Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  “Each picture’s worth a thousand dollars.”

  “You got me cheap, then,” Princess said. She was grilling steaks. “Eight hundred bucks for seven lousy pictures, you paid.” She shook a bottle of Worcester sauce. “Empty.”

  “Forget what it’s worth. What will it fetch?” Luis asked.

  “That stuff cost four bucks a bottle.” Julie said. “It’s a rip-off. I’m not buying any more.”

  “We should go back to Ma Chandler,” Princess said. “Her man can catch a ten-pound salmon an’ play America The Beautiful on his harmonica, both at the same time, I’ll do it for 250 bucks includin’ tax. How d’you want your steak?”

  “I’d sooner take in washing than betray great American art,” Julie said.

  “You’ve gone very noble all of a sudden,” Luis said. “Six months ago you were broke and slinging burgers in an Irish bar on 86th Street.”

  “Six months ago you were a lot broker than me.”

  Princess said. “Six months ago I was too poor to be a genius, an’ the way things are goin’ I was probably right. This genius shit ain’t foolin’ nobody.”

  “We can’t let the Ma Chandlers of this world buy us out,” Julie said. “If they could they’d give the Mona Lisa a big fat shit-eating grin. They’d give Hamlet a snappy ending, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Grub up,” Princess said.

  “Shakespeare was a gloomy bugger,” Luis said. “Give me Cole Porter every time. You seen Anything Goes? Hot stuff.”

  “I wanted rare,” Julie told Princess.

  “Should of spoke up earlier. Everythin’s medium.”

  “We took a poll,” Luis said. “Medium is the majority taste. Mrs. Chandler agrees entirely.”

  “We can’t go on like this” Julie said. “It’s a clash of cultures.” She stopped. Someone was pounding on the front door.

  “See what happens when you mention culture in Texas?” Luis said. “They send men with clubs.”

  He went to the door and came back with Stevie Fantoni. She was wearing sneakers and a tracksuit that had Ace Waste stenciled on it, and carrying a canvas shopping bag, not full, not clean. “I could murder a beer,” she said.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” Julie asked.

  “New Jersey. Well, Paris before that. This place looks good.” She sat on the floor.

  “We have chairs,” Luis said. “No extra charge.”

  “No, ain’t gonna mess up your furniture.” She took a beer from Princess, and drank hard. “Yeah … See, I thumbed a ride here an’ some of those trucks are kinda stinky.”

  “You hitched here?” Julie said. “From Jersey?” Stevie was drinking again, but she nodded. “How did you know we were here?”

  “Well … The Mob, you know how it is. People talk. Dad told me. He’s pissed at you guys, wants his Chrysler back, I dunno. Wouldn’t give me a red cent to come here, so …” She finished the beer.

  “You look like you slept in that outfit, honey,” Princess said.

  “Fact is …” Stevie yawned. “Ain’t slep much for a week or more. Had to walk the last two-three miles.”

  “I’ll run a bath,” Luis said. “You’re somewhat ripe.”

  First Stevie ate an omelet; then soaked in the tub; then fell asleep in the guest bedroom.

  Princess said: “If I was built like that, I wouldn’t thumb a ride with a hearse, let alone a horny truckdriver.”

  “Stevie’s different,” Julie said. “When we met her she was the only three-times-married-virgin in New York City. Mess with Stevie, she’ll break your fingers one by one.”

  “She covets my body,” Luis said. “Women will cross half a continent for the thrill of being rejected by me.”

  “Suppose I don’t cross the road, even,” Princess said. “Does your special offer still stand?”

  Fitzroy went to the Hotel Bristol late in the afternoon. “Your guy is at the Glades Motel,” he said. “We tailed him all day, he just drove, nowhere special, just drove, sat in his car, ate burgers. Drove, sat, ate, drove, sat, ate. Sometimes he looks at his gun, sometimes not. Finally—home.”

  “Then let’s go and grab him,” Tony Feet said. “You brought some hardware for Gene?”

  Fitzroy gave Lutz a small automatic. Lutz held it between two fingertips. “I’ve never fired a gun,” he said.

  “It’ll be our little secret,” Feet told him. “If Blanco can count up to three, he’ll figure he’s outnumbered.”

  “Four,” Fitzroy said. “Slug Murphy’s in the car.”

  “He can stay there. The black car?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. He’ll blend in nicely. Tell him to keep his mouth shut. His teeth spoil the effect.”

