Babe went over and bent down. The Sicilian stood on tiptoe to reach her ear. He was urgently pointing toward Heller. I could not hear what he was whispering. She shook her head, negatively, a bit puzzled. Then he whispered and seemed triumphant.
The woman's eyes shot open. She stood up. She turned and stamped across the room to Heller. She seized him!
Then she pushed him off, holding him by the shoulders. She stared at him as though memorizing his face. Then she whirled. In a voice that could have knocked the walls down, she said, "Where the hell is that Geovani?"
Geovani was right there. The hood that had brought Heller up in the elevator.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me this was that kid?" she thundered.
There were other faces in the door. Scared!
"Here I been treating him like dirt!" She turned. She pushed Heller down into an easy chair. "Why," she
pleaded, "didn't you tell me you were the one that saved our Gracious Palms?"
I could hear Heller swallow. "I... I didn't know it was yours."
"Hell, yes, kid! We own and control the fanciest cat houses in New York and New Jersey! Who else?"
Gregorio, glasses shaking, belatedly walked in with the milk and seltzer.
"To hell with that," said Babe. "This kid wants beer, he can have beer! To hell with the illegality!"
"No, no," said Heller. "I've really got to be going." He thought for a moment. "You can tell me where to find Bang-Bang Rimbombo. I think I've got car trouble."
So that was why he had walked in on the Corleone mob!
Suddenly, it all added up. He had read of Bang-Bang in the papers, knew he was part of the Corleone mob. He had Babe's address from Jimmy "The Gutter" Tavilnasty. To find himself an expert car bomber, he had simply gone to Babe's. Very, very smart detective work at locating somebody.
But wait! He had shown himself at that garage! They would be waiting for him when he came back there. Very, very dumb!
Heller was going to drive me crazy yet! He was too brightly stupid to live!
Babe turned to the people inside the door. They were whispering to each other and pointing at Heller and trying to get a better look at him. "Geovani, get out the limo and run this young gentleman over to Bang-Bang's. Tell him I said to do what the kid wants."
She turned back to Heller. "Look, kid, anything you want, you let Babe know, see?" She turned to the staff. "You hear that? And you, Consalvo, I want a word with
you." She was pointing at the one who had identified Heller.
I suddenly remembered who the Sicilian with the money sack was. He was the clerk at the Gracious Palms! Trying to keep up with Heller was exhausting me, spoiling my recall for faces even.
Heller took his leave. Babe bent down and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. "Come back any time, you dear boy. You dear, dear boy!"
Chapter 7
Heller sat in the front seat of the limousine with the hood, Geovani, driving.
"You really wasted them punks just like that!" said Geovani in a voice of awe. "Did you know one of them was Faustino's nephew?" He drove for a while and then, taking his hand off the steering wheel, he made a gun out of his fingers and, pointing at the road, made the motions of firing and said, "Blowie! Blowie! Blowie! Just like that! Wow!"
They drew up in front of a down-at-the-heels apartment house. Geovani led Heller up to the second floor and knocked on a door, a code signal. A girl's face came out through the door crack. "Oh, it's you." She opened it wider. "For you, Bang-Bang."
Bang-Bang Rimbombo was in bed with another girl.
"Come on," said Geovani.
"Hell, I just got sprung!" protested Bang-Bang. "I ain't had any for six months!"
"Babe says you go."
Bang-Bang was out of bed in a flash. He struggled into his clothes.
"Car job," said Geovani. "This kid will show you."
"I'll get my things," said Bang-Bang.
Geovani used the phone and called a cab. Waiting, he covered the phone. "We never use the limo for wet jobs," he said apologetically. "And we control the cab companies. They don't talk."
Shortly, Geovani shook Heller's hand and left. Halfway down the hall he turned and made a pistol out of his fingers again. "Blowie! Blowie! Blowie!" he said. "Just like that!" He was gone.
The cab arrived and Bang-Bang, dragging a big bag, got in. Heller followed him. Heller gave an address a block away from the garage.
