by Pierre Rey
"You didn't check it out?" asked Kirkpatrick.
Blesh looked at him, irritated. "No, captain. The main burner, which handles the six hundred rooms in the hotel, is an underground cylinder that holds two hundred cubic meters of flaming oil; it also serves as the garbage incinerator. Anything that enters it is consumed in less than ten minutes. If we were to try to let the furnace cool off, captain, it would take at least three days."
"What makes you think it could have been Mahon ey?"
"Two men have disappeared in Switzerland in the last few days. Your detective Mahoney, and Rico Gatto, a gangster type out of Florida."
"How do you know this Gatto disappeared?"
"He entered Switzerland. He did not leave. He never paid his hotel bill," Blesh said coldly. "As I see it, the man killed at the Commodore has to be either Rico Gatto or Patrick Mahoney. But I have no way of knowing which until one of the two bodies is found and identi fied."
"What if neither is found?" Finnegan asked.
Blesh spread his hands in a gesture of impotence.
"Another thing, captain. This doesn’t necessarily con cern you, but I can tell you that if there's been any cap ital transaction, it was between the men you are watch ing and me Zurich Trade Bank. A young woman named Renata Kloppe, the daughter of the owner of that bank, was killed two days ago in an auto accident She is being buried right now. And do yon know who owned the car she was killed in? One Orlando Baretto, a Sicilian by ori gin. And do you know where he got that fancy car?"
He remained silent for a moment, delighted to see how they turned on the spit, as quiet as model pupils.
'It was given to him by Genco Volpone,’’ he quiet ly announced.
"Where is this Baretto?’’ Kirkpatrick gritted out
"In this city," Blesh nonchalantly replied.
"What! Didn't you have him arrested?"
"He claimed that his car was stolen—"
"Lieutenant" Finnegan cut in, "you have a chance to make a fantastic sweep, a roundup that may never be possible again! Why can't you bring the whole bunch of them in on some pretext?’
Blesh looked shocked.
"What pretext? Has there been a disturbance of the peace? Has anybody pressed charges?"
Finnegan and Kirkpatrick exchanged an exasperated
look.
"May I ask you a question?" Scott Dempsey said. "Did Kloppe tell you whether he had been threatened?" Fritz Blesh pursed his lips.
"Mr. Dempsey, over here the bank is a state within the state. Our financial consortia are absolutely autono mous. They hire their own guards, investigators, experts, and they have their own security services. Do you think one of our great bankers would be childish enough to let our official police mix into his money affairs?"
"Kloppe doesn't know who he's dealing with!" Kirk patrick exclaimed. "The Syndicate is powerful enough to bring all of Switzerland to its knees."
Blesh stared him down with infinite compassion. "No one ever has done that captain. And do you know why? Because in our country there is no such thing as a cor ruptible citizen," he said. "Captain, do you think Volpone or Gabelotti would be insane enough to attack a bank in the heart of Zurich?"
"Why not?" Kirkpatrick spat out bitterly. "If they feel that justice is on their side?’’
Scott Dempsey enjoyed the irony of that and chuck led over it
That would be more than we could hope for," Lieutenant Blesh mumbled.
"If I understand you," Kirkpatrick began to protest, ' "you're going to wait until these hoods put Zurich to the torch before you make a move—"
Blesh cut him Off sharply. "I know what I have to do."
"Ah, lieutenant..." Scott Dempsey sighed. To think we might be able to chop the head off the whole Syndi cate! You wouldn't even have to lift a finger. All I’d need would be a figure, just one little figure... The number of those funds that were fraudently exported from the U.S. One word from that banker of ours—just one—and I've got 'em all where I want 'em."
Seeing the threatening look on Blesh's face, Demp sey realized he had gone too far. He prudently turned his eyes away and looked up at the ceiling.
"listen, lieutenant,’' Kirkpatrick pleaded. "Far be it from me to tell you what you ought to do, but just the same, considering the circumstances, maybe a little bit of bugging..."
Despite his humble tone, Blesh let him have it. "Let's leave Watergate to Washington, captain. This is Zurich!"
Kirkpatrick swallowed his rage. This arrogant little bureaucrat was going to sit there and let the capi of the Syndicate's two most powerful families get away right under his nose. As Kirkpatrick's facial muscles contracted, his Irish physiognomy turned a gorgeous eggplant color.
Blesh could not help but notice it, and, to soften his rude reply as well as to reassure the captain, he said, "You really don't have anything to worry about, captain. ‘I’ve taken the necessary steps. Two of my men are watch ing the bank."
The grassy plateau was surrounded by steep hills that were covered with fir trees. Anyone but Amedeo Morobbia would have crashed trying to put the plane down there. It was like landing in the bottom of a bowl. But Morobbia was used to it His aeroclub deal had been going for three, years, and in three years he had made more than a hundred Milan-Switzerland round trips. He preferred to fly by day. Flying close to the tops of the moun tains and following their contours, he kept below the radar range. Despite its appearance, his MD 315 had nev er let him down, unflinchingly responding to his com mands. Usually, his passengers—card-carrying aeroclub "student pilots"—hopped off the plane and ran to a forest path where a car stood waiting. Morobbia would then take the return route and report to Ottavio Giacomassi by phone, simply saying, "I’m back. Everything went off as planned."
