Road Work: Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts
Page 51
“Holy God!” Schwartz said, examining the leg. “Howdja do that?”
Schwartz had a way of talking right over top of Hersing, not letting him finish what he was saying, so that the two men were frequently talking at the same time. Their conversation was less a give-and-take than an organic, aimless flow that somehow arrived at mutual understanding. Schwartz was suddenly warm and friendly toward Hersing. Brothers. All they had they had in common. The gift of the Betamax had won his favor.
“You look good. You look good,” Schwartz said, lying.
“Do I?”
“How’s business?”
The old detective seemed genuinely interested in poor Don Hersing’s legs, even bending over to hike up one of his own pants legs to show off where he had gotten sunburned on his boat. After Hersing wound out a long story about how he had originally injured his legs falling on his boat, Schwartz said, “I’m always falling on the boat. I’m always falling on the boat.”
Schwartz was full of advice that day, but he was wary. Downstairs in the closet, watching on the TV monitor and doing their best to follow Schwartz’s convoluted syntax, Thompson and Lash were surprised at how cagey the detective seemed. Every time Hersing would try to talk turkey, Schwartz’s voice dropped so low that they worried their microphones might not pick it up.
“I was tellin’ ya about getting hit,” Hersing said.
Schwartz mumbled something back so softly that the microphones couldn’t pick it up. Even Hersing had a hard time making out what Schwartz was saying.
“Nobody here?” Schwartz asked.
“Huh?”
“Nobody here?”
“No, just me.”
“The guy had told me, just—see, you got a new man here—and…ah, my other friend said, ‘Why don’t you get him in and get him to help you there.’ But then I didn’t hear from ya, and, I say, he was kinda leery of you, too. Jimmy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Somebody got all excited about you.”
This was what Hersing feared most. Surely, Hersing thought, word about this undercover work would eventually get back to these city cops. After all, Bucks County was just a twenty-minute drive north of Philadelphia. But as Schwartz talked, it became clear that Inspector Carlini had grown leery of Hersing for an entirely different reason. It stemmed from a botched sex party Cinnamon had arranged for Carlini and Schwartz.
“Well, another thing that pissed off Jimmy,” Schwartz said. “The time you set something up and you sent Cinnamon and set something up here?”
“Yeah?”
“We came here and this fucking girl comes down high as a fucking kite and she went on and on…. And Jimmy said, ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ And he was pissed off.”
Hersing understood what Schwartz was saying. The inspector couldn’t risk being involved in a scene like that. Schwartz was annoyed that Hersing had not handled the matter himself. Carlini could be a valuable friend, Schwartz whispered. “Here’s the man you want to entertain, you want his friendship.” (At the stern instructions of Thompson and Lash, Hersing had not directly set up Schwartz and the others with prostitutes. The FBI wanted to avoid embarrassing revelations later on.)
As the men talked, the Rolling Stones performed their plaintive hit “Angie” from the speaker where the camera silently ran. Hersing crushed out a cigarette. Then he leaned over and plucked from the Sony box a plastic bag full of pamphlets with information about the videocassette recorder. He handed the packet to Schwartz.
“A new one,” Schwartz said, referring to the machine. “I didn’t know that.” He pulled out glasses from an inside coat pocket and put them on to peruse the instructions.
“It’s a beautiful job,” Hersing said, meaning the machine. “A beautiful job. And look, you know, in the beginning I just, eh, just couldn’t handle it. The thing that was strapping me was paying my partner off…. That has everything. You can set it to record a certain day, a certain time…”
“Yeah, all right! ‘Record one TV program while viewing another,’” Schwartz read appreciatively. “I’d given up on you, you know that? I didn’t hear from ya.”
“What’d I tell ya? I said, Abe, next time you hear from me I’ll have it.”
“Yeah, but for crying out loud.”
