Page 25 of Black Genesis

  Heller took out a knife, cut off a small lock of his own hair and pasted it into the baseball cap with the blood. Then he put the note in it.

  He turned to Mortie. "Go to Apartment 18F and ask

  for Mamie. Give her this and she'll give you a package."

  "In there?" said Mortie, looking at the ominously dark building. "And when you return," said Heller, "I'll give you another hundred."

  Mortie grabbed the cap and contents, leaped out, raced up the steps.

  Three minutes later, he raced down the steps carry­ing a package. He threw it at Heller, started the car up and got out of there.

  "Mamie was a man with a gun," said Mortie. "But he took it with no questions."

  Heller told him to take him to the corner of First Ave­nue and 42nd Street. He shook the pack, listened to it and then sniffed it. Well, at last he was getting cautious for it well could have been a bomb. He pried up a corner and pulled something out.

  "What's a first class ticket to... Buenos Aires, Argentina, worth?" he asked Mortie.

  "I dunno," said Mortie. "Maybe three grand."

  "Can you cash one in?"

  "Oh, sure," said Mortie. "Just take it to the air ter­minal. What's the matter, ain't you going?"

  Oh, if Heller only were!

  Mortie let him out at First and 42nd. Heller said, "Now, do you think I really passed, or do I need more lessons?"

  Mortie appeared to be thinking it over carefully. Then he said, "Well, kid, with experience you could become a top New York cabby. There's more I could teach you about shortchanging customers and running up extra meterage but, otherwise, that's about it. You pass. Yes, I'd say you pass."

  Heller counted him out six one-hundred-dollar bills. He instantly stuffed the money in his shirt and drove away at high speed.

  Heller trotted along, clickety-clack, and soon arrived at the Gracious Palms.

  In his room he opened the pack. Money in small old bills!

  He counted it. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!

  I shuddered. My Gods, Bury must be angry to offer such a price!

  Heller put it in the paper sack his breakfast had come in. He went down to the personal safes and put it in.

  Vantagio was in his office and saw Heller through the open door. He called to him, "Getting out some money, kid? You'll need dough for school! Don't blow all you got on night life. This is an expensive town!"

  "It sure is," said Heller, adding the hundred grand to his fifty thousand already in the safe. "Prices just keep going up!"

  He went to bed and was shortly peacefully asleep.

  I wasn't! Bury had unlimited funds and I didn't even have a clue on how to get that platen!

  Some hours later, the next report of Raht and Terb didn't help. It said:

  He went to a place called the Tall Man's Shop and they must have given him a job and a place to sleep. He's still there! But we have our eyes on him.

  The Hells they did! They were still spotting in on the bug we had sewn in his coat!

  I was getting frightened that I might have to go to America myself to handle this. And I didn't have the least idea what I could do even if I did.

  Chapter 6

  Heller was up bright and early the following day, the viewer alarm blasting me out of a sodden sleep.

  He was being very industrious and purposeful. He brushed his new suit where it had been messed up on the girders, put on a clean white shirt with an Eton collar, put a new baseball cap on the back of his head and then packed a shoulder-strap satchel which looked, for all the world, like one of these kiddy schoolbook bags.

  In the bag he put a spool of fish line, a multihooked bass plug, a tool kit, a dozen baseballs, a roll of tape and the New Jersey license plates. Was he going fishing?

  Down to the lobby he went. It was early for a whore­house: the desk clerk was asleep, a guard in a tuxedo was reading the Daily Racing Form, ball point in hand, and an Arab sheik was wandering drunkenly around, appar­ently trying to choose amongst several throw rugs as to which would be best to use for morning prayer.

  Heller counted ten thousand out of his personal safe and put it in his pockets. The Arab gave him a deep obei­sance, Heller repeated the bow and hand motion exactly and presently was trotting down the street, clickety-clack.

  He stopped at a deli and got breakfast in a sack, went out and found a cab.

  "Weehawken, New Jersey," said Heller. "One way." And he gave the address of the garage where the Cadillac was!

  "Double fare as you won' be comin' back," said the cabby.

