Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

The “N” Man by Don Lowry

Karl Gortoff was a sly and careful man in a brutal, dangerous business. But Padgett took the challenge... and the game was on.

“The narcotics squad? N Men? The law? What the hell do I care about that heat! I’ve got half the junkers in this town on my tail and you’re worried about your phone being tapped. And the stuff I put out to them came from you — every powdered sugar cap of it, Gortoff. You know what it’s like to have a wolf pack of junkers tailing you? A mob of half-sick, half-crazy hopheads screaming for one of three things: good stuff, their money back, or my blood? I’m calling from a coin box on Rincon Hill near the Bay Bridge, and,” Tony Bello looked over his shoulder, through the booth’s glass, “I’ve got to get the hell out of here — a car just pulled up. I’ll call back.”

It was too late. Karl Gortoff had already slammed his desk phone down on its cradle. “I’ll feed him to the sharks out in the Bay,” the kilo man with a corner on the San Francisco narcotics traffic screamed. “If that simple-minded pusher thinks he can put the heat on me, I’ll have him pushing coal in hell.”

“What’s the pitch, Karl?” a blonde asked from the other end of a room corner sectional chesterfield. She toyed with a silk-covered pillow with a naked toe. With the other nylon-clad foot she stretched out to caress Gortoff’s naked back as he dialed another number on the phone at the chesterfield’s end table.

“The pitch,” he snarled over his shoulder at the half-dressed sexpot, “is that we’re getting the hell out of here — fast. Bello put out a day’s supply of caps yesterday that were overloaded with powdered sugar. For all I know they didn’t have any H in them at all — probably quinine to make like a bitter taste. Anyway, according to Bello, every junker in town’s after him. And the crazy bastard calls me. He blows his top on a tapped line. The N Men have more electronic snoopers in this pad than they have in the visiting room over on the Rock.”

“Get me a cab,” he spoke into the phone, “and have it wait in the basement.”

“You leaving the convertible downstairs?” the blonde asked.

“I’m leaving everything in this building right where it is, except you, baby. Get dressed and don’t bother to pack. That crazy Bello is liable to show up here in a minute. And I don’t want any tape recording of what he’ll cry about. I can’t dump him here or I’d do just that. All I got is trouble now. I don’t want the DA writing me up on a murder indictment.” Gortoff buttoned a white silk shirt and pulled up a tie. “Come on,” he turned to the blonde who hopped on one foot as she cupped a spike-heeled shoe on to the other.

“My mink!” she cried and dashed back to a wardrobe closet.

“We’re not leaving the gaw-damned continent. Come on!”

“OK, OK, OK, darling!” Marie Hein shrilled back in a high C, “I’m coming.” She dragged a mink stole across the apartment’s carpetted floor, trying to close a bulky purse while she ran. “When I kicked my way out of that kick line into your life I didn’t bargain for this fire house routine.”

“Sausalito,” he ordered the cab driver. Gortoff pressed back in the taxi’s seat as the car pulled up the ramp from his apartment’s basement garage. He relaxed when he saw the fog.

“Helluva night for driving, boss. You in a hurry?”

“Take your time,” Gortoff shrugged. “Who wants to hurry?” He pulled the blonde to him. “My baby doesn’t like to hurry.”

But Tony Bello hurried through another patch of the impenetrable San Francisco fog. He ran to his car from the phone booth and tore at the handle of its right hand door. He lurched inside and was swiftly and violently torn right through the front seat and out the left hand side. His forehead bounced off the steering wheel as claw-like hands grabbed at his lapels and propelled him to the pavement. One lone, yellow sodium-vapor light spotlighted the beating.

“Don’t kill him — yet. We want some answers,” a guttural voice reached Bello’s one good ear. The other hung in shreds from a pistol-whipping slash of a.38 revolver.

“You pushed a lot of sugar this afternoon, Bello. We want H. A little cut, sure. We expect that. But when you fill a lot of caps with sugar and add a little quinine to make it taste like the real stuff, you’re getting ready to fill a grave — a watery one. Who the hell you think you are, trying to get away with that kind of fraud? You’re lucky we found you instead of those sick bastards down on Geary Street. They’d pull you to pieces and ask questions later. Before we pull you to pieces, come up with our dough or some good stuff. Now!”

“Wait!” Bello gasped.

“Wait, hell, you dirty, phoney pusher bastard. We can’t wait. Come up with some money so we can send some one down to Tia Juana. Or come up with the stuff.”

“Wait,” Bello insisted. “Listen to me. You know me. I’ve been pushing stuff around this town too long to try and beat you people. If I’d wanted to beat you, I wouldn’t hang around to let you catch up with me. Would I?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t know those caps were phonies. My connection crossed me. I just phoned him now. Your money? Here, I’ll give you what you want...”

“Let’s take his roll and dump him down in the bay,” a tall youth moved from behind the addict who was holding Bello’s twisted arm.

“No. Wait,” another interrupted. “Let’s give the bastard a chance. We’ll all be sick by the time anyone can get to Tia Juana and back with more stuff. We’ll all need a fix before midnight — or be too damn sick to do anything about it.” The junker turned to Bello. “Alright, pusher, like you say, your connection crossed you. Let’s go see this smart sonuvabitch. Let’s find out who’s crossing who.”

“You know gawdamn well I can’t take you hopheads there. I’d be killed!”

“Take your pick, Bello. Your connection kills you. We kill you. You can get it right now if you want to stall.” The words were emphasized with the mouth of the.38 in another pistol-whipping blow, across his mouth this time. “Throw him in the back seat. We’ve been around here too long now anyway. I’ll be there in a minute.”

While the three other addicts muscled Bello to their car, the revolver wielding heroin addict prowled Bellow’s car. With a switch blade knife, he slashed the upholstery and ceiling as he searched for any possible hiding place. He tore up the seats and looked in coil springs. He ripped wires from under the dash; examined the engine; and crawled under the car seeking any hiding place where drugs might be hidden. He slashed wildly at the spare tire in the trunk and swore when he discovered no sign of narcotics of any description. “Not even a grain of powdered sugar,” he shrugged when he returned to the other car. “Let’s get down the hill and see if we can’t induce Mister Bello to talk about his connection. We can use one tonight, real bad.”

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“You tell him, Bello,” the revolver wielder ordered with a heel grinding into the captive’s ribs. “Sit up here!” He jerked the half-conscious Bello from the car’s rear seat floor. “In this fog you won’t be seen by the junkers who want to knock you off or the law who want to lock you up. And start talking. Like Eddie says, where to? Where do we find this connection who puts out powdered sugar and quinine for the real stuff?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t live and not tell us!”

A dozen slamming fists in his guts and a knee in his groin made Bello more talkative. “In an apartment,” he growled, “on Grant Avenue. But let me go up alone and see him. If I show up there with you junkers, we’ll all get shot. This guy’s a kilo man and the last thing he wants is any part of a deal with you.”

“He’ll get his deal with us, Bello, and it’ll be his last deal. And, if he can’t come up with some H, it’ll be your last chance.”

Bello peered through the fog. “That’s it. Turn down into the basement ramp. We can get up to his apartment from there without being seen. But I’m telling you, this guy’ll blow his top when he sees you.”

The addict laughed. “Always did want to do some business with one of these behind-the-scenes vultures who bloodsuck a living from us. All he’ll blow’ll be some good stuff for us. Or else!” Bello stumbled from the car when it’s lights faded off the basement wall, staggering from the addict’s kick. “We’ll follow, Bello. No tricks!”

“There’s no one here,” Bello quivered when the door failed to open to the fifth floor apartment.

