Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  He drank coffee with a shot of bourbon for nutrition, and telephoned Agent Fisk.

  “You’re the Bureau of Investigation. I pay my taxes. So investigate this. Last night, big dream. Good, bad, I dunno, you tell me. I’m on Fifth Avenue, selling peanuts, for Christ’s sake. Took me five days to get there. Five days. Why? Mystery. But there I am, shouting Peanuts! Peanuts! like a maniac. Nobody’s buying. It’s all a waste of time. Waste of peanuts too.” He suddenly remembered more: young women, stark naked, laughing at him. “The rest is unimportant, just trivia.”

  “I’m not an expert in this field, sir.”

  “I’m not a peanut vendor.”

  “But I did a psychology course at Southern Cal. I think we are all peanut vendors, sir.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Dreams disguise the unspeakable. When you shout peanuts over and over again, what does it sound like? Peanuts peanuts peanus peanus penis.” Fantoni was too shocked to speak. Fisk said: “Five days is what it would take you to travel by train to California, where your daughter Stephanie is preparing to marry Vito DiLazzari II. Perhaps not with your blessing. On the one hand, the fruit of your loins. On the other hand, a waste of peanuts.”

  “That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard,” Fantoni said. He could feel a fast pulse pounding in his temple.

  “The subconscious has a sly sense of humor, sir. Or so they told us at Southern Cal.”

  Fantoni slammed the phone on its cradle and trapped his fingers. He sucked his knuckles. He dragged open a desk drawer and took out a picture postcard of an angry rattlesnake. Getting wed, the card said. Vito DiLazzari II. Stay away. Stevie. “Peanuts to you, lady,” he said, and then heard his own words. “I didn’t mean that,” he said. Now he was apologizing to a daughter who was three thousand miles away. Asinine.

  The day after Stevie and Vito got engaged, Uncle telephoned her. “Vito’s mother wants you should have tea,” he said. “My advice, wear something simple. Also she’s deaf. Don’t hear good. So just smile and nod. Her chauffeur will call.”

  Stevie went out with Princess and bought a dark blue velvet gown, three inches below the knee, no cleavage. “Very daring for 1905,” Princess said. Julie approved too. “She’s gonna check your credentials, so don’t goose the butler and don’t say shit.”

  “She’ll want to play gin rummy,” Luis said. “Don’t win, but don’t lose too much. She wants you innocent but not stupid.”

  Mrs. DiLazzari lived high in the hills of Pasadena, in a ranch house whose exterior was tiled in what looked like black marble. The front door opened on a lifesize statue of a man in white marble. He wore a slight smile, and his right arm seemed to be welcoming the guest. Stevie was startled. “The late Mr. DiLazzari,” the maid explained. “The son wanted a gun in his hand, but he lost out. Follow me, please.”

  They went to a large livingroom where flowers and potted shrubs occupied every raised surface and much of the floor. Vito’s mother was wearing a kaftan in floral colors. She was short and stout, and she began speaking as soon as Stevie came in, booming, as many deaf people do when they hear themselves so poorly. “Sit down, my dear, there will be tea shortly, I take it you drink tea, I never do, this little pink flower is a rock rose, very pretty but I have to keep dead-heading it, plants demand one’s constant attention …” As she spoke, she wandered. Uncle had been right. Stevie smiled and nodded. After three minutes she saved the smile and cut down on the nodding.

  Tea came, the maid served it, Mrs. DiLazzari went on booming and wandering. Stevie sipped her tea and wished it was a whiskey sour. Better yet, a champagne cocktail. The Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Plaza had a barman called Jack who made terrific champagne cocktails. Sixty-five stories up. Best view in all Manhattan. You could see way down into the Village. That place on Bleecker, Mori’s club, had a hot little band. Nothing like it in LA. You could jump in a New York taxi and cross town in twenty minutes. Not in LA. Takes half a day to cross LA. “Be kind to Vito,” Mrs. DiLazzari rasped. “Be gentle with my boy. He’s had a very sheltered life. People say cruel things about a virgin.”

  “About a what?” Stevie said, before she remembered: deaf. She put down her teacup, got up, moved closer to the old lady. “You raised your son to be a what?”

