The Old Turk's Load Page 9

  Kelly wasn’t thinking about the guy with the brain. He was thinking about Helen, imagining her being there with Chamberlain. Maybe he’d send Lloyd over to his place after all, then wait around with Helen to see what happened next.

  Face Man

  G

  loria and Jarkey were still sitting in Kelly’s car outside her apartment. The rain had not let up. It was the warm, tropical kind, so they had to keep the windows cracked to prevent the car from fogging. Gloria took off the scarf and shook her hair out. She’d regained her composure and dropped the flirty stuff. Jarkey explained to her who and what Kelly was, how he’d come to Richard Mundi’s attention, and what Mundi had hired him to do.That, while Kelly was off investigating other aspects of the case, he’d been given the job of tailing her. His only other option to this lengthy explanation would have been silence, and Jarkey now did not want silence with this woman.

  “I found out about Gallagher and the Feds that first night. It was just luck. And he was sloppy.”

  “He’s always been sloppy.”

  “So I had what I needed on him, but I thought I’d better make sure about you. I assumed you were in on the deal. When I found out you were working with Kornecki, it all seemed to fit together. I guess I was sloppy myself.”

  “No, you were fine. It was the car, actually. I’ve got a thing about cars. Yours has a ding on the front fender. I knew I’d seen it down by Kevin’s place, and I thought I remembered it being parked on this street before. I was just standing there trying to figure out what to do and you walked along.”

  “How did you know to yell at me?”

  “You had this incredible look . . .”

  It had been more than half an hour and Jarkey was still enthralled. “Kind of you to put it that way.”

  “Meanwhile I’ve been letting that asshole spy on us for the Feds. Talk about sloppy. And that’s not the worst of it.”

  “There’s more?” He was surprised to realize that she seemed on the verge of trusting him, which only enhanced the attraction of her lovely, quirky eyes. Jarkey was quirky himself in that respect: While most American males had breast or leg fixations, he was a face man. Gloria had the kind of face that did things to him.

  For her part, Gloria was equally surprised at the turns this meeting was taking. Discovering that she was being followed pissed her off. She’d intended initially to hassle Jarkey, verify her suspicion that Daddy had sent him, then humiliate him. But taking in his earnest, toothy face behind those glasses, his nonconfrontational attitude, and his thinly disguised fascination with her, she realized she’d hit the jackpot with this guy. If she wanted, she could have him on all fours, barking like a dog.

  But she didn’t want that. In an inspired moment of improvisation she saw that some use might be made of him and that she ought to keep him around for a while, see what developed. So she gave him a conditional half-smile, as if deciding whether to come clean. She waited a beat, then let go.

  THE OLD TURK’S LOAD 105

  “It’s the craziest thing. Right in the middle of the Newark riots there was some kind of accident, and my father’s people came into a load of heroin. From what I can figure, it was a delivery that went bad. The long and the short is that Daddy’s holding now. In his safe at the office. It’s worth a lot of money. A whole lot.”

  Jarkey, who’d been listening carefully, nodded. Pushed the glasses back on his nose. He understood without her saying any more. “Port of Newark. Has to be Mob stuff. They must be looking for it.”

  “Umm. Daddy knows. Or rather Julie Roth knows. His righthand guy. He actually runs the company. But that’s not the real problem.”

  “Oh?”

  “The problem is that I told Kevin. I had this brilliant idea that we could get it from Daddy, fence the stuff off, and set up a legal aid fund. Sort of what Irene and I are doing, but on a far bigger scale. I didn’t think about people coming after Daddy.”

  “Well, they’ll be after him, all right. Right now they’re probably squeezing everyone in Newark. Someone’s bound to talk sooner or later.”

  “Actually, that was when it started getting truly weird with Kevin. I mean, after I told him, he got real squirrelly. Wanted me to shut up about it. Pretended he was waiting for exactly the right time to tell the rest of the foco. But it didn’t take me long to see through that. He wanted it for himself. The big score.”

  “And now the FBI knows your father has it.”

  “God, I’m such a dope.”

  Jarkey took a chance and reached across the seat and touched her arm. “You’re not a dope, Gloria. We can figure this out. There may be time. For one thing, Kelly’s probably briefing your father right now. When he hears Gallagher’s working for the Feds, he’ll dump the drugs fast.”

