on your form: double portion, double walk, three times more packs. The Attica guys will cut your balls and stuff them in your mouth. I can almost see your body lying on the floor with a dead canary on your chest.”
It had been a demonstration of force but it didn’t seem to have the intended effect. The wounded closed his eyes and started groaning. Faintly at first, then louder and louder until a doctor showed up. He looked at the two agents reproachfully then dismissed them.
“Let’s go, Arty. This corpse is already stinking!”
* * * * * * *
They returned to the office to get Mary. Then the three of them went to the Red Star Casino which was owned by Weiss. They had found out that was his headquarters. On the way there, like a hard-working schoolgirl, the woman started pouring out the information on the gangster.
“Rudolph Weiss, also known as ‘Spectacled Fish,’ got rich in the fish trade by swindling several businesses with a ‘shuttle’ system. Then he met Ernest Montevecchi, also known as ‘Green Eyes,’ who had just got the monopoly for the fish trade in New York. They got together and diversified their trade. In fact, Weiss smuggles all kinds of forbidden goods. A year ago FBI Agent Vito Monelli managed to charge Weiss with the smuggling of strategic synthetic materials. The guy defended himself by saying his latest hobby was plasturgism. So an honorable ‘cheerful’ judge and twelve nice old men who would have acquitted even Jack the Ripper were enough to put the feds’ efforts to nothing. And so ‘Spectacled Fish’ was thrown back to swim in the whirlpool of Manhattan crime.”
“Well done, Mary, I see you’ve done your homework,” Mark said.
They entered the casino. It was almost empty at this time of the day. Mark was sorry Sean was not with him. Paulardis would have known how to deal with these gangsters. He had grown up among guys like them, he knew their lingo and their tricks, was just as tough as they were. They crossed the huge room and stopped outside the back door guarded by two “gorillas.” One of them was the big guy in yellow shoes.
“Hi, buddy!” Mark greeted him as if he was an old acquaintance.
“Got a warrant? If not, beat it!”
Mark dug out his gun. “Sure. Can’t you see it? It’s at the end of this barrel!”
The big guy started to shout. Suddenly the door opened and Weiss himself appeared.
“Aaah! The FBI gents,” he looked glad to see them. “Shut up, Pitt! Better groom them and show them in!”
Mark and Arty handed their guns to Pitt, then allowed to be searched. When the guy in the yellow shoes came up to Mary to do the same, Arty turned him around giving him a fierce look.
“Come in!” Rudy Weiss said.
“Do you mind?” Mark asked him.
“Not yet. I suggest we take a fifteen-minute truce,” the gangster said peacefully. The feds agreed.
Weiss’s office was elegantly furnished with expensive mahogany pieces. On the shelves were lots of precious antiques. The only pictures were several enlarged photos showing Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and other heads of the Jewish underworld.
“Mr. Du Nancy,” the bandit began ceremoniously, “please, accept my apology for the incident at the restaurant yesterday. It had never been my intention to offend your beautiful companion. Unfortunately, my men can be so rude sometimes,” he complained.
“You didn’t mean to offend her,’ Mark replied, “but it seems you wanted to kill her and her uncle.”
“Listen, man!” Weiss looked him in the eyes. “Dorothy Wheller’s my idol. Not even guys like me shoot their idols. As for her uncle, what can I say? I don’t even know the guy. Therefore, I’ve got nothing against him. I know what you’re getting at, though. Vinotti and Garr were, indeed, my men. Only it seems they decided to start a little business on their own. I owe you for killing Garr. As for Vinotti, I’ll make sure he gets into an even cooler room, with a tag on one toe no matter where you take him, guys. Luckily, there was a third guy as well. One who didn’t have the guts to go all the way through. Bring Garner in!” he ordered one of the guards.
Almost instantly a slim tall man was pushed inside. His face was full of bruises.
“Come on, Brad, tell them what you said to me before! Tell us who hired you!”
“A computer engineer. Edward Druller’s the name,” he groaned. “Lives somewhere on Lafayette Avenue. I can take you there. He offered us a hundred thousand bucks to take the two Whellers down.”
“OK, now get lost!” Weiss decided and Garner was helped out of the room. “I guess that about says it all, gentlemen. Now, Du Nancy, I think that makes it up for the incident at the restaurant.”
“All right,” Mark said, preparing to leave.
Before going out, Arty asked Weiss full of curiosity. “Why have I never seen you at Emanuel Temple? You belong there, not here with all these criminals. Besides, how long do you think this friendship between a Jew and an Italian’s going to last?”
The gangster pointed to a portrait on the wall: Lansky’s. “Well, I don’t know, Steimberg, my friend!” Weiss pretended to be at a loss. “That between him and Charlie Luciano lasted for quite a while.”
“Don’t fool yourself, Weiss!” Arty replied with dignity. “I don’t think we could ever be friends.”
The gangster shrugged his shoulders indifferently, then raised a a glass of champagne to them.
“Bona Salude! Have a good time the rest of your lives!”
“The truce is over,” Mark said. “Be careful what you get yourself into, Rudy! More than that, stop harrasing the actress! Now we’re even, but if I ever look you up again, I won’t be leaving my gun at the door, you can be sure of that.”
CHAPTER SIX
Wednesday, October 14
In Yorkville on 77th Street there was an impressive villa. Only one window was lit somewhere on the first floor. Carefully, Thanatos pushed the door open. When he reached the hallway he looked at the coat rack. He was content to find that everything pointed to a single person living there. This is good, he said to himself. He knew from the dentist’s chart that his next victim was a banking consultant at Sellum.
He climbed up the stairs, gun in hand, and went along the hallway to the door where the light was coming from. He opened it slowly and saw Drumond at his desk leaning over some papers. He was as short as Druller. Thanatos leaped forward like a big cat and placed his hand over the man’s mouth while he was pointing the gun at his head.
“Listen, Phil!” he said gently. “I won’t do you any harm. You just have to be a good boy and work with me. Do you promise not to scream if I take my hand off?”
The little man, white as a sheet of paper, nodded.
“Look, Mr. Drummond,” Thanatos said. “A big mob guy needs an expert named after you to operate several banking transfers to the Cayman Islands. He’s got the expert and only needs the name.”
“What do you want from me?” Drumond