  I suddenly chilled. Up to then I had not grasped what Heller was going to do! He was on his way to get his car! Bury knew where that car was. It would be rigged! That "won't be coming back" was all too pro­phetic!

  "Double fare," agreed Heller.

  He had his sweet rolls and coffee as he rode along. They were soon across town. They dove into the Lincoln Tunnel and roared along under the Hudson River. They soon were in New Jersey and turned north on the J. F. Kennedy Boulevard.

  They turned out of the roaring traffic to approach the garage. But one block away from it, Heller told the cab to stop and wait. The cabby looked at the decayed, semi-industrial neighborhood. "You mean wait here?" he asked.

  Heller took a fifty-dollar bill, tore it in half and gave the driver half.

  "I'll wait," said the cabby.

  Heller got out and trotted around a corner en route to the garage. He stopped.

  Trucks! Trucks! Trucks! The whole area in front of the huge, low building was jammed with trucks! Crews of men were unloading stacks of cartons onto handcarts and taking them into the building.

  Heller went closer. He stood at the garage door and looked in. The place was being filled up with stacks of cartons higher than a man's head and in separate islands.

  He moved a bit to see deeper in. The Cadillac was there. The license plates were missing.

  There was something else going on. Voices. Heller shifted. He saw the plump young man and a burly mon­ster dressed like a trucker. They were having a flaming argument.

  "I don't care! I don't care!" the plump young man

  was shouting. "You can't store that stuff in here. I don't care whose orders it is! You don't understand!" He half gestured toward the Cadillac and then didn't.

  Abruptly I knew his dilemma. The crews were put­ting valuable stuff in a garage/warehouse with a car which was rigged! And the young man couldn't say why.

  "We ain't clearing nothing back out!" said the burly man. "If you'd been here on time, we mighta listened. But it's too late now! This stuff stays! Besides, we get our orders just like you. I am not going to let some punk like you work my men's (bleeps) off just..."

  The plump young man had seen Heller at the door. He stiffened. He turned and raced off to an exit in the back wall like the devil was after him. He vanished.

  Heller quietly withdrew. He walked through the boil of men and handtrucks, turned the corner and got back in the cab.

  "You got further to go," said Heller. "Take me to 136 Crystal Parkway, Bayonne."

  The New York cabby had to look at a map. "This is foreign country," he explained. "It ain't as if you were still in civilization. This is New Jersey. And you can't ask directions. The natives lie!"

  But soon they were headed south on J. F. Kennedy Boulevard, got through Union City, went under the Pu­laski Skyway, passed St. Peter's College and roared along through the increased traffic of Jersey City. Docks and glimpses of the New York skyline could be seen.

  "Is that a statue way over there in the water?" asked Heller pointing east.

  "Jesus," said the cabby, "don't you recognize the Statue of Liberty? You should know your country, kid."

  They went past the Jersey City State College and were soon in Bayonne. The New York cabby was shortly all tangled up. They got turned back from the Military

  Ocean Terminal, got trapped into going to Staten Island, came back over the Bayonne Bridge—paying a toll both ways—and
finally asked a native.

  Ten minutes later they were in an isolated area of new high-rises and on a quiet street. Here was 136 Crys­tal Parkway, a very splendid building. A new condo.

  Heller repaired the torn fifty and paid the driver off. "I don't know if I will ever find my way home," mourned the cabby.

  Heller added a twenty. "Hire a native guide," he said.

  The driver drove off.

  All this time, I had been cudgeling my brains to remember where I had heard that address.

  Heller walked in through a plush entrance. There were several elevators. One of them said:

  Penthouse

  He pushed the call button.

  Expecting an automatic elevator, I was a bit sur­prised to see the door opened by a man. He was not an elevator operator. He wore a double-breasted coat and a hat pulled down. I could see the bulge of a shoulder-holstered gun. He was very dark, very Sicilian.

  "Yeah?" he said noncommittally.

  "I would like to see Mrs. Corleone," said Heller.

  I freaked! He was calling on the head of the New Jer­sey Mafia!

  "Yeah?"

  "I saw Jimmy 'The Gutter' Tavilnasty recently," said Heller.

