Beirut Incident

Chapter 14

Philomina removed my hand from her left breast and sat upright in bed, squishing the pillow up behind her so it supported the small of her back. She frowned perplexedly.

"But I don't understand, Nick. It's kind of funny, or awful, or something. The police won't be able to prove that Rusty and Droppo killed Larry Spelman, will they? I mean…"

I kissed her right breast and squirmed around so I could rest my head on her stomach, lying crosswise across the bed.

I explained. "They're not going to be able to prove that Rusty and Droppo killed Spelman, but those two are going to have one hell of a time for awhile trying to prove that they didn't".

"You mean the cops will just let them go?"

"Not quite. Remember, I told you I left that metal cigar container on the dresser before I left?"

She nodded. "It was full of heroin. They'll both get busted for possession."

"Oh." She frowned. "I hope Rusty doesn't have to go to jail. I mean, I hate her, but…"

I patted her knee, which was somewhere to the left of my left ear. "Don't worry. There'll be a lot of stuff in the newspapers, and a lot of people scratching heads, but it's such a screwy setup, any good lawyer will be able to get them off."

"I still don't understand it," she said. "Won't the police be looking for you and Louie?"

"Not a chance. Droppo knows, but he's not about to tell the cops what happened. It's too damned humiliating. He'll never admit to them that a rival gang could get away with that. The Ruggieros are going to be pretty pissed off, on the other hand, and that's just what we want."

"What will they do?"

"Well, if they react like I hope they will, they'll come out shooting."

The papers certainly came out shooting the next day. Give a newspaperman a nude man and a nude girl in a hotel room with a nude corpse and he's going to be happy. Add two rival underworld factions and a container of high-grade heroin and he's going to be ecstatic. Jack Gourlay was in journalistic seventh heaven.

The pictures in the News the next morning were as good as I've ever seen. The photographer had caught Droppo sitting naked on the bed with Rusty naked in the background, trying to shield herself with crossed arms. They had had to do a little air-brushing to make it decent enough to print. The headline writer had had a good time too:

The New York Times did not consider it a front-page story, as the News had, but it rated a six-column binder on page sixteen with a column and a half of type and a sidebar about the history of the Mafia in New York. Both Franzini and the Ruggieros got a big play, including a fairly detailed account of Popeye's alleged set-to with Philomina's father years before.

Popeye himself couldnt have cared less. He was delighted to the extent that his hatred of the world would let him be. He roared with laughter when Louie showed him the story the next day, leaning back in his wheelchair and howling. The fact that Larry Spelman had been killed didn't bother him in the slightest, apparently, except as Spelman's death reflected an insult by the Ruggieros to the Franzinis.

As far as Popeye was concerned, the embarrassment and loss of dignity suffered by the Ruggieros through having one of their button men caught in such a ridiculous situation more than made up for murder. With the Franzinis of this world, murder is commonplace, absurdity a rarity.

Louie was delighted, too, with the new stature he had gained in his uncle's eyes. I didn't have to give him all the credit. By the time I got to the offices of Franzini Olive Oil that morning, Louie was already basking in praise. I'm sure Louie didn't actually tell Popeye that it was his idea, but he didn't tell him it wasn't, either.

I sat back and waited for the Ruggieros to retaliate.

Nothing happened, and I re-examined my position. I had apparently underestimated Ruggiero. Thinking back, I had to realize that Gaetano Ruggiero was not the type of leader who could be panicked into a bloody and expensive gang war by the kind of shenanigans I had been up to.

Popeye Franzini might be easily provoked, but not Ruggiero. This being the case, I picked on Popeye again. I could depend upon him to react, and react violently. I'd had a plan earlier, which was why I had ordered that 17B kit from Washington, and I just needed a little help from Philomina to put it into operation. My target was the Counting House, the heart of the entire Franzini operation.

I hit it just five days after the Lemon-Drop Droppo caper.

All I needed from Philomina was an alibi in case one of the guards at the Counting House could identify me later. I intended to make sure that they couldn't, but it was an easy enough precaution to take.

It was an open secret around Franzini Olive Oil Com that Philomina was "seein' a lotta that new guy, Nick, the guy Louie brought back from over there." It was simple. We just made a big deal of going to a David Amram concert that night at Lincoln Center. It's almost impossible to get tickets to an Amram concert in New York these days, so it was natural we should brag a bit about the ones I had gotten. Only no one knew they were from Jack Gourlay at the News.

