The girl reached for the instrument; Sam reached for the girl.
“There’s a man with a raspy voice who wants to talk to you. He says his name is Angelo Dellacroce.” She handed Sam the receiver.
“Hey, you!” The words spat from the telephone. “You Samuel Deverooze, secatary-treasurer of this Shepherd Company?”
CHAPTER NINE
Former Lieutenant General MacKenzie Hawkins, twice awarded the nation’s highest honor for extraordinary heroism beyond the call of duty in deadly combat against the enemy, cowered like a frightened boy at the sight of former Major Sam Devereaux, military accident.
Hawkins could see Sam getting out of the taxi at the entrance of the North Hampton Golf Club. The brass lamps on top of the stone posts flanking the drive were the only source of light; it was a cold, cloudy night and no moon could be seen. The lamps, however, gave sufficient illumination to reveal the anguished expression on Devereaux’s face.
Sam was furious, MacKenzie realized that. But, he thought to himself, he had not actually lied. Not really. He never told Devereaux he wouldn’t approach Angelo Dellacroce. Only that he had no reason to do so when Sam pressed him on the point. At that moment. Not later.
The secretary-treasurer title was something else. It looked terrific on the partnership agreement: Samuel Devereaux, Esq., Counselor-at-law, Suite 4-F, Drake Hotel, New York, right above the line reserved for the second most important office in the Shepherd Company. It was for Devereaux’s own good; he’d understand that soon enough. But at the moment Samuel Devereaux, Esq., was mad as a caged bull fenced off from heifers in heat.
The Hawk had agreed to Dellacroce’s rendezvous because it suited him. The Italian was so concerned about surveillance he had insisted on meeting Mac in the middle of the fairway on hole six at the North Hampton Golf Club between the hours of midnight and one in the morning. But if Hawkins had objected and changed the location to the Bell Telephone Company, Dellacroce would have capitulated.
For Dellacroce had no choice. Mac had a folder on the Mafioso that would have guaranteed a jail sentence worthy of a court in the People’s Republic.
Still, a meeting at night in terrain surrounded by thick woods and streams and small lakes appealed to Hawkins. He was at home in such territory. It wasn’t Cambodia or Laos, but he could sort of keep his hand in, as it were.
He flew up from Washington in the afternoon and with false identification rented a car and drove out to North Hampton. As soon as it was dark, he circled the golf club and parked at the west perimeter. Dellacroce had told him that the club was closed for the evening and the night watchman would be replaced by one of his men.
Which meant, of course, that Dellacroce would double the patrols everywhere, especially around the area of fairway six.
His pockets stuffed with coils of thin rope and rolls of three-inch adhesive, Hawkins employed an old Ho Chiminh tactic that had served him well in the past. He began his commando assault at the farthest point inside the hostile area and worked his way toward the front.
At 2300 the enemy patrols started to man their emplacements within the North Hampton Golf Club. There were nine (a few more than Mac had anticipated) spaced out in the rough by the edge of the woods on both sides of fairway six, the line of relay extending back to the clubhouse and the driveway.
One by one, Hawkins immobilized eight patrols; he removed all weapons, bound them, taped their faces—all facial muscles, not just the mouths—and rendered them unconscious with kai-sai chops at the base of the skull. Then he worked his way back to the ninth patrol who manned the entrance.
He saved for this man a strategy that was particularly effective against the Pathet Lao. For the guard had to be able to talk.
The man was exceedingly cooperative. Especially after Mac had sliced his trousers from crotch to cuff.
At ten minutes to midnight, Dellacroce’s huge black limousine drove swiftly through the gates and up to the wide, pillared porch. In the darkness the ninth patrol, riveted to a pillar, spoke.
“Everything’s fine, Mr. Dellacroce. All the boys are spread good, like you said.”
The man’s voice was a bit high and a little strained, but Hawkins figured rightly that Dellacroce had other things on his mind.
“Okay. Real good,” was the raspy reply as Dellacroce got out of the automobile, flanked by two heavyset bodyguards who walked like gorillas with their hands in their fur. “Rocco, you stay here with Augie. You, Fingers, you come with me. And, Meat, you get the fuckin’ car back in the lot outta sight.”
