Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  Jensen TransAmerica Investigations was big. Tom Jensen, ex-FBI, founded it, built it, and now it had the top floor of a new and award-winning office building on Wilshire Boulevard. The elevator that took up Michael Stagg purred softly. It did not whine and nor did he. Jensen TransAmerica was not the place for whiners.

  He explained his needs, very briefly. He wished to meet the man who drove an Olds with this Kansas license plate. No crime was involved. His interest lay in the nature of a reunion.

  Two days later Jensen TransAmerica phoned him. The plate had been issued to Sterling Hancock III, who no longer lived at the Kansas address given when he bought the car.

  “I know he was driving it here, in LA, a couple of months ago,” Stagg said. “Try and find him for me.”

  Jensen TransAmerica had Hancock’s full name and his photograph. If he was living in LA they would find him. Might take a little time.

  2

  Nicky Zangara was Vito’s second cousin, maybe third. His hair was silver-gray when he was twenty and white by the time he was twenty five. He got called ‘Prince,’ short for principal, because he seemed to know everything. He discouraged the nickname because he disliked exaggeration. However, it was true that he knew by first name every politician of influence, and every business leader with clout, and every police chief of any stripe in all of Ventura County. Nicky read books, many without conversation or pictures. He read company reports, balance sheets, credit ratings. He ran the rackets in Ventura, and the Mob’s accountants said his annual accounts were a model of their kind. If Nicky Zangara claimed 20% depreciation on the stock of ammunition, you could depend on it. Bullets don’t last forever. Ask any general.

  He was a year younger than Vito but the white hair made him look ten, fifteen years older. Vito liked that. He sent for Nicky. “Bring a pickup truck,” he said.

  When Nicky arrived it was late afternoon and raining hard, the kind of downpour that looked like the black sky had lost control and just wanted to get it over with.

  Uncle was waiting with a golf umbrella. “Some weather, huh?” he said. “Plays hell with the smog.”

  Nicky laughed. He liked Uncle; approved of his downbeat style. They went inside. Hands got shaken, drinks got made, Smalltalk got talked. Then:

  “I got a question for you,” Vito said. “You think I should get married in St. Timothy’s?”

  “You mean, now? In this rain?”

  “Uncle says it’s my duty, St. Tim’s bein’ the Mob church an’ all.”

  “It matters not,” Uncle said. “The lady has moved on.”

  “She questioned my manhood. No big deal, according to Uncle.”

  “I never said that,” Uncle muttered. Nicky simply shook his head. Good move. A shake of the head can mean anything you like.

  “Jerry Fantoni was here. From the East Coast. Lookin’ old, very old. You know what they say about the shark? Gotta keep movin’ in the water, or it’s dead. Shark gets old, gets slow, don’t move like it should. End of story. Roll credits.” He finished his drink. “This rain … it’s wet enough for sharks. I like that. We’ll go for a spin. Take the pickup. Uncle drives.”

  “Where?” Uncle asked.

  “Just drive.”

  By now it was dark. Streetlights battled the rain and lost. The pick-up’s wipers were set at high speed and it wasn’t always fast enough. Uncle had never driven the truck before and he had trouble adjusting to the pedal pressures and the gearshift. Nobody spoke: a dozen drummers were hammering on the roof. Sometimes Vito pointed, and Uncle made a turn. He was getting accustomed to the controls when a black shape suddenly magnified in front and he swerved and the pickup lost all grip on the skidpan of a road and they skated past a brokendown car with no lights. Uncle glimpsed a man bent over the steaming engine. Poor bastard, he thought. After that he kept the speed down to a cautious twenty.

  “Too slow,” Vito said. “Too damn slow. As usual.” Nicky turned on the radio. A newscast told them it was raining. He found another station, and Peggy Lee sang Stormy Weather. Some disc jockey was having fun. Static stabbed at the lyrics. Lightning was having fun too.

  “Stop here,” Vito said. They were opposite St. Timothy’s. The stained glass made a faint glow: red and yellow and green. “I want to donate a candle. A little light in a wicked world.”

  They watched him run across the road, both his hands gripping the umbrella. “What’s happening?” Nicky asked.

  “You’re the new Uncle, kid. This is what they call a rite of passage. So, congratulations.”

  “Oh.” He was relieved. “I thought we were gonna whack somebody.”

