Operation Bamboozle (6 page)

“Bear in mind what I have in common with Cabroy, which is national security. They served in counter intelligence with Britain's MI5. They needed a car, I gave them a Chrysler, for reasons I had to conceal then and cannot discuss now. Hence the subterfuge.”

“You're on record, sir, as claiming to have infiltrated organized crime for the benefit of the FBI,” Fisk said. “Was that part of the subterfuge?”

“What a shrewd question,” Fantoni said. “It goes to the heart of national security. I can't answer it, of course.”

“Maybe your subterfuge was itself a subterfuge,” Prendergast suggested.

“Can't answer that.”

“A lot of counter intelligence is deception,” Fisk said. “Maybe Cabroy
posed
as MI5 agents. Maybe
they
subterfuged
you
first.”

“Can't answer that, either. Which makes me forty-love up, doesn't it? Please abandon this line of questioning. I can see that Agent Fisk is struggling.”

“If it was a triple subterfuge,” Fisk said, “that means they conned you, then you conned us, then they conned you again, which cancels out the first con, so … uh …” He looked at the nearest boxer. It cocked its head and looked right back.

“Mine wasn't really a full-blooded subterfuge,” Fantoni said. “More of an authorized misdirection.”

“God help us,” Prendergast said quietly.

“My apologies. I didn't mean to confuse you. Shall we take a stroll around the garden? One of the benefits of keeping a few horses is the contribution they made to the roses.”

They stood, and moved to the door. Prendergast said, evenly: “This has all been horseshit, hasn't it?”

Fantoni didn't stop. “I willingly yield to your greater expertise in that area, Agent Prendergast,” he said, and clicked his fingers. The boxers bustled forward and led the way. Fresh air! You can't beat it.

Half an hour later the agents were on the road back to Manhattan. Prendergast said: “The only part of his story I believe is he testified to Joe McCarthy's witchhunt committee and said what he said he said. The rest is smoke and mirrors.”

“He certainly made McCarthy look stupid. I mean, people were laughing. I was there, I saw.”

“Well, McCarthy
was
stupid. What in God's name made him think he'd find Reds inside the Mafia? Asinine. Shot himself in both feet.”

“That's not how it looked at the time,” Fisk said. “Red subversion aims at our centers of power, which has got to include organized crime. All part of a pattern.”

“You know your trouble? Your trouble is you'd find a pattern in a field of daisies.” Fisk had an answer to that, based on sound observation of wild-flower growth patterns, but he let it pass. “The only clear pattern in the Mafia is blood spatter,” Prendergast said. “Every leap year the families fall out and shoot each other. It's nature's way of thinning the herd so there's always enough to eat. Plus Mafiosi are second to none in patriotism. They have more flags on the lawn than Arlington National Cemetery.
Fantoni wants us to believe he was in bed with the Kremlin and the FBI simultaneously. That's horseshit. It's contrary to his religion, American free enterprise, the God-given right of the Mafia to screw everyone they like and whack everyone they don't. End of story.”

“Rather like Stalinism,” Fisk said. What the hell. “This is a 50-mile-an-hour zone,” he added.

“So's your old man.” But Prendergast took his foot off the gas. “Listen, Fisk. We just played a game with Fantoni. A little game, that's all it was. Most guys like him wouldn't take the risk, why should they? But Fantoni, because he's Princeton, class of '29, Phi Beta Kappa, thinks he's smarter than the Bureau. Okay, game's over. What's the score? What did he get out of it?”

“El Paso. The car, Cabroy.”

“What did we get?”

“Nothing. He doesn't care about El Paso.”

“He went to a lot of trouble to tell us that. A lot of subterfuge. Why bother? Guys like him usually lie to guys like us, they feel more comfortable.” Prendergast poked Fisk in the ribs. Rank has its privileges. “So … if, sometime soon, artillery lights up the night sky over Cliff Boulevard, what might that indicate?”

“Unfinished business? Between Fantoni and Cabroy?”

