Operation Breakthrough

by Dan J. Marlowe

  By that time she had me backed into the reception area. Her expression changed. “You’re not — ”

  I unbuttoned my jacket, then undid the top two buttons on my shirt. I plucked my undershirt far enough away from my body so Chen Yi could see my chest. She stared at the patchwork of scars she had seen before where skin had been removed to rebuild my face, then took my chin in her right hand, and studied my made-up face carefully. “I still wouldn’t believe it if it were not for the voice,” she said softly.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Quietly,” she said in an undertone and beckoned me to follow her. She led me to the last massage booth as I tiptoed after her. She drew the curtain and turned on a small table radio that rested on a cabinet top crowded with towels, creams, liniments, and body oils. The sound of calypso music filled the booth.

  The Chinese girl pointed in the direction of the occupied booth. “Hermione,” she said softly. “I blame her for what happened.” Her smile was savage. “I spend my time planning things for Hermione.”

  “What happened? Where’s Candy?”

  “Hospitalized. From a syndicate beating.”

  I could hear my own indrawn breath. “Bad?”

  “At first the doctor feared for the sight of one eye, but there has been an improvement.”

  “But Candy didn’t know I’d been into syndicate affairs!” I protested. “Neither did I until he came back from downtown that morning with the word the safe deposit boxes had been syndicate property.”

  “He was beaten because he had made no effort to find out where you had hidden the material taken from the safe deposit boxes before you left Nassau. They expected him to be more curious in their behalf.”

  “I guess that makes me the villain,” I said awkwardly.

  She shook her dark head. “He doesn’t blame you. He considers it another poor hand in a run of bad cards.” She hesitated for a second. “There is something I should tell you. When I spoke to him yesterday, Candy said that of the two of you he was the lucky one because they’d left him alive.”

  There wasn’t anything I could say to that. Somehow the might of the syndicate had seemed an intangible thing until I thought of the rocklike, seemingly indestructible Candy hospitalized. For one of the few times in my life I felt a cold thrill along my spine.

  “Why are you here?” Chen Yi’s voice brought me back to the present.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Stubborn,” she said. “Foolishly stubborn. Yet — ”

  “What?”

  “I wish I could help.” She said it with every evidence of sincerity. “I would do anything to frustrate them.” She continued on without a break. “I learned this afternoon that your friend was still at Cartwright Street.”

  So the trip hadn’t been for nothing. I pointed toward the ceiling. “D’you want to help badly enough to let me stay in Candy’s apartment?”

  Her eyes widened, and for an instant her expression became almost gleeful. “How clever! The one place they would never think of looking. I’ve been there only briefly since Candy — since Candy — ” She didn’t finish it.

  “Then you’ll let me?”

  She nodded. “I will move back in. Under the circumstances I believe Candy would want you to and would think it a fine joke.” Her dark eyes became shadowed again. “Although I won’t tell him about it now.”

  “I’m not alone,” I said.

  I don’t know how she knew, but her understanding smile had a Mona Lisa aspect to it. “She will be most welcome,” the Chinese girl said. “Bring her before dawn. And be careful on the streets. Your appearance is changed, but they have not given up. You will — ”

  “Hey, Chen Yi!” a feminine voice I recognized as Hermione’s called from the end booth. “How about getting this gunk off me and getting me ready for my date with Arnold?”

  “Coming!” Chen Yi responded, then lowered her voice. “Be careful. Please. I don’t wish to see again what I was forced to witness.”

  “We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I said. “And thanks.”

  Chen Yi led me to the side door, and this time I heard the snick of its lock after she let me out into the dimly lit street with its row of whitewashed buildings.

  EIGHT

  I FOUND Hazel at the roulette wheel in the Paradise Island Hotel casino.