I waited until the house lights went down, then left. Amram may be the finest contemporary composer in America, but I had a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in. I wanted to be back before the performance ended.

It took less than fifteen minutes to take a cab from Lincoln Center down to Soho, 417 West Broadway, next to the Counting House.

It was a similar building, four floors of apartments with a big loft on the upper floor. It lacked the freight elevator that marked the building next door, but it also lacked those guard dogs on each floor, to say nothing of the steel gratings on each landing. There was no way I was going to try going up the stairway in the Counting House. It's virtually impossible to pick the lock of a steel grating with one hand while fighting off a blood-mad Doberman Pinscher with the other.

I entered the building at 417 and scanned the names next to the doorbell buzzers. I picked one at random — Candy Gulko — and rang the bell.

A moment went by before a voice issued from the built-in speaker. "Yes?"

It was a woman's voice, happily. "Fremonti Flower Shop," I answered.

Pause. "What?"

I added a touch of impatience to my tone. "Fremonti Flower Shop, ma'am. I've got some flowers for Candy Gulko."

"Oh! Come right on up." The buzzer went off, releasing the automatic lock on the inner doorway, and I went in and upstairs, swinging my brand new attaché case like any solid New York businessman.

I didn't stop at Candy Gulko's floor, of course. Instead, I climbed straight up, past the fifth floor, and up the last small flight of stairs that led onto the roof.

It was only a matter of minutes before I was crouched on the roof of 417 West Broadway, contemplating the ten feet of open air between the two buildings, and my imagination plummeted to the ground with no difficulty.

I looked around the tar-papered roof and, lying against a brick chimney, finally found what I wanted, a long narrow plank. I wished it wasn't so narrow, but there was no hope for it. I had to have a bridge. When I was in college I broadjumped twenty-four-feet six-inches, but that was a long time ago, it was in daylight, with a good runway, spike shoes and — most importantly — on ground level I wasn't about to try jumping those ten feet between buildings that night.

The plank was only about six inches wide, wide enough for purchase but too narrow for confidence. I pushed it across the gap between the two buildings so that it rested equally on each roof. Holding my attaché case in both hands in front of me, I placed one tentative foot on my shaky bridge, braced myself, and ran across in three steps.

I had to run. I don't normally suffer from acrophobia but if I'd tried to edge my way across, I would never have made it. Fear would have forced me into a misstep, and there was no room for a misstep. I stood stiffly for several minutes, composing myself, still trembling but sweating with relief.

Once I had calmed myself, I went over to the doorway leading to the staircase. If it were bolted from the inside, I would have to get into the Counting House offices through the skylight, and that would be difficult.

The door was unlocked. I had merely to open it and push my way through. It was somewhat like the British had done at Singapore: All their guns pointed to sea to stave off any naval attack; the Japanese took the overland route, came in the "back door" and captured Singapore. Similarly, the Counting House's defenses were all geared to preventing entrance from below; they had never considered that a raid might come from above.

I thought about knocking at the door of the Counting House office on the fifth floor just to give Big Julie and Raymond something to think about in their barricaded little nest, but I couldn't afford to alert them just to please my own perverse sense of humor.

I slipped a black nylon stocking over my face, opened the door and walked in, my attaché case in one hand, Wilhelmina in the other.

Two men stared at me, paralyzed by surprise. They were sitting on either side of a steel-topped desk, on which they had been playing cards. A half-empty bottle of gin stood on the desktop along with two glasses and a couple of overflowing ashtrays. To one side the remains of a sandwich rested on a brown paper bag. Smoke hung in the air under the low-hanging desk light. In the shadows around the huge room, a great computer stood silent guard over the rows of motionless desks and silent typewriters.

A few feet away from the desk, two old-style army cots had been set up, side by side.

One of the men at the desk was huge, his great muscled body gleaming in the light. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt with a pair of ratty looking gray slacks hooked loosely under his spreading paunch. The butt of a fat cigar was clamped in yellowed teeth beneath a great bush of a mustache. Big Julie, no doubt.