He was learning, but he was not really up on this tradecraft. They would be alerted. I knew he was going into a battle. And I didn't have that platen. Short of sleep, haggard, I hung on the viewscreen. He had my life in his hands!
Heller paid the cab off and walked around the corner toward the garage.
"Wait," said Bang-Bang. He was a very narrow-faced little Sicilian. He looked pretty smart. Maybe he had sense enough, I hoped, to keep them out of trouble. "If that's the place," he said, "I know it. It's a garage Faustino uses to repaint stolen cars and other things. You sure you know what you're doing, kid?" He shook his head. "Sneaking in there to rig a car for a blitz is a little bit steep."
"It's my car and I want you to unrig it," said Heller.
"Oh, that's different," said Bang-Bang. He hefted his heavy shoulder bag and approached the garage.
The door was locked on the outside with a big padlock. Heller put his ear to the wall and listened. Then
he shook his head. He went around the building and checked the back door. It, too, was locked with a padlock. He returned to the front. He stood back and saw that there was a window beside the front door, about six feet from ground level.
He took out a tiny tool, inserted it in the padlock, fished it, and almost at once had it open.
Heller was moving very fast, very efficiently. It was so much in contrast with his sloppy disregard for routine espionage that I had forgotten for some time what he actually was. I was looking at a combat engineer. Getting into an enemy fort was something they did with a yawn. He was in the field of his own tradecraft!
He opened the entry port of the front door, swished his hand around to make sure, probably, there were no trip wires and then stepped inside, placing his feet to avoid where feet would normally step—probably to avoid mines.
He got a box and put it under the window, stood on it and undid the latch.
He returned to the door, beckoned to Bang-Bang to enter. Then Heller went outside. He carefully relocked the padlock, just as it had been.
Heller went to the outside of the window, lifted it and entered the building. He closed the window carefully. Now, to all intents and purposes, anyone approaching from the outside would have no sign that anyone was inside. Clever. I would have to remember how to do that.
The whole interior was stacked with islands of cartons, leaving only aisles and room to drive a car down the center. And it was these cartons which were getting Bang-Bang's attention.
"Well, I'll be a son of a (bleepch)," said Bang-Bang. "Will you look at this!" He had pried a carton open and was holding a bottle. "Johnnie Walker Gold Label!
Look, kid. I heard of it but I never seen any." In the dimness he must have seen that Heller wasn't tracking. "Y'see, there's red label and there's black label and you can get that easy. But gold label, they keep only for Scotland or sometimes export it to Hong Kong. It's worth forty bucks a bottle!"
He looked at the cap. "No revenue seals! Smuggled!" He got the cap off adroitly to hide signs of opening. He touched his tongue to the top and tilted it.
Heller's hand tilted the bottle back, vertical.
"No, no," said Bang-Bang. "I never drink on duty." He rolled the drop around on his tongue. "It ain't fake! Smooth!" He put the top back on and restored it to the carton. Then he began to make an estimate of the number of cases, walking about. The islands were piled nearly to the ceiling and the garage/warehouse was big.
"Jesus!" said Bang-Bang, "there's close to two thousand cases in here. That's..." he was trying
to add it up. "Twelve to the case and forty dollars..."
"Million dollars," said Heller.
"A million dollars," said Bang-Bang, abstractedly. He went deeper into the building. "Hey! Look at this." He had his hand on some differently shaped cases. He expertly pried up a lid with a knife and hauled out a small box. "Miniature wrist recorders from Taiwan! Must be..." he was counting, "... five thousand of them here. Two hundred dollars apiece wholesale..."
"A million dollars," said Heller.
"A million dollars," said Bang-Bang. Then he planted his feet and glared down the widest aisle. "Well, God (bleep) me! You know what that son of a (bleepch) Faustino is trying to do? He's trying to cut in on our smuggling! The (bleepard)! He's trying to muscle in on us! He's going to flood the market and drive us out of
business! God (bleep)! Oh, when Babe hears about this, she is going to be livid!"
