The Bridge to Caracas

  Pete Sarnos eased the limousine to a full stop at the curb in front of the glittering entrance to The Harbor Castle, an ultra-modern and expensive hotel decorating the shore of Lake Ontario just half a mile from Toronto’s business district.

  That night, the lovers enjoyed a dinner of Chateaubriand for two, several bottles of red wine, and Irish coffees. Servito seemed happy, and was much more open and talkative than Dianne could ever remember. He exuded pride when he spoke of his achievements, which, according to him, included evading gasoline taxes, stealing gasoline, and smuggling cocaine in the manifolds of his trucks. He spoke with absolute contempt for the politicians, bureaucrats, and oil company executives he had bribed and deceived.

  A waiter interrupted the conversation. “Excuse me, Mr. Servito,” he said. “I have an urgent telephone call for you.”

  Servito turned and glared at the waiter. “Who’s calling?” he growled.

  “Mr. Allison.”

  “Shit!” Servito snapped. “Where can I take it?”

  “You can take it in the office, or I can bring a telephone to your table.”

  “Bring it here.”

  The waiter quickly returned and placed a telephone on the table beside Servito. “Just press two,” he said.

  Servito jerked the receiver to his ear. “Why in hell are you calling me now?” he shouted.

  “I had to. We’ve got problems. The feds are following our trucks again.”

  Servito rolled his eyes skyward. “Which trucks?”

  “The ones going to Bushing’s storage tanks.”

  “You sure it’s the feds?”

  “Yup. Same cars, same license plates as before.”

  Servito picked up his Irish coffee and finished it with one gulp. “Phone Lasker,” he demanded. “Tell him to radio every driver. I want them to stop wherever they are and not to move for twelve hours. Then I want them diverted to the tanks on Grand Island. We’ll store the gasoline there until the heat’s off… got it? Good. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  Servito dialed Bushing’s home number next. “It’s me. I’m in Toronto. I want you to call King tonight and give him all the gasoline he wants. Phone him right now and make him happy.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Bushing warned.

  “Shut your mouth. I also want you to open the Golden National valves again, flat out.”

  “Have you gone stark raving mad?”

  “Trust me. Just do it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “But what—”

  Servito hung up before Bushing could say another word. His next call was to Sam Martin at his apartment in Buffalo.

  “It’s Jimbo, I’m in Toronto. I know you wanted us to cool the Golden Valve Program, but the plan’s been changed. We’re going into overdrive right now.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “I’m deadly serious. We need the juice.”

  “You might as well kiss the valves and your ass goodbye.”

  “You worry too much. Just fix the meters like you said you were going to do. Tell the big boys you’ve found the problem and fixed it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Mike was preparing to leave his office when his telephone rang. He lifted the receiver before the first ring had ended.

  “Mike, it’s Bob Bushing. I’ve got some great news… I’ve got thirty million sweet gallons for you.”

  “That’s fantastic!” Mike said, overjoyed. “How the hell did you do it?”

  “I called in some markers and got a lot more than I expected. Some of the players down here think this shortage isn’t going to last much longer and I agree with them. So I decided to take a pass on the short term windfall and bet on the longer term. I’m going to need customers like you when the system gets back to normal. I just want it understood that you’ll move it exclusively through your own outlets. I can’t let you have any product if you’re going to wholesale it. If you agree to that stipulation, I can sell you thirty million.”

  “Sure, but why the stipulation?”

  “I don’t want the whole world to find out I’m giving you all you want. I’ve had to cut a lot people short and turn a lot of people down in the last couple weeks. I’m still doing it.” Bushing’s explanation and Mike’s desperate need for supply were sufficient to explain the unique terms of the agreement. His better judgment should have told him the gasoline supply crisis was not a short-term thing, that anyone with a lick of sense could tell, and that something was terribly wrong with the deal.

  “Bob, I’m grateful. I want you to know that I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,” Mike said, instead.

  Servito and Dianne stumbled from the hotel and climbed into the limousine, laughing and hooting all the way. Servito leaned forward and pressed a button to open the darkened window separating the driver’s compartment from the rest of the limousine. “Take us to the Blue Tavern, Pete baby!” he shouted, waking Sarnos from a deep sleep. “We’re on a roll here!”

  Sarnos jerked himself to an upright position and started the car.

  The Blue Tavern was an extremely popular singles bar located less than a mile away. The music was live and loud, the dance floor jammed with bumping and grinding humanity. Flashing strobe lights created a psychedelic atmosphere. Servito grasped Dianne’s hand and led her to the dance floor, where they moved together in a microscopic space. Servito’s smile disappeared when he was accidentally bumped from behind by a pinstriped yuppie. He wheeled instantly and delivered a hard right fist to the yuppie’s stomach. When the man bent forward in pain, Servito broke his nose with an uppercut from his right knee.

  Everyone surrounding the event watched in horror as the yuppie slumped to the floor, blood gushing from his nose. Servito kicked his victim’s ribs and raised the middle finger of his right hand. “Have a nice night, dickhead!” he hissed, and then turned to Dianne. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he demanded.