  “Not that he hasn’t had girl friends,” Mrs. DiLazzari said. “Too greedy, all of them. Too demanding. They didn’t understand the physical thing, didn’t realize Vito’s a very spiritual person. He told me his body is a sacred shrine. There’s a lot of his father in Vito, and Mr. DiLazzari had no time for extramarital sex.”

  “So we don’t get married,” Stevie said, just to hear her own voice. “Then it’s not extramarital.”

  “Fornication is for animals. His father was a busy man. No room in his mind for idle pleasures. Vito takes after him.”

  The chauffeur returned her to Konigsberg. Julie asked how the velvet dress had scored. “The whole goddamn family stinks of purity,” Stevie said. “I told her, I married three failures, I got more purity than Doris Day.”

  “Oh, steady on,” Luis said.

  “I could use a beer,” Stevie said. Julie opened a bottle for her. “His ma reckons Vito never lost his cherry,” Stevie said. “Totally intact. Too busy playin’ with his Plasticene. Keeps his dick in his hip pocket.” She drank deeply.

  “Never despair,” Luis said. “One day Vito will reach for a handkerchief. ‘Hello!’ he’ll say. ‘This looks interesting!’ and soon—”

  “Vito’s problem, his thumbs are too short,” Stevie said. “You noticed that? Short thumbs, an’ he wears his pants too tight. Ain’t healthy.”

  “You’d find hot sex in a dead penguin,” Julie said.

  Princess had been watching Stevie. “That pissed-off look,” she said. “That’s good, I can paint that.”

  “Draw some blood while you’re at it,” Julie said.

  A week passed. Ten days.

  A couple of times, Julie drove around LA, looking for the kind of church that Vito might like. The smog was back, and the city sprawled. All its energy went into spreading, none into growing: mostly it was a two-story town, a bungalow town. She had a great desire to be back in Manhattan. The hell with it. She drove home.

  Luis traveled a lot. Often he was in Washington DC, or so he said. “You hate that place,” Julie told him, and he agreed. “A man has to do what a man has to do,” he said.

  “That’s crap. You can’t do self-sacrifice, Luis. Never could. Okay, forget it, I don’t care what you’re up to, it’s bound to be bullshit.”

  “How that hurts. But my shoulders are broad.”

  Stevie spent a night at Hungerford Manor, didn’t like it, too cold, came back to Konigsberg. “The man is a perfect gentleman,” she said. “Never laid a finger on me.”

  “Tough luck, kid,” Princess said. “Back to work. Drop your pants before this paint dries.”

  Hancock read the obits and made notes. He bought a street map of LA and stuck pins in it. But that’s as far as he went.

  Meanwhile, the FBI bugged Konigsberg. Sometimes the talk was about DiLazzari, sometimes Vito himself phoned Luis. Those transcripts got redflagged. Agent Moody copied parts of them to Fisk and asked if they rang any bells. Fisk thought about it, and called LA.

  “Words don’t necessarily mean what they seem,” he said. “For instance, you say DiLazzari mentions Cabrillo’s financial empire, but he could be joking. Could mean a hot-dog stand.”

  “And Vito wants a share? I can’t see that,” Moody said. “Cabrillo tells him it’s secret. Says it’s a very risky way to make a buck. We don’t have that kind of hot-dog stand in California.”

  Fisk looked at his notes. “Secrecy. Risk. Profit. Wall Street talks like that all the time. So Cabrillo keeps bad company. So does Sinatra. It’s nothing compared with the triple-homicide bank heist we just cleared up on Staten Island.”

  “In Southern California we call that a misdemeanor,” Moody said. “Saves on the paperw
ork. Speaking of which … A hot memo has landed on my desk. Pan Am tells me that Cabrillo is now in the air to New York. He lands at Idlewild in about an hour, 2 p.m. your time.”

  “Busy man.”

  “He misses your hot dogs,” Moody said. “Best in the world. Allegedly.”

  4

  Luis stepped outside of the arrival lounge and took a deep breath. He enjoyed it. There was a bite in the New York air that was missing in LA. California was too mild, too spacious. New York had no time for that crap; everyone was chasing the next dollar as if it was the last. For a moment he thought he could even smell the tang of battle. Maybe that was just aviation fuel. While he was trying to identify it a taxi pulled up and he was too slow to claim it, which just proved his point: in this city you move or you die. Then the man who beat him to it said: “Want to split the ride?”

