by Joe Corso
Hoffa was silent a moment. He shook his head before speaking again.
“Knowing what a vindictive bastard that little prick is, he’ll probably make it his mission to see this never happens.”
Shooter asked, “When is work supposed to start?”
Jimmy looked at him.
“I plan on startin’ two months from today and construction should be completed in two years but . . . that’s if we don’t run into any problems. I’m not talkin’ about union problems – that I can handle. I’m talkin’ Kennedy problems. If he could just understand that I’m doin’ this is for the rank and file, not for myself, and leave me the hell alone for a little while, it’ll get built. I’ll see to that. But if they get in the way or interfere, then we’ll just be wastin’ the union’s money on my legal fees.”
He stopped talking again for a moment seemingly to collect his thoughts.
“I don’t ever want to show that little prick that he’s gettin’ under my skin, whether it’s here, in court, or in front of the media. But here’s what gets me. If I know Bobby, even if I’m in jail, he’ll try to destroy anything I’m remotely connected to. So, I’m determined to go ahead with this project and it’ll get done if my lawyers can keep me out of jail long enough to get it started. Tell Red that he’s not on the hook for anything and he’ll be getting periodic updates through my lawyers. Now, do you fellas have any questions?”
Both men shook their heads as though satisfied with what they’d seen and heard.
“Good, then my driver will take you back to your hotel.”
The men shook hands and said their goodbyes.
“Did you get everything they said?” a voice asked.
“Yes, sir. Got it all. We got it all, but nothing incriminating.”
“Sergeant Jackson, take two men and follow those guys all the way back to their hotel. Nab ‘em there and bring ‘em back here to the command post,” Lonegan ordered.
The command post consisted of a large black van with tinted windows, loaded with the latest in electronic gear, parked in an empty lot a block from where the meeting was held. Jackson saluted but before he left he asked, “What if they resist arrest?”
“Use whatever force is necessary, but bring ‘em back here to me – dead or alive, bring ‘em back here.”
Jackson snapped to attention.
“Yes sir,” he said as he turned and walked away, two men following closely behind.
Trenchie sent Shooter to the front desk to check for any messages for room 317. As was his habit, Trenchie went back to the room and over to the window and peeked out, looking for anything suspicious. He found it – the black station wagon with the dark tinted window pulling into a parking space in front of the hotel. Three men emerged from the car; one of them seemed to be adjusting a gun or a strap in his shoulder holster. Trenchie skipped the elevator, ran down the stairs, walked quickly to the desk and before the men came walking through the front door, dragged Shooter with him by the arm.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We got company.”
They walked quickly to the elevator and took it to the top floor, all the while looking for a housekeeper. Finding none, they took the elevator down to the next floor – the fifth level. When the elevator doors opened, they spotted a cart down the hall in front of an open door. They ran toward the cart and rushed into the room, startling the female employee who was busy replacing linens.
“Excuse me,” Trenchie said, “but we’re in a kind of a hurry. Is this an unoccupied room?” The woman nodded nervously.
“Why, what you need empty room for?” she asked in broken English.
Trenchie pulled out a hundred dollar bill and the keys to his room.
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars right now to go to room 317 and take our luggage that’s in the room and bring it up here. And when you do that, I’ll give you another hundred.”
The woman thought for only seconds. She earned forty–five dollars a week. Two hundred dollars meant new school clothes for her kids plus some.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
She closed the door about three fourths of the way and the men headed for the bathroom where they locked the door.
“Do you think we can trust her?” Shooter asked.
Trenchie answered, “Two hundred’s a lotta money to that lady so yeah, I think we can trust her.”
About ten minutes later, the elevator opened and the housekeeper got off pushing a cart with their luggage on it. She rolled the cart into the room, called out for the men and said, “Here your luggage. I hope I bring everything. Is okay, no?”
She waited expectantly for her reward. Trenchie understood and nodded. He reached into his pocket, pulled the money from his roll, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
“Excuse me, señor, but men with guns looking for two men. You leave now, I think.”
