The French Connection

by Robin Moore

  This in turn led logically to several further suppositions: If Patsy were involved in a heroin distributor-ship, he probably was acting as Little Angie's proxy in transactions with the big buyers; Patsy may have let his newly exalted position go to his head, and was becoming careless. Surely each "connection" who laid out bread knew to the ounce how much junk to expect in return, yet apparently Patsy kept no records, just stuffed cash into his secret trap — which, considering that it was no secret to his wife, might be leaving him short. Patsy might not be exceedingly bright; Patsy was otherwise very cautious and should not be underestimated.

  "Poor Patsy," Egan clucked, "if he don't have enough bread to front the next shipment, some of those connections of his ain't gonna get their money's worth."

  "And when his friends get wise . . . ?"

  One way or another, they were growing confident that Patsy Fuca would be the instrument to help them flush out Little Angie Tuminaro.

  C h a p t e r 4

  By the middle of November, 1961, Patsy and Barbara Fuca had been under constant surveillance for six weeks. At various times and places connections delivered money to Patsy, either in view of the watching police or at clandestine meetings. On several occasions, the police felt, Patsy may have exchanged small amounts of heroin; they could have "hit" him any one of these times. But a larger score was in prospect — specifically, the whereabouts of the big man, Little Angie — so they let Patsy operate at the end of a long leash.

  Chief Carey by now had designated several other members of the department to work with Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under its New York Director, George Gaffney, also had taken sufficient interest to assign Special Agent Frank Waters to cooperate with the city police. Thus, during November there was hardly an hour of the day or night that every movement of the Fucas was not covered.

  Egan and Grosso were still directing the overall surveillance, reporting regularly to their boss, Lieutenant Vinnie Hawkes, and to Sergeant Jack Fleming of S.I.U. The two detectives continued also to use their free time to delve more deeply into the Tuminaro-Fuca setup. Sonny took an occasional night off for bowling, or a Sunday at Yankee Stadium with his partner, watching the football Giants; and Egan managed to see Carol Galvin irregularly. But essentially they remained completely absorbed in the Fuca case and spent much of their free time dogging known pushers and dealers in Harlem as well as in Brooklyn, and pressing their most credible stoolies for further information about Patsy.

  Egan's relationship with Carol Galvin was becoming a source of distraction to him. He felt a strong desire to be with her, and he was certain that she was strongly attracted to him. She was a genuinely beautiful girl. Never had he taken out such a lovely one. He had met her first at the Copa during a casual visit in September and when she responded fetchingly to the inevitable approach, he was soon coming around every night to escort her from the nightclub when it closed at 3:00 A.M. The late hour didn't bother him; he was rarely off assignment before then anyway.

  What rankled him was her request that he not wait for her in the club because among the Copa's customers were known mobsters and Carol feared that the management would resent the presence of a cop even though his only interest in the place was their hatcheck girl. So they met by Central Park, half a block away at the corner of 60th Street, and went somewhere for Chinese food or pizza. Soon they became very friendly.

  Carol had the physical requisites to become a model or actress, but perhaps the necessary ambition or discipline were lacking in the nineteen-year-old girl. She had competed in the usual beauty contests, and had taken the Copa job to catch the eye of the "right" people. But nothing exciting had turned up excluding, of course, the inevitable propositions from amorous patrons. Nothing, except that she had fallen for a redheaded cop.

  Egan was most protective about her. He didn't like her working at the Copa precisely because of the well-heeled hoodlums who frequented the place. They both lived in Brooklyn, and he gave her a key to his flat. Carol had no family, and in the early hours of the morning when Eddie couldn't meet her, after the Copa closed she drove her own car to his place and waited for him to finally wend his way home after long hours of fighting the war against the heroin merchants. This arrangement was hardly satisfying to either of them, and Egan came up with a new plan, combining his constabulary instincts with his desire to have Carol more available. He learned of an opening for a barmaid at what he told her was a more "respectable" restaurant downtown on Nassau Street in the financial district, not far from the Narcotics Bureau Headquarters. The Nassau Tavern's clientele switched dramatically from the luncheon crowd of brokers, bankers and lawyers to the night-time covey of those who frequented the waterfront area. Even Patsy Fuca dropped in occasionally, and his brother Tony was a regular patron. Carol became a potentially valuable source of information.