  He had a friendly smile.

  “Why not?” Luis said.

  “Where you going?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Jump in. Just that bag? Traveling light, huh?”

  “Sure.” Luis got in. “My old daddy used to say, ‘What you ain’t got, the bastards can’t steal.’”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Fisk said.

  The cab began the long haul through Queens. They introduced themselves. Fisk said he was Thomas G. Duffy, in the garbage disposal business, a private joke. Luis said he was Arthur Plunkett, which sounded modest, so he added retired squadron leader, New Zealand Air Force. That would explain his un-American accent. “If you won’t ask me what I did in the war, I won’t ask you what you do with garbage,” he said. “My operations are still classified top secret. Get my head chopped off if I told you.” Hey, that’s good, he thought. War hero whose hands are tied. I like that.

  “I wouldn’t want that to happen,” Fisk said. “Redundant body parts are something we can’t dispose of. Not legally.” They both laughed. “I’ll let you in on one trade secret. Plastics are made from oil. The first guy to reverse that process will make a killing.”

  “How interesting. My squadron made a small killing after D-Day. Smuggling whisky into France. There are twenty-nine places you can hide a bottle in a Spitfire, and I discovered eighteen.”

  “Good God.”

  “Or so I’m told. Personally I have no memory of it. Have you?”

  “Damned if I can remember.” More laughter. Luis relaxed. A journey shared is a journey halved, and so was the fare.

  As they crossed into Manhattan, Fisk asked where he wanted to be dropped. “I collect old coins,” Luis said. “Is there a street that specializes? Like the diamond merchants in the West Forties?” Fisk told the driver where to go. Ten minutes later they were standing on the sidewalk, paying the driver, adding the tip, watching him pull away. “Thank you for your help,” Luis said.

  “I’ve got a couple of hours to kill. Mind if I tag along?” Luis hesitated. “Garbage disposal gets kind of tedious,” Fisk said.

  Luis smiled his agreement. “I’m not here to buy. Just checking out some items on behalf of a rich collector.”

  They moved from store to store, looking at rare coins in display cabinets. Often, Luis had opinions about them. “Ah yes, an Australian gold sovereign of 1868. A good year, but not a great year … Now look at this 1928 silver piastre from Cyprus. Very scarce, and deservedly so. Did you ever see anything so ugly? … Oh dear, a Prussian 20-Marks piece, gold, 1913. When Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated in 1918, he is said to have stuffed his breeches with them. Highly unlikely. Very old and weak. He couldn’t have walked a yard.”

  Everywhere they went, Luis asked if they had a Norwegian 10-schilling coin, bronze, 1805? Nobody had. “Pity,” Luis said. “The Norwegian cavalry fought magnificently at Trafalgar. Napoleon was all at sea. Norway struck the coin in honor of the victory. It’s very rare. Almost unobtainable.”

  They reached Sixth Avenue: no more coin dealers. They wished each other well, shook hands and parted. Fisk walked back to the FBI office. Luis strolled around the block and reentered the biggest of the dealers. “I’m interested in redundant paper currency,” he said. “Czarist Russian banknotes, that sort of thing.”

  “It’s kept in the basement,” the man said. “We sell it by the pound. Want to follow me?”

  Fisk found a veteran agent who specialized in counterfeit currency and told him about the quest for a bronze 10-schilling Norwegian special issue to celebrate the success of the cavalry at Trafalgar in 1805.

  “Where to start?” the agent said. “Norway didn’t exist in 1805. It was part of Sweden until 1814. The schilling was and is Austrian currency. Norwegian cavalry never fought Napoleon, especially at Trafalgar, which was a sea battle. He wasn’t even there. You can stop looking for that coin.”

  “As I thought. Just checking.”

  “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

  Fisk poked his head around Prendergast’s door and said, “Our man Cabrillo just flew in from LA.”

  Prendergast was drafting his report on the triple homicide in Staten Island. He looked up without moving his head. “And?”

  “He calls himself Squadron Leader Plunkett, retired. He spent an hour with rare coin dealers, looking for something which, if it existed, which it doesn’t, would be phony.”

  “So?”