  “But he’s got no idea Kevin knows about the drugs. I doubt he even suspects I know.”

  “That’s something you need to fix.”

  Gloria wore a suitably worried expression, but in her private assessment things were shaping up nicely. These two detectives would create a diversion, some kind of mess. Then the FBI would show up, get real busy with Daddy, and she’d be in California turning a deal with her Berkeley people before anyone was the wiser.

  “Let’s go inside a minute. I’ve got to get my head together. Then we’ll go uptown and talk to Roth. Can you drive me?”

  “Sure.”

  Now she touched his arm. “You will keep quiet about this, won’t you?”

  “Count on it.” He was thrilled.

  Shoot the Messenger

  M

  undi was irritable when Kelly showed up at his office. But as he rooted through the pile of 8 × 10 glossies, his breathing slowed.

  No way hiring this gumshoe had been anything but a colossal mistake. Getting rid of Gallagher wasn’t going to fix anything with Gloria. In fact, putting a snoop on her was likely to make it worse. He’d meant to call Kelly off the day after their interview, but he’d gotten so distracted by the problem in his safe that it slipped his mind.

  Julie was right, of course, about what to do with the stuff.The best thing for Mundi Enterprises, and the safest thing for himself, would be to give it back to the Newark boys. But Richard Mundi was having a hard time caring about Mundi Enterprises anymore, especially if it was going to turn into a Mob money-laundering operation. Even Murchison could see that. If he made any kind of a stink about anything, they’d kill him. So why not just steal the heroin himself ? If he fucked up, they’d kill him. But he was as good as dead anyway.

  So after that frustrating meeting with Murchison and Kraft and, despite their disapproval, he’d authorized Roth to make inquiries of Mr. DiNoto. This bought him time to solidify a deal with an independent in Chicago who’d take the smack and all the risk it entailed, and pay him $50K. A joke, but still better than nothing.

  And all this time Kelly had been out there snapping photos of Gloria like some fucking paparazzi after Jackie K. As he flipped through them, Mundi’s irritation shifted to deep antipathy.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s Gallagher leaving the offices of the FBI on Chambers Street. He and your daughter have infiltrated a cell of activists on the Lower East Side. Gallagher’s just reported to his handlers.”

  “You saying my daughter’s a rat?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “Most likely she’s protecting Gallagher.Though she does have some involvement with Lloyd Chamberlain, a known drug dealer. I’ve seen her at his place. Maybe the Feds are holding that over her. Some kind of connection with this pusher Chamberlain.”

  “A drug rap?”

  “I said ‘maybe.’”

  Mundi looked up at Kelly, bent over the desk beside him. Shiny gray shave, whiff of Skin Bracer and Ipana covering stale booze breath. A born fucking loser.Trying to tell him his daughter was a stoolie, strung out on drugs.This creep had his head up his ass.

  “You know this other girl?”

  Kelly nod
ded. “A member of the cell. She does their legal work.”

  In fact, Mundi recognized her. She was Irene Kornecki, one of Gloria’s Columbia buddies. Smart as a whip. Gloria had brought her around once and she’d put the bite on him for a donation to some lefty legal aid fund.

  Then, a photo of Gloria and Gallagher. “This one was taken just after Gallagher left the federal building. He’s probably briefing her on the meeting. That opens another possibility.”

  Mundi looked at him, hard, as mere dislike escalated into loathing.Was it something chemical, psychological? Did Kelly’s face, physique, or odor trip some old bad memory in Richard Mundi? Humans could explain it any number of ways. To the old Turk’s load, from its exalted perspective over in Mundi’s safe, the matter boiled down to simple physics. Kelly was spinning and Mundi was standing still.Their collision released strange energy.Though it felt like hatred to Mundi.

  Kelly caught the vibe. He read it as intense guilt on Mundi’s part. The man had to be hiding something. He decided to run the Agnes angle up the flagpole and see how Mundi reacted.

  “The other possibility is that the Feds know about your wife. They could be holding it over Gloria’s head somehow.”

  “My wife?”

  “The manner of her death. The, umm, overdose? I’ve done some research. I’ve talked to Dennis Hurst.”