  At first glance there appeared to be more casino employees present than gamblers. The roulette wheel area in particular wasn’t overcrowded. Two women in evening dress and an elderly man in a dinner jacket made up half the customers. Then there was a lone male with thick spectacles smoking a foul-smelling cigarette in a foot-long holder, and a younger woman with an expensive fur thrown carelessly over her shoulders.

  And Hazel.

  I sat down next to her. She had four stacks of different colored chips in front of her, and she gave me a quick smile while pushing in my direction a double stack of black chips with gold rims. “Nobody can seem to get untracked here,” she said. “See what you can do.” She picked up a handful of rust chips and placed three each on fourteen through nineteen.

  I watched the spin of the ivory ball in the track inside the wheel as the croupier started it with the casual-looking flick of the wrist they practice for hours. All the gamblers except Hazel had notebooks beside them in which they jotted down the results of each spin. The ivory ball descended from the rim and click clacked out of the wheel’s numbered boxes before coming to rest in seventeen. The impassive-faced croupier swept the marker board clean with his little rake except for Hazel’s seventeen. He returned her 105 chips for her 3.

  Hazel doubled her bet on fourteen through nineteen. The only thing I know about roulette is that if the wheel has a double zero, the percentage is stacked too highly in favor of the house. This wheel had a double zero. I took one of the stacks of chips Hazel had given me and pushed it onto the square of green baize that gave me a winner with any of the even numbers on the wheel. Across the board from me the man with the cigarette holder scattered chips with lordly disdain and apparent aimlessness.

  The ivory ball clacked down into twenty-two. Hazel was wiped out, but Cigarette Holder had a winner. The croupier doubled my stack of chips on the even, and I pushed them back onto the odd. Twenty-nine came up, and he doubled my stack again. I pushed it all back onto the even, and it came up four.

  I moved the eight-times augmented stack onto the odd again. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I muttered to Hazel from the corner of my mouth. The ivory ball settled into fifteen, and the croupier doubled my chips again.

  I became aware that one of the women in evening dress was staring at me as I shoved the mound of chips onto the even marker. “Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs,” the croupier droned, and the woman hurriedly dropped a single chip on the same twenty-eight she had been backing steadily.

  Twelve came up. “You want to leave right now?” Hazel asked in a tone of voice the table could hear. The croupier measured out stacks of chips as he doubled mine.

  “One more spin,” I said, and pushed the thirty-two-times augmented pile of chips onto the odd again. The ivory ball settled into double zero. “My mother told me there’d be nights like this,” I said as the croupier raked the board clean. I took the second stack of chips Hazel had given me, removed one, and handed her the rest. “Cash in, doll.”

  While she was at the cashier’s cage, I walked to the casino entrance and asked the doorman to get us a cab. It was waiting when Hazel rejoined me, and I gave the black doorman the single chip I’d retained from Hazel’s stack. He ran to the cab solicitously and opened its door, then bowed us in. He did everything but kneel on the ground. “What the hell was that chip worth I just gave him?” I asked Hazel as the cab pulled away.

  I had a glimpse of her face in the light of the marquee. She was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. “What’s so damned funny, woman?”

  “You — are!” she got out between sputtered giggles. “The — last of the bi
g spenders!”

  I punched her in the ribs. “What was that chip worth?”

  “Where to, sair?” the driver inquired.

  “Rawson Square.” I returned my attention to Hazel. “What was the chip worth?” I repeated.

  “Twenty dollars.”

  “Twenty — oh, no! How many chips were in that first stack I played?”

  She shrugged. “Ten or twelve.”

  “Holy cow! Even if it was ten — ” Mentally I reviewed the progression of my five winning bets. The stake was $200, then $400, $800, $1600, $3200 and $6400. I thought of the mound of chips swallowed up by the double zero. “You mean you let me fall off for $12,800 without saying a word?”

  “You were doing so nicely, dear.” Hazel said. She giggled again. “The croupier was about to invoke a limit after the fifth spin until he heard what I said about leaving. Then he was afraid you’d get offended and draw down all of it if he imposed a limit.”

