The French Connection

by Robin Moore

  The orders were given with the caution: Do Not Press. Patsy was to be given free rein. Wherever the meeting might be, it would probably be the last, and the lawmen could not permit overzealousness to alarm Patsy or the other principals before an overt exchange could be observed. Then, and only then, could they move in. They had to be sure this time. They doubted there would be any more chances to break this case.

  At the 1st Precinct, other narcotics detectives already had dispersed or were moving out the door. The station house proper was busy, as the midnight-to-eights reported in and the day-watch assembled. After all logistics were confirmed, Egan and Gonzalez left before eight-thirty, driving up South Street to park under the Brooklyn Bridge and wait the first word of Patsy's movements. There, they were in position convenient to any of the three downtown bridges Patsy might cross. Egan wanted to be the one to pick up Patsy whichever way he came into the city. Patsy was his baby.

  At about eight forty-five, the radio crackled the alert: Patsy was leaving his house, driving his blue compact Oldsmobile, onto the Gowanus Expressway, northbound. Egan and Gonzalez listened eagerly.

  Patsy bypassed the turnoff to the tunnel, was proceeding north on the expressway, swinging off and making for the Brooklyn Bridge.

  "This is it, kid!" Egan exclaimed to the youthful agent. He shoved the Corvair into gear and raced up Pearl Street to Chambers, then over west to the official parking area alongside the Municipal Building, overlooking City Hall. It was a perfect observation point.

  All traffic coming off the Brooklyn Bridge must pass this spot, and furthermore, any cars aiming to transfer from the bridge to the East River Drive had to curl back east immediately in front of the parking area.

  Less than ten minutes later Egan recognized the small blue Oldsmobile curving down the ramp and past the Municipal Building, toward the approach to the Drive. He and Gonzalez moved out, the agent reporting by radio to the others listening throughout the city. Patsy turned uptown on the Drive. Egan held the Corvair well behind, maintaining the lightest possible tail. All they needed to ascertain at this stage was the point at which Patsy would leave the river highway. If he were to exit at 42nd Street, it would indicate that his destination was most likely the Roosevelt, and then they would have to alert the bulk of the investigating force posted around East End Avenue to scramble back to midtown. The only alternative which could not be anticipated was the possibility that the meet would turn out to be some other place altogether, so it remained imperative that Egan and Gonzalez never lose sight of Patsy.

  The subject was driving easily, apparently unconcerned about surveillance. Though the day was overcast and damply cold, there was little morning haze along the river, and with the uptown traffic moderate, the two officers had no difficulty in keeping the blue compact in view. Coming up to 42nd Street, Gonzalez radioed all cars to stand by, but Patsy made no move toward that exit ramp. "Okay, he's going on by," the agent reported. "Next exit: Sixty-first Street."

  He replaced the microphone on its hook when the receiver squawked: "Did you say he's exiting at Sixty-first Street, kay?"

  Gonzalez looked at Egan in exasperation as he reached for the mike again. "I don't have no accent, do I?" he smiled sadly.

  Egan chuckled. "No . . . it's the goddam sender. It was all screwed up last night, too. I forgot about that."

  "Repeat," the agent said firmly into the phone —

  "subject did not, repeat did NOT, exit at Forty-second Street, is proceeding northbound, will advise if he turns off at Sixty-first. Do you read, kay?"

  The response was a clutter of tinny voices; finally one dominated:

  " your signal is very poor. If it goes before we mark subject, we're in trouble . . . "

  Gonzalez exhaled a grim "Ten-four."

  Egan, shaking his head, muttered, "Damn!" His eyes were fixed upon the little Oldsmobile perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead. "He's moving over toward the left lane. Looks like Sixty-first, all right. Yep, he's getting off! Tell them!"

  "Sixty-first, Sixty-first!" the agent cried, the mike tight to his mouth. "Subject off Drive at Sixty-first! Do you read?"

  "Sixty-first. Ten-four."

  Gonzalez and Egan grinned at each other. But they still couldn't lose Patsy. It was not an absolute certainty that 81st Street and East End Avenue would be the precise rendezvous site, because it could be anywhere in that neighbourhood. With luck there would be a car with detectives stationed near the Drive exit at 61st Street and York Avenue, noting which way Patsy went from there. But Egan still wanted to follow him through personally to the final setting.

