Lights Out!--A heist thriller involving the Mafia (13 page)

‘Good to see you, Tony,' Martone said, shaking hands with one of the men on the porch, a tall, angular man with a swarthy complexion and a long, sad face that reminded Smythe of a bloodhound.

‘Same here, Dom. You have a nice flight?'

‘Oh, yeah, smooth as silk. Tony, this is the guy I told you about, Mr Smythe.'

Smythe shook Tony's outstretched hand. As he did, Tony's black eyes bored holes in him, and he averted his gaze and looked back to where the plane had landed, a long strip of black asphalt nestled in the surrounding hills.

‘What say we get this meeting underway?' Martone said. ‘Alphonse here?'

‘On his way,' replied Tony. ‘Come on inside. We've got a nice spread laid out.'

They were led to a dining room – Smythe thought of medieval banquet rooms from the movies in which dozens of men in robes decided someone's fate – where a side table contained an array of cold cuts, breads, crab claws, and other dishes. Two young women wearing black turtleneck shirts and white aprons stood behind the food. A much larger table in the center of the room had places set for four.

Smythe nibbled on a few items, but the last thing on his mind was eating. He'd never been in such circumstances before, and had to struggle to keep his anxiety in check. No one engaged him in conversation. Martone and the man named Tony huddled in a corner, plates of food in their hands, while the other men gravitated to the perimeter of the huge room. Smythe sidled up to Hugo. ‘This is some fancy place,' he said.

Hugo hunched his large shoulders and said, ‘Yeah.'

‘You come here often?' Smythe asked.

‘No.'

Smythe forced a laugh. ‘That's what men say when they're trying to pick up a woman in a bar,' he said. ‘You come here often?'

Hugo stared, and Smythe walked away to an unoccupied corner. He'd no sooner reached it when Hugo and four others quickly left the room, returning a few minutes later with another entourage led by a short, roly-poly man whose black hair was pasted to his head, and who was followed by four other ‘Hugos'.

‘Hey, Alphonse,' Martone said, going to him and shaking his hand. ‘Glad you could make it. You drive here from Baltimore?'

‘Yeah, we drive here, Dom. I see you fly here in your private airplane. Business must be good in Canada.'

‘I rent it. I got shares in it.'

‘Me, I don't like to fly,' Tony said. ‘I don't trust those fuckin' airplanes and pilots.'

‘Hey, whatever works for you,' Alphonse said.

‘What do you say we get started?' Martone interjected. ‘We sit down and work this thing out.' As though suddenly realizing that Smythe was present and that he was the reason for them being there, he waved the Canadian over.

‘You already met Tony,' Martone said to Smythe. ‘Say hello to Alphonse, from Baltimore. Tony's from Philly. This place we're in, it's Tony's. What do you call it, Tony, your castle? ‘

‘That's right. Looks like a fuckin' castle, don't it?'

‘You should wear one ‘a those metal suits, like the knights wore.'

‘Maybe I will,' Tony said.

‘Sit down, sit down,' Martone said. ‘Let's get this little confab underway.' He motioned for the waitresses to leave the room, which they did, escorted by two of Martone's men.

Martone sat at the head of the table, and directed Smythe to sit to his left. Alphonse took a chair next to Smythe; Tony sat across from him.

‘I called this sit-down because you, Tony, and you, Alphonse, wouldn't come in on a deal with me until you met my partner, Smythe here. Now I'll be honest with you, I felt disrespected, but I told myself to not let that get in the way of a good deal. Maybe what bothered me was that my generosity was being questioned. Hell, I didn't have to bring you, Tony, or you, Alphonse, into this business arrangement. Other bosses didn't disrespect me when I offered them in on the deal. They thanked me for being generous, for sharing the wealth with them, no questions asked, just faith in me as a man of my word, a man of honor. Don't get me wrong. I'm not somebody who holds a grudge. You all know that. So I agreed to bring my partner with me for this sit-down so you could ask him questions.'

‘You say you got Carmine in Boston to come in on the deal, Dom?' Alphonse asked.

‘That's right, no questions asked. He came in on my word, the way it should be.'

‘No offense, Dom,' said Tony, ‘but I don't put up the kind of money you're asking without some info. Just good business.'