  Then it all came to me with a flash. That meeting in Afyon when Jimmy, in the dark, had mistaken him for a DEA man! Well, they'd soon see through that! And I didn't have the platen!

  "I.D.," demanded the gangster and Heller showed it to him.

  The hood was on the elevator telephone. It was in a felt-lined box. You couldn't hear what was being said.

  With a slit-eyed look at Heller, the hood frisked him lightly, inspected his bag and then gestured for him to get in.

  They rode up to the top. It was a one-stop elevator, penthouse only. The hood opened the door and pushed Heller out ahead of him. With little punches from behind he directed him down a beautifully decorated hallway. He opened a door at the end and shoved Heller in.

  It was a gorgeous room, all done in modern gold and beige. A vast picture window looked out over a vast park and a bay.

  A woman was seated comfortably on a couch. She was wearing beige lounging pajamas of silk. She was blond with blue eyes. Her corn silk hair was in coiled braids that wound around the top of her head to make a sort of crown. She was about forty.

  She laid down a glossy style magazine she had been reading and stood up.

  My Gods, she was tall!

  She looked at Heller and then walked across the room to him. She was at least four inches taller than Hel­ler! An Amazon!

  She was smiling. "And so you are a friend of dear Jimmy's," she said. "Don't be shy. He has often spoken of his friends in the younger street gangs. But you don't look like one of those." She had a sort of cooing, affected voice and a fake Park Avenue accent.

  "I'm going to college," said Heller.

  "Oh," she said in sudden understanding. "That is the smart thing to do these days. Do sit down. Jimmy's

  friends are always welcome here. Would you like some­thing to drink?"

  "It's a hot day," said Heller. "How about some beer?"

  She wagged a finger at him, kittenishly. "Naughty. Really naughty. You realize that would be against the law." Then she raised her head and bellowed, "Gregorio!"

  Almost instantly, a white-coated, very dark Italian popped in.

  "Get the young gentleman some milk and bring me some seltzer water."

  Gregorio was taken aback. "Milk? We ain't got any milk, Babe."

  "Well, get out and get some God (bleeped) milk!" roared Babe Corleone. Then she ensconced herself again on the couch. In her sweet, cooing, affected Park Avenue voice she said, "And how is dear Jimmy?"

  Heller only sat down when she did. He now had his cap on his knee. The courteous Fleet officer!

  "He was just fine a few days ago," said Heller. "Seemed to be right on the job."

  "Oh, that is so nice to hear," cooed Babe. "And nice of him to send word."

  "And how is the family?" said Heller.

  Ouch, I thought. The (bleeped) fool thought a "fam­ily" was a real family. In that country, on this planet, it means a Mafia mob!

  She looked sad. "Not too well, I'm afraid. You see, dear 'Holy Joe'—how I miss him—was a man of tradi­tion. He used to say, 'What was good enough for my father is good enough for me.' And he stuck with good, honest bootlegging and smuggling and such. And, of course, we have to respect that. And drugs are no good anyway."

  "They sure aren't!" said Heller with conviction.

  She looked at him with approval. Then she contin­ued. "Since Faustino 'The Noose' Narcotici has gotten so much backing from upstairs, there's no holding him. He has been muscling in on our New York interests and is even trying to push his way into New Jersey. When they wasted dear 'Holy Joe,' that was just the beginning of it. But," she looked up with sad bravery, "we are try­ing to carry on."

  "Oh, I'm sure you'll succeed," said Heller politely.

  "That's very nice of you to say so, Jerome. I can call you Jerome, can't I? Everyone calls me Babe."

  "Certainly, Mrs. Corleone," said Heller. Fleet man­ners. And then, for a moment, I thought he'd blown it. "Mrs. Corleone, do you mind if I ask you a personal ques­tion?"

  "Go ahead," she said. Was she a trifle wary?

  "Are you a Caucasian?"

  Oh, my Gods! Here he went on that (bleeped) fool Prince Caucalsia kick! She had blond hair, she was as tall as some women around Atalanta, Manco.

  "What makes you ask?"

  "It's your head," said Heller. "It is very beautiful and it has a long skull structure."

