The Assassin Part 48

"And if they won't go along?" Wohl asked.

"That would bring us back to Hay-zus, wouldn't it, Peter?" Marchessi said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Wohl said.

"You call it, Peter, you know him better than I do."

"We'd be betting that Lanza has accepted the story that Martinez is out there because he failed the detective's examination," Wohl thought aloud. "And I would have to impress on Martinez that all, absolutely all, that he's to do is watch him on the job. . . . Screw the feds. I don't like the idea of having the feds catch one of our cops dirty. Let's go with Martinez."

"I have no idea," Olsen said, "who or what either of you are talking about."

"I think we should bring Martinez back in here," Marchessi said. "I don't think we need Payne. Except to tell him to keep his nose out of this."

"I'll handle Payne," Wohl said. "I don't think you need me, either, do you, Chief?"

"No. And you're on the mad bomber too, aren't you? How're you doing?"

"We don't have a clue who he is," Wohl said, getting off the couch. "Thank you very much, Chief. You've been very understanding. "

"I have some experience, Peter, with bright young men who sometimes get carried away. Every once in a while, they even catch the bad guys. You might keep that in mind."

"Just between you, me, and the Swede here, I'm not nearly as angry with those two as I hope they think I am," Wohl said.

"You could have fooled me," Marchessi said. "Send in Martinez, will you, Peter?"

"I guess I'll be seeing you, Peter?" Olsen said, extending his hand.

"More than you'll want to, Ollie," Wohl said.

At 9:24, Mr. Pietro Ca.s.sandro pulled up before Ristorante Alfredo's entrance at the wheel of a Lincoln that had been delivered to Cla.s.sic Livery only the day before. On the way from his home, Mr. Vincenzo Savarese had been concerned that there was something wrong with the car. It smelled of something burning.

Mr. Ca.s.sandro had a.s.sured Mr. S. that there was no cause for concern, that he had personally checked the car out himself, that it was absolutely okay, and that what Mr. S. was smelling was the preservatives and paint and stuff that comes with a new car, and burns off after a few miles. Like stickers and oil, for example, on the m.u.f.fler.

Mr. S. had seemed only partially satisfied with Pietro's explanation, and Pietro had decided that maybe he'd made a mistake in picking up Mr. S. in the car before he'd put some miles on it. He would never do so again. The next time Mr. S. was sent a new car, it would have, say, two hundred miles on it, and wouldn't smell of burning anything.

Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli got out of the pa.s.senger seat and walked quickly to the door. Ristorante Alfredo didn't open until half-past eleven, and Pietro hoped that Ricco Baltazari had enough brains to have somebody waiting to open the door when Rosselli knocked on it. Mr. S. did not like to be kept waiting in a car when he wanted to go someplace, especially when the people knew he was coming.

Mr. Ca.s.sandro's concerns were put to rest when the door was opened by Ricco Baltazari himself before Rosselli reached it. Rosselli turned and looked up and down the street, and then nodded to Pietro, who got quickly out from behind the wheel and opened the door for Mr. S.

Mr. S. didn't say "thank you" the way he usually did, or even nod his head, but just walked quickly across the sidewalk and into the restaurant. Pietro was almost sure that was because he had business on his mind, and not because he was p.i.s.sed that the car smelled, but he wasn't positive.

He wondered, as he got back behind the wheel, if he raced the engine, would that speed up the burn-the-c.r.a.p-off process, so that the car wouldn't smell when Mr. S. came out.

He decided against doing so. What was likely to happen was that, sitting still, the smoke would just get more in the car than it would if he just let things take their natural way.

But then he decided that he could take a couple of laps around the block and burn it off that way. Mr. S. probably wasn't going to come out in the next couple of minutes, and if Rosselli looked out and saw the car wasn't there, he would think the cop on the beat had made him move the car.

Sometimes, the cops would leave you alone, let you sit at the curb, if there was somebody behind the wheel, but other times, they would be a pain in the a.s.s and tell you to move on.

Pietro put the Lincoln in gear and drove off. At the first red light, he raced the engine. A cop gave him a strange look. f.u.c.k him!

"Good morning, Mr. S.," Ricco Baltazari said as he carefully shook Mr. S.'s hand. "I got some nice fresh coffee, and I sent out for a little pastry."

"Just the coffee, thank you, Ricco," Mr. S. said, and then changed his mind. "What kind of pastry?"

"I sent out to the French place. I got croissants, and eclairs, and . . ."

"Maybe an eclair. Thank you very much," Mr. S. said.

"Would you like to go to the office? Or maybe a table?"

"This will do nicely," Mr. S. said and sat down at a table along the wall.

Gian-Carlo Rosselli looked as if he didn't know what he should do, and Mr. S. saw this.

"Sit down, Gian-Carlo, and have a pastry and some coffee. I want you to hear this."

"I'll get the stuff," Ricco said.

When he came back, Mr. S. asked after his family.

"Everybody's doing just fine, Mr. S."

Mr. Savarese nodded, then leaned forward and added cream and sugar to the cup of coffee Ricco had poured for him.

"There's a little business problem, Ricco," Mr. S. said.

"With the restaurant?" Ricco asked, concern evident in his voice. He glanced nervously at Gian-Carlo.

Mr. S. looked at him for a moment, expressionless, before replying and when he did it was not directly.

"I had a telephone call yesterday from a business a.s.sociate in Baltimore," he said. "A man who has always been willing to help me, when I asked for a favor. Now he wants a favor from me."

"How can I help, Mr. S.?"

"His problem, he tells me, is that the feds, the Customs people, and the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs people have been making a nuisance of themselves at Friends.h.i.+p. You know Friends.h.i.+p? The airport in Baltimore?"