  “He wouldn’t of brought me along, not since he whacked Marco. I told him, big mistake, Marco did good work, and anyway Vito should leave whackin’ to other guys, he should … what’s the word … delegate. Vito bein’ chairman of the board now, it ain’t …” He shook his head.

  “Appropriate?” Nicky suggested.

  “That’s it. Jeez, my memory’s gone down the toilet. What’s a big mountain in Scotland?”

  “Ben Nevis.”

  Uncle slumped. “I’m gonna give up those stoopid crosswords,” he said.

  The priest saw Vito light a candle, saw him wait a moment for the flame to settle, and then put his finger in it. Not the triggerfinger but the left index. Only a couple of seconds. Vito didn’t jump, didn’t cry out. The priest walked toward him. Churches attracted freaks. Just yesterday, a woman in the confessional said she wanted to be crucified on the Hollywood sign. Hard to know whether she was boasting or repenting. She said her sin was lusting after Hitler. “He’s dead,” the priest told her, and she stormed out of the church. He sighed. What was wrong with people? Wasn’t the Holy Ghost a big enough mystery? And here was this masochistic gangster, sucking his finger. “Hello, Mr. DiLazzari,” he said. “Can I be of any help?”

  Vito stopped sucking. “A man comes out of a bar, drunk as a skunk, drives off, kills a nun and ten kids waiting for a bus. Is that God’s will, father? Or God’s mistake?”

  “Neither. But you know that.”

  “Okay. Now … suppose I kill this guy before he can get in his car. Shoot him dead. Does God approve?”

  “You should ask yourself. You just made yourself God. What is your answer?”

  Vito smiled like a boy who has hit a home run. “Well, obviously, Father, shoot the sonofabitch.” He was backing away as he said, “I hate children, but nuns, I got a soft spot for nuns.”

  The priest watched him go. “Clown,” he said, but softly. The DiLazzaris had paid for a new roof two years back. On a night like this, you had to be grateful.

  Vito got in the truck. “Go,” he said. Uncle drove a couple of hundred yards and Vito said, “Stop.” Uncle pulled into the side. “You said you want to go to Florida, Uncle. Okay, Florida’s that way.” Vito pointed ahead. “Get out. Go now.”

  Uncle massaged one hand with the other. “This ain’t right. At least let me go home, get a coat, some money.”

  “Florida. Thataway.”

  Uncle remained perfectly still. “Your father …” he began. “No, forget it.” He got out. They watched him pass through the beams of the headlights and reach the side of the road. Then he was a dim, bent figure, walking away in the pounding rain.

  Nicky had taken his place at the wheel. “Stay with him,” Vito said. As they drew alongside Uncle, Vito wound down his window and shouted., “Too slow, Uncle. You’ll never get to Florida. Speed it up.” Uncle made a weary, helpless gesture. Vito had a gun in his hand. “Run!” he said, and fired two shots at Uncle’s feet, and missed. Uncle ran. The headlights showed pools of water splashing him to the knee. He was not a good runner. Soon he was lurching and slipping and gasping, and finally he gave up and squatted on his aching haunches.

  “Fetch the umbrella,” Vito said. He waited until Nicky had got out and walked around with the open umbrella, and then he got out. They went to Uncle and Vito shot him twice in the back of the neck.

  “In
to the pickup,” Vito said. “Pasadena Freeway. New off-ramp being built. This weather, the concrete they just poured should be good and juicy.”

  3

  Next day was washed as fresh and bright as a new deck of cards. The sky had a few chalkmarks just to accentuate its blue, the bougainvillea was a healthy red, and the letters Julie was opening were mainly buff with cellophane windows.

  “We owe the city for back taxes,” she said.

  Luis took the letter. “Clerical error,” he said. “This is the national debt of Brazil.” He went back to the LA Times.

  “And the garage is making threats.” Another letter was passed. “That Packard …” She sucked her teeth.

  Luis frowned. “What exactly is a differential? Sounds like Wall Street talk. Do we really need one? Hideously expensive.”

  She threw the other buff letters over her shoulder. “If I can’t see them, maybe they don’t exist.” She picked up a box of cornflakes and shook it. Silence. “We’re broke, Luis.”

  He took the box from her and held it upside-down. A single cornflake fell out. “Not yet,” he said. “You have it.”

