It was a week before Brennan returned to the Caymans. They assembled at the bungalow again, to avoid the automatically triggered listening devices. Brennan gestured with the papers quashing Howard’s convictions, but before Farr would outline the idea that he’d discussed and perfected with the increasingly frightened and distracted Harriet, Farr insisted upon reading them, to ensure they guaranteed what he asked.
“Fine,” he said.
Brennan held out his hand, overly dramatic, for their return and said, “Well?”
Farr told them. It didn’t take long because it was very simple, but before he finished Brennan was smiling, to Seymour and to the other FBI personnel. When Farr stopped talking, Brennan said, “It could work! By Christ, it could work! OK, we all know the entrapment argument. But accepting the risk of entrapment it could achieve everything that son of a bitch Harrop wants!”
“I think we should go for it!” said Seymour.
“We’re going to,” decided Brennan at once. “We’re definitely going to.”
Farr adopted the role of host and indulged himself, settling upon the Union Club. He arrived first to ensure that the table was sufficiently isolated and discreet, by one of the corner windows overlooking Fifth Avenue. Lang was prompt, surveying the table with the same care as Farr had earlier, and predictably declining an aperitif.
“Our relationship is working out remarkably satisfactorily,” opened Farr, after they’d ordered.
“I think so, too,” agreed the lawyer. “Remarkably satisfactorily.”
“What about your …” Farr hesitated, appearing to change his mind over the actual naming. “Clients?” he finished.
“I know them to be very pleased,” said Lang. “There’ll be a further one hundred million dollars soon now—under a month, I would say.”
“Since my establishment in the Caymans, I’ve developed a number of other clients,” said Farr. With other people, he would have delayed reaching the point of the meeting but with this lackluster, business-only man there seemed no purpose in procrastination.
Lang looked up expectantly, not speaking.
“There are three, particularly,” continued the broker. “Seeking similar investment outlets as your two clients. With matching discretion …” Farr allowed the pause. “People whom I believe to be following a similar course of business …”
As Farr expected, Lang glanced quickly around the paneled room and then said, “I’m not sure about the propriety of this conversation. I certainly hope you haven’t involved the names of myself or my clients in any discussions with these people!”
Farr shook his head, smiling reassuringly. “I’ve had no discussion with them whatsoever involving you and your clients. What I have had is an approach from them for investment possibilities. Just like yours was initially. They have similar sums to ascribe. In fact, that is not strictly accurate. Their commitment is considerably greater. By about one hundred and fifty million dollars.”
The lawyer was still frowning. “I’m not sure why you are telling me this.”
“They are seeking a consortium, to expand even further than they have at the moment …” Farr hesitated, deciding it was going well. “At the moment, their portfolios amount to something like seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Their approach to me has been to see if I can interest business partners in such a consortium. The necessity would have to be, you understand, for the partners to be in a particular line of business.”
Lang went back picking at his food, calmer now. “I appreciate that at this stage there is a limit to the amount of information you’ll be able to impart, but I wonder from exactly where in the world these clients of yours operate?”
Farr made as if to consider the question. Then he said, “They have considerable interests in the confluence of three Southeast Asian countries, Thailand, Burma and Laos. Also interests and outlets in Southwest Asia, mainly in Pakistan at its border with Afghanistan.”
“I see,” said Lang.
“I understand there might be interest in going beyond an investment consortium purely from the aspect of finance.”
“Trading terms, you mean?”
“Yes,” said Farr. “Mutual trading.”
“These clients, are they Asian?”
“One,” said Farr. “Two are European.”
“What do you propose?”
“Nothing.” Farr was purposely awkward. He’d conducted enough business negotiations to know when to stop trying to make a deal attractive and let the other side come to him. “The whole basis of our relationship is that of suggesting investment possibilities—which is what I’ve just done. I now look to you for a response: making the point, of course, that the potential return could far exceed anything we’ve so far considered.”
“I don’t think that’s a point worth making,” rebuked the lawyer. “I think I understand perfectly.”
“You’ll put it forward to your clients?”
“That’s what they retain me for,” said Lang blandly. “What they retain both of us for.”
From the moment of his first identification, Scarletti was put under the maximum surveillance considered safe, and Farr’s approach to the lawyer was recognized as something that might lead the FBI to the unknown Jorge Herrera Gomez, whom they were seeking. So that observation was tightened to an almost dangerous degree. It appeared to prove worthwhile.
Scarletti, like most Mafiosi, was a person of regular custom, a habitué of known and recognized establishments, usually bars and restaurants. The habit had its advantages and disadvantages. It meant that Scarletti was confident always of his surroundings; it also meant federal and local authorities knew always where to look for him. Which was another advantage for Scarletti because he knew they knew—which gave him the head start in the game of cat and mouse.
