Delta Factor, The Read online

  Kim and I ate a silent breakfast in the Continental Room, a sallow-faced man with a bulge of a gun showing under his too tight suitcoat occupying the next table and trying to be inconspicuous behind a newspaper. When we finished Kim announced that she wanted to do some shopping and I told her to go ahead because I wanted to try the crap table again. I paid the bill and when we got up the tail decided to stay with her, figuring there were enough of the others in the casino to keep me under their eyes.

  And that was the way I wanted it. As long as I was in sight they’d hold their places and let me move around. I made a point of having them spot me without the tail, pass the word around, then wandered aimlessly from table to table making a casual play here and there without winning.

  Marty Steel was still trying to beat the faro game, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. He threw in his last few chips, lost, then reached in his pocket for a sheaf of bills and passed them to the dealer for another stack.

  “Bad day?” I asked.

  His head snapped around, startled at the intrusion, his face a strange mask before he recognized me and gave me that lopsided smile that seemed to send his jaw out of joint. “ ‘Bad’ is no word for it, friend. I should have taken your advice and blown this coop. These guys are taking me broke.”

  I nodded to the chips in front of him. “Better not tap your reserve.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m still in good enough shape. You’re going to ride it out, huh?”

  “I’m sure not fighting that mob at the airport.” I touched his shoulder. “See you later.”

  He said, “Right,” and went back to his game.

  Kim finished her shopping by two o’clock and joined me at the bar for a drink. Her tail had taken up a position at the other end, exhausted from following her on her tour. She had her arms full of packages and for the benefit of all the eyes we were nothing but a very loving couple. We held hands and kept our heads together, laughing a lot, but the talk was far from romantic.

  I said, “Get up to the room and stay there until I join you. I want to set things up down here to look natural when I make my contact. When we break Lisa out we may need you for a decoy, so don’t go running off.”

  “Have you thought what we’ll do if you get Sable out and we don’t make that boat?”

  “Yeah, I’ll cry a lot.”

  “Damn it, Morgan,” she smiled maliciously, “will you remember we’re dealing with national security?”

  “How can I forget it with you to remind me? I love my little parole officer, but she gets damn wearing after a while.”

  Her smile thinned out and she dug her nails into the back of my hand. “Maybe I should remind you of something else. I’m authorized to kill both you and Victor Sable rather than expose this project.”

  “You really that dedicated?”

  Kim answered me with her eyes first, then answered truthfully, “Yes, I’m really that dedicated. And capable.” She got up with another smile, gathered up her packages, patted my cheek and walked off. Her tail seemed to sigh to himself, then slid off his stool with regret and followed her to the elevators.

  The trick to faking a drunk at a crowded bar was simply being a roving conversationalist, buying a lot of drinks, but leaving them standing untouched as you hopped around. If you ordered the same drink as the person you talked to and scooted off, he invariably drank it himself and not even the bartender got wise.

  I took my time building the act, watching the hours roll by on my watch, getting a little louder and a lot friendlier with each drink, making a point of setting up anybody who joined the throng to a free round on me. Not even the waiters escaped my offers, though they declined politely. Twice cabdrivers came in looking for fares who had called for them and suddenly found a drink in their hands. I kept it at a level that wasn’t obstreperous enough to be cut off, but enough to put the pair who were detailed to watch me at their ease, figuring a hard-spending tipsy customer was only an asset at that point.

  When José came in I wasn’t out of character in pulling him in next to me and calling loudly for a highball for my new buddy. When he had it in his hand I toasted him elaborately, making sure he was facing away from the watchers, and downed half my drink.

  While my glass was still at my mouth I felt him slip something in my pocket and say, “There is a man with me, señor.”

  “I know. Where is he?”

  “Outside in the car. What is to be done with this one? He insists on seeing you.”

  “Tell him to meet me right here and for Pete’s sake make sure he comes in calm.”

  “He is a scared man, señor.”

