After another bite, Boff nodded, then said, “Tell me about the spike.”
“The stuff’s all over Brooklyn. Happened virtually overnight, although the reality is it probably took several days to kick it in.”
“Do you know who’s distributing it?” Boff asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Come on, Frank, it just started.”
“What about your snitches?”
“All they could tell me is that distribution is widespread. You know how these operations work. The big dealer will have five or six sub-level dealers he trusts and will only use them to distribute. They’ll have smaller dealers under them they sell it to. It’s a large enterprise. Like a big corporation’s pyramid org chart.”
“Do you think the Hells Angels could handle such an operation?”
“Not on your life. I bet the Angels are using a well-established distributor with plenty of hired help.”
Boff thought about what Pedro had told him about Reggie Bassett. “I have an idea who that distributor might be. First, I’ve got to check some things out. If I’m correct in my suspicions, then I’ve got a fix on who’s the real brains and cash behind this whole operation. And it isn’t Galvani.”
Frowning, Schlosberg pointed his kabob at Boff and said, “Unless this new person fingers the Hells Angels, I don’t see how I can get them behind bars.”
“Not to worry. I’m going to have an old buddy of mine in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office flip Galvani and force him to testify against everybody involved in the op.”
Schlosberg looked surprised. “I thought you didn’t want to flip the cop,” he said.
“That was when I figured he was behind the killings. Now I feel differently.”
The DEA agent made a face. “As usual, you’re keeping me in the dark on a lot of things.”
Boff smiled. “That’s the way I play the game.”
“Well, as long as I get my collars—and hopefully another bump in pay grade—I guess I can live with it.”
Chapter 39
After parking by the gym, Boff waited with Hannah and Cullen for Wallachi to arrive. Manny had refused to allow his boss to drive his car again, so they showed up in the old Crown Vic.
As everybody climbed into his car, Wallachi said in a sour voice, “I see the gang’s all here,” and turned to the trio in the back seat. “Is it possible to get through one day without you guys squabbling?”
“Pete,” Manny said, “it’s not me who’s the instigator.” He pointed at Hannah. “She is.”
“That’s because you act so stupid sometimes,” she said.
“Hey, don’t call me stupid!”
Wallachi shook his head and put the car in gear. He turned to Boff as he started down the street. “Frank, where does this brother of Bassett’s work?”
“At Hank’s Auto Repair in Brownsville. Two-thirty-eight Junius Street. I looked it up on MapQuest. I’ll navigate you there.”
They parked across the street from the repair shop at three-thirty.
“Boff, do you have a picture of this guy?” Manny asked.
“No.”
“Then how will you know who he is?”
“See that bike?” Boff pointed to a big Kawasaki parked near the shop. “That’s his.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m psychic.”
Wallachi glanced in the rear view mirror at Manny and shook his head. “Manny,” he said, “if Boff has the guy’s friggin’ name and knows he friggin’ lives in Brooklyn, how do you friggin’ think he found out what the guy drives?”
The crack op frowned. “He asked Damiano to run the guy through the DMV?”
“There’s hope for you yet,” Wallachi said, not really meaning it.
At four-thirty, a man resembling a younger Earl Bassett came out of the shop, put a helmet on, and got on the bike. They followed him west across Brownsville and into East Flatbush, where he turned onto Hamilton Avenue, took it to East 51st Street, and parked near a strip club called Mile High.
“I volunteer to go in,” Manny said as Bassett went into the club.
“No way,” Wallachi said. “You and Wally One-Eye will be watching the girls, not our biker here.”
Then Hannah leaned forward and tapped on Wallachi’s shoulder. “Who is this Wally One-Eye anyway?”
“A very close friend of Manny’s.” Wallachi looked at Cullen. “Danny, you’re up.”
Cullen spotted Bassett as soon as he came through the door. The biker was sitting at the bar watching a dancer on stage. Cullen sat several stools away and ordered a bottle of Bud Light from a topless bartender. She took his ten-dollar bill and returned with the beer and his change: two singles. Eight bucks for a bottle of beer? he thought. Jesus! He slid the two bucks forward as a tip.