One of Scarletti’s favorites was an Italian restaurant on 39th Street and it was from here that he left on the day he was to meet Jorge Gomez, following Lang’s contact from New York. He traveled in an easily identifiable, dark-windowed limousine, which kept strictly to the speed limits and regulations, posing no difficulty for any of the tailing cars. The destination was soon obvious, so the surveillance teams radioed ahead their guess of the city airport. By the time the limousine pulled into the departure section, FBI men were already in place, with confirmation of the flight in Scarletti’s personal aircraft and its previously filed flight plan, to Toronto. There wasn’t time for any effective liaison with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and so the decision from Washington—from where the pursuit was being coordinated—was to ignore Canadian jurisdiction and pick up the arrival at the airport without any reference or permission from the authorities. With more than an hour’s advantage and district offices in New York, Buffalo and Cleveland, the FBI was able to flood Toronto with a team of twenty operatives, overcompensating with manpower in the absence of any sort of technological aids, even something as elementary as radio-controlled cars on secure frequencies.
The operation was efficiently mounted and would have been effective, had Scarletti maintained his flight plan. But, overflying Buffalo, the pilot requested landing permission, reporting an overheating oil-pressure gauge, and Scarletti was already on the ground and away before the FBI had the slightest idea what was happening: an engineer’s report even confirmed, later, that there had been a malfunction in the gauge, caused by a blocked valve.
They met in Buffalo itself, at Gepetto’s, because Scarletti genuinely preferred Italian food to any other. He arrived first and seated himself comfortably in a secluded booth, with his people buffering him front and back and occupying the immediately adjoining table in the alleyway. Gomez, who had flown by his customary circuitous route into Montreal and motored down, apologized for being late but blamed crossing difficulties at the border.
“Passport?” demanded the American.
“Congestion,” reassured Gomez.
“You’ve considered what Lang said?”
“Yes,” said Gomez, gua
rdedly. He was excited at the apparent offer but wanted the reaction to come from the other man.
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s interesting,” said Gomez evasively, wanting the questioning to shift. “What’s your reaction?”
“Good,” said Scarletti at once, less reserved. “We’ve already got an operation making us big, if not the biggest. If I understand this approach correctly, we’re being offered not simply a financial tie-up—which I’m not particularly interested in anyway—but a two-way trade: our cocaine for their heroin, from both the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent.”
Gomez smiled at the other man’s enthusiasm. “That’s the way I read it, too.”
“Which would be incredible!” said Scarletti, letting the emotion show. “Can you calculate the percentage if we got the complete handle on heroin, as well as cocaine! We’d put the Gambino and the Genovese and all the other New York families who imagine they control heroin importation into America out of business overnight …!” Scarletti stopped, his voice choked with the magnitude of what was being proposed. “We’d be so big we couldn’t even count it!”
“We don’t know a lot,” warned Gomez.
“That’s Lang’s job. He’s served us well, over a lot of time now. Maybe me more than you, because I knew him earlier. But he’s never been wrong. I’d respect his judgment.”
“Let him check it out, you mean?”
“Fully,” confirmed Scarletti. “If Lang’s satisfied, then I think we should take it further. See what they’ve got in mind, at least. It’s too good to pass up, without looking at it as much as we can. You with me?”
Gomez had been anxious to pursue the idea but he was unwilling to disclose his true feelings to the American, reluctant to appear overeager. “I’m with you,” he said. “Let’s have Lang check it out.”
On their way back north—ironically passing on Route 1-190 the disgruntled and disappointed FBI officers who were returning after being hurriedly summoned from Buffalo—Gomez said to Ramos, “I think we should do more than rely solely upon Lang.”
“Like what?” asked the scarfaced man.
“Why don’t you run a check on Farr? I know Lang did, already. But that’s all we’ve got: Lang’s findings. Let’s get everything Lang’s got; we pay him well enough, for Christ’s sake. Get what Lang discovered and go from there. I want the absolute guarantee from you.”
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Farr created a fiduciary account company—this time a shell—in the Caymans and then hid the directorships through Hong Kong, using the same system as he had for Scarletti and Gomez in Europe. Directors for the shell were FBI headquarters staff—senior division directors who had never worked in the field and who would therefore be unknown to Scarletti or Gomez and untraceable. From the delay in Lang’s response, they guessed he had been very thorough.
When that response came, Farr took Harriet with him to New York; while the meeting with Lang was the main reason for the trip, he wanted to show her the brownstone and he was anxious, too, that she meet Howard.
They went up the night before the meeting. Farr had been meticulous in his telephoned instructions to the housekeeper from the island and there were flowers in all the downstairs rooms and the place was aired and clean. He stood apprehensively just inside the hall, letting her precede him from room to room, wondering in the larger drawing room if he should have had the photographs of Ann removed and then deciding that it was right that he hadn’t. Harriet made the tour without speaking, returning with him to the big room, the one that overlooked 63rd.
“It’s—it’s—” groped the woman. “It’s absolutely fabulous!”
“You like it?”
“Like it! I love it!”
“It’s yours,” said Farr. “From now on, this is your home.”
Harriet clasped her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “I guessed it would be wonderful. But not like this …” She grinned at him. “You must be one of those rich guys I read about in the society columns.”
He smiled back, enjoying her pleasure, “I get by,” he said, joining in the game.