“We’ll just see.” The driver of the car pulled a strip of reinforced celluloid from his pocket and eased the spring lock back more quickly than a key could have been inserted in it. “We’ll just see.”

The five addicts piled into Gortoff’s apartment like a squad of vice cops crashing into a call girl headquarters. The one waving the.38 spun Bello in front of him and the groggy heroin pusher stumbled to a deep leather chair.

“There’s no one around here,” one of the intruders screamed from a bedroom. “I told you that Bello’s as phoney as the caps he pushed on us. Let’s give it to him right here. This trip was just another stall.”

“Wait a minute,” another shouted from the bath. “Here’s a works. This place is a shooting pad. There could be some stuff around. Let’s take it apart.”

The “taking apart” process was thorough. Only Bello and the revolver-waving addict failed to join in the ripping, tearing, furniture smashing, plumbing-ripping, fixture-breaking search for heroin.

“This is your one and last chance, Bello,” the armed addict whispered into the pusher’s one good ear. “I’ll give you a chance that these hop-heads won’t. Make like you’re trying to get away. I’ll let you go and chase you. Lead me to your connection and let me do business with him. Just me. No one else. We can get out of here and away from them without being noticed. Now!”

“I can’t...”

“You’ve no time to talk. Get going!”

Bello lurched for the apartment door and ran. The.38 cracked twice and two harmless slugs hit the ceiling. By the time the destruction-happy addicts noticed the pseudo flight, Bello and his pursuer were in the elevator.

“Say where, Bello,” the addict shouted above the roar of the sedan’s motor as it roared up the ramp into the Grant Avenue fog, “and don’t be fool enough to play games with me. You heard this piece work back upstairs. Every slug left in it belongs to you. Which way?”

“All I can do it make a couple phone calls and try to find where he is. Pull down Bush Street and stop at that Chink pharmacy. I’ll call from there.”

“I’ll be right with you.”

Bello entered a coin booth, feeling in his pocket for change.

“I’ve got a dime, Bello, Don’t close the door. I’ll tune in.”

He listened as Tony Bello dialed. And he scribbled down the number on the inside of a pack of book matches. There was no answer. Bello tried another number. The waiting addict scribbled it down. Again, Bello got his dime back from the pay phone.

“No luck,” Bello shrugged.

“You mean your luck’s running out, Tony.”

“Let’s go over to Kearny Street. I know one spot where he might be about this time.”

“We’ll go, Bello. I’ve got lots of time but you sure haven’t much left. Your time’s running out.”

Bello and his persistent and patient armed escort made three stops — at a Kearny Street cigar store, at a Geary Street bar and finally at a small baron Turk.

In the Turk Street bistro, Bello talked to a bartender. His silent shadow, on the next bar stool, listened.

“See Karl around tonight?”

“Not yet.”

“Know where you can get in touch with him?”

“Probably in his pad with Marie. You call there? And what the hell happened to your face, Tony? Run into a truck?”

“Accident. This damn fog; hit a street light standard over on Stockton. I called Karl at his pad. He wasn’t there.”

The bartender knew Bello was Karl Gortoff’s man. And Bello knew the bartender and the bar belonged to Gortoff. He leaned over the bar, close to Bello’s good ear. “He lays up over in Sausalito, Tony, when he’s not around town. His schooner’s anchored there. But don’t tell him I tipped you off and your business better be damned important to bother him over there.”

“It is. Thanks.” Bello turned to his shadower. “Come on.” Tony Bello led the way out of the bar into his last brawl — on Turk Street near Eddy, at the fringe of San Francisco’s tenderloin.

“Get the bastard!”

“You phoney sonuvabich!”

It was a different, younger crowd of addicts than the earlier assailants with whom the revolver wielding shadower had first caught up with the pusher. Half sick, crazed without heroin and shooting Bello’s powder sugar, the younger addicts moved in on Bello, neither noticing nor caring for the presence of his shadow — who stepped away from the attack and moved on away from the brawl. Bello was a street fighter and continued to kick, gouge, bite and swing even after he’d been cut by a dozen switchblade knives, sapped with lengths of chain and lead pipe. He stopped swinging only when he dropped to the sidewalk — dead. His attackers ran around the corner on Eddy and disappeared.

His shadower with the.38 revolver was picked up by the first siren screaming cruiser that skidded to a stop as he tried to run across a parking lot. Before the cruiser officers had him leaning on their cruiser, hands on the roof and legs stretched apart for a frisk, other police cars were screaming into the district in answer to the riot call. The addict remained motionless as he was frisked.

“A hot one,” an SFPD sergeant exclaimed, “packing a.38, seven caps of what’s probably H, and, well, well,” he whistled, “look at this!” He handed a wallet to his cruiser partner and flipped up an I.D. card from a hidden compartment. “An N Man. Looks like the Bureau of Narcotics is really on the job. Guess you can stand up now, Padgett,” he called the prisoner by the name he read from the I.D. card. “Let’s have a look at you.” He compared the picture on the card with the face of his prisoner.

“So throw me in the car like it’s for real,” Chris Padgett quipped in a low voice. “You’ll want to check me out at headquarters anyway. Play it like I’m just another junker — all the way. And, if you can, sergeant, make it fast. I think I’ve got something tonight.”

The N Man was run through the SFPD narcotics squad offices and turned out with greater speed than he had been booked in as a suspect. He turned to the lieutenant. “Thanks, Tom. Your boys will have one less to work on now that Bello’s out of the way.”

“There’ll be another one on his corners tomorrow, Chris. They come and go like the fog. Glad to help you. Say hello to your boss when you see him again. Need any transportation?”

“No. Rest is what I need but it’s not for me tonight. Maybe the Bureau’ll plant me on a desk job when this one’s over. If I keep on at this pace, I’ll soon be old — and desk-bound — like you. Night!”

The lieutenant laughed and walked to the door of his office with Chris Padgett. “You boys move too fast to grow old. Be careful, Chris. And good luck.”

Padgett didn’t explain his operation and the lieutenant didn’t ask. His division of the San Francisco Police Department cooperated with the Bureau of Narcotics and that cooperation included all available help but no interference whatever with operations of the Bureau’s undercover men like Chris Padgett. Padgett wanted the late Bello’s source of supply and now he had a handful of leads — the telephone numbers Bello had called from the Chinese pharmacy on Bush Street, the Turk Street bar, and an unknown schooner and its Sausalito anchorage. He had played his undercover role to perfection in San Francisco and was known among local addicts as a user and a rough customer who went armed. He took a cab from headquarters to a modest house on Portola Drive near Twin Peaks, paid it off a block away from the house and walked slowly to the house. It’s living room resembled the signal room of an army command headquarters. Electronic equipment, a teletype and miscellaneous communications equipment took the place of usual household furnishings that passers-by would expect to find inside the Portola Drive house. A rear bedroom was furnished as an office rather than sleeping quarters. Chris Padgett sat across a gray steel desk and talked with a shirt-sleeved Bureau of Narcotics officer.

“If it’s Bello’s connection,” he observed, “it’s probably a kilo man. That means he doesn’t handle the stuff himself. And I don’t think he’s around where the heroin is capped. Someone, between him and Bello, got greedy today. Whoever held out on the heroin and filled those caps with powdered sugar and quinine, made his own killing. The kilo man knows that if Bello didn’t. And whoever did that is on the lam right now — not from the junkies who got Bello but from the kilo man who has that Grant Avenue apartment and the schooner at Sausalito. There’ll be another killing tonight in the tenderloin if that kilo man tracks down whoever swung with the heroin and substituted the sugar and quinine. I’d like to get him before he gets to his capper.”