“Yeah,” Trenchie answered. “Do you know a way we could leave here without going through the front door?”
“Si – service entrance, cellar. Walk to back of building. Go through doors. Press button on elevator. It say ‘minus two’. Go sub–basement. Follow exit signs. Good luck señors.”
Trenchie thanked her, dropped another one hundred dollar bill on the bed and left. They wheeled their luggage to the elevator. When the elevator arrived, the men got in and pushed the minus two button. The elevator stopped on the third floor, allowing people to get on, and then traveled down to the first floor where those people got off. The door closed again and took them to the sub–basement. They did as told, followed the exit signs to the rear exit, stepped through the doors, and walked right smack into the three federal agents standing there, waiting there for them.
“Stop right where you are,” one man ordered. “You’re both under arrest. Resist and we’ll take you by force.”
Trenchie and Shooter stepped out from their luggage. Trenchie looked at the nameplate of the man doing the talking.
“Jackson, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jackson, are you sure you want to do this?” Trenchie asked. “We don’t want any trouble with you fellas and I don’t think you want any trouble with us, but that’s what’s gonna happen if you don’t step away and give me a little space. You’re crowdin’ me Mr. Jackson. You’re so close I can smell the garlic from the pasta you had for lunch,” Trenchie taunted.
Shooter just stood there smirking. The other two men had their guns firmly trained, one on Trenchie and the other on Shooter. Trenchie didn’t move. He just stood there staring at the man, in a way just daring him to make the first move.
Jackson’s hand slowly began to move toward his gun and as it did, Trenchie slammed him with a right upper cut so hard that it knocked out two of his front teeth. The man, clearly caught off guard, went spiraling backwards until he crashed into a dumpster by the chain link fence, opposite the rear exit. He fell unconscious to the ground. Trenchie now had two guns leveled out him and was clearly outnumbered. Just as one man was about to squeeze the trigger, Shooter, with a lightning fast quick draw, raised his gun. The two agents saw nothing more than the blur of Shooter’s hand as both gunmen reacted quickly by shifting their aim from Trenchie to Shooter. But in the split second that it took them to turn their guns in his direction, Shooter had gotten off a clean shot to each man’s head. They were dead before hitting the ground.
Trenchie grabbed Jackson, who was just regaining consciousness, and said, “I could’ve killed you just as easily as my buddy here did your two men, but I’m lettin’ you go. I want you to go back and tell Lonegan to back off. This time we were defendin’ ourselves, but next time, things’ll be different. Tell your boss to quit doggin’ me.”
At that point, Shooter grabbed Jackson and dragged him by the arm, his gun jammed into the man’s side, and accompanied him to his car, making sure he couldn’t drive away. Moose hopped into the driver’s seat and backed the car close to the service entrance in the rear of the building wh
ere the three men picked up the dead men’s bodies and loaded them into the back of Jackson’s car.
“Get outta here,” Trenchie ordered. “Go show Lonegan your precious cargo.”
Chapter Nine
“How did this happen?” Lonegan asked, shaking with fury.
The hardened agent was so mad that he insisted Jackson give him a report before receiving medical attention. Lonegan listened as his agent spoke slowly, with slurred words, explaining through his swollen mouth what had happened from the time they entered the hotel up to the moments by the rear exit.
“We were right,” he explained, “but we weren’t prepared for how good that guy was with his gun. He was pulling out that gun and firing it faster than my guys could fire with their guns already aimed. Man, he was somethin’ else. Their slow reaction time cost us, well, cost them . . . their lives.”
Lonegan sat in stunned silence, willing Jackson to speak faster, and growing impatient that he couldn’t. His staccato, rhythmic sentences were playing on Lonegan’s nerves. When Jackson finally finished his report and there was nothing more to learn, Lonegan sent him out for medical treatment.
Lonegan picked up the phone book and searched for the nearest funeral parlor. There was one nearby. He circled it with his pen, ripped the page out of the book, and handed it to Bronson, his new team leader, now assigned as the injured Jackson’s replacement.
