The French Connection

by Robin Moore

  Egan had at least one memorable experience tailing Patsy, when one afternoon during the second week of December, he was with Patsy and Barbara as they went Christmas shopping in downtown Brooklyn.

  Egan followed the couple from bustling store to store, managing to keep them in view despite the milling crowds and turbulent preholiday traffic. After a couple of hours, they drove out Eastern Parkway to Kings Highway, where Barbara dropped her husband at a bank and went on elsewhere by herself. Patsy went into the bank, the Lafayette National, transacted some sort of business and left, taking a taxi back to his store in Williamsburg. There had been nothing unusual about the visit, with the possible exception, as Egan noted with wry speculation, of his seeming to have taken longer than perhaps was necessary to fill out his deposit slips while he glanced about with interest at the layout of the banking floor. Now he is going to be a bank robber too, Egan had smiled to himself.

  Two days later, on December 15, two bandits with a machine gun did hold up the Lafayette National Bank on Kings Highway, killing a guard and critically wounding a police officer before escaping with $35,000.

  Egan had not yet conceived of any reasonable connection between Patsy Fuca and that armed robbery, nor would he for weeks to come. On December 16, the day after the robbery, he and Sonny, wearing their white jackets from St. Catherine's Hospital, once more browsed through the magazines and the paperback book rack at the rear of Patsy's luncheonette. A natty, pin-striped, swarthy-complexioned individual entered the store and motioned Patsy toward the alcove in the back. "There's a sharp piece of work," Sonny muttered as the pair went behind the partially drawn curtain. They had never seen the newcomer before. Apparently oblivious to their surroundings, eyes intent upon the books in each of their hands, the detectives imperceptibly edged closer to the alcove, ears straining to overhear any snatches of conversation.

  "Uncle Harry wants you to take another order of cigars, like before," a hoarse voice said.

  Patsy grunted. "When they coming?"

  " . . . due in next week."

  "Okay. Tell him I'll be ready," Patsy mumbled.

  The stranger came out in a moment, elbowing past Egan. At the front counter, he selected a cigar, then, with a nod toward Patsy, sauntered from the store.

  Eddie and Sonny looked at each other. It wasn't much, but possibly meant that something would be happening soon.

  On that very day, December 16, a shipment of 51.1 kilograms of nearly pure heroin, over 112 pounds, arrived in Montreal, by shipment from France. The potent white powder of living death, packaged in small quantities, was hidden in extraordinary, virtually detection-proof traps concealed within the fenders and undercarriage of a tan 1960 Buick Invicta.

  The heroin was about to complete its evil life cycle, which in this case started in Turkey where the poppies are cultivated and the opium harvested. It had then gone to Lebanon where the oily, musk-scented brown paste is sold and chemically reduced to a powdery, white morphine base. It requires ten pounds of opium to produce one of morphine, which is then conveyed clandestinely to the sophisticated refineries in the south of France around Marseilles.

  Here it is chemically processed further into the drug known as heroin and makes its illicit passage throughout the world and to its primary market, the United States. When entering its market country, it goes first to the "receiver," then down to the big wholesalers or "connections," then along the line to the smallest street-corner pusher selling tiny glassine-enveloped "pops" at three or five dollars a bag. (The greed of the middle men may have one beneficial effect. By the time pure heroin has been cut and recut with harmless mannite or lactose powders, the bags at the point of sale contain no more than a few grains of the actual narcotic, putting a minimal dose in the user's system, making it easier to kick the habit than were he getting the "good stuff" which was sold in the twenties and thirties.) The load that arrived in Montreal could be expected to turn over as much as $32,000,000 on the street. Theoretically, it was enough to supply every addict in the United States for eight months. It was the largest single shipment ever attempted.

  The receiver in Montreal was to be one Louis Martin Maurice, who was in fact the number-one importer for the North American continent.

