The French Connection

by Robin Moore

  Patsy locked up for the night about twelve. He and Nicky got into the Cadillac together, and Egan and O'Brien elected to tail them. But Waters for once stayed, more interested in Tony Fuca, because as he had come out of the store Tony had stuffed a small package into the slash pocket of his navy lumber jacket. When Tony wheeled his Chevy wagon around and headed toward the Williamsburg Bridge, Waters and Sonny were right behind him.

  Tony didn't take the bridge. He went up on the Expressway and drove north to the cutoff to the Triborough Bridge, which he followed into the Bronx. The officers followed up Bruckner Boulevard to where Tony turned off to Westchester Avenue. At Southern Boulevard, he pulled into a small vacant lot, got out and — his jacket pocket still bulging —walked to a brightly lit hash house called Dave's. As Grosso and Waters came abreast of the place, through the plate glass window they saw Tony pass through a door into a rear room.

  So Tony was making deliveries of junk even now!

  While Grosso and Waters later tailed Tony to his apartment not far away on Bryant Avenue, in midtown Manhattan at 1:20 A.M., a sleek black 1960 Buick Invicta was being returned to the garage beneath the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on 50th Street off Park Avenue. A very weary Jacques Angelvin walked to an elevator. He was worried because, contrary to François Scaglia's explicit instructions, he had spent half the day driving around New York in the new car he liked better than any mistress he had ever had.

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  Ever since his arrival in New York Jacques Angelvin had been irked by the dictum laid down by Scaglia and Jehan against taking his Buick out of the hotel garage. How was he to survey the great city "like a real American," as he had promised his vast television audience before leaving Paris, if he were not permit-ted to move at will? Taxis here were very expensive. As for exploring the city on foot — hardly comme il faut.

  He understood what the auto contained, but he was sure there was no way it could be discovered. Would le grand Ed Sullivan tramp about Paris like a tourist?

  But why had François and his friends not completed the transaction on schedule? That night, Jacques had reviewed the five days of his visit. So much had been frustrating. Arlette, the little girl from the ship, had left for Chicago on Thursday afternoon, only hours after the satisfying morning consummation of their shipboard flirtation. He had been forced to leave her at noon to meet Scaglia, which had not improved his disposition as he had walked uncertainly across the city to the bar of the Taft Hotel. Scaglia was awaiting him there, and they walked from the Taft to a small French restaurant in a street beyond the famed Broadway of which he had heard so many legends. This daylight glimpse of the avenue's brazen gaucherie was the first of his disappointments in New York.

  At least his companion's conversation over luncheon was more encouraging. Scaglia and his associates hoped to conclude their negotiations by Saturday at the latest. Jacques was asked to be always available at the Waldorf, prepared to execute his simple assignment — to deliver the Buick to wherever he was directed. Meanwhile, the Corsican reiterated emphatically, his eyes hard, that the car was not to be moved.

  Jacques asked almost plaintively when the transaction was a fait accompli, would he then be free to make full use of the Buick? Mais certainement, he was assured. While he was waiting, New York had been made at least bearable by Jacques's chic guide, the lovely Lilli DeBecque. Thursday evening they had enjoyed cocktails and dinner at the Café de La Paix at the Hotel St. Moritz. In spite of the cold, he and Lilli had taken a walk in Central Park, and later he suggested a nightcap at the Waldorf. She sipped brandy with him, but when he invited her up to his suite once again, she declined with firmness.

  On Friday Angelvin visited Peter Selliers, a French journalist, and Paul Crenesse, head of the New York office of Radio Télévision Française. They took him to NBC to see the studios and meet some of the American producers.

  Again that evening he and Lilli went out, first to the Plaza for dinner and afterwards to the Maisonette of the St. Regis Hotel. And again that night, Mademoiselle DeBecque returned alone to her apartment on East 20th Street and Angelvin occupied his suite in the Waldorf without company.

  On Saturday Lilli showed Jacques some of the sights of New York. Angelvin had been sorely tempted to take the beautiful Buick out for the trip around the city, but that morning Scaglia had telephoned him.

  François's voice rasped over the wire with tense urgency: there had been an unfortunate postponement, plans must be delayed.

