"No, Inspector, as I told you, I drove straight here. What do you suggest?"
"Let her keep her eyes open, and act normally. If she does spot some clown trying to follow, let her use the phone, and dial this number," handing Joe a small printed card, "and we will drop on him from a very great height. Same applies to you; if you spot this clown, make the call on your mobile phone, and act perfectly normally; because that is the secret; if they don't know you made him, we can find all kinds of delicious things about them without them even suspecting. If you can furnish me with the details of your cars, your address, the places where you would normally travel during the week, your wife's workplace; I shall see if we can find out why you have attracted the attentions of low grade life. Don't worry, Mr. Kozcinski, my buddies are professional, and we definitely do not like our taxpayers being tailed, or even annoyed."
After his visitor had left, Pat Costello resumed his tilted position, and gazed at the ceiling for maybe a full minute before he picked up the phone, dialled out and waited, tapping the desk until the call was answered, "City Central, Murphy here, how can I help?"
"Johnno, how would you like to clear that favour which has been outstanding now for three years?"
"Costello. Why did you have to phone, and ruin what was a perfectly good day! And anyhow, you have been trading on that one favour, with me, for ages."
"John Murphy, how soon does a favour fade in the eyes of the unkind, and the unwise?" Patrick Costello sat back, and listened with a connoisseurs' ear to the tirade which came from the mouth of his colleague, John Xavier Murphy. The narcotics Inspector had organised a sweep of a club, and one of the catches had caught his eye, simply by being both youthfully vulnerable and beautiful. She just did not fit in to the usual smart, gum-chewing hard cases which were trawled in every day, but she had been picked up on suspicion. Costello asked a few discreet questions, the desk sergeant spilt a bottle of ink over a whole page of the Booking Blotter, and a shaken and wide-eyed daughter was restored to the home of a speechless Homicide detective.
The insults finally wound down, and a grinining Costello simply said, "Now that you have got that off your chest, I'd like to lay a small job on you, as one of our more prominent taxpayers might have a few problems, and I think we should help!"
Murphy simply raised his eyes to the sky, and took notes on the latest problem to be slung at his branch, then asked, "what sort of timescale we got here, Patrick?"
"Well, I don't somehow think our Mr. Kozcinski is imagining things, and if we can let things run for maybe a week, we may trawl something from the dirt; but not much longer than that. Do a swing around his head office now and again, unmarked cars again, and to and from his home. Anything comes near the surface, lets give it a swing, and see who we pick up, O.K.? I am gonna get the local precinct to swing their patrols around more often, and give them a little confidence. I gave Mr. and Mrs. our mobile contact number, and we shall see!"
Chapter 8
In an office in downtown Detroit, a phone jangled, the receiver was lifted, a voice rattled through the receiver, "I think he made me! Kozcinski was driving along as usual, and suddenly he sliced straight off the parkway, and down the underpass. I couldn't follow him, it was impossible, with the traffic. What do you want I should do, boss?"
The occupant of the office, a big, square set man, with a pair of eyes which made many people uneasy when they made contact, sat back and considered his answer; "First things first, dump the car. Take the plates, they're the only thing of value, because they are runners, and take the radio receivers. Get up to Johnny's Car Fayre, that's F-a-y-r-e, and there will be a new set of wheels waiting. But you should now count on changing wheels every day, mainly because he'll be looking. We have to keep tabs on him, but we gotta be careful. If you are picked up, just ask for your phonecall, and leave the rest to us. O.K.?" Upon hearing an assent, the contact man sat back, then dialled out on the phone again, waited for the distant receiver to ring three times, then broke the line, dialling out again after a minute, but this time waiting for the phone to be picked up.
The phone called by the big contact man rested on a burr rosewood desk, the matching patterns of the rare wood being the reason why its cost had been so astronomical. A hand traced the patterns of the burr, before touching the 'accept' key, which switched the call on to a loudspeaker.