  “So have him fake it.”

  “I will try.”

  “Then you get back to the boat and tell that captain to stand by as long as possible.”

  “With this hurricane approaching, I would not delay too long, señor. Already all the other boats are making for safe ports.

  “Sure, José. Now beat it back and make that captain wait us out.”

  José’s face studied me seriously. “I know whatever it is you do is for the good of our country, señor. I will do my best.

  I cracked a couple of jokes he didn’t get, but he caught the picture and went along with it and excused himself politely to walk away, a little man who could pass unseen in a crowd of two.

  Fifteen minutes later Joey Jolley edged in the main doors, glanced around nervously until he located the bar and walked toward me like a man in a room full of tigers, his shoulders tense with fear that he repressed so hard a cold sweat glistened on his forehead.

  I pulled the same act I did with José, but hissed between my teeth to make like I was a stranger and ordered a drink for him loud enough to carry down the bar. I kidded with him until nobody was paying any more attention when his drink came, but unlike José he didn’t toy with his, but spilled it down in one fast gulp and set the glass back on the bar for a refill.

  I said, “Easy, buddy, it’s going to be a long night.”

  He didn’t pay any attention. The second one went down the same way and he shuddered when it hit his stomach, his eyes misting a second before they cleared and rolled up to meet mine. “You know what you did to me, Morgan?” His voice was almost breathless. “It was Whitey Tass. He killed her, now he’s ...”

  I kicked him square in the shins and he sucked in his breath as the pain of it cut him off short in midsentence. Marty Steele had seen me, edged in and slammed a bill on the bar with an order for a quick shot of Scotch. “Damn, what a miserable day this has been!” he blurted out. “You know I got hooked for six grand? I never saw cards go that long in one direction.” He tossed his drink off and waited for another. “I’m calling it quits,” he told me. He wrinkled his face in a grimace until the scar tissue around the bridge of his nose showed white, poured his drink down to follow the first one and waved the change off to the bartender. “See you tomorrow,” he said, and left.

  Joey was still holding his breath from the kick I had given him and when I turned around grinning idiotically he said, “What was that for?”

  “For being stupid. Quit mentioning names. Have one more drink, then walk off with me. I’m going to put on a big buddy act and get you up to meet my new bride and you play along with it, understand?”

  He nodded vaguely, teased another drink down while I gave him a loud, descriptive picture about the delights of being a fresh bridegroom and finally got him to agree to meet the wife despite the warnings of the two older guys on my right. I paid the bill, draped my arm over his shoulder and staggered off to the elevators and pushed the button.

  Angelo’s seeing me was accidental, but the consternation on his face was real. He said something to the bell captain, who nodded and came over in time to step into the elevator behind us. The minute the door closed he said, “Señor?”

  I dropped the act and grinned at him. “I’m okay, Angelo.”

  “I was worried.” He glanced at Joey suspiciously.

  “Friend,” I said.
“How’s everything look?”

  “Director Sabin’s men are everywhere, señor. I understand he and Carlos Ortega had a falling out over his attentions to the Gordot woman, but Director Sabin is insistent. He thinks he is very much taken with her, but it is more a matter of his hating to be opposed. He calls her room regularly to make sure she is there and the guards watch her door carefully. Things are not going well.”

  “Quit sweating. You get that radio from Rosa Lee’s?”

  He bobbed his head. “Before dawn. It is already installed in a safe place for future use. An operator stands by at all times.”

  “Good. Keep him there.”

  “About the Gordot woman . . .”

  “Flight 51 goes out at midnight, doesn’t it?”

  “That is correct, señor. The shift goes off duty here promptly at ten. We must be ready by then.”

  “We’ll be ready by then,” I said.

  The car stopped at our floor and I went back into the drunk act and let Joey help me off while Angelo continued up higher. I banged on the door to the suite until Kim answered, watched her face look at me with utter disgust until she closed the door behind us, then change into one of surprise when I popped back to normal. I kept my voice loud and thick until I had the radio turned up again and when Kim got the idea she called over the noise to Joey to help me into the shower.

