Operation Bamboozle (22 page)

Vito looked at Uncle. Uncle said, “It's possible.”

“Run by a genius called Cabrillo.” Feet took a pace back, as if he'd only just caught sight of the others. “Hello, hello, hello.”

Everyone looked at Luis. Luis looked as if he'd stepped on a tack. “Now wait a minute,” he said.

“The Bureau confirmed it,” Gibson said. “I got an inside track to a guy knows things in the Bureau.”

“Cabrillo,” Uncle said. “I knew I heard that name before. Cabrillo and Conroy. In that Konigsberg place on Santa Monica Canyon Road. The funny-money factory.”

“This changes everything.” Vito pointed at Luis and Julie. “We'll talk as we walk.”

Gibson watched them go. He had told everybody all he knew. Now he longed to jump into the car and escape. “Don't even think of leaving,” Tony Feet said. Gibson helped himself to
whiskey instead. It did him good, so he took another, even bigger. Nobody complained.

On his fifteenth birthday, Vito learned a lesson. His father said: “Not your fault, son, but you got stiffed in the brain department. Brilliant you'll never be. Smart, that's different. Being smart means not being stupid. Means being nice to someone has brains. If you don't help him make his million, how can you steal it?” Vito nodded and his father cuffed him, sent him sprawling. So Vito asked why, and his father told him it was to make sure his pea-brain remembered the lesson. “That's not fair,” Vito said, and his father kicked his ass and, smiling, told him life was not fair, so get used to it, kid.

Now, walking between Luis and Julie, Vito smiled and injected sincerity directly into the cylinders of his voice. “Counterfeit currency,” he said. “That's ambitious. Top end of the market. I respect that.”

“Back up a mile or two,” Julie said. “Does this mean you rubbed out the rubbing out?”

Vito laughed, admiringly. “Excellent. Serious and funny, same time. Most people can't do that. Back there, when I played that Mexican standoff with Stevie Fantoni, I was having fun. I like to see how people behave under stress.”

“So do I,” Luis said. “Give me the gun and we'll shoot little apples off your head.”

“My advisers wouldn't recommend it. About your plans for funny money. This is where our paths cross. My organization is big in the economy of southern California. If we froze all our operations tomorrow, half the state would be in recession next day. So you see why I can't let you run fast and loose. I do business in good American dollars. When you spread your paper around, who pays? Businessmen like me.”

“You and all the other Rotarians,” Julie said.

“There's nothing to worry about,” Luis said. “Just because we live in LA doesn't mean we operate here. Or in California. We don't show up on anybody's radar. Not in St. Louis, not New Orleans, not Detroit.”

“Joe Zerilli runs the Syndicate in Detroit,” Vito said. “He's a friend. Don't mess with Joe.”

“We know the set-up,” Julie said. “Sam Giancana has the Mid-West, Joe Scalisi has the Cleveland territory, Carlos Marcello owns Louisiana. Etcetera. Stevie Fantoni keeps us briefed.”

“Nobody's toes will get stepped on,” Luis said.

Vito stopped. He put his arms around their shoulders. “Three years at UCLA taught me one thing: never draw to fill an inside straight. That's all I know. Except I know when I'm beaten. How can you not step on our toes when we're everywhere?”

“Perhaps our feet never touch the ground. We are, after all, high fliers.”

They turned and walked back. “I got some ideas I'd like to kick around,” Vito said. “You guys think quick. I like that. We stay in touch.”

“When my schedule allows. I travel a lot. And I like to keep the con going. Just a hobby. Not an income.”

“Sure, sure. Don't hustle my family and friends. Check your marks with Uncle first.”

Hancock drove the group home in his Lincoln. As soon as they were clear of the DiLazzari property, Julie said: “Who's making funny money if it's not us?”

“I haven't the faintest idea,” Luis said, “so I'd better start working on it.”

Tony Feet said goodbye to Vito and told Gibson to take him to Classic Car Imports.

“My Morgan's still at the Konigsberg place,” Gibson said.

“You'll get a taxi. I want to see your classics. A man should always try to improve his mind.”

Two inches a year works out at about six one-thousandths of an inch a day. Not fast. But when the entire Pacific coastline of America is moving, it's a very respectable speed. Thirty million years ago, Los Angeles was where northwestern Mexico now is. Thirty million years from now, Oregon will be deep inside Canada, heading for where Alaska used to be. All this assumes that the supervolcano which is grumbling beneath Wyoming has not erupted and blown the whole of the Western United States into the stratosphere. It has erupted as violently as that three
times already in the past two million years, a period which is just a quick sip of coffee to a geologist. Why stop now?

On this day, so important to Luis Cabrillo and Vito DiLazzari and Milt Gibson, the coastal strip of California kept grinding north. The rest of the state, indeed the rest of the country, the rest of the continent, had plans of its own, maybe moving south, maybe west; come back in a million years, all will be revealed. Meanwhile, the heaving had squeezed up the San Gabriel mountains, fifty miles long and ten thousand feet above the sea. Given its birthpangs, the range was so fractured and the rock was so shattered that it shed vast amounts of debris. No matter: the mountains were climbing by ten inches a year. Always steep, almost vertical at the top, the San Gabes made the only obstacle (apart from the ocean) to defeat the armies of LA's property developers. LA made the smog and the San Gabes made sure the damn stuff stayed there.

