I decided to try these on the commissioner and phoned his home a little past 8. His wife told me he’d gone to the office early. I phoned there and he picked up the phone himself on the first ring. “Yes?” he said with tense expectancy.
“It’s me, commissioner.”
“Oh. Every time the phone rings...”
“I’m hip. Listen, I just wanted to give you an unprogress report and run a few ideas up the flagpole.”
“Go ahead.”
I told him about my inquiries at the hotel and read off the list of long-distance phone numbers dialed by the Sadlers from the St. Regis, asking him to have them checked out. Then I told him my marginally intriguing idea. “Do you think it could be the owner of another club? Don’t laugh, now.”
“I’m not laughing, Dave. I thought of it myself last night, but rejected it. Look, owners are by definition greedy bastards, but they’re not kidnappers and murderers. An owner wants three million dollars, he raises his ticket prices a dollar and his hot dogs a dime and he’s got his three million dollars.”
“Maybe it wasn’t done for the money.”
“Then what for?”
“Some owner warned to clobber Vreel, hurt the league, force us to cancel the deal with Richie.”
“It’s possible, but I still can’t buy it. Businessmen don’t operate that way.”
“Even if they’re associated with a certain underworld organization that rhymes with Shmoffa?”
“Especially then. You know something, Dave? The Mafia has a lower profile than Twiggy. The last thing the mob wants to do is something that will put it in the limelight. What do they need the heat for? When they can make three million dollars in one afternoon on the numbers or dope or loan-sharking, what’s the percentage in committing a crime that’ll have half the country eager to help the police solve it? Besides, there are no owners associated with the Mafia.”
That was the league’s official line and there was no point in calling him on it, though we both knew it to be patently untrue. But I did say, “I’ve heard some things about Hy Tishoff.” This was understating the case by a power of 10.
“You think that because Tishoff lost out on Richie...? No, I can’t believe it. Even if Tishoff was Capo di Tutti Capi for the North American continent, which is unlikely with a name like Tishoff... no Dave, you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree. Nice try but no cigar. Any other ideas?”
“Yeah. Does the name Manny Ricci mean anything to you?”
“Sure. Gambler. And a loser.”
“Do you remember his name coming up in connection with Richie’s during the NCAA playoffs?”
“Of course. He’s the one that accused Richie of double-crossing him in the Kentucky game, right? Silliest damn thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“Agreed, but if you’re looking for a motive...”
“Three million dollars is your motive, Dave. That’s all you need.”
“I suppose so.”
“But you might try him. What the hell, it’s better than sitting with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the phone to ring. Do you know where to reach him?”
“I was just going to ask you that.”
“Call Lenny Weinstein. He’s a living rogues’ gallery of disagreeable human beings.”
“Good idea.”
“Stay in touch with me, Dave. I want to be ready to move when the kidnapper calls.”
“You got it.”
I got out my little black book and looked up Lenny Weinstein. Of the countless bookies I knew, he was one of the most knowledgeable and cooperative. And lest it seem odd that I know so many bookies, in my business they swarm thicker than flies around fresh dog shit. Throw your program up in the air at Madison Square Garden and the odds are 6-1 it’ll land on a bookie’s head. They’re very helpful people to know, up to a point.
Lennie was an ugly, frenetic little sports nut who ran a semi-independent operation out of his apartment on Central Park West; he covered a lot of the action himself, but when the betting was heavy he laid off on organization bankrollers. I dialed his number with no expectation of reaching him, and I didn’t. I got a timid female voice with a thick Italian accent drowned out by the whine and thump of heavy machinery. “Shoe-a shop-a.”
“I want Lenny Weinstein. Tell him it’s Dave Bolt.” I spelled it for her.
“You-a-number?”
I gave her my number and hung up. The shoe shop was Lennie’s unofficial answering service.
I figured it would take a few minutes for Lenny to get back to me, so I called in to Trish. “What’s in today’s mail?”
“Dunning letters,” she said, “but no good ones. Where are you?”
“Home, and I may not be coming in till later. I’ll call when I can, though, just in case. Keep the home fires burning and don’t dip into the till.”
“We have a till?” she said.
I hung up and was about to go into the kitchen for another cup of coffee when the phone rang. “Lightning?’’ It was Lenny, though he wouldn’t identify himself.
“Yeah?”
“You called me?”
“Yeah.”
“After all these years you’re going to give me an inside tip?”
“Yeah,” I said, “don’t bet on the Pirate game today.”
“Why not?”
“It’s been called on account of rain.”
“Fun-ny, fun-ny. What do you want?”
“A favor.”
“Far vos? You never do anything for me.”
“Next time you’re indicted I’ll comfort your wife. Do you know Manny Ricci?”
“I don’t associate with known underworld figures.”
“Yeah, and I carry a spare dick in my hip pocket. I want to get hold of Ricci.”
“How badly?”
“Serious badly.”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“I said it was a favor. A little turd like you never knows when he’s gonna need a favor back. I have a long memory.”
