Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  “That’s what I like. None of you can see further than Culver City on a clear day. This guy sees clear to Ukraine. You see the five and dime. He sees four hundred percent.”

  “Yeah. That’s a payout of nearly a million a year, just to us guys. A million. In cash.”

  “Well, you heard him. Ukraine’s big. Bigger than California.” Vito emptied his glass and the bartender came in a hurry. “You don’t get big by thinkin’ small, Mr. Zangara. The guy gave me a church, did you know that? A whole goddamn church, for Chrissake!”

  “I saw it.”

  “Like it was a pair of gold studs. Box of cigars.”

  “Yeah, nice.”

  “Anyone ever give you a church? No big deal, just: Thought you might like church? That’s what I call thinkin’ big.”

  Nicky abandoned the fire and went and got a glass of ice water. “Here’s an if,” he said. “If Cabrillo screws us …”

  “That’s easy. I whack him, pronto.”

  Nicky shook his head. “Whackin’ guys is not your job now. You should delegate. That’s what-”

  “You’re soundin’ like Uncle. Drivin’ with the brakes on. Ever been to Florida?” Discussion over.

  2

  Michael Stagg had been trying desperately hard to remember the medical name of the disease which he might or might not have inherited. Trying too hard. If he’d simply asked for the answer, instead of demanding it, the name might have popped out of his brain’s retrieval system within 24 hours. Nobody likes being browbeaten. Brains are human too.

  Then Jensen TransAmerica Investigations showed him a photograph of Luis Cabrillo looking relaxed and self-confident in a doorway, and his brain suddenly said Eagleston, Chappell and Hart. And it added: neurostatic hypostasia. The B strain.

  “He told me he was a Boston lawyer,” Stagg said.

  “Untrue,” Jensen TransAmerica said. “We checked him out. No warrants against him, no known occupation, no obvious source of income. And in the past six months, three men have been discovered dead on his property. All with known criminal backgrounds.”

  That same day, Stagg visited a doctor, an old friend, and asked him what he knew about seeing non-existent empty holes in magazines. “Sounds like a type of migraine,” he said. Then Stagg asked him about neurostatic hypostasia. The man laughed. “I know it’s bullshit,” he said. Stagg went away feeling both glad and mad. All that fear and anxiety were being turned into rage. There was plenty of it.

  3

  Autumn is the only season when New York is unquestionably terrific. Winter can be brutal, spring has come and gone while you’re still in the shower, and summer is when the sun beats down like a great brass gong. The thunderstorms are Biblical. Broiled or drenched: you choose. But Manhattan in the fall is crisp and bright.

  Julie and Luis stayed at the Algonquin, never met Dorothy Parker and didn’t hear anyone say anything witty, but they killed a couple of weeks very pleasantly. Saw some shows, walked in the Park, ate in restaurants that were a light year away from the 86th Street bar where she used to sling burgers. Manhattan was a good place to be young, healthy and loaded.

  They went to Macy’s department store because he had heard that it sold everything. He saw a display of miniature tape recorders and he bought one. The salesman showed him how to operate it and then packed it in a box. “Does it play backward?” Luis asked. No, the man said. It’s got a fast rewind. That’s what people want.

  As they left, Luis asked Julie if she knew someone who could make the machine play its tape backward.

  “I was in the ad game. Wrote hundreds of radio commercials. I know a man.”

  They took a cab to a recording studio at 44th and Seventh, where the man she knew said he would do anything for her, up to and including bigamy. Luis explained his needs. “Let’s get it straight,” the man said. “You want to reverse the machine, or reverse the tape content?” She left them to it, and went to a coffee shop with an old pal who had just done a voice-over for a pencil commercial. “What sort of voice does a pencil have?” she asked.

  “Slim and literate. Always to the point. How d’you like sunny LA?”

  She thought for a couple of seconds. “It’ll make one hell of a good ruin,” she said. “Give it back to the coyotes. They were there first.”

  When Luis joined them, he asked where he could get a military uniform. Preferably red, not new. They took him to a theatrical costumiers. He tried on a cherry-red tunic with dark green epaulets. “Baggy,” Julie said. “A size too big.”

  “It’s perfect,” he said. “I’ll take it. Can you sew on some medal ribbons? About a dozen.”

  Three days later they flew back to LA.

