Operation Bamboozle (11 page)

“We'll all go and find the man,” Feet said. “Maybe he'll have a different opinion.” He helped Blanco to his feet and guided him to the door. Jo Stafford was remembering how Stars Fell On Alabama. They left her to it.

Murphy was still in the back of the car. Blanco sat between him and Lutz. Feet got in the front and Murphy said: “Four hundred and seventy-nine, Mr. Feet.”

“Yeah? I made it a thousand and six. I guess you dropped a few on the floor. Let's go.”

It was full night. The streetlights played briefly on Murphy's face, and after a few minutes Frankie Blanco said, “Hey, I know you.”

“Ain't you the lucky fellah.”

Lutz said, “Forget it, Frankie. Jeez, I wish I never knew
you.”

“That wasn't nice, what you did in the street. Shoutin' my name an' stuff. People stared.”

“They gave me a medal in Korea,” Murphy said. Frankie gave up.

It was an easy drive across town. Fitzroy found Cliff Boulevard and cruised quietly along it. “Say when,” he said.

“This it,” Frankie said. “Up there. You can't hardly it see from the road.”

They all got out. There was no moon but the clouds had moved on and starlight showed a driveway leading uphill. Trees and shrubs concealed most of the house, but one window was lit. The air was cold. Lutz shuddered: he was accustomed to hot cocoa at eight and bed by nine. “You don't need me for this, Tony,” he said.

“I think I do. The way I see it, this fellow Cabrillo has all the answers we need. So here's what's going to happen. Frankie goes up and knocks on the door. We wait and watch.”

“They'll kill me,” Frankie said.

“Well, if they do, we'll know you're telling the truth, and I'll have to kill Eugene. If they don't, you're lying and I'll have to kill you.”

“Hey, that's damn clever,” Murphy said.

“On your way.” Feet pushed Frankie. That was not damn clever: once Frankie was moving he bolted. He knew the landscape better than anyone: all boulders and bushes. Five yards up the driveway he dodged left and began scrambling. It was a still night. He made a lot of noise. “Go sit in the car, Gene,” Feet said. “You're in the clear.”

“Let me get him,” Murphy said eagerly. “Let me show you, Mr. Feet.”

“Rifle's no good here, kid.”

Murphy reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a Colt revolver. “Gun that won the West,” he said.

“He went thataway,” Feet said, pointing uphill. Murphy ran.

The leather soles of his shoes were dancehall smooth and they slid and skidded on boulders until he fell and instinctively stuck out a hand to protect himself, but the hand held the revolver and the impact squeezed the trigger and the bang was thunder and the ricochet screamed off another boulder. Murphy took a moment to get his breath back. He heard breaking branches far off to his left and fired in that direction. Frankie Blanco, scrambling blindly, had got his feet caught in wild brambles. The gunfire panicked him and he collapsed on his face. His chest was on fire and the flames were torturing him, blinding his eyes, roasting his lungs. Twenty seconds later he was dead.

Murphy kept searching, kept climbing, kept pumping hopeful shots into the night. Eventually he reached the edge of this property and the beginning of the next. The boulders had been cleared; a lawn had been laid. As he walked into it he triggered an infrared alarm and floodlights swamped the lawn. Murphy was half-dazzled but he saw a figure lurking at the edge. It shouted, and Murphy crouched and aimed the revolver, so the property-owner, a retired police chief from Baltimore, shot him once in the head with a deer rifle, a gift from his wife on their silver wedding anniversary. Telescopic sights. Thirty yards. No wind. Piece of cake.

They were eating coq au vin and still arguing about art, does it really exist, if so why, and what's it worth, the whole thing's a racket, when Luis said: “Forget Ma Chandler,
I'll
buy the paintings and Julie can write the great American novel, it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it.” Julie said that was bullshit, he
didn't have the money, Princess sawed off another hunk of chicken breast, Luis said he did have the money, or would soon, because he owned part of an oil well that would pump dollars night and day, and the gunfire began outside.

They turned out the lights and went to a window. The night told them nothing. The shots were sporadic. They seemed to move away, and then they ended. “Cattle stampede,” Princess suggested. “Cowboys turnin' the herd afore the critters plunge to their doom.”

“What d'you mean, you own an oil well?” Julie asked.

“That last shot,” Fitzroy said. “That was no handgun. That was heavy. Sporting rifle of some kind.”

“Look at that hillside,” Feet said. “Black on black. A hundred Apache could be hiding there. Your man Murphy did a dumb thing.”

Lutz wound down a window. “We should go,” he said. The car heater was blowing hard.

“He's right. Forget Blanco,” Fitzroy said. “We'll pick him up tomorrow. Murphy can look after himself. There's nothing left for us here.”

“Oh, I think there is. There's still Cabrillo.”

They got into the car and drove up to the house. The Chrysler was standing there. Fitzroy went to look at the plates. The air was chilly, and all this moving from hot to cold was not good for Lutz's aging bladder. Too much stress didn't help it, either. Fitzroy came back. “Jersey plates,” he said. Lutz shuddered. “I gotta piss, Tony,” he said, but too late. Feet was knocking on the door. Lutz's left hand was in his pants pocket, clenching the leaky hosepipe inside his Jockey shorts.

Luis opened the door. “Mr. Cabrillo?” Feet said. “We are seeking your support for Colonel Henry Spencer.” He gestured at Lutz. “Republican candidate for Congress. May we come in?” Luis hesitated. “We live in perilous times, Mr. Cabrillo. Your vote counts. Our nation needs staunch leaders, men of guts and gallantry.”

“Can I use your bathroom?” Lutz asked.