She reached down to a side table, picking up one of the portraits about which Farr had been uncertain. “This Ann?”
“About two years before she died.”
“She was very beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether it was a mistake.”
“Mistake?” she said, frowning.
“Whether I should have had the housekeeper take them away.”
“What on earth for!”
“I just didn’t know how you’d feel. About seeing her pictures here and coming to this house. This was never Ann’s house, you know. She died before I got this place.”
Harriet carefully replaced the photograph and came across to him, cupping his face in her hands. “Stop it!” she said. “I’m not jealous of Ann. I know you loved her, just like I loved Jack—more than I loved Jack, probably. I’m not going to avoid talking about him sometimes. And I certainly don’t expect you to start hiding her pictures, like you’re ashamed of them. Her photographs should stay where they are, always. And you should love her—always …” She stopped, straining up to kiss him. “Just love me, too. That’s all I ask.”
He kissed her back and said, turning her earlier lightness back upon her, “You must be one of those special ladies I read about in books but never meet in real life.”
They stood holding each other, content just to touch. She said quietly, “You know what I think?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we’re going to have the most wonderful life together,” she said. “And I think I’m going to enjoy like hell being Mrs. Walter Farr.”
The meeting was in Lang’s office on Pearl Street, among the mahogany and polish smells and sound-deadening carpets. Farr knew the lawyer wouldn’t have come back to him if Scarletti and Gomez weren’t interested, and he was sure of the attitude he should adopt.
“I’ve spoken to my clients,” said the lawyer.
“I’m glad,” said Farr.
“They consider it an interesting proposition.”
“I was certain they would.” He paused. “I’m not sure that I’m at liberty to disclose anything more, at this stage,” said Farr. “We both know how important discretion is, after all.”
Lang sighed, pressing his pink hands against the desk. “Mr. Farr,” he said, “I wonder if we aren’t both taking this discretion a little too far.”
Farr took it as an admission of the lawyer’s failure to find out anything about the dummy Caymans company; maybe the man hadn’t even located the company itself. He said, “I’ve always taken my lead from you.”
“I think we both know what the business is we’re talking about,” said Lang. “My clients think a tie-up with what comes out of Asia would make an ideal trading consortium …” The man smiled, a teeth-baring expression. “Certainly something from which we could both benefit, without any danger.”
Farr tried to match the other man’s smile, unsure if he succeeded. “That’s what I think, too.”
“So what’s involved?”
“It may be a problem,” admitted Farr. “My people are prepared for me to set up companies for them to invest in. But they won’t trust me with the sort of liaison we’re talking about. They’re frightened of being ripped off. They want to meet.”
“Meet!”
“Would your clients let you do all the fixing?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Lang. “Where could they meet? How?”
“I was told to explore the idea, with whomever I thought best to approach—which is why I came to you. To talk about it and then come back with a reaction. Details like an actual venue could be mutually decided. My people are flexible.”
“My clients could decide?”
“They could suggest,” qualified Farr. “We both know what we’re talking about. My people are as careful as yours.”
“Vung Thieu?” said La
ng, wanting to boast about his investigation, “John Miofori and Albert Tripodi?”
“Yes,” confirmed Farr.
“I haven’t been able to find out a lot about them,” admitted Lang. “Nothing, in fact.”
“Which is exactly the way they want it. Scarletti, certainly, is a known figure in this country. They’re not happy about that.”
“You told me you hadn’t discussed them by name!”
“Subsequent to our meeting,” escaped Farr, still easily. “They asked whom I had approached. I mentioned only the names: that of Scarletti got a bad reaction.”
“How bad?”
“I came here today because of our relationship in the past—courtesy, if you like. They’d prefer me to go elsewhere.”
It was a fleeting expression, hardly more than a register in Lang’s eyes, but Farr detected it: the fear of losing the commission that Lang had already calculated for himself from the linkup. The lawyer said, “Could you?”
“Yes,” said Farr. Got you, bastard.
“I see.”
“If Scarletti and Gomez don’t want to proceed, fine,” said Farr. “In fact, I’d rather they didn’t. I’m not at all sure that my people will go on, Tripodi especially.”
“I’ve told you they’re interested,” said Lang, just too quickly. “I’ll need to go back.”
“How soon?” demanded Farr, maintaining the pressure.
“Twenty-four hours.”
Farr allowed a doubtful look. “Twenty-four hours, then,” he agreed. “If you don’t come back to me in the time, then I’ll take it as a refusal. Which will be OK.” He smiled. “Like I’ve said, I think it might be better, from my point of view. And it wouldn’t affect anything between us in the future, of course.” Farr detected the lawyer’s envy at the thought that Farr would tie up and make a fortune with other people and that he wouldn’t be involved.
“Don’t do anything—make any other deals—until we’ve talked.”
“Twenty-four hours,” repeated Farr, happy with his control and manipulation. “That’s what we’ve agreed. I’ll do nothing for twenty-four hours.” Farr wasn’t sure but he thought he could see a sheen of perspiration on the lawyer’s pink face.
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