by Nick Carter
“I am,” said Gregorius, “Every penny going into it is my own money.”
“That’s a mistake. You’ve always used borrowed money. How come it’s your own this time?”
“Because I’ve borrowed to my limit on a couple of ventures in oil,” Gregorius said. “North Sea drilling is goddamned expensive.”
“Eight hundred million.” I thought about it for a minute. “Knowing how you operate, Gregorius, I’d say you expect a return on your investment of about five to seven times that amount when you’re finished.”
Gregorius looked at me sharply. “Very close to it, Carter. I see you haven’t lost your touch. The trouble is that until these projects are completed, I can’t collect a penny.”
“And Stocelli wants his fingers in your pie?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“How?”
“Stocelli wants to put a gambling casino in each of these resorts. His gambling casino. I’d have no part of it.”
“Tell him to go to hell.”
Gregorius shook his head. “It could cost my life.”
I cocked my head and questioned him with a lifted eyebrow.
“He can do it,” said Gregorius. “He’s got the men.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the time he outlined his proposition to me.”
“And you expect me to get Stocelli off your back?”
Gregorius nodded. “Exactly.”
“By killing him?”
He shook his head. “That would be the easy way. But Stocelli told me point-blank that if I tried anything so foolish, his men had orders to get me at any cost. There’s got to be another way.”
“And it’s up to me to find it, is that it?” I smiled cynically.
“If anyone can, you can,” Gregorius said. “That’s why I asked Hawk for you again.”
For a moment, I wondered what could have made Hawk lend me out. AXE doesn’t work for private individuals. AXE works for no one but the American government—even if ninety-nine percent of the American government was ignorant of its existence.
“You really have that much confidence in my ability?” I asked.
“Hawk does,” said Gregorius, and that was the end of that.
I stood up. My head almost touched the ceiling of the Learjet cabin.
“Is that all, Gregorius?”
Gregorius looked up at me. “Every one else says Mr. Gregorius,” he commented.
“Is that all?” I asked again. I looked down on him. The chill I felt, the dislike came out in my voice.
“I should think that would be enough of a task even for you.”
I made my way out of the Learjet, down the steps to the desert floor, feeling the sudden heat of the day strike me, a heat almost as intense as the anger that was beginning to build up inside me.
What the hell was Hawk doing to me? N3, killmaster, forbidden to kill? Carter to go up against a top Mafia boss who was surrounded with button men— and when I got to him, I wasn’t supposed to touch him?
Christ, was Hawk trying to get me killed?
CHAPTER THREE
By the time I flew the Cessna 210 back to the EI Paso airport, turned in the key, and paid my bill, it was midafternoon. I had to walk about two hundred yards from the flight shack to the main airport terminal building.
In the lobby, I headed directly for the bank of telephones. I stepped into a booth, closed the door of the booth behind me, and emptied a pocketful of coins onto the small, stainless steel shelf. I put a dime in the slot, dialed zero and then direct-dialed the rest of the Denver number.
The operator came on.
“Collect call,” I told her. “My name is Carter.” I had to spell it out for her.
I waited impatiently while the chimes pulsed in my ear until I heard the telephone ringing. After the third ring someone answered.
“International Data.”
The operator said, “This is the El Paso operator. I have a collect call from a Mr. Carter. Will you accept?”
“One moment, please.” There was a click and in a moment a man’s voice came on.
“Well accept,” he said
“Go ahead, sir.” I waited until I heard the operator disconnect
“Carter here,” I said. “Have you heard from Gregorius yet?”
“Welcome back,” said Denver. “We got the word.”
“Am I switched on?”
“You’re switched on and being recorded. Go ahead.”
“I want a printout on Carmine Stocelli,” I said. “Everything you’ve got on him and his organization. Personal data first, including a telephone number I can reach him at.”
“Coming up,” said Denver. There was another short pause. “Ready to copy?”
“Go ahead.”
Denver gave me the telephone number. “There’s also a code you have to use to get him,” said Denver, and explained it to me.
I hung up on Denver, then dialed the New York number.
The telephone rang only once before it was picked up.
“Yeah?”
“My name is Carter. I want to talk to Stocelli.”
“You got the wrong number, feller. There ain’t nobody here by that name.”
“Tell him I can be reached at this number,” I said, ignoring the voice. I read off the El Paso phone booth number. “It’s a pay phone. I want to hear from him in ten minutes.”
“Bug off, Charlie,” growled the voice. “I told you, you got the wrong number.” He hung up.
I put the telephone back on the hook and sat back, trying to make myself comfortable in the cramped enclosure. I took out one of my gold-tipped cigarettes and lit it Time seemed to creep by. I played with the coins on the shelf. I smoked the cigarette almost down to the filter before I dropped it on the floor and crushed it out with my shoe.
The telephone rang. I looked at my watch and saw that only eight minutes had gone by from the time I had hung up. I picked up the receiver and immediately put it back on the hook without saying a word. I watched the second hand of my wristwatch tick around in spasmodic jerks. Exactly two minutes went by before the phone rang again. Ten minutes from the time I’d hung up on New York.
I picked up the receiver and said, “Carter here.”