“Like I say, I was strapped then and a lot of things come up, you know, with that case I had and all that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Affable Abe did not sound sympathetic. He clearly had expected to get the machine long before this. But then he warmed up again. He thanked Hersing for the machine. “I hope I see more of you now,” he said. They talked about their boats. Schwartz grew animated describing his flat-deck twenty-footer. He sat up on the edge of the couch and, using his hands to block out the shape on the coffee table, described its dimensions in detail. “We just float along the bay,” he said. “I love it. I love it.”
It was such a chummy scene, and Schwartz seemed so resolutely circumspect, that at this point Thompson and Lash, downstairs in the closet, began to despair of collecting any useful leads from the detective. But, finally, Schwartz got around to business again. His voice dropped abruptly.
“Listen, this friend of mine in the DA’s office? He was on TV a couple of weeks back. They had this whole thing about this pornography.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s, eh, good people. He likes, ah, I think whatever he likes, he’ll be able to get it, right?”
“Of course.”
“You know what I mean?”
“Absolutely.”
“He’s good people.”
Having promised to set up Schwartz’s friend with whatever kind of sex he was looking for, Hersing also promised to get Schwartz some X-rated tapes for his new machine. Then Schwartz said something that made Thompson’s and Lash’s ears perk up in the closet downstairs. He indirectly promised to help set up a meeting between Hersing and the new man in the central division, George Woods’s boss, Inspector DeBenedetto.
“I’ll work on that other thing for you,” he said.
“Do that. That’s important.”
“That is. You should know him.”
“Because this fucking Woodsie…he’s a real fucking prostitute. You know what I think’s happening?”
“Who’s he working for?” Schwartz asked. Hersing named the lieutenant directly over Woods. Schwartz was shocked. Here Hersing knew him! Abe Schwartz! He knew Inspector Jimmy Carlini! And he was dealing with a vice officer and his lieutenant? Schwartz was dismayed by Hersing’s innocence.
“Christ! The big boss is Jimmy’s best friend!”
“You know, I heard that.”
“Very best friend! What are you paying?”
“Five, eh, five a month.”
“Why don’t you see the head guy?”
“But, you see, the thing I think, Abe, is happening—Woods is not telling his lieutenant he’s getting the five a month.”
“Then he’s not even telling the inspector.”
Schwartz now had the undivided attention of the FBI agents watching and listening downstairs.
“That’s what I figured,” Hersing said. “You know, ’cause he come to me the other day and he said, ‘You gotta take a bust.’ I said, ‘Hey George, what the fuck is this? I pay. Why do I have to take a fucking bust?’” Hersing said that Woods told him, “I got to make it look good to the lieutenant.”
Schwartz decided to straighten his brother out. He never mentioned DeBenedetto’s name, but Hersing understood that the detective was referring to the new central division inspector.
“You want to talk to him?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re gonna take care of him, will ya?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“He’s good people. I’m gonna talk to Jimmy.”
“Eh, I would rather deal with the inspector than with him,” Hersing said, referring to Woods.
“Always talk with the top man. I’m surprised at you, Don.”
“Right,” Schwartz said. “Well, so was Jimmy. That don’t mean nothing…Take care of the head man. I’ll…try to set it up for you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“All I want is…”—and Schwartz gestured to the videotape recorder on the floor and spoke rapidly, whispering, “You took care of me now—I’m gonna get fucked…ten times. That’s all I want.”
“Hey,” Hersing said, indicating, no problem.
“And I, I don’t like to go over there,” he said, referring to the Vine Street whorehouse. “I want to come here.” Schwartz asked if Hersing had anything good for him.
“Oh yeah,” Hersing said. The detective said he would like for something to be arranged for the next day. He stood up and put his hat back on. Stepping around the coffee table, he stooped and lifted the box with the Betamax without bending his knees.
“You strong enough to carry that, Abe?”
“It’s for me, ain’t it?” the detective said, walking out of the room, the weight of the machine bending him slightly backward.
“That’s the best they got, too,” Hersing said.