Geologically, nothing spectacular happened on this day; but there were hints. An earthquake in Alaska rattled the tea-cups in a remote cabin, followed by a strange event, not in Alaska. The Daisy Geyser in Yellowstone National Park, 1,800 miles away, shot its plume of blue water high in the air, exactly thirty-two minutes earlier than scheduled, so the tourists missed it. Some complained. Daisy was back to normal next day. People like phenomena to be on time.

Time, of course, was on the side of planet Earth. Sooner or later the Earth would feel an irresistible need to scratch an itch, and anybody standing in the way would get scratched too.

When Tony Feet said a man should always try to improve his mind, he meant Milt Gibson's mind.

“I thought New York was a mouthy city until I heard Los Angeles,” Feet said. “New Yorkers, they shout, it's the traffic. Here you don't shout but the yakkity-yakkity-yak, it never stops. You heard DiLazzari back there, it was a performance. I blame the movies. Chicago's different, Chicago says its piece and then it shuts up so the other guy can give his ten cents' worth. If we got something to say, we say it, if not we don't stink up the air with yakkity. Your trouble, Milt, you gotta hear yourself speak or
you don't believe you made any difference, like with this funny-money story, you couldn't resist it, could you? Been shooting your mouth off every which way. Not smart.”

“Gonna do a Frankie Blanco on me?”

“If this was Chicago, pal, you'd be singing a different song. You'd be at the bottom of the lake with rocks in your pockets.” “I don't think so.”

“You don't
think,
period. It hurts your brains.”

“That's not it. You can't sing a different song when you're at the bottom of a lake. Can't sing, period. Not underwater.”

Feet aimed his forefinger at him. “Cheap shot. You're full of crap. Jesus! Pull over, for Christ's sake.” The finger was waggling near his face. That angered Gibson. “You want a bullet, I'll give you one,” Feet shouted. His finger jabbed Gibson's cheek. “Pull over, you goddamn cretin!” Feet was grabbing at the wheel. Gibson swung his right arm so fast that the point of his elbow hit Feet between the eyes. The blow shocked his arm. Briefly, his hand went numb. Feet was groaning and his arms were waving, so Gibson hit him again, same elbow, same spot, but harder. The skin split and blood streamed down his nose. Feet stopped groaning. As he slid off the seat, his knees folded out like a curtsey.

Gibson let the car drift off the road and bounce onto the grass and stop. He hadn't meant to smack Feet, he was just trying to knock his stupid arm away. The first elbow between the eyes, that was luck. The second elbow was revenge for all the shit he'd been through.

He searched Feet and found an automatic in his left inside coat pocket. By now Feet was groaning again, so Gibson shot him, twice, in the back of the head. That stopped the groaning.

Homicide meant cops. Gibson worked out the solution. He found an empty road, took a chance, heaved the body into the trunk, locked it. Nobody saw. He wiped his prints, drove to Konigsberg, parked the car, left the keys, jumped into the Morgan and took off. At a gas station he telephone Agent Moody. “I checked out the homicidal counterfeiter for you,” he said. “Word is, the boy's been busy. Look in the Buick outside his house. I'm taking a long vacation.” He hung up.

Betty answered her phone at the first ring. “I've had enough of this town,” he said. “Want to leave now?”

“Why stay?” she said. He liked that.

Death is not neat and tidy, especially violent death. It leaves the feet pointing wrongly, the arms twisted, the head at a painful angle. All control has gone, and the corpse is just a collection of parts, dumped for collection. Agent Moody had seen it before; now he was seeing it again. He felt no surprise, no sadness, no strong emotion. He had never known the man, so he wouldn't miss him. Just another statistic in a suit. The flies had already caught the scent and were buzzing around the bloody head. “How can you smell him so fast?” Moody asked. “And what do you live on when nobody gets shot?” He beat the air with a tire iron and drove them into a rage, and slammed the Buick's trunk.

Luis heard it, and looked down from the belvedere, where everyone was drinking rum punch and eating pecans. He rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “Can I help you?” he called.

“Mr. Cabrillo? Might be better if you came down, sir. FBI.” He flashed a badge. Luis hesitated. At this range it could be the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. The chap could be a hitman from DiLazzari. “Bring your friends,” Moody said. “I'll have whatever you're having. I'm off duty, I could use a belt.”

Luis went down, carrying two glasses of punch. Moody introduced himself. “This your Buick?” he asked. Luis said no. Moody opened the trunk and angered the flies again. “Identify him?” Moody took one of the glasses before Luis could spill any more.

“Holy cow,” Luis said. “He's dead. How horrible … There's so much blood, it's … it's difficult …” It wasn't difficult. That was Tony Feet in there.

The others were beginning to arrive. Julie took a look and shook her head. “Doesn't live here,” she said. “Especially now.”

“You were out,” Princess said. “This guy was bummin' around. I gave him a beer.” Moody asked what he'd said. “Said he liked the beer,” Princess said.

“Bunker, Delancey and Scott,” Hancock announced. “Attorney-at-Law.” He gave Moody a card. “Fifth Amendment rights, sir. My clients have nothing to say.”

“Can it, Hancock,” Stevie said. “The guy's plastered,” she told Moody. “This rum punch could stun a buffalo. The stiff is Tony Feet, out of Chicago. What the pink shit he's doing here, nobody knows.”

“How come you know him?” Moody asked.

“Oh …” She was wearing a terrycloth robe, dangerously loose. “He had the hots for me.” She waved her drink at the corpse, and exposed a right nipple. “Guys like Feet get the hots and then they end up like this. Story of my life.”

“Time to call the cops,” Moody said. “Use your phone?”