He stood and thought. "It's that crook Oozopopolis!"
"Can we get on with this car?" said Heller.
Bang-Bang was promptly all business. "Don't touch it!"
The Cadillac was sitting apparently where Heller had parked it. The license plates had been removed. The light was very bad there.
Bang-Bang got out a torch. Keeping his hands off the car, he gingerly slid under it. He was looking at the springs. "They sometimes put it under the leaves so when the car tilts, off it goes. Nope. Now for the ... oh, for Christ's sakes!"
Heller was kneeling down watching Bang-Bang under the car. Bang-Bang seemed to be working on the inside of a wheel. His hand emerged and he tossed something to Heller who caught it. A stick of dynamite!
Bang-Bang was working on another wheel. He tossed up another stick of dynamite. Heller caught it. Bang-Bang, scrambling around, shortly tossed a third and then a fourth stick to Heller. After playing his light around further underneath, Bang-Bang emerged.
"Cut-rate job," said Bang-Bang. "There was a stick taped vertically to the inside of each wheel. Dynamite of this type is just sawdust and soup. The soup is usually spread all through the sawdust and is safe to handle unless concentrated."
"Soup?" asked Heller.
"Nitroglycerine," said Bang-Bang. "It explodes when you jar it. This car was rigged to blow up miles from here! As the wheels spun, the centrifugal force would make the soup move from the stick as a whole and concentrate at just one end. Then an extra bump on
the road and BOOM! Cut-rate. They saved the expense of detonators! Cheap-o!" he added with scorn.
"But maybe these were placed just to be found," said Heller, "and the real charge is still in there somewhere."
"So these could have been decoys and the real charge is still in there somewhere," said Bang-Bang.
He passed a very thin blade down through the window slit to make sure there was no trip wire and then opened the door. He looked under the panel. Nothing. He opened the hood. He looked back of the motor.
"Aha!" said Bang-Bang. "A cable job!" In a gingerly fashion he slid a matchbook cover between two contact points. Then he snipped some wires. Shortly he fished up a revolution counter.
"A second odometer!" he said. "The speedometer cable was taken off the back and put to this thing." He was spinning its wheels. It suddenly went click. He read the numbers. "Five miles! It was set to go five miles from here." He peered back down behind the motor. "Jesus! Ten pounds of gelignite! Wow, did they blow dough on setting this up! Somebody is big bucks mad at you, kid! That's enough to blow up ten——"
"Shh!" said Heller.
A car was coming!
Hurriedly, Bang-Bang closed the hood and door. Heller dragged him to a point about fifteen feet from the main entrance and back between two stacks of boxes.
The car stopped.
Bang-Bang whispered, "You got a gun?"
Heller shook his head.
"Me neither! It's illegal to carry a gun on parole." He shifted his heavy sack of explosives. "I don't dare throw a bomb in all this whisky. We'd go up like a torch!"
"Shh!" said Heller.
A car door closed. "I'll put the car around back," somebody said.
Silence.
A car door slammed in the back of the building. Footsteps going around. Then, in front, "The door's still locked back there."
"I told you," said a new voice. "There ain't nobody here."
A rattle of keys. "You just got the jumps, Chumpy. He's probably still running."
"Anybody could have come in the time it took you!" It was the plump young man. He backed in. The door opened inward more widely.
Two men in expensive-looking clothes followed him through. "We came as fast as we could. Jesus, you don't get from Queens to here in five minutes. Not in this traffic! See, there's nobody here! Waste of time."
"He'll be back!" said Chumpy. "He's a mean (bleepard)! If you don't do nothing, I'm going to call Faustino!"
The other man said, "Look, Dum-Dum, it won't do any harm to wait around for a while. Jesus, after all that drive. Tell you what. Leave the door unlocked and a tiny bit ajar, kind of inviting, and then we'll go over and sit down behind those boxes opposite and wait. Jesus, I got to catch my breath. All those God (bleeped) trucks!"
