Although seemingly beset with a faint heart, O’Doull was a find. He had local knowledge. He had an ear for voices, and after listening to a bugged phone for a few minutes he could tell what part of Newfoundland the speakers came from. He could pick out Kerrivan’s voice from fifty others who might have used the same coin telephone on the same day.
But more than that, O’Doull, Mitchell thought, might be an electronic genius. He was, of all things, a Ph.D., who, for reasons inexplicable, had joined the RCMP. The Mounties, always short of good scientists, had grabbed him quick.
At Potship headquarters in St. John’s, O’Doull had taken charge of the scientific end of things and was running the wiretap center, which he had set up in two days of furious activity on the second floor of a downtown building next to Mitchell’s makeshift office. The other teams worked out of the ground floor, back of a camera shop. O’Doull had organized the security people from Newfoundland Telephone to run pairs from twenty-seven different phone locations: houses, flats, apartments, pay phones in bars that the targets frequented.
And so, with Meyers already in action down south, Potship was on course, Mitchell’s firm hand at the helm.
“What’s on the tapes?” he asked O’Doull.
“Kevin Kelly won’t be going on this trip,” O’Doull said. “He told his wife he’s going to stay home. He’ll help Pete put the Canadian end together, that’s all.”
Mitchell was disappointed. He would have liked to have Kelly in the bag, too.
“He’s small potatoes, anyway,” Mitchell said. He turned back to Bechard. “What else from Montreal?”
“Just a lot of boozing, beating about. Captain Jackpot and The Hawk are in Toronto now.”
“And?”
“Kerrivan went up to his lawyer’s office. I don’t know what he’s doing there.”
“Peddigrew, that jerk,” Mitchell said. “I’d like to nail him and his three-piece suit to the wall.” Something hanging around O’Doull’s neck caught his eye. “What the hell is that?”
“This? A magnifying eyepiece. I’ve been working on some recorders.”
Mitchell glanced at the solid-state circuitry scattered about O’Doull’s worktable. Patch cords, adapters, recorder pre-amplifiers.
“When I get this thing together,” O’Doull said, “it will pick up voices up to twenty meters. Transmits to a receiver about an inch in diameter. If we can borrow Pete’s watch, we can rearrange the workings and fit this in with them.”
“How are we going to do that, Theo?”
Mitchell tried to follow O’Doull’s discussion about an electronic pulse that could stop a self-winding watch. “He’ll have to take it in to get it fixed,” O’Doull said.
“Kerrivan doesn’t wear a watch,” Mitchell said. He showed him some of Bechard’s surveillance pictures from Montreal. Blow-ups. No watch on either wrist.
O’Doull cleared his throat. “I’m working on something else.” He pointed to a tiny metal object about a quarter of an inch square. “It’s an all solid-state, crystal-controlled transmitter that sends to a total power degenerate interferometer receiver with a pair of quadraloop antennas. The sort of thing they use in rocket-launching systems. We can stick it anywhere in his car, wire it to a twelve-volt battery, and set it to activate whenever the ignition is turned on. With a relative direction meter, we can sit two or three miles behind his car and follow him without his ever seeing anyone behind him.”
Mitchell was getting a headache. “Kerrivan doesn’t own a car,” he said. “He takes taxis.”
O’Doull’s problem was these lapses. He should know better, Mitchell thought. All the surveillance data were available to him.
“Since Kerrivan isn’t going to be bringing a car up from South America,” Mitchell said, “I’d be happier if you could get something onto his ship.”
“He doesn’t have a ship. Yet.”
“He will. You see, Theo, that’s the number-one problem in this operation.” Mitchell played the patient schoolteacher. “When they start to come north, we’re going to lose them unless we find out exactly where they plan to land. Can’t we get something onto the ship?”
“We can put a bird-dog transmitter by the step of the mast, but we’re not going to get much range. The ocean is a lot bigger than it looks on the map, Inspector.” He thought for a moment. “We could bounce something off the ionosphere. Some kind of bumper-beeper pulse. Why don’t we talk to NASA? Borrow one of their satellites?”