  “Without milk? Are you crazy?” She got up and looked out at the stunning, sparkling view. A large bird was circling, high overhead. She thought of saying it resembled a vulture and then thought better of it. Luis was tearing something from the newspaper. She went and looked, and it was an obituary. “General Stratton T. Blaskett, patriot and shipping magnate, dead at 73,” she said. “If you’re aiming to go back into the dying-bastard-son con, this body ain’t cold yet.”

  “Nicknamed ‘Blast ’em Blaskett,’” Luis said. “Dashing cavalryman. Made a killing out of oil tankers. Founded the anti-Communist pressure group ‘Old Glory.’ This is a sad day for America. Vito must know at once.”

  “See if you can borrow ten bucks,” she said, but by then he was halfway to the phone.

  Nicky Zangara took the call. “I know about you,” he said. “Mr. DiLazzari explained. You’re King of the Ukraine, right?”

  “There’s been a development,” Luis said. “One of major significance.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. D. He’s in the shower.”

  “Perhaps I should speak to Uncle.”

  “He passed away.”

  “Good God. You mean he’s dead?” Nicky made no comment. “That was sudden,” Luis said. “We saw him just the other day. He seemed okay.”

  “Yeah, sudden. It was painless. He didn’t linger. Hold the phone.” While he waited, Luis stared at a hairline crack in the wall. Everywhere he went in LA he saw cracks in the plaster. People said it was the tremors. One day there would be the father and mother of all tremors and all the cracks would connect and he’d be left holding a phone with a broken line hanging from it. Then Nicky came back. “He says meet at Van Nuys airport in an hour.” Click.

  Luis found Julie and told her. “Wherever we’re going,” she said, “I guess it isn’t Uncle’s funeral.”

  They drove up the canyon road, turned right on Mulholland, then left on Sepulveda Boulevard, and they were looking down on the airport. Piece of cake. They even had time to eat a hot dog. It might be a long flight. Better to fuel up.

  Van Nuys airport was not for the Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt trade, nor for the drip-dry salesman with a hangover to lose and a target to beat. Van Nuys was strictly corporate. Valet parking took care of the Packard. Nicky met them in Departures and led them to a twin-engined Cessna, already ticking over. Vito was inside, half-asleep, his seat fully reclined. He flapped a hand. “We’re going where?” Julie asked him.

  “San Bernardino.” He closed his eyes. Duty done. Wheels were turning. Nicky asked them how they liked their coffee.

  Twenty minutes later they were circling San Bernardino at five hundred feet and Vito was wide awake. “There it is,” he told Nicky. “That’s my church, I own it. Cute, huh? This is first time I saw it for real. They gave it me, a gift. Ten grand, it cost. Okay, tell him to take us home.”

  The Cessna straightened out and flew west.

  “Well, it certainly beats driving,” Luis said. Nobody had anything to add to that. “We were sorry to hear about Uncle.”

  “Yeah,” Vito said. “Neurostatic hypoplasia. The B strain.” That definitely killed the conversation.

  At Van Nuys he invited them to lunch. “You’ll eat with me,” is what he actually said. What the hell. They were hungry.

  They went to a place on Laurel Canyon Road that looked like a millionaire’s home and turned out to be a private dining club. No smog, so they ate on the terrace. First, cocktails. Julie’s martini came with a single large pearl in it. “Compliments of the house,” Vito said. “Yours to keep.”

  Luis peered into his vodka-tonic. “That’s either an ice cube or the Koh-i-noor diamond.” He looked at Nicky. “What did you get?”

  “I’m family. I get to do the dishes.”

  The guests chuckled. Even Vito cracked a smile. “You see?” he said. “This man is quick. No substitute for pace, my UCLA coach told me. Either you get out in front or you fall behind. It’s the American way, win or lose, survival of the fittest. You got news for me.”

  Luis handed him the obit from the Times. Vito scanned it in fifteen seconds and gave it back. “I never knew him. I should cry?”

  “General Blaskett had a great love of country, but he knew that love is not enough. He once said to me, ‘Don’t talk of courage. The enemy is brave too. What’s our ace in the hole?’ When I outlined Operation Bamboozle he was very enthusiastic.”

  “Ah,” Vito said. “Bamboozle rides again.”