“Fuckin’ guy,” Weinstein complained to some phone-booth deity, “won’t even tell me when one of his ballplayers sprains his little toe, and I’m supposed to do him a favor. All right, I’ll make some calls, I’ll see. You wouldn’t want to tell me what it’s all about?”
“No.”
“In case he asks?”
“I have a business proposition for him.”
“Oh, for him you have a business proposition, but for me you have diddlyshit.”
“What can I tell you, Lenny? You’re a diddlyshit kind of guy.”
I made that second cup of coffee and decided to take care of a little agency business while waiting for word on—or from—Manny Ricci. I made several calls. To wit:
To Hal Flessas, a client of mine who’d rushed 1600 yards for New Orleans last year and wanted me to renegotiate his three-year contract—upwards, of course. Funny thing, but when they only rush five hundred they never ask me to renegotiate their contracts downward.
To Dave Curtis, the Nadler and Larimer ad agency executive handling the Brut Cologne account, to ask if Lonnie Seaforth could do that commercial for them. The answer was no, they were looking for superstars like Joe Namath and Hank Aaron, and Lonnie was only third-highest scorer in the NBA.
To Chickie Hanrahan, my pro golfer client, to tell him Sports Illustrated wanted to do an article on him. The crazy bastard wanted to turn it down unless they paid him to talk.
To Ferencz Borga, my Hungarian soccer player, to tell him the Pittsburgh Steelers would try him out as a place-kicker to back up the ailing Roy Gerela. Since I don’t speak Hungarian and Borga’s English is—to be kind—spotty, this conversation lasted 15 minutes and it nagged at me all day that he might have called the wrong ball club.
So it went, a typical morning in the life of a playe
r’s agent. I could have accomplished more, but I figured it was about time for Lenny Weinstein to call me, so I let the phone cool off. Ten minutes later, it rang.
“Bolt?”
It was a new voice to me, high and quivery, almost squeaky. The guy spoke so close to the phone his “b’s,” “p’s,” and “t’s” exploded like mortar shells and his “s’s” hissed like steampipes. “Yes?”
“I unnerstan’ you’re tryin’ to get a hold of Manny Ricci?”
“That’s right. You him?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, do you want to check it out and call me back?”
“Okay... What do you want, Bolt?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“The message said Dave Bolt.”
“I mean, do you know . . .?”
“Yeah, I know, I know. You’re the agent. Whaddya want?”
“To talk.”
“So? Talk.”
“I mean, face to face.”
There was a long pause filled with the stertorous rumble of his breath into the mouthpiece. Ricci was thinking it over, and what he was thinking was, why should he see me? If he had Richie, he certainly had no interest in getting together with me. But even if he didn’t, he still had good reason to be nervous. He was a man who lived in constant dread that he was going to be taken on a ride from which he would not return. For all he knew I was setting him up to be hit.
“Look,” I said soothingly, “you say when and where and how.”
“You say why.”
“Mutual interests.”
“I didn’t know we had any,” he said.
“You don’t call money interesting?”
“Depends. I call a lot of it interesting.”
“Then tell me where I can see you. You call the shot.”
He paused again and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “You know Queens?”
“Vaguely, yes.”
“Awright, you go out to Queens Boulevard, to 67th Road. You coming by car?”
“I’ll probably take the subway.”
“Awright, you take the IND to 67th Street, you get out, you walk to 67th Road, that’s one block. You cross Queens Boulevard and stand on the mall between the service road and the main drag facing away from the city. You got that so far?”
“Uh huh.”
“You be there at 11 sharp and you stand there, I’ll come around for you.”
“How will you know it’s me?”
“I’ll know. You think two schmucks are gonna stand in the middle of Queens Boulevard for 15 minutes?”
He had a point there.
I repeated his instructions and looked at my watch. It was a little after 10. I left my apartment and walked over to the Lexington Avenue subway stop at 77th Street and took the IRT local to 51st Street. There was no transfer to the IND at the stop, so I had to go outside to Lexington, walk up to 53rd, and catch the Queens train at the IND station there. The trip was noisy and even if there’d been anything to see, I would not have been able to make it out through the blue paint of an immense graffito sprayed on the window.
I flinched from the strong sunlight as I trudged up the stairs of the 67th Street station and out onto Queens Boulevard, a broad avenue and one of the main thoroughfares between Manhattan and Long Island. It had two express roads three lanes wide each, flanked by two-lane service roads separated from the express roads by concrete malls covered with subway gratings. I was standing in front of a supermarket. In one direction was a fast-food phenomenon called the Knish Knosh and in the opposite direction, toward Manhattan, some shops, a bank, and a movie theater called the Trylon. Everything else was red brick apartment houses. It was not a very glamorous community, but it was the perfect environment for a punk gambler—Deep Jimmy Breslin Country, I would call it. I panned the scene hoping to get a glimpse of Ricci, but aside from an old man double-parked waiting for his wife to come out of a bakery, I saw no one. But I knew I was being watched.
