by Pierre Rey
"What's going on?" the woman asked.
"A man fell from this window. Did you see anyone in the hallway?"
‘Nobody."
"Did you notice anything strange?"
"Nothing."
"No one went by?"
"I told you, no one," she repeated, surprised.
"Stay where you are. The police'll be here soon."
Mahoney went down one floor to his own room. The cleaning woman went back to 609 to get her cleaning cart. Two other doors on the sixth floor opened slightly, and Folco Mori and Pietro Bellinzona gave each other the thumbs-up victory sign. Now they knew who their next target was.
In his own room, Mahoney tried for five minutes to get through to New York. When he realized he wouldn't be able to dial direct to Kirkpatrick, he asked the hotel operator to make the call. He went to the window. Down below, a police car and an ambulance were parked near the entrance. His heart wrenched as he saw white-suited attendants put a stretcher into the ambulance. It was cov ered by a sheet, but from this height Mahoney could make out every detail of the load under it He knew he had to avenge the death of his friend and partner. It was bitter irony to think that big Dave would be taken to the same morgue that held the leg that had brought them to Swit zerland in the first place. What the hell was taking the phone so long?
With or without the help of the local cops, he in tended to find Dave's killer. Too bad for Volpone if he was in any way connected with it! Then he saw the hood leaving the hotel, Pietro Bellinzona at his side, walking right past the ambulance. It took a second or more for Mahoney to realize that he was letting the bastards get away from him. He grabbed his coat and rushed to ward the door, making sure his Magnum 357 was in the holster under his armpit He was hoping he'd soon get a chance to use it.
7
At the sound of the doorbell, they were all startled. Inez had scarcely turned the knob when the door slammed into her face.
Orlando Baretto took a step forward to greet Vol pone. But Italo didn't see him. All he could see was Mortimer.O'Brion, his colorless skin turning gray and the nerve over his cheekbone twisting the right corner of his mouth into a hideous grimace.
"Italo, will you please explain the meaning—" O'Brion began to remonstrate.
With lightning motion Volpone grabbed him by the coat lapel, twisting it up around his neck. Then, lifting O'Brion as a bulldog might have done with an old rag, Italo used his free hand to slap him across the mouth. Before O'Brion could make a move or utter a sound, the muzzle of a Mauser was stuck under his jaw.
'Two questions!" Volpone thundered, his eyes wild with rage. "First, how did you go about knocking my brother off?"
"Italo," the terrified O'Brion was whining through the blood on his face and the hiccups that were convulsing him.
"Second, whaf s the account number? You've got five seconds!"
And he forced open O’Brion's mouth and shoved the point of the gun down his throat.
"One... two..." he began to count
After Volpone said, "One," but before he could say "three," terrified though he was, O'Brion realized that Genco's brother could not kill him before getting the secret number for Operation OUT. Moreover, to give the number to anyone, even to Genco Volpone's own brother, would be to admit he knew the don was dead, a virtual confession that he had done Genco in himself. Keeping quiet was his only means of survival, if only for a while—but it would mean some time in which to breathe, to hope....
"Four!" Volpone said in a dull voice.
But what was the use of planning? O'Brion could see that he was dealing with a madman who would shoot on the count of five, just as he had threatened. Even if it meant never seeing the two billion bucks.
"Boss," Pietro Bellinzona interposed, "please, don't do it here. I beg you!"
"Five!" Volpone said, and he twisted the muzzle of the pistol around in O’Brion's gullet
Respectfully, but as powerfully as a bulldozer, Bellin zona grabbed the gun out of Volpone's hand.
"Boss, the whole town would be on our heels. We wouldn't even get out of the building if you drilled him here."
"He's right" Lando chimed in, trying to keep pace with the fast-moving developments. "Italo, stop!"
To be on the safe side, he grabbed Volpone's other hand and surreptitiously brought it to his lips. "Bacio mani, I kiss your hands," he stammered.
