In a matter-of-fact voice, and without taking his eyes from the list, he said, “No, Tommy, that won’t be necessary. I have other plans for you. Tai Sheng will take care of the girl.”
Nine
My mind raced as Nicoli continued to read over the list. I couldn’t allow Sheng to kill Tanya but I didn’t even know where they had her. Nicoli had kept the box hidden against his side so I couldn’t see which room button he pushed. Yet, somehow, some way, I had to stop them from killing her. The television was shut off now. For all I knew, Sheng could have already killed her.
Nicoli cleared his throat, then carefully rolled the paper again. “Yes, it is about what I expected.” He smiled at me. “You did well, Tommy.” Then he sighed, leaned back, and waved to the other men in the room. “You can go now.”
They nodded in unison, put their glasses down immediately, and followed Michaels to the door. Michaels left with them.
“It is going to work well for us, Tommy. I have waited a long time to get back home. Now I’m ready. Soon you’ll be a very wealthy man, my friend.”
“I’m a wealthy man now.”
“Hah! Chicken feed. What do you make, huh? Eighty, a hundred thousand a year?”
“A hundred and thirty thousand. That includes my interest in the loan-shark business and the numbers racket.”
He leaned forward with excitement dancing in his gray eyes. “Man, I’m talking about millions! How would you like to rake in one or two million a year, huh?”
“It would be nice.”
“Think you could live on that, huh? With ninety-nine percent of it tax-free? I’m going to blow the States wide open. We’re pushing the penny-ante punks off importing heroin and cocaine. That will be taken over by us. Everything will be stepped up: prostitution, the rackets, jukeboxes, and vending machines. And we’re going to have more pull in Washington. I got two Senators and three Congressmen ready to play ball for a price. They’ll get themselves on the right committees. Then whenever the Government tries to come after us, or some newly elected Senator wants to make a name for himself by attacking organized crime, our boys there will launch a whitewash investigation, just like some boys did when they were after insurance companies. A couple of two-bit punks will be arrested, and that will be that. Free rein again.”
“You make it sound easy, Rozano.”
He frowned at me. “What is it, Tommy? You got no enthusiasm. Still moonin’ over that dumb broad? Huh? You’ll have a hundred broads. Gorgeous broads, and stacked. You’ll get tired picking from them because they’ll all be knockouts.”
I was shaking my head. “That’s not it, Rozano. It’s that Sheng. I don’t like him. It bothers me that he’s in with us. How do you know you can trust him? He’s a goddamn Communist, isn’t he?”
“Tai Sheng has been very helpful to me,” Rozano said with a smile. “He will be even more helpful once we get into power.”
“Perhaps. Rut there have been whispers among those family heads who support you. None of them like this Sheng. We have never needed enemies of our country before. Why now? Our form of government is what allows us to operate. We wouldn’t make a dime in a Communist country. So why him? The family heads think the Oriental group is very strong in the States. They are well organized in every ghetto and Chinatown. Maybe, with Sheng as their leader, they plan to take over the families and shove you out in the cold. Remember, he has been with you for quite a while. He knows a great deal about how this thing of ours operates.”
“Fairy tales!” Rozano almost shouted. “What am I? A two-bit operator? Huh? I don’t know men? I haven’t screened those who come to me?”
“I wasn’t saying that. All I was...”
“Nonsense, Tommy. That is what you have been saying. I do not operate on whispers, but on performance. Sheng has already proved his value.”
I leaned back and hiked my knee up. There was one ace I hadn’t played yet. “Rozano, we are good friends. I was not going to tell you this.”
“Tell me what? Is it about Tai Sheng?”
I nodded. “It was when he came to the hotel to pick us up. As soon as I got in, he told me to turn over the list to him. He got very upset when I told him nobody would get it except you.”
He frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s odd. He knew you were to bring the list here to the villa. Why would he do such a thing?” Nicoli stood and crossed to a small control panel. He pushed a button.
Almost immediately the door opened and Michaels came in. “Yes, sir?”
“Tell Louie to bring Sheng to me.”
Michaels bowed and went out. Nicoli paced back and forth, checking his watch now and then. Presently he came back to the couch.
“Tommy,” he said brightly. “How would you like to see what I’ve been doing on this side of the pond?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Good! The plane will be ready soon, in fact they are loading it now. Another shipment is going to Istanbul.”
“A shipment of what?”
“Heroin.”
The door opened and Nicoli jumped to his feet. Sheng came in wearing his perfect-teeth smile. He did not look at me. I noticed he had put his coat on, straightened his tie, and combed his hair. There was no sign of fatigue, nor of Tanya.
“You wished to see me, Rozano?” he said in his oily voice.
“Tommy tells me you wanted the list from him when you picked him up at the hotel.”
For an instant the smile wavered, but Sheng recovered quickly. “And you believed him?”
“Of course I believed him. Why wouldn’t I believe him? Are you denying it?”
The smile broadened. “No, it is quite true. I did ask for the list. It was my intention to deliver it personally to you, Rozano. I do not trust this Acasano, I have never trusted him. It is difficult to believe he was totally ignorant of the girl’s being an agent.”
“That’s beside the point. The girl fooled a lot of good men.”
“As you wish, Rozano. But I think this Acasano is lining up the families in the States against you, not for you.”
Nicoli took a step toward the Oriental. “Perhaps I am not as bright as you, Sheng. But you had better be able to prove that, or on my mother’s grave you will pay for such a statement.”
The smile on Sheng’s face vanished. “Rozano, I never say anything I am not prepared to prove. I have a man in Istanbul who has information on Acasano. The man had been instructed to check him out. A photo was taken when Acasano entered the Corini Hotel in Palermo. It has been enlarged and studied very carefully. My man will compare it with photos taken of Acasano ten years ago.”
Nicoli was frowning. “What are you trying to say, Sheng? That Tommy is not Tommy? That he’s somebody else?”
“Exactly. An agent for AXE, working with the girl.”
Rozano Nicoli let out a large run of deep laughter. He backed to the couch, still laughing, and almost fell to a sitting position. He punched my shoulder. “You hear that, Tommy? You’re not you!”
Sheng’s face was tensed with rage. “I am not used to being laughed at, Rozano.”
“Forgive me. But it sounds like some goddamn movie.” He squeezed my arm. “This is Tommy Acasano, my old friend. I know that.”
I wished I could laugh the whole thing off as easily as Nicoli had. But I was worried. No disguise in the world was going to hold up to close scrutiny when compared with the real article. Tai Sheng had nailed Tanya and me exactly right, and it gave me chills knowing how thorough the man was.
“I will show you the proof, Rozano, as soon as we reach Istanbul,” Sheng said.
Killing both Nicoli and Sheng would have been easy for me right then. I could fake the shipment and have agents pick up all the contacts between here and Saigon. But sitting there staring at Sheng, I realized that something new had been added to the assignment. There were too many Chinese Communist contacts in the States. Too many for one man to remember. Somewhere within Sheng’s reach there had to be another list of some kind showing all the Chicoms operating in the U.S. I had to get that list.