Beirut Incident (16 page)

We all went into a nicely paneled office in one corner of the big loft. A neat carpet was on the floor, and steel filing cabinets lined all of one wall. A fat safe squatted blackly just behind Chickie's desk. On the desk top were the pictures of an attractive gray-haired woman and a half-dozen children of varying ages.

"Have a seat, guys." Chickie gestured at a couple of straight-back chairs and settled himself into the swivel chair behind the desk. "I got a problem, maybe you can help me with."

Louie hunched his chair up and gave him a confident grin. For the moment, he'd forgotten that Popeye had given him some pretty explicit instructions. Uncle Joe wanted someone killed.

"What's up, Chickie?" Louie asked.

Chickie leaned back and lit a cigarette. "It's Lemon-Drop Droppo, again," he said. "At least I think it's him. He's been ripping off our runner again. Or at least someone is."

"Hell, Chickie," Louie interjected. "Someone's always ripping off the runners. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that it's getting to be a big deal! We got hit fourteen times last week, already five times this week. I can't afford that."

Louie turned to me. "We usually figure three, four times a week we're going to have a runner get taken for whatever he's carrying, but this is a lot more than usual."

"Can't you protect them?" I asked.

Chickie shook his head. "We got a hundred forty-seven guys bringing cash in here every day from all over the lower Manhattan territory. There's no way we can protect 'em all." He grinned. "In fact, I don't even mind if a few of them get ripped off once in awhile, makes the others more careful. But this is getting to be too damned much!"

"What about this Lemon-Drop Droppo?"

Louie laughed. "He's been around a long time, Nick. One of the Ruggiero bunch, but sometimes he goes off sort of independently. He was a runner himself once, for Gaetano Ruggiero, and it seems like every time he's short of cash, he picks on a runner. They're pretty easy pickings, you know."

"Yeah." Runners are at the very bottom of the crime ladder. They pick up the money and the betting slips and run it to the policy bank, and that's it. They're usually half-batty old winos, too far gone down the chute of aged poverty to do anything else, or young kids picking up a fast buck. There are thousands of them in New York, loathsome little ants feeding off the discarded carrion of crime.

"Think it would help if we got rid of this Lemon-Drop character?"

Chickie grinned again. "Couldn't hurt. Even if it's not him, it might scare someone else off."

I nodded and looked at Louie. "Might even kill two birds with one stone, Louie."

This kind of reality didn't come easily to Louie Lazaro. He looked sour. "Yeah," he said.

"How come they call him Lemon-Drop?" I asked.

Louie answered. "He's a nut about lemon drops, eats them all the time. I think his real name is Greggorio, but with a name like Droppo and a bag of lemon drops in his pocket all the time… I'd really hate to hit him just for ripping off a few runners. I mean, hell, I went to school with the guy. He's not so bad, just kind of nuts."

I shrugged. I'd been doing a lot of that on this assignment it seemed. "It's up to you. It was just an idea."

Louie looked unhappy. "Yeah. We'll think about it."

"What's this two birds with one stone bit?" Chickie asked.

"Never mind," Louie snapped.

"Yes, sir." Chickie was still very much aware that Louie was Popeye Franzini's nephew.

There was an awkward pause. I waved a hand at the row of gleaming file cabinets, each stack locked with a formidable looking iron rod running from the floor up through each drawer handle and bolted to the top of the file. "What you got in there, the family jewels?"

Chickie stubbed out his cigarette and grinned, glad of the change of atmosphere. "Those are our files," he said. "Records of the whole thing from A to Z."

"Everything?" I tried to sound impressed. "You mean for the whole betting operation?"

"I mean for the whole organization," he said. "Everything."

I looked around. "How good is your security?"

"Fine. Fine. That part of it I'm not worried about. We're on the fifth floor here. The other four floors are empty except for a couple of apartments we use in emergencies. Every night we put steel gates across each landing. They fit right into the wall and lock there. And then there's the dogs," he added pridefully.

"The dogs?"