Before Dellacroce and Fingers had rounded the corner of the building, the ninth patrol was kai-saied out of commission. By the time Dellacroce and Fingers had disappeared across the lawn, Rocco had joined Augie in peaceful oblivion.
The gentleman named Meat was Hawkins’s next dispatchee. It took nearly five minutes, but only because Meat was an experienced combat man. He did not park the limousine at the edge of the lot; instead, he had pulled to a stop in the center. It was good positioning, thought Mac. Meat could observe all his flanks unencumbered by visual shadings or sightline obstructions. Meat was good.
But not good enough.
MacKenzie scrambled diagonally out of the parking area, over the first tee, and left through the rough toward fairway six. Since Dellacroce had made it clear he would be alone, Hawkins knew that Fingers would be hiding in the darkness, no doubt at the edge of the woods, and if he had a brain in his head, across the fairway on the east side for a superior line of fire.
But Fingers did not have such savvy. He remained in the west rough, prone in the underbrush, eliminating any rear flank observation.
Goddamn, thought MacKenzie, it was not much fun taking an asshole like Fingers.
Nevertheless, he took him. Silently. In eleven seconds.
Leaving Angelo Dellacroce alone in the middle of fairway six, the lighted end of a cigar protruding from his fat mouth, his squat body sagging at ease, his plump hands clasped behind his back as though waiting to be served a plate of linguini in a slow trattoria.
Three minutes later Devereaux’s taxi was heard on the deserted back road fronting the golf club, and MacKenzie waited behind the pillar.
As Sam walked haltingly up the drive, Hawkins decided not to tell him about the immobilized patrols. It would only worry the ex-major; better to let him think Dellacroce was true to his word: he was alone on fairway six.
“Goddamn! Hello, Sam!”
Devereaux threw himself to the ground, hugging the gravel for dear life. And then he looked up; MacKenzie took out a small but powerful pencil light from his pocket and flicked it on.
The ex-major was certainly angry. His face was kind of pinched and puffed, as if it might explode right out of his skin.
“You unprincipled son of a bitch!” Sam whispered, fury and fear intermeshed. “You lowlife! You’re the most devious, despicable form of subhuman that ever lived! What the hell have you done, you bastard?”
“Now, now, that’s no way to talk. Come on, get up; you look silly down there all splayed out …” MacKenzie reached for Devereaux’s hand.
“Don’t touch me, you slug worm! Fucking Mongolian sheep is too good for you! I should have let Lin Shoo pry out your fingernails, one by one, for four thousand fucking years!—Don’t touch me!” Sam staggered to his feet.
“Look, Major—–”
“Don’t call me that! I don’t own a serial number and I don’t want to be addressed ever by anything remotely military! I’m a lawyer, but I’m not your goddamned lawyer! Where the hell are we? How many ‘torpedoes’ have us covered with guns?”
MacKenzie grinned. “There’s nobody, boy. Just Dellacroce standing out on the fairway like a nice uncle at a backyard pasta party.”
“I don’t believe you! Do you know what that gorilla told me on the phone when I said I wouldn’t come out here? That goddamned hood told me my health would take a sudden turn for the worse! That’s what he told me!”
“Oh, don’t pay
any attention to that sort of thing. Those fat slobs always talk tough.”
“Horseshit!” Devereaux peered into the darkness. “That maniac said if I was late he’d send a basket of fruit to the hospital—tomorrow! And if I tried to leave town, some goon called Meat would find me before the week was up!”
The Hawk shook his head. “Meat’s pretty good, but I think you could take him. I’d put my money on you, boy.”
“I don’t want to take him—or anybody! And don’t put any money on me! You’re never going to see me again! I just wanted to get this over with. I want to meet this Dellacroce; tell him the whole thing’s a crazy mistake! I had some typing done for you, and that’s all!”
“Now listen to me, son. You’re overreacting. There’s nothing to worry about at all.” Hawkins started walking across the lawn. Devereaux kept pace, his head snapping in the direction of every noise. “Mr. Dellacroce will be exceedingly cooperative. And there’ll be no more tough talk, you’ll see.”