  “Which I damn well would have if I’d known what was involved, and I wouldn’t have had to be offended, either.”

  “I thought you had decided to ignore your own rule about not breaking the bank at the first sitting.” In the light of a streetlight I could see Hazel’s wide smile.

  “The kind of banks I used to do business with didn’t have double zeros to save them,” I informed her. The cab drew up across the street from the hackney stand in Rawson Square. “We walk from here.”

  I helped Hazel from the cab after paying off the driver. She walked along beside me with her free-swinging stride, breathing deeply of the flower-scented Bahamian night. “What’s the occasion for this expedition?” she asked.

  “I’ve found us a better place to stay.” I almost said safer, but at the last second I kept it off my tongue.

  Hazel glanced around curiously at the white-washed buildings and shops on Eurydice Street “It looks like a picture postcard of a Moroccan native quarter,” she remarked. “Does everyone here grow flowers?”

  “It’s the national pastime.” We were approaching Candy’s apartment, and I steered Hazel to the massage parlor entrance. “Here we are.” The door was locked and I rang the bell.

  Chen Yi appeared in her white uniform and opened the door. I pointed to the cubicle where Hermione had been, my eyebrows raised in a voiceless question. “She is gone,” Chen Yi said in her soft voice. “I am alone here now.”

  Hazel was studying the room and the curtained cubicles. “Chen Yi, this is Hazel,” I introduced them. The two women eyed each other cautiously. For one of the few times in her life Hazel had to look upward at another woman. “I’ve told Hazel everything except that Candy is away for a few days,” I said to the Chinese girl. She nodded understandingly. “You two go upstairs, and I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  Chen Yi’s look was inquiring, but I didn’t elaborate. Having been on the street in that neighborhood twice already that night, I wanted to spend five minutes surveying the area from behind the massage parlor curtains to assure myself that nobody was taking an undue interest in the fact.

  “I will lock up for the night then,” Chen Yi said and began turning out the lights. When she had left only a night light burning on the rear wall and had relocked the front door, she turned to Hazel. “If you will come with me, please.”

  She shepherded Hazel to the side door which led the way to the stairway to Candy’s apartment. I waited for a good ten minutes in the massage parlor, scanning the street through a narrow space between the draperies. There was no sign of unusual activity, so I climbed the stairs to join the ladies after a final look around.

  Chen Yi threw over the bar bolt when I rang at the upstairs door and admitted me. Hazel was right behind her, and there had been a metamorphosis. Both were wearing beautiful identical Chinese hostess gowns. Hazel and Chen Yi looked like sorority sisters or members of the same tong. Hazel’s flaming red hair was even piled up on top of her head in imitation of Chen Yi’s elaborate, raven hairdo.

  Hazel bowed low to me with her arms folded and her hands hidden in the loose, flowing folds of each opposite sleeve. She began to chant in a singsong voice, and Chen Yi smiled appreciatively. “I learned a few childrens’ songs from the Chinese farmers who worked our ranch garden when I was a child,” Hazel explained to me. “What about our bags?”

  “I’ll have them sent to the massage parlor in the morning. It would have caused too many people to take notice if we’d checked out completely at the hotel tonight.”

  We went into the kitchen, and Chen Yi and Hazel prepared a meal. In some manner I couldn’t understand, the two women seemed to have achieved instant rapport. I felt very much relieved as we sat down to a tasty meal of fried rice, boned chicken, and Chinese vegetables. If they liked each other, it was going to make my situation a lot easier.

  There was no dessert, but Chen Yi served green tea in the Incense Room. “What is your home like?” she asked Hazel when we all had cigarettes lighted.

  “It’s in a mountain valley,” Hazel replied. She drew a flat circle in the air with her finger and then made a heaping motion with her hands as if piling up the hills on either side. “Sixty-four hundred feet high. Very hot sun and very dry air, but the valleys have water. Just two free-flowing springs in Ely supply water for the entire community. All the ranches have never-fail dug wells.”