  “Who?” But Kelly saw him stiffen slightly.

  Mundi didn’t say anything more because, at that moment, he was incapable of speech. The room faded to a distant spec and the universe roared in his ears. He stared past Kelly with an intensity that propelled him beyond Gloria and Gallagher, to Gloria graduating from college, to the painful years the two of them spent together after Agnes’s death, to that death and his own guilt, to Agnes and himself in the brief moments of their happiness, to his wedding, to the first time he saw Agnes, and down, down time’s dark shaft. A man alone in an elevator whose cable had snapped.

  Kelly looked at Mundi, pale and perspiring, and believed he’d somehow been the messenger of bad tidings regarding the late Agnes.The man probably thought her suicide, overdose, or murder —whichever nasty end she’d come to—had been successfully covered up. Now he was going to have to deal with the idea that the authorities were wise to him.

  But Kelly didn’t know the half of it.

  At that moment, as the elevator plunged on, Mundi was seriously contemplating shooting the messenger—not because his tidings were bad, but because the messenger was such a colossal idiot, and because his message had so rudely poked a tender spot in Mundi’s otherwise leathery psyche. He had a little .22 with a silencer in the second drawer, good only up to a few feet, but if he held it right against whatever this moron had for brains. . . . Then he took a calming breath and thought about Agnes in her best moments and how, as soon as he settled this business with the Mob, he’d do right by her and be the cause of Kelly’s slow and painful death.

  Then he’d go after Gallagher. No, Seamster could handle that one. Or even better, they’d set it up so that Kelly would walk in on it, and they’d hang Gallagher’s murder on him.

  Maybe Gloria would figure it out, maybe not. It hardly mattered. It was too late with her, anyway. It was too late with everything. Before he left he was going to take Gallagher out, and Kelly, too. This nitwit was going to help with his own execution, somehow. It’d just take a little planning.

  “Okay, Kelly, here’s what you do. Drop the surveillance on Gloria and set something up for Gallagher. Something messy. And this time keep me informed. Every day. I want to know what’s going on. Understand?”

  “Sure. It’ll take me a few days. But it shouldn’t be a problem. A brick of pot in his pad ought to do the trick. The cops’ll have him busted before the Feds get wise, and that’ll be the end of his cover. Meanwhile, do you need any help managing the situation with the FBI and your wife?”

  Shoot the messenger. Absolutely.

  Mr. Fungu

  T

  he Street Brothers and Mr. Fungu double-parked at the corner of Fifty-Second and rumbled through the lobby of the Tishman Building like a line squall crossing Long Island Sound. Woody was making a list of Jewish ballplayers while Vince was scrupulously avoiding thought. Mr. Fungu was a brain-dead sociopath who couldn’t think at all, which was why his associates referred to him as u fungu—the Mushroom.

  Julius Roth had indeed approached Mr. DiNoto in Newark via an intermediary, but the initiative had come far too late. Mr. D. did not respond. Instead he had told the Street Brothers that Richard Mundi was holding the smack that had gone missing in the Newark riots. Now they were taking the Mushroom over to Mundi’s office to trash the joint and frighten—not kill—Mundi. Then they were to keep an eye on Mundi’s operation—seeing who came and went. If—as Mr. D. was almost certain—Mundi was personally holding the goods, he’d try to move the stash somehow. Or maybe if they frightened him enough, he’d simply give it back. Then they could kill him.

  As they rode the elevator to the thirtieth floor,Woody considered the mighty Hank Greenberg, who had movie-star looks and a couple of great home run seasons to his credit but who may have looked like a better player than he was, since he never, in the course of a rather short career, learned to catch the baseball. Al Rosen was another Hymie with a short career. But he’d proved himself a good defensive player with a sweet swing and a sterling character. Always seemed to come through in the clutch.

  They found the door with the golden me monogrammed on it and swarmed in, upsetting the coffee table piled with magazines and barging through to the main office where the receptionist sat. Seamster came out of his office, sized the situation up, and reached around back for his gun. Vince kicked him in the knee before he got to it, then frisked his crumpled form and confiscated the weapon. Woody swept the front desk of its contents, ripped the phones out, and kicked Seamster’s knee again just to keep him occupied.The Mushroom stood by the door, a promise of worse to come. Of course, Woody thought, there was Larry Sherry, who’d shut down the Go-Go White Sox in the ’59 World Series. Had one or two good years at the end of the fifties, then what? Must’ve been arm trouble.

