by Jay Flynn
He slipped the log book into his pocket. The entries were interesting, but they were no proof that Gino Girolamo had picked up Dant. McHugh smiled grimly as he thought that in the end there would be little need for proof. This was not a case that would be settled finally in court.
With Girolamo involved, it would end with the silent thrust of a knife in the darkness or a momentary splash as a body weighted in anchor chain went over the side far out to sea.
He straightened suddenly, aware of the spluttering of a small outboard motor. He switched the flashlight off, slid it into his pocket and peered through the big forward windows of the wheelhouse at the dark surface of the harbor. The sound was closer now. He caught the ladder rails, dropped to the deckhouse, slipped and fell against a bulkhead. He picked himself up, eased the sliding door back and stepped out on the narrow section of deck that ran aft.
A small boat, moving without lights, was angling for the Rosa. McHugh, bent low, half ran for the stem. He stopped suddenly as the oncoming boat scraped the Rosa.
“Hey! Lookit this!” The voice was low, hard. “Somebody nosin’ around.”
McHugh retreated to the shadowy protection of the deckhouse. He strained his eyes against the darkness and saw three shapes clamber over the rail. The men moved without sound, spread out, one on either side of the deck, the third hanging back, covering the center. There was the sharp click of a revolver being cocked.
“Put that away, you goddam fool. No noise!” It was the voice of Gino Girolamo.
McHugh crouched behind the bulk of a winch, his gun ready. He hefted it, then slid it back in the holster. He could not take these three men on their own boat. They moved as though they knew every inch of it, every piece of gear that could trip a man. He doubted that he could go more than a few feet without tangling with something.
The nearest one was only a couple of yards away now. He caught the faint gleam of light on a knife, a knife held low and very professionally. He set himself, trying to pick out the man’s neck.
He lunged then, stiffened fingers chopping. They missed the neck and axed into a heavily muscled jaw. The man shouted in pain, and the knife flashed. McHugh pivoted, bringing his right knee up. He caught the man on the hip and knocked him off balance. Dimly, he heard shouts and feet pounding on the deck. His man slammed back against the rail and clung there. The knife picked up light again. McHugh spun to his left, dropping into a crouch. He felt the blade slash through his right sleeve, and his flesh burned. He brought his left fist up in a wild, looping arc and felt it connect solidly with the man’s head. The man yelled in pain, stumbled backward drunkenly and hit the rail. He teetered there for an instant, then went over the side.
McHugh spun toward the others, and the strong beam of a flashlight caught him in the face. He blinked at the light, momentarily blinded. Something hurtled from behind it, something that spun viciously.
In the instant before it slammed against his head, he recognized it as a belaying pin. There was a white explosion inside his head. Then the white was a blazing red and he knew he was falling. The red turned to black, and when he crashed forward on the fog-wet deck he knew nothing.
It was like the other time, the time in the warehouse with the light glaring in his eyes. Only this time the light was higher, swinging from the roof of the deckhouse, and he could see the faces of the men who had him.
Girolamo. One of the men who had flanked him that night at the Busy Bee. Now this man was rubbing a swollen head, and water oozed from his sodden clothes.
The third man had a dark hatchet face with a curving beak of a nose. His eyes were dark, unblinking as a snake’s. He sat on a bunk, across the cabin from McHugh, and he was concentrating on cleaning under his fingernails with the point of a long, slender knife.
McHugh shook his head and struggled to sit up. The movement brought on a fresh storm of pain, and he sank down again. He was on a bunk, hands and feet bound with lengths of stout fishing line.
“Hey, you big bastard-whose grave you goin to crap on?” Gino Girolamo leaned against the bulkhead, grinning without humor. “Ha!”
McHugh ignored him. He felt the pain in his right arm now. The sleeve of his jacket was slashed from wrist to elbow, and blood seeped through the cloth. The blood was not coming fast; he guessed the blade hadn’t sliced through any arteries. He fixed his eyes on the hatchet-faced man.
“You Pastori?”
“Yeah. You heard of Pastori, ha?”
“I thought it was you. Just wanted to be sure.”
