Stephen Cannell - The Plan

"Mr. Lansky, over here. . ABC News. . We understand that Gavriel Bach has cut some kind of deal in Washington to force your return to Miami, where prosecutors say you're about to be indicted."

Lansky glowered at them. Cole was startled by his diminutive size. Only five-foot-three, he nonetheless generated venom.

"The fucks," Meyer said under his breath.

"What about the suitcase? What is in the suitcase?" somebody from NBC's Middle Eastern bureau shouted.

"What suitcase?" Meyer glowered. "What the fuck you fucks talkin' about?"

"Watch your language, please, sir. We can't broadcast profanities," the NBC correspondent said, as if Meyer cared.

"What is in the suitcase?" the NBC correspondent pressed, referring to a medium-size metal Haliburton suitcase that Gavriel Bach had taken to several in-camera meetings with the chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. "We understand the U. S. Justice Department gave Gavriel Bach evidence against you."

"Get me outta here," he yelled at his attorneys, who had been pushing him through the throng. Finally, he reached the double doors leading to the courtroom. Cole followed and physically pushed his cameraman through the door before they were locked out.

Meyer and his two attorneys sat on the wooden bench two levels below the five justices. Gavriel Bach sat alone at the counsel table. In front of him, sat the metal Haliburton suitcase. Like the rest of them, Cole wondered what was inside.

The chief justice read the unanimous verdict in Hebrew. It was translated simultaneously into English. The world press listened over headphones. The Israeli Supreme Court found that it was perfectly legal for Meyer Lansky to take "the Fifth" in front of the U. S. Congress during the Kefauver hearings, as every American citizen had the right under the Fifth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution not to incriminate himself. However, Mr. Lansky did say that his refusal to speak was on the grounds of self-incrimination. The Israeli Supreme Court had weighed that heavily, as it indicated from Mr. Lansky's own mouth that he had viewed his actions as crimes. The judge continued on. . Hebrew filling the room like rolling thunder.

The reading of the judgment went on for almost an hour. The chief justice finally concluded that the minister of the interior had been right to deny Meyer Lansky citizenship. "If he were allowed to stay, the ugly phenomenon of organized crime, as it exists in America, might be transplanted to Israel."

Cole filed his story with his Paris bureau and pouched the videotape to his assignment editor there. UBC reported that evening that Meyer Lansky had been handed over to the United States embassy to be returned to Miami, where he would stand trial for tax evasion and casino skimming.

The trial never took place because of Meyer's health.

Two days before Christmas, that same year, Cole read in the London Times that twenty-five U. S. Phantom F-4 fighter-bombers had been delivered to Israel.

Cole closed his notebooks about two A. M. and sat alone in the empty coffee shop, thinking. His mind kept coming back to that suitcase sitting in front of Gavriel Bach on the prosecution table. What was in it? Why had it been in court that day? He finished his cold coffee and drove for five hours back to Washington, arriving just in time for his prearranged breakfast with Kaz. Now he sat, tired and grainy-eyed, and watched the gross fed shovel down eggs Florentine. Cole picked at the corners of his own plate, eating the whites only, leaving the high-cholesterol yolks.

"Where are we?" Cole finally asked.

"We're having breakfast at Rubio's, the finest eatery inside the Beltway."

"Where are we in the investigation, you asshole?"

"Well, I got Teddy Lansky's '72 tax return coming up from that dark Cavern of Greed known affectionately as the IRS basement. I should have it this morning."

"Lemme ask you something. . could you get me any inside information from the Justice Department about a deal that might have been made between Gavriel Bach and somebody in the State Department in '71?"

"Who's Gavriel Bach?"

"He was the Israeli prosecutor defending the government against Meyer Lansky's right-of-return suit in 1971. So, how 'bout it?" Cole asked again.

"Yeah, maybe, but I'm running out of friends in that building. Why do you need it?"

"I got a hunch. I'll let you know if it turns into anything. Things can only get better."

But they didn't; they got worse..

By ten-thirty, Kaz was back in the Justice Department waiting for Teddy Lansky's tax return. He sat in a borrowed office with a visitor's tag clipped to his breas t p ocket. The small, gray, windowless office was the typ e a nd size generally assigned to a lowly GS-3. He bega n l eafing through the department's staff phone book, lookin g f or an old warhorse from the seventies named Abel McNair.

McNair had gone into foreign service after the war, and Kaz thought he'd had dealings with the Justice Department on Middle Eastern operations in the seventies. A. McNair was listed in the phone directory as assistant secretary of the Middle Eastern quadrant and Kaz dialed the interoffice exchange.

"Abel McNair's office," a man's voice said.

"Tell him Solly Kazorowski's calling."

There was a long moment while he was on hold, then the same voice came back on the line.

"I'm afraid Mr. McNair can't speak to you right now." "Can you give him a message?" Kaz said pleasantly. "Sure, go ahead."

"Will you tell him I'm going to go ahead and buy the ribbed Rough Rider condoms he suggested for tonight instead of the lambskin French ticklers and, if he'll just pick up the champagne, I'll meet him at Lance and Timmy's around six."

There was a long moment of silence. "Maybe you'd better tell him that. . Just a minute," the man said, and then McNair was on the phone.

"Kaz, I'm real busy this morning. I'm due to deliver a briefing in twenty minutes. Whatta you want?"

"I need to know if you ever heard of a guy named Gavriel Bach?"

"Sounds familiar. Can't place it. . "

"In the seventies, he was an Israeli prosecutor and he cut a deal with somebody in Justice on Meyer Lansky's lawsuit against the Israelis."

Again, there was a long pause. "Yeah, yeah, I remember. Tall, thin guy. . I think he died. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure he did. Cancer I think. I got a mission fax on that."

"Who cut the deal?"

"Something like that would a' had to be under David Robb."

"Where is he? Is he still in the service?"

"Shit, Mr. Robb, he's gotta be eighty-five if he's still among us."

"Thanks, Abe."

"I heard you got fired."

"Yep."

"Too bad. Gotta go."

"When you gotta go you gotta go," Kaz said and hung up.

Ten minutes later, a mail boy hustled in with a rolling basket full of the business of state.

"You Kazorowski?"

"Yep"

"Gotta sign for this." He indicated an envelope on the to of his pile. "It can't leave the building. It has to be returned to the Intake slot by six-thirty."

Kaz signed and pulled the envelope open as the mail boy pushed his load of important world fuck-ups out of the office and down the hall.

Kaz looked at Teddy Lansky's tax return. It was mildly interesting in itself that Teddy didn't file jointly with Meyer. . probably for reasons known only to the long-dead mob financial planner. He looked at the bottom of the federal form and, in the place reserved for the name of the accountant, there was a tight cramped signature.

In faded blue ink, it said: "Wallace Litman."

Ryan and Lucinda invited Jerry Paradise aboard their ketch just after one in the afternoon. Jerry helped Lucinda get Ryan out of the rubber Avon; then they all sat in the cockpit next to the big, shiny wheel and grinned at each other in the midday sun while they popped open cold beers. Just thirty yards away was a fifty-foot day-fishing boat with twenty men aboard. The Ghost realized the fishing boat was too close for him to "close the contract," so he sat drinking his beer, filling the air with pleasant nonsense.