  At this new job Carol was finished with work at eleven each night, and more often than not Egan would arrange to meet her and take her with him on his surveillance of Patsy Fuca. This began to irritate his partner, Sonny Grosso, but Egan reasoned that he could sit outside of Patsy's store or house as easily, and certainly more happily, with Carol as with Sonny.

  But Carol soon tired of this routine. She began to hint that this was no life for him, for either of them, that he should get out of police work, that they could make an exciting life together were he not so tied down. But Egan didn't really feel "tied down": he was enthusiastic about his job, and felt a strong sense of purpose, in spite of his manipulation of regulations.

  He wanted her, but the job did come first. She countered that she had received several interesting proposals from well-to-do patrons of the restaurant and that maybe she ought to give them more serious thought. They quarrelled more frequently.

  Personal problems aside, Egan and Grosso were everywhere. They had developed considerable intelligence on the pattern and background of the Fucas' lives. Barbara's stepfather had been a hijacker during Prohibition but had been "retired" for many years and now helped out in the store. (It was his old Dodge that Patsy occasionally used.) Patsy's brother Tony was the dirty-looking, heavy-faced individual in the faded lumber jacket whom they had seen there several times. He was thirty-one, a year older than Patsy. Tony was a longshoreman who lived in a rundown section of the Bronx with his wife and two small daughters. Patsy's parents, in their sixties, had their own three-story house, the two upper floors of which they rented out, on 7th Street near the area of Brooklyn known as Gowanus. The elder Fuca, whose name was Giuseppe, or Joseph, had served time years ago on assault and robbery raps. The only friends Patsy and Barbara seemed to spend any time with were Nicky Travato, a longshoreman, and his wife, also named Barbara, who lived about four blocks from the Fucas on 66th Street, near Fifteenth Avenue. Although Nicky worked on the docks, and they lived in a shabby, sooty tenement practically beneath the New Utrecht Avenue elevated BMT subway tracks, the officers had noted with interest that the Travatos owned a five-year-old Cadillac. On several nights they had seen Nicky pick Patsy up and chauffeur him to various locations in Brooklyn, where one of them would get out and briefly visit some store or building and then resume their nocturnal tour. The detectives concluded that these were narcotics deliveries and perhaps payoffs; plainly, Nicky knew about them, so he too was added to the select but growing sheet on Patsy Fuca.

  Patsy was not at home many nights. He was usually in his store until nearly midnight, and three or four nights a week he drove fifteen minutes into Manhattan to stop at a bar called the Pike Slip Inn.

  This was a dimly lit, sinister-looking bistro almost under the Manhattan Bridge, around the corner from the East River wharves and not far from the colourful Fulton Fish Market. It was run by a hoodlum named Mickey Blair, and had the reputation of being a haven for a variety of hijackers and bad actors.

  Eddie and Sonny stirred with anticipation when they first tailed Patsy there, because in this squalid setting, it appeared that Patsy was received as royalt
y. Sonny followed him in the first time, and from the end of the bar near the door he could see that the dozen or so patrons knew of Patsy's important relationship with Little Angie and paid him due homage. But on subsequent visits, Sonny began to wonder if Blair's had any real significance, because Patsy's chief interest there seemed to be the barmaid, a petite, pretty Latin type named Inez. Patsy paid her a great deal of attention in a rough sensual way, flirting with her, kissing her or running his hands over her when she passed by, whispering into her ear, or laughing raucously at some private joke. Finally, he would drive up onto the Manhattan Bridge and cruise home to Brooklyn.

  Because of these late hours, Barbara Fuca needed to find ways of amusing herself most evenings. Her favourite pastime was Bingo, and she must have become used to this mode of living over a long period, for she seemed to have a chart on every Bingo night in Brooklyn, and some in Queens. Three to four times a week, Barbara and Barbara Travato or another girl with striking red hair named Marilyn, went to some different church or social hall. At first, Egan and Grosso felt it wise to trail the girls to the community centre chosen for an evening, because there could be no other way of telling whether or not these outings might be a cover and that actually Barbara was the medium through which Angelo

  Tuminaro communicated with his nephew. They kept close eyes on whomever Barbara talked to at these affairs, but there never was an indication that she attended for anything other than innocent diversion, and after a while the bored detectives stopped shadowing her at Bingo.