  When the water was running too hard for any hidden mikes to pick us up she said, “Who’s he?”

  “Joey Jolley, the one I told you about.” I looked at him and nudged him with my hand. “Let’s have it, kid. What’s this bit of showing up here?”

  Someplace Joey lost his grand manner. His voice was quavery and above his normal pitch; his hands clutched together to keep from trembling. “You stuck me, Morgan. If I knew it was going to be like that I would have kept out of it.”

  “Get to the point, Joey.”

  He took a breath, let it out slowly and nodded. He looked at Kim and said, “You want her to hear it too?”

  “All of it.”

  “Sure, Morgan.” He licked his lips, folded and refolded his hands. “I poked around like you asked me to and picked up enough to put it together. Herm Bailey ... he was the one who really set me wise. I found him hiding out in the storeroom over the Dixieland Tavern because Whitey Tass had his boys out looking to work him over for lousing up one of their jobs while he was drunk.”

  “Details, damn it!”

  “I ... I’m trying, Morgan,” he said nervously. “Anyway, the way it plays out starts with Gorman Yard. He had this guy with him for a while that Old Gussie didn’t know about. I don’t know where Yard picked him up, but that one had a feeling about guys on the lam. He kept this guy in his room and made him pay pretty steep for the privilege.

  “Someplace along the line Yard got the idea this guy had a lot more loot than he was carrying on him and Yard wanted a bite of it. From what I heard he didn’t want to tackle the guy alone. He was a pretty mean type who traveled with a rod and didn’t mind using it. So he figures out another angle. He wangles an introduction to Whitey Tass and lays it in his lap. The deal was for Whitey to have his boys pick the guy up and squeeze the location of the cache from him.

  “They had it all set up, but my guess is that Gorman Yard got a little too cagey and the guy smelled the deal out and took off. Naturally, this made Whitey look like a sucker and he doesn’t take that kind of thing. He blew the whistle on Yard by putting the police wise to where he was holed up and Yard took a fall on that upstate rap.

  “It would have been okay for Yard if he had kept his big mouth shut, but in the can he sounds off about how he’s going to even things with Whitey Tass and Whitey hears about it and one of his boys in the can pulls the cork on Yard at Whitey’s orders and Yard’s on a slab the same week.

  “Nobody would’ve been the wiser. It was a good job, an industrial accident, the report read, but then you showed up in the neighborhood, got through to Bernice Case and started her asking questions about Yard’s connection with Whitey Tass. That put him behind the eight ball again and he couldn’t take any chances on what information the Case girl had so he cooled her himself.”

  “And that brings us up to you,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t have asked me to do it, Morgan.”

  “What happened?”

  Joey shuddered again and wiped the back of his hand across a dry mouth. “Whitey tumbled to me. Now he knows I’ve connected him with the kill on Yard and Case.” His eyes looked at me hopelessly. “He followed me, Morgan. I know he was there in Miami. I thought I was clear getting into the Keys, but I’m not so sure. There was another guy I saw once at a gas station and again at a diner. He could have been one of Whitey’s men.”

  “Nobody was on that boat with you except the captain, was there?”

  “No.”

  “And nobody’s coming this way while this hurricane is building either. If Whitey’s behind you, then he’s still in the States and we can nail him when we get back there.”

  “Morgan . . .”

  “Cool it, Joey,” I said. “Nobody’s going to touch you here.”

  For the first time Kim spoke, her voice crisply curious. “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

  I looked at her just as seriously. “About forty-million bucks floating around someplace.”

  An expression of incredulity crossed her face. “What?”

  “I never had it, kitten.”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Part of the money was found in your room when you were picked up.”

