Assault on the Empress

by Jerry Ahern

  “Well, gee, thanks, Mr. Fleege. If you really think I should.”

  “Ohh, there’s no doubt about it. I could see you coming down with the same thing our other man got if you don’t watch yourself closely. There’s a lot of it going around. Especially in your area and here in Rome. No. The wise thing, believe me, is to get together with the guy from the home office, unload those extra samples and then—well. you’ve been doing so well—why not take a few days off? Just lose yourself in the countryside and relax, guard your health at the same time? Everybody here thinks it’s the best thing to do, Tom.”

  “Well, Mr. Fleege, if you really think so. Where should I meet this guy from the home office?”

  ‘We’re not sure when he’s coming in, so he’ll find you if you check in with our district warehouse on the coast.”

  “All right. Will he have my vacation check?”

  “He sure will. Bringing it from the home office with him. Hey, and Tom?”

  “Yes, Mr. Fleege?”

  “You have a good rest now. And don’t overdo things. Want you back ready for work.”

  “Okay. Did you make those arrangements about my place that I asked?” It was the best lateral way to ask about Appalonia; had she been told he was away on business, not just sleeping around?

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine there. Took care of the cat for you, Tom, just like you asked.”

  Cat; funny. “Well, give my best to everybody at the office then. And thanks for your help.”

  “You bet. Take care.” The line went dead. The warehouse on the coast was an emergency safe house just outside Naples. The guy from the home office could be anybody. But the check would be flight money, maybe a weapon and a quick setup on what the true picture was. And he—Alyard—was to give this guy the samples, meaning, of course, the thing he’d smuggled out of Albania. And there was KGB trouble, a lot of it going around. He shook his head, looked at his wristwatch. The chartered plane would have to take him to Naples now. And that was dangerous, because how many people matching his description would be chartering airplanes? The KGB could check on that very easily and follow him straight to Naples. But, apparently, getting rid of the ampule was the thing of vital importance now. And once he no longer had it, if the KGB were really hot on the trail, the heat would be transferred to somebody else’s shoulders.

  He left the telephone booth and started back for the charter office….

  It was just less than two hours since his conversation with his controller in Rome. He had taken a cab rather than sprinkling his name around at the small airfield outside of Naples by renting a car. Add to that, he was exhausted, having traveled nonstop since he had left Rome, catching no sleep at all except for about forty-five minutes on the plane which, after awakening, had actually made him feel worse. He had given the driver the address of one of the newer suburban hotels and left the taxi, made himself disappear into the lobby, found the coffee shop and had a sandwich, then left the hotel, taking another cab and giving still a second blind address. Another hotel. Here, he immediately changed taxis, giving a totally false address, giving the driver the correct address only after they had driven some blocks and Alyard had satisfied himself that they were not being followed.

  The “warehouse” was an apartment building out of a complex of three, very expensive and breezily Italian in appearance. To be on the safe side, he had entered one of the other two buildings and waited in the lobby until the taxi had driven off, then walked around the fountain-dominated courtyard to the middle of the three buildings, entered the building and rung the manager’s apartment.

  A voice came back on the intercom, barely intelligible and perhaps a little drunk-sounding. “Is this Mr. Fabrizzi?” he asked in English.

  In English, heavily accented, he was told that it was.

  “I’m a friend of Mr. Jacobsen. He left word I was to use his apartment? My name is Ivy. Lauren Ivy.” The first name for the contact exchange was intentionally neuter sexually in the event a female required use of the safe house.

  “Are you the person Signore Jacobsen told me about?”

  Alyard answered as he was supposed to. “He called you from St. Moritz, didn’t he?”

  “A moment, Signore.” The buzzer for the door lock actuated and he passed through into the little sitting room-lobby. He lit a cigarette, staring at the plastic plants and the fake oriental rug. The little pistol he’d gotten from Stakowski was stuffed in his trouser waistband under his jacket and he left his overcoat and his suitcoat unbuttoned just in case he would need it.

  After several moments, a man in a flamboyant floral-print shirt who looked to be girdled into expensively cut slacks, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, came through the elevator doors.

  “You are—”

  “Mr. Ivy. Signore?”

  “Fabrizzi. Here is the key. Third floor. Turn to your left out of the elevator.”

  “Thank you.” Alyard nodded, taking the key in his left hand so his right would be free to get at the gun if needed. He was beginning to feel naked wandering through Italy carrying this ampule of whatever god-awful thing it was. Fabrizzi returned to the elevator and held the door as Alyard picked up his suitcase and followed him. They rode in silence to the first floor, Fabrizzi getting out, Alyard nodding to him, Fabrizzi never nodding back.

  Alyard left the elevator at the third floor, the fourth floor by American reckoning, and found the apartment. The key fit, which boded well, and he let himself in. He almost urinated in his pants.

  “Thomas Alyard?”

  The black man in the immaculately tailored blue suit had some kind of large military pistol pointed at him. Alyard didn’t speak.