“All right,” said the heavy, rasping voice that I recognized as Stocelli’s. “I got your message.”
“You know who I am?”
“Gregorius told me to expect a call from you. What do you want?”
“To meet with you.”
There was a long pause. “Gregorius gonna agree to my proposition?” Stocelli asked.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” I said. “Where and when can we meet?”
Stocelli chuckled. “Well, you’re halfway there now. I’ll meet you in Acapulco tomorrow.”
“Acapulco?”
“Yeah. I’m in Montreal now. I’m going down to Acapulco from here. I’ll see you down there. You check into the Hotel Matamoros. You got that name? My boys will get in touch with you and we’ll get together.”
“Good enough.”
Stocelli hesitated and then growled, “Listen, Carter, I heard things about you. So I’m warning you. Don’t play no games with me!”
“I’ll see you in Acapulco,” I said and hung up on him.
I fished another dime out of my pocket and called Denver again.
“Carter,” I said, identifying myself. “I want a printout on the operation out of Acapulco. Who’s tied in with Stocelli down there? How big is it? How does it operate? Everything you can pull out on them. Names, places, dates.”
“Got it.”
“How long will it take?”
“You’ll have the information by the time you get to Acapulco, along with the other material you asked for. Is that soon enough? Anything else?”
“Yeah. I want a Telecopier air-shipped to me at the Hotel Matamoros. And I want it waiting for me when I arrive.”
Denver began to protest, but I cut him off. “Goddamn it, charter a small jet if you have to,” I said brusquely. “Don’t try to save pennies. It’s Gregorius’ money, not yours!”
I hung up and went outside to hail a cab from the rank. My next stop was the Mexican Tourist Bureau for a visitor’s permit, and from there I headed across the border to Juarez and the airport I barely had time to catch the Aeromexico DC-9 to Chihuahua, Torreon, Mexico City, and Acapulco.
CHAPTER FOUR
Denver had been a good boy. The Telecopier was waiting for me in my suite when I checked in to the Hotel Matamoros. It wasn’t time for the report yet, so I went down to the broad, flagstone terrace that overlooked the bay, sat down in a wide, wicker armchair and ordered a rum drink. I sipped it slowly as I looked out across the bay at the lights of the town that were just coming on, and at the dark indistinct hills rising above the town to the north.
I sat there for a long time, enjoying the evening and the silence and the lights of the town and the cool sweetness of the rum.
When I finally got up I went inside for a long, leisurely dinner, so it wasn’t until almost midnight that I got the call from Denver. I took it in my room.
I set the Telecopier up and put the handset in it Paper began coming out of the machine.
I scanned it as it slid out, until finally I had a small stack of paper in front of me. The machine stopped. I picked up the receiver again.
“That’s it,” said Denver. “I hope it’ll be of help to you. Anything else?”
“Not for the time being.”
“Then I have something for you. We just got the information in from one of our contacts in New York. Last night, three Frenchmen were picked up by Customs agents at Kennedy airport. They were caught trying to smuggle in a load of heroin. Their names are Andrè Michaud, Maurice Berthier and Etienne Duprè. Recognize them?”
“Yes,” I said, “They’re tied in with Stocelli on the French end of his narcotics operations.”
“You’ve been scanning the report as it came through,” Denver accused me.
I thought for a moment and then said, “It doesn’t make sense. These men are too big to carry the mer-chandise themselves. Why didn’t they use a courier?”
“We can’t figure that out, either. According to the report we got, the plane came in from Orly. Michaud picked up his bags at the luggage turntable and carried them over to the customs counter just as if he had nothing to hide. Three bags, but one of them was crammed with ten kilos of pure heroin.”
“How much did you say?” I interrupted.
“You heard me correctly. Ten kilos. You know what that’s worth?”
“Street value? About two million dollars. Wholesale? It’ll run about a hundred ten to a hundred twenty thousand for the importer. That’s why it’s so hard to believe.”
“You’d better believe it. Now comes the funny part. Michaud claimed he knew nothing about the heroin. He denied the bag was his.”
“Was it?”
“Well, it was an attaché case—one of the larger ones—and it had his initials stamped into it. And his name tag was fastened onto the handle.”
“What about the other two?”
“Same thing. Berthier was carrying twelve kilos in an overnight bag, and Duprè was carrying eight kilos. All together, it adds up to some thirty kilos of the purest heroin Customs has come across yet.”
“And they all say the same thing?”
“You guessed it. Each one puts his bag on the inspection counter bold as brass, just like there’s nothing in it but shirts and socks. They’re yelling it’s a frame-up.”
“It could be,” I said, reflecting, “except for one thing. You don’t have to blow some three hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth of drugs to set up a frame. Half a kilo—hell, even a few ounces—is enough.”
“That’s the way Customs has it figured.”
“Was there a tip-off?”
“Not a word. They got the full search treatment because Customs knows about their operation in Marseille and has their names on the special list. And that’s what makes it even stranger. They knew they were on that list. They knew they’d get thoroughly examined by Customs, so how could they figure on getting away with it?”