"Yeah. On each floor we got two guard dogs, Doberman Pinschers. We let 'em loose each night, two on each floor. I mean, man, there ain't nobody's gonna come up those stairs with those dogs. They're mean sons of bitches! Even without them, there's no way anyone's going to blast through those gates without alerting Big Julie and Raymond."

"Who're they?"

"My two guards. They live up here every night. Once everyone leaves and they lock those gates, there's no way anyone could get in."

"Looks good to me," I said. "If Big Julie and Raymond can take care of themselves."

Chickie laughed. "Don't worry, man. Big Julie's the strongest guy this side of the circus and Raymond used to be one of the best ordnance sergeants in Korea. He knows what guns are all about."

"Good enough for me." I got to my feet and Louie did the same. "Thanks a lot, Chickie," I said. "We'll be seeing you, I guess."

"Right," he said. We shook hands, and Louie and I went back down the staircase. Alerted now, I could see the steel gates inset into the walls on each landing. It was a nice tight setup, but I had an idea how it might be breached.

Dinner was delightful, a small table in the back of Minetta's, on a night when there was hardly anyone there — a light antipasto, a good oso buco, zuccini strips fried in deep fat, and espresso coffee. Philomina was in that loving, glowing mood that puts a little excitement in life.

It all turned into a petulant Siciliano rage when I kissed her goodnight in front of her door. She stamped her foot, accused me of going to bed with six other girls, burst into tears, and finally ended up throwing her arms around my neck and smothering me with kisses.

"Nick… please, Nick. Just for a little while."

I disentangled myself firmly. I knew that if I went in, I'd be there much too long. I had things to do that night. I kissed her firmly on the end of her nose, spun her around so that she faced her own door, and smacked her smartly on her round behind. "Go on. Just leave the door ajar and I'll see you when I get through with the things I have to take care of."

Her smile was all-forgiving and, happy again, she said, "Promise?"

"Promise." I went back down the hall before my resolve weakened.

The first thing I did when I got to my room at the Chelsea was call Louie. "Hi, this is Nick. Look, how about meeting me tonight? Yeah, I know it's late, but it's important. Right! Oh, about midnight. And bring Locallo and Manitta. At Tony's, I guess. It's as good as any. Okay? Good… oh, and Louie, get hold of Lemon-Drop Droppo's address before you come, will you?"

I hung up before he could react to that last request. Then I went downstairs and around the corner to the Angry Squire. I ordered a mug of beer from Sally, the congenial English Barmaid, and then made a call to Washington from the phone on the wall at the end of the bar. It was just a routine precaution in case my hotel room phone was bugged.

I called AXE's Emergency Supply Section and, after identifying myself properly, ordered a 17B Demolition Kit sent to me that night by Greyhound Bus. I would be able to pick it up in the morning at the Port Authority bus terminal on Eighth Avenue.

The 17B Kit is very neat, very destructive. Six detonator caps, six timer fuses that can be set to trigger the caps at any interval between one minute and fifteen hours, six pieces of primer cord for less sophisticated jobs, and enough plastique to blow the crown off the Statue of Liberty's head.

It was difficult to make myself understood over the din created by a very good but very loud jazz combo some six feet away, but I finally got my message across and hung up.

At eleven-thirty I left the Angry Squire and wandered down Seventh Avenue, making plans for Lemon-Drop Droppo. At the corner of Christopher and Seventh, I turned right on Christopher past all the new gay bars, then turned left again on Bedford Street and down the short block and a half to Tony's.

It was an entirely different scene from what it had been just the night before at Philomina's party. Now it was quiet and intimate again, back to its usual dungeon-like ambiance, the dull orange lights on the dark brown walls casting barely enough light to allow the waiters to maneuver between the tables that were back in their accustomed places in the main room.

In place of the hordes of tuxedo-clad Italian hoods and their long-gowned women, the place was now sparsely populated with a half-dozen long-haired young guys in blue jeans and denim jackets and an equal number of short-haired young girls similarly clad. But the conversation wasn't much different from the previous evening. Where the talk at the party had centered primarily on sex, football games, and horses, tonight's crowd talked mostly of sex, football games, and philosophy.