  Appropriately the large load was accompanied to Montreal by the French director of this, the world's biggest heroin network, Jean Jehan, who was known to the English speaking underworld as "Giant." (That was as close to pronouncing his name as the hoodlums could come.) To those few who saw and knew him, he was a figure out of melodrama. Giant was a tall dapper Frenchman in his mid-sixties who affected pearl-gray spats, a diplomat's striped trousers, a black cashmere blazer with matching velvet piping, a vest (sometimes lemon-coloured), cravat and a gray hom-1 In December 1965 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, in cooperation with U.S. customs agents and local police in Columbus, Georgia, seized more than 200 pounds of heroin shipped from France inside an electric freezer, and arrested four men. In April 1968 Federal agents, assisted by New York City police, again confiscated in excess of 200 pounds of heroin, secreted, interestingly enough, in a French automobile abandoned on a Manhattan pier. In the latter instance, however, there would seem to have been a "leak" in security, for — unlike the present case, as will be seen — nobody claimed the shipment, and to date no principals have been apprehended.

  This memorable sartorial picture was set off perfectly by the black malacca walking stick which he always carried.

  Jehan had been a solicitous chaperone on this voyage from France, even more so than he had been back in November when he had accompanied the Buick which Grosso, Egan and Waters had spotted in New York. That operation had proved successful, but before it was culminated indications had reached Jean Jehan of some disquieting moments with the police.

  Possibly they had only stumbled upon something, but what disturbed him far more was the suspicion that a leak might have developed, or some sort of weak link, in the chain of operations. Of late he had become discomfited with the setup in New York, anyway. When Tuminaro was running his own organization, there had been order, security. But this nephew, Fuca, Jehan did not feel confidence in him. He had no savoir faire, no style, which was bad enough, the Frenchman reflected; but far worse, in this business at least, was the possibility that the man was not trustworthy.

  His caution seemed justified when, upon arrival at Montreal, the Canadian police clamped an unexpected embargo on the ship and proceeded painstakingly to search the vessel. The search was too thorough to be routine — the police kept at it for two days. Jehan and Maurice, who met him, guessed that there had been a tip that a shipment of narcotics was coming in.

  Nonetheless, they considered brazening it through until news reached the Montreal conspirators of another alarming development. In Rochester, New York, an American mobster who had been a valuable associate in their smuggling operations was reported to have been shot to death.

  Jehan and Maurice could not have known at the time that their contact had been gunned down in a simple gangland feud that was completely coincidental to the Canadian police having swooped aboard the French ship. For them, the timing of the two incidents was enough to sound a warning that the heat was on. They agreed that it was too dangerous now to try to move the merchandise across the U.S.-Canadian border in the Buick. The only alternative was to return it to France in the same condition in which it had come over, and find a way to transport it directly to New York.

  Thus, on December 18, Jean Jehan flew back to Paris after the search was over and the tan Buick had been released by police and Customs inspectors. The car was reloaded aboard the ship and sailed for France, its cargo still intact.

  In New York, the "next week" which Patsy Fuca's informant had mentioned as arrival time of the "cigars" came and went, and the heroin "panic" was still spreading. The police were unable to determine whether the crisis had been self-induced by the Mafia, a cruel ploy frequently engineered for the purpose of causing prices of junk to soar, or whether the big im
porters were having problems getting the stuff into the country.

  The narcotics detectives continued their rigorous surveillance of Patsy Fuca, his family and associates, and stayed with him many days now around the clock.

  There was some discontent about this, with the holidays so near, but Christmas notwithstanding, they knew they could not afford to let up on Patsy for a minute lest the break they had waited for so diligently be missed. On top of this Eddie Egan had been having particular problems with Carol Galvin this holiday season.