Bellinzona had already done an about-face, and he had Zaza and Inez covered with his Llama .38 Super.
"Who's the blond tomato?" Italo asked, taking his hand back.
"She's with him," Lando replied.
"And the dinger
"With me. This is her place."
"Got a car?'
"Yes "
"Let's load'em up."
"Where to?" Lando asked, his eyes wide. "Listen," Zaza was whining, ‘I’ve got nothing to do with any of this. Let me out of here!" /.
"Shut up!" Volpone snapped.
"You're in my home,-" Inez cut in.
Italo sneered at her, then, turning to Lando, he said, "Take us to some quiet spot, Out in the country. Take the blonde with you. Pietro, you go along with that bastard. I’ll keep the whore with me, and we'll follow you."
Lando seemed to be hesitating.
"You heard me. Now, let's go. Andiamo via!"
"Boss," Bellinzona suggested, "we can't take them out to the street looking like this." He pointed to O'Brion. "He's all bloody."
"Clean him up."
Pietro grabbed the first piece of material at hand: the negligee Inez was wearing. "Hands off!" she warned.
"You, apehead, shut your trap!" Volpone swore. "Or I'll knock your fuckin' head off with this gun butt"
Lando did not dare interfere, and Bellinzona pulled at the material. It slipped off Inez's shoulders. She stood there stark naked, gorgeous enough to take your breath away. Pietro tossed the negligee to Zaza.
"Here! Wipe off your pig!"
Zaza shrugged in revulsion and shook her head no.
"Bitch!" Pietro snarled. "You went along for the good times, but now that the going is rough..."
He rolled the negligee into a ball and roughly wiped the blood from O'Brion's stunned face.
"Get a move on," Volpone urged.
Bellinzona made a face as he looked at Inez. "We can't take her with us without clothes."
"Time's a-wastin'," Volpone said irritably. "Toss a coat around her ass and let's get out"
Inez looked contemptuously at Lando, who turned his eyes away. She took her black mink coat out of the closet and put it on.
"If anyone peeps, give 'em a shot in the knee," Vol pone told Pietro.
Lando was the last one out. He carefully, delicately, closed the door behind him.
A moment's hesitation had made Rico Gatto lose the trail again. When he saw the hotel guests rushing up to the mezzanine, Rico had not been able to resist following them. He was amazed to see that the bloody mess on the terrace was the blond man he had noticed a few hours before at the airport What a strange coincidence....
Not trying to draw any conclusions for the moment he went back to his room to call Ettore Gabelotti in New York. He struggled for ten minutes trying to get through, failed, and went back to the lobby to make sure Volpone hadn't slipped through his fingers. From a booth that had a good 'View of the hotel entrance, he called Italo Volpone's and Pietro Bellinzona's rooms, but neither answered, and he was irritated to think they had gotten away. For the moment the only solid fact he had was that Volpone had been to the morgue. He went back to his room to take up a watch near the window, smoking one cigarette after another and leafing distractedly through his bedside book, the Old Testament in the Septuagint Greek edition, although it was impossible for him to read with any con centration. He kept thinking about that damned taxi that had blocked his way when Volpone left the morgue.
After three-quarters of an hour, Gatto had seen Volpone come back to the hotel, Bellinzona at his side. He blew on the three-carat diamond in his ring and rubbed it to m
ake it shine.
As Rico saw it, this job was beneath him. He enjoyed tailing people when he knew he could look forward to the pleasure of being able to hit them. Temporarily sty mied, he left the window to go to the telephone near his bed. Without saying that he had twice lost track of him, he would let Gabelotti know that Volpone had been to the Zurich morgue. After all, he was bound to come back to the hotel sooner or later. Leaving out details was not lying.
The door to Pat Mahoney’s room was barely closed when he heard the telephone ring inside. He had been waiting for his New York call and for just a flash he wondered whether he should risk losing Volpone and go back in and inform headquarters about Cavanaugh. Be fore giving himself a chance to decide, he was heading, down the stairs, and when his car started, he had bead on Italo's Ford.