  “General Blaskett didn’t care a damn about the income—it would all go to charity anyway—but the clandestine, almost invisible, sabotaging of Soviet economy, that scored highly in his estimation. The Ukrainians are pulling their own house down, and paying us for the privilege. The general liked that.”

  “Judo,” Vito said. “Deck the guy with his own weight.”

  Julie clicked her fingers. “Spot on.”

  Luis said, “Bamboozle is strong in the Kiev area, naturally, that’s the capital of Ukraine, and also around Lvov, another big city. We wanted to expand into the Donets Basin, much heavy industry there. General Blaskett okayed the plans—he knew the Donets Basin, he’d visited the Ukraine prewar—and he offered to finance the first three months of the operation. After that it would start turning a profit, of course. We agreed, and then …” He shrugged.

  “Destiny took a hand,” Julie said. She picked up the obit and gazed at the photograph. “Quite a knockout. Must have been really something when he was young.”

  “How much?” Nicky asked. He was making notes.

  “I thought …” Luis made a small juggling act. “Twenty-five dollars.”

  That surprised everyone. “Seems cheap for half the Ukraine,” Julie said.

  “What? No, I didn’t mean that. Forget Bamboozle. No, I thought you might want to split the cost of a wreath. Knowing your respect for patriotism and so on.” Luis was stuffing the obit into his breast pocket. “Apologize. My mistake.”

  “Sure, sure, the goddamn wreath, no problem,” Vito said. “How much was Blaskett putting into this Basin job?”

  “He proposed a quarter of a million,” Luis said. Nicky was writing hard. “I couldn’t agree. Too much for one investor. We settled on two hundred thousand. In cash, had to be cash, for tactical reasons which I don’t need to explain.”

  “Clandestine stuff,” Vito said. “No paper trail. Tell you what: I’ll put up half, and Nicky will find ten guys in the organization good for ten grand each.”

  “We should talk first,” Nicky said.

  “You’re starting to sound like Uncle. Find nine guys, today. You can be the tenth. We all meet up at my place, six tonight. Got that?” Vito enjoyed being executive. Nicky kept writing.

  “Wait a minute,” Luis said. “I mean, I hadn’t expected this. When the general died, we shelved the Donets Basin plan.”

  “De-shelv
e it,” Vito ordered. “Now let’s eat.” Exercising leadership made him hungry.

  They got back to Konigsberg at midafternoon.

  “I suppose you want to know what it’s all about,” Luis said.

  “Oh, hell. It’s been a long day already,” Julie said. “Unpaid bills. Uncle dies. General Blaskett dies. We fly to San Bernardino just to see a church. Vito saves western civilization.”

  “You forgot the B strain.”

  “I don’t want to even think about the B strain. Remember the Bruno Brothers? Vito kills people. UCLA gave him a B-plus in whacking. It’s his philosophy: I whack, therefore I am. Look, I’m bushed. I’m going to bed for an hour.” She went upstairs.

  4

  Suppose a Chrysler Imperial gets a bash on the front wing, headlight smashed and so on. Heavy repair bill. Driver is a college kid, says he left the car in a parking lot, came back, found the damage. Suppose the insurance company thinks his story stinks, but the kid’s father is a federal judge. Company hates to be screwed but equally hates to make an enemy in the corridors of power. So they ask Jensen TransAmerica Investigations to take a look. Turns out the kid was plastered, took a bend too fast, caroomed off a parked car. Now dad is grateful for the company’s tact and discretion, pays for everything, kicks son’s ass.

  And Jensen TransAmerica has a valuable contact in the insurance company. In fact it has contacts in all such major companies. Including the one that recently insured the Olds with the Kansas plates. The new owner tells TransAmerica he bought it from a dealer, and the dealer says he took it in part-exchange for a lightly used Lincoln Zephyr. Now being driven by whom? By Sterling Hancock III, that’s by whom.

  The Hancock address is empty of everything bar the phone. Jensen TransAmerica has valuable contacts in the Phone Company. Hancock made few calls, but almost all were to a number in Santa Monica Canyon Road. Place called Konigsberg. Rented by a Mr. Cabrillo.

  Luis answered the door. “Sterling Hancock?” he said. “Gosh. Haven’t seen him for ages. Sorry I can’t help you.”