The Assassin Part 50

At twenty-five minutes past one o'clock, Mrs. Antoinette Marie Wolinski Schermer telephoned to Mr. Ricco Baltazari at the Ristorante Alfredo and informed him that Corporal Vito Lanza had just left her apartment.

"Jesus Christ! I told you to keep him there!"

"Don't snap at me, Ricco, I did everything I could. He said he had to go by his house and see the plumbers."

"I didn't mean to snap at you, baby," Mr. Baltazari said, sounding very contrite. "But this was important. This was business. You sure he went to his house?"

"I'm not sure, that's what he said."

"Okay, I'll get back to you."

Mr. Baltazari was thoughtfully drumming his fingers on his desk, trying to phrase how he could most safely report this latest development to Mr. S. when there was a knock at the door.

"What?"

"Mr. Baltazari, it's Tommy Dolbare."

Mr. Baltazari jumped up and went to the door and jerked it open.

"I got this envelope for you," Tommy said.

Mr. Baltazari s.n.a.t.c.hed the extended envelope from Mr. Dolbare's hand and looked into it.

"Where the f.u.c.k have you been, a.s.shole?" he inquired.

"I had a wreck. I got forced off the road," Tommy said, hoping that he sounded sincere and credible.

"Get the f.u.c.k out of here," Mr. Baltazari said, and closed the door in Mr. Dolbare's face.

Mr. Baltazari then telephoned Mr. S.'s home. Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli answered the telephone.

"I got those financial doc.u.ments Mr. S. was interested in," Mr. Baltazari reported. "They just this minute got here. Our friend's guy got in a wreck on the way down. Or so he said."

"f.u.c.k!" Mr. Rosselli said.

"I just talked to the broad. She says our other friend just left there to go home, to talk to the plumbers."

"She was supposed to keep him there," Mr. Rosselli said.

"She said she couldn't."

"I'll get back to you, Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said, and hung up.

"That was Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said to Mr. Savarese, who was reading The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal. He waited until Mr. S. lowered the newspaper. "He's got the markers. That bimbo of his called him and said that the cop left her place; he had to go to his house and talk to the plumbers. What do you want me to do?"

Mr. Savarese, after a moment, asked, "Did he say why it took so long to get the markers?"

"He said something about Anthony Cagliari's guy . . ."

"Clark," Mr. Savarese interrupted. "If Anthony wants to call himself Clark, we should respect that." Mr. Savarese interrupted. "If Anthony wants to call himself Clark, we should respect that."

". . . Anthony's guy getting in a wreck on the way down from the Poconos."

"This was important. I told Ricco to tell Anthony it was important. Either Ricco didn't do that, or he didn't make it clear to Anthony. Otherwise Anthony would have brought those markers himself."

"You're right."

"Maybe you had better say something to Ricco," Mr. Savarese said. "When things are important, they're important."

"I'll do that, Mr. S. Right now, if you want."

"What I want you to do right now is go get the markers from Ricco. Take the photographs and give them to Paulo. You know where this cop lives?"

"Yes."

"I don't know what this business with the plumbers is," Mr. Savarese said. "If possible, without attracting attention, you and Paulo try to have a talk with the cop. But I don't want a fuss in the neighborhood, you understand?"

"I understand, Mr. S."

"You tell Paulo I said that. You tell him I said it would have been better if you could have talked to the cop in the girl's apartment. But sometimes things happen. Anthony's driver had a wreck; the cop's toilet is stopped up. It's not the end of the world. If you can't talk to him at his house, it might even be better better if Paulo and you talked to him at this woman's apartment. Use your best judgment, Gian-Carlo. Just make sure that we get what we're after." if Paulo and you talked to him at this woman's apartment. Use your best judgment, Gian-Carlo. Just make sure that we get what we're after."

"I'll do my best, Mr. S."

Mr. Savarese nodded and raised The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal from his lap and resumed reading it. from his lap and resumed reading it.

"Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said to Mr. Baltazari when he answered the telephone. "What I want you to be doing is standing on the sidewalk in ten minutes with those things in your hand, so I don't have to waste my time coming in there and getting them, you understand? "

"Right," Mr. Baltazari said. "I'll be waiting for you."

"There's a new Cadillac parking," Sergeant Bill Sanders said to Officer Howard Hansen. "Is that our guy?"

Hansen consulted a notebook, stuck into which was a photograph of Corporal Vito Lanza.

"Yeah, that's him."

"If I was dirty, and lived in this neighborhood," Sergeant Sanders said, "I think I would take what that Cadillac cost and move out of this neighborhood."

"But then you wouldn't be able to impress the neighbors with your new Caddy," Hansen said. "Why be dirty if you can't impress your neighbors?"

"Did you hear what this guy is supposed to have done? I mean, anything besides he may be taking stuff out of the airport?"

"Olsen said that Peter Wohl was in the chief's office first thing this morning. He had the kid-he just made detective, by the way-that got himself shot by the Islamic Liberation Army, Payne, and some little Puerto Rican with him. I worked with Wohl on the job where he put Judge Findermann away. He does not go off half-c.o.c.ked. "

"The little Puerto Rican was a cop?"

"I think he was the guy, one of the guys, who got the junkie who shot Captain Dutch Moffitt."

Sanders nodded.

"You think to bring the camera from the car?"

Hansen nodded, and patted his breast pocket.

"Just in case we lose this guy when he leaves, I think you'd better take his picture."

Hansen nodded again.