“Let’s review your position first, Chris. I’ve already got the Coast Guard tracing the schooners over at Sausalito. And the Grant Avenue apartment is staked out. What will the hopheads say when they find out — which they have probably done by now — that Bello got it outside that Turk Street bar and that you disappeared down the street?”

“Nothing. Those two shots I let go in the apartment left the impression that I took off for Bello when he made like he was trying to get away from me.”

“What will this Eddie say when he learns either you or Bello took his car?”

“I’ll tell him Bello got away in it.”

“And what if word gets around that you and Bello were seen buddy-buddy-like, making that phone call on Bush Street, stopping at that Kearny Street cigar store, in the Geary Street bar, and finally at the bar on Turk Street. It’s more than a good bet that you were seen by some junker and that the grapevine has word out that you and Bello have been together all evening. Right, Chris?”

“Not all the way. By now some of those hopheads I was running with are on their way to Tia Juana for more heroin. They took over a thousand dollars from Bello up on Rincon Hill. What if word is around town that I was with Bello before he was killed by these junior league hopheads on Turk Street? I can put it out that I was still pressuring him for some heroin.”

“Alright. You know the crowd, Chris. I dislike seeing you lose the effectiveness of the role you’ve worked on for six months. What do you suggest now?”

“That I try to contact the kilo man over at Sausalito. I’ll try to get Bello’s job. I know the junkers and I can drop enough names to convince this connection that I’m his best candidate to take over and replace Bello. If he’s not the top man out here, I’ll try to get on up the heroin ladder to the man who is on top. If he is the actual importer and transporter, we’ll move in on him with his first delivery to me. Make sense?”

“I’ll get in touch with Washington and see what the director has to say, Chris. Get something to eat and I’ll let you know in a few minutes.”

Chris Padgett listened to the sounds of the teletype as he drank black coffee. He shaved and changed his clothes. He re-loaded the.38 and left the narcotics caps with the Bureau lab man for analysis, carefully tagging each one with its source and date, hour and location. He was on his second cup of coffee when his senior officer of the N Man team joined him in the kitchen.

“You’re cleared for Sausalito, Chris, but we’ll have a snooper on you all the way. Take the green Chev from the garage. It’s already bugged. We’ll be on top of you all the time. And, Chris, check in your I.D. and revolver for this trip. You’re not playing footsie with San Francisco addicts. You can run into a frisk at this level that could mean a dead agent if that card were turned up. The name of that schooner is the Stardust. Its owner is the lessee of that apartment on Grant. He’s also the owner of the bar on Turk. The name’s Karl Gortoff — no record here; white male, 44; supposed to have moved here about a year ago from LA. The LAPD has no record on him. But the schooner has a Panamanian registry. The boys picked up his prints from the Grant Avenue pad and neither the FBI nor Interpol people have anything on him. He’s a mystery man and the Stardust is a mystery ship. It hasn’t moved from its anchorage for six months. We’ll have the Coast Guard keep it under surveillance from now on. But once you’re aboard, you’ll have to play it by ear. If it weighs anchor and sails out of U.S. territorial waters, you’ll be on your own. Better get fixed up with a passport — just in case.”

Chris Padgett drove carefully over the bridge. He didn’t worry about a tail. He knew he was tailed by his own N Man co-workers and that, if he were picked up by a chance recognition from San Francisco addicts, his protective tail would have them promptly stopped by local police. He parked the Bureau car under the cliff and walked across the cliffside Sausalito road to a swank resort restaurant bar. From its room-wide window, he saw the Stardust, lying at anchor on the shimmering, moonlit water. Its cabin lights glowed through the fog. Padgett sat at the bar and listened to a low-playing combo play, “stardust”.

“Ballentine’s and water, please,” he replied to the barman.

The barman made conversation and the window view made Padgett’s question a natural.

“Whose schooner?”

“Karl Gortoff. He also owns this place.”

Padgett disguised his reaction at this new source of information and smiled, “Nice boat. Nice spot here.”

“We do have a good trade.”

Padget sipped his drink and listened as the bar enlarged on the “nice kind of trade” which patronized the Stardust Inn. “Not too much of a crowd during the week. But reservations are necessary on weekends.”

“I’d like to meet Mr. Gortoff. He around?”

“He might be aboard the schooner. But the manager’s here if you want to see him. You a friend of Mr. Gortoff?”

“Yes,” Padgett lied with a smile. “I’ll be back.” He left a bill on the bar and walked leisurely outside the inn. He leaned against a porch pillar, idly smoking a cigarette and looking down the cliffside road. He flipped the butt into the air and sauntered across the road to his car. For a few minutes he sat in the car, looking out into the night fog. When his eyes were adjusted to the dark and fog, he watched the inn for five minutes. Then he switched on the car’s fog lights. From the cliffside of the road a man moved towards the car. Padgett opened the door and switched off the fog lights.

“Gortoff also owns the inn,” he said. “Tell Art to send someone else over here to check in as a guest. Might be a good idea to keep an eye on what goes on. I’m going to make a try at meeting him tonight. Looks quiet inside — the usual crowd from here and the mainland in this sort of place. And you might tell the Coast Guard people that I’ll probably be aboard the Stardust tonight. I’ve a hunch Gortoff does his business aboard rather than inside the Inn.”

Padgett watched as the N Man left the car and waited a few minutes after he left, watching the inn for any sign of observation or unusual movement. A man and a woman left the inn by it’s parking lot exit and entered a Triumph with its top down. Padgett watched as it passed his Chev, waited a few minutes and walked back into the inn. The barman had apparently sent word along that a friend of the owner was at the bar.

“Same?” the barman asked.

“Please,” Padgett smiled.

“I’m Coleman, Jim Coleman,” a suave, smiling resort manager greeted him before the Ballentine’s was placed on the bar.

Padgett acknowledged the introduction and introduced himself. “Good to meet you. I was looking for Karl. If he’s around, you might tell him I’d like to see him.”

“I’ll see if he’s in,” Coleman smiled as he left. He turned to the barman. “Mr. Padgett’s tab is on the house, John.”

“Nice of you, Coleman,” Padgett smiled as he mentally laughed, “this one won’t be hard on the taxpayers!”

Aboard the Stardust, Gortoff, slouched in a berth inside the master’s cabin. He talked on a ship-shore phone. “Like I said, I want that capper up on 19th Avenue and I want him tonight. Dead. He had over three ounces of pure stuff and the sonuvabich swung with it — or peddled it himself. He sold Bello a thousand caps of sugar and quinine. Bello got it tonight on Turk Street from the junkers and now all hell’s broke loose in town. Feed him to the sharks in the Bay. Nobody crosses me and lives. Where is he?” Gortoff snarled into the phone. “If he’s not at his place, he’ll be lying up with that dame on Fulton Street. Get her too. She knows too much. And then lay low for a while. You say there’ll be a panic with no stuff on the corners? Get word around that there’ll be a new supply on Friday. And there’ll be a panic for you if you don’t take care of that double-crossing capper and his broad.”

“You’ve nothing but trouble, Karl, darling,” Marie Hein purred. The blonde slipped down beside him in the berth and pushed towards him.

He ran a heavy but carressing hand lightly over her pointed nipples pushing prominently through green silk pajama tops. He smelled the musty odor of marijuana. You’ve been blowing pot again, baby. How many times have I told you not to bring that tea aboard without telling me. Have your fun, baby, but keep me clued up on when you’re having it. You’ll reek of that stuff some time when I have the wrong kind of guests aboard. She smiled and twisted suggestively towards him in the berth. He responded and slowly, even delicately removed her pajama top. While he kissed her he ran his fingertips lightly, in a circling motion, up and down her smooth, naked back. He moved his lips, carressingly down to her throat and his fingertips to her upper arms. One middle fingertip stopped as it ran back and forth on her inner, right forearm. He sat up with a jerk and snapped on the berth light. He looked at the arm. He saw the tattoo-like scar and dark blotch on the smooth, white flesh.

