Destroyer 004 - Mafia Fix

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2024-11-29 0 0 219.86KB 100 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
CHAPTER ONE
It was a perfect trap.
- It had been sown in the flowering fields of Turkey during the wet, warm spring and it
bloomed briefly in the back streets of Marseilles in July, and now it would be harvested
in the muggy heat of late August on Pier 27 of Hudson, New Jersey, "gateway to the
nation," as it had been called when the nation had looked only to Europe for its
culture.
Now, via Europe, it was importing death in bricks and bars and bags to be sniffed, skin-
popped or mainlined into the veins of Americans.
A glassine envelope with only a trace element of an ounce was worth $5 to the person who
wanted to murder himself with it. A plastic lunch bag big enough for a slice of cake or
a school lunch sandwich was worth $15,000, an uncut brick of it was worth as much as
$100,000, and a suitcase of it might be worth millions.
Sometimes two valises would come in, and if seized by the authorities, the news would be
splashed across the front pages of the nation's newspapers: $9 Million seized or $16
Million seized, Biggest Haul Ever, Nab Record Drug Cache.
By the ounce it was worth more than gold. And adding the bags and valises, the false
bottoms in suitcases, the holes in statues, the hollow heels and money-belts full, it
came into the bloodstream of America by the ton. But never more at one time than a
couple of suitcases full. Never more, as far as the Treasury Department knew, until a
dying man whispered to an undercover narcotics agent in Cleveland, Ohio, about the big
one.
When the big one came, you would be able to buy it by the pound at two-thirds of what
you were paying now. When the big one came, the little wholesalers would be wiped out.
When the big one came, you would get it in pills, in serum bottles, in cigarettes, all
pre-packaged as it had never been packaged before.
You could buy a franchise in June for delivery in September. You could get the stuff
with any label you wanted on the cover devices. And you could get all you could sell
when the big one came.
Another informer in San Francisco told about the big one. And in Dallas and Miami and
Chicago and Boston and Detroit and New York, the signals kept filtering through to the
local narco squads, to the state police, the FBI and the Treasury Department's narcotics
unit. The signals said that the big one is coming in August and by the time the first
football is kicked off in the first high school football game, there will be enough to
turn on every cafeteria, office, street and home in the nation.
That's how big the big one was.
And that was the first mistake.
As an assistant attorney general of the United States pointed out in a secret conference
in Washington: "What the mob is doing this time is the equivalent of the Viet Gong
leaving the countryside and deciding to fight a set battle at sea. Gentlemen, we've been
given the first real break in our war against the drug traffic. They've come to play in
our ballpark."
On an international level, the first steps were easy. Intelligence-gathering is a dull
accounting process of examining pictures and charts, markets and large-scale movements
of things. For an army to move anywhere, gasoline, men and trucks must begin to roll. On
a large scale, the indicators might be the sale of grain, a rise in the price of oil,
the scarcity of cigarettes. Nothing big happens without the indicators.
And for the big one in heroin, there were plenty of indicators. The harvest would
require the agricultural production of half a nation and the first indicator was the
almost immediate drop in unemployment and starvation in that nation. The price of farm
labor went up. The price of grain went up. Fields that had grown wheat for centuries
were no longer planted with wheat. You didn't have to stand fifty miles outside of
Ankara taking photographs of fields to realize that wheat as a crop was being abandoned.
You could read it in the New York Times listings for the commodity markets. Grain
shipments to Turkey. You compared that to the weather reports for the region and when
you found out it was very good growing weather, you knew something was being grown
besides grain.
You could walk through the food stalls of Ankara and seeing the rise in prices for all
produce, know that what was being grown was not for eating in Turkey. You then checked
the agricultural exports from Turkey and, seeing no rise, you knew their farmers were
not exporting grains or fruits.
Thus, even if the narcotics outlets hadn't leaked the word about the big one, the United
States government would still have known about it.
"At last, they've made the big mistake," said the assistant attorney general.
And as the Central Intelligence Agency kept its nose to the periphery of the big
shipments from Turkey to Marseilles where gummy, dark-colored commercial opium was
distilled into refined, white powder, the State Department pressured Elysee Palace to
keep its police away.
"Yes, the United States understood France's desire to free itself of the stigma of being
a clearing house for heroin.
"Yes, the United States understood that such a big arrest would vindicate France.