  From time to time, Patsy did take his wife out for an evening, and at least once early in the surveillance their taste in entertainment leaned toward the bizarre. On a Friday night late in October, Eddie and Sonny followed Patsy and the two Barbaras out the Belt Parkway into Nassau County, to a gay costume ball at a country club in Lynbrook on Long Island's south shore.

  The ball proved to be gay in more ways than one.

  It was crowded and noisy, and provided a glittering panoply of costume and hairdo and makeup. It also became quickly evident that many of the girls were boys and vice-versa. The two bewildered detectives soon learned that this affair was one in a series staged by some kind of homosexual society. Patsy and Barbara apparently were regular patrons, both getting their kicks from the squealing, bickering fairies and the competition of one bull dyke with another for the attentions of a lesbian queen. Eddie and Sonny giggled self-consciously to each other, simulating the manners of cavorting queers, and after an hour retired from the scene. Tomorrow, they would take up their surveillance again.

  Early in November the police had begun to hear noises from stools that a "panic" was developing in the streets; the available supplies of junk were rapidly diminishing. The rumour was that a major shipment was due in the city momentarily. The detectives doubled their vigilance, sure that if the break came Patsy Fuca would be in the middle of it.

  Late on Saturday night, November 18, Eddie and Sonny were parked in Sonny's convertible across from Patsy's luncheonette. They had been on him since late afternoon, the night had turned chilly, and they were weary. Patsy was puttering about inside, making preparations to close the store, and the two officers almost prayed that he would go home and let them get some rest.

  To amuse themselves, Eddie had donned a woman's floppy picture hat and a red wig, rolled up his trousers under his trench coat and nestled close to the hatless, black-haired Sonny in the driver's seat.

  A casual passerby would have received a touching, if perhaps somewhat ludicrous, impression of a thin swarthy young man and a decidedly hefty ruddy-faced girl in tender proximity.

  Shortly after 11:30 PM, a blue compact Buick with two girls in it stopped and honked in front of the luncheonette. The detectives were sure it was one of the Fucas' cars, but the driver didn't look like Barbara, and they couldn't identify the other girl either. In a moment, the lights went out inside the store and Patsy emerged, locked the door and climbed into the front seat with the girls, and the car pulled away. It looked as though Patsy was going to a party.

  The detectives sighed because they had to stay with him; there was never any telling when or how he might try to contact Little Angie. They trailed the Buick onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, south-bound; at least Patsy wasn't going into Manhattan.

  The Buick followed the Expressway around the Brooklyn Navy Yard, down the shoreline across from the towers of lower Manhattan across the mouth of the East River, then swung over the Gowanus Canal, and exited near Fourth Avenue, whence it turned up to 7th Street. This was where Patsy's parents lived. The compact found a parking space midway in the block.

  Egan and Grosso cruised slowly by on the one-way eastbound street. Patsy and the girls were entering his parents' house, No. 245, the middle one in a row of seven identical three-story structures. And now Sonny recognized one of the girls: "That's Barbara, wearing one of her wigs!"

  Egan agreed. "And I make the other one now, too: her redheaded girl friend, Marilyn." The office had checked out this Marilyn, and she was known only as a close friend of Barbara's.

  "What's interesting," Sonny commented, as they parked by a fire plug near the corner of Fourth Avenue, "is that it seems kind of late to be calling on the old folks, and bringing a friend yet."

  The three came out after about twenty minutes and re-entered the Buick, Marilyn driving. Now the detectives followed them west on 9th Street, where they drove up the ramp to the Gowanus Expressway.

  They ignored both the cut-offs to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and to the Brooklyn Bridge, but at Flatbush Avenue the compact turned off toward the approach to the Manhattan Bridge. However, roadway construction made it difficult to get onto the bridge, and after some hesitation they drove back up on the Expressway and continued north to the exit for the Williamsburg Bridge.