“What was that?” There was a squishing sound.
“Relax, will you? I think you stepped on some dog turd. Do me a favor. Don’t start explaining anything until I talk with Dellacroce, okay? It won’t take me more than three or four minutes.”
“No! Absolutely no! I don’t care to have a promising legal career cut short in the middle of a fairway at some Cosa Nostra golf course! These people don’t play games! They use bullets, and chains, and heavy cement! And rivers! What was that?” There was a fluttering of wings in the dark trees.
“We alarmed a bird. Let’s put it this way. If you just keep your mouth shut until I’m finished, I’ll pay you another ten thousand. Free and clear. How about that?”
“You’re a lunatic! No, again. Because I can’t spend it displacing roots in a Boston cemetery! You could offer ten million; the answer’s still no!”
“That’s not out of the question—–”
“For Christ’s sake, have yourself committed before somebody else does!”
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to put it this way. You either shut up until my business with Mr. Dellacroce is finished, or tomorrow morning I call the FBI and tell them there’s an ex-major walking around peddling raw-file intelligence documents he illegally removed from the G-two archives.”
“Oh, no you don’t! Because I’ll tell the truth. I’ll tell them how you blackmailed me, then conned me, then blackmailed me again. You’d get a lighter prison sentence in Peking!”
“It surely does get complicated, doesn’t it? I mean you’d be reopening the Brokemichael business. How would it look? A man violates the espionage laws because he doesn’t like spending a little extra time in the service of his country. In a cushy job, not even combat. Pretty weak blackmail, I’d say.”
“You unprincipled—–”
“I know, I know,” said the Hawk wearily. “You keep repeating yourself. What you’ve got to understand is that it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me. As you said, I’ve been shafted. How much more shafting can they do?”
Hawkins kept walking. Devereaux followed reluctantly, his eyes darting everywhere, his nerves obviously frayed; a series of whispered squeaks emerged from his throat until he found the words. “Have you no decency, sir? No sense of compassion? No love of your fellow man within your heart?”
“I surely do,” said the Hawk. They cut across the third tee onto fairway six. “Now keep that eloquent tongue of yours inactive for a while. If you don’t like the way things go, then speak your piece. Can I be fairer than that?”
The overcast sky was thinning out; intermittently the moon shone through. And a hundred yards ahead they could see the squat figure of Angelo Dellacroce, his hands still clasped behind his back, the lighted stub of a cigar still in his mouth.
“He must have ashes all over his front,” said Hawkins quietly. Then louder, “Mr. Dellacroce?”
There was a grunt from the obese body in front of them. MacKenzie flicked on his pencil light and held it over his own head, spilling the light on his longish steel-gray hair, throwing shadows down across his precisely barbered Van Dyke.
“You’re making us a target!” whispered Sam.
“Who’s going to shoot?”
They approached the Italian; Mac extended his hand. Dellacroce made no move to accept it. Hawkins spoke quietly. “Even when I accepted gook surrenders I got a handshake. Sort of separates us from the animals.”
Reluctantly Dellacroce pulled his hand from behind his back and the two shook. “I ain’t no gook and this ain’t no surrender,” said the raspy voice.
“Course it isn’t,” answered MacKenzie brightly. “It’s the beginning of a profitable association. By the way, this is my attorney and good friend, Sam Devereaux—–”
“Mac!”
“Shut up and shake hands,” said Hawkins sotto voce. “Goddamn, boys. I said shake hands!”
With even greater reluctance, the two hands inched toward each other, touched briefly and separated as though the owners feared infection.
“That’s better,” said the Hawk enthusiastically. “Now we can talk.”
And MacKenzie did. He started by listing the illegal activities—both foreign and domestic—of Angelo Dellacroce. It took him two minutes.
“Now, Mr. Dellacroce, the reason the authorities can’t catch up with you is that they don’t have access to a single financial clearinghouse that ties in specifically with all these here sundry enterprises. I realize it will sound strange to you, sir, but I believe I have that access. There’s a bank in Geneva, Switzerland; the first three numbers on the account happen to be seven, one, five. In this account is something over sixty-two million dollars—–”
“Basta! Basta!”