The driver seemed to hesitate on which way to turn at different corners, but finally he pulled up in front of a four-story building on Universitatstrasse, right behind a spanking new gunmetal gray Beauty Ghost P9.
Italo and his black-clad bodyguard had jumped, out of the Ford and gone in, and luckily, Mahoney found a spot between two pickups twenty yards away.
Mahoney lit a cigarette, his face still tense, unable to forget his mental picture of Dave Cavanaugh smashed on the concrete. There was no hard evidence that Volpone and his gorilla had done it, but Pat would have bet his good right arm that they were in on it
The closer the FBI and the IRS got to finding out what happened to the huge profits the Syndicate accumu lated from all its questionable enterprises, the more the gangs had to grease the palms of thousands of nameless go-betweens—cops, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous lawyers—on every continent on earth. But their machine, fed by huge amounts of fresh money, kept working with out a hitch, and no one talked. There was always plenty of money to pay the bail of the most unimportant foot soldier, and legal eagles, protected by their goddamn privilege, would bring the bail in cash, and no questions could be asked.
While this went on, new recruits for the underworld kept arriving in the U.S. Each year, under the sponsorship of Cosa Nostra, a thousand Sicilians came into the coun try, usually through Canada. They came with legal tour ist visas on their passports—at a cost to the mob of less than $3,000—and went to work on the lowest rung of the dirty ladder. If they were not afraid to take chances and they were cruel enough, they rose quickly. Like their forerunners, who had come penniless from Europe, they too dreamed of rising to the top and running the country's economy by way of timeworn methods—bribes, black mail, murder, extortion, labor-union racketeering. Little did they care that most of the capi had come to bad ends: die other guys were the only ones who got shot down.
However, aside from Vito Genovese, Thomas Gagliano, and Gaetano ("Three-Finger Brown") Lucchese, who had died of natural causes in or out of confinement all the others had met violent deaths. Lucky Luciano probably died by poison, although it was officially called a heart attack; Albert Anastasia was gunned down in a barber's chair; Thomas Eboli was murdered, as were Philip Lombardo, Steve Ferrigno, Alfred Mineo, Salvatore Maranzano, Tom Reina, Joe Aiello, Philip Mangano, and Joseph Pinzolo. Today the Volpone and Gabelotti families were holding the reins. But if Mahoney could uncover the real purpose of Volpone's trip to Switzerland he was sure he could get him behind bars for many years the way they did Al Capone.
Unless war were to break out between Volpone and the Gabelottis. Unless he'd been involved in Cavanaugh's "accident" Unless he made some other mistake. Unless . . . Oh, shit! There he was coming out of the building. Mahoney saw Volpone walk to his car with an elegant black woman a head taller than he. At the same moment a young blond woman was being shoved toward the Beauty Ghost by a tall Latin-looking dude, and the big gorilla bodyguard had his arms around a little sickly man whom he tossed into the rear seat of the P9. An alarm went off inside Mahoney's head: he knew that little guy. Pic tures flashed before his eyes, names rang in his ears. The Latin dude got in behind the wheel—a real European gig olo type, he noted—with the blond girl next to him, and the gorilla got in back with the half-pint The P9 tooled nimbly away from the sidewalk, followed closely by Volpone's Ford.
Mahoney stepped on his accelerator just as the reali zation hit him that the little man was none other than Mortimer O'Brion, one of the best-known financial law yers in the States.
Panic engulfed Mortimer O'Brion once the car reached Zurich's outlying districts. Yet Bellinzona seemed to be dozing, paying no attention; and as for the dude who was driving, he was too busy with the road to be able to do anything. Next to him, Zaza was as still as a statue. Mortimer wondered if he had one chance in a thousand to come back from this ride.