  From the moment of leaving the house of Patsy's parents, Egan had been on the portable two-way radiophone giving a running commentary on their itinerary to another car carrying bureau teammate Dick Auletta and Federal Agent Frank Waters, who together had remained behind in the Williamsburg area near Patsy's store; whichever way the subjects went, whether back toward the luncheonette or into Manhattan, Auletta and Waters were to be Egan's and Grosso's backstops. When the Buick finally indicated that it was turning onto the Williamsburg Bridge, Egan advised the other detectives to detach and head for the bridge too.

  Traffic, though light at this late hour, moved slowly crossing the East River, slowing almost to a standstill near the Manhattan end of the span.

  Several cars were between the Fucas' and Sonny's now, and Egan, fussing with his woman's hat and wig, muttered a string of obscenities leaning out the right-hand window, craning to keep the blue Buick in view. A large green tow truck with its red warning lights blinking was partially blocking the roadway off the bridge leading into Delancey Street. "A goddamn police truck, must be an accident," Egan yelled over his shoulder to his partner. "Cops!" he spat. He could make out a patrolman from the truck, in faded blue work clothes, directing one vehicle at a time off the snarled bridge in the single lane still open. As he watched, the Buick was waved ahead into Delancey. Egan and Grosso remained motionless, three cars behind.

  Egan threw open the car door. "I'm gonna run for it, see which way they go. Keep an eye out for me . . . "

  and he jumped out and ran off the bridge after Patsy's compact.

  It did not occur to him, nor would he have cared if it had, what an incongruous sight he presented galloping along Delancey Street at thirty minutes past midnight. This was an old, traditionally Jewish immigrant neighbourhood, and, despite the hour, a number of places still blazed light because it was Saturday night following sundown of the Sabbath. It was Kosher delicatessens and Chinese restaurants for the most part that were still open. Quite a few pedestrians were milling about on the sidewalk, and they stared in surprise at the big florid-faced man, floppy hat in hand, red wig askew, trench coat flying, bare legs churning, only one bare now actually, for the other trouser l
eg had begun to unroll from beneath the coat.

  Fortunately, Patsy's compact had been held up by two red lights, and Egan saw it take a left into Allen Street, heading down toward Pike Street and the river.

  Drenched with perspiration despite the November chill, his chest heaving for air, he waited agitatedly on the center island at the intersection of Delancey and Allen, searching for Sonny's Olds. When Sonny finally spotted him, Eddie was out in the middle of the cross-walk, dancing about dodging traffic, trying to keep one eye out for his partner and the other on Patsy's car, fast disappearing down Allen Street. Egan motioned to him to swing left, and as Sonny slowed he hopped back into the car. "Allen . . . Pike Slip . . . "

  Eddie puffed as Sonny made the turn.

  "Where are the other guys?" he wheezed after a moment.

  "Still stuck back on the bridge." Sonny glanced at his heavy-breathing partner, and a smile spread across his normally melancholy face.

  "What's funny?" Egan demanded.

  "I was just thinking: if Patsy's going in the Pike Slip Inn, you oughta go in. You look like an old hooker.

  They'll love you there."

  Egan inspected himself. "Yeah, well next time you can go in drag, smart ass," he snorted, removing the wig and rolling down his trouser leg.

  Dick Auletta's voice cracked on the radiophone: "Where are you guys?"

  "You clear of the bridge?" Sonny asked back.

  "What a mess! We're on Delancey."

  "Take your left on Allen. We're just coming up to East Broadway. We'll keep you informed, kay," Sonny signed off in police fashion.

  "Ten-four — " Auletta started to acknowledge.

  "Wait, they're turning left on East Broadway . . . " Sonny interrupted.

  The blue Buick had pulled over and double-parked midway to the next corner. Sonny drew his Olds to the corner of Allen and East Broadway just in time to see Patsy get out of the compact and stride alone across the avenue. Without a word, Egan hopped out and scooted across Allen and then started walking casually along East Broadway toward the point where Patsy had seemed to be headed. Meanwhile, Sonny made the turn and cruised down East Broadway, past the idling Buick, in which Barbara and Marilyn still sat. Near the next corner, Rutgers Street, he swung the Olds into a U-turn to come back up the opposite side of the avenue. But suddenly, ahead of Sonny, with a squeal of rubber, a big light-coloured sedan swept out of the line of cars parked at the curb, made a sharp U-turn of its own and, after slowing in front of the compact, proceeded to gun uptown on East Broadway. The girls in the Buick compact followed.