Louie was at a table by himself, up against the wall to the left of the entrance, hunched morosely over a glass of wine. He didn't look too happy.

I sat down with him, ordered a brandy and soda and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, Louie, cheer up. Things aren't as bad as all that!"

He tried a grin but it didn't come off.

"Louie, you really don't want to do it, do you?"

"Do what?"

Who was he kidding? "Take care of Droppo."

He shook his head miserably, not meeting my eyes. "No, I mean, it's just that… oh, hell! No!" he said with more force, glad to get it out in the open. "No! I don't want to do it. I don't think I
can
do it. I just… hell, I grew up with the guy, Nick!"

"Okay! Okay! I think I've got an idea that will take care of the Lemon Drop kid, make your Uncle Joe happy, and get you off the hook. How's that for a package?"

Hope gleamed in his eyes and that delightful smile of his began to spread across his face. "Honest? Hey, Nick, that would be great!"

"Okay. You did me a favor in Beirut, getting me over here. Now I do you one, right?"

He nodded.

"All right. First, I got this in my box at the Chelsea today." I handed him a note I had written myself.

Louie stared at it in disbelief. "Jeez! What the hell is this all about? Do you suppose it's true?"

"It's probably true, all right. There wouldn't be any sense in sending that to me if it weren't."

"No, I guess not. But why the hell would they send it? You just got here!"

I shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. The room clerk just said some guy came by and left it. Maybe whoever it was figured I was just handy and would pass it on to you anyway."

Louie looked puzzled, as he should have. "I still don't get it." He paused a minute, thinking. "Listen, Nick. Do you suppose it was the Ruggieros?"

Atta baby, Louie! I thought. "Yeah," I said. 'That's what I figure."

He frowned. "So what's this got to do with coming down here tonight? And with Lemon-Drop Droppo?"

"Just an idea. You got Locallo and Manitti with you?"

"Yeah. They're out in the car."

"Good. Now here's what we're going to do." I explained my idea to him, and he was delighted.

"Great, Nick! Great!"

It was only a few blocks over to 88 Horatio, which is just about a block or so off Hudson. I explained to Locallo and Manitti as we drove over. "Remember. We want him alive. It's all right if he's a little damaged, but I don't want any bodies. Understand?"

Locallo, behind the wheel, shrugged. "It sounds crazy to me."

Louie punched him lightly on the back of the head to let him know who was boss. "No one asked you. Just do like Nick says."

Eighty-eight Horatio was a faceless gray building with a line of identical high-stepped front stoops and iron railings. It took Manitti something like forty-five seconds to get through the lock on the outside door and another thirty to open the inside one. We filed up the stairway as quietly as possible, pausing finally on the sixth-floor landing to stop panting from the climb. There were just three of us — Locallo, Manitti and myself — since we had left Louie downstairs in the car.

Manitti had no trouble with the apartment door to 6B. He didn't use a plastic card like they do in all the espionage books these days. He just used an old-fashioned flat blade shaped much like a surgeon's scalpel and a small tool that looked something like a steel knitting needle. It didn't take more than twenty seconds before the door swung open silently, and Manitti stepped aside to let me enter, a big congratulatory smile of self-satisfaction on his Neanderthal face.

There were no lights on in what was obviously a living room, but a light did shine beneath a closed door across the room. I moved across quickly, Locallo and Manitti right behind, each of us with a gun in hand.

I reached the door, flung it open, and stepped into the bedroom in one quick motion. I didn't want to give Droppo a chance to go for a gun.

I needn't have bothered.

Greggorio Droppo was much too busy, at least for the moment, to worry about such a small incident as three-armed men bursting into his bedroom at one o'clock in the morning. Droppo's naked body heaved spasmodically, twisting and churning the sheets under the girl he was making love to. Her arms were tight around his neck, pulling him to her, their faces locked together so that all we could see was grease-slicked hair, mussed now by the grasping fingers of the girl. Her slender legs, shapely and white against the hairy darkness of his body, were scissored around his waist, locked against the slipperiness of the sweat that poured from him. Her arms and legs were all we could see of her.