Paradise Gold: The Mafia and Nazis battle for the biggest prize of World War II (Ben Peters Thriller series Book 2) (7 page)

‘This is the chap, Ben Peters. I told you about him.’ Smee patted Ben on the shoulder.

Durant looked like a man who had somewhere to go in a hurry although out of decency he stopped and extended a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Peters. I understand you’re off to Martinique.’

‘Yes, to research my next book,’ he said, wondering whether he should step into his new role already.

‘Mmm,’ Durant said as though he didn’t believe him and glanced at Smee, who looked away. ‘I wish you luck. Be careful out there, it can be a dangerous island.’

He was about to respond when a man stepped up to them and raised his right hand. And the flash of white light blinded him.

D
urant hadn’t heard
anything for almost a week, allowing him the sliver of hope that they had forgotten him. Perhaps he was off the hook, and they were pursuing another target more indebted to the Mob. After all, Paradiso told him on Long Island it wasn’t the amount he owed but the principle of not paying the debt. Maybe they’d give him time to pay back the money and some other unfortunate gambler was being taken out to be made an example of. Every day he scoured the
New York Times
and listened to radio news bulletins to find out if a body had been discovered on Long Island. There was nothing. It made him all the more nervous. He was finding it impossible to relax, to concentrate, to eat properly, to sleep, expecting at any time he would be grabbed and spirited away.

They came for him on a wild evening when a heavy rain swirled with malevolence. Two large, unsmiling men in double-breasted coats and with Derby hats pulled down so low the brims almost touched their noses escorted him from his home with the confidence of never having been refused. They pushed him into the back seat of their car and got in either side of him, wedging him in so tight he couldn’t lift his hands to wipe the rain dripping from the end of his nose. Up front, a driver chewed gum and didn’t talk for the duration of the journey lasting over an hour.

He tried to get some idea where they were headed, but the rain was so powerful the windscreen wipers failed to cope with the deluge. And when he glanced right and left he was met with a stone-faced glare, and after a while he gave up trying to look out for landmarks.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked, but the slap, slapping of the wipers was all he heard.

They were somewhere out in the country now and all around was blackness save for the occasional weak light flickering in the distance and the headlamps of an approaching vehicle lighting up the interior of their car. A wind picked up and buffeted the car and the rain came in bursts like someone pouring buckets of water over the windscreen.

They were slowing and the car swung left and pulled in at a double metal gate, guarded by four men. One stepped forward and looked into the back of the car, his eyes dwelling on him before shouting an order to his colleagues, and the gate swung open slowly. The man shouted something to the driver and threw a casual salute as they swept through. They progressed up a metalled driveway for about a hundred yards before he saw the lights of a large house with several cars parked outside. They pulled up at the front door, and the minder on his right climbed out and the other ordered him ‘Out’. He was delivered to two other men, who looked equally unwelcoming, and they led him up some steps before knocking on a large wooden door, more resembling the entrance to a castle than a house.

A small man, slightly bent over and wearing a black suit like an undertaker, opened the door a matter of inches. His eyes swept over the three of them studying Durant the longest before stepping back and pulling it open. One of the minders nudged him over the threshold.

‘Ah, there you are, you dumbfuck.’ Paradiso hoved into view.

At last, a familiar face. He was almost relieved to see the gangster, who days before had been intent on blowing out his brains, as if they were old acquaintances although the feeling was soon overtaken by a sense of dread. Was Paradiso preparing to kill him this time?

The butler took his coat and led them to double doors across the lobby.

Paradiso grabbed his arm. ‘Listen, you dumbfuck. Tell them everything you told me about the gold and make it good or else we’ll have to go for a walk.
Capiche
?’ Paradiso gave him a hearty slap on the back and he stumbled into the room, lit only by two table lamps on either side. A fire roared in a marble fireplace and the flames cast shadows leaping up the oak-panelled walls. When he’d adjusted his eyes to the gloom, he saw two middle-aged men, one sitting on a leather couch and the other over by the window in front of heavy brocade drapes. They appeared to be complete opposites. The man on the couch rose to greet him. He had the look of a lawyer, dressed in a navy, three-piece suit with his black hair slicked down either side of a centre parting, and he had an amused expression in his eyes. Durant wondered what he was finding so funny. The other man, whom he took to be around the same age, had short, wiry grey hair and wore a sports shirt and sweater and slacks, all in a bright lime green colour, as though he had just walked off a golf course. He was the kind of guy who was taller sitting down than standing up. He couldn’t see his eyes although when the fire flared they glinted a warning.