“Yeah? That’s possible? Work on it, Theo. Because if we don’t get something on board so we can track the ship, I can see this whole operation going to . . .”
“Going to pot,” said O’Doull with a smile.
“Yeah. Unless Meyers comes up with some brilliant ideas.”
Mitchell turned around to the others. “Okay, the targets should be going back to Montreal. Let’s get something happening. Let’s get some wire going. Taps on Peritti and his people. We’ll get the whole Montreal Mafia in our net along with Kerrivan. Let’s get this thing in gear. Conference. Krenshaw, O’Doull, Berry, Bechard. In my office.”
O’Doull lagged behind, studying some of Bechard’s photographs. Some had been taken with the aid of a Startron night viewer adapted to the cameras. Kerrivan and Nighthawk at Dorval Airport. Kerrivan and Nighthawk getting into a taxi. Kerrivan and Nighthawk in a restaurant talking to two men in black suits. Kerrivan entering a bar. Kerrivan talking to a woman on the street. A blow-up of the woman’s face.
Her eyes were on Kerrivan and there was a soft smile on her lips. She was beautiful.
“O’Doull, get your ass in here!”
Chapter Nine
Johnny Nighthawk
Testing. Tape Two. I’m sending these tapes airmail, and I just hope they are getting through. Do the cops up there open people’s mail? It’s against the law, isn’t it?
I take you now into the offices of Peddigrew, Lynch and Westcott, Barristers and Solicitors.
As a result of previous visits to lawyers’ offices, I am familiar with the third-story walkup legal-aid lawyer with whiskey on his breath who is supposed to defend me the afternoon of my first appointment — and does not know my name. This scene is different. I will set it for you.
A converted brownstone on Davenport Road. In the waiting room are chintz lamps and stained-glass partitions and wicker chairs. Rubber plants so tall you expect Simba to come swinging down a vine. I would call this motif decadent funk. A receptionist stares at us from between the fronds of a fern. We are asked to wait.
Three men enter. Suits. Briefcases. They too are asked to wait. They are nervous and sit with their briefcases clutched to their laps.
Facing them, making them nervous, are me and Peter Kerrivan. I am a large Indian with bruises on my face. That will scare anyone. But beside me, glowering at these guys, is something even worse. Pete’s boots are propped up on a stack of National Geographics, and he is slouching back in his worn denim jacket, open over a cannabis-leaf T-shirt, his eyes half-lidded behind a pair of spectacles that are hanging cockeyed, taped in the middle. A black Stetson sits low over Pete’s forehead. He is smoking roll-your-owns.
“What kind of trouble are you guys in?” Pete asks.
One of them clears his throat. “We’re having a trust agreement drawn up.”
“That doesn’t sound too serious,” Pete says.
The receptionist glares at him, and he glares back at her. Finally, after half an hour of listening to each other breathe, there is action — the intercom buzzes. The receptionist, who looks relieved, says to the banker-type guys, “Mr. Peddigrew will be able to see you now.”
Out he comes, James Peddigrew, beaming and bustling on the surface, but his eyes flicking back and forth, studying the scene.
“Gentlemen, I am sorry,” he says. “I was facing a closing date.” He does not elaborate. The bankers get up.
So does Pete.
“I’m next,” Pete says.
Peddigrew chokes on a false chuckle, takes Pete by the arm, and hustles him to the front door, giving me the eye to come, too.
“Listen, Pete,” he says in a low voice, “this office scene is too straight. Why don’t you come to the house for dinner tonight?” He gives me an afterthought look. “You, too.” He probably wonders if I know how to use a knife and fork.
***
Peddigrew’s is what they call a town house. There are old things there that are intended to reflect good taste.
Fragile bric-a-brac. I make a strained effort to relax in this environment, to demonstrate that although a poor boy from northern Oregon’s rain forest, I am a person who can slide easily into any social situation.