  When Luis and Julie left LA, Agent Moody was in San Diego, giving evidence before a grand jury about the kidnapping of a movie star. It was a difficult case: maybe the star colluded with the kidnappers in order to get publicity for her fading career plus a share of the ransom paid by the studio, in which case maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping at all …. Whatever. Moody spent five days in San Diego. It was a week before he called Charlie Denny and said Cabrillo-Conroy had gone.

  “Could be in Ukraine by now,” Denny said.

  “Could be anywhere. Omsk, Tomsk and all points east.”

  “Stopping at Minsk and Pinsk … You don’t sound heartbroken.”

  “I’ve met them both. They may be a pair of heels but they’re not organized crime. I hope they don’t come back, for their sake. They’re taking a ride on a tiger.”

  “Perhaps we can trap the tiger without killing the passengers.”

  “Perhaps, in a perfect world,” Moody said. “But this world stinks, so why should you care?”

  “Beneath this tattered shirt there beats a shabby heart,” Denny said. “Lunch soon?”

  Ten days passed before Moody called him. By then, Denny had found a new fish restaurant with a sparkling view of the Pacific. Sea bass and a bottle of white Bordeaux. Moody usually had a sandwich at his desk.

  “What do we know for sure?” he said. “We know they’re back home from wherever the hell they’ve been. We know they’re cozy with Vito DiLazzari. But why? Could be they’re all playing canasta.”

  “Could be that fake Ukrainian lottery means fake Ukrainian lottery,” Denny suggested. “You sure we can’t bug Vito’s place?”

  “Granite, three feet thick. He never uses the phone, not himself. If we could get inside, which we can’t, the acoustics would be truly lousy. Konigsberg, on the other hand, is a piece of cake. But we still don’t know if their Ukraine is a country or a can of beans.” He drank some wine and looked at Denny’s cheery face. “Can’t help thinking it’s a long, long way from your LA office.”

  “Fly west from here, and Ukraine is actually closer than if you fly east. We sneak in through the KGB’s back door.”

  “Now I’m sorry I asked.” Moody went back to his sea bass.

  “That’s what I read in Newsweek, anyway. I haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on. Nobody tells me anything.” His smile was amiable and might even have been sincere.

  “Me neither,” Moody said. He wasn’t paid to save the world. Leave that to the Ivy League boys.

  Othello asked little of life. Fresh water, gravy in his dog food, maybe a marrowbone to suck on. There were rabbits nearby but the little bastards ran, whereas with a marrowbone you could depend on the bloody thing to keep still. At his age, a dog valued stability. And now look, these idiots were messing him about again.

  “I let him out to poop an’ stuff,” the neighbors’ son said. “No problem.” He gave Julie the canopener. Othello saw the exchange, and recognized a crucial switch in the balance of power. He sniffed her ankle and the ancient smell signaled food, so he tried to bite it. The effort hurt his jaws. He quit. Dimly, he saw Luis doing something. Frying sausages, maybe. Othello slumped and salivated.

  In fact Luis was on the phone to Nicky Zangara. “My compliments to Mr. DiLazzari,” he said. “Please tell him I would be obliged
if he would call an Extraordinary General Meeting of our little group.” Nicky wanted to know why. “If I tell you now, it won’t be a surprise then, will it?”

  Julie gave Othello a piece of chocolate. He held it in his mouth. Did they think they could bribe him with this piece of shit? He spat it out. A dog had standards, for Chrissake.

  4

  Jerome Fantoni knew that he had been too long away from his organization. Leave your throne empty and somebody grabs it. Lot of dead kings discovered that the hard way. But he hated to fly home to an empty house and live there, grinding his teeth in his sleep, waiting for Stephanie to arrive. So he stretched his return by calling on his peers. First he visited Jimmy Lanza in San Francisco, then made a swing down to New Orleans to call on Carlos Marcello, after a couple of days moved to John Scalisi’s outfit in Cleveland. From there to Buffalo and conversations with Stefano Magadinno. Jerome admired the wonderful colors of upper New York state in the fall and Magadinno agreed, fuckin’ wonderful. Everyone was courteous and hospitable, but even the Mob had its limits and in the end Fantoni had to return where he belonged. The manservant opened the door and welcomed him home and said Miss Stephanie was in the billiard room.

