Columbo: The Hoffa Connection Page 6

  Johnny pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He handed it to Mickey, and Mickey unwrapped it. His eyes glittered as he saw a vial of white powder.

  “Shoot it and have a good time,” Johnny said. “I’ll see ya later. Now, listen. Don’t leave this room. Just shoot and lay down and dream. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  As soon as Johnny was gone, Mickey took the plastic pill bottle in the bathroom. He opened it and sniffed the white powder.

  Well, maybe… he thought.

  He sniffed the powder in a vial of his own. He shrugged. No difference.

  Even so… Wrapped in a handkerchief. No fingerprints. Mickey sighed heavily. He poured the white powder into the toilet and flushed it. Then he used distilled w-ater and mixed a fix from his own diminishing supply. He had to have some money. He had to get out and cop. But for right now— He poured the mixture carefully into his syringe.

  Lying on his bed, he tied a length of rubber tubing around his left arm. He stared until he found a vein, then stabbed himself with the needle and pushed down the plunger. In ten seconds he was drifting in misty bliss.

  2

  The maid, Rita Plata, left at four-thirty, as Johnny had told Carlo she would. At five the doorbell rang.

  It was Carlo Lucchese, with two other men. Carlo, the man Johnny had talked to on the telephone a few hours ago, was a tall, thin, swarthy man, wearing a handsome double-breasted suit. The other men wore suits not nearly so well fit or cared for, and they were conspicuously deferential to Carlo.

  “Johnny Discount,” said Carlo. “Meet Sal and Frank. Nice to see you again, Giovanni. Everything under control?”

  Johnny nodded. “Newcastle’s out. I gave him a fix with something in it that ought to put him out for good.”

  “Be sure of that, Johnny,” Carlo said. “Let the cops deal with him—just another crackhead that shot up some bad stuff.”

  “Gotcha. But, Christ, man! She dies here last night. The old man. Then Newcastle—”

  “They might think that’s damned odd, but they can’t hook you onto anything, can they?”

  “No. I don’t see how they could.”

  “No. It’s one thing that shit happens. It’s another to hook it to a guy. Anyway, Johnny, tell me what choices we got.”

  “I agree with you, Carlo. I don’t see we got any.”

  “You made a mistake in going along with the old man.”

  “Hell, Carlo, you’d have gone along yourself for the money he offered.”

  “It was stupid, Johnny. Not as stupid as he was in deciding he had to have her killed, but stupid. Some very big guys don’t want the old man identified.”

  “So, you—”

  Carlo nodded. “Hey! Don’t think too much. Let’s go up and see him.”

  They went up the stairs, four of them: Johnny, Carlo, Sal, and Frank. In the hallway outside the old man’s room, Carlo told Sal and Frank to step back out of sight and wait. Then he knocked on the door.

  The old man opened the door. “Carlo,” he said. “What brings you here?"

  “Was in the neighborhood and just thought I’d stop by. How’s tricks?”

  “When you get to be eighty-one years old, you got no tricks left in you. Johnny, pour Carlo a drink. Hell, pour one for me. The doctors don’t know everything.”

  The old man picked up the remote and switched off the television set. “So whatta ya know, whatta ya say?” he asked. “What can I do for you? You can’t kid me you just stopped by to sav hello. I been around longer than that.”

  “I did, really,” said Carlo. “On the other hand, who do you know in Arkansas?”

  “Arkansas? Hell, man, I never been in goddamn Arkansas in my life.”

  Carlo accepted a glass of Scotch from Johnny. Johnny handed a glass to the old man.

  “I’m gonna put a little more soda in mine,” said Carlo as he rose and walked toward the little bar.

  The old man nodded. Carlo walked behind him. He handed his drink to Johnny and pulled a silk scarf from his jacket pocket. W'ith a quick, deft movement he dropped the scarf over the old man’s head and jerked it tight around his throat. The old man threw his glass across the room as he thrashed and kicked and struggled for breath. He grabbed feebly at the scarf and tried to pull it away, but Carlo was far too strong for him. He choked loudly. His face turned red. His eyes bulged. He gagged. Strangled, he ceased his weak struggle for his life and he died.

  Johnny stared, half sick. “I’ll clean the place up,” he said. “There won’t be a trace of him. No fingerprints, nothing personal that could identify him. I suppose I ought to call the detective and say ‘Signor Savona’ has disappeared.”

  “First, you’re going with us,” said Carlo. “I want you to see what we do with him. It’s time for you to get the picture of what we do with guys that screw up.”

  “I’ve just seen what you do.”

  “You think so? You haven’t seen it all yet. Don’t be a candy-ass. You’ve gotta know your trade, Johnny. You’ve got to know the business you’re in.”

  3

  They wrapped the limp body of the old man in a blanket and carried it down through the house and out to the garage. Two cars sat side by side: Regina’s green Lamborghini and Johnny’s red Ferrari.

  Carlo shook his head at the Ferrari. “Never get it in there,” he said. “Sal, you bring our car up to the garage doors.”

  Johnny pressed the button to open the doors and stepped out on the driveway. Carlo came out. For a full minute he stood, glancing sharply around to be sure no one could see the garage from a nearby house or from the street.

  Sal backed a black Ford up to the garage. He opened the trunk, and he and Frank lifted the wrapped body into it.

  “You follow us,” Carlo said to Johnny.

  Johnny followed the Ford to a red brick warehouse on Washington Boulevard. The big doors opened by radio control, and reluctantly Johnny drove his Ferrari inside, uncertain if he would ever again see the outside of this windowless building.

  Carlo, Sal, and Frank began to take off their clothes.

  piling them on the seats of the Ford. “Hey, whatta think you’re gonna be, a man of leisure?” Carlo snapped at Johnny. “We got work to do and need work clothes.” He pointed at some coveralls hanging on pegs.

  Johnny stripped to his slingshot undershorts and pulled on one of the coveralls. Carlo put on cotton work gloves and tossed a pair to Johnny.

  Sal and Frank moved efficiently, shoveling cement and sand into a small electric concrete mixer. Carlo led Johnny toward the rear of the warehouse, where half a dozen fifty-five-gallon oil drums stood in a row. He rocked one back and forth to be sure it was empty.

  “Okay, Giovanni. You know how to cut the top off one of these?”

  Johnny shook his head.

  “You don’t know much, do you? Well, watch me. Next time, you’ll know how.”

  There was a special heavy tool for cutting the tops off drums—like an oversized can opener, except that it worked with two long handles. When Carlo finished he nodded at Johnny, and the two of them carried the open drum to the front.

  The concrete mixer ran noisily. Frank opened the trunk, and he and Sal lifted the body out. Sal walked to a workbench and picked up a heavy sledgehammer. Frank rolled the body out of the blanket and laid it facedown on the warehouse floor. Then, to Johnny’s horror, Sal raised the hammer and brought it down in the middle of the old man’s back. The crunch was sickening. Johnny felt his stomach coming up.

  “They won’t fit in a drum,” said Carlo. “You have to be able to fold them over.”

  Sal and Frank did just that. Having shattered its spine, they could bend the body double and fold it into the drum. The two men pressed it down. They stopped the concrete mixer, rolled it to the drum, and poured wet concrete over the body until concrete covered the corpse and the drum was full.

  “Okay,” said Carlo. “We change clothes and go to dinner. You know Luigi’s in Santa Monica? It’s a great place! B
y the time we have a first-class dinner and get back, that’ll have set enough so we can move it.”

  4

  On their way back from dinner, they stopped at a bakery, and Sal and Frank borrowed a bakery truck. They drove it into the warehouse, beside the Ferrari and the Ford.

  All four changed into coveralls again.

  “Now,” said Carlo to Johnny, “you’re gonna find out why we really brought you along. We need all four of us to lift that son of a bitch.”

  They strapped the drum to a loading cart, which made it much easier to lift into the bakery truck. They left the warehouse, driving just the truck.

  Afraid, his pasta and wine churning in his stomach, Johnny sat in the front seat with Carlo, who chatted about things inconsequential: the weather, the smog, the likelihood of another earthquake. Johnny knew where they were going—out to sea. It was nearly midnight now, and they were going to put the drum aboard a boat, take it out, and dump it.

  A fishing boat lay moored at a dock in Long Beach. They lifted the drum aboard. Carlo started the engines. Sal and Frank cast off the lines. The boat moved slowly and quietly. They didn’t go out very far—maybe ten miles, as Johnny guessed.

  Carlo stopped the engines. The boat rocked in the swells as the four men struggled with the drum, now off the cart, and managed to roll it over the gunwale. It dropped into the Pacific and sank.

  “So long, ol’ buddy, ’ol buddy,” said Carlo. “It was nice knowing you.”

  On the return run, Carlo called Johnny to stand beside him at the wheel. “Listen,” he said. “You got to clean that room up. You can’t leave anything that would identify him, or we’ve done this for nothing. You can’t just wipe the fingerprints off everything. The thing to do is pack up some of his clothes and all his bathroom stuff, make it look like he scrammed. You’ll have to wipe the bathroom fixtures, the light switches, the television…”

  “He didn’t have much personal stuff,” Johnny said. Carlo nodded. “It made you sick to see Sal bust his back, didn’t it? Well, just remember that. If the cops make the old man, you’ll get your back busted the same way.”

  Johnny did not reply but stared toward the coastline, anxious to get ashore, get back to the warehouse and into his own clothes, his own car. He wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea if he just drove away and tried to disappear. After ail, he had the $227,000 the old man had given him, and—

  “Incidentally, Johnny,” said Carlo, “I bet you find some money in those rooms. Not just a little bit, either. Whatever you find, it’s yours. If you don’t find any, let me know. We’ll take care of you.” He slapped Johnny lightly on the shoulder. “We’re not such bad guys, you know.”

  5

  It was almost 3:00 A.M. when Johnny finally returned to Regina’s mansion. The place was quiet—dead quiet and dark. He hurried upstairs and into the old man’s rooms.

  He found two suitcases in a closet. That would be helpful. The old man had had three suits, three sport jackets, and half a dozen pairs of slacks. Johnny packed all of those clothes, together with shirts, underwear, socks—not all, but most of what the old man had owned.

  The old man had lived simply, with no more than five or six books, a few magazines, the newspapers, for diversion. His daily life had revolved around television. He had sat day after day in a lounge chair in front of a mammoth set, connected to cable, every channel possible, and had switched from channel to channel with a remote-control gadget. He’d had a VCR and a few tapes. The Godfather. The Longest Day. The Secret of Santa Vittoria. Also Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas.

  He’d kept a bottle of Scotch always on hand, and one of gin. He had not smoked. The story about him, from Regina, was that he had lived for many years with one wife, always faithful to her, and in those years he neither drank nor smoked. He’d lived for his work, she said. She should have known. She had been close to him for some years, when nobody else was.

  Johnny looked for money. He found it. His $227,000 had been inside a cushion. He found $142,000 more— in hundred-dollar bills in neat plastic-wrapped packages taped under the bathroom basin and in the springs of the old man’s recliner. The old man had promised more for the killing of Regina; but he wouldn’t have to share this with Mickey, so it would be enough.

  In the top drawer of the old man’s bureau he found four hundred dollars more in tens and twenties, and twenty or so dollars in coins, some cufflinks, some keys, and a wristwatch. He found an Italian passport in the name Vittorio Savona and dropped it into one of the suitcases.

  The watch… My God! Vacheron Constantin. It was worth thousands! It wasn’t in Johnny’s nature to leave so beautiful and expensive a thing for someone else to grab or to lie in a brown manila envelope in a police property room awaiting the return of the owner. He slipped it on his left wrist.

  He took the money and suitcases to his own rooms. Returning, he set to work to eliminate fingerprints: his own and the old man’s. TV remote, TV set itself.

  doorknobs, light switches, bathroom fixtures, windows, alarm clock, knobs and pulls on furniture. He went over every smooth surface he could think of, including the bulbs in the lamps.

  The sun was up, and Rita was due in less than two hours when he decided he had done all he could.

  He put the old man’s suitcases in his car. He’d deep-six them as soon as he could.

  Even now he could not go to sleep. He took a shower. Standing under the spray of hot water, he focused on a vital question: Who had stood at the hall window last night and witnessed the dispatch of Regina? Why had that person said nothing to Columbo? Was some bastard setting up to blackmail him?

  Who was it? Not Mickey. He had been down there at the pool. The Gwynnes? If they had heard Regina screaming, they could have looked down from their bedroom window. In the hall that led to the balcony, it could have been only Bob Douglas or Christie Monroe. Which one of them would be in touch, demanding money?

  6

  Johnny lay down but could not sleep. Rita would arrive at 8:00. He would have to be up. He would have to “discover” that the old man was gone and Mickey was dead—overdosed—and call the police.

  He went down to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. He put some bacon in a pan and fried it. The stimulating crackle and aroma of frying bacon revived him a little. He cracked two eggs and scrambled them in the bacon grease. He put bread in the toaster.

  “God, that smells good, and Jesus Christ, am I hungry!”

  Newcastle! Standing in the kitchen door in undershirt and underpants, the shaggy Mickey was alive and talking!

  Johnny fought to control himself. “Hey, man, I’d have banged on your door if I’d known you were awake.”

  “Oh hell,” said Mickey. “You know me. I shot up, enjoyed myself, and slept like the dead for… for how many hours?”

  “How many hours you been awake, man?” Johnny asked. The question was, had he heard Johnny working in the old man’s rooms? Of course, he’d been in the wing, not in the main house—

  “Just long enough to take a shower,” said Mickey blandly. He yawned. “I guess I’m not one hundred percent awake right now.”

  “Well, look. I’m sorry I didn’t do enough bacon and eggs for two. Why don’t you have these, and I’ll make some more for myself?”

  “Wouldn’t want to take your breakfast away from you.”

  “I wish you would. I ate too much last night. Went out to an Italian restaurant and pigged out on pasta. Here, Mick. You eat this, and I’ll make another plate.” Newcastle began to fork the bacon and eggs into his mouth. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m thinking we got away with it.”

  “We got a problem, Mick,” Johnny said ominously. “What?”

  “I went out last night. Left about six, six-thirty. I came back close to midnight. I figured the old man would have been long asleep and wouldn’t want me coming in to check on him, so I went to bed. I checked in on him first thing this morning. He’s gone. Packed his clothes and took off.”<
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  Mickey Newcastle frowned. “I never did buy the story he was her grandfather. But—”

  “But right. Where does an eighty-one-year-old man go? In a few hours? Who helped him? I’m with you, Mickey. He wasn’t her grandfather. So, who was he?”

  Mickey slammed down his fork and knife. “Why can’t anything be simple!" he cried. “And… Hey! What about the money? What’d he do, skip and leave us hangin’?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But… Jesus Christ! He hires us to— Then we do it, and he skips on us? Johnny… You know I gotta problem! This was gonna solve my problem, once and for all. Enough money to—”

  “Hey, buddy. I told ya I wouldn’t leave ya to go cold turkey. I got some friends. I got some resources. You’ll get what you need.”

  “But I was gonna be independent!” Johnny stood behind Mickey and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a goddamn talent, Mickey. You’re always gonna be in demand. I can help you. I got friends who can help you. But— Hey! Why you need help from a guy like me and my friends? You were the artist behind Regina! Everybody knows that.”

  Mickey squeezed tears from his eyes. “But I gotta have cash every week! You know for what. I can’t wait for people to recognize my talent.”

  Johnny patted Mickey’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about that, ol’ buddy. I’ll take care of what you need, until you can handle it yourself. The old man checked out and left us cold. But I know where I can come up with some operating capital. Hey! Maybe we’ll make us another Regina! You made that broad. How many cheap whores are there, ready to take her place? Just relax. Take it a day at a time. It’s all gonna come out alright.”

  7

  Rita was at work in the kitchen. Mickey had gone back to bed. Johnny tried to count the number of hours that had passed since he’d had any sleep.

  At 8:00 he telephoned LAPD headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Columbo.