  They took the elevator.

  “Why d’you bring him?” Feet asked. “I didn’t tell you to bring him.”

  “He’s crazy about moving to Chicago. He knows guns, you could educate him.”

  “Not in those clothes,” Eugene Lutz said.

  “The kid is not Chicago,” Feet said. “He’s Hollywood. He’s the young punk who gets cut down by a hail of bullets in the ninth reel.”

  Lutz put the little automatic in his coat pocket. His hands were wet with sweat and his lungs felt tight. This wasn’t why he’d moved to El Paso.

  He got in the back, alongside Murphy, who sat with his fingers linked and looked at nobody. Tony Feet sat in the front. Fitzroy drove. “Take twenty minutes,” he said. Thick cloud had blown in from the west and without sun the city looked old and tired. This day would end early. Already, streetlights were coming on.

  “It’s the other side of town,” Fitzroy said. “Beats me why they called it Glades Motel. No glades out there. More like desert.” Nobody spoke. Nobody cared. “Maybe a guy called Glade built it,” he said. Nobody cared about that either.

  Ten minutes later they stopped at a red light. No traffic crossed in front of them; nothing waited ahead, nothing behind. Theirs was the only vehicle in sight. They sat and waited while a brainless traffic light wasted a small but irreplaceable fraction of their lives. Fitzroy stretched his legs and braced his arms against the wheels, then relaxed. Murphy opened his window. “See that shitty little light?” he said. The flash-crack made everyone jump. Off to their right, fifty yards away, a streetlight shattered and darkness rushed in. They heard the tinkle of glass on the road. “Maniac!” Fitzroy shouted. He tried to turn and look back but the bench seat made it difficult. “You crazy?” He twisted farther and his foot hit the gas pedal and made the motor roar so much, the car shook. He cursed long and hard. Lutz pressed himself into a corner. Murphy sat motionless. Perhaps he smiled. It was dark without the streetlight.

  “Green,” Tony Feet said.

  “Dumb shit,” Fitzroy said. “Not you, Tony. Him. Suppose a cop …”

  “Green,” Feet said. “Or would you prefer red?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Fitzroy faced front and drove on. “Sorry.”

  “Too easy,” Murphy said. “I could of plugged that crappy little light at twice the range. In Korea I picked off Chink soldiers two, three hunderd yards away, regular. Head shots. In one ear, out the other. Best sharpshooter in my unit. I can—”

  “Gimme the rifle,” Feet said.

  “It’s a sniper special. Cost me-”

  “Here’s the deal. Either you give me that piece of shit or we stop right here and we all get out and I shoot you in the balls. You decide.”

  Murphy gave him the rifle. “I got a medal,” he said. “Then the army took it back.” He shut the window.

  Feet looked at Fitzroy. “Dishonorable discharge, you said. Let me guess. He shot a pretty little crippled blind Korean orphan girl, age six.”

  “Something like that.”

  Nobody spoke until they reached the Glades Motel.

  A figure came out of the darkness and stopped to speak to Fitzroy. “He’s still here, in the end cabin. The radio’s playing.”

  Tony Feet turned and pointed at Murphy. “You stay. Coun
t up to ten thousand. Do it slowly. If we’re not back, do it again. Understand? I want to know the exact figure you reached.”

  “Yessir.”

  Feet, Lutz and Fitzroy got out. Feet stared at Murphy, and cocked his head. “One,” Murphy said, and cleared this throat. “Two. Three. Four.”

  “Nice,” Feet said. “Not too fast. Use your fingers if you have to.”

  They walked across the parking lot to the last cabin. Its curtains made a soft glow, and Jo Stafford sounded a little husky about Moonlight to Vermont. Maybe she was homesick for the state. Maybe she wasn’t properly tuned in. Maybe the band was smoking cigars. Tony Feet knocked on the door.

  There was silence while you could count to ten. Maybe six, if you were Murphy. Then Frankie Blanco said: “Yeah? Who is it?”

  In a clear contralto voice, Feet said: “Jo-Beth, sir. The maid. Manager asked me to bring you a six-pack of Budweiser, compliments of the motel, sir.” His thumb and forefinger were under his jaw, pressing on his throat.