"Carl here."
The hand, tapered and slender, belonged to a slim handsome woman, dressed with subdued elegance in cream silk, who called, "We have a problem, Carl?"
The contact man, Carl, replied, "Joe Kozcinski has spotted our tail. He swung off the parkway, and lost our man. I recommend that we discontinue surveillance from tomorrow, mainly because nothing has come from it. No-one has any idea what has been done, and the run-down by the agency from New York showed up no problems, as we knew it would. The target date is only four weeks away, and I suggest we just keep our heads down, until you are ready to move. Concur?"
"Give me a minute, Carl," asked the woman, reaching over to a computer terminal, and calling in a file, which showed a listing for the shares in Continental, and buying of the shares over a two month period. "We have a bought a total of ten percent, and we really need seventeen, on top of the twelve percent we already control. The second phase of the advertising campaign will draw the price down further. There are six hundred different nominee buyers; from your own knowledge of the market, with the downward trend of Continental, if I give the order to start buying, what sort of reaction would you expect?"
"Jeez, boss, please don't do anything like that. If we give the signal now, with a total of seven percent left, that means a purchase sum, on a lump of eleven million shares, of plus-minus seventy-one million. If we let the shares slide down, with the negative trend we have built, we can save a layout of maybe twenty mill. If we start buying on a charge basis, the shares might just recover, and we will lose our chance!"
The woman gazed over the desk, at a man whose face had remained immobile during her phone conversation. She raised one curved eyebrow, asking, "Lazarus, what say you?"
The man named Lazarus, who posessed a figure which still retained the broad shoulders of his youth, but had lost the use of his lower body due to the inconvenient action of an Mossad agent, who had managed to fire one last aimed shot before being mown down by machine pistol fire, sat immobile in a wheelchair, cupped his chin in the palm of one hand, as he considered his reply. "We need to continue mobile surveillance on Kozcinski, mainly because it is the only time he is not wired. We need to follow because the pick-ups that are fitted to his car only have a limited range, and need to be followed fairly closely in order to catch everything in his journeys; mainly because the mobile phone he uses is untappable. We have intercepts on his office telephones, at the exchange naturally, and direct mikes in his office, wired back into the phone, so as not to be detected. Same at his house, and that office which his wife, Alex, runs. As he has been deputed by Cavalieri to try and find what is happening to the sales of the new lines, he is the one person that we need to listen to, in order to establish if there are any problems, right up to the moment we make our final move against Continental." The man named Lazarus leant forward, and spoke both to the woman, and Carl in Detroit; "Let our friend continue his surveillance, but if he gets picked up, as well he might if Kozcinski has gone to the police, we will have to, well, terminate his contract. Agree, Elspeth?"
"Carl, as you get your orders from me, just continue with the watch, I'll talk to you later, O.K.?" called the woman, then pressed the cut-off key on the phone. She glanced over at her companion, still immobile in his wheelchair, her face pale, asking, "We are in danger of coming unglued! The syndicate went ahead on the clear understanding that if there was the slightest sign of our negotiations and share purchase being made public before we were ready, we should immediately close down the operation, but now you are starting to talk about killing people. Hell, Lazarus, it is only a business we are trying to control, nothing is wo
rth anyone's death!"
"That is where you are wrong, Elspeth! We have invested millions in an effort to achieve control; and the fate of one fool who cannot do his job correctly, without being tagged as a follower, is irrelevant to our strategy. You cannot have been unaware that we would have to eliminate any weak link in the chain, there is simply too much at stake not to take every step to ensure that we are undiscovered. I am aware that you have displayed this so-called human weakness before, and I am disappointed that you feel unable to go along with the majority view in this area!"
"Don't threaten me, you old fool,"snarled the woman, all veneer of civilisation eliminated from her face, as she shot to her feet, "remember that you are in this city, and this country, because I made it so, and your stay can also be terminated very speedily; only the termination would be carried out at the behest of the Israeli Government!" She hit a call button, the door opened as if on a motor, and a man appeared who simply asked, "Your wish, Madame Elspeth?"