"There's not a a plumber," Mr. Paulo Ca.s.sandro said, looking out the back window of his Jaguar as it moved slowly down the 400 block of Ritner Street, "there's a whole f.u.c.king army of them." plumber," Mr. Paulo Ca.s.sandro said, looking out the back window of his Jaguar as it moved slowly down the 400 block of Ritner Street, "there's a whole f.u.c.king army of them."

"These houses is old; the pipes wear out," Mr. Rosselli replied absently.

On the way here, Mr. Ca.s.sandro had given some thought to how he was going to handle the situation if the place was full of plumbers, or Lanza's mother, or whatever. He had what, after some reflection, seemed to be a pretty good idea.

Starting with the bill of sale for the Cadillac, all the paperwork involved in dealing with the cop had been Xeroxed. It was the businesslike thing to do, in case something should get lost, or f.u.c.ked up, or whatever. Including the bill for the comped room at the Oaks and Pines, and the markers, both the ones he'd paid, and the ones he'd just signed.

The thing they had to do now was make the cop nervous. He thought he had figured out just how to do that.

I will just go in the cop's house, and hand him the markers from last night. And tell him I want to talk to him, and why don't you let me buy you a drink when you get off work, say in the bar in the Warwick. He probably won't come, he wants to bang the broad, but he will wonder all f.u.c.king day what getting handed the markers is all about, and what I want to talk about. And if he don't show up at the Warwick by say one o'clock, I know where to find the f.u.c.ker. Rosselli and I will go to the broad's apartment. the Warwick by say one o'clock, I know where to find the f.u.c.ker. Rosselli and I will go to the broad's apartment.

"Let me out of the car, Jimmy," Mr. Ca.s.sandro said to his driver, "and then drive around the block until I come out."

"You don't want me to come with you?" Mr. Rosselli asked.

"I want you to drive around the block with Jimmy until I come out."

"You will never believe who I just got a picture of getting out of a Jaguar and walking toward Lanza's house," Officer Howard Hansen said softly as he returned to the bar where Sergeant Bill Sanders was watching a quiz program on the television.

"Who?"

"Paulo Ca.s.sandro."

"You sure?" Sergeant Sanders asked.

Hansen nodded.

"And, unless I'm mistaken, the guy driving the Jaguar was Jimmy Gnesci, 'Jimmy the Knees,' and-what the h.e.l.l is his name?-Gian-Carlo Rosselli was in the back seat with Ca.s.sandro." Rosselli was in the back seat with Ca.s.sandro."

"You get his picture, their pictures their pictures too?" too?"

Hansen nodded.

"This is getting interesting," Sanders said.

"I told you, I've been on the job with Wohl. He don't go off half-c.o.c.ked. "

The f.u.c.king plumbers had just told Vito Lanza that it would be at least three days until there was cold water to flush the toilets, and probably a day more until there was hot water and he could take a bath and shave, when he heard somebody call, "Yo, Vito! You in here?" upstairs at the front door.

He went up the stairs and there was Paulo Ca.s.sandro standing there, just inside the open door. He was smiling.

"What the h.e.l.l have you got going here, Vito? You really need all these plumbers?"

"Well, h.e.l.lo. How are you?"

Paulo Ca.s.sandro was the last person Vito expected to see inside his house, and for a moment there was concern that Paulo was there about the markers he had signed at the Oaks and Pines.

He shook Ca.s.sandro's hand.

"You wouldn't believe what they're charging me," Vito said.

"I would believe. There's only two kinds of plumbers, good expensive plumbers and bad expensive plumbers. I've been through this."

"So what can I do for you, Mr. Ca.s.sandro?"

"You can call me 'Paulo' for one thing," Ca.s.sandro said. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood, I was down by Veteran's Stadium, and I had these, and I thought, what the h.e.l.l, I'll see if Vito's home and give them to him."

He handed Vito the markers, four thousand dollars' worth of markers, that he had signed early that morning at Oaks and Pines.

"To tell you the truth, Paulo, until I can get to the bank, I can't cover these."

I don't have anywhere near enough money in the bank to cover those markers. My f.u.c.king luck has been really bad!

"Did I ask for money? I know you're good for them. Take care of them at your convenience. But I had them, and I figured, what the h.e.l.l, why carry them around and maybe lose them. You know what I mean?"

"Absolutely."

"And we know where you live, right?"

"Yeah."

"So I'll see you around, Vito," Paulo said, and started to leave, and then, as if it was a thought that had suddenly occurred to him, turned back to Vito. "What time do you get off?"

"Eleven," Vito said.

What the h.e.l.l does he want to know that for?

"That's what I thought," Paulo said. "Hey, Vito. We're all going to be at the bar at the Warwick a little after midnight. Why don't you come by, and we'll have a shooter or two?"

"Jees, that's nice, but when I get off work, I'm kind of beat. And I went up to the Poconos last night. I think I'm just going to tuck it in tonight. Let me have a raincheck."

"Absolutely. I understand. But if you change your mind, the Warwick Bar. On the house. We like to take care of our good customers. "

Paulo punched Vito in a friendly manner on the arm, smiled warmly at him, and walked out of his house.

He stood on the curb for almost five minutes until his Jaguar came around the block and pulled to the curb.

The relations.h.i.+p between the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local law enforcement agencies has rarely been a glowing example of intergovernmental cooperation.

This is not a new development, but goes back to the earliest days of the Republic when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton convinced the Congress to pa.s.s a tax on distilled spirits. Some of the very first federal revenue officers were tarred and feathered when they tried to collect the tax, more than once as local sheriffs and constables stood by looking in the opposite direction.