“About what?” Pastori demanded. He ran his finger along the edge of the blade.
“That you were the one. The third man that was with Leoni and Bomarito. I remember your voice.”
Pastori started to rise from the bunk, then sat back, looking thoughtfully at his knife. “You think that’s gonna do you much good?”
“Shut up, Joe,” Girolamo said. He inflated his barrel chest and looked steadily at McHugh. “You’re a dead man. You know that. Whenever I get ready, you’re a dead man.”
“That makes two of us. Some people knew I was coming here. They’ll get to you, dago. They’ll crap on—
Girolamo’s face flushed. He hurled himself across the room, and his calloused fisherman’s hands clubbed McHugh. McHugh’s head snapped back and slammed against the chain supporting the bunk. Girolamo hit him again, and he felt blood spurt from his mouth.
“Dago! You bastard, I show you you don’t call me no goddam dago!”
He raised his foot and, kicked McHugh in the stomach. McHugh retched, then vomited. He cleared his throat and spat at Girolamo.
The big fist came down again.
Salt water burned in his eyes and soaked through his clothes. His head exploded every five seconds. He could not open his right eye; he could not be sure it was still in its socket.
“Christ, Gino, let’s take the sonofabitch out and give him the deep six.”
The voice oozed through the curtain of pain; McHugh thought it was Pastori speaking.
“Not yet. Not till this bastard tells us what he mixes in for,” Girolamo growled. “Phil—throw another bucket on him.”
Water, cold and salty, splashed in his face again. McHugh spluttered and managed to get one eye open. Carefully, speaking through lips that were split and swollen, he cursed Girolamo in Sicilian.
‘He’s a cop, I tell ya,” Pastori insisted.
“I don’t know,” Girolamo said. “Up in the city they say the cops been tryin’ to stick him with somethin’ for years, but he slips out. They say he’s a hard man.” Girolamo laughed softly as he eyed McHugh. “Okay, hard man. You ready to talk? I think you better be.”
“About what?” McHugh, moving his body slightly, felt the tarred fish line bite into the flesh of his wrist and ankles. “I tried to talk to you once.”
“Yeah. You want to know who kill a man at your place, an’ you want to know about a package.”
“Now I know,” McHugh replied. “Pastori is one end of it. And the package is gone.”
“What you mean gone?” Girolamo demanded.
“Don’t you read the papers?”
“Papers? There has been nothing in the papers.”
“I guess the FBI isn’t talking about it then,” McHugh said. “Tough luck.”
Girolamo leaned down and hit him across the face. “Tell me! Tell me or I have Joe cut off your—”
McHugh managed a weak grin. “Sure. Why not? Suppose I could have a cigarette first, and maybe sit up instead of lying here? This bunk would make a vulture puke.”
Girolamo hesitated. Then, muttering under his breath, he grabbed McHugh’s legs and pulled him up to a sitting position. It was not comfortable, but it was an improvement He put a cigarette between McHugh’s lips and lit it.
McHugh puffed for a minute. “Okay. You wanted the package. You had a man killed to get it, only he didn’t have it. Must be worth a lot. I decided to cut in and offered to team up with you, and you know what happened then. So I fou
nd who had the package last. A girl who knew nothing about what was going on. She put it in a bank box. Another woman impersonated her and got it out.”
“So? Where is it now?” Girolamo demanded.
“How do I know? I haven’t found the woman. I thought maybe she was tied in with you.”
Girolamo shook his head vigorously. “This woman—who was she? Who is she?”
“She was once the wife of Deane Dant. The man you picked up in Mexico. The man you had killed. I think she set it up for Dant to take the Cubans with the money.”
Girolamo considered this in silence. He took a ring of keys from his pocket, opened a locker and took a pint bottle of whisky from it. He drank, then shoved the bottle into his pocket.
“Where is she now?”
“If I knew that, would I be prowling around your boat?” McHugh shook his head. “You talk like a man with no brain at all.”
“Careful,” Girolamo said quietly. “Or I beat hell out of you just to see you bleed. Now, what is this woman’s name?”