“You damn little fool. You’re mainlining stuff!”

“Just a joy pop, darling,” the blonde smiled up at him. “Not enough to get hooked.”

Gortoff was on his feet. He raved. “Not enough to get hooked? Just a joy pop? Anybody who mainlines that stuff is hooked. And where’s the gawdamn works? Don’t tell me you got it with you. Don’t tell me you’re carrying any stuff around with you when you’re with me!”

“Karl, darling, calm down. You know I’ve better sense than that.”

“Well, where in hell is it?”

“I left it at our place on Grant, dear. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry,” he raged. “You know what happened at that pad earlier tonight? It was taken apart by a mob of junkers. And the law was in it a few minutes after. Oh, you dizzy bitch. You had to get hooked. The one thing I can’t have is a junker broad hanging around me. I told you and told you. But you had to play games. You know something. I make a million clear a year from this racket and I never touch the stuff. And no one gets around me who touches the stuff.”

Gortoff lunged at the thoroughly frightened blonde. Her fear died quickly — as she did. His heavy, clutching hands no longer carressed. They held her throat in a vise-like grip while her face turned a greenish-purple and her eyes bulged as she strained to breathe. When he released her, marks on her once-white throat were the only trace of his attack. She no longer breathed. He raised the lid of the opposite berth in the cabin and propped it open. He lifted the blonde, crudely grabbing the dead body with one hand clutching long blonde hair and the other closing in on the soft flesh of a thigh. He hurled the body into the storage space below the starboard berth and slammed its lid. He cursed and gathered her clothes and purse. He flung them into the storage space. He spun around as if discovered in his act of murder when he heard the sound of a small boat bump the schooner’s hull. He went on deck.

“Ahoy the Stardust,” Jim Coleman’s voice came through the fog. “OK to come aboard?”

Gortoff sighed. He leaned over the schooner’s edge. “What’s on your mind, Jim?”

“A guest at the Inn says he’s a friend. Wants to see you. Name’s Padgett.”

Gortoff thought quickly. The name didn’t ring a bell. And he didn’t want Coleman aboard the Stardust. He didn’t want anyone aboard the schooner that night. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Jim.” He returned to the cabin, threw on a blazer, and locked the cabin door. “Who is this Padgett?” he asked as Coleman moved the dinghy back to shore.

“I don’t know. Never saw him before. He just came into the bar and asked the barman on duty if you were around. Said he was a friend.”

Gortoff made no comment. “I’ll probably sail on the tide, Jim. Anything for me to sign, I’ll stop in the office before I leave.”

“Expect to be gone long, sir?”

“No. I should be back Friday.” Gortoff looked back at the Stardust. “Just a shake-down cruise. I may leave for the winter in another couple weeks. I’ll see this Mr. Padgett in the bar. See you later.” He walked up to the inn while Coleman made fast the dinghy to the dock.

Padgett was alone at the bar. Gortoff looked at him from an alcove, unseen from the bar and lounge. He saw a tall, blonde, tanned — a little on the sallow side — solitary drinker. He was neither well dressed nor shabby. He appeared neither out-of-place nor as a typical guest of the Stardust Inn. He saw Gortoff for the first time in the bar mirror.

“I’m Gortoff,” the swarthy, older man announced himself at a discrete nod from the barman. “Did you want to see me?”

“Why, yes,” Padgett smiled. “Join me?” He rose from the bar stool and shook hands with the Stardust Inn owner.

“In the lounge?” Gortoff suggested. He turned to the barman. “The usual, John, and whatever Mr. Padgett’s drinking — in the lounge.” The kilo man and the N Man walked together into the carpeted lounge. They made small talk on the Stardust, the inn and the fog while they were served their drinks.

When the barman left, Gortoff looked at Padgett. “What was it you wanted, Mr. Padgett? I don’t think we’ve met before.”

Padgett decided a direct approach would be more effective. He had the advantage of knowing who Gortoff was. “I’d like to take over Bello’s deal with you, Karl.”

“You’d like to take over what? Whose deal?”

“Bello’s.” Padgett smiled. “His end of the San Francisco H traffic.”

“I don’t have any idea of what you’re talking,” Gortoff shot back at him.

“Let me explain, Karl,” Padgett spoke in a low voice. “I was with Bello when those hopheads outside your place on Turk Street caught up with him tonight. I was pressuring him myself for some of the powdered sugar he pushed earlier in the day. I tailed him from the time he called you earlier this evening. I got him away from that mob of junkers who tore your Grant Street apartment to pieces. I had a lot of trouble convincing him he should lead me to you. In fact I had to work him over with the wrong end of a 38 once or twice during the earlier part of the evening. I’ll say one thing for Tony. He was loyal to you ’til the going got really rough.”

Gortoff didn’t blink an eye as Padgett continued with his effort to win the kilo man’s confidence. “Your conversation is amusing, Mr. Padgett, even if it isn’t of interest.” He toyed with his drink, a liqueur, and looked straight into Padgett’s blue eyes. “Go on.”

Padgett talked. He named names and places, that could be known only to an initiated addict or pusher in the San Francisco narcotics world. He sold Gortoff when he told him of the works found in his own bath at the Grant Avenue apartment.

“Did you find the hypo?”

“No. I was keeping an eye on Bello. I wanted to get him away from that mob of junkers. They were ready to kill him.”

“You know, Mr. Padgett, you could be a smart policeman, or an N Man.”

“I could be, Karl. But I’m not. I came here from the East a year ago. Things were a little hot around East 21st Street in Manhattan. You probably have the connections. Check me out. I’ve got an FBI record as long as your arm. And it’s not the kind of a record that a stoolie might have.”

“I’m not worried about you being a stool pigeon, Mr. Padgett. I can predict the actions of a stool pigeon and handle them. As a matter of fact, I can smell a stool pigeon. And I know how to handle them. But the Bureau of Narcotics has some smooth workers today. I know for a fact that at least one junker in every city is an N Man in disguise. And I know all about their ability to take a phoney fix and shoot the stuff right through the skin into a shirt sleeve or on to the floor. Let’s go out to my boat. We can talk more there. I might just have a proposition for you.”

“Good,” Padgett smiled. “So far I’ve had to do all the talking. I’m a good listener, Karl.”

“Excuse me,” Gortoff rose from the lounge table. “I have some things to look after in the office.” He beckoned to the hovering waiter. “Tell John at the bar, we’ll have another round here, please.”

Padgett watched the heavy-set inn owner, bar owner, schooner-owner and kilo man move away. In his white flannels and blue blazer, he fitted the former three roles more appropriately, in appearance, than the latter. “He’s smooth,” the N Man thought, “and not sold on me yet. And he’s probably damned dangerous.”

In the office, Gortoff quickly signed checks presented by the manager and initialed some invoices. He made a long distance call to Rosarito Beach, down in Lower California, giving only a time, a latitude and longitude and a date. From a spring compartment in the office desk, he removed a flat Beretta, dropped it into his blazer pocket, and returned to Padgett.

“Have time for a short cruise?”

“My time is your time, Karl.”

“Good. We’ll be gone a couple days — down to Rosarito Beach — should be back up here by Friday.”

“Do we go ashore?”

“Why?” Gortoff asked.

“I’ve a passport but it’s only a passable forgery.” He tossed it on the table.

Gortoff examined it with an experienced eye. “It’s more than passable. It’s a good one for a forgery.”