"However, did France understand that this was a singular opportunity to deal a severe
blow to the traffickers in the United States; that the big one had to go somewhere, and
that at that somewhere must be the top people, whose arrests would cripple the flow of
illegal narcotics, not only in the United States and not only in France, but all around
the world?
"And, of course, if France persisted in its plan to make arrests at the Marseilles
heroin factories, it might be necessary for the United States to send a public note of
protest to France condemning it for interfering with a United States plan to deal a
mortal blow to international drug traffic. The international press might even hear a
rumor that France seized the heroin to protect United States distributors,
"Wouldn't it be so much simpler if France were publicly lauded for its fine cooperation
in the big arrest?
"France is always willing to cooperate? Of course. Allies again and forever."
So the trap was set, good and tight and big, and on that hot muggy morning at Pier 27 in
Hudson, New Jersey, the trap was ready to be sprung.
Inspector Vincent Fabia said the special prayer he had been saying since the spring.
"God, let me have this one. I'll never ask for another. This one. Let me have this one."
He waved to the private guard at the gate and eased his green truck with the wooden
window flaps and the yellow painted sign saying "Vinnie's Hots-Best Dogs on the Pier,"
over to the guard who held out his hand as if to shake. Vinnie reached down out of the
cab and grasped the outstretched hand with his left. The guard smiled and waved him
through. It was a five-dollar smile, the amount of the rolled up bill Vincent Fabia had
passed with his left hand and had been passing every day, with few exceptions, for the
last three weeks.
It was the small "vig" that was the rule of life in Hudson, New Jersey. A guard at the
gate, a shop steward here, an assistant sanitation inspector there, all of whose
friendship was necessary if you sold hot dogs from an open truck. And of course, if you
sold hot dogs from a truck, you didn't always have the money to pay and you'd plead
short every so often, promising to double up the next time.
Occasionally, Vincent Fabia would smile at the thought of his selling hot dogs, just as
his father did; just as his father paid off to earn his living in Boston by giving money
to the Irish cops who would call him a guinea and take his money and free hot dogs and
free cigarettes. All the old man's money was going to put his son, Vincent Fabia,
through Fordham. Vincent Fabia, who did not become a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant
or a professor, but a cop who was a cop who, when he heard the Italian names linked to
organized crime, would squirm in his stomach and vow that one day he would make the big
bust with his name fright out there, giving the world both vowels at the end of it.
Vincent Fabia, inspector of the United States Treasury Department, who drove his green
hot dog truck on to the edge of Pier 27, and parked it as he had parked it for the last
three weeks, began to heat the big kettle with the oversized frankfurters, opened the
flaps on the sides of the truck and looked out at the most beautiful scene he had
witnessed since his wife presented him their first-born son.
To his left, the Panamanian registry Santa Isabella, which had just docked this morning,
stood in sharp relief against the New .York skyline across the Hudson. Directly in front
of him was the long asphalt field where empty truck frames sat in a long string. Within
a few days, truck-sized containers would be hoisted from the hold of the Santa Isabella
and placed carefully on the back of the truck frames. Then cabs and rigs would be
attached and the sealed and locked containers, their contents untouched by human hands
on this side of the Atlantic, would be on their way out into the mainstream of America.
Vincent Fabia knew that the two containers he was after would be there this day. Not
because intelligence reports told him so. His stomach told him so. "Today is the day,"
it said, and no computer could tell the mind of Inspector Fabia otherwise. Today was the
day he and his men had waited for.
O'Donnell and McElaney would work the hold. They had their longshoremen cards. Hester,
Baker and Werner were drivers and assistants. They would be arriving soon to wait for
their cargo and they would be there for the entire unloading operation, since in
Marseilles their containers were the first to go into the hold. So they would be the
last to get their cargo and they would hang around waiting and complaining, but mostly
waiting and watching.
In the office building to his right were his reserves, Needham and Viggiano. They would
move only if ordered to by Fabia, or if Fabia were dead. In the meantime, they sat there
behind a camera, with tele-photo lens and high resolution film, ready to pick up
identifiable images at a great distance.
Stretched out along Routes 1 and 9 were unmarked Treasury cars. On standby, without
exact knowledge of what the standby was for, were the state and Hudson police. The FBI
was available for call and "directional reinforcement," which was a nice way of saying
that if you fouled things up, they would attempt to unfoul it.