For lack of anything better to do, he turned around and watched the dancer do her wrap-around-the-pole thing. He didn’t find her terribly appealing. Long legs and artificial boobs weren’t his thing. Nor did he get why guys came here to watch this crap. Or pay eight bucks for a crummy beer. The only naked women he liked to look at were the ones he was in bed with.
Twenty minutes later, the stripper finished her routine. She put on a T-shirt and a short skirt and joined Bassett at the bar. They spoke for awhile, then she kissed him and disappeared into a back room.
The minute she walked away, Bassett finished his beer in one big gulp and left the club. Cullen waited a minute, then followed him out just in time to see Bassett jump on his bike and drive off with a roar. He hustled over to the Crown Vic and climbed back inside.
As Wallachi resumed tailing the biker, Boff asked, “What did you see in the club?”
“He was sitting alone at the bar. He had a beer and watched the stripper. When the stripper finished her show, she came over to the biker, sat down next to him, and talked to him for a couple minutes. Then she kissed him and walked away. Bassett left the club right after that.”
Manny’s interest in the club was predictable. “What’d the girls look like?”
“They looked like strippers.”
“Care to be more specific?”
“They had long legs and boobs that looked like they were inflated by a bicycle pump.”
The crack op grinned. “Just my type. I’ve been to Scores several times, you know.”
Hannah, who was shaking her head while they were talking, turned to him. “Don’t you realize you’re helping exploit these women when you go to strip clubs?”
Manny looked taken aback. Then he got angry. “What the hell are you talking about? I always tip the girls well. How is that exploiting—?”
Wallachi turned his head. “Manny, shut up!”
“She started it.”
“I don’t care. One more word out of you, and I’ll drop you and Wally One-Eye off at the next subway station.”
From the strip club, Bassett drove to a Burger King, parked his bike next to a couple of Harleys at the curb, and went inside.
“Manny,” Boff said, “get out your binoculars and look through the window. Who’s the biker with? What’s he doing in there?”
Manny trained the glasses on the window. “He’s sitting at a table. With a couple Hells Angels.”
Wallachi nodded. “Frank, this sounds promising.”
“Perhaps,” Boff replied. “But just hanging out at a Burger King with Hells Angels doesn’t prove he’s a member of the club.”
A half hour later, three bikers walked out of the restaurant together. The Hells Angels bumped fists with Bassett before driving off in different directions. As soon as Bassett pulled into traffic, Wallachi followed him to an apartment building in Brownsville, where he parked at the curb and disappeared inside. A half hour after that, he popped back out of the building.
Seeing what the biker was wearing now, Boff smiled.
Dwayne Bassett had changed into a pair of black jeans, shiny biker boots, and a Hells Angels’ vest over a white T-shirt.
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sp; Boff snapped his fingers. “Ahhh, yes. It looks like Earl Bassett has an Angel in his family.”
They followed the biker back to the strip club, where he parked and went inside again. Five minutes later, he came back out with a tall, shapely blond wearing a black mini-dress.
“That’s the stripper he was with at the bar,” Cullen said.
Slipping on a spare helmet, the blond climbed onto the back seat of the bike and wrapped her arms around Bassett’s waist as he pulled away in a showy burst of speed. Wallachi tailed them to a Chipotle Mexican Grill near downtown Brooklyn, where they went inside holding hands.
“Dinner date,” Wallachi said. “Well, Frank, do we wait some more?”
“No. We’ve got enough for today.”
As he put the car in gear and pulled back into traffic, Wallachi said, “Do you think this biker/mechanic is connected to Galvani?”
“We’d have to tail him more to find out,” Boff replied. “I’m not sure it’s worth the time. At the very least, we have a Hells Angels’ connection in Earl’s family. We also know one of Earl’s brothers is a big drug dealer in Brooklyn.”
Hannah leaned forward. “Are you trying to tie Earl Bassett to the Quebec Gold operation?”