Padgett pointed out the deliberately created flaw in the federal seal. “If you still have doubts, Karl. This little piece of engraving may reassure you. No law or N Man would be running around with a forged passport. And no ex con would have a genuine one.”

Gortoff laughed. “If I had any doubts at this moment, Chris, you’d be on your way into the Bay rather than on to a schooner on the Bay. Let’s go.”

Gortoff started the small electric outboard which silently pushed the dinghy away from the dock. “Ever do any sailing?”

“A little when I was a kid. I know the difference between a main sail and a gib.”

“Good. You can help me get underway. I’ve got a good diesel auxiliary. We won’t use any canvas ’til daylight.”

Sea-going traffic was so heavy in the San Francisco area that Padgett never knew if the Coast Guard kept the Stardust under surveillance. And Gortoff was too busy navigating and manoeuvring the schooner to pay particular attention to navigation lights of other ships on port and starboard, on the bow or on the stern. By daylight, San Francisco was no more than a spec on the north-eastern horizon. Gortoff sailed southwest, far off the edge of the U.S. mainland. Then he tacked to a southerly course. At dusk he dropped the Stardust’s sails. He turned to Padgett who was sitting in the cockpit with the schooner’s owner.

“You agreed, Chris, that, if we could get together on a deal, you wouldn’t back away from anything. I like to test a man before I commit myself. And I’ve a test waiting for you. Under the starboard berth of the cabin, you’ll find the test. It’s the result of carelessness. Somebody grew careless. They couldn’t stand prosperity. Or, I should say, she couldn’t stand prosperity. It’s a body, Chris. We can bind our little contract. You bring it up on deck. You dump it overboard for the sharks. I like this sort of binding agreement. You see, Chris, in dumping the body of this careless person, you make yourself an accomplice, or at best, an accessory after the fact, to murder. If you meet this test, I’ll know you’re my man. After all, it will be our little secret — a little matter of murder and disposing of the corpse — one that will ensure mutual loyalty. See what I mean?”

Padgett made no reply. He looked at Gortoff. In the few seconds available, he debated the moral issue. He weighed his purpose and his Bureau operation against the test proposed by Gortoff. As if sensing his hesitation, Gortoff brought the.25 caliber Beretta from his blazer pocket.

“In the event you fail to meet the test, Chris, you’ll be a permanent failure.” The kilo man smiled.

“I see what you mean, Karl. I’m not about to fail — either way. I was wondering who I was aiding and abetting. Actually I wouldn’t have failed if the person were alive in the berth storage space. When I go in with a man, I go in all the way.”

Padgett moved to the cabin and lifted the hinged berth. An odor, nauseating and sickly, that of early decomposure, struck him. He forced himself to carry the dead girl’s body up to the deck. He looked quickly away from the bubbles as the body settled slowly after the splash. And he looked Gortoff straight in his black eyes. “Any other little messy tasks to be looked after, Karl.” As he spoke, he made a promise, “I’ll square things up for that blonde girl with you, Gortoff, or I’ll die trying.”

“Not right now, Chris. Perhaps some other time.” Gortoff cut in the auxiliary and sailed south. By the compass light, Padgett noticed, he began to make a careful check on his course. When the Stardust passed the San Diego light, Gortoff tacked to a south-southwest course. Soon after dark, Padgett noticed the green flash of a signal light. Gortoff increased the schooner’s speed and made for the signal’s direction. He cut his engine when a cruiser approached the Stardust. Go below, Chris. Like your own crime this evening, the fewer witnesses, the better.

Padgett listened from the cabin. Sound and voices travelled clearly over the South Pacific water and through the semi-tropical night.

“Three tins, Senor Gortoff. Enough?”

“For this time, Garcia. How are things at the casino?”

“Very good, senor. Will you be down soon again?”

“I’ll call you. Give my regards to Hernandez. And you better give that cruiser a coat of paint. I’ll want to do some fishing this winter.”

Padgett made a fast assessment of the conversation he had overheard. “Garcia — Hernandez — a casino — and lying off Rosarito Beach — and Gortoff ordering a coat of paint for the cruiser — no money exchanged for what he supposed was three tins of heroin. Gortoff could be more than a kilo man; more than an importer. He could be the big man behind the heroin traffic from Mexico. He could control the source as well as the big West Coast outlet in San Francisco. Three tins made for a lot of heroin. It was more than what was needed for the San Francisco traffic.” He stopped his mental debate when Gortoff called from the deck.

“OK, Chris, come up on deck.”

Padgett heard the roar of the cruiser as it sped east in the night. He saw only its starboard light as it disappeared. “Smooth operation, Karl,” he smiled.

“In this racket, Chris, only the smooth last. And let me pass on a tip to you. Play it like I do in your traffic in town. Never make the same move twice in a row. When you arrange for a pick-up at a plant, vary your routine and your pedlers’ routines. That’s the only way you’ll last. Get into a rut. Make the same moves every day and the Narcotics Squad or the N Men will have you in a week. But you know the racket. Play it your own way.” On the northward voyage, Gortoff spelled out his deal for the new pusher. “I had a middle man between me and Bello. He was the character who sugared the caps the other day. Now he’s out of the way. With you it’s going to be different. I’m going to give you the stuff eighty per cent pure. That’s as pure as any heroin coming on to this continent. You have two ways of handling it. You can cap it yourself and put the cut stuff out to your pedlers. Or you can have a capper working for you and making the plants for you. Do it your way, Chris. You get one of these tin’s. It will handle your traffic for a month. You pay me through the mail every day. In cash. The first morning mail at the inn that misses an envelope from you, with its cash, will be the day you die. That’s the way it has to be Chris. When I put you ashore, you’ll be walking away with $100,000 worth of pure H. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to trust you. Instead some of my people watch you — all the time!”

“Where do those other two tins go?” Padgett asked.

“And that’s another thing, Chris. No questions. And no answers about anything other than the Frisco traffic. That town-is only one of my towns.”

“What time we due back at Sausalito?”

“We’re not due back there. I’ll put you ashore at San Pedro. Take a cab from there to the LA airport and fly up to Frisco. And the cab you take, Chris, will be my cab, and my driver. And you’ll have a shadow on the flight. Like I said, I don’t trust. I watch. All the time. When I drop anchor at Sausalito, the Stardust will be as clean, or cleaner, than any pleasure craft sailing into a harbor on the coast. Like I mean it to look, I was on a short vacation voyage. I play it careful as well as smooth.” Gortoff swung on an easterly course towards the mainland.

Padgett heard Gortoff contacting his cab driver in San Pedro before the Stardust reached the harbor. “And two one-way flights up to Frisco,” he heard the kilo man conclude his orders.

“Use this brief case,” Gortoff ordered. “If you need me in town, call Coleman at the inn or the bar on Turk Street. I’ll tell you through either one of them where the meet will be. That tin is another test for you, Chris. You’ve got it made if you play it smart. Get careless and you’re dead — or in Leavenworth for so long that you’ll wish you were dead.”

In San Francisco, N Man Padgett skillfully dropped his obvious tail and arrived at the Portola Drive house, temporary headquarters of the N Man team, in a round-about route, using seven different taxis. He made the last part of the trip in a Bureau car which he called from a public telephone in the Sunset residential district. Its driver made doubly sure that he was not tailed by having another, unmarked Bureau car tail him. It, in turn, was tailed by an unmarked FBI car. If Gortoff’s men had followed Padgett after his efforts to lose them, they would have been quickly spotted by the protecting federal shadowers.

“You acquired a tan on your sea voyage,” the Bureau chief of the N Man team laughed.