  He was edging the Corvair toward the 61st Street cutoff when the radio announced: "Subject turning uptown on York . . . "

  "At least the receiver is working good," Gonzalez commented happily.

  "Yeah, that's something . . . . Well, Louie, it looks like we guessed right."

  At 9:30 A.M., the four officers positioned in the third-floor cabinet shop on the west side of East End Avenue were startled to see that two of the three missing Frogs had materialized in front of No. 45 across the way — François Barbier and J. Mouren.

  Neither Sonny, Waters, Hawkes nor Fleming had actually seen the Frenchmen appear; they had no idea where the two had come from or whether they arrived together or separately. The detectives had been intent on following the radioed account of Patsy Fuca's progress into Manhattan and uptown, and rooting for Eddie Egan's sender to hold out. One or another had been stepping to the window to scan the avenue below, but it was not until the report was confirmed that Patsy was moving north on York Avenue and evidently into the immediate area that they turned full attention to the building opposite. And, suddenly, disconcertingly, Frogs Two and Three were just there.

  "These birds slip in and out of sight like they had a magic lamp," Waters marvelled, as Sonny returned to the radio to alert all officers in the vicinity. The undercover men were everywhere, on East End Avenue and in all the connecting streets from 79th to 86th and west as far as Second Avenue. Even the four in the cabinet shop command post couldn't be sure who was where or, for that matter, who was who. Not knowing what to expect, many were on foot in general proximity to No. 45, and these had adopted various guises —building handymen, clerks in stores, Con Edison street diggers, fathers walking baby carriages, neatly dressed door-to-door salesmen. Others were spotted in automobiles at key locations, where they could quickly relay radio communications to the "pedestrians." A couple even were driving special taxicabs through the neighbourhood. For his part, Sonny, clad in a woollen lumber jacket, slacks and chukka boots, already had arranged with the proprietor of a liquor store nearby to borrow his delivery bicycle if necessary.

  Waters, in business clothes, could be anybody.

  Their job, they kept reminding themselves, was to observe. They would make no overt moves until definite grounds for a felony arrest could be established, such as exchange and possession of suspected goods.

  Barbier and Mouren stood in front of No. 45about fifteen minutes, talking and occasionally looking up and down the avenue. Sonny watched them through field glasses. Both were dressed conserva-tively, in black overcoats, dark suits, white shirts and colourless ties; Mouren wore a gray Homburg;

  Barbier was hatless, his full brown hair breeze blown. Certainly they must be waiting for someone— who else but Patsy?

  Nothing further had been heard from Egan; at last report he had Patsy coming north on York Avenue.

  Then, the radio crackled: "Subject driving up East End from Seventy-ninth, moving slow." The officers bunched at the third-floor window. They could see Patsy's car now. As it neared 81st Street, it hesitated, then made a wide, slow left turn. Across the avenue, Barbier tipped Mouren's arm, and both looked toward the opposite corner; Barbier flipped a hand in a gesture of recognition. The Olds left the officers' field of vision.

  "Subject going west on Eighty-first," somebody advised.

  "Who's got him over there?" another voice queried.

  T
here was a staticky, garbled reply. Waters grabbed the microphone: "Did somebody say they got him?" After a few seconds, a voice volunteered: "I can see him, making a right on York.

  Anybody up around York?"

  "Oh, goddamn!" Sonny growled.

  "Hey, look!" Vinnie Hawkes called from the window.

  The two Frenchmen had started across the avenue toward the corner beyond which Patsy's car had slid out of sight. But in the middle of the street they stopped, exchanged a few words, and Mouren turned and strode rapidly back to No. 45, where he went down into the garage. Barbier continued to the opposite sidewalk. He ambled to the corner and glanced around on 81st. Then he walked slowly the other way, toward 82nd, keeping so close to the building line that he was lost to sight from the window above.

  "Somebody better get down there before they go up in smoke," Jack Fleming suggested.

