I could hear Heller swallow. “I… I didn’t know it was yours.”
“Hell, yes, kid! We own and control the fanciest cat houses in New York and New Jersey! Who else?”
Gregorio, glasses shaking, belatedly walked in with the milk and seltzer.
“To hell with that,” said Babe. “This kid wants beer, he can have beer! To hell with the illegality!”
“No, no,” said Heller. “I’ve really got to be going.” He thought for a moment. “You can tell me where to find Bang-Bang Rimbombo. I think I’ve got car trouble.”
So that was why he had walked in on the Corleone mob!
Suddenly, it all added up. He had read of Bang-Bang in the papers, knew he was part of the Corleone mob. He had Babe’s address from Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty. To find himself an expert car bomber, he had simply gone to Babe’s. Very, very smart detective work at locating somebody.
But wait! He had shown himself at that garage! They would be waiting for him when he came back there. Very, very dumb!
Heller was going to drive me crazy yet! He was too brightly stupid to live!
Babe turned to the people inside the door. They were whispering to each other and pointing at Heller and trying to get a better look at him. “Geovani, get out the limo and run this young gentleman over to Bang-Bang’s. Tell him I said to do what the kid wants.”
She turned back to Heller. “Look, kid, anything you want, you let Babe know, see?” She turned to the staff. “You hear that? And you, Consalvo, I want a word with you.” She was pointing at the one who had identified Heller.
I suddenly remembered who the Sicilian with the money sack was. He was the clerk at the Gracious Palms! Trying to keep up with Heller was exhausting me, spoiling my recall for faces even.
Heller took his leave. Babe bent down and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Come back any time, you dear boy. You dear, dear boy!”
Chapter 7
Heller sat in the front seat of the limousine with the hood, Geovani, driving.
“You really wasted them punks just like that!” said Geovani in a voice of awe. “Did you know one of them was Faustino’s nephew?” He drove for a while and then, taking his hand off the steering wheel, he made a gun out of his fingers and, pointing at the road, made the motions of firing and said, “Blowie! Blowie! Blowie! Just like that! Wow!”
They drew up in front of a down-at-the-heels apartment house. Geovani led Heller up to the second floor and knocked on a door, a code signal. A girl’s face came out through the door crack. “Oh, it’s you.” She opened it wider. “For you, Bang-Bang.”
Bang-Bang Rimbombo was in bed with another girl.
“Come on,” said Geovani.
“Hell, I just got sprung!” protested Bang-Bang. “I ain’t had any for six months!”
“Babe says you go.”
Bang-Bang was out of bed in a flash. He struggled into his clothes.
“Car job,” said Geovani. “This kid will show you.”
“I’ll get my things,” said Bang-Bang.
Geovani used the phone and called a cab. Waiting, he covered the phone. “We never use the limo for wet jobs,” he said apologetically. “And we control the cab companies. They don’t talk.”
Shortly, Geovani shook Heller’s hand and left. Halfway down the hall he turned and made a pistol out of his fingers again. “Blowie! Blowie! Blowie!” he said. “Just like that!” He was gone.
The cab arrived and Bang-Bang, dragging a big bag, got in. Heller followed him. Heller gave an address a block away from the garage.
He was learning, but he was not really up on this tradecraft. They would be alerted. I knew he was going into a battle. And I didn’t have that platen. Short of sleep, haggard, I hung on the viewscreen. He had my life in his hands!
Heller paid the cab off and walked around the corner toward the garage.
“Wait,” said Bang-Bang. He was a very narrow-faced little Sicilian. He looked pretty smart. Maybe he had sense enough, I hoped, to keep them out of trouble. “If that’s the place,” he said, “I know it. It’s a garage Faustino uses to repaint stolen cars and other things. You sure you know what you’re doing, kid?” He shook his head. “Sneaking in there to rig a car for a blitz is a little bit steep.”
“It’s my car and I want you to unrig it,” said Heller.
“Oh, that’s different,” said Bang-Bang. He hefted his heavy shoulder bag and approached the garage.
The door was locked on the outside with a big padlock. Heller put his ear to the wall and listened. Then he shook his head. He went around the building and checked the back door. It, too, was locked with a padlock. He returned to the front. He stood back and saw that there was a window beside the front door, about six feet from ground level.
He took out a tiny tool, inserted it in the padlock, fished it, and almost at once had it open.
Heller was moving very fast, very efficiently. It was so much in contrast with his sloppy disregard for routine espionage that I had forgotten for some time what he actually was. I was looking at a combat engineer. Getting into an enemy fort was something they did with a yawn. He was in the field of his own tradecraft!
He opened the entry port of the front door, swished his hand around to make sure, probably, there were no trip wires and then stepped inside, placing his feet to avoid where feet would normally step — probably to avoid mines.
He got a box and put it under the window, stood on it and undid the latch.
He returned to the door, beckoned to Bang-Bang to enter. Then Heller went outside. He carefully relocked the padlock, just as it had been.
Heller went to the outside of the window, lifted it and entered the building. He closed the window carefully. Now, to all intents and purposes, anyone approaching from the outside would have no sign that anyone was inside. Clever. I would have to remember how to do that.
The whole interior was stacked with islands of cartons, leaving only aisles and room to drive a car down the center. And it was these cartons which were getting Bang-Bang’s attention.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a (bleepch),” said Bang-Bang. “Will you look at this!” He had pried a carton open and was holding a bottle. “Johnnie Walker Gold Label!
Look, kid. I heard of it but I never seen any.” In the dimness he must have seen that Heller wasn’t tracking. “Y’see, there’s red label and there’s black label and you can get that easy. But gold label, they keep only for Scotland or sometimes export it to Hong Kong. It’s worth forty bucks a bottle!”
He looked at the cap. “No revenue seals! Smuggled!” He got the cap off adroitly to hide signs of opening. He touched his tongue to the top and tilted it.
Heller’s hand tilted the bottle back, vertical.
“No, no,” said Bang-Bang. “I never drink on duty.” He rolled the drop around on his tongue. “It ain’t fake! Smooth!” He put the top back on and restored it to the carton. Then he began to make an estimate of the number of cases, walking about. The islands were piled nearly to the ceiling and the garage/warehouse was big.
“Jesus!” said Bang-Bang, “there’s close to two thousand cases in here. That’s…” he was trying to add it up. “Twelve to the case and forty dollars…”
“Million dollars,” said Heller.
“A million dollars,” said Bang-Bang, abstractedly. He went deeper into the building. “Hey! Look at this.” He had his hand on some differently shaped cases. He expertly pried up a lid with a knife and hauled out a small box. “Miniature wrist recorders from Taiwan! Must be…” he was counting, “…five thousand of them here. Two hundred dollars apiece wholesale…”