Boff nodded. “I think Earl is the brains and the major money supplier behind this whole gig,” he said. “I believe funds from Nicky Doyle’s nonprofit have found their way into the Quebec Gold operation. I’m also pretty sure Earl used some of the money he stole from the nonprofit to bail out his drug-dealing brother, Reggie, when he had some big money problems. That’s what Pedro alluded to in the park.”
Hannah looked surprised. “Earl was embezzling?”
“Well, there’s good circumstantial evidence that he was.”
Wallachi looked at Boff. “What exactly is Earl Bassett’s motivation to get involved in something like this? I mean, the guy’s a corporate exec with no apparent criminal experience. If he was involved in white collar crime, then I could see it. But drugs?”
“Money. That’s his motivation. The cash he was stealing from the nonprofit was apparently a nice piece of change. But there’d be a limit to how much he could swipe and still meet the charity’s various obligations. With the profits from the drug operation, he could replace the money he stole from Doyle and avoid any suspicion of embezzlement.”
Hannah still seemed confused. “But…but wasn’t the purpose of Galvani’s drug raids to raise the money to buy the Quebec Gold?”
“To an extent, yes,” Boff replied. “But what they were making on those phony raids wouldn’t have been nearly enough to buy mega-quantities of Quebec Gold. What you need to keep in mind, Hannah, is there are many levels of dealers. A few are big. Most are not. The big operators have tight security. That’s why I’m guessing the dealers Galvani chose to hit ranged from mid-level to small potatoes. Pushers with minimal security, if any. I believe the majority of the money for this operation was supplied by Earl from the get-go.”
Hannah nodded. “So…so, if we connect the dots…it would mean Earl ordered Nicky killed because the story he was going to write about the dead cop would endanger the drug operation?”
Boff shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that simple,” he said. “If Earl had your friend killed, the reason was because Doyle had hired a corporate accountant to audit the books to see if they were cooked. If the books were cooked, then Earl had to know it was only a matter of time before he was fired and indicted by the D.A. But with Doyle dead? Then Earl would have complete control of the charity. He could cut loose the accountant doing the audit. I asked Mike to see if he could get the accountant to sit down with me. If he agrees to do it, then I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to tell us if Bassett was embezzling or not.”
“In any event,” Wallachi cut in, “it looks like the game might’ve changed. Frank, do you make Earl Bassett for the hit on Maloney, too?”
Boff nodded. “If Earl felt Maloney was a threat to the op, then it’s likely he set the cop’s murder in motion.”
“But,” said Cullen, who had been listening carefully, “we haven’t gotten a handle yet on what threat Maloney might have been.”
“True,” Boff said. “When everything falls in place, I’m confident we’ll clean up that loose end.”
“Tell me this, Boff,” Hannah said. “Where does Earl find the hitman?”
“His brother, Carmelo is a well-connected mob lawyer.”
Cullen tapped Boff’s shoulder. “You’re forgetting something else about Earl,” he said. “The attempted hit on you.”
Boff turned around.
“I’m not forgetting anything.”
Chapter 40
As Boff expected, Cassidy had indeed persuaded the accountant to meet with them at Bailey’s. When Boff entered the pub that night, he saw the old reporter sitting alone in a booth. He walked over and slid in on the other side of the table.
“Where’s the accountant?”
“On his way.”
“How’d you talk him into seeing us?”
“It was surprisingly easy.” He looked over Boff’s shoulder toward the pub’s front door. “Here he comes now.”
With his back to the door, Boff didn’t want to turn around and gape at the guy, so instead, he looked at the mirror behind the bar. Stuart Hamilton appeared to be in his forties. His short hair was parted sharply at one side, and he was wearing a well-tailored, charcoal gray suit, a white pinstriped shirt, and a blue tie.
Turning back to Cassidy, Boff asked, “How do you know this is Stuart Hamilton?”
“How? Nobody comes into this bar dressed like that.”
The newcomer walked over to Cassidy, smiled, and shook his hand. “Mike, it’s great to meet you. I started reading you religiously in my twenties. I was really sorry when you retired.”
