The By-Pass Control (12 page)

There wasn’t much time, but we worked it out. The ambulance got there first and before it was parked we had the doorman snaked out of his position. From outside all anybody could see was feet moving back through the door and that would have satisfied them. The doorman was back moving traffic along outside the apartment, keeping the curious away while they wheeled me out, face covered with a sheet on a stretcher, loaded me into the ambulance with a supposedly bereaved woman going along for the final ride at my side. We were making the turn at the corner when the first of the squad cars came screaming up the street and I sat up in the ambulance to look into the face of a completely cynical, white coated attendant who said, “What’s the gag, friend?”

All I did was reach in my pocket, lay two big bills in his hand and answer, “What difference does it make?”

He took the cash, held out a clipboard with a printed form on it that I could sign, and when I did said, “None at all, friend. The bill is paid. What’ll I do with the change?” he asked cautiously.

“Split it with the driver,” I told him.

“Call on us any time. Here’s our card. Now where to? We charge by the mile.”

I gave him the corner two blocks away from my new quarters and he relayed the information through the window to the driver. The guy at the wheel said nothing. He turned off the overhead light, fired up a cigarette and relaxed back against the seat to enjoy the ride. I had thought the cabbies in New York were blase, but they never came near these guys at all.

Rondine and I got out without attracting any attention at all, stopped at a deli to pick up some sandwiches long enough to make sure we weren’t being tailed, then walked down to the sign that said
Shigley’s
and went up to the apartment Martin Grady had so thoughtfully supplied.

In another couple of hours the evening papers would be carrying the story of the dead man shot in the classy residential district, identified by papers he carried as one T. Mann, an employee of the Martin Grady organization, the reason for his death unknown, but suspected of being caused by a prowler attempting to force an entrance into the building. I.A.T.S. had no choice but to go along, but the stuff was going to hit the fan when Hal Randolph and I got face to face.

 

The rain had started again. It slashed against the windows like fingers of an animal trying to get in, driving and clawing momentarily before taking a respite to make another attack, then under cover of the sudden glow of lightning and the rumbling of thunder from across the Hudson River it would charge in to beat and hammer in a furious onslaught of nature against man. There was a childish fury in the storm, an ineffectual pounding that was insistent and annoying, but lacking the cold skill of the adult beasts that were piling up in the Caribbean, massing themselves for a concerted attack in a month or so, disguised by innocuous female names they give to hurricanes in this age of suffrage.

A half hour ago the late news had mentioned the supposed killing at Rondine’s address and somewhere out there in the city Niger Hoppes was sitting back smugly thinking his primary mission was accomplished and counting his reward when the report was in. Somewhere he was satisfied that he had won and the rest of the mission was a
fait accompli
because the biggest obstacle was already disposed of.

Somewhere out there was a guy who was going to get the biggest surprise of his life.

The phone rang, a jarring note in the stillness. I picked it up and waited, then heard Martin Grady code his identification. When I gave mine he said, “Newark Control just gave me the information, Tiger. Anything to add to it?”

“Not yet. Did any of our people cut it at Rondine’s apartment?”

“We had two spotted there. Between the police and I.A.T.S., they did a good job, but some big explanations are going to be forthcoming. Your old Colonel put a tight squeeze on them. Incidentally, he passed on the information that the slug was a high-velocity .22, so the picture is coming together.”

“But no sign of Niger Hoppes though?” I asked him.

“Not yet. We’re trying some left-field tactics to get an ID on the guy. Somebody on his side will have to know him by sight and if we can run down just one we’ll get a description. You’ll get it the minute it comes through.”

“Good enough. Any repercussions in Washington yet?”

Grady let out a chuckle. “Talk of reorganization in certain departments. That means they’ll be promoting the eggheads up out of sight instead of dumping them. If the State Department would get on the ball they’d take an ax to some of their bunch. When this is over we’re going to concentrate on certain key personnel up there and get their activities out in the open.”

“It’s about time.”

“Okay then, Tiger, stay in touch. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything you need.”