Vincent Fabia, in tee shirt and chinos, straightened out his small formica counter at
the side of the truck and added fresh napkins to the dispenser.
He checked the small mustard container on the counter, and seeing it only half-full,
filled it. He put out the relish. He opened the heating bin of the sauerkraut and gave
it a stir.
The ice in the soft drinks was packed right. He shut the lid on the ice. The straws were
adequate.
So was his .38 police special. So was his little transistor radio that he kept plugged
into his left ear and which he accidentally had unplugged every day now for the last
three weeks so people would hear that it was playing music. Today, it was not playing
music and it would not be unplugged.
"It's coming out first. A triple shipment," a voice crackled over the radio.
Fabia clicked his fingers as if hearing a beat. Three containers. Three truckloads and
up until this the biggest hauls had been suitcases. The beat went on.
A shiny metal truck container came out of the hold of the Santa Isabella, connected to
the end of cables and chains attached to a derrick bolted on the ship.
Containerization. The new way to ship. Four tractor rigs filed into the Pier 27 waiting
dock. Needham and Viggiano would pick them up with the telephoto lens for evidence,
license plates, company names, everything.
"I said no mustard, you stupid bastard."
Fabia looked down. A longshoreman was looking up angrily at him from the counter. He had
given the man a hot dog without realizing it and had drenched it with mustard, also
without realizing it.
"Take that frigging radio out of your ear and maybe you'll hear people."
"Yeah, sorry," said Fabia. "I'm sorry."
Ill eat it, but I won't like it."
"I'll give you another one."
"No. I'll eat it. But next time, like listen, huh?"
"Sure thing. Roger."
"Roger?"
"Uh, thanks. I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Okay."
Relax. That was what Fabia told himself. Pretend this is just another bust and relax.
Don't blow it. By tomorrow, you'll be standing in front of the television cameras with
those trucks behind you and everyone in the world hearing those last two vowels on the
end of your name. Just relax and pay attention.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the crane Lifted the first container to full height, paused,
then swivelled around and lowered the container onto the waiting truck frame.
Immediately, the first tractor rig drove up and began to hitch itself to the truck.
"Don't you want your money?"
"Yeah, sure," said Fabia.
"That was two hot dogs, the specials. And a soda."
"A dollar five," Fabia said.
"That must be some program you got on."
"Yeah," said Fabia and smiled. "Great."
"Second container being readied. There are four in the shipment," came the voice over
the radio.
Four? Vincent Fabia smiled at his customer and made sure that he absolutely certainly
got the order correct. Mustard and relish on one, sauerkraut and mustard on two and one
plain.
"You got onions?"
"No."
"How come you don't have onions?"
"I don't get a big enough call for them," Fabia said.
And the transistor radio-"tall, dark Caucasian, 275 pounds, suit and tie. Standing near
containers in the hold. Just looking. Think he's involved. No reason to be here."
"If you had 'em, you'd get a call for 'em."
"But I don't have them."
"Why doncha?"
"Cause I don't get any call for them."
And the radio-"It's definitely four containers. 15
And there are three men in the hold looking around. Well-dressed."
"Hey, I asked for two, not four." "Sorry. Two, right?" "Right. With onions."
"I don't have onions. What do you want from me?"
"Onions. You know everybody's got onions. You're the first guy in here what deals from
a truck that don't have onions." "I don't have onions." The longshoreman's face
reddened. "I know you don't have onions. I'm saying you oughta get 'em 'cause
customers like 'em. I'd pay five cents more for onions if you had 'em. Some people just
like onions. It ain't against the law. Nobody says you gotta have mustard and kraut on
your dogs. Hey! Whaddya doing?" "What?" said Vincent Fabia.
"Whaddya doing? I didn't order no mustard or kraut."
And the radio-"Number two going up, those men staring at it. They're involved. Maybe we
can get them with the telly. Whoops."
"Mustard and kraut, right?" said Vincent Fabia. "Blow it out your ass."
Vincent Fabia shrugged as a hot dog salesman would shrug, and he leaned down into the
corner of his small truck as if to get more mustard. He whispered into a small
microphone. "Did you pick up the deck with the telly?" "Somebody just passed. That was
close. I'll let you know when there's something new. Everything's too close."
Vincent Fabia sold 174 hot dogs that morning and eighteen more by 4 p.m. that afternoon.