  Fantoni ran. He had no plan, only an impulse, a need to seize the reward for crossing America twice in search of his daughter. He flung the door open. Stevie was standing, naked, talking to a tall redhead who held a sketchbook. Too much. Suddenly Fantoni’s mind was scrambled. “Get out!” he shouted at the redhead. She laughed. Why not? It was B-movie stuff. He grabbed her by the throat. Before he could squeeze, she battered his stomach, six fast punches, left-right, left-right left-right. He couldn’t breathe, his legs were out to lunch, he sat on the floor. “You should of said please,” Princess told him. “In Sheboygan we always say please.” Fantoni wheezed. “He can’t help it,” Stevie said. “Dad’s old-fashioned. You ask me, guys like him shouldn’t have the vote. They should move to Brooklyn and bitch about the Dodgers. That’s all they’re good for.” Fantoni tried to speak, made a noise like torn cardboard, gave up. And he’d had such high hopes of this day.

  FRIENDLY FIRE

  1

  “I got a bad feeling about Bamboozle,” Nicky Zangara said. “The Ten is gettin’ jumpy. He’s gone three weeks now, suddenly he wants an Extraordinary Meeting.”

  “Three weeks is nothing,” Vito said. “Not when you’re undermining the richest province in the Soviet Union. Rome wasn’t burned in a day.”

  They were flying over LA in a Beechcraft seaplane. A new freeway was under construction and he wanted to see its potential. Also it was fun to take off and land on the water.

  “Four hundred percent of two hundred grand, knockin’ on a million bucks,” Nicky said. “Some of the Ten think they’re pushin’ their luck.”

  “Gimme their names, I’ll bury their worries,” Vito said. Nicky was silent. “And get it right. Say ‘The Ten are,’ not ‘The Ten is.’ A thing I learned at UCLA was grammar. Difference between plural and singular. You guys are plural. Me, I’m singular. Totally singular.” The plane dipped a wing and circled. “Look at that. Freshly poured concrete. Better than sex.”

  “I still think we should have a man in Ukraine.”

  “See over there? That’s the campus. When Operation Bamboozle goes through I’m gonna fund a new department building with DiLazzari in letters three feet high. Part of my legacy. A man should leave a legacy.” Vito stretched his arms and legs as if he’d just finished a hard day’s work. He held his arms wide apart and pointed up with his fingers. “DiLazzari. Yeah.”

  At first Nicky thought it was a joke, but Vito’s boyish smile was sincere. “Department,” Nicky said. “Department of what?”

  “Humanities,” Vito said. “Obviously.”

  “Breaking news, comrades,” Vito said. “This just in. Hold the front page.” He stepped aside. The Extraordinary General Meeting was open.

  “Russians are a proud people,” Luis said. “They value courage, fortitude, loyalty. The general is a passionate man, and he feels passionately grateful for your confidence in him. He has sent this message which he wishes you to hear.” He turned a switch on the little recorder.

  Vito and the Ten heard buzzing and what might have been a brief trumpet-call. Then a man began to speak. His voice was rich and deep and as busy as an acrobat and unintelligible. After about thirty seconds Luis stopped the machine. “Ukrainian is not an easy language,” he said. “My colleague will translate.”

  Julie unfolded a paper. “Greetings from Kiev,” she said, “to our friends in America, recently allies in the Great Patriotic War against the cruel and inhuman Nazi invasion.”

  Luis restarted the recorder and they listened to a few more yards of fluent mystery. He stopped it.

  “This is a time for confidence,” Julie said. “Nothing is certain in this world except uncertainty, and nothing is more uncertain than the Ukrainian State Lottery.”

  “I’m fairly sure that was a joke,” Luis said. He played some more. The room was beginning to show signs of restlessness. He stopped the machine.

  “We have a saying in the KGB,” Julie said. “When the elephants fight, the jackal laughs.”

  “How true,” Luis said.

  “Not sure about that last verb,” she said. “Could mean ‘the jackal weeps.’ Ukrainian words can be kind of ambiguous.”

  “Laughs, weeps, who gives a shit?” Vito said.

  “The general was trying to tell us something,” Luis said. He started the recorder. The voice made challenging sounds. Angry sounds. Then shots were fired—fierce explosions, close to the microphone. Now nobody was bored. A pause. More shots. Silence. The general’s voice returned, a little croaky. Luis switched it off. “Assassination attempt,” he said. “Rogue elements in the KGB. All dead now. Business as usual.”