“Roger, Martin. As far as anybody’s concerned, I’m dead, so get some light publicity in that department.”

“Already done.”

“Europe too?”

“The word was over there before it made the papers here. I don’t doubt but that there is rejoicing in Red Square.”

“Great,” I said sourly. “Let’s hope it gives us a little extra time.”

I hung up and sat in the sofa, propping my feet on the window sill so I could look out at the rain. Someplace out there was the answer, the cause and the effect. Someplace out there Louis Agrounsky was still trying to make up his mind.

I felt Rondine sit beside me, her fingers slide up my shoulder and massage my neck. “Can it wait?” she asked.

“No.”

Her lips brushed my cheek and she turned my head around gently. While I was watching the night she had changed into a cobwebby thing that was almost transparent. “But it’ll have to,” I said.

Virgil Adams awoke me at six A.M. with his call, a brief message to make contact with Dave Elroy at a roominghouse so far downtown the river was in the back yard. He coded it urgent and didn’t give me any more details, so I knew Dave had buzzed him from an open phone somewhere and didn’t want to lay any explanations on the line at that point.

Rondine’s eyes came open, still hazy with sleep, saw me perched on the edge of the bed and smiled in that pleased way women have after a perfect night and she squirmed under the covers so that the sheet outlined the full sweep of her hips and the lazy curve of her legs. “Who was it, darling?”

“Business, kid.”

The hazy look faded and her eyes became bright with sudden anxiety. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t know.” I climbed into my clothes as quickly as I could, looked at myself in the mirror before deciding I could do without a shave for a while, then dropped the .45 into the speed rig on my belt and pulled on my coat.

“Will you be long?”

I bent over and kissed her lightly. Anything else and it would be too hard to tear myself away from her. “I’ll make it quickly as I can. You just stay put, baby. Don’t answer the door unless you get a ‘V’ rap. If I call I’ll let it ring once, hang up, then ring again. Anything else, ignore. Got it?”

She half sat up in the bed, the covers clutched at her throat. “Be careful, Tiger.”

“You know me.”

“That’s what I mean.”

Downstairs, the city was beginning to come back to life again. The early morning smells from the restaurants had seeped out into the canyons between the buildings to lure in the sidewalk marchers going to work. Two city trucks had already disgorged a dozen men near the corner where they were ready to finish a huge excavation in the street. New York, I thought, a self-perpetuating machine that never stopped. No matter where you looked, skeletal steel towered into the sky and gigantic troughs were gouged into the bedrock below. No place to build but up, and up they were going. I wondered what they’d do if they thought it could all come tumbling down in a single second.

Rather than take a cab, I let myself be fed into the maw of a subway entrance and boarded a downtown local. When I got off I spotted the house numbers, turned east and walked two blocks to the last remaining brownstones that had once lined the street and went up the steps to the vestibule and pushed the door open.

The greasy smell of cooking cut through the musty odor that was part of the building, coming from the apartment on the far end of the hall. Underfoot were a half dozen empty whiskey bottles, and the stairway to one side was packed with empty cartons and accumulated debris that would make a fire inspector turn green.

When my eyes were adjusted to the semi-gloom I snaked the gun out and went down the hall, staying close to the wall so the floorboards wouldn’t creak under my weight. The signal I tapped on the door had been prearranged, but I still didn’t take any chances. I stayed to one side ready to cut loose if anything was wrong at all.

Dave didn’t forget his manners either. He tapped back the right answer to get me at ease, opened the door on a chain, made sure of the identification, then swung it open all the way.

“Greetings, Tiger.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Come on in. We have a little party going.”

I stepped in with the .45 still ready, cut to one side as I swept the room with my eyes, then stuck the rod back in my belt when I got the picture. There was only one other in the room aside from Dave, a scrawny little guy with a scared face who kept gulping rapidly even though he was dry as a bone.

“Couldn’t you pick a better hotel?”

Dave grinned at me as he double locked the door. “His digs,” he said. “Meet Earl Mossky. They call him The Creeper. That right, Earl?”