He left the door ajar. Chumpy, getting out a burp gun, went over and sat down on the floor back of an island of boxes, in profile and in full view of Heller. I went cold. Then I realized Heller was looking through a slit between two cartons.
The other two disappeared behind the island opposite the door.
"Don't shoot toward that old car in the back!" said Chumpy. "It's a walking boom factory!"
"Shut up, Chumpy," said one of the men. "We'll give it an hour. So you just shut up."
Heller looked down and slipped out of his shoes. He moved sideways until he could see the door. It was very dark right near it, the effect heightened by the slit of light coming through the ajar door.
He was fishing in his satchel. He got out the fish line. He got out the multihooked bass plug. He tied the line to the eye of the plug.
My hair felt like it was going to leave my head! This (bleeping) fool was going to try something! Bullets flying into that whisky or near that car would turn the place into an inferno! All he had to do was wait for an hour and they'd leave! The idiot!
He was coiling the fish line in big, loose loops around his left hand. He took the end he had fastened the bass plug to. He began to swing the plug back and forth.
With a toss he sent the plug sailing through the dimness toward the door! At an exact instant, he tugged it back.
There was a tiny thunk.
There was a rustle from behind the island of boxes where the men were hidden.
Heller slowly began to take in the slack. The line was nearly invisible. I could not make it out.
He shifted the sack on his shoulder and opened it. He shifted the line to his left hand.
He yanked the line!
The door came open with a crash!
There was a sizzling sound and a thud!
Heller had heaved a baseball at Chumpy!
Through the slit, I could see Chumpy fold up, motionless.
Silence.
Minutes.
"(Bleep)," said one of the men. "It was just the wind."
"Go close it!" said the other.
Through a slit, Heller was watching. A man, gun in hand, crossed the open place toward the door.
There was a sizzle and crack!
Heller had thrown another baseball!
The man jarred sideways. He fell and lay still.
"What the hell?..."
Heller threw again. The baseball hit the far wall and rebounded. He was throwing at the sound! With a bank shot!
Heller threw again!
There was a scramble. The man raced out the rear opening in the island and raced toward the back door! Stupid. It was locked!
The man raised his gun to blow off the lock.
Heller threw!
The man was hurled against the door. He slumped.
Heller casually walked to the front door and closed it.
Bang-Bang, more practical, raced to the last man and grabbed the gun. Then he raced from one to the other. He came back to Heller. "Jesus Christ! Their skulls is smashed in. They're dead!"
"Get the rest of the explosives out of that Cadillac," said Heller. "We got to get to work now."
Chapter 8
Heller fished the car keys out of a dead man's pocket, opened the full building door wide open, found the
hood's car in the back. It was an old Buick sedan.
He drove it in and closed the full doors again. Then he inched it down the narrow aisle between the islands of cartons and brought it to a halt beside the Cadillac.
Bang-Bang was just finishing. He was sniffing at the oil dipstick. "No additives in the crankcase." He put the dipstick back. "There was no sugar in the gas—no other tricks. And there's the gelignite." He pointed to where it was perched on a window ledge rather precariously.
He went into the Cadillac rear interior, probing the seats. Then he said, "Oh, look! Draw curtains!" He promptly pulled them all down.
Bang-Bang went to a pile of cartons, got one and lugged it to the Cadillac and put it in the back. Then he went and got another one. As he worked, he began to sing softly:
There once was a con who was awful, awful dry.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues. He tried from the guard a little drink to buy.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues. He tried from the warden saying thirst will make me cry.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues. He even wrote the governor his thirst to satisfy.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues. He even begged the president, I will not tell a lie.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues.
But none of them would tell him how he could qualify.
Sing, sing them Sing Sing blues.
He sang on and on. He was absolutely jamming the back of the Cadillac with whisky cases. Then he got Heller to open the trunk and he piled it full of boxes of miniature wrist recorders. He went back and looked into the rear seat area of the Cadillac again. He juggled it around
so there would be more room. He went and got two more whisky cartons.
So he prays each night unto the Lord his thirst to gratify.
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