  But the car? Angelvin protested.

  Leave the automobile untouched! And Scaglia rang off.

  So by bus, subway and taxi Jacques and Lilli visited Greenwich Village, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza and even took the bus all the way uptown to see the George Washington Bridge.

  Angelvin was impressed with the New York subway system and amazed at the awesome size of the city it served. In spite of the thoroughly pleasant time they had together during the day, followed that evening by dinner at Trader Vic's, Lilli still refused to succumb to the blandishments of the French TV star. He slept badly that night. The Buick seemed at the core of all his growing discontent.

  On Sunday his frustration built until finally he disobeyed Scaglia's orders. He went down to the garage, took his car out, picked up Lilli and drove all around New York, parking down at the Battery and taking a ferry boat over to the Statue of Liberty. The exhilaration of the drive did much for his spirits. Jacques hoped that perhaps "le Jazz Hot" would do something to escalate his relationship with Lilli, and that night he took her to Basin Street East. But once more, Lilli went home and Jacques slept badly again.

  As Angelvin had made ready to go out into the city Monday morning, he wished terribly that the entire ordeal were over. He looked forward to going to Niagara Falls for the day on Tuesday and then on Thursday night he would be in Montreal where things were French and the girls, he had been told, more amiable. Today he had further meetings with Paul Crenesse and other people who would help him take the pulse of American television. Also, he resolved that for the good of his spirit he would take his car out for another drive about town. He brooded at the cavalier treatment accorded to him by Scaglia, and made up his mind that when he returned to Paris, he would try to avoid Scaglia at all costs.

  Lilli met Jacques at the Waldorf after lunch on Monday. Nervously, but buoyed by excitement, he led her down to the garage to his prized Buick and they drove out into the streets of New York. Occasionally he thought of the illicit cargo stuffed into the under-structure of the vehicle, but the exhilaration of guiding his car about New York with the beauteous Lilli who at last seemed to be truly affectionate helped him to forget the dangerous crime he had taken on and the brutish Scaglia who had conspired to make his life so miserable.

  They drove until nine o'clock, and then Lilli suggested dinner at Tavern-on-the-Green. They enjoyed dinner and wine. Lilli was warm and outgoing.

  Angelvin told her about his trip to Montreal, planned for Thursday, and seeing a shadow of disappointment flit across her brow he said that he would be back in New York to stay a while on Sunday, the twenty-first.

  It had been a lovely afternoon and evening, she told him. They kissed in the car in front of her apartment, the first time in Jacques's life that he had owned an automobile spacious enough in which to kiss a woman with comfort, he thought proudly. Lilli promised to call him at the hotel to say good night and Jacques drove off to the Waldorf. Surely tomorrow night, he thought.

  So, at 1:30 A.M., Tuesday, Jacques was back in his suite at the Waldorf. Except for the brief morning thing with Arlette on Thursday, he had led a painfully deprived sex life for the last two weeks. Jacques was emerging from the bathroom in his pajamas when the telephone rang. Lilli, he thought. But as he reached for the receiver realization struck: François.

  He had hardly thought of Scaglia since the afternoon. Did they know he had used the car?

  The Corsican's voice was harsh. He had been ringing all evening: where had Jac
ques gone? Oui, oui, the car is quite safe, ami, still in the garage. He hoped he sounded convincing. Scaglia hesitated as if in doubt, then he told him: it would be tomorrow, or rather, now, today. No, do not interrupt, only listen most carefully. At 8:30 A.M . . . . and he dictated precise instructions.

  When Scaglia clicked off, Jacques was trembling, his skin clammy.

  Able only to doze, he was up at seven. He ordered a light breakfast sent to his room, then bathed and dressed. By eight-fifteen Jacques was fidgeting in the cavernous lobby, watching the clock. At eight-thirty, he descended to the garage and retrieved the Buick.

  Exchanging places behind the wheel with the attendant, he glanced quickly over the car's interior: everything appeared in order; no one would know that he had flaunted orders the previous days. Then he snorted at his own anxiety. How could they suspect his outing with the girl, any more than by looking at the car a stranger would suspect the immense secret it bore?