Why do I have the feeling that Peddigrew is treating me like somebody’s retarded nephew who was brought along because he cannot fend for himself?
Perhaps you are wondering, why in fact am I here. Well, I am here because Pete does not trust his lawyer too well. In this business one does not have written contracts, so it is best to have a witness. I am here as Pete’s witness.
I soon pick up that Lara Peddigrew is flirting with Pete. She has bright secret eyes that peek at him, then jump away when her husband looks towards her. She has fine manners and a high-toned wasp quality, but with some wine her good side comes out. She becomes bouncy and bubbly, sort of looser buttoned, and from time to time she teases out a pair of wiggling legs from the slits of her long dress.
Peddigrew, for the evening, has gotten duded up as your basic farmhand with faded jeans, checked shirt, bandanna, and a big buckle that says “Coors.”
We are on our third bottle of fourteen-dollar Beaune when I feel Lara’s bare foot beneath the dining table tickle up my ankle. No fool, I know what is happening. Because of my sore knee from the fight, I have trouble bending my leg, and it is stretched across to her side of the table. She is footsying the wrong foot. I know this because as her toes wander up my shin, she gives Pete a big, secret grin. This is a sly lady. I sense she is dissatisfied with her life, Peddigrew being such a cold fish.
We listen to Peddigrew on smuggling. He talks between mouthfuls of tenderloin.
“I’ve seen them all. All the scams, the crackpot schemes, all the dumb deals. I have seen guys get busted in every loony way possible. I am in a business where you see the mistakes people make.”
Nobody is listening to him. I have developed a fetish over Lara’s foot. I am too awkward to disengage. Pete, beside me, is picking through his salad, trying to avoid the strange things in it.
“It’s always some ridiculous mistake,” Peddigrew is saying. “Sometimes people get lazy and talk on the phone.”
At this point he looks significantly at Pete, who I have to admit has gotten pretty loose on the phone for a person with his skills. Peddigrew beat the wiretap last time, but it was fortunate that the prosecution had a real dumb witness in court, with whom Peddigrew had a field day.
I am praying that Peddigrew will not suggest we retire to the drawing room for cigars and brandy. I have an erection — Lara’s toes are running up and down my ankle. Instead, Peddigrew dismisses his wife to the living room while he brings out a decanter of cognac from the shelf behind him.
He pours Courvoisier and talks.
“If you just plan ahead, cover all the legal angles before you come back into the country, they can’t make it stick even if they do pop you.”
Pete is quiet, waiting for him to get to the point. I suspect he does not like amateurs telling him his business.
“There are ways I could tell you that are foolproof,” Peddigrew says. “Absolutely hassle-free. Let’s say you were hired by this company to skipper this old junker from Colombia to North America. Maybe there is a layer of scrap iron on top of whatever else is in the holds. No customs guy is going to hire a crane to pull off the scrap and look underneath. And if he does, so what? You don’t have to know it was there. You just say to customs, ‘Looks like somebody’s been playing me for a sucker.’ The defense of no mens rea. Lack of knowledge. You can’t convict a guy if he doesn’t know he’s carrying contraband. That’s the law.”
Peddigrew is punctuating his points with a dessert spoon.
“No mens rea,” says Pete. “That’s what I’ll tell the boys when they try to take me away. I’ll say I got no mens rea. James, old cock, tell me about your ship.”
“It’s not my ship.”
“Your company’s ship.”
“It’s not my company, either. I’m a trustee for the principal shareholder. Titular head.”
Peddigrew leaves, returns with a file, and pulls out a photograph. We can see that the ship is a rust bucket.
“Five hundred and sixty tons, forty-eight meters,” Peddigrew says. “It was built during the war in Norfolk, Virginia. A cable layer, I think, then for years a coastal freighter. Ran through different owners before Juares picked it up.”
Peddigrew shows us a photo of a man with big teeth.
“That is Juares. He is an old client of mine. You can trust him. He has a boatyard in Barranquilla.”
I look at the photograph and memorize the face. It is the face of a crook, but what should I expect?
