Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  “She was 71?” Stevie asked. “How is that possible?”

  “She worked at it, sweetie,” Julie said. “A day at a time.”

  They were passing a mock-Scottish hunting lodge, with spires and a clock tower. Luis pointed. “No lack of money around here.”

  “There’s another place …” Hancock tapped the wheel with his middle finger while he thought. “I put it on the list as a possible. It’s on our way home. Take a chance?”

  “What have we got to lose?” Luis said.

  “The guy at the door wasn’t the sheriff,” Stevie said confidently. “He was a con man. She’s not in the hospital. He’s inside the house now, conning old Miss Nancy out of a million. Maybe more.”

  “Two con men in one afternoon?” Julie said.

  “Why not? He got there first. Go back, you’ll see.” They drove on. “He conned you good,” she said.

  THE GODDAMN B STRAIN

  1

  The room was as dim as a speakeasy, and twice as big. The fireplace could have roasted a boar and still left room to bake potatoes on the side. The ceiling was domed, and from it hung a tattered battalion of Mexican blankets. Their patterns, once rich and powerful, were dulled by age.

  A swallowtail butterfly had somehow blundered into the room, and it flew figures-of-eight until it became tired and rested on a blanket, kicking loose a tiny fall of dust.

  “I feel as if I’m in a Crusader castle,” Luis said. “Or perhaps the crypt of one of those early Norman cathedrals which one stumbles across in England. Gloucester, for instance. Sturdy is not an adequate word.”

  Nobody argued with that. Their chairs were far apart. Casual conversation wasn’t easy. Everyone was drinking iced tea. Luis wished his had a shot of rum in it. This must be the coldest livingroom in LA.

  “So much modern architecture is, how shall I put it, temporary” Hancock said. “It lacks confidence. But here you have a heritage to be proud of.”

  Nobody cheered. Nobody hurled their iced-tea glass into the fireplace. Time to move on.

  “By way of preamble,” Luis said, “perhaps I should touch upon the extreme reluctance with which the other partners at Bunker, Delancey and Scott agreed that we should approach you so soon after your grievous less.”

  “There was no alternative,” Hancock said sombrely. “None at all.”

  No comment.

  “I must admit that when I was told of the circumstances, I was extremely skeptical,” Luis said. “Only after the most intense scrutiny was I persuaded of the truth of the matter.”

  “The inescapable truth,” Hancock said. Still no reaction. He plowed on. “It concerns your late father, and a visit he made to Boston some twenty years ago. Business or pleasure, who knows? However …” He took a deep breath.

  “There was a liaison,” Luis said. “At the Mayflower Hotel. With a young lady.”

  “Which, in turn, resulted in progeny,” Hancock said.

  “Progeny!” Vito DiLazzari bounced up from his armchair. “Hear that, Uncle? We are not alone!” He aimed a finger at Hancock. “How many? Twins? Give, give!”

  “One boy, sir.” He showed a photograph. “A tragic story.”

  Vito sat down. He eyes were bright as new pennies. “Tragic, huh? How so?”

  “Hypostatic neuroplasia,” Luis said quietly.

  “The B strain,” Hancock said. “Unfortunately.”

  Vito slapped his hands together. “The goddamn B strain … Wouldn’t you know it? Of all the luck.”

  Luis felt the discussion slipping away from them. “We took the precaution of bringing the boy’s doctor with us. In case you had any medical questions. Also his girlfriend.”

  “She a looker? Bet she is. Bring ’em all on.”

  Luis went out and came back with the women. “This is Dr. Conroy,” he said, “and this is—”

  “Hey!” Vito said. “Didn’t we meet, couple years back?”

  “She’s Stevie Fantoni,” Uncle said.

  “Vito DiLazzari,” Stevie said. “This guy is Vito DiLazzari,” she told Luis and Hancock. “You don’t want to shake down Vito DiLazzari. Not without you got the US Marine Corps behind you.” Vito like that. “Or even with them,” she added. He laughed, they embraced, he gave her his chair. “Okay, cut to the chase,” he told Luis.

  “Nine grand and change for the Swiss operation on the boy. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “It’s a smooth con,” Uncle said, “but an old one.”

  “Stevie.” Vito couldn’t stand still. He clicked his fingers in dance-time. “How come you got mixed up with these bandits? I heard you got married.”

  “Long story,” she said.