“Take the bodies there,” he said, pointing to the circled address.
“I’ll call them and let them know they’ll receive authorization from the Attorney General to cremate the bodies.”
As soon as Bronson left, Lonegan addressed his other men.
“This guy Trenchie wants a war. When you finish with the undertaker, come back here. You men will remain here. I’ll eventually head back to New York and snoop around for Big Red’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, you three take the Town Car and follow them. Be careful not to lose ‘em. I can’t put out a law enforcement alert and I can’t go to anyone for help because we don’t exist, remember? Our two men who were killed never existed, so this has become personal to me. Those two scumbags won’t make it back here alive. That’s no longer an option. But they will make it back here in a body bag. You can be certain of that. Dismissed.”
The room cleared out and Lonegan headed home to pack.
The next day, Lonegan flew from Florida to Washington to meet with Bobby Kennedy. That was the first order of business before hitting the Big Apple once again. He wasn’t looking forward to delivering the news. Lonegan explained the events of the previous day and as expected, Bobby was visibly and severely disturbed by this news.
“Agent Lonegan, would you please explain to me why you decided to pursue Trenchie Savanola and not Red Fortunato? Weren’t my instructions to you clear enough? Wasn’t Big Red Fortunato’s name one of the five names I pointed to on the blackboard at our meeting?”
He waited for a reply from Lonegan.
“Well wasn’t it?”
“Yes sir, it was.”
“Then why were you pursuing Savanola and not Fortunato?”
Lonegan was becoming flustered.
“I thought if I got Savanola, he would point us to Big Red.”
“I don’t like losing agents, Agent Lonegan,” Kennedy said. “It’s difficult to explain to people, and if my enemies learned of it, that wouldn’t be good, not good at all. That’s ammunition for an enemy.”
Deep down, Bobby knew the deaths of the agents would not be reported to law enforcement agencies and that gave him some solace. And truth be told, there was always the chance that something like this could happen, that something could go wrong.
“I take it, Lonegan, that airtight cremation arrangements have been made for all concerned.”
“Done,” Lonegan answered.
Lonegan then proceeded to tell Kennedy that presently he had three men assigned to follow Trenchie. In the interim, he, Lonegan, planned on returning to New York to find Fortunato. Kennedy agreed to the plan. But first, he wanted to know if Lonegan was able to record the meeting between Hoffa and Trenchie. Lonegan’s “yes” to this question was the only thing that brought a smile to Kennedy’s lips since the meeting began.
“Do you have the tapes with you, Captain Lonegan?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. All they talked about were their plans to construct a club and hotel.”
“Please don’t second guess me Lonegan,” Kennedy said. “I’d prefer to hear it for myself. I’ll make my own conclusions as to its value.”
“I understand,” Lonegan answered.
It was maddening, tedious work – two men bored to death, sitting in a white generic van, day in, day out, studying people entering and leaving The Starlight Club. After a while, everyone looked the same. The men were parked quite a distance from the club. They took turns using their high powered binoculars – so strong the magnification that the images appeared to be standing right before them. They checked out everyone but for three days now, there had been nothing out of the ordinary. The men agreed to give it just one more day before calling headquarters and requesting that they be relieved of this assignment.
The following afternoon, there was hope.
“Hey, John, I recognize that man,” the man said to the driver.
“What man?” John asked.
“The guy that just left the club,” Hank answered.
John picked up his binoculars to see whom he was referring.
“Yeah, I see him. You’re right. I recognize him too. That’s the guy they call ‘Tarzan.’”
His partner nodded, never taking his eyes off the man.
“That’s Tarzan all right. Look he’s getting in his car,” Hank said.
“What do you think we should do? Should we follow him?” John asked.
“Yeah, let’s follow him and see where he’s going.”
John hesitated for a moment.
“But we were told not to leave our position,” the driver said.
“I know what we were told, but nothing’s happened here for three days now. Let’s see where he’s going and if it’s nothing, we’ll come back here and sit around for another three days. If we follow him, at least we’d be doing something different. I’m bored out of my mind. We got nothing. Let’s make a field decision. Let’s do it.”
