Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  BRAN FOR BRAINS

  1

  South Dakota was not Milt Gibson’s idea of an exciting escape from California. The food was monotonous, you couldn’t get the LA Times, there was nothing to do but count the crows on the telephone wires. He wanted to move on. Betty said no, she wanted to rest in the motel and watch TV for a spell. The programs were crap: soaps and college football. Also Betty wasn’t as hot in the sack as he’d hoped.

  So he was trapped in the boondocks. He didn’t know how to ride the Harley and Betty wouldn’t teach him, she said she liked riding it, he could relax, enjoy the view. He’d seen the goddamn view a thousand times. He didn’t need to see it again.

  Also he was beginning to regret his wild, spontaneous decision to abandon Classic Cars. Quit LA, yes. Throw away his business, that was crazy. He left Betty sleeping, got a handful of quarters and worked the pay phone in the motel lobby. Got through to a guy in LA. “Milt Gibson,” he said. “Remember me? A while back, we talked about you buying my Classic Cars. Okay, make me an offer, it’s yours.” The guy offered half what it was worth. “It’s a deal,” Milt said. “But you got to bring the money here. Bring the paperwork, I’ll sign everything over, cash on the barrel. I’m at …” He turned to the motel clerk. “What’s this town?”

  “Broken Arrow. Nearest airport is Sioux Falls.”

  Tomorrow, the guy said. He was very friendly. Fly to South Dakota to make a killing? Why not? He hung up. Then he thought about it. The whole thing stunk. Milt Gibson was a schmuck. His cars were okay, most of them, but after he shook your hand, you counted your fingers. Now he’s in big trouble. Maybe he already sold Classic Cars. Maybe he already sold it twice. The guy thought: Do I really want to fly to South Dakota with a sackful of dollars?

  Agent Moody’s card was tucked into his blotter. Moody had paid a visit, this being a number that Gibson had called shortly before he went missing. Anything you can think of that might help, Moody had said, get in touch. Now the guy called Moody and Moody called the Bureau office in Sioux Falls.

  By sheer bad luck, a bunch of Hell’s Angels chanced upon Broken Arrow that day. Betty went to see what the noise was. She collected Milt and they all roared off to an old abandoned barn to get drunk. At the same time, Sioux Falls called the sheriffs office, and a deputy went to the motel. They had the license-plate details of the Harley on record. That was enough to bring in the FBI.

  Gibson was the only person in the barn who was relatively sober when the bullhorns began ordering everyone to come out, and so on. The motorcycle crowd thought it was all a joke. Gibson told them otherwise, he said he knew, he said he’d worked with the FBI and those men outside were serious. Big mistake. Nobody likes a snitch. Somebody pulled a gun and shot him dead.

  That kind of violence was not typical of Hell’s Angels. Their beards and their bikes offended many people, but they were not stupid. They had watched The FBI in Peace and War on TV, they knew the Feds always won. They came out with their hands up. The shooter, too drunk to know what he’d done, got cuffed behind his back. He kept stumbling and falling. “Guy was too loud,” he said. “I don’t like noise. Who was he, anyway?”

  A report quickly reached Agent Moody. He looked in Gibson’s file for next-of-kin details, called Gibson’s ex, gave her the sad news. “Uh-huh,” she said. He asked if she wanted the body shipped someplace. “Hell would be nice,” she said, and hung up. He closed the file. Some people are born losers. Milt Gibson took longer than most, that was all.

  2

  Bach took this simple little melody to the piano and played it forward. Then he complicated it a bit, played it sideways, played it upside-down, played it backward, turned it inside-out, dropped it off a cliff and jumped on it with both boots. Johann Sebastian Bach. One of the cleverest guys that ever sharpened a quill pen, but he never knew when to stop. Jerome Fantoni grabbed the record while it was still spinning and flung it against the wall.

  Damn thing didn’t break. It was one of these new longplaying records, typical of all modern improvements, they took the pleasure out of life and called it progress. He picked up the record and failed to rip it in half. He dropped it and stamped on it until it cracked. “Variation in a minor key,” he said, but he didn’t feel that he had won. Rain spattered on the windows.