The guy’s head bobbed and in a surprisingly deep voice he said, “Yeah, that’s me.”

Dave waved a thumb at me. “He’s the one I told you about, Earl. Tiger Mann.”

Earl Mossky’s eyes narrowed and he gulped again. “I know about him.”

“How?” I asked.

“Word gets around.” He fidgeted in his chair and picked up the stump of a chewed cigar and lit it, never taking his eyes off me.

“What’s the pitch, Dave?”

“Earl here is a pusher. Small time, but he’s been at it a long time.”

“Never picked up neither,” the guy added.

“Deals strictly in H,” Dave told me. “Poolroom trade, mostly, but it keeps him in bread and he doesn’t have any big ideas about expanding.”

“It ain’t healthy,” Earl muttered.

“So he’s got a story to tell.”

“Let’s hear yours first,” I said to Dave.

He pointed to a sway backed chair and pulled one up for himself. “I’ll skip the details, but I picked up word of the buy Vito Salvi made. What Don Lavois found in the crapper in the guy’s room wasn’t the whole catch. That was only part of it. That right, Earl?”

“Hell, he went for a kilo. That’s two-point-two pounds of junk and he got in at base rates. Paid five hundred an ounce off the ship.”

I sat back and stared at the guy. “How do you know?”

The little guy puffed on the cigar, took it out of his mouth with distaste and stubbed it out under his foot. “You stick in this racket long enough and you get to know everything. Those guys transporting the stuff are like friends of mine, see? So they’re footing the bill one night for a smash down at Pecky’s Place and they let me in on this laugh how I should be on their side of the fence. They got two grand apiece for bringing the stuff in while I’m still hustling pennies.”

Dave said, “Pure stuff. By the time they make the final cut a kilo of H is worth a few million.”

“This guy who bought it,” I said.

Earl shrugged. “I keep my nose long, buddy. I wanted a look at this character because he wasn’t local. It was some kind of a special deal set up ahead of time. It was the same one this guy showed me the picture of.”

“Salvi,” Dave added.

“Go on.”

“That’s all. He took the can and bugged out. You think I’m gonna poke around?”

“How’d he pay for it?”

“Clean cash, buddy. Ninety G’s and no arguing.”

“Where did the split go?”

Earl Mossky shrugged again and squirmed in the chair. “I don’t ask that either. The boys already left on another trip to the Persian Gulf and if you want you can find out from them. You won’t get nothing though. The big ones don’t leave no holes to look through. Someplace they just passed over the dough, got theirs and forgot about it.”

“One more question, Earl,” I said.

“Go ahead, you’re giving the party.”

“Where do you fit in?”

“I hear somebody’s paying off big for some nice quiet talk, the kind that don’t backfire. I want a trip to Miami for my health.”

Dave said, “If you’re satisfied, Grady’s authorized a bundle for him.”

“Let him have it then,” I told him.

“Make any sense?”

I stood up and reached for my hat. “It will. There’s a new dimension added now. I can think of only two reasons why they would want to make a buy as big as that and in so much of a hurry they’d have to take a chance and get it direct from an importer.”

“Oh?” Dave was looking at me quizzically.

“You figure it out,” I said. I started for the door.

Behind me Earl Mossky said, “What about my dough?”

Dave took a key out of his pocket and handed it to him. “In a locker at the bus terminal waiting for you. My advice to you is not to blow it around here or somebody else will be asking questions. Catch?”

“Buddy,” he nodded, fingering the key with a hungry look, “I lived a long time and I figure to live a little while longer. I know the answers.”

 

We waited until we got to the Times Square station before calling in our report to Newark Control. Virgil Adams was calling in another team to probe the area to see if any of the Salvi buy had been peddled off and putting through an overseas query to try and run down the reason for the direct contact. Dave Elroy was to stay on Don’s original assignment of backtracking Salvi, and if possible, to pick up his source of financing. The Soviet network was tight enough to make it a tough job, but someplace there was always a hole you could sneak through if you found it.