He was literally soaked with sweat. His tee shirt looked as if it had been hosed, and
his trousers were two shades darker than normal. His hair hung limply in wet strands;
his eyes were red. He felt as though he could neither lift his hands nor his feet; just
keep his balance by great strength of will. But when the four loaded tractor trailers
with the emblems on them- Ocean Wheel Trucking Company-began to roll off Pier 27, he
knew suddenly that he could climb Mount Everest if he had to.
He leaned into the corner of the cab, flicked a switch, and said very loudly:
"Pickles. Pickles. I'm going to get pickles. Got to get pickles. Pickles."
And the signal beginning the close of the trap was out. He shut the flaps of his truck,
and for the first time in three weeks did not bother to close the lid on the big mustard
jar beneath the counter, from which he filled the small dispenser jar.
He stuffed the .38 caliber police special into his belt and toyed with a line that he
might deliver at some communion breakfast-about youngsters having a choice between right
and wrong, and no ethnic group being particularly addicted to any special of-fense, and
maybe even how too many people remembered only the Italian gangsters who were caught,
not the Italian detectives who caught them.
It was the Mafia and the people who dealt with them who were the fools, not the majority
of hardworking Italian-Americans and other Americans.
Vincent Fabia did not get a chance to deliver his speech about who had brains and who
didn't. His brains were found splattered on the seat of the cab of his hot dog truck at
3 a.m. the next morning, parked near the cemetery on tree-shaded Garfield Avenue in
Hudson, New Jersey. Powder burns surrounded the remnants of an eye socket and slivers of
his skull were imbedded in the back of the seat.
Just before quitting time, two longshoremen had been crushed to death beneath a
container that slipped its rigging and plummeted down onto them in the hold.
And two office workers, who were photography buffs at an office at Pier 27, left work
without taking their camera. They never came back for it. Which was all right with the
management, because it never got much work out of them anyway.
The state and local police stayed on alert until midnight and, finally receiving no
signal, checked with the Treasury Department.
By dawn they received word to call off the alert, with thanks for their cooperation.
They were not told what the mission had been or whether it had succeeded.
They were also informed to be on the alert for any Ocean Wheel Company trailer-trucks.
To stop and to search them. They were not told how many Ocean Wheel trailers or what the
license plate numbers were. They saw no such trucks.
By 1 p.m. th.e next day, in the oval office of the White House, the assistant attorney
general who had coordinated the operation was explaining to the attorney general, the
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, the Treasury secretary and a very dour President, what had gone
wrong.
"At about 4 p.m., we lost contact with our Treasury agent, and that was it. No traces.
Nothing. We are in the midst of a blanket search now." He stood at the far end of the
conference table, a sheaf of papers before him, wishing for a mild heart attack. Even a
severe one would do.
"You said two tractor-trailers with heroin. How much heroin in each?" This question from
the director of the FBI.
The assistant attorney general moved his lips and mumbled something.
"I didn't hear you," said the director of the FBI.
"Full," said the assistant attorney general, forcing out the word.
"Full? From front to back? Two full trailers of heroin?" The director's face was red and
he was almost shouting; he had never been known to raise his voice in conference.
"Yes," said the assistant attorney general.
There were groans in the oval office of the President of the United States.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," the President said. "Stay right where you are. I will be back in
a moment. Continue this without me."
He rose and strode from the room, down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, and into his
private quarters. His wife was napping on a big double bed and she woke her gently,
asking to be forgiven, but just as firmly insisting that she leave the room for a
moment.
When the door was shut, he took a key from his pocket, unlocked a dresser drawer, and
brought out a red telephone with a white dot. He looked at his watch, as he lifted the
receiver. It should be answered at this time. It was.
"Yes, sir," came the thin voice.
"Do you know what happened in Hudson, New Jersey, yesterday?" asked the President.
"Yes," came the thin sour voice. "There were many things that happened. You are probably
referring to the shipment from Marseilles."
"Yes. The two trucks."
"There were four."
"Then you are working on it," the President said.
"I should hope so."
"Will you use him? That person?"
"Mister President. Please save your advice for football coaches. I'm busy. Now do you
have anything important to tell me?"
"No. No. You have it all. Is there anything I can do?"
"Perhaps. You might try to keep the Treasury and FBI people in that area to a minimum.
It might save their lives."