“Carlotta Artellan,” McHugh said after a moment. “At least that’s what she calls herself. She could be using any name.”
“What else?”
“There is no more.”
Girolamo studied McHugh. Finally he nodded. “I think you are telling the truth.”
“I am. Mind telling me just one thing?”
“Me tell you?” Girolamo laughed. “Tell a dead—So what the hell. What is it?”
“The package. What’s in it?”
Girolamo’s eyebrows lifted. “What’s in it? The money, of course. The money Dant stole.”
“Uh-huh,” McHugh said, shaking his head. “I thought you were smarter than that, Gino.”
“What you mean?” Girolamo’s face darkened.
“I happen to know that money filled two suitcases. This thing wasn’t much bigger than a cigar box.” Girolamo’s jaw hung open for a minute. McHugh chuckled. “Figure it out. If you had a cigar box stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, you’d have to squeeze it tight to get more than, say, a hundred grand in it.”
“Yeah,” Girolamo said thoughtfully. “You could be right. So okay? What was in it?”
McHugh laughed. “That’s what I asked you. Remember?”
The man called Phil rubbed his beard stubble and shoved the watch cap he was wearing farther back on his head. His clothes still dripped water, and he was standing in a puddle.
Gino, he said. “The bastard could be right. Dant had a couple of suitcases with him when he came aboard. Besides the bundle the package was in. I don’t know what happened to the bags. He sure didn’t take ‘em off when we put him ashore.”
Girolamo cursed softly and steadily, in English and Italian.
McHugh’s wrist were numb; his legs felt like they ended at the ankles. He squirmed, trying to get more blood circulation, and said hopefully, “One more question. You had this guy and his loot aboard your tub. You could have deep-sixed him at any time, but you didn’t. You wait until he’s ashore and the stuff is stashed, and then go after him. How the hell come?”
Girolamo laughed, an unpleasant, grating sound. “We just didn’t know. None of us speaks Mex, an’ anyhow we just listen to the marine bands on the radio. The bastard was long gone before we knew we’d had a hot couple of million aboard.”
The explanation was just simple enough to be the truth. McHugh shook his head.
Now he had some answers. Not quite the ones he had expected, but answers of a sort.
He looked at the faces of the three men and knew he probably wouldn’t live-long enough to get any good out of what he had learned.
CHAPTER 11
How LONG WE GONNA just sit around and look at this joker?” Pastori honed the edge of his blade on a small whetstone. He looked at the needle point and at McHugh’s throat. “Let’s stick him and dump him a few miles out.”
Gino Girolamo sat on the opposite bunk, nodding slowly, nibbling his pendulous lower lip. “I think maybe we better figure another way.”
“You know a better place than five hundred fathoms of water?” Pastori protested. “Maybe we should just dump him in the alley back of police headquarters.”
“Shut up. The Coast Guard cutter is heading down from Half Moon, probably off Santa Cruz now. There’s no fishing to do, an’ they’d probably head us off,” Girolamo said.
“In this fog?” Pastori snorted. “They have a hell of a time findin’ us, and by the time they come alongside, this guy can be on the bottom.”
“And when he’s missing they come look at us,” Girolamo retorted. “He was at the Barrel, talkin’ to Palme.”
“Palme knows better than—” Pastori snapped. He flicked the switch blade of the knife in and out.
“Palme is a goddam undercover cop. I tol’ you that before.”
“So?” Pastori shrugged. “I can take Palme. I owe him somethin’ anyway for what he done to me.”
McHugh moved painfully, watching them with his one open eye. He cleared his throat. “How about a deal, Gino?”
“Me? Deal with you? Ha! You fool.”
“Kill me and you’ve got trouble. You know this and believe it, or you wouldn’t be jawing now. And, if that dumb wop over there hadn’t stuck Dant, you wouldn’t be in any jam at all. You’re smart, you’ll deep six him instead of me.”
“You—” Pastori leaped across the deckhouse, knife poised.
Girolamo’s booted foot came up and caught Pastori at the ankles. The man tripped and slammed against the steel railing of the bunk. He held his head and cursed.