  Frankie was sitting on the bed, counting his money. Not enough. He should be at the Texaco station, working. He’d be fired. Free beer … never heard of that before. Hell of a day, hell of a day. Motel probably overcharged a couple of bucks so they could pretend to give you a six-pack … Cheating bastards. He could use a Bud right now. Help him think. Hell of a day. “Leave it at the door,” he called.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jo Stafford had finished with Vermont. Now she was Deep In The Heart of Texas. “Where you should be,” Frankie told his reflection in the mirror, “Where I should be. We’ll both go there tomorrow. Yeah. I’ll drink to that.” He walked to the door—stiffly, it had been a long day in the Chevy—and opened it and Tony Feet was holding a rifle so the muzzle was an inch from Frankie’s mouth. “Back up, sir,” Feet said in his maid’s voice. “Don’t fuck with me or you’ll eat a bullet.”

  Frankie was so surprised that his jaw dropped. For a moment he thought it was Halloween, because … he knew this guy. The moment was too long. Feet poked the rifle into his mouth. Frankie backed up in a hurry, tripped over his own feet, fell on his ass and cracked his head so hard that pain flowered and his hearing drifted away and he tasted the raw, sour surge of food he couldn’t remember having eaten. When his hearing returned, Jo Stafford was still happy in Texas. Feet and Lutz were in chairs, watching. Fitzroy was searching the cabin. He finished, showed Feet a handgun and a rifle, and found a chair for himself.

  “Now the way I see it,” Feet said, “you ratted on approximately half my friends in Chicago.” His voice was back to normal. “Not a nice thing to do, Frankie. Those were kind, hard-working soldiers with families to feed, and you put them in the pokey. Mr. Sam took that very hard. You’re lucky you weren’t there, he would have been angry with you.”

  Lutz raised a hand. “He said he would rip off both your arms and beat you to death with the bloody ends.” The hand dropped.

  “You can’t blame him, Frankie. The man has responsibilities. So you’ll understand why we have to take you back to Chicago, cut your head off and toss your body into Lake Michigan.”

  “It’s where you belong,” Lutz said. “You got to admit it.”

  “Only question is,” Feet said, “what you want us to do with the head?”

  Frankie Blanco dragged himself off the floor and sat on the bed. He could still taste the bitter dregs of something foul. To soothe his throat he lit a cigarette. It was the last in the pack. This was turning into a real bitch of a day. His brain was bouncing ideas like balls in a pinball machine. “You guys got it wrong,” he said. “Totally one-hunderd-percent opposite. I’m the poor bastard got shafted. Chicago PD had an informant a hell of a lot higher in the organization than me. For Chrissake, what did I know? I just whacked guys needed whackin’. But the cops leaked it that I was their canary so they could cover this other guy’s ass an’ they told me to go missin’ in a hurry. Otherwise I was gonna wake up wearin’ an icepick in the neck because obviously you guys thought …” He shrugged. “Don’t blame you for thinkin’ it. We all got shafted, you an’ me both.” He took a long drag and felt nicotine reach deep inside and reward his vital organs. Nine out of ten doctors approved, the commercials said so. Tenth must be a schmuck.

  Tony Feet looked at Lutz. “I’m impressed, Gene. You?”

  “How does Blanco know there was a high-placed informant? Who told him? The police?”

  “You see, Frankie? It pays to have an accountant on the team. A mind like a scalpel. You got an answer?”

  “I had four years to think about it. Knew it wasn’t me. Had to be someone worth protectin’, or why bother? Maybe the guy’s still in place, you ever thought of that? Okay, go ahead, shoot me if you want. That won’t kill the Big Canary in Chicago.”

  A long silence. Then Frankie said, “You should’ve brought that six-pack you said you had.” He pointed at Fitzroy. “Send him. I need smokes, too. And a cheeseburger would hit the spot.”

  “What you doing in El Paso?” Fitzroy said. “Supposed to be on the lam from Chicago, should be lying low, instead you go looking for Mr. Lutz, you live in a motel, you own these weapons. Why?”

  “Well …” Frankie gave the pinball machine one final kick. “You ain’t gonna like this. A hitman’s in town. Name of Cabrillo, from the East Coast. Sent by the Mob in Jersey to … to … put my lights out.”

  That amused Fitzroy so much, he laughed aloud.

  Frankie looked at them: Fitzroy shaking his head, Lutz all hunched up, Feet the only one leaning forward, arms on knees, looking interested. “You know what I mean,” Frankie said. “He’s gonna blow me away.”