“Or Mexico has invaded Texas. But Mexicans aren't that stupid. Maybe Fantoni ain't half as smart as he thinks he is. You stay in touch with the Bureau office out there. Call daily.”

In 1953 if you were in Europe and you wanted to cross the Atlantic you got on a ship. It took at least five days. You could fly if you wanted, but weather often delayed takeoff, and there might be stops at Iceland and Newfoundland, where a different kind of weather caused more of the same delays, so by the time you reached Idlewild Airport, New York, it felt like five aching days since you left Paris.

Stevie Fantoni got off the plane. It was raining. At Customs they made her pay import duty on items of French clothing. At Immigration they made her wait while they thumbed through hefty black ledgers, searching for entries under F. They asked her for her date of birth. “It's in my passport,” she told them. They
asked again. “I wasn't born yesterday,” she snarled. They told her to go wait in an office. An air conditioner throbbed, out of sync with her pulse. A man came and read her passport, omitting no detail, however slight. The smallest item may turn out to be a vital clue. “Get me a black coffee, I'll give you my date of birth,” she said. He sucked his teeth. “Why did you go to Paris, Miss Fantoni?” he asked.

“To get married. And it's Mrs. I was married before.”

He opened a file. His forefinger slowly chased down the typed page. “Three times before,” he said.

“Will it get me outta here if I tell you the story?”

“That depends on the story.”

“I pick losers. My first liked boys, my second's heart quit on him, my third had no lead in his pencil. Three rings, no cigar. Then I met this Air France pilot. French invented sex, right? We're all set to get married in Paris, sonofabitch drove too fast, hit a tree, broke both hips. I'm waitin' at the church, he's up to the waist in plaster. Inconceivable. I quit. Came here. People say, no virgins in New York? Meet me. I'm a virgin three times over. Four, if you count the cripple Pierre.”

The immigration officer was looking at a young woman with a pageboy haircut, a delightful, sad face and the kind of figure that should never be allowed near men operating heavy machinery. His training had not prepared him for this. He returned her passport and said, “Better luck in future.”

“Yeah, sure. You know any castrated paraplegics, keep 'em away from me.”

The limo was late. Traffic was murder. When she got home the sun was out and her father was showing the rose garden to a pair of suits.

Jerome came in and saw her lying on a sofa so big it swallowed her. She was holding a pewter tankard, pint size. He knew it was vodka. It always was. “Good flight?” he asked.

“I could have swum faster. Also I got hassled by Immigration
again.
Christ, they hate our name. Christ, I hate it too.”

“Paris wasn't a great success, huh?”

“Speak your mind, dad. You mean no grandchild for you this year. Or next. Probably never, so get used to it. I got better things to do.”

“The Church says there is no better thing.”

“Yeah? Show me a Catholic priest knows the first damn thing about sex except Rome says it's dirty.”

They bickered for a while, batting the same old tired opinions back and forth, until she got bored. “What did those two Feds want?” she asked. “I know they were FBI, I seen them before.”

“I
saw
them before.”

“You were there too, huh? What is it, you been subpoenaed again?”

“They've found my Chrysler. The one your Washington pals forgot to return.” He told her about El Paso, the art gallery, the house on Cliff Boulevard. “God knows why you chose to share an apartment with that pair, but you're well out of the arrangement. It's unhealthy. I wouldn't allow it in my organization. And if the Bureau's tracking those two, they're dead meat. Cabrillo's a romantic. He enjoys flying by the seat of his pants. He'll crash and burn, you watch. Crash and burn.”

“He saved your sad ass when it got hauled before McCarthy,” Stevie said. “He fed you that undercover shit.”

“Simple intellectual judo. I threw McCarthy with his own weight.”

She finished her vodka and rolled off the sofa. “El Paso,” she said. “Cliff Boulevard. That's where I'll be. Crashing and burning's got to be better than living with you.”

She left. He sat and looked at the boxers. “Where did I go wrong?” he asked. “Why is she so hostile?” They licked their lips. It sounded like grub to them. Most words did.