  He put on a tweed cap and a Burberry and went out. One of his horses trotted over to him and won a lump of sugar. Fantoni climbed on the fence and scrambled onto the horse’s bare back. Already he was very wet and the horse was wet and slippery, so he cantered gently around the field. They did lap after lap, until he couldn’t see clearly for rain in his eyes and the horse was losing interest. He let it walk, or not walk, as it wished, while he sat and let the rain run down his neck and soak his shirt. It was like doing a stupid act of penance instead of going to St. Nicholas of Tolentino and making an Act of Contrition, which he wasn’t about to do. The regular priest was still in Rome. Maybe he wouldn’t come back. Maybe Father Fletcher would always be in charge. Confessing to Fletcher was unthinkable.

  Fantoni licked the rain off his lips and thought about that. Couple of weeks back he’d sent for a guy and told him to break Fletcher’s legs, and the guy went away and next day a different guy, much older, a pillar of the organization, came to see him and said they couldn’t do it. “One, he’s a priest and you’re of the same faith, so that’s a cardinal sin. Frankly, I’m surprised you asked.”

  “So break one leg.”

  “Two, he’s a decorated war hero. Got the Navy Cross for flying torpedo bombers in the Pacific. Did you not know that?”

  “Break a few fingers.” But Fantoni knew he had lost.

  “If you want, we could maybe burn down some of the church. That would send a message.”

  “My family paid to build half of St. Nicholas.”

  Fantoni nudged the horse back toward the house. Life was no fun anymore. He was getting old. Nobody showed him any respect, whether it was bloody Bach or the untouchable goddamn Fletcher. He went indoors, shedding clothes, and stood under a hot shower. He could feel the thud of his pulse, every heartbeat a step toward death. He couldn’t chew a steak, he dreaded going to bed. In his dreams he was toothless, shouting obscenities that woke him in the black, hopeless pit of the night. It was time to fight back, time to make others suffer. “California,” he said aloud. “I’m going to California.”

  3

  The mind has a mind of its own. You tell it to stop working, you explain that the job’s been canceled so don’t waste your energy; but by now the mind has got interested, the flywheel keeps spinning.

  Julie wasn’t looking for it but a small picture of a small church jumped out of the pages of the LA Times. A trim, neat little place with a cleancut white spire. Fir trees behind. Looked more like Vermont than California.

  She read the news item. Congregation of St. Mark’s Presbyterian in San Bernardino had outgrown this church and left it for a building twice the size. A local realtor was handling the property.

  “Perfect for Vito and Stevie,” Luis said. “You and me too. Make it a double wedding.”

  “I’d sooner scrub floors in a flophouse. Anyway, it’s probably deconsecrated.”

  “So what? A judge can tie the knot. DiLazzari owns plenty of judges.”

  “San Bernardino. That’s not even in LA County. Got to be fifty miles from here.”

  “The bride and groom will be helicoptered in,” Luis decided. “A transport of delight. Very romantic.”

  “Uh-huh. And no bum notes from the organ, or the judge gets it.”

  Luis phoned the real estate agent. “My brother is a property surveyor,” he said. “If he looks at this church, what will he find wrong with it? I should tell you I’m recording this conversation.”

  “Dry rot,” the agent said. “A lot of dry rot.”

  “And?”

  “Some termites.”

  “Now we know why the congregation moved out. I’ll buy a six-months option for $500.”

  “Sou
nds good to me.” They discussed details. Luis hung up.

  “Tread softly as you walk down the aisle,” he said. “The termites are underneath, sleeping off their lunch.”

  “Termites,” she said. “Five hundred bucks for termites.”

  “Perfect tenants. Clean, quiet, no pets.”

  Julie called Uncle and told him they had a church. He said come on over. They found Vito in a dark suit, white shirt, sober tie. “Ten minutes,” he told them. “I’m on the board of Concerned Citizens Inc. We gotta do something about our banks in this town.”

  “Too many stick-ups,” Uncle said.

  “Too many Freeways,” Vito said. “A guy hits a bank, five minutes later he’s five miles away. It’s a disease.”

  “And bad for business,” Uncle said. “Vito’s father used to say: What’s good for society is good for the Mob. You found us a church.”