His companion was more average in size, a real street dude with a wide-brimmed green felt hat, a bright red silk shirt open almost to the waist, and flaring trousers in an Aqueduct plaid. Two oversized diamond rings gleamed on Raymond's left hand, contrasting with the blackness of his skin. He surprised me. I hadn't expected that one of Chickie Wright's boys would be black. If the lower-class Italian with the big-time ideas was finally beginning to lose his innate prejudices, the world was indeed becoming a better place to live in.

The paralysis of surprise lasted only a moment. Raymond's left hand suddenly flashed toward the shoulder holster hanging over the back of a typist's chair next to him.

Wilhelmina barked and a bullet slammed into the chair, jerking it backward a few inches. Raymond's hand froze in midair, then slowly returned to the table.

"Thank you," I said politely. "Just remain right where you are, gentlemen."

Big Julie's eyes bulged and the cigar stub moved spasmodically in the corner of his mouth. "What the hell…" he croaked in a guttural voice.

"Shut up." I waved Wilhelmina at him, keeping a close eye on Raymond. Of the two, I had decided that' he was the more dangerous. I was wrong, but I didn't know it at the time.

I laid my attaché case on a neat desk in front of me and opened it with my left hand. I took out two long pieces of rawhide I'd picked up that afternoon at a shoe repair shop.

Somewhere downstairs a dog barked.

The two guards looked at each other, then back at me.

"The dogs," Big June croaked. "How'd'ja get by the dogs?"

I grinned. "Just petted them on the head as I went by. I love dogs."

He grunted in disbelief. "The gates…?"

I grinned again. "I burned them down with my super ray gun." I took a step closer and waved the gun again. "You. Raymond. Lie down on the floor on your face."

"Screw you, man!"

I fired. The shot hit the top of the desk and ricocheted. It's hard to tell where a bullet bounces, but from the mark it put on the desktop it must have missed Raymond's nose by millimeters.

He reared back in his chair, hands high above his head. "Yes, sir. On the floor. Right away." He got slowly to his feet, hands held high, then lowered himself gingerly to the floor, face down.

"Put your hands behind your back."

He obeyed instantly.

Next I turned to Julie, and had to laugh. He still held the deck of cards in his hand. He must have been dealing when I came in.

"Okay," I said, tossing him one of the rawhide thongs. "Tie your buddy up."

He stared down at the thong, then up at me. Finally he laid down the cards and got clumsily to his feet. He picked up the thong dumbly and stood looking at it.

"Move it! Tie his hands behind his back."

Big Julie did as he was told. When he was through and had stepped back, I checked the knots. He'd done a good enough job.

I waved the pistol at him again- "Okay. Now it's your turn. On the floor."

"What the…"

"I said on the floor!"

He sighed, carefully removed the cigar butt from his mouth, and laid it in the ashtray on the desk. Then he lay down on the floor, several feet away from Raymond.

"Put your hands behind your back."

He sighed again and put his hands behind his back, his cheek flat against the floor.

I laid Wilhelmina on the chair Big Julie had been sitting on and knelt over him, straddling his body to tie his hands.

His feet whipped up, cracking into my back, and his giant body twisted and heaved in a great convulsion of effort, throwing me against the desk and off balance. I cursed my own stupidity and dove for the gun, but he caught my wrist in a viselike grip with one beefy paw, heaving over against me with his body and pinning me to the floor with his great weight.

His face was next to mine, pressing against me. He raised back and smashed downward with his head, trying to crack it against mine. I twisted violently and his head cracked against the floor. He bellowed like a stuck bull and twisted over on me again.

I clawed at his eyes with my free hand, fighting against the weight pressing down on me, arching my back to keep my body from being flattened helplessly under him. My searching fingers found his eyes, but they were squinted tightly shut. I took the next best alternative, jamming two fingers into his nostrils and ripping back and upward.

I could feel tissue give, and he screamed, letting go of my other wrist so that he could pull on the attacking hand. I pushed off with my free hand and we rolled over and over on the floor. We came up against the leg of a desk. I grabbed both of his ears and pounded his head backward against the metal furniture.

His grip slackened and I broke free, tumbling away from him. I snapped to my feet just in time to see Raymond, hands still tied behind him, struggling to stand. I kicked him in the stomach with the point of my shoe and dove to retrieve Wilhelmina from where I'd left her on the chair.