  “I got my key in Langley, Virginia. My name’s Thomas, too. Thomas Griffeth. The code phrase is ‘I ate at a very disappointing restaurant last night. Can you recommend a good place for dinner?’ And then you say—”

  “ ‘I know just the place, but the prices are outrageous. Do you like veal?’ ”

  “ ‘Veal is my favorite if it’s prepared properly.’ ”

  Thomas Alyard relaxed. “What did you come for, Mr. Griffeth?”

  “The little item you got from Mr. Stakowski, before his misfortune. ”

  “Put the gun away. It’s yours. Anything to drink in this place?” He was glad to be rid of it….

  Darwin Hughes had avoided the hassles of transhipping a firearm as luggage, assuming that he probably wouldn’t need one in Chicago and that, if he did, the Chicago policeman, Ernie Hayes, could probably tell him how to find one.

  He reached into his pocket and took two dollars out of his money clip and tipped the bellman, taking his key and security locking the room door. He had asked at the desk if Mr. Babcock had been heard from. Mr. Babcock might have come in, but hadn’t checked at the desk.

  He sat on the edge of the double bed and dialed Mrs. Hayes. “Mrs. Hayes? This is Darwin Hughes, Lewis’s friend who called this morning. Has he checked in with you? … I see. Well, I’m in Chicago staying at the Hilton. Same floor as Lewis, actually…. Thank you very much. Airline food isn’t that great, I’ll admit. And a home-cooked meal would be wonderful just now…. Yes, I’ve got a pen.” He ripped a piece of paper off the message tablet and took the Cross pen from his jacket pocket and copied her address. “You’re sure it’s not putting you out, Mrs. Hayes? … Wonderful then. I’ll see you in an hour.” He hung up. He tried Lewis’s room again as he’d had them do from the lobby. There was no answer. He dialed the hotel operator and placed his promised call to Robert Argus. “General. Darwin Hughes. I had no idea this was a personal line.”

  Argus’s voice came back a little more tired sounding than it had sounded hours earlier. “We tracked down your other friend. He went to Naples last night. He took a job as lounge pianist on a vessel called—wait a minute—yes, the Empress Britannia.”

  “I sailed on her when she was brand new. Where’s she headed?”

  “New York, then through the Canal and to Fris
co and then up to Alaska and across to Japan.”

  “There’s no sense trying to contact him aboard the Empress. Let him come to New York. This thing with my other friend will take a little time anyway, and as I told you, I’ll need his help to persuade our piano-playing friend.”

  “The ball’s in your court. Do as you see fit, Hughes. If you need any help, just dial this number. It follows me almost everywhere I go.”

  “Poor fellow. But, thanks; I’ll remember that.”

  Argus hung up and so did he.

  Hughes started opening his tie and collar, glanced at his Rolex as he did. There was time, if he hurried, for a quick shower….

  The Devil’s Princes had, in the last five years, inherited the mantle of “largest street gang in Chicago,” largely because of their finances and their business practices. Their financial success came from their virtual monopoly on cocaine along the streets of the city’s south side, and their early recognition that crack was the wave of the future. Their business practices amounted to one principle: ruthlessness. If anyone interfered in their operations, he was immediately killed in the most unpleasant manner possible, as a warning to future meddlers.

  Lewis Babcock had spent the better part of the morning researching this material from the archives of the Chicago Tribune, taken an early lunch at a little basement place that served a mound of roast beef and a small loaf of bread and let the customer utilize his imagination and the horseradish to do the rest. The healthiest beverage on the menu had been beer and so he had had one. He’d retrieved his rented car and driven along the shore of Lake Michigan to the address the newspaper accounts had cited as headquarters for the Devil’s Princes.

  Suspicious looking men in clothes darker than their faces had hung around the front of the place—D.P.S.A.C. all that the lettering on the storefront window reveated—and he had driven around the block once to be certain he had the correct address. Finally, he had parked his car across the street from the Devil’s Princes Social and Athletic Club, grateful it was only a rental vehicle, and walked across toward the front door not really knowing what he expected to do. But he needed some feel for the place.

  He approached the door, half expecting one of the guards outside to stop him, but none did. He tried the glass door and it opened easily and he went inside. There was a pretty, light-skinned girl behind a receptionist desk at the rear of the converted store front, carpeting and expensive office furniture and potted plants that had not been visible through the venetian-blinded windows. He stopped in front of her desk.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I was hoping you could. My name’s Lewis Babcock. I’m interested in a moment of Mr. Tyrone Cash’s time.”

  She smiled good-naturedly. Apparently he had echoed an often-made request. “I’m sorry. Really I am. But Mr. Cash never sees anyone without an appointment and he’s not even in. I could take a message for him, though, and make certain he gets it.”

  “You’re very nice,” Babcock told her almost sincerely, assuming she was giving him a standard run-around. But she was nice-looking. “Tell you what. Let me leave my card. I’ll just put where I can be reached in Chicago on the back here.” He took a card from his business-card case and turned it over and took a pen from his pocket and scribbled the address of the hotel, putting down the room number next to his own. “Would you tell Mr. Cash that I’m representing Officer Ernie Hayes, unofficially, as a friend of the court. And I’d like to discuss some information I’ve recently obtained with him prior to my introduction of the material at the pre-trial hearing tomorrow. If he could get back to me tonight, I’d really appreciate it.” He handed her the card.