“Thanks. And so was I, but my health wasn’t quite up to the daily grind anymore. Here, sit down next to me. What’re you drinking?”
“Black Label on the rocks would be nice.”
Cassidy slid over to make room for Hamilton. “Stuart, this is Frank Boff, the investigator I told you about.”
Hamilton shook Boff’s hand, but avoided eye contact. Meaning, Boff thought, the accountant was probably pretty uptight about meeting with a private investigator.
“I’m assuming,” Hamilton said, “that I can count on both of you never to reveal you talked with me.”
“That’s a given,” Cassidy said. He waved the waitress over. “Wendy, get this gentleman a Johnny Black on the rocks. I’ll take another mug. What about you, Frank?”
“Mug’s fine.”
As the waitress left to get the drinks, Hamilton cleared his throat, then began, “I want you both to understand that I’m in a very delicate position here. The task I was performing for Mr. Doyle was strictly confidential. If my company ever found out I was talking to you, I’d lose my job. And probably my license.”
“We’re aware of that,” Cassidy assured him. “That’s why we’re grateful you agreed to meet with us. Frank and I believe that, with your help, we might be able to solve Nicky’s murder.”
“That’s the reason I’m here,” the accountant said. “As you mentioned on the phone, the timing of the murder was certainly curious. Because of the audit.”
Cassidy nodded. “Why don’t you walk us through what you were doing with the books?”
Hamilton started to speak, then waited until Wendy, who had arrived with the drinks, had set them down on the table and walked away. Boff noted that the accountant went straight for his Scotch with a somewhat shaky hand and took a good tug on it.
“It’s important you understand,” Hamilton said, “that I’d only been on the audit for about a week and a half before Mr. Doyle was killed.”
“How much longer would you have needed?” Boff asked.
“Oh, at least another week or two before I could’ve reached a definitive conclusion.”
“What was Bassett’s reaction to you looking at the books?”<
br />
“Well, he acted friendly enough. And he sounded confident the audit would turn up nothing out of the ordinary. But I could feel the hostility coming off him. I’d say he was really uneasy about me being there. In reality, he probably had good reason to be.” He took another hit on the Scotch.
“Why’s that?” Cassidy asked.
“Well, first off, you must remember again that I was only in the preliminary stages of my audit. Still, there were disturbing signs.”
“Such as?”
With another hit on his Scotch, Hamilton polished off the drink. He set his empty glass down on the table. Cassidy pointed to it. “Want a refill, Stuart?”
“Yes. That’d be nice. As you can probably tell, I’m a bit uneasy about being here.”
Cassidy told Wendy to bring another Johnny Black and this time to put it in a tumbler.
Hearing that, Hamilton let out a short laugh. “A tumbler? You probably think I’m a lush.”
“Not at all,” Cassidy replied. “In my prime, I used to drink whisky on the rocks. From a pint glass. Now that’s what I’d call a lush.”
Hamilton smiled. “Speaking of booze, I’ve always been curious about something. Did you ever write your columns after you’d been drinking?”
Cassidy laughed. “Oh, only a few thousand times. I usually had a drink next to my typewriter. Did it show in my columns?”
“Not at all. Your writing was always clear and precise. I only asked because I’ve heard stories of how you got a lot of your scoops while drinking at cop bars, then rushed back to the News to write what you’d found out.”
The old reporter nodded. “Yes, I did. Truth is, I wrote better with a load on. Or maybe I just convinced myself of that. Now my doctor won’t allow me to drink anything harder than beer. Anyway…tell us about those disturbing signs you found in the books.”
“Okay. Here’s an example. In some instances, donations of five figures were made to the charity and then the identical amount was paid out to consultants.”
“Why is that troubling?” Boff asked.
“Normally it wouldn’t be. But I checked up on these consultants. None of them worked in fields where they had any expertise to offer the nonprofit. In a couple of cases, the consultants weren’t even employed. One was a housewife. Another was a retired sanitation worker.”
The Payback Game Page 23