  The beautiful girl continually tried wheedling him into spending more time with her, urging him more and more forcefully to give up his "thankless" job and go into business with her. Egan was becoming distracted by their more frequent arguments on the subject, and he was further troubled by what he now detected to be a strong desire for material welfare above all else. Her most recent proposal had been especially annoying: it started one evening when Carol told him excitedly how an elderly patron of the Nassau Tavern, a gentleman of apparent means, had offered to buy her a nightclub in New Jersey! Egan rebuked her for giving a second thought to such a proposition, even from a seventy-year-old, and ordered her to forget it. But a few days later Carol again was bursting with the news that the ancient had sent his thirty-nine-year-old son to her with a gift of a new Thunderbird! She gloated over the possibilities: Eddie could quit the force and help her run the club full-time. As for her aged suitor, as she saw it, all she would have to do was have coffee with him occasionally and maybe let him kiss her once in a while. Egan, stunned at first, became furious. They fought again, and at last he walked out. But he couldn't stop remembering how good it had been when he and his nineteen-year-old blonde beauty had been together.

  Jean Jehan wasted no time after his return to Paris from Montreal to contact the man who would take on some of the syndicate's most difficult and repugnant jobs for high fees. François Scaglia, pleased that his foresight should be rewarded so soon, listened smugly as Jehan discussed his dilemma — how to get the highly valuable and urgently needed heroin directly into New York, the tightest port of entry in the United States.

  The demand for heroin was growing stronger, but there was heat being applied by the police, and reports reached Jehan that some of the biggest American receivers were complaining that the last shipment of heroin had not been of the high-grade quality promised. They wanted a good new supply, and soon. Jehan was even willing this time to send the ring's chief chemist personally to New York to verify the quality. But first, the major concern was to get the load there. Did the Corsican have any ideas? Scaglia told the Giant to be of good cheer and enjoy Christmas. The fifty-one kilos of heroin were as good as in New York City.

  On Thursday, December 21, Jacques Angelvin announced on his television program that his plans to visit the United States where, as he put it, he would "sound out America and its TV," had been finalized.

  He told his vast and faithful audience that he would take his luxurious new car to America with him to "see America like a perfect tourist." Unstated, of course, was that his plans to visit America had been considerably hastened by Scaglia's importuning. The charge for transporting the car to America would come to about $475, more than his own tourist-class passage. He knew he was performing a dangerous "errand" for Scaglia by taking the new car, and he had been promised $10,000, more than a year's salary, when the errand was completed in New York.

  Scaglia told Angelvin that all he needed to do before departure was to make the Buick available for two days. He was to leave it, unlocked, at a spot on the Champs Elysées and retrieve it at approximately the same location within forty-eight hours. And once in New York, he was to lay up the car in the garage of his hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria, and not move it until so instructed. So simple. He himself, Scaglia confided, would be in New York at about the same time and would provide all guidance and moral support. And for so untaxing a task: 5,000,000 francs, 10,000 American dollars.

  On January 2, 1962, Angelvin parked the Buick on the Champs Elysées and flew south for an uneasy two-day visit with his family. On January 4, returning to Paris, he picked up the car, packed, and drove toward the north coast, whence the ocean liner United States was to sail from Le Havre the next day. That night, he stopped over in Rouen at the Hotel de la Poste, where Scaglia met him and, over dinner, they reviewed the details of Jacques's "errand."

  The next morning, the ingenuous Angelvin managed to throw a scare into the Corsican. Having experienced signs of difficulty with his Buick's generator the evening before, he rose early and drove to a General Motors garage on the other side of Rouen, to which he had been directed by the hotel concierge.

  When Scaglia arose to find his companion missing, he inquired of the concierge, and, learning of Jacques's destination, sped madly in a taxi the two miles to the garage to prevent any untoward discoveries by repairmen tinkering with the Buick.

  That evening, January 5, Jacques Angelvin sailed from Le Havre aboard the S.S. United States, with his precious Invicta in a cargo hold. François Scaglia returned to Paris by train.

  Thirty-six hours later, on January 7, Scaglia himself boarded an Air France jetliner at Orly and flew to Montreal, Canada. He checked in overnight at the

  Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and, later, in an apartment in the Rosemont section, he met with Louis Martin Maurice and Jean Jehan, who had arrived earlier on a different flight from Paris. The next night, Scaglia left for New York by train. Arriving the morning of Tuesday, January 9, he registered as François Barbier at the Victoria Hotel, on the corner of West 51st Street and Seventh Avenue.

