door slammed shut, the Buick was hurtling around the corner and up First Avenue. "Who's got Patsy?" Fitz yelled into the radiophone. Sonny had stopped the Olds on the dimly lit street about two thirds of the way toward First Avenue, watching the Frenchmen. "He's off Twenty-fourth and going back uptown on First!"