"My guest, Mr. Lazarus, is leaving. Please escort him to the front, and alert his chauffeur. Goodbye, Lazarus; I shall call you when I have further news!" The old man levelled a pair of deep set eyes at his hostess, smiled quietly, and rolled his chair forweard, without speaking. He nodded at the manservant as he passed, but did not otherwise acknowledge the woman who sat back in her chair behind the desk, tapping the desk top with a silver pencil.
The lift door closed behind him, as the manservant pressed the operate control, the few seconds travel ended, and the wheelchair rolled forward once more, out through the open door, and stopped beside a large limousine parked a few yards down the drive. The door opened, but instead of having to struggle through the door, and have someone arrange his useless limbs around him, a second door opened, a hydraulic platform slid out and down to ground level, the wheelchair was manoeuvred on, the platform lifted and slid back into the body of the limousine, thus embarking the crippled passenger with minimum fuss and inconvenience. The chauffeur closed the door, slid behind the wheel, and the elegant automobile coasted gently down the drive, and out on the road back to New York. The old mans' hand reached out, tapped out a number on a communication system panel which would have done credit to an F-16 jet fighter. The answering voice, which belonged to Carl, the Detroit based contact man, simply asked, "Who called?"
"Lazarus here, Carl!"
"You have changes in my instructions, sir?"
"Yes, Carl. That small conversation with Madame Elspeth, and especially her comments at the end; they are to be disregarded. If this fool gets himself picked up, he is to be killed, immediately! We cannot afford loose cannons wandering around the stage so near to completion, understood?"
"Totally, Sir! What am I to say to Madame if she calls or enquires again on this subject?"
"Ahhh, Madame Elspeth, yes, she may call, but just tell her that you are following her instructions to the letter. Don't let her bother her little feminine head on matters which do not concern her; she has a small tendency to worry, and we can't have that, can we, Carl?" The laughter which echoed down the miles between the limousine and the Detroit office had a sere, hard, unforgiving edge to it, but it reflected the philosophy which both men had adhered to for ever. The connection was broken, and the old man sat back to plan his next move in the most expensive chess game in modern history.
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He would perhaps have planned a different move if he had known of the existence of Claudia Crickell. Claudia was twenty two years old, black and beautiful, she lived in a smart apartment in Queens, New York, drove a little Volkswagen, and earned a steady, unglamorous salary as a freelance statistician. Claudia might have ended up, as so many of her sisters in skin colour had unfortunately done, in the never ending grind of drugs, illegitimate children and welfare which seemed to be the lot of many of the black population of New York. She had, however, a secret weapon. The weapon's name was Eudora Crickell, mother to Claudia, Henry, Thomas and Estelle. Eudora, widowed at twenty five, had raised all four children in the fear of the Lord, and in the knowledge that no one gave a damn for any 'nigger', so they would have to fend for themselves. She had put youthful gangsters to flight, with a vicious tongue, and an illegal 0.38 calibre revolver, she had sent embryo drug pushers fleeing for their very lives, solid in her knowledge that the way of the Lord did not include heroin, cocaine or armed robbery. Her children had all completed school, and they had not been touched by any of the many who sought to influence the vulnerable, because she had shoved a gun barrel up the nostril of one of the school gang members, and threatened to send him, and any other, to the great patch in the sky, if they so much as blinked at her kids. The local precinct had sat and watched as she had cleaned up her own little neighbourhood, and solemnly wished they had the same freedom of action as Eudora. She drummed into her children that the only way out of the slums, was with a good education, and the will to work and win, and all had exceeded their mother's expectations.