  Servito opened the rear door of the limousine, pushed Dianne inside, and jumped in beside her. “Take us to the farm, Pete!” he ordered before slamming the door.

  Sarnos parked the limousine as close as he could to the front door of the farmhouse, but kept the motor running while Servito and Dianne struggled to dress and extract themselves from the limousine. “Take it back to Toronto, Pete. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Servito ordered.

  The lovers stood in the parking area for several minutes, inhaling the cold night air while the limousine turned around and glided down the snow covered lane. When the car had disappeared from sight, Servito put his arm around Dianne’s shoulder. “Let’s go in and make love for a change,” he chuckled, guiding her toward the farmhouse. When Servito closed the front door, Dianne hugged and kissed him hard, her right hand sliding down his body until it came to rest between his legs. “Let’s get it on,” she whispered.

  Servito faked a smile. Without a word, he released her and flopped on the couch. He removed a 38-caliber revolver, complete with silencer, from behind a cushion. Dianne froze in stunned silence, her hands raised as if to shield her extraordinarily magnificent breasts. He waved the revolver at her. “You’re a good broad, Dianne,” he said. “But time’s up. You know too much and I gotta let you go.”

  “What?” Dianne whimpered.

  “You know enough to put me away for the rest of my life!” He pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession.

  Twenty-four-year-old Bobby Grieves and his twenty-year-old wife had entered the deserted stone farmhouse for a quick rest after a long evening of cross-country skiing. They had been giggling and warming up their cold hands when they heard the sound of someone trudging slowly through the snow. They stared through one of the glassless windows as a man dragged a large burden wrapped in a white sheet to the nearby barn. Once the man had returned to his Corvette and driven away, the couple raced to the barn. Bobby turned on the headlamp he wore for night cross-country skiing, illuminating the dust Servito had disturbed in a long cylinder of opaque light. “He left it i
n here,” Bobby whispered.

  They both jumped at an unearthly sound.

  “What was that?” Jan asked.

  “It sounded like a moan,” Bobby said. He pointed his flashlight in the direction of the horse stall. The moan came again. He and Jan rushed to the stall, fell to their knees and began to grope through the pile of hay. Within seconds, they had uncovered a bloodstained white sheet.

  “My God!” Jan shrieked.

  Bobby removed the sheet from Dianne’s head and leaned down to place his ear against her chest. “She’s alive!” he shouted. “I can hear a heartbeat!” He jerked his head upward. “Stay here and try to keep her warm. I’m going for help.”

  CHAPTER 39

  March 2, 1979.

  Alex McDowell, aging head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Service, was deep in thought as he quietly read a letter in his spacious office on Sparks Street in Ottawa, Canada. A consummate bureaucrat, McDowell was jowled like a bloodhound. His dress code was distinctly antique, and his colleagues gave him the reverence due to a modern day Sherlock Holmes.

  The letter’s author was McDowell’s longtime friend John Hill, head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the IRS, in Washington, D.C. The subject of the letter, designated “Sensitive and Confidential,” was the federal gasoline sales tax. Hill’s department had recently been advised of unsettling anomalies in the data, which had identified substantial and growing revenue deficiencies.

  “I have Mr. Hill on line seven,” McDowell’s secretary announced.

  McDowell nodded and opened up the line. “How are you, John? It’s been a very long time.”

  “It has indeed,” Hill confirmed. “I’m well and fine. It’s good to hear from you, Alex. How are you?”

  “The years have been unkind to my body. Every day it takes me a little longer to get up to speed.”

  “And your brain, does it still function?”

  “With considerably reduced capacity,” McDowell responded.

  “Did you get my letter?”

  “That’s why I called. It was very timely.”

  “How so?”

  “Elementary. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

  “Fire! We’re dealing with a raging inferno, Alex, and who knows what else… I mentioned in my letter that we have reason to believe your problem and mine might be connected in some way. I think it would be a good idea for us to get together and discuss it in detail.”

  “I agree. My place or yours?”

  “Mine. Washington is a little warmer than Ottawa at this time of year.”

  “Fine. I can be at Dulles by about eleven tomorrow morning. Is that too soon?”

  “That’s perfect. I’ll pick you up at the airport. What’re you flying these days?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Every time I look around, the government has a new toy. I’ll get my secretary to call you later this morning to confirm.”

  Hill met McDowell at Dulles Airport sharp at eleven the following morning. McDowell had arrived on board a government owned Gulfstream III, which regularly ran the route. Hill instructed his driver to proceed directly to The Garden, a chic new restaurant in nearby Georgetown.

  After several martinis, followed by Caesar salads, rare fillets, and coffee, Hill and McDowell had exhausted all pleasantries and the library of stories they had gathered in the years they were classmates. Pointing to his briefcase, Hill changed the subject. “Alex, I brought a number of studies along to show you my motivation for writing. I could haul them out right here, but I think it would be better if you reviewed them at your leisure. I’d like to talk about them now.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “At the beginning. We became involved in this thing about a year ago, when I received a letter advising me that New York State gasoline tax revenues were going south. This was happening at the same time gasoline consumption was going north. Normally, we wouldn’t get involved in a state tax problem, but this one was different. We figured if there was some state gasoline tax missing, there was a pretty good chance some federal gasoline tax would be missing also.”