Now the hunt was on. Schwartz had taken the bait and disappeared into woods neither Thompson nor Lash had ever explored. They were delighted. Listening to Schwartz, one of the most veteran members of the Philadelphia Police Department, the two young FBI agents felt like they were getting an education in big-city police work. It was disillusioning, to say the least. When Schwartz had casually tossed off the fact that it didn’t matter that DeBenedetto and Carlini had worked as staff inspectors for the department’s internal affairs division, it said a lot about the corruption Hersing was finding. It suggested that Georgie Woods was, in fact, an anomaly. Not because he was taking money, but because he wasn’t collecting it for someone else!
The fast-talking police detective in the straw hat was not only confirming their worst suspicions, he was expanding their worst suspicions. Prior to the meeting, the only indication they had that Schwartz was corrupt was his enjoyment of Cinnamon’s whores. But for all they knew, Schwartz and Carlini just used their position to con men like Don Hersing into throwing them wild parties. There were certainly questionable ethics involved, but hardly indictable activity (Carlini, in fact, would never be indicted). But Abe Schwartz, with his quickly lowered voice and his brother-now-that-you’ve-taken-care-of-me-I’ll-take-care-of-you talk, had turned this minor FBI probe into a major investigation.
Abe Schwartz was as good as his word. Six days later, Hersing got a message on his answering machine to call Inspector John DeBenedetto. He called back immediately, and DeBenedetto told Hersing that he wanted to see him that afternoon. So at 2 p.m. Hersing took a cab over to the tan stone central division headquarters at Twentieth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
He was directed inside to DeBenedetto’s office on the second floor. But, after climbing the stairs and stepping out into the second floor, Hersing walked straight into George Woods. The detective was sitting behind a typewriter at his desk outside the inspector’s office.
Woods was clearly shocked to see Hersing walk in. He jumped up and crossed the room, shooing Hersing out the door and back down the stairs. “Get outta here!” he said. If the inspector ever found out that Woods was collecting money from Hersing on his own, he was in trouble. Woods rushed Hersing back outside. Annoyed, Hersing strode back to the cab. As he was climbing in the back door, Woods came hurrying out the front door and got in next to him. He told the driver to cruise around the block. They stopped a few blocks away at an auto repair shop.
What was Hersing doing at headquarters? Woods wanted to know. Hersing said that DeBenedetto had asked him to come in. He could see that this put the detective in a bind; Hersing was nervous, too. He didn’t know what Woods would do. Finally, the detective just told Hersing to leave.
Woods told him, “If he calls you back, come back, but if you do come back make sure you don’t mention my name to him.”
Hersing wasn’t sure what to do next. He didn’t want to cross Woods just yet. For all he knew, DeBenedetto might really be straight. If he told the inspector that he had been paying Woods, it might blow everything. He had to feel his way. So he went back down to the apartment and phoned the inspector. He told DeBenedetto that he had gotten delayed at a doctor’s office. The inspector agreed to meet him the following day at the Parkway Room restaurant.
Hersing was wary of Inspector DeBenedetto. The man had George Woods positively spooked. And, even if Schwartz said it didn’t mean anything, DeBenedetto had been in Internal Affairs. Hersing had heard that the new inspector was a tough man. He wasn’t eager to start dealing with him.
Truth was, Hersing’s sore feet had begun to turn mildly cold when it came to this investigation. It had been almost four months since he had first gone to the FBI. Then, he was primarily interested in getting George Woods off his back. They had quickly collected enough evidence to nail him. But as the case expanded, as Thompson and Lash grew more excited about it, Hersing’s interest waned. It was taking a lot of his time. He had finished paying off the money his partner, William Robertshaw, had lent him to start up the whorehouses and the club, and was now starting to make money. With DeBenedetto looming as a new target, the undercover work was looking less exciting than dangerous. It was starting to place demands on his time and on his wallet. It was a constant hassle. The FBI seemed to have trouble coming up with cash in time to meet expenses. When he started working as a source, Hersing had spent mostly his own money. This had been fine initially, while he was excited about the case, but now it had become a drain. He wanted to know how much money the FBI would pay him when it was all over. All Thompson and Lash would tell him was that, while it was customary for the FBI to bestow a cash award on sources after a case was complete, the amount depended on the outcome of the case and the level of contribution made. They weren’t making any promises. Hersing was also worried because he was still on probation for the previous smuggling conviction. One of the rules of his probation was that he could not work for the government. He couldn’t come right out and tell his parole officer what he was doing, but the man kept asking questions.