"I know it, Mr. S."

"He says that he don't think it will last, that what they're doing is fis.h.i.+ng, not looking for something specific, but he has decided that it would be best if he didn't try to bring anything through Friends.h.i.+p for the next week or ten days. As a precaution, you understand. "

"Certainly."

"And he asked me, would I do him the favor of handling his merchandise through Philadelphia. The point of origin is San Juan, Puerto Rico."

"We don't have anybody at the airport. . . ."

"There are two reasons I told this man that I would be happy to help him," Mr. S. said. "The first being that I owe him, and when he asks . . . And the second being that I did not want it to get around, and it would if I told him, that at this moment, I don't have anybody at the airport."

"I understand."

"So what I want to know from you, Ricco, how are things going with your friend who works at the airport?"

"I had a telephone call at eight this morning, Mr. S. Our friend was up there last night and he had bad luck, and he signed four thousand dollars' worth of markers."

"You ever think, Ricco, that somebody's bad luck is almost always somebody else's good luck?"

"That's very true, Mr. S."

"So you have these markers?"

"No, sir. They're going to have a truck coming to Philadelphia today, this afternoon, and they'll bring the markers with them then."

"I think I would like to have them sooner than that. Do you think you could call them up and ask them, as a favor to you, if they could maybe put somebody in a car and get them down here right away?"

"Or we could send a car up there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo suggested.

"Let them, as a favor to Ricco, bring the markers here to the restaurant. Then, when they come, Ricco can call me, at the house, and say that he has the papers you were looking for, and you'll come pick them up, and take them, and also those photographs Joe Fierello took at the car lot, over to Paulo, and then Paulo can go have a talk with this cop."

"Right, Mr. S."

"Where would you say this cop would be, Ricco, in, say, three hours?"

"I don't know, Mr. S., to tell you the truth."

"You know where he is now? I thought I asked you to have that girl keep an eye on him."

"He's at her apartment now, Mr. S. But what you asked is where he'll be at about noon. He may be there. He may go by his house, Tony told me he had to have new pipes put in, or he may just stay at Tony's apartment until it's time for him to go to work. I just have no way of telling."

"I understand. All right. The first thing you do is you get on the phone and ask them to please send the markers right away to here. Then, can you do this, you call this girl, and you tell her if she can to keep the cop in her apartment as long as she can, and if she can't, she's to call you the minute he leaves, and tell you where he's going. And I think it would be best if you made the calls from a pay phone someplace."

"I'll have to leave the keys to the restaurant with Gian-Carlo, otherwise you'd be locked in."

"There's n.o.body else here?"

"The fewer people around the better, I always say."

"And you're right. But I'll tell you what. We'll leave, and then you go find a pay phone and make the call, and when you find out something, you call the house and all you have to say is 'yes' or 'no.' You understand?"

"That would work nicely."

"And besides, if I stayed here, I'd eat all this pastry, it's very good, but it's not good for me, too much of it."

"I understand, Mr. S."

Gian-Carlo got up and walked to the door and pushed the curtain aside and looked for Pietro.

"He's not out there, Mr. S."

"He probably had to drive around the block," Mr. S. said. "He'll be there in a minute."

For the next three minutes, Gian-Carlo, at fifteen-second intervals, pushed the curtain aside and looked out to see if Pietro and the Lincoln had returned.

Finally he had.

"He's out there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo said.

Mr. Savarese stood up.

"Thank you for the pastry, even if it wasn't good for me," he said, and shook Ricco's hand.

Then he walked out of the restaurant and quickly across the sidewalk and got into the Lincoln. As soon as Gian-Carlo had got in beside him in the front seat, Pietro drove off.

"I'll tell you, Pietro, if anything, it smells worse than before."

"As soon as I get a chance, Mr. S., I'll take it to the garage and swap it."

"Why don't you do that?" Mr. S. replied.

"Anthony, something has come up," Mr. Ricco Baltazari, proprietor of Ristorante Alfredo, said to Mr. Anthony Clark (formerly Cagliari), resident manager of the Oaks and Pines Lodge, over the telephone. Mr. Clark was in his office overlooking the third tee of the Oaks and Pines Champions.h.i.+p Golf Course. Mr. Baltazari was in a pay telephone booth in the lower lobby of the First Philadelphia Bank & Trust Building on South Broad Street.

"What's that?"

"The financial doc.u.ments you're going to send me . . ."

"They're on their way, Ricco, relax. The van just left, not more than a couple minutes ago."

"That's not good enough. It'll take him for f.u.c.king ever to get to Philly."

"What do you want me to do, get in my car and bring them my f.u.c.king self?" Mr. Clark said, a slight tone of petulance creeping into his voice.

"It's not what I want, Anthony. It's what you know who, our mutual friend, wants," Mr. Baltazari said. "He wants those financial doc.u.ments right f.u.c.king now."

There was a moment's silence.

"The only thing I could do, Ricco," Mr. Clark said, "is put somebody in my car and send him after the van, see if he could catch it, you understand?"

"Do it, Anthony. Our mutual friend is very anxious to get his hands on those financial doc.u.ments just as soon as he can."

"If I had known he wanted those doc.u.ments in a hurry, I would have brought them myself, you understand that?"

"If I had known he wanted them, I would have come up and got the f.u.c.kers myself," Mr. Baltazari replied. "I just left him. He said I should tell you he wants them, as a special favor, right now."

"I'll do what I can, Ricco. You want I should call our friend and tell him what I'm doing, in case my guy can't catch the van? Or will you do that?"

"He don't give a s.h.i.+t what you're doing. All he wants is the f.u.c.king markers. How you do that is your business."

"I tell my guy to take them right to our mutual friend?"