  "Oh!" she said. "Are you interested in genealogy?"

  "I've studied it a bit."

  "Ah! College, of course!" And she rushed over to an ornate desk, opened it and got out a large chart and some papers. She pulled up a chair beside Heller and spread the papers out. "These," she said impressively, "were specially drawn up for me by Professor Stringer! He is the world's foremost expert on genealogy and family trees!"

  Aha! I knew already about the fixation American women have on family trees! And this Stringer was prob­ably making a fortune out of the racket.

  She gestured at Heller. She had the Italian habit of talking with her hands, head and body. "You have no idea how prejudiced some people are! I was a famous actress at the Roxy Theater when dear Joe married me." The memory broke her train of thought for a moment and her eyes went moist.

  Oho! I spotted her now. One of the Roxy chorus girls! A chorus line is composed of girls that are six feet six.

  She recovered. "A capo is supposed to marry a Sicil­ian girl and the old cats carped and meowed and criti­cized. Particularly the mayor's wife. So dear Joe had this drawn up. And did it put them in their places! I keep it around to make the (bleepches) stay there!"

  She spread out the chart. It was all scrolls and swirls and illuminated with little pictures. It was in the shape of a tree.

  "Now," lectured Babe impressively, "as a student you are undoubtedly aware of all this but I will go over it anyway. Reviewing one's studies is a good thing. Now, the Nordic race is composed of the Caspian, Mediterra­nean and Proto-Negroid types...."

  "Caspian?" said Heller. "That's the sea over by the Caucasus."

  "Oh, right," she said vaguely and then plunged on with energy. "Now, you can see here how the Germanic races came out of Asia and migrated. The Goths, via Ger­many, came down into Northern Italy in the fifth cen­tury and the Lombards in the sixth century. These are the dolichocephalic—means long-headed, which is to say, smart—elements in the Italian population. They are blond and tall." My Gods, had somebody rehearsed her! She was probably quoting Professor Stringer, word for word!

  "Trace this line here. These are the Franks. From

  Germany, they came down and took over France, which is named after them. That was in the fifth century. Now, one branch—trace this—the Salians, took over northern Italy. One of the Salians, in the ninth century, was emperor of all the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor
besides. He was named, you see here, Carolus Magnus, which, in American, means Charles the Great. In his­tory books he is called Charlemagne. He was the emperor of the whole God (bleeped) world!"

  She stopped and looked impressively at Heller. He nodded. She went on. "Now, Charlemagne had quite a few marriages. And he married—that's this line here— the daughter of the Duke d'Aosta. That means 'of' Aosta and that's a province in northwest Italy just south of Lake Geneva.

  "There are blond and tall Italians clear across north­ern Italy but they are thick in the Valle d'Aosta.

  "Now, follow this line here. From the Duke d'Aosta we come right down to Biella, which was my father's name. You still with me, kid?"

  "Oh, yes, indeed," said Heller in a fascinated voice.

  "All right. Now, at the start of World War II, my par­ents fled to Sicily. They stayed in Sicily four whole years! At the end of the war, they emigrated to America and that's where I was born. So," and she drew up in triumph, "I'm just as Sicilian as any of them! What do you think of that?"

  "Complete proof!" said Heller.

  Babe flipped a finger at the chart. "And, further­more, I am a direct descendant of Charlemagne! Oh," she gloated, "the mayor's wife went absolutely green with envy!"

  "I can see why she would!" said Heller. "But wait. There's something that's not here. That maybe you don't know. You ever hear of Atalanta?"

  "I never been to Atlanta."

  "No, Atalanta," said Heller. "Now, at the beginning of this tree, a lot earlier than it starts here, there was a prince."

  This had her attention. And it sure had mine! Code break! He was about to be carried away with his stupid enthusiasm for Folk Legend 894M. I reached for my pen.

  "His name," said Heller, "was Prince Caucalsia. He..."

  From the door came a piercing, "Pssst!"

  Babe and Heller turned toward it.

  There was a Sicilian there. He was holding a large money sack. He had come halfway through the door and was bending over, beckoning urgently to Babe Corleone. His face. I had seen his face! I was trying to place it!