  The Brothers surveyed the damage they’d caused, then walked into Mundi’s office unannounced and sat down. Vince had Seamster’s gun in his lap.

  Mundi surveyed them, grim and red-faced.“Who are you and what the fuck are you doing in my office?”

  Woody did the talking.“This is a courtesy call on behalf of our employer, Mr. DiNoto of New Jersey. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  “Let’s get something straight. You guys don’t scare me. If DiNoto wants to talk to me, he can get his own ass over here.”

  “Mr. D. doesn’t care if he scares you or not. He happens to know you’re holding some property of his and he wants it back.”

  “Why don’t you tell him I’d be happy to talk with him about that very thing.”

  Then the Mushroom entered the office, lumbered between the two chairs, and pushed the huge mahogany desk toward Mundi, steadily and effortlessly, like an earthmover, pinning him against the tall glass window with one arm under the front of the desk, where it had been trying to extract the silenced .22. Mundi thrust his free arm out in an involuntary effort to fend off the looming monster. The Mushroom cracked it at the wrist.

  Woody waited until lack of breath forced Mundi to stop screaming. Then he said, “We’ll give you a day to think about it.” And the squall moved on. The greatest of them all, of course, was the incomparable Koufax, recently retired, totally dominant.

  Agent Spaulding

  W

  hile Mr. Fungu and the Street Brothers were doing their thing in the Tishman Building, another office drama was taking place downtown, where Agent Spaulding was reading Kevin Gallagher the riot act. It’d been more than a year and Gallagher hadn’t turned up shit. Now Spaulding’s superiors were getting ready to terminate the operation, unless Gallagher provided something dramatic enough to make them pay attention.

  “You’r
e really pushing it, Gallagher. That bomb idea of yours was a complete dud. I think you need to get that kid Leo and . . . are you listening?”

  Gallagher tilted his head toward the ceiling and launched three perfectly formed smoke rings. Spaulding liked to think he was tough, but he had freckles and pink skin and was running to plumpness, with a spare tire already gathering itself around him. Gallagher detested fat.Took it as a sign of moral weakness. He also had issues with authority. He ached to bust Spaulding’s nose into his face, just as he’d once done to his father. It had felt so good. You could almost see the splat like in Batman. Of course there’d been no choice after that except to leave home, and some of the things that had happened subsequently were difficult. But he’d survived. The experience had toughened him and he’d learned about people, learned how important it was to make deals. Like the one he and Spaulding had going.

  He’d been running with a bad crowd in Wilmington, and they’d busted him for grand theft auto—a cheesy, trumped-up rap worth eighteen months, which he could do standing on his head, except he’d already been in once and this would make him a two-time loser. The next time they popped him, they’d put him away till his teeth all fell out. So there he was, in the county lockup waiting for his useless court-appointed counsel, when Agent Spaulding showed up in his cheap suit and shiny black shoes with a deal.

  It had sounded pretty good in the context of the New Castle County detention facility. Spaulding showed him a photograph and asked if he’d ever seen the guy before, and Gallagher tumbled right away to what the deal was. He was supposed to rat out this hippie-looking guy in the photo.Then maybe Spaulding would help him cop a plea. So he told Spaulding what he knew—that the guy had approached Gallagher in a bar. Laid all this political shit on him and persuaded him to attend an antiwar rally. No big thing. The hippie had been buying the drinks.

  Then Spaulding told him he wouldn’t have to bargain a plea because the beef was going to go away. Disappear. All charges dropped. The only thing Gallagher had to do was help Agent Spaulding gather some information about this guy and his friends and their activities. In return Gallagher would get immunity and witness protection if he needed it. He’d be helping his country and he’d be paid for his time. The money would go into an escrow account.This would be his chance to turn his life around, a life they both knew was headed nowhere. It was a no-brainer. For his part, Gallagher figured he’d string Spaulding along for a while, then give him the slip.