“What does this thing run on?” I ask. I am, incidentally, engineer on the various ships that Pete has hired me for. I have a lot of experience on deep-sea long-liners and trawlers out in the Pacific.
“It’s diesel electric,” says Peddigrew.
“That sounds like it will be some trouble,” I say. I look at the specs. I will not bore you with the technical end of things, but the ship has a diesel direct-current drive system, same sort of thing as a train locomotive. Tugs, ferries, quick-maneuver ships use that kind of system. She has twin Imperial diesel engines, driving a pair of generators.
Peddigrew carries on. “The official plan — this is what the documents will say — the official plan is to load it with scrap metal and bring it north to be cut up. Juares supplies the scrap.”
“Who supplies the weed?” Pete asks.
“Who’s got the connection?”
“I’m supposed to have no mens rea.”
“Nobody’s going to make you take a lie-detector test.”
“What’s your cut?” Pete asks.
“I understand the company would like to go fifty-fifty after expenses.”
“Bullshit,” Pete says. “I run the risk — you get fat. I’ll think it over and work out a few numbers. This isn’t a cruise in the Caribbean. I’ll need at least six men — Johnny here in the engine room, Kevin as first mate. I’ll work on Kevin; he’ll come.”
“Juares can find crew —”
“Colombians? No, thanks. Also, there is the start-up costs. We would need maybe thirty, forty thousand dollars for fuel, maybe double that for high-seas gear and other incidentals. Like food and mordida.”
Peddigrew rolls his eyes. “My clients aren’t exactly in the league of Howard Hughes.”
“Aw, come one,” says Pete, “what do you earn as a lawyer — two or three hundred thousand a year? James, you got to learn to high-roll if you’re going to get into the importing business.”
At this point Pete pulls out a limp joint that looks like it might have been sitting in the bottom of his shirt pocket for the last year. He hands it to Peddigrew.
“Toke?”
Peddigrew sniffs it like someone’s dirty underwear. “What is this?” he says.
Pete shrugs. “Some guy laid it on me.”
Peddigrew calls to Lara in the living room. “Twist us some from the good, would you, darling?”
***
We are sitting around the living room all loaded on the lawyer’s sweet Hawaiian buds. Except Peddigrew, who says he is saving himself for later. He does not want to “cloud his palate.”
Pet
e is laying back, thinking things out. Lara is Joni Mitchell, wrestling with a guitar and singing. I am spaced, staring into the fire. As far as conversation goes, there is silence.
Until Pete, from nowhere, a voice from the far side of the cosmos, starts laying out the commandments.
“You pay a hundred thousand up front for expenses, equipment, and et ceteras.”
He is interrupted by Peddigrew. “Lara, darling, would you leave us?” He gives her a proprietary hug. She takes her guitar away with her, but I see her give Pete a little tired look as if to say, “Isn’t it bullshit?”
“A hundred thousand?” says Peddigrew. “Jesus, you owe me that in legal fees, Pete.”
Having to repeat himself, Captain Kerrivan sounds annoyed. “A hundred thousand up front. As to the split, half and half is impossible. My supplier — I owe him from the last time. He’s going to want half, too. Half to you, half to him — that is a good way for me to stay poor. I’ll give you twenty percent with a minimum guarantee up to a maximum.”
“What’s the range?” asks Peddigrew.
“A minimum guarantee of five hundred thousand up to twenty percent of net with a two and a half million top.”
I am blown away by these figures. The five percent crew share that Pete will pay me seems like a poor beggarly sum. I need a union.
“I don’t know, Pete,” says Peddigrew. “You’re not exactly bargaining from strength these days.” He thinks for a minute. “I’ll have to take it up with the directors. I trust you, Pete — don’t get me wrong — but how can I be sure my clients will get a fair deal between those figures?”
“What do you mean, you trust me? You don’t trust me any more than I trust you. If you don’t think I’ll look after your interests, you’ll have to get yourself a sailor suit and join us.”
High Crimes Page 7