  Sonny and Waters tumbled down the stairs to the street. Barbier stood in front of the adjacent apartment house, his back to the wall, gazing over at No. 45. As Waters strolled toward 81st Street, Sonny dashed into the liquor store just off the building entrance. In a minute he came out with a brown paper package and placed it in the bin of the three-wheeled delivery bicycle standing by the curb. Then, without apparently noticing the man in black not fifty feet from him, Sonny wheeled the bike into the gutter and began to pedal up East End. He went only as far as 83rd before he pulled over behind a parked truck and turned his attention back down the avenue.

  Waters, meanwhile, had walked around into 81st Street. He saw no one nor anything identifiable with the Frenchmen. The agent returned to the corner cautiously. A peek assured him that Frog Two still stood by the next apartment house. Waters waited just around the corner. In a few minutes, Frog Three came up the garage ramp across the way. Now he was toting a blue valise, the same type — perhaps the same one — that Jean Jehan had carried to a meet with Patsy that night a week ago. Waters wondered if Frog One would show today.

  Mouren crossed the avenue and rejoined Barbier. The two chatted a moment, then started walking toward 82nd Street. Waters followed. Up the avenue, he could see Sonny returning on his bicycle. The Frenchmen turned into 82nd. As Waters reached the corner, Sonny was swerving into the street and pumping the cumbersome vehicle against the uphill slope.

  In the middle of the block, between East End and York Avenue, a small blue car was double-parked. As Barbier and Mouren came abreast of it, the driver leaned to his right and opened the right-hand door, and when he straightened to his sitting position again, Waters recognized Patsy. Sonny was pedaling past the car as the Frenchmen got in, Mouren still gripping the blue valise. Waters kept walking toward them. The Olds-mobile moved past him, down toward East End.

  There were only the three in the car. Where was Jehan?

  Waters, and Sonny farther up the street, watched the blue compact turn on East End, going uptown.

  Back at 82nd Street and York Avenue, Eddie Egan and Luis Gonzalez in Egan's Corvair had seen Patsy double-park midway in the block; they had observed two men approach and enter the Olds, one of them carrying a suitcase of some kind. From that distance the officers could not visually identify the men, but from the radio reports they knew it was Frogs Two and Three and that Mouren had the bag; and they saw the car take a left on East End Now, a voice on the receiver blared that the Olds was turning left again on 83rd Street, westbound. Egan drove to the next corner, 83rd and York. To the right, the trim blue car was nearing York. On an impulse Egan swung the Corvair left into 83rd and headed west. They were almost to First Avenue before Gonzalez, watching the rear, reported that the Olds, having waited for a change in traffic signals, had crossed York and was coming over on 83rd.

  Egan turned uptown on First Avenue, moving slowly.

  The signal light just ahead at 84th Street changed to green, and he drew to a stop at the corner of 85th. The Oldsmobile bearing Patsy and the two Frenchmen had not yet appeared in his rear-view mirror. The radio was a babble of negative confusion.

  "Where are they now?" "Last we saw them was on Eighty-third . . . " "Has anybody got 'em?" "Doesn't anybody have them?"

  "Louie, try it again," Egan said "Tell 'em where we are."

  The agent shouted into the mike, then listened.

  From the response it was plain that they were not being received. Gonzalez frowned at Egan.

  The detective, shaking his head, regarded the faulty radio dourly. "Gee, what a kick in the ass!" he muttered.

  Suddenly Gonzalez slid from his seat to a crouch on the floor "Watch it — don't look around!"

  "What is it?" Egan froze, eyes straight ahead.

  "It's them! Right next to you! Waiting for the light. Man, that Irish-luck bit of yours is working overtime!

  They're all in the car now — the big Frog, too!"

  "Jehan?" Egan had to make a real physical effort to keep his head straight forward. "They must've picked him up somewhere between York and First."

  "They're moving."

  The light had changed, and Patsy's Olds pulled away uptown. Egan grasped the radio mike. "Popeye here. Is anybody on them?" His tone became desperate. "They're going north on First Avenue. Is anybody on them?" He flicked the switch, and the voices of other officers rattled in the receiver — all asking one another if anyone had the Olds in view.

  "Can anybody read me?" Egan pleaded. The blue compact ahead was turning right on 86th Street.

  "Well, Louie, sounds like we're on our own." He released the hand brake and the Corvair jumped forward. Rounding the corner of 86th, they saw the Olds making another right heading downtown on York. "Let's keep trying," the detective said to Gonzalez.