Today there would be a slight change in the pro gram. He was to land, taxi to the edge of the trees bor dering the open field, and then get the plane under cover as much as possible. His orders were to stay there and wait.
"For how long?" he had asked. "I don't know," Ottavio told him. "If I don't get back, won't the Milan airport put out an alert?"
"You could have run into mechanical trouble and made a forced landing somewhere."
"Sure, but in that case I have to let them know."
"Okay, m take care of that If you haven’t seen your passengers by daybreak, come on back without them"
"Very well."
He spotted the hill he was looking for, hedgehopped up it got to the top, and let his machine drop into the basin like a rock, keeping it parallel to the incline. The wheels made a brutal impact on the cow grass, and the braking flaps stood out from the wings as the wind from the propellers traced a swath through the pasture.
Giancarlo Ferrero, the radioman, had already gone to help the ten passengers out of their safety belts.
"Shake a leg, there, fellas," he was shouting. "They're waiting for you over behind the rise."
They jumped from the plane. They were all young , and properly dressed, with neckties and jackets. Most of them were carrying attaché cases and had raincoats slung over their arms. From the way they ran up the steep hill side, it was clear that these were trained athletes. They soon disappeared into the greenery, and to the cars parked a short way off. By separate roads, in small groups, they were to be dropped off in Zurich, where they would have to kill time until the action started.
"Now what, do we do?" Ferrero wanted to know.
"We mark time," Morobbia sulked.
"My friend Italo and I are in full agreement on a number of decisions," Gabelotti was saying. "And we called you all together to tell you about them."
He looked his audience over with a paternal eye. The meeting was taking place in the library of the villa Vol pone had rented. Each group of family members sat on its own side of a large rectangular table. On one side was Volpone, flanked by Yudelman and Pizzu, along with Amalfi, Bruttore, and Dotto. Facing them were Crimello and Barba on either side of Don Ettore; then Merta, Badaletto, and SabatinL
At the
end of the table was Luciano Matarefia, Gabelotti's representative for Southern Europe, and Simeone Ferro stood guard outside the closed door.
Gabelotti looked very put-upon. "Neither me nor Babe Volpone want violence, but you can understand that our interests are at stake as well as the prestige of the Syndicate. What would happen if some little banker could get away with defying the whole organization? So my part ner and me decided we can't sit here and take such an in sult"
He reached his hand out toward Volpone. "Italo," he said, "tell our friends what we expect of them."
Don Ettore sat down and wiped his brow. Italo got up. Less than two weeks before, they had been in a similar situation in Nassau. In front of the top council of both families, Italo had read aloud the three letters of his brother's cablegram. At that point he had not been able to imagine himself as anything but his broth er's little brother, a temporary stand-in for Don Genco, a gambler no one took seriously. But Genco's death and the ensuing responsibilities had produced a liberating click in Italo's consciousness, revealing a potential so well hidden that he himself had never suspected it existed. Power was a fine fruit he no longer could do without Neither Gabelotti nor anyone else would be able to keep him from eating it One by one, he glanced at each of the men seated around the table.
"We got two things to do," he said. "Get the dough back, and get even. We can't rub out this banker, or we cut ourselves off from the only direct tie to the money. On the other hand, if we go about it right with different kinds of pressures on him, we can get him to come clean. We got Homer Kloppe where we want him, but we been here in Zurich too long. We got to move fast make our play, grab our dough, and beat it! Tonight we're going to destroy his bank. We have to make him understand we won't stop at nothing. In (Switzerland, they settle this kind of legal rip-off by having their lawyers fight it out But that ain't for us. Nobody screws the Syndicate.
"How about telling us what you're gonna do?" Carlo Badaletto cut in.
Since the day his incisors had stuck in Italo's skull, Badaletto took every chance he got to show his scorn.
Volpone's hands tightened slightly on the table. He lowered his head and muttered, "Shut up! I’m talking."
Moshe Yudelman sensed that the fragile peace that had been restored with so much effort and maneuvering might well come apart before bearing any fruit Don Et tore also sensed the change in climate. He had made plenty of steps toward reconciliation, and he wasn’t about to let anyone spoil this temporary nonaggression pact His eyes shining with anger, he called his caporegime to task rudely: "Carlo, you shut your trap or I’ll throw you out myself!"
Carlo Badaletto thereby learned that there had been some changes made in the relationship between the two families, for in normal times Don Ettore would probably have encouraged his remarks. He turned his eyes away in embarrassment and stared down at his hands.
Italo took a long deep breath, as if nothing had in terrupted the flow of his speech. Mentally, Moshe con gratulated him.
‘I brought ten torpedoes in from Italy," Volpone went on. "You're gonna take command of these men and smash that bank."