Princess went on painting. A buffalo, head-down in a rainstorm; a fly fisherman thigh-deep in a busy stream; a small boy in a small rowboat, the oars splashing. Always water.

Mornings, Luis drove Julie down to The Picture Show. End of the afternoon, he picked her up. During the day, she washed the windows, swept the store, made coffee for customers. She made a lot of coffee. No customers came. “Can we afford to advertise?” she asked Luis.

“Saying what?”

“Tell you sayin' what.” Princess was washing her hands with paint cleaner. “Sayin' we're between the Mex dentist an' the charity shop, you can't miss us, which ain't true. El Paso misses that part of town every chance it gets.”

“That's good,” Luis said. “It's a hell of a headline. Bold, challenging, controversial.”

“And dumb,” Julie said. “We're pissing in the wind. Princess is right, we're in the wrong part of town. Buggeration.”

“That's an old English word. We said it a lot in the war,” Luis explained. “It means oh dear, the cat has pissed on the strawberries again.”

“You're a pissy couple today.”

“Well, she started it.”

“Go make a pitcher of martinis,” Julie told him. “Make two.”

Next morning Julie went to find a small space on a short lease in the classy quarter of El Paso. After a couple of hours the only thing she'd found was a bar, The Watering Hole, now empty and boarded up. It was two blocks away from the high-rent quarter. Two long blocks. She phoned Luis. He brought Princess to see it. Julie was inside, waiting.

“What's that curious smell?” Luis asked.

“The real estate guy said they had a fire in back.”

Princess had found the light switches. Fluorescent tubes flickered. Half went out. The other half kept flickering. “Rather dim,” Luis said.

“It was a bar. You expect floodlights?”

Princess joined them. “Only way you'll make money out of puttin' on a show in this barn is if you charge two bucks to come in and five bucks to get out.” Her voice was as flat as last night's beer.

“You're no damn help,” Julie muttered.

“Ain't here to help. Here to paint.”

“Come on, chaps,” Luis said. “No point in getting angry.”

“I'm not bloody angry,” Julie said. “I'm bloody annoyed.”

“I just saw a big rat,” Princess said. “A bloody big rat.”

They left. Julie locked up, and they stood in the street, not looking at each other. “Hard cheese, old girl,” Luis said. “Stout effort.”

“He talkin' English?” Princess asked.
“English
English?”

“You need a haircut, and so do I,” Julie said to her. “We'll go to Daniel's, he's supposed to be the hottest scissors in town. Also most expensive. When in doubt, spend money! I had a boss said that. He went bust. Let's go.”

An hour later she had a dashing haircut and a smart deal with Daniel.

His salon had empty walls and rich women trapped under the drier with nothing to look at. Julie had a supply of small, beautiful paintings that would refresh their eyeballs like the cool splash of a mountain stream. Bring the two together and you combine pleasure with business.

Daniel looked at some of the pictures and said he was more of an iced-beer man, himself. Princess offered to paint a bottle of his favorite brand, beaded with condensation, cold as charity.

That evening they came back and hung Daniel's walls with paintings. No price tags. “We're in a milieu where folk don't ask the price,” Julie told Luis.

“A milieu,” he said. “Has it got panache? How big is the ambience?”

“Don't forget Daniel's beer,” she told Princess. “Plenty of ice.”

Next day, Luis drove Julie to Daniel's. He parked the car and enjoyed a couple of hours shopping. He bought a pair of alligator-skin cowboy boots; a Cross pen; a crushproof Panama hat; and two lightweight suits, which he left to be tailored. He felt relaxed and confident. Money did that to him, coming in or going out. The weather helped: wall-to-wall blue sky with a faint tingle of late summer. London wouldn't know what to make of this weather. New York would boast about it and tax it. Washington DC would stifle it in humidity and hogwash. El Paso turned it on with Texan generosity: help yourself, plenty more tomorrow.
Can't go wrong here,
Luis thought. Then he remembered John Wesley Hardin, doing fine until he threw that double-four. “Well, he had it coming to him,” he said aloud.