  "Keep a running report going in case somebody picks us up."

  While the agent radioed their progress back downtown, Egan alternated between watching the blue car ahead and looking down each passing street for some sign of assistance. It seemed incredible, with so large a force of men covering a relatively small area, that the conspirators had managed to elude surveillance in the first place and would be riding free right now were it not for his and Gonzalez's "Irish" luck. The radio channels remained a confusion of urgent voices.

  The Olds slowed to a stop at the northwest corner of 82nd Street. Frog Two, Barbier, got out alone. The car moved away, and Barbier crossed York, walking east toward the river. Gonzalez practically shouted the report into his mike. But again there was no indication that it had been received.

  A few minutes later, at 79th Street, the Olds edged to the curb again. After a moment, Frog Three stepped to the sidewalk. Mouren no longer carried the blue bag. He waited at the corner while Patsy held for a red light, then, as the car resumed its course downtown, started walking west.

  "Well, there goes another one," Egan moaned bitterly. "Unless some of our guys are around, we'll never see that bird again! Goddammit!" he slapped the wheel. Gonzalez flashed his report. But from the receiver's chatter, it was clear that they had not been heard and that nobody else had seen Mouren.

  "Here's Frog Two again!" Sonny's excited voice burst into the car. "He's alone, crossing East End toward Forty-five . . . . He's going up to some guy who's been waiting there. Where are Patsy and the other Frog? Is anybody on them yet?"

  Egan snatched the mike from Gonzalez. "Cloudy? Popeye. I'm on them! Can you read me? I'm on the guy from Brooklyn and Frog One is with him! Cloudy, do you read me?"

  " — Frog Two and the other guy are getting into a car that's been brought out of the garage!" Sonny exclaimed, obviously unaware of his partner's plea. "It is a black Buick sedan, I'd say a sixty . . . hey! It has foreign plates! Eighteen-l-u-seventy-five, repeat, one-eight-l-u-seven-five . . . "

  Suddenly the transmission became garbled, with a number of voices shouting in the background.

  The only thing Egan and Gonzalez could do was stay on Patsy and Jehan. These were the key guys, anyway, Egan told himself. And, perhaps most important, the blue valise still was in that car . . . . By now, the blue Olds had passed 70th S
treet. Before the intersection of 63rd Street, Patsy swung over and stopped. As he and Jehan sat talking for a few minutes, Gonzalez kept trying frantically to raise some response from the radio. Then the door of the Olds opened, and Frog One emerged. In his hand was a black satchel; it looked like the leather tool bag Patsy had been seen with the day before. Jehan pushed the door closed, bowed low to tip his black Homburg to Patsy, and, straight and regal again, marched around the corner and disappeared going west on 63rd Street.

  "Oh, God!" Egan wailed, two blocks behind. "Now there goes the top guy, and all the bread with him in that black bag, I bet! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" He shook his fist at the radio.

  "And there goes Patsy too," Gonzalez added. "He's making a left there at Sixty-third, going downtown on the Drive. What'll we do? Jehan is walking off with the loot, but Patsy's still got the blue suitcase with maybe a load of junk!"

  Egan shook his head. "We got no choice anymore. We got to stay with Patsy." He accelerated down York toward 63rd Street. "I hate to lose the Frenchman, but Patsy's the one with the shit. Him we gotta nail at least."

  "Popeye! If you read me, get back here to East End, quick!" It was Sonny, and he sounded shrill.

  Egan cried futilely into his own defective mike:"Sonny, I can't! Louie and I are on Patsy! The blue suitcase is still in the car!"

  " — Popeye, please, if you read me, come here! We bagged two Frenchmen!"

  "Oh, no!" the detective thundered. "They didn't hit! They collared the wrong guys! God damn it!"

  "He sounds like there might be trouble," Gonzalez said with concern.

  "Screw 'em!" snapped Egan. "What should we do, drop Patsy now? Just because they panicked?"

  They were at the 63rd Street intersection.

  "But maybe they need help," the agent persisted.

  Egan looked at him, frustration contorting his features. With a great aching sigh, he murmured "Yeah," and wheeled the Corvair around in a tight U-turn to head back uptown. Patsy's Olds sped away, downtown.