He also wondered how Volpone had found out that Genco was dead. How had Italo tracked him down so fast? It wasn't possible that the two punks who held the contract on Genco had been identified. He had con tacted them direct, without intermediary. No one in New York knew them. There was no way to tie him to them, for not even they had any idea who he was.
Two years earlier, Morty had represented a Polish-American named Stepan Katz, accused of a triple murder, and saved him from the electric chair. In gratitude, Katz had given him the name of two of his buddies who lived in Naples, saying, "Just in case you ever need them for anything. You never know! Just use my name, they'll do anything you want—and I mean anything!"
O'Brion had shrugged, but he had made a permanent note of the phone number Katz gave him, never dreaming he'd use it. Three weeks later, Katz was found strangled in his cell, taking his dreams and secrets to the grave with him, and his strangler was never identified.
Had it not been for Zaza, the idea of the crime might never have come into O'Brion's mind; but he had spent a fortune trying to impress her, and a few bad investments had further reduced his nest egg. Of course, he had a numbered account in Switzerland, but a month ago he had gone bullish on sterling, investing everything he had in the British currency when a colleague with high connections in Washington diplomatic circles had tipped him off that the U.S. Treasury was about to make an enormous injection of dollars into the economy of the United Kingdom. The pound would have to go up sharply when this became known—at least by 30 percent—but five weeks later the pound had been devalued by 20 per cent.
At the same time, Ettore Gabelotti had let him in, under the strictest seal of confidence, on the main lines of the agreement he and the Volpones had made. They were going to do something unprecedented. They were going to launder no less than two billion dollars at one swipe.
In the convolutions of such an operation, money was so to speak, decanted, losing a fraction of a percent of its face value at each temporary location. But when it finally came through the last of the many sieves that had refined ft, it was virginal, without traceable source, ready to be re invested in broad daylight in perfectly legal enterprises. Washed clean.
That was just when Zaza had started to up her demands, and Judith, Mortimer's missus, smelling a rat with me incomparable instinct women get from twenty years of shared domesticity, had also insisted tartly on being given greater liquid assets.
In order to have a little peace, and to get rid of his guflt feelings, he had given in. One night he had awakened with a startling thought: if Genco, Volpone disappeared, he, Mortimer O'Brion, would be the only one able to col lect the two billion dollars! Of course it had only been a nightmare. The idea was absurd and out of the question. No one could expect to get away with taking the Syndi cate that way; anyone who had ever tried had met a vio lent death after unspeakable tortures and mutilations. There was no place in the world where one could find a safe haven from its long arm of revenge.
So Mortimer had dismissed the idea, horrified at even having harbored it. Then, through a game of dialectics, "trying it on for size," he had projected various steps, figuring the consequences at each turn, eliminating the imponderables, forestalling the other side's reactions, cal culating the chances of success or failure as if with a computer, allowing for all conting
encies. To his amaze ment, he had come to the conclusion that the trick could be pulled off. True, there were some unavoidable risks, but for two billion dollars, weren't they worth taking?
Morty O'Brion had a deep-seated grudge against life. He had turned out to be dull when he would have wanted to be handsome and irresistible, small rather than tall, colorless where he had dreamed of being a leader of men. His need for vengeance had led him to his decision:-he would have Genco Volpone rubbed out.
Once the decision was made, the details of the opera-, tion had fallen into place, in his mind like the steps of a mathematical progression. He had phoned the two Nea politan cutthroats, using the name of the late Stepan Katz, thanking heaven that the men were alive and ready to take, the contract. For fear that the killers might get cold feet if they realized who their victim was, he had not revealed Genco's identity. Without any assurance that they would do the job properly, he had arranged for $50,000 to be paid to them in Italy. And then things started to happen. Holding Gabelottfs power of attorney, Mortimer O'Brion had landed in Zurich with Don Genco Volpone. Two days earlier, he had let the hit men know that their target was on the way, and he had found him self both scared and excited by the fact that they were ready to carry out their end of the bargain.