  “I’ll be sure he gets it.” She smiled.

  “Some men have all the luck,” he told her, turning back toward the door and walking out.

  He crossed the street, but instead of walking to his car, he walked to the telephones at the corner, outdoor kiosks, only one of the three operational, the earpiece cigarette scarred and so dirty he held it only next to his ear, not against it. He called the hotel. “This is Mr. Babcock in 807. I’m expecting a message from a business associate and, stupidly, I gave him the wrong room number. If someone asks for me in room 809 could you just ring my room instead?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Babcock. I have an urgent message for you from a Mr. D. Hughes.”

  Babcock’s blood ran cold and it wasn’t the chill of the wind or the slushy pavement around the phone kiosk. “What’s the message? Read it to me, please.”

  “Yes, sir. ‘Please get in touch immediately. Am staying here. Gone to Mrs. H.’s for late lunch. Hughes.’ That’s the message, sir. Is there any reply?”

  “No—no. I’ll contact Mr. Hughes personally. Thank you.” He hung up. “Shit,” Babcock murmured, indulging himself in a rare obscenity….

  Thelma Hayes, looking pretty and very domestic, opened the door after just one ring. She wiped her hands on her apron, smiled and said, “Lew. We were all worried about you.”

  “Everything’s fine, Thelma.” He embraced her briefly and walked past her, slipping out of his coat. At the dining room table, Babcock saw him, a forkful of spaghetti half to his mouth, face lighting in a smile. The eyebrows cocked in his high forehead, so dark-seeming compared to the salt-and-pepper grey of his hair, more salt than the last time. His face was long, only thin-seeming because of its length, his ears large-seeming because of the close-cropped hair. The chin was strong, prominent. The mouth—long and thin—spread and curled upward at the corners in a smile, revealing even, white teeth, seaming the vertical lines in his cheeks even more deeply. “Mr. Hughes.”

  “Mr. Babcock. I must say, your friend Mrs. Hayes is an artist with spaghetti. You know it’s one of my favorites. I can see why it’s so imperative to assist her husband from his predicament. If the poor man is used to this, its unavailability must be unbearable.”

  Lewis Babcock looked at Thelma Hayes. Her black eyes were pinpoints of uncertainty. And then Babcock smiled at her. “He’s an old friend. And he really is a connoisseur of spaghetti. Could I have a little?” He wasn’t really hungry, but Thelma had been a wife and mother since graduating high school and marrying Ernie, and normalcy was what she needed now, he guessed. Her face brightened and he had guessed correctly. “Kids still in school?”

  “They’ll be playing over at their aunt’s house—Ernie’s sister Marge. She’ll drop them off around six.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting them. If not tonight”—Hughes smiled—“then soon, I hope. You must let me take you and your husband and the children—and Lewis too, of course—out to dinner. Doing even ordinary things with small children can be such an adventure.”

  “Sure.” Thelma Hayes left for the kitchen. Lewis Babcock left the arched entrance into the dining room that lead off the hall and approached the table. “Why are you here, Mr. Hughes?”

  “Well, lad, I’m here to help. And to get your help.”

  “To get my help,” Babcock paraphrased slowly. “Like the last time?”

  “No..Not quite like the last time, Lewis,” Hughes said evenly, his diction perfect, despite his background as a Texan, his speech almost faintly British sounding. The well-modulated voice and careful diction Babcock had long before put down to Hughes’s childhood hearing problem. Corrected fully—the man could hear as well as anyone and better than most now—it would have necessitated a careful attention to the details of speech to speak so perfectly with part of the developmental years lost to him. The slight British intonation Babcock attributed to Hughes’s early World War II experiences working with the British when Hughes had been the youngest man ever chosen for the wartime Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. The hearing problem had reaped one ancillary benefit for Hughes: He was a faultless lip-reader. “I’d had something I needed to discuss with you, then learned through an associate that you were here endeavoring to extricate Officer Hayes from this cocaine thing. I thought I might speak with you and also be of some minor assistance.
Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

  “If anyone could kill two anything with one stone, you could. Where’s Cross?”

  Hughes smiled. Cross had become something like a son to Hughes in the short time the three of them and Feinberg had worked together. “Abroad the Empress Britannia working as a piano player in a lounge. I imagine he’s having a wonderful time. He’ll be in New York in several days’ time and I thought we could speak with him there.”

  “We?”

  “I’ll confess to an ulterior motive, Lewis. In seeing you first, that is,” and Hughes grinned broadly, daubing at his mouth with a napkin, standing as Thelma Hayes entered from the kitchen.

  “Sit down, Lew. I was just about to offer Mr. Hughes a glass of wine. Would you like some?”

  “If you’re having some, yes,” Babcock told her.

  “My sentiments, ma’am,” Hughes told her.

  “Both of you sit down. This isn’t formal. I can tell neither one of you are married, standing up every time a woman comes in with something from the kitchen.”

  “I was married, as a matter of fact. I have a daughter your age or a little older,” Hughes told her.

  “That’s hard to believe—I mean, looking at you.”

  “Compliments are always graciously accepted.”