  One or two men laughed, and gradually everyone began to applaud; everyone except Nicky Zangara. The applause was like the reaction in a theater: crank up the tension, and the audience needs to respond. Luis smiled. He was smiling for the general far away who might have been dead but was very alive.

  “There’s more good news,” he said. “Harvests in the Ukraine have been surprisingly good. Bumper, in fact. The lottery—both lotteries—have performed equally well. So well, that Operation Bamboozle is pleased to announce a special one-off bonus dividend of five grand per investor. Congratulations.” He handed a fat bundle of envelopes to Vito. This time the applause was warm and immediate.

  Vito passed the bundle to Nicky. “Okay, you bums can beat it now,” he said. He turned to Luis and Julie. “Not you.” He waited until the others had gone. “I got some ideas for how the White House can recognize the patriots behind Operation Bamboozle for helping defend America against the Soviet goddamn juggernaut etcetera.”

  The ideas turned out to be a gold medal inscribed ‘For America’s Freedom’ with the recipient’s name on the back, and a wall plaque with the gold medal and name etched on it. “At the bottom it says stuff like ‘Resolution, Courage, Sacrifice, Nobility,’ all that crap,” Vito explained. “Plus there’s a handwritten certificate spells out the achievement stuff, maybe signed and sealed by the President. Maybe has his picture. What you think?”

  “It’s stunning,” Luis said. “I’m stunned.”

  “You got my vote,” Julie said.

  “I was thinking rosewood for the plaque. Or cherrywood is nice. And a ribbon for a medal, so you can hang it round your neck. Lets everyone see.”

  “The general would certainly agree,” Luis said. “The word he always uses when he speaks of you is ‘Maestro.’ When we last met he said, ‘Give my regards to Maestro DiLazzari.’ The general is a very good judge of men.”

  “Yeah.” Vito strolled around the room. All Princess Chuckling Stream’s nudes of Stevie were gone, replaced by color photographs of his mother. “This is not for me, I don’t need the kudos, but us Italian-Americans, we’ve had a raw deal. Time we got some recognition. The business of America
is business, right? Well, we supply essential services that Government hasn’t got the balls to touch. Not city, not state, not federal. Can you imagine anyone running for the Senate and saying he stands for sex, liquor and gambling? But that’s what the people want. And that’s what we give them. Why d’you think the FBI says we don’t exist? Because they don’t want to close us down! They know they’d have a riot on their hands. Worse yet—a civil war. Sex, liquor and gambling is the lifeblood of this great nation. We have a duty to keep that lifeblood pumping. Takes guts. Takes imagination. Takes drive, gotta keep movin’, gotta take chances! Nicky Zangara can’t understand that, the man is a disappointment to me.” Vito completed his tour of the room. “This special one-off bonus dividend of yours … Where’s my share?”

  “I re-invested it for you,” Luis said. “Knowing your taste for adventure, risk and patriotism, I knew that’s what you’d want.”

  “Reinvested. Where?”

  “In Bulgaria. We’re moving in on the Bulgarian National Lottery. It’s absurdly rich. It will pay one thousand percent a year.”

  Vito stared, and thought, and finally shrugged. “You should of asked me first. But … what the hell, it’s another blow struck in the fight for freedom. Yeah. Do it. Listen: these dividends. Tax-free, right?”

  Luis placed his hand on his heart. “On my honor.”

  “A nation breathes through its loopholes,” Julie said, simply but seriously.

  “Hey! That’s good,” Vito said. “I like that. I gotta tell Nicky that. He’s too stiff for his own good.”

  2

  Surely to heaven Father Reilly would be back at St. Nicholas of Tolentino by now. But no, he wasn’t, he was still in Rome. “What in God’s name is he doing there?” Jerome Fantoni asked.

  “Investigating alleged miracles, in God’s name. I am Father Martineau. Can I help you?”

  He was tallish, youngish, face like a Roman emperor with red hair and a broken nose. One thing in his favor: he wasn’t that sonofabitch Father Fletcher. “I’m not here for confession, Father,” Fantoni said. “Just looking for advice. It’s my daughter. First she walks out on me, moves to California, gets engaged. I go to the wedding, which never happens because she broke it off, we don’t even meet. I get back here, she’s living in the house already with another woman. Stephanie’s twenty-six, the other’s older. Low thirties.”