“And I also acquired a kilo of pure heroin,” Padgett replied as he dumped the brief case on the desk. He ran down, while his chief taped the verbal report, every move he had made, from the time he last left the Portola Drive house — including the disposal of the body from the Stardust. No one smiled or commented. It was a deadly game in which death had been encountered before. Once more, the situation was teletyped to Washington. And once more orders came back from the Bureau.

“You’re a pusher, Chris, for a week. The lab boys will adulterate this heroin down to an acceptable weak mixture with powdered sugar. Put it out in the city to the pedlers you know for a week. We’ll supply you with funds here to convince Gortoff that you’ve moved the normal month’s supply in a week. Tell him the large scale movement was a result of the panic created by Bello’s fiasco. All he’s interested in is his money. See that he gets his first payment in tomorrow morning’s mail. Pick up the currency before you leave here. We’ll make the other daily mailings for you during the week. At the end of the week, make a meet with him. He’ll know that you’re running short because of the daily payments. We’ll stay on top of you. And we’ll stay on top of him. This time, when he makes his connection with his Mexican source, we’ll take him. And Chris, this time, take along your.38 and your I.D. Just in case Gortoff has any more tests for you.”

The San Francisco Narcotics Squad was alerted to the Bureau’s action and Chris Padgett moved again in the half-world of the city’s addicts. He shrugged off his takeover from Bello when former addict acquaintances asked what had happened to him on the night when he and Bello fled from the ransacked Grant Avenue apartment. “I took after him and tailed him to his connection.”

He squared up with Eddie, the addict who drove the car when he and the other addicts had trapped Bello at the Rincon Hill phone booth. “Here’s payment for your car rental, Eddie.” He handed him twelve caps of heroin in its adulterated form. “And there is H in those caps.”

He played the role of a typical pusher. “It’s cash on the line,” he told his pedlers. No cash; no junk. When former friends with whom he had pretended to share fixes came crying to him, in horrible, sick, anxiety, “...I’m sick, Chris. Just trust me with one cap to get going. I’ll have the cash for you in an hour...” he snarled back at them. “No cash; no cap.”

He played his role to such perfection that word got back to Gortoff, “This boy knows what he’s doing.”

And the narcotics squad of the San Francisco Police Department cooperated all the way, right down to making the usual number of arrests among pedlers. It was one of the best undercover operations in the Bureau and SFPD history as a list was compiled of every user and pedler in the city. And, thought Karl Gortoff, it was the best week in the history of his narcotics racket. Each morning at the Stardust Inn he received a manila envelope containing four times the cash he had formerly received from Bello.

On the fifth day Padgett was sitting in the Turk Street bar at a corner table. Two pedlers had already eased over to his table, slipped wads of bills to him, and been told where to pick up their plants. The bartender whispered to him while serving a fresh glass of Canada Dry.

“Call Karl.”

Padgett called him at the inn. “What’s on your mind, boss?” he asked nonchalantly.

“You, Chris. You’re going like a house on fire according to the take. Meet me. I’ll be parked on Fulton Street. Park near the Ignatius church and walk to my car. Around one. OK?”

“I’ll be there.” Padgett hung up — and walked to another bar from which he called the Potrola Drive house. He spoke to his Bureau chief. “Get that conversation from the bar?”

“Yes. We’ll cover the meet. Be careful. We’ve got the Inn phone tapped and just before Gortoff called the bartender on Turk, he called Rosarito Beach and told his man down there — the Garcia you told us about — that he and you would be making a trip soon. Looks like you’re going out of town again, Chris. And when our boys put their snooper on that phone in the bar, they found another electronic bug on it. And it wasn’t one installed by any of our agencies or the SFPD. Looks like Gortoff has his own telephone taps working. Don’t make any calls from the bar that you don’t want Gortoff tuned in on. We’ll keep our eyes on you, Chris.”

It was after midnight when Padgett drove towards Fulton Street. He looked up and saw the spires of Ignatius wreathed in gray fog. He parked and walked to the rendezvous with Gortoff. He saw the black Buick and crossed the street.

“Get in.” Gortoff reached over and opened the door.

“I’m glad you had me call you, Karl. By Monday I’ll need another kilo.” Padgett wasted no time on preliminaries.

“I know, Chris. You’ve pushed a big bundle this week so far — more than the local traffic could use. Who’s doing the big buying?”

“Hymie and Severson came into town from Chicago,” the N Man explained glibly, using names of two Chicago pedlers who, he knew, were currently held in custody, having been taken off the City of Los Angeles when it stopped at Salt Lake City on its westward run. “There’s a panic in Chicago. I drove a hard bargain with that pair. What they got, they paid street prices for.”

“I wondered why I hadn’t heard from them,” Gortoff smiled. “I called them yesterday and they were supposed to be on their way here. Maybe those slick bastards think they’re by-passing me; that you’re handling your own stuff. That’s good. Let them think they’re getting it without dealing with me — and keep on sticking them with street prices. For a long time they’ve wanted me to make deliveries in Chicago. They’ve threatened to buy elsewhere. Now they think they’re doing that and that I’ll come around to transporting the stuff all the way to the Windy City. They knew Bello was my man. They don’t know you. Like a lot of local people, the word’s out that you’re an independent — a new source here on the West Coast, Chris. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Unless you tell me different, Karl, I sell to who lays cash on the line. You any other inland connections that you want me to look after?”

Gortoff didn’t reveal to the N Man any other branches or limbs of his narcotics traffic tree. “Not right now. But I want to take you down to Mexico tomorrow and get you set up with my man there. We’ll fly down this time. I’ll pick you up in the morning at your hotel. Around ten. We can spend a couple hours with Garcia and from now on you’ll make your own pick-ups with him. But you’ll still pay me, Chris. Garcia works for me.”

The N Man exhibited no sign of his excitement over learning that Gortoff was the man for whom the Bureau had looked so long — the man at the top of the heroin traffic — the one person who controlled the narcotics racket from its source to the addict on the street. “I’ll be in the lobby, Karl, at ten. See you.” He left the car and walked through the fog towards Ignatius. Instead of driving to the Turk and Eddy district, he drove towards the Richmond district. When he spotted the tail at an intersection on 19th Avenue, he recognized its driver as a fellow N Man. He drove slowly through thick patches of fog, turned south around the west edge of the lake and turned into the lonely, unpopulated area to the east and south. On a new, unopened boulevard, he stopped. The tailing car approached and stopped when Padgett flipped a toggle switch under his car’s dash. It’s driver and another N Man entered Padgett’s green Chev.

“Busy night, Chris?” one asked.

“And a busy day tomorrow. Tape a report for me?”

The driver left for the other Bureau car and returned with a tape recorder. Padgett recorded events of the day and evening, including Gortoff’s plans for the Mexican flight.

“He can’t be planning a flight on a commercial airliner, Chris. The nearest field down there is Tia Juana and there’s no flight leaving here for the border town before noon. Private plane?”

“I don’t know. But if he plans to spend only a couple hours at Rosarito Beach, it sounds like a private plane. Why not be ready in the event he uses his own or a chartered plane? And bring in the Mexican authorities on this one — and Interpol. He’ll have to pick up more heroin tomorrow. I think we should be prepared to nail him on either side of the border, in the event that he has some switch planned. He’s tricky and he might just have me in mind as a border jumper. We want him with the heroin. And while the Bureau isn’t interested in a homicide charge, I haven’t forgotten that blonde girl. I’d particularly like to see him apprehended on our side of the border. If there’s any change in the way I suggest to clean up this operation, let me know before morning. Otherwise, I’ll play it by ear and act according to what Gortoff does. Once we’re in the air I’ll have to use my own judgement anyway.”

