“Then my assignment is to stop it from happening,” I said.
“Partly. You must get close to Nicoli, to stop him by killing him if necessary, and the flow of heroin from Istanbul to Saigon must cease.”
I nodded. “So why the disguise? Who is this Thomas Acasano I’m impersonating? How did he die?”
“Your impersonation of Acasano is our only chance,” Hawk said, studying the glowing end of his cigar. “Thomas Acasano was Nicoli’s trusted ally on the East Coast. He carried a lot of weight with Nicoli, which is something Tai Sheng does not like. As far as both of them are concerned, Acasano is still very much alive.”
“I see. And how did he die?”
This was what Hawk unfolded.
AXE had had agents watching everyone even vaguely connected with Nicoli ever since Gaddino was gunned down in that sauna. The agent assigned to Acasano was a good man named Al Emmet. Al intended to do more than just follow his man. He wanted a pipeline to Nicoli, and he figured Acasano was it. So he pushed a little too close.
Many things must have gone through his mind at that time. He probably went back over the last few days and tried to find out where he made his mistake. Then there was a decision to be made. Should he tell AXE headquarters he had been found out? To do so would mean he’d be yanked from the case and another agent would take over. And just when he was so damned close.
Al Emmet was good. What separated American agents from those of the Communist world was independent action. Agents like Al didn’t follow any book. Each case was individual, and he handled it as he saw it. So he didn’t tell headquarters he had been discovered. He kept tailing Acasano.
When Thomas Acasano found out he was being tailed, he immediately sent out a coded telegram to Palermo asking what should be done about it. The answer came back in one sentence. The AXE agent was to be hit.
Normally, when a man had reached the stature of Acasano, the procedure would be simple. A button man would be contacted and issued a contract. But these were not normal times. Gaddino was dead, and not even cold in his grave yet. Organized crime, temporarily at least, was without leadership. There would undoubtedly be power struggles within the families to see who would end up on top. As a result no button men could really be trusted. Gaddino himself had started as a button man from Las Vegas, and everyone in the organization knew it. There were many ambitious young men who thought they could step into leadership shoes exactly as he had.
Acasano knew that Nicoli had worked too hard, made too many plans, and was just about ready to come back to the States. No lousy AXE agent was going to blow the whole thing wide open. And since no one else could be trusted, Acasano would have to handle the hit by himself.
Al Emmet knew when the telegram had come ordering his own execution. And he knew what it had said. But his main concern was for the code. If AXE headquarters had both the telegram sent by Acasano, and the one returned by Nicoli, the code might be broken, which would be helpful in the future when messages were sent between gangland leaders.
Three nights after Acasano received the telegram from Palermo, Al drove out to Long Island. Acasano had a huge house out there, as well as a swanky apartment in New York that he maintained for his girl. So Al drove out there at night. He was going to get that telegram ordering his own execution, as well as Acasano’s copy of the one he sent.
It had been snowing that night. He parked a block from the house and walked, listening to the crunch of his shoes in the snow. He had brought some rope with a three-pronged hook on the end. With that it was easy to scale the twelve-foot-high concrete wall Acasano had built around the mansion.
As Al ran in a crouch across the big yard, he knew he was leaving footprints in the snow. They would be discovered later. It worried him all the way to the back door of the house. Then he was relieved to see that it began to snow once more. The fresh snowflakes would cover his tracks.
He got in the house and made his way to the den with a pencil flash. Finding the two telegrams was easy. Too easy. They had been in the third drawer of the desk, right there on top. It wasn’t until Al had shoved them in his overcoat pocket that he knew he had been caught.
Acasano, of course, had been expecting him. He had been waiting in the adjoining library. When Al shoved the telegrams in his pocket and started for the door, Acasano stepped through the connecting door and turned on the light.
“Find what you were looking for?” he asked.
Al smiled. “Made it easy for me, didn’t you?”
Acasano was holding a.38 Smith and Wesson. He motioned Al toward the door. “My car is in the garage, pal. You’ll do the driving.”
“Afraid of messing up the house?”
“Could be. Let’s go.”
The two men went outside and across to the heated garage where the shiny, new Lincoln Continental was parked. Acasano kept the.38 on Al and handed him the keys.
“Where to?” Al asked as the Continental warmed up. Acasano was sitting in the back seat, the.38 close to the back of the agent’s neck.
“We’ll make it a classical kind of hit, pal. Drive out along the New Jersey coast. I’ll stick the silencer on this rod so we won’t disturb the neighbors. It’ll be a bullet through the temple, some weight, and the chilly Atlantic.”
Al drove the Continental. So far Acasano hadn’t made any attempt to get the telegrams back. Maybe he wanted them to go into the Atlantic with Al.
When they had reached a dark, deserted spot along the New Jersey coast, Acasano ordered Al to pull over.
“There are some concrete blocks in the trunk,” he said. “And a roll of wire. You’ll find the key on the same ring as the ignition key.”
Al got the trunk open. Acasano was standing close to the fender, the.38 still trained on the agent. Only one thing was running through Al’s mind then. How could he get the telegrams to AXE headquarters? It was vital that AXE have that code. And Acasano couldn’t be left alive to tell Nicoli about it either. If that happened, the code would simply be changed.
As Al lifted the trunk lid, a light came on. He saw five concrete blocks and the roll of wire. He knew Acasano wouldn’t be easy. He reached inside and got one hand on a concrete block.
“The wire first, pal,” Acasano said.
In a quick movement, Al swung the block out of the trunk and toward Acasano’s head. Acasano bobbed to the side. The block glanced off his head. But he managed to squeeze off two shots with the silenced.38. The shots sounded like the air pop of a BB gun. The concrete block struck with enough force to knock Acasano off his feet.
But the shots were well placed. Al Emmet doubled over as both slugs slammed into his stomach. He grabbed the fender of the Continental for support.
Acasano had hit the snow hard. He was trying to sit up now. Al, with both hands clutching his bleeding stomach, stumbled to the gangster and fell on top of him. His hands groped along the overcoat-covered arm until he found the gun wrist.
Acasano suddenly came alive with strength. They struggled and rolled in the snow. Al was trying to get the gun away. Acasano was trying to knee the agent in his wounded stomach.