“Okay. I agree.”
Tarzan drove away in his black Lincoln. The van followed a half block behind. Tarzan made a left at the end of the block that abutted the Grand Central Parkway and another left onto Forty–Second Avenue. He crossed over a Hundred Eleventh Street and drove slowly up the block until he came to the empty house. Once there, he pressed the garage door remote and eased the car into the garage. He pressed it once again. As usual, he watched the door close in his rear view mirror and waited for the thunk, meaning it was closed completely. Only then, did he exit the car and enter the house.
The driver of the van drove by slowly while his passenger hastily copied down the address. The van drove off and the men went a few streets over until they found the closest gas station with a pay phone. Its passenger hopped out, dropped some coins into the machine, and called out the address to the listener. He waited patiently. A few moments later, the man on the other end of the phone had what he needed.
The men discovered that the house was owned by an off shore corporation licensed under the initials SCC. That led to an attorney in the Grand Bahamas.
“I’ll bet if we traced it back a little further,” the driver said, “that we’d find Big Red’s name on it.”
“I’ll bet you’re right,” the passenger answered. “What do you think we should do now?”
“Hank, hand me the binoculars. I want to check something out.”
Hank handed the binoculars to John, who was doing the driving. John took them and scanned the house from the front to rear, checking every inch as he worked his way from the house to the yard. He spotted the shrub covered wall.
“Come on. Le
t’s take a look around,” John said.
The men drove to the end of the block, made a left, then another left onto Forty–Third Avenue.
“What are you looking for?” Hank asked.
“I want to see what’s behind that house Tarzan just entered.”
“It’s a store front. The sign says, ‘Corona Gentlemen’s Club.’ What the hell is that? I know what it sounds like, but it looks abandoned,” Hank said.
The men drove back to the gas station and called in the address and the name . . . and a few minutes later, they had their answer. They learned that the club once belonged to Big Red’s boss and uncle, Yip Carnevale. The report said that Red closed it down after his uncle died.
“That’s some coincidence that Tarzan is walking into a house behind the club, isn’t it?” John asked. “Hank, take one of these walkie talkies back with you. Tomorrow, you watch this place, the Corona Club. I’m gonna drive back to the house and camp there for the rest of the day, today, but tomorrow we’re gonna take two cars. You park near the club and I’ll watch the house. If someone comes out of the club, you radio me and we’ll follow him.”
The men remained inside the car. The day was young still.
The following morning, a couple of hours rolled past slowly until finally, the garage door opened and Tarzan backed his car out of the driveway. John waited until he was clearly out of sight and pulled his car into the driveway. He walked around to the back of the house and checked the door. It was locked. He tried the windows. They were locked as well. He returned to his car and removed a screwdriver from the glove compartment. Back at the door, he wedged the screwdriver between the door and into the lock. It took only seconds before the door sprung open. In his right hand, he held his S&W Model 49, also known as the bodyguard, as he tentatively walked through the house. It was empty except for a kitchen table and four chairs. The living room had a convertible sofa in it and nothing else. It appeared lifeless, unlived in. John walked out the back door and alongside the wall, heavy with shrubbery and vines, carefully looking for anything unusual. He had a hunch. About three quarters of the way down the wall, he found it. The gate was cleverly masked by vines. He pulled the latch and carefully opened it, trying not to alert anyone. Slightly ajar, he peered through it, checking out what was beyond, making sure no one was there. Once through the gate, he found himself standing under the pergola, covered with multiple vines, brimming with clusters of grapes. The pergola extended from the gate in the wall all the way to the back door of the building. John walked to the door, tried the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. For a moment, there was the temptation to force it open, but he thought better of it and decided to leave. He made his way back under the vines, through the gate, back through the house, out the door and into his car where he began driving to where his partner, Hank, was waiting at the Gentleman’s club. He pulled up alongside him and lowered his window. Hank did the same.