  Following Scaglia's instructions, he drove out of the garage onto 49th Street, made a right turn on Park Avenue and proceeded slowly north in heavy morning traffic, eying each street sign intently as he passed, grateful for the simple numerical progression. At 79th Street, he turned right, east, and continued almost to the river. The last street to his left before the entrance to the river expressway was the one he was seeking: East End Avenue. Cautiously, his palms becoming moist, he drove left and then another block north. The apartment building was at the corner of 81st Street. Jacques pulled the car over to the gaping entrance of the building's basement-level garage in the middle of the block and verified the address — No. 45 East End Avenue. He rolled down the ramp and braked outside a small, neon-lit office. The attendant, a slim, middle-aged man with sandy hair, emerged and studied the Buick a moment, then looked hard at Jacques. "When y' goin' out?" he asked with a trace of Celtic inflection.

  Jacques shrugged helplessly. "Okay," the man said, "we'll take care of it." He went into his cubbyhole and tore a ticket stub off a panel of hooks next to the counter and gave it to Jacques.

  Take very good care of that ticket, François had emphasized. Jacques inserted the piece of yellow card-board into his billfold and turned and trudged up the ramp to the street, aware of the man squinting at the back of his neck as he went.

  On East End Avenue, Jacques waited a few minutes, ill at ease, until a cab came into view. He asked to be taken to the Waldorf-Astoria.

  While Jacques Angelvin was delivering his 1960 Buick to the garage on East End Avenue, Patsy Fuca left his house in Brooklyn and again drove away in his friend Nicky Travato's gray 1956 Cadillac, observed at a respectful distance by Federal Agents Artie Fluhr and Bill Carrazo. Within minutes, however, the officers lost sight of the Caddy after it turned onto 65th Street, heading west. They were not overly concerned at first, figuring that they or some other team would soon re-establish contact. But they did not see Patsy again, nor did anyone else, neither near his luncheonette or his known haunts in Manhattan. As the morning wore on, the police grew increasingly anxious that their final link with whatever illegal activity was taking place, had disappeared.

  That Tuesday morning, January 16, Detective Eddie Egan had been required to appear downtown before a Manhattan grand jury hearing about an earlier narcotics case in which he had been the arresting officer. When released shortly before noon, Egan learned about Patsy's worrisome disappearance. He was told that there were no leads and that detectives were checking every location in the city with which Patsy had been associated.

  Egan walked to the municipal garage near Foley Square and got his Corvair. Driving out, automatically he reached down to switch on his portable radiophone, then remembered that he had left it in the shop for repairs. He missed it. The radio was probably more useful than guns to a policeman. Even when not involved in active investigation, those few times when there might be little else to think about, he enjoyed tuning to the all-police channel, listening to officers in other cars in the city chattering their staccato reports of a "hot tail" here or a "suspect observed" there.

  What was it that had lodged in a recess of his memory about Patsy's involvements? It wasn't his girl at the Pike Slip Inn, nor any of the places they all had covered since the Frogs got away. It was like struggling to remember a person's name that should be on the tip of one's tongue; if only he could pin it down. It wasn't Patsy's use of Nicky Travato's Cadillac . . .

  And then it hit him! Last night, Sonny and Ripa had tailed Patsy, in Nicky's car, up to 77th Street and York Avenue. Egan himself had followed Patsy and his wife to that same neighbourhood only Friday! He recalled clearly now Patsy's mysterious visit to the luxury apartment house at No. 45 East End Avenue; that was only four or five blocks from 77th and York.

  Could there be a chance that he was up there again?

  Why not?

  He drove over to the East River Drive and headed north, following the same route he had taken Patsy's Oldsmobile at about the same hour on Friday— only four days ago? It seemed like months.

  Just as he made the turn into East End Avenue, two blocks ahead he saw a gray Cadillac swing across the sidewalk into the garage entrance of the building he knew to be No. 45. He could barely believe that he had seen Nicky's Cadillac. Patsy! He had walked right into him! Oh, mother, how lucky can one Irish cop get?