  “Was it?”

  Hill frowned and nodded. “We interrogated tax officials in other states and found that Michigan was experiencing the same problem. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states were hurting, too, but to a lesser extent. All the data’s in my briefcase… By the way, can you tell me what New York and Michigan have in common?”

  “They’re border states,” McDowell replied without hesitation.

  The corners of Hill’s mouth turned upward, forming a wry grin. “Obviously your brain does maintain some functionality. I was serious when I said we had a raging inferno here. It’s not only a matter of money—it’s Goddamned embarrassing. Neither the states nor the feds want any information about this to find its way into the hands of the media. Can you imagine politicians appearing on a televised press conference and trying to explain why they can’t find hundreds of millions of gasoline tax dollars?”

  McDowell chuckled. “Some of them can’t even find their way home at night…” The two shared a wry grin. “Seriously John, I’ve got the same problem. My boss is a politician from top to bottom. He made it crystal clear that he’ll have my ass on a platter if the press gets one sniff of this fiasco.”

  Hill chuckled. “Do you remember when we actually believed in the system?”

  McDowell nodded, and then frowned. “How bad is it, John? Give me numbers.”

  “It makes the New York State Lottery look like a Sunday school collection.”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s the situation in Canada?” Hill asked.

  McDowell sipped brandy and leaned back in his chair to light his pipe. “Pound for pound, we have the same problem. Ontario and Quebec borders are the hot spots. If you insist, I could bore you with the data.”

  Hill shook his head. “Let’s talk.”

  “You mentioned something interesting in our telephone conversation yesterday—you said you had reason to believe our problems might be interconnected in some way.”

  Hill nodded. “We had a number of fact finding meetings with the tax people in the states involved. They described how they collect the gasoline tax from the oil companies, particularly when it comes to inter-state gasoline transfers. Did you know that the transfer of gasoline across the international border is taxed on blind faith—an honor system? And our monitoring systems are not up to the task of accounting for every transfer.”

  McDowell sucked on his pipe several times. “Do you have any particular criminal in mind?”

  “Yup,” Hill replied with tightened lips. “Do you?”

  “Jim Servito.”

  Hill’s face lit up like a bulb. “Bingo!” he declared. “How did you come to that conclusion, may I ask?”

  “We stumbled across a trucking company by the name of Amerada Tank Lines during the course of our normal surveillance work. The company is extremely active in the Buffalo area and is by far the largest hauler of gasoline across the U.S. and Canadian border. A corporate search revealed that Servito is listed as the controlling shareholder.”

  Hill looked bored. “So what connects him to tax evasion?”

  “Let me drop another name on you,” McDowell said. “Mike King. Does that name ring a bell?”

  Hill shook his head. “What’s his connection?”

  “He’s a big player in the retail gasoline business—his company retails gasoline in all of the areas of mutual concern. When we took a closer look at him, we discovered Amerada’s trucks were dropping a lot of gasoline at his outlets, on both sides of the border. The activity certainly suggests a connection.”

  “It suggests a connection, but doesn’t prove it.”

  “We certainly don’t suspect the major oil companies. They’ve got far too much to lose to be fooling around with tax evasion. Amerada is the only independent hauler large enough to play the game on the scale we’re talking about but small enough to stay under t
he IRS radar. We suspect King might be guilty of complicity. A lot of Servito’s gasoline is going through his outlets.”

  “Well, they’re your pigeons, Alex. Both Servito and King are out of our jurisdiction.”

  McDowell turned his pipe upside down over the heavy glass ashtray and clanged it three times, filling the tray with ashes and unburned tobacco. He squinted at Hill. “We’ll deal with them,” he vowed.

  “I’m sure you will. I’m willing to bet my pension that both Servito and King are up to their asses in tax evasion.”

  “I suspect you’re right about Servito, but I must say I have reservations about King.”

  “Why?”

  “We did a profile check on him. Would you believe he doesn’t even have a parking ticket?”

  “What about Servito?”

  “Servito’s a horse of another color. He entered Canada from the U.S. in 1963, and became a Canadian citizen in 1970.”

  Hill frowned. “Probably a Goddamned draft dodger.”

  “We’re entertaining quite a few. Would you like us to send them back?”

  “No thanks. You can keep them.”

  “Servito keeps an airplane at his farm north of Toronto. Almost all of the flight plans he’s filed in the last several years are to a single location. An island. Can you guess which one?”

  “Grand Cayman,” Hill responded without hesitation.

  McDowell smiled and nodded. “And you can bet your ass they aren’t pleasure trips.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Alone in her cream nightgown, Karen stood facing the expansive windows in the living room of her penthouse. She cradled her coffee mug with both hands, sipping it slowly while surveying the city below. At least three inches of snow had fallen on Toronto during the night, causing enormous traffic jams in the morning’s rush hour. The clouds had broken enough to allow the morning’s sun to melt the snow covering the concrete ledge above the window. Water droplets sparkled as they fell.