Thomas Merta politely raised his hand. "I seen the bank," he said. "It's a stone building, she stories high. Un less we drop a two-ton bomb on the roof, we’ll only be able to make a little dent in it"
"Not if yon go about it the right way" Voipone came back. "The whole success of our plan depends on speed. You do it in four minutes, and the bank is finished, and we win. Don Ettore and me both felt the capiregime of our families should be involved in this. In all, you'll be eighteen guys inside the bank: three on each floor. You blow up everything you can and set fires everywhere. You'll have incendiary grenades and army flamethrowers."
"Padrone," Pizzu objected, "we can't, get the safe doors open with grenades."
"We're not after the safes or vaults," Gabelotti an swered amiably. "Don't forget, we're operating out in the Open, making one hell of a racket What we want is to do as much damage as possible. You'll have less than four minutes to burn up all their files and papers. What we're after ain't money, but making a mess, discrediting the bank, turning it into a fuckin' shithouse."
Thomas Merta asked Italo Volpone another question. "You said we'd be eighteen guys in the bank. How you figure well get in?"
'By the door—just like that"
"You got keys?"
Italo smiled a tiny tough smile.
"At midnight on the nose, the big main door will explode and open. One of my men is locked inside the bank right now with a load of dynamite."
"What do we do about cops?" said Vincente Bruttore.
"You won't see none," Volpone assured him. "Be tween the time the burglar alarms go off and the cops get to the scene—at least eight minutes—you'll be long gone!"
"Long gone where?" asked Frankie Sabatini. "After fireworks like that how do we get out of this fucking country in four minutes?"
"Don't you worry none about that! Tomorrow morn ing you'll be drinking your espresso in Italy."
Getting the men out had been Italo's big problem. Since the greater number of men going into the front line were Italo's, Don Ettore had refrained from asking the fundamental question about the pullout. He wasn't too worried about the men the Volpone family might lose. To the contrary, those losses could only strengthen his hand for future purposes. But just a couple of minutes ago Italo had said, "Don Ettore and me both felt the capiregime of our families should be involved in this.''
Fact was, Don Ettore had not felt anything of the kind. He had not shown surprise when he heard the words spoken, but his mind had speeded up just a little to see if they had any hidden meaning. If the novice Volpone wanted to organize this kind of an expedition at his own expense, that was one thing. But to include Gabelotti's own lieutenants in such a kamikaze undertaking...
Ettore decided he wouldn't agree unless there were some guarantees. As if he were fully conversant with all the details, he said to Italo in a honeyed voice, 'Tell the boys just how we're getting them out I can sense that they're concerned about it"
Volpone was waiting for this opening so he could get another edge on Ettore in public He smiled sweetly.
‘I’ve thought it all out Don Ettore. The whole thing."
By speaking for himself alone, he knew that he was depriving Gabelotti of any credit for having found the ‘ solution. He had received the solution ready-made from Ottavio Giacomassi who had set up the entire plan in Milan, but no one needed to know that
"When you come out of the bank, there'll be six cars, waiting, and they'll take off in six different directions, over routes laid out to avoid running into any cops."
"Who'll be driving?" asked Carmine Crimello.
"Friends. They know the town like the inside of their own pockets, and you'll all be taken to the same place out side Zurich."
"Fifteen minutes after the explosion, every road in the country will be blocked," said Thomas Merta. "Do we try to hide out in this goddamn cow country?"
Italo looked at him. "Didn't I say you'd be having breakfast in Italy tomorrow?"
"How do we get across the border?"
"In some milk," Volpone answered quietly.
He let the idea sink in.
"My brother Genco had an interest in a Zurich dairy.
Every night, thousands of cans of milk are collected and trucked to our dairy. Three times a week, the fourteen tank trucks from my brother's company make a trip to Milan so that the sweet little Italian babies can drink nice fresh Swiss milk. Every one of those trucks holds close to thirteen thousand gallons. I’m sure you don't hate milk all that much, Thomas.’’
A few laughs brought some relaxation. Volpone stopped them with a wave of the hand.
'For the past six years, the customs men have watched those tracks go through, so don't sweat it Eight of the trucks have hiding places inside the tanks. Three or four men fit into each one real easy. You'll be in Milan in less than five hours. And there'll be a welcoming committee to
greet you. Good enough?’’
Angelo Barba got up the courage to ask a question that had been burning on his tongue. 'How about us—if things don't turn out right?"
"Why shouldn't they turn out right?’’ Italo was sur prised. "Tell me, what connection is there between you, a respectable American businessman passing through Zurich, and some crazy anarchists who burn up a bank without stealing a dime?"
"But just the same, suppose ..." Barba insisted. "How would we get out of Switzerland?’’
Volpone looked at him with an air of indulgent re proach. "Angelo, do you really think I forgot about that?"
22
Folco Mori took in the whole room at a glance. ‘This ought to do it,’' he said. 'What do you think?’Pietro Bellinzona made a face. ‘I dunno” "Why not? What’s missing?"