“—and the deposits were made directly from such locales as I’ve suggested. Now I guess you’ve studied the new Swiss laws relative to such accounts. They’re tricky because fraud in one country may not constitute fraud in Geneva. But goddamn, would you believe there’s now a way for Interpol to subpoena the records of those accounts? All the international police have to do is submit a copy of a payment—to a specific account—that’s been made by a convicted narcotics dealer. And it surely is wondrous good fortune on my part to have in my possession Xeroxed copies of quite a few such payments—–”
“Basta! You shut up!” Dellacroce roared. “Fingers! Manny! Carlo! Dino! Get out here! Now!”
There were only the sounds of the night in reply.
“There’s no one there. At least no one that can hear you,” said the Hawk softly.
“What!?—–Fingers! Figlio della prostituta! Get out here!”
Nothing.
“Now, you and I, Mr. Dellacroce, will step away from my friend and attorney, here, so we can talk real private like.” MacKenzie touched the Italian’s arm, which was instantly yanked away.
“Meat! Augie! Rocco! You hear me, boys? Get out here!”
“They’re sleeping, too, sir,” said Hawkins kindly. “They won’t wake up for a couple of hours.”
Dellacroce whipped his head toward Mac. “You got cops here? How many cops you got?” The questions overlapped.
“Nobody. Just me and my good friend and attorney—–”
“How many? Alone you couldn’t!”
“Alone, I did,” answered the Hawk.
“My best boys!”
“I’d hate like hell to see your support troops.” MacKenzie chuckled. “Now it’s time for our private talk.”
The Hawk led Dellacroce thirty feet away. He talked quietly for exactly four minutes and thirty seconds.
At which point a rasping, ear-splitting scream shattered the stillness of fairway six.
“Mannnnaaagggiii’!”
And Angelo Dellacroce fainted right there on the manicured grass.
MacKenzie bent over the man and gently slapped him back into consciousness.
They talked once more with the Hawk holding the obese Italian’s neck as though he were a medical corpsman.
T
he scream came again.
“Mannnnaaaaggggiii’!”
And Dellacroce fainted again.
So the Hawk revived him again.
And they talked for two minutes more.
“Mannnnaaaaggggiiii’!”
This time MacKenzie lowered the man’s head on the grass of fairway six and got up. The moon had broken through the night clouds, revealing a stunned Sam staring at the sight of the fallen Dellacroce. This was it, thought the Hawk, as he walked slowly toward Devereaux. There was no point in procrastinating any longer. Sam would have to be told. There was no other way.
“Well, Sam,” began Mac with quiet confidence in the intermittent moonlight on fairway six, “it’s a pretty good start. Mr. Dellacroce was eager to subscribe to the full amount reserved for him. The Shepherd Company has its first ten million dollars.”
Devereaux’s knees buckled. The Hawk rushed forward and caught him before he hit the ground. The ground was not hard but MacKenzie wanted Sam to know he cared; it was always a good idea to let one’s superior-adjutant know the commander was concerned for his well-being. “Goddamn, son, you’ve got to stop this kind of thing! You’re behaving no better than Mr. Dellacroce! Now that’s just not proper; you’re cut from a finer tunic!”
Sam’s eyes were swimming around and around in the moonlight on fairway six. The words that emerged from his trembling lips were by and large incoherent, but several phrases were repeated often enough to be understood. “Secretary-treasurer!—Oh, my God, I’m a sec’atary-treasurer! Ten million dollars’ worth of cement! I’m in ten million dollars’ worth of shit! I’ll be sunk in concrete pajamas! I’m dead!”
“Now, now, stop your wailin’. You’re a big lawyer, fella; you shouldn’t act like this.”
“I should never have met you, you squirrelly bastard! That’s the only shouldn’t of my life! Oh, my God! That killer passed out!”
“So did you. Almost. I caught you—–”
“Shhh! Let’s get out of here! I’ll send him a letter—I’ll get some Bellevue stationery—I’ll certify you a lunatic! It was all a lousy joke!”