CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOUR CASES
“We need to talk about the bomb.”
Danny looked around the room.
There were four men in it besides himself. The man who had brought him upstairs stood near the door. Two others sat at opposite ends of a long table. The fourth stood at the window, looking through the curtain without moving it.
Nobody looked like he was joking.
Danny pulled out a chair.
“Okay,” he said. “Talk.”
The man at the head of the table was perhaps sixty, beautifully dressed, silver at the temples. He had the relaxed appearance of somebody who had spent a lifetime letting other people become nervous for him.
“There isn’t a single thing that’s a bomb,” he said.
Danny nodded. “That clears things up.”
“There are four attaché cases.” “That’s worse?”
“Yes.”
Danny waited. The man at the window turned around. “Individually,” he said, “they’re nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing that matters.”
“And together?”
Nobody answered.
Danny looked from one face to another.
“I’m beginning to miss the part where there wasn’t a bomb.”
The silver-haired man folded his hands.
“Four cases. Four couriers. Separate instructions. They haven’t been delivered yet.”
“To where?”
“We don’t know.”
“When?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Danny leaned back.
“You fellows certainly have a firm grip on the situation.”
The man near the door smiled.
The others didn’t.
Danny said, “What’s in the cases?”
The silver-haired man studied him.
“We’re not sure.”
“Then how do you know there’s a bomb?”
“Because somebody who knows more than we do used a word.”
“What word?”
“Nuclear.”
The room became very quiet.
Danny looked toward the window.
Outside, New York continued being New York.
A truck changed gears somewhere on the avenue. A woman shouted at somebody from a window. A horn sounded twice. Somewhere close by, somebody was playing a radio too loud.
Danny turned back.
“Nuclear.”
“Yes.”
“You mean an atomic bomb?”
“I mean exactly what I said. Beyond that, I don’t know, and anybody who tells you he does is probably lying.”
Danny rubbed his chin.
“And these four delivery boys know what they’re carrying?”
“We don’t think so.”
“Who hired them?”
“We don’t know.”
Danny looked at him.
“You people don’t know an awful lot.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
That stopped him.
“Why me?”
The man at the window answered.
“Because you aren’t anybody.”
Danny smiled faintly.
“I’ve been working toward that for years.”
“You don’t belong to a family. You aren’t on anybody’s books. You don’t have a crew. Nobody knows who you report to.”
“I don’t report to anybody.”
“Exactly.”
Danny didn’t like the sound of exactly.
The silver-haired man opened a cigarette case, took one out and didn’t light it.
“Somebody is preparing to make a demand.”
“For what?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“We don’t know.”
Danny sighed.
“I’m seeing a pattern.”
“This isn’t a joke, Marino.”
“I know. That’s why I’m making them.”
The man put the cigarette back.
“The demand hasn’t been made yet. But the message we’ve received is clear enough. When the four cases are in place, New York pays.”
“And if New York doesn’t?”
The man at the window looked back toward the street.
Danny didn’t need an answer.
He got up and walked across the room.
On the wall was a framed photograph of Manhattan taken from somewhere high up. The Empire State Building stood in the middle of it, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of windows.
People behind every one of them.
Kids.
Cops.
Bookkeepers.
Waitresses.
Guys who owed money.
Guys waiting to collect it.
Danny turned around.
“Who would do this?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then the silver-haired man said, “One of us.”
Danny stared at him.
“You mean one of you four?”
“No.”
Danny understood.
“One of the families.”
“Possibly.”
Danny sat down again.
That was different.
Until now he’d imagined gangsters as one large unpleasant fraternity, occasionally shooting one another over differences of opinion.
Apparently he’d been oversimplifying.
“You’re telling me one of the bosses is behind this?”
“I’m telling you it’s possible.”
“And the others?”
“Opposed.”
“On moral grounds?”
For the first time, the silver-haired man laughed.
It wasn’t much of a laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Good. I was worried.”
The man leaned forward.
“You know what New York is, Marino?”
“Expensive.”
“It’s business. Docks. Garments. Construction. Restaurants. Produce. Trucks. Clubs. Unions. Buildings. Loans. Every street in this town feeds somebody.”
“Gangsters make trouble,” Danny said. “Racketeers make money.”
The man looked at him sharply.
Danny wished immediately that he hadn’t said it.
There was a small change in the room.
Nothing dramatic.
Just four men suddenly wondering where Danny Marino had learned something.
Danny shrugged.
“I listen.”
The silver-haired man continued looking at him for another second, then let it go.
“Exactly. You don’t burn down the store you’re collecting from.”
“So whoever is doing this—”
“Has stopped thinking like a businessman.”
“Or he thinks he’s about to become the biggest businessman in the world.”
Nobody laughed at that.
Danny looked around the table.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find one.”
“One what?”
“One case.”
Danny blinked.
“You’ve got four cases somewhere in New York, carried by four people you can’t identify, going somewhere you don’t know, on a schedule you don’t know, for somebody you can’t name.”
“Yes.”
“And you’d like me to find one.”
“Yes.”
Danny considered this.
“Anything else? Jimmy Hoffa’s cuff links? Amelia Earhart?”
The man near the door coughed into his hand.
The silver-haired man ignored it.
“You don’t need all four.”
That sentence hung there.
Danny looked at him.
“One is enough?”
“One doesn’t arrive, the plan fails.”
Danny thought about Nicky Bellomo.
A genuine mamaluke if ever there was one. Nicky couldn’t organize lunch without losing a sandwich.
But Nicky had known something.
Oak Ridge.
A special package.
Maybe he hadn’t understood what he’d heard.
Maybe nobody did.
“Bellomo,” Danny said.
Nobody moved.
“Nicky Bellomo said Oak Ridge.”
“We know.”
“He also mentioned a package.”
“We know that too.”
“So why am I here instead of him?”
The man at the window said, “We can’t find him.”
Danny felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
“When did he disappear?”
“Last night.”
Danny remembered the Pontiac.
Then he remembered the second black sedan.
The one following them.
“Who was in the car behind us?”
Nobody answered.
Danny looked at the man who had brought him there.
“You saw it.”
“Yes.”
“You know who they were?”
“No.”
Danny looked around the room.
For the first time, he believed them.
That bothered him more than anything else he’d heard.
There were people in New York these men didn’t know.
People following their cars.
People moving four mysterious cases.
People who could make Nicky Bellomo disappear.
And somewhere above all of it was somebody powerful enough—or crazy enough—to threaten the entire city.
Danny stood.
“Where do I start?”
The silver-haired man finally lit his cigarette.
“With the last person who saw Bellomo.”
“Who’s that?”
The man took one slow drag.
“His mother.”
Danny stared at him.
“His mother.”
“She lives in Brooklyn.”
“Of course she does.”
The man slid a piece of paper across the table.
Danny picked it up.
There was an address written on it.
Underneath the address were three words.
Danny read them twice.
BRING THE PONTIAC.
He looked up.
“Whose Pontiac?”
The man at the window smiled.
“Yours now.”
Danny folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
Five minutes ago he had been unemployed.
Now he had a car.
Things were looking up.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN BREAKDOWN — FOUR CASES
THE REVEAL: The “bomb” isn’t a conventional bomb. Four attaché cases are being transported separately. The cases have not yet reached their destination.
THE THREAT: Someone uses the word nuclear. Nobody in the room knows exactly what the cases contain or how the threat works. What they do know is enough: if all four cases arrive, New York is in danger.
THE COURIERS: Four separate flunkies may be carrying the cases without knowing the larger plan. Each courier has only his own instructions.
THE PLOT: Someone intends to hold New York for ransom: pay up or the city is destroyed.
THE MOB PROBLEM: The man behind the operation may be one of the bosses. The other families are opposed—not necessarily from morality, but because New York is their home and the foundation of their business. You don’t destroy the store you’re collecting from.
DANNY’S ADVANTAGE: Danny isn’t anybody. He belongs to no family, has no crew and officially reports to nobody. That makes him useful.
DANNY’S JOB: He doesn’t have to find all four cases. He only has to stop one from arriving.
THE SLIP: Danny casually says, “Gangsters make trouble. Racketeers make money.” The men notice. Danny knows a little too much about their world for an outsider.
NICKY BELLOMO: Nicky knew about Oak Ridge and a special package—but now Nicky has disappeared.
THE SECOND SEDAN: The mysterious men following the Pontiac remain unidentified. Even the mobsters don’t know who they are.
THE NEXT LEAD: The last known person to see Nicky was his mother in Brooklyn.
Danny is handed an address and three instructions:
BRING THE PONTIAC.
The Pontiac is now his.
Five minutes ago Danny was unemployed.
Now he has a car.
Things were looking up.
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Here’s the Bardo bus now!!!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby