“Tell me about the dope.”
“I’m getting to that. Here’s the package. Did you follow the Krapf-Mendoza case in Chihuahua by any chance? Well, I didn’t know the details either. From 1970 through 1973 they got 115 pounds of heroin into this country. It went to Boston. Clever method. For each shipment they used a pretext to hire an American citizen to go down to Mexico. Sometimes it was a man, sometimes a woman, but always a loner who had no close relatives. The stooge flew down on a tourist visa and after a few days unfortunately died. The body was shipped home with a belly full of heroin. They had a funeral home on this end. Your hair is growing out nicely by the way.”
“Go on, go on.”
“Two things we got out of it. The money man in Boston still has a good name with the mob. He helps us out because he’s trying to stave off forty years mandatory in the joint. The Mexican authorities left a guy in Cozumel on the street. Better not to ask what he’s trying to stave off.”
“So if our man sends word down the pipeline that he is looking for a good man with a boat to run the stuff out of Cozumel into Texas, it would look reasonable because the old method was stopped,” Kabakov said. “And if Sapp calls our man, he can give references in Mexico and in Boston.”
“Yeah. This Sapp would check it out before he showed himself. Even getting the word to him will probably involve a couple of cutouts. This is what bothers me, if we find him we’ve got almost nothing on him. We might get him on some bullshit conspiracy charge involving the use of his boat, but that would take time to develop. We’ve got nothing to threaten him with.”
Oh, yes, we do, Kabakov thought to himself.
By midafternoon Corley had asked the U.S. District Court in Newark for permission to tap the two telephones in Sweeney’s Bar & Grill in Asbury Park. By four p.m. the request had been denied. Corley had no evidence whatsover of any wrongdoing at Sweeney‘s, and he was acting on anonymous allegations of little substance, the magistrate explained. The magistrate said that he was sorry.
At ten a.m. on the following day a blue van pulled into the supermarket parking lot adjacent to Sweeney’s. An elderly lady was at the wheel. The lot was full and she drove along slowly, apparently looking for a parking place. In a car parked beside the telephone pole thirty feet from the rear of Sweeney’s Bar a man was dozing.
“He’s asleep, for Christ’s sake,” the elderly lady said, apparently speaking to her bosom.
The dozing man in the car awoke as the radio beside him crackled angrily. With a sheepish expression, he pulled out of the parking space. The van backed into the place. A few shoppers rolled carts down the traffic aisle. The man who vacated the parking space got out of his car.
“Lady, I think you got a flat.”
“Oh, yeah?”
The man walked to the rear wheel of the van, close beside the pole. Two thin wires, brown against the brown pole, led from the telephone line to the ground and terminated in a double jack. The man plugged the jack into a socket in the fender well of the van.
“No, the tire’s just low. You can drive on it all right.” He drove away.
In the rear of the van, Kabakov leaned back with his hands behind his head. He was wearing earphones and smoking a cigar.
“You don’t have to wear them all the time,” said the balding young man at the miniature switchboard. “I say you don’t have to wear them all the time. When it rings or when it’s picked up on this end, you’ll see this light and hear the buzzer. You want some coffee? Here.” He leaned close to the partition behind the cab. “Hey, Mom. You want coffee?”
“No” came the voice from the front. “And you leave the bialys in the bag. You know they give you gas.” Bernie Biner’s mother had switched from the driver’s seat to the passenger side. She was knitting an afghan. As the mother of one of the best freelance wire men in the business, it was her job to drive, look innocent, and watch for the police.
“Eleven dollars and forty cents an hour she charges me and she’s supervising my diet,” Biner told Kabakov.
The buzzer sounded. Bernie’s quick fingers started the tape recorder. He and Kabakov put on the earphones. They could hear the telephone ringing in the bar.
“Hello. Sweeney’s.”
“Freddy?” A woman’s voice. “Listen, honey, I can’t come in today.”
“Shit, Frances, what is this, twice in two weeks?”
“Freddy, I’m sorry. I got the cramps like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Every week you get the cramps? You better go to the muff doctor, kid. What about Arlene?”
“I called her house already—she’s not home.”
“Well, you get somebody over here. I’m not waiting tables and working the bar too.”
“I’ll try, Freddy.”
They heard the bartender hang up and a woman’s laughter before the phone was replaced on the other end. Kabakov blew a smoke ring and told himself to be patient. Corley’s stooge had planted an urgent message for Sapp when Sweeney’s opened a half-hour ago. The stooge had given the bartender fifty dollars to hurry it up. It was a simple message saying business was available and asking Sapp to call a number in Manhattan to talk business or to get references. The number was to be given to Sapp alone. If Sapp called, Corley would try to fool him into a meeting. Kabakov was not satisfied. That was why he had hired Biner, who already received a weekly retainer to check the Israeli mission phones for bugs. Kabakov had not consulted Corley about the matter.
A light on Biner’s switchboard indicated the second telephone in the bar had been picked up. Through the earphones, they heard ten digits dialed. Then a telephone ringing. It was not answered.
Bernie Biner ran back his tape recording of the dialing, then played it at a slower speed, counting the clicks. “Three oh-five area code. That’s Florida. Here’s the number. Eight-four-four-six-oh-six-nine. Just a second.” He consulted a thick table of prefixes. “It’s somewhere in the West Palm Beach area.
Half an hour passed before the switchboard in the van signaled that another call was being placed from the bar. Ten digits again.
“Glamareef Lounge.”
“Yeah, I’m calling for Mr. Sapp. He said I could leave him a message at this number if I needed to.”
“Who is this?”
“Freddy Hodges at Sweeney’s. Mr. Sapp will know.”
“All right. What is it?”
“I want him to call me.”
“I don’t know if I can get him on the phone. You say Freddy Hodges?”
“Yeah. He knows the number. It’s important, tell him. It’s business.”
“Uh, look, he may come in around five or six. Sometimes he comes in. I see him, I’ll tell him.”
“Tell him it’s important. That Freddy Hodges called.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell him.” A click.
Bernie Biner called West Palm Beach information and confirmed that the number was that of the Glamareef Lounge.
The fire on Kabakov’s cigar was two inches long. He was elated. He had expected Sapp to use a telephone cutout, a person who did not know his identity, but whom he called under a code name to receive messages. Instead it was a simple message drop in a bar. Now it would not be necessary to go through the intricate process of setting up a meeting with Sapp. He could find him at the bar.
“Bernie, I want a tap until Sapp calls Sweeney’s here. When that happens, let me know the second you’re sure it’s him.”
“Where will you be?”
“In Florida. I’ll give you a number when I get there.” Kabakov glanced at his watch. He intended to be in the Glamareef at five p.m. He had six hours.
The Glamareef in West Palm Beach is a cinder-block building on a sandy lot. Like many Southern drinking places constructed after air-conditioning became popular, it has no windows. Originally it was a jukebox-and-pool-table beer joint called Shangala, with a loud air conditioner and a block of ice in the urinal. Now it went after a faster crowd. Its Nau gahyde booths and dim bar drew people
from two worlds—the paycheck playboys and the big-money yachting people who liked to slum. The Glamareef, nee Shangala, was a good place to look for young women with marital problems. It was a good place for an older, affluent woman to find a body-and-fender man who had never had it on a silk sheet.
Kabakov sat at the end of the bar drinking beer. He and Moshevsky had rented a car at the airport and their hurried drive past the four nearby marinas had been discouraging. There was a small city of boats in West Palm Beach, many of them sportfishermen. They would have to find the man first, then the boat.
He had been waiting an hour when a husky man in his middle thirties came into the bar. Kabakov ordered another beer and asked for change. He studied the new arrival in the mirrored front of the cigarette machine. He was of medium height and he had a deep suntan and heavy muscles under his polo shirt. The bartender put a drink in front of him and, with it, a note.
The husky man finished his drink in a few long swallows and went to a phone booth in the comer. Kabakov doodled on his napkin. He could see the man’s mouth moving in the telephone booth.
The bar telephone rang twice before the bartender picked it up. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Is there a Shirley Tatum here?” he said loudly, looking around. “No. I’m sorry.” He hung up.
That was Moshevsky, calling the bar from a pay phone outside, relaying the signal from Bernie Biner in Asbury Park. The man Kabakov was watching in the telephone booth was talking to Sweeney’s Bar in Asbury Park with Bernie listening in. He was Jerry Sapp.
Kabakov sorted his change in a roadside telephone booth a half hour before dark. He dialed Rachel’s number.
“Hello.”
“Rachel, don’t wait dinner on me. I’m in Florida.”
“You found the boat.”
“Yes. I found Sapp first and followed him to it. I haven’t examined it yet. Or talked to Sapp. Listen, tomorrow I want you to call Corley. Tell him Sapp and the boat are at the Clear Springs Marina near West Palm Beach. Have you got that? The boat is green now. Number FL 4040 AL. Call him about ten a.m., not before.”
“You’re going aboard it tonight, and in the morning, if you’re still alive, you’re planning to call me and say you’ve changed your mind about telling Corley, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” There was a long silence. Kabakov had to break it. “It’s a private marina, very exclusive. Lucky Luciano used to keep a boat here years ago. Also other archcriminals. The man at the bait store told me. I had to buy a bucket of shrimp to find that out.”
“Why don’t you go in with Corley and a warrant?”
“They don’t admit Jews.”
“You’ll take Moshevsky with you, won’t you?”
“Sure. He’ll be close by.”
“David?”
“Yes.”
“I love you, to a certain extent.”
“Thank you, Rachel.” He hung up.
He did not tell her that the marina was isolated, that the landward side was surrounded by a twelve-foot hurricane fence, floodlit. Or that two tall men with short shotguns manned the gate and patrolled the piers.
Kabakov drove a half mile down the winding road through the scrub growth, the rented johnboat bouncing on its trailer behind him. He parked the car in a thicket and climbed a small knoll where Moshevsky lay with two pairs of field glasses.
“He’s still aboard,” the big man said. “There are fleas in this damned sand.”
With his binoculars, Kabakov scanned the three long piers jutting into Lake Worth. A guard was on the farthest pier, walking slowly, his hat set back on his head. The whole marina had a sinister, fast-money look. Kabakov could imagine what would happen if a warrant were served at the gate. The alarm would be given and whatever was illegal in any of the boats would go over the side. There must be some clue aboard Sapp’s boat. Or in Sapp’s head. Something that would lead him to the Arabs.
“He’s coming out,” Moshevsky said.
Kabakov zeroed in on the green sportfisherman moored stern-to in the line of boats at the center pier. Sapp climbed up through the foredeck hatch and locked it behind him. He was dressed for dinner. He stepped down from the bow into a dinghy and pulled well away from his boat to a vacant slip, then climbed onto the pier.
“Why didn’t he just walk back along the boat and get onto the pier?” muttered Moshevsky, lowering his field glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“Because the damned thing is wired,” Kabakov replied wearily. “Let’s get our boat.”
Kabakov swam slowly in the darkness under the pier, feeling ahead for the pilings. Cobwebs hanging from the planks above him brushed his face, and, from the smell, there was a dead fish nearby. He paused, hugging a piling he could not see, feet gripping the rough sea growth crusting the piling beneath the water. A little light came under the edges of the long pier, and he could see the dark, square shapes of the motor yachts moored stern-to against it.
He had counted seven on the right side. He had six to go. A foot and a half above him, the underside of the pier was studded with nail points where the planks had been nailed down. High tide would be hard on his scalp. A spider ran across his neck and he submerged to drown it. The water tasted like diesel fuel.
Kabakov heard a woman’s laughter and the tinkle of ice. He shifted his equipment bag farther around on his back and swam on. This should be it. He made his way around a tangle of rusty cable and stopped just under the edge of the pier, the stern of the boat rising black above him.
Here the air was not so close, and he breathed deeply as he peered at the luminous dial of his watch. It had been fifteen minutes since Moshevsky steered the outboard past the seaward end of the marina and he had slipped over the side. He hoped Sapp would linger over dessert.
The man had some kind of alarm system. Either a pressure-sensitive mat in the open cockpit at the stern or something fancier. Kabakov swam along the stern until he found the cable that carried 110-volt shore power to the craft. He unplugged the cable from the jack in the stern. If the alarm used shore power it was now inoperative. He heard footsteps and slid back under the pier. The heavy tread passed overhead, sending a trickle of grit down in his face.
No, he decided, if it were his alarm system, it would be independent of shore power. He would not go over the stern. He would go in as Sapp had come out.
Kabakov swam along the hull to the darkness under the flaring bow. Two mooring lines, slack to accommodate the tide, ran from the bow to pilings on either side of the slip. Kabakov pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he could lock his arms around the stanchion supporting the bow rail. He could see into the cabin of the yacht next door. A man and a woman were seated on a couch. The backs of their heads were visible. They were necking. The woman’s head disappeared. Kabakov climbed up on the foredeck and lay against the windshield, the cabin shielding him from the dock. The windshield was dogged tightly shut. Here was the hatch.
With a screwdriver, he removed the thick plastic window in the center of it. The hole was just big enough for his arm. Reaching inside, he turned the lock and felt around the edges of the hatch until he found the contacts of the burglar alarm sensor. His mind was picturing the wiring as his fingers felt for the wires in the padded overhead. The switch was on the coaming, and it was held open by a magnet on the hatch. Take loose the magnet, then, and hold it in place on the switch. Don’t drop it! Ease open the hatch. Don’t ring, don’t ring, don’t ring.
He dropped into the darkness of the forward cabin and closed the hatch, replacing the window and the magnet.
Kabakov felt good. Some of the sting was gone from the debacle at Muzi’s house. With his flashlight he found the alarm circuit box and disconnected it from its clutch of dry-cell batteries. Sapp did neat wiring. A timer permitted him to leave without setting off the alarm, a magnet-sensitive cutout against the skin of the boat permitted him to reenter.
Now Kabakov could move around. A quick search of the forward cabin revealed nothing unusual except a full ounce
of high-grade crystal cocaine and a coke spoon from which to sniff it.
He switched off his flashlight and opened the hatch leading up to the main cabin. The dock lights shining through the ports provided a little light. Suddenly Kabakov’s Parabellum was out and cocked, the trigger squeezed within an ounce of firing.
Something was moving in the cabin. He saw it again, a small, repetitive movement, and again, a flicker of dark against the port. Kabakov lay down in the companionway to silhouette the movement against the light. He smiled. It was Sapp’s little surprise for an intruder coming aboard from the dock, an electronic scanner of a new and expensive type. It swept the cockpit constantly, ready to sound the alarm. Kabakov came up behind it and turned off the switch.
For an hour, he searched the boat. In a concealed compartment near the wheel he found a Belgian FN automatic rifle and a revolver. But there was nothing to prove that Sapp or Sapp’s boat had been involved in moving the plastic explosive.
It was in the chart bin that he found what he was looking for. A bump at the bow interrupted him. The dinghy. Sapp was coming back. Kabakov slipped into the forward cabin and squeezed into the narrow point of the bow.
Above him, the hatch opened. Feet and then legs appeared. Sapp’s head was still out of the hatch when Kabakov’s heel slammed into his diaphragm.
Sapp regained consciousness to find himself tied hand and foot on one of the two berths with a sock stuffed in his mouth. A lantern hanging from the ceiling gave off a yellow light and a strong odor of kerosene. Kabakov sat on the opposite bunk smoking a cigar and cleaning his fingernails with Sapp’s icepick.
“Good evening, Mr. Sapp. Is your head clear or shall I throw some water on you? All right? On November twelfth, you took a load of plastic explosive from a freighter off the New Jersey Coast. I want to know who was with you and where the plastic is. I have no interest in you otherwise.