I grabbed the Luger and spun just as Big Julie launched himself from the floor at me like a grunting, sweating catapult. I sidestepped and let him hurtle by me as I smashed at the side of his head with the butt of the pistol. He crashed headlong into the chair and lay there, suddenly inert, blood from his ripped nose spreading over his lower jaw, soaking his mustache. On the floor alongside him, Raymond squirmed and moaned, hands still locked behind his back.

I reholstered Wilhelmina. It had been such a clean operation until Big Julie had gone heroic on me. I waited until I was breathing normally, then tied Big Julie's hands together as I had started to do a few minutes before. Then I turned on all the lights in the office and began going through the big bank of files in Chickie Wright's office.

They were locked but it didn't take me long to break the locks. Finding what I was looking for, however, was a different matter. But finally I found it. A dollar-by-dollar breakdown of the Franzini holdings in the city's business concerns.

I whistled. Popeye was not only into everything illegal in the city, he hadn't missed many legal operations: meatpacking, stock brokerage, construction, taxicabs, hotels, electrical appliances, pasta manufacturing, supermarkets, bakeries, massage parlors, movie houses, pharmaceutical manufacturing.

I pulled open one of the file drawers and noticed some large manila envelopes piled in the back. They had no labels and the flaps were sealed. I ripped them open and knew I'd hit the jackpot. Those envelopes contained the records — with sale dates, drops, names, everything — of Franzini's heroin operation, a complex pipeline from the Middle East to New York.

It seemed my late friend, Su Lao Lin, hadn't gone out of the drug business when our G.I.'s left Indochina. She'd just moved shop a few thousand miles to Beirut. That beautiful woman was funneling drugs as well as men. She was a busy girl.

Her relationship to Franzini always had puzzled me. It had always nagged at the back of my mind why I'd met a Red Chinese agent and former drug distributor working as an employment service for an American gangster. She was just doing double duty and I'd been involved in only one side of her many talents for organization. It all became clear, and I smiled slightly as I thought that I'd inadvertently blown up Franzini's Middle Eastern connection.

Whatever misgivings I'd had earlier about wiping her out were completely gone.

I stacked the papers carefully on the desk next to my attaché case and then took the plastique explosives out of the case and lined them up. Plastique is not too stable, and it should be handled carefully. When I had it sent to me by bus from Washington, I'd had it sent in two packages — one for the explosive itself, the other for the caps and detonators. That way, it was safe.

Now, I carefully went about inserting the caps and the timer-detonators. Set for maximum, the detonators would go off in five minutes once they had been activated. I placed one where it was sure to destroy the computer, then distributed the other three around the room where they would do maximum damage. I didn't have to be too precise. Four plastique bombs would pretty well demolish the Counting House.

"Man, you ain't gonna leave us here." It was more a plea than a question from the black man on the floor. He had twisted around so that he could watch me. He had quit groaning some time ago.

I smiled down at him. "No, Raymond. You and your fat friend are going with me." I looked over at Big Julie, who had raised himself into a sitting position on the floor and was glaring at me through bloodshot eyes. "I want someone to carry a message for me to Popeye Franzini."

"What's the message?" Raymond was eager to oblige.

"Just tell him that tonight's work was with the compliments of Gaetano Ruggiero."

"Well, goddamn…" It was Big Julie. Blood streamed down his face from his torn nose.

I repacked my attaché case carefully, making sure all the incriminating papers were in it, then closed and locked it. I got Raymond and Big Julie to their feet and made them stand in the middle of the room while I went around and activated the timing devices on each of the detonators. Then the three of us got out of there in a hurry, rushing up the stairway to the roof and slamming the rooftop door shut behind us.

I made Raymond and Big Julie lie down on their faces again, then took a deep breath and dashed across my shaky plank bridge to the next building. Once across, I pulled the plank aside, tossed it onto the rooftop and started down the stairway, whistling happily to myself. It had been a good night's work.

Halfway down the stairs I could feel the building shake as four big explosions sounded from next door. When I got outside, the top floor of 415 West Broadway was in flames. I stopped on the corner to pull the fire alarm box, then strolled on over to Sixth Avenue and hailed a cab going uptown. I was back in my seat alongside Philomina before the end of the Amram concerto that was the finale on the program.

My clothes were slightly mussed, but I had brushed off most of the dirt I'd picked up rolling around on the floor of the Counting House. The informal way some people dress for concerts these days, it wouldn't be very noticeable.