Luis waved them in, and led the way. “This is Colonel Spencer,” he announced. “He wants us to help him fight the good fight in Washington. As it happens, colonel, we ourselves
did some skirmishing on the DC battlefield not so long ago. How d'you feel about Senator Joe McCarthy?”

“Bathroom,” Lutz said. His voice cracked with desperation. Julie pointed. “Third on the right,” she said.

Lutz hurried from the room. His tubes were hurting, his grip was weakening, he forgot whether she'd said right or left and he gambled on left, opened the door and fumbled for the light switch. Bedroom. Woman in bed. Christ, what a nightmare. Before he could turn she sat up and said, “Eugene Lutz. Whatcha want, you old goat?” One shock too many. He panicked and grabbed the automatic, the dumbest thing he could do but who said panic was smart? Stevie jumped out of bed, stark naked, the first totally naked woman he had seen in twenty-three years and the most beautiful naked woman he had ever seen, and the stress was too much. A jet of hot urine soaked his left leg. “Get back!” he said and pointed the gun-butt. He was holding the weapon by the barrel. He began crying. She took the gun from him.

Tony Feet was trying to get the measure of Cabrillo. What kind of hitman lived with two broads and wore cowboy boots and talked like Cary Grant's kid brother? Maybe the best, for that very reason. “Am I right in thinking you're from New Jersey, Mr. Cabrillo? A fine State. Staunch supporter of the right to bear arms …” That was when Stevie came in. She was wearing somebody's sweater that barely reached her thighs and poking Lutz in the ribs with his own automatic. “He ain't house-trained,” she said. “Any offers?”

Instantly, Feet and Fitzroy had guns in their hands, pointing at Luis and Stevie. “Put the shooters away,” Stevie said. “I know these guys, they're kosher, and I know you, you're Tony Feet, out of Chicago. He's middle-management,” she told Luis, “they don't get their hands dirty, they got more class, Sam Giancana wouldn't approve.”

Feet lowered the gun. “We met?” he asked cautiously.

“She's Stevie Fantoni,” Julie said. “Of the New York Fantonis.”

“I was at the Middle West Convention, 1951,” Stevie said. “Dad took me, Jerome Fantoni. Lakeside Hotel, Illinois. You danced with me. Your wife didn't like it.”

“Sure, sure. I remember.” By now the guns had disappeared. “You were dressed different then.” Everyone laughed except Eugene Lutz. He found an upright chair and sat on the edge. He
hadn't wet himself so thoroughly since he was five. “Can we go?” he asked quietly.

“None of my business,” Luis said, “but what the dickens are you all doing here?”

“Misunderstanding,” Feet said. “Mistaken identity. You got confused with an operator was supposed to do a number on Frankie Blanco, and—”

“Hold it there,” Stevie said. “Blanco's dead. He was a floater in Lake Michigan, way back.”

“Forget that. Mistaken identity.”

“Gee,” Julie said. “Identity isn't as reliable as it used to be.”

“Was that you out there,” Princess asked, “going bang-bang-bang?”

“Chinese New Year,” Fitzroy said. He was tired of standing at the edge and being ignored.

Outside, a siren wound down slowly as a car cruised up the drive. “I'd appreciate it if we could go back to Republican campaigning,” Feet said. Luis went to the front door and welcomed two detectives from the El Paso Police Department. “We may be a little short of chairs,” he said.

Dan Brennan was the senior detective available when the shooting was called in. Violence was rare on Cliff Boulevard: most of the residents were too rich, too happy, too old. They raged if the garbage truck left broken eggshells in the drive; otherwise, life was tranquil. Brennan got there in twelve minutes. He recognized what was left of Murphy's face, and he heard the retired Baltimore police chief's story. It seemed the serious shooting all began in the next property, so Brennan went there and nobody knew anything.

“You heard the shots?” he said.

“Were those shots?” Feet said. “Sounded like backfires to me. Someone had a hole in their muffler.”

“These walls are thick,” Luis said.

“You got your Mexicans over in Juárez,” Fitzroy said. “You get your Mex celebration going, your Mex firecrackers start banging, your wind's in this direction …”

Brennan questioned them each separately, in another room. It didn't take long. They were all friends, or friends of friends, gathered together for an evening of conversation.

He saved Fitzroy for last. “You know me, Fitz. I certainly know you. Cliff Boulevard is kind of out of your league, ain't it? Kind of classy for a two-bit hustler like you?”

“A man's entitled to a private life, captain. That's in the Bill of Rights somewhere.”

“Sure. And it's in the Constitution that coincidence stinks. We found your boy Murphy a hundred yards from here with Billy the Kid's revolver in his hand and a slug in his head. Explain that.”

“Young Murphy?” Fitzroy made a pained expression and shook his head. “I'm mortified.”

Brennan smiled. “No, you're not, Fitz. Murphy's the one got mortified. You were
fortified,
by coffee and cookies. In here. Allegedly.”

Fitzroy shook his head to convey sadness. “A hero in Korea. Smart, keen, popular. I wish—”

Brennan hit him across the face, just a flick of the fingers, twice, left and right. “Don't waste my time, Fitz. Murphy didn't walk here from town. Neither did you. Your car's outside. We'll find his prints in it.” A knock at the door. A uniformed cop came and whispered in his ear. Brennan stood up. “Stiff number two, even closer to home,” he said. “Let's you and me go see if it's anyone else you might know.”

The hillside flickered with the wandering beams of flashlights. The uniform went ahead and they took a twisting route between boulders as big as sleeping elephants. A ring of men held electric lanterns to illuminate a body that was lying face-down in a patch of gorse. Wild bramble was still trapped around one leg. A photographer's flashlight briefly turned everything white; then the man moved to get a different angle.