No greeting, no exchange of words, just an outstretched arm pointing towards a seat equidistant from the two men. It was as though they knew they already owned him and as such he didn’t deserve their respect.

‘What say we dispense with the preliminaries, Manny?’ the lawyer, who he found out later was Al Rovicco and was known as ‘the fixer’, was talking.

Manny had a look of distaste on his face as if Durant had brought in a dead rat. ‘Get the fuck on with it, Al. This ain’t goin to be anythin but a waste of my fuckin time.’

‘I’ll give the man a chance to talk, Manny. If you don’t like it, say the word and Paradiso can take him away.’

He sat still, wondering what was coming next.

’It’s D D, isn’t it?’ Rovicco asked.

He nodded.

‘Okay, D D, you’re in the fuckin shit.’ He paused to see if his words were being taken in. ‘You owe us big time. You’re in our debt–‘

‘Get on with it, Al,’ Manny growled. ‘I got some place I gotta be.’

Al gave him a pained look. ‘So it’s down to you, D D, to do us a favour to pay off your debt. Unless you have the cash?’

He shook his head.

‘Thought not. Our man, Tony, tells us you gotta idea how you might do it.’ He glanced over at Paradiso, who was standing by the door with his hands clasped in front of him.

‘If I can be of help…’ he stuttered.

‘Tony,’ Rovicco pointed in Paradiso’s direction and didn’t look at him, ‘says you gonna make us rich.’ He laughed and Manny joined in

Not sure what he should say, Durant stayed silent.

‘Don’t think anythin Paradiso says means a fuck,’ Manny said, shifting in his seat as if getting ready to go.

‘Still, we listen to all ideas no matter how stupid they may appear to be.’ Rovicco gave a strangled laugh and glanced over at Manny as though seeking agreement.

‘So make it good, you dumbfuck,’ Paradiso interrupted.

Rovicco flashed him a look of anger, making him shrink back against the wall apologising ‘Sorry, Mr Rovicco.’

‘Tell us what you know.’ Rovicco glanced over at Manny whose eyes were scouring Durant’s face.

‘And don’t fuckin lie, we can smell fuckin bullshit at a hundred paces,’ Manny said. ‘Remember, we have your life in our hands and if we don’t like what you’re tellin us we’ll hand you back.’

He swallowed hard. Although he had hoped they might forget, he’d given his initial conversation with Paradiso much thought. He studied the logistics of the suggestion he’d planted in Paradiso’s mind. With his knowledge of the island acquired in his role as an analyst, he believed an operation could be mounted that might be successful. It would need the assistance of Raymond, the Resistance leader on the island, and backing from the army and naval officers who still supported the Free French. If it followed his strategy and succeeded, it would be beneficial not only to the islanders but also perhaps to America and Britain. So he felt better prepared than when he blurted it out to Paradiso on Long Island in an attempt to save his neck. The seeds of a plan that might save his life, and be a solution to some of his country’s problems, had bloomed in his mind. And at every opportunity he added more detail to make it a genuine working proposal. Within the intelligence corps in the US government, he would find it hard to sell as a serious proposition, yet to an organisation driven by greed and unfettered by legalities it might just have a chance.

Convinced he was on home ground, he cleared his throat. He must ignore the fact he was talking to Mafia bosses and his life was on the line. He had to imagine he was addressing a Washington committee. Something he had done many times before in his role as a State Department analyst. The art, he knew, was making possibles seem like probables and diminishing the impossibles so they all but evaporated. He knew it might work. It should work. It had to work to extricate him from the clutches of Paradiso’s bosses. First, he must convince Rovicco and get Manny on side, and if he succeeded it might be a major step towards helping his country fight a probable war against Germany.