‘What about New York?' Alphonse asked.

‘I meet with Vinnie tomorrow. He's coming to Toronto.'

As the conversation continued between the mob leaders, Smythe squirmed in his chair and tried to look disinterested. He'd seen all the Mafia movies – the three
Godfather
films,
Goodfellas
,
A Bronx Tale
,
Casino,
Donnie Brasco –
and was always fascinated with the ‘sit-down' scenes in which the heads of crime families met to carve out territories and to resolve family differences. But this wasn't a movie, and he wished it was. Most of all he wished he wasn't there, and envisioned himself in Buenos Aires in Gina's arms.

‘OK,' Tony said, turning from Martone and facing Smythe, ‘so you're the guy who's supposed to make this work, make the lights go out.'

‘Yes, sir, I—'

‘I don't understand,' Tony continued. ‘How do you pull this off, make the lights go out?'

‘I'd rather not—'

‘With all due respect,' Martone said, ‘I think your question is out of order.'

‘Out of
what
order?' Tony said.

‘You're asking him to reveal how he does it,' Martone said. ‘If you knew how he did it you wouldn't need him – or me.'

Alphonse laughed. ‘Maybe that's what Tony's getting at,' he said. ‘Cut out the middleman.'

With Martone backing him, Smythe sat up straighter and said, ‘I didn't think in coming here that I'd be asked to reveal my secrets. All I can say is that I can see to it that all electrical power along the eastern seaboard will be cut off at a precise time on a specific date. What you decide to do with that knowledge is your business. It's of no concern to me, any more than how I do it should concern you.'

He checked their faces for reactions to his statement. Alphonse looked at Tony, who looked at Martone, and all three looked at Smythe.

‘He speaks the truth,' Martone said.

‘So OK, you can pull this off,' said Tony, ‘but how do we know that you will? I mean, what if you and Dominick pocket our money and then you decide to split?'

‘I have no intention of splitting,' Smythe said, ‘until the lights have gone out. As for a guarantee, you'll have to take my word for it.'

‘The way others have,' Martone said. ‘And I will say this: you know me as a successful businessman, not a fool. Mr Smythe answers to me, Dominick Martone, which should be good enough for everyone at this table.'

The next fifteen minutes were spent with the three mob leaders arguing about honor and trust. At one point when Alphonse said something to Martone that contained a veiled threat, Hugo and another Martone henchman stood and came up behind Alphonse, which prompted two of Alphonse's men to do the same with Martone.

Martone slapped his hand on the table and snapped, ‘Enough! We sound like schoolboys, not the grown businessmen that we are. I say this meeting is adjourned. You want in on the deal or you don't. I don't need you, but when it's over and others have made their millions, do not come to Dominick Martone and say that he wasn't generous and didn't give you an opportunity to share in the spoils.'

Alphonse held up his hand and said, ‘Dominick is right. I am in, under the terms I discussed with him before.'

All eyes went to Tony. He shrugged, made a gesture of acquiescence, and said, ‘Count me in.'

The three men stood and shook hands. The meeting was over, and Smythe drew a prolonged sigh of relief.

They left the stone mansion and gathered at the plane where the pilot sat in the cockpit, and the co-pilot stood at the top of the short flight of stairs waiting for the passengers to board. There were hugs between the three mob bosses.

‘It was a real pleasure meeting you, gentlemen,' Smythe said to Alphonse and Tony.

‘Same here,' Alphonse said. ‘Just remember that if things don't go the way they're supposed to go we'll see you again.'

His meaning was crystal clear.

As Smythe was about to go up the stairs he looked beyond the other men and saw two cars kicking up dust as they roared toward them.

‘We got trouble,' Tony said

Smythe stood alone as everyone broke away and headed for the house, although some men crouched behind statuary of nymphs and lions and drew their weapons. The cars came to a swerving stop, their occupants emerging with guns blazing and using the vehicles to shield them from return fire. A flurry of bullets kicked up grass at Smythe's feet. He ran to the left, then to the right, his only thought at that moment of the movie,
The In-Laws
, in which Peter Falk yelled at Alan Arkin, ‘Serpentine, Serpentine', as they ran figure-of-eights while being attacked by Central American bandits.

Martone, who'd boarded the plane with Hugo and the others, screamed at Smythe to join him.