  “That belonged to a former tenant, the guy Yard was harboring. When he took off to get away from Whitey Tass’s mob he left it there. He had plenty more and it wasn’t worth coming back for and I got stuck with it when they shook down my room.”

  Her smile had a hard edge to it. “Then explain away the three five-hundred-dollar bills in your possession.”

  “I told you. Casino winnings. This would be a perfect spot to unload that hot money. Ortega tried his best to make a deal with me to take care of it, so I know the outlet is available. Anybody could have brought it in. Hell, I was tagged for the job, so what did somebody else have to worry about? They’ll check bills downstairs for counterfeit, but they aren’t trying to match up serial numbers with stolen bills. Why should they? All they had to do was put it back in circulation again and they wouldn’t be out a buck.”

  “Then Ortega knows you have it?”

  “He thinks he knows it, baby.”

  She frowned again. “Somebody shot at you. Somebody tried to frame you for Rosa’s death.” She paused, then added, “Somebody else thinks you have it too.”

  “Do they?” I asked softly.

  Kim looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just an idea I have.” I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to six. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, so I’ll lay the program out now. Think you can go it alone?”

  Kim nodded hesitantly.

  “Angelo has it arranged for Lisa to go out of here dressed as a maid. He’ll make sure she gets to the plane. What I want you to do is get down to her room and see if you can imitate her voice and the general tone of her conversation in case Sabin should call. After the takeoff time for her flight you get back up here and stay with Joey here until I get back. Clear?”

  Joey said, “What about me, Morgan?” His voice was barely audible.

  “You stay here. Keep the door closed unless you’re sure it’s one of us.”

  “Morg ... you’re positive about Whitey Tass?”

  “If he knows you’re here he knows you can’t hurt him and he won’t be dumb enough to come after you until after the storm anyway.” I got up from the edge of the tub and turned off the shower.

  When I turned around Kim was standing there, her eyes full of confusion, staring at me as if she were looking through a microscope. “You still don’t believe me, do you?” I asked her.

  Her lovely face ref
lected the turmoil of her mind. “Why should I?”

  “No reason to,” I told her and walked outside.

  As I reached the door I heard her quick steps behind me and her voice say, “Morgan.”

  I stopped and turned around. “What?”

  She couldn’t seem to say what she wanted to say. Instead, she simply shrugged. “Nothing.”

  I grinned at her, went into a drunk-trying-to-sober-up act and opened the door.

  10

  JUAN FUCILLA ENTERED the bar promptly at six. I timed my unsteady path across the lobby to intercept him and as I passed him, said, “Men’s room.” He was too shrewd to miss the implication or give any indication that he had heard me and continued on to the bar while I went into the john at the far end of the room. The guy in the tight tuxedo who had followed me made sure of where I was going, then went back to his original position beside the desk, scrutinizing the departing guests.

  Five minutes later Fucilla joined me at the washbasins, waited until we were alone, then took the packet I had handed him. His analysis was simple but thorough, feeling the consistency of the heroin, tasting it, and inspecting it under the light through a tiny but high-powered glass. When he finished he slipped the packet in his pocket and said, “Excellent quality, señor.”

  “The best,” I agreed.

  His little eyes squinted at me. “My immediate superiors you will deal with directly think it will be a pleasure to do business with you.”

  “How many of them?”

  “Merely two, señor. Both are very reliable officers.” He coughed apologetically and fidgeted nervously with the buttons on his coat. “They, ah ... approve of your direct methods.”

  “What methods?”

  “Elimination of someone of no consequence who might possibly, er, hamper our business relationship with the slip of the tongue.”

  I didn’t let it show on my face, but I knew what he meant. The little bastard thought I had knocked off Rosa Lee to cut her out of the picture altogether! For a moment the greed in his face was tempered by respect. I didn’t bother to deny his assumption. At least it made him a little less difficult to deal with, thinking of what retribution he could expect if he crossed me. And he cleared up one more detail for me. If he thought I had killed Rosa, then he couldn’t have done it himself.