  “Why?” Feet asked.

  “I know too much.”

  “About what?”

  “You ain’t gonna like this either.” He took a last drag on the dying cigarette. “Lutz, there, when he was in Chicago, he was skimmin’ your Mob money off the top, sendin’ it to Jersey. I knew it, Lutz knew I knew it, that’s why he came here lookin’ for me. End of story.”

  Tony Feet swiveled in his chair to look at Lutz. “Eugene, Eugene. You been holding out on us? How much? Round figures.”

  “If only,” Lutz said. “There’s a new lung treatment I need costs fifty grand. If only.”

  “That’s all I got to say.” Frankie Blanco’s brain had taken a beating, first from the outside, then from the inside. “Anyone got an aspirin?”

  Feet got up and took a slow stroll around the room. When he stopped he was looking down on Blanco, who was failing to suck the smoke out of a cold butt. “You say you know this Cabrillo is here to whack you. Sort of sloppy of him to advertise himself like that.”

  “It’s complicated, Tony. Just say I found him before he found me.”

  “You found him. Can you find him again?”

  “Sure. Cliff Boulevard.” Ah, that was a mistake, Frankie thought. Shit, I had to say something. The hot, sour, yellow taste of bile surged up his throat again. He considered collapsing, unconscious, so they’d have to take him to the hospital … The bile receded. Nothing was going right today.

  “We’ll all go and find the man,” Feet said. “Maybe he’ll have a different opinion.” He helped Blanco to his feet and guided him to the door. Jo Stafford was remembering how Stars Fell On Alabama. They left her to it.

  Murphy was still in the back of the car. Blanco sat between him and Lutz. Feet got in the front and Murphy said: “Four hundred and seventy-nine, Mr. Feet.”

  “Yeah? I made it a thousand and six. I guess you dropped a few on the floor. Let’s go.”

  It was full night. The streetlights played briefly on Murphy’s face, and after a few minutes Frankie Blanco said, “Hey, I know you.”

  “Ain’t you the lucky fellah.”

  Lutz said, “Forget it, Frankie. Jeez, I wish I never knew you.”

  “That wasn’t nice, what you did in the street. Shoutin’ my name an’ stuff. People stared.”

  “They gave me a medal in Korea,” Murphy said. Fra
nkie gave up.

  It was an easy drive across town. Fitzroy found Cliff Boulevard and cruised quietly along it. “Say when,” he said.

  “This it,” Frankie said. “Up there. You can’t hardly it see from the road.”

  They all got out. There was no moon but the clouds had moved on and starlight showed a driveway leading uphill. Trees and shrubs concealed most of the house, but one window was lit. The air was cold. Lutz shuddered: he was accustomed to hot cocoa at eight and bed by nine. “You don’t need me for this, Tony,” he said.

  “I think I do. The way I see it, this fellow Cabrillo has all the answers we need. So here’s what’s going to happen. Frankie goes up and knocks on the door. We wait and watch.”

  “They’ll kill me,” Frankie said.

  “Well, if they do, we’ll know you’re telling the truth, and I’ll have to kill Eugene. If they don’t, you’re lying and I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Hey, that’s damn clever,” Murphy said.

  “On your way.” Feet pushed Frankie. That was not damn clever: once Frankie was moving he bolted. He knew the landscape better than anyone: all boulders and bushes. Five yards up the driveway he dodged left and began scrambling. It was a still night. He made a lot of noise. “Go sit in the car, Gene,” Feet said. “You’re in the clear.”

  “Let me get him,” Murphy said eagerly. “Let me show you, Mr. Feet.”

  “Rifle’s no good here, kid.”

  Murphy reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a Colt revolver. “Gun that won the West,” he said.

  “He went thataway,” Feet said, pointing uphill. Murphy ran.

  The leather soles of his shoes were dancehall smooth and they slid and skidded on boulders until he fell and instinctively stuck out a hand to protect himself, but the hand held the revolver and the impact squeezed the trigger and the bang was thunder and the ricochet screamed off another boulder. Murphy took a moment to get his breath back. He heard breaking branches far off to his left and fired in that direction. Frankie Blanco, scrambling blindly, had got his feet caught in wild brambles. The gunfire panicked him and he collapsed on his face. His chest was on fire and the flames were torturing him, blinding his eyes, roasting his lungs. Twenty seconds later he was dead.