Smythe stumbled as he made for the plane, righted himself, and scrambled up the stairs. The co-pilot closed the door and rejoined the pilot up front. The engines were started and the cockpit crew started going over its pre-flight checklist when Martone yelled at the pilot through the open cockpit door, ‘Let's go, let's go! Get this fucking plane outta here.'

‘What's going on?' Smythe asked Martone, who held a handgun. Hugo and the others had also drawn their weapons. ‘Is there trouble?' As soon as he said it, he realized the stupidity of the question.

‘Move it, move it!' Martone shouted at the pilots.

Outside the plane, fire from Alphonse, Tony, and their crime family members kept their attackers pinned behind their cars as the pilot gunned the engines and the jet started to move. He spun it around and headed for the landing strip, the jet engine noise accompanied by the sound of rapid-fire gunshots. Two shots punctured the plane's fuselage, one of them reaching the cabin and knocking a glass off a table. Smythe slid off his seat and lay on the floor, his hands over his head. A minute later, after a fast, bumpy taxi to the strip, the engines were advanced to maximum power and the plane careened down the makeshift runway until its wheels lifted off and they were airborne.

‘Son-of-a-bitch,' Martone growled. ‘Can you believe that?'

Smythe pulled himself to a sitting position and said, ‘Who were those men in the cars? The police?'

Martone looked at him as though he'd committed an offensive bodily act. ‘Police my ass. That's a rival gang from Philly. Tony's been in a war with them for months. You OK?'

‘Me?' Smythe said, returning to his seat and brushing off his suit. ‘Yes, I'm all right, Dom. It's just that I've never been involved in anything like this.'

‘Hey, pal, relax. Happens now and then in business.'

‘Will Tony and Alphonse be OK?'

A shrug from Martone. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Not my problem.' He called out to the cockpit crew, ‘How about some food back here?'

Later that night, after returning home from the COC fundraiser which Martone hadn't attended, much to Smythe's relief, he sat with Cynthia watching the ten o'clock news on TV.

‘Was it a successful trip today?' she asked.

‘Yeah, I think so.'

The news anchor reported, ‘In news from the States, a gang war between rival crime families in the Philadelphia area broke out today when one of the gangs attacked another at a mansion owned by one of the families. Police were called but arrived after the attack had ended. Two lower-level men belonging to the crime family allegedly headed by Anthony “Hounddog” Russo were shot dead. According to police, a war between rival gangs has been brewing for several months. No one has been arrested and charged with the shooting.'

‘How anyone could associate with such people is beyond me,' Cynthia said. ‘It's like men who frequent striptease clubs.'

She glanced at Carlton, whose attention was fixed on the screen as though he hadn't heard what she'd said, which was just as well.

‘Carlton, do you think that Dominick Martone is like those people in Philadelphia?'

‘What?'

She repeated it.

‘No. Just vicious rumors. He's a businessman, that's all. By the way, I have to go to Argentina tomorrow. A problem with the power company there. They need me. I know it's last minute but—'

‘They know a good man when they see one,' she said. ‘It's all right. How long will you be gone?'

‘Just a couple of days.'

She came around behind and kissed his bald spot. ‘I just want you to travel safe.'

‘Oh, sure, I'll be fine,' he said, wondering at her change in attitude. ‘I need to do a few things out in my office to get ready for the trip.'

‘All right,' she said. ‘But hurry back. I feel like a cuddle tonight.'

The minute he was gone from the house she called Clarence Miller III on his cell phone.

‘He's going to Argentina tomorrow,' she said.

‘What time, what flight?'

‘I don't know, but I'll find out and let you know.'

B
ill Whitlock, a special investigator for the DEA and a member of a task force involving the US Customs and Border Protection Agency, met late the next day with members of his team in his office on Army-Navy Drive, in Pentagon City, Virginia. Whitlock, who'd been with the DEA for eleven years, was one of almost five thousand agents charged with stemming the importation of drugs into the United States. An increase in trafficking across the US-Canada border, particularly with drugs emanating from Argentina, had resulted in a joint initiative with Canadian authorities. A list had been drawn up of Canadian citizens who made frequent trips to that South American country. Included on it was a former engineer at Power-Can, Carlton Smythe.