William McGivern - A Matter of Honor

“How did you get onto the mail angle?”

“Lasari corroborated the information, but it came from Frank Salmi first. Finding Salmi was like getting a direct hit at the piñata with a baseball bat. Goodies spilled out all over the place. And, of course, Uncle Andy wanted a chance to cleanse his soul.”

“Uncle Andy?”

“Private Andrew Scales, a soldier and a junkie, the man who shot Malleck. He was billeted at the armory but he hung around Cabrini Green. I’d been checking through Cabrini books and found that Scales had rented four different apartments in different buildings over a five-month period. Each time he got a new mailbox and a new key. He knew I was onto him, but I let him dangle. After the shooting he told us Malleck had alerted him to watch out for four presents from Germany for Uncle Andy this time.”

“Packages they forced Lasari to send?”

“Yes, but the packages never left Germany, Bonnie. Lasari had the right information tucked in his memory bank. He’d memorized the file numbers of the four mail receipts he’d signed and the German officials caught the stuff right at the Frankfurt post office.”

“How did they try to do it this time?”

“Same M.O., Bonnie. Separate packages, all to be mailed on different dates, all addressed to Andrew Scales. This stuff could have fooled anyone — four big expensive cuckoo clocks, painted in Alpine colors, crazy little birds inside, but each pair of swinging weights — they look like pine cones, the Germans told us — each cone is hollowed out and filled with about a pound and a half of heroin.

“The military in Frankfurt put the cuffs on Strasser, Malleck’s opposite number, the German border police picked up the ringleader, Pytor Veyetch, as he tried to cross the Czech border near Cheb.

“Andrew Scales... that poor junkie brother’s got more than heroin possession and Malleck’s murder to worry about. It was Scales who gave Malleck the layout of the Cabrini apartment, the place they got Mark...”

Gordon sighed and some of the animation went out of his voice. “Well, Bonnie, it’s an ongoing investigation, of course, but I think that covers the Chicago end up to date.”

“And Lasari,” she said, keeping her tone impersonal. “Has he been with you all this time?”

“Not exactly. We talked to him on tape the better part of a day, he’s got a mind like a computer for details, you know. Then at Senator Copeland’s suggestion, he and Superintendent McDade flew into Washington. They’ve been holding meetings with General Buck Stigmuller and a Colonel Benton of Intelligence, along with the senator. I’m strictly Chicago law-and-order and not privy to those meetings, but McDade says they’re haggling over the best public relations approach for this matter, whether or not a full disclosure in this country and abroad is the best approach. Intelligence seems to favor a limited exposure, almost a coverup, but Copeland and Stigmuller like the bad apple theory and a major announcement that they’ve cleaned out the whole damned barrel.

“General Stigmuller has his special point of view on a lot of things,” the sergeant said. “He contends he was working closely with Tarbert Weir and that Durham Lasari was in their plans from the beginning. Lasari’s been cooperating in every way, he’s holding back nothing. I thought you’d want to know, Bonnie.”

“I’ll explain what you just told me to the desk,” she said, “and see how they want to handle it. Maybe they’ll want to put someone from the Washington bureau on that angle, direct quotes from the three big names.”

“Okay, Ace. I’ll be in the office for a half hour or so, and you’ve got my home number if there’s anything you need to recheck,” Gordon said. “McDade and Lasari flew into Chicago about an hour ago. We’ll want him up here for more questioning and as a witness at the trials, of course, but McDade gave him a couple of days off. Lasari said to tell you he’s driving down there tonight.”

Bonnie paused, took a sip of tea to compose herself, then said, “One more important thing, Doobie. General Weir — are you going to send him a report on all this?”

“I already talked to him, Bonnie.”

“You talked to him?”

“Well, it was rather a one-sided conversation but a nurse held a phone over the bed and I gave him an official report. I knew there were two things he was adamant about. He wanted those GI killings stopped and he wanted to find out who’d murdered his son. I said, ‘Mission accomplished, sir’ and that was that.”

“You’re sure he heard you?”

“The nurse said he made one hand into a fist, held it up like a victory sign. He can talk, she said, but he’s still got those damned tubes in his throat.”

“Just one last thing, Doobie. I’m not sure I have these numbers right. You said the first four couriers brought in three to four pounds of white, then Malleck got greedy. That means that Lasari’s duffel had more?”

“Yes, they stuffed in seven pounds this time, all balanced out so the weight was even.”

“And the cuckoo clocks with a pound and a half in each of two pendulums, that’s another twelve pounds?”

“Right.”

“So all together on this loop Malleck was trying to bring in nineteen pounds of heroin. In street money, when they’re dealing, how much would all that be worth, Doobie?”

“Drug Enforcement figures quantity in kilos, and there’s two point two pounds to a kilo so, in this case, we’re talking about eight and a half kilos, a little more.”

“And?”

“At retail level, with the stuff cut for street sale, this high-grade stuff sells, all told, for about two million dollars a kilo.”

“I don’t have a calculator, Doobie. What did you come up with?”

“We’ll have accurate figures when the German agents send us exact weights and measures,” Doobie said, “but this haul would have been worth from sixteen to eighteen million dollars, and if the market is dry, even a little more.”

“And this was the fifth try,” Bonnie said. “I’m speechless, Doobie. Thanks, and whether or not I get a bonus on this. I’m going to call you and take you out to lunch.”

She hung up and dialed Larry Malloy on the city desk at the Tribune and talked with him for an hour.

Bonnie folded the notes and put them in a sweater pocket, straightened the top of the desk, switched the lamp to low. When she’d lit the logs and tinder in the fireplace, she decided to ask Grimes to chill some red wine from the cellar.

For the doctor’s visit in Springfield her choice had been brown slacks and a cashmere cardigan set, but she wanted to shower and change into a dress. What had she been wearing when she saw Lasari last, she wondered. With a start she remembered her tom and bloody clothes had been destroyed at Henrotin Hospital. She had reached the foot of the staircase when the phone rang.

“I’m sure it’s for me, Grimes,” she called out. “Malloy must have found something I skipped. And, please, can you chill a couple of reds for us? Lasari’s coming.”

She picked up the study phone and was surprised to see Grimes watching her from the doorway. After listening briefly, she held out the phone. “It’s for you. Person to person, the overseas operator.”

As a voice sounded on the overseas end of the line, Grimes squared his shoulders, standing almost at attention. “Yes, sir,” he said. “John Grimes here.”

Bonnie saw the warning flick of shock in the man’s expression, the sudden sag of his shoulders.

“Yes, I hear you, sir. I was just listening. But we’d been given to understand...” His face was ashen and she could see the shine of tears in his eyes. After some moments he said, “I see, I see. Thank you, major, and God bless you, sir. This can’t be easy for you.”