T
he Clinton Correctional Facility
dominated the New York State town of Dannemora. Its high, grey walls stretched into the distance with tall observation towers on each corner manned by guards, armed with rifles and binoculars, who kept a constant watch on the prisoners penned in below. It gave Paradiso the shivers. One slip, one unguarded moment, one slight change in circumstances and he could be a guest of such an establishment. It made him nervous and on a misty morning he had a lot to be nervous about. It wasn’t every day you got to meet the
capo di tutti capi
, the boss of bosses. On his way up the stories about the boss had been legion. With every one his respect grew for a man who, although incarcerated behind these walls on a thirty to fifty-year stretch for pandering, could still reach into every corner of your life.

He had been told by Rovicco to meet him and Manny at the Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn just after dawn for the flight north. He was banished to the back of the six-seater plane and for most of the flight Rovicco and Manny were deep in conversation. Although he strained to hear, the drone of the engines drowned out their low monotone. And if there was one thing he hated it was silence. Every time he tried to join their conversation with some inane subject like the weather they both glared at him forcing him to turn to his own thoughts.

The other thing making him nervous was he was unarmed having been instructed by Rovicco on no account was he to be carrying anything that could be construed as a weapon; not even a cigarette lighter for Christsakes. He felt naked without his .38 Colt Police Special. It had gone everywhere with him for years even getting in the way several times when he was in a delicate position with a lady. Some women even liked a weapon on their body; others went ape. It takes all kinds, he supposed. He regarded the gun as one of his spoils of war. When he was first making his way in the business, there was a hotshot cop in Brooklyn hassling him, giving him a hard time. He had only meant to frighten him. Break into his house at night and stick a gun under his nose when he was in bed canoodling with his wife; show him how vulnerable he was and he could get to them anytime. Things kinda got out of hand. When he pulled off the sheets, she was naked and hot. The cop wouldn’t stay still so he shot him through the neck and the blood was pumping out everywhere and the wife was screaming and it just made him all the hornier. So he did what he had to do – he screwed her there and then with her husband lying alongside feeling the life flowing out of him. Later when he looked back, it was the perfect revenge. To finish it off, he took the officer’s gun hanging in its harness over a chair and shot the wife between the eyes before the cop lost consciousness. He didn’t feel great about shooting her, but she would have fingered him for killing the cop. He liked the feel of the Colt with its four-inch barrel; it was light and perfectly balanced and he decided to keep it as a souvenir. It also amused him that over the years every time the cops found one of his targets, they realised the victim had been shot by one of their own firearms.

His nervousness increased the farther they went into the jail and he was conscious he was chattering away and calling every guard ‘Sir’ in a sarcastic tone and receiving reciprocal looks of disrespect. Gates were opened and locked behind them and the more doors they went through, the louder they slammed shut. And at any moment he expected to feel a hand on his shoulder.

The three visitors underwent full body searches, especially on account of the guy they were visiting, and he realised why Rovicco had stressed they had to be clean. Then he remembered he’d heard about some guys smuggling drugs into inmates and he went cold at the thought of bending over and some horny-handed guard sticking his finger up his ass.

‘Jeez,’ he said louder than he’d thought and everyone looked at him in surprise.

They reached a door leading out to what appeared to be an exercise yard and he looked at the pale complexion of the guard escorting them and wondered if he should be out there getting some leisure time. ‘Prisoner 24806 is up on the hill over there,’ the guard told them. ‘I’ll lead you to him. You mustn’t talk to anyone other than the prisoner you’ve come to see.’

Prisoner 24806, or as he was better known outside these walls ‘Lucky’ Luciano, was expecting them and got to his feet as they approached. He threw out his arms and enveloped Rovicco in a welcoming embrace and kissed him on both cheeks.

‘Is this the one?’ he hissed in Rovicco’s ear.

Rovicco nodded in Paradiso’s direction and stepped back so Luciano could shake Manny’s hand.

Paradiso stepped forward. ‘Honoured to meet you,’ he said sticking out a hand. ‘I–’

A glower from Luciano, who seemed to be dissecting him with his eyes, stopped him in his tracks. And in the background he saw both Rovicco and Manny shaking their heads.