  Jehan departed Montreal by air later that day and, in New York, went to the Hotel Edison on West 46th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. This hotel was less than six blocks from Pier 86 on the Hudson River, where the United States Lines' flag-ship was due to berth the following evening.

  Aboard the United States, Jacques Angelvin found the crossing rather unpleasant from the beginning. The ship's departure from Le Havre had been delayed six hours, and passengers were unable even to board until well after midnight. He shared a tourist-class cabin with two other men, one a German to whom Jacques took an almost instant dislike. There were very few French people among the 1,800 passengers; most appeared to be Americans, and Jacques was dismayed at what he considered to be their indifference to elegance. The food he found undistinguished except for the hearty Anglo-Saxon breakfasts, although, with his mind frequently on his personal health, he did decide that the American custom of drinking water with meals might be good for his liver.

  Angelvin fell victim to claustrophobia in the small, crowded cabin and had trouble sleeping. This growing annoyance was aggravated by his bombastic Prussian cabin-mate, whose habit it was to arise every morning at 6 A.M., invariably waking Jacques just as he was finally dozing off. After the German and the diffident service, his greatest source of irritation was what he regarded as the excessive Jewish atmosphere on shipboard. There seemed to be Jewish religious services going on all the time.

  Angelvin did meet a young French girl named Arlette who, though not especially pretty, was presentable enough to warrant his attention. But the crowded tourist class made it impractical to advance their relationship beyond the initial stages.

  Angelvin thus found himself reduced to sitting in the writing lounge, scratching out a diary of his comments about the frustrating voyage and his thoughts as to his plans in New York. He vowed that on the return trip he would travel first-class. He would be able to afford it then.

  In New York that week, police informers began circulating word that no less than fifty kilos of heroin —"good stuff" — might hit the streets within days. At about the same time, the detectives around — and often inside — Patsy Fuca's store in Brooklyn began to notice more frequent visits by various hard types known to have interests in narcotics. Several were observed passing money to Patsy. It looked certain that something big was building up.

  Late in the afternoon of January 9, Det
ective Sonny Grosso, clad in his white jacket, entered Patsy's luncheonette. Egan was across Bushwick Avenue at their familiar post in St. Catherine's Hospital. Sonny stopped at the fountain and said to the old man behind the counter, Patsy's father-in-law: "Coffee, a cruller, and a Pepsi to go." Patsy himself was seated at the table in the back room, with his elbows on the table, spooning soup. Sonny and Eddie, in their roles of "doctors," had been in the store so often during the past three months that they had come even to exchange greetings with Patsy, and now, as Sonny walked toward the telephones in the rear, he waved a casual hand and Patsy nodded back.

  Just as Sonny was reaching for one of the phones, it rang. Automatically, he lifted it off the hook. "Hello?"

  "Bongiorno, Pasquale?" It was a resonant Italian accent.

  "Who?"

  "Pasq — Patsy, please?" The English was heavily accented.

  "Oh, yeah. Just a minute." Sonny leaned around the curtain into the cubicle where Patsy sat, absorbed in his soup. "Telephone."

  Patsy came out and took the phone, as Sonny wandered over to the magazine rack. Patsy's conversation was short, and he did most of the listening, responding mainly with grunts. Then Sonny heard him say in rough Italian, "Okay, I'll see you then," and he hung up.

  As Sonny started back to make his own call, Patsy was saying to his father-in-law: "Make sure you're here tomorrow, Pop. I'm going to be busy most of the day."

  C h a p t e r 7

  The Narcotics Bureau of the New York Police Department was on the third and fourth floors of the ancient 1st Precinct building on a short, narrow street called Old Slip near the south-eastern tip of Manhattan, several blocks away from the financial district. Old Slip was actually two parallel east-west streets, each barely two blocks long, connecting Water and South streets along the East River, and divided in the middle by even narrower Front Street.