The older N Man, a senior to the driver and Padgett, interrupted. “I don’t know what instructions will come through from Washington when we send your report in, Chris. But I can see a flaw in your suggested plan to get Gortoff tomorrow. From the care and trickery he has used so far, he’ll never try to land back here, on any type of plane, with a shipment of heroin. He’ll more likely drop the stuff in waterproof containers to be picked up at sea; or even drop it on land somewhere. And we’re not interested in picking up some lieutenant of his on a transportation charge. Furthermore, neither Washington nor the San Francisco Police are too keen on your continuing as a pusher. It’s the sort of thing some queasy politician or newspaper would raise holy hell about. I feel you ought to be prepared to take him into custody at the first opportunity when you know he is in actual possession of the shipment of heroin. If it’s below the border, we’ll work with the Mexican authorities and have you under surveillance all the time. We’ll be down to Rosarito Beach before you get there. And we’ll cover the Tia Juana airport just in case he has any plans in mind for a switch there. We’ll also have an air cover for any plane you and he take off in from here. If the Stardust moves out to sea, the Coast Guard will keep it in sight.”

“If I apprehend him, I’ll have to testify in court. That will end my undercover career for the Bureau.”

“Frankly, Chris, I feel that would be a good idea anyway. You’ve worked your way in deeper than we ever dreamed was possible. You’re close to the top man — and that proximity to evil brings you real close to the sort of risk not even the Bureau asks you to take.”

“I hope I’ll be real close to Gortoff when he tries to resist arrest, if I’m the man to arrest him,” Padgett stated in a flat, serious tone.

“We’ll leave that personal feeling out of our reports, Chris.” The older N Man and the driver left the car. “Good luck, Chris. We’ll be in touch if there’s any change in plans for tomorrow.”

As Padgett drove back down to the city, he saw the tailing car relieved by another Bureau vehicle. He yawned from fatigue when he parked on his Geary Street hotel’s parking lot. The lobby clock clicked off three o’clock when he walked into the elevator. Gortoff was sitting in an armchair of his room when he switched on the lights.

“No wonder you’re making such a clean-up, Chris. You play this sort of an eleven-inning ball game every day?” The narcotics king grinned.

“Every day, Karl. Seems you do too. And you’re out of your territory. What brings you down here?”

“We’re leaving now for Rosarito Beach, Chris. Remember what I said? I never trust. You didn’t think I’d tell you what time we were going to take off for a pick-up did you. I don’t even let my pilot know the exact time I’m going to take off. And I never let Garcia know the exact time I plan to arrive at the Beach. In this game, Chris, you last only when no one knows your next move. Garcia and my pilot have worked for me for five years. I trust them only as far as I can see them. Not because I think they would sell out. Like you, I have little holds on them. But they could be tailed. And so could you. I can’t take a chance on any one of you slipping up. So I play it my way — real careful. Ready to go?”

“I’m ready. Where?”

“The airport. We’ll drive out in your car, Chris.”

It was the one break the N Man needed. Wherever his car went, an electronic tracer enabled tailing fellow N Men to follow it. As he drove the green Chev out to the San Francisco airport, Padgett made no effort to spot a tail. He knew he was tailed by another Bureau vehicle, even if it remained out of sight in the almost impenetrable fog.

“Pull down to the private hangars,” Gortoff ordered. “It’s that one.” He pointed to a hangar from which a red and white, twin-engined Beechcraft was being towed.

Padgett read the white lettering on the red plane, “Stardust”. He laughed, “You have an obsession for naming your properties, ‘Stardust,’ Karl.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Chris. It’s my favorite name for heroin too. I’m even a sucker for a dame who sings the song.”

“Like the blonde we buried at sea, Karl?”

“Like the blonde you buried at sea, Chris,” Gortoff smiled without looking at him.

Padgett listened as Gortoff gave orders to the pilot. “Tia Juana, George.” He turned to Padgett, “I need some sleep, Chris. We can get an hour or so shut-eye before we land.” He tripped his reclining seat in the Beechcraft and was asleep before the plane was cleared by the control tower to take off.

Padgett fought sleep until the plane taxied from the hangar. He peered through the plane window into the fog, seeking some sign of the tail which he was confident had followed him from Geary Street. He thought he saw an unmarked panel truck, a familiar one, at a neighboring hangar, but he wasn’t sure. He felt for his shoulder holster and dropped off to sleep.

The Mexican immigration officers were not interested in documents. “Touristas,” Gortoff began to explain in good Spanish, and laughed when the border official did no more than greet him and welcome two more sought-after American visitors to the border sin spot.

In the short drive south from Tia Juana to Rosarito Beach, Gortoff ran down his Mexican operation to Padgett — who wished dearly for a tape recorder and a witness. “I bought into a casino down here when gambling was legalized a couple years ago. It’s a perfect front for disposition of U.S. currency, hot, cold or queer. Most of our trade is from the LA gambling crowd who prefer the run down 101 to the desert drive over to Vegas. As a result, I can deposit any sort of income in my Mexican bank accounts. I beat the IRS and I also beat snooping federal agencies who might be interested in the source of my income.”

“How’d you get located down here?” Padgett asked casually.

“You’ll laugh when I tell you,” Gortoff expanded. “I was a pusher like yourself. I hustled around the West Side in Downtown Manhattan for a couple years and picked up a proposition to run stuff up from Guatemala. I got in with a Guatemalan pharmacist who operated a refinery on the side and had my own source for heroin. But I couldn’t compete with the syndicate in the East and live. So I came out here. I haven’t gone wrong since.”

“You’ve got it made,” Padgett laughed. “Your own refinery, your own outlets and your perfect fronts and set-up to account for the income.”

“I’ve got it made, as you say, as long as I’m hyper-careful, Chris. And I am that careful. Like on this trip. I’ll introduce you to Garcia. He looks after my casino interests down here, and my other interests. He’ll see that the stuff is delivered to you. You pick it up. You will carry it to the plane up at Tia Juana. You will fly it back up to Frisco. With me, Chris, it’s always a you, a he, or a she. Never me. That trip on the Stardust down and up the coast was an exception. Even then I wasn’t taking a chance. Those metal cannisters would have sunk to the bottom of the Pacific if there had been any sign of heat. And even then, you moved it ashore. And the other two kilos were picked up offshore by somebody else. Like I said, Chris, I never take a chance. And I’m careful — real careful.”

The casino at Rosarito Beach resembled a Spanish baronial hall. At daylight, gambling action continued as it had at midnight. Padgett was left to wander around the swank tourist trap while Gortoff conducted private business with the manager. Garcia, tall, dark-haired, suave and Castillian, had acknowledged the introduction with impeccable front desk smoothness. “It’s a real pleasure, Senor Padgett. I’ll look forward to working with you.” The casino manager walked away with Gortoff, “The house is your own. Just sign for anything you desire.”

“Even chips,” Gortoff laughed as he placed a friendly arm on the N Man’s shoulder.

Padgett wandered from the gambling rooms to the bar, searching for a familiar face or some indication that the Bureau’s communications system had moved at its usual speed and placed Interpol or Mexican official support at the casino. He saw nothing. He strolled casually out to the casino parking lot and saw nothing more than forty or fifty cars, most with California plates. He smiled at a soliciting senorita and rejected her suggestion of love for a price. He moved back to the bar. He saw no one who might be from a cooperating law enforcement agency. In the dining room he ordered black coffee. Gortoff and Garcia joined him.

“You confine your pleasures to our dining room, senor?” Garcia smiled.

“For this trip,” Padgett laughed. “I may have more time and a greater inclination to play the next time I get down. Right now, I’ve business in mind.”