  “It sounds like the southern part of Taiwan,” Chen Yi murmured. She took a sip of her tea before she spoke again. “You wish to speak of what must be done?” she asked me directly.

  “Not tonight,” I said firmly. “We’ll talk in the morning. Tonight I intend to sleep.”

  And when Chen Yi showed us to a bedroom, not even Hazel’s wiliest blandishments, which ultimately took the form of a Chinese strip tease, were enough to change my mind.

  Chen Yi and I had coffee together in the morning. Hazel was still asleep. I had planned the questions I wanted to ask the Chinese girl while taking my shower. “You had better eat,” she said before I could begin, and I waited while she fixed and served eggs and toast.

  She sat across the table from me with her dark eyes upon my face. “Have you heard anything about my partner while I’ve been away?” I asked.

  “No. But I’ve divided my time almost entirely between the business and the hospital. It’s possible there have been developments I haven’t learned.”

  I felt that the next question was the crux of the entire matter. I phrased it carefully. “Do you recall after I left here whether you and Candy happened to mention in Hermione’s hearing that my partner was in the local jail?”

  “I don’t remember,” Chen Yi said slowly. “I — it’s possible that we did. We didn’t know — certainly I had no idea at that time — how dangerous it was to speak loosely in Hermione’s presence because of her tale bearing to her gangster friend. It didn’t even occur to me until those men came to brutalize Candy.” She nodded her head several times in rapid succession. “Yes, I see why you have returned to Nassau. If the syndicate knows that your friend is there — ”

  “How easy would it be for them to get at him?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. Candy would know.”

  “You visit him every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he in good enough condition that you could ask him? Without mentioning me?” I didn’t want Candy concerned about the extent of Chen Yi’s involvement.

  “I think so. In fact I’m sure so. Is there anything else I can do?”

  I was ready for the query. “Two things. First, while I’m at the Paradise Island Hotel this morning arranging for our bags to be brought to your shop downstairs, could you inquire if the American is still being held in jail here? It wouldn’t make much sense for me to lay on something if he’d already been transferred.”

  “I can do that easily when I go downtown this morning. What is his name?”

  It stopped me. Certainly the name wouldn’t be Erikson. “There wouldn’t be more than one American held there, would there? Other t
han an overnight drunk?”

  “Possibly not. It seems unlikely. What is the second thing you wish me to do?”

  “Something a bit more difficult. I’ve already learned that the tough part of any plan will be getting my partner off the island. I’m thinking now of getting him first to one of the Out Islands. Andros, Bimini, and Eleuthera all have airports where he might be able to get a private plane to take him to Florida. Or I’m sure he can make some other arrangement if I get him that far. Can you get in touch with a boatman with something seaworthy enough to make a quick run to one of those islands?”

  “It’s not as difficult as you feared. There is a man I can ask who is knowledgeable about such things. Candy has used him. I’m almost sure he can direct me to someone who will have the right kind of vessel.”

  “Fine. You realize that you’ll have to have a reason for asking?”

  “I’ll say that Candy and I are going on a vacation.” She reflected for a moment. “To a place on one of the islands where the direct ferry service couldn’t take us.”

  “That should do it.” I rephrased my next question three times mentally before I came out with it. “You realize that there’s a chance the syndicate might learn you’re helping me?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She said it with no particular emphasis, but there was a smoldering light in her dark eyes. “Every time I think of those four brutes beating Candy while he tried not to let me know how much they were hurting him — ” Her voice died away momentarily. “He wouldn’t defend himself, and he wouldn’t let me do anything because he was afraid of what they’d do to me.” There was a faraway look in her eyes. “I have heard my father speak of methods for dealing with such carrion,” she said and then appeared to come back to the present. “Are we ready for me to go now?”

  “I think so. Be careful.”

  “If you leave before I come back, be sure and have your woman throw the bar on the door.”