“You think I’m right,” McHugh said.
“Maybe. But it was necessary.” Girolamo shrugged. “Dant refused to give us a split. He pulled a gun, and Pastori used the knife in the car.”
“What’s the difference?” McHugh arched his back, trying to take some of the strain off his wrists, felt flowing blood again where the cord had chafed through his flesh. “You tried to squeeze Dant, and that went wrong. You wound up with a killing. You didn’t get the package, and you’re further away from it now than you were then. And, until I explained it to you, you were too thick to see that, whatever was in the package, it wasn’t the big boodle. Keep it up. You’re doing fine. One more stumble, and you’ll be summoned to a meet with a few Masters of the Brotherhood.”
Girolamo’s face tightened, but McHugh’s eyes were on the fingers of his right hand. They moved in a curious way for an instant, enough to half form the sign that would identify Girolamo to his Mafia brothers as a Master of the Order. Then his fist clenched spasmodically, and Girolamo looked accusingly at it.
“It will not help that you, too, are a Master of the Order,” McHugh said in Sicilian. “The Grand Masters of your lodge will deal harshly with you for acting without permission. And you do not have permission. If you did, you would have learned through your brothers the things that I know.”
‘You are not—” There was uncertainty in the Sicilian’s voice.
“I am not of the Order, but I have the confidence of some certain Grand Masters. Should I—”
“Shut up!” Girolamo looked at Pastori. “You an’ Phil go on out. Close the door.”
“But I am—” Pastori began.
“You are my Brother, but there are things which you do not know because you haven’t the right,” Girolamo snapped. “Get out!”
Pastori’s eyes poured liquid hate at McHugh. He snapped the knife shut and went out. Phil followed.
Girolamo eyed McHugh thoughtfully. “The names of my brothers who are your friends. Quickly!”
McHugh named a man in Philadelphia, another in Rome, one in Palermo, Chicago, Brooklyn, Detroit. Girolamo sat as a man stricken.
McHugh went on, describing each, naming the members of his family, noting his rank in the Order, saw that Girolamo was involuntarily nodding confirmation. McHugh gave silent thanks for the thoroughness of the team of agents who had been assigned to the one-time rackets boss now exiled in Rome. Bored and frustra
ted by a mission that had been unproductive, they had captured a caller at the big man’s villa and buried him in a private hospital. Weeks went by while they pumped the sodium pentothal into him and kept up the barrage of questions that their victim could not help but answer.
He had been a Grand Master of the Order. The intelligence agents had picked his brain, built a file of hundreds of names and learned the rituals of the Order and its signs. When there was no more to be learned, the hypodermic needle had made one last puncture. The man’s heart had fluttered and stopped.
Other teams had taken it from there, building dossiers on the men McHugh had mentioned and on scores of others. All the information was classed Top Secret; the Brotherhood had no suspicion that much of its business was an open book.
McHugh knew the risk he was taking. If Girolamo decided McHugh was not what he claimed now to be, he would kill him immediately. And later he would inquire of the Grand Masters. If this happened the Brotherhood would know what had happened to its secrets.
McHugh asked for another cigarette. Girolamo gave him one and lit it.
“Now—do we go in together or do you get yourself in big trouble all around?”
“What can you do that I can’t?” Girolamo demanded.
“What have you done so far but screw up?”
“Shut up!” Girolamo said bitterly. “I—”
He was interrupted by a shout and a splash from the stem section of the boat. He pulled a pistol from his pocket, backed to the sliding door and shoved it open. He kept the pistol aimed at McHugh and leaned out the door, listening. A gun fired, and a bullet whanged into the side of the deckhouse. Girolamo ducked inside, slammed the door shut and hit the light switch.
The deckhouse went dark as McHugh rolled himself off the bunk and dropped to the flooring. He could make out the bulky form of Girolamo in the dim light of a porthole. Girolamo was by the door, breathing raggedly. There were more shouts and another shot. A man screamed.
Girolamo rammed the door open, and was silhouetted against the fog-diffused glow from Fisherman’s Wharf. McHugh saw the extended arm, the pointing gun.