  Julie showed them the photograph from the Times. “Cute,” Vito said. “What else you got?” “Nothing you’d be seen dead in.” Vito checked his watch. He checked Uncle, who shrugged: a church is a church. “How much?” Vito asked.

  “Ten grand,” Luis said. “But to you … well, I’d accept an iced coffee.” Vito looked at him sideways. “It’s a gift,” Luis explained. “Call it an early wedding present, from Julie and me.” He found an invisible speck to brush off his sleeve.

  “Ten grand,” Vito said. He stood absolutely still.

  “You know how it is. This loose change was lying around, nobody seemed to want it, I said to Julie, why don’t we give old Vito the church? Charge it up to, I don’t know, office supplies, paperclips, nobody will notice … Look, we mustn’t hold you up. The Concerned Citizens will be getting …”

  “More concerned,” Julie said.

  Vito picked up his hat. “I don’t know why I take this thing. Never wear it. Just something to carry. Listen: Stephanie and me, we thank you for your gift.” He hurried out. They heard the front door slam.

  “Nobody ever gave him anything worth ten grand,” Uncle said. “Not without he broke their arm first. It’s a surprise. He ain’t accustomed.”

  “I find that giving is curiously satisfying,” Luis said. “And besides, what else is there to do with surplus money?” Uncle had no opinion on that.

  “Any chance of that iced coffee?” Julie asked.

  Mrs. DiLazzari’s hearing had got worse. “This is where Vito was conceived,” she shouted. “In this very bed.”

  It was a four poster. The uprights were mahogany, black with age, very sturdy. The canopy had fed generations of moth; it hung in tatters, like an ancient battle flag. Stevie gave the bed a poke and raised dust. The mattress was pre-Carboniferous period. Possibly Triassic. “Must have been fun,” she said.

  “A wedding gift from my grandparents,” Mrs. DiLazzari bawled. “It has great sentimental value. We hoped for a brother or sister for little Vito, but the effort of a second conception proved too great for Mr. DiLazzari. He passed away right here. Men are frail.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “I give it to you both. Vito is a delicate child. Don’t let your passions overcome you. His father’s spirit hovers above us, a warning against excess.”

  “And I thought it was a police helicopter,” Stevie said. “Silly me.”

  Jerome Fantoni took the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago and broke his journey there so he could talk a little business with San Giancana. One of the smaller pieces of business was the late Tony Feet. Giancana showed him the bill from the Hotel Lafayette: two silk shirts, a tennis lesson, lobster thermidor with Blanc de Blanc. “We paid the tab. Feet screwed up badly,” Giancana said. “I guess you heard: he got shot with his own gun.”

  “Almost a definition of stupidity.”

  “Stephanie came to the funeral. Seemed healthy. Happy.”

  “This fellow Cabrillo is a bad influence. She follows him everywhere. Now she tells me she wants to marry the DiLazzari boy. She travels three thousand miles for that. Stephanie was the sweetest girl when I was raising her. She looks just like her mother did at that age. I lost her mother and I’ve lost her. Three thousand miles, Sam. I’d do anything to make her happy. Why did she go three thousand miles?”

  “Look at the map, Jerome. She went as far as she could. That’s what children do when they stop being children.” Giancana took a long look. Fantoni was blinking, not to hold back tears, but to resolve a puzzle that was far beyond him. Giancana wished he would leave. “What you plan to do in LA?”

  “Don’t know,” Fantoni said. “First time in my life I don’t know what to do.”

  He left Chicago on the Super Chief. His private room was soundproofed so that even the occasional wail of the locomotive whistle was soft and comforting. He drank most of a bottle of wine and slept like a child until the telephone woke him. He lay rigid and thought: There is no telephone here. But I heard it ring. What does that mean? “You can’t reach me here,” he said, huskily. “I don’t know what state I’m in.” He groaned. “Cheap puns.” He’d strangle his own mind if only he could lay hands on it.

  Vito turned up at Konigsberg, uninvited but with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. Princess let him in. “If you want to take pot luck,” she said, “my chili con carne improves with age.”

  “Con mucho gusto” Vito said.

  Supper was an amiable, affable, edible affair. Nobody shot out the lights, nobody recited his favorite poem, and nobody picked his teeth with his fork. It was a nice, friendly supper, and as boring as doing the dishes.