  Egan pulled his car to the curb, tumbled out and ran toward the garage entrance. The Cadillac was halted down the ramp by the office cubbyhole. A man was getting out and handing his keys to an attendant. Egan edged into the dimly lit runway, and saw that the driver was not Patsy, nor anybody he knew. He walked closer to the rear of the Cadillac, reaching for his notebook. It looked like Travato's car, but it wasn't.

  He was about to turn back up to the street when a voice alongside startled him: "Can I help you, mister?"

  Egan spun around to see a young Negro wearing the gray uniform of garage attendant. The detective grinned and flicked perspiration from his brow in exaggerated fashion. "Hey, man, you scared me." He flipped open his notebook and showed the man his police shield. "Police. Listen, two guys just stuck up a liquor store a couple of blocks away, and they got away in a red Dodge. You seen any characters in a red Dodge?"

  The young man scratched his head. "No, I'm just back from lunch though. Ask in the office."

  Egan hadn't wanted to be seen here at all, much less turn the visit into a show. But he had committed himself and might as well carry the charade to the end. He might learn something that would serve him well if he ever were to look into this garage or building in the future.

  Trailing the attendant, he walked into the small office with his bared shield still in hand. A sandy-haired, fifty-year-old man stood leaning over a high, narrow desk scattered with papers and parking checks. In the far right-hand corner, with his back to the door, a younger, dark-haired man wearing mechanic's coveralls perused a rack of road maps.

  "Yes, sir," the white attendant began.

  "Cops," the Negro interjected.

  Egan showed his shield. "There's been a holdup. I'm looking for a red Dodge."

  The dark man in the corner jerked his head around, then turned quickly away. Egan found himself staring at Patsy Fuca's back.

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  "Was anybody hurt?" the one behind the counter asked.

  Egan went back to his act. "Oh, yeah, a coupla guys hit a liquor store. Nobody hurt." He was a little short of breath. "They were seen taking off in a red Dodge, 1960 four-door sedan. We're checking all the garages in the neighbourhood. You come across any car like that, any strangers?"

  The man lowered his eyes to the accumulation of chits on the desk top, as though concentrating on possible answers strewn there, then shook his head.

  "Nope, not while I been on. You see anything, Jimmy?" he asked the Negro attendant.

  "I just told him, I been out to lunch. I didn't see nothing."

  Egan pocketed his notebook and realized his hands were shaking. It was difficult not to glance over at Pa
tsy, who was trying to melt into the corner. "Okay," Egan started to say and felt himself flush as his voice came out thinly. Straining to sound casual but official, he cleared his throat. "Well, keep your eyes open, huh?

  And be careful. If anybody spots this car, call the station house right away, okay? See you around," he said as he walked out of the cubicle and up the ramp, pressing his hands flat against the soft lining in his overcoat pockets to towel away the clamminess.

  Egan's first impulse had been a defensive fear that Patsy must have recognized him. But by the time he reached the street, reason dictated that chances were a hundred-to-one, maybe a thousand-to-one, that Patsy had ever seen him before — at least not as a cop.

  In all of his surveillance of the past four months, the only times he had really exposed himself to Patsy was when he had posed as an intern from St. Catherine's Hospital and visited the luncheonette. Egan's knowledge of human nature told him that it was highly unlikely that Patsy had really observed him among all the other white-clad hospital personnel. And if Patsy had ever noticed him, it was improbable that he could identify the bundled-up cop searching for a getaway car in a basement garage in Manhattan as the "doctor" in white from the store.

  Egan hurried toward his own car, parked half a block south on East End Avenue. Whatever the probabilities, he had to get to a telephone and alert base that he had found Patsy Fuca. But, glancing back as he started to cross 81st Street, he caught a glimpse of a grey-overalled figure half hidden behind the garage entrance of No 45. Egan paused and tried his best to effect the appearance of a cop on a street corner trying to calculate his next move in a robbery investigation. The figure in the entranceway edged a bit further back into the garage. He was watching Egan, all right. It was the sandy-haired one.

  The officer figured quickly that if he left right now, Patsy might find reason to suspect that the police had caught up with him, and he would be gone again. The only thing to do was to carry out his pose of looking for a holdup car. Egan stepped briskly across 81st Street and went down into the garage in the building on the opposite corner.