“And I also acquired a kilo of pure heroin,” Padgett replied as he dumped the brief case on the desk. He ran down, while his chief taped the verbal report, every move he had made, from the time he last left the Portola Drive house — including the disposal of the body from the Stardust. No one smiled or commented. It was a deadly game in which death had been encountered before. Once more, the situation was teletyped to Washington. And once more orders came back from the Bureau.
“You’re a pusher, Chris, for a week. The lab boys will adulterate this heroin down to an acceptable weak mixture with powdered sugar. Put it out in the city to the pedlers you know for a week. We’ll supply you with funds here to convince Gortoff that you’ve moved the normal month’s supply in a week. Tell him the large scale movement was a result of the panic created by Bello’s fiasco. All he’s interested in is his money. See that he gets his first payment in tomorrow morning’s mail. Pick up the currency before you leave here. We’ll make the other daily mailings for you during the week. At the end of the week, make a meet with him. He’ll know that you’re running short because of the daily payments. We’ll stay on top of you. And we’ll stay on top of him. This time, when he makes his connection with his Mexican source, we’ll take him. And Chris, this time, take along your.38 and your I.D. Just in case Gortoff has any more tests for you.”
The San Francisco Narcotics Squad was alerted to the Bureau’s action and Chris Padgett moved again in the half-world of the city’s addicts. He shrugged off his takeover from Bello when former addict acquaintances asked what had happened to him on the night when he and Bello fled from the ransacked Grant Avenue apartment. “I took after him and tailed him to his connection.”
He squared up with Eddie, the addict who drove the car when he and the other addicts had trapped Bello at the Rincon Hill phone booth. “Here’s payment for your car rental, Eddie.” He handed him twelve caps of heroin in its adulterated form. “And there is H in those caps.”
He played the role of a typical pusher. “It’s cash on the line,” he told his pedlers. No cash; no junk. When former friends with whom he had pretended to share fixes came crying to him, in horrible, sick, anxiety, “...I’m sick, Chris. Just trust me with one cap to get going. I’ll have the cash for you in an hour...” he snarled back at them. “No cash; no cap.”
He played his role to such perfection that word got back to Gortoff, “This boy knows what he’s doing.”
And the narcotics squad of the San Francisco Police Department cooperated all the way, right down to making the usual number of arrests among pedlers. It was one of the best undercover operations in the Bureau and SFPD history as a list was compiled of every user and pedler in the city. And, thought Karl Gortoff, it was the best week in the history of his narcotics racket. Each morning at the Stardust Inn he received a manila envelope containing four times the cash he had formerly received from Bello.
On the fifth day Padgett was sitting in the Turk Street bar at a corner table. Two pedlers had already eased over to his table, slipped wads of bills to him, and been told where to pick up their plants. The bartender whispered to him while serving a fresh glass of Canada Dry.
“Call Karl.”
Padgett called him at the inn. “What’s on your mind, boss?” he asked nonchalantly.
“You, Chris. You’re going like a house on fire according to the take. Meet me. I’ll be parked on Fulton Street. Park near the Ignatius church and walk to my car. Around one. OK?”
“I’ll be there.” Padgett hung up — and walked to another bar from which he called the Potrola Drive house. He spoke to his Bureau chief. “Get that conversation from the bar?”
“Yes. We’ll cover the meet. Be careful. We’ve got the Inn phone tapped and just before Gortoff called the bartender on Turk, he called Rosarito Beach and told his man down there — the Garcia you told us about — that he and you would be making a trip soon. Looks like you’re going out of town again, Chris. And when our boys put their snooper on that phone in the bar, they found another electronic bug on it. And it wasn’t one installed by any of our agencies or the SFPD. Looks like Gortoff has his own telephone taps working. Don’t make any calls from the bar that you don’t want Gortoff tuned in on. We’ll keep our eyes on you, Chris.”
It was after midnight when Padgett drove towards Fulton Street. He looked up and saw the spires of Ignatius wreathed in gray fog. He parked and walked to the rendezvous with Gortoff. He saw the black Buick and crossed the street.
“Get in.” Gortoff reached over and opened the door.
“I’m glad you had me call you, Karl. By Monday I’ll need another kilo.” Padgett wasted no time on preliminaries.
“I know, Chris. You’ve pushed a big bundle this week so far — more than the local traffic could use. Who’s doing the big buying?”
“Hymie and Severson came into town from Chicago,” the N Man explained glibly, using names of two Chicago pedlers who, he knew, were currently held in custody, having been taken off the City of Los Angeles when it stopped at Salt Lake City on its westward run. “There’s a panic in Chicago. I drove a hard bargain with that pair. What they got, they paid street prices for.”
“I wondered why I hadn’t heard from them,” Gortoff smiled. “I called them yesterday and they were supposed to be on their way here. Maybe those slick bastards think they’re by-passing me; that you’re handling your own stuff. That’s good. Let them think they’re getting it without dealing with me — and keep on sticking them with street prices. For a long time they’ve wanted me to make deliveries in Chicago. They’ve threatened to buy elsewhere. Now they think they’re doing that and that I’ll come around to transporting the stuff all the way to the Windy City. They knew Bello was my man. They don’t know you. Like a lot of local people, the word’s out that you’re an independent — a new source here on the West Coast, Chris. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Unless you tell me different, Karl, I sell to who lays cash on the line. You any other inland connections that you want me to look after?”
Gortoff didn’t reveal to the N Man any other branches or limbs of his narcotics traffic tree. “Not right now. But I want to take you down to Mexico tomorrow and get you set up with my man there. We’ll fly down this time. I’ll pick you up in the morning at your hotel. Around ten. We can spend a couple hours with Garcia and from now on you’ll make your own pick-ups with him. But you’ll still pay me, Chris. Garcia works for me.”
The N Man exhibited no sign of his excitement over learning that Gortoff was the man for whom the Bureau had looked so long — the man at the top of the heroin traffic — the one person who controlled the narcotics racket from its source to the addict on the street. “I’ll be in the lobby, Karl, at ten. See you.” He left the car and walked through the fog towards Ignatius. Instead of driving to the Turk and Eddy district, he drove towards the Richmond district. When he spotted the tail at an intersection on 19th Avenue, he recognized its driver as a fellow N Man. He drove slowly through thick patches of fog, turned south around the west edge of the lake and turned into the lonely, unpopulated area to the east and south. On a new, unopened boulevard, he stopped. The tailing car approached and stopped when Padgett flipped a toggle switch under his car’s dash. It’s driver and another N Man entered Padgett’s green Chev.
“Busy night, Chris?” one asked.
“And a busy day tomorrow. Tape a report for me?”
The driver left for the other Bureau car and returned with a tape recorder. Padgett recorded events of the day and evening, including Gortoff’s plans for the Mexican flight.