Unlike the other prisoners, who were dressed in uniforms, Luciano wore a white silk shirt and pressed slacks. Beside him, another prisoner was laying out a meal for him on a low table, a meal for one. He guessed Luciano was in his forties with wavy black hair and a face cratered with pockmarks like the moon. His nose was large and fleshy and he had full lascivious lips and a lazy right eye that seemed to be on the point of closing, and it was a face with an eternal sneer.

The other prisoner pulled over two seats and Rovicco and Manny sat down with Luciano and they sat so close their knees were almost touching as they listened to the boss talking.

‘You think this thing can work, Al?’ Luciano asked.

‘Won’t be easy although I believe it’s worth the risk.’

‘You always told me the older you got, the fewer risks you’d take,’ Luciano said with a fake look of surprise.

Rovicco smiled. ‘Yeah, but the stakes are high. There’s–’

Paradiso lurched forward. ‘For Christsakes, there’s a boat of solid gold for the taking.’ Rovicco and Manny turned in astonishment.

He froze as Luciano got to his feet, looking up at the observation tower to see if anyone was listening.

‘Shaddup, you hear,’ Luciano rasped, pointing a fleshy finger at him. ‘You speak only when I say so.’ He addressed the others. ‘Who is that idiot?’ He shook his head and sat back down. ‘Can this government man, what’s his name?’ He clicked his fingers.

‘D D Durant.’

‘What kinda name is that?’

Rovicco shrugged. He knew a lot of things although why some people were called whatever was beyond him.

‘Can he be trusted?’

‘We own him,’ Manny broke his silence.

‘How much?’

‘Ten Gs.’

‘Ten Gs,’ Luciano mulled over the amount. ‘Why did you let it get so high?’

‘We thought he would come in useful,’ Rovicco butted in. ‘Him being an important guy in the State Department.’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Luciano thought about it. ‘And I suppose the ape over there put the frighteners on him?’ Throwing up his hands, he added: ‘It’s difficult when I can’t check him out personally.’

‘We couldn’t risk it, it could’ve got out.’

Turning on Rovicco, the boss growled: ‘I know for fuck’s sake. Whadya take me for? Just because I’m in this shithole doesn’t mean I’ve lost my senses.’

All four of them now glanced up at the tower, and he wondered if they’d some listening device so they could eavesdrop on conversations like these.

‘Tell me again, what do we get out of it?’ Luciano demanded.

‘Around forty mill.’

He started to say something, but a warning stare from all three made him shrink back.

Luciano puckered up his mouth. ‘Jeez, that’s good money.’

As the boss was contemplating that, Rovicco attempted to convince him. ‘We checked out Durant with our senator and it all seems to stack up. Apparently, he’s been ordered to look at setting up a new intelligence agency and he appears to have the ear of all the top guys.’

‘Ha.’ Luciano snorted. ‘Hoover won’t like it.’

‘The senator also said we would be serving our country.’

Luciano sneered then became energised as though a new idea had come to him. He helped himself to a slice of salami and paced up and down. A couple of times he glanced at Paradiso and then went back to his deliberations. Luciano seemed to be talking to himself as though arguing out a strategy before striding back to the table and grabbing several slices of Parma ham. ‘Is he the man for the job?’ he asked, trying to stuff all the meat in his mouth at once. ‘Be sure about this, Al, because your head will be on the line if he ain’t.’

Rovicco paled. ‘Paradiso’s a good man. Carries out every order. As long as someone else does the thinkin, he’ll be good.’

‘You dumbfuck,’ he muttered to himself and hoped nobody else had heard.

Luciano stopped pacing and Paradiso’s knees trembled as he glowered at him, and all of a sudden the boss was coming at him. This man could squash you like a cockroach and your whole family and no one would dare say a thing. A yard from him, Luciano halted and stared and he felt a fear he had never experienced. Luciano’s scowl lightened into a smile, which he found just as intimidating, and he stretched out an arm and beckoned him to come to him. Still shaking, Paradiso stepped forward and was enveloped in a powerful embrace.

‘Tony, my main man, you gotta do this for me and make me proud and make yourself rich.’ He paused and added in a small voice. ‘And at the same time we’ll make that bastard DA, who put me in this shit hole, an offer he can’t refuse.’

He dropped his arms and smiled to himself; it seemed Paradiso had brought him something far more valuable than even a boat made of gold.