Thompson and Lash were exposed to Hersing’s growing reluctance in a multitude of ways. There would be whole weeks when they couldn’t find him. Their phone calls routinely went unanswered. Hersing frequently failed to show up for meetings they had scheduled. They had begun to sympathize with the annoyed voices of the Philadelphia policemen in their growing stack of tape-recorded conversations.
On August 27, the agents were eager for Hersing to wear a tape recorder for his first meeting with DeBenedetto. If the inspector was going to cut his deal with Hersing, it would be at this meeting. But Hersing balked. He was afraid of DeBenedetto. He thought the inspector would search him. The agents, reluctantly, had to agree that it was possible. So Hersing went to the first meeting without a body recorder.
It was a cloudy day, more humid than hot. Moisture and pollution hung like a bright fog over the view from Spring Garden Street toward the dense green foliage along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The Parkway House was a tall apartment building of pale orange brick that was the last major structure before Spring Garden Street opened out into the sculpted green spaces and busy traffic ovals laid out before the Philadelphia Museum of Art. DeBenedetto lunched regularly in the bar and restaurant on the first floor of the Parkway House. It was just a two-block walk out the front door of central division headquarters. The inspector always sat at a round table to the right, just past the bar, in a little space between the kitchen entrance and a wide green pillar. On the wall behind him was a collection of framed prints: a big color photograph of Philadelphia, an aerial view from behind the art museum looking east to Center City; a soft purplish shot of Boathouse Row in the fog and two Norman Rockwell p
rints; one of John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic convention, and another of an old woman praying over her meal at a luncheonette. From where he sat, DeBenedetto faced across the restaurant a wall of curved greenhouse windows shaded by plants suspended from a high ceiling.
DeBenedetto looked like the heavy he was reputed to be. He was a wide-shouldered man with a broad face that was both fleshy and square. Even his double chin seemed regimented, falling from under a strong chin to a hard second line of defense just over the Adam’s apple above his collar. His eyes were set wide apart, and were more horizontal than round. Hard black pupils stared out of long fleshy slits that echoed the squareness of his brow and chin and jaw. DeBenedetto had a wide straight nose and a small, tight mouth. There were deep, old creases angling down the middle of both cheeks, but these were more the remnants of a young man’s angular face than the deepening lines of age. DeBenedetto’s hair was regulation trim, a touch of gray cropped short at the temples. He didn’t smile. It was the kind of face that didn’t smile easily. DeBenedetto’s very lack of expressiveness added to the appearance he gave of being strong, set, determined. He looked just as Hersing thought he should look.
Two FBI agents seated at another table observed Hersing come in around noon and greet DeBenedetto. He was introduced to the inspector by Gene Console, the restaurant manager. DeBenedetto was wearing a white uniform shirt with police insignia on the collar and silver buttons on the pockets. Hersing sat down and ordered a cup of coffee. He never had much of an appetite at these sessions. Besides, Hersing was usually asleep at this hour. There was no search. DeBenedetto was brusque. He was willing to do business with Hersing, but, unlike Hersing’s relationships with Woods and Schwartz, there would be nothing buddy-buddy about it.
He asked Hersing right out if he had been paying off one of his men. Hersing wasn’t sure how to answer. He wasn’t ready yet to trust DeBenedetto, or to throw Woods to the wolves. What if the inspector was laying his own trap? Hersing hedged. DeBenedetto reassured him.