I walked to 67th Road and bought a knish at the Knish Knosh. It was better than some I’ve eaten, but as far as I’m concerned, all knishes have the consistency of black-eyed peas wrapped in lizard skin. This Jewish chick I went with for a few months, Eileen Gordon, tried to turn me on to Jewish cooking, but aside from Eileen herself I found most of it inedible. When you’ve been raised on Meskin chili and jalapeños, pot roast and potato pancakes is apt to leave you a little flat.
Munching on my knish, I crossed the service road at the corner of Queens Boulevard and 67th Road and stood on the mall, looking around and feeling vulnerable and stupid under the curious glances of car passengers. Ten minutes went by and I began to get a little dizzy from inhaling carbon monoxide. To entertain myself I played license-plate poker with myself and had just drawn a Queens-up full house on a New Jersey plate when a horn honked behind me. I turned and saw a man in a blue polo shirt and baseball cap waving at me from the driver’s seat of a late model green Buick that was holding up traffic in the westbound express lane. I darted through a cluster of eastbound cars, crossed in front of the Buick, and hopped into the passenger seat. I found myself looking at a little man holding a big gun. “Put your hands on the dashboard, Bolt,” he said to me in a tenor voice.
“Sure, friend, it’s your game all the way.” I learned in the Army: when a .45 automatic addresses you, you listen very, very respectfully.
We bucked forward and cut toward the inside of the boulevard. Ricci drove with his left hand, covered me with his right, while looking anxiously into his rearview mirror; I hoped he had better coordination than he had indicated so far. At the first exit he swerved into the westbound service road, made a sharp right through a red light at the Rego Park intersection where Alexander’s Department Store is, then snaked around the streets of Lefrak City until I lost track of his weaving maneuvers. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but I felt this itch in my midsection where the automatic’s slug would enter making a large neat hole and emerge making a huge ragged one.
When we finally stopped, I opened my eyes and saw that we were on a quiet residential street a convenient few hundred yards from an entry ramp to the Van Wyck Expressway, a perfect escape route if he sensed this was some sort of trap. He kept the motor idling. He was a very nervous man.
I looked at him. He reminded me of a ferret, with a long, lumpy gullet and tiny ears sticking out beneath his Mets baseball cap. He looked more like a Walt Disney character than a gangster, but the siege weapon he trained on my vital organs kept my laughter down to a minimum.
“Now: you wanted to talk to me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“About?”
“About a funny thing that happened to one of my clients the other day.”
“What’s that?”
I looked at him squarely. His eyes were dark and red-rimmed and they constantly darted to his rearview mirror. They told me nothing except that he was as jumpy as a gentile in the Catskills.
“Someone borrowed him and won’t give him back,” I said.
I scrutinized his face for a reaction, and I hoped for a guilty one. There was none, guilty or otherwise.
“He’s being held for ransom?” Ricci said.
“Uh huh.”
“Is this a ballplayer, a star or something?”
“Uh huh.”
He nodded appreciatively. “It’s a good gimmick. I’ve thought of doing it myself.”
“How recently?”
Holding the gun on me with his right hand, he reached up with his left and pulled a Camel out of a pack attached to his car visor with a rubber band, pushed in his cigarette lighter, and lit up with a smacking sound.
“So? Who put the snatch on your boy?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“How the fuck should I know? I don’t know who you represent.” He dragged hard on the cigar
ette while his eyes roved the roof of the car reflectively. “But then, I’m asking myself why you came to me.”
“Good thinking.”
“I do know the name of one of your guys.”
“I know you do.”
He looked at me searchingly and this time it was my turn to say nothing with my eyes. “If it’s who I’m thinkin’...” He broke into a horrible stained-toothed grin. “I hope they take a baseball bat to his kneecaps before they dump that cocksucker back on your doorstep.”
“Nice talk,” I said. “What did he ever do to you?”
“You know fuckin’ well what he did to me. That’s why you’re here, ain’t it? You think I snatched Richie Sadler. Well, I’ll tell you something. I wish I had. I wouldn’t ask for a cent in ransom. Just the chance to teach him the proper way to shave points. I’d shave the point off his—”
“Say, Manny?” I interrupted him as pleasantly as I knew how. “Did you know, your trigger finger goes in and out when you’re mad? What worries me is, it’s gonna go in a little too far and you’re gonna shoot me before we can finish our conversation. So what I’m getting around to is, maybe you ought to put the gun down, what do you say?”
He studied me. I had my honest dumb cowboy face going for me. He grunted and lowered the gun to his lap.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, what about this point shaving bit?”
“’Bit?”
“Well, what do you call it, Manny?”
“I call it the biggest double-cross since Hitler invaded Russia.”
“Can you elaborate on that?”
“You read about it. The spread is 15. That’s a gambler’s dream. I take Kentucky, if it’s a fairly close game I win, right? So I call Richie...”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. How do you know Richie?”
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