Claudia, after parking her car in the space allocated, walked into the offices of Dawson, French and Peabody, who were listed among the tops in their field, which was sampling, public awareness and verification; in short, pollsters. The company was run by two extremely clever political science majors, who had teamed up with a mathematician and computer freak, combining their talents to produce an alarmingly accurate polling and sampling technique, based on selectivity, and 'pressure' words. They were widely used in the political sphere, but made their bread and greens on day-to-day polling for many and varied causes. Claudia, one of five freelancers used on a regular basis by the group, sat down, grinned at Emily Sweichek, her supervisor, and asked, "What you got, Emily? Please don't let it be another run on soap powders, because I surely detest the very thought of fifteen hundred responses to questions on washing powders, and who likes what."
"We got a little variety in this office, Claudia, so I can say we are being fair in distribution; I got a run on who likes what in cat food, or an car awareness listing for an ad agency. Harry got here about ten minutes before you, so he picked up that survey for the Democrats. Sorry, honey; I know you wanted that one, but it is first one out of the barrel!"
"Damn, Harry always gets the political plums. Hey, Harry; you wanna swop?", calling over to her fellow worker.
Harry, unfortunately, replied, "Iffen you were to offer your body, I would not give up the Democrats, Claudia! Sorry, honey, if you want the cream, you got to get in earlier than me!"
The black girl swung back to Emily, but the older woman shook her head, "Sorry, honey. Cats or Cars; which is it gonna be?"
"Hell, I'll take the cars, at least there is something varied in auto surveys; the consumers in cat food never say anything." So remarking, she picked up the thick wedge of files and responses which sat in a box folder marked 'Continental' walked over to her corner cubicle, kicked on her computer, and started paging through the sheets with which she had been tasked. Fortunately, all the sheets had the multiple answers bar-coded for ease of input, so she was able to swipe the wand over most of the given answers without the boring bit of keying in the answers; having only to key in, without really reading what she was looking at, the few written extra answers. Claudia set up her database, a task which took most of the morning, and then proceeded to transfer all the data into the system. As the figures were transformed into barchart statistics, however, Claudia, who had read the preamble to the file, which identified the survey as a follow-up to the awareness campaign for tthe new Stiletto and Sabre range, realised that the answers, which had not been studied as a whole, by anyone other than her, were dynamite in the making. She re-checked her data, and even went so far as to go into the system to ensure that the wand had been reading correctly. All the inputs having checked out, and also having remembered that the Dawson, French wrap-up listings were still available, she spoke to Emily, got the file listing number from the ledger, and retrieved the discs from the safe.
She set the discs into the drive, opened up t
he database, and set in the old answers, then compared the two sets of responses. She gazed at the results, which showed a deep distrust of the Continental models, with an acceptance and recognition rating dropping from sixty-nine percent, to thirty-two. Never having seen anything like this before, even in the text books, she realised that something very unusual was up, when, after she had weighted the poll for a country-wide survey, and cranking in the known variables, Claudia established that the Continental offering was being trashed, in the minds of the consumers of America, all over the country.
The Dawson, French operation allowed for the operator who had completed the work on a customer request to present that same file to the owner; so Claudia made the standard call for an appointment to see Allison Klein of Morson, Zeno, and expected to get the usual week delay before completion of task. She was therefore surprised to be asked, as the time was then five-thirty, if she could come down to the Madison offices straight away, to discuss her findings. "You got a spare parking space for little old me?" asked Claudia, who definitely did not wish to use the dangerous and drug-ridden I.R.T. to get her to the agency offices, but also did not wish to leave her little Beetle to the various problems which existed on the streets of New York. On being told there was a parking slot reserved for her, she agreed to the trip, hit the laser printer controls, and output the whole of the problem onto ten sheets of copy paper. Slotting the discs and files into her case and calling "Bye," to her fellow workers, Claudia left the polling company offices, walked around the corner to the lock-up site, redeemed her car, and set off for the pot-hole ridden journey through to Madison Avenue.
Continental Attack: Murder and Mayhem in Detroit's Auto Industry Page 7