  “He’s still full of Grade-A bullshit.”

  “Tell me when you know different.” Prendergast lowered his eyes and wrote.

  MARRIAGE AIN’T LIKE BUYIN’ SHOES

  1

  Vito’s uncle telephoned. “He would like for us to meet,” he told Julie. “You and Mr. Cabrillo both.”

  “He’s in luck,” Julie said. “Luis just got back from the East Coast.”

  “Yeah. We know. That’s why. Church of St. Timothy and All Angels, tomorrow, eleven. Dress serious.”

  “Stevie too?”

  “Not with you. She escorts Mrs. DiLazzari. Her Cadillac will collect.”

  Luis had been flying with the sun, which made it a long day, and he was weary. “You go,” he said. “It’s probably his nephew’s christening. Buy him a silver egg cup. We’re not family, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Yes we are,” she said. “Uncle has spoken.”

  They had to park two blocks away. Police were everywhere, controlling traffic. A deep and solitary bell tolled once every minute. Everyone wore dark clothing: astonishing in Southern California. Total silence when the hearse arrived. Then another hearse, and another. “Explains everything,” Julie whispered. “Triple-header. Big deal.”

  They were lucky to get places in a remote pew. They caught a glimpse of Stevie and Mrs. DiLazzari in aisle seats. When Vito appeared he was a pallbearer of the first casket. His head brushed the edge of a mass of flowers.

  The order of service named three Brunos: Dominick, Paul and Francis.

  The ceremony lasted an hour and a half. Three priests shared the load. There were six eulogies, all B-movie standard, but they caused some sobbing. The choir had several solo spots and impressed with ambitious counterpoint. The organist fired off everything from handgun to howitzer and may have effected a nosebleed in a small boy. Bells tinkled, incense wafted, holy water was sprinkled, and at the end of it all, nobody was in any doubt. The three Brunos in the caskets were definitely dead.

  Julie and Luis allowed themselves to be washed out in the slow flood, and Uncle was waiting. “Private interment,” he said. “Family only. He wishes you to share lunch with him.” A car was waiting. “Not the fiancée,” he added. “She goes with his mother. They eat at home.” It didn’t sound like a feast.

  Vito was in a private room at an Italian restaurant. He kissed, he shook hands, the waiters made sure nobody fell out of their chair, and then got lost. Uncle poured sparkling wine.

  “A sad occasion,” Luis said.

  “Tragic.” Vito raised his glass. “To their immortal souls.” They drank to that. “Uncle wants me to marry in St. Timothy’s.”

  “Good enough for your father,” Uncle said. “Go
od enough for your Communion.”

  “No, impossible, it’s a museum. Full of ghosts. I’m not going to marry Stephanie Fantoni with ghosts watching. I want a church of my own.”

  “You wanted a church before you got engaged,” Luis said.

  “So what?”

  “So nothing.” Julie got in fast. “There’s a church you can buy. Buy it today. Trouble is, it’s in South Central LA.”

  “Got a name?”

  “Heavenly Home of Zen and Zulu Zion,” Julie said. “Somewhere in Compton. Martial Arts on Thursdays. Broke, can’t pay their utility bills.”

  “Compton.” Vito looked at Uncle.

  “Where the bums go to die,” Uncle said.

  “Or I found a storefront place near Venice Beach,” Julie said. “It’s called ‘God Shoots, God Scores Inc.’ The cops closed it down last week. Going cheap.”

  “Venice is full of fag bodybuilders,” Vito grumbled. “Jockstrap HQ. Disgrace to LA.”

  “There’s worse,” Julie said, “but you don’t want to hear about them. Especially the cult in Anaheim that worships its own feces. The city can’t get in the building to serve a summonse because … Let’s forget it.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Luis said. “We’re at lunch.”

  But Vito wasn’t ready for food. “I’m very disappointed. You had a couple weeks, now nothing. We own a laundry up in Van Nys, garbage trucks in Inglewood, night clubs on the Strip, ice cream plants all over, for Christ’s sake, one lousy church, it’s not much to ask.”

  “Technically we don’t own those garbage trucks,” Uncle said. “We just tell them where to go.”

  “Same diff,” Vito said.

  “Also where not to go. People pay more when their garbage piles up.”