"Then you are going to use him?"
"That is a fair assumption."
"Is he there now?" the President asked.
"He is finishing up a matter elsewhere. He will be there shortly."
"Then you have everything under control?" the President said.
"Is there anything else you wish to tell me, sir?"
"Please. This is a grave crisis. It would ease my mind if you told me that you have it
under control."
"Sir, if I had it under control, we would not be using him. By the way, sir, I have told
you there were four trucks. Please do not give that information to anyone else, lest
they ask you where you got it and you give them little confidential hints."
"I understand," the President said. "I know now that we will solve this crisis. I'm
considering it under control."
"If that makes you feel better, sir, fine. Unfortunately, you seem to think that person
is a solution to problems, when in reality he is a potential problem of far greater
magnitude himself."
"I don't know what you mean," the President said.
"Good," came the thin voice, and then the click. The President returned the receiver to
the cradle and the phone to the drawer, then shut and locked the drawer. He had been
hung up on again.
As he returned to the conference, in much better spirits than he had left it, he
wondered where the man on the other end of the line had found that person, what his name
really was, where he was born and what his life must be like.
But most of all he wondered what his name was.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo.
He tried very hard not to be bored, as if the threat were very real. This was necessary
to get the exact information he wanted. The exact information was what he had been
ordered to get before he could proceed.
So when the ruddy-faced gentleman in his late 50's casually asked him if he cared to go
fishing, Remo had said "yes, that was what he had come to Nassau for."
Then when the ruddy-faced gentleman told him to wear the life'jacket for safety and had
insisted on buckling it himself, Remo had thanked him. And when the ruddy-faced
gentleman guided the small motor launch to a small cove protected from the sweeping^
breezes of the Caribbean, told Remo that the Me jacket was really weighted and the
buckles were really reinforced locks and that one stamp of the ruddy-faced gentleman's
foot on a gray plug near the stern of the boat would sink it, Remo showed fear.
He screwed his face to tension, opened wide his brown eyes and made tugging motions at
the jacket with his strong hands. It did not budge. Good. Now the ruddy-faced gentleman
felt secure. Remo could tell that by the smile.
"You bastard," said Remo. "Why have you done this to me?" The ruddy-faced gentleman in
gray Bermuda shorts and a bright tropical shirt crossed his legs and reached into the
metal ice container for a bottle of champagne.
Remo made a short move toward the gray plug but the ruddy-faced gentleman lifted a
finger indicating Remo had made a naughty. "Uh, uh. Remember the plug. You can't swim
with lead weights, can you?"
Remo shook his head and sat back to listen. The . man uncorked the champagne, brought
out a champagne glass and rested it on the metal container. Then he popped the cork and
poured the glass full.
Remo, who was trying to teach himself psychology, assumed that this was the acting out
of a fantasy, sort of action-reaffirmation-of-an-event, to reinforce its reality. He
liked that analysis, although he wasn't quite sure he understood his own words. He
wished he could find someone to try them out on and if they didn't understand them
either, he just might have gotten the whole thing right.
"Excuse the libation, if you will," said the ruddy-faced man who had introduced himself
as Harry Ma-grudder, "but you see, it's a little reward I am allowing myself at the
culmination of a year and a half's work." The man who called himself Harry Magrud-der
downed a glass, poured himself another, placed the champagne bottle on the metal shelf,
sipped from the glass. The clear tropical sun glistened off the edge of the glass and
made the champagne appear as if riddled with sunbeams.
"I'd offer you one, Mister whatever your last name is. I believe it's Katner this week;
one time it was Pelham, another time Green, another Willis and heaven knows what other
names at other times. But I know you don't drink.
"And you don't smoke. You eat very little meat, but a lot of fish. You often stay with
an elderly Korean gentleman. Occasionally you have sex, which causes you some problems
because the women seem to insist on more. Recently, you have taken to only going to bed
with a woman the night before you leave a place. Is that correct?"
摘要：

CHAPTERONEItwasaperfecttrap.-IthadbeensowninthefloweringfieldsofTurkeyduringthewet,warmspringanditbloomedbrieflyinthebackstreetsofMarseillesinJuly,andnowitwouldbeharvestedinthemuggyheatoflateAugustonPier27ofHudson,NewJersey,"gatewaytothenation,"asithadbeencalledwhenthenationhadlookedonlytoEuropefori...

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