“We can expedite that, Chris. Garcia has already made arrangements for you to complete your business transaction. The shipment is aboard the plane up at Tia Juana. You’ll accompany it back. I’ll be back up by a commercial flight this afternoon. One package is for your use, Chris. The other two are for me. Bring them to the inn over at Sausalito tonight. I’ll be there at midnight. Walk from your car, through the parking lot and down to the dock. You can use the dinghy to bring the stuff out to the Stardust. I’ll be aboard. Right?”

“Right, Karl. I’ll be there. And I see what you mean by exercising care.” Garcia and Gortoff joined in Padgett’s laughter. “But,” Padgett thought, “if you are aboard the Stardust when I make this delivery, you’ll be careless; not careful.”

The Mexican taxi driver who picked Padgett up at the Rosarito Beach casino seemed like every other driver at the stand, shabby, in need of a shave, and looking as if he hadn’t slept. When Padgett said, “Tia Juana — the airport — plesae,” the driver grinned and roared off. But he slowed down when he left the outskirts of Rosarito Beach and handed an I.D. card back to Padgett who read it and looked closely at the driver’s face.

“Nice to see you boys are on hand, lieutenant.” He handed the card back to the driver.

“Can we help, Senor Padgett?”

“I don’t think so,” the N Man answered the Mexican FBI officer who camouflaged himself as a cab driver. “But you might keep Garcia and Gortoff under surveillance. The American plans to leave on a commercial flight for the States this afternoon. See that he does. Garcia’s your problem.”

“We can get Senor Garcia any time we want,” the Mexican official explained. “We have his supply route from Guatemala checked all the way and we also have his stock of heroin at the casino under observation. We’ve permitted him to continue at the request of your own people, while you try to tie in Senor Gortoff with the traffic.”

“We hope to do that tonight, lieutenant. If we do, you can get your local trafficker. Again, it’s good to learn you’re on the job. I had felt I was alone down here.”

“Your people in San Francisco got a signal to us after you and Gortoff took off from San Francisco. It didn’t leave us much time but we already had the casino staked out. And we had our man at the airport immigration office. So you were never out of sight for long, senor.” At the Tia Juana airport entrance, the disguised Mexican FBI officer accepted Padgett’s payment and tip with thanks, “Come back again soon, senor.” If there were any of Gortoff’s agents hovering near the entrance, the report to the casino would be reassuring.

Apparently the Beechcraft’s pilot had been advised of Padgett’s return trip alone. He was uncommunicative but polite. “All set, if you are, Padgett.”

“Let’s go,” the N Man replied. The Beechcraft had already been warmed up and the Tia Juana tower cleared the ship without delay. Again Padgett slept as the plane flew north. He woke as it lost altitude in its approach from the ocean to the San Francisco airport. And he loosened his 38 in its shoulder holster when the plane taxied to a stop in front of its hangar.

“These are your three parcels, Padgett,” the pilot stated when he opened the plane’s door.

Padgett pulled the revolver. “It isn’t going to be that way, George. You flew them in. You carry them out. And just keep walking with them. Don’t go into the hangar. Come on, get moving!” The N Man reinforced his order with a jab of the gun barrel in the pilot’s back. He made no effort to conceal the revolver and the pilot had not walked more than thirty feet from the plane when a sedan pulled out from a neighboring hangar and stopped beside Padgett and the pilot. It was a Bureau car and Padgett recognized his fellow members of the N Man team.

“We’ll put this one on ice,” Padgett said. He re-holstered his gun while other officers snapped handcuffs on the pilot. “I’ll take those three parcels.”

The pilot was locked in a federal cell on a holding charge from the Bureau officers, with instructions that he be held incommunicado. Padgett left with the other N Men to the Portola Drive house. “That, I think,” Padgett sighed, “will wrap it up. Have the lab boys analyze that stuff. Re-wrap two of the parcels and I’ll take them to Gortoff tonight aboard the Stardust. If it is heroin and if he is on board, we’ll have him. And the Mexican authorities will be anxious to know when they can move in on Garcia at Rosarito Beach. Let them know after we have Gortoff. And,” he reminded his fellow N Man team officers, “don’t let anyone get to a telephone from that private hangar over at the airport. They may be no more than maintenance employes but they could be Gortoff employes too. Keep a tail on him from when he lands here ’til he gets to Sausalito.”

“We’ll do some skin diving tonight, Chris,” one of the N Men laughed. “You won’t be alone on the Stardust.”

Padgett again returned to the Turk Street bar, resuming his pusher role for the afternoon and evening as if nothing had interrupted normal operations of the Gortoff narcotics traffic. He left downtown San Francisco at eleven and drove normally across the bridge. The yellow, sodium-vapor lights broke through the fog as he drove off the exit and curved around the turn to Sausalito. He took the two parcels of heroin from his car trunk and walked across the cliffside road. As he crossed the inn parking lot he recognized a Bureau car. He made no sign of recognizing the occupants of its front seat. He moved through the fog and shadows down to the dock. The electric motor of the dinghy purred into operation with a press of its starter button. He cast off from the dock and the dinghy disappered into the fog. The Stardust loomed up in front of him and he switched off the tiny outboard. Padgett caught at the port side of the dinghy and gasped audibly as a black rubber sleeve of a skin diver’s suit helped propel the dinghy against the Stardust’s stern. He called into the night.

“Ahoy the Stardust.”

“Come aboard, Chris.”

The N Man looked up and saw Gortoff standing at the stern, looking down on him. He hoped he hadn’t seen the skin diver’s arm. Gortoff helped make the dinghy fast to the stern. Padgett held the two parcels in his left arm and pulled himself aboard with his right.

“Wouldn’t want to drop this ‘stardust’ in the water,” he quipped without a smile. Padgett held out the parcels to Gortoff. And the heroin king accepted them.

“Come below, Chris. Might as well have a drink before you go ashore.”

Padgett looked along the starboard side of the cabin as Gortoff reached for its door. He saw the first of his skin-diving N Men fellow workers climb aboard. He waited until they had slipped quietly towards the cabin and followed Gortoff inside. When Karl Gortoff turned he saw the.38 revolver aimed directly on a level with his heart.

“You’re under arrest, Gortoff...”

Gortoff laughed and jeered, “You forget, Chris, I’m the careful one. You’re covered like you think you have me covered.”

Until Padgett felt the pressure of a gun barrel in his own back, he momentarily felt Gortoff’s statement was another form of the old ruse. Then he recognized Garcia’s voice. “Drop the gun, senor.” The pressure increased on Padgett’s back with a sharp jab. He dropped the.38 and was suddenly jammed against Gortoff, propelled to the cabin berth as Garcia’s body slammed against his own. For a few, wild struggling moments, the tiny cabin of the schooner was filled with grunts and curses of Garcia and Gortoff. Garcia screamed as his arm was broken by a blow from a rubber-clad figure, one of the three N Men skin divers who had hurtled into the cabin. Padgett was briefly overlooked in the melee. His fingers clutched at Gortoff’s throat and the narcotics king was beginning to choke when another N Man knelt to snap handcuffs on him.

“You wouldn’t choke a handcuffed prisoner, would you?” the skin diver N Man laughingly asked.

“This one? Yes. I think I would — if it were not against Bureau regulations.”

The four N Men and two prisoners moved from the cabin into a gleaming bath of light. A Coast Guard boat had slipped through the fog and spotlighted the Stardust. Gortoff blinked as he faced the blinding light ten feet away. He cursed when Chris Padgett taunted him, “Light too bright for you, Karl? You’ve made your last move under the stars or on the Stardust. Your stardust days are all over now!”

He turned to the Coast Guard lieutenant, “Can you put us ashore at the Presidio? We’ll stay right with these boys. They’re tricky. But we are careful.”

“Glad to help out, sir,” the lieutenant replied.