  Afterward, standing in the driveway and admiring a night sky stolen from Tiffany’s, Vito said: “I believe in the USA. We fought to get what we’ve got and we’ll fight to keep it. This crusade in Ukraine … You say it’s up and running?”

  “Our trial run exceeded expectations,” Luis said. “Profit was double what we hoped. Now we need to expand, and for that we need more investors. Private investors, men of vision and discretion. Government agencies can’t get involved—too risky. Deniability is essential.”

  “So is freedom,” Vito said.

  Up in the hills, the same unhappy coyote howled its miserable complaint. “Ukrainian ambassador,” Julie said. “His lottery ticket didn’t come up.”

  Vito drove away. Luis and Julie went to bed.

  “Is that really where you’ve been?” she asked. “Blackmailing KGB brass in Ukraine? Faking bucks in Italy?”

  “To stop the Red juggernaut swamping the West like a forest fire.” He yawned.

  “Mixed metaphor,” she said. “You’re sicker than I thought.” She turned out the light.

  “He sees me nude every day,” Stevie said. “Why won’t he let me see him nude?”

  “What can I tell you?” Uncle said. “He makes the rules.”

  They were walking from room to room, looking at Vito’s collection of paintings.

  “If he’s got something to hide, he better show me now,” she said, “because I’m gonna see it soon anyway. What I’m not gonna do is get hitched to a guy who says I do and turns out he don’t. Been down that road three times.”

  “Well … I’ll talk to him. But I don’t think …”

  “I want a doctor’s certificate. Something official says nothing’s missing. They can do a sperm count, can’t they? Okay, I want them to count his sperm.”

  Uncle found a moment when Vito seemed at ease, and he mentioned Stevie’s requirements. He was relieved when Vito smiled.

  “That’s the very last thing I ever thought I’d hear from you, Uncle. We won’t discuss it.” He walked away.

  4

  At 1 a.m. not a hell of a lot was happening in LA. Bakers were slinging bread. Milk trucks were on the move, newspapers too. Cops were yawning, doctors were saving or losing lives, only time would tell which. The occasional night owl was writing a movie script. The rest were asleep, except for Vito DiLazzari II and six young men in an old slaughterhouse between the Greyhound bus depot and the railroad tracks. He was teaching them how to sa
w up a body so as to make it disposable, using the portable circular saw designed for beef. Uncle watched. “Preparation is crucial,” Vito said. The saw howled as he took a foot off at the ankle. The saw stopped. “Guys spend months planning the biggest bank heist, take a truckload of money, leave nothing. Perfect crime. Are they happy? No, because they’re doin’ twenty-five to life. Why? Because they didn’t plan ahead. No preparation.” He hit the switch, sawed through the leg above the knee, switched off. “Hose,” he said.

  One of the young men came forward and washed blood and bits of skin off the pieces. It was a high-pressure hose and it sent the head rolling across the concrete. Vito kicked it back. “Where’s best for breakfast?” he asked Uncle.

  “I thought Arturo’s.”

  “His steaks are good. Enough!” The hose stopped. “I don’t like sacks. Sacks leak, they got no handles. Not like this garbage bin. Okay, load up.” The young men began dropping the pieces into the bin.

  “Hold it,” Vito said. “That’s a good shoe. Take off that shoe. Where’s the other?” They searched, and found. “Fifty-dollar loafers, nearly new, too good to waste.” He gave the pair to Uncle. “Salvation Army. They take shoes, don’t they?”

  As they left, Uncle gave a bottle of Scotch to the man who was waiting to lock up. Neither spoke. What was to say?

  The bin went into the back of a pickup truck, the men into a car. Twenty minutes later they were rumbling along the incomplete Harbor Freeway. A line of striped poles glinted in the moonlight. They got out and smelled the acid tang of wet concrete.

  Two men carried the bin to the edge. “Not there,” Vito said. “That’s the fast lane. He belongs in the slow lane.” They moved the bin to the other side, and tipped.

  Vito bought breakfast for everybody.

  When they got home, Uncle said: “Marco worked for your father since he was a boy. He built our protection racket. He was loyal.”