I made no comment. Denver went on. “You’ll find it even more interesting when you put it together with another piece of information in the file we just transmitted to you. Last week, Stocelli was in Marseille. Guess whom he met with while he was there?”
“Michaud, Berthier, and Duprè,” I said. “Smart boy.” I was silent for a moment “You think it’s a coincidence?” Denver asked. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said flatly. “Neither do we.”
“Is that all?” I asked, and Denver said yes, wished me luck, and hung up. I went down and had another drink.
Two hours later, I was back in my room undressing when the phone rang again.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of hours,” Denver said with a touch of irritation in his voice.
“What’s up?”
“It’s hit the fan,” Denver said. “We’ve been getting reports in all day long from our men. So far, the tally is Duttoit, Torregrossa, Vignale, Gambetta, Maxie Klein and Solly Webber!”
I whistled in amazement Denver had just named six of the top narcotics racket men associated with Stocelli in his East Coast operations. “Give me the details.”
Denver took a deep breath. “This morning, at La-Guardia airport, the FBI arrested Raymond Duttoit Duttoit had come in on a flight from Montreal. Duttoit was searched and they found an airport locker key in his overcoat pocket. The suitcase in the locker was packed with twenty kilos of pure heroin.”
“Go on.”
“Early this afternoon, Vinnie Torregrossa received a carton at his home in Westchester. It was delivered by a regular United Parcel Service van. He barely had time to open it when he was raided by agents from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs who were acting on a tip. The carton held fifteen kilos of horse!
“Gambetta and Vignale were arrested this evening around seven o’clock by New York narco squad police,” he continued.
“They’d been tipped off by telephone. They picked those two up in Gambetta’s car in mid town Manhattan and found twenty-two kilos of heroin packed into the spare tire compartment in the trunk.”
I said nothing while Denver went on with his recital.
“About ten o’clock tonight, the Feds walked in on Maxie Klein’s hotel penthouse apartment in Miami Beach. Klein and his partner, Webber, had just finished eating dinner. The agents found fifteen kilos of horse in the compartment of the dining table, which the waiter had brought up with dinner less than an hour before.”
Denver paused, waiting for me to say something.
“It’s pretty obvious that they’ve been set up,” I mused.
“Sure,” Denver agreed. “Not only were the Feds and the local police tipped off, but so were the newspapers. We had one of our news bureau reporters at every one of these pick-ups. The story will be a page-one lead in every paper in the country tomorrow. It’s already on the air.”
“Will the arrests stick?
“I think so,” said Denver after a moment’s thought. “They’re all screaming frame-up, but the Feds and the local cops “have been waiting a long time to nail these guys. Yes, I think they’ll make it stick.”
I did some mental arithmetic. “That’s a total of one hundred and two kilos of heroin,” I said, “if you include what they picked up from Michaud Berthier, and Duprè two days ago.”
“Right on the nose,” said Denver. “With the stuff having a street value of between two hundred and two hundred twenty thousand dollars a kilo, it adds up to well over twenty-one million dollars. Hell, even at Stocelli’s cost of ten to twelve thousand a kilo when he imports it from Marseille, that’s more than a million one hundred thousand dollars, and that’s a lot of scratch!”
“Someone got hurt,” I commente
d
“Want to hear the rest of it?”
“Go ahead.”
“Did you know that Stocelli was in Montreal yesterday?”
“Yes. I talked to him there.”
“Did you know that he met with Raymond Duttoit while he was there?”
“No.” But with the information Denver had just given me, I didn’t find that too surprising.
“Or that the day before he met with Duttoit, Stocelli was in Miami Beach meeting with Maxie Klein and Solly Webber?”
“No.”
“Or that the week after he came back from France, he met with both Torregrossa in Westchester and with Vignale and Gambetta in Brooklyn?”
“How the hell do you know all this about Stocelli?”
I asked.
“Gregorius had us put a tail on Stocelli about three weeks ago,” Denver explained. “We’ve had two-and three-man teams tailing him twenty-four hours a day since then.” He chuckled. “I can tell you how many times a day he went to the john and how many pieces of paper he used.”
“Quit bragging,” I told him. “I know how good the information service is.”
“All right,” said Denver. “Now, here’s one I’ve been saving for you. Just before he was picked up by the Feds, Maxie Klein talked to Hugo Donati in Cleveland. Maxie asked the Commission to put out a contract on Stocelli. He was told it was already in the works.”
“Why?”
“Because Maxie was worried that Stocelli had framed Michaud, Berthier, and Duprè. He heard about Torregrossa, Vignale and Gambetta on the radio. He figured that Stocelli had set them up and that he was next.”
With good-humored sarcasm I said, “I suppose Maxie Klein called and told you personally what he’d said to Donati?”
“Just about,” said Denver with a laugh. “Ever since Maxie met with Stocelli, we’ve been tapping his phones.”
“Maxie’s not stupid enough to use the telephones in his hotel suite for a call like that,” I pointed out. “He’d have used .an outside paybooth.”
“He did,” said Denver, “but he’s careless enough to use the same paybooth more than once. We put taps on half a dozen booths that we found him using steadily in the last couple of days. It paid off tonight.”