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:
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?”