  “The way she told us, it was three short stories,” Julie said. “Slice it where you like, it’s an idiopathic disorder causing acute nervous autonomy. Okay? Now I’ve done my party piece. Any chance of a real drink around here?”

  “You knew all along,” Hancock told Vito. “With respect, sir, yours was not the behavior of a gentleman.”

  “Well, you got that right, Pappy,” Vito said. This was turning into a happy afternoon.

  Drinks outside. Garden chairs in a wide circle. Everyone sat except Vito and Luis. “Bit stiff,” Luis said. “Just stretch my legs.” Then he caught a look from Uncle. “Perhaps later.” He sat. This was Vito’s party. He was dressed semi-formally: navy blue blazer, white silk shirt open at the neck, cream yachting trousers, Italian loafers. “This is one for the memoirs,” he said. “The day a pair of con artists dressed as East Coast lawyers stroll in and try to shake me down for nine grand.”

  “And change,” Luis murmured.

  “Cabrillo,” Uncle said thoughtfully. “I know that name from somewhere.”

  “Nine grand,” Vito said. “I should give it to you for your chutzpah. We spend nine grand a week on greasing judges. Last year our business out-grossed Pepsi in southern California. And you waltz in here with a scenario wouldn’t make a second feature at Paramount in a bad year. DiLazzari. You never heard the name? Jesus H. Christ, we run this town. Nobody lays a brick in LA without we get a nickel. They should take the buffalo off the nickel and put DiLazzari on. For services rendered. We’d all vote for that, right?”

  “I apologize for our gaffe,” Hancock said. “The fault is mine. I’m from Kansas City. Unfamiliar with your town. I should have made inquiries.”

  “Apologies.” A platter of antipasto had arrived and Vito took a piece of Parma ham. “Dad told me never to accept an apology, because all it meant was I had to say something stupid like ‘Forget it.’ Can I forget it?”

  “You can’t forget it,” Uncle said.

  “Never apologize.” Vito turned to Hancock. “You made a big mistake there. Now I got to have you all rubbed out. Not you,” he told Stevie. “You’re different. It’s …” He looked to Uncle.

  “A matter of professional courtesy.”

  “Yeah.”

  For a long moment they all watched him, trying to guess the odds against this being a joke. Vito was thirty but he had the face of a fifteen-year old, capable of excitement or bleak indifference. Now it was wooden. “I’m with these guys,” Stevie said. “You whack them, you whack me too.”

  Vito thought, spat out an olive pit, said: “Your choice.”

  “No,” Uncle said. “Not a Fantoni. We can’t do that.”

  “We can do anything. We out-grossed Pepsi.”

  “Not a war. Not with the Fantoni family. Don’t even think of it.”

  A small twitch had started in Vito’s left eyelid. “They came here to steal from me. I’m supposed to let them walk away? Is that good business? How long before DiLazzari Incorporated is in the toilet?”

  “Not Stevie,” Uncle said. “Rub out the others, rub out the Andrews Sisters, rub out the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not Stevie.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Luis told Vito. “You and I meet in unarmed combat, here and now.” Vito rolled his eyes: the only emotion on his wooden face.
r />   “Stay away from this boy,” Stevie told Vito. “He’s an animal, he’ll drink your blood.”

  “He’s a pussycat.” Vito tried to smile but it came out as a sneer. “A con artist. He’ll pop like a balloon.”

  “US Rangers,” Luis said softly. “Tough boys. I helped train them. There are thirteen ways to kill a man with your bare hands, and I invented eight.”

  “Christ Almighty,” Julie said. “We’re back in the playground. Mine’s bigger than yours.”

  “See his eyes flash?” Stevie said. “This boy is a stag. This boy is hot. Him an’ me,” she told Uncle, “it’s destiny. Woman needs man and man must have his mate. You know? Like in the song.”

  “You people talk a lot, don’t you?” Uncle said.

  “This talks loudest,” Vito said. He held a stubby black automatic, neat and slim, ideal for formal wear.

  “Hell’s teeth,” Hancock muttered. He rubbed his forehead so that his hand blocked out sight of the gun.

  “That ain’t nothin’,” Stevie said. She took a ladies revolver from her purse and waved it vaguely in Vito’s direction.

  “Back off, both of you,” Uncle said. “Back off about a hundred yards. Nobody looks good in a massacre.” But Vito was stiff as a statue, and Stevie enjoyed the attention.

  “Listen,” Julie said. “Listen up hard. I’m gonna tell you the facts of death. If you, Vito, shoot anyone, she, Stevie, will shoot you, and there will be civil war between her family and yours. If you, Stevie, shoot him, there also will be civil war. Either way you will both end up dead, because that’s how you crazies think.”

  Nobody would argue with that, and nobody tried. In the silence, Milt Gibson drove the rental Buick into the estate and parked it. He gave the motor a final burst. It backfired.

  Everyone watched the two arrivals walk toward them.

  “Sam Giancana sent me,” Tony Feet said. “Mr. DiLazzari, this is a great honor.” They shook hands. Uncle took the opportunity to pocket the automatic. Stevie dropped the revolver in her purse. “Mr. Giancana asked me to send his warm regards. I am calling, of course, as a matter of professional courtesy. I’m Tony Feet. You know Milt Gibson?”

  “Bum muffler,” Milt said. “Not one of mine.”

  “He says there’s counterfeiting in LA. Sam likes to know about funny money. Milt says your organization got the word before anyone else.”

  Vito looked at Uncle. Uncle said, “It’s possible.”

  “Run by a genius called Cabrillo.” Feet took a pace back, as if he’d only just caught sight of the others. “Hello, hello, hello.”

  Everyone looked at Luis. Luis looked as if he’d stepped on a tack. “Now wait a minute,” he said.

  “The Bureau confirmed it,” Gibson said. “I got an inside track to a guy knows things in the Bureau.”

  “Cabrillo,” Uncle said. “I knew I heard that name before. Cabrillo and Conroy. In that Konigsberg place on Santa Monica Canyon Road. The funny-money factory.”

  “This changes everything.” Vito pointed at Luis and Julie. “We’ll talk as we walk.”

  Gibson watched them go. He had told everybody all he knew. Now he longed to jump into the car and escape. “Don’t even think of leaving,” Tony Feet said. Gibson helped himself to whiskey instead. It did him good, so he took another, even bigger. Nobody complained.

  On his fifteenth birthday, Vito learned a lesson. His father said: “Not your fault, son, but you got stiffed in the brain department. Brilliant you’ll never be. Smart, that’s different. Being smart means not being stupid. Means being nice to someone has brains. If you don’t help him make his million, how can you steal it?” Vito nodded and his father cuffed him, sent him sprawling. So Vito asked why, and his father told him it was to make sure his pea-brain remembered the lesson. “That’s not fair,” Vito said, and his father kicked his ass and, smiling, told him life was not fair, so get used to it, kid.

  Now, walking between Luis and Julie, Vito smiled and injected sincerity directly into the cylinders of his voice. “Counterfeit currency,” he said. “That’s ambitious. Top end of the market. I respect that.”

  “Back up a mile or two,” Julie said. “Does this mean you rubbed out the rubbing out?”

  Vito laughed, admiringly. “Excellent. Serious and funny, same time. Most people can’t do that. Back there, when I played that Mexican standoff with Stevie Fantoni, I was having fun. I like to see how people behave under stress.”

  “So do I,” Luis said. “Give me the gun and we’ll shoot little apples off your head.”

  “My advisers wouldn’t recommend it. About your plans for funny money. This is where our paths cross. My organization is big in the economy of southern California. If we froze all our operations tomorrow, half the state would be in recession next day. So you see why I can’t let you run fast and loose. I do business in good American dollars. When you spread your paper around, who pays? Businessmen like me.”

  “You and all the other Rotarians,” Julie said.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Luis said. “Just because we live in LA doesn’t mean we operate here. Or in California. We don’t show up on anybody’s radar. Not in St. Louis, not New Orleans, not Detroit.”

  “Joe Zerilli runs the Syndicate in Detroit,” Vito said. “He’s a friend. Don’t mess with Joe.”

  “We know the set-up,” Julie said. “Sam Giancana has the Mid-West, Joe Scalisi has the Cleveland territory, Carlos Marcello owns Louisiana. Etcetera. Stevie Fantoni keeps us briefed.”

  “Nobody’s toes will get stepped on,” Luis said.

  Vito stopped. He put his arms around their shoulders. “Three years at UCLA taught me one thing: never draw to fill an inside straight. That’s all I know. Except I know when I’m beaten. How can you not step on our toes when we’re everywhere?”

  “Perhaps our feet never touch the ground. We are, after all, high fliers.”

  They turned and walked back. “I got some ideas I’d like to kick around,” Vito said. “You guys think quick. I like that. We stay in touch.”

  “When my schedule allows. I travel a lot. And I like to keep the con going. Just a hobby. Not an income.”

  “Sure, sure. Don’t hustle my family and friends. Check your marks with Uncle first.”

  Hancock drove the group home in his Lincoln. As soon as they were clear of the DiLazzari property, Julie said: “Who’s making funny money if it’s not us?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Luis said, “so I’d better start working on it.”

  Tony Feet said goodbye to Vito and told Gibson to take him to Classic Car Imports.

  “My Morgan’s still at the Konigsberg place,” Gibson said.

  “You’ll get a taxi. I want to see your classics. A man should always try to improve his mind.”

  2

  Two inches a year works out at about six one-thousandths of an inch a day. Not fast. But when the entire Pacific coastline of America is moving, it’s a very respectable speed. Thirty million years ago, Los Angeles was where northwestern Mexico now is. Thirty million years from now, Oregon will be deep inside Canada, heading for where Alaska used to be. All this assumes that the supervolcano which is grumbling beneath Wyoming has not erupted and blown the whole of the Western United States into the stratosphere. It has erupted as violently as that three times already in the past two million years, a period which is just a quick sip of coffee to a geologist. Why stop now?

  On this day, so important to Luis Cabrillo and Vito DiLazzari and Milt Gibson, the coastal strip of California kept grinding north. The rest of the state, indeed the rest of the country, the rest of the continent, had plans of its own, maybe moving south, maybe west; come back in a million years, all will be revealed. Meanwhile, the heaving had squeezed up the San Gabriel mountains, fifty miles long and ten thousand feet above the sea. Given its birthpangs, the range was so fractured and the rock was so shattered that it shed vast amounts of debris. No matter: the mountains were climbing by ten inches a year.
Always steep, almost vertical at the top, the San Gabes made the only obstacle (apart from the ocean) to defeat the armies of LA’s property developers. LA made the smog and the San Gabes made sure the damn stuff stayed there.

  Geologically, nothing spectacular happened on this day; but there were hints. An earthquake in Alaska rattled the tea-cups in a remote cabin, followed by a strange event, not in Alaska. The Daisy Geyser in Yellowstone National Park, 1,800 miles away, shot its plume of blue water high in the air, exactly thirty-two minutes earlier than scheduled, so the tourists missed it. Some complained. Daisy was back to normal next day. People like phenomena to be on time.

  Time, of course, was on the side of planet Earth. Sooner or later the Earth would feel an irresistible need to scratch an itch, and anybody standing in the way would get scratched too.

  3

  When Tony Feet said a man should always try to improve his mind, he meant Milt Gibson’s mind.

  “I thought New York was a mouthy city until I heard Los Angeles,” Feet said. “New Yorkers, they shout, it’s the traffic. Here you don’t shout but the yakkity-yakkity-yak, it never stops. You heard DiLazzari back there, it was a performance. I blame the movies. Chicago’s different, Chicago says its piece and then it shuts up so the other guy can give his ten cents’ worth. If we got something to say, we say it, if not we don’t stink up the air with yakkity. Your trouble, Milt, you gotta hear yourself speak or you don’t believe you made any difference, like with this funny-money story, you couldn’t resist it, could you? Been shooting your mouth off every which way. Not smart.”

  “Gonna do a Frankie Blanco on me?”

  “If this was Chicago, pal, you’d be singing a different song. You’d be at the bottom of the lake with rocks in your pockets.” “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think, period. It hurts your brains.”

  “That’s not it. You can’t sing a different song when you’re at the bottom of a lake. Can’t sing, period. Not underwater.”

  Feet aimed his forefinger at him. “Cheap shot. You’re full of crap. Jesus! Pull over, for Christ’s sake.” The finger was waggling near his face. That angered Gibson. “You want a bullet, I’ll give you one,” Feet shouted. His finger jabbed Gibson’s cheek. “Pull over, you goddamn cretin!” Feet was grabbing at the wheel. Gibson swung his right arm so fast that the point of his elbow hit Feet between the eyes. The blow shocked his arm. Briefly, his hand went numb. Feet was groaning and his arms were waving, so Gibson hit him again, same elbow, same spot, but harder. The skin split and